Who Did You Tell?

by Lesley Kara

  ‘I’ve got nothing left, Astrid.’ Her voice cracks.

  ‘Oh, Helen, that’s not true. You’re doing so well.’

  ‘I was, but I’m not any more. I’ve … I’ve been very weak today.’

  At last, there it is. The admission.

  ‘Come on, Helen. It’s not too late to stop. It’s just a little setback. Don’t have any more. Please.’

  ‘It’s all right for you. You’ve got your mum and Josh. You’re still so young. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. I’m all washed up.’

  If only I could tell her what’s happened, but I can’t, can I? Not while she’s drinking. Before I can stop myself I tell her to hold on and that I’m on my way round right now. She’s at that dangerous self-pitying stage. I’ve got to be strong and help her before she loses it completely. It could quite easily have been me who broke first. When I think of how close I’ve come lately …

  My hands are shaking so much it takes me ages to get my feet into my shoes and tie the laces, partly because it’ll be the first time I’ve left the house on my own since opening that envelope, and partly because turning up at Helen’s flat while she’s drinking is going to test me to my limits. I’m fragile enough as it is at the moment. But if I leave her on her own, who knows what might happen?

  I’m on high alert from the second I leave the cottage, walking as fast as I can without actually breaking into a run. I’m there in under five minutes, panting as I press the bell and stare up at her window. At last, the curtain twitches. A few minutes later the buzzer goes and I push open the heavy glass door and head for the stairwell. The door to her flat is ajar when I get there. The telly’s on in the background.

  As I move further in, I see her in the kitchen, emptying a bottle of wine down the sink. My shoulders relax.

  ‘Shall I make us both some coffee?’ I say, trying not to look at the red wine sploshing against the stainless steel, averting my eyes from the telltale purple ring in the large wine glass still standing on the counter, like the one I saw not so long ago on her draining rack and wondered about.

  She hands me the empty bottle and goes and slumps in an armchair. I push it through the flap of her swing bin as fast as I can. I don’t want to hold it any longer than I need to. It makes a loud clinking noise, and I bet if I rootled around in there I’d find another empty. She probably wanted me to see her tip it down the sink – a ruse to cover up how much she’s already had. I know all the tricks.

  All the while I’m busying myself with the coffee-making, Helen is staring into space through dull, heavy-lidded eyes. I’m right. She’s drunk a lot more than half a bottle.

  While I’m waiting for the coffee to brew I pick up the empty wine glass, take it to the sink and swill it out with water. Then I use it to rinse away the last traces of wine down the plug hole.

  ‘Here, get this down you.’ I put the tray on the coffee table, then sit on the sofa opposite.

  ‘It’s good of you to come,’ she says, pointing the remote at the TV and pressing it wildly, impatiently, her thumbs stabbing at the buttons. Eventually, she finds the right one and turns it off.

  I keep my voice as low and calm as I can. After all, I’ve no idea what kind of drunk she is, whether she’s the type to get obnoxious and aggressive or just maudlin and sleepy. I’m hoping it’s the latter.

  ‘It’s not a good idea for you to be on your own right now, Helen. And I know you’d do the same for me.’

  She leans forward and grasps the handle of the mug, takes a mouthful of coffee and sinks back in her chair with it.

  ‘Helen, what you said on the phone just now – it’s not true. There’s still time for you to turn things around.’

  She blows air through her cheeks. In the harsh overhead light she looks older, drained. It’s horrible to see her like this, with her hair all wiry and unkempt and her blouse gaping open.

  I want to tell her that she’s wrong about it being all right for me, that however rosy it looks from where she’s sitting, I could lose everything if this Laura ups her game. Laura. She’s probably not called Laura at all. She wouldn’t be stupid enough to give Mum her real name, surely?

  Helen closes her eyes and, within a few minutes, her breathing changes. She’s fallen asleep already. Whatever I say to her now, she won’t remember in the morning. Gingerly, I extricate the mug from her fingers. Her eyes open briefly. Seconds later, she’s dropped off again.

  I stay for a while, just in case she wakes, but soon she’s out for the count and snoring her head off. Then I empty her mug of coffee down the sink and pour her a large glass of water, which I leave on the coffee table. Just as a precaution, I empty out her wastepaper bin and put that next to her armchair too.

  As I pull her front door shut behind me it strikes me that the whole time I’ve been in Helen’s flat I haven’t once had the urge to drink. Even with all this other weird shit going on, helping Helen has made me stronger. Maybe it’s true what they say at AA. Maybe this Twelve Step thing really works.

  But when I’m back on the street the panicky feeling returns. It might still be light, but that doesn’t stop the tension in my neck and shoulders, the sensation that I’m being watched wherever I go. I can’t get back to the cottage soon enough and, even when I do, the fear still clings to me like a wet shirt and I have to check each and every room before settling down in front of the TV. I can’t concentrate on anything, but at least it’s background noise.

  The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that whoever’s doing this to me is someone Simon met at AA. He used to make a point of going to meetings in different parts of London. Said it was good not to get too attached to one group. Spread the misery, he used to joke.

  Oh, you’ve done that all right, Simon. You’ve done that all right.

  28

  The next morning I wake with a stifling sense of unease. It’s only seven fifteen, but I need to get up and clear my head. It’s a miracle I slept at all, but in the end I was so exhausted my body must have taken over and switched off my mind. That’s what drinking used to do – silence the maelstrom of my thoughts.

  They always come back in the morning, though – the thoughts, the regrets, the fears – they never go away for long. As I’m pulling on my jeans and sweater I think of Helen, alone in her flat, waking up with a stonking headache and the jitters. I should call her later, after she’s had a chance to sleep it off. Make sure she’s all right.

  It’s low tide and the beach is empty, save for the gulls. It’s already warm and the sea is glassy and luminous. Other-worldly. The early-morning sun glitters on its surface.

  For a while I just stroll along the water’s edge, trying to convince myself I’m not scared. Maybe it’s a good thing that Josh and Richard have gone to Berkshire. It gives me time to think, to work out what I should do, if there’s anything I can do.

  Who is this person who knows all about my past? Someone Simon got close to? Close enough to let her take his photo. To disclose his guilty secrets. Our guilty secrets.

  The tide has washed up a dead eel that gleams silver in the sun. A gull makes a beeline for its glistening bead of an eye. With one stab of the beak, it plucks it out. I clap my hand to my mouth. I know it’s just nature and that the eel is already dead, but the savagery of it still shocks me. I watch as the gull rinses the eyeball in the shallows, then gobbles it down.

  I hurry past, suddenly afraid of the emptiness of the beach and the immensity of the sea. I know it’s just words on a piece of paper, but it’s a real threat this time. You’d better not get too comfortable in sleepy little Flinstead. You’d better keep your wits about you from now on. And to deliberately put my name on a death notice like that …

  Soon I’ll be level with the beach huts on stilts, the ones with their backs turned defiantly to the water. I set off in a diagonal line towards the wooden steps that lead up to the path in front of them, unnervingly aware of my own vulnerability. It reminds me of the time I came down here at night, how t
he fear crept up on me like the tide.

  I squint in the sunlight. Something that looks like crockery is strewn all over the sand up ahead. I jog over there to check it out. It is crockery. A pretty tea set, some of it smashed, lies scattered on the ridge of pebbles and shells left by the tide. I look up and see that one of the huts’ windows is wide open. The crockery must have been thrown out deliberately.

  As I reach the path I see exactly what’s happened. Several of the huts have had their doors kicked in, padlocks sawn off; personal contents litter the decked platforms and spill on to the path: cushions, towels, plates. A plastic bucket and spade. Green shards of glass from a broken bottle on a dark, drying stain on the concrete.

  I recognize the Carter hut straight away and it too has been damaged. The door is hanging off its hinges. I know it’s only a beach hut, little more than a small, painted shed, and no one has been hurt, but it’s still a shocking sight. I should tell someone. Call the police. My heart hammers in my chest.

  I look in both directions. Surely someone else will be along soon. Someone I can share my dismay with. Someone who’ll take over and phone the police themselves. But there’s no one in sight. I climb past the hanging door and step over the threshold into the hut. It doesn’t seem to have been ransacked, like some of the others, but the single bed is all messed up, and two of the cushions are on the floor. Perhaps whoever’s responsible got frightened off before they had a chance to do any more damage. Unless …

  A sudden impulse makes me open the cupboard under the counter, the one I saw Josh tidying something away in. It’s one of those unconscious actions I don’t even question till I’m in the process of doing it. The cupboard is empty apart from a box of glasses on the bottom shelf and a blue-and-white polka-dot bikini on the top shelf. I rock back on my heels. It must have been the bikini he hid in here, because the box is large and heavy and I would almost certainly have heard the glasses clinking against each other if he’d been picking it up and sliding it inside.

  I take hold of the bikini top and draw it out. It’s a skimpy little thing and there are grains of sand in the bra cups. It doesn’t mean anything. It could belong to anyone. A friend or relative. Or maybe it belongs to one of Josh’s ex-girlfriends.

  I think back to the other day, when Richard conveniently left us alone together in the house. For all I know, that’s a common occurrence, an unspoken arrangement between father and son. I could end up telling him all the sordid details of my life like some shame-faced penitent when all he wants is a bit of fun over the summer. A couple of weeks ago, that’s all I wanted too.

  I step towards the broken door to make my way out and see if anyone else is coming along the path and catch sight of something that most definitely wasn’t here before. A half-empty bottle of brandy and two glasses on the wide shelf that serves as a kitchen counter.

  A pulse beats in my throat. There’s still a drop of amber liquid in the bottom of one, and a lipstick smear at the top. Josh said his dad never used the hut, hasn’t for ages. So either the vandals stopped and helped themselves to a glass of brandy, or Josh is messing around with someone else as well as me.

  I lift the glass up and breathe in the fiery tang of solvent and burnt caramel and my insides fold over. I almost gag with longing. Why the hell am I worrying about what Josh may or may not be up to? Someone out there appears to want me dead. This is nothing compared to that. Nothing.

  I put the glass down and wrap my fingers round the neck of the bottle, feel the comforting weight of it in my hand. I imagine unscrewing the top and lifting it to my lips, the brandy scalding my throat, searing my oesophagus like liquid fire. Just a few good swigs and it will all go away. I won’t care about anything any more. Josh. Simon. The girl in the puffa jacket. The fractured events of that terrible night. Just a few good swigs and it will all start to fade.

  The sound of a dog barking brings me to my senses. I lurch out into the sober glare of the sun and come face to face with two stout old ladies and their excitable Bichon Frise. They’re both staring at me as if they think I’m the perpetrator and they’ve caught me red-handed. The stouter of the two women raises her walking stick in the air and points it straight at me.

  ‘This is Richard Carter’s hut,’ she says. Her tone is indignant, accusing. It doesn’t help matters that I’m still grasping the bottle of brandy.

  ‘I know. I’m a friend of the family.’

  She squints at me from behind thick-lensed spectacles. The little white dog strains on its lead and barks. More dog-walkers are turning up now, staring at the huts in horror, tutting and exclaiming. One of them, a middle-aged man with a black Labrador, pulls out his phone and starts taking pictures.

  ‘Bloody bastards!’ he says. ‘I’d like to get my hands on them!’

  Walking-Stick Woman’s companion peers behind me into Richard’s hut. ‘We should call the police,’ she says, giving me a sidelong glance. She clearly still thinks I’m a suspect.

  I return the bottle to the hut and come out again. I need to start acting the part of concerned citizen. ‘Looks like they only got as far as kicking the door in on this one.’ I gesture with my head towards the beach. ‘There’s crockery all over the sand back there.’

  She purses her lips. ‘It’s disgraceful,’ she says at last. ‘Bored teenagers, no doubt.’

  I pull out my phone. I’ve never actually rung Josh before. He sounds surprised when he answers.

  ‘Your dad’s beach hut’s been broken into. So have lots of others. I’m here now.’

  ‘Shit!’ I hear him relaying the information to his dad.

  ‘Dad says can you let Charlie in the art shop know? He lives in the flat above the shop. He’ll be able to board it up for us till we get back. Dad forgot his phone in the rush to leave yesterday, or we’d ring him from here.’

  ‘Sure.’

  The two women are now chatting to someone else. Seems like I’m off the hook.

  ‘You’re luckier than some,’ I tell him. ‘There’s bottles of wine been smashed, and plates and cups and things.’ I take a deep breath. Part of me wants to mention the brandy and the messed-up bed so that he knows I’ve seen it. But a bigger part doesn’t. Because while I’ve got a deranged stalker on my tail I’d much rather keep Josh on side. Besides, I’ll know from his reaction if it means something, and I don’t want to know. Not yet.

  29

  It’s raining. The vestry smells even damper and mustier than usual. It’s nearly eight o’clock and Helen’s still not here. I should have called on her earlier – I meant to – but what with all the business with the beach huts, I forgot all about it. And then Charlie asked me to mind the art shop while he boarded up the hut. I can’t believe he trusted me, a complete stranger, with all that valuable stock and a till full of cash.

  But what kind of friend have I been to Helen in her hour of need? What if she woke up after I left and started drinking again? The image of Simon twitching and jerking next to me, a drool of saliva oozing from the corner of his mouth, thrusts its way into my mind. There’s something else this time, something I’d forgotten till now: his phone, chirping and pulsating in his shirt pocket like a trapped bird. Why, after all this time, has that image popped into my head?

  I force myself back to the present. The atmosphere feels different tonight. Acne Man hasn’t turned up, but several new people have – new to me, at least. A fat middle-aged man with pasty white skin wearing a tracksuit and cheap white trainers cracked with age. He’s three seats away from me, but I can smell them from here. Jeremy, who’s sitting right next to him, keeps pinching his nostrils with his finger and thumb as if he’s got an itchy nose. Then there’s a black man in his late twenties or early thirties. A couple of times I’ve sensed him glance over at me. The rest of the time he hangs over his knees and stares at the floor.

  Rosie is chairing tonight. She’s wearing badly applied pink glittery nail polish that looks like something a seven-year-old would wear for a special party. Her voice drones
on and it isn’t long before my eyelids droop. I haven’t slept properly for the last two nights and, though my mind’s still spinning with everything that’s happened, my body craves sleep.

  Rosie’s voice washes through me, like the murmurings from Mum’s radio that come through the wall at night. I’m sinking into a dream-like state, but every so often a particular phrase snags at my attention and drags me to the surface.

  ‘It’s more than just apologizing … you have to actually do something …’

  My eyes flick open. Why do I always get the feeling that everything she says is directed at me and no one else? As if I’m the only person in the room. I know it’s just a coincidence that tonight she’s chosen to talk about Step 9, about making amends to people we’ve harmed, but after that horrible message I can’t help reading more into it. It’s as if she knows things about me I’ve never told her. I’m being paranoid, I know I am.

  I wish I hadn’t come. I could just stand up and walk out. Nobody’s going to stop me. I don’t have to justify my decision to any of them. But something keeps me tethered to the chair. It’s the same thing that brought me here in the first place, and it’s nothing to do with Mum’s list of dates by the calendar, or that edginess she gets when she thinks I’ve forgotten a meeting and can’t quite bring herself to remind me.

  *

  Rosie corners me at the end, as I knew she would. She and I are the only females in the room tonight. Is that why I tolerate her advances, because my usual ally is missing, presumed pissed?

  ‘No Helen tonight?’

  ‘No.’

  She leans towards me and lowers her voice. ‘I don’t like to gossip, but …’ Her eyes dart towards Jeremy, as if she doesn’t want him to witness her indiscretion. But Jeremy is busy doing what he always does, overseeing the teas and coffees, as if this were a business meeting he’s convened and he’s keen to reward everyone for their contributions.