The words were definitely in my head but I’m still scared she somehow heard them. She carries on without looking at my face and I’m glad, I don’t trust it not to give me away.
‘He was a medical student, wasn’t he?’ she asks.
‘Yes.’
‘Wouldn’t leave you alone when you split up with him, do you remember?’
‘I remember. He was upset. He didn’t understand why I broke it off. I couldn’t explain to him that you made me.’
‘I didn’t make you. He just wasn’t right for you. He was pleasant to look at but something wasn’t quite right up here.’ She taps her temple with her index finger. ‘You do remember him calling you non-stop when you ended it? Waiting outside your flat in the middle of the night?’
‘Like I said, he was upset.’
‘Did you never wonder why he stopped harassing you in the end?’ She turns to face me, her eyes shining with delight, before returning her attention to the items on sale.
My mind whirrs into overdrive. The pieces of a puzzle I didn’t know I needed to solve start to slot into place.
‘What did you do?’ I ask.
‘Not much. I wrote some letters, that’s all. It’s a shame people don’t write to one another any more, don’t you think?’
She doesn’t look up, just casually makes her way along the stall, picking up pastel-coloured lumps of wax, lifting them to her face and breathing them in.
‘Tell me what you did.’
Finally, she turns to face me. ‘I wrote some letters to the head of the medical school from women who wanted to complain about his conduct. Your ex. I wrote them all on different paper, using different handwriting. It was really very clever.’ She smiles. ‘Then I rang him from a payphone and said the letters would only stop if he left you alone.’ Her smile erupts into laughter.
‘That isn’t funny, Claire. You could have ruined his career.’
‘What does he do now?’
‘He’s a doctor.’
‘No harm done there then. Getting yourself all worked up over nothing as usual. I’m only telling you in case you happen to “bump” into him again. I wouldn’t advise it.’
‘Why?’ I ask, fearing I already know the answer.
‘Because I think I might have said the letters were from you.’
Then
Christmas Eve 2016 – Lunchtime
The market starts to spin a little and I need something to steady myself. The smell of mulled wine rises above the stench of candles, spices and people. I have to calm down. I try to make myself focus on what I came here to say. I push Edward to somewhere dark at the back of my mind and lock him away inside a box there. I’ve hidden memories in boxes inside my head before. Sometimes it’s the only way to deal with things.
‘Shall we get a drink?’ I ask.
‘Go on then,’ says Claire.
I queue up at the counter while she finds us a table. I see her giving the twins some crisps to keep them quiet. They shouldn’t be eating that crap but I won’t say anything. I hear someone taking a photo behind me and I spin around, my mind replaying the recent photos of myself I saw in Edward’s hallway. I half expect to see him in the crowd, taking pictures of me again right now. I have to stop thinking about him, need to deal with one thing at a time, but I can’t shake the image of how my face looked when I thought nobody was watching. Photographs like that capture the way we hold ourselves up when life tries to drag us down. A paper rectangle revealing how we might unfold.
I put our drinks down on the table, warming my hands by wrapping them around the hot glass. It burns a little but I don’t mind the pain. Claire takes a sip of the velvety liquid and I watch her mood cool down as she warms up. Her thermostat restores her to a less volatile version of herself but it still feels awkward between us. Dangerous.
‘Don’t be cross. It was years ago,’ she says, taking another sip.
‘I’m not cross.’
‘Then what’s wrong?’
The question catches me off guard and I feel like I might slip out of my seat. ‘Nothing.’
‘Come on, spit it out. I know you, remember?’ She smiles, she still thinks she’s in control. ‘You’ve got something to say, so say it.’
I look around. There are a lot of people here.
‘I’ve done what you asked,’ I say.
She puts her glass down.
‘Madeline?’
‘Yes.’
She smiles again. I’m not surprised that she doesn’t already know, she’s spent most of her life living in a Claire-shaped bubble. She has no interest in social media, doesn’t even email, she only uses the Internet for online shopping. She doesn’t watch the news now I’m not on it, prefers a surplus of soap operas and endless hours of reality TV.
‘Well, it’s about bloody time. Don’t know what took you so long. Tell me everything,’ she says, her eyes as eager as a child’s on Christmas morning.
‘All that matters is she’s gone. She quit.’
‘Good. I wish her a very unhappy retirement.’
I’ve always known where I stood with Claire, she doesn’t pretend to be someone she’s not with me. She knows what I know and it never seems to bother her. Katie starts crying in her high chair. Claire doesn’t even glance in her direction.
‘How did she look?’
‘What?’
‘When you told her?’
Katie is crying louder now. I can see people throwing irritated glances in our direction, but Claire just stares at me, her face so familiar and yet impossible to read.
‘I don’t really want to talk about it.’
‘I do.’
‘I did it my way. All that matters is it’s done.’
Both children are screaming now, but it’s as though we can’t hear them.
‘Thank you,’ she says. The conversation feels like a forgery.
‘I didn’t exactly have a choice. Now that I’ve done what you asked, leave Paul alone.’ She gives me a look when I say this, a warning look. A glass smashes on the stone floor a few tables away and it feels like something between us has also broken. I know I shouldn’t say any more, but a drawer has opened in my mind and the words that were neatly folded away for so long, tumble out.
‘I mean it, Claire. Leave Paul alone or I’ll disappear, you’ll never see me again.’
‘Has something happened?’ she asks, sitting up a little straighter in her chair.
‘No.’
‘I don’t believe you. You’re not yourself. You’re not . . . balanced. Has he hurt you?’
‘No!’ She studies my face and I look away. Too late. She’s seen something.
‘Has someone else hurt you?’
‘No,’ I reply again. Not fast enough. For a moment I want to tell her everything. I want to tell her that she’s right, she’s always right. Someone has hurt me but I still can’t remember how I ended up in Edward’s bed. When I recall my naked body on the navy sheets I worry that it was all my fault.
‘It’s OK. You’ll tell me when you’re ready. You always do. Paul is no good for you though, not any more. He’s lost his way in life and you can do better. Mum and Dad knew it too.’
‘Leave him alone.’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘If anything ever happens to him, I’ll kill myself.’
The corners of her mouth turn upwards. ‘No you won’t,’ she says, through her smile.
Run rabbit, run rabbit. Run! Run! Run!
The twins are screaming and I’m crying now too. Claire is the only one left on our table who isn’t.
‘We had an agreement,’ I say. ‘If people knew what you . . .’
Claire reaches across the table and takes my hand. Her grip is so tight that it hurts.
‘Just be careful, Amber.’
Before
Saturday, 19th December 1992
Dear Diary,