It’s in that moment, as I am looking through the pictures that Harriet gave me, that something changes. Because Tom may have changed through fertility treatment. Tom may now be a cheat, and a liar, and an abuser, and he may even be unfit to be this baby’s dad.
But on what planet would Tom let Harriet have his keys? At a push he may have cut her some, but to give her his, crap keyring included, then to have to tell me that he had lost them? My mind may not be at its most lucid, but it can cut through this particular piece of bullshit.
And once it does that, other questions seep in.
Could she have learnt about our fertility problems from the post she stole, rather than from Tom?
And why would Tom let Harriet wear my clothes and pose for pictures in them? That’s not what you do when you’re having illicit sex with your neighbour. Instead, that is the behaviour of a stalker, acting alone, gathering evidence she’ll use in some way, somehow, some time. Because if she went to our flat to see Tom, where the hell was he as she slipped her too-long legs into my jumpsuit?
It’s enough: there’s doubt. I am unsteady and vulnerable but this isn’t over. My family might be salvageable; my baby certainly is. I look around and suddenly I’m awake.
Our flats are small, Harriet’s a mirror of mine. I take in everything. There is nowhere to run, nowhere to slam a door behind me and ride out a few minutes until I can yell loudly enough for help or get through to someone on the phone that’s in my bag.
We are in this together, Harriet and me, as we have been really all along.
I feel my own heartbeat, hammering, terrified, inside my chest and think about the tinier, calmer one that is beating alongside. This baby can’t be harmed now. This baby has worked too hard to get here.
And what if Tom is still Tom? I need to get to him, at least, and ask questions. We have been through too much for me just to give up on him, if there is any doubt. Think, Lexie, think.
But suddenly, there is no room for thought. There is nothing but Harriet, flinging her body on top of mine so that I fall backwards into the sofa. I cry out. Since I’ve been pregnant I have barely allowed myself to graze up against a work surface. Now, there is Harriet, a whole large human, holding me down with her arms. Her eyes are fire and she started this and knew where it was heading so she has all the power. I try to move but she has the advantage and I am frozen, too, with terror. This baby, this baby, this baby that we worked so hard for.
‘Hurt my face,’ I beg. ‘Like you did with her. With Naomi. Hurt my face, hurt my face, hurt my face.’
Because my face doesn’t matter now. Only one part matters.
But she isn’t interested in my face. Instead, she raises her knee to my stomach. That’s her focus, her knee attempting to go into my belly with its tiny curve, over and over, and I am bending, arching, so that it is as unreachable as possible.
This is what she wanted, I realise. She wanted Tom, yes, but she also wanted to make sure that I couldn’t have a life that I was happy with; to make sure that she didn’t have to hear any more happiness through the wall of her joyless flat. Harriet is fuelled by pure, nasty envy. I know because I’ve felt it, too.
I glance around for a key, but in that moment Harriet finally meets my eye and I know, don’t I, where Harriet’s and my story goes next.
She says with no emotion, ‘She didn’t have any make-up on, either.’ Naomi.
I know then, too, that this has been a long-term campaign. That she is a sociopath – perhaps even a psychopath – and that Tom has more than likely been a victim, too. Fuck, Tom. Be home. Hear this. Do something.
‘Please!’ I shout, desperate, words turning into sobs. ‘Don’t hurt this baby.’
But Tom isn’t home. And now it is probably too late to apologise for doubting. Too late for anything. I think of Naomi and I know Harriet won’t stop.
I have no idea how I will escape, no idea how my tiny foetus and I will get away from my feral neighbour.
Except then, I see something out of the corner of my eye. One hand across my baby, the other starts to reach, reach, reach for what I need.
My fingertips, the edges of me, are reaching hard to help my deepest parts. They claw and they stretch and just in time, like a baby rooting to suckle, they latch onto what they were going for. The handle of a china pot. I knot one finger around the edge.
And there is power. There is unlimited power, unknown, unexpected power. Suddenly, I am a person who can aim to hurt somebody. I am a person who could do anything. I could snarl and I could scratch. I could kill and I could maim. I could do anything for this baby. Anything she drove me to. And I wouldn’t regret it, wouldn’t feel anything about it, other than to know that it was a necessity. At my weakest, it turns out I am at my strongest.
Because it isn’t Harriet who picks up the hot tea. It is me.
It isn’t Harriet who is the attacker in the end, it is me.
It isn’t Harriet who screams a guttural, feral scream, it is me.
She isn’t the only one who can act.
I get a purchase on the teapot and I throw it as hard and violently as my weakened body can manage. The lid flails open and the liquid hits her, and I hear a noise from Harriet that I have never heard, in all of my time of hearing Harriet’s noises. And then, I grab the keys that I saw for Harriet’s front door a few minutes ago – the ones she locked me in with – and I run.