No Longer Safe (19 page)

‘I’ve also been going through a difficult time with my
family. A few years ago, my brother was seriously injured in an armed robbery.’
I could hear the tremor in his shallow breaths. ‘Tony had to have his leg
amputated.’ He focussed on my face. ‘He won’t go out; he’s turned into a
recluse.’

‘How awful…’

‘It’s hard for me to know what to do. I feel so powerless.’

He told me more, revealing his torment and guilt, knowing
his brother was in such a bad way. I followed his words intently. They weren’t
the kinds of emotional details you’d share with just anyone.

He blinked. ‘Sorry – you don’t want to hear all this.’

I hooked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. The time had
come to own up. After his brother’s suffering, what I’d been through didn’t
seem like such a big deal.

‘I need to tell you something, too.’ My voice wavered and I
wondered if I was going to get it all out without melting into tears. ‘I
was…attacked…at knifepoint a few months ago,’ I said.

His mouth fell open, his eyes fixed on mine.

‘It shook my sense of everything in my life. I’ve had…a
couple of panic attacks.’

His head shook a little as if taking in what I’d said,
before he spontaneously reached out his hand. He folded it over mine, enclosing
it completely. His understanding pressed into my skin through his warm fingers.
I felt tears prickle at the corner of my eyes with instant relief, but I didn’t
want to cry.

‘Alice…how terrible…’

‘It was a mugging in a busy market – he fooled me into
thinking he was in difficulty and I went into a blind alleyway. It was stupid,
but I was trying to help. I didn’t think.’ I sniffed, not wanting to pull away
from him to reach for my tissue.

‘From that day on – everything was different. The world
became a dangerous, unpredictable place. I couldn’t trust people. I couldn’t
even trust myself. I took tablets for a while…I’m getting proper therapy now…’ My
little testament fizzled out. It wasn’t a success story – like his brother, it
didn’t have a happy ending.

Without warning he was on his feet and in a clumsy movement
– with me still sitting and him leaning over me – he threw his arms around me.
I hid my face in his collar, feeling a combination of embarrassment – because
people were staring at us – and utter emancipation.

He pressed his face against mine, rocking me lightly.
Finally, with his arm still around my waist, he sank down next to me. We didn’t
say anything for a while, then he asked me if I wanted to talk about how the
therapy was going.

‘I
will
do, but not
just now – I’m suddenly really exhausted.’

By the time we stood up together, everything had shifted. No
words on the matter had been exchanged, but I knew our relationship had
altered. We were no longer acquaintances. I didn’t know enough about this kind
of thing, but it was as if something was sealed between us, an invisible pact.
I could feel it as he held my hand on the way out. Stuart and I were no longer
‘just friends’.

Stuart pulled up at the cottage behind the 2CV and
switched off the engine. ‘Come over to my cottage for a meal tomorrow evening,’
he said as I turned to him to say goodnight.

His eyes were trained on mine and then drifted down to my
lips. ‘I’m fairly inept in the kitchen, but I can take your mind off it with
some decent wine. Prepared to risk it?’

‘That would be wonderful,’ I said. I’d barely known him five
minutes, but I felt capable around him. So many times in my life I’d been
invisible, but he made me feel solid and whole.

‘I can’t let you go without another kiss.’ He’d already
given me six – I’d been counting – since we’d climbed into the Land Rover. He
put his arms around my neck and for a short while his lips took away the cold,
the anxiety about Karen, all the frenzy over Charlie. If only I could have
stayed locked inside this precious cocoon. 

My dreamy encounter came to an abrupt end when I
got inside. There were squeals of laughter coming from the sitting room as loud
music thudded through the floor. I tried to hang on to my final parting with
Stuart, but the sitting room door burst open and Karen threw herself at me.

‘Nice night?’ she said, grabbing my wrist and dragging me
in. I stood like a lemon in the middle of the room. There were piles of empty
cans and bottles scattered everywhere, crisps crushed into the carpet, wet
patches of spilt alcohol.

‘Have you screwed him yet?’ said Mark.

He was wearing camouflage combat trousers and a Newcastle
United top. He never seemed to need extra layers like the rest of us.
That’s because you’re a cold-blooded creature
,
I said, spitefully, to myself.

‘Shut up, Mark,’ said Karen. She handed me a glass spilling
over with white wine. ‘Come and join us. No excuses.’

She cleared a space on the sofa, tossing magazines and empty
bags of crisps to the floor, and pushed down on my shoulder so I was forced to
sit. What were they doing making all this noise? Wouldn’t they wake Mel?

All I wanted was to go to bed and reflect on the delicious
end to my evening – now it was all being spoilt.

‘We’re talking about the future, Alice,’ said Karen. She
looked tired, she’d tied her hair back into a ponytail, but it seemed grey, not
blonde in the firelight. ‘What are you going to do with
your
life, Alice?’

‘Let’s all name one big dream we’re aiming for,’ said Jodie
excitedly. She looked fabulous in one of Karen’s pale pink mohair jumpers, its
cowl neck revealing an inch of bare flesh at the base of her throat. She was kneeling
by the hearth and Mark was playing with her feet. ‘You go first, Karen.’

‘Mine’s easy,’ she said, swinging her glass around. ‘I want
to spread my wings. I want to explore the world, to live in different places.’

‘And how are you going to fund this round-the-world trip?’
asked Mark.

‘It would be linked to my job – I’ll get a job where I
travel around as an executive.’

‘Haven’t you been out of the loop a bit too long – looking
after others people’s kids?’ queried Jodie.

‘Yeah – I’d need a top-up – an MA, maybe.’

‘In what?’ I asked.

‘IT,’ she said definitively. ‘That’s where the money is
these days. I’ll get a job in Google or Apple and go back to America with
Mel...then Australia…Europe maybe.’

She stared into the fire and seemed to have ground to a
halt.

‘Okay, Mark,’ said Jodie, ‘your turn.’

‘This is a stupid idea. Girlie twaddle.’

‘What’s girlie about having goals for the future?’ asked
Karen.

‘Oh, come on,’ whined Jodie. ‘It’s just for fun.’

‘I want to enjoy life, man. Just have a good time. Go to
Vegas. Play the tables…’ His eye glassed over at the thought of it. ‘Make
shit-loads of money. Do gigs all over the world and come back to my penthouse
flat in Soho.’

‘What about me?’ chipped in Jodie. ‘You haven’t mentioned
me.’

‘Yeah, yeah – of course – with you.’ He patted her on the
head as if she was a dog.

‘Okay – my turn,’ she said. ‘I’m going to get my stall, then
my boutique in Notting Hill, and run my own business in fashion. And Mark and
me will carry on being together and…’ her voice flagged a little, ‘get
married.’

‘Not yet,’ he protested.

‘No – not yet – obviously, but eventually.’ She couldn’t
disguise the flicker of disappointment in her voice.

The three of them turned to me. It was my go. ‘I’m going to
train to be a teacher – I told you. Get my own flat, meet Mr Right…’

‘That’s not very exciting,’ said Mark. ‘What else?’

‘Take more photos – have an exhibition, maybe.’

Mark snorted. ‘Push the bloody boat out or what…’

‘Okay,’ I said, my voice loud and firm. ‘I’m going to be the
kind of person who doesn’t stand for your putdowns, Mr Mark Leverton. I’m going
to take some risks, be more daring – fly a plane, maybe, join a steel band,
take a course as a stand-up comedian…’

Karen laughed and clapped, almost tipping over the full
glass balanced on the chair arm.

‘That’s more like it,’ chuckled Mark.

‘Bloody hell – you have come on, Alice,’ said Jodie. She
hiccupped and her head slumped forward. ‘I wasn’t very nice to you, was I, at Leeds?’
she grimaced. ‘I think Karen and I took advantage of you, especially me – I owe
you an apology.’

She stood up and threw herself on me in an inelegant
embrace. ‘I’m sorry, Alice, I was a cow.’

I didn’t know what to say. This had come completely out of
the blue, largely fuelled by alcohol. She would have forgotten all about it by
the morning.

‘Right – now we’re all friends again, I think it’s time to
say good night,’ said Mark.

‘Noooo,’ groaned Jodie, flopping down between Mark’s open
legs as he tried to get up. ‘Let’s talk more.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Mark, his eyelids blinking in slow
motion with the effects of the drink.

‘Come on – let’s talk about where we wanna be in five years’
time. We could support each other, make a pact…you know – like mentoring.’

Mark got up, shooting a look at Jodie. ‘You’re off your
effing trolley,’ he said and stormed off upstairs.

Jodie’s eyes followed him. ‘Why? Wha’d-I-say?’

She stayed where she was and sulked, rubbing her feet as though
Mark had injured them. It took me back to the first time Jodie had cajoled me
into following Mark. I’d forgotten all about it until now and it made me
realise how selective my memories had been from Leeds.

Seeing the three of them again, it was obvious that my mind
had chosen to hang on to the more favourable aspects and not how it really was
at all. I had conveniently forgotten that both Karen and Jodie took advantage
of me more times than I’d like to admit.

This particular unsavoury memory was from the start of our
second year, when we were still in halls. Jodie had been edgy and paranoid at
the end of the first year, thinking Mark might have been seeing someone else,
but it had all blown over.

Now Jodie was panicking again and yours truly was called
upon to spy. I tried my hardest to talk my way out of it – said I was too busy
with course work – but Karen pleaded with me to follow him just a couple of
times to put Jodie’s mind at rest.

She bribed me with promises to spend time together; a trip,
just the two of us, to Knowsley Safari Park in Merseyside or any film I fancied
at the cinema – and I caved in and agreed.

Jodie wanted to know where Mark went and who he saw when
they weren’t together, so I tailed him a few times after our evening meal.

‘Tell me,’ Jodie whispered, as I went to her room the
following morning.

‘There’s nothing to tell,’ I said, holding my palms out to
her. ‘He didn’t do anything.’

‘So, where did he go?’

‘He was in the bar, playing on the fruit machines.’

‘On his own?’

‘Yeah. For ages. He kept winning and putting all the money
back in again.’

‘Then what?’

‘He went for a swim.’

‘At ten o’clock at night?’

‘He must have borrowed a key – he was a bit drunk, I think?’

‘Was he on his own?’

‘Yes. He did loads of lengths in the dark – I waited. He was
on his own the whole time.’

‘Then what?’

‘He had a shower, got changed and at about ten forty-five he
went back to his room.’

‘On his own?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’re sure – you’d better not be lying to me? Because I’ll
find out.’

‘I know. I’m not lying.’

But I was.

I hadn’t been able to relax that evening, chatting
with the others, knowing I had to return the photos without being caught.

I found a moment shortly after Mark went up to bed, leaving Karen
and Jodie engaged in an inebriated conversation about feminism and fashion
magazines.

I collected the envelope from my bag in the hall and put the
photos back where I’d found them, in Karen’s room.

Mel had been asleep in her cot. I bent over to check on her.
Her little hands were pressed into tight fists and dribble formed a gluey
string from her open mouth onto the bedclothes, glistening in the moonlight. I
stood waiting to see the covers rise and fall in a regular rhythm.

She twitched and her foot broke out from the cover of the
blanket. I reached down to carefully tuck it back into the warmth and my hand
rubbed against something hard down the edge of the cot. I pulled it out
thinking it was a buried toy, but it was a brown bottle of tablets.

I took it over to the window; the curtains weren’t drawn and
the moonlight created enough light to read by. The label said ‘
Promelegan
’, but it was handwritten and there
was no date or information about the dosage. I tipped a few tablets out – they
had all been broken in half. I dropped them back in the bottle and hastily put
it back where I’d found it. As I went to my room, I chanted the name to myself
over and over then scribbled it down on a scrap of paper.

I sat on the bed – was Karen giving Mel something she
shouldn’t?

I yawned and flopped back onto the pillow. I was too
exhausted for once to think about that now. It would have to wait. Instead, I
could let sleep carry me away and wrap me up in sweet dreams of Stuart. It
didn’t look like I’d need a tablet tonight.

Ever since the night I found myself in the kitchen at 3am,
I’d been wrapping a scarf around my door handle and attaching it to my clunky
alarm clock. It was a precautionary measure, just in case my body took it upon
itself to take off sleepwalking.

I’d brought the clock from home – I loved the bells on the
top which jingled in a high trill when it went off. I’d been leaving it close
to the edge of the chest of drawers, relying on it to crash down and wake me if
I tried to leave the room.

Before I got undressed, I set it up again, just in case –
although so far, I hadn’t attempted any more nocturnal wanderings.

Karen and Mel joined me in the kitchen the
following morning just as I was wiping up my cereal bowl.

‘You look perky,’ she said.

‘Slept
really
well,’
I told her. I noticed the slim tank in the corner, disconnected.

‘No oxygen?’

‘I know, isn’t it great?’ said Karen. Mel was fixed into her
highchair wearing a frilly mop cap a couple of sizes too large.

‘Are the others up?’

‘They seem to have had a bit of a row,’ she said.

At that moment Jodie burst in, snivelling and red-eyed. Her
mascara was smudged copiously, as though someone had trampled over her face
with dirty shoes.

‘Mark’s being a complete pig,’ she wailed. ‘He’s disappeared
down the track again. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.’

Karen gave me a stare behind Jodie’s back that said
don’t ask
.

It reminded me again of that night when I’d followed Mark.
He hadn’t gone straight back to his room after he’d been to the swimming pool
like I’d told Jodie.

Mark had been drunk, that bit was true, but he’d gone to the
music practice rooms after his swim. I followed him past the gym and the oldest
hall of residence until we reached a small quadrangle. He looked at his watch
and unlocked the store cupboard. He went there most days to get his drums, but
not usually at that time of night. Live music wasn’t allowed after 11pm.

Recalling this now, I felt disgusted at myself for what I
did. It seemed I was prepared to do more or less anything for Karen and Jodie
in order to be accepted.

I followed him through the arch and stood a few metres away,
hiding in the shadows under cover of the entrance to the concert hall. It was
windy and scraps of cigarette and crisp packets swirled and gathered around my
ankles. I bent down to scoop them away and heard footsteps – a woman’s high
heels. I pressed my back against the glass panel out of sight and the clipped
rhythm stopped.

‘I didn’t think you’d come,’ said Mark.

‘I can’t stay long,’ said the female voice. I dared to lean
out a little so I could see her face. I recognised her straight away; Lena
Arzano, known as the desirable minx in our block. She wore a short red dress
that fitted like a tight bandage, showing off her heavy boobs and vase-handle
hips. Mark shoved her against the wall and ran his hands along the inside of
her thigh.

‘Rough tonight – is it?’ she giggled, pushing her tongue
into his ear.

‘Whatever you want,’ he muttered.

‘Not here,’ she whispered.

Mark ushered her into the storeroom and closed the door. I’d
seen enough. I went back to my block and found Karen.

‘You can’t say anything,’ she insisted. ‘It would break
Jodie’s heart.’

‘But he’s fooling around with someone else. She should
know.’

‘Leave it, okay. It’s what Mark does.’

‘He’s done it before?’

‘Of course.’

‘Why did you push me to spy on him, if you knew?’

‘Better you than someone else,’ she said. ‘That way she
doesn’t have to know the truth.’

She made me run through my account of the events time after
time, making sure it ended once Mark had left the pool. I realised I’d never
been any good at making things up. ‘Just explain what you saw, but miss out the
bit at the end,’ Karen said sounding exasperated. ‘That’s all you have to do.’

Lying obviously came a lot easier to her than to me. ‘Tell
Jodie you saw Mark go to take a shower and then go back to his room,’ she said
deliberately.

‘But…’

‘Do this for me, Alice – will you?’

She said something surprising after that. ‘This could be
useful one day – never give up leverage easily, Alice.’ I didn’t really know
what she meant at the time.

The next day, neither of us mentioned it. Nor the day after
that, and so it went on. Jodie continued to ask me to check up on Mark, every
few months or so – right through until the end of our course. I hated it. And
Karen was right – it wasn’t the only time. Mark was the stereotypical two-faced
cheat, claiming he was devoted to Jodie and seeing a string of other women on
the side.

What was more interesting was Karen’s face that day – she
seemed more excited than distressed about Jodie’s predicament. Only now, did it
occur to me that she wanted to hold back Mark’s secret – so she could make use
of it one day.

Karen dropped a spoon as she prepared some mushy cereal for
Mel, bringing me abruptly back to the present.

‘She’s slept for hours these last few days,’ she said. ‘It
seems to have really done her good.’

Mel didn’t look a hundred per cent to me. Her eyelids seemed
swollen and her cheeks paler than when she’d first come out of hospital. I
thought about the tablets I’d found stuffed down the side of the cot. There
must have been a reason why they weren’t in a properly prescribed bottle. A
simple explanation? Nevertheless, I found myself wanting to know more about
them. After Stuart’s comments, I was questioning Karen’s actions a lot more
than I had before. It occurred to me that Nina’s laptop might be useful.

Karen filled the kettle and waved it at Jodie, but she shook
her head and left us. Karen turned to me.

‘You’re seeing a lot of this man.’ Her voice was cool, but
there was a sting in her words.

‘Stuart? Yes – he’s really sweet.’

‘Married?’

‘Getting a divorce.’

She laughed. ‘Be careful, Alice. Make sure you find out more
about him before you get too attached. Rebound relationships and all that.’

She sounded like my mother. ‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I know
what I’m doing.’

‘And you must be very careful not to let your guard down.’
She leant over me, her hands flat and wide on the table.

‘I won’t. I know what I’m doing.’

‘It’s a bit of a cliché, isn’t it? “Younger woman, older
man” syndrome.’ She turned up her nose. ‘You’re not jumping at the first guy
who steps in as your protector are you? Women have moved on from all that,
darling.’

‘He’s the first man I’ve found in ages I actually like!’

‘Well, he’s not going to like you very much if he finds out
you killed someone, covered it up – and dropped the body in the lake,’ she
smirked.

I got to my feet, my arms stiff at my sides. ‘I think we
should leave the cottage.’ The words shot out of my mouth.

Her eyes gave away how startled she was, but she quickly
recovered and smiled.

‘I know. Me too,’ she agreed casually. She shook a pile of
granola into her dish. ‘But it would look suspicious. It would look like we had
something to hide.’

The holiday had been such a good idea, it had started out
with such promise – now all I wanted to do was go home. I was miles from
anywhere and without any immediate means of escape.

There was a mounting catalogue of horrors: I’d been plagued
with headaches and tormented by what we’d done to Charlie. Mark was agitated
and high on drugs all day. Jodie seemed to have regressed to a forlorn teenager
and Karen wasn’t the bright, enviable role-model I had always thought she was.
She was sharp with me and not always fun to be around. On top of all that, it
seemed she’d been lying to us all about America.

I didn’t know what was real anymore. The situation might
have made a good TV sitcom but right now – living it – it felt like hell.

I took a dustpan and brush and began cleaning up last
night’s mess in the sitting room. As soon as I got started, I realised my tools
weren’t up to the job and brought up the vacuum cleaner from the cellar. It had
a short lead and the socket by the fire only allowed me to cover half the room,
so I searched the skirting boards for another one.

I shifted chairs and pulled cupboards away from the wall,
but couldn’t find one. Then when I moved a small bookcase, I saw the edge of a
socket poking out from behind the French dresser. I heaved at the monstrous
piece of solid oak and after four goes managed to drag it away from the wall by
about two inches, breaking my fingernail in the process. It was just enough.

As I slid the plug in, I froze. Beside the electrical socket
was another one. A small white plastic box with a slot in the middle. A phone
socket.

There
had
been a
landline here all along. I pulled open the drawers in the dresser and checked
the cupboards. They were full of spare cutlery and glasses that smelt of
buttery tea towels; there was no handset.

I went into the kitchen and watched Karen carefully as I
asked my question: ‘There’s a phone socket in the sitting room, did you know
about it?’

‘Where…?’ Her expression suitably lopsided with disbelief.

‘I’ll show you.’ I led her through and pointed to the wall.

‘Well – there you go. Where’s the phone?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe in the cellar?’ I said.

‘Maybe it doesn’t work. Perhaps that’s why it was removed.’

Or maybe you disconnected it and pulled the dresser
across before I arrived, I queried, within the safety of my own head.

Had Karen deliberately cut us off from the outside world?
Why would she do that? If she had known about the phone, we could have called
the police straight away when we found Charlie.

A new thought whiplashed into my mind. Was Stuart right? Did
I need to be afraid of Karen?

Once I’d cleaned up, I returned the vacuum cleaner to the
cellar and took the opportunity to root around with the torch. There were all
kinds of things down there; a dartboard, an outdoor basketball hoop, a
skateboard, as well as various tools hanging on the wall – a mallet, wrench,
hacksaw, hammer.

In the boxes were old domestic items: damaged lampshades,
cans of spray paint, rolled-up curtains, an old iron. I checked the final box
and found it; an old green handset with a dial, wrapped up inside a plastic
bag. I couldn’t help thinking it looked deliberately hidden. I opened out the
plastic bag; it had
Your M&S
written
on it. It certainly wasn’t from the same era as the rest of the stuff down
there, besides Marks and Spencer was hardly a local store.

I took the phone into the sitting room and plugged it in.
The dialling tone purred straight away, so I rang Nina’s mobile number. She
answered after three rings.

‘It’s you,’ she said, chuckling. ‘I didn’t recognise the
number.’

‘There
is
a phone
here, after all – you were right.’

‘I knew it…’

I asked if she was free later that day and she invited me
over after lunch.

I was about to go through into the kitchen to tell Karen
that the phone was working when I heard Mark’s voice. I stopped short of the
door. It was clear they were in the middle of an argument and I didn’t want to
intrude.

‘That’s
not
what we
agreed,’ Karen claimed.

‘Things change – I need it.’

‘Well – it’s too late.’

‘I told you, I need it.’

‘For your little secret, Mark? Does Jodie know just how bad
it’s got? I’m not stupid. I know you’ve been finding every excuse to get out of
here and back to civilisation. When she went shopping, I bet you didn’t go
snowboarding at all.’

‘Don’t you
dare
say
anything,’ he hissed.

I didn’t want to risk getting caught, so I left by the door
to the hall and went to my room. I threw myself down on the bed, squashing my
hands over my ears. What was going on? Were they talking about the ten thousand
pounds?