Guilt Trip (13 page)

And so I
lay there in silence, listening as my father quietly slipped away from me, off
to deal with his emotions in his own way.

It was a
call of nature that finally made me get up some time later, pulling on my jeans
and dragging myself along to the bathroom. I felt like the walking dead. A
zombie. Devoid of life. I was as low as it was possible to go.

And I
felt so alone. For though my world was crumbling around me, my father seemed to
have closed himself off from me emotionally, most likely preferring to drown
his grief for his lost wife in another bottle. And Luke… well… Luke loved
Billie.

Next to
the bathroom was the connecting door to Luke’s flat. As I came to it, I leaned
against it, laying my cheek on the painted wood, yearning to be with him, the
way it
had
been. If only he hadn’t
met Billie… If only he could have forgotten her…

In the
bathroom, I used the loo and then stood before the mirror washing my hands,
using some water to try to wash away the mascara which had smudged, running down
my face with the tears and rain.

And then
the déjà vu happened again: a hand reaching for the tap. I closed my eyes,
praying that it be the start of a vision, begging my imagination to conjure him
up, to let him come. My need to be loved was so desperate. If I couldn’t have
him in reality, then at least let me have him here in my daydreams.

And then
I cried out with relief, for here he was, standing behind me, his arms encircling
my waist, his lips already at my shoulder. And I willingly surrendered myself
to the lie, turning round to him, pressing myself against him, feeling his
mouth on mine.

The
experience was even more real than before: I could smell his warm, musky scent,
hear the rough, sandpapery sound of his fingers against my skin; taste the raw
flesh inside his lips. It was as if my mind was compensating for my having lost
him in reality. Creating my own vividly realistic world where I could truly
believe that he loved me.
Me
.

But no. It
seemed my subconscious wouldn’t allow it. Wouldn’t let me fool myself in this
way any longer. Even here, in my fantasy, I wasn’t allowed to be the true
object of his desire. Even here I was second best.

“Oh
Billie…”

My heart cracked
wide open as he moaned her name.

And so I wrenched
myself away, opening my eyes, bringing the fantasy to an end.

But it
didn’t stop. It continued. And there she was in the mirror. The same girl.

And so I
stood, fascinated and horrified at the same time, watching in the reflection as
Luke kissed his way down her throat and into the crook of her neck. And then,
kneeling down, he lifted her black top, running his lips across the smooth curve
of her belly, above the belt of her jeans, adoring her, worshipping her, loving
her. Billie.

But while
my body could feel every sweet kiss, every tender touch, the girl in the mirror
seemed oblivious to it all. Her face expressionless. Passive and emotionless. Blank.

But then
her lips began to move, her eyes looking straight into mine, seeming to plead
with me as she mouthed the words of my mother.

“Help me...!”

A wave of
panic swept over me. I had to make this stop! Closing my eyes tight, I tried to
take a step back from the mirror, away from the reflection… but the fantasy
still played on, Luke’s voice calming and cajoling me, his hands gripping my
waist tighter to make me stay.

Opening
my eyes, I looked down - and there he was kneeling before me, his lips on my
stomach. But it wasn’t
my
stomach. Black
top. Jeans. It was Billie’s.
I
was
Billie. I gasped, and at the noise, Luke looked up at me, an ocean of love in
his eyes.

But at
the sight of him I began to struggle more wildly, even more desperate to end
this: because the man kneeling before me wasn’t my Luke. This was a much
younger man, maybe twenty or so, his face smoother, slightly slimmer.

This was
Billie’
s Luke.

“No!” I pulled
away from him again, scrabbling to remove this stranger’s hands from my waist.

His face
clouded over with hurt and confusion. “Come on, Billie…” Swearing with
impatience, he grabbed roughly at my belt, pulling at it, trying to unbuckle
it.

“No!” Terrified,
I screwed my eyes shut, trying desperately to make it stop. Willing it to be
over. But somehow I just couldn’t concentrate enough. I couldn’t shut this
nightmare down.

By now I
was growing frantic, almost hysterical in my blind panic to pull myself free. And
so we grappled, he pulling at my belt, while I tried to wrench myself away,
until suddenly, as I pulled back, the whole of my belt snaked itself free from
the belt loops, and he overbalanced with the sudden lack of resistance, knocking
his head against the sink.

Snarling with
sudden rage, he leaped to his feet, grabbing me by the arm, and twisting it
painfully behind my back, as he forced his lips clumsily on mine.

“Stop it,
Billie!” he spat when I twisted my mouth away from him, locking my arm even
tighter so that I whimpered with the pain. He grabbed a fistful of my hair in
his free hand, pulling it tight and up high, so that he had total control over
my head, pushing it back, awkwardly, against the mirror, at the same time
pushing me with his body so that I was jammed hard against the sink.

“There, that’s
better,” he whispered into the side of my face. I could feel his warm breath on
my ear, and my body shuddered with fear and disgust. Then suddenly he bit my
earlobe sharply, laughing when I cried out. “You have to do what I say, Billie.
You’re mine.”

My head
was at an uncomfortable angle against the mirror, but because of this, looking
out of the corner of my eye, I could just see a sliver of reflection. And there
she was, Billie, also caught, looking back at me out of the corner of her blue
eye.

“Help me…!”
Her silent cry rent the air around me.

But I was
unable to move. My right arm, which was still secured behind my back, felt like
it would break, my head was locked tight by Luke’s fist in my hair; and his
full weight glued my body to the sink. But I had to do something.

My left
arm was also behind me, stretched out against the back of the sink, straining
to support some of the weight, to ease the agony of my bones against the hard
porcelain. Moving it would only bring more pain. But it was the only chance I
had. I lifted it, crying out as the sudden increase of pressure drove me
further against the sink, so that I thought my hips would shatter, the top of
my body collapsing under the increased weight, slamming back into the shelf.

With my
newly freed hand, I tried to prise
his
hand from my hair, scratching and pulling at his fingers. But it was no good. And
in retaliation, he repeatedly slammed my head back against the glass. Desperately
I began scrabbling around on the shelf above the sink, trying to feel for anything
to use as a weapon. And then my fingers closed around the tweezers which had
been lying there for days.

I paused,
terrified at the thought of what would happen if I did this: his fury seemed to
know no bounds. But then I was equally terrified of what would happen if I
didn’t.

With one,
swift, sudden movement, I pulled my arm up and then swung it over, like a tennis
serve, and down, digging the sharp points hard into his forehead. He howled,
automatically letting go of my hair, stepping back, freeing me.

But it
wasn’t over yet.

“Will you
never learn?” he growled, his eyes piercing mine while he slowly lifted his
hand, letting me know exactly what he was about to do. Then he brought it down,
grunting with the force of it, hitting me hard across the face, sending me
crashing to the floor.

And it
was there, lying curled up in a ball on the bathroom floor, that it stopped. Though
the terror and excruciating pain I was experiencing made it virtually
impossible to focus on anything else, the tiny delay as Luke reached for the
belt which was lying by the sink, grinning as he wound one end of it round his
hand, gave me the opportunity I needed to summon up all my strength and will
the dream to end.

And so I
found myself back where I had begun, standing in front of the bathroom sink. Alone.

Slamming
out of the bathroom, I charged down to the first floor, almost falling down the
stairs in my haste. Banging on Dad’s door, I yelled for him to let me in.

God knows
what I intended to tell him. How I would explain the state I was in. I didn’t
think that far ahead. I just needed him, badly.

But Dad
wasn’t home.

I crept quickly
down the next flight of stairs, peering through the banister. There he was, sitting
at the bar. I watched as Luke handed him another drink - brandy or whisky - Dad
picking it up and downing it in a single gulp, and immediately calling for
another.

I sank down
on the stairs then, exhausted and defeated.

Dad would
be too drunk to offer me any kind of protection tonight. I was on my own.

<><><>

Back in
my room, I locked the door, sliding the chain across and pushing a chair under
the handle, making sure that everything was secure. That I was safe.

But who
was I kidding? No door could keep this danger out.

But where
was it coming
from…
?

Was I
really being haunted by Billie?

A few
hours ago I would have laughed at the very idea. But now…

But no. I
had to get a grip. There were no such things as ghosts. Spiritualism was a con.

Tentatively,
I touched my cheek, but though Luke had slapped me hard enough to knock me
down, it wasn’t even sore now. I gave my shoulder an experimental shrug, but
though my arm had almost been twisted from its socket, it felt fine. I examined
myself in the bedroom mirror. There was no swelling. No bruising. Even my
earlobe, which had been so savagely bitten, bore no marks at all.

And why
not?

Why had
such violence failed to leave any trace of itself on me?

Because
it hadn’t actually happened, had it. Except in my head…

So were
these still part of the hallucinations that Dr Henderson mentioned might
happen? The climax of my psychological trauma? Or had I somehow moved beyond
that stage now, going further, tipping over the edge, slipping, sliding, hurtling
into full-blown madness?

I looked
at myself again. Studying my face. The face of a mad girl. I
must
be crazy.

A
lunatic. A psycho. A danger to myself.

I
shivered, wrapping my arms around me.

And then
the poster appeared behind me, and the girl in the mirror changed. And there
she was again, with her purple-striped hair, her black eyeliner. With her blue
eyes locked onto mine.

“Help me…”
she said.

I stared
at her, the girl I had created in my head.

“You have
to loosen it,” she said, beginning to fade away so that I was looking at
myself, and I was the one speaking. “Loosen it.”

Loosen
it. Those were the words spoken to me by the Spiritualist. About my mother. You
have to help her, she’d said. You have to loosen it. Loosen the seatbelt. Set
her free.

“Loosen
it!” The voice was all around me now, urgent and insistent. A voice of
distorted whispers.

I put my
hands over my ears to try to block out the sound. But the whispers continued
inside my head.

“Loosen
it!”

“I can’t,”
I shouted. “It’s too late.”

“Loosen
it!” The words hissed over and over in my head, ordering, demanding.

And then
she was there again, looking back at me from my own reflection, her blue eyes
pleading with me.

“Loosen
it.”

And as
she spoke, everything seemed to vibrate. The bed, the wardrobe, the chair under
the door-handle. They all began to tremble. My things on the dressing table
began to rattle, a perfume bottle tipping over, its lid coming off, rolling
across the surface and falling onto the floor. The wardrobe door squealed open.
And the voice continued - “Loosen it!” - until I could stand it no longer.

“Okay!” I
shouted. “Okay!”

And
everything went still.

<><><>

I sat
there in the sudden silence.

I looked
at the wardrobe door still hanging open, the perfume bottle still lying on its
side, its lid on the floor. That had
not
been
in my imagination. No - it had been real. It had
definitely
happened.

So that
meant that I really was being haunted.

By
Billie.

And she wanted
something from me. My help. She wanted me to loosen something.

And she’d
been asking me ever since I’d come here, hadn’t she. Calling out to me on the
wind and in the caves, and through the Spiritualist. Not my mother at all. But
Billie.

And if I
helped her, if I did as she asked, would that be it? Would all this chaos end? Would
my madness stop? I wasn’t sure - but I desperately hoped so.

<><><>

And so I
began a frenzied search of my room, trying to twist and turn everything -
handles, light-switch, the peg on the back of the door, the lamp. And as I did,
the room changed round me. Not only did the Nirvana poster re-appear, but when
I began to pull out drawers, tapping the wood, looking for some sort of secret
compartment to loosen, the clothes inside those drawers were not my own. Long
purple skirts, ripped jeans, striped tights: these were Billie’s clothes. And
when I tried feeling round the screws which held the mirror in place, the
bottles and jewellery and the black eyeliner pen on the dressing table weren’t
mine. They were Billie’s.

But I
searched in vain. There was nothing there. Nothing to loosen. Nothing.

<><><>

No one
was about as I crept out of my room and along the landing. Using the key which
I’d taken earlier, I unlocked the connecting door, entering Luke’s flat on the
second floor.

The last
thing in the world I wanted was for Luke to find me trespassing, again, searching
through his personal belongings. But it was the only thing I could think of
doing. After all, he was involved in this somehow. Otherwise, why would Billie
have shown me the incident in the bathroom?

But what
was
that? Was it her actual memory that
I had experienced? Had Luke really done that to her? Treated her like that?

No. He
wasn’t like that. Surely.

But then
I thought about his lightning anger. His sudden rages. And I wasn’t so sure…

Please
God, I thought, don’t let him find me here.

First I tiptoed
along the landing to the top of Luke’s stairs, looking down them, listening for
any sign that he was home. But the coast seemed clear. And so I tried the doors
on one side of the corridor - the empty bedrooms I’d seen earlier - thinking
they would be quick, with fewer possible things to loosen. But after a few
minutes it was obvious that I was searching in the wrong place.

And so I
moved on. To Luke’s bedroom.

My
stomach lurched as I looked at the bed, remembering his kisses earlier that
evening. But those kisses weren’t for me, were they. They were for Billie. And,
if the vision was to be believed, look at how he had mistreated
her
.

I still didn’t
understand. If he’d loved her
so
much,
so
passionately, how could he
ever have hurt her? But then I remembered how he’d behaved when he’d found me
sitting here on his bed. He’d been so angry. A total and instant overreaction. Like
he was out of control. Just like when I’d mentioned Billie’s name, and when I’d
hummed that tune.

He’d come
in and seen me sitting there, and he’d been furious. So annoyed that he
couldn’t even look at me properly.

As I
remembered, I automatically looked over to the corner where Luke’s eyes had
repeatedly roamed. Just an empty corner of the room. And then when he’d caught
me looking there too he’d been livid.

I
wondered…

Creeping
over to the corner, I pressed at the floor with my foot. Maybe there was a
loose floorboard or something? But there wasn’t. But when I looked more closely
at the skirting board, there was a fine, hairline join in it. No - there were
two. I prodded the section between the cracks with my foot. It moved very
slightly, as if it wasn’t fully attached to the wall behind.

Getting
down on my hands and knees I tapped it: it sounded different to the skirting
next to it. Hollow.

Race
pulsing, I tried to grip the top of the wood, trying to prise it from the wall,
but my fingers kept slipping. It was too smooth to get a proper purchase.

Then I
remembered all those tools in the cupboard downstairs, arranged so neatly. As
quietly as I could, I crept down to the kitchen and started my search, cringing
as I moved a box of nails which rattled around, grating against each other. But
then I found something suitable: a thin, flat scraper. I put everything else back
perfectly and returned to the bedroom.

Carefully
placing the flat blade at the top of the skirting, I slowly edged it down
behind the wood, gently angling it now and again, trying to prise the section of
skirting from the wall. And eventually it started to give and I was able to
loosen it.

When it
had completely come away, it revealed a space in the wall. A hole.

With
every nerve of my body on edge, I reached inside. There was something there.

As
carefully as possible, I pulled it out. A book. I looked at the cover and drew
a sharp intake of breath: it was a diary. Billie’s diary.

I looked
at the year, expecting it to be from about five years ago. But no - it was much
older than that: from before I was even born. I thought back to the bathroom
scene - to the younger Luke - a man in his early twenties. Of course, their
relationship had happened years ago. And yet he still cared.

Putting
my hand into the hole once more, I felt around. There was more, right at the
back. I pulled out what was left: ten or so pieces of paper, which had clearly
been ripped out of the book and then scrunched up. I smoothed them out to make
them easier to carry, and then carefully put the skirting board back in place.

Then I crept
back out onto the landing, making my way towards the connecting door.

But just as
I reached it, I heard a creaking on the stairs.

“Mel? Is
that you?”

Luke.

I froze.

“Mel?”

What
should I do? If I tried to unlock the door with the key, he was bound to hear
me. But if I didn’t, he would find me here in his private space again. And if
he realised I was carrying the diary…

I could
hear him coming up the second flight of stairs, so I dived through a door on my
left. It was a long, thin study dominated by a big old-fashioned wooden desk,
the kind with drawers down to the floor, and on it sat a computer. I looked
round for somewhere to hide, eventually moving the chair aside to crawl under
the desk, into the space between the two sets of drawers. It was a stupid spot;
way too obvious, but it was the best I could do.

Luke had
reached the top of the stairs now. I could hear him on the landing.

“Mel?”

Another
board creaked. He’d gone into his bedroom.

I held my
breath. Waiting... Waiting... Would he notice anything? Would he realise that
someone had been in there? That the diary was missing?

But now I
could hear footsteps coming along the landing, his voice very close.

“Mel?”

I could
hear him looking in the bathroom and the empty bedrooms on the right, trying
the connecting door to my landing, but finding it locked. Next he would come in
here. I shut my eyes, dreading what would happen.

And then
I heard the door open.

“Mel?”

He was
standing in the doorway looking in. One more step into the room and he’d be
able to see me for sure.

I
crouched back, trying to make myself as small as possible.

“Luke?”

It was the
other barman, shouting loudly up the stairs.

“Luke? Can
you come and help out? I need to change a barrel - and there’s a queue
forming!”

I waited,
with baited breath, my heart banging against my ribs. Just one more step…

Then Luke
swore under his breath, retreating, his footsteps fading as I heard him calling
down that he was on his way.

Eventually
I allowed myself to take a breath. He had gone.

Crawling
out of my hiding place, I pushed the chair back under the desk, trying to leave
everything just as it had been. But as I did so, I knocked it against the wood,
the vibration stirring the sleeping computer to life. Startled, I looked at the
screen.