Fucking crazy.
“I don’t want your protection!” Laura could hear the fear in her own voice and it made her feel panicky. “I don’t need anything from you, I just need to get out, I need to—” She grabbed her backpack and tried to maneuver her way through the tight space of the boat cabin past Miriam’s considerable bulk. “Let me get out, please . . .” But Miriam was solid, she wouldn’t move, she pushed back, throwing Laura off balance. “Don’t you touch me! Don’t touch me!”
Laura needed to get out, she needed to get off this boat, she felt as though she were choking, as though she couldn’t breathe. She felt as though she had been plunged back into the nightmare from before, the one where she was on Daniel’s dirty little boat and he was laughing at her, and she could taste his flesh in her mouth. She was spitting now, screaming, Get out of my way get out of my way get out of my way, she was wrestling with someone, some other body, grabbing fistfuls of greasy hair, pushing against her, get out of my way, she could smell sweat and bad breath, she bared her teeth, please, she was crying out, and Miriam was crying too. Don’t touch me don’t touch me don’t touch me.
The One Who Got Away
Arms linked, they are on their way home from the horrible pub in the middle of town, the girl and her friend, weaving a little, along the side of the road. The girl is buoyed by gin and happy, comforted by the warm press of her friend’s skinny arm against the roll of flesh at her waist.
A car approaches, and her friend sticks out a thumb, half-heartedly. A battered yellow Golf, its go-faster stripe peeling away from the paintwork, cruises past, slowing. They look at each other, laugh. They run toward the car and as its door swings open, the girl hears a snatch of sound, of music, someone singing, a man’s voice, gravelly and low. She catches sight of the driver’s neck, red raw.
Don’t, she says to her friend. Don’t.
But her friend is already getting into the car, sliding in next to him, saying, “Where are we off to, then?”
TWENTY-FOUR
There were dandelions and daisies around his headstone, sunny yellow and soft cream amid the grass, which was overgrown but gave the impression of lushness rather than untidiness. Carla longed to lie down on the grass, to lie down right there, to sleep and not wake up. She had brought with her a red cashmere blanket, which she laid out, and instead of lying, she knelt, leaning forward, as though in prayer. She touched with the tops of her fingers the top of the black granite headstone, still shockingly new among the grayer, mossier graves, and said, “Happy birthday, sweetheart.” She leaned back on her haunches and allowed herself to cry for a little while, in small, hiccupping sobs. Then, she wiped her eyes and blew her nose and sat down, cross-legged, her back straight, to wait. Before long, she saw Theo, as she’d known she would, making his way toward her along the path. He raised a hand in greeting. She felt her heart beat feebly in the base of her throat.
He stopped a few paces away from her. “I’ve been worried, you know,” he said, but she could tell from the tone of his voice and the cast of his face that he wasn’t angry with her. He had a chastened look, the same one he’d worn when she found out about the publicist. So, he knew. He knew that she knew about Angela, that there was something to know about Angela.
“I lost Ben’s Saint Christopher,” Carla said, moving a little to one side, to make space for him on the blanket. He sat down heavily, leaned in to kiss her, but she shrank back, saying, “No.” He frowned at her.
“Where did you lose it? What were you doing with it?”
“I . . . I don’t know. If I knew where I’d lost it, I wouldn’t really have lost it, would I? I had it out, because . . . just because I wanted to look at it. I’ve looked everywhere.”
He nodded, his gaze moving over her, taking her in. “You look awful, Carla,” he said.
“Yeah, thanks. I’ve not had a great couple of weeks,” she said, and she started to laugh, just a giggle at first and then a full-throated cackle. She laughed until tears ran down her face, until Theo lifted his hand to brush them away. She flinched away from him, again. “Don’t touch me,” she said. “Not until you tell me the truth. I don’t want you to touch me until you tell me what you did.” Part of her wanted to run away from him, part of her ached to hear him deny it.
Theo rubbed the top of his head with his forefinger, his chin dropping to his chest. “I saw Angela. I went to see her, because Daniel had come to me asking for money, and I’d given him some but then he wanted more. That’s it. That’s the whole story.”