Second Life (38 page)

‘There are lots of different types of games, you know . . .’

He’s a few feet away, a little further than arm’s length. It might not be close enough.
I step towards him. I raise my voice.

‘What’re you doing with Anna? Really? I know you’re using her. You don’t love her,
like you didn’t love me.’

He’s smiling. It’s an answer in itself, but I want to hear him say it.

‘What are you doing with her? I know this is about the money, my sister’s money,
but why involve her?’

He leans in. ‘How else was I going to get close to you?’

I remember why I’ve come here.

‘You don’t love her? You’ve never loved her?’

I’m careful to phrase it as a question. It takes him only a moment to reply.

‘Me? Love
Anna
? Look, we have a nice little arrangement going on, but I don’t
love
her. The sex is great, that’s all. And you know what? I like to think of you as we
do it.’

I take a deep breath. There, I think. I have it. I almost smile. It’s my turn to
feel smug now.

‘Oh, by the way, don’t even think about contacting Anna again.’

I can’t help but reply: ‘You can’t stop me.’

‘How so?’ He hesitates, he’s enjoying this. ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘You think you’re having
lunch with her tomorrow?’ His smile is chilling. ‘I guess she hasn’t told you? She’s
changed her ticket. Some family emergency, I think. Or something at work? I can’t
quite remember. Maybe it’s just that she thinks you’re absolutely crazy and wants
to get as far away as
possible. In any case, you won’t be seeing her tomorrow. In
fact, I reckon she’ll be leaving the hotel,’ – he looks at his watch – ‘around about
. . .
now
.’

My eyes narrow. I have to make him think he’s beaten me.

‘What?’

‘You heard me. Anna thinks you’re crazy. She’s on her way back home, and I’m joining
her in a few days. So why don’t you just toddle off home? Go back to your husband
and be a good little wife for him? Eh?’

I don’t react. I can’t. I don’t want him to see how scared I am. I haven’t won, not
yet. Not until I can speak to Anna. I have to make him think I’m going to do exactly
as he says. Go back home.

I shake my head. ‘Fuck you,’ I say, and turn away from him.

His gaze burns into me as I retrace my steps. I don’t run, I have to look unconcerned.
I daren’t turn round, I don’t want him to know how much I hope he’s not following.
Everything depends on him leaving me alone, just for a couple of hours. Everything
depends on me getting to Anna before she boards her train. I turn the corner and
am out of sight. Then, I run.

I head through the bus station, on to the main road. I look behind me, but he’s nowhere
in sight. Why would he hang around? He’s won. A taxi pulls up, at the lights. It’s
available and I hail it. ‘St Pancras,’ I say, then get in.

‘Okay, love,’ says the driver. She must sense my urgency. ‘Traffic’s bad today. What
time’s your train?’

I tell her I don’t know, I’m meeting someone. ‘Please hurry,’ I say again. The lights
change and she pulls away. She says she’ll do her best. I take my phone out of my
pocket, where it’d been the whole time, the voice memo recorder already running,
and press done. I’d hit record as soon as we
met. With any luck I’ve recorded our
entire conversation.

I look over my shoulder. Lukas is still nowhere to be seen.

We’re in luck. Our route through Lambeth is pretty clear, the lights are in our favour.
I listen back to what I’ve managed to capture. It’s muffled, recorded as it was from
the pocket of my jacket, while the two of us were moving around. Some of it is okay
– in places my voice is loud but it’s Lukas’s reply I need and it’s barely registered
on the recording – but a good deal of it is usable. I can hear him saying ‘For old
time’s sake’ after he kissed me, and he’d also raised his voice to say, ‘You’re crazier
than I thought.’ But that’s not good enough. It isn’t what I’m looking for. I fast
forward, desperate to find a section that is incontrovertible proof of what I need
Anna to know; that he’s not who he says he is, that she’s in danger and that we need
to help each other.

It’s there. The part I’d hoped for. Luckily, I’d stepped towards him, he’d been close;
plus, my plan to raise my voice in the hope that it would encourage him to raise
his had worked.

I rewind. Play it again. At first it’s broken: ‘. . . using her . . . love her .
. .’ but then there’s a gap and the next sentence is clear. ‘I know this is about
the money, my sister’s money, but why involve her?’

Lukas’s answer is clear, too.

‘How else was I going to get close to you?’

Then it’s me. I must’ve shifted on my feet as I spoke; the first part of the sentence
is lost as something rubs against the microphone of my phone’s recorder. I recognize
my own voice, but what I’m saying is all but lost. Only one word is audible: ‘her’.

It shouldn’t matter, though. I know it’s his response I need next; I remember what
he’d said, but the whole recording is meaningless unless it’s audible.

Luckily, his answer is perfectly clear. I play it twice, just to be sure.

‘Me?’ he’s saying. ‘. . . Look, we have a nice little arrangement going on, but
I don’t
love
her.’

I close my eyes, as if in victory, then rewind and listen to it a third time. It
should be enough to convince my friend, I think. I just need to get there in time
now.

I freeze. It occurs to me, as if for the first time. I don’t have to do this. I could
just leave it, just walk away, go home. Lukas has demanded I leave them alone, so
why not?

I think of his hands on me. I think of the places he’s taken me. Can I abandon my
sister’s best friend to that? What kind of person would that make me?

From nowhere I think back to Anna’s reading, at the funeral. ‘To the angry I was
cheated, but to the happy I am at peace.’

She thinks she’s happy, but it won’t last. I can’t abandon her now and live with
myself, knowing I’ve betrayed her. I can’t.

I glance at the time and shift forward in my seat. It’s just after one o’clock. The
traffic is bad, but we’re moving; already we’re over the river and skirting the city.
If only I knew what time her train was, I think, then I’d be able to work out whether
I have time, or no chance at all.

I look on my phone, navigate to the Eurostar webpage, to the timetable. It’s grindingly
slow – I need to press refresh two, three times – but it makes me feel like I’m doing
something, at least. Eventually the page appears. There’s a train just after two,
and she’ll be checking in at least half an hour before it.

I look up. We’ve got as far as Lambeth North. It’s a twenty-minute trip, I’d guess,
then we’ll have to find somewhere to pull in. I’ll need to pay the driver, then I
have to find my
friend. I’m desperate, yet helpless. I will the traffic to move,
the lights to change. I curse as we get stuck behind a cyclist, as someone steps
out on to a pedestrian crossing and we have to brake.

I’m not sure we’re going to make it, plus Lukas may ring her and tell her I’m on
my way. It’s hopeless.

It’s almost one thirty when we pull up outside the terminal; I’m numb, certain I’ll
have missed her. I pass my fare over to the driver – far too much, but I tell her
to keep the change – and then I start to run. She shouts, ‘Good luck, love!’ but
I don’t answer, don’t even turn round. I’m already frantically looking for Anna.
I run in, towards the gates to the terminal, past the coffee shops and ticket offices,
remembering as I do the times I’d met Lukas here. The images assault me, in Technicolor.
I think of the second time we’d met, just after he’d lied to me and told me he lived
near London after all. Back when I felt almost nothing for him, by comparison to
what came later, at least. Back when it would’ve been easy, relatively, to walk away.
Back when I was worried he had a wife, when really he was about to ask someone else
to marry him.

Not just
someone
, I think. Anna. And now, I realize with increasing panic, I’m here
rushing to try to save her.

The station is crowded; I can’t see her. I stop running. ‘Find Friends,’ I think
she’d called it. We’d linked our profiles. I scrabble for my phone, drop it, pick
it up again. I open the map, but there’s only one dot. Mine.

She’s disconnected her profile from mine. She hates me. I’m about to despair. She’ll
go back home; all is lost. I could try to call her, yes, but she probably won’t answer
the phone, and even if she does how will I make her believe me? I need to be there,
in front of her. I need to make her understand.

I see a flash of red in the crowds, and somehow I know it’s her coat. When the crowd
clears I see I’m right. She’s at the gate itself, pulling her case behind her with
one hand, with the other already fumbling her ticket over the automatic scanner.
‘Anna!’ I shout, but she can’t hear me and doesn’t respond. I start running again.
My words are lost in gasped breath, caught up in the noisy chaos of the station,
rising and echoing in the vault of the ceiling. I shout again, louder this time –
‘Anna! Wait!’ – but by the time she looks up and sees me I’m too late; the automatic
gates have registered her ticket, swung open and she’s gone through.

‘Julia!’ she says, turning back to face me. ‘What’re you . . . ?’

I stop running. We’re on either side of the gates, a few feet apart. There’s a security
booth just beyond her, and beyond that the waiting rooms and restaurants of the international
terminal. ‘I met Lukas.’ She looks momentarily confused, then I remember myself.
‘I mean, Ryan. I saw Ryan.’

She looks at me, her head tilted, her mouth turned down. It’s pity. She feels sorry
for me. Again I’m reminded that Lukas has won.

‘I know. He called me.’

‘They’re the same person, Anna. I swear. Ryan
is
Lukas. He’s been lying to you.’

She seems to well up. Something she’s so far been holding in check erupts to the
surface.

‘I thought you were my friend.’

‘I am.’ But then my mind goes to the scar on Lukas’s cheek, just beginning to crust.
I can only imagine what he’s said to her.

‘Whatever Ryan’s told you, he’s lying.’ I look her in the eye. ‘Believe me . . .’

She shakes her head. ‘Bye, Julia.’ She turns to leave.

I grip the barrier. For a second I think I could jump it, or push through, but already
we’re attracting attention. A staff member is watching us, he’s stepping forward,
as if he expects trouble.

I call instead. ‘Anna! Come back. Just for a minute. Let me explain!’

She looks over her shoulder. ‘Goodbye, Julia.’ She begins to walk away.

‘No!’ I say. ‘Wait!’

The guy in the uniform is standing right by us, now looking from one to the other.
Anna doesn’t turn round.

I cast about for a way to convince her. I’m desperate. I need something that proves
I know him as Lukas, have slept with him. Then I remember.

‘He has a birthmark. On his leg. His thigh. His upper thigh.’

At first I don’t think she’s heard me, but then she stops walking. She turns, then
slowly comes back towards the barrier that separates us.

‘A birthmark.’ I point to my own body. ‘Just here.’

At first she says nothing. She shakes her head. She looks hurt, devastated. ‘You
. . .
bitch
.’

The last word is hissed. Of course she hates me, and I hate myself for having to
do this to her.

‘Anna! . . . I’m sorry . . .’

She’s standing just on the other side of the barrier now. If either of us were to
reach over we could touch each other, yet she is utterly unreachable, as if the barrier
between us were impenetrable.

We both remain utterly still, just staring. A moment later a voice cuts in with a
jolt.

‘Is there some kind of a problem here?’

I look over. It’s the guard. He’s standing just beyond Anna.
We both shake our head.
‘No. It’s fine.’ Dimly, I’m aware that I’m blocking the barrier, a queue is forming
behind me.

‘Could you move along, please?’ He sounds so calm; his politeness clashes with what’s
going on.

I put my hand out, palm up, as if offering something. ‘Anna, please.’ She looks at
it as if it’s an unknown object, dangerous, alien. ‘Anna?’

‘Why are you doing this?’ She’s crying now, tears pouring down her cheeks. ‘I thought
we were friends . . .’

‘We were.’ I’m desperate, insistent. ‘We still are.’ I wish I could make her understand,
let her know I’m doing this because I do love her, not because I don’t. I get out
my phone. ‘He’s not the person you think he is. Ryan, I mean. Believe me.’

‘You have everything. From the moment I told you we were engaged you haven’t been
able to even
pretend
to be happy for me. I feel sorry for you. D’you know that?’

‘No—’ I begin, but she interrupts me.

‘I’ve had enough.’ She turns to go, and I try to grip her arm. The guy watching us
steps forward; again he asks us to move along.

‘Give me a second, will you? Please?’

I have to make Anna understand, before she gets on the train and disappears back
to Paris and everything is lost. Otherwise she’ll marry this man and ruin her life.
It hits me that, even if I succeed, Lukas will carry out his threat, send Hugh the
pictures. Whatever happens I might lose everything.

I feel myself slip back into the blackness, but I know I can’t. This is my last chance
to do the right thing.

‘Wait a minute. I need you to hear something.’ The rest of the station disappears;
I can think of nothing else. It’s just me and her. My words come out in a rush. ‘He’s
. . . I know him as Lukas . . . he’s the one I met through the website you told
me
about . . . he . . . he’s . . . he’s got to Connor. He’s been following him . . .
following me, too . . . he’s flipped, I swear . . .’

‘Liar.’ Over and over again she says it. ‘You’re a liar. A liar.’