‘I’m on my way to work. I can’t talk long. Later’s better,’ she added, but only in appeasement as if apologizing for her sharp tone. He’d expected her to ask after him. She didn’t.
‘Okay. I wouldn’t have called you if it wasn’t important. But things have happened, or changed since I saw you. You remember when we were in the woods, near the cove? And that dream? Well, this has all just gone to a whole new level. I—’
‘Seb. I don’t know what to say about that. I’m trying not to think about it at all. It’s hard to say, but the whole weekend freaked me out. You did too. I’m sorry, but you did. Everything was all wrong from the moment you met me at the train station. I’m still trying to shake that whole weekend off. I need more time. And I’m really sorry, but I don’t know how I feel about things now.’
‘Becky, he came! He came here, to the house. The man I told you about. The one I have been seeing. He showed up.’ He paused to rub his head, as if to loosen the right way of expressing himself. ‘Jesus. But there is . . . another that came with him. This is not easy to even talk about, let alone believe, but he brought it with him. Brought it here. It got inside the house last night. Becky, I’m in danger.’
‘Seb, I’m sorry. But I really do, genuinely, have to go. Now.’ It sounded as if she were running up some stairs, somewhere in distant London. He could hear her heels and her breathlessness. ‘And I’ll admit, I don’t have a clue what to say to you. I don’t even know what you want me to say. Sorry. We never . . . Well, we were never that . . . Close isn’t the right word, is it? But you know what I mean. It makes it hard for me to . . . understand this place where you are right now.’
Seb tried to swallow a lump of misery, the size of a plum, that had formed in his throat.
Becky switched tack and tried to make him feel better. ‘But we did try and talk about this, didn’t we? You remember? And I’m not sure what I can tell you now, that I haven’t already said.’ Was that a sliver of embarrassed condescension for his piteous need for support? Or was he only imagining a serious reduction in her respect for him?
Seb levelled his tone. ‘I just wanted to talk to someone. To tell you what it’s been like. That was all. A friend. Someone who might understand.’ And as soon as he’d spoken he recognized and disliked the passive aggression in his voice.
‘Seb, don’t be like that. Please. We don’t know what happened, but whatever we thought happened, or saw . . . it frightened me. It really did. I know that much. It still does. I don’t even want to think about it. I don’t know what you are . . . going through right now—’
‘Going through? You think I am making it up?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘I’ve done nothing. It all just started to happen when he appeared. I told you.’
‘He? This guy you told me about, the university friend who never did the dishes? Well, yes. You started seeing him, and things . . .’ She could barely bring herself to say it because she thought he was mentally ill.
Seb barely heard what she said next and only comprehended it after she’d finished speaking. ‘You weren’t yourself, Seb. Not at all, when I was with you. I’m sorry, but I’ve been thinking that sometimes when people are unwell, they create an atmosphere around themselves that’s a difficult place, a bad place even, for other people to be in. It kind of infects everyone else, you know?’
‘But it’s not me, it—’
‘And that’s how I explain this to myself. It’s like that weekend was all a part of where you are right now. Where your head is.’
‘Becky! For God’s sake, this is serious. He came here, to my house. Physically. He wanted me to do things for him. He made demands. Blackmail. He demanded money from me today. He’s been making threats . . . Those reviews, well guess who wrote those? He—’
‘Seb, sorry. I have to get off the phone. This is all terrible and don’t think that I am being unsympathetic, but I think you need to see someone. A doctor. I really do. And if someone is trying to get at you, and whatever, then you need to call the police. Not me. I don’t know what you want me to do? Sorry, I really have to go. Bye.’ Becky ended the call.
Part 2
THIS PRISON OF THE FLESH
11
I Am Not Here Any More
Seb listed several prompts for himself on the hotel notepad. They were reminders of what he wanted to say and might deter him from saying other things, or the wrong thing, when he spoke to a police officer. The list helped him organize his thoughts, if one even lingered long enough to be seized. His mind was alternating between states; it was either a hornet nest that had been tapped hard with a stick, or a sluggish trickle of basic sentience.
A voice with a local accent answered the call he’d made to the police station in Brixham, and Seb cleared his throat. ‘I’d like to make a complaint.’