Remember Me This Way (35 page)

I tell Sam how Zach changed so gradually I hardly noticed, that it began with small things – objects having to be in certain positions in the house – and then escalated. He opened my letters. He followed me. Another teacher at work – middle-aged, married – gave me a box of chocolates to thank me for ordering in some extra books and Zach flushed them down the toilet. Once, in Sainsbury’s, I borrowed change for the pay-and-display machine from a man who was standing there, and when I got home Zach was beside himself. He interrogated me for hours. He’d been watching the whole time.

Sam clears the plates, balances them in the sink on top of the pans. ‘Was he violent?’ he asks.

‘It was more the threat,’ I say eventually. ‘Mostly.’

He sits down again. ‘Did you tell anyone?’

‘At first, it all seemed trivial, as if it were in my imagination. By the time it felt serious, I had learned to think of it as my fault. I thought I was in the wrong. I was making him do these things.’

‘And you didn’t feel you could leave him for that reason?’

I feel my eyes fill with tears. I brush them away. ‘I was going to,’ I say eventually.

‘And what gave you the strength to make that decision?’

I take a deep breath. ‘I haven’t told anyone this.’

Sam waits until I am ready.

‘We’d been trying for a baby,’ I say, in a high, stiff voice. ‘Zach had agreed, but when it didn’t work, he said it was a sign that we were better off as we were. He said he should be enough for me. But the fact is he wasn’t.’ I shake the hair out of my face. ‘That’s the truth. I wanted a baby, and I went to see the GP behind his back to find out why it wasn’t working, and she thought I knew.’

‘Knew what?’

‘She looked a bit confused, but she said I wasn’t to worry. People often changed their minds. The procedure was usually reversible. I should send him in.’

‘He’d had a vasectomy?’

‘Yes.’ I bite my lip. ‘He hadn’t told me. He lied. He let me think . . .’

‘What a bastard.’

‘I know. He was a bastard. It was a bastard thing to do. The fact that he had concealed it, let me think we were trying, when all the time . . . It’s unimaginable that someone you loved would do that to you.’

‘What did he say when you confronted him?’

I gaze at Sam. ‘I didn’t. I should have done, but I knew he would twist it, manipulate me into thinking that I was in the wrong. I just wanted to escape. I wrote him a letter. I didn’t tell him why I wanted to separate. I . . . Oh—’ I gulp. ‘It was such an awful letter. It’s such a relief to tell someone. I wrote, “
My beloved Zach, I will never forget what we had, but I think we could do with a little time apart. I need space of my own. Please don’t contact me for a bit. All my love, Lizzie.
” Oh my God. I’ve just understood something. “
Please don’t contact me for a bit.
” That’s why he’s waited.’

Sam’s looking confused. ‘When you were together, did you ever think about going to the police?’

‘No. I thought I could cope. But I think I should go to them now.’

He nods, pushes a bowl of peanuts towards me. ‘Not a bad idea. Why don’t you? They could put you in touch with professionals, people who could talk you through what happened. I hate to use the cliché, but it might provide, you know,
closure
.’

‘That’s not what I mean.’

Sam looks up, surprised at my fierceness.

‘It’s not about
closure
,’ I say. ‘I think I should go to the police because he’s still alive. He’s out there, now, Sam. He probably knows I’m here. And he’s dangerous. The two women I told you about who died in terrible accidents: it’s not a coincidence. I’m scared.’

Sam’s expression doesn’t change. He puts out his hand and cups mine. His fingers are blunt, the nails neatly rounded. He lowers his head slightly.

‘Oh, I know you think I’m mad,’ I say. ‘Everybody does.’

He puts his hand on my elbow and steers me, so I am sitting close to him on the threadbare sofa, not in the armchair as I was before.

‘I think you should tell me what’s been going on.’

So I do. I tell him about being followed, about the things that have been placed in my house when I wasn’t there – the dead bird and the lipstick – and the items that have been taken, the iPod, the Rotring pens, the china houses, all the possessions he collected from Gulls. I tell him about the music I keep hearing and the time I saw him in the stadium car park, the message in the painting. I tell Sam I think it was Zach who beat him up.

He doesn’t say much and his expression hardly changes. Once or twice, he nods. I look up at him when I have finished. ‘Do you believe me?’

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘I want you to say what you think.’

He stands up and crouches at my side, wobbling slightly. His words are careful. ‘I think you’ve had a harrowing experience. It sounds to me like your marriage was intense, that Zach was, at the very least, an extremely troubled man. And then the ghastly event of Zach’s death . . . I think it would be understandable if you were experiencing some sort of post-traumatic stress.’

‘You’re saying it’s in my head?’

‘I think you’ve had a lot to deal with.’

He is still crouching and he stretches, pushing his shoulders back. He winces. ‘Ouch. Sorry. I better . . .’

It’s a good thing he stands up then because I’m about to scream with frustration. One more person who won’t believe me. I’ve told him
everything
. I thought he could save me. I wonder whether I should get up and leave. But then maybe I should stay a little longer. Two doors between this flat and the street; the bolts on those were strong, even if the back entrance is flimsy. I think about the police station I passed in the taxi. Sam has crossed over into the kitchen and is making coffee. I have another thought, too, soft and comforting, like cashmere. Post-traumatic stress. None of it is real. I’ve made it all up. I’m in no danger at all.

‘Frothy milk?’ Sam asks. ‘I’ve got a gadget.’

‘Yes please.’

There is a pile of books on the table in front of me. I pick up the one on top. It’s a paperback, neon-pink, the kind of pop psychology self-help book that makes the best-seller list. I flick through it. One chapter is called ‘Sociopathy’, the next ‘Narcissistic Disorder’. It goes on. There are checklists. My eyes scan quickly. ‘
Lacking empathy . . . superficial charm or charisma . . . a belief in their own superiority . . . a chronic dissatisfaction . . . a deep-seated desire to control those around them.
’

When Sam comes over, I thrust the book at him. ‘Do you think Zach is in here?’

‘Possibly. Four per cent of the population is supposed to fit the definition of “sociopath”. That’s one in twenty-five of us living without a conscience.’

Despite everything, my first instinct is loyalty. ‘It’s not as if the rest of us are so saintly,’ I say. ‘I’m always nice to people and agreeable. Like Joyce Poplin, who can be such a bitch. I’m always making her cups of tea, being
pleasant
. But quite often inside I’m furious. Zach used to have a go at me for “seeing the best in people”, but it’s a trick. I’m scared of not being liked.’

‘I hear what you’re saying.’

I suddenly hate Sam and everything he stands for, all this calm and reason. ‘When people say they hear what someone’s saying, they usually mean they aren’t listening at all. Zach told me that.’

Sam smiles. He’s leaning right back on the sofa and his face looks lopsided from this angle, his brow knotted. I imagine him repeating, ‘I hear what you’re saying,’ but I don’t think he actually does.

‘It’s partly genetic,’ he says. ‘It’s not about being nice or not nice to Joyce Poplin. It’s how your cerebral cortex functions.’

I watch his mouth as he forms the words. ‘Is it?’

‘Are you feeling any better?’ he says softly. His eyes are not like Zach’s eyes. His features seem to melt.

I breathe deeply, so deeply my heart hurts. My body feels light, the atoms in my face are tingling. The hatred I felt for Sam a second ago changes colour, deepens and becomes more complicated. Watch me do this, I think. See how I’m letting you go. See what you have made me do. Watch me. I lean across to press my lips against his.

In the morning, I wake up early. It’s still dark. I can hear purposeful movements in the flat upstairs, creaks, the gush of water.

Sam is still asleep, scrunched to the side of the bed, one arm upraised, his head in the crook of the pillows. There’s a red mark across his cheeks. I get out of bed and creep around the room, finding my shoes and coat, a pain in my head rocking with every move. In the kitchen, I splash water on my face. I think I hear him get up, the twang of the bed springs, but he doesn’t emerge. It’s just sighing in the joints of an old house. The garden looks blank and unloved. A fold-up chair, the sort you get at petrol stations, is propped in the centre of the grass. I don’t remember seeing it the night before. I think about this man upstairs writing out there on his laptop. Tapping, tapping.

At the door to the flat, my hand resting on the handle, I wait for a moment or two, braced. Heavy footsteps descend the communal stairs, seem to pause in the hallway, and then the front door slams, and I follow.

Zach

13 February 2012

It was dead down there. Three couples eking out the romance, with Kulon and Jolyon, one of his white dreadlocked surfing mates, at the bar.
Le patron
fell upon me like a long-lost lover. ‘Zachamundo, my man.’ We played poker and knocked back a few. When Kulon had to serve some customers, Jolyon tried to get me to go with him to some happening, Love Face, in Bude. He was getting on my nerves, to be honest. I let him take my car just to get rid of him. He’s promised to bring it back by tomorrow.

When Kulon rejoined me, I brought up ‘the suitcase’ as soon as I could. The bad news: Kulon spent January with his parents in Alicante – ‘Needed to, man, they’re bankrolling the joint’. The good news: he picked up some MDPV from some boarding-school kids at New Year. He’d let me have some, but he had to cover his costs – ‘Sorry, man, not cheap, you know what I’m saying?’ I gave him what was left of the forty quid from the box of muesli, promised to get him the rest later in the week.

It put me in a bad mood, that information about his parents. You think people are like you, and then you find out they’re as privileged as all the other tossers. Just another hippy trustafarian. When he took over the Blue Lagoon a few years ago, I assumed he’d worked hard for what he’d achieved, saved up, was putting everything he had into it. But no, turns out the café is a hobby, a lifestyle choice; his parents are putting everything
they
have into it.

I was about to go home, fed up with the lot of them, when who should burst in but Onnie. Eyes like saucers when she saw yours truly – all over me. I would have shrugged her off, if I hadn’t noticed the fury on Kulon’s face. Him and her, then: hmm, interesting. Didn’t take her long. Another older man. Seems she can’t get enough of us.

Anyway, it was enough to make me stay, just to piss him off. So much for Cornwall being short of distractions – doesn’t sound as if Alan and Vic factored in the attractions of the Blue Lagoon and its owner. Not to mention his suitcase. She was shouty and silly and kept grabbing food off Kulon’s fork. She wanted my attention. Her clothes were skimpy – miniscule skirt, Uggs, no tights – and her pupils were dilated. She’d changed her hair.

‘I’m all alone,’ she said every time Kulon had to serve a customer. ‘The shitty au pair has abandoned me for a shag with a Young Farmer, left me to my own devices for the whole night. I’ll be all on my own up there. You not with wifey?’

‘No.’

‘I thought she was so precious to you.’

I shrugged.

She said, ‘Haven’t you missed me? Can I come to Gulls? We don’t have to do anything, just hang out.’

‘No.’

‘You’re so weird. Mum says she’s never been inside your house – even back in the Ice Age when you were friends. Have you got dead bodies in there? What are you hiding?’

‘I’m not hiding anything.’

‘So why can’t I come?’

‘You might bring in dirt.’

She laughed. She thought I was joking. Shortly after that, she sidled off upstairs with Kulon. Filthy little whore.

I’m back now. Had to walk. Forgot I’d lent out the car to that loser. He’d better bring it back in one piece. I keep thinking about that big house at the top of the hill. When Vic was newly married, I broke in once. I feel almost nostalgic, thinking back on that time. I was still learning. I thought the decor, all that Colefax and Fowler, those tables with skirts, was the height of sophistication. I wonder if they’ve updated their look.

It’ll be empty now. The au pair’s away. Onnie’s hooked up with Kulon. I might take the torch and have a snoop. The windows in the drawing room, if I remember: pretty, but inefficient antique latches.

14 February 2012

I’m back at Gulls now, soaking, filthy. I have lost a night and most of a day. I’ve got to calm down. Are these normal reactions? I have a feeling I’m supposed to be responding in a certain way, that there’s a manual I should know about. Am I drunk? Still? Really. I feel like laughing. I want to see Lizzie. I need her. I’ll ring her – the moment Onnie’s out of the shower. Lizzie will save me from this. All along that is what she’s been doing, saving me from myself.

She’s written to me. I found the letter on the mat just now when I got back. A Valentine’s card maybe. Her lovely writing on the envelope. I’ll open it in a minute. I’m expecting an apology and an outpouring of love. The angel. I already forgive her. I’m even beginning to forget why I was angry.

It’s my art, or the wellies, that have given me away. That’s funny too.

I got myself up to Sand Martin. I was sober then, wasn’t I? Perhaps I had dipped my finger in the bag of white crystals I’d bought from Kulon. It’s here now, in front of me, but you can’t count crystals, of course, so I can’t be sure. Maybe I had. I can’t remember. Memory loss: it’s one of the things I worry about. I’m mixing it up too much, losing control.