It’s been happening for weeks now. The sensation that she’s being followed. Whenever Natalie turns around, nobody is there, yet sometimes, like when she’s mooching around the shops or waiting to catch the bus to work, the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, as though someone has blown very softly on the skin of the nape. She’s being paranoid, isn’t she? It’s been years. She thought she was finally safe. She’s forty-nine now and she knows she looks a mess half the time, with her dirty-blonde hair always pulled back in a scruffy bun and no make-up. She doesn’t have to dress up for work so usually spends most days in jeans and a T-shirt or jumper. She calls it her invisibility uniform. And for a while that’s exactly what she’s been. Invisible. Or at least that’s what she’s hoped. But as she hurries through the park, the sun pressing into her back like a child’s hot, sticky hand, she can’t shake the sensation. Yet when she glances over her shoulder it’s just the shadows of the branches that dance on the pavement behind her.
They can’t have found her after all this time, can they?
No, that’s impossible. She’s kept a low profile. Retrained. Moved cities numerous times, even changing her name. What more could she do? And it might all have been for nothing anyway.
Then she remembers the photograph. That stupid photograph in the local paper.The electrical company she works for had won some industry award. She’s their only female electrician so she knew they’d want her in the photo, despite her best attempts to get out of it. When she realized she couldn’t, she’d made sure to stand right at the back, behind Big Dave so she wouldn’t be visible. But then the ageing male photographer with the earring and dyed black hair had insisted she move to the front. ‘A pretty, petite girl like you,’ he’d said, smiling in a way that he obviously thought was charming but she considered downright creepy. And she’d been propelled to the front, in full view of the camera.
But she had hoped nobody would see the photo. Who even reads articles about industry awards in a local newspaper with a dwindling circulation?
As she exits the park her T-shirt is already clinging to her, despite it not yet being 9 a.m. She’s always been an early riser, although lately she’s wondered more and more what she’s got to get up for.
Although after last night there might be someone.Finally.Someone who made her heart quicken, whom she found interesting and handsome. Whom she could imagine going to dinner with, sitting up all night talking with, maybe even having sex with.
She smiles to herself at the memory. The way his fingershad brushed hers as he passed her a pint. His crooked smile, his kind blue eyes.
For the first time in ages she feels hopeful and less alone in the world. Even if she knows that nothing will ever come of it because she can’t allow herself to get too close to anyone. But the possibility is there and for now that’s enough.
The shops aren’t open except her favourite deli on the corner, so she grabs a latte, then wanders the city’s sun-soaked pavements, yet the sensation of being followed persists. She’d had quite a few drinks last night at the bar. She’s always been lucky to escape a hangover, never mind how much she’d necked. Alcohol makes her twitchy, paranoid, as though all her limbs are too sensitive, as though all the electricity she works with has seeped into her every nerve ending, and she has to keep moving to rid herself of the feeling until she eventually conks out and sleeps it off.
Natalie passes a woman pushing a pram. She looks sleep-deprived, and the sight causes her insides to shrivel a little. She’s instantly transported back to a time when that was her life. Crying babies and frazzled new mums. A humid ward that smelt of urine, bleach and blood. So much blood. The memory is so strong that Natalie is forced to stop for a second to grab the nearby wall and catch her breath, warding off the sudden bout of nausea. Maybe she’s getting too old for late-night drinking binges after all.
She straightens, inhaling a lungful of the fresh summer morning, and makes her way back into the park. It’s a littlebusier now. People are dotted on the grass, faces turned up to the sunshine. One woman sits alone on a bench reading a book, her legs crossed, a foot bobbing up and down to some inaudible tune. Natalie continues walking, her nerve endings still fraught and fizzy, not helped by the injection of caffeine into her system. It’s cooler as she heads further into the park, the trees providing a canopy shielding her from the sun, which glints through the leaves. She’ll make three more circuits of the park, she decides, and then she’ll head back to her sparse little flat above the kebab shop, which has been her home for the last year.
She’s carrying her favourite cross-body bag that she’s had for the past twenty years. It’s a chestnut-coloured leather Mulberry that she’d treated herself to after everything that happened. It’s the only luxury item Natalie has ever owned, and she wears it everywhere. The leather now smells faintly of last night’s lager and the dry ice of too many gigs, but sometimes she’s sure she still gets the whiff of her mother’s perfume. She feels it buzzing against her thigh and realizes with surprise that her phone is ringing. She receives hardly any calls as she rarely gives out her number. She slows down to rootle inside the bag, and when she pulls the phone free she notices an unfamiliar number flashing on the screen. She debates whether to answer it but curiosity gets the better of her.
‘Hello,’ she says tentatively.
For a few moments there is silence and then a voice says her name –her real name– and her airways tighten in terror.
4
LENA
The house feels silent and empty now Rufus has gone. I used to yearn for my own company when he was little and the house was a revolving door of Charlie’s band mates, NCT mums and their toddlers, but now I’d give anything to have those days back. I’m not someone who needs constant companionship – I like my own company up to a point – but the trouble is that lately I’ve been on my own more often than not and, when Rufus leaves, it’ll get worse.
I glance at the recording equipment I’ve placed neatly by the patio doors. I gave up trying to get sound for Rufus after overhearing the neighbours’ conversation. I’ll have to try again in the morning before work.
It’s too risky. We could get caught, Mari …
I can’t stop wondering what they were talking about. Maybe something sexual – they could be swingers – or it could be something illegal. Although it’s probably much more innocuous than I’m imagining. Anyway, it’s none of my business. Not everyone is up to no good. I have toremind myself of that. I hear some dark things in my role at Citizens Advice – domestic violence, coercive control, fraud, cheating spouses – and I have to be mindful that it doesn’t warp my view of the world.
On a whim I decide to call Jo. She answers on the second ring. ‘Lena! This is a nice surprise on a Thursday evening.’
‘I haven’t interrupted anything, have I?’
‘Just a sex-sesh with Paul …’
‘Jo!’
‘Kidding. Of course not. He’d be so lucky! He’s on the Xbox with Archie.’ Archie is Jo’s eldest, the same age as Rufus. I’d met her at an overpriced baby singing and dancing class in Clifton when our boys were only six months old. It was midway through us skipping around the room to a hideous rendition of ‘Three Blind Mice’ and wafting scarves around our heads when she murmured over her shoulder, ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this. I’m a grown-ass woman, for crying out loud.’ I warmed to her instantly, and over the years a deep friendship has evolved between us. It had taken me a long time to trust someone again after what had happened with Simone, a friend I’d had while training to be a midwife a long time ago. I’d ended up quitting my training in my second year and I never thought I’d get close to a girlfriend again, until I met Jo. She’s a sharp-tongued barrister, solid and dependable. I really don’t know what I’d have done without her, especially after Charlie left.
I hear her closing a door and the laughter leaves her voice. ‘Is everything okay?’
‘Yeah … all good. Listen, I know this is last-minute, but Ruf is now with Charlie tonight and I wondered if you fancied a drink.’
‘Hell, yeah! The boys are busy with their gaming and Charmaine is on a school camping trip,’ she says, referring to her fourteen-year-old daughter.
My heart lifts. ‘Great. Where shall we go?’
