Before I Wake

by C. L. Taylor

  I’m torn. Part of me wants to cross the divide between us and wrap Liam in my arms and take away the hurt. The other part wants to ask if they argued, if he did anything to warrant Charlotte ending the relationship in such a brutal way. I decide to do neither. He looks close to tears, and I don’t want to upset him more than I already have. Not if I want him to talk to me again. I stand up and pull on Milly’s lead so she rises too.

  “I’m sorry, Liam,” I say. “I had no idea about any of that. Charlotte didn’t breathe a word.”

  He sighs heavily, then crosses his arms and looks away. Conversation over.

  ***

  It’s only when I’m halfway home that I realize I didn’t bring up the one subject I’d traipsed all the way over to White Street to discuss. Sex. There’s no way I can turn back and knock on the door again, not with Liam the way he was when I left. I don’t know what drove Charlotte to do what she did, but I can’t help but feel that it was cruel, even for a teenager. But maybe Liam had done something to deserve it? Sometimes you have to escape from a relationship as stealthily and quietly as you can.

  “Here we are, Milly,” I say as I fit the key in the lock, turn it, and twist the handle of the porch door. “Home again. Home ag—”

  My voice catches in my throat. There’s a postcard, picture side up, on the mat. I start to shake as I reach down to pick it up.

  “Stop it, Sue,” I tell myself. “Stop overreacting. It’s just a postcard.” But as I turn it over in my hands and read what’s written on the other side, my ears start to ring. My vision clouds and I grab the doorframe, blinking hard to try and dispel the white spots that have appeared before my eyes, but I know it’s too late. I’m going to faint.

  Friday, October 12, 1990

  Nearly two weeks since James told me he loved me, and I still haven’t been to his place. All I know is that he lives in a three-bedroom terrace house near Wood Green. Hels is worried. According to her, you don’t date a man for six weeks without seeing his place unless he’s got something to hide. I told her that I wasn’t bothered—that going to hotels was exciting and staying at my place was convenient, but she knew I was bullshitting. You can’t be friends with someone since you were ten and lie to their face and get away with it.

  “Has it occurred to you that he might be married?” she asked me over lunch the other day.

  I told her it had, but there was no mark on the third finger of James’s left hand and he hadn’t slipped, not even once, and mentioned a wife or children. He hadn’t even mentioned an ex-girlfriend. I’d told him all about Nathan. I’d even told him about Rupert and the fact we’d had a drunken shag at university, long before I introduced him to Hels and they got it together, but he’d never so much as mentioned another woman’s name. Helen thought that was odd—that his silence meant he was obviously hiding something. I argued that some people are private and prefer to keep the past buried.

  “What then?” she said. “Ex-con? Prisoner on the run?” We both laughed. “Maybe he still lives with his mum and dad?”

  I stopped laughing. That wasn’t such a ridiculous suggestion. James did keep running off from my place at the most bizarre hours, claiming he had “things to do” and “stuff to sort,” and no matter how much I interrogated him, he refused to expand, saying instead that what he had to do was “dull” and I “really wouldn’t be interested.”

  “Definitely married,” Hels said when I told her that. “Why else would he suddenly rush off and not tell you where he’s going?”

  Before she went back to work, she made me swear that I’d stop “fannying around” and demand that James take me to his place or I’d end the relationship. I wasn’t sure about throwing ultimatums around, but I promised her I’d bring up the subject when I meet him for dinner tomorrow.

  I’m sure there’s a perfectly innocuous reason why he hasn’t invited me back to his place. So why do I feel so sick?

  Chapter

  Seven

  I come to on the floor of the porch. One of my cheeks is pressed against cold tile, and the other is strangely damp. I glance up to see Milly standing above me, her big, brown eyes fixed on the empty dog bowl in the corner of the porch, her tongue dripping with drool. She senses me looking at her and smiles down at me before enthusiastically licking my cheek.

  “Hello, Milly Moo.” I sit up slowly, gingerly checking my body for injuries. Nothing appears to be broken, though by the way my left temple aches, I think I’m in for a pretty impressive bruise. For a split second, I assume I tripped and fell, but then I spot the postcard on the floor beside me and it all comes flooding back again. The image on the front shows James Stewart sitting on a step, smiling a goofy smile while behind him, a shadow of an enormous rabbit is projected on the wall. It’s an image from the film Harvey. The postcard could so easily be innocuous—a simple hello from one friend to another—only there’s no chatty text on the other side of this postcard. There isn’t even an addressee. There’s just a stamp, postmarked Brighton, and an address, my address.

  This isn’t someone forgetting to write a postcard and slipping it into the postbox with a handful of letters by mistake. That’s the explanation Brian would come up with if I told him about it. He’d give me a look, the look, the one that says, “You’re going to have another episode, aren’t you?” and then he’d throw it in the bin and tell me that everything’s fine and I’m safe. Only I’m not safe, am I? Harvey was James’s favorite film. I lost count of the number of times we watched that film together.

  Milly startles as I kick out at the postcard, sending it spinning and scuttling under the shoe rack. If I can’t see it, then maybe I won’t think about it. Maybe I’ll be able to ignore the fact that, twenty years after I left him, James has finally tracked me down.

  ***

  I try as best I can to forget about the postcard, but it’s like trying to forget how to breathe. Whenever my mind pauses, whenever it’s free of thoughts about Charlotte, Brian, and what to cook for dinner, it returns to the porch, peers under the shoe rack, and pulls out the postcard. No matter where I am in the house, it haunts me from its dark, dusty corner. I want to visit Charlotte but I’m too scared to leave the house. What if James is waiting for me? If he’s been watching the house, he’ll know I’m home alone, but all the doors and windows are locked—I’ve checked three times—and there’s no way for him to get in. I’ve got my mobile phone in my hands, primed and ready to call the police if I hear the slightest noise.

  There won’t be time to call for help if I leave the house and James attacks me. If he’s hiding in the bushes opposite the front door, he could get me as I get into the car, or if he’s in a car down the lane, he could follow me to the hospital and attack Charlotte. It’s been less than twenty-four hours since I last saw her, and I’m already consumed by fear and guilt because I haven’t seen her today. What if, deep in her subconscious, she knows I haven’t been to visit, and it makes her retreat deeper into her coma? What if she wakes up and I’m not there? What if she dies?

  For the next couple of hours, I don’t know what to do with myself. I jump when the phone rings and start when the wind rattles the letter box. When there’s a knock on the front door, I run up to Brian’s study and peer down from behind the curtain, only to discover the electricity man pushing a “I called to check your meter” card through the letter box. What am I doing? I’m allowing the memory of James to terrify me, to stop me from visiting my own daughter. I am not “Suzy-Sue”—I haven’t been her for a very long time.

  I return downstairs and fish the postcard out from its dusty hiding place with the fire tongs and burn it in the fireplace in the living room. I sit on the sofa, watching as the flames lick at the corners, dance across James Stewart’s lolloping smile, and then envelop him. When he and his strange rabbit sidekick have turned to dust, I sweep them up.

  As I pour the ashes of the postcard into the kitchen bin, a new
thought occurs to me. What if the postcard was meant for Oli from one of his university friends? What if they were too stoned to notice they hadn’t put his name or a message on it and I just burned it? What if he asks where it is? How do I explain what I just did without sounding certifiable? My hands shake as I reach for my car keys, and I steady myself on the kitchen table. I drop my head to my chest and inhale slowly—one, two, three—then out again. I do it again—one, two, three—then out again. I need to be calm. I need to think clearly; otherwise, I’ll have another episode. This is how they start; this is how I go from normal, sane, rational Sue to neurotic, paranoid “I’d better lock Charlotte in her room for the weekend because Brian is away at a party conference and BBC news has a report about a child abduction in the next town” Sue. One, two, three. One, two, three. Slowly my breathing returns to normal.

  ***

  I feel calmer and happy when I return from the hospital. I felt better the second I stepped into Charlotte’s room and saw that she was still safe, warm, and being cared for. There was no change in her condition, and the nurses reassured me that she hadn’t had any visitors since Brian and I were with her yesterday. There is no reason to think James has found me. The blank postcard is just that. An innocuous blank postcard, sent to us in error or mistakenly delivered by the postman. I’ve barely slept since Charlotte’s accident. I can’t sleep at night for trying to work out why she did what she did. It’s no wonder my mind goes into overdrive sometimes.

  For the second time today, I attach a leash to Milly’s collar and lead her out of the house. She smiles up at me, delighted to be out in the fresh air again. We only tend to walk her early in the morning and late at night, so an afternoon sojourn in the spring sunshine is an unexpected treat.

  ***

  Judy opens the door with a scowl.

  “Sue?”

  I force a smile. “Hello, Judy. How are you?”

  “Fine.”

  I wait for her to ask what I want. Instead I am subjected to a long, slow eye sweep that starts at the top of my head with my gray roots, pauses at the wrinkles and dark circles that line my unmade-up eyes, flits over my best M&S coat, and settles, unimpressed, on my comfy brown Clarks slip-ons. Judy and I were good friends until we fell out when she took both girls to get their ears pierced for Ella’s thirteenth birthday without checking with me first. In retrospect, I may have overreacted, but we both said some pretty ugly things and the time for mending fences is long past.

  “Great,” I say as brightly as I can manage when really I want to bop her on her sneering Chanel-smeared nose. “I don’t suppose Ella’s in, is she?”

  “Ella?” She looks surprised.

  “Yes. I’d like to talk to her about Charlotte. If that’s okay with you.”

  Judy’s eyes narrow and then, just for a split second, a look akin to compassion crosses her face. I imagine she’s heard about the accident.

  “Okay,” she says after a pause. “But keep it brief because she’s supposed to be studying for her exams.”

  When I nod my assent, she turns back toward the hallway, pulling the front door toward her so it’s only open a couple of inches, and then shouts for her daughter. There’s a muffled cry in reply and then the door slams shut in my face. A minute or so later, it opens again. Ella peers out at me.

  “Hi.” She looks at me suspiciously, just like her mother did.

  “Hi, Ella.” My face is aching from smiling so widely. “I was wondering if we could have a chat. About Charlotte.”

  Her expression changes lightning fast—from suspicion to anger—and she crosses one skinny-jeaned leg over the other. “Why would I want to do that?”

  First Liam, now Ella. I only have to mention my daughter’s name for a black cloud to descend. It doesn’t make sense. When her class made their yearbook at the start of their sophomore year and predicted where everyone would be in five years’ time, Charlotte was voted “girl everyone would stay in touch with” and “girl most likely to be successful.”

  “Because you’re friends,” I say. “Unless…” I study her face. “Unless you’re not friends anymore.”

  Ella raises a thin, penciled eyebrow. “Correct.”

  “I see.” I pause, trying to decide how best to continue. From the set of her jaw, I can tell Ella’s as keen on communicating with me as Liam was and yet…

  “Charlotte’s still in a coma,” I say.

  “I know.” She raises the eyebrow again, but the flash of light in her eyes betrays her. She’s interested. She wants to know more about her ex-best friend.

  “She’s breathing on her own now. She’s still having oxygen through a mask, but her lungs are getting stronger, which is a very good sign.”

  Ella says nothing.

  “We’ve tried everything to try and help her wake up,” I continue. “I’ve talked to her about the family and what we’re all doing. Brian reads her articles from the newspaper—”

  “Grim. She’d hate that.”

  “I agree.” I suppress a smile at the look of disgust on her face. “I suggested he read out Heat magazine instead but he wasn’t keen. I don’t think he’s as big a fan of celebrity gossip as Charlotte is.”

  Ella pulls a face, like the mental image of my husband reading Heat magazine repulses her.

  “So anyway,” I soldier on, “Oli came up with the idea that we should play Charlotte her favorite song. He said he’d seen people do that in films and that it helps wake someone from a coma.”

  Ella’s face lights up at the mention of my stepson’s name. Until recently, she and Charlotte were like shadows to Oli and Danny. I have an inkling the boys may have been the subject of the girls’ first-ever crushes.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes,” I say. “So I was wondering if you could help. With the song. I haven’t got the first clue what Charlotte was into.”

  “‘Someone Like You’ by Adele.”

  “Great.” I’ve actually heard of that song. They play it on Radio 2 all the time. “Anyone else?”

  She shrugs. “That’s her favorite but she likes ‘I Love the Way You Lie’ by Rihanna and Eminem, ‘Money’ by Jessie J. Oh, and ‘Born This Way’ by Lady Gaga. We used to dance to that in my room before we’d go out to Breeze, to the under-eighteen night,” she adds quickly.

  Her whole demeanor has changed. She’s not a young woman propping up the doorway with her legs and arms crossed and a defiant look on her face anymore. Instead she looks like the little blond five-year-old I found Charlotte hand in hand with on the playground at the end of their first day at school.

  “You could see her,” I say softly, “if you’d like. I could give you a lift to the hospital. I’m sure Charlotte would appreciate it.”

  “No, she wouldn’t.”

  A scowl has fallen over Ella’s face, all traces of vulnerability and tenderness gone.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “She just wouldn’t.”

  “Is this about Keisha?” I venture. A look of surprise crosses Ella’s face at the mention of the other girl’s name. “Is that why you’re angry?”

  “It’s none of my business who Charlotte hangs out with. She can do what she wants.”

  “But you’re her best friend. Surely you—”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “You’re not?” I feign surprise. “What happened?”

  Ella clenches her jaw. “Nothing.”

  “Well, something must have—”

  “Nothing happened, all right! Just leave me alone and stop asking me—”

  “Everything okay here?” Judy appears in the doorway, alerted by her daughter’s raised voice. “Ella? Are you okay?”

  “No.” Her daughter feigns a pained expression. “Sue’s hassling me and I haven’t done anything wrong, Mum. I was just—”

  “Have you been hassling my
daughter?” Judy attempts a frown, but too many Botox injections prevent her.

  “No!” I can’t help but laugh. “Of course not. I was just asking her why she and Charlotte aren’t best friends anymore.”

  “And?”

  “According to Ella, nothing happened.”

  Judy glances at her daughter, who shrugs as if to say “that’s what I said.”

  “If Ella said nothing happened,” she says, looking back at me, “then nothing happened.”

  “But it must have. Those two have been friends since they were—”

  “Nothing happened, Sue,” Ella screams. “Okay? We just stopped being friends.” She looks at her mum. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  “Okay, darling.” Judy puts a heavily manicured hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “Go back to your room and—”

  “Please,” I beg. “Judy, please. I need to know what happened. It might help Charlotte. Did you know that she’d split up with Liam or that—”

  “Muuuuum.” Ella looks at her mother with beseeching eyes. “Mum, I really need to get back on with my studying.”

  “Okay, darling, off you—”

  “Please.” I grab hold of Ella’s wrist. “Please. You need to help me.”

  “Get your hands off my daughter!” I feel a sharp sting on my forearm and four white stripes appear on my skin from where Judy swiped at me with her false nails. “Now.”

  I’m so shocked, I instantly let go.

  “Thanks, Mum.” The smallest of smirks crosses Ella’s face as she ducks out from the doorway and takes the stairs two at a time. Judy looks back at me.

  “I’d like you to leave now, please, Sue,” she says in a measured voice.

  “Judy, look. I’m sorry if I overstepped the mark but—”

  “Leave.” She takes a step back into the hallway and begins to close the front door.

  I press my hand against it to stop it being slammed in my face. “No, Judy, wait. Listen!”

  “No! You listen!” The door swings open again. “I’m sorry about what happened to Charlotte, really I am, but it’s not my fault and it’s certainly not Ella’s. Perhaps you should look a bit closer to home instead.”