Thursday 00:55
“What do you mean I know your wife?” I say.
“Are you serious?” Richard asks, his face full of disbelief.
“Deadly.” I regret my choice of response as soon as I’ve said it.
He shakes his head and laughs.
“Wow. How is it that you never seem to know what’s going on in other people’s lives? Are you really that self-involved? I’ve known you for years, we’ve slept together, how can you not know anything about me?”
“I do know things about you. You talk about your kids nonstop, I look at your endless pictures of them. Who is your wife?”
“Cat.”
“Cat who?”
“Cat Jones. The woman who presents the One O’Clock News, like you used to? She just came back from maternity leave. We even have the same surname, although I appreciate it’s a little common, bit like me.”
“You’re married to Cat Jones?”
“I know she’s a little out of my league, but there’s no need to say it like that.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“I … presumed you knew. Everyone else does. It isn’t a secret.”
Half the newsroom is either sleeping with or married to one another, and I’m not the best at keeping up with office gossip, but this still seems a little hard to believe. It’s her fault I’m here, not just because she has taken her presenting job back, but because it was Cat that suggested, in front of the whole team, that I should cover this story.
She insisted, if I remember rightly, as though she knew I didn’t want to go to Blackdown. But she can’t possibly have known my connection to the place. Nobody does. I never talk about my personal life with people at work; perhaps that’s why I rarely know anything about theirs.
“You must have known about me and Cat,” Richard says, shaking his head. “She had a stalker, and I found him in our backyard not long after our first little girl was born. I thought the whole newsroom knew this story. He was trespassing on our property, trying to take pictures of Cat breastfeeding, and when I punched him a couple of times, I got done for GBH. Can you believe that?”
I don’t know if I do believe it. I don’t know what to think about anything. All I know right now is that I don’t want to go inside that house.
“Can I just use your phone to make a quick call, please?” I ask.
I have a strange and sudden urge to speak to Jack.
“I told you at the hotel, I can’t find my mobile. I expect Cat probably called to tell me she was driving down, but I didn’t get the message. I’ve lost my phone, or someone has stolen it. Either way, I still have my charger, so you can use it once we get in.”
He gets out, walks around to the passenger side, and opens my door.
“Are you coming, or would you rather sleep in the car?”
I don’t answer, but reluctantly follow him toward the house.
It’s hard to see where we are going in the dark. A crescent moon does a halfhearted job of lighting our way as we crunch over dead leaves and twigs. It’s impossible to find the path because it looks like nobody has swept it, or tended to this yard, for years. It’s as though the place has been left abandoned for a very long time.
“That’s strange,” says Richard.
“What is?”
“There is another car here.”
I see the sports car he is referring to but don’t say anything. Everything about this situation is strange.
We carry on along the path and I get a better look at the house. It looks like something from a horror film: an old wooden building, covered in ivy, with windows shaped like eyes. It’s pitch-black behind them, but then it is very late.
Richard opens the front door and we step inside. He switches on the lights and I’m relieved that they work. Then he unzips his bag and hands me his phone charger.
“Here you go. I’m just going to go and check on Cat; hopefully we haven’t woken her. Make yourself at home, if that’s possible in this dump, and I’ll be down in a bit. I’m sure there must be something edible in the freezer, and I know there is something to drink—my father-in-law shunned DIY, but he was good at maintaining his wine cellar—I won’t be long.”
He’s trying to make me feel welcome. It isn’t his fault the hotel canceled our booking; I’m being ungrateful and I feel the need to apologize.
“I’m sorry, I’m just so tired—”
“It’s fine. You’ve been a busy bee,” he interrupts.
Something about the way he says it makes me shiver.
“You know, bees aren’t as busy as people think. They can sleep inside flowers for up to eight hours a day, curled together in pairs, holding each other’s feet,” I say, trying to lighten the mood a little.
“Who told you that?” he asks.
“My mother.”
As soon as I think about her I feel sad.
“Oh yes, I’d forgotten your mum keeps bees,” Richard replies, before disappearing up the old wooden staircase.
It’s odd because I don’t remember ever telling him that. But then I suppose there must have been a few drunken conversations over the years that I’ve forgotten.
I stand in the hallway for a moment, unsure what to do or where to go. I see a loose-looking socket in the wall, and decide to risk electrocution by plugging in my phone. It starts to charge and I begin to feel a little better.
I head toward the first door I see, and step into an old and dusty living room. It looks like it was last decorated, and possibly cleaned, in the 1970s. There is a gothic-looking fireplace, which I can see has been used more recently; a few smoldering logs still glowing in the grate. I get a little closer for warmth, and notice the silver-framed photos on the mantelpiece.
Sure enough, there is a family portrait of Richard and Cat, with her shiny red hair cut into a razor-sharp bob. I stare at her pretty, heavily made-up face, big eyes, and perfect white smile, as she poses next to her husband, holding on tight to their two little girls. Now that I see them again, I recognize the children who came to visit the newsroom just a few days ago. They are the same faces that were in all the pictures on Richard’s phone. I was a fool not to see it before.
There are lots of photos of their daughters, along with an elderly couple I don’t know, presumably Cat’s parents, who used to live in this house. Then I spot a framed picture of a teenage girl I do recognize. I observe the long, wild, curly white-blond hair, pale skin, sticky-out ears, patchy eyebrows, and ugly braces.
Fifteen-year-old Catherine Kelly stares back.
I look between this photo, and the glamorous one of Cat Jones, and feel physically sick when I realize they are the same person.
The two faces are very different—she’s clearly had some kind of work done, and not just to pin back those ears—but, without doubt, the teenage girl I used to know grew up to be the woman I know now. The eyes staring out at me from the two photos are a perfect match.
Catherine never came back to St. Hilary’s after that night in the woods. Only the four of us knew what had happened to her, but all sorts of stories made the rounds at school. There were rumors that she had killed herself, and none of us saw her again, including me.
At least, I thought I hadn’t.
She must have known who I was when she first met me in the newsroom.
I haven’t changed my name, or my appearance, very much since school, unlike her.
I try to stay calm, but this is more than just a coincidence—I don’t believe in those. An overwhelming sense of panic starts to take over, spreading through my body, making it difficult to move or breathe.
I need to get out of here.
I need to call Jack.
My shaking hands feel inside my bag for my mobile, but it isn’t there. I remember leaving it in the hall to charge, but when I run back to get it, the phone is gone. Someone has taken it. I spin around, expecting to see somebody waiting in the shadows, but I appear to be alone. For now.
My social safety net is filled with holes, big enough to fall through and be seen by others. I have never been good at collecting the requisite friends. That said, I can’t think of anyone else I would rather call in this situation than my ex-husband. I might not have my mobile anymore, but I still know Jack’s number off by heart. I remember seeing an old rotary phone in the living room, just like the one we had when I was a child. I rush back to find it, and dial his number as fast as I can, ignoring the dust on the receiver. As soon as I hold it to my ear, I realize the line is dead.
Then I hear footsteps upstairs.
Someone is walking on creaking floorboards, and they stop directly above me.
It’s probably her.
Perhaps she can see me.
Or it might be him. Richard could be in on it too.
I need to get out of here. Not that I even know where I am, but if I follow the path it must lead to a road. I hurry out of the room and toward the front door, but before I get there I hear the most terrible scream.
Sometimes it can be so easy to predict how other people will react in a situation.
Too easy.
I think maybe that’s because we’re all the same.
There is an energy that connects us together, flowing through us like electricity. We are all just light bulbs. Some shine brighter than others, some show us the way when we are lost. Others are a little too dull to be of any real use or interest.
Some burn out.
We are the same but different, trying to shine in the darkness, but the light that connects us can sometimes grow too faint to see.
When a light bulb starts to flicker, I always think it is best to take action before it dies.
Nobody likes being left in the dark.