My cell phone ringing made me jump. I’d been sitting waiting for something to happen, waiting for him to come back, waiting for him to call, hoping for it and dreading it at the same time. But the name on the display wasn’t Lee; it was
Sylv Mob
.
“Sylvia?” I said, trying to sound as cheerful as I possibly could. “How the devil are you?”
“I’m fine, honey. How are you doing?”
“I’m okay. How’s London?”
“How are you really?”
I couldn’t reply for a moment, holding the phone tightly, looking at a spot on the wall, trying to concentrate really, really hard on not breaking down. “I’m okay,” I said again.
“Louise says you’re acting a bit weird. She’s worried about you.”
“Weird? I’m not acting weird at all. What’s that supposed to mean?”
Her voice was curiously calm and, for Sylvia, soothing. “Doesn’t mean anything, she’s just worried about you. She said you had marks on your arms. She said you went out with them last month and then went home again after half an hour. And Claire said she had Lee crying on her shoulder the other day—you’d had a fight or something.”
When I didn’t answer, she said, “Hello? Catherine?”
“I’m still here.”
“Do you want me to come home, darling? I could make it at the weekend, maybe, for a day?”
“No, no. Honestly. I’m fine. It’s just—things aren’t going so well with Lee.”
“What’s been going on?”
“He’s—he . . . Sylv, he just scares me sometimes. He pushes me around a bit. I don’t like it.”
There was a long, long pause. I’d done it. I’d admitted that my perfect relationship with my perfect man wasn’t as perfect as they all thought it was. And now everything was going to be all right, because Sylvia knew, Sylvia would have exactly the right words to say to make it better, my best friend in the whole world. I waited for her to say something sympathetic, I waited for her to tell me to dump him, get out of the relationship, tell him to fuck off using those exact words and run, and not look back. Ever.
When she next spoke I was so shocked that, for a moment, I forgot to breathe.
“Catherine, I think maybe you should see someone.”
“What . . . ?”
“You’ve been through a really rough time lately, lots of stress at work, lots of pressure, haven’t you?”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“I know Louise is worried about you. We all are. Lee’s worried about you too. I think you should go and talk to someone—your doctor? Or maybe someone at work?”
“Wait,” I said, “Lee’s worried about me?”
She hesitated. “Darling, he loves you. He thinks you’re just missing me, or something, but it’s more than that, I know it is. He says you’ve been hurting yourself. You’ve been hurting your arms. Please don’t get upset, my darling, I don’t want to upset you when I’m so far away and I can’t do anything about it . . .”
I heard my voice rising into some high-pitched note of hysteria. “Sylvia! He’s fucking frightening me. He tells me what to wear. He tells me when I’m allowed to go out. No matter how you try and dress it up, that isn’t a fucking normal relationship!”
She was silent, then.
“Whatever it is he told you, it’s not fucking true, all right?”
“Don’t get upset, Catherine, please, I—”
“Don’t get upset?” I echoed. “What the fuck do you expect me to say? Since when did you and Lee start talking to each other on the phone, anyway?”
“He spoke to Louise, she told him she was worried about you. Louise called me last night and then Lee called me too. We’re all just worried sick about you, C. You’re acting really strangely and we all just want you back to your normal self again . . .”
“I don’t believe I’m hearing this. This cannot be happening.”
“Listen, darling, Lee says he’s trying everything to make sure you’re all right, but I still think you’d be better if you saw someone. Listen to me, Catherine. I want you to get some help with this. Do you want me to try and find you some numbers?”
I removed the phone from my ear and stared at it for a moment with a fascinated horror, and then pressed the “end” button and threw it with all my strength at the wall. It broke into at least three pieces, the main part lying on my carpet making a faint, strange high note like an animal in pain.
I put my hand against my mouth to stop—what? A scream? There was nobody left now. Nobody at all. It was just him, and me.
The bus crawled through the evening traffic. It was dark but the city was bright: store windows, streetlights, traffic lights, the glare everywhere reflecting off the wet rainy streets. Inside the bus was warm and damp, the windows steamy, the smell of hundreds of people and grubby upholstery.
I don’t like using the phone on the bus, but I was desperate to talk to him. I kept my voice low.
“Hi, it’s me.”
His voice sounded a long, long way away. “How did it go?”
“It was fine. Well, it was difficult too. But I did it. He’s going to refer me to Alistair. And he gave me some pills.”
“What are they?”
“I don’t know, the prescription’s in my bag. He said they were an SS-something.”
“SSRI. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor.”
“Whatever. He said he thought I had post-traumatic stress disorder as well as OCD.”
“That’s good.”
“Is it?”
“I meant it’s good that he thought that. I thought it too. But it’s not my place to assess you.”
“No. How’s work?”
“It was okay, I guess. It’s over with, anyway.”
The man across the aisle was staring at me. He didn’t look remotely like Lee, but he unsettled me nonetheless. He was young, with lank hair chopped roughly around his ears, scabs on his mouth and nose. Hollow eyes with dark circles under them, staring at me.
At the next stop a few more people got off, and I contemplated leaving the bus and walking the rest of the way. The man across the aisle stood up too and I thought he was getting off, so I stayed where I was. Instead he stood in the aisle for a moment until the bus started moving again, and then sat in the seat in front of mine.
He was giving off a smell, mildewed, like clothes that had been left damp in the washing machine for a couple of days. There were spots on the back of his neck and every few seconds he sniffed conspicuously.
At the next stop I got off the bus. I thought he was going to follow me, but instead he stayed on. I stood at the bus stop in the rain and watched the bus move on, saw him through the window, those eyes, still staring.
I stopped at the post office in town on the way home and picked up some passport forms. I browsed around in some stores while I was there, looking at clothes, but not bothering to try anything on. I just didn’t feel like going home, not yet. Lee was working today, I hadn’t had a text or a phone call since last night.
When I opened the front door I had that same immediate sense that something wasn’t right. It wasn’t a draft, or a smell, or anything tangible. The driveway just had my car on it, and there was no sign of Lee’s car or any other car for that matter. I just knew that someone had been in the house while I’d been out.
I stood there on the mat for a moment, the door still open behind me, wondering if I should go inside or if I should just get in my car and drive away again. The hallway was empty, I could see all the way down to the kitchen at the back—everything was as I had left it.
This is stupid, I told myself. Nobody’s been in here, it’s just your fertile imagination and that bastard burglar.
I put my keys and my bag down in the kitchen and went through to the living room, and stopped dead. Lee was sitting on the sofa, watching television with the sound muted.
I gasped with shock. “Jesus, you scared the life out of me!”
He stood up then and came toward me. “Where the fuck have you been?”
“In town,” I said. “I went to the post office. Don’t talk to me like that, anyway, what’s it matter where I’ve been?”
“You went to the post office for two fucking hours?”
He was standing inches away from me. I could feel the heat of his body, like the force of his anger. His hands were hanging relaxed by his sides, his voice was even.
Nevertheless, I was afraid.
“If you’re going to speak to me like that I’m going out again,” I said, and turned my back on him.
I felt his fingers circle my upper arm and he pulled me around with such force that my feet left the floor. “Do not walk away from me,” he said into my face, his breath hot on my cheek.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered.
He let me go and I stumbled against the doorway. The instant he moved away from me I ran, bolted for the front door, never mind that my keys were in the kitchen—I had to get out, I had to run.
I never made it. He was at the front door before me and before I had any idea what was happening his fist made contact with the side of my face, the corner of my eye.
I was on the floor, by the stairs. He was standing over me, looking down. I was so shocked I couldn’t catch my breath, sobbing and touching my cheek to see if I was bleeding. Then he crouched next to me and I shrank back, thinking he was going to hit me again.
“Catherine,” he said, his voice low, shockingly calm. “Don’t make me do that again, okay? Just come home on time, or let me know where you’re going. It’s simple. It’s for your own safety. There are some really dangerous people out there. I’m the only one who’s looking out for you, you know that, don’t you? So make it easy for yourself and do as you’re told.”
It felt like a turning point. It was as though the denial about my relationship with Lee had come to an end, I knew what he was capable of, what he could do, and what he expected of me. It was as though a door had been slammed in the face of the old, naïve, carefree Catherine. What was left was me: the one who was afraid all the time, the one who looked behind to check who was following, the one who knew that, whatever the future held, it could not possibly be good.
Hours later, when I was finally brave enough to look in the mirror, there was scarcely a mark on my face. It had felt as though he’d broken my cheekbone. My head was aching, but on the surface of the skin there was just a barely perceptible swelling and a small red mark. As though he hadn’t hit me at all.
I got off the bus at Denmark Hill. Across the street, King’s College Hospital, brightly lit, an ambulance with lights flashing and sirens blaring going to the side entrance and the Accident and Emergency department. I stood at the pedestrian crossing, watching the ambulance, until I realized a car had stopped to let me across. I headed for the Maudsley Hospital, a beautiful old building with huge pale porticos against red brick, just across the street.
I stood looking at it for a moment thinking of how it must have looked the same a hundred years ago, maybe with less traffic. The last time I’d been near a hospital was when I’d been taken in through the back entrance, in the back of an ambulance, sitting crouched and squeezed tightly into a corner. I promised myself I’d never go back there, I’d never let them take me like that again. Now here I was, standing in front of a psychiatric hospital and I was going to walk in through the front entrance just like a normal person. If I could just pluck up the courage to move.
“Looking for someone?”
It was Stuart. He was wearing a shirt that looked badly in need of ironing, the sleeves folded up to his elbows, his hospital ID pass clipped to his breast pocket.
“I’d almost forgotten what you look like,” I said. It had only been a couple of days, with various shift patterns and me being at work too, but it felt like years.
“Shall we go inside?” he said, after a moment.
I looked at him and looked back at the entrance. I could see people inside, walking around.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“We could go somewhere else, if you like,” he said gently, “but I haven’t got long.”
I took a deep breath. “No, let’s do it. Just make sure I get let out again, all right?”
We walked through the main entrance and down an endless corridor, passing doctors and visitors and medical reps and orderlies, until suddenly there was a restaurant on the left. “I take you to all the nicest places,” he said.
“It’s fine. Don’t be silly.”
I sat at a free table while he got us some drinks and food. I watched him in line. Crowds of people always made me nervous, but being in here made things worse. It was easy to spot the medical staff since they clearly belonged there; others, probably visiting family, looking up at the blackboard menu with everything except jacket potatoes scrubbed off, debating over the few remaining sandwiches or the stale cake. Maybe some of them were patients.
Three people behind Stuart in line, a man with his back to me was making me feel uncomfortable. He was with some other people, laughing and talking to a girl, but there was something about him that reminded me . . . the laugh? I could hear it from here. I concentrated on Stuart, watching him, but the man was still there. He had muscles, too, big shoulders. I started to feel a bit sick.
I turned in my seat toward the wall, concentrating on the bright white walls, trying to think about other things. Counting to six. It’ll be fine. It’s not him.
“Cheese or ham?” Stuart put the tray down in front of me and I jumped.
“Cheese, please,” I said. He passed it over and started unwrapping his ham.
“Let’s go out at the weekend,” he said. “What do you think? We’ll go out Saturday—the weather’s supposed to be good, isn’t it? I’ve got a match on Sunday, assuming the shoulder’s up to it.”
The man who’d been behind Stuart in line walked past then. He was more like him than the man in the café in Brighton had been. I looked, though. I did it. I looked at him, forced my brain to spot the differences.
Stuart followed my gaze, watched as the man sat a few tables away, with his friends and the girl he’d been talking to. They were still laughing.
“That’s Rob,” he said. “Plays rugby with me.”
“Oh,” I said.
I looked up and saw his eyes on me. Watching me steadily. “You all right?”
“Yes.”
“Sure?”
“Yes.”
“You look a bit—pale.”
I tried to laugh. “I’m always pale. Really, I’m fine.”
“How long did the checks take this morning?”
I shrugged. “Wasn’t paying attention.”
He was still looking.
“Stuart, really, I’m fine. Stop it, okay?”
“Sorry.”
After we’d finished eating we walked back up the long corridor toward the entrance. The entrance hallway was still full of people coming and going. I was counting my steps back to the door, thinking of nothing except getting out, and perversely what they would do if I suddenly started to run, and then we were outside in the cold, and I could finally breathe fresh air, traffic fumes, and hear the noises of the outside, and I was free again. I wasn’t even really aware that he was still there with me until he took hold of my hand.
I looked at him in surprise.
“I know this isn’t the right time, or the right place,” he said. “But I wanted to tell you something.”
I waited for him to continue, looked down at his hand holding mine. Realized he was actually nervous.
“Remember when I kissed you? And the next day I said it was just a kiss. Do you remember that?”
“Yes.”
I was too afraid of making eye contact with him, so I looked at the street, watched the traffic heading south, three buses going in the opposite direction and so far not a single one heading for the river and home.
“It wasn’t just a kiss for me. I said that because—I don’t know. I don’t know why I said it. It was stupid. I’ve been thinking about it ever since.”
That was when I saw her.
On the top deck of the number 68, heading toward West Norwood. My attention caught by a bright pink beret sitting jauntily on top of a mass of blonde curls. Heading away from me, but looking at me intently. Staring.
It was Sylvia.
I turned back to him. “What did you say?”