by Frances Vick
For what seemed like a long time, Freddie burned and froze, reeled and wilted, and Jenny was there through it all. She sat on a kitchen chair next to his bed, reading. He could see her quiet, delicate profile, her mass of hair, her long slim fingers. She was beautiful. He said so, too, or tried to, but she hushed him, laid one cool palm on his cheek.
‘You feel a bit better. Up. Up. Take this.’ And he gratefully swallowed cool water. The room was dim, quiet.
‘I love you, Jen,’ he whispered.
Her face, unsmiling, hazy, hovered above his. ‘I know.’
Later he heard her on the phone. She was saying: ‘David, listen—’ She was pacing the small living room. ‘No, just listen, will you?’ Freddie half raised his head. He wanted to tell her that she didn’t need David’s permission to do anything, that he wasn’t the boss of her. ‘No. No! It’s more complicated than that…’ she was saying.
Freddie fell asleep before he found out what was more complicated.
30
Freddie’s fever finally broke, and he woke, crushed and stiff on his sweaty bed. He reached for his phone. Midnight, but what day was it? How long had he been ill? Painfully, he inched up the bed and propped his head up against the mashed-down, still damp pillows. Looking at his phone made him feel more connected, more conscious. Two texts: one from the Canadian – did he need anything from the pharmacy? He’d be staying at his girlfriend’s. Another from a blocked number. Freddie blinked slowly and opened it.
When can you meet? Ryan
Freddie closed his eyes. The memory of ‘Precious Memories!’ swilled back in a scummy tide. The knife. The hat. The animal’s teeth. He swung his legs over the side of the bed. The world swam up to greet him. After a long minute he was able to totter into the darkened living room, towards the kitchen.
Jenny shifted and woke on the sofa as he wandered back with a glass of orange juice.
‘Fred? What time is it?’
‘Midnight.’ His voice was hoarse. ‘How long have I been in bed?’
‘Since the night before last.’ She sat up, yawned, put the heel of one hand to her eye and rubbed hard. ‘I was going to give it till this morning and then take you to the hospital.’
Freddie sat heavily next to her. He could smell the hours of sweat and sickness on his skin. She put a hand on his forehead.
‘You feel better. Thank God!’
‘How come you’re here?’ Freddie managed.
‘Tyler called me.’
‘I’m surprised David let you come.’
‘Oh Fred, don’t do this—’
‘You said you were going to call me to explain things, and you didn’t. I didn’t know if you were OK… or… or…’
‘I wasn’t able to call. It… I just couldn’t. But I’m here now, Fred. Fred, don’t be like this.’
‘I’m not being like anything,’ he muttered truculently.
‘Take a shower, OK? Then we’ll talk.’
When he emerged wrapped in towels, she was still sitting primly, neatly, on the sofa, looking into the half distance. Her silenced phone lay on the floor, lit up, vibrating.
‘You’re not going to answer that?’
‘No.’ She looked at the screen. They watched as ‘David’ flashed on and off, on and off and, when the screen dimmed, she turned it over. The face-down phone vibrated again.
‘He’s not giving up, is he?’ Freddie commented. He sat down heavily. Even though the fever had receded, his head still pounded with pain.
‘He’s worried.’ The fake nails had gone. She was worrying at the gnawed edge of her thumb. Bite, look, bite, look. ‘He’s… he gets very worried about me.’
‘Where did you tell him you were?’
‘I said Andreena was sick and her kids needed looking after. He doesn’t have her number or address, so he can’t check. I’m meant to text every hour, but I must’ve missed it. That’s why he’s calling all the time,’ Jenny said softly, her hands twisting together in her lap.
‘You’re “meant to text every hour”?’
‘He—’
‘He’s a psycho, Jen,’ Freddie said flatly. He was exhausted, in pain, and didn’t have the energy to be subtle. ‘He’s nuts. He’s dangerous, and you can’t go back to him.’
She looked at him. One tear plopped on to her folded hands ‘Don’t be horrible, Fred, please. It was hard to come here, but I did come. You don’t understand how hard it was to leave. He’s just been getting more and more… agitated. And he – OK, he’s jealous, I can see that now. And maybe he has a problem with jealousy. But, I can’t abandon him because he has a problem, can I? I mean—’
Freddie let all the air out of his lungs in one exhausted breath. ‘Jesus Christ.’
‘If I can help him through this, then I have to, don’t I? I mean…’
And Freddie, so incredibly tired, reached for his own phone. Knowing that what he had to do next would exhaust him even further. ‘I’ve found some things out. I’ve got some things to show you. Once you see them, I guarantee you that you’ll never be going back.’
‘But—’
‘Shhhh. Take a look at this.’
Half an hour later, they were still sitting on the sofa, the phone between them. Freddie had shown her everything.
Jen was scrolling back and forth, studying the pictures again. She put one trembling finger on her bald baby face ‘That’s me. It’s one of the ones we never got back from Marc after we left him. I don’t—’
‘What about these train tickets? Does the date mean anything to you?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what any of this means,’ she answered tonelessly.
‘And there’s other things that I can’t really figure out what they mean either, like, these plane times? They’re from the date Sal died?’ He showed her the hat and the knife. ‘He had these buried in the garden. He really really didn’t want anyone to find them.’
Jenny was very still. ‘Why does he have these?’
‘Babe, why does he have any of this stuff? That’s Marc’s hat, right? And the knife?’
‘It’s his hat, yes. The knife… no… I haven’t seen that before.’ But she seemed uncertain.
‘Jenny? The knife? Have you seen that before?’
‘No.’ She sounded more definite now. ‘Marc carried knives though. It must have been his.’
‘The only thing I found that doesn’t seem to fit is this.’ He found the photo of the chiffon scarf. ‘It must be important to David, but I really can’t figure out how. It’s not yours, is it?’
When she saw the scarf, her body jerked forward, her hand reached for the phone, plucking it from his fingers. She enlarged the photo with shaking fingers until the muddy stain at the centre separated into pixels, maybe not mud, though, maybe blood.
‘Jen? Have you seen it before?’
She put the phone down, shook her head. ‘No. No. I thought I had, but I haven’t.’
‘Maybe it’s Catherine’s?’
‘Maybe.’
‘But why would he keep it? I really think everything I’ve found is about you. Your photos, your handwriting. I think David’s obsessed with you, Jen. I think he’s been following you for god knows how long. I mean he has things from years ago – like your baby photo – right up to just before you met him, and he shouldn’t have any of it. The scarf though… it doesn’t fit. You’re sure it’s not yours?’ On the floor, Jenny’s phone once again brightened, vibrated. They watched it until it stopped.
‘I’ve never seen it before,’ Jenny said then.
‘If he’s been following you, what if he’s been monitoring your phone calls, emails, everything?’
The phone rang again. They looked at each other with serious eyes. Hesitantly she reached for it.
‘What’re you doing?’ Hissed Freddie
‘I have to answer. If I don’t answer he’ll get more suspicious. And what if he comes round here? I have to Fred.’ She pressed answer ‘Hi! Sorry, what time is it?’ Her voice
was just the right side of sleep-befuddled. She was a good actor when she needed to be. Within David’s indistinct mutter – words quickly muddying together – Freddie heard his own name, and Jenny was calm, mollifying, credibly tired. ‘No, Not yet. Mmmmm. No, maybe eight? I’ll call. I know. I know all that, really.’ Her voice was emollient. ‘I don’t want you to worry. You don’t have to worry, OK?’
When she ended the call her composure began to fracture. She said in a shaky voice: ‘OK, he’s all right. He still thinks I’m at Dree’s, but I have to go back tomorrow—’
‘What? You’re not going back!’ Freddie shrieked. His head hurt. ‘You’re not going back!’
‘I’ve got to. Think about it, Fred. I’m the only person who can talk to him, make him see some sense.’
‘No. Not true.’ Freddie shook his aching head ‘I’ve been reading a lot about abusive relationships, and everyone says that you should never go back! It’s not your job to help him, you can’t—’
‘There’s… more to this though. It’s more complicated than that. There’s some things I haven’t told you—’
‘What things? That he’s damaged? That only you can help him? That’s what men like this do! They make you feel needed, and… and beholden to them. I knew it was weird that he just showed up at exactly the right time to give you that alibi,’ Freddie interrupted.
‘What do you mean by that?’ Jenny stared at him.
‘I mean it was as if he waited until you were at your most vulnerable, and then swooped in to save the day.’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Her lips shook, having trouble meeting to cover her teeth. ‘You mean… Mum? He… knows something about that night?’
‘I don’t know.’ Adrenaline and the remnants of fever had swamped his fatigue, but now he felt dizzy again. Weak. ‘Maybe it’s her scarf? Maybe…’ Sick exhaustion stopped him then. Sweat blistered his forehead, and when he closed his eyes a sickening vagueness rushed into his head. ‘I don’t feel well,’ he said to himself.
‘Go back to bed,’ Jenny told him, sitting as still as a doll while he panted for breath. ‘Go back to bed, now.’ She walked to the kitchen.
‘You have to… we have to do something though, Jen!’ he called. ‘Please?’
She returned and held out two pills with a glass of water.
‘What are these?’ He blinked at her, dizzy.
‘Paracetamol,’ she replied. ‘Take them,’ she commanded, watched him swallow them with difficulty, and went back to the kitchen to get him another glass of water. ‘I need you healthy if you’re going to help me,’ she told him from the doorway.
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m not sure.’ She sat down on the floor.
Freddie pressed the cool glass against one pink cheek. ‘Ryan said David was the sanest person he’d ever met. I think it’s fair to say that Ryan isn’t the best judge of character.’
‘Ryan? Ryan Needham?’ She leaned forward. ‘You’ve spoken to him?’
‘No. On Facebook.’
‘You told Ryan about all this? Jesus, Freddie, why?’ She seemed close to panic.
‘Because I was worried about you!’ Freddie said. ‘You didn’t answer my calls; I found all this shit out about David, and Ryan was the only person I know who knows David. I wanted to get someone else’s opinion on this stuff.’
She picked up his phone quickly. ‘Can I see what he said?’
‘No, he made me use this encryption thing. Then he erased the conversation. Or it automatically erased itself, I don’t know. God,’ he rubbed his head. ‘What were those pills again?’
‘Co-codamol. It’ll help you sleep.’
‘Jen? I think we should call someone. The police? I really think we should.’ His eyes were closing.
She looked down at her phone, humming and glowing with David. Then she looked up. ‘Not yet. Not yet.’
‘Jen—’
‘Let’s see what Ryan tells us first, OK? Please?’
They curled up together in Freddie’s bed, huddled together like children in a storm.
31
He slept like the dead, and woke, dry-mouthed and bristly the following morning just before midday.
‘Jenny?’ His weak voice echoed in his head. He felt hungover. ‘Jen?’
She wasn’t in the living room. A note was propped up on the coffee table:
I called work for you, and told them you have the flu. Don’t call me, don’t text.
I’ll call you later today. Will explain everything I promise.
XOXO
There was also a message from Ryan.
Can we meet tonight? Narrowboat at 8? There are things about David that I think you should know. I’ve told Jenny too.
How do you know Jenny?
Replied Freddie.
Will explain tonight. I want to help. Please don’t talk to anyone/tell anyone about this.
Again, Ryan ended the conversation, and again it was deleted a few seconds later.
32
You Can’t Go Home Again
Unpublished post
I’ve been walking around all morning. Visiting old haunts that haunt me. I went back to my old house and I knocked on the door. A young girl opened it – she was about ten or eleven. I told her I used to live there, and she shrugged. Why aren’t you in school? I asked and she told me she was sick. She had an accent – Eastern European sounding, but she looked at me as if she knew me. She said: ‘I like your top’ and I thanked her. I said my boyfriend had bought it for me. Do you have a boyfriend? She said no.
Good. I’m glad she said no. I don’t know what I would have said if she’d said yes.
A little boy wandered up behind her then, and clung onto her leg. His face was filthy and his nappy sagged with urine. She gazed down at him and rested her hand on the top of his head. That’s when I stopped feeling like I was looking in a mirror. I haven’t got any brothers or sisters. No cousins, aunts or uncles. Not real ones. No toddler will ever come to me for comfort, pressing his little body into the curve of my waist, to make a neat tessellating whole. There is No We of Me. Sometimes I doubt if there’s even a Me of Me. It feels like there’s two parts of me that have never quite met in the middle, like a cleft palate. From a distance I look whole, but I worry that up close, and when I speak, people can see my hidden deformity. Maybe when I was a child it garnered sympathy, but now only disgust. Adults, after all, should be Whole.
David and Freddie don’t see it. Cheryl does, a little, but thinks it’s curable. Does this make them stupid, or does it mean I’m wrong?
The little girl looked at me with penny-dull eyes. Her brother yawned. I said goodbye abruptly and walked to The Fox, where I ordered a drink I didn’t want. I’m sitting there now.
Sometimes people look over at me, in an appraising kind of way. I must look out of place here, with my £500 top and my £80 hair and my careful, practised make-up. My reflected face swims out of the screen of my phone. Black, then lit with a call. Then black. Then lit.
I don’t feel safe. I’m not safe. I thought I was, but I’m not.
Why Ryan? Why Ryan after all these years?
33
Throughout the train journey back Jenny stared at her doubled reflection in the grimy window. Safe Safe Safe the wheels told her: you must be safe you must be safe you will you will you will. Talk to him. Just talk to him, and he’ll listen. He’ll listen like always. Look, here he is now – David lit and David dark. David Lit. David Dark. David Lit.
She made her voice light. ‘Hi! Sorry, have you been worried? The reception at Dree’s house is terrible… No. No, listen David, it’s not what you think. No. I’m coming home now. I’m nearly home. We’ll talk when I get home, OK? Don’t be… upset. Please? I can explain.’
He was waiting for her at the station when she got off the train. The clock struck two.
She made herself smile at him. A smile says you’re in control. A smile hides the ruin within. A smile buys time.
<
br /> 34
Freddie dutifully took the pills that Jenny had left for him, and while his temperature had definitely gone down, he still felt insubstantial, unsteady.
He did as he was told and didn’t call her, but God it was difficult. So many times his thumb strayed to her name and hovered, hesitated, retreated. No, just trust her. She said to trust her. She’s not stupid, and now she knows the facts she’ll do the right thing. She will.
However, as time ticked, being alone in the house grew harder to bear. He shouldn’t have slept. He shouldn’t have let her go. He should tell the police about David, not made her that stupid promise…
He killed time by having another long shower, and when he got out, he saw that he had a missed call from her. No message though. Surely that meant he could call? He pressed her name with one shaking finger, held the phone next to his hot skin, and listened to it ring ring ring itself out. When he tried again it had been turned off.
He closed his eyes then, feeling dizzy, feeling sick. Something bad had happened… it must have done… he imagined her hiding, maybe somewhere in that huge house; suddenly her phone rings, and David, incensed, follows the sound, finds her…
A few seconds later he got a text from an unknown number.
It’s Jen, I’m using this phone. DON’T call the other one! Will explain later. Have you heard from Ryan?
Yes, where are you? Is everything OK?
I’m with him now. Lot’s happened but need to tell you face-to-face… don’t worry though we’re both safe.
Meet now then? Come here?
We’re driving. Narrowboat nearer and yours might not be safe. Will explain I promise XOXO
