We all poured back out onto the sidewalk again and started threading our way through the crowds back up toward the Red Lion, and Talbot Street, where I was planning on diverting in the direction of home. I walked deliberately slowly so that I’d fall behind and not be noticed when I sneaked off.
I heard a noise behind me, a shout.
It was Robin, coming out of the Lloyd George still zipping up his fly. He had apparently given up on Diane and Lucy, because for some reason he seemed to feel like starting on me. “Cath-aay,” he said, breathing beer and whiskey and green chicken curry all over me. “Did I tell you how sensational you’re looking tonight?”
He slung an arm over my shoulder. He was so close to me I could feel the heat of him. I ducked from under his arm and quickened my steps to try to catch up with the others, not wanting to reply, not trusting myself with any answer.
“What’s the matter, beautiful? You not talking to me tonight?”
“You’re drunk,” I said quietly, staring at Caroline’s back to try to make her turn around, to come and rescue me.
“Well, love,” he said, with emphasis, “of course I’m drunk, it’s the fucking Christmas party, right? Tha’s the whole fucking point.”
I stopped walking and turned to face him. Somewhere inside me, the fear had been taken over by fury. “Go and annoy someone else, Robin.”
He stopped too, and his attractive face had become a sneer. “Frigid cow,” he said loudly. “Bet you only get wet for your girlfriend.”
This, for some unfathomable reason, made me smile.
Whatever, it was clearly the wrong response for him. Before I knew what was happening, he’d pushed me back hard, my feet stumbling backward, until I hit a brick wall, his whole body against me. The breath knocked out of me in one go, I couldn’t take any in because of his weight, and then his face in mine, his mouth on mine, his tongue in my mouth.
It was nearly midnight when Lee finally put in an appearance.
He’d said he’d be at my house at eight, or thereabouts, and then nothing—no call, no text, nothing at all until nearly midnight. At eleven, pissed off, I had nearly gone out, but decided to go to bed instead. All night I’d been fighting the urge to phone him, to say “Where are you?” but instead I tidied up, cleaned the bathroom, e-mailed some friends and got steadily more and more mad.
Until the knock on the door.
Lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, I wasn’t sure I’d heard it until a second knock, slightly harder. I contemplated ignoring it; that would serve him damn right, standing me up like that! And besides, I was in my pajamas.
I waited a few moments and no more knocks came, but I couldn’t lie there anymore. The anger was sitting on my stomach like a dead weight. With a sigh, I got out of bed and padded downstairs, putting on the light in the hallway. I opened the door, mentally rehearsing giving him a piece of my mind.
Blood on his face.
“Oh, my God! Oh, shit, what happened?” Barefoot, I leapt from the doorway, touching his cheek, his face, feeling him wince.
“Can I come in?” he said, with a cheeky smile.
He wasn’t drunk at all, which had been my first thought. The way he was dressed was very different from the last time I’d seen him: grubby-looking jeans, a shirt that might once have been pale blue but was now decorated with spots of blood and smears of grease, a ratty brown jacket, sneakers that must have been years old. But I couldn’t smell alcohol on him—just sweat, dirt, the smell of the cold night outside.
My second thought, which I voiced, was, “What the fuck happened to you?”
He didn’t reply, but I didn’t give him much of a chance, dragging him in and sitting him on the sofa, while I ran around getting some peroxide and cotton balls and warm water and a towel. In the semidarkness, the light from the hallway, I dabbed away at the blood around his eye, feeling the swelling beneath the skin give. Blood oozed from the cut in his eyebrow.
“Are you going to tell me?” I said quietly.
He gazed at me, stroked my cheek. “You look so good,” he said. “I’m sorry I’m so late.”
“Lee, please. What happened?”
He shook his head.
“I can’t tell you. All I can say is that I’m sorry I didn’t make it for eight. I tried everything I could to get to a phone, but it didn’t happen.”
I stopped fussing around his face and looked at him. He was telling the truth about that, at least.
“It’s okay,” I said. “You’re here now.” I held a cotton pad up to his eyebrow for a moment. “Although dinner’s ruined.”
He laughed, and then winced.
“Lift up your shirt,” I ordered, and when he didn’t immediately comply I started to undo his buttons, pulling his shirt open. The side of his chest was red and scratched—the bruises wouldn’t show for a while. “Jesus,” I said, “you should be in the ER.”
His hands went to my back and pulled me down toward him. “I’m going nowhere.”
His kiss started gently, but only for a moment. Then it was fierce and hard, and I was kissing him back harder. His hands were threaded through my hair, pulling my face into his. After a moment I fought against him, but only so I could pull my T-shirt off over my head.
For a first time, it wasn’t very special. He smelled of engine oil and tasted of day-old instant coffee; his face was rough with stubble and he was heavy against me, but still I wanted him badly. Although he seemed to have forgotten that it might be a good idea to use a condom, I wasn’t about to stop him now; it was fast and awkward, a tangle of legs and arms, and clothes still getting in the way. His breath was coming fast and rasping against my throat, and a few minutes later he pulled out of me and came over my belly.
In the semidarkness I saw his blue eyes fill with tears as his breathing slowed, heard the gasp, the sob, pulled him back against me, cradling his head against mine; felt the warmth of droplets on my chest, blood or tears, I wasn’t sure. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s all so shit. I didn’t want it to be like this. I wanted this to work, properly work. I always do this, I always end up fucking everything up.”
“Lee,” I said, “it’s all right. Really.”
When he was calm again I left him on the sofa and made a cup of tea and some toast. He ate it as though he hadn’t seen food for weeks, while I sat, watching him, wondering what had happened and how I could get him to talk to me about it. After that, I ran a shower and stood with him under the spray, cleaning him properly this time. He stood half-propped against the wall, eyes closed, as I sponged the dirt away from his neck, his back. His right shoulder was one big graze, as though he’d fallen out of a car onto the road. His right hand was swollen, the knuckles scraped; clearly the fight he’d been in hadn’t been one-sided. Under his left arm, the deep red marks went all the way down and around to his lower back. Maybe he’d broken some ribs. I reached up and washed his hair, using the shower spray to rinse it back, away from his eyes. There was more blood in his hair above his right ear, lots of it, matted into a solid lump, but no apparent wound. Whatever—it sluiced away down the drain and was gone.
I pushed as hard as I could and felt a scream that wouldn’t come, utter terror making my heart pound, trying to get my knee up to connect with his groin; and then, just as quickly, he was pulled back off me with a grunt.
For a moment all I could see was a man dragging Robin off by the scruff of his neck, then pushing him hard so that he fell to the floor. “Fuck off,” said a voice. “Go on, fuck off now before I smack you one.”
“All right, all right, calm down. No problem.” Robin scrambled to his feet, dusted off his pants and marched off after the rest of them, none of whom was any the wiser.
It was Stuart.
I was still frozen to the spot, my back against the filthy graffitied wall, breathing coming in short gasps, my hands in tight fists, fingers already beginning to tingle. I could feel it coming on, fighting it as hard as I could. I really didn’t need to be having a panic attack at eleven o’clock at night on High Street.
He came back over to me, but not too close. He stood to one side so that the light from the rental agent’s window fell on his face, so that I could see it was him. “You okay? No, silly question. Okay. Deep breaths—come on, breathe with me.”
He put one hand on my upper arm, and ignored my flinch. He made me look him in the eye. “Take one deep breath and hold it. Come on. One breath—hold it.” His voice was calm, soothing, but it wasn’t helping.
“I need to get home, I—”
“Just wait a second. Get your breath back.”
“I—”
“I’m here. It’s okay. That idiot won’t come back. Now breathe, slowly, come on, breathe with me for a bit. Look at me. That’s it.”
So I stood still and concentrated on breathing. Despite it all, despite the terror and the shock of it, I could feel my heart rate slowing. The shaking wouldn’t stop, though.
His steady, unflinching eye contact was unnerving and reassuring all at the same time.
“Right, that’s much better,” he said, after a few minutes. “Are you okay to walk?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, and set off. My legs were shaking, and I stumbled.
“Here,” he said, and offered me his arm.
I hesitated for a moment, feeling the terror coming back. I wanted to run, I wanted to run fast and hard and not look back. But then I took his arm, and we started to walk up toward Talbot Street and home.
A police car suddenly pulled to a stop beside us, and a tall, lanky officer got out. “Hold up a second, please,” he said to us.
The shaking got worse.
“All right?” said Stuart.
“CCTV saw you back there,” the officer said to me. His radio, clipped to the front of his armored vest, was bleeping and talking to itself. “Looks like someone was giving you some trouble. Everything okay?”
I nodded vigorously.
“You’re looking a bit shaky,” the police officer said, eyeing me doubtfully. “Had a lot to drink?”
I shook my head. “Just—cold,” I said, my teeth chattering.
“You know this gentleman?” the police officer said to me.
I nodded again.
“I’m going to walk her home,” said Stuart. “Just around the corner.”
The officer nodded, checking us both out. From the car, the other officer said, “Rob—flash call just come in.”
“Long as you’re okay,” he said, but he was already halfway inside the car, and the sirens started a second later, making me jump half out of my skin.
We continued walking. I hadn’t drunk anything stronger than fruit juice, but each step felt as if the ground was swaying.
“You don’t like police, huh,” Stuart said. It wasn’t a question.
I didn’t answer. Tears were pouring one after the other down my cheeks. I’d felt the panic at the mere sight of him, at the cuffs buttoned to the front of his vest, and the siren had just about finished me off.
By the time we got to the front door, he was just about holding me up. I was gripping his arm like a lifeline, too afraid to let go. “Come upstairs, I’ll make you a cup of tea,” he said.
As soon as the front door was shut behind us, I let go of him. I checked it, just once, even though he was there. I turned the lock clockwise and counterclockwise, pulled the door toward me, pulled it again and heard it rattle, ran my fingers over the edge where the door met the jamb. I wanted to check it again but I realized he was watching me. I managed a weak smile.
“Thanks. I’ll be all right now.”
I waited for him to go up the stairs so I could check the door again, but he stood his ground.
“Please. Just come and have a cup of tea. We’ll leave my door open so you can leave if you want to. Okay?”
I stared at him. “I’ll be fine. Thank you.”
He didn’t move.
“Please, Stuart, you can go back out and find your friends. I’m fine now, honest.”
“Just come and have a cup of tea. The door’s locked, I saw you do it. You’re safe.” He was holding out his hand, waiting for me to take it.
I didn’t take it, but I did manage to give up on the checking. “All right. Thanks.”
You’re safe
? What an odd thing to say, I thought, following him up the stairs. I couldn’t look at my flat door as we passed it, because I wouldn’t have been able to resist the urge to start checking. As it was, I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight.
He turned on all the lights in his flat as he went in, putting the kettle on in the kitchen. To the left of the kitchen area was a large, open-plan living room, with two bay windows facing the front. Leafy green plants on the windowsills. I wandered over to them and looked out. Despite the dark, there was a good view over to High Street, crowds of people still walking up and down without a care in the world. From up here you could see over the rooftops of the houses across the street, down across the twinkling orange streetlights of London toward the river, in the distance the lights on top of Canary Wharf flashing on and off, and beyond it, the Dome, lit up like a landed spacecraft.
He put a mug of tea for me down on the coffee table and sat in one of the armchairs. “How are you feeling?” he asked gently.
“I’m okay,” I lied, my teeth chattering. I sat on the sofa, which was low and deep and surprisingly comfortable, hugging my knees. I felt so tired, all of a sudden.
“Will you be all right later?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said.
He hesitated, and took a drink from his mug. “If you start feeling like you’re getting a panic attack, will you call me? Come and knock on the door?”
I spent a moment contemplating this, not answering.
I’d like to
was what I wanted to say, because I knew full well that he was right, I would undoubtedly have a panic attack later on, and I also knew that wild horses wouldn’t be able to get me out of my own flat when it happened.
I thought my hands might have stopped shaking enough to risk picking up the mug, and I took a gulp of tea. It was hot, and funnily enough he hadn’t done a bad job of making it. Not quite enough milk, but good enough to make it drinkable.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“You don’t need to be sorry,” he answered. “Don’t be sorry. It wasn’t your fault.”
Those words started the tears falling again, and I put the mug down and covered my face with both my hands. I half expected him to come over, to try to hold me, and I braced myself for the shock of it, but he didn’t move. After a few moments I opened my eyes and found a box of tissues were on the table in front of me. I gave a short laugh and took one, wiping my face.
“You have OCD,” I heard him say.
I found my voice again. “Yes, thanks for pointing it out.”
“Are you getting any help?”
I shook my head. “What’s the point?” I cast him a glance and he was watching me impassively.
He gave a little shrug. “Maybe it could give you some more free time?”
“I don’t need any more free time, thanks. My calendar’s hardly what you’d call packed.”
I realized I was probably starting to sound a bit hostile, so I took another drink of tea to calm myself down. “Sorry,” I said again. “I didn’t mean to bite your head off.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re right, it’s absolutely none of my business. And very rude of me to point it out.”
I gave him a weak smile. “What are you, some kind of shrink?”
He laughed, and nodded. “Some kind. I’m a doctor at the Maudsley.”
“What sort of doctor?”
“A clinical psychologist. I work on an assessment ward as well as doing some outpatient clinics. I specialize in treating depression but I’ve seen plenty of people with OCD in the past.”
Oh, fuck, I thought. That was it. Now somebody else knew that I was turning into a nutcase. I would have to move.
He finished his tea, stood up and took the mug out to the kitchen. When he came back, he had a small piece of paper that he put carefully on the table in front of me.
“What’s that?” I said suspiciously.
“The last time I’ll mention it, I promise. It’s the name of one of my colleagues. If you change your mind about getting some advice, some help, ask the Community Mental Health Team to refer you to him. He’s a top guy. And he specializes in OCD.”
I took the piece of paper. In neat letters, the words “Alistair Hodge.” Under that, the word “Stuart” and a cell number.
“That’s my number,” he said. “If you have a panic attack later, you can call me. I’ll come down and sit with you.”
Yes, I thought, like
that’s
going to happen.
“I can’t go and see anyone. I really can’t. What about work? I’d never be able to get a promotion again if they know I’m nuts.”
He smiled. “You’re not ‘nuts’ at all. There’s no reason why your employer needs to know about it. And even if you decide not to go and see anyone, there are a lot of things you can do on your own that might help. I could recommend you some books. You could try some relaxation therapies, that kind of thing. None of that would ever go on your records.”
I turned the piece of paper over and over in my fingers. “I’ll think about it.”
From outside, a sound of a police siren filtered up to the top floor. “I should go home,” I said.
I stood and made my way to the front door. It was still open, giving me easy access to the hallway beyond. “Thanks,” I said, turning toward him. For a moment I wanted to give him a hug. I wanted to feel what it was like to have his arms around me, whether it would feel safe, or not. But I could still feel the pressure of Robin’s body against me, and it held me back.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
“Sure.”
“Couldn’t
you
do it? Couldn’t you treat me?”
He gave me a smile. I was outside the flat, he was inside it, keeping that space between us. “Conflict of interest,” he said.
I must have looked confused.
“If we’re going to be friends,” he said, “I’m too involved. It would be unprofessional.”
Before I had a chance to react to this, he’d given me a smile, said good night, and closed the door. I went all the way downstairs to the front door, and started the checking.