Her

Tuesday 06:30

We all have secrets; some we won’t even tell ourselves.

I don’t know what woke me, or what time it is, or where I am when I first open my eyes. Everything is pitch-black. My fingers find the bedside lamp, which sheds some light on the matter, and I’m pleased to see the familiar sight of my own bedroom. It is always a relief to know that I made it home when I wake up feeling like this.

I am not one of those women that you read about in books, or see on TV dramas, who frequently drink too much and forget what they did the night before. I’m not an amateur alcoholic and I’m not a cliché. We’re all addicted to something: money, success, social media, sugar, sex… the list of possibilities is endless. My drug of choice just happens to be alcohol. It can take a while for my memories to catch up with me, and I might not always be happy or proud about what I’ve done, but I do always remember. Always.

That doesn’t mean I have to tell the whole world about it.

Sometimes I think I am the unreliable narrator of my own life.

Sometimes I think we all are.

The first thing I remember is that I lost my dream job, and the memory of my worst nightmare coming true seems to physically wound me. I switch off the light – I no longer wish to see things so clearly – then lie back down on the bed, burrowing beneath the covers. I wrap my arms around myself and close my eyes, as I recall walking out of The Thin Controller’s office, then leaving the newsroom mid-afternoon. I took a taxi home, feeling a little too unsteady on my feet to walk, then I phoned my mother to tell her what had happened. It was foolish, but I couldn’t think of anyone else to call.

My mother has become a bit forgetful and confused in recent years, and phone calls home only make me feel guilty for not visiting more often. I have my reasons for never wanting to go back where I came from, but they are better forgotten than shared. It’s easier to blame the miles for the distance that exists between some parents and their children, but when you bend the truth too far it tends to break. It sounded like Mum at first, on the other end of the line, but it wasn’t really her. After I poured my heart out, she was completely silent for a moment, then she asked whether egg and chips for tea would cheer me up after my bad day at school.

Mum doesn’t always remember that I’m thirty-six and live in London. She frequently forgets that I have a job, and that I used to have a husband and a child of my own. She didn’t even seem to know that it was my birthday. There was no card this year, or last, but it’s not her fault. Time is something my mother has forgotten how to tell. It moves differently for her now, often backwards instead of forwards. Dementia stole time from my mother, and stole my mother from me.

Reaching back inside my memories for a source of comfort was understandable given the circumstances, but I shouldn’t have stretched as far back as my childhood; it’s a bit too hit-and-miss.

When I got home, I closed all the curtains and opened a bottle of Malbec. Not because I was scared of being seen – I just like drinking in the dark. Sometimes even I don’t like to see the me that I become when nobody else is looking. After my second glass, I got changed into something less conspicuous – some old jeans and a black jumper – then I went to pay someone a visit.

When I returned a few hours later, I stripped out of my clothes in the hallway. They were covered in dirt, and I was filled with guilt. I remember opening another bottle and lighting the fire. I sat right in front of it, wrapped in a blanket, gulping down the wine. It took me forever to warm up after being out in the cold for so long. The logs hissed and whispered as though they had secrets of their own, and the firelight cast a series of ghostly shadows that danced around the room. I tried to get her out of my head, but even with my eyes squeezed shut, I could still see her face, smell her skin, hear her voice, crying.

I remember seeing the dirt beneath my fingernails, and scrubbing myself clean in the shower before I went to bed.

My phone buzzes again and I realise that must be what woke me. It’s early morning now, still as dark outside the flat as it is inside, and eerily quiet. Silence is a fear I’ve learned to feel, rather than hear. It creeps up on me, often lurking in the loudest corners of my mind. I listen but there is no sound of traffic, or birdsong, or life. No rumble of the boiler, or murmurs from the network of ancient pipes that try and fail to heat my home.

I stare at my mobile – the only light in the shadows – and see that it was a breaking-news text that woke me. The screen casts an unnatural glow. I read the headline about the body of a woman being found in the woods, and wonder whether I am still dreaming. The room seems a shade darker than it did before.

Then my phone starts to ring.

I answer it, and listen as The Thin Controller apologises for calling so early. He wonders whether I might be able to come in and present the programme.

‘What happened to Cat Jones?’ asks a voice that sounds a lot like my own.

‘We don’t know. But she hasn’t turned up for work, and nobody can get hold of her.’

The little pieces of me I got broken into yesterday start to creep and crawl back together. Sometimes I get lost in my own thoughts and fears. Trapped within a world of worry which, deep down, I know only exists inside my head. Anxiety often screams louder than logic, and when you spend too long imagining the worst you can make it come true.

The Thin Controller asks more questions when I fail to answer the first.

‘I’m weally sorry to wush you, Anna. But I do need to know now if possible…’

His speech impediment makes me hate him slightly less. I know exactly what I am going to say – I rehearsed this moment in my imagination.

‘Of course. I’d never let the team down.’

The tangible relief on the other end of the line is delicious.

‘You’re a lifesaver,’ he says, and for a moment I forget that the opposite is true.

It takes longer than usual to get myself ready; I’m still drunk, but it’s nothing some prescription eye drops and a cup of coffee can’t rectify. I drink it while it’s still too hot, so that it scalds my mouth; a little pain to ease the hurt. Then I pour myself some cold white wine from one of the bottles in the fridge – just a small glass, to soothe the burn. I head for the bathroom and ignore the bedroom door at the end of the corridor, the one I always keep closed. Sometimes our memories reframe themselves to reveal prettier pictures of our past, something a little less awful to look back at. Sometimes we need to paint over them, to pretend not to remember what is hidden underneath.

I shower and choose a red dress from my wardrobe, one with the tags still attached. I’m not a fan of shopping, so if I find something that suits me, I tend to buy it in every colour. Clothes don’t make the woman, but they can help disguise the cloth we are cut from. I don’t wear new things straightaway; I save them for when I need to feel good, rather than feel like myself. Now is a perfect time to wear something new and pretty to hide inside. When I’m satisfied with who I look like, I wrap her up in my favourite red coat – getting noticed isn’t always a bad thing.

I take a cab to work – keen to get my old self back to my old job as soon as possible – and pop a mint in my mouth before stepping into reception. It’s been less than twenty-four hours, but when I stare down at the newsroom it feels like coming home.

As I make my way towards the team, I can’t help noticing how they all turn to look up at me, like a group of meerkats. They exchange a series of anxious expressions, neatly carved into their tired-looking faces. I thought they would look happier to see me – not all presenters pull their weight the way I do to get a bulletin on-air – but I fix my unreturned smile, and grip the metal banister on the spiral staircase a little tighter than before. It feels like I might fall.

When I reach for the presenter’s chair, the editor stops me, putting her icy cold hand on top of mine. She shakes her head, then looks down at the floor, as though embarrassed. She’s the kind of woman who regularly prays for a fat bank account and thin body, but God always seems to muddle up her prayers. I stand in the middle of the seated team, feeling the heat of their stares on my flushed cheeks, trying to guess what they know that I don’t.

‘I’m so sorry!’ says a voice behind me. It seems ludicrous to describe it as brushed velvet, but that’s exactly how it sounds; a luxurious, feminine purr. It’s a voice I did not expect or want to hear. ‘The nanny cancelled at the last minute, my mother-inlaw agreed to step in but managed to crash her car on the way over – nothing too serious, just a bump really – and then, when I finally managed to settle the girls and leave the house, my train was delayed and I realised I’d forgotten my phone! I had no way of letting you know how late I was going to be. I can’t tell you how sorry I am, but I’m here now.’

I don’t know why I believed Cat Jones was gone for good. It seems silly now, but I suppose I had imagined a little accident of some sort. Just something to prevent her from presenting the lunchtime bulletin ever again, so that I could step back into her shoes, and be the person I want to be. I am redundant now that she is here, and I can already feel myself start to crumple and fold into someone small and invisible. An unwanted and unnecessary spare part in a newly refurbished machine.

She tucks her bright red hair behind her ears, revealing diamond studs that look far more genuine than the person wearing them. Her hair colour can’t possibly be natural, but it looks perfect, just like her figure-hugging yellow dress, and the set of pearly white teeth revealed when she smiles in my direction. I feel like a frumpy fraud.

‘Anna!’ she says, as though we are old friends, not new enemies. I return the smile like an unwanted gift. ‘I thought you’d be at home with your own little one on your first day of freedom, now that I’m back! I hope motherhood is treating you well. What age is your daughter now?’

She would have been two years, three months and four days old.

I’ve never stopped counting.

I guess Cat remembers me being pregnant. It appears nobody ever told her what happened a few months after Charlotte was born. Everything seems very still and silent in the newsroom all of a sudden, with everyone staring in our direction. Her question sucks the air from my lungs and nobody, including me, seems able to answer it. Her eyebrows – which I’m quite certain have been tattooed onto her face – form a slightly theatrical frown.

‘Oh my goodness, did they call you in early because of me? I’m so sorry again, you could have had a nice morning off for a change, stayed at home with your family.’

I hold onto the presenter’s chair for balance.

‘It’s fine, honestly,’ I say, and manage a smile that hurts my face. ‘I’m looking forward to being a correspondent again to be honest, so I’m delighted you’re back. I actually miss getting out of the studio and covering real stories, meeting real people, you know?’

Her expression remains neutral. I interpret her silence as a way of saying that either she doesn’t agree, or doesn’t believe me.

‘If you’re so keen to get out and about again, maybe you should take a look at that murder that broke overnight? The body in the woods?’ Cat replies.

‘That’s not a bad idea,’ says The Thin Controller, appearing by her side and smiling like a monkey with a new banana.

I feel myself start to shrink.

‘I haven’t seen the story,’ I lie.

I think now might be a good time to pretend I’m sick. I could go home, lock myself away from the world, and drink myself happy – or at least less sad – but Cat Jones continues to speak, the whole team appearing to hang on her every word.

‘A woman’s body was found overnight in a place called Blackdown, a sleepy Surrey village according to the wires. It might turn out to be nothing, but you could go check it out maybe? In fact, I insist we find you a camera crew. I’m sure you don’t want to just… hang around here.’

She glances over at what we call the taxi rank – the corner of the newsroom where the general correspondents sit, waiting to be deployed on a story, often not getting on air at all.

Journalists with specialist subjects – like business, health, entertainment, crime – all sit in offices upstairs. Their days tend to be busy and satisfying, their jobs relatively safe. But things are very different for a humble general correspondent. Some had quite promising careers at one time, but probably pissed off the wrong person, and have been gathering unaired stories like dust ever since.

There is a lot of dead wood in this newsroom, but the tough varnish of media unions can make it tricky to carve out. It is hard to imagine a more humiliating seat in the newsroom for a former presenter than correspondent corner. I’ve worked too hard for too long to disappear. I am going to find a way to get myself back on-air again, but this is the one story I don’t want to cover.

‘Is there anything else?’ I ask.

My voice sounds strange, as though the words got strangled.

The Thin Controller shrugs and shakes his head. I notice the light dusting of dandruff on the shoulders of his ill-fitting suit, and he sees me staring at it. I force a final smile to dispel the latest awkward silence.

‘Then I guess I’m on my way to Blackdown.’

We all have cracks, the little dents and blemishes that life makes in our hearts and minds, cemented by fear and anxiety, sometimes plastered over with fragile hope. I choose to hide the vulnerable sides of myself as well as I’m able at all times. I choose to hide a lot of things.

The only people with no regrets are liars.

The truth is, even though I’d rather be anywhere but here right now, Blackdown is the one place I don’t ever want to go back to. Especially not after last night. Some things are too difficult to explain, even to ourselves.