Stop at Nothing

by Tammy Cohen

  Rosie’s best friend had once had a crush on a boy who’d played in a Saturday youth league and the two of them had spent a whole term shouting encouragement from the sidelines and hanging around the clubhouse hopefully after the end of the matches. I’d picked her up from there often enough to know that the kids’ teams and adult teams shared the same very basic facilities.

  On an overcast weekday afternoon in March, the fields were empty, apart from a dog walker desultorily flinging tennis balls from a thrower for an overweight and largely disinterested Labrador. But as I turned to go, the door to the clubhouse swung open and a wiry middle-aged man stepped out with a large nylon bag slung over his shoulder, which he placed on the floor while he locked up, using an enormous bunch of keys.

  I hurried over.

  ‘Excuse me, are you the coach for the Haringey Rovers over-twenty-ones?’

  ‘Yeah, could be.’

  His grey eyes, looking out from a weather-leathered face, were cautious.

  ‘Can I have a quick word? It’s about one of your players, James Stephens. I’m afraid it’s quite a serious matter.’

  Walking away some time later, I felt as if a weight had been lifted from me.

  I’d done my duty by the girl with the soft inside wrist and by my own daughter, sitting in a classroom somewhere not too far from here, hopefully thinking of exams or boys or plans for a future golden with promise.

  The coach had been taken aback when I told him about Stephens, though not entirely surprised. ‘Let’s just say he has form when it comes to being on the wrong side of the law,’ he’d said, his mouth set into a grim line.

  I remembered what Stephens’s grandmother had said about the man who’d died because of her grandson’s temper.

  The coach had agreed not to tell Stephens about my involvement but promised he would take action. ‘I believe in second chances, but this is something I will not tolerate,’ he said. ‘I have daughters myself. This has crossed a line.’

  Now, there would be consequences, I thought, relieved. And it was no longer my responsibility to deliver them. Without his precious football team, and with his own grandmother looking at him with suspicion, wasn’t Stephens more likely to move away? He knew he was on the police radar now, knew it was only a question of time. Maybe he’d move in with the girl with the black hair who was having his baby. Of course, I felt bad for her, but it wasn’t as if I hadn’t tried to warn her.

  She wasn’t my responsibility. Rosie and Emma – they were my responsibility. And I’d do anything to drive him far away from them.

  On the way home, I felt shaken in that way you sometimes feel when you’ve done something irrevocable, but the adrenaline was surging. Now, something would happen.

  I wanted to tell someone about the events of the morning, to share the feeling of having passed on a great burden. On impulse, I sent Frances a text.

  Just done something I might live to regret.

  I knew she was at work so I wasn’t expecting a response but, within a few seconds, my phone was ringing.

  ‘So’ – she sounded breathless – ‘tell me.’

  She suggested meeting after work in the pub nearest me, but it was the one where I’d been photographed drinking on my own in the afternoon and I didn’t feel comfortable, so we agreed on one halfway between us that I usually avoided because it always seemed to have a pub quiz on or some lamentable local singer.

  In the event there was neither. At just after six on a Monday evening it was still too early for the book clubs and the PTA meetings and the men wanting to wash away the dregs of the day on a tide of craft real ale.

  ‘I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything the other day when I walked past,’ said Frances, dropping her bag down on the table. ‘I know the two of you probably have loads to talk about.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. You weren’t interrupting at all. Rosie was so happy she finally got to meet you. But you’re right, we did have a lot of ground to make up. We haven’t exactly been on good terms over the last few months.’

  Frances scrunched up her face in sympathy.

  ‘I did kind of get that impression.’

  ‘But the good news is that things are looking much more positive now. Rosie and I have taken that first step towards making up, and my ex is being slightly less of a dick. Oh, and you’ll never believe it, the dog came home!’

  ‘I saw on Facebook. Emma posted a photo. I’m so happy for you. And she was completely okay? He didn’t hurt her?’

  ‘’Fraid so. She had a big gash on her tummy.’

  Frances’s eyes widened in horror.

  ‘Why would he do something like that, though – take her and then let her go like that?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘I think he took her to punish us, and the cut and the bloody collar and weird audio recording were warnings. Thank God she’s home now. The man’s unhinged.’

  ‘So what’s this thing you might regret, then?’

  Frances had on a vibrant green top that brought out tones of red in her hair and she leaned across the table, as if anxious not to miss anything.

  I hesitated. Now the bravado of earlier had worn off, I was already wondering if I had made a dreadful mistake in going to see Stephens’s football coach. Even though I’d made him promise to leave me out of it, how could I be sure he wouldn’t let something slip? Or that Stephens wouldn’t somehow put two and two together. He knew where I lived. What if he retaliated?

  Falteringly, I explained to Frances about the new attack and how I’d felt so helpless after seeing Detective Byrne – until I’d found myself outside the little sports hut.

  I held my breath, waiting for her reaction, worried she might be disapproving, as Kath and Mari would be if they knew what I’d done. But to my relief, Frances seemed to think I’d done the right thing.

  ‘If the police aren’t going to act, what are you supposed to do except take things into your own hands?’

  ‘Exactly!’

  Then Frances wanted to know what my next move would be and seemed disappointed when I told her that was as far as I was going to go.

  ‘Are you sure? I mean, he’s clearly still a danger to young girls.’

  My forehead felt tight when she said that, like someone was pressing hard on both sides of it. But still I replied:

  ‘No, I can’t keep going with this, Frances. I need to move on. It’s not good for my mental health to keep obsessing about him. I need to concentrate on what’s good in my life. For instance, would it surprise you to know I might finally have found a man who isn’t married or a serial killer or still lives with his mum?’

  I realized what I’d said and clapped a hand to my mouth.

  ‘Oh God, I’m sorry.’

  Frances laughed, showing that gap in her teeth.

  ‘Don’t be silly. I’m with my mum because I’m her carer. Not because I don’t know how to wash my own pants. So, tell me everything.’

  And though, really, I hardly knew her, Frances just had one of those smiles you couldn’t help but open up to. And so I found myself telling her all about Nick and our plans to meet up at the weekend.

  And, just for that moment, I felt normal.

  25

  Nothing fitted me any more.

  Since hitting fifty, weight had stealthily crept on, extra pounds attaching themselves like stubborn barnacles to various parts of me, instantly making themselves at home, as if they’d always been there and had no intention of shifting.

  My expensive pre-redundancy clothes stretched and strained unflatteringly, while my day-to-day dog-walking, kitchen-table-sitting wardrobe was barely fit to be seen outside the house.

  I certainly had nothing to wear on a date.

  We’d agreed to meet for brunch, figuring that made the whole event marginally less scary.

  It’s less loaded than dinner or lunch, isn’t it? Nick had said.

  Initially, I decided on a pair of skinny jeans with a forgiving jersey top but when I’d spilled a big d
ollop of foundation down my leg the whole thing had to be rethought. In the end I opted for a denim dress with a zip up the front and plenty of stretch and a pair of suede ankle boots I rediscovered at the bottom of my wardrobe. But even as I reached the front door I was having misgivings.

  On the doorstep I hesitated, eyeing the darkening sky. Should I have gone for trousers instead?

  While I dithered, a familiar pistachio-green Fiat 500 pulled up outside the house.

  ‘Tessa! I’m so glad I caught you. I’ve been trying to call you all morning.’

  I pulled out my phone from the pocket of my bag. Sure enough, there were five missed calls.

  ‘Shit. Sorry, I forgot to turn it off from silent this morning. I’ve been in a bit of a state. What’s up? Why are you here?’

  ‘This is going to sound mad, but I just have a bad feeling about this date, Tessa. I’ve been feeling uneasy since you told me about Nick in the pub and I couldn’t work out why. Then this morning it just hit me. What if Nick is actually James Stephens?’

  Shock made me burst out laughing.

  ‘That’s bonkers. I’ve been talking to him. Chatting. He’s funny and intelligent. I’ve seen his photograph. He’s got a young stepson.’

  Frances’s face softened.

  ‘Oh, Tessa. Doesn’t he seem a teeny bit too perfect? Anyone can be who they want to be online. Steal a photograph, pass it off as them, adopt an identity. Be someone they’re not. Think about the timing. When did Nick first get in touch?’

  I tried to think back. It was not long after Emma and I had been to visit my parents.

  ‘This is important, Tess. Had you mentioned anything about joining a dating site on Facebook?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ I found myself getting angry. ‘I might have done. But he can’t see what I post.’

  ‘No, but he might have friended other people in your network, set up a fake profile. If they comment on one of your posts, he might be able to read it.’

  A horrible sense of deflation and disappointment was building. Could it be true, what Frances was saying?

  But the timing made a sickening sort of sense. I recalled that Mari had tagged me in a jokey post with a clip from a sitcom where a woman joined a dating agency. Had someone in the comments mentioned this particular one by name, the one Nick had found me on? I had a terrible feeling that they had. All week I’d been waiting to find out what the fallout would be from my visit to the soccer coach. I reasoned he probably wouldn’t find out anything until Saturday-morning training, which was today, so I’d thought myself safe. But what if he already knew? If Nick really did turn out to be Stephens in disguise, how would he make me pay for what I’d done?

  ‘But why would Stephens want to meet me?’

  Frances shook her head. It had started raining now and small drops of water flew off her hair.

  ‘Who knows? To confront you? To humiliate you? Perhaps he plans to be watching from somewhere, hoping you’ll sit there on your own like a lemon. Maybe he’s hoping to see you cry. Men like him get a kick out of seeing women in distress. It’s all part of their power plan.’

  Already I felt it evaporating – the hope that had been shyly building inside me like the tiny popping bubbles before water boils, the fragile shoots of confidence that had started to push through the dry soil of my post-divorce life.

  Trussed up in my uncomfortable boots, my face shiny with dreams and anti-ageing primer, I felt horribly vulnerable.

  Could she be right? Was I being played for a fool?

  ‘I could be wrong,’ Frances said gently. ‘But, well, I just don’t think I am. Come on, how about we go back in and get a coffee?’

  For a moment I wavered, the thought of Stephens’s gloating face almost too much to bear.

  But then my phone pinged with a text alert. It was from Nick.

  I’m here already. Keen as. Was sitting outside but it started pissing down so headed indoors. I’ll be the one with the damp patch on his shirt.

  I tried to imagine Stephens composing that text, but it was impossible.

  ‘Look, Frances. I really appreciate you coming over, and you might well turn out to be right, but I couldn’t live with myself if Nick turned out to be genuine and I stood him up. I think I’d rather risk looking like a fool.’

  Frances pressed her lips together then nodded.

  ‘Gotcha. Whatever you think is best, Tessa. I was just worried about you, that’s all. If you arrive and Stephens is there …’

  ‘… Then I shall turn straight around and leave. It’s a Saturday morning in King’s Cross. There’ll be enough people around that he wouldn’t dare try anything. But Frances’ – I paused until her eyes met mine – ‘I want you to know I’m really touched by your concern.’

  ‘No problem. I really hope you have a lovely time.’

  Nick had suggested meeting in Granary Square, behind King’s Cross station. When I first moved to London that whole area had been a no-go zone for anyone but the most hardened drug dealer or desperate streetwalker. Once, waiting for Phil to pick me up around the back of the station when I was eight months pregnant with Rosie and big as a house, a car had pulled up and two men had asked, ‘How much?’ Now, it pulsated with mainstream hip and the fug of skunk had been replaced with the heady smell of prosperity, restaurants the size of Amazon warehouses teeming with Japanese tourists and the type of well-heeled Londoner who found safety in numbers.

  My nerves were shredded by the time I exited the Tube by the strange neon-lit art installation of a bird in a cage and began making my way to our rendezvous. It didn’t help that I’d only scraped a couple of hours’ sleep, exhaustion no match for the combination of anxiety and excitement rampaging around my body. And now Frances had sowed seeds of doubt as well.

  By the time I reached the restaurant I was so nervous I could hardly work out which was more terrifying – the possibility that Nick might not be there, as Frances had predicted, or that he would.

  The restaurant was cavernous and loud, with music playing over the persistent hum of other people’s conversations. Three enormous crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling and the seats were upholstered in orange velvet.

  My voice shook as I gave Nick’s name to the maître d’, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘The gentleman is already here. Will you come this way?’

  For a horrible moment I pictured Stephens sitting at a table for two waiting for me and almost turned around to leave. But then I forced myself to take a deep breath in and stand up straight. I’d done a few Pilates classes earlier in the year and now I heard the South African teacher’s voice in my mind: ‘Imagine there’s a cord from the top of your head to the ceiling, and you’re trying to touch your shoulder blades together like wings.’

  I set off, following the maître d’s back, past a long, dramatic bar to the left overhung by hundreds of upside-down wine glasses. And then, all of a sudden, the maître d’ moved to the side, and there he was.

  ‘Thank God you came, I thought you’d stood me up. You look so lovely.’

  Nick was just as he’d looked in his photos. As always now with meeting new people my own age, there was an initial moment of surprise – but this is an old man – followed by an almost instantaneous recalibration, the younger man behind the greying hair and weathered skin materializing gradually as we looked at one another, like one of those magic-eye pictures.

  Instantly, there was a feeling inside me of something relaxing, like when you get home and surround yourself with familiar things and everything decompresses. He was real. It wasn’t a trick.

  If anything, I decided after I’d sat down, he was more handsome than he’d looked in his picture, wearing a blue shirt that matched his eyes and dark blue jeans. He had a soft Scottish accent, which surprised me, as I’d completely forgotten he’d told me he was originally from Edinburgh, and his voice had a musical quality so that he stretched my name out over several notes.

  We talked about being single and about how
strange it felt to be on a dating site.

  Then he asked me about my daughters, and I told him my worries about Rosie dropping out of university. I said I’d done something to upset her a few months ago and was still trying to make amends. I told him how bright she was and how funny and loyal and how, after Phil first left, she’d refused to meet Joy until I told her it was okay.

  Then we moved on to Em. And somehow I ended up talking about the attack and how Em had then seen her attacker in the street. I didn’t tell him about the messages I’d sent or about how the dried blood had clotted on Dotty’s stomach. Or about my warning to the wiry football coach with the big bunch of keys. I still had enough perspective then to realize how mad it would sound and how much normal people feared being sucked into a world where those kinds of things happened.

  ‘I feel like I let her down,’ I admitted. ‘I wasn’t there when I should have been, and now I can’t even manage to do the one thing that would make her feel safer, which is to get him to move away so she never has to see him again.’

  We’d ordered our food by this time. Nick had a stack of pancakes topped with fruit, while I’d gone for avocado and poached egg, which I ate gingerly, in case of a rogue dribble of egg yolk. Now Nick sat back with a segment of pancake speared on his fork and fixed me with his very blue eyes, which made me realize how rarely anyone did that any more, that intense eye contact.

  ‘You know, I’ll bet you’re a really good mum, Tessa.’

  I swallowed hard and looked away so he wouldn’t see my eyes blur. I was such a mess these days, my nerves, rubbed raw by sleeplessness, overreacting to every scrap of kindness.

  We finished eating and ordered more coffee, and when that was gone we still stayed sitting at our table chatting while the tables around us filled up with lunchtime diners until, finally, the waiter apologized and told us they needed the table for the next booking.