‘Okay. Well, you’ve made contact with me because you feel there are some things you could do with talking through. Do you want to tell me what it is that’s causing you emotional pain?’
‘It’s hard to talk about,’ she says, staring past me to the window. A stream of sunlight covers half her face, and I have to turn my chair to see her clearly. ‘I… my partner… he… hits me.’ She looks back at me to check my reaction, perhaps thinking I will judge her, but I remain impassive.
‘I know I should leave him, but it’s not that simple,’ she continues. ‘Oh, God, I know what I must sound like. But we have a history together, a complicated one. We’ve been through a lot together.’
On the phone, Alison had led me to believe she had come out of the relationship, and now she is telling me something different. But I cannot make a big deal of this; I’m just grateful she’s being so open. Usually it takes longer than this to get to the root of things.
‘Please don’t tell me to go to the police,’ she says, before I even open my mouth to speak. ‘That’s just not an option.’
‘It’s understandable that you’re afraid, but there are safe places you can go, and they’d make sure he couldn’t hurt you again. That’s the number-one goal, isn’t it?’
She doesn’t answer, and a heavy silence fills the room, somehow stifling the roar of car engines and the shrieks from the park.
Alison sighs. ‘Please, can we just talk about it without you trying to get me to report him? Aren’t you supposed to help me find the strength to get away from him?’
Those expectations again. The belief that I can wave a magic wand and banish all problems. Life just isn’t that straightforward – I know that well enough. We bear the scars of our past, permanent tattoos carved onto our skin, whoever we are.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Then why don’t you start by telling me more about what’s going on? How does that sound? Don’t worry about anything else for now.’
She clasps her hands together and sucks in a deep breath. ‘I was young when we met. I mean, I’m only twenty-six now, but I was twenty-one at the time. He’s a lot older than me. Forty-one when we met.’ Her eyes scan my face, searching once again for signs of judgement, but that is the last thing she will find.
I do a quick calculation and work out he must be about forty-six now. With a nod, I wait for her to continue.
‘I really didn’t like him at first. That’s the ironic thing. In fact, I would actually say I hated his guts. He was arrogant. So full of himself, as if the world owed him.’ Her eyes drop to her lap. ‘I suppose that makes it even worse, doesn’t it? That I saw signs of the person he was before I even got involved with him.’ She pauses for so long that I wonder if she will ever speak again.
‘How did you meet?’ I need to get the conversation moving, and this is a harmless enough question.
‘At his work. Well, actually, it was university for me. He was a lecturer there. Not mine, but that doesn’t matter, does it?’
My chest tightens and it feels as if it will collapse inwards. It’s just a coincidence. I need to hold it together, but I can’t seem to manage any words. It is all coming back to haunt me.
Alison leans forward, frowning. ‘Mia? Are you okay?’ Our roles have reversed and now Alison seems like the counsellor while I am the one needing help.
I manage a nod. ‘Sorry, please continue.’ For show I grab a tissue from the box on my desk. ‘I get really bad hay fever and, well, the pollen levels are extra high today.’
She frowns, but carries on speaking, and I try to focus on each word she says, though they are now blurring into each other.
‘We got together by accident. I was drunk and I shouldn’t have gone anywhere near him, but I was feeling so bad about myself, so… I don’t know… rejected, by everyone and everything, and I think I just needed to know someone wanted me. Does that make me a weak person?’
‘No, definitely not. It makes you human.’ It’s a struggle to remain present, but I must force myself to focus if I’m to have any chance of helping this woman. ‘It’s understandable to feel like that, Alison. We all lapse in judgement sometimes, don’t feel guilty about that.’
She shakes her head. ‘It’s not guilt I feel. I have more than enough to feel guilty about, but that’s not it in this case.’ She pauses. ‘Stupid, that’s how I feel.’
‘Well, you’d been drinking.’
‘A lot. And I never normally touch alcohol. If only I hadn’t. Everything would be different and I’d be… free.’
‘So you feel like a prisoner?’
‘Yes, that’s it. A prisoner in my own life.’
‘Again, that’s normal,’ I say. ‘But what we’ve got to do is work out how to get you out of this prison, and there’s always a way.’ Wasn’t I evidence of exactly that?
‘I’ve got to get the key from Dominic and set myself free,’ she says, staring me straight in the eye.
And now there is no way to ignore the huge coincidence. I’m burning up, suffocating, and I can’t escape. ‘Dominic?’
‘Yes, my partner.’ And this time her voice is firmer, more controlled; she is almost a different person. ‘And I think you know who he is.’
Her words are a punch to my gut. Who is this woman and what is she doing here?
‘Dominic Bradford,’ she says, when I cannot bring myself to speak. ‘I believe he was a colleague of your husband, Zach.’
His name echoes into the room and bile rises in my throat. ‘Who… who are you?’
‘Exactly who I said I was. I just didn’t mention that I know who you are, or that I’m here to tell you your husband didn’t kill himself.’
Chapter Two
Five years earlier
Josie
* * *
Do you ever get the feeling you don’t fit in? Like you’re the wrong piece of a jigsaw puzzle, trying to wedge yourself into a space you just can’t squeeze into? Well, that’s how I feel every day of my life. They all think I’m just a party girl, that I spend more time downing shots than studying, and do you know what? They’re right.
It’s a miracle I’ve even made it through the first three months of university, but I got this far to spite her, because she doesn’t believe for one second that I’ll make it. But here I am, Liv.
Although there are days, like today, when I want to just jack it all in.
The coffee shop is empty this evening so I’ve pretty much been left alone to deal with the customers, although Pierre is in the back office if I need help. It’s suffocating me, being in this place, but I need to pay my rent so I just have to suck it up. I’m not one of those girls who’s lucky enough to have parents supporting her. No, I’m the other kind. The kind nobody can believe has made it this far, one of those girls who ends up in trouble before they’re out of their twenties. But I revel in their shock. It drives me, spurs me on to do even better with my life. I will not be like her.
I’m so wrapped up in these thoughts that I haven’t noticed the middle-aged woman who has approached the counter and is now staring at me, hands on her hips and an impatient frown on her face. A designer handbag hangs from the crook of her arm and she teeters on heels that are too high for her. She shakes her head and huffs at me.
Screw her, I’m only human, and if she knew me she’d understand why I have trouble concentrating sometimes.
‘A skinny cappuccino,’ she says, with no greeting or smile. Maybe her tight, thin lips aren’t capable of one. Perhaps it would just crack her face. She pulls out a matching designer purse and squints at me. ‘Are you allowed to wear that thing in your nose when you’re serving people?’
She’s talking about the small diamond stud in my nose. But I’m used to it. Used to people silently, or not so silently sometimes, thinking, She would be pretty if she lost that disgusting thing.