Try Not to Breathe: A Novel

by Holly Seddon

  If there was more to Paul Wheeler and Amy’s relationship, Bob and Jacob had been totally in the dark. The only other people likely to have seen anything were Amy’s school friends.

  Alex scrolled through her contacts and called Becky Limm. The sound of a baby crying in the background hit before a voice did.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Becky, it’s Alex Dale here. Is that your baby I hear? Congratulations!” Alex closed her eyes.

  “Thanks,” came a hurried reply. “Hang on a sec.”

  Eyes still closed, Alex could hear mumbled negotiations.

  “I’m just running upstairs.” Muffled sounds came down the line until a panting Becky returned.

  “Sorry about that, I needed to get my husband to hold Jude.”

  “I’m really sorry to bother you, I’ll be quick.”

  “It’s okay, but if you’re phoning about any work, I’m not quite ready yet.”

  “Work? No, I wasn’t phoning about that. I just wanted to ask you something about Amy.”

  “Oh, okay. I’ll have to be quick, as it’s mayhem here.”

  “Just one question: did Amy ever tell you her birth dad had got in touch?”

  “Um, yeah, he showed up at school a couple of times, why?”

  “Paul Wheeler showed up at Amy’s school? And you saw him?” Alex’s heart beat faster as she circled Paul’s name in thick pen over and over.

  “I don’t know what his name was, but it was her real dad, yeah. Amy just used to roll her eyes. I mean, I think she liked the drama of it at first, the long-lost-dad thing, but she got bored of him. He was a bit of a loser.”

  “Did you tell the police any of this?”

  “No, why would I?”

  “But if he was bothering her—”

  “No, he wasn’t bothering her, she used to laugh about it. Honestly, it wasn’t a big deal. I don’t want to give you the wrong idea so please bear in mind that I’m crazy with sleep deprivation and barely remember my own name.”

  Alex laughed through her nose. “Don’t worry, I’m not holding you to anything you say. It just really helps to sound someone out who was there at the time. Even if your head’s foggy, I really appreciate any help you can give.”

  “I mean, I want to help, I really do, but I don’t want to un-help, does that make sense?”

  “Um, sort of, I think. I know you might think it’s unhelpful, but just scratch an itch for me. When was the last time you remember seeing Paul at school?”

  “Oh, I don’t remember offhand…a while before she disappeared.”

  “If I told you that Amy and her birth dad had spoken a lot and may have met up in secret, what would you say?”

  “Huh. Really? That’s weird. She was pretty dismissive of him in front of me but maybe she changed her mind.”

  “Or he changed it for her?”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Nothing really, just trying a few ideas for size. Becky, did you know Amy wasn’t a virgin when she was attacked?”

  “God, Alex, I’m not sure that’s how I’d describe it. She was raped!”

  “Not exactly. I’m sorry to be insensitive, but…Can you keep this confidential?”

  “Well, yeah, of course. What is it?” There was an uneasy excitement in Becky’s voice. Maybe she’ll make a decent journalist after all, Alex thought with a grimace.

  “Well, this isn’t confirmed,” Alex lied, “but there’s evidence to suggest Amy had had consensual sex at some point before her attack.”

  Becky laughed. Just a titter at first, and then a more throaty, tearful sound. Alex imagined her blond hair bouncing, still shiny despite the baby sick in it.

  “I’m sorry,” Becky said, voice wavering. “It’s just that she won and she never got to brag.”

  “What do you mean, she won?”

  “She won the competition. To lose it.” Becky lowered her voice. “Me, Amy and Jenny had a sort of serious, sort of joke competition to see who could pop their cherry first.”

  “Do you have any idea who it might have been with?”

  “It wasn’t Jake?”

  “No, it wasn’t Jake.”

  Becky stopped laughing abruptly. “Oh God,” she said. “Then I have no idea.”

  Jake came to see me today and it was really weird. It felt like he was distant and we barely knew each other.

  He didn’t speak for a long time, but I could hear him breathing hard. In the background, this cheesy song was playing from the radio I hear sometimes. It was that awful “Everything I Do” song by Brian Adams, and I remember thinking, God, there are actually couples in the world who would have chosen this as their special song.

  I always felt like we should have a special song but we never did. We sat by the radio once and said the next song that came on would be ours. It was Celine Dion. We said we’d wait and see what the next song was instead. In the end, we never picked one, but we’ve made each other a lot of mix tapes. I wonder if he’s kept his. I have all of mine in a box under my bed, but deep down I know that Jake isn’t that bothered by music really, he just knows it matters to me. I tried to make my tapes full of surprises, live tracks and B-sides and weird covers. Bands like The Breeders, early Red Hot Chili Peppers from when they were still punk, Pavement. I slipped in some Kraftwerk, Velvet Underground, Bowie at his most “Berlin,” a whole melting pot. And some stuff I was sure Jacob already knew, a bit of light relief maybe, some Queen for laughs.

  I s’pose, if I’m honest, I was trying to educate him a bit. Open his eyes. J’s tapes were more…I don’t know, more like he’d recorded the top 40 off the radio. I loved that he tried though. I wasn’t angry with him then.

  Anyway, earlier, after a long time, Jake took this big, gross, loud swallow and then started talking about another girl. I mean, c’mon, what? He was saying he was sorry and she made him happy and this kind of thing. I know I’m a massive hypocrite, I really do know that, but Secret is—or was—just that, a secret. A side step. There was no way either one of us would have let Jake know, he was totally insulated. I didn’t break up with him, I didn’t lose my patience with him, I didn’t abandon him. I didn’t even really do anything with you-know-who, I just wanted to. Then out of the blue today, Jake said he couldn’t see me anymore.

  I was pissed off more than anything, then I was gutted. He’d just given up on us, out of the blue like that. I couldn’t say anything, I guess I was dumbstruck, but my face must have given it away because he started backpeddling and saying he didn’t mean it and he would see me after all. Then he started to say, actually, scrap everything, he would see me more. I’m not sure what that means in reality—he wants more of a commitment?

  I’m left not knowing what to do, and I feel quite breathless about it all because I never expected this from Jake. If he was trying to make me jealous—if he’s going to start playing games like that—I should probably break up with him. Although, not that I’d admit it openly, it is a bit romantic, in a weird kind of way.

  But if he really has met another girl, some tart called Fiona—and where could he have met her, anyway? Judo?—then good riddance, he needs to belt up and break it off with me for good.

  I don’t mean it. It’s me who should have broken it off. I probably should have put him out of his misery weeks before I had my head turned but I was always going to turn my head right back. I really was. It was only temporary. I hope Jake never finds out about that because I love him. I’ll always love him. I hope he feels the same about me, I hope he forgets about this “Fiona” and we can get back to how it was before.

  “You could use this space as an office, or a nursery.” Jenny smiled and deep dimples formed on her generous pink cheeks.

  “Do you have kids, Kate?”

  “No,” Alex answered, though she could have lied, she supposed.

  “Do you live in Oxted yourself?” Alex asked Jenny, interrupting her monologue about the shortcut to the train station.

  “Yes, I do. We love i
t. How far would you be moving?”

  “I live in Edenbridge at the moment,” Alex lied. “Do you know it?”

  “Yes,” Jenny said, smile dropping briefly. “I grew up there, actually.”

  “Oh what a coincidence!” Alex laughed, clasping her hand to her chest. “I moved there when I was twenty,” Alex added, “for a job.” It sounded strange and rehearsed as soon as she said it.

  “Would you like to see the loft? There’s a proper ladder and it’s fully boarded out.”

  “Oh yes please. So did you go to school in Edenbridge?”

  “Um, yes. The grammar school there. I just need to grab this.” The loft ladder funneled down to the landing carpet. Alex waited in the hallway, the other woman’s bulk taking up nearly all of the square landing. In Alex’s mind’s eye, all these people, these characters in Amy’s story, were freeze-framed in 1995. Knock-kneed, wide-eyed youngsters at the start of the path. One by one, she had met Jacob, with his graying hair and crinkled eyes; Becky, with her new domesticity and now Jenny. Although swathed in a long, forgiving skirt, there was no hiding just how large and thick her limbs were.

  Jenny put one foot on the bottom rung and the ladder groaned audibly under her weight. The foot was taken off hastily.

  “Do you want to just poke your head up there?” she asked, moving out of the way. Alex climbed the steps and looked up into the small loft. “Handy,” she agreed. “I’m writing a story about Edenbridge Grammar at the moment actually,” Alex added into the hollow loft.

  “A story?” Jenny asked, her hands steadying the ladder. “What is it you do for a job?”

  Alex popped her head back out of the ceiling. “I’m a writer,” she said.

  Jenny looked up hard into Alex’s eyes.

  “What did you say your name was?”

  “I said it was Kate,” Alex said, as she stepped back down to the landing carpet. “But that’s not quite true.”

  “You sneaky bitch.” Jenny tried to push past Alex but there was no room.

  “I’m sorry,” Alex said. “I really didn’t want to trick you but I had to talk to you. I need your help.”

  “I don’t care what you need,” Jenny said.

  “I’m not trying to hurt anyone,” Alex called as Jenny thundered heavily down the stairs and threw the front door open.

  “Out!” she shouted up the stairs to Alex. “Get out now or I’m calling the police.”

  “I know about the competition,” Alex said as she stumbled a little down the stairs.

  “What?” Jenny spat.

  “The competition to lose your virginity.”

  “Who the hell told you about that?”

  “It doesn’t matter who.”

  “Bloody Becky!”

  “Look, Jenny,” Alex said, wavering on the mat with one foot in the doorway. “Do you know who Amy slept with before she was attacked?”

  Jenny looked down briefly then snapped her head back up. She was breathing like a charging bull and slammed the door hard. Alex just managed to pull her foot out of the way to stop it being crunched into the frame.

  —

  “Hi, Amy, it’s Alex.” In the slight chill of the ward, Alex took Amy’s hand into hers and found herself trying to warm it.

  “Oh, Amy,” Alex said, her head hanging to her chest. For all the new openings in the story, she was hitting a lot of brick walls.

  As she started to tell Amy about how she’d been working with Jake and talking to Becky, there was some kind of commotion in the world outside the fabric. Alex could hear curtains being flapped open, squeaky wheels and numerous footsteps slapping the floor. She tried to tune it all out but the curtains were suddenly wrenched back and standing with his hips thrust forward was Dr. Haynes.

  “Oh!” he said, looking at the nurse beside him.

  “I’m sorry,” Alex said, out of habit.

  “We’re here to do some obs on Amy,” Dr. Haynes said, pushing his hands through his hair. “We won’t be long, perhaps you could wait in the nurse’s office?”

  “Oh, I don’t think—” the nurse started to say, turning her back to Alex to gesture something with her eyes.

  “Right. Yes, okay. Right, Alex, we’ll go on to Natasha and then come back to Amy so you can have a little more time.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  The nurse wheeled the machine away, deflated blood pressure bags flapping over multiple dead screens. Alex was leaning forward to pick Amy’s hand up again when she felt hot breath in her ear.

  “I’m so sorry about leaving the other week,” Peter Haynes said, leaning over her.

  “Please,” Alex whispered, “don’t mention it.”

  “It was terribly unchivalrous of me. Especially after you invited me back so kindly.” He paused. “You did invite me back.”

  Alex stared at Amy’s hands and whispered, “Please, I said don’t mention it.”

  She waited for the footsteps to move away, and sighed so hard her body crumpled like a pile of clothes.

  “Oh God,” she whispered to Amy, “I did something so awful a couple of weeks ago.”

  Amy, of course, did not reply.

  “It’s not even the first time I’ve done something like that. I mean, God, it’s not even the tenth time I’ve done something like that, but I want to make it the last.”

  Amy’s index finger curled ever so slightly and her chest rose and fell, rose and fell. It just slowly and steadily kept doing what it always did. Alex wanted to curl up next to her on the bed. To brush Amy’s hair out of the way and rest her own head on the pillow.

  “I met your birth dad, Paul, the other day.” Alex squinted to see if she could make out a reaction. When she saw a slight quiver in Amy’s chest, she didn’t trust her eyes.

  “I’d love to hear your side of that story because I don’t trust him as far as I could throw him. I’m really…” Alex paused, unsure how much she wanted to say out loud. “I don’t know what to make of him, Amy. His story doesn’t quite add up.”

  Alex could hear Natasha’s curtain being pulled back and more sticky slapping of shoes.

  “I know you didn’t tell the truth about how much you’d seen Paul,” she whispered fast. “I’d love to know why. I’d really love to know why.”

  “Okay, time’s up,” the nurse said with a singsong brightness that didn’t match her eyes. She strapped the blood pressure bag quickly to Amy’s arm and popped the heart rate monitor onto her finger, allowing her hand to fall back on the bed.

  “Thanks for the extra time,” Alex said, gathering her bag and phone. As she patted her pockets down to check for her keys, she heard the nurse say something about an elevated heart rate. Alex shuffled out without meeting the doctor’s eye.

  —

  Alex realized it was Amy she spoke to more than anyone else. And she had come to look forward to their shared, silent moments more than any other part of her week. When had her world become so narrow?

  She wondered if Amy had any idea how narrow her own world had become. Those friendships that would have meant everything, would have felt so solid, broken by time and tragedy. No knowledge of the wider world her friends now occupied or the private worlds they had created for themselves.

  The way Alex missed Matt was excruciating, but she missed more than that. She missed her own friends and having other people’s worlds orbiting and overlapping with hers. She was no more a part of her old friends’ worlds than Amy was.

  Dinners out, parties with friends, camaraderie in the ladies’, interviewing interesting people over Michelin-starred meals. Being behind the velvet rope. It had all disappeared.

  After leaving The Times in a blaze of bile, she’d thought the world was at her feet.

  She’d thought she had options.

  She’d packed her best clippings into their beautiful baby blue leather binder. She’d applied her eyeliner exactly how the last Grazia beauty segment had advised, gripping the basin with her other hand. She’d been certain that her attention to d
etail would be the cherry on the cake.

  She’d lowered herself carefully into the car, adjusted the wing mirrors that were strangely off balance and programmed her sat nav. She’d taken a deep breath and a deeper gulp.

  The perfume that had smelled so fresh when she bought it had mingled with the seeping sour scent of bourbon. She’d popped another mint in, circled her fingertips around her temples and opened the window for a blast of fresh air. Finally she set off to London, squinting to stay steady on the correct side of the central reservation.

  They will be thrilled, she’d thought.

  Just a few months earlier she’d turned down an offer to become associate editor of Grazia. Matt told her it was her decision, although he looked uneasy when she said no. “But you can learn about fashion on the job,” he’d said. “You always look nice to me.”

  “It’s not just the fashion stuff,” she’d tried to explain. “It’s a whole lifestyle change. And it’s features and commissioning. I’ve not commissioned anything since I was at Mizz, I wouldn’t know where to start. It just feels like a massive opportunity to fall on my arse.”

  But Matt had been right. She should have accepted it. She could have learned on the job. Besides, instinct and creativity were what mattered. A more normal office setting, away from the filth of newspapers…maybe things would have been different. Maybe things could still be different, she’d told herself. This will fix everything, she’d thought.

  Alex had reached the Grazia offices lockjawed from the brutality of city driving, her ears ringing with the sounds of bus horns and pedestrian crossings. She’d parked right outside, pulling up onto the pavement so she didn’t block the road.

  Right in the middle of Shaftesbury Avenue wasn’t strictly a parking area but Alex had to go in then and there or her nerve would have left her on the floor.

  Inside Endeavor House, she’d waited to speak to the receptionist, who was talking excitedly to the security guard about something going on outside. The receptionist had a blunt-cut hairstyle that was as glossy as a maraschino cherry, and cartoon red lips that must require constant coatings.

  Eventually she’d smiled at Alex. “Can I help?”