Since Rory’s birthday dinner, I’ve been back in Rachel’s room time after time, looking for the things I found there. The laptop, the photograph of the four of us at Cambridge, the note I found at Serena’s. I know she has taken those things. I know they are there, somewhere. But I can’t find them. Last night – while she was splashing around in our new bathtub, yet again – I took another look, but there was nothing but clothes in her suitcase. In desperation, I looked in her handbag, found her wallet. No notes, no photograph. Just the usual stack of fifties – where on earth is she getting all this cash? – and a battered old provisional driver’s licence that expired years ago. RACHEL WELLS.
What I still can’t work out is what Rachel wants. If she wants Rory, wants to force him to choose, why doesn’t she just come out with it? Or perhaps he has ended it already – but she refuses to accept it? Perhaps this is her twisted way of getting close to him. But why? Is she tormenting him, punishing him for choosing Serena? Or is there more to it?
And then there are the marks on her neck. They are almost gone now, faded to little clouds of yellowish grey. Barely noticeable. How did she get them? Who wants to hurt her? And above all, why is she still living in our house, sitting and eating breakfast with us, coming out with her weird, jarring small talk? What does she want from us?
I am desperate to talk to Daniel about it, properly. Daniel always knows the right thing to do. We used to talk about things like this, solve problems together. We used to feel like a team. I can’t bear this distance that seems to be opening up between us since she’s been staying.
But I know what he’ll say. He’s always so logical. He’ll say I’m reading too much into things. That I’m imagining it, making things up. He will want proof, or he won’t believe me. And a part of me doesn’t even want to know what is really going on. I just want it gone. I want her gone.
When I traced it back, I couldn’t quite work out how I’d even got to this point. Had I ever even liked this girl, really? Had I encouraged her friendship? I didn’t think I had. Yet somehow, she had become my problem. A problem I wasn’t sure how I was going to solve.
GREENWICH PARK
She has always hated meeting in the tunnel. She prefers to smell the grass, the earth, the moss. But the rain is coming too hard tonight. Besides, they don’t have much time.
The skies are heavy now, the tumbling clouds epic, the growl of thunder chasing people into their homes. The rain comes, scattering them like mice. She walks past the warm glow of other people’s houses.
She makes her way through the tunnel, through its concentric circles of light and shadow. She passes signs on the tunnel walls. S9, S11, S12. She doesn’t know what the numbers mean. The ceiling drips, and her footfalls echo north and south.
S19, S20, S24. She feels the pressure of the water overhead, the weight of it, the dampness, seeping through into the air. They usually meet by the bulb that flickers, insect-like, beside a sign that says ‘No Cycling’。 As she nears it, the sudden bump of a bicycle over a storm drain makes her jump. It passes, its light flashing into the darkness. She carries on.
When she arrives, he is pacing, breathing heavily, eyes wild. He is angry, she can tell. He lifts her, roughly, pushes her against the wall. The white subway tiles are cold on her back, his breath hot on her neck. She feels weightless.
They said they wouldn’t do it again. But now the landscape has changed, the horizon shifted. Their doors are closing, sooner than expected. The thunder comes again. They need to start making plans. He feels frightened. Of her, of them, the thunder, both. Frightened to go. Frightened to stay. Frightened of what they might do.
On her way home, the thunder has stopped, and something in the atmosphere is altered. She walks quickly, past the doors in the park walls. She wonders who uses those doors. She has never seen them open or close. Autumn leaves are gathered at their feet, like rusty hands spread wide. The bricks darken in the rain.
The next day the birds are circling over the park, sweeping across the sky like iron filings. They are gathering their numbers, flying south for the winter. It was him that pointed it out to her, this melancholy wheeling. Now she can’t not see it. She can’t not think about it. Wishes they could go with them. She wishes they had gone already. She fears it might be too late.
And now it is, and now they are here. Left behind in a world without birds, to face the cold.
37 WEEKS
HELEN
I am locking Monty in our bedroom at the top of the house. He stares up at me miserably as I set his food and water bowls out beside the wardrobe, a litter tray next to the door. He hates being shut up here. But the last time Charlie brought friends along to one of our parties, one of them thought it would be funny to singe his whiskers with a cigarette lighter. I’m not taking any chances.