Second Life

by S. J. Watson

  I’m enraged, now. Ripped open. I want to scream at him. I want to hurt him. It’s as if he’s seen inside me, then emptied me out.

  ‘How does it feel to hate yourself?’

  ‘Get out of my way!’

  He moves. He’s between me and the door.

  ‘You know, I was watching the whole time,’ he says. ‘Today. In the bar.’ He hesitates, then lowers his voice. ‘And you loved it. Didn’t you? The attention.’

  He’s right. I know it, deep down. He’s right, and I’m ashamed. I despise him.

  ‘Please, just let me leave.’

  ‘Or else . . . ?’

  ‘Lukas . . .’ I say. I try to push past him, but he blocks me.

  I step back again. I look at him, this almost-stranger. He lowers his voice still further. He’s threatening now. He has the power; he wants me to know it.

  ‘You enjoyed it. Didn’t you? You liked knowing he wanted you. A stranger.’ He takes another step; this time I stay where I am. ‘No strings . . . nothing to worry about . . .’

  I try a different tack.

  ‘So what if I did? What about if I’d decided I liked him? I was going to have him? This David? What then?’

  ‘Then things might have turned out differently,’ he says. ‘Were you tempted?’

  I don’t hesitate. I want to see him hurt. More than anything, I want to see him feel some of the pain that he’s inflicting on me.

  ‘Maybe.’

  He doesn’t move. I don’t know what he’s going to do.

  ‘Before he started to threaten you? Or after?’

  ‘Hard to say.’ I don’t move.

  ‘The fear added something. Admit it. That’s what turned you on.’ He’s whispering now, murmuring. When I’m silent he moves forward, towards me. His mouth is inches from my ear. His hand goes to my waist, I feel it on me. I pull away, but he’s strong. His flesh touches mine. ‘Would you have gone upstairs with him?’ He pulls me to him, I feel the warmth of his body, his hands on me, searching for my skin, moving firmly, grasping, kneading. It triggers something, a muscle memory, and without me wanting it to my body begins to respond. ‘Alone? Or with me?’

  I don’t reply. Somewhere, deep within me, I know I should be crying out. I should be fighting, kicking. I should be screaming for help.

  But I’m not. I don’t do any of those things. It’s as if my body has mutinied. It will no longer react to anything but his touch.

  ‘Please,’ I say. ‘Lukas . . .’

  He tries to kiss me. I begin to respond, my body’s final betrayal. I gather my energy and force myself to speak.

  ‘Stop! Lukas. This has to stop.’

  He does nothing. He continues to push himself against me. Harder now. ‘Stop me, if you want. If you really want.’

  I feel his hands. They’re everywhere. At the back of my neck, in my hair, at my crotch. He’s pushing and grabbing, with more and more urgency. He tries to push me backwards, or turn me round. I flash on the time we’d had sex, in the cubicle, his hands around my neck; it’d been a game then, but it isn’t now. I have to get away from him.

  I lash out, aiming at his face, his eyes. It’s only a glancing blow, but my nails draw blood. He wipes his hand across his face, wide-eyed and furious. He looks like he’s about to hit me and I try to step away.

  We square up against each other. I open my mouth to speak but just then I hear the sound of the lock sliding open. Relief floods me. It’ll be a maid, perhaps, someone with room service. They’ll see what’s going on, Lukas will have to stop. I can dust myself down, make an excuse, leave. He won’t follow me. I won’t let him.

  We both look to the door. Too late I see that Lukas is smiling. ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘I thought you’d got lost.’

  Fear hits me, full in the gut. It’s David.

  I grab my bag. I run. I slam past David, out into the corridor. Tears are coming, I close my eyes, crash into the walls as I run towards the stairs, but I carry on running. I see myself as if from a great height. It looks like me, but it isn’t me. She’s not wearing the clothes I wear. She’s not doing the things I do.

  I run and run and run, and all at once I’m back in Berlin. I’m shivering, at an airport, not knowing how I’m going to get home. I’m phoning Hugh from a phone box in the departure lounge, then I’m waiting. Waiting to be rescued by the man I’ll soon marry while the one I’d thought was my whole life lies dead in a squat on the other side of the city.

  PART FOUR

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I made it out of the hotel. My legs shook, I was sweating, my heart was hammering so hard I thought my chest might burst, yet still I managed to pretend to be calm as I walked through the lobby, on to the street. Once outside I walked and walked, and it wasn’t until I was sure I was out of sight of the hotel that I stopped to check what direction I’d gone in. I hailed a cab, got in. ‘Where to?’ the driver said, and I said, ‘Anywhere,’ and then, ‘The river,’ and then, ‘The South Bank.’ We began to drive, and he asked me if I was all right. ‘Yes,’ I said, even though I wasn’t, and when we reached the South Bank I found a bench overlooking the Thames and, because I knew Adrienne would say ‘I told you so,’ and I didn’t know who else to call, who there was that I hadn’t pushed away, I phoned Anna.

  ‘How’re you?’

  I told her everything, blasting it out in a mess of nonsequiturs that must have been largely incomprehensible, and she first listened then calmed me down and asked me to try again. When I finished she said, ‘You must go to the police.’

  She sounded steely, determined. Absolutely sure.

  ‘The police?’ It was as if it were the first time I’d considered it.

  ‘Yes! You’ve been attacked, Julia.’

  I flashed on his hands on me, all over me, grabbing my flesh, tearing at my clothes.

  ‘But—’ I said.

  ‘Julia. You have to.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, they didn’t . . . he didn’t . . . and Hugh . . .’

  I imagined telling Hugh, making the call to the police. What would I say?

  I’ve heard the stories. Even if I had been raped, they almost certainly wouldn’t take me seriously, and if they did it’d be me who’d be on trial, not David, not Lukas. ‘And you went there for sex?’ they’d say, and I’d have to say yes. ‘Dressed in clothes that he sent you?’ Yes. ‘Having told him, more or less, that rape was a fantasy of yours?’

  Yes.

  And what would my defence be? I didn’t want it to happen, though. Not like that!

  I felt myself crumple. I began to cry again as I imagined what might have happened, what Lukas might’ve done and got away with.

  I thought of Hugh, and Connor. I imagined them finding out where I’d been, how I’d ended up. I’d have to tell them, there’s no way I’d be able to lie; I’ve done enough of that already.

  ‘I don’t even know where he lives.’

  She paused. ‘Is there anything, anything at all, I can do to help?’

  There’s nothing anyone can do, I thought. I just have to lea
ve him, to walk away, to make the severance that, just a few hours earlier, I’d been dreading.

  ‘No.’

  I went home. I knew what I had to do. Let Lukas recede into the past, do my best to forget him. Not log on. Not check my messages. Not raise my hopes that there’ll be flowers, apologies, explanations. Move on.

  Mostly, I’ve succeeded. I’ve carried on working. I told Hugh I’d decided to stop seeing the counsellor but to start going back to my meetings. I’ve done so, and kept busy in other ways. I’ve called Ali and Dee and the rest of my friends, and spoken to Anna every day. I’ve spent more time with Connor, even tried to talk to him about Evie, to reassure him that he can tell me about his girlfriend, if he wants. ‘I’d like to meet her, one day,’ I said. His shrug was predictable, but at least I’d made the effort.

  I’ve met up with Adrienne, too. Finally. She invited me to a concert and we had dinner afterwards. We chatted; the argument we’d had outside the house felt all but forgotten. Before we said goodbye she turned to me.

  ‘Julia,’ she said. ‘You know I love you. Unconditionally.’ I nodded, waiting. ‘And so I’m not going to ask you what’s going on. But I need to know. Are you all right? Is there anything I need to worry about?’

  I shook my head. ‘No. Not any more.’

  She smiled. It was the nearest I’d come to a confession, and she knew I’d tell her, one day.

  I’ve only been weak once, one Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago. I’d fought with Hugh, Connor was being impossible. I couldn’t help myself. I logged on to encountrz, ignored the couple of new messages I’d accumulated, then searched for his username.

  Nothing. Username not found. He’d vanished.

  I couldn’t help it. I called him.

  His number was unavailable. It didn’t even go to voicemail. I tried again – in case there’d been a problem, he was out of the country, there was an issue with the connection – and then again, and again, and again. Each time, nothing.

  And then I realized where I was, what I was doing. I told myself I was being ridiculous. I’d promised myself complete cut-off; I’d told myself it would be easier, the best way.

  And here it was. The severance I craved. I should be grateful.

  I get in late. I’ve been out, taking photos, first portraits of a family that had been in touch through the website, then on the way home I’d stopped off to get some shots of people as they stood outside the bars of Soho – trying to get back to the subjects who really interest me, I guess – but now Hugh is already home. He asks me to come with him, he has something to tell me.

  It sounds ominous. I think of the time I got home from the gallery, the police in the kitchen, the news that Kate was dead. I know Connor is fine, his light is on upstairs, it’s always the first thing I ask when I arrive home and I’ve already done so tonight, but still I’m nervous. Tell me now, I want to say, whatever it is, but I don’t. I follow him into the kitchen. I dump my bag on the floor, my camera on the table.

  ‘What is it?’ He looks serious. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

  He takes a deep breath. ‘Roger called. From the Foreign Office. They think they know what happened to Kate.’

  I feel myself collapse. Questions tumble out – What? Who? – and he explains. ‘There’s a man, this guy who they arrested on something totally unrelated. Roger isn’t allowed to tell us what, exactly, but he hinted it was something to do with drugs. A dealer, I guess. Anyway, apparently he’s known in the area; they even questioned him about Kate but he said he’d seen nothing.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘When they searched his place they found Kate’s earring.’

  I close my eyes. I picture him ripping it off her, or her being forced to give it to him, thinking that cooperation might save her life when in fact it did no such thing.

  A dealer. Was it drugs, after all? Not sex?

  Suddenly I’m there, again. Me and Marcus. We’d go together, but I’d wait for him. At the end of the street, on the corner, outside the station. He’d meet our dealer, hand over the cash. He’d come back with what we both wanted. Smiling.

  But Kate saw none of that. I made sure of it, even the one time she visited us, during the school holidays. She hadn’t wanted to go home and be alone with Dad, she begged me to let her come for a visit. ‘Just for a few days,’ she said, and I relented. I scraped some money together to pay for her ticket, and our father put up the rest. She came for a long weekend and slept on the bed in our room while we slept on the couch, but I’m certain she saw nothing. It was a few weeks before Marcus died, and neither of us was using. I took her to the galleries, we walked the length of Unter den Linden, drank hot chocolate at the top of the Fernsehturm. I photographed her on the streets of Mitte – pictures that are lost, now – and we wandered around Tiergarten. I left her with Marcus only once, when I went to buy groceries, but he knew how much I wanted to keep her from drugs and I trusted him completely. When I got home they were playing cards with Frosty, the TV on in the background, showing cartoons. She saw nothing.

  Still, shouldn’t I have set a better example?

  I begin to sob, a sound that turns into a howl of pain. Hugh holds my hands in his. I’d thought it might make me feel better. Knowing who’d killed my sister. Knowing he’d been arrested, would be punished. It should draw a line under everything. It should open up a future, allow me to move on.

  But it doesn’t. It feels so meaningless. So banal. If anything, it’s worse.

  ‘Julia. Julia. It’s all right.’

  I look at him.

  ‘I can’t bear it.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It’s definitely him?’

  ‘They think so.’ I begin to cry properly, tears run in thick streams. My sister dead, her son devastated, over drugs?

  ‘Why?’ I say, over and over. Hugh holds me until I calm down.

  I want my son.

  ‘Have you told Connor?’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘We need to tell him.’

  He nods, then stands up. He goes to the stairs as I go into the kitchen. I grab some kitchen roll and wipe the tears from my face, then pour myself a drink of water. When I go back into the living room Connor is sitting opposite his father. He looks up. ‘Mum?’

  I sit down on the sofa and take Connor’s hand.

  ‘Darling . . .’ I begin. I’m not sure what to say. I look at Hugh, then back at our son. I dig as deep as I can, searching for the last reserves of strength. ‘Darling, they’ve caught the man who killed Auntie Kate.’

  He sits, for a moment. The room is perfectly still.

  ‘Darling?’

  ‘Who?’

  What to say? This isn’t the movies, there’s no big plot, no satisfying resolution to the story, tied with a bow at the end. Just a senseless waste of life.

  ‘Just a man,’ I say.

  ‘Who?’

  I look again at Hugh. He opens his mouth to speak. Don’t say it, I think. Don’t tell him it was someone selling drugs. Don’t put that idea into his head.

  ‘Auntie Kate was in the wrong place at the wron
g time,’ he says. ‘That’s all. She ran into an evil man. We don’t know why, or what happened. But he’s been caught now, and he’ll go to prison and pay for what he’s done.’

  Connor nods. He’s trying to understand, trying to come to terms with the lack of an explanation.

  After a moment he lets go of my hand. ‘Can I go back to my room now?’

  I say yes. There’s an urge to follow him, but I know I mustn’t. I leave him for ten minutes, fifteen. I ring Adrienne, then Anna. She’s shocked. ‘Drugs?’ she says.

  ‘Yes. Did she—?’

  ‘No! No. Well, I mean, she partied, you know? We all did. But nothing hard core.’

  As far as you know, I think. I’m only too well aware how easy it can be to keep these things hidden. ‘Maybe you just didn’t know?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she says. ‘Honestly, I don’t.’

  We talk for a while longer, but I want to see my son. I tell Anna I’m looking forward to seeing her in a couple of weeks and she tells me she can’t wait. We say goodbye, and then I tell Hugh I’m going up to see Connor.

  I knock, he tells me to come in. He’s playing music, lying on the bed, facing the ceiling. His eyes are red.

  I say nothing. I go in. I hold him, and together we cry.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  She’s arriving today. I’m picking her up later, we’ll have a coffee or something, but for now I’m alone. I have the newspaper spread out in front of me. I turn to the magazine, skim read something about some fashion designer, what she wishes she’d known when she was young, then turn the page. A real-life article, someone whose daughter became a heroin addict; I turn that page, too. I think of my own narrow escape – if that’s what it was, if I really can be said to have escaped – and wonder for a moment whether they’d run a story about me and Lukas. I shudder at the thought, but my story isn’t unusual. I got myself involved with a man who wasn’t the person I thought he was, and things went too far. It happens all the time.