Текст книги "Lost Girls"

Автор книги: Celina Grace

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Chapter Twenty Two

It was in one of the few moments of the day that I wasn’t thinking about Jessica when she reappeared. I’d just left the flat, heading for my gym and a swimming session. I’d been neglecting my exercise routine lately and it was making me feel uncomfortable; not only did I feel fat and unfit, but gentle regular exercise was one of the many ways I kept the demons at bay.

Matt and I had spent Christmas very quietly, just the two of us eating a meal at home and watching old films on TV, but I’d over-eaten, drunk far too much, and I was feeling the effects. It was time for me to start being a bit more self-denying. I was looking forward to the warm water, the echoing footsteps of the other swimmers as they walked beside the pool, the wobbling light reflected onto the ceiling. I would swim thirty lengths, shower and treat myself at the gym’s café.

So my mind was elsewhere. I was walking away from the building when I heard my name spoken and, simultaneously, a hand on my shoulder. In the two seconds it took me to spin round and recognise her, I felt my heart give a gigantic thud. I breathed in sharply, the reverse of a scream and my hands went up to my face. A man walking towards me must have seen my panic as he hesitated for a second and then obviously thought better of asking me if I was alright. Jessica stood there on the pavement in her long black coat. She put the hand she touched me with back into her pocket.

“Sorry,” she said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

I managed a shaky laugh. She put her head on one side. Her blonde hair glowed in the dull light of the winter afternoon. She looked better than before; healthier, somehow.

“Are you going somewhere?”

“I–” I opened my mouth and shut it again. My head buzzed with the backwash of adrenaline. “I was, but it’s not important.”

There was a short silence.

“Will you come and have a drink with me?”

We went to pub two streets away; I’d passed it often but hadn’t been into it. There were tables outside on the pavement and Jessica gestured to one of them.

“Mind if we sit outside so I can smoke?”

I nodded. I was feeling light-headed again. I pinched a fold of my coat between my fingers; something tangible that I could keep hold of. I kept staring at the table while Jessica went to get our drinks. Perhaps she wouldn’t come back again and I’d be sat here alone, as minutes lengthened into hours...

A glass of wine appeared on the table before me, Jessica’s hand placing it carefully on the weathered wood. She had long, curved nails, unvarnished, a chunky silver ring on the middle finger of her right hand. I had no recollection of ordering wine but I had no recollection of almost anything of the past ten minutes.

My head felt as if it were stuffed with angry wasps. I put both hands up to my temples, pressing inwards, closing my eyes for a brief moment.

The table rocked as Jessica slotted herself into the opposite seat and a splash of wine fell from my glass to land in a bloody little smear on the tabletop.

“Sorry,” said Jessica. She had a glass of white wine in front of her, which had also spilt. I watched as a thin, clear trickle flowed towards the little puddle of red.

“So,” she finally said, her head on one side again, looking at me and smiling slightly.

I took a shaky sip of my drink, resisting the urge to gulp.

“What do you want?” I blurted out.

Jessica raised her eyebrows. “That’s blunt.”

“Sorry. I’m just…” I trailed off.

“It’s alright, Maudie,” she said, speaking rather slowly. She didn’t try and touch my hand. I stared up at the white sky, stretching my eyes wide and breathing deeply. Jessica took a sip of her drink, just sitting there opposite me, quietly.

I kept hold of my fold of coat, pleating it and releasing it. The palms of my hands were sweating.

The silence became too much.

“How did you know I was going to come out of the house? Were you waiting?” I said.

She shook her head, breathing out smoke. “Pot luck,” she said. “I’d waited for you a few times before but I never caught you. I’d only been there about five minutes today before you appeared.”

“Why didn’t you ring the doorbell?”

She gave me a half smile and a one-shoulder shrug.

I nodded, although I didn’t really understand.

“Do you live with anyone?” she said.

“Yes, my husband.” I took another sip of my drink. “His name’s Matt but he’s out at the moment.”

Her eyebrows went up. “Your husband? You’re married?” She shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re married. My God – how long for?”

“Almost three years now.” I looked down at my bare hands and saw her look too. “I left my ring at home today – I was off to the gym.”

She nodded and there was a short silence.

“Are you?” I said.

“Am I what?”

“Married?”

She gave a short bark of a laugh. “No.”

I decided not to ask about children, because I didn’t want her to ask me. We both sipped our drinks in silence. Jessica stubbed out her cigarette and almost immediately lit another one.

“Maudie, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m finding this as difficult as you. I just don’t know – I don’t know where to start. Where do you start, with this situation?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“It’s too–” she said, and then stopped abruptly.

“Everyone thought you were dead,” I said. The smoke from her cigarette drifted across the table and into my eyes, making me blink.

“I know,” she said. “I know they did. They must have done.”

“Jessica–” I used her name for the first time. “Jessica. What happened?”

She looked at me for a long moment. “It’s a long, sad story,” she said. “How much time have you got?”

I opened my mouth to reply but, before I could, she suddenly sat up and shook her head. “Not now,” she said. “Not today. It’s too much. Tell me about you. Tell me all about you.”

“Oh–” I looked down at my nearly empty glass. “Where shall I start?”

Jessica smiled. For the first time since we’d met, I felt a lightening of the spirit, a feeling that perhaps I could cope after all. We were just two women sitting together outside of a pub on a winter’s day. It helped me to think that. Don’t think about Cornwall, and Mrs. McGaskill’s hand raised to slap me, and the search parties and the yawning empty window, and the constant, acid guilt. Don’t think about the nightmares running on an unending loop in my head, the closed door with the abyss behind it. Don’t think about people coming back from the dead. We’re just two women, having a drink, outside a North London pub.

"Tell me about your wedding," Jessica said.

"My wedding?"

"Yeah, you said you were married. Tell me about your wedding. Was it a big white thing? We always used to talk about having one of those, remember?"

"My wedding..." I looked down at the foamy depths of my cup. "God. It seems like a long time ago now."

"Was it?"

"Not really. Only three years or so. God – time flies."

"So what was it like?"

"It was – amazing. Well, you know, a bit stressful, and all that..." I trailed off. How could I begin to condense all those different emotions down to a couple of coherent sentences? "It was a bit surreal, really. I had a wedding planner for everything-"

Jessica exploded with mirth. "A wedding planner? Get you!"

I started laughing too. "I know, it's ridiculous, isn't it? Angus really pushed the boat out though, he insisted."

"I suppose, you being the only daughter and all that – it makes sense," said Jessica, still grinning.

"It was a great day, though," I said. The good memories made my voice soften. "But you know, it was weird, too. There were so many – I don’t know – so many undercurrents of emotion running under the surface.” I stopped, surprised at myself. Where had that come from?

I lifted the cup to my lips to hide the sudden tension in my mouth.

Jessica was watching me keenly. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” I said, and hesitated. Then I plunged in. “I remember during the service looking over and noticing this empty pew at the front. I mean, it was empty, right in the middle of mass of people.” I paused, unsure of whether to go on.

“Yes?” said Jessica.

I spoke slowly. “I had a thought – well, more like a wish, a fantasy – that – that you were there. That that was your pew. That you were sat there, with – with my mother. Except, it was empty because the two of you had just popped outside for a bit of air.” I could feel the heat coming up into my face. “It’s a bit stupid, I know.”

“No,” said Jessica, slowly. “It’s not stupid. It’s nice.”

I looked down at my empty cup, embarrassed. “Well–”

“I mean it,” she said. “Really, Maudie. I think it’s lovely.”

Her eyes had a suspicious shininess. I quickly looked back down at the table again, not wanting to draw attention to it.

“What’s your husband like?” she asked.

“Matt? He’s great. He’s a bit older than me but I think that works sometimes, you know?”

"You’re really in love with him?" she said, leaning forward slightly.

I was embarrassed again. I didn’t like quantifying things like that, I told myself, explaining away my discomfiture. “Well, of course I am. When I married him it felt like the biggest adventure of my life but also – also like coming home. Does that make sense?”

She nodded. There was an odd expression on her face, part wince, part smile. I suddenly felt as though I’d embarrassed her and felt awkward.

"Well, that's good," she said. She dug around in her bag for her cigarettes. "God, I smoke too much."

As she lit another cigarette, I thought of my wedding; my lovely dress; Angus's speech; Becca dropping the bouquet when I threw it to her and rolling her eyes; Aunt Effie’s discreet tears; Matt’s words to me in our wedding bed; all that crazy stress and anxiety wrapped up in a set of twenty four hours. It was ridiculous, really. One thing I hadn’t told Jessica was my overriding impression of the day was that it was happening to someone else. Perhaps that was normal.

“How’s your dad?” said Jessica.

I felt it hit me again, right in the pit of the stomach. How long does it have to be since a death, for that to stop?

“Oh – he died,” I said.

Jessica’s face twitched. “Oh, Maudie,” she said. She sounded close to tears. “Oh, no. How – how – I mean, when?”

“Just recently. This autumn, actually.” I surprised myself. I could talk quite matter of factly about it. There was something about her obvious distress that made me want to soften the blow.

Jessica ground her cigarette out. “That’s upset me,” she said, almost in a mutter. “That’s really upset me. I can’t believe it.”

I felt a little finger of cold nudge me in the ribs. If she reacted like that to Angus’s death, how would she react to the news of her own parents’ fate? I held onto my glass, feeling the condensation on the smooth curve of the bowl slip between my fingers.

“Yes,” I said, meaninglessly. “It was very quick, though. Quick and painless. I mean, relatively.”

Jessica smoked furiously, dragging on her cigarette as if it had personally offended her. I looked at her face, covertly, trying to drink her in, the concrete, flesh reality of her after so long in the ether. Her eyes were still shadowed beneath; marked with a smudge of darkness. With a shock, I realised she was beautiful. I watched her mouth close on the filter of her cigarette, the gasp inwards, the long wavering blue exhalation.

She felt my gaze and looked up, catching my eye.

“Sorry, Maudie,” she said. “This is just weird, you know? I mean, I knew it would be weird, but I didn’t know how much.”

“I know,” I said. We looked at each other, properly. In her eyes, I caught the first faint glimmerings of the old Jessica, my ten-year-old companion, the impishness that had once been there.

“Fuck,” she said, breathing out smoke.

“Fuck,” I said.

There was a moment’s silence and then we both began laughing. It was thin, wheezy, gasping laughter, the laughter at something that’s not particularly funny; just an outpouring of emotion with no other exit. I put my hand out over the table and touched hers. She flinched.

“You are real,” I said. I could hear myself, my wondering voice. “You are. I can’t believe it.”

“I came back,” she said.

“I knew you would.”

A car horn blared in the street and we both jerked in shock. She drew her hand away to pick up her glass.

“How many times can I say I can’t believe it?” I said.

I sat back on my bench, holding on to the edge of the table. I leaned back, looking up into the sky and breathed out. I felt suddenly filled with hope. “It’s a miracle,” I said. “That’s what it is. It’s the sort of thing the Sunday papers write articles about.”

Jessica looked alarmed. “I hope not.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” I said. “I’m hardly likely to go running to them, am I? Jesus, it’s as much as I can do to take it in.”

Jessica leaned forward. “Maudie,” she said, very seriously. “I meant what I said the other night. I can’t – I mean, I don’t want you to tell anyone. Not your husband, or – or anyone. It’s too – it’s too personal. To us. You understand. I’m not – I’m not ready to have anyone else know, you know? Do you understand?”

I nodded. I was almost laughing, I felt so elated. I would have promised anything. “I promise,” I said. “Don’t worry. Jesus, if I tell anyone about this, they’ll really think I’m–”

There was a short silence.

“They’ll really think what?” said Jessica.

“Nothing,” I said, my elation gone. The sun had not been shining but I felt as if it had gone behind the clouds anyway. “Nothing.”

I waited for her to push me on what I meant, but she simply sat back and breathed out smoke. She was such a contrast to all the people I knew. It made a strange and refreshing change to be sat opposite someone who would just let me be, who would leave it, who wouldn’t make a fuss.

“I’ve never been back, you know,” she said, suddenly.

I raised my eyebrows. “Never been back where?”

“Cornwall.”

It gave me a jolt. I’d thought she was going to say Cumbria. “Nor have I,” I said rather slowly, realising it for the first time.

She read my mind. “I haven’t been back – home – either.”

“You haven’t?” So she still called it home. As did I. When do the houses of your childhood stop being home?

“No,” she said, shortly. “I didn’t know it was home until recently.”

I felt a little chill again, a finger of cold nudging me in the pit of the belly.

“No?” I said, for want of something better.

“No.” She stubbed out her cigarette. The ashtray was piled high with stubs and flaking grey ash.

“Well–” I said, unsure of what I was going to say. The choice was taken from me. I heard a shout from afar and realised, with disbelief, that it was my name being called. I looked down the street to see the distant but recognisable figure of Matt striding towards me.

“It’s my husband,” I said, panicking. I felt as guilty as if I were sitting there with a lover. “He’s coming over here.”

The panic in my voice was echoed in Jessica’s. She stood up so abruptly, my half full glass fell over, emptying red wine over the surface of the table.

“He can’t see me!” she said. She was grabbing up her cigarettes, her bag, her blonde hair falling over her face. “Maudie, I can’t meet him, not yet, I can’t. I’m sorry – I’m going to have to go–”

She stumbled over the seating bench of the table and almost ran into the pub. I stared after her, open mouthed. Red wine began to drip onto my jeans beneath the table.

“Maudie!”

Matt was almost upon me. I managed to drag my gaze from the door of the pub and brought it to focus on my husband.

“Maudie,” said Matt. He was wearing his tweed jacket and the red scarf I’d bought him for Christmas. “Hello, darling. I’ve been calling you, didn’t you hear me? What are you doing here?”

“Oh, nothing much,” I said, managing a smile. Belatedly, I realised red wine had soaked into my trousers and cursed, brushing at them ineffectively beneath the table. “Shit. Not much, darling. I just thought–”

“Drinking during the day?” he said, sliding into the place Jessica had so recently and violently vacated. I blinked. He looked so... so real and alive.

I couldn’t read his tone; normally, I’d know if he was being serious but my brain felt battered by Jessica’s presence. “Terrible, huh?” I said, smiling. “I’ve just been to the gym so I was feeling rather virtuous and thought I’d put a stop to that immediately.”

“Right,” said Matt. He smiled and I relaxed a little. “Who on Earth were you talking to, anyway?”

I stopped in the middle of righting my upset glass. I could feel the blood thumping in my head.

“Oh no-one, really,” I said, as casually as I could. “Just someone wanting directions. Some tourist.”

“No, I mean who were you talking to?” he said, unbuttoning his jacket.

“What do you mean?” I said.

He smiled. “Well, I couldn't really see clearly but it looked like you were just nattering away to yourself for a while. Talking to yourself. Did you have the phone headset on?”

I felt my heart give a painful jump. My mouth felt suddenly dry.

“That’s right,” I said slowly, trying to keep my voice under control. I breathed in and out a few times before I went on. “I had to make a few calls. Then someone asked me for directions.”

“Right,” said Matt, losing interest. He was looking around for a member of the bar staff. I could hear my heartbeat, quite clearly, thundering in my ears as I replayed his casual remark. It looked like you were just nattering away to yourself. I would not think about that remark. I would not think, full stop.

“They don’t do table service here, do they?” said Matt. He seemed to be talking from a great distance away. I stared at him, at his familiar face, willing my own face not to show my distress. “I’ll go in and get us a drink, if you want to stay?”

“That would be lovely,” I heard myself say. He stood up and went into the bar.

I sat there on the bench in my wine-stained jeans, trying to think of nothing. I couldn’t think of anything other than Jessica at the moment.

“Cheers, sweetheart,” Matt said, returning to the table. "Classes finished early today, thank God. It’s good to be out and about and not stuck in a bloody lecture hall for once."

“Yes," I said, in my cheerful robot’s voice. "Cheers."

Behind his back, the pub door opened and Jessica walked out, her long coat flaring out behind her. My hand twitched and I spilt yet more wine on the already sodden table.

“Whoops,” said Matt, mopping away with a tissue.

Behind his back, Jessica looked at me for a long moment. I couldn’t decipher her expression; I could barely see. But I saw her nod, a quick, sharp bob of the head, and she began to walk away, down the street, her hands in her pockets, her blonde hair fluttering behind her like a torn golden headscarf. She didn’t look back. I watched her until Matt had finished cleaning up the wine, and then I had to look at him. Jessica was gone.

Chapter Twenty Three

 

I got through the next couple of days quite successfully by not allowing myself to think. It was a good test of mental stamina. Every time my thoughts went to Jessica, I ruthlessly headed them off. I looped an elasticated hairband about my wrist and snapped it against my skin every time I thought about her, saying to myself 'stop'. Nothing else, just 'stop'. If that didn't work, I sang lyrics to Beatles songs under my breath until I'd tricked my mind into thinking about something else.  Sometimes I thought of my brain, my mind, with something approaching hate. My body had never let me down – indeed, in one particular way, although it hadn't seemed so at the time, it had quite spectacularly not let me down – but my mind... It felt like the enemy; as if there were someone else stuck in my head. It gave me a grim pleasure to trick it into doing what I wanted, for a change.

Things between Matt and myself were rather better than they had been. Perhaps it was my own behaviour that had made the change; I was so determined not to give in to my darkest thoughts that I was almost relentlessly cheerful, even if I didn’t feel it. I was careful about drinking. I still drank, but not so that Matt could see. I went to the gym and swam, I bought new clothes and had my hair done, I bought new books and films and music. I began looking at property websites, working out what was out there, what could be done. I had quite a clear picture in my head of what I wanted. A country house but not a huge, stone pile like Caernaven, with acres of grounds. A manageably sized house, old but not too old, not too remote. Close enough to a big town so that we would still be able to shop and have dinner and see a film when we wanted to, but far enough away from the hustle and bustle for some peace and solitude.

I still hadn’t decided what to do about Caernaven. I spoke to Matt about it over dinner one night.

“Difficult,” said Matt. He laid his knife and fork down precisely in the centre of his plate. “It’s your childhood home, Maudie. What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, darling. You must have some preference.”

I took a sip of wine and thought. What I wanted was for someone else to tell me what to do and then to do it for me, but I thought I had probably better not say that.

“Not sure,” I said. Matt sighed and I went on quickly. “Maybe – well, rent it out. I mean, once it’s sold, it’s sold forever.”

“If that’s what you think is best.”

“What about the board?” he said.

I shrugged. “I have absolutely no idea.”

“Has Mr. Fenwick mentioned it again?”

“Not yet. But I’ve got to give him an answer sometime.”

“What do you want to do?”

I put my head into my hands. “I don’t know,” I said.

Matt got up to clear our plates. I could almost hear the forbearance sighing out of him as he went past. I would have to do something, anything; his patience was wearing thin.

“There’s still a lot of stuff to sort out up there,” I said, slowly. “I might need to take another trip.”

This happened sooner than I thought. The next evening we received a phone call from Aunt Effie’s housekeeper, Jane. Aunt Effie had had a fall, broken her collarbone and sprained her ankle, and would be in hospital for the next couple of weeks. She was asking for me to come and see her.

“Why?” I asked Jane. “I mean, is there any reason in particular? Apart from, well, just wanting to see me?”

“I don’t know, Maudie. She’s on quite heavy duty painkillers and she’s sometimes a little – well, confused. She just insists she has to see you. Will you come?”

I promised to drive up the next day or two. After I put the phone down, I went into the kitchen, hungry for a glass of wine. Matt had disappeared into the study and I could see a thin blue ribbon of smoke drifting from its wide open doorway. He was smoking a lot more these days and I knew why; he was stressed about work. He was stressed about me.

Our dinner plates were stacked on the kitchen counter. I rinsed them and put them in the dishwasher. It was one of Mrs. Dzinkska’s days tomorrow but I drew the line at leaving her a pile of encrusted dishes. I shut the door and switched on the machine, drawing a little comfort, as always, from the reassuring hum as the washing cycle began. I let my gaze drift across the room, coming to rest on the window. Immediately I thought of Jessica.

I reached for my wristband but I'd taken it off when I'd showered earlier. I pinched the skin of my wrist instead. It didn't work. I kept seeing her face as she turned away from me, outside the pub, and her retreating form disappearing down the road.

Still at the sink, I caught sight of myself in the glass-fronted cupboard above it. At the sight of my rigid face, I suddenly realised how idiotic I was being. How self-pitying. I straightened up properly and took a deep breath.

That night, Matt and I made love for the first time in days. I lay in his arms afterwards, listening to his breathing returning to normal, and thinking, for once, of something different. I wanted to talk to him about what had been happening. No matter what Jessica had asked me, I knew I had to tell him.

"Matt," I said softly. He made a low, inarticulate noise in his throat. Encouraged, I went on.

"I know things have been a bit odd between us, lately," I said, almost whispering. "I know that sometimes – well – I'm a bit odd and I do silly things and I know you find it frustrating."

“You’re okay, silly thing,” he said in a sleep-slurred kind of voice. I laid my head back against his shoulder, listening to the steady pound of his heartbeat in my ear.

"It's just that, strange things have been happening," I said. I could feel my own heartbeat start to speed up as I thought of what I was about to say. “Very strange. Actually, it’s only just really sinking in for me how strange they really are.”

My mouth was drying up. I coughed softly to loosen my throat. “Jessica–” My voice failed and I coughed again. “Jessica – she came back.”

It sounded so ridiculous. I almost blushed, as if it mattered in the dark. For the first time, I confronted the essential strangeness of it – that Jessica, left for dead, back in the distant past, had been resurrected. Just for me. Not for the first time, I felt a flicker of unease.

“She says she’s come back,” I said slowly. I could feel the slow rise and fall of Matt’s ribcage against my cheek. He hadn’t said anything. The darkness sucked at my voice, shredding it down to a whisper. It felt oddly confessional. “But I don’t know, Matt. I don’t know what to think. When you say to me that I’m talking to thin air – and I close my eyes and when I open them, she’s there...” I ran out of breath and took a great rasping gulp of air. I couldn’t quite believe I was going to say it. “Sometimes... sometimes I think I’m just losing my mind.”

I couldn’t say any more for the moment. I looked down at him, trying to make out his face in the darkness. I could see the black fan of his eyelashes lying against the curve of his cheekbone, etched in shadow.

“Matt?” I said, in a more normal voice. He made no answer and I realised he was asleep.