Knock knock.
Robin looks through the crack in the curtain. She can make out the edge of the van just a little up the road. She walks to the front door, listens carefully for the delivery guy and is reassured by the telltale shuffle of heavy feet. She swipes the security chain out of the way, clicks open the lock, takes a deep breath and prepares for the weekly burst of small talk that means more to her than it could ever mean to the guy holding crates of shopping.
She starts to open the door carefully, just a crack at first while she builds up the nerve.
Suddenly, a thick black boot has been shoved in the gap and someone is pushing at her door from the outside. “What the fuck?” she blurts as she pushes back against the door with everything she has.
The boot wriggles to get in farther and the door is shoved roughly again and again from outside, the sound of a man grunting with exertion as it bashes against her. She uses every muscle in her body, but every time the door inches nearer to the frame, her bare feet skid on the carpet.
“No!” she growls, as she dredges every last drop of energy to drive the door to a close, clicking it into the frame and fumbling to get the security chain back in place.
Whoever is out there kicks the door hard one last time, but then Robin hears him running away.
Robin keeps pushing at the closed door anyway, her arms and shoulders locked in agony, her feet grazed and raw. She’s breathing so hard she can’t think over the sound of the air rushing in and out of her. After a minute, she lets go and creeps into the living room to look carefully through the smallest of gaps between the curtains. She sees the white van she’d mistaken for a delivery truck. It’s reversing back into view and has the name of a hire company on it. Fuck. Fuck. She tugs her hair, bends over, can’t think straight. All this paranoia coursing through her was right. Fuck.
Moments later, the supermarket van chugs into a space right opposite her house, a space they’re not supposed to park in. The driver—one she’s chatted to numerous times—is whistling obliviously as he stacks two crates on top of each other and carefully dodges cars to cross the road.
She ignores the knocks at first, but then her mobile vibrates. She answers, knows who is calling. Her heart is still thundering and she’s pouring with sweat.
“Is that Robin Marshall?”
“Yes,” she whispers, her name sounding alien and risky.
“I’m outside your house, love. With your shopping.”
“I’m sorry, I’m not well,” she says hurriedly.
“Well, you’ve paid for this stuff, so I can’t really take it back. I’ll bring it through to your kitchen if you like. Just come and open the door for me, would you?”
“I can’t.”
There’s a pause. “Look, I really have to get this stuff dropped and move on. I’ll be behind for the other customers otherwise.”
“Just leave it outside.”
“I can’t do that here. It’ll be nicked.”
“It’s my stuff, isn’t it?” she snaps.
“But you need to sign for it.” His voice has a new edge; she could hear it in duplicate through the living room window. She pictured his thick arms, his heavy boots. She didn’t want more boots at her door.
“I’m contagious. Just push the thing through the letter box and I’ll sign it.”
“Okay, fine, whatever you want.”
The phone goes dead and the bulky handheld machine is shoved awkwardly through the letter box. She grabs it, signs the screen with the stub of a nail and pushes it back through.
“It’s for your own good,” she adds, trying a friendlier tone.
“Right,” he says. “Thanks.” He doesn’t mean thanks.
She goes back to the lounge, watches through the curtains as he reloads his empty crates and chugs off down the road. She looks around but can’t see anyone else looking over and no black boots.
Outside, passersby help themselves to her milk, her bananas, her oats. Someone rifles through looking for booze but she hadn’t bought any. He complains loudly to his friend. It takes under a minute for a small crowd to gather, safely coating her step. Unwitting protection. She pulls back the door and grabs what’s left of her shopping as they skuttle away.
Robin slams the door shut again and sits on the floor of the hall, surrounded by fruit, bottled water and vegetables in partly shredded carrier bags.
As her breathing finally slows and her heart stops leaping, Robin considers what just happened. She comes to two very important conclusions:
One, she’s not just paranoid—someone really is out to get her. And being right about that is no comfort.
Two, her best hope is that it’s Henry Watkins, aware that it was she who called the police. Better the devil you know. Better the devil you can see.
Robin jogs upstairs gingerly, her grazed feet raw. She pulls up to the bedroom window and teases the curtain open a hairsbreadth. She pushes her eye to the chink of light and looks straight at the Magpie flat. At first, she doesn’t see him. Wonders, with creeping dread, whether he is still outside her house, standing angrily in his black boots, watching for an opportunity.
But then he appears in his window. He’s wearing a towel around his waist, his wet hair scruffed. His chest is narrow and sunken. The towel slips down, showing jutting hips that used to have a layer of mid-thirties chub.
Even with superhero levels of speed he surely couldn’t have been at her door and be back, naked and showered by now.
So it wasn’t him. Someone is trying to get her and it isn’t him. Fuck.
Tears fall, a reaction Robin hates herself for, and she watches the equally defeated man across the street pick up the mug of drink in front of him, stare at it for a moment and then hurl it at the wall.
As it explodes and showers everywhere, he crouches down on the floor and hugs his knees, shoulders shaking.
Robin doesn’t see this. She’s already crawled under her bed and is counting the bed slats to try to stop herself from screaming.
TWENTY-EIGHT
SARAH|1996
I stand in the doorway of my mum’s bedroom and watch her sleep. It’s the middle of the day so Drew is at work, but my school is closed for spring break and I’m hot and sticky in the house.
Before class broke up on Friday, some of the girls were talking about going shopping in Lenox Square, but despite my eager expression none of them invited me.
Our garden here in Atlanta is much bigger than both the gardens I had in Birch End. And it’s more complicated too. There’s not much grass but there are lots of rock sections and decks with lights rigged up and modern statues. There’s a sprinkler system for what little lawn there is and a water feature that bubbles around the clock. At night when it’s still and quiet, I can hear it from my bed.