‘Maybe we won’t do it again,’ she says.
I check my watch. It’s too late to go on anywhere else. I’m enticed by the thought of Reuben at home in our living room. He’ll be wearing soft clothes. He’ll have the lights dimmed. The television on low. A glass of red on the arm of the sofa, the stem held between his elegant fingers. He likes wine; will even drink it alone. I drink Ribena when I am alone.
‘Which way you going?’ Laura says to me. She points with a thumb behind her.
‘Warwick Avenue,’ I say. ‘That’s the easiest.’ I see a dark figure dart behind her, in the awning of the bar we’ve just left, but it disappears before I can get a proper look. Maybe it’s the couple, moving as one, off home, I think. I look over my shoulder again anyway, just to check. There’s nothing.
Laura smells of cologne as she reaches to hug me. She’s wearing a maxi skirt and biker boots. ‘WhatsApp me when you’re back,’ she says.
I nod. WhatsApp is our medium. Tens of messages a day. Newspaper articles. Tiny snapshots of her art. Beers consumed in the middle of the day with Jonty. Screenshots of funny memes. Selfies from me, bored at work. We love it.
I set off towards the canal, crossing the bridge. It’s wrought iron, blue. It reminds me of the playground at school. My fingers trail over the bars. It’s ghostly out here. There’s nobody around. The rain gets slightly heavier and a wind chills me.
That’s when I hear it. Them. The footsteps. Surely I’m imagining it? I stop. But no. There they are. A heavy tread.
I could turn around. Go back to the bar. But is the bar safe?
What do you do, I find myself thinking, when you think somebody is following you down a deserted strip of canal? When you could become a statistic, a news piece, a tragedy?
Nothing. That’s the answer. You carry on. You hope.
I never thought something like this would happen to me. I suppose that’s what makes me behave as though I’m in a film: I have no idea what else to do. I stop, for a moment, testing him, and his footsteps stop too.
I start again, this time faster, and I hear him begin too. My imagination fires up like a sprinter off the starting blocks and soon I can’t tell what’s real. Is he right behind me – I can’t look – and about to reach for me? The pounding of his footsteps is consistent, slapping against the wet concrete, but I can’t tell any more than that.
I will call somebody, I decide.
I turn left down a side alley I would never usually go down. Just to see what he does. I walk past white houses with balconies. Millionaires’ houses. The occasional bay window is lit up, little orange squares in the night, tasteful Christmas trees glowing amber like fireflies. I would usually peer in, invent lives for them, backstories, but not tonight.
He has followed me. Five more steps. His footfalls thunder along behind me. I can’t look over my shoulder. I am frozen.
I start to plan. I could call Laura. Could she get over here quickly? No. I break into a little run. These stupid shoes.
I could knock on a door. But … am I definitely being followed? They’d think me mad. It is strange how much I think of people’s opinions, their perceptions of me, right now, just like I did in the bar when I didn’t cry out when he grabbed my hand. I want these people, these strangers, this collective unconscious, to like me.
I turn right, off the side street, back to a main road and cross it. I get out my phone, ready to dial. 999? No, it seems too extreme. I call Reuben instead. He takes an age to answer, which is not uncommon – he hates the telephone, unless it’s me calling – but then his deep hello echoes through me.
‘You alright?’ he says.
I can picture him now. It’s a comfort. He’ll be reclining against the sofa. His hair will look auburn, not ginger, in our dimly lit living room. He will be frowning, his eyes a dark, foresty green.
‘Reuben,’ I say.
‘What?’ he says. He will be sitting forward now.
‘I’m being followed,’ I say in a low voice. I don’t know why I don’t shout it out.
His eyebrows will draw together. ‘By who?’
‘This bloke. From the bar.’
‘Where?’
‘Can you just – stay with me? Walk me to the tube – virtually?’ I say.
‘Of course,’ he murmurs.
‘Okay,’ I say.
‘Okay,’ he echoes, but his voice is crackly.
I pull the phone away from my ear and look at it, the light from it illuminating the clouds of my hot breath. Shit. No signal.
There’s a set of stairs in front of me, leading down to a bridge. I dart into the corner where the stairs begin, to see if he follows. I put one foot on the first step, frozen, not able to look behind me.
And now he is behind me, too. And now, it’s not my imagination. I know. He is right behind me. His body ready to hold on to my hips again. To push himself into me, against my will.
I see his red trainer. Oh God. He is here. I am too scared to turn around and look at him properly. I cannot do it.
‘Hello?’ I say desperately into the phone.
Reuben crackles back, and then … the three beeps. Call failed.
I start to sprint down the stairs, and I’m a few steps down them when it happens, as I knew it would. His gloved hand behind me. It lands on the railings like a bird of prey. The gloves are exactly the sort he would wear, I find myself thinking. Designer. Sporty. He looked lithe.
I hear an intake of breath, and know he is about to speak, to threaten me. Perhaps his mouth is right next to my ear, his body poised to grab mine, to thrust again, and so I reach my hand out to grab the railings. They’re cold and wet; they soak my gloves.
And then I am acting before I know it.
He comes down by my right-hand side, ready to overtake me on the wide stairs. I turn. His hood’s up, but I can tell it’s him from his gait. I am remembering his body against mine again, and imagining yet more horrors – his sweet breath in my mouth, his penis up against my underwear, against my jeans, a full, damp, painful wetness – I bring my hand down on his, briefly, hard. He lets out a surprised cry. And with my right – my dominant hand – I push his body, firmly, squarely, the hardest I’ve ever pushed anything in my life. I release his hand as he falls – I’m surprised he falls; he’s at least six feet – and he tumbles like a stuntman down the concrete stairs to the towpath. He stops there, on his stomach, at a strange angle. I am breathing hard, and I stand, watching him, astonished. That I have done this. That I am safe. That he is lying there, not moving, and I am here, almost at the top.
I start to feel a weird, panicky hotness. I reach to undo my coat, wanting to feel the sharp winter air on my sweat-covered chest. My glove is sopping wet as it touches my skin. My forehead is slick with moisture, from perspiration or the fine mist descending from the sky around me, I don’t know. My bowels want to open, and right in the pit of my stomach I feel a hornet’s nest of fear beginning to buzz. Oh God. What have I done?
One minute ago I was scared for my life, and now I am scared for his.
My mind scans over the time in the bar. Feckless Joanna. I should have ignored him, told him to piss off, like Laura did. I never do the correct thing. I end up in messes. I avoid things and then they get much worse.
I close my eyes. Oh, please let me go back to Before. Before we met Sadiq. Before we left. Before he followed me. Before I pushed him.
But we can’t. I can’t. And now … it is After.
I look down at Sadiq. His left arm is underneath him, twisted strangely. He’s fallen only seven steps, but they’re concrete, and wet. His right arm must have reached out in front of him. It’s landed just to the side of his face. He hasn’t moved at all.
I should go to help him. Call an ambulance. Confess.
Or I should run away, in case he’s about to get up again. Sprint home. Pretend I never did it. Go back to Before, even though I know I can’t.
The street lights are too bright, refracted a hundred times in eac
h drop of misty rain. I can see moisture on the concrete steps like thousands of beads of sweat. I can feel the cold air seeping into my coat. Sadiq is lying still but breathing in and out, in and out, and I look down at him and then around me, and think.
I could run, or I could stay and call him an ambulance.
Now it is decision time.
2
Reveal
I stand and stare at Sadiq. I could walk away. Avoid, like I’ve done for my entire life.
I turn around, my back to him, and take three steps away. And then I stop, looking over my shoulder, sure that he will have risen up behind me like a villain in a fable. But he hasn’t. He’s still there. Still lying down. Still not moving.
Fat raindrops are striking my nose and leaving a trail of smaller ones as though they’ve been split apart.
I am still looking over my shoulder as I think it: I could leave. Little Venice is deserted. I check, up and down the length of the canal. Nobody.
And that’s when the sweating gets worse. I puff out my cheeks and raise my eyes heavenwards and try to think, but all I’m doing is panicking. It’s as though all of the world’s dread and fear and madness have been set free inside my abdomen. My mind is racing but saying nothing, my hands are flexing and making fists – alternating clenched and open, like starfish – and my legs are wobbling.
I look down at Sadiq. Are those headphones? One earbud has fallen out of his ear, the cord white against the concrete like a worm.
I wonder what Reuben would do. Perhaps I can call him back, and ask him. No. I am certain of what he would say. He always does the right thing. His favourite poem is ‘If’. His favourite TV show is The West Wing. He is a social worker for an Islamic charity. My mind throws up these headline points in support of its application to make me leave, now, and never tell him, and it won’t stop. Reuben stacks chairs up at the end of the working day, even though it is the cleaners’ job. He was adopted, thirty-two years ago, and has never once held a grudge. I scraped another car’s door once – so lightly as to be almost imperceptible – and reached to rub at the scratch with a tissue, and Reuben was on his feet and writing a detailed note, leaving our numbers, before I could even protest. He chooses, again and again, the right thing – even though it is hardly ever the easy thing.
For God’s sake, ring 999, he would say, panicked, astonished I was even asking the question.
Perhaps this moment will forever change how he looks at me; that I even have to ask. He will – finally – see me as I truly am: flawed, selfish, pathetic.
No. I can’t be like that.
I venture down two steps. I can hear something. A voice. I stop again, sombre for a moment, saying a mournful goodbye to my life as I know it. Am I sure? If I call now, there’ll be a procedure. An ambulance, dispatched immediately. I’ll be in a system. Not Joanna any more, but … somebody else. A number.
It’s been over a minute. Maybe two. One hundred and twenty seconds of staring.
Where is that noise coming from? I am sure it is a woman’s voice. I creep two steps closer, and realize: the headphones.
And even though I have decided what to do, I am procrastinating. Trying to put off the moment when I have to make the phone call, even though I know that makes things harder, not easier. I’ve been procrastinating my entire life, and I’m not stopping now.
One more minute passes.
I don’t know what spurs me into action. Perhaps I needed those three minutes to come to terms with how things will be; to move into the After. Perhaps it was to make sure he wasn’t about to reach for me, grab me. I don’t know, but I pull out my phone, standing almost at the bottom of the stairs, and dial 999. I have never dialled these numbers in my life, though it feels as though I have, from BBC dramas and books and films.
It doesn’t ring. There’s a strange noise, then an operator answers immediately. I step gingerly down the remaining stairs as I hear a Scottish voice, as if I can only get close to him now I have her protection.
‘What’s your emergency?’ the woman says.
‘I … there’s a man who’s been injured,’ I say.
As I stop, above his body, I can hear the noise again. It is a voice. Take a deep breath in for five counts, it is saying. Some sort of hypnotherapy. Meditation, maybe.
‘Okay, my love, how badly injured is he?’ she says.
‘I … don’t know.’
‘Alright – what’s your name?’
‘Joanna Oliva,’ I say, though I wonder after uttering it whether I should have used a false one.
‘Okay, Joanna. We’re going to send a first responder,’ she says. Her tone is neutral. She doesn’t provide reassurance. She doesn’t explain what a first responder is.
I wonder what her hopes and dreams are. Maybe she had an emergency, once, and now she wants to help others. I close my eyes, imagining I am somewhere else, and on the phone to a friend. Perhaps I am by the sea, on holiday, and calling a friend because I am bored. Or maybe I am idly calling Reuben on the way home to him. He always takes my calls on the way home, and we chat, often right up until I get to our door.
I give her the address. Well, an address of sorts. ‘One of the side bridges. The centre of Little Venice. The canal.’ I can hear her typing.
‘And now I’d like you to assess the man, is that going to be alright?’ she lilts.
I wonder if she was hired because of the soothing quality of her voice. Maybe she does television adverts in her spare time. I cannot stop the thoughts. It strikes me as strange that I am still me; still overly imaginative, even when thrown into these most extraordinary of circumstances.
I lean down and tentatively touch his shoulder, his black jacket. It’s softer than I thought it would be; fleecy. He’s in tight black trousers, almost leggings. I was sure that he was in jeans, in the bar. But there are the red trainers. Just the same.
‘He’s face down,’ I say. ‘On some concrete – he fell … he fell down some steps. Seven,’ I add uselessly, because my guilt has made me count them.
‘Okay, and is he breathing? I don’t want you to move his neck. Okay? Okay, Joanna?’
Her tone frightens me. Everything frightens me. It’s like the world’s been filtered, black, and I can feel the hot, sweaty nausea again. I say nothing.
‘Okay?’
‘Yes,’ I say. There’s a man lying injured beneath my fingertips and I did it. I can hardly dare think about it. It’s like looking at the sun.
I can’t turn him over. I can’t do it.
The voice from the headphones is still speaking – about imagining a beach scene, waves rolling in and out – and I listen to that instead.
‘Can you look, listen and feel for whether he’s breathing? Do you know his name?’ She enunciates these words like a primary school teacher.
Look, listen and feel. I do not know what these words mean. I look over my shoulder, at the illuminated street, slick with rain, and along the canal, to the bridges stacking behind us, almost all aligning, tessellating, like my vision has gone blurred.
Look.
Listen.
Feel.
I stare at him, face down on the pavement.
I run my fingers underneath his shoulder and crouch to look at him. ‘Oh, oh,’ I say to her, involuntarily. His face is sopping. At first I think it’s blood, when my fingers touch the wetness, but it’s cold and thin-feeling.
And then I realize. My eyes see it as they adjust to the dark. It grows in front of me: a puddle at the bottom of the steps. Caused by a tree a few feet away, its roots pulling up the pavement, cracking it, making it uneven, creating great craters.
One of which is filled with water.
He’s totally submerged, in dark water, on the dark ground.
‘He’s face down, in a puddle,’ I say.
Surely she will help? She is on my side; she must be. She is a good person, working in the 999 call centre.
‘Roll him on to his side, quick as you can, out of the water,’ s
he says. ‘Does he have a head or neck injury?’
‘I … I don’t know. I pushed him. And he fell, down the stairs,’ I say.
Nobody can blame anybody for being honest. Nobody can prosecute for an innocent mistake.
‘Quick as you can,’ she repeats.
I roll him over. His black hood is still drawn partially over his face. The rest is in shadow.
‘Now I need you to check he’s breathing. Look, listen and feel, remember? Can you repeat that back?’
‘Look, listen and feel,’ I say woodenly.
‘Look for his chest rising. Listen with your ear at his airways. Feel for his breath.’
I stare at his chest. I lean my head down. I can hear everything, suddenly. The roar of distant traffic. The trickle of water into the canal. The sound of the raindrops splattering on the concrete. But nothing from him.
I take my glove off and rest my hand against his nose. There is no breath against my fingers. Nothing tickling them at all. It is still, unnatural, like looking at somebody with a vital detail missing, like eyelashes or fingernails. The contents of my handbag scatter over the ground as I lean over him. Lipsticks I never wear because they make me self-conscious roll all over the place.
‘He’s not breathing,’ I say. Panic rushes in again.
‘Is he definitely not?’ she says. ‘Put your cheek to his mouth. I want you to tell me whether you can feel his breath against your face.’
I wince, but do it anyway.
There’s nothing against my cheek. No movement. No warmth. No rustling of the strands of my hair by a breath. Nothing.
‘He’s definitely not breathing,’ I say.
Her voice is crisp, patient, sympathetic. ‘We’re going to do five rescue breaths first,’ she says. ‘Because he’s been drowning.’
Drowning.
‘Okay.’
‘Open his mouth. Lay him on his back. Tilt his chin back. Being careful of his neck. Chin lifted high, alright, Joanna? Tilt his head back. Are you ready?’
I move him on to flatter ground, and as I do so, his hood falls away and I see his face.
It’s not Sadiq.
Anything You Do Say Page 2
