Before I Wake (15 page)

Within two hours of that phone conversation, we were in bed.

The sex was perfunctory and drunken, and when he pulled me onto his skinny, hairless chest afterward and told me how he’d fancied me for ages and that James was a fool to let me go, it was all I could do not to weep. I thought that by having sex with another man—particularly a man that James despised—I could exorcise his ghost, but it just made me miss him more. Steve was everything James was not. I felt no intensity when he looked at me, no passion when he kissed me, and no ache in my heart when he curled up behind me and nestled his face into the back of my neck. I felt more lonely with him lying next to me than I had alone.

I couldn’t get rid of him fast enough the next morning. I could see the disappointment in his eyes when I turned down his suggestion of a fried breakfast in a greasy caf, followed by a browse of a local flea market, instead claiming I had a terrible headache and just wanted to go back to bed. He said he’d come with me, that, thinking about it, he could do with a snooze too, but just the thought of his naked body touching mine again was enough to make me feel sick. I was brusque, made it clear I wanted to be alone, and practically marched him to the front door. When I opened it, Steve stepped out onto the street, then turned back to look at me. His eyes met mine.

“He doesn’t deserve you, you know.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m not an idiot.” He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets, suddenly looking impossibly young. “I know you still love him. I just thought…hoped…that if you spent time with me, someone who’d cherish you, someone who’d never be cruel or hurt you, then maybe, maybe you’d…” He tailed off and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Look after yourself, Susan.” He touched the back of my hand. “Please.”

Brian hasn’t left my side for four days. I’ve told him over and over again that he should go back to work because I’m not mad and I’m not going to do anything stupid, but he won’t listen. He keeps telling me that this isn’t about me being “mad”; it’s about me getting a bit of R&R after a stressful few months, and he’s only taking time off to ensure that I do actually put my feet up and relax.

“Tablet time!” he says, breezing into the living room with a cup of tea in one hand and a small white bottle of pills in the other.

“Brian—”

“You did promise, Sue,” he says, setting the steaming mug of tea on the table beside me and handing me the tablets. “You told the doctor you’d take your medication.”

I smile at my husband, unlock the lid of the pill bottle with a sharp twist, and shake two small white pills into the palm of my left hand. I regard them dispassionately. They’ll make me calmer, Dr. Turner said. I rotate my wrist so the pills tumble over each other. What is it like not to feel anxious? To feel secure instead of scared? It’s been so long I can barely remember.

“Water,” Brian says, standing up suddenly. Five minutes later, he returns, a glass of water in one hand, his newspaper in the other.

“There you go,” he says, placing the glass on the table beside me and glancing meaningfully at the two pills lying on my open palm. I clench my hand shut. I’ve taken tablets like this before and they work quickly. Within an hour of swallowing them, I’ll be a more relaxed, immobile, docile version of myself. So docile I will be unable to protect my family from danger.

“Brian,” I say. “Would it be the end of the world if I didn’t take—” But I’m interrupted by the trill ring of the study phone.

“Damn it.” He grimaces. “I’ll have to get it. It might be important.”

“Of course.”

I stay where I am, in the center of the sofa, the glass of water on my left, the pills in my hand, and listen as Brian thunders up the stairs and across the landing. There’s a split second of silence as he snatches up the phone, then the low rumble of his voice as he answers. He’s quiet, then there’s another rumble, louder this time, and then the thump-thump-thump of his footsteps across the landing and down the stairs.

“God damn it!” He bursts into the living room and throws himself into the armchair.

“Bad news?”

He slumps forward and rests his head in his hands but says nothing. Neither do I. Sixteen years together have taught me to give Brian his space when he’s in a bad mood; they pass quicker that way.

“Hmm.” He peers at me through his fingers and shakes his head. “No, I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“What wouldn’t?”

“They want me to go in. The wind turbine vote has been brought forward.”

“Then go!” I smile. “I’ll be fine.”

“No.” He shakes his head again. “You need me here.”

“Brian, I’ll be fine, honestly. I’ve got Milly to keep me company. And besides, if you disappear off for the afternoon, I can watch
Deal
or
No
Deal
in peace without you shouting at the TV about how there’s no such thing as positive bloody vibes or unlucky boxes.”

He cracks a smile. “I’m not that bad.”

“You are!” I laugh. “Go! I’ll call, I promise, if anything happens. Not that it will,” I add hastily.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. I’ll be fine.”

Brian stands up, crosses the room, and gives me a kiss on the forehead. “I’ll try and be as quick as I can, but you know how these things can drag.”

“Just go. I’ll see you later.”

I watch him walk out of the living room and am just about to stand up myself when he suddenly turns back. His eyes rest on the glass of water on the table beside me.

“Did you take your tablets okay?”

“Yes,” I say, smiling brightly as I press the small white pills into the gaps between the sofa cushions. “I barely felt them go down.”

***

Ten minutes after my husband’s car has pulled out of the driveway, I do the same with my VW Golf, but instead of driving to the station like Brian, I head for White Street and a parking space outside Ella Porter’s house.

I can see her now, traipsing up the road, her school blazer casually slung over one shoulder, her bag carried loosely in one hand, almost trailing on the pavement. It’s killed me, the last few days, being trapped inside with Brian, unable to find out where Charlotte and Ella went instead of going on Mr. Evans’s school trip to London.

“Oh fuck.” Ella mouths as she spies me behind the wheel.

“Wait!” I call as she hoists her bag over her shoulder and starts running toward her house. “Ella, wait!”

I jump out of the car and sprint after her as she yanks open the garden gate and hightails it up the path.

“Ella, I know about the business studies trip to London. I know you and Charlotte didn’t go.”

She freezes, her back to me, the key held to the lock.

“I spoke to Mr. Evans yesterday. I know everything.”

She remains motionless.

“If you don’t tell me where you and Charlotte went and what you did, I’ll tell your mum.”

“So what?” She turns slowly, her eyes narrowed. “She wouldn’t believe you anyway. She thinks you’re cracked. Everyone does.”

“Is that so?” I try not to think about the rumors that are circulating about me outside the school gates. “Either way, I know you lied about having food poisoning.”

“No, we didn’t. We stayed here all weekend, in my room. Charlotte didn’t want to tell you about the food poisoning because that would mean telling you she’d been to Nando’s, and then you’d call her fat and tell her off for breaking her diet.”

“I did no such—” I catch myself. She’s clever, trying to throw me off the scent by attacking me. “So if I ask your mum about that weekend, she’ll corroborate your story, will she?”

“She wasn’t here. She and Dad went away for the weekend.”

“Where?”

“None of your business.”

“It is if it meant two fifteen-year-old girls were left home alone.” There’s an electronic bleep of a car being locked, followed by the clack-clack of high heels on pavement. Perfect timing.

“That’ll be your mum,” I say without turning around. “Let’s ask her, shall we, Ella? See if she realizes it’s illegal to leave children under the age of sixteen home alone for an entire weekend. Then maybe we’ll ring the police and—”

“No!” Ella stares beyond the low hedge at the blue Audi and the tall, thin woman walking toward us. “Don’t.”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because she’ll ground me forever.”

“Then tell me where you and Charlotte went.”

Clack-clack-clack. Ella’s eyes grow wider as the sound grows louder.

“No.” She edges away from the front door, as though preparing to make a run for it. “You’ll tell Mum.”

“I won’t.”

“She’ll kill me.”

“Not if I don’t tell her, she won’t. Your mum doesn’t need to know anything about this conversation, Ella.”

There’s a jangle of keys and the sharp squeak of a gate being opened. Clack-clack-clack. Clack-clack-clack.

“Tell me,” I hiss. I take a step toward her. “Tell me.”

“We went to Grey’s nightclub in Chelsea with Danny and Keisha.” Her words run into each other she’s speaking so quickly. “Charlotte met a footballer and I had to get the last train back to Brighton on my own. That’s it, end of story.”

“You left Charlotte alone in a nightclub in London with a man she’d never met before?”

“And I had to travel across London in the middle of the night on my own to get the last train home. Anyway, she wasn’t on her own. Danny and Keish were there too.”

“The footballer—who was he?”

“I don’t know. A fit black guy with an accent. Some bloke said he was a premiership footballer, but who knows if—”

She stares over my right shoulder, her eyes wide.

“You again!” A cloud of Chanel No. 5 wafts up my nose and there she is, Judy Porter, standing beside me. “If you’re bothering my daughter again, I’ll call the police. This is harassment, Sue.”

“It’s okay, Mum.” Ella flashes me a look. “She’s not bothering me.”

“What did she want then?” She crosses her arms and purses her lips together, waiting for an answer.

“To thank me for dropping off Charlotte’s mobile.”

What? I look at her in surprise. She was the one who put the phone through our front door?

“Is that so?”

“Yes.” I look back at Judy. “It was very kind of Ella and the least I could do was thank her in person, seeing as I was in the area anyway.”

Judy uncrosses her arms, rocks back on a stiletto heel, and looks me up and down. “You’ll be going now then?”

Ella nods, ever so slightly. She’s begging me not to ask any more questions. To go quietly.

“I’m going. Nice to see you again, Judy. Ella.”

The mobile phone issue will have to wait. There’s somewhere I need to go first.

Friday, June 7, 1991

Jess, the bar manager, rang me on Wednesday night to ask whether I was over my “flu” yet and hinted, without actually spelling it out, that if I didn’t make it into work on Thursday, I’d lose my job.

I had no choice but to go in. What little savings I had were long gone and my rent was due the next week and I wasn’t sure how I was going to pay it.

My first shift started badly—I dropped a bottle of wine, snapped an optic, and overflowed the drip tray when I was changing the bitter—but it was only 6:30 p.m. and the bar was empty, and Jess had gone up to the office to work on the accounts, so there were no witnesses to my ineptitude. I kept glancing toward the door. James only ever came into the bar on a Sunday, and according to Steve, he hadn’t done that for at least a month, so why I was so terrified he’d walk in, I don’t know.

But then he did.

It was half past eight. The intermission had ended fifteen minutes earlier, and I was clearing glasses and ashtrays from the tables. He didn’t notice me at first, he was so deep in conversation with Maggie, the Abberley Players director, her arm looped through his, but then, as they approached the bar, he glanced up and our eyes met. The color drained from his face, and Maggie, who was in full flow, stopped talking and looked to see what had startled him. Her face fell when she saw me, and she pulled on James’s arm, stood on tiptoes, and hissed into his ear. Her voice was low, but I caught the words “go somewhere else.” James put a hand on her shoulder, and for a second, I thought he was going to angle her out of the bar, but then he glanced at me, patted Maggie on the shoulder, and headed toward a table at the far end of the room.

I ducked down and clanked a few glasses around in the dishwasher.

“Hello, Susan.”

I looked up, smiled. “Maggie.”

“We haven’t seen you for a while.”

“No.” I had to fight the urge to glance over at James. “I haven’t been well.”

“Oh dear.” It was a good thing she was a director and not an actor, because her attempt at sincerity was as real as the silk fern in the corner of the room. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

I was about to ask how she was, whether they’d decided on the next play yet, and when she’d want me in to measure up when she said, “Did you get my answering machine message?”

I shook my head. She hadn’t rung me once since James and I had split up.

“Really?” She faked surprise. “That is strange. I could have sworn I had the right number. Anyway, sorry again that we won’t be using you for the costumes anymore, but a friend of mine recommended this wonderful warehouse near Croydon where they stock a lot of ex-BBC wardrobe. Renting them works out a hell of a lot cheaper than making them from scratch.” Her eyes flicked from mine to the fridge behind me. “Anyway, cheers for all your help. You were fabulous. A bottle of Chardonnay and two glasses, please.”

The sound of Maggie’s tinkling giggle and James’s low rumbling laughter filled the room, and I fled to the ladies’ loo in the foyer. I bowled into a cubicle, certain I was about to be sick, and bent over the toilet. Other than a few dry retches, nothing came out. I stayed there for a couple more minutes, then, terrified that Jess would return to the bar and find me missing, I checked my reflection in the mirror, patted my cheeks with toilet paper, and opened the door to the foyer. Maggie might have taken my unpaid job away from me, but I was buggered if I was going to let her take away the one that paid my rent and—

“Ooph.” I smacked straight into something tall and solid.

“I’m sorr—” The words dried in my mouth as James gazed down at me. His hands were on my shoulders from where he’d caught me.

“Are you okay?” His brow was knitted with worry, his voice soft with concern. “I saw you run out and I…” He put a hand to his forehead. “Sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking coming after you. I’m not your boyfriend anymore. I shouldn’t care.” He turned to go.

He made it as far as the bar door then turned back.

“No, fuck it.” He put his hands on my shoulders again and craned his neck to look down at me. “I’ve missed you, Suzy. I’ve missed you like I’ve missed a part of me. Like my shadow had disappeared, or my arm or my heart. I tried everything to stop myself from missing you. I tried raging against you, blaming you, cursing you, and hating you, but none of those things worked.” He thumped at his chest with his closed fist. “Not a day has gone by where I haven’t regretted what happened. I hate myself. Actually hate myself for hurting you like that, but I had to do it, Suzy. When you looked at me in the doorway of your flat, I knew it was time to leave. There was no light in your eyes anymore, no love. You looked miserable, and I knew it was because of me. That’s why I left you, so you could be happy again.”

I said nothing because I was certain that, if I opened my mouth to speak, I’d choke on my own tears.

“But when I saw you today, when I saw you standing behind the bar, that image popped and I realized I’d been deceiving myself. I’d been making up fantasies to avoid finding out for myself how you were.” He cupped a hand to the side of my face, and I nearly gasped as the warmth of his fingers flowed into my skin. “So I’ll ask you now. I’ll ask you once and then I’ll never ask you again. And if you tell me yes, I’ll walk away and never come back.” He paused and ran his thumb over my lips, and I tensed, waiting for him to kiss me. Instead, he let go of my face as though burnt. “Are you happy, Suzy? Are you happy, my darling?”