The Girl With No Past (3 page)

‘I’m Imogen,’ she says. ‘And the only interesting fact I can think of is that I’ve only been here one hour and I already hate this place.’

And for the first time that day – maybe that month – I smile and feel my spirits lift. This girl will be my friend. I know it.

THREE

I had barely slept, but that was only to be expected when the day looming ahead of me was the anniversary. I knew it did no good to dwell on events that couldn’t be undone, and usually I didn’t because I’d cocooned myself in my new life. Whenever anything threatened to remind me, I pushed it away with ferocity. But this day was always different. It forced me to remember. It
helped
me to remember.

But now I’d opened that envelope, and the floodgates to something I couldn’t work out, everything had changed. The card had tainted the day, coating it with something toxic, and giving it a different feel to every other twelfth of November. It wasn’t my day any more, to quietly, furtively, remember what had happened, because now someone else has made it theirs too.

Of course there were others for whom time would stand still on this day, but nobody had crossed my path with their pain. Until now.

I wasn’t even convinced this was about pain or grief. The card made that much clear. I didn’t want to consider what it did mean, though, so before I went to bed I’d stuffed it in my underwear drawer, covering it up so I wouldn’t see it every morning. Throwing it out would have made more sense, but I couldn’t do that. Not until I understood what it meant.

Shutting things out was something I’d been forced to learn, so that’s what I did. I got up when the alarm beeped, showered, and ate muesli with too many raisins in it for breakfast, trying to pretend the day would be just like it had the previous years.

It was easy to keep up the charade at work. When I arrived the computer system had gone down, which meant chaos, everybody running around in a panic, and it fell to me to try and investigate the problem. I seemed to be the only member of staff with anywhere near decent IT skills. I knew before I removed my coat that I wouldn’t be able to help – I was no computer genius – but I gave it a try. At least it helped me erase the memory of what lurked in my drawer at home.

Maria kept me distracted with her chatter, thankfully not mentioning my reluctance to have a coffee with her the day before. I opened my mouth several times to try and explain, try and make her understand, but each time the words died before they could form. So instead I went out of my way to help make her day easier, rushing my own tasks so I could help her with hers.

Listening to her speak of how she now didn’t think things would work with Dan, I marvelled at how resilient she was. She was thirty-nine, but never let the constant rejections and disasters put her off finding someone. Her soul mate, she called it. I had no clue how she bounced back each time, but admired her for being able to. ‘Do you really believe there’s one person out there who is destined only for you?’ I asked her once, watching her eyes light up at the thought of it.

‘Of course, why? Don’t you?’ She seemed incredulous that I had no such notion.

‘I think we just make do with someone we find and make it work,’ I said, but the truth was I had no idea. If Maria was right then was Adam my soul mate? I couldn’t imagine this to be true, but where did it leave me if it was?

Despite my love of books, sometimes I thought it strange that I’d chosen to work in a library when I constantly craved solitude. There was a buzz there, although a quiet one, a constant murmur of activity and hundreds of people passed through the doors each week. But despite there being some regular visitors, most of the faces were unfamiliar and I liked that. It made me feel removed from them, even though I answered their queries and helped them with whatever they needed. They came and went and didn’t affect me in any way.

In the short time I had known her, I had grown fond of Maria. Just hearing her voice lifted my spirits, even though we lived in different worlds, and she never pried into my life. I knew she had questions she wanted to ask me but she never did. So I overlooked her furtive glances when she thought I wasn’t looking. She was only trying to work me out.

Maria tapped me on the shoulder and I swivelled round to face her. ‘That guy’s really fit,’ she said, pointing towards the IT technician we’d had to call in when I’d had no luck identifying the problem.

I studied his face and could see what she meant; his unblemished skin and wide smile were attractive. It made me wonder if Julian from the website looked anything like him. But what did it matter if he did? I could never let someone into my life, no matter how lonely I might get or how good being held would feel.

Shrugging at Maria, I watched as a frown spread across her forehead. She probably wondered how I could be so immune to the man’s good looks when she was blushing.

For the next few hours, Maria and I both went about our work, but I was becoming distracted, both anxious and looking forward to going home. The anniversary night loomed ahead of me, but I didn’t dread it. Not any more. It was something I needed to do. But another motivation for wanting time to pass quickly had crept in. As soon as I’d finished what I had to do, I would log on to Two Become One and see if Julian was around.

Later that evening, I made cheese on toast, slicing up a huge tomato and laying the pieces over it. It wasn’t exactly a decent meal, but I never ate much on this day.

When I’d finished my food, I got everything ready and sat cross-legged on the floor, in front of the low coffee table. The lights were off but I’d opened the curtains, bathing the room in light from the lamppost across the road.

Even though something felt different – something
was
different – I carried on and lit each candle. To anyone who’d been able to glimpse me through the window it must have looked like a strange type of séance, but it was nothing like that. It was reflection.

I stayed silent and still, my eyes closed so I could live through it again, until experience told me the wax on the candles would have melted down.

As I cleared up, putting the candleholders back in the kitchen drawer, it was harder to ignore that things had changed this time and were out of my control. And once I’d acknowledged this, I was even more certain about going online tonight. Normally I wouldn’t have considered doing this afterwards – I usually just read a book until I fell asleep on the sofa – but my anxiety was rising and I needed a distraction.

Julian.

He was a stranger to me, and I had no idea what he looked like, but he hadn't been far from my thoughts all day. It was puzzling because I’d trained myself to keep a distance from everyone, especially men, so I wasn’t prepared to have those feelings. I wasn’t even certain what the feelings were. Perhaps curiosity? It had been such a long time since I’d even held someone’s hand, so wasn’t it natural that I’d miss human contact?

I grabbed my laptop from the kitchen table and took it to the sofa, immediately logging on to the website. But there was no guarantee that he was online this evening, so what was I supposed to do? I decided to hang around and wait, visit some chat rooms and hope that if he was on he would notice me. It was then I noticed I had a new message. Assuming it was from someone I had no interest in talking to, I clicked on it with no enthusiasm. But then I saw it was from Julian, and he’d sent it only two minutes ago. His message was short, but before I’d even read the words I noticed the picture he’d attached.

It was tiny so I clicked on it, expanding it to fill my screen. And there was Julian, smiling a white, toothy smile and throwing his head back as if he’d been captured mid-laugh. I stared at it for a moment, taking in all his features as well as the background. It looked like he was in a field somewhere, sitting at a picnic table.

He wasn’t what Maria would call fit, but there was something I immediately liked about him that I couldn’t explain. Maybe it was the fact that I had already seen glimpses of his personality from our conversation. It was impossible to know whether I’d find him attractive if I’d seen his picture anywhere else.

Most of all I liked the fact that he was nothing like Adam. His hair was light, his eyes blue while Adam had been dark with brown, almost black, eyes. This was good.

I quickly read his words, unable to stop myself smiling or the excitement swelling in my stomach.

Hey, LeahH, how’s it going? You disappeared on me the other night!

This is me, by the way, just so you know I’m not a 3-headed freak!

With Julian’s photo staring at me from the laptop, within minutes all my caution had evaporated and I knew I had to talk to him again.

Ignoring the issue of me rushing offline the other night, I kept my message simple and casual:
Hello again.
Like dipping only my toes into the water so I could quickly draw them out again if anything went wrong. After all, I had no idea what Julian wanted from me.

Pressing send, I held my breath for what seemed like minutes. I waited to hear the ping alerting me there was a message in my inbox, but it didn’t come; the only sounds to be heard were the rain pelting down outside and a distant hum of traffic.

After five minutes and still no ping, my disappointment began to swamp me. Julian must still be online so why didn’t he reply? He was the one who had found me.

To distract myself, I left the laptop on the coffee table and made a cup of black coffee. I needed to give this up, I couldn’t let a man become my focus, especially one I barely knew. I should turn the laptop off and go to bed with my book, forget the whole thing. I was reading
Rebecca
for the hundredth time but still loved it as if I hadn’t read a word before. That would take my mind off everything.

Why did I think I could do something different like reaching out to someone, even in such a small way? My life couldn’t change.

But when I finished my drink and picked up the laptop to log off, a small blue envelope flashed at the top corner of the screen. Julian. I clicked on it, almost spilling the mug of coffee I was still holding because my chest felt as if it would fold in on itself.

Hello. Hope I haven’t scared you with my photo!

When I recovered enough to compose myself, I realised I had no idea what to reply. Was he flirting with me? This was all new to me, it had been years since I’d spoken to a man in this way – not since Adam – but I knew I had to keep talking to him. But he was a moderator so what did that mean he was doing? Perhaps he introduced himself to a lot of the women on here and he was just passing the time. After thinking about this for a moment, I realised I didn’t care because I was doing exactly the same thing. I could never have a relationship with him so what I said or did wouldn’t matter. Without further thought, I began typing, letting my fingers take control. I needed this. I needed to be someone else, even if only for this night.

No…Thanks for sending it. Nice to put a face to a name. If that is your real name. And face!

It was weak. A child could have managed something more effective, but I didn’t have time to come up with anything better. I couldn’t take the chance that Julian would get bored waiting and log off. His reply came quickly and he invited me to a private chat room instead of sending messages back and forth.

Moderator34: I can assure you that is my face. If it was fake do you really think I’d choose someone who looked like that?!

LeahH: Why not? It’s a nice photo…

Moderator34: glad to hear that, I’m wiping sweat from my brow as we speak

LeahH: Shouldn’t you be working? Checking chat rooms for inappropriate behaviour or something?

Moderator34: just needed to know you’ll still talk to me

LeahH: Anytime…

Moderator34: well nice 2 speak again, LeahH, better get back to it now but c u around I hope

LeahH: See you…

Even as I stared at our trail of messages, repeatedly reading each line, I found it hard to believe I had spoken to Julian again, even if only with the written word. Granted, we hadn’t said much this time, but it was something. And now I knew what he looked like, I was even more excited about what I was doing. Despite everything, it felt right.

Later, I deviated from my ritual for the second time that evening. I had to; I didn’t want to think about the card. Although I’d already showered that morning, I ran an extra hot bath, filling it with Radox so that the bubbles almost overflowed. It seemed callous, given what day it was, but I needed to erase it from my mind. I wanted to try and relax, to forget the card and forget the day, because for the first year since it had happened, I felt the need to escape.

I climbed into the bath, sinking down so that the water immersed every inch of my body and only my face was uncovered. Lots of books I had read made reference to water being able to cleanse away a person’s sins, but as I lay there watching the bubbles gently fizzle out, I knew there was no way I could be absolved of mine. And my life was my penance.