One Click

by Andrea Mara

  Something shifts again, and Cleo senses Grace slipping, faltering.

  “That’s not true,” she says, but her voice is lower now, hoarse.

  “Oh, it’s true.” Delphine’s eyes are wide, and Cleo wonders if she’s forgotten the knife, or maybe it’s all about the knife. “Your mother didn’t die of a broken heart, or by suicide. They told you that to protect you. She died ten years ago in prison. They took her away and locked her up for what she did. She chose to do it, not me, not you. It has nothing to do with us.”

  Grace’s fingers slacken on the blade, her eyes still fixed on the screen, on Delphine. Cleo looks at her mom as she holds Grace’s gaze, and then back at the knife. Her hand shoots out and she grabs it. Grace tries to grip the handle but she’s not fast enough. It’s in Cleo’s hand now, and she jumps up, back towards the window.

  “Bitch!” Grace roars at Cleo, or maybe at Delphine.

  She stands up too but doesn’t come any closer.

  The screen is facing the couch and Cleo doesn’t know if her mother can hear her but she screams out her address: “Mom, it’s Apartment 2, Lafayette Hall, Aungier Street – you need to call the Irish police. It’s 999 from here but I don’t know how that works from there – hurry!”

  Grace and Cleo are back to where they started – Cleo’s at the window and Grace is facing her. Except Cleo has the knife now.

  She turns it over in her hand. Could she use it?

  Grace watches, her eyes darting between Cleo’s hand and her face. She’s wondering the same thing. She makes up her mind and lunges, reaching to grab the knife. Without stopping to think, Cleo grips the handle and drives the blade into Grace’s shoulder. She jumps back with a howl, like an animal caught in a trap. Cleo’s heart is racing and there’s sweat in her eyes and for a minute she can’t see anything. When she looks up, Grace is six feet from her, the knife in her shoulder, but she’s still standing. Then inexplicably, she smiles, and bends to turn the laptop towards them. Delphine is on screen, shouting into her cell-phone. Grace stands up straight and takes a bottle of something out of her purse – nail-polish remover? The doorbell rings, but Grace pays no attention, fixed on her task. She unscrews the cap and spills the liquid on the carpet, spreading it left to right, all across the space between them. Droplets splash near Cleo’s boots and she jumps back towards the window, as the familiar smell of acetone fills the small apartment.

  Then Grace pulls out a box and too late Cleo understands. Her mother screams from three thousand miles away, and Grace laughs as she opens the box and strikes a match. For a second, she holds it high, then it’s falling, falling like a fiery arrow to the floor below.

  In a flash, flames rise up, making a wall between them, licking the couch and the table. Delphine is screaming at Cleo to get out, but the blaze is already too high. The heat is immense, and panic is setting in. Cleo’s hands touch the net curtain behind her as she steps back towards the window and thick black smoke swirls in slow motion around her mouth and nose. The first acrid suck of toxic fumes snaps something in her brain and she turns to open the window, pulling at the handle. Locked. It’s hard to see now with the smoke – her panicky hands feel around for the key, but it’s not in the keyhole and it’s not on the window-sill. Clenching her fist, she smashes it into the glass. Nothing. She tries to scream but when she opens her mouth it fills with smoke and she starts to cough. With her arm across her nose and mouth she turns to face the flames. Running through them is the only hope, but they’re far too high now, raging from one side of the room to the other. The couch is blazing, weeping black smoke that spirals up and out and into Cleo’s nose and throat. She puts her arm across her face again but on some level she knows it’s not working and that this is what happens, people die from smoke.

  On screen, her mother is crying and screaming something but the fire is roaring and hissing and Cleo is dizzy now and can’t hear her. Her back is pressed against the window and she can just about see Grace’s face through the blaze, her mouth open in a ghostly, distorted laugh. Black and yellow and purple flames cover the coffee table, angry and rabid, obscuring the laptop. Cleo can’t see her mother any more but now she can hear her screams again and the terror they hold tells her Delphine can still see her. She pushes back against the window, but there’s nowhere to go. The smoke is burning her throat and it’s inside her nose and everything’s starting to swim. Grace is a dark shadow now behind the black and orange pyre and there’s no sound from Delphine but Cleo doesn’t know if it’s because she’s stopped screaming or the laptop is gone or because she’s starting to flit in and out of consciousness. And then she feels herself slipping down towards the floor and she thinks it might be over.

  A siren wails, and shouting voices call out things Cleo doesn’t understand, and there’s something covering her nose and mouth. She tries to reach for it but she can’t move her arm – it’s trapped under a heavy blanket. Her eyes are still closed, and she doesn’t know what’s on her face, but then a voice tells her it’s an oxygen mask to help her breathe. She hears someone ask if the flames are out and she opens her eyes – her apartment is still on fire, but she’s outside now. Someone says to leave the fire blanket on and she realises they’re not talking about the apartment, they’re talking about her. And with that horrific realisation, red-hot searing pain grips her, screaming and tearing at her skin like nothing she’s ever imagined. The blanket is lifted from her legs and someone is talking about gel and she wants to tell them to stop, to tell them not to touch her but she can’t speak or move so she concentrates on the apartment and the fire-fighters in front of the window, trying to push back the flames with a hose. Then in the sea of bright lights and uniforms, she sees one familiar face. Lauren.

  “I’m so sorry, this is all my fault, this is all my fault,” she’s saying, over and over. She kneels on the ground beside Cleo, tears rolling down her face.

  Someone is asking Lauren if she knows Cleo and she’s telling them her name and that she’s not from here but she’s her friend.

  “I’ll come to the hospital, I’ll be right behind in my car,” she says, reaching a hand towards Cleo, but she doesn’t know where to touch. “Oh God, I’m so sorry,” she says, her face pale and tear-stained.

  Cleo wants to tell her it’s not her fault, that they are the victims, that they can’t control what other people do, but when she tries to speak, no words come out at all.

  AFTER

  Chapter 58

  Cleo is propped against a bank of pillows and raises one bandaged hand in a small wave when I walk into her room. The bandages go all the way up above her elbows, disappearing under the loose sleeves of the oversized grey T-shirt. There’s no blanket, just a sheet to her waist, and as I pull a chair to the bed I feel a guilty relief that I can’t see her legs. When I came yesterday she was asleep, and I sat by her bed for a while, talking to her mother. The Guards had given me a summarised version of why Grace set fire to the apartment, and Delphine filled in the gaps. We spoke in low voices but Cleo never stirred. The pain relief had knocked her out, Delphine told me. She and Cleo’s friend Ruth had flown in from New York the day after the fire, and were staying in a hotel near the hospital – I tried to get them to stay with me, but Delphine wanted to be as close to Cleo as possible, she said. Maybe later, when things were looking better.

  Things are not yet looking better. Cleo has third-degree burns on her legs and will need skin grafts. Her arms have second-degree burns and should heal in a few weeks without surgery. She’s on a cocktail of pain medication but there’s only so much the drugs can do, she says, when I ask her how she is.

  I’ve brought her three new books, a giant bar of Dairy Milk, and an expensive body moisturiser that I now realise she won’t be able to use for a long time. I want to hide it in my handbag but it’s too late.

  “Thank you,” she says, putting the books on the locker. “You’re a good friend.”

  The untruth of her words makes me want to cry.

 
“Oh God, Cleo, I’m not a good friend – I bet you wish you’d never met me, and I don’t blame you. If I’d never rambled into the bathroom that night in Italy, none of this would have happened. Or if I’d never posted the photo in the first place.”

  She shakes her head. “You couldn’t have known. Hey, we could say that about anything in life – if only, what if – but sometimes stuff just happens.”

  “It’s odd to think back to that last night in Italy,” I say because I can’t agree with her. “I don’t think either of us imagined we’d see one another again.”

  “It all seems so long ago,” Cleo says, taking a sip of water, the glass awkward in her bandaged hand. “Your daughters were in the corner playing pool, right?”

  “Yes, and Snapchatting everything in sight, making it so easy for Grace to know exactly what I was doing at any given moment.” I shake my head because it’s what parents do, but I’m not cross at Rebecca any more. When I think of all the time she spent dealing with bullies at school while I put it down to her dad leaving, my stomach twists. Once we spoke to the school, they were swift in dealing with it, and we’re almost past it now. Things are not perfect, but they’re better.

  “What do they think of it now – have you told them the whole story, about me, and about Grace?”

  I nod. “I did actually. I didn’t plan to, but then I figured it’s easier to tell them everything than to gloss over parts and make up lies. I’m slowly realising that getting things out in the open is a good thing – contrary to what my mum might say.” I take a bottle of water out of my bag and open it. “Anyway, Rebecca was with me that evening, and she’s the one who worked out that Grace was VIN while I was trying to call you that night.”

  Cleo pushes a strand of hair behind her ear and I can see a red welt creeping out from under the bandage.

  “That was you calling – I remember wondering who it could be.”

  “Yeah. I tried a couple of times, and then I tried your work, and I got anxious. I still felt a bit silly about the whole thing, which is a thoroughly Irish response to everything by the way, but Rebecca suggested we should drive into town to put my mind at ease. And you know the rest, I imagine – when you didn’t answer the door, I went to the window, and I wasn’t certain it was Grace there but I knew there was something wrong. So I called 999, and then the fire started and –” my voice cracks, and I clear my throat. “When they pulled you through the window I thought you were . . . well, I thought you might not wake up.”

  “And here I am,” she says, raising her glass of water. “Thank you for being a warrior.”

  I raise my bottle and clink. “Maybe more worrier than warrior but the end result was the same.”

  “So if you only realised Grace was VIN on Saturday evening, what did you mean when you messaged earlier that day to say you knew who it was?”

  I tell her then about Jonathan killing his wife, and my assumption that he was VIN too. As I tell her, I’m conscious that even then I didn’t fully believe it was him, but it was the neatest answer, the one that made the problem go away. My mother would be proud.

  “And what about Grace now? I asked my mom, but she didn’t know what happened to her.”

  “They arrested her and kept her in custody – that’s all I’ve heard so far.” I search her face, looking for a resemblance to Grace. There’s something there, something around the eyes, but maybe I’m imagining it now that I know their history. “Do you plan to see her?”

  “No,” she shakes her head. “Her face is burned on my brain – I hope I never see it in real life again.”

  I can’t help but admire her for her certainty. In her place, I’d be agonising and wondering if I should meet my half-sister, but Cleo sees life more simply and is all the better for it, I suspect.

  “Will your mom stay over here for a bit? You know you can stay with me when you come out of hospital, right?”

  She shakes her head. “Thank you, but I’ll go back to my place. My mom is staying, and Ruth too – she walked out on her horrible boss and says she’s going to have a European adventure with me.” She looks down at her bandaged hands. “Although the adventure might involve a lot of TV in my apartment for the first while . . . But anyway, what about you – how’s the article going – will the journalist want to tell the whole story now?”

  “She doesn’t know the whole story,” Lauren says. “It’s an article about an anonymous troll, and that’s it. The rest of the story is yours and your mother’s, and not mine to tell.”

  Cleo nods. “And are you happy with it?”

  “Yep, it went live on their site yesterday, and it’s absolutely perfect. Reading it felt like taking some power back from trolls everywhere, not just Grace – it was liberating. Actually talking to Caroline all through it was therapeutic, but then I got so paranoid for a while I thought she was out to sabotage me too.”

  “Hey, it’s not surprising – the VIN messages would make anyone paranoid, and you were dealing with Jonathan’s behaviour too. Don’t be hard on yourself.”

  A nurse comes into the room and I stand to give him space. He tells Cleo he needs to check her legs and that she could do with some rest then, nodding towards me. I take the hint.

  Picking up my handbag, I tell Cleo I’ll be back tomorrow with more chocolate. As I’m about to walk out the door of her room, I remember the message she sent me on the Saturday evening about meeting up outside Metro, and turn back to ask her about it.

  “That was all Grace,” she says. “She messaged me, saying it was you on your daughter’s phone, and arranged to meet. The detective I spoke to yesterday told me Grace got my number from your cell-phone. You left it in your husband’s house that morning, when Grace was there cleaning? The last message you sent that morning was to me, and once she had my number, the rest was easy.”

  I clap my hand over my mouth. “Oh shit, Cleo, I’m so sorry. Jesus, I’m such an idiot.”

  Cleo shakes her head. “Oh come on, nobody is expected to think they can’t leave a cell-phone on a table without worrying someone will mine it for numbers. You couldn’t have known. You have to take people at face value or how could you live your life?”

  How indeed. Catching the nurse’s pointed look, I walk out the door, thinking about that for a moment. About this woman who doesn’t overthink and can move continent to live on her own in a strange country. About Ava and Rebecca, and the lessons I’m trying and failing to teach them – about independence and strength and being themselves. About Dave, and his increasingly frequent calls and his mournful, hopeful eyes. About the best way to gently but firmly put an end to those hopes. And finally, as I push through the hospital doors, I think of myself, and of being free, and of fresh starts and face value and for the first time in a long time, perhaps being myself.

  The End

  Acknowledgements

  To Paula Campbell, Gaye Shortland, and all of the incredible team at Poolbeg – thank you for your unfailing support and for putting up with my endless questions.

  Thank you to my early readers – my dad, John Fitzgerald, and my sisters Nicola Elaine, and Deirdre – you were all editors in your past lives, I’m sure of it, and I owe you a pink-champagne night for being such brilliant people.

  To my Irish friend in America, Lucy Hugo, and my American friend in Ireland, Alicia Harmon, who read One Click to make sure my US chapters are sufficiently full of sidewalks and sodas.

  Thank you to writer Tric Kearney, whose advice about the people on the chairs is never far from my mind; to Dr Naomi Lavelle – if you want a forensic proof-reader, ask a crime-reading scientist! - and to Cliona Smith, whose advice was spot on when (a bit like Lauren) I couldn’t see the wood for the trees.

  Thank you to psychotherapist Stella O’Malley who read the book to make sure Lauren is reasonably good at her job, and to psychologist Sinéad Benn who gave me a steer in the right direction way back when the idea was forming.

  Thanks to Louise Phillips for loaning me her Garda Dete
ctive contact, and to former Chief Fire Officer, Dublin Fire Brigade, Stephen Brady for his expertise and for generously giving his time to ensure accuracy.

  Thank you to Lisa Ryan for her Mac knowledge, Alan Smeaton of DCU for his advice on hacking, IP addresses, and social media, and to Professor Ted Kesik, University of Toronto, for key information on buildings.

  I’ve been fortunate in getting to know many fabulous people in the Irish writing and book-blogging community over the last year, and I’m not going to brave listing names for fear I forget someone, but I will mention Margaret Scott, who nudged me into writing in the first place, and whose support when The Other Side of the Wall came out was incredible.

  On the same note, huge thanks to my blogger buddies and IWI writing gang who read, shared, reviewed, and supported me all over social media, as did my amazing friends and extended family (including Edel who regularly turns my book to face outwards in bookshops across the midlands!)

  Thank you to the wonderful Office Mum readers, who signed up for a parenting blog but have indulged my sideways slip into fiction with consistently brilliant support since this adventure started.

  Thank you to my children Elissa, Nia, and Matthew, who are always inspiring – listening to ideas, suggesting plot turns, and being really quiet when I’m trying to work (one of these things is not true.) Elissa came up with the title for this book (true story) and Nia was the first person to hear the plot outline – her questions and excitement spurred me on to go with it. Matthew helped me with a pivotal plot roadblock, and I can’t mention it here because it’s a spoiler, but ask me when you see me and I’ll tell you.