I go to close the curtains. If I want even a semblance of sleep, I’ll need to shut out the light. Beneath the streetlamp across the road, a figure seems to stare up into my window. The form is female, soft curves reading through the cinched waist of the big hooded coat. Tight-coiled curls spring out to frame her face. A face I can’t see. Claire. I know it’s just what I want to see, but it feels like she’s still looking out for me. Keen to finish the big conversation that we never started. I turn back to the room.
The bed’s mattress looks inviting. I want to collapse onto it, but I eye the chest of drawers and fear that a shove of the door in the middle of the night could make it fall and crush me. And so instead, I pull the duvet and the pillows from the bed. Arrange them on the floor. I curl up there, alone and cold.
Sleep doesn’t come easy to me. My mind is too alive, too full of racing thoughts. I think of distracting myself with some mindless scrolling and then remember that James still has my phone. When drowsiness does come, it falls on me with a heaviness so deep and complete that when I wake, it’s with a gasp, as if I’ve been drowning and my face is just breaking water.
“Nat?”
I realize it’s James’s knuckles on the door that have woken me. His knuckles, and his pleading voice.
“Nat, I’m scared, and I don’t know what to do. I called your therapist, asked for an emergency appointment if she could see you. She’s booked you in for five p.m. I’ve told the office you’re sick again. That I don’t know when you’ll be back in. Molly started to crack Mad Mary jokes and I didn’t want that to become a thing that spread, so I’ve just told people it’s a bad chest infection. Sorry if that was the wrong thing to do.”
He’s certainly convincing. I can’t quite believe that he’ll just leave, mind trying to calculate if the blockade will really manage to keep him out. There’s a heavy lamp on the floor, dethroned from its previous perch on the bedside table. I scrabble over to it, weigh it up in my hands.
“Nat?”
My voice is small, still unpracticed after sleep. “I’m here. I heard you.”
“Will you go?”
I nod and then realize he can’t see my nodding. “I will, I promise.”
And I mean it. Am grateful, even. But I don’t leave the room until long after I hear the front door close. He must know I knowsomething, and if I don’t act soon, I fear I will become another dead mark on James’s romantic scoreboard.
50
Now
If anything has become completely clear to me, it’s that I need to get out of this house. I’m in no fit state to get any kind of answers or revenge. And if my worst fears about James are right, I will die trying.
It’s still early, a half-drunk coffee going cold on the dining table downstairs as I empty out one of the suitcases we’ve been using for storage in the guest room upstairs. A hot mouthful was scalding my throat on the way down when I decided I couldn’t wait another moment. It was time to get out.
I’ve just finished shaking Christmas tree decoration glitter out of the bag when the front doorbell goes. Annoyed, I pelt downstairs. You can imagine my shock when I see—
“Dimple,” I say, jaw dropping open.
“Hi,” she says. “May I come in?”
I give a garbled acquiescence, watch the sleek bob of her hair slide past me. I wonder if this total wrong-footing is how it felt for Emily when she found me on her doorstep last night.
“How…” I begin, failing at my attempt to form a sentence. I try again. “What are you doing here?”
Her eyes are scanning the hallway, peering into the kitchen, the living room. She does a graceful swivel to face me. Her head does her signature tilt, one side, then the other, as she takes me in. “I was worried about you. You were clearly distressed at the end of yesterday’s session, and James called to report some concerning behavior. I know it’s a little…” Her hands are hanging by her sides. I notice her index finger start scratching at her thumb. She’s as nervous as I am. “I know this is unorthodox, that we’re scheduled to see each other this afternoon, but I was concerned for your safety.”
I shut the front door, turn back to face her. “Well, I’m okay. Or not, I guess. But now’s not a good time to talk. I…” I cast my eyes upstairs. “I’m taking myself off to a hotel for a few days while I figure out a more permanent situation. I think…I think I have to admit James and I are done. I don’t feel safe here anymore.”
She nods like she understands, but her face is as impassive as ever. I’m about to suggest that she leave, that we catch up at our scheduled time, when she says, “I understand. You don’t mind if I wait while you pack, do you? I’ve already cleared my schedule this morning, and I notice your car isn’t in the drive. I can give you a lift wherever you need to go, and maybe we can talk on the way there.” She’s making her way into the living room before I can even respond.
It’s unnerving having Dimple in my home. There’s something distinctly feline in the way she prowls the space—slow, gentle, and considered—while I flit around her to grab things. I assumed she’d simply sit patiently on the sofa, but she’s inspecting the room with a soft touch, picking things up to peer at them before placing them down again. Occasionally, we catch each other’s eye, and she gives me a quiet smile. I suppose for her it must be quite the trip seeing me in my home environment, like the frisson of strangeness one feels when bumping into your GP or teacher in the supermarket.
I leave her to it, heading up to the bedroom to pack some clothes. Working methodically, I make my way through drawers and cabinets, filling up one suitcase and then the next. I log in to the joint account and clear out the funds—I don’t trust James with money. At first, I only intend on taking half, scared of opening myself up to accusations of theft. But then I remember my lost inheritance. It’s hard not to take on a Claire-like rage at that thought, but in order to keep moving, to get out, I shake it off.
“Need any help?”
I jump half out of my skin. “Jesus! Sorry, you startled me.”
“I’ve been told I have an unhelpfully soft tread.” Dimple is standing in the doorway, the picture of casual elegance in her cropped blazer and wide-leg trousers. She’s looking at me curiously through her black-rimmed frames.
“I think I’m—”
