Strangers on the 16_02

by Priya Basil

  No doubt her mum would approve of that quote, Helen thinks. It is Sheila who has sworn her daughter to silence for the next ten days. As Helen remembers their conversation a few hours earlier she feels anger pump through her body. At the same time guilt trickles through her, drip, drip, drip, as if there’s a leak inside, some hole in her mental and emotional armour that can’t be fixed. It’s all Danny’s fault, she thinks. If it wasn’t for him . . .

  Helen’s fingers expertly work the keys on the touch-screen of the phone cradled between her palms, composing . . . what? A confession? An apology? A brief statement of the facts? Whatever she writes, she’s going to end up doing exactly what her mother has begged her not to: she’s going to tell her sister, Jill, the truth.

  Helen mistypes a couple of times as passengers nudge past, pushing against her. At one point she almost loses her balance and looks up, her eyes narrowing in irritation. She sees that the carriage is packed with school kids and that she’s squashed between them. Some man’s knee is also pressed against her inner calf. She quickly moves her leg, as if by distancing herself from this man she can set herself apart from the whole male species. Danny’s actions have put Helen off all men. She’s sure she can never be attracted to anyone of the opposite sex again. Helen bends slightly and squints out of the window, trying to see which station they’re at.

  No sign is visible, but she recognises the lamp posts: the distinctive tall poles with two lights perched on top, like the wings of a giant wasp. It’s Twickenham. The very stop she herself commuted to and from as a sixth-former at college. It was only five years ago, the last time she boarded the train here, but already it feels like another era. She can’t imagine herself as one of the rowdy creatures that now swarm the carriage. Actually, she never was one of them. She’d been too clever, too fat and too shy to fit in with her peers.

  They’re all around her now, though, elbows in her side, trainers scuffing against her boots, their mouths moving in conversations from which she’s excluded. Today it’s by choice, thanks to the music coming through her headphones, but in the past . . . She’s surprised to feel a familiar mixture of fear mingled with longing and disdain, the unpleasant cocktail of her teenage years.

  Usually, when she’s heading back towards West London from her mother’s place, Helen is careful to take one of the trains that go via a different route. Today, however, a train had been on the platform when she’d arrived at the station and she’d rushed on it to get away from Sheila and her scheming.

  Chapter Four

  The police had contacted Helen by phone earlier that afternoon while she’d been at her parents’ place. She and her mum had been in the shed at the bottom of their long garden. The little wooden shack, which sat under the old walnut tree, had become a dumping ground for items that were no longer wanted by the family, but were still useable. There they lived in the dusty gloom for a few months until Sheila held one of her car boot sales, and whatever wasn’t sold went to charity. Sheila found comfort in this regular clear-out, especially as it gave her a good excuse to buy new things.

  One such boot sale was planned for the coming Sunday. Helen had gone home to have a final rummage through the shed and see if there was anything she wanted; at least that’s what she’d told her mum. She was actually keen to make sure none of her stuff was amongst the goods to be sold. Sheila had a habit of putting anything she thought her daughters no longer used in the shed, ready for the next sale or for charity. Last year, Helen’s entire summer wardrobe had been lost this way. She’d stored the clothes in two boxes and left them in the corner of her old room during winter, because there wasn’t much space at the flat she lived in. Her mother had thought she didn’t want them any more and promptly sold them in a car boot sale.

  Just as well Helen had come by this afternoon, because within minutes of entering the shed she’d spotted something that shouldn’t have been there.

  ‘Mum! Why is this here?’ Helen pulled her suede coat out from under a pile of clothes. The single bare bulb glared brightly above them, throwing funny shadows onto the walls.

  Sheila lifted her glasses from the bridge of her nose and peered under them to look at the garment Helen was thrusting in her face. ‘It’s been hanging on the back of your bedroom door for years now, dear. I thought you didn’t wear it any more.’

  ‘Well, that doesn’t mean I’ll never want to!’ In fact, Helen had an urge to put the coat on right away. She’d forgotten how nice it was. Her fingers brushed at the soft, sand-coloured fabric. ‘I’ve told you before, don’t just take stuff without asking me first.’ She draped the coat over her forearm. ‘I love this coat.’ It was definitely going back home with her today.

  ‘Yes, but really, how am I supposed to . . . Helen! Do you have to get that now?’ Sheila sighed as Helen reached into the pocket of her skirt for her phone. Its ringing sounded like a horn in the small space of the shed. ‘You’re addicted to that thing. Really!’ She would have gone on complaining, only she saw Helen’s face change.

  First she went pale, then her skin flushed a deep pink. ‘Yes, yes, this is Helen Summers,’ she said. She turned her back on her mother as the conversation continued.

  It was Police Constable Ted Priestly from the Hammersmith and Fulham police station. The officer informed her that they had the results of their investigation into the identity of the mystery-caller who’d been harassing her for the last six months. Helen’s instinct was to hold the phone away from her ear as part of her didn’t want to know who the culprit might be.

  To begin with, the calls had been infrequent, once every couple of weeks. Usually the person rang just after midnight. No number showed up on the screen of Helen’s phone, just the word ‘Withheld’. All she could hear when she answered was heavy breathing. The first couple of times she imagined that her number had been dialled by accident, so she’d hung up after saying ‘Hello?’ several times. Then the guy had started talking, trying to keep her on the phone a few seconds longer. His voice was strange, extra deep and with an accent that could have been American. One time he’d said, ‘I’m coming,’ and she’d answered, ‘Where?’ She’d looked around the flat, expecting someone to break in, until she heard the grunts coming through the receiver. She’d slammed down the phone and decided to report the incidents.

  ‘We’ve traced the number and identity of the caller,’ the officer said.

  Helen felt the blood pounding at her temples. She sensed her mother move closer behind her.

  ‘Do you know of a man called Daniel Peel?’ he went on.

  The coat slipped off Helen’s arm onto the floor. She turned around with her eyes shut tight and shoved the phone at her mother. She pushed against one wall to steady herself, and then, feeling her way along it, moved slowly towards the door. Outside, she doubled over, clutching her stomach. Her mother’s voice drifted out of the shed, loud with shock, then louder with anger.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me, dear?’ Sheila hurried out to her daughter and held Helen, stroking her hair and rubbing her back. ‘What a vile piece of work that man is. Oh, your poor sister. Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I didn’t know it was him!’

  ‘But that this was happening at all! You never said. Oh God, what are we going to do? Your sister . . .’ Sheila started leading Helen back towards the house, the damp grass squeaking under their feet. Both of them went through the back door wearing their wet wellingtons.

  Helen’s dad, Peter, was sitting on the sofa in the living room. His feet, clad in woollen house shoes, were perched on a side table that had been pulled up for just that purpose, while a pipe was secured to his lips. Under the collar of his check shirt, a red scarf was wrapped around his neck as a permanent defence against the cold he was always ‘just about to get’. He looked up from his newspaper as the women walked across the carpet, his eyes following the muddy trail of footprints they were leaving on its light blue surface.

  Sheila’s eyebrows did a coded dance for her husband as she ma
de Helen sit down next to him on the brown leather sofa. Peter lifted his feet off the table, put the paper to one side and began puffing on his pipe with energy.

  Helen’s eyes were squeezed shut but still the tears leaked silently out of them. Some had travelled all the way down her face and neck, trickling under the round neckline of her green mohair sweater. She took hold of the tissues that her mum was rubbing against her cheeks.

  Over her head Sheila gave Peter a quick whispered rundown of what the police officer had said. Quite what the low volume and speed of speech were supposed to achieve, Helen had no idea. They could have talked normally. It wasn’t like she didn’t know what was going on. She heard the light ‘clack’ of her father’s pipe being set down and the sound made her realise how awful the discovery of the caller’s identity was. Anything, apart from basic daily necessities, that prompted Peter to stop smoking and put down his pipe was serious.

  The name ‘Jill’ popped out of Sheila’s mouth with a frequency that seemed odd to Helen. From the way her mother talked you’d think something terrible had happened to Helen’s sister while her own experience was only minor. Of course, Helen realised, the implications probably were more serious for Jill, but this over-the-top concern was typical of her parents. They had always treated weedy, asthmatic Jill like a fragile flower, while plump, chirpy Helen was assumed to be the tough one.

  ‘So I don’t know. I just don’t know.’ Sheila’s palms spread out. ‘How is Jill going to take this?’

  Helen’s eyes sprang open. The room appeared unnaturally fuzzy and bright. Slowly, it came back into focus again. She was surprised to find the world looking the same rather than washed over with the sickly yellow of her feelings.

  ‘Why is this just about her?’ Helen blurted out.

  Peter cleared his throat and patted his daughter’s knee. His hand was tense, the fingers stiff, so that they felt like a piece of board tapping against Helen. Her father was not good at displaying affection.

  ‘Well, Danny is her husband.’ Sheila gave her spouse a sideways look, as if their daughter had gone mad.

  ‘Yes, but it’s me he’s done something to. Me!’ Helen’s fingers jabbed against her chest. ‘No one seems to be bothered about that.’

  ‘He’s behaved disgustingly. There’s no question about it.’ The pressure of Peter’s hand on Helen’s kneecap increased.

  ‘Well, of course. You poor dear.’ Sheila came over and squatted before her husband and daughter, pulling them both into a group hug. ‘It’s just awful, but at least it’s over for you now, whereas Jill—’

  ‘Over?’ Helen shot off the sofa so fast her father’s hand was thrown in the air and her mother almost fell backwards. She paced the room, her hands clenched into fists. On the wall behind her was a collage of photos. The moments – birthdays, weddings, graduations – captured in those pictures were supposed to represent all the important events in the family’s life, but they rarely captured the real dramas. The times that ended up mattering most were ones like this, where no one would even think of taking a photo.

  ‘How is it over?’ Helen repeated. As she stared at her mother, Helen’s bottom lip peeled away from the top one and her mouth hung open. Just because the identity of the caller was known, it didn’t mean the whole experience was done and dusted for her. In fact, the awfulness of it was just beginning to hit Helen. The idea of Danny calling and putting on that voice while Jill was probably asleep in the next room . . .

  She swung round and riffled her hands through her pockets. ‘Where’s my phone? I want to call that man now!’

  Both her parents started speaking at once.

  ‘Let’s not be rash about this.’ Her father tried to get her to sit down again, but Helen refused. ‘Come on.’ He took hold of her wrists, gently forcing her to stand still and pay attention.

  ‘You have to consider how many other people are involved—’ Sheila started, but stopped when she saw Peter’s grey eyes narrow.

  ‘Now,’ he began, slowly and logically, to run through the facts, ‘Danny has wronged you. There’s police evidence for this. You have the right to press charges. He’s also Jill’s husband. She loves him—’

  ‘She doesn’t know better!’ Sheila interrupted.

  ‘Whatever we might think of the man, she does love him,’ Peter insisted, his eyes still on Helen.

  ‘Or she thinks she does,’ Sheila muttered. Then she pressed her lips together and dug her hands into the pockets of her long cardigan. She looked down and noticed all the mud on the carpet. A huge sigh heaved out of her, like a toilet being flushed.

  ‘So, Helen, you need to be careful about how you tell Jill,’ Peter went on. ‘She may be against you taking legal action—’

  ‘That’s not my pr—’ Helen started, but Peter cut her short.

  ‘I’m not saying that she’d be right, you just need to be aware of this so you can decide how to deal with it.’ He had all the options and possibilities lined up in his head, like a long equation full of brackets, plus and equals signs. A life of teaching maths had left him with a tendency to filter all problems in this way, turning them into sums to which solutions might be found at some stage. He went on listing things and the steadiness of his deep voice was calming for Helen. Being a rational person herself, she understood the sense of his words, even though a huge part of her wanted Danny punished right away.

  ‘And you know,’ Sheila jumped in as soon as Peter was finished, ‘we’ve got to use this chance!’ She said it as if it was a gift. For several years Sheila had been fretting over how she could separate Jill from Danny. Now, Helen could see a brightness that verged on excitement in her mother’s anger. She was ready to turn a disaster into an opportunity.

  ‘You’re happy.’ Helen moved out of her father’s grip and faced her mum.

  ‘What? Don’t be—’

  ‘You’re glad you finally have something against Danny that you can use to save poor, helpless Jill.’ Helen crossed her arms over her chest. ‘It doesn’t matter about me.’

  ‘That’s not true!’ Tears jabbed at the inner corners of Sheila’s eyes.

  ‘You’re not being fair, Helen.’ Peter took a few steps so he was standing by his wife’s side.

  ‘I hate him for what he’s done to both of you.’ Sheila pulled Helen into her arms again.

  ‘We must have the policeman there when we tell Jill, otherwise she won’t believe us!’ Sheila’s neat, short eyebrows bounced over the lenses of her rimless glasses. ‘You know how she is when it comes to Danny.’

  Helen did indeed. That was one point she couldn’t argue with.

  ‘That man could convince her that Eskimos live on the beach. If he gets a chance to speak to her before we do, he’ll twist everything . . .’ Sheila stepped back and her eyes swung from her husband to Helen. ‘I wouldn’t put it past him to make out that Helen . . .’ She left the idea hanging.

  It was really the truth of this fact that had brought Helen round to her parents’ way of doing things, because she knew just how devious Danny could be.

  ‘There’s only one way to handle him,’ Sheila had said, and she knew exactly what that was.

  Chapter Five

  Back in the train, as she recalls the afternoon’s events, Helen feels frustrated at being forced into following her parents’ advice. Their plan is for a big post-party showdown with Danny and PC Priestly present. Sheila was determined that nothing should spoil the party she had spent two months planning for Jill’s birthday. The way she’d gone on about how much Jill was looking forward to it, you’d have thought Jill was turning three, not thirty.

  For Helen, the thought of sitting tight and pretending nothing has happened for more than a week seems unbearable. It might just be possible if she doesn’t get another call from Danny in that time, but then there is the fact that she will have to go to the party and pretend for the whole evening while that monster of a man is right there. No doubt he’ll ham up the devotion, play the perfect husband and give s
ome speech about true love. The corners of Helen’s mouth pull down in disgust.

  No, she decides, she’s not going to keep quiet. She stares at her phone and the half-written message she’s composed. Why put off the inevitable just for the sake of a party? The truth was going to ruin Jill’s life for a while anyway. Or maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe Jill would continue to believe that Danny was the man of her dreams.

  Jill had an uncanny ability to put a positive spin on everything her husband did. Last year she’d suspected him of having an affair. She’d confronted him about it after a wedding reception at which the woman in question had repeatedly drawn Danny aside in order to have her picture taken with him. Danny had responded to Jill’s questions by hitting her.

  ‘He was really hurt,’ Jill told her sister a few days later when Helen had popped over to see her. ‘He was so upset that I could think him capable of such a thing. That’s why he slapped me.’ Her hand unconsciously rubbed the left jaw where his blow had landed and there was still the faint blue hint of a bruise. ‘Now I know how much he loves me.’

  ‘What? I don’t see how violence can ever be interpreted as love!’ Helen set her mug down roughly causing tea to slop over the side onto the stainless-steel kitchen counter. She couldn’t tell how much Jill’s words were the result of brain-washing by Danny or her sister’s wilful blindness. ‘He’s no good for you! You could do a million times better.’

  ‘But I love him,’ was Jill’s pitiful refrain, the same as it had been for the last six years.

  Love! There were times when Helen felt the word was a curse, something to be avoided, not aspired to.

  ‘You don’t understand.’ Jill lifted her sister’s mug. She wiped it and the counter with a dishcloth, then she tried to polish away some of the smudges Helen’s fingers had left on the otherwise perfectly shiny surface. The sun poured in from the skylight overhead and bounced off the metal counters.

  ‘I feel so bad for thinking that of him. It was completely wrong of me.’ Jill shook her head. Her copper-coloured fringe brushed along her eyebrows.