I aim the remote at the TV to silence it, listening instead for sounds of Nick. There is nothing to be heard except the ticking clock in the hallway, the sound amplified in the quiet. My skin prickles. Something isn’t right. Slowly I swing my legs from the sofa.
I have such a strong sense of being watched the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I shiver involuntarily and wrap my arms around myself. There’s a soft shuffling sound coming from outside, it’s barely discernible, and if adrenaline wasn’t flooding through every cell in my body, enhancing my senses, I might not have heard it.
Somebody is out there.
It’s late for visitors but I wait for the doorbell to ring. Seconds tick by and nothing happens. I can’t take my eyes off the window. There is a lightness radiating from the snow, but all I can see in the glass is the lounge furniture reflected back at me. I tell myself it’s nothing, even though I know it’s something. I have to psych myself up before I can stand and cross to the window, terrified a face might suddenly appear. There’s a smack against the glass. The sound comes again and again, and I realise the predicted storm has arrived, hailstones are clattering against the windowpane. I force myself to calm but as I stretch both arms out and grasp the curtains I see it, just before I can swish them closed. A shadow. A movement.
Somebody is out there.
There is not much to see beyond my own reflection as I stare outside. Part of me wants to run and fetch Nick, but almost of their own accord my fingers release their grip on the curtains and my feet carry me to the hallway. I flick on the outside light. My hand stretches towards the front door handle. I press my ear against the wood. There’s a crack of lightning, and I almost turn and run up the stairs, but instead, I slowly crack open the door. Light floods in. No one is there, and I step outside, the snow and the rain saturating my socks, numbing my toes. Since I’ve been sleeping, fresh snow has fallen and the driveway is a blanket of white, but to the side of the garden, by the fence, where somebody who didn’t want to be seen would walk, are footsteps. They lead to the lounge window, where they stop, before circling back again, avoiding the front door.
There was somebody out here.
And they were watching me sleep.
It feels like a warning.
You mustn’t tell, Kat.
26
Now
I’ve taken to skipping breakfast these past few weeks. Ever since I saw the footprints in the snow I’ve had a feeling of being watched. I’m not sleeping properly, and my appetite isn’t what it was. Rationally, I know it’s unlikely anyone followed me home from Farncaster, but my mind races, jumping to conclusions. After all, Nancy saw me in that magazine, didn’t she? God knows who else did. I know it’s most likely Lisa coming back that has set me on edge: the approach of the ten-year anniversary. But in the dead of night, when shadows loom, and floorboards creak, I’m surrounded by an aura of dread. The cold, bony fingers of the past are reaching out to me.
But today I will need my strength. I throw a couple of rashers of bacon in the pan, standing back as they sizzle and spit. Despite eating less, at our last rehearsal, my costumes would no longer zip up. Mortification heated me from my toes to my scalp as Tamara told me not to worry, she could easily order some more in a bigger size. That didn’t stop me standing on the scales the second I got home. They still said I weighed the same. I think the steam must have affected the reading and made a note to buy some more. That’s the trouble with working at home and living in leggings, isn’t it? You don’t notice the waistbands getting snug, and I may be skipping meals but I’m still eating chocolate Hobnobs as I work. Cramming them into my mouth as though the mindless chewing will keep my snarling memories at bay. It doesn’t.
Outside the garden is a riot of colour. April showers have nourished the weeds tangled amongst the plants. Nick keeps promising to tidy the borders.
The radio plays Corinne Bailey Rae’s ‘Put Your Records On’. It’s one of my favourites but I don’t sing along, focusing instead on slicing crusty white bread. One piece is an inch thick and the other is virtually see-through, but I slather it in ketchup nevertheless. I eat standing up, a tea towel tucked into the neck of my top to protect it from the grease dripping from my chin. When I’ve finished I punch out a text to Lisa.
What time is the scan today?
Still 3 o’clock!!
The doctor didn’t repeat the early scan they did when Lisa thought she had miscarried so this will be my first time seeing the baby. Beanie is twenty-two weeks now and I’ve been so impatient. I was reading online that some women have their twenty week scan at eighteen weeks – every NHS hospital is different, Lisa’s midwife said – but that doesn’t stop me wishing we were one of the ones who had it early. Beanie is about as heavy as a bag of sugar. With eyelids and eyebrows developed and tooth buds in place. A proper little person. A mini ‘Jake’, I think but I brush the thought away as Nick sticks his head around the door.
‘I’m off.’
‘Wait!’ I hurry across the kitchen. ‘Kiss?’ I stand on tiptoe and he wipes the corner of my mouth with his thumb.
‘Ketchup,’ he says before dropping his lips onto mine.
‘Hungry?’ I ask.
‘No.’
He’s not sleeping properly either. Or eating. He tells me not to worry about the business, but it’s hard not to when he so obviously is. I wish he’d talk to me properly.
I don’t know how much trouble we are in. It’s impossible not to fear the worst. It’s selfish, I know, but I wonder whether we will have to move if Nick can’t sort things out. If we’ll lose the house. Where would we bring the baby up? I could get a full-time job, but what would happen to the charity? If I draw a salary, we’d have to cut down the counselling we offer and I’d hate for that to happen. It’s so important to people.
‘I wish you could come to the hospital today. I can’t believe you’re missing it.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. I’ve so much on. You’ll get a photo though, won’t you, and I’ll get to meet him or her in person soon.’
‘I can’t wait.’
‘Me neither.’ He rubs his nose against mine. ‘It’s getting real now, isn’t it?’
‘Very. I woke at 3 a.m. thinking I could hear a baby crying. My subconscious must be preparing me for sleepless nights.’ I am trying to convince myself that almost every night I am dreaming of the baby we are about to have, rather than ones I have lost.
‘Are you sure you will be okay today?’ He tucks my hair behind my ear. ‘It’s a long drive. For you. And you’ve been… fraught lately.’
‘I am not imagining things.’ I step back.
‘I know you think you saw footprints—’
‘I did.’ I can’t help snapping.
‘They weren’t there when I looked.’
‘The rain had washed them away.’ By the time Nick ventured outside the lawn was a mass of sludge and there was nothing to be seen. If there ever was.
Ten years.
‘I’ve told you there’s been someone hanging around outside too.’ There have been several times this past month I have tried to go out, and each time I opened the front door, there was someone stalking down the road, hands thrust into pockets, or a shadow crossing our driveway. It’s not as though there are many houses in our cul-de-sac. It’s rare to notice anything out of the ordinary. I am staying in more and more, unable to shake the slithering uneasiness in the pit of my stomach.
‘Like the other night?’
‘Do you have to bring that up again?’ I had stood at our bedroom window, eyes fixed on the motionless figure half-hidden at the end of the driveway. My palms began to heat, my fingers tingled and, by the time Nick came out of the shower, I was gripping the windowsill, body rigid. ‘He’s watching me.’ It had been an effort to speak through my shortness of breath, and Nick had looked at me, his blue eyes darkening with sympathy. ‘Kat, it’s just the black bin. I put it out earlier.’ He had gently drawn the curtains and led me to the bed where I lay waiting for my heart rate to slow. The buzzing in my head to stop.