Before I Let You In

by Jenny Blackhurst

  ‘Well if you honestly believe that, then you don’t know Karen as well as you think you do,’ Bea declared. ‘But I don’t mean I’m worried about her relationship status, or whether you’re going to break her heart. I’m worried about her … well …’ Suddenly she was unsure she’d done the right thing going there. But she was there now, so she had better get on and say what she’d planned. ‘Her mental health.’

  She’d expected Michael to scoff, to remind her that Karen was the mental health professional and she was an HR assistant, not the other way round. But he didn’t. To her surprise, he nodded.

  ‘Me too. You know what’s going on with her?’

  Bea sighed. ‘I’m not entirely sure, no, but I think it has to do with this patient she has. She’s convinced herself, and tried to convince me, that this girl is having an affair with Eleanor’s husband.’

  ‘She told you about that?’

  ‘That’s what surprised me at first. Karen has never spoken about her patients to me. She’s the ultimate professional. When she confided in me about this girl, I knew she must have a good reason to think we had a problem.’

  ‘Did she tell you her name?’

  ‘No. She wouldn’t cross that line unless she had proof there was some kind of danger. The thing is, it all just sounds so …’ She stopped, searching for a word that wouldn’t antagonise Michael. But she didn’t have to; Michael said it for her.

  ‘Crazy. It sounds crazy. That this girl is sleeping with Adam and taunting Karen with the knowledge. I know.’

  ‘It’s not impossible, I suppose, but why? My guess is that Karen has sensed there’s something wrong in Eleanor and Adam’s relationship and is trying to save them, just like she always does when one of us is in trouble. She’s using this girl, projecting the issue on to her.’

  Michael looked as though he was trying not to laugh at her attempt at psychiatry.

  ‘So tell me something else,’ he asked. ‘Why does Karen have this God complex in the first place?’

  Bea reached down to her handbag and opened it. She pulled out some A4 pages and passed them to Michael, who studied them, a frown crossing his face.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘It’s newspaper articles. From thirty years ago. Karen’s mother gave them to me.’

  ‘You went to see Karen’s mum?’

  Bea nodded. ‘I went about the birthday party Eleanor and I were arranging for her. To be honest, I’m not even sure it will be going ahead, but I’d arranged to see her mum to get family phone numbers, so I thought I’d go in case El cools down and it all still happens.’

  ‘I didn’t think Karen spoke to her mum. Some kind of family feud over her dad.’

  ‘She doesn’t, only Karen never told us that, or anything about a feud. She hasn’t seen her mum in about six years. And only once a year or so before that. Before her dad died she went quite frequently but when he wasn’t there any more it got less and less, then not at all. She speaks to her on the phone every now and then, but most of the time it ends in an argument.’

  ‘Because of this?’ He gestured to the article. ‘Because her mum thinks she let her sister die? But that happened thirty years ago, not six.’

  Another nod. ‘Nettie, that’s Karen’s mum, said she tried and tried to get over what had happened, but Karen wouldn’t forgive her for being a terrible mother. It became unbearable for them all. Karen moved out when she went to university and never went back. She never told us any of it. Isn’t that weird? I mean, we knew her mum wasn’t like ours, she didn’t have friends over for tea or whatever, but everyone was always at mine anyway. Our house was like a gathering point for everyone on our street, so it didn’t seem that strange.’

  ‘And you’re sure this is our Karen in this article? Karen is the kid who caused her sister’s death?’

  ‘Of course not, her mother caused it. Karen was barely four years old! But I’m sure she blamed herself.’

  Michael let out a breath and read the article again. ‘No wonder she feels so strongly about being the protector of the group. She still carries the guilt of what happened when she was four years old. Poor thing.’

  ‘Nettie said she’d only left them alone for a few minutes, but it must have been longer. Karen had been playing with her sister, and she’d always been so good with her, her mum said; I think she forgot she was barely more than a baby herself. I suspect Nettie had post-natal depression, although that’s not an excuse for the way she treated Karen. She blamed her for what happened to the baby. She told me she tried not to, but she couldn’t help it: every time she looked at Karen’s face she saw her baby sister. She started drinking, heavily. She wasn’t there for Karen when she needed her, she couldn’t function enough to be a proper mother.’

  ‘And where was her father in all this?’

  ‘He was away a lot with work. Back then the mothers practically brought up the children on their own, remember? After the accident he couldn’t bear to be at home – he probably blamed himself for not being there, so he stayed away more and more, became the useless father he thought he was anyway.’

  ‘So they were on their own, just the two of them.’

  ‘Yes. Both blaming themselves, and blaming each other at the same time. It must have been horrific.’

  ‘Poor Karen. But what does this have to do with what’s going on now?’

  ‘I don’t know. All I know is that this is why she feels like she has to spend her life looking after people. Fixing them. She’s making amends for what happened to her sister.’

  61

  I’d spent a whole evening signing up to some of the dating websites I’d found online – okay, not so much dating as glorified Tinder sites. Some of the things these guys opened their conversations with … well, put it this way, I could see why they were looking on the internet for their kicks. Within minutes of putting a random photograph from Google on to a profile and filling in a few sparse details, I had three messages from blokes looking for hook-ups. I scanned a few of their profiles, but none of them were quite right. I’d read about this woman online – a catfish, the article called her. This woman hadn’t been fishing for herself; she had managed to set up a relationship between a model and a famous American basketball player, acting as a go-between so that each person thought they were talking to the other when in reality they were talking to her. A tricky undertaking, but she had proved it could be done, and in doing so had given me an idea.

  I had to find the exact right person for this to work. And even then it might not. On the internet you could be whoever you wanted to be, so it was amazing that so many people chose to be complete idiots.

  It took nearly a week and over seventy messages to find the right guy. He’d started off his message extremely charming, but his profile made it clear what he was looking for.

  I find it hard to believe that someone as beautiful as you has to look online for a date, he sent. I waited a while before replying.

  I’m so sorry, but this is a really old profile. I only reactivated it so a friend could take a look at how many normal guys are out there looking for fun.

  Shame. You and I could have had fun. Did your friend find anything she liked?

  Maybe she has now ;-)

  The messages continued in that way for a while, harmless flirting as I explained about my friend Bea and how she was out for a good time, no strings attached. I told him in a roundabout way just how up for it she was, and how she always gave the men in her life a night to remember. How she didn’t have time for a real relationship but how I didn’t think that should mean she missed out on the benefits. The guy, who told me his name was David, was clearly interested regardless of which woman he was being offered, and when I sent him a photo of Bea stolen from her Facebook page, it had pretty much sealed the deal.

  I’d also sent him a phone number, and he texted that night: Hey, my name’s David. Your friend gave me your number – I hope you don’t mind?

  I sent an edited version of the messag
e to Bea. Bea responded, and before long I was communicating with the pair of them, keeping the messages as true to the originals as possible, though making the ones to David flirtier and more suggestive, and the ones to Bea wittier and closer to what I was sure her version of the ideal man would be. This was easier than I’d imagined when I’d first come up with the idea; it might just work.

  When David’s text messages started to take on a more ominous sexual edge, I very nearly put an end to the whole thing. I had to remind myself more than once why I was doing all this, and once I’d pushed it to the back of my mind, I barely remembered my brief guilty conscience.

  After only a few days it became exhausting. Playing piggy-in-the-middle between the two of them, making sure neither one suspected they weren’t talking directly to the other, took up time I didn’t have.

  Now the phone bleeped again and I shoved it under one of the sofa cushions without glancing at it. All I felt was irritation. My legs were restless but I didn’t have the energy to go anywhere or see anyone. I knew the feeling would pass, but it had been happening more and more recently, the feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach without even knowing what I was dreading, the weight of my body almost impossible to move. There were so many things I needed to do, so much of my plan still to put in place, but I was exhausted. If only I could rest, just for one day. Forget everything that was going on, go back to trying to live my normal life.

  I closed my eyes and imagined a huge white duvet, thick, soft and bouncy, pulled up high around my shoulders with only my face peering out from beneath. I could almost feel the warmth seeping over me. A lie-down wouldn’t kill me. Just until I felt better. Just until I could open my eyes again. It was all so exhausting.

  62

  Bea

  Bea resisted the urge to glance in the mirror for the fifteenth time before leaving the flat, double-checking the door was locked behind her. Considering she hadn’t even wanted to be set up when Karen had first mentioned it, she’d spent a ridiculous amount of time getting ready. Trying to choose the right outfit had been a real ball ache: not too much on show (don’t want to give the wrong impression) but enough to impress. She’d settled on a dark red fitted dress with a relatively high neck and a silk scarf. No cleavage, but form-fitting enough to make her hours in the gym worth it. Hopefully David from IT would be worth it too. The only thing dampening her excitement now was that she couldn’t talk to Karen about it, pump her for information the way she would have done before. Damn Eleanor and her principles. After tonight she was going to contact Karen herself, try to play mediator and work out some way of making this Michael situation okay.

  She’d been exchanging text messages with this guy for just over a week now and was surprised at how funny and charming he seemed. Karen wasn’t known for setting her up with the most charismatic of guys; she seemed to think Bea would do better staying away from the charming, good-looking types. But she was more than ready to be proved wrong with this one, and she’d made a real effort just in case. After everything that had happened over the last few weeks, she felt like it might finally be time to give a guy a real chance. Why should she be content to watch everyone around her settle down happily while she punished herself for something that had happened so many years ago? It was time to stop being afraid.

  She had done everything by the Just In Case He’s A Psychopath Handbook For Girls. They had arranged to meet at a bar in town, a busy place where Bea would be safe and surrounded by people. She’d set up a signal with Eleanor: she would one-bell her if she needed her to call with a fake emergency, although she was pretty sure he would see straight through that one. Not that she was bothered about hurting his feelings. If she disliked him enough to invoke an emergency call, then she wasn’t going to be too worried about seeing him again. She cringed when she imagined the lecture she was in for from Karen if this blind date ended the same way as the last one – with her popping to the toilet and leaving through the smoking exit, jumping straight in a taxi to Karen’s to cordially request she stay out of her love life. Then she remembered the scene in the café, the wounded look on her friend’s face as Eleanor had launched into her vicious tirade and Bea had said nothing to defend her. There wouldn’t be any lecture this time – Karen might never speak to her again.

  The taxi was late and she fired off a text to David to tell him it wasn’t that she’d seen him and left without introducing herself. Her phone beeped its reply.

  LOL! Thank God for that, I was beginning to regret wearing my Freddy Krueger outfit as a laugh.

  Bea smiled. It was possible that tonight wasn’t going to be all that bad after all.

  ‘You look great, and not like Freddy Krueger at all.’ Bea had to raise her voice over the bar’s music and lean in close for David to hear her. She hoped she still smelled as good as when she’d left the house.

  He couldn’t have heard her properly, because his eyes narrowed slightly in confusion, but he smiled in that way people do when they know it’s expected of them. They had chosen the worst first date spot ever; Bea had been so concerned with being safe that she hadn’t thought about simple things like being able to hear one another. Not to mention that she was starving – she’d been so nervous about choosing what to wear that she’d forgotten to eat, and now she couldn’t risk bar snacks with her skin-tight dress. Her stomach gurgled unattractively; maybe it was a good job the music was loud.

  ‘Look, do you wanna go for a walk? It’s really loud in here.’

  Bea hesitated. She’d promised Eleanor she would stay at the bar for her own safety, but this guy was Karen’s friend. Plenty of people knew who she was with, and it was unlikely he was going to abduct and kill her then return to work with Karen tomorrow. And Bea often walked home from the clubs around here gone midnight, even though she knew she shouldn’t, and nothing had ever happened to her. She knew how to handle herself.

  ‘Sure, yeah.’

  The evening air was milder than when she’d left the house, or maybe the alcohol had taken the chill off the evening, which was lucky because she’d left her coat behind. David nodded towards the river – it was opposite the pubs and clubs, across a busy main road, but hardly off the beaten track. Plenty of people walked along the path and it wasn’t even nine o’clock.

  ‘Sorry about that place,’ she apologised. ‘Nightmare trying to have a conversation.’ She paused and then added wistfully, ‘Food’s good, though.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ He shook his head impatiently and reached out to touch her elbow. ‘Look, I booked us a room at the Bellstone. Why don’t we just go straight there?’

  At first his words didn’t completely register. She assumed he meant a booth, like the ones you could book at a couple of the nightclubs that thought they were classy because they had VIP areas. It didn’t seem to make much difference to the people of Shrewsbury that the VIP areas were just a corner with some rope around that absolutely anyone could put their name down for for a tenner deposit. Although the Bellstone didn’t have a VIP area, or even booths. It was one of those places that was classier because it didn’t pretend it was a celebrity hangout. With sickening clarity it dawned on her what he actually meant. What the Bellstone did have was rooms upstairs.

  ‘I’m sorry, you mean for a drink, right? At the bar.’

  He smiled and shrugged. ‘I’m sure they do room service.’

  Bea felt the heat rise in her cheeks. Sure she’d dressed up, but she still didn’t think she looked like the type of person who would send someone a few text messages and go straight to bed with them. Was that the impression she’d given him? She couldn’t think of anything witty or clever to say to defuse the awkwardness; her mind was too busy running through the texts, looking for where she might have given him the impression she was just meeting him for sex.

  ‘Um, David, I’m sorry if I let you think that I was just here for … well, that a room would be necessary …’

  ‘Oh God, no.’ He had the good grace to look embarrassed.
‘I’m not saying we have to jump straight into bed. We can have a drink downstairs in the bar first; it’s much quieter than the place we were just in. But it makes sense to be closer to the hotel, right? Are you okay? Did I say something wrong?’

  ‘I just, I don’t … I don’t feel comfortable with the assumption that we’re going to have sex on our first date.’ She stepped away from him in the hope that physical distance would make her point. This can be salvaged. If he just apologises, we can laugh about it and maybe get some food. It’ll be a running joke: ‘Remember that time you tried to get me into bed ten minutes after meeting me?’

  ‘Well come on. I mean, I came all this way …’

  ‘What, and that means I owe you a shag?’ Bea could hear her voice getting louder, but she wasn’t aware of raising it. ‘Because you paid for a train ticket?’

  ‘There’s no point in getting mardy now,’ he hissed. ‘Karen told me what you’re like.’

  ‘Oh yes? And what exactly did Karen say?’ There was a lump forming in her chest, and her cheeks were burning. She couldn’t imagine Karen telling this man anything terrible about her, but suddenly she was afraid to hear what he was about to say. It was as though the person she had been speaking to for the last week had disappeared completely, replaced by a complete stranger. He leaned in closer than was comfortable, and for the first time her embarrassment gave way to panic.

  ‘She said you were up for a good time. I know what she meant.’

  Bea drew in a sharp breath. Had she really said that? Was that what Karen thought about her? Well isn’t that what you wanted her to think? Because you’d rather she thought you a slag than frigid and terrified. And that was the only reason he was here, not because they’d had a connection, or clicked, but because her best friend had told him she was an easy lay.

  Hot tears stung at the corner of her eyes. They’d always joked about her single life, and yes, she did exaggerate her sexual appetite to her friends, but she’d never realised she’d caused Karen to have such a low opinion of her. In reality, there had been so few men in her life since university she could name them on one hand. Part of her was hurt, shocked, disappointed. The other part was furious.