The Book of You: A Novel (15 page)

Friday

Friday, February 20, 8:03 a.m.

As I walk from my front door to the taxi, I see that the black rubbish bag I left outside is gone and my recycling box is empty, though all the others on my street are untouched. It doesn’t matter. You will find nothing of interest in any of it.

You are positioned in front of the station when the taxi drops me off. You watch me as though I’m a scientific experiment whose reaction you are awaiting.

Wordlessly, you follow me in, making me catch my breath and shake and feel my face redden as I try to act like you aren’t here. Would you be pleased to know the bandages on my fingers are because of you? I do not tell you. I do not look at you.

I drop my season ticket wallet as I hold it clumsily in my bad left hand while attempting to extract the ticket with my right. I bend to pick it up, my face reddening more as the queue builds behind me. At last, I manage to feed my card through the ticket gate. All the time your eyes are on me. I can feel them. Serious and intent and only on me. This time, you feed your own ticket through and follow. You walk through the tunnel beside me.

There is a rushing in my ears. Although I can see their mouths moving, the voices of the people around me sound as if they are coming from far away. It is like being in a surrealist film.

“What happened to your hand, Clarissa?”

Or a bizarre children’s cartoon. People look so large, zooming toward me and swerving out of my path just in the nick of time.

“Would you like some company on the train, Clarissa?”

The tunnel is growing darker. I blink my eyes rapidly, hard, trying to squeeze away the mist that seems to be gathering.

“Been reading any good fairy tales lately, Clarissa?”

My breathing is heavy and fast.

“Few people understand them as well as we do, Clarissa.”

I can’t get enough air.

“Clarissa? Clarissa. Clarissa.” Your face is above mine, your tongue darting out to lick your lips, quickly, like a reptile. “I have the missing piece, Clarissa.” Your hands are under my arms. I am slipping to the ground.

I open my eyes. The tunnel is very bright. I am lying on my left side. The chill of the concrete beneath the slushy tiles is seeping through my clothes and into my skin. My head is resting on a strange coat.

A railway guard and a plump, middle-aged woman are crouched beside me. The woman is tugging at my skirt. I nearly swat her hands away, but that’s when I see how exposed I am. The skirt’s ridden up so much that the flesh above my stockings is showing. She’s trying to cover me.

People slow to stare as they walk by: I am the car crash.

I struggle up, first sitting, then getting to my feet and leaning against one of the huge framed advertising posters lit up on the tunnel wall. It is for the
Cinderella
I refused to meet you at. I am searching the tunnel, but I don’t see you anywhere. The guard and the woman are telling me I fainted and it should be investigated; they want to call an ambulance or at least put me in a taxi home.

The woman picks up her coat, and I see the damp splashes of trampled, soiled snow that have stained it. I apologize, thanking her again for her kindness, offering money for dry cleaning, but she refuses.

“A man caught you,” she says. “You’d have fallen hard and hurt yourself if it hadn’t been for him. He was so careful and gentle with you before he had to run for his train.”

You made yourself look like a hero, a rescuer. The thought makes me lean more heavily against the poster. My knees are weak again. I fear I’m going to slide down the tunnel wall—bump, bump, bump with my back along it—and land in a little heap. If ever you need witnesses, they’ll testify that you’re a chivalrous knight.

The guard hands me my newly made bag, and I loop it over my shoulder, promising that I’m fine now, really fine, and much better for their care, but I have to get to Bristol. Graying and gentlemanly, he insists on seeing me up to the platform and onto the train.

S
HE WAS SITTING
with Robert at one of the horrible plastic tables. She kept her bandaged hand in her lap and out of his line of vision. The burned skin was pulling. Already her fingers were covered in blisters. At least it wasn’t her writing hand and wouldn’t affect her note-taking. She’d swallowed three ibuprofen on an empty stomach before leaving her flat, imagining her mother frowning at her for overdosing. That might have contributed to the fainting. At least the drugs were working and her head wasn’t pounding anymore.

It was small, the injury to her fingers. It was nothing compared to the things Robert must see every day. Yet everything about her felt raw, like her skin. She thought she probably looked normal but feared she might, mortifyingly, start to cry.

Robert squinted slightly. “You look sad.”

She wanted to form a smile to deny this but managed only to bite her lip, another twinge of guilt for bringing him to Rafe’s notice but not having the courage to tell him. What sane man would want to be involved with her when she was in such a mess? And to tell Robert would presume a degree of closeness, even of obligation between them, that she wasn’t confident of. It was way too much to lay on him.

But she knew it wasn’t fair to do nothing. She tried again to think about how she could warn him to be alert. Subtlety completely failed her; she just blurted it out: “You can defend yourself, can’t you?”

“I’m six foot three. I boxed and fenced every weekend when I was a boy, and I coach kids in both. You don’t need to worry about me.”

“I can see that,” she said.

“I once had to knock a guy out who tried to stop us going in to save his wife.”

She managed to laugh, but only feebly. “Did you save her?”

“Yep. Not a mark on her. But he had a black eye.”

She managed to smile, but only briefly. “I was thinking about how hard it must be. The not-being-able-to-save-people part of it. Having to see them suffer. Maybe being able to live with that is the bravest thing of all.”

“You get used to it. No bravery involved.”

“There’s something,” she said, “that I was wondering about.”

“You’re not going to ask me to introduce you to Jack, are you?”

“It’s a little soon. Maybe in a week or two.”

“Very wise.” He was soon serious again. “What were you wondering about?”

“Is it very hard,” she asked, “when a child dies?”

“It’s just another body, Clarissa.” He reached over the table, gently touched her arm. “I’m sorry. I can see that I’ve shocked you. Yes, in some ways it’s worse when it’s a child—I was wrong to think the lie would be easier for you than the truth. But you’re fragile today, aren’t you?”

“Maybe a little.”

“Each death is sad in its own way. The deaths we see aren’t necessary. They’re premature. But I forget sometimes how it seems to others. You get hardened to all the death. You have to, to keep doing it. Most of us, we don’t talk about it except to other firefighters, so I’m not practiced at that. I’m not careful enough, around you, of how I talk.”

S
HE SMOOTHED DOWN
her skirt before entering the courtroom. The skin on her fingers felt as if it would pop as she stretched them.

The blue screen was glaringly absent. They’d never had a witness who hadn’t hidden behind it. The door opened. In lumbered a man with a barrel for a chest and arms the size of tree trunks. His fair blond head was bowed. Beside him was a prison guard.

“I’m not happy to be here. I’m in prison. There could be”—Charlie Barton paused to let the word sink in—“repercussions. I’m only here in the name of justice, to talk about the rape. What happened to that poor girl was terrible. I liked that girl.”

Mr. Morden nodded in seeming admiration of this rare example of gallantry. “You’re visibly a strong, large man, and I say that with true respect. Yet Mr. Azarola beat you up?”

“Yes. I was scared of him. I ran away.”

“I have no further questions.”

“But I’m here to help the girl. I don’t see how this can help the girl. You haven’t asked me anything about the girl.”

I
T WAS ALMOST
twenty to five. Clarissa wanted to speed-walk out of court to try to catch the five o’clock train. Her fingers were burning horribly, so taut and hot she thought the skin would split even without moving them. She wanted to swallow more of Henry’s tranquilizing painkillers and get straight into bed and lose herself in sleep. His hands had been on her that morning. She couldn’t let herself faint again, let herself be unguarded and helpless and in his power, even for a second. But unconsciousness at night was safe, and she needed a powerful dose of oblivion.

She hurried to collect her things and walked out of the jurors’ area with Wendy, wondering if Robert was already ahead, running for the train. And Rafe. Would he show himself again, wanting her to see, enjoying her reactions as he had this morning? Or would he be lurking in the shadows all along the journey home? What were the places he could hide?

She realized she was beginning to live with the daily fact of his doing these things, as if she accepted that she had to fit him into her life as discreetly as possible. So much of her concentration went on minimizing his effects on everything else and above all on keeping him away from Robert. She mustn’t accept it, she thought, angry with herself. She must think about how to fight him more effectively.

At the bottom of the stairs was the giant witness, surrounded by seemingly tiny prison guards, his wrists in cuffs before him. He looked respectfully at Clarissa and Wendy, and she fantasized about Barton beating the crap out of Rafe. In grave recognition of the two of them, Barton bowed his head slightly before disappearing through a door she hadn’t noticed before, his little guards in tow.

Friday, February 20, 5:40 p.m.

You see that there is no Robert with me. That must be why you decide to do it when you do. Just past the bridge, in the midst of the hurrying businessmen, you bump into me so hard I can’t help but look at you.

“Aren’t you going to thank me for catching you, Clarissa?”

“Your hair smelled lovely this morning, Clarissa.”

“Your cheek is so soft, like the rest of you, Clarissa.”

“Remember how I said you looked so pretty when you’re asleep, Clarissa?” You briskly overtake me, hold a gloved hand high above your head, and let a photograph flutter onto the pavement behind you.

It lands faceup. You turn to watch as I kneel to try to grab it. My hands are shaking so much I drop it twice and have to scrabble around for it on the filthy pavement with my clumsy fingers before I can get it out of sight. Satisfied, you smile and walk on.

In all of my fearful imaginings of what you might have done to me that night, I never saw this coming. I never let myself envision this.

Even hidden away in my bag the image blazes in front of my eyes as if it were blown up on a large screen. Lying on my back, asleep in my own bed, my body stretched into a straight line. I am wearing a pair of lavender bikini underwear. That is all I have on. My stockings and bra are dropped next to me. My arms are extended above my head, my fingertips grazing the bedstead. My eyes are closed.

I realize that I haven’t seen the underwear since your night in my flat. There’s no doubt that that’s when you took the picture. And a sick fear in the pit of my stomach makes me sure you didn’t stop at one.

I
T HAD BEEN
a week since she first tried, and she had to attempt it again. As soon as she got home she dialed James Betterton’s number.

This time a woman answered.

Clarissa attempted to sound natural, as if the call were nothing out of the ordinary. “Hello, is Laura there?”

The woman drew in her breath. She spoke as if she’d been trying to keep the words in but couldn’t help herself. “Do you have news?”

“I don’t. I’m sorry. I’m trying to find—”

“Don’t bother us again.” The woman ended the call.

Clarissa held the phone for several seconds, listening to the dead dial tone, her heart bang-bang-banging in her chest. Rafe’s allusions to fairy tales were all mixed up with her fears for Laura Betterton. She wanted to dismiss herself as mad. That was preferable to being right. But she was growing more certain by the minute that his references to those stories were no mere threats, no teasing hints of his fantasies, but clues about what he’d already done.

She envisioned the chopped-up bodies of the young women in “The Robber Bridegroom.” The sorcerer’s basin of dead girls in “Fitcher’s Bird.” The torture devices and gore-soaked floor of Bluebeard’s secret room. King Shahryar’s series of punished queens—each of them knew on her wedding night that by morning she’d feel the blade of a sword on her neck in place of his lips.

Rafe’s house was remote, in a village outside of Bath. Did he have his own bloody chamber filled with corpses? A burial ground in his garden? A bathtub filled with acid?

Her imagination was too lurid, she tried to tell herself. It was the drugs she’d swallowed for her fingers, and the nagging pain, and irrational fear, and the ugliness of the trial. More than anything it was the mortifying image he’d given her of herself.

Two hours later she was drifting into sleep on the living-room sofa, having decided she would have to buy a new bed because she couldn’t sleep where he’d stolen that image of her. Her nightdress—old-fashioned and girlish and comforting and made by her mother—had ridden up. She tugged down the soft pale-blue cotton with her good hand. She tucked the blankets she’d dragged in more snugly around her shoulders. She was trying to excise the photograph from her head, but it seemed to be painted on the insides of her closed eyelids. The photograph wasn’t evidence against him. It was evidence against her. Evidence that she had invited him in. Evidence of intimacy—or at least an illusion of it—that he knew she wouldn’t want anybody else to see.

W
EEK
F
OUR

The Potion of Forgetfulness

Monday

Monday, February 23, 8:00 a.m.

It is your usual routine. You are outside my house, though you stand in the center of the grass near Miss Norton’s bare apple tree instead of the path. I am walking quickly to the taxi.

“You’ve lost my respect, Clarissa,” you say from several feet away.

I look straight ahead.

“I warned you, Clarissa. I warned you several times. But you haven’t stopped. You’ve brought it on yourself.”

You still don’t try to get close to me. You do not move from your spot. Calmly, you watch as the taxi drives away.

Will you blow the photograph into a poster and display it somewhere public, somewhere Robert will see it? You know where my parents live. Will you send it to them?

When I think of my parents, my stomach does a flip and my heart hammers even harder, but I know they are safe from you, at least physically. I know you won’t bother them in Brighton. Brighton is too far away from me. Brighton is where they must stay. Brighton is where, at least for now, I cannot go.

S
HE WAS GLAD
when the door to the jury assembly room snapped shut behind her. She hadn’t cooked her mother’s beef casserole that weekend or touched that red wine, despite not having left her flat a single time. She hadn’t even looked out her windows, in dread of seeing him there.

She knew she couldn’t let herself spend all of her weekends locked in. Had Laura locked herself away somewhere? That was more likely than the gothic film of chopped-up bodies she’d been playing in her own head.

Something Lottie had said kept haunting her.
I thought if I ignored it, tried to avoid him, it would disappear.
Clarissa understood the desire to believe that, but knew she couldn’t afford to.

She had rejected him, and that could be a trigger. Evidently, Laura had, too. Rejection was probably the key to it all. Nobody liked rejection, but the vast majority of people found ways to cope with it and didn’t put themselves in a position where they’d have to face rejection multiple times a day. She’d only ever thought of him as sadistic, but it occurred to her that he was masochistic, too. She pictured him coatless and half frozen, and wondered if he made himself suffer in that way so he’d have another thing to blame her for.

But as she puzzled over it, she realized that she might learn something useful if she tried to view him as tormented, if she tried to see his behavior as the product of a severe illness or wound. If he felt spurned, again and again spurned, then he must feel powerless; he was trying to assert sadistic power over her in the face of what he saw as repeated, cruel rejection. All she ever said to him—whether through words or actions or freezing him out—was no; it was all she could say; the power of veto was her only power; and with each no, his actions became more punishing and dangerous. Not just to her: to him, too.

But it didn’t work; she couldn’t sustain her effort to see him as a damaged and anguished human being who ought to be understood; she was actually glad that he was beyond her comprehension; she hated giving him any more space in her head than the space he was already stealing. Her parents had brought her up not to believe in evil, but she wasn’t sure they were right. They had brought her up to believe that everyone deserved forgiveness, but she wasn’t capable of feeling that he did. They had brought her up to acknowledge other people’s points of view, however difficult it might be; maybe there was someone on the planet who could acknowledge his, but it was impossible for her to be that person. He was her enemy, pure and simple. As if to remind her of this, the burning in her fingers deepened for a few seconds.

She’d come across so many definitions and pieces of advice, she could hardly keep it straight. But she hadn’t found what she was looking for, the thing that might have made her feel less alone: none of them admitted that the victim of a stalker might be reluctant to come forward because of what it revealed about her own past behavior.

It’s your fault, they’d said to Lottie in too many ways to count. Is that what they would say to Clarissa, too? That she had no right to complain because she’d had consensual sex with him, and slept beside him all night after? That’s what that photo appeared to show. And that she’d been too drunk to remember.

She felt sick at the idea of Robert’s ever knowing. Each time she told herself it wasn’t fair to keep it from him, she buried the thought.

When the usher called them to line up, she was still replaying it all and trying to work out what to do. She couldn’t bear for anyone to see that photograph. But if she went to the police and didn’t show it and then he produced it to defend himself, that would make her look bad; it would make her look not credible.

T
HE BLUE SCREEN
was back for the next witness. Alex Wyerley kissed the Bible after taking the oath. But before Mr. Morden could even begin his questions, Mr. Williams was standing to object and the jury was filing out the door once again.

A
FEW MINUTES
later, the twelve jurors were arranged in a misshapen oval, sipping coffees around three shaky tables that they’d moved close together in the jurors’ waiting area. The legal argument would take half an hour, their usher had said.

Clarissa winced as she curled her left hand over her right, out of habit, around the white mug.

“Let me see.”

It wasn’t until Robert spoke that she realized she’d forgotten to hide her fingers. She stretched out her arm, smiling apologetically at Wendy, who was sitting between them, and rested it on the table nearer to Robert. “It’s not that bad,” she said. “Just a bit tight when I move them.”

Wendy lightly touched Clarissa’s shoulder. “Poor you.”

Robert carefully lifted her hand from the table to examine it. “When did you do it?”

She pretended to consider for a few seconds. “Three or four days ago. Thursday night, I think.”

“How?” He still held her hand, but was looking acutely at her face.

“Clumsy. I knocked them against a hot saucepan.”

“That’s gotta hurt like hell when you shower,” one of the men said.

Robert gently put her hand back on the table. “You don’t strike me as clumsy about anything.”

“I can be.” She laughed, and it sounded fake in her own ears.

“They say—what is it?—if it’s more than two inches, you need to see a doctor. You’re close to that.”

“There’s an NHS Walk-In Center one street over,” Wendy said. “You should go during lunch. Let them have a look.”

S
HE WAS IN
too much pain to concentrate, but she forced herself to pay attention when Mr. Belford rose to defend Tomlinson. He peered in his intent way at Alex Wyerley. “How would you describe your relationship with Carlotta Lockyer?”

“Friends. We were both part of the Bath drug scene. I’m clean now, praise God.”

“Have you slept with her?”

“None of your business,” said Wyerley.

“I appreciate that you are a gentleman,” the judge said, “but you must answer.”

Wyerley slowly inhaled, then let out his breath. “I slept with her, yes,” he said.

“Who’s on trial here?” Annie whispered. “Miss Lockyer or those men in the dock?”

O
N THE WAY
to the station that night, Clarissa and Robert paused on the bridge. The skin on the back of her neck prickled, but she decided not to think about it, not to look for Rafe, just to enjoy being with her fireman.

Her fireman, she thought, smiling to herself. She couldn’t give him up. She wouldn’t let Rafe take this from her. She had to believe that Rafe presented as little danger to Robert as a pigeon to an eagle.

Robert used to box: he would knock Rafe flat like he’d knocked out the man who’d tried to stop him from saving his wife. Robert ran every morning: he had endurance. Robert knew how to fence: he was observant and strong and tactical; his reaction time would be quick; he would stop a weapon hitting him, and he would use one with perfect aim. Robert was left-handed: Rafe wouldn’t anticipate a strike coming. Robert was several inches taller than Rafe, and much leaner. Robert was levelheaded and sane, two things Rafe certainly wasn’t.

Robert looked approvingly at the new dressings on her fingers.

“You were right,” she said, displaying her left hand. “They popped this morning. Everything you said about burns, that’s what the nurse said, too.”

He wouldn’t acknowledge his own rightness. “They hurt, don’t they?” He looked seriously at her so that she had to admit with a slight nod that they did. He caught her eye fleetingly and smiled. “Lottie has a lot of friends, doesn’t she?” he said.

“She does. She really does. She’s a busy girl.”

They both laughed.

“I like her,” Clarissa said. She could hear gulls above them.

“So does Mr. Wyerley,” Robert said. “And Mr. Barton.”

Clarissa wondered if there was an official rule that jurors shouldn’t sleep with each other. “I’ll be sorry.” Her words were nearly lost in the wind, she spoke so softly, watching a swan glide along the water below. But she knew he’d pick them up.

“Sorry?” he repeated.

“It’s been lovely getting to know you.” She could feel him looking hard at her. “I’ll be sad not to see you anymore, when this finishes.”

“It’s not looking like this will be over any time soon,” he said.

Monday, February 23, 6:15 p.m.

You’re sitting in your unremarkable blue car, waiting for me. I am sick to death of finding you on my street. I fumble for pound coins and drop them into the taxi driver’s hands.

I consider that it’s a lucky thing I don’t have a car of my own. You’d probably hide a tracking device on it. It would be another place to ambush me.

I lean forward on the seat of the taxi, wondering if I should ask the driver to wait until I’m safely inside. Impatient to pick up his next fare, he is muttering into his hissing communication system, an exception to my mother’s belief that all taxi drivers see themselves as bodyguards.

“All right?” he asks. Hint, hint.
Let’s get a move on.

I unzip my anti-stalker bag—getting things ready. “Just give me a second.” I don’t need the taxi driver to wait and protect me. There is something better I can do to protect myself. To fight you.

I grab my new phone from the special compartment I made for it. I set it to camera. I’ve been practicing doing it quickly, just in case. I’ve been reading up on things I can do, remembering that Lottie had struggled with her phone in her pocket, failing in her attempt to sneak an SOS text to her boyfriend. The instant I shut the door the taxi speeds away.

You’ve parked two houses up from mine. The nose of your car is pointed toward me as you watch me standing in the middle of the quiet road. You nod slowly. At least you aren’t getting out and dropping more horrible photographs onto the pavement. You just want me to know you’re here, sitting and observing. Because you can.

I think of Lottie coming up her own road and finding that van. Lottie was one against four. My odds are better. One against one. Me against you.

My hand is curled around the phone, and I’m zooming in without even needing to look, just as I’d rehearsed. My street is well lit. The phone has an automatic flash. You aren’t the only one who can take photos.

Not feeling my burned fingers, I lift my arm and point.

Click: your car in my street. I zoom in more. Click: closer, your number plate, just readable. And then I zoom in as far as I can. Click: still closer, your face. It may not come out through the glass, but it’s worth trying.

Three photos, taken so quickly it has to come as a surprise to you, so that your recognition of what I’ve done, and your reaction to it, cannot help but be delayed.

You open your door to come after me. This wasn’t part of your original plan for tonight. I’m running already, though I cannot help but turn to check quickly that there is still enough distance between us. But you’re large, not a man who can leap from a car with agility. I glimpse your thin mouth, twisted in rage, and I speed up, flying along the path to my house so fast I know you can’t catch me. My keys are out and ready—another useful pocket in my bag; I’d been thinking strategically when I designed it. By the time the metal slides into the lock and the heavy wood pushes forward, I know you’ve given up. For once, I’m in a nightmare where everything is going right.

I’m not sure how long I lean against the door, waiting for my breathing to slow down. Long enough for Miss Norton to emerge from her flat.

“I’m so happy to run into you, Clarissa,” she says. “It’s good to see some pink in your cheeks for a change,” she says. “Will you join me for a cup of tea?” she says.

A cup of tea is just what I need. And Miss Norton’s sweet, sharp company.

“I’d love that, Miss Norton.” She looks so pleased I feel a stab of guilt that I don’t accept her invitations more often and extend more of my own. As I follow her in, I grab my latest sewing magazine from the shelf, where she has left it for me.

Miss Norton motions for me to sit on her chintzy sofa. It is draped in lace antimacassars, once cream, now dyed tan by time. “Just relax and rest, dear,” she commands. “Read your magazine. Let me look after you for a while. You deserve it for what you’re doing. It must be very exhausting and upsetting.” She toddles off to the kitchen.

I smile to myself as I gaze around Miss Norton’s living room. All of her furniture is dark wood and heavy, and belonged to her parents, who used to own the whole building before Miss Norton sold it into flats; Miss Norton was born in this house.

I turn my attention to my sewing magazine. I open the envelope, thinking how welcome it will be to wash away the last few minutes, to push you entirely out of my head. But you will never let that happen, will you?

I exhale as if you’ve punched me hard in the stomach. The blond cover model is not wearing a new spring dress pattern.

She is wearing belts and chains and wires that circle her arms and legs and torso and hips. She is bound tightly to some kind of specially modified operating table with adjustable limb extensions. Plenty of pale skin is still exposed. Her spread legs are bent at the knees, her ankles elevated. Every part of her is immobilized. Even her hands and feet and fingers and toes are held in place by some kind of surgical tape. Her nipples are pierced with metal hoops, her breasts squeezed by a crisscross of ropes. A leather gag wraps her mouth. A man’s muscled arm, ending in a leather-gloved hand, clasps a shining instrument. The owner of that arm is off camera. The woman’s neck and forehead are attached to the table, too, by dog collars, so she cannot turn her head, but her wide eyes are aimed pleadingly to the side, at the invisible man.