by Ann Morgan
To cap it all, the morning sickness that gave you a wide berth in Amsterdam has hit with a vengeance. You spent long stretches of Sunday hunched over the toilet bowl in Gareth’s bathroom, retching until your stomach burned.
He gives you an apologetic smile when you emerge for the third time this morning.
‘A-What’s it like being pregnant?’ he says, handing you a cup of tea, the sight of which makes you gag. ‘Is it horrible all the time?’
‘Nah,’ you say, gripping the kitchen doorframe to keep you from swaying. ‘It’s mostly fine. I think I’m lucky.’
But the truth is the last forty-eight hours haven’t been fine. Along with the nausea, you’ve found yourself blowing hot and cold. Waves of heat travel up and down your body, bringing shivers in their wake, and you feel faint, febrile. You know it’s just the emotional strain you’re under, the worry that everything might be about to shatter, that Gareth could, at any moment, tell you to go. Still, you can’t help thinking that the pregnancy is making this much harder on you than it is on him. You never used to suffer your emotions so physically as this.
You’ve agreed to keep your relationship secret for now, so when you get to the studio, you hang around outside for a few minutes and let Gareth go in first so no one gets suspicious that you’ve arrived together. While you wait, you catch sight of yourself in the window of a police car parked in the street: your hair is knotted, your eyes are rimmed with red and ringed with dark circles. God, it’s a wonder Gareth doesn’t dump you right now, you’re so gross.
When you go in, everyone turns to look. You don’t see Gareth, but there are two new members of staff: a young, eager-looking guy with a ponytail and a girl with feathery hair. They all have the same expression on their faces – fear mixed with contempt, as though you’re a dangerous dog that has just pissed on the rug. You wonder which news reports they’ve seen.
For the sake of having somewhere to go, you walk over to Anton’s office. You open the door and go in without knocking – you can’t stand to wait out there for a second more than you have to, feeling the weight of their stares.
Anton is in there with two policemen and Gareth stands awkwardly against the far wall, a hectic flush on his cheeks. They turn to look at you.
‘Ah, Trudy,’ says Anton. ‘We were hoping you might arrive. These gentlemen are investigating a passport fraud network and wanted to ask you a few questions.’
You try to meet Gareth’s eyes, but he looks away. And in that instant, you know: it’s no good. This has destroyed it. Whatever existed between you is dead.
After that, you don’t think. You turn and run. Before you know it, you’re out on the street, feet pounding the pavement, doorways and lamp posts flashing by. Behind you, you hear voices, but you don’t look back, you just keep going: one turning, then the next, then the next. Your lungs burn and your head swims but you keep on, running for freedom, running for sanity, running to escape the trap of your former life. They won’t catch you this time. They won’t drag you back into what you were.
The narrow streets give way to wide thoroughfares and squares. You’re in the centre of town, barging past shoppers and tourists, slamming past street signs and litter bins. You hear shouts of indignation and gasps but you don’t stop. That is nothing. This is nothing compared to what you have to escape. You have made yourself a future and you will not give it up now. It will not be taken from you. They can all go to hell. They can all fuck themselves. But they will not get you. Hellie will not get you. You are making your own story now. You are living your own life. Even without Gareth, even without work, you have something to live for. You have something to protect.
You don’t know how long you run for, but finally your strength gives out and you lean over a bin, retching. You look up fearfully but no one is following you. There are no men in dark blue uniforms hot on your heels, no Carry On cries of: ‘Stop! Thief!’ You are alone in a side street, flanked by tall glass buildings that seem to sway in and out with each gasp of air you take. Stars crackle in your field of view. As they fade, you look about you and start to think again. A plan. You need a plan. Somewhere you can go to gather yourself together and work out what’s next. A safe place. A lightbulb flicks on in your brain. Of course: Beryl’s. You’ll go there.
You walk to the end of the street and sigh with relief as you make out the grand terracotta facade of the old fire station a few blocks up. You know where you are. You turn left. It won’t take more than fifteen minutes to get to Beryl’s. And once you’re there she’ll sit you down at the kitchen table and you can tell her all about it. And even though you’ll be frightened and in pain and still feeling sick – and even though you know that what happened with Gareth has been bundled into a vault of suffering that will very soon burst open – at least you won’t be on your own. Beryl will listen in that calm way of hers as you tell her all about Gareth and the pregnancy and what happened with Hellie and the TV show—
You stop abruptly and a woman carrying shopping bangs into your back.
‘Careful!’ she says. She narrows her eyes when you turn round. ‘Hey, aren’t you…?’
‘Fuck off!’ you say, and stride viciously away. Because of course you’ve realised you can’t go to Beryl’s. You can never go back there and sit at the table and drink tea. Settled in front of her TV night after night, Beryl will have seen the news and heard the gossip. She’ll know Trudy – or Elisa as she thought you were – wasn’t real. She’ll see you for the would-be murderer everyone thinks you are and the thought of her face hardening against you is more than you can take. You can never go back there.
Somewhere else then, quickly, because you are starting to reel. If you don’t sit down in a minute, you’re afraid you might faint. You turn a corner and the glass entrance of the Barnacle rears up in front of you, revealing afternoon shoppers milling about its atrium inside. Yes, of course: the cafe where you used to sit and draw. You’ll go up and get something to drink – you’ve still got money, you’ve still got your bank card, assuming the bastards haven’t stopped your account. You’ll go to the cafe and maybe up there, in that old, familiar space where inspiration has struck you so often in the past, looking down on the atrium, something will occur to you. Perhaps then you’ll know what to do next.
You hurry through the clear doors. You pause for a second to look about you for the escalator, ducking the stares of passers by, but at that moment a pain rips through you, tearing your belly apart. You double over and feel moisture flooding out of you and seeping down your legs. The agony continues as people cluster round you, clucking like hens. Voices call in your ear but you don’t listen. There is only the shredding inside you, grinding up the future, emptying you out, pouring all the possibilities away on to the Barnacle’s fake marble floor until all your lines are blurred, until you are voided: a shell, a carcass, a mess. Until you are nothing but a smudge.
67
The estate agent let her in and stood whistling to himself, his shiny suit glinting in the light coming from the cobwebbed window. She looked around. It was exactly as she’d hoped: a large industrial space with bare brick walls, an old carpenter’s workshop. You could still see the wood shavings on the floor. There was a sink in the main room and a basic bathroom set into one corner. The whole place needed a clean and some furniture but she could see how it would work. She could see where she would set up the easel, next to the window looking down on to the cobbled street.
‘It’s not pretty,’ said the agent. ‘But at least you get a lot of space. Certainly more than anything you’d find north of the river. And there’s a big Sainsbury’s round the corner, which you can’t argue with.’
‘It’s perfect,’ she said. ‘I’ll take it.’
The agent stared at her.
‘What? Now this minute?’ he said.
‘Now this minute,’ she said. ‘Six months, a year. Whatever you can give me. If you’ve got a contract, I’ll sign it right away.’
‘Well, fuck me,’
he said. ‘That’s the quickest one ever. You haven’t even seen the bit up on the roof yet. Just wait here and I’ll go out to the car and call the office so they can get the paperwork together.’
He scurried to the head of the staircase.
‘You are sure?’ he said, turning back.
She nodded.
‘Right you are.’
She stayed and walked around the space, running her fingers over the rough brickwork. A cracked mirror hung on a nail by the sink, and when she saw her face in it, she knew what her first painting in the studio would be. The old tingle ran through her, the sense of where to start. (‘Ripe for the picking,’ enthused a voice.) She chuckled in agreement.
A moment or so later, she headed down the staircase and out of the street door. The agent was sitting in his car, talking excitedly into his phone. He gave her a series of complicated eye-rollings and winks through the window. Across the street, a van had pulled up and a man and a woman were unloading parts of what looked like a giant papier-mâché parrot from the back.
One of them caught her eye.
‘Here to see the place, are you?’ he said.
‘Moving in, I think.’
The man set down the head of the bird, which regarded her with a solemn marble eye, and walked towards her, holding out his hand.
‘Amos,’ he said. ‘And that’s my partner Dale.’
‘Hi,’ she said, shaking his hand.
‘Oh, and the bird’s Roger. He’s appearing in a show down in Brighton next weekend.’
She laughed. ‘I see.’
Amos jammed his hands into his pockets.
‘So are you an artist too?’
‘Sort of.’ She shrugged. ‘I mean, yeah.’
Amos smiled, revealing wonky teeth.
‘I thought so,’ he said. ‘Good to see another one moving in. Dale and I were the first in this street, but they’ve been trickling in over the last couple of years. We want to make it another Patterson’s Walk, like they’ve got up in Islington, before prices in the area go through the roof.’
She nodded. ‘Oh, right.’
‘Don’t you know Patterson’s Walk?’ said Amos. ‘Oh, we’ll have to take you next time they have an open house weekend. We’ve got a couple of friends with studios there.’
‘Great,’ she said. ‘I’d like that.’
‘Amos!’ called Dale, staggering under the weight of a large feathered wing.
‘Better go,’ said Amos, pulling a face. ‘Nice to meet you – er…’
‘Ellie,’ she said. ‘Ellie Sallis.’
‘Nice to meet you, Ellie,’ he said, and bounded back across the street.
She watched them manoeuvre the wing into their studio. She put a hand on the doorframe of the carpenter’s workshop, feeling the splinters catch on her skin. A cold breeze was blowing. Overhead, a plane drew a smile in the sky. Yes, she thought, nice to meet you at last.
Acknowledgements
This book only has my name on the cover, but it is the product of many people’s energy and vision. My wonderful agent, Caroline Hardman, believed in this project from the start and put an enormous amount of work into finding the right home for it with Bloomsbury. I am also very grateful to her partner, Jo Swainson, and co-agents and colleagues at the Marsh Agency and dotted around the globe for their support.
My editors, Helen Garnons-Williams, Lea Beresford and Alexa von Hirschberg, have been excellent champions for the novel, and sources of great encouragement and insight. In particular, Beside Myself would not be the book it is today without Helen’s care and expertise. And I have been blown away by the enthusiasm, industry and creativity of Bloomsbury’s other editorial and production staff, and its marketing and design teams around the world.
I owe much gratitude to the readers of the early drafts – Steve, Emily, Ol and Diane – each of whom provided valuable input. The novel would be much poorer without you.
Then there are the people who helped with research. My mum and dad, Pat and Richard, were great sources of advice on a number of medical points. Similarly, numerous friends and acquaintances responded generously to my often rather random questions about anything from police procedure and the benefits system to the experience of living with bipolar disorder. To have such a network of experts on hand was a huge help. Any errors are my own.
As ever, I am grateful to my friends and family for indulging my desire to spend my time making things up long before Helen and Ellie were a kilobyte on my laptop’s hard drive. And to Steve, who has been there through it all and has just brought me a cup of tea as I sit here writing this, thank you.
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
Ann Morgan is a freelance writer and editor based in London. Ann’s writing has appeared in the Guardian, the Independent, the Financial Times, the Australian and the New Internationalist, and she was a finalist in the Guardian’s International Development Journalism Competition 2010. She has also sub-edited for publications including Tatler and Vanity Fair. Following the success of her project to read a book from every country in 2012, Ann continues to blog about international literature at ayearofreadingtheworld.com. Her first book, Reading the World: Confessions of a Literary Explorer, was published to great critical acclaim in 2015. Beside Myself is her first novel.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
Reading the World: Confessions of a Literary Explorer
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First published in Great Britain 2016
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© Ann Morgan, 2016
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