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She could stay on here for hours, waiting, watching, and all these little householders would actually feel safer for having her around. She smiled and dealt with the last blob of chocolate. She was willing to bet the neighbours were in her camp. Suspicious, but unable to voice the dark thoughts in their heads. Yet. They didn’t know as much as she did, but they were all waiting, just the same. Just like her.
Then Louise’s door cracked open. Yellow light shone behind her, highlighting that hair. She wasn’t in the yoga gear this time, she was in flowing black trousers. Becca couldn’t see the detail, except for the way the fabric fell, caressing as nothing ever had on her own body. Pricey. Of course. A sweater, equally black. Soft, understated. Was it a bit fluffy? A boat neck, they called that. Ordinary clothes, on anyone else. On Louise, they developed a special sort of grace and elegance, her collar bones rising up, carved like a dancer’s. Becca wished she hadn’t finished that Twix. Then wished she had another to crunch to oblivion. Then she thought about the calories and felt sick. The usual backwash of guilt.
Louise strode out, oblivious. Though Becca was sitting there large as life – well, larger, as her mother would have said with a sigh – Louise never seemed to see her. Was she invisible to the woman? Or just so insignificant that Louise didn’t give a toss? It would make things harder if Louise did know she was here, and Becca wouldn’t be able to watch her like this. But sometimes, like tonight, she was tempted to lean on the horn, make the bitch look up, acknowledge her existence, at least.
But Becca stopped herself and Louise moved fluidly on, eyes never once flicking to the parked car. She went round to the side, unlatched the little hutch that cocooned her wheelie bins. Not for her the vulgarity of an exposed rubbish bin, oh no. That sort of thing had to be tidied away, hidden, so she could pretend that she and her brood didn’t generate used teabags, carrot tops, coffee grounds, tissues, rotten fruit, sanitary pads … the usual detritus of human life. Now she was pushing the bins out onto the street, one at a time, putting her back into it. Becca watched with a smirk. That’s a proper work-out for you, isn’t it, love? None of this pointless stretching and bending that you pay through the nose for.
When all three bins were finally out there, beyond the garden wall, Louise smoothed her hair back from her forehead and went back inside. Ha. Don’t like the donkey work, do you? Not such a clever idea to get rid of the hubby after all, was it? Once the door clicked shut and the outside light went off, Becca decided reluctantly that it was time to move on. The show was over. For tonight. She turned the key in the ignition and flipped on the headlights at last.
She drove back through the dark streets to her empty flat, a silent promise running through her head. I’ll be back, Louise, don’t you worry.
I’ve got my eye on you.
Chapter 12 (#ulink_e31bd1e9-4fbe-58c9-a6d1-a5c8b622567b)
Then
Jen and I kept in touch. The idea of losing her made me feel dizzy. What would I do? How would I know if I was getting it right? So we got into a habit of having drinks after work and bitching about our bosses, though my heart wasn’t in the whingeing. I loved the company almost as much as I loved my desk – and Patrick.
We became even better friends once she’d left the company. From the outside, I liked to think we were now peas in a pod, but keeping tabs on her felt like touching wood, keeping myself grounded, checking I was really where I needed to be. So much of what I now was, I owed to her template. And having a friend like her was proof of how far I’d come. The girls at school would have collapsed in amazement if they could have seen me, swanking about in wine bars, with gorgeous, poised Jen. She would definitely have been one of the popular gang back in the day, the ones in giggling gaggles, while the likes of me slunk past, friendless and invisible.
So I was surprised, one night, to see her in stacked heels with chunky ankle straps, far from the pure lines and vertiginous height of the stilettos she normally favoured. Perhaps I wasn’t the only chameleon in town.
I’d worried about her, once she’d got the sack, but of course she’d found a job within seconds of leaving. Who wouldn’t snap her up? She was with an ad agency now, and her clothes seemed to be edging out to match. Nothing crazy, just a zing of colour, a bag by a bad-boy designer. It disconcerted me. I understood why it was imperative that I reinvent myself, but Jen? She’d been perfect as she was. I’d seen her as the fixed star in my firmament, an ideal to aspire to, a goal I was – sometimes – close to reaching. But if Jen herself had to change, what did that mean for less perfect mortals like me? Was there nothing but constant messing and fixing ahead? Would I never really know what I was aiming for, let alone attain it?
It turned out, of course, that she’d fallen for one of the account directors, all flash car and expense account lunches. Perfection wasn’t enough; now she had to be trendy with it. We were all just lumps of clay when it came to getting our man. My mother had been the same, bending over backwards for whatever lowlife had had her that week.
I didn’t know it then, but the germ of a resolve was forming, as I sat at the bar with Jen, sluicing my week away with white wine spritzers. I’d always have more work to do than anyone else to fit in, make the grade. That I accepted. It was my fault, the price I’d be paying in perpetuity for being my mother’s daughter, and for daring to try to escape that life sentence. And though I was willing to tweak the externals as far as they needed to go, I now promised myself that, inside, I’d be true to myself. Whoever that was.
I came to love those evenings, chucking Chardonnay on my own troubles, sighing along with Jen’s non-existent worries, pretending to take them seriously. She dithered endlessly about which dishes to cook for her dinner parties, stressed about the nuances of who’d said what to whom at the agency. I knew that these things didn’t matter, they were tiny glitches in an otherwise perfect life.
Sometimes it amused me to enter into them with Jen, pretend that I cared whether she served watercress soup or rhubarb fool. But part of me was always leaning back from the table, chair tilted on two legs in the way people used to warn me about at school, as if toppling was the thing I had to fear. I couldn’t help but be angry that I was forever shut out of feeling such mundane concerns. How could I care about gravadlax, when I knew that I was worthless? And how could Jen be hanging on for my opinion? If she cared what I thought, that meant she was worthless too. It was a spiral of nihilism that no one wanted to know about or go down, least of all me. So I’d push it away, lean forward, and debate liver pâté versus smoked duck starters as though my life depended on it.
Jen knew, of course, about my passion for Patrick. How could she not? Twice a day, more often if he went out for lunch, I’d been transformed right in front of her eyes from the reasonably together, elegant young woman I’d fashioned in her likeness, into a tongue-tied, beetroot-blushing idiot. She didn’t need to be Hercule Poirot to realise something was afoot.
‘Made your move yet?’ she’d josh me every time we met, knowing the answer would be a mumbled negative. ‘Come on, Lou. You’ll be old and grey by this rate. Or he’ll get snared by someone else.’
This was my dread. That, during the many hours of the day when Patrick wasn’t under what I thought of as my roof, he’d wander into the clutches of another. I couldn’t bear the thought.
Jen was patient, talking through strategies with me, week after week. We were like chess grandmasters, trying to outwit Deep Blue. Would that scenario work, or was this the way forward? It was much more time-consuming than our actual jobs.
I was the one who came up with the idea. I’d move off the desk, into Patrick’s department. It was a measure of how desperate I was at this point. The desk was, without a doubt, the best part of my life – apart from these sessions with Jen – and I wanted to hang on to it like a wino clutching their last can of Special Brew. On the other hand, I was getting nowhere with Patrick; if I was more colleague than underling, and in his own space instead of marooned out in reception, surely something would give?
Jen was unconvinced. Did this reflect doubt in my abilities to hold my own in the inner office? I’d like to think not. But then, she’d never dared try it herself. As we both knew, she was less flexible than me. I seriously doubted she’d ever have been as much of a whizz with our current comms package as I now was, even if that manual hadn’t gone walkabout. And she had that very ordinary failing, of believing that if she couldn’t do something, no one else could. Least of all her erstwhile junior.
Sometimes I thought she might still have a soft spot for Patrick herself. She’d sat up straighter when he was around. But then, of course I could see why. Her own boyfriends – she always had one on the go – were generally so wet, I felt like handing them a towel. Nothing wrong with them, they just didn’t measure up to Patrick. Then along came Tim from the ad agency, the one she’d become trendy for.
On paper, Tim was great. Tall, solvent. An account director. He was, she whispered, ‘so artistic’. I assumed that meant he did strange stuff in bed. He certainly looked a bit more edgy than her previous numbers. Enough to get her reconsidering her wardrobe, at least. But at my age, I felt I was looking for a lot more than he could offer. Even Jen, after the initial thrill wore off, started treated him like a mildly disappointing pet she’d somehow got lumbered with, at least in our chats. I couldn’t understand it. She was only five years older than me. Surely she should be living a little, before she settled?
But it cut me to the quick when she turned up to All Bar One with an extra glow about her. I was just wondering what it was, and how I could get it – new moisturiser, special eye shadow? – when she flashed her left hand at me. There it was, a rock of a ring. I’d thought she was wasting her time with Tim, and hoped I was the one getting it right, wanting more. But the sight of Jen’s diamond cluster made me realise I wanted one too.
Obviously I didn’t want Tim. And I didn’t envy Jen at all, being stuck with him for life. But I did immediately buy into all that wedding stuff. Well, it’s inevitable, isn’t it? Every little girl is brought up on a solid pink diet of handsome princes, ballgowns, fairy godmothers and, crowning it all, the massive fuck-off wedding at the end. I hadn’t had a lot, growing up, but my mother had always been willing to stick a DVD on, keep me occupied while she got up to … whatever. I’d more or less taught myself to read, freeze-framing the credits of Cinderella.
Part of me knew the whole idea was seriously flawed. Relationships didn’t last. I only needed to look at my mother to see that writ large. But the fact that her own romantic quest had been never-ending, despite the pitiful results, showed me how hard-wired the desire for a happy-ever-after was. As a young girl, I’d sneaked books of fairy tales out of the school library and read them under the covers at night, Matilda-style. And I still loved a bit of chick lit. Who doesn’t? From Sophie Kinsella all the way back to Jane Eyre, the idea was the same. Man equals happiness. Once you’ve got rid of the madwoman in the attic.
I would have questioned it more if every cell in my body weren’t crying out for Patrick. If I had him, oh, if I did, my troubles would be over. I knew that, and no one could tell me any different. I’d seen the kindness behind his confidence, you see. He had the most beautiful manners, the way he always held the big glass doors open for colleagues. He had charm, at ease with everyone from the chairman of the company to the security guard. And he was fun. He told the best jokes, he set the tone.
And, on the rare occasions when he was alone, he changed the energy in the building as soon as he set foot in the door. I knew, before looking up, when he’d arrived in the mornings. Something changed in the very air of the place. There was a new feeling of urgency, full of promise. He usually stayed much later than I did – he was hard-working as well! – but if he ever left before me, the life went out of the building the moment the door swung closed on his sharp suit.
There were other men around who were confident, some who were good-looking too. But there was no one who combined it all like Patrick. It made him irresistible to me. He was so different from anyone I’d met before, so open in what he wanted. He seemed so honest and free, unafraid to aim for the top, unabashed about looking at me. He wasn’t, like my mother’s men, giving me sneaky little glances, opportunistic, speculative. He had no reason to hide, nothing to feel guilty about. He made me feel clean, instead of dirty. He was the chance of a new life, the hero who would, finally, save me from the fiery dragon.
So when I saw the ring sparkling as hard as it could on Jen’s freshly manicured hand, I suddenly saw my own future in those glittering facets. This would be me! Me and Patrick. I mouthed all the right things, oohed and ahed at the proposal (actually not bad – Tim had got down on one knee at an up-and-coming Soho club, managing to fuse the arty and the traditional in a way that couldn’t fail to melt Jen’s heart) and pledged to help her arrange the wedding. After all, it would be good practice for my own.
Jen’s success, again, had shown me the path. I could get what she had. And I would. All I needed was a strategy to follow. I’d been idling away until now, not realising how serious the game was, not conscious that everything, including me, had an expiry date. But Jen’s ring had shown me the prize I should be aiming for, and had also reminded me that I needed to get on with it. Things changed. Look at Jen. She’d left the desk, and yes, she’d still thrived and found Tim. But if I left, would I ever see Patrick again?
I had him near me, five days a week, yet I was relying on chance, fate, kismet, something other than myself, to organise things for me. Everything about my life so far should have told me that wasn’t the way to go. If I wanted something, I had to go out and get it done myself.
Chapter 13 (#ulink_585cafa0-1b94-52f7-8a5c-7cd2910a49b9)
Now
Becca
Becca threw her biro down onto her cluttered desk. It ricocheted off yesterday’s sandwich wrapper and rolled onto the floor. She grimaced as she rooted for it, but a decision had been made all the same. She needed to sort this out. There was no other way. She’d been worrying at this puzzle for what seemed like forever, after what she’d found online. She’d been going through the motions here, doing her job to the best of her abilities, but her mind was always … elsewhere. All right, on Louise. Checking up on the woman was becoming a habit. Too much of one, people would say. But she knew there was something there. It wasn’t imagination. Nor obsession. Not this time.
She still didn’t have quite enough at her fingertips to dare to confide in anyone else, though. She stared away from her screen, accidentally catching Burke’s eye. His sandy hair was plastered down today, his usually mild blue eyes giving her a shrewd glance. She bobbed her head back. She could just imagine what he’d say if he knew what she was spending her time doing.
She yawned and drooped back over the latest report, struggling to fill it in. Registering all this stuff had never seemed so pointless, when she knew that, not more than ten minutes’ drive away, sat a woman who was literally getting away with murder.
Becca knew Louise Bridges was a bad ’un, she could smell it on her. There was no doubt in her mind that there was more to the whole business than it seemed. So what if the coroner had taken one look at the grieving widow and rubber-stamped everything? So what if no one else seemed to bat an eyelid at the way Mrs Bridges was carrying on with her life as though nothing had happened?
As usual, the thought of Louise filled her vision and she stood up abruptly. At the desk opposite, a colleague stopped scratching behind her ear with a pen and ran their eyes up and down her, then turned away. Becca felt more conscious than ever of the soft rolls straining against her uniform trousers. Across the way, Burke tutted, then went back to his in-tray. He’d be happy doing paperwork forever. Routine, structure, block capitals on the dotted line. This wasn’t what she’d joined the police for.
Why had she joined? It was partly something that her mother couldn’t reproach her for. She was never going to get a job doing anything her mother really rated. The sort of glamorous career celebrities dabbled in, between interviews with Hello! The police, though, that was solid, respectable. Her mother could see the point of it. It seemed to cancel out that one brief wobble Becca had had, the depression. She’d been ill, but she was better.
Unfortunately, it turned out that she didn’t want to do the bits of the job that Mum thought would keep her nicely out of trouble. She wanted to do the tricky stuff. Search out the hidden. Make deductions. And, above all, make sure people didn’t cheat justice.
One person in particular.
It was going to be a slog, she could see that. So far, no one had ever seen her potential – apart from poor old Dad. She’d have to claw her way up alone. But this Louise Bridges business could help her. Becca would just have to prove them all wrong about the woman, simple as that. Shatter some illusions.
And no, it wasn’t going to be like last time. She was perfectly fine now.
She was just a person who liked to focus.
Chapter 14 (#ulink_9f98cb70-f385-5a7e-a598-0715f036510b)
Then
I blush to admit it, but at this point I hadn’t really got as far as saying two whole consecutive sentences to Patrick, unless you count stammering and stuttering as conversation.
At first, Patrick seemed determined to keep a constant distance of three metres from my orbit. Perhaps he sensed that if he got any closer, he’d be sucked into my gravity like a hapless meteorite. I mooned over him twice a day, more often if he was getting a sandwich. I had failed to move up to his floor, though the big bosses hadn’t quite told me no. It was just not yet. I wondered if they were stringing me along. I should have wondered the exact same thing about Patrick, but I was too much in love.
Because all of a sudden, he was sauntering over. He’d always had a bit of a chat with Jen, and sometimes winked at me. But now he was coming over just for me. Me.
The first time, I felt like a flower singled out by a bee, every cell of me was alive and producing nectar at a prodigious rate. From a single word, ‘OK?’ we were soon up to a sentence, ‘How’s it going?’ Then, one day, he smiled properly, right at me, and we actually had a real conversation. It was a red-letter day.
All right, he was only asking if a courier had left a package for him. They hadn’t. If they had, I would have been on the phone to him like a shot. I didn’t say this, of course. I just stammered and blushed like a stupid idiot, shaking my head as though I had some sort of neurological misfortune, while he looked at me, amused blue eyes running over every inch of my overheated face and body. It was a wonder I didn’t spontaneously combust.
After this, the wink and a little ‘hello’ became our regular thing. I spent hours, at home and in the ladies’ at work, practising responses, acting cool, trying desperately to develop some vestige of nonchalance.
Then, for no reason that I could divine, things went backwards again overnight. He started passing me by. The whispers and winks dried up. Days and weeks passed and I was in the desert. He still walked by, regular as clockwork, sometimes with his little coterie of admiring colleagues, sometimes on his own with that brisk, purposeful stride I loved, but he didn’t glance over anymore. I was distraught. Had I done something to put him off? Smiled too widely, given myself away somehow?
I tried everything to lure him back. New perfume. Undoing another button on my blouse, then rapidly doing it up again when I attracted the others instead. I straightened my hair, then plaited it, then put it in a bun. Finally I left it hanging down, as dejected as I was, though I carried on smiling my merry smile.
But just when I wasn’t expecting it, just when I was resigned, there he was again one fine morning, leaning towards me. I almost swooned into his eyes, they were so blue up close. Even the pores in his skin were beautiful. I was concentrating so hard on not hyperventilating that I forgot to listen.
‘Sorry, what?’ I was flustered.
‘Just asked if anything had been dropped off here for me? It was supposed to be in the post, but it hasn’t come.’
The mail was sorted elsewhere and delivered by various spotty youths with red trolleys. I did my best not to be aware of their presence in the building, just as Jen had shown me. Now it seemed as if Patrick, for all his years in the firm, was equally ignorant of the workings of the post room.
‘Um.’ I looked frantically under my desk, and then wondered why I was doing it. There was nothing there, except my box of tampons, and though I might be discombobulated by his presence, the scent of his clean shirt and the slight citrus waft of his aftershave, I wasn’t far gone enough to get those out. ‘I’m so sorry, no,’ I said, my eyes pleading. Had I let him down in some way? Was it my fault? I felt as though the world might easily come to an end.
‘Don’t upset yourself, darling,’ he said with a wink. ‘I’ll get them on the phone. Bang a few heads.’
My eyes opened wider and now I knew I wasn’t imagining it. A current ran between us for an electric moment. I loved his voice. His gaze. I basked in the way he looked at me, as though we were equals, as though we were seeing each other for the first time. As though I was really worth the time of day. But then he was off again, and that was that. He sauntered away with me watching every step, wishing I could call him back but with not a thing to say for myself. Then I subsided, a tulip deprived of water.
God, I was hopeless. I cursed myself. Other girls would have known what to do, would have quipped back at him, would have stretched that moment like bubble gum. They would have had him snapping back to their desks time and time again. But no, not me.
I kept up my façade but underneath, depression rolled over me like a sea fog.
If I hadn’t filled my non-working hours with my quest to get on (I was now taking evening classes in French), my life would have been totally empty. The continuing squeeze on the business meant a freeze on promotions, or so they’d told me. So I was still stuck at my desk, likely to take root in the marble.
It was clear, now, that Patrick would never make a move of his own accord. He knew who I was, vaguely, but didn’t care nearly enough. Yes, he gave me that twice-daily twinkle, when it suited him, but what was that worth? He’d done the same to Jen, until she’d left. Then he’d moved his twinkling on to me. It was just a reflex – the kind of low-level acknowledgement that a cocksure man with everything on his side felt he owed to subordinate but attractive women. ‘Hi, I’m busy and successful, you’re lowly and unimportant, but if we had world enough and time, I’d probably give you one.’
I’d thought about it, of course I had, in the long lonely hours of my empty nights, and had come up with every possible answer as to why he’d started speaking to me, only to stop again. A few times now, he’d sought me out. It meant something, didn’t it? It had to. Sometimes, in my fevered daydreams, it was the gateway to a wild romance. But then, in my nightmares, I decided it meant nothing at all, except an interest in getting his hands on his post. I could easily drive myself mad, seesawing between the two. I needed to get out of the theoretical realm, gain some concrete knowledge of the man.
Maybe he didn’t repeat his visit to my prettily polished counter because he wasn’t after a receptionist. He probably had his sights on higher things, a personal assistant, even a fellow account executive. His colleagues weren’t so fussy. They flocked to me. Lounged around, telling me jokes, reporting on the weather outside, as if I didn’t have floor-to-ceiling sheets of glass right in front of me giving me better minute-by-minute coverage of the elements than most TV weather girls had. Some did that general boasting men indulge in, every story coming back to their terrific prowess in football or DIY and therefore, by implication, between the sheets. My smile was a fixture, as shiny as the firm’s nameplate on the door, but it meant nothing. I didn’t dislike these lads, but they were puppies, frolicking at my feet.
Picture an old-fashioned musical – a girl on the desk with shiny blonde hair, and a knot of admirers around her dressed in black and white, showing off frantically with their dazzling leaps and spins. Then the hero saunters past, in grey suit, magenta tie, winks briefly at the girl, and the admirers freeze in mid-dance. She sighs and leans her head on her hand, tracking him with her eyes.
I was that girl and the lads were the cardboard cut-outs prancing around me. I indulged them, while feeling twinges of annoyance at their elbows wrecking the patina of my counter. Their attempts at flirtation didn’t even bore me, I just watched them like someone parked in front of a screen, letting the images flick across my irises, not taking anything in. Yet any one of these boys would have done me fine as a boyfriend, husband.
Who was I kidding? They were all way, way above me. If they could have seen how I’d been brought up, they’d be running for the hills, no question. But my indifference was as powerful as catnip. Cracking me became their game. I gave them the shortest shrift I could, while remaining polite and cheery. It didn’t do my status any harm for Patrick to see me as hugely popular, though I had to be very careful that he didn’t get a whisper that I was the office bike. But act too cool, and maybe he’d be scared to approach me properly himself. I didn’t want to give the impression that I’d freeze him off. On the contrary, I felt like Vesuvius, primed and ready, in the strange stillness that came before an eruption powerful enough to obliterate a thousand Pompeiis.
And, all the time, I had to conceal my passion. I knew my eyes caressed him as he sauntered through the marble hall to the lifts and back. I tried to stop myself. When he flicked his smile in my direction, I had to make sure I wasn’t already gawping at him as though he was a juicy steak and I was a big cat waiting to pounce. It was hard. And it wasn’t getting any easier.
The worst days were those when he was on his phone while he breezed past, hunched into the call in that way he had. Phones were smaller back then – didn’t some wag make the joke that until you started getting porn on the internet, phones were getting tinier and tinier? Once filth was only a download away, the screens magically started growing again.
Well, Patrick’s then was a titchy thing, the latest must-have gizmo, and when he was schmoozing a client, I could have been invisible. If it was one of those days when I’d planned my appearance down to the last eyelash, had on the carefully laundered, lovingly ironed blouse that had seemed to elicit more of a response when I’d worn it last week, I’d be gutted if he didn’t even look my way. To some extent, it made me admire him more. Look at the way he gave his all to his work! Mind you, for all I knew, he could have been chatting to his bookmaker, his mum or even, banish the thought, a girlfriend.
I told myself he was just a really hard-working guy, but I couldn’t shut myself off entirely from the possibility that Patrick, unlike me, had a life outside these glossy walls, that yes, he did have a girl or even a fiancée waiting somewhere in the wings, a significant other that he did all the fun things with.
I was hazy about what these might be, never having had what you might describe as a sunny life thus far, but I’d read my share of romances, hadn’t I? And I’d walked around my hometown, seeing the happy couples, like a child, nose pressed up against the sweetshop window. Strolling in parks, boating on lakes, feeding each other spaghetti. That sort of thing. Though if it applied to other people, I found it a little revolting. It reminded me of my mother, throwing herself all over the latest scumbag. But the idea that it might, one day – one day soon – be me and Patrick mooning around, hand in hand, brought a smile to my face. And that’s how he caught me, one day.
‘Hey, gorgeous? Hope you’re thinking about me?’ He sauntered past, that wink perfectly timed to flip down over his blue, blue eye just at the end of his jaunty line. I was so startled that I sat up, bolt upright, like a total idiot, and lost the misty, smiling gaze that had finally tempted him into speech again, so long after those cursory enquiries about his post. Thank God I just managed not to spill my coffee. That would have killed all my attempts at insouciance stone dead. As it was, the sound of his heels faded away and all I could hear was the blood pounding in my head. If he’d turned around, he’d have seen me looking poleaxed, nothing like the girl of his dreams after all.
That episode convinced me that I had to get a grip, somehow. Give up. Get him out of my system. Or change something. At the moment, I might as well have had a sign above my head reading, ‘take me, I’m yours,’ every time Patrick walked past.
He was blind to it, but my dread was that someone else would see my yearning for what it was – and would tell him. The shame, the humiliation, didn’t bear thinking about. I had to make myself less vulnerable. And I had to be a lot less available. There’s nothing people like more than a bit of a challenge. Watch kids in the playground. They all want the same toy. One picks it up, and it’s suddenly the hottest thing in the sandpit. Meanwhile, a hundred identical toys, just as good, lie unwanted and unseen.
At the moment, I was like a discarded plastic bucket, aching for Patrick to pick me. I needed to stir things up, make him see me, realise that I was a must-have. And feel that he had to fight to get me.
Or I had to contemplate something much more difficult. Something terrifying.
I needed to accept defeat and move on.
Chapter 15 (#ulink_f1f1d46c-879a-5e4e-9490-3e5a9b51cafe)
Now
Becca
Becca stared straight ahead, kept her eyes on the sitcom, just the way her mother liked her to. She could sense her mother’s gaze coming to rest on her occasionally when the canned laughter rang out, checking she was smiling. Becca stretched her mouth obligingly, but inside, she was thinking. She’d have to stir things up. If she was right about Louise – and she was – she’d have to make others see it. Because at the moment they were blind.
This was the easiest way to be with her mother. Let it all wash over her. And if Mum wanted to have her say about Becca’s life, the telly was the referee. All points were made via the set. ‘Doesn’t she just look lovely?’ Compared with the state of you. Her mother sighed as a 20-year-old with a size-six body wafted across the screen.
‘That mother is so kind, isn’t she?’ Why can’t you stop being a bitch? Becca countered, as the cosy TV matriarch poured out more tea, apparently without the whiff of martyrdom hanging over her every action.
They sat in a silence that passed for companionable for a while, then Becca burst into speech. ‘Would you ever think that she’d be capable of murder?’ she asked, jabbing a biscuit towards the sitcom daughter.
‘Murder?’ Her mother’s eyes were as round as the coasters on the coffee table. ‘But why would she need to kill someone? She’s got everything, hasn’t she? Look at that boyfriend, he worships the ground she walks on, you can tell.’ Why haven’t you got one? Her mother was tutting, shifting in her chair. Becca knew the signs, realised glumly she ought to go. These Saturday nights were never easy, at the best of times. And now, with her mind so occupied with thoughts of pulling that one trailing thread that would make Louise Bridges unravel, well, she hadn’t got the energy to play her mother’s games.
Suddenly, her mother turned to her, actually looked straight at her. ‘It’s not like before, is it, love? You know, when you got everything … out of proportion?’
Becca stared at her. She thought they had a pact never to mention those dark months, the medication that had kept her tethered to her bed, as secure as any strait jacket. ‘No. No. Of course not, Mum. Why would you say that? I’m better now, that was ages ago. All in the past.’
‘It’s just … you’ve got that expression again. You know, that look on your face …’ Her mother was still gazing at her, checking for something, Becca didn’t know what. She shook her head.
‘You’ve got it wrong, Mum. Just busy. Busy at work, you know. But it’s great to be here. So relaxing after a hard week.’ Her fingers gripped the armrest.
Her mother subsided. So willing to be reassured, so glad to have her fears laid to rest. She didn’t want that trouble again. Becca didn’t blame her. It was … well, it was a hole that she had fallen into. But she had crawled out of it, too. This wasn’t the same at all. Back then, she obsessed about anything. Everything. Light switches, lampposts. Yes, she could see now that it wasn’t healthy, she’d needed help. But this time was different. She was looking into something, legitimately. A concern. A desire to protect the public. And this time, she was right.
On the screen, the soundtrack erupted into guffaws again, then a smattering of applause. Becca chuckled obediently, felt her mother’s eyes rake her face again, smiling this time. Becca slumped back in her chair, forgot about escape. She let the evening wash over her. She’d play the game her mother’s way, for once.
Chapter 16 (#ulink_672d9e9c-080f-549d-b210-3a28b3ba67f1)
