Before I Let You In (6 page)

By the time I reached the fresh air of the high street, the roar of blood in my ears had slowed to a steady pulsing, the flames that had blazed under my collar had been extinguished and my legs no longer shook. I flattened my back against the cool stone wall and let all my senses return to their resting state, allowed my eyes to close for a second as my composure returned.

It might seem irrational – allowing that small act of seeing them in a place that I hadn’t expected them to be to shake me to the extent it did. In some ways it was akin to seeing your teacher in their normal clothes and realising that they continue to exist when you are not looking at them, that their life carries on even without you holding up the microscope to it. I hadn’t been prepared. I hadn’t even known Bea had the day off work – and I thought I was at a point where I knew everything about them. Obviously I hadn’t been paying close enough attention. I’d let the ball drop and now here we were.

My sliding door, my choice. Would I return home now, letters shoved hastily into my handbag, and let my normal life whitewash over the last ten minutes, ugly graffiti on a wall quickly replaced by a pastel hue? If I had, who knows how differently things would have turned out? That slow IV full of obsession that dripped into my veins over the weeks that followed – would it still have consumed me as completely as if it were heroin?

I wandered around the town without purpose or explanation after that, terrified at the thought that I might see them again and terrified that I wouldn’t. When I did – of course in a town this small it was inevitable – I was relieved that my reaction was less physical than the first time. See? I wasn’t in the grip of my obsession; I was still in control.

This time I drank in the details of the women who strolled with a casual air of contentment through the shopping centre as though I was seeing them for the first time, not the millionth. Bea wore designer heels and clutched her handbag like it was an Oscar, walking slightly ahead of Eleanor as though guarding her groaning baby bump with her very life. Eleanor herself kept one hand on her stomach, stylish even in maternity wear.

And now my reaction was decidedly more measured. Sure, my heart was beating a bit faster, and I noticed how warm it was in the shopping centre, but it wasn’t like I threw up or passed out or anything dramatic like that. And when I saw them go into the café for lunch – well, I was going to just grab a sandwich from Wilko’s with what little time I had left, but the café across the street from them looked nice, and I deserved something good to eat. There was nothing more to it than that. Drip, drip.

What harm could come from just watching them? I’d made an art form of it over the years.

I thought about them on the way home, of course, but that was because I’d just seen them – it’s not like they were always at the forefront of my mind. I had my own life. It’s hard to believe now, but my existence hadn’t always revolved so fully around where they were or what they were doing.

Bea had ordered a glass of wine with her lunch, laughing at the disapproving looks from her abstinent friend. Obviously I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but when they laughed I imagined that they were commenting on how Karen – always the sensible one – wouldn’t have approved of wine on a work day. Maybe Bea wouldn’t return to work at all – why else would she be drinking midweek? I imagined that their voices weren’t loud but still managed to practically block out everyone else in the café, and noticed how they didn’t even look up to see if anyone was staring with disapproval when they laughed, or when Bea knocked the basket of complimentary crisps flying off the table.

I was still thinking about Eleanor’s raucous laughter when my phone rang. It was work asking me to pick up the hump-day cakes, and my attention was ripped away from the women as quickly as if I’d never seen them.

9

Eleanor

The cupboards heaving with freshly brought produce sure to spoil before it made its way into one of the culinary delights she vowed to make ‘one of these days’ and all visible surfaces wiped over with a baby wipe, Eleanor sighed and flicked on the kettle. She crossed two of the jobs off the everlasting list stuck to the pinboard in the kitchen, and was just adding three more when her mobile started playing ‘All About That Bass’ from the other room.

‘Hey you.’ She answered Bea’s call with her phone under her chin. ‘I forgot to say good save the other day. I’m guessing you forgot to book the restaurant?’

Bea sighed. ‘Yup. And it’s taken on the day we wanted it – we’ll have to resend all the bloody invites and I know you worked really hard on them. Sorry, Els. Do we change the date or the venue?’

‘Neither.’ Eleanor grinned, and then realised Bea couldn’t see her smugness. ‘I booked it months ago when we first talked about this birthday thing. Before the baby brain took over.’

Eleanor pushed Iron Man to one side with her foot to gather up that morning’s discarded pyjamas. She picked through the pile of clothes, silently judging which ones were good for another wear before they were added to her ever-increasing washing pile. Pants, wash. Socks, wash. Pyjama top, no visible stains … She held it against her face and inhaled. Wash.

‘You knew I’d forget?’

Washing under one arm, Eleanor picked up a pile of Adam’s papers from the dining room table. She cast an eye over them, then, deciding she had no idea what they were or where to put them, put them back down again. How the hell was she supposed to keep this place tidy when the mess was so important to everyone else? Maybe she should try getting her husband a reward chart. It had worked when Toby was acting like a four-year-old. Then again, Toby had actually been four.

‘I … well, I suspected.’

‘You could have just told me and saved me the trouble of forgetting to do it myself,’ Bea grumbled.

‘Where’s the fun in that? Do we have many RSVPs?’

‘I’ll have to check my spreadsheet,’ Bea replied.

‘You mean the napkins you’ve been writing the plans on?’ She felt her friend cringe.

‘You saw that then?’

‘Seriously, Bea, you spend all day organising other people’s lives and yet one party and you’re a bundle of napkins and Post-its. I sent the invites out last Monday; we should have some replies by now.’

Eleanor glanced at the clock guiltily. If she didn’t start Noah’s shape time soon, they’d get behind on lunch and the whole of the rest of the day would be out of whack.

‘I’ll get you a list, okay?’ Before Eleanor could answer, Bea asked, ‘So what have you been up to today?’

She said it like an afterthought, a token question knowing the answer would be short and sweet.

‘Oh, same old,’ Eleanor replied, hating herself for not even being bothered to make something up. ‘This morning we went food shopping and this afternoon we get to have story time and make cupcakes.’

‘Sounds like fun. Save me a cake?’

‘If you fancy risking a bout of food poisoning, there’ll be one here with your name on it.’

Bea laughed. ‘Did you think any more about what we talked about at lunch the other day?’

‘Not really.’ In truth she’d thought of little else; the idea of getting her teeth into something again had set off a spark inside her that she hadn’t felt since before Noah was born. Excitement at doing something that was just for her. But she’d mentioned it to Adam and he’d been his usual uninspiring self. ‘Don’t you have enough to think about with this place and the kids?’ he’d asked, casting a disparaging eye at the plates still stacked in the sink from their dinner. And that had been that.

‘You should, you know. It’d do you good to do something that wasn’t for everyone else for a change.’

‘I will,’ she promised. ‘I will definitely think about it.’

She hung up, taking a look around at all the things she needed to get done before Toby came home from his nan’s and she lost any chance. Plus there was story time and tummy time and every other kind of time being a Good Mother required. Just the thought of spending another six hours with no adult to talk to made her want to scream. She took Noah from his bouncer and laid him on his mat, propped up with the special tummy-time contraption that Adam still shook his head at, surrounding him with brightly coloured and suitably stimulating toys. He kicked his legs happily, and feeling like a complete shit, she flicked on the kettle again, pulled out her laptop and googled ‘starting your own business from home’ in one window, and ‘cleaners in the SY area’ in another.

10

Karen

Karen stepped up her pace, moving through the crowds with an expert fluidity. So much for the failing high street. She should be in a hurry more often; her bad luck might save some of these shops from administration.

In a moment of uncharacteristic disorganisation Karen had walked out of the house that morning without her lunch, only remembering it was still in the fridge when lunchtime had been marked by the sound of her stomach groaning in protest. Not that she’d minded having to go into town to buy something – it gave her a chance to get out of the office and check out the calf-length leather boots she’d had her eye on for weeks.

Cutting through the shopping centre was the obvious choice, and as she passed the Pandora store near the entrance, she glanced at the window instinctively, a gesture that could have been described as either vanity or self-consciousness, to check her hair.

She almost didn’t see them. Maybe had the centre been less busy, had the throng of shoppers not steered her closer to the doorway than usual, or had the shop itself not been almost empty she might have missed them altogether. As it was, in the exact second that she was passing the doorway, he turned, the movement drawing attention to that trademark teenage haircut that was beginning to look out of place on a man in his thirties. He placed a hand on the arm of the younger girl at his side, and as Karen turned back, the shop almost completely behind her now, she saw her smile, the same smile she’d seen just a few days before when that same girl had sat opposite her and talked about her married lover.

Jessica and Adam. Her patient and her best friend’s husband.

The foyer was quiet when she arrived back at work, just the tapping of Molly’s fingers on her keyboard. She looked up and smiled when she saw it was Karen.

‘Nice lunch?’ she asked. Then, registering Karen’s grey pallor, ‘Is everything okay?’

‘Fine, thanks, Molly. I had a sandwich.’ Karen realised too late that that wasn’t what the receptionist had asked, and just how distracted she’d managed to make herself sound with the lie. She’d gone straight back to the office after seeing Jessica and Adam together and completely forgotten to eat, questions slamming through her mind like gunfire.

Is Adam her married lover? Did she know we were best friends? Is that why she chose me? What the hell do I do now?

‘Can you hold my calls for an hour, please?’

‘Sure.’

She fumbled to get her key into the office lock, cringing at how all over the place she must look. Once inside, she could feel herself relaxing – no one watching her in here, no one for whom to maintain the professional demeanour.

Sinking down on to the plush beige carpet and leaning her back against the base of the sofa, she closed her eyes and breathed in deeply through her nose to the count of eight. Letting the breath out through her mouth as slowly as she could manage, she felt the panic inside her flow outward, pictured it as a physical entity that she could expel and watch float away. Repeating the exercise twice more, she felt herself relaxing, her thoughts ordering themselves into a list in her mind. She enjoyed lists; they were manageable, organised. They helped her keep control. How anyone got through their lives without a set of bullet-pointed tasks to guide them, she would never understand.

The first item on her list – was it definitely Jessica Hamilton she’d seen in that store? There was no question of whether it was Adam; she’d known him longer than she’d known Michael, had even been with Eleanor when she’d bought him the jacket he’d been wearing that afternoon. The question of Jessica was trickier. She’d only met her once before, and in a different environment. Could she say for certain it was her? She visualised the coat the girl had been wearing, a camel-coloured mac with a tie belt at the waist. She didn’t remember it from their session – in fact the only colours she could associate with her patient were grey and black. Of course that didn’t mean anything; not everyone wore the same coat all the time. Bea had hundreds.

She tried to picture Jessica’s face but could see only features: those murky blue eyes, the helmet of frizzy hair. The girl with Adam definitely hadn’t had that. Her hair had been sleek, styled, her face made up. Granted, Karen had only seen her for a second or two, but she’d got the impression of someone infinitely more confident than the girl who had come to her for therapy. And yet her first instinct had been that it was Jessica – why else would her name spring to mind? There must have been something about Adam’s companion that had made her instantly recognise her as the girl who had been in her office just a few days ago. But try as she might, she couldn’t picture what it was.

Assuming she was wrong and the girl in the shop wasn’t her patient, had she also been mistaken about them being together? Adam had certainly laid a hand on the girl’s arm, but could there have been an innocent reason? Had he been pushing past her?

No, her first instinct had been right. Whether it was Jessica Hamilton or not, that lying bastard was cheating on her best friend, and now she had to decide what to do about it.

11

Bea

‘Mum! It’s everywhere!’

Fran threw her son a damp dishcloth.

‘Get the worst up and I’ll take care of the rest when you’ve all gone to bed.’

She crossed the kitchen to join her sister at the table, pushing aside a pile of half-term homework to put their coffee down.

‘I don’t know how you cope,’ Bea told her with a shake of her head. ‘Just watching all this is exhausting.’