Clare let out a trembling breath, and opened the car door. ‘Flopsie!’ Her voice shook, but almost imperceptibly. I thought, not for the first time, what an amazing actress she was. It was not surprising she’d ended up in theatre. The only surprise was that she wasn’t on stage herself.
‘Clare-Bear!’ Flo shrieked, and catapulted down the steps onto the gravel. ‘Oh my God, it is you! I heard a noise and thought … but then no one came.’ She was stumbling hastily down the path in front of the house, her bunny slippers shushing in the grit. ‘What are you doing out here in the dark all by yourself, you silly moo?’
‘I was talking to Lee. I mean, Nora.’ Clare waved a hand at my side of the car. ‘I ran into her on the way up the drive.’
‘Not literally, I hope! Oops!’ There was a crunch as Flo tripped over something in the dark and fetched up on her knees in front of the car with a rush. She jumped up, brushing herself down. ‘I’m fine! I’m fine!’
‘Calm down!’ Clare laughed, and hugged Flo. She whispered something into her hair that I didn’t hear, and Flo nodded. I pulled at the door handle and got stiffly out of the car. It had been a mistake not to walk those last few yards up to the house – going from running to sitting so abruptly, my muscles had seized up. Now it was an effort to straighten.
‘You all right, Lee?’ Clare said, turning back at the sound of me getting out. ‘You look like you’re hobbling a bit.’
‘I’m fine.’ I tried to match her in keeping my voice light. James. James. ‘Want a hand with your bags?’
‘Thanks, but I’ve not got much.’ She popped the boot and picked up a shoulder bag. ‘Come on then Flops, show us my room.’
Nina was nowhere to be seen when I climbed the last, painful step up to our room, holding my muddy trainers by the laces. I peeled off my spattered leggings and sweaty top, and crawled under the duvet in my bra and knickers. Then I lay, staring into the pool of light cast by the bedside lamp.
This had been a mistake. What had I been thinking of?
I’d spent ten years trying to forget James, trying to build a chrysalis of assurance and self-sufficiency around myself. And I’d thought I was succeeding. I had a good life. No, I had a great life. I had a job I loved, I had my own flat, I had some lovely friends, none of whom knew James or Clare or anyone else from my former life in Reading.
I was beholden to no one – emotionally, financially or in any other way. And that made me feel fine. Absolutely fucking fine, thanks very much.
And now this.
The worst of it was, I couldn’t blame Clare. She was right: she and James had done nothing wrong. They didn’t owe me anything, either of them. James and I had broken up over a decade ago, for Christ’s sake. No. The only person I could blame was myself. For not moving on. For not being able to move on.
I hated James for his hold over me. I hated that every time I met a man, I was comparing them in my head. The last time I slept with someone – two years ago – he had woken me in the night, his hand on my chest. ‘You were having a dream,’ he’d said. ‘Who’s James?’ And when he saw my stricken face, he’d swung his legs out of bed, got up, got dressed and walked out of my life. And I never even bothered to phone him back.
I hated James and I hated myself. And yes, I am fully aware that this makes me sound like the biggest loser in existence: the girl who meets a boy aged sixteen and obsesses over him for the next ten bloody years. Believe me, no one is more aware of that than me. If I met myself in a bar and got talking, I would despise myself too.
I could hear the others downstairs, talking and laughing, and caught the smell of pizza floating up the stairs.
I was going to have go down there and talk and laugh too. Instead, I curled myself into a ball, my knees to my chest, my eyes tight shut, and I screamed a silent scream inside my head.
Then I straightened, feeling my tired muscles protest, got out of bed, and picked up the top-most towel off the pile Flo had stacked carefully on the foot of each bed.
The bathroom was on the landing, and I locked the door and let the towel drop to the floor. Over the bath was another uncurtained plate-glass window, looking out over the forest in an incredibly unnerving way. It was angled so that, in practice, you wouldn’t be able to see inside the room unless you were perched on top of a fifty-foot pine, but as I took off my bra and knickers I had to fight the urge to cross my hands over my breasts, covering my nakedness from the watchful darkness.