by Mark Edwards
That was what Isabel had done until three years ago, leading yoga classes at community centres with the occasional private session. Yoga had been going through something of a boom in the suburbs and Isabel had made a decent living, but soon there was a glut of yoga teachers. For a long time Isabel had wanted to start her own business – a proper business, not just being a self-employed guru for hire – and Darpak had kept telling her she needed to find an angle. ‘Something like hot yoga,’ he’d said. ‘But not that.’
At the same time, mindfulness had become a big thing. Much of it could be boiled down to a simple core idea, that of living in the moment, focusing on what you were doing instead of constantly worrying about the million other tasks you needed to do, all the crap you had to worry about. Remembering to breathe. Isabel had taken a course in MBCT, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, and was trying to figure out if she should switch from teaching yoga to mindfulness when a client inadvertently gave her an idea.
This client, a wealthy woman who lived in a beautiful house between Beckenham and Bromley, had hired Isabel to visit her once a week to practise yoga. Then they’d moved on to MBCT, combining the two.
At the end of one session the woman had joked, ‘I need to do this when I’m having sex with my husband. Try to stop my mind wandering. You’ve sorted out my body and brain – do you think you could fix my sex life too?’
A light bulb had pinged in Isabel’s head. Later she’d stayed up half the night researching what else was out there. Tantric sex classes. Clitoral stimulation workshops. Yonic massage. As always, the Americans were way ahead in this area. But most of it looked intimidating, some of it pretty ‘woo-woo’. Isabel knew there were a lot of unhappy, unsatisfied people out there, and she was struck by a vision: a place where people could go to learn to improve their sex lives, a place aimed at couples, somewhere that wasn’t intimidating or sleazy or embarrassing.
‘And not aimed at hairy hippies?’ Darpak had asked when she told him her idea over a late breakfast. When they’d first got together, Isabel had found an ancient copy of The Joy of Sex on his bookcase. She had teased him about it at the time, asking him if he was into ‘hairy hippies’.
‘No,’ she had told him. ‘Ordinary people. People like you and me.’ She had smiled. ‘I’m going to need to learn lots of techniques. You can be my study buddy.’
‘What are you thinking?’ Jess asked now. ‘You look sad.’
‘Do I? I was just thinking about how well it’s all gone over the last couple of years. How dissatisfied I was before. It’s kind of crazy.’
The restaurant was within walking distance. They both knew these streets like they knew their own bodies. Walking past WHSmith, Isabel flashed back to their childhood, running into the shop to look for Stephen King books she hadn’t read, an obsession which their mum hated. ‘We’ve had enough horror in our lives,’ she said.
They passed a shop selling clothes and accessories for babies and toddlers and Jess turned her face from the window, as if it hurt to look inside at all the tiny dresses and comfort blankets. Isabel saw.
‘It will happen,’ Isabel said, touching her sister’s shoulder. ‘You need to be patient, that’s all.’
‘That’s what the doctor said.’
Jess and Will had both been examined. Will’s sperm count was fine. There didn’t appear to be any reason why pregnancy number two wouldn’t happen, but Isabel knew that made it even more frustrating for her sister.
‘How am I supposed to solve the problem if I don’t know what the problem is?’ Jess said.
They stopped a few metres from the restaurant. Mum, who was always early, would be waiting inside.
‘It will happen,’ Isabel repeated. ‘Come on, let’s try to have fun. It’s Mum’s birthday.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Jess forced a smile. ‘Is that better?’
‘Much.’
But Isabel had stopped paying attention. She had experienced a tingle on the back of her neck, the feeling she was being watched. She peered across the street. There was someone standing in the shadows between two shops. From the height and shape, Isabel was sure it was a man, but she couldn’t see his face. She took a step closer, but then a bus went past, slowing to block her view. When it pulled away, the man was gone.
Chapter 7
‘Jess, come and look at this.’
Olivia was playing with the collection of toys her grandmother kept in her living room, toys that had been around since Jessica and Izzy were kids. There were a couple of Barbies, an assortment of stacking bricks, an old skipping rope, some plastic trolls and a Fisher-Price medical kit complete with stethoscope, thermometer and a reflex hammer. There was a Girl’s World styling head too, like a giant decapitated doll, which still bore marks from where Jessica and Izzy had applied make-up to its unblinking face all those years ago. She was called Marnie, and her hair had been plaited and backcombed and coloured so many times that she now looked like an ageing punk with a serious case of bedhead.
Jessica stood in the doorway next to Mum, who nodded at Olivia. Just over a week had passed since the incident on the balcony and everything had gone back to normal. Olivia seemed happy and there hadn’t been any more complaints of bad behaviour from her teachers. Jessica had allowed herself to relax – and now here they were at Mum’s house, having popped round after school.
Olivia was kneeling on the floor in the living room, in one of those positions that make adults yearn for the flexibility of their youth, performing a medical check-up on Marnie. First, she stuck a thermometer between Marnie’s closed lips.
‘Hmm,’ Olivia said. ‘You have a little bit of fever, Marnie.’
Next, she stuck the plastic otoscope in Marnie’s ear and said, ‘Yuck. Earwax.’
Mum nudged Jessica. ‘It’s like looking into the past,’ she whispered. ‘You and Izzy used to fight over who was going to be the doctor and who was the nurse.’
‘She was always the doctor.’
Olivia had now put the stethoscope in her ears and was listening to Marnie’s invisible chest.
‘Oh. No heartbeat. Looks like that fever killed you dead.’
Mum laughed softly, but Jessica wasn’t smiling.
‘We’d better have a funeral,’ Olivia said, lifting Marnie and carrying her over to the sofa. She laid the doll’s head on a cushion and stroked its matted hair then kissed its forehead. ‘Sleep tight.’
She pulled the throw off the back of the sofa and covered Marnie with it. Olivia was in her own world, unaware they were watching. She stood back from the sofa and bowed her head, crossing her hands across her chest.
Mum was about to enter the room but Jessica stopped her. She needed to see what would happen next. She could tell from Mum’s expression that she too was gazing into the past, transported back to the eighties. Izzy used to do this. She was always holding mock funerals for her toys, including Barbie, who kept perishing in unfortunate ways: drowning in the bath, falling off bunk beds, being murdered by Ken. A blast of nostalgia almost knocked Jessica off her feet. She could smell the house where they grew up, the ever-present scent of Pledge. She could taste the Jammie Dodgers they used to raid from the kitchen cupboard.
And she could feel the chill that always hung in the air in that house.
Olivia still had her head bowed. She closed her eyes and began to sing. Her four-year-old voice was sweet but out of tune. She hissed between lines and the melody strayed all over the place.
But, Jessica realised with shock, she recognised the song. She knew the lines about the sun being gone, but being happy. It was ‘Dumb’, a song by Nirvana. An album track. She hadn’t been able to listen to Nirvana since Izzy died, and hadn’t heard this song since they were kids, but the words and melody came rushing back, transporting her to their childhood bedroom. There had been posters of Kurt Cobain all over the walls, and the two sisters had jumped around and played air guitar to the faster tracks as Kurt looked down approvingly. When Izzy was fourteen and Jessica eleve
n, Jessica had come home one day to find her sister wailing. ‘He’s dead! Kurt’s dead!’
Jessica couldn’t hold back any longer. She half-ran into the room and crouched beside her daughter. ‘Where did you hear that song?’
Olivia blinked at her like she’d been woken from a dream. ‘What song?’
‘The one you were singing.’ Jessica sang a couple of lines from it, all the lyrics coming back to her.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Come on, Olivia, tell me. Where did you hear it?’
Mum was beside them now. ‘Jess, stop it. You’re upsetting her.’
But Jessica needed to know. She took hold of her daughter’s arms, just firmly enough to hold her in place. ‘Olivia. How do you know that song?’
‘Leave me alone!’ Olivia screamed. She wrenched herself out of Jessica’s grip and threw herself to the floor, sobbing.
‘Now look what you’ve done.’ Mum lowered herself to the carpet and took the little girl in her arms while Jessica remained frozen to the spot, staring at her daughter, wondering what the hell had just happened.
Jessica sat at the little table in the kitchen with Mum’s ‘gentleman friend’, Pete. Olivia was with her grandmother in the living room, watching Peppa Pig. She was fine now, the upset forgotten, tears long dried, but Jessica felt hot with shame for the way she had shouted. Hot, but cold too, a trickle of ice in her belly.
‘I simply don’t understand where she could have heard that song,’ she said.
‘What was it again?’ Pete asked. He had made them both a cup of tea but Jessica had hardly touched hers. Pete was smartly dressed as ever, in a white shirt and grey trousers, and his bald head gleamed beneath the fluorescent strip light.
‘An old Nirvana song, “Dumb”.’
‘Never heard of it.’
‘I’m sure Olivia hasn’t heard of it either. Hasn’t heard it, full stop.’
He wrinkled his nose. ‘Nirvana, eh? One of those grungy bands, weren’t they? Wasn’t he a drug addict? Pretty sad, if you ask me . . .’
Jessica, who was accustomed to Pete’s rants – which always ended with the phrase ‘I suppose I’m just stuck in my ways’ – tuned out. Pete was fine as long as you didn’t get him talking about gay marriage, Brexit, the cost of parking, ‘spoiled’ children, national service, Muslims, vegetarians, Jeremy Corbyn, women drivers, feminism, tax dodgers or immigration.
Mum came into the kitchen and Jessica looked up at her. ‘Are Izzy’s old Nirvana CDs still here?’
‘No. She took them with her when she left. I’ve still got all my old records, though. We were listening to them last night, weren’t we, Pete?’
He nodded. ‘Johnny Mathis. Lovely voice. Shame he was a—’
Jessica spoke over him. ‘So you haven’t been playing Nirvana here?’
‘That awful racket? Of course not.’
‘Then how does she know that song?’
Mum shrugged. ‘Maybe she learned it at school?’
‘That seems highly unlikely.’
‘Or she heard it on the radio?’
‘Olivia never listens to the radio unless she’s in the car with me and Will, and they never play album tracks like that. Besides, she knew all the words. It’s like she’s heard it loads of times.’
‘Perhaps Will has been playing it at home?’ Pete suggested.
Again, that seemed very unlikely. ‘Will hates Nirvana. He’s always going on about how great it was when Suede came along and kick-started Britpop.’
‘I have no idea what you just said, but I’ll take your word for it,’ said Mum.
‘I expect she heard it on TV or on that video site you let her look at,’ said Pete.
‘YouTube. I guess that’s the most likely explanation. Maybe it was background music on some video she was watching.’ She hoped not; the lyrics weren’t exactly appropriate for the kind of videos Olivia enjoyed, which were mostly of other children opening surprise eggs or playing with toys.
Mum looked towards the door before turning back to Jessica. ‘Or . . .’
‘What?’ Jessica asked, not wanting to hear the answer.
‘It’s nothing. Just me being silly.’
But Pete’s interest was piqued. ‘What is it, Mo?’
Mum sat down. Jessica knew exactly what her mother was going to say. She wanted to stop her, to block the idea from entering the room. She didn’t want anyone to give it breath. But the memory of how she’d acted with Olivia, shouting at the poor thing, on the verge of shaking her, made her hold back.
‘I told you about Larry, didn’t I?’ Mum said.
Pete’s eyes widened.
‘He used to do that. He used to teach Izzy old songs.’
Jessica couldn’t keep quiet any longer. ‘Mum, stop it. This is not Larry. This is not anything like that. Olivia must have learned that song somewhere else, probably YouTube. And whatever you do, I don’t want you to talk to her about Larry. I don’t want you filling her head with all that. She’s too young.’
She snatched up her bag. Once again she had lost her temper, but there was nothing she could do about it.
‘Olivia,’ she called. ‘We’re going.’
Mum stayed in the kitchen and Pete came to the front door to wave them goodbye.
‘I wish you girls wouldn’t argue,’ he said.
Jessica wanted to point out that they weren’t girls, but bit her tongue. ‘Bye, Pete.’
‘Bye, love. See you soon, Livvy.’ He waggled his fingers at her.
Olivia, who was holding Jessica’s hand, looked up at Pete. ‘Get well soon,’ she said.
Confusion deepened the lines on his brow. ‘But I’m not sick, Livvy.’
‘Not yet,’ she said, breaking away from Jessica and skipping away down the path.
As Jessica pulled away from Mum’s apartment, Olivia strapped into her booster seat in the back, the red mist was still clouding her vision. She’d lived with the story of Larry for so long that it felt like exactly that: a story. But once upon a time she had believed wholeheartedly in Larry’s existence. She had been terrified by what had happened when they were children.
Now she was an adult, she knew there had to be a rational explanation for Larry, just as there had to be one for Olivia’s knowledge of the Nirvana song and all the other weird stuff she’d done and said recently. Jessica was angry with her mum for mentioning Larry, but she was angry with herself too for not being able to explain any of it.
The streets were dark and quiet, not much traffic on the roads. She didn’t feel ready to go home yet, even though it was approaching Olivia’s bedtime and Will and Felix, who had been at football practice again, would be wondering where she was. She decided to drive around for a while, heading up Beckenham Road and carrying on towards Crystal Palace Park.
‘Mummy, where are we going?’
‘Just for a little drive, sweetheart.’ She paused. ‘Livvy, you know that song you were singing earlier? Can you tell me where you learned it?’
‘I don’t know. I just singed it.’
Olivia hadn’t quite got to grips with irregular past tense verbs yet.
‘Are you sure?’
‘I don’t know!’
Jessica knew the harder she tried to prise the answer out of Olivia, the more she would clam up.
She drove anti-clockwise around the perimeter of the park, the shadowy outlines of trees to her left. The famous dinosaurs, which Olivia loved, though not as much as Felix used to love them, were close by. She planned to drive around the park three times before turning back.
On her second turn around the park, she noticed a car behind her. It was hanging back, keeping a distance of around three car lengths, but she was sure this vehicle had been behind her on her first circuit. She carried on, completing another circuit, expecting the car behind to turn at the lights. But it stayed on her tail.
She was being followed.
She squinted into the rear-view mirror, but it was too dark and the other car was
too far back for her to make out the licence plate. The poor light made it difficult to discern the car’s colour but it was either blue or dark grey, she thought. And the badge on the car’s nose was visible too: an H with a sloping horizontal line. Was that Hyundai or Honda? She couldn’t remember. She also wasn’t sure why she was worrying so much. It was probably someone else like her, driving around the park trying to clear their head. Or young lads who thought it was funny to tail her and try to freak her out.
‘You okay, sweetheart?’ she asked Olivia, wanting to hear her daughter’s voice.
‘I’m thirsty.’
‘It’s okay. We’re going home in a minute.’
Olivia appeared to be thinking of something. ‘I want to get out.’
‘You just need to wait a little while.’
‘No. Now.’
Jessica heard a click and the warning signal on the dashboard beeped.
‘Olivia!’ She had unfastened her seat belt.
Jessica had no choice but to pull over. Fortunately the kerb to her left was clear. She undid her own seat belt and turned around, reaching to pull Olivia’s belt back over her. Olivia grinned at her as if what she had done was hilarious. Jessica bit her tongue, refusing to lose her temper again. She visualised something calming – a condensation-streaked glass of wine, waiting for her at home – while she grappled with the seat belt. It wouldn’t click into place.
‘Goddammit,’ she muttered, trying to hold on to the image of that glass of wine. Finally the belt clicked into place. ‘Olivia,’ she said. ‘You mustn’t undo your seat belt. It’s very—’
She stopped.
The car that had been following them had pulled up ten metres behind them. She could see a single figure through the windscreen, a silhouette obscured by distance. She could feel their eyes on her.
As Jessica stared through the rear window, they turned on their full beams. The sudden bright light dazzled her, forcing her to throw her arm over her face. When she removed it, yellow spots danced in her vision, and as she watched, the car swung out into a gap in the traffic, reversed then sped off, heading back in the direction they’d come.
