[Anh Ngữ] Because She Loves Me - Mark Edwards (English)

[kenny0112]

BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
by MARK EDWARDS

Genre: Mystery Thriller
​

Spoiler: Chapter 11

Karen was waiting for me in the little coffee shop in Islington, as we’d arranged. She stood up when she saw me and we kissed each other’s cheeks, a habit she had picked up living in Paris in her twenties.

She looked great. Her dark hair was cut into a neat bob and she was wearing a cream cashmere sweater. I wasn’t entirely sure how old Karen was, but my guess was somewhere between thirty-nine and forty-three. She’d never had children, told me that she’d never had the urge, although her eyes took on a sad, faraway look when she said this. She spent a lot of time doing yoga and Pilates. I still found it odd that we’d had an affair – and ‘affair’ was really the only word that suited it, even though it hadn’t been illicit in any way.

‘You look well,’ she said, studying me, a smile at the edge of her lips.

‘Thanks. You too.’

‘You look like you’re in love.’

I must have blushed because she clapped her hands together and said, ‘How exciting. Who’s the lucky girl?’

I spent the next ten minutes banging on about Charlie and how amazing she was, until Karen’s eyes glazed over.

We turned to the subject of her website and discussed ideas while she showed me some sites she liked on her iPad.

Leaning towards her while she flicked between sites, I smelled her perfume and was thrust back in time to an afternoon we’d spent in bed together watching The G r a d u a t e and having *** that, not unusually, had been more like a lesson than anything else, Karen giving me gentle instructions as I went down on her: where to position my tongue, how firm, how fast, what to do with my fingers, and so on.

‘Andrew? Have you zoned out?’

‘Huh? Oh, sorry. I was just remembering something.’

She arched an eyebrow. ‘Something good?’

I definitely must have blushed this time because she winked at me and said, ‘Not the kind of thing you would want to tell your girlfriend about?’

I didn’t reply. I felt guilty enough as it was. I definitely didn’t fancy Karen anymore, and not just because the light that shone from Charlie cast all other women into shadow, but because that had been a period of my life that I wouldn’t want to return to. I was a proper grown- up now.

‘Does she know you’re here?’ Karen asked.

‘Yeah, of course. Why wouldn’t she?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Some women get funny about their boyfriends meeting up with their exes.’

‘Charlie’s not like that.’ Plus, I almost added, I wouldn’t really class you as an ex.

‘That’s good. There’s nothing that kills a relationship faster than jealousy. It’s why I split from Yuri.’ That was her long- term partner. ‘The last six months with him . . . well, I learned why they call it the green-eyed monster.’

I left a little while later, having agreed to show her a first draft the following week, and hopped on a bus to Farringdon, where I had arranged to meet Sasha.

The thing was, Charlie had been a bit weird when I told her I was meeting Karen to talk about designing a website for her.

She was getting ready for work, putting on her make-up. I loved watching her, a mug of coffee steaming in my lap, bright winter sunshine lighting up the flat.

‘What?’ she had said. ‘You mean the Karen you were telling me about? Your former lover?’

I cringed. ‘I hate that word.’

She turned from the mirror, eyeliner pencil between forefinger and thumb. ‘She wasn’t your girlfriend though, was she? You said it was purely a *** thing.’

I put my coffee down. When I had told Harriet about Karen, towards the start of our relationship, she had reacted in a way that had surprised me. She didn’t care about any of the other girls in my past, but she took an instant dislike to the idea of this older woman whom I’d slept with but who had not been a proper girlfriend. She occasionally mentioned her during arguments, when she would shout, ‘Why don’t you go back to the Old Slapper?’

So I was immediately on guard when talking about her with Charlie, though the alternative would have been hiding that I was going to meet her. I didn’t want to lie to Charlie about anything.

‘It was all in the past,’ I said. ‘You don’t have anything to worry about.’

Charlie glanced at me. ‘When people say that, it usually means you do have something to worry about.’

‘But you don’t,’ I said, somewhat lamely. I didn’t know what else to say.

‘Is she very beautiful?’ she asked, turning back to her reflection and returning to the task of applying her make- up.

‘No. Nothing like you.’

‘Not even pretty, like your cleaner?’

I sighed. ‘Don’t start that again, please.’

‘I’m only joking.’ A moment later, she shouted, ‘Fuck! Why can’t I get this eyeliner to go on straight?’
She marched into the bathroom, leaving tension crackling in the air. I sipped my coffee and wished I’d never agreed to do this work for Karen. If Charlie and I ever split up – the thought of which filled my stomach with ice – I would never tell any future girlfriends about Karen.

‘And after seeing Karen, you’re meeting Sasha,’ she said when she returned.

‘Yes.’

‘OK. Well, there’s a drinks thing on after work today. I’ll probably go to that.’

I got up to leave, kissing her goodbye. ‘Have fun,’ I said.

‘Hmm,’ she replied.

Sasha and I had a few drinks in an expensive bar in Farringdon before heading back on the train to Herne Hill, where Sasha had been invited to a housewarming party.

Sasha looked tired, with puffy eyes and the same greasy marks on her glasses that I’d noticed before. I wanted to take them off her and squirt them with washing-up liquid.

‘How are you feeling?’ I asked, as we walked up the road to the party. I had already told her about the work I was going to do for Wowcom and she had, to my relief, been delighted, especially if it meant I would be visiting her office occasionally.

‘I’m all right,’ she said brightly. A pause. ‘Actually, I feel like shit. I know he’s a come stain on the duvet of society —’

‘Nicely put.’

‘Thank you. But I was also kind of, you know, in love with him.’

‘Poor Sash,’ I said. ‘Love. It fucks you up.’

‘It sure does. Especially when the recipient of your love is married to a psychopath.’

I thought it was a little unfair of Sasha to direct her ire towards Lance’s wife. Mae was, after all, the injured party in all this. But I was Sasha’s best friend and it wasn’t my place to take anyone’s side but hers.

‘But you’re all loved up with Charlie, aren’t you? You look like the cat who got the keys to the aviary. When I am going to meet this goddess?’

‘Soon, I’m sure.’

‘Good. Because if you wait too long I will begin to suspect that she is a figment of your imagination.’

We were almost at the party now and could hear the muffled thump of music up ahead. This was an expensive, quiet street and I could imagine the neighbours being pissed off by this noisy event.

‘I’ve got a photo,’ I said. I now had a number of fully clothed pictures of Charlie on my phone, lots of shots of her smiling or posing for me in my flat. I showed my favourite to Sasha. Charlie was sitting on the edge of my bed, wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, her hair all messed up, a shy smile on her face.

‘Nice!’

‘Gorgeous, isn’t she? I can’t quite believe she wants to go out with geeky old me.’

‘You’re a good-looking guy, Andrew. You don’t realise that, which is one of the reasons you’re not a prick. But I you and Charlie look great together.’

We arrived at the house, where a girl was being sick on the front steps.

Sasha said, ‘I don’t know if I’m the mood for this. Shall we go back to mine and watch a film? I think Blair Witch is on Channel 4 tonight.’

From inside the house, ‘Blurred Lines’ started to play and somebody whooped.

‘Blair Witch sounds a lot less horrific than this party,’ I said.

We walked back to Sasha’s, which took us past the park. On the way, I told her about Charlie being followed.

‘Bit daft, walking through the park at night,’ Sasha said. ‘Oh, did you hear about Harriet?’

‘Her New Year party? You already told me.’

‘No, not that. She was burgled. Someone broke into her flat – it was last weekend.’ ‘Oh shit.’

‘I don’t think they took much, but she said they completely trashed the place. They destroyed all her old photo albums, ripped them up and poured water all over them. They smashed up her computer and emptied out all the cupboards and drawers, just totally wrecked everything. Get this: they stole all her underwear. It’s the only thing they took. Though just the nice lingerie, not the everyday stuff.’

‘That’s freaky,’ I said. ‘My God.’ ‘Yeah, she’s devastated. Gone back to her parents. Said she feels violated, you know?’

I could imagine. I made a mental note to send her an email, saying I hoped she was OK. I wondered, briefly, if any of the underwear I’d bought her was among the stuff that had been burned; if she ever still wore it. I’d bought her some Elle MacPherson lingerie, which she’d worn all the time, and had got her a set from Agent Provocateur for Valentine’s, which had cost a fortune.

Poor Harriet.

‘It’s made me take extra care when I go out,’ Sasha said. ‘I must have checked I’d locked the door about ten times before going out this morning.’

We went inside and watched the film. Halfway through I texted Charlie to say goodnight and to ask what she was doing.

She replied immediately. In bed, thinking about you. See you in the morning xxxxxx

‘Oh dear, you’ve got that look on your face,’ Sasha said. ‘Lovestruck puppy.’

And then she started to cry. I sat and held her for a while until she felt better, at which point she announced she needed to go to bed.

‘Thanks, Andrew,’ she said, as I left. ‘No worries.’

Her face was streaked with tears and there was a big damp patch on the front of my shirt.

‘You deserve it, you know,’ she said. ‘What?’

‘Happiness. I’m really glad you’ve met Charlie.’

‘Me too.’

She blew me a kiss and I started to walk home, my coat wrapped tightly around me. My flat was a fifteen-minute walk from Sasha’s.

I had just turned off the main road in order to take a shortcut through the quieter backstreets, when I heard footsteps behind me. I looked over my shoulder, a casual glance, and saw a figure in black, wearing a hood. The way they were walking – close to the walls, keeping in the shadows, their pace slowing as I turned to look – made me feel sick with nerves. I knew loads of people who had been mugged for their mobiles. It was an epidemic and I had just been walking blithely along the street staring at my iPhone in full view of any passing thief.

Or maybe it wasn’t a mugger . . . I couldn’t help but think of the person who had followed Charlie through the park, and the figure who I was convinced had been watching us that time by the lake.

I increased my pace, feeling in my pockets for weapons. I had my keys and I supposed my phone could do someone some damage if you hit them over the head with it in the right way. The person behind me – I pictured him as a muscular, wiry youth, the ‘hoodie horror’ who stalks middle-class urban nightmares – was gaining on me. I was only a few minutes from home now. I could be there in one minute if I ran. But what if the hoodie ran too and was much faster than me?

Heart thumping, I walked as fast as I could. I didn’t dare look behind me, as if doing so would invite the hoodie to jump me. I had no idea how close he was now. Maybe I should call 999, tell them I was being followed. But I clung to the hope it was all in my imagination, that the guy behind me was an innocent heading home.

I could see my flat now. My keys were in my hand, ready. I broke into a jog, stealing a glance over my shoulder. The figure was nowhere in sight. Breathing hard, I reached the front steps of my building.

Someone jumped out on me.

I cried out with fear, my body flooding with adrenaline. I put my fists up, ready to fight, every muscle in my body tensed.

‘Andrew?’ I blinked.

‘Charlie? What . . . what are you doing here?’

Blessed relief washed through me. I looked around. No sign of the person who I had been sure was following me. He must have gone into one of the other flats on my road.

‘I thought I’d surprise you,’ Charlie said. ‘You look like you’re about to have a heart attack. What’s the matter?’

I didn’t answer her question. ‘You told me you were in bed.’

She smiled impishly. ‘I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.’ She took hold of the front of my coat, pulled me against her and kissed me. I was too freaked out to respond properly but she barely seemed to notice.
‘You’re freezing,’ she said. ‘Let’s get you inside. I’ll warm you up.’

Before we went in I took one last look down the street. Where had the person following me gone?

 

[kenny0112]

BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
by MARK EDWARDS

Genre: Mystery Thriller
​

Spoiler: Chapter 12

Over the next couple of weeks, Charlie and I fell into a routine – though routine is not really the right word, as it suggests the mundane, tedium, life progressing without incident, each day another day closer to the grave. It wasn’t like that at all. Every day with Charlie was a mini adventure, even the days when we didn’t do much. She stayed at mine almost every night and the next day we would get up, have breakfast together, say goodbye as she went off to Moorfields and I settled at my computer to work, then meet up in the evening and go out to drink, watch a film or wander around London, exploring, following a book of walks Charlie had found in a charity shop that took us down river paths, across hidden marshes, through beautiful squares and into dark alleys.

Alternatively, we would spend the evening at my place, curled up on the sofa or in bed, or drinking wine in the bath. We drank a lot of wine, we watched silly TV shows and we continued to have a lot of ***. We were both insatiable, hardly able to make it from one room to another without pulling at each other’s clothes. Most nights, I would fall asleep with Charlie holding me tightly, so spent and exhausted that I thought there was no way I’d be able to do it tomorrow, that my well had run dry. But the next day, we would be at it again.

Looking back, it was like we had been gripped by a mania that went beyond the normal lustful fun that fills the early days of a relationship. I knew we couldn’t keep this up forever but, at the same time, believed that we would. We were having so much *** that I lost two or three pounds. My body looked more toned, my muscles pumped. I didn’t care about the circles that were beginning to darken beneath my eyes. Who needed sleep?

One night, lying in bed, a thought struck me. ‘You still haven’t shown me any of your art,’ I said.

‘I know. I will. But I haven’t had time to do anything lately.’ She poked my chest. ‘I’ve been distracted.’
The room was candlelit and cold outside the cocoon of the bed.

‘That makes me feel guilty. I don’t want you to stop doing what you love.’

‘You’re what I love,’ she said, her voice thick and sleepy.

‘Yes, but . . . You said you were going to do my portrait.’

There was no response. She was asleep.

The next day I had a meeting with Wowcom’s marketing director, who appeared thoroughly bored and unimpressed with everything I showed him, though Victor would call me afterwards and say, ‘You really wowed them at Wowcom.’ I could never tell if he was being sarcastic. They wanted me to keep working on the project, though, and Victor told me he had some other clients he wanted me to meet.

‘One thing,’ he said. ‘The client says your work is a little too sexy. I mean, sexy is good. Of course it’s fucking good. But this isn’t American Apparel or Playboy. You need to tone it down a ****’

I was shocked. I’d used a few risqué images: young, beautiful people entwined, kissing on beaches. It was hardly explicit but there was, I had to admit, a lot of flesh on display.

Having coffee with Sasha after my meeting with the marketing guy, I told her what Victor had said.

She snorted. ‘Sounds like your real life is seeping into your work.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Come off it, Andrew. You told me you and your flame-haired ***-bomb are like a pair of rabbits on Viagra. It’s interesting, because I would have thought that being sexually frustrated would make you more likely to produce sexy stuff. But with you it’s the other way round.’

‘I feel embarrassed.’

‘And so you should.’ She pouted, half serious. ‘I feel very neglected recently. I haven’t seen you properly for two weeks.’

‘I know. I’ve been busy.’ She gave me a look.

‘Why don’t the three of us go out. Me, you and Charlie.’

She forked some of her carrot cake into her mouth. ‘Hmm. As long as you promise to keep your hands off each other. I don’t want to be made to feel like a gooseberry.’ She laid her hand on her chest. ‘My heart is still healing, remember.’

I stole some of her cake. She jested, but I knew she was still cut up about Lance, especially as she had to work in his office every day. I also knew that she’d received a couple of threatening texts which she was certain were from Lance’s wife, Mae.

The first of these, sent in the middle of the night, read I hope you die of cancer bitch.

The second, again sent in the small hours, said I’ve got my eye on you.

I had suggested that she take them to the police. It had to be illegal to send threatening texts, but Sasha refused. ‘Number one, I don’t want to have to explain my love life to some smirking cop. Number two, I don’t think Mae would be stupid enough to send me nasty texts from her own phone. She’s probably using an unregistered pay-as-you-go.’ She had sighed. ‘All I can do is make sure I have no contact with him and wait for it to blow over.’

‘Don’t worry,’ I said now. ‘You won’t be a gooseberry. When Charlie and I went out for the day with Tilly, we barely touched each other.’

‘I admire your restraint.’

‘I’m pretty sure you’ll like her. She’ll definitely like you.’

Sasha smiled at me, her mouth stuffed full of cake. She crossed her eyes and spoke with her mouth full, icing oozing from between her lips. ‘How could she not?’

When I mentioned to Charlie that I wanted her to meet Sasha, her face fell.

‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

Charlie had come straight from work and was sitting at the little table in my living room, a glass of wine in front of her. She was leafing through an arty magazine.

‘She won’t like me.’

I sat down next to her. ‘Of course she will.’

She didn’t look up from the magazine. She turned the page to a photo-shoot in which models posed as murder victims, one stretched out in an alleyway with a slash across her throat, another tied to a chair with a plastic bag over her head.

‘Girls don’t like me.’ ‘Don’t be silly.’

‘It’s true. Especially boyfriends’ friends. They never like me.’

This sounded daft to me. Paranoid. ‘Tilly liked you.’

Charlie glanced up from her magazine. She seemed tired, lacking her usual fizz and sparkle. ‘Tilly’s your sister. She’s kind of duty bound to like me. Or at least pretend that she does.’

‘But why do you think Sasha won’t like you?’

Her mouth was a flat line. ‘You’re quite naive sometimes, Andrew. I’d like to meet Sasha. I want to get to know everyone who’s special to you. But she won’t like me.’ She went back to her magazine. ‘Just wait and see.’

After dinner, Charlie brightened. Once our food had gone down, she said she was going to freshen up and disappeared into the bathroom, then the bedroom. She was in there for a while and I could hear her singing to herself. She was actually a terrible singer but I found it endearing that she didn’t care. She was singing a Katy Perry song, humming the lines she couldn’t remember. After a while, she called for me to come into the bedroom.

I found her sitting on the bed wearing lingerie I hadn’t seen before: expensive-looking, lacy and pure white.

‘I’ve got a surprise for you.’ She nodded towards the chest of drawers. ‘We’re going to make a movie.’
A video camera sat on the chest of drawers, pointing towards the bed.

‘You mean . . . a *** tape?’

‘Uh-huh.’ She had a wicked smile on her face. ‘Something special, just for me and you. Don’t worry, I promise not to put it on YouTube. And you have to promise not to show it to anyone.’

‘I promise.’

This was exciting. I stripped to my underwear and joined her on the bed. After a long kiss, she jumped up and adjusted the focus on the camera, pressed a couple of buttons. ‘Action,’ she giggled.

I felt self-conscious at first, aware of the camera pointing at us, feeling like I was being watched not by an inanimate piece of technology but by human eyes, staring, judging. But as Charlie and I kissed and touched each other and I grew more and more aroused, I relaxed and forgot about the camera.

I think it would be accurate to say that neither Charlie nor I were in charge in the bedroom. There wasn’t one dominant party, one submissive. Sometimes, though, one of us would lead and on this occasion it was Charlie. She was the director here, and she prompted me with her lips, her tongue, her fingers. She moved her body so I would know what to do. She whispered for me to go slowly, faster, softer, harder. She ensured we were positioned so the camera could capture everything.

When we’d finished, when the tape was no longer running and we were both sated, exhausted, Charlie said, ‘I can’t wait to watch it.’

‘Hmm. Me too.’

She wriggled closer to me, warm and affectionate, her hair tickling my nose. ‘I’ve never done that before.’
I didn’t respond.

We were silent for a minute and then Charlie said, ‘Have you?’

I had been hoping she wouldn’t ask, and it would be so easy to lie. She would never find out, as I was certain the evidence had been erased and my co-star in the only other home *** movie I’d made was highly unlikely to tell. I didn’t want to lie, though, and didn’t think I had any need to.

‘Once,’ I said.

Charlie was quiet for a long time, so long that I thought she’d fallen asleep.

‘With Harriet?’ she said, just as I was about to drift off myself.

‘No. She wouldn’t have . . . She would never have wanted to do anything like that.’

From my position, with Charlie’s head on my chest, I couldn’t see her face, just the top of her head. But I could feel how tense she was. Again, I was tempted to lie. But I couldn’t.

‘It was with Karen,’ I said.

Charlie sat up rapidly. ‘I need to go to the toilet,’ she said. She almost ran out of the room, naked.

When she came back, she sat on the edge of the bed, wearing my dressing gown. ‘I want to see it.’

I had been close to dozing off again. I squinted at her. ‘What?’

‘I want to see the tape you made with her.’

‘You can’t, Charlie. It doesn’t exist anymore. We made it as a bit of a joke, using her phone, watched it – not even the whole way through, because it was too cringeworthy – and then deleted it straight away.’

‘Are you sure she hasn’t kept a copy?’

I reached out for her but she shrank away. ‘I’m certain, sweetheart. I deleted it myself. And there’s no way I’d want you to see it anyway.’

‘Why?’

‘For fuck’s sake, Charlie. If there was a tape of you having *** with another guy out there, it would be the last thing I’d want to see. Jesus.’

She didn’t respond.

‘Please, come back to bed. Don’t spoil the evening.’

But she wouldn’t move. ‘Do you ever wish you were still with her?’ she asked.

I laughed. But when I saw her expression I said, ‘You’re serious?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘You mean, leave you and go back to her?’

She nodded.

‘Why on earth would I want to do that? Karen and me – it was just a fling. It came with a built-in expiry date.’ I reached out for her. ‘We’re not like that, are we?’

Like a bubble bursting, her expression changed back to a smile. ‘Sorry. I was being an idiot.’
She slipped back beneath the quilt and cuddled up to me.

I told her that I loved her. ‘You swear?’ she said.

I laughed. ‘You want me to swear?’ She laughed too. ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

‘OK,’ I said, holding up my hand like a Boy Scout, pleased that the conversation had swerved from serious to silly. ‘On my life. On my sister’s life. I love you.’

She propped herself up on her elbows and stared at me. She had stopped smiling and I felt confused. Were we messing about or was she taking this seriously? ‘Forever?’ she said.

‘Scout’s honour,’ I replied. ‘Until the day I die.’

In the middle of the night, I woke up needing the toilet. Charlie wasn’t in the bed. I got up and went into the dark living room.

‘What are you doing?’

I walked over. She was sitting, wrapped in a towel but goose-pimply with cold, staring at the little screen on the video camera. She was watching us having ***.

She looked up at me, her face flickering in the glow of the camera.

‘We’re perfect together,’ she said in a whisper, her eyes wide like she was telling me she’d just discovered that aliens really existed or that she’d found God.

I put my arm around her and took her back to bed.

 

[kenny0112]

BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
by MARK EDWARDS

Genre: Mystery Thriller
​

Spoiler: Chapter 13

I woke up late the next morning, having forgotten to set the alarm. Charlie was buried beneath the quilt and as soon as I saw the time – 10:20 a.m. – I nudged her. ‘Charlie, you’re really late for work.’

She made a low groaning noise. ‘I’m going to call in sick. I’m too tired to move.’ She groped for her phone and called the hospital, putting on a very convincing sick voice. I was impressed.

I knew I ought to get up and do some work but with Charlie sleeping beside me, and after such a weird night, I told myself I’d catch up later.

Charlie and I had lunch together, and she was trying to decide whether to go home or stay, when my doorbell rang.

‘Postman?’ Charlie asked.

‘I don’t know.’ But as I was going down the stairs, I remembered. It was Wednesday.

‘Hello Andrew,’ Kristi said, as I opened the door. ‘Oh. What is wrong?’

‘Huh? Oh, nothing. Come in.’

‘Am I late?’ She pulled her phone out of her bag and frowned at the screen.

‘No, no – it’s me. I’d completely forgotten you were coming.’ I noticed that she had a bruise on her cheek, and the hint of a black eye. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes,’ she said firmly. ‘Why you ask?’

‘Oh. No reason.’ I didn’t want to pry into her private life. I followed her up the stairs, the smell of cigarettes wafting off her. As we entered the flat, Charlie was standing by the door, her bag on her shoulder.

‘Hello,’ Charlie said, smiling at Kristi.

This was not Charlie’s genuine smile. ‘Hello.’ Kristi turned straight to me.

‘Andrew, you want me to do my usual?’ This was ridiculously awkward. ‘Yes, of course. We’re just going out. Let me give you the money now.’

I opened my wallet. It was empty. ‘How much is it?’ Charlie asked, opening her bag.

‘Sixteen pounds for two hours,’ Kristi said, looking around. The flat was messier than usual and probably stank of *** and the cannabis we’d been smoking occasionally. The bin was full of condoms and the bed wasn’t made.

Charlie handed Kristi £20 and told her to keep the change, as I always did. Then we left her to it.
It must have been zero degrees outside, the sky heavy with the threat of snow.

‘She looks like a model,’ Charlie said. ‘Who, Kristi?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Who do you think I’m talking about? A model who’s been beaten up.’

‘Maybe she had an accident.’

‘What, she walked into a door?’

Charlie craned her neck to look up at my flat.

‘What do you think I should do?’

Charlie sighed. ‘There’s probably nothing you can do. It’s a shame, though.’ She touched her own face, staring up at the building. ‘She really is beautiful. Shame she’s being exploited.’

‘Please don’t start that one again.’

Charlie narrowed her eyes and for a moment I thought she was going to launch into another tirade. But she merely said, again, ‘It’s a shame.’

The next day, I had a meeting with Karen to show her the work I’d done on her site, after which I was due to see Victor to talk about the Wowcom project.

Karen was less than enthusiastic when I showed her the mock-ups I’d been working on – that were overdue, in fact.

‘I think it needs some work,’ she said, casting her eye over the simple white and purple design I’d created. ‘It’s a bit . . .’ She pulled a face.
I
was taken aback. I thought it looked elegant and professional. ‘But this is what you said you wanted.’
We were in the same coffee shop as before but her mood was completely different. Gone was the playfulness and ironic conversation of our last meeting. I had seen her like this before, when she was overtired or had had a run-in with her ex or a difficult client. Maybe that’s what had happened. She’d been given a hard time and was paying it forward.

‘I’m sorry Andrew, but I imagined it completely different to this. I thought it would have some more “wow.” My friend Cassie has just set up her own site. It looks better than this and she used a template she found online.’

I wondered who she’d been talking to. Had someone told her she was being ripped off?

I headed to Victor’s office in a bad mood, having agreed to re-do the work, which would mean at least another couple of days on it without any extra money. En route, I felt the need for friendly human contact, so I fired off a text to Charlie.

Fucking Karen doesn’t like the work I did – I have to do it all again. SO annoying. Xx

Charlie replied immediately. What a bitch! I’m sure the work was brilliant. You should refuse to do it. *********
No, I need the money. This is what it’s like being a freelancer but I’m sure she’s taking advantage of me. *********
I think she’s always taken advantage of you. x
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so decided to change the subject. Do you want to go out for dinner tonight? New Thai place just opened in H Hill. *********

She replied. I’m knackered. Quiet night in OK? Love you ********* PS, have you called Tilly lately, checked she’s OK? You should.

Good thinking. Quiet night in sounds good. Love you too. *********

I called Tilly. Her mobile rang out so I tried the landline.

Rachel answered.
‘You haven’t been fired then,’ I said, without thinking.

‘No thanks to you.’

Oh dear. ‘I’m sorry. She kind of forced it out of me. She knows you were just trying to help though. Anyway, I’m glad you answered. How does she seem at the moment?’

Her voice dropped a few decibels. ‘She’s all right, yes. She seems brighter. I found her crying the other day—’

‘Oh God.’

‘—but she told me I shouldn’t worry about it. She said it’s just that she misses your mum and dad sometimes. And I think she misses you too.’

Rachel had a habit of stabbing me right where I was most vulnerable. Right in the guilt glands.
‘I’ll try to come down more,’ I said.

I remembered a conversation I’d had with Tilly after I’d bought my flat. ‘So,’ she had said. ‘Did you buy a flat on the fourth floor with no lift so I wouldn’t be able to visit you? Or are you planning on setting up some kind of winch and pulley system so you can haul me up the front of the building?’

I had been mortified. It genuinely hadn’t crossed my mind, when I had bought that flat, that Tilly would never be able to visit it. I was gripped by self- loathing and vowed to visit her frequently. Of course, she had been nice about it and told me not to worry, that she knew it was a bargain and that I wouldn’t be there forever. ‘Next time, though, get a ground floor flat, eh?’

‘I’ll come down soon,’ I said to Rachel now. ‘I’m sure Charlie would like to come and see Tilly too.’
‘Hang on, she’s coming,’ Rachel hissed, and then I was exchanging pleasantries with my sister. She didn’t have much time to talk but told me, quite impatiently, that she was fine, that I didn’t need to worry about her, but that she couldn’t wait to see me and Charlie again.

‘You’ve got a good one there,’ she said. ‘Try not to fuck it up.’

In contrast to Karen’s reaction to my work, Victor was full of enthusiasm about what I’d done for Wowcom.

‘You’re on fire,’ he said. ‘Now you’ve toned down the naughtiness a **** I’ve gotta say, I never saw you as the controversial type. Must be the influence of your new bird.’ He looked me up and down. ‘You’ve lost weight too. Banging you ragged, is she? You lucky bastard.’

I didn’t know what to say.

Victor sat down on the adjacent sofa in his office.

‘Take my advice. Don’t marry her. Don’t have kids. Don’t even let her move in.’

I gestured at the large, happy family portrait on his desk: his cool-looking wife, Amanda, with her bleached blonde hair, and his tweenage son and daughter, big grins showing gappy teeth.

‘You’re telling me you’d rather have a casual girlfriend than your lovely family?’

He looked at the picture too, beaming with pride. ‘Nah, of course not. My family are everything to me. But those early days of a relationship – all that passion, the constant shagging, the lack of bickering about money and housework. Sometimes I’d like to go back to those days. Just for a week.’ He winked at me.
‘Maybe a month.’

‘Maybe you and Amanda should go away on holiday for a week, leave the kids with a babysitter.’

‘Maybe. Anyway, Andrew, there’s something I want to talk to you about.’

‘Right?’

He fixed me with his most sincere look. ‘The work you’ve done on Wowcom has been first class. Just like your work always is. I’m impressed. And I was wondering if you’d be interested in coming and working for me. Here.’

‘You mean . . . as part of the company?’

‘Yeah. We’ve got a position available: senior designer. Darren, one of our seniors, is going off travelling or something ridiculous like that. As soon as he told me, I thought of you.’

I must have looked dumbstruck as he went on, ‘You don’t have to say yes or no now. I know you like working from home – lounging about in your pyjamas all day, not having to put up with office politics or share a bog with anyone else. But, I dunno, if I were you I’d get a bit lonely.’

‘I’m not lonely,’ I said, without much conviction. I looked out through the glass wall of his office at all the cool young people – a girl in a tight T-shirt stopping to chat to a guy with a beard; a pair of blokes heading outside for a cigarette break. There was lots of serious work going on, but Victor’s staff also appeared to like it here. It was a small business that punched above its weight.

‘Don’t make a decision now,’ he said. ‘I’ll email you the job spec and details of salary and all that boring stuff.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I know you’ve only been with this bird a month or whatever, but if you are thinking it might get serious, down the road, maybe you’d be better off with something more secure than freelancing.’ Perhaps sensing he was pushing it, he added, ‘But don’t let me twist your arm. All I’m saying is, there’s a job going, I’d love you to have it, and if you’d rather stay working at home in your jim-jams then I’ll probably be able to keep chucking work your way.’

Perhaps if I wasn’t feeling so pissed off about Karen rejecting my work or if Victor hadn’t slipped that ‘probably’ into his final sentence, I might have made a different decision.

I had always worked freelance, since leaving university. Because of the money I’d had from my parents’ insurance, I hadn’t needed a student loan and I hadn’t felt pressured to find a job immediately. I’d fallen into freelance work when a friend of a friend asked me to do some work for him and it had grown from there. By the time Charlie came round, I had made up my mind. I was going to accept the offer Victor had emailed to me.

‘The money’s excellent,’ I said to Charlie. ‘And it’s secure. I won’t have to take on shitty little jobs like the one for Karen where I end up doing twice as much work as I’d originally estimated.’

Charlie sat down at the table, bottle of wine already open. Her cheeks were pink from her walk from the train station through the bitter cold. Snow was forecast for tomorrow and England was bracing itself, unprepared as usual.

‘I understand about that bit,’ she said. ‘But otherwise I think you’re mad.’

I was disappointed. I wanted her to be enthused. ‘Really? Why?’

‘You don’t know what it’s really like, working in an office. You’re so lucky being able to work here, and for yourself.’

‘But the people at Victor’s office are cool.’

She furrowed her brow.

‘Not as cool as you, obviously.’

I was trying to make her smile but her expression remained grim.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m in a bad mood. Shitty day at work.’ She sank half a glass of wine. ‘Go on, tell me all about it.’

I did, recounting the entire conversation with Victor, explaining my reasoning, telling her that I was sick of being on my own all the time.

‘Maybe I should quit my job and then we could spend the days together,’ she said.

I laughed. ‘Yeah, right.’ I was fired up with excitement. ‘It will also be great for me professionally. I’ll learn so much working for Victor, and just being around other designers.’

She looked at me over her wine glass. ‘Sounds like you’ve made your mind up already.’

My gaze slipped away from hers. It was awkward, what I was going to say. It made me uncomfortable. ‘Charlie, before I met you, I lived in a kind of self- imposed solitary confinement. I found going out into the world . . . difficult.’

I was speaking so quietly that she leaned closer, straining to hear. ‘I’ve been like that since my parents died. It’s hard . . . it’s hard to explain, but I shut down after that. Like a flower closing up.’ I illustrated this by clenching my fist. ‘Even at uni I kept to myself, studied hard, didn’t make many friends apart from Sasha. I say I fell into freelancing, but also allowed it to happen because it suited me.’

Charlie stretched out her hand to take mine.

‘But since meeting you – and I know it hasn’t been long – I feel . . . stronger. More, um, equipped to go out into the world. Like I’m finally unfurling.’ I opened my fist, fingers curling outwards. ‘It’s all thanks to you, Charlie.’

She nodded, slowly, squeezed my fingers. ‘I was the same,’ she said, ‘after I lost my parents. Like, if I’m an orphan, I ’ m really going to be an orphan, you know?’ I thought she was about to tell me more, open up about her past. But she said, ‘It’s great . . . it’s really great that you feel better, or different or whatever, because of me.’

There was an extended silence.

‘So you’ve made your mind up?’ Charlie said, startling me out of my thoughts.

‘I have. I’m going to accept. I’ll tex Victor now.’

I sent the text then held up my drink. ‘A toast? To orphans, making it in the big bad world.’

She arched an eyebrow. ‘How about just a toast to us?’

After dinner, we watched TV for a while then went to bed and made love. I suggested to Charlie that we watch our DVD, which she had edited at home and presented to me as a gift, but she said she was too tired. I drifted off.

An hour later, I woke up. Charlie wasn’t in bed.

I went into the living room, where she was sitting at the computer. This was starting to become a habit: me getting up in the night to find my girlfriend doing something in the dark in the front room.

‘Charlie?’

She didn’t respond. Getting closer, I saw that she was on Victor’s company website. Old Street Design.
Specifically she was on the ‘Meet the Team’ page, an area of the site that profiled the staff. Each person who worked there had a photo along with their name, job title and a couple of factoids: favourite cartoon character, what they wanted to be when they grew up, that kind of thing.

‘So this is who you’ll be working with,’ she said.

She scrolled up and down the page. ‘Does Victor only employ attractive young people?’

‘Not only,’ I said, feeling groggy. ‘But yeah, I guess mostly.’

She glared at the screen. ‘He should be taken to a tribunal. I if he interviewed two equally qualified women he’d give the job to the prettier one. Actually, he’d probably give the job to the prettier one even if she was less qualified.’

‘I don’t think that’s true,’ I said. ‘Why don’t you come back to bed?’

‘I wish you weren’t going to work there,’ she said.

‘You’re being stupid,’ I said. I was tired, fed up. This was the harshest thing I’d ever said to her. ‘And it’s too late now. I’ve already told Victor I’m going to accept the job.’

I went back to bed, leaving her clicking around the screen, zooming in on the images of one young, attractive woman after another.

The next morning, I woke up to find Charlie sitting on the bed holding a plate loaded with scrambled eggs and toast, a steaming mug of coffee already on the bedside table. As I pushed myself into an upright position, she handed me a folded- over piece of paper. On it she had drawn a caricature of herself, a frowning girl with a tear rolling down her cheek, an arrow pointing to her with the word IDIOT.

Inside, it said SORRY. C xxxx.

‘I love you,’ she said. ‘And I really am sorry. I know it’s a brilliant opportunity for you.’

I kissed her. ‘Why were you so weird about it?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I guess I don’t like change.’

‘But it’s change for me, not you.’

She took the plate and set it to one side. ‘Let’s leave it, can we?’

She slipped back into bed beside me. ‘I’ve got five minutes,’ she said.

 

[kenny0112]

BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
by MARK EDWARDS

Genre: Mystery Thriller
​

Spoiler: Chapter 14

I left the flat not long after Charlie had headed to work, the taste of her still on my lips. The parked cars had thick ice on the windscreens; the woman in the flat downstairs worked on hers, scraper in one gloved hand, a big can of de-icer in the other.

‘It’s going to snow,’ she said, flicking a glance towards the sky.

I looked down at my inappropriate footwear: trainers, more like plimsolls, really. I ought to go back up, change into some boots. But I couldn’t be bothered to go back up four flights, so decided to risk it.

My eyes had been bothering me, feeling dry and scratchy for the last few days, so I went to the optician’s in Brixton to get some drops. Apparently, this was a common after-effect of the kind of operation I’d had. Floaters came and went too, each one making me worry that it was going to happen again. But apart from that, I was in high spirits.

I wanted to buy Charlie a present, so I spent an hour or so browsing around the shops and exploring Brixton Market. Although she’d bought me lots of presents, I’d hardly bought her anything apart from a couple of books – a volume of love poetry and an erotic novel that we read to each other in bed – and a cuddly dog that she called Bones.

I didn’t feel confident about buying her something she’d like. In the end, I found a silver locket in a vintage shop that was probably over-priced but that I thought she’d love. I bought a silk scarf too to wrap it in.

After that, I headed on the Tube to Oxford Circus. I needed some new clothes for work. I didn’t want to turn up on the first day wearing my holey jumper and paint-splattered jeans. I was going to be working with lots of trendy kids and I wanted to fit in, though I didn’t want anything too self-consciously hip.

I was deep in thought about clothes and work and what it was going to be like on my first day – my mouth went dry when I contemplated it – but when I emerged from the Tube station into the open air I gasped.
Snow was flurrying down, flakes as big as moths spiralling towards the pavement where it attempted to cling on, only to be trampled underfoot by the crowds. It was beautiful, like a scene from a Christmas movie, and I knew that in most other, less-frenetic places across the capital, the snow would by sticking to the ground. Children would be crossing their fingers for a day off school. Trains and buses would be cancelled. The usual chaos that erupted across Britain whenever it snowed heavily would ensue. As a nation, we moaned about it but we loved it really.

I hurried into Top Shop, where Charlie and I had gone that first night. It seemed so long ago but was only, what, four weeks?

Four weeks! My relationship with Charlie had got very serious, very quickly. I was deeply, seriously in love with her, beyond lust or infatuation. Already, I couldn’t imagine a future without her. Her comment that morning – ‘I don’t like change’ – made me believe that she felt exactly the same way. I had no doubt that she liked me as much as I liked her, and that made me feel secure and happy.

Perhaps, by most people’s standards, it had moved too fast. But I really didn’t care. We felt how we felt, and it wasn’t like we were talking about eloping or even moving in together. I was, however, planning to ask her if she wanted to go on holiday at Easter, somewhere warm. I was also thinking about taking her to see my mum and dad’s graves, down in Eastbourne, the closest I could get to introducing her to my parents. Or was that too morbid? I wondered if she’d want to do the same with her own deceased parents. Things like that, the coincidence of us both being orphans – though I hated that word – made me think that our relationship was serendipitous. The same with us having such similar surnames. We were meant to be. Charlie whispered that to me all the time.

‘You know the Greek myth?’ she asked. ‘That Zeus split humans in two and that we all wander the earth looking for our lost half? Well, we’re the lucky ones, Andrew. We found our missing half, the half that makes us whole.’

In addition to embracing Greek myths, like many couples we mythologised the beginning of our relationship. If I hadn’t dropped that coin. If you hadn’t had to wait so long at the Tube station. And then Charlie had lost her phone, been unable to contact me. What if I’d met someone else during that short period? Oh, we had overcome so many obstacles to be together, laughed in Fate’s cruel face!

I mulled all this over as I explored the shops of Oxford and Regent Street. By the time I had finished shopping, the rooftops were white with snow and the pavements were slippery with slush. It seemed like lots of people were leaving work early, keen to get home before public transport shut down, keeping their fingers crossed for a snowed-in day tomorrow.

I joined the crowds pushing into the Tube station. I was already beginning to regret buying so much as I was laden with bags full of shirts and jumpers and shoes.

My pathetic trainers were soaked through, my socks damp and cold. The snow was still coming down hard.
To enter Oxford Circus station, there are several stairways that lead down from the intersection of Oxford and Regent Street. We were lined up six across to get into the station. I wondered if it would be more sensible to get a bus back to Tulse Hill. But I was caught up in the crowd now, bodies pressing behind me. It was like leaving a football match or stadium gig, everyone trying to get into the station at the same time. I hoped commuting wasn’t going to be like this or I might regret my decision.

I finally reached the front of the crowd at the top of the steps that led down into the belly of London. From in front of me I could hear shouting; someone had slipped on the concrete steps.

A voice shouted, ‘Hold up!’ from below. I stopped, allowing the stairs to clear in front of me. I was stuck in the middle of the crowd, halfway between the wall on one side and the central handrail on the other, unable to use my hands because of all the bags I was holding. I hesitated – and as I did I felt the crowd surge behind me, could hear shouting, the pedestrian equivalent of cars sounding their horns in a traffic jam, the thin veneer of civilisation being torn down by impatience and anger.

What happened next has replayed itself in my dreams many times since. I started to descend the steps, putting one soggy foot in front of the other, head down, treading deliberately and carefully.

And then I was falling, arms flailing, a whoosh of air in my belly as I went down head first, unable to stop my fall because of my full hands, and in a blur of darkness and light, I tumbled, fast, trying to grab hold of the rail, my foot jarring on a step, knee twisting, the bright flash of agony shooting up through my leg, and then I was lying on the ground at the bottom.

I remember flickers of what happened next. How most of the people in the crowd poured past and over me, so that I seriously feared I would be trampled to death. How a young black man pulled me to one side and his girlfriend fetched a couple of Underground workers, who acted like I was causing them a massive inconvenience. Then someone was asking me if I could walk. I couldn’t; my knee felt like it was on fire and the slightest pressure sent spears of pain through me. I was carried out of the station by a pair of paramedics and taken to the nearest hospital where I joined a queue of people in A&E who’d slipped in the snow, the nurses looking harassed as the walking wounded were brought in one after another.

In the chaos, I had lost my shopping bags, which concerned me even more at that point than the pain in my knee. I texted Charlie, playing down what had happened, telling her I’d see her at the flat later if she could make it round. Then, finally, I was wheeled in to see the nurse and made to wait some more for an X- ray.
‘You’ve sprained a knee ligament,’ the nurse said, eventually. ‘Nothing too serious, but you’re not going to be able to walk on it for three to four weeks. Are you on your own? Do you have someone who can come and help you get home?’

This was just like when my retina had detached. Except this time, I did have someone who could come and be with me. I called Charlie and told her what had happened.

‘Oh, Andrew! I’ll be right there.’

Two hours later I left the hospital, my swollen right leg swaddled in a tight bandage, on a pair of crutches. I had ten days’ supply of codeine, forty pills, and instructions to rest. ‘For goodness sake, don’t go out on your crutches in this snow and ice,’ the nurse said, looking at me as if she was sure that was exactly what I was intending to do.

Charlie called a minicab which took us home. My street was carpeted with snow and the taxi could barely get up the road, the driver complaining and cursing as he inched his way towards my flat, headlights illuminating the swirling snowflakes. Charlie insisted that he take me to my front door. Then came the worst part: getting up the steps, all four flights. I did it backwards, on my bum, pushing myself up, trying not to bump my leg, shards of white-hot pain exploding every time I did. By the time we reached the top I was almost in tears, sweating and shaking.

Charlie, her face etched with concern, helped me onto the sofa, pushing the coffee table away so I could sit with my leg propped up on a cushion.

‘My poor wounded soldier,’ she said.

‘I need a drink,’ I said.

‘Is that wise, with the codeine?’ ‘I don’t care. Please.’

She opened a bottle of red and I gulped down a glassful quickly. I had taken two painkillers at the hospital and they were finally kicking in.

It was so good to have her beside me.

What would I have done without her? ‘You really must be more careful,’ she said, smiling gently. ‘I’ve only just got you. I can’t bear to think of losing you.’

‘I’m sure,’ I said, ‘that someone – some bastard in the crowd behind me – pushed me.’

She looked shocked. ‘Did you see them?’

‘No. But I felt hands on my back. I’m sure I did.’ My blood chilled as I thought of it, like the snow was inside the room; inside my veins.

I looked down at the bandage on my leg. Outside the window, the snow was falling even more heavily. Four flights of stairs, and outside, the pavements were slick with ice. With a sinking heart, I realised I was trapped.

 

[kenny0112]

BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
by MARK EDWARDS

Genre: Mystery Thriller
​

Spoiler: Chapter 15

The snow didn’t stop falling for days. From Land’s End to John o’ Groats, from London to Glasgow and everywhere between, Britain shivered beneath a white shroud. I pulled a chair over to the window and watched it eddying past my window, Christmassy scenes that, under other circumstances, I would have enjoyed. The heating was cranked up, I had plenty of food and drink in the house, lots to entertain me. But I didn’t feel cosy or safe: I felt stuck, anxious, a lame polar bear at the zoo.

One of the first people I called the morning after it happened, after an uncomfortable night flat on my back, the pain in my knee keeping me awake, was Victor.

‘I’m not going to be able to start Monday.’ I told him what had happened, leaving out the part about believing I’d been pushed. I didn’t want him to think I was paranoid.

‘Ah, bollocks,’ he said. ‘Talk about the shitty end of the stick.’

We agreed that I would carry on doing freelance work from home and, to my great relief, he said I could start my new job as soon as I was able to make it in.

‘As soon as the ice and snow are gone, and I can get around on these crutches, I’ll be there.’

‘Take your time, Andrew,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’ll come round and see you, bring you some grapes.’

‘That would be great.’

‘They got you on painkillers?’ he asked.

‘Yeah. Industrial-strength codeine.’ The tablets were huge, like ones you’d give to a horse. I was supposed to take one every four hours during waking hours, but had been cheating a little and was often unable to wait the full interval, taking them every two to three hours. I wasn’t worried: I’d be able to get more from the hospital when I ran out.

‘Love that stuff,’ Victor said. ‘And what about your missus? She looking after you?’

‘Yeah, she’s coming round straight after work. Listen, Victor, I’m really sorry about all of this.’

‘Don’t worry, mate. There’s no great rush. Look at it this way: it’s a bit more time without me being your boss, after which I won’t be nice to you any more.’

He spluttered with laughter and I put the phone down, feeling a little better until a stab of pain pulsed inside my cast.

I took a codeine tablet.

‘How are you feeling?’ Charlie asked when she turned up in the early evening, her hair dotted with melting snow, carrying a small suitcase and a couple of carrier bags.

‘Frustrated,’ I said.

She gave me an exaggerated comedy wink. ‘I can sort that out.’

‘I didn’t mean that kind of frustrated. I meant I hate being stuck here, unable to go outside.’

‘I know. Did your sense of humour get knocked out when you fell down those steps?’

‘Sorry.’

She kissed me. Her lips were cold. ‘It’s OK. Now, look, I brought you some presents and I’m going to cook you dinner.’

She gave me some books, magazines and The Sopranos box set because she’d been horrified to discover I’d never watched it. Then she set about making dinner.

‘What’s with the suitcase?’ I asked, watching her chop basil and tomatoes, spaghetti waiting in the pan.

She turned to me. ‘I thought I’d better come and stay with you for a bit, look after you.’

‘That’s really sweet,’ I said. ‘But I’m not sure I like being looked after. It makes me feel like you’re mothering me or something.’

She put the knife down and came over to me. ‘Don’t be daft. I’m not going to put on a nurse’s uniform and wipe your bum for you. But you’re going to go crazy stuck in here on your own, aren’t you? I come here nearly every night anyway, so I thought it would be easier if I left some stuff here. Then I won’t have to keep going back to my place every day.’

‘All right. Thank you. I’m sorry.’ She went back into the kitchenette. ‘Did you talk to Victor?’ she asked.
I recounted our conversation and she nodded. ‘That’s good. I know your leg hurts and you hate being stuck indoors. But you should try to enjoy it. Just chill out, rest, watch The Sopranos. I wish I could take some time off work but this project is at a critical stage, fucking pain in the arse that it is.’

She turned, pointing the tip of the knife in my direction.

‘Have I told you about that dick, Michael?’ She recounted an argument she’d had with one of the consultants at the hospital, jabbing the knife forward to emphasise the parts she was most annoyed about.

‘Shit, Charlie, you look like you want to stab him.’

She looked down at the knife and smiled. ‘Hmm. If I could get away with i I’d stick this in his heart and shove him in the incinerator.’

She turned back to the worktop.

I took a sip of wine. ‘I hope I never ge on your bad side.’

She sliced a cucumber. ‘Don’t worry, handsome. You never could.’

The days bled into one another in a codeine- and boredom-induced haze. I did some work on Karen’s site, emailing the new draft to her. I tinkered with the Wowcom campaign. What else did I do? Looking back is like straining to see through misted glass, or watching a slow- moving, faded movie in which all the scenes have been chopped up and jumbled.

I watched TV. I browsed Facebook and eBay and Buzzfeed until my eyes throbbed. I tried to read, but the words wouldn’t go in and I would read the same paragraphs over and over before giving in. I waited for Charlie to come round. I tried to ignore the itching beneath the cast. A lot of the time, I slept. The codeine gave me vivid dreams that would have impressed and terrified Salvador Dali, dreams in which I floated on clouds with talking tigers, or was a member of an American street gang, mowing down motherfuckers with an Uzi. I had that Miley Cyrus song, ‘Wrecking Ball,’ stuck in my head and it went round and round and round so many times that I wanted to cut my own head off to escape it.

And all the while, the snow kept falling. In one of my codeine dreams, I imagined the snow burying the streets, reaching my fourth-floor window and causing me to mount a daring escape, gliding across the vanished city on a tea tray to rescue Charlie. Except I was the one who needed rescuing: I was Rapunzel, or that guy in Rear Window. I felt like I was going mad, and only Charlie, who came round every evening and stayed over, kept me from slipping into insanity.

‘It’s your own fault for buying that fourth-floor flat,’ Tilly said, teasing me. ‘Otherwise I’d come round and visit. I you lived on the ground floor, we could get you a wheelchair and could have races.’

‘You’d whip my arse.’

‘True dat. Oh, guess what? Rachel’s got a boyfriend. His name’s Henry and he’s a Hells Angel.’

‘Really?’

‘Actually, they’re not real Angels, are they? The Eastbourne and Pevensey Motorcycle Club.’ She sniggered.
‘You should see him. He’s about seven foot tall, with a beard almost that long, and more tats than David Beckham. Nice chap, though.’

‘That’s so sweet. Do they go out riding together?’

‘Yeah, she gives him backies.’ She laughed dirtily.

‘And what about your love life?’ I asked, somewhat tentatively.

‘You see the weather outside? Cold, bleak, no sign of a thaw? Well, it’s like that.’

‘Maybe Henry has a friend?’ I could just see Tilly in the arms of a hairy biker.

‘Oh, puh-lease.’

Talking to Tilly cheered me up. I was trying hard not to feel sorry for myself. I couldn’t help, though, thinking it was desperately unfair that I’d suffered two medical dramas within a year. My ‘eye thing,’ as Tilly called it, hadn’t kept me confined to the flat – though walking round with a gas bubble in my eye was not much fun – but it had been more worrying. I knew my leg would heal. I just had to be patient. Like Charlie urged, I tried to enjoy the downtime, and after a few days of going slightly crazy, I got a grip and spent more time being constructive, taking on a new mini-project for Victor.

I remembered that I hadn’t received any feedback from Karen about the second version of her site, so emailed her asking if she was happy with it. She didn’t reply straight away and I decided to give it a couple of days before chasing her. I felt anxious about it, and told Charlie so in an email. She asked if I wanted her to go round and ‘sort her out.’

You don’t have any boys to send round, she wrote, so I’ll do it.

I replied with a LOL.

Sasha called and texted and arranged to come round. She was finally going to get to meet Charlie, who was still adamant that Sasha wouldn’t like her but agreed it was crazy they hadn’t met yet.

‘Why are all your friends girls?’ Charlie asked after I’d set up the ‘date’ with Sasha.

‘I’ve got male friends.’ I tried not to sound indignant. ‘But most of my friends are scattered around the country or still in Eastbourne.’

‘I suppose you don’t meet that many new people, being freelance.’

‘Exactly. And what about you? You never talk about your friends at all, apart from people at work.’

She walked over to the fridge, poured herself more wine. ‘I’ve got plenty of friends . . . But I haven’t lived in London very long, have I? They’re all back home in Leeds.’

‘Do you miss them?’

She shrugged. ‘Yeah, a ****’

‘We should go up there, when I’m walking again. You can show me where you grew up, introduce me to your mates.’

‘Maybe.’

I remembered something. ‘That night we first went out, you stayed with someone in central London. Who was that?’

‘Huh?’

‘I just assumed you have a friend who lives in central London.’

‘Oh. Actually, I lied to you that night.’ I looked at her.

‘I wanted to go home with you, but knew that you’d think I was a total slut or that it was just a one-night stand. And I didn’t want the awkwardness of getting a cab to drop us off separately. So I lied.’

‘Oh.’

‘I waited five minutes then got a taxi home. Sorry.’ She leaned into me and kissed my cheek. ‘I didn’t want you to know how irresistible I found you. Do you forgive me?’

‘Yeah, of course. It’s no big deal. Though I wouldn’t have thought you were a slut, you know. I was smitten within ten minutes of meeting you.’

‘Ditto.’

The codeine was starting to wear off and I felt a twinge in my knee. I needed another pill.

‘Maybe you and Sasha will become friends,’ I said, hobbling over to the kitchen to retrieve the painkillers. I had enough for a few more days, even though I’d been taking more than I should.

‘I’ll try, Andrew,’ she said.

‘I’m sure you’re wrong about her not liking you. She’ll think you’re awesome.’

She pretended not to hear, staring at something on her phone.

I swallowed the codeine tablet.

Six days had passed since my fall and Charlie went off to work, leaving me in bed with my laptop. I had given her my keys so she could let herself in and out, and I spent most of the day sitting around looking forward to hearing the scratch of the key in the lock.

It hadn’t snowed for over twenty-four hours but, according to Charlie, the ground outside was treacherous, in need of gritting.

‘I’ve seen around ten people slip over in the last week,’ she said. ‘You’re lucky, being safely cocooned in your little flat.’

‘Don’t forget Sasha’s coming round tonight,’ I said as she left.

She rolled her eyes. ‘How could I?’

She texted me a dozen times during the morning, telling me lots of filthy things she wanted to do to me.
Shortly after lunch, the doorbell rang. Fortunately, I had remembered that Kristi was due and was up and dressed. I buzzed the door and listened as footsteps ascended the stairs.

A middle-aged woman appeared on the landing. She had frizzy hair and a face that looked like it should have been a warning picture on a cigarette packet. Wheezing, she approached me and said, ‘I cleaner.’ She handed me a card bearing the logo of the cleaning agency.

‘Where’s Kristi?’ I said, as she peered over my shoulder into flat.

She shrugged and scowled.

I led her into the flat and showed her where the cleaning stuff was. She couldn’t take her eyes off my crutches.

‘So . . . is Kristi on holiday or something?’

The woman, whose name was Maria, stared blankly at me. ‘Sorry. English, I. . .’

I was surprised by how disappointed I felt that Kristi appeared to have been replaced. Perhaps she was on holiday, but it seemed unlikely. I remembered the bruises she’d had on her face the week before. What if something had happened to her? Unable to rest, I needed to find out.

I called the agency and, after being put on hold for an interminable length of time, listening to their hold music (R. Kelly’s ‘Clean This House’), I eventually go through to a man who sounded like he’d just heard that his dog had died.

‘Kristi’s not with us anymore.’ ‘Oh. She’s left?’

A long pause. ‘I’m not allowed to give out personal information about our staff.’

‘I wasn’t asking for personal information. I just wanted to check if she would be coming back.’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Sumner, but like I said, she isn’t able to work at the moment.’

Wasn’t able?

‘Maria is one of our most experienced cleaners. I’m sure she’ll do a great job for you. But if for any reason you’re dissatisfied please get in touch.’

I hung up and listened to Maria clean my bathroom. I felt glum. I’d liked Kristi though maybe if I was honest with myself it was only because she was attractive and mysterious. She had been terrible at her job.

Maria came into the room, carrying a bin bag full of rubbish she’d collected from around the flat, a business-like expression on her face. I could read her mind: she was thinking I was a dirty boy, a pig who lived among his own mess. I flushed with shame because, if she was thinking that, she was right. Since Charlie had come into my life I’d turned into a slob.

By the time Maria had left, leaving the flat looking and smelling better than it had in months – surfaces gleaming, carpet spotless, rubbish removed and the musty smell I hadn’t even noticed banished from the air – I’d stopped worrying about my old cleaner.

 

[kenny0112]

BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
by MARK EDWARDS

Genre: Mystery Thriller
​

Spoiler: Chapter 16

When I was a kid we had a plump and loveable tabby cat named Claude, whom Tilly would carry around like a baby, dressing him in doll’s clothes, while I let him sleep on my bed and fed him pieces of contraband ham from the fridge. When Claude was getting on a bit, Tilly started pestering for a kitten. Mum and Dad compromised and got a rescue cat, a year- old neutered tom whom we called Speedy. When we introduced Speedy to Claude, the old cat hissed, arched his back and pissed on the carpet while the newcomer trembled under a chair.

When Sasha walked into the living room, where Charlie waited, hovering awkwardly by the sofa, it reminded me of that terrible introduction. They didn’t hiss or spit or soil the rug. They were civil, smiling and shaking hands in that soft way that girls do. But the atmosphere shifted in the same way, like a disturbance in the universe, stress fissures in the fabric of the air. I was tempted to hit the abort button, get Sasha out of there, but I badly wanted them to like each other, to get along.

I was sure alcohol would help.

‘Do you want wine, Sasha? White or red? Here you go.’ I hobbled over, crutch under one armpit, bottle in my free hand.

‘Charlie got this from a wine merchant near the hospital, didn’t you?’

Charlie made a ‘no big deal’ face and Sasha pulled an ‘ooh, la-di-da’ expression. The two of them exchanged chit-chat for a few minutes, about the snow, my accident – ‘He’s such a klutz,’ said Sasha – and some other stuff that I can’t remember because I was too busy wracking my brains for a topic they could bond over. They were both into music, films, books, though Charlie’s tastes were at the darker end of the spectrum, more cerebral, difficult stuff that Sasha would have called pretentious.

‘Andrew tells me you’re an artist,’ Sasha said, sitting stiffly on the edge of the sofa. She had come straight from work and was dishevelled, her hair going curly from the damp, make-up faded, a grease stain on her top. Still, this was how Sasha usually looked; it was part of her charm.

Charlie, by contrast, had just spent an hour in the bathroom and looked immaculate in a soft green dress with salon-fresh hair. I had seen Sasha flick her eyes up and down Charlie’s body in a judgmental way when she came in to the flat. I didn’t like that look; it wasn’t the kind of thing Sasha usually did, and it made me feel protective of Charlie.

‘I don’t even know if I call myself an artist anymore,’ Charlie said. ‘It’s been so long since I painted anything.’

‘What a shame.’

‘I simply don’t get time anymore.’ Sasha looked at me. ‘Yes. So I hear.’

Charlie affected ignorance of the meaning behind Sasha’s words. ‘It’s mainly because of work. It takes up all my energy, doesn’t leave much time to be creative.’

‘Sucks having to work for a living, doesn’t it?’

Charlie smiled. ‘Yes, it really does.’ ‘And Andy here—’ She never usually called me Andy. ‘Andy is going to be joining us work drones soon.’

‘Hmm.’ Charlie put her hand on my arm. ‘I think he’s crazy.’

Sasha furrowed her brow. ‘Really? It’s a great opportunity.’

‘Yes, it is,’ I said. ‘As soon as I’m off these bloody crutches . . .’

‘You need to take it easy,’ Charlie said, rubbing my arm. ‘You don’t want to rush things and aggravate the injury.’

‘Oh, he’ll be fine,’ Sasha said. ‘He’s a typical bloke, that’s all. Have you seen him with a cold yet?’

Charlie shook her head.

‘You wait. You’d think he was dying from Ebola. You should have seen him when he had his eye thing. I know it was horrible, but I’ve seen more stoic toddlers.’

‘Hey, that’s a bit unfair,’ I said.

‘I think he’s really brave,’ Charlie said. Every time she spoke to or about me, she touched me, stroking my back, squeezing my elbow. She looked at me lovingly. ‘It can’t simply be kissed better, though I’ve tried.’
Inside her head, I knew Sasha would be making vomiting noises.

‘Hey,’ Sasha said. ‘Remember that time at uni when we went on that country ramble with the bloody fell-walking club – you thought it would be fun to join but they were such a bunch of humourless wankers – and you didn’t have any proper walking boots so wore your trainers and you spent the next week moaning about your blister?’

‘Did I?’ I had a vague memory of this.

‘Yeah, you were a nightmare. Then there was that time we took E and the next day you were convinced you were going to die? You drank pints and pints of water because you’d seen something on the news about a girl who died of dehydration and you were sure you were having some sort of delayed reaction.’

‘You make me sound like a right hypochondriac.’

‘Then there was that time we—’ ‘Excuse me, but I need to sort out dinner,’ Charlie said, knocking back her wine. Sasha had finished hers too and I refilled both their glasses. I was so woozy from the codeine that I was taking it easy, had had only a couple of sips of mine.

While Charlie prepared dinner – something she had insisted she wanted to do – I sat and chatted to Sasha.

‘How’s everything going?’

‘Hmm?’ Sasha had her eyes on Charlie, whose back was to us. I wanted to tell Sasha to stop being so hostile. What was it about Charlie that she didn’t like? So far, Charlie had been polite and completely inoffensive, even if she’d been a bit OTT with the touching and comments about kissing it better. Sasha was being unreasonable. She had decided she wasn’t going to like my girlfriend before she’d even met her. She had to accept this was the woman I loved.

But I couldn’t say all this – any of it – with Charlie in the room.

‘Any news about Lance or Mae?’ I asked.

Sasha tore her eyes away from Charlie’s back. ‘Oh God, yes. I had an encounter with him at work.’ She shivered. ‘I was in the stationery cupboard, getting a new notebook, and he came in.’

‘What happened?’

She took a deep breath. There was a lull in the music and Sasha lowered her voice, talking almost in a whisper. ‘He looked horrified to see me, tried to completely frigging ignore me. But I wasn’t having that, I was so angry, like I’d been repressing it all for ages and suddenly, there he was and it all came bubbling up.’
I waited while she swallowed more wine.

‘I shut the door – you should have seen his face – and told him to tell his bitch of a wife to stop sending me messages, that if I got one more text or email from her I was going to have him up for sexual harassment. I mean, older, rich man, impressionable young woman made to believe that if she didn’t respond to his advances she’d be fired . . . I’d definitely have a case.’

‘Fucking hell,’ I said.

‘Sorry,’ Charlie said. She was standing over us. ‘I couldn’t help but overhear. I don’t think that’s a good idea.’ ‘What?’ Sasha said, her mouth staying open.

‘It will be your reputation that suffers if you do that. A friend of mine in Manchester went through the same thing. The guy ended up looking like a hero, everyone thinking he was a big stud, his wife standing by him, and the girl was made to look like an idiot. This boss of yours sounds like a disgusting creep, but perhaps you should put it down to experience and move on.’

Sasha blinked at Charlie like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. I expected an outburst, but she said, ‘I’m sorry, Charlie, but it’s none of your business.’

‘I know. I just wouldn’t want you to make a mistake.’

‘It does sound like it would end badly,’ I said, trying to work out how quickly I could end this conversation. ‘Even though he would deserve it. What did he say, anyway?’

‘He said that I should stop making threats. Then he walked out.’

Charlie had gone back over to the kitchen.

‘Maybe you should look for another job,’ I said.

Sasha shook her head vehemently. ‘No way. Why should I be the one who loses out? I’m lucky it’s so hard to get rid of employees in this country. He knows he can’t fire me without ending up in court.’

Over dinner – which was excellent as always; even Sasha admitted as much – things calmed down. We talked about safe topics: our favourite box sets, the redevelopments in Herne Hill, the price of property in London.

We talked about a film we’d all watched recently, in which a woman murdered her husband and covered it up, getting away with it in the end.

‘The perfect murder,’ Charlie said. ‘What would you do, Sasha, if you wanted to murder someone? Like your boss, for example.’

Sasha grinned. ‘Hmm . . . I don’t know. I think you’d have to make it look like a suicide. Get them to write a note at knife- point.’

‘I reckon if you wanted to murder someone, the best way to do it would be to make it look like a drug overdose,’ Charlie said. ‘Death by misadventure.’

‘You two!’ I said. ‘You’re terrible.’

As I washed up, Charlie and Sasha had a civil, though stilted, conversation about Breaking Bad. They were both one glass short of drunk and Sasha seemed a lot more relaxed than she had been. Pretty soon, she announced that she needed to go. We called a taxi, because I didn’t want her to walk home on her own in the dark.

‘Lovely to meet you,’ Charlie said, moving in for a hug, after the taxi arrived.

Sasha held back for a moment before accepting the awkward embrace.

‘I’m sure we’ll see each other soon,’ she said.

I saw Sasha out. At the front door of my flat, at the top of the stairs that I couldn’t get down without extreme difficulty, she said, ‘You really love her, don’t you?’

I was taken aback. ‘Yes. I think she’s amazing.’

Sasha looked like I’d just told her I was moving to the other side of the world.

‘She’s too good to be true,’ she said. ‘What do you mean?’ I had said these words about Charlie myself, but I didn’t believe it anymore.

Sasha frowned. ‘I don’t know. There’s something not right about her.’

‘Your taxi’s waiting.’

‘Don’t hate me for saying it,’ she said. ‘I don’t. Come on, you’re drunk. I’ll call you.’

I watched her go down the stairs, trying to keep my anger locked down. When I went back inside, Charlie said, ‘ told you.’

I wished I could tell her she was wrong but all I could do was say, ‘I’m sorry. She’s not normally like that.’

Charlie walked over to me, balancing with one crutch, and said, ‘Do you think I did something wrong?’

‘No, not at all. You were lovely, as always.’

She kissed me. ‘You’re lovely.’

The peck on the lips turned into a longer kiss, with me leaning against the wall. When Charlie broke away she was breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling.

‘Let’s go to bed.’

In the bedroom, where she had already lighted the candles, she pulled her dress up over her head while I sat on the bed and watched, unbuttoning my shirt. She was wearing red underwear, her milky skin flickering in the candlelight. She straddled me and ran her hands over my chest, kissing me again as she unbuckled my belt. Carefully, she pulled my jeans off and, kneeling on the floor, took me in her mouth, her tongue and lips so warm, gripping the base of my cock in one hand, stroking my balls with the other.

I closed my eyes, lost in bliss. She crawled onto the bed and unclipped her bra, pulling me up so I could lick her nipples, flicking my tongue across them rapidly in the way she liked.

‘I need to fuck you,’ she said, unrolling a condom onto me, positioning herself over me and guiding me into her. She rocked and rotated her hips, increasing the pace, stroking her own breasts then running her nails across my chest, panting hard, coming quickly.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, seeing my expression.

‘I can’t come,’ I whispered. ‘It’s the codeine. It numbs me.’ My penis slipped out of her.

She looked thoughtful, then reached over into the drawer and took out the little bottled of jasmine-scented massage oil, squirting some onto her breasts, rubbing it in, then turning her attention to me. She pulled off the condom and chucked it aside. Her hands were warm too, and gripped me firmly, pumping my slippery cock, fast and slow. But still I couldn’t come.

She sat up, looked like she was contemplating her next move.

Over the next hour, she tried everything. She whispered filthy words into my ear. She moved into every position I could imagine and many I couldn’t. She varied the speed and rhythm. I tried to tell her to leave it, that I didn’t need to come, that I was fine. But she wouldn’t give in. Finally, after going down on me for a long time, while I lay there half in ecstasy, half in maddened frustration, all mixed up with guilt and admiration, Charlie made me come.

She lay panting on the bed beside me, her body drenched with sweat like she’d just run a marathon.
‘I love you, Charlie.’

She got up from the bed and stood looking down at me, drinking from a glass of water, her whole body glistening. Her expression was serious as she leant towards me.

‘I love you the most,’ she said. ‘Don’t ever forget that.’

 

[kenny0112]

BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
by MARK EDWARDS

Genre: Mystery Thriller
​

Spoiler: Chapter 17

When I woke up the next morning Charlie had already gone to work, leaving a note in her neat handwriting next to the bed.

You were completely zonked out and I didn’t want to disturb you. You look so sweet and innocent when you’re asleep . . .
Last night was intensely good. I’ll call you at lunchtime.
Love you forever. C xxxxxxxxxx

I lay in bed for a while, thinking about the day ahead. I had some work to do for Victor, some additional pages for the Wowcom micro-site we were now working on. As Wowcom were potentially Victor’s biggest client, he was paying particularly close attention to my work, which added some pressure. But apart from that the day stretched out emptily. I was already looking forward to the evening and Charlie coming round.
My thoughts turned to Sasha, and the way she had acted around Charlie. It was a side of her I’d not seen before. She and Harriet got on really well and were still in touch. But the way she had behaved last night, and the stuff she had said about Charlie on the doorstep, made me not want to talk to her, not until I was less angry. I decided I’d give it a few days and then call her. I wasn’t sure what I would do if she didn’t warm to Charlie. Could I still be friends with her if she hated my girlfriend?

I dozed off and when I woke my knee was throbbing. My packet of codeine was in the bedside drawer and, to my horror, when I opened it I found I only had three left. Stupidly, I shook the packet. Three left? I was sure there were around ten, enough to get me through a couple more days. This meant I would run out before the end of the day. My skin prickled with anxiety.

I grabbed my crutches, limped into the bathroom and washed at the basin, having first gulped down one of the remaining tablets with water straight from the tap. In the living room I checked the weather outside – no snow but there was still ice on everything – then dug out the notes I’d been given at the hospital, including the phone number for the ward where I’d been treated.

I got straight through to a nurse and explained who I was.

‘Let me just find your notes.’ She had a soft Irish accent.

The line went quiet for a little while until she finally returned.

‘So, you were prescribed forty 100 mg codeine tablets, to be taken four times a day for ten days. That was eight days ago.’

‘I know. But I’ve almost run out.’

A silence at the other end. ‘You do know you’re not supposed to exceed the stated dose?’

‘I know.’ I was aware of how pathetic I sounded. I laughed nervously. ‘But the pain has been awful. I think I took too many in the first few days.’

‘Hmm. I’m sorry, but we can’t prescribe you any more.’

Cold goose bumps rippled across my flesh. ‘What?’

Her Irish accent didn’t sound so soft anymore. I had been a bad patient and she wanted me to know it. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Sumner, but we can’t let you have any more. Codeine is addictive.’

Tell me about it, I thought. ‘But . . . what am I supposed to do?’

‘If you’re still in pain I recommend Paracetamol or ibuprofen. I think ibuprofen would be better.’

‘But that’s not strong enough.’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Sumner. When are you due in to see us?’

‘In just over two weeks.’ ‘And how’s the leg?’

‘It hurts.’

She laughed and I hung up. How dare she laugh at me? If I could have stomped I would have. Instead, I limped over to my desk and sat down, prepared to write a stern email to the hospital. But by the time I’d found an email address the wind had dropped from my sails. I was OK. I didn’t hurt at the moment; the nurse was just doing her job. I had some Nurofen in the cupboard. I’d take that tonight after the codeine had all gone.

I spent the next few hours working, then sent the results to Victor. Just after lunch I noticed that the room was brighter than normal and went over to the window. The sky was blue, cloudless; the sun had returned like a hero from war. My spirits immediately lifted. If it stayed like this for a day or two, the ice would thaw and I should be able to go out again.

I switched on the TV, hoping to catch the weather forecast. I flicked to BBC News and staggered over to the kitchen to make myself lunch.

As I opened the fridge, a snatch of the news report caught my attention.

. . . young woman attacked in south- east London . . .

I walked over to the TV.

Police are appealing to anyone who might have witnessed a horrific crime in West Norwood last Friday. A young woman was seriously injured when acid was thrown into her face by an unknown assailant.

The victim, an Albanian immigrant who worked as a cleaner, is being treated at King’s Hospital. The young woman is reported to have lost the sight in one eye and to have suffered horrific burns to her face . . .

I stared at the screen.

West Norwood. That was a ten-minute walk from my flat. Albanian cleaner.

I put my hand to my mouth. It had to be her. It had to be Kristi.

 

[kenny0112]

BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
by MARK EDWARDS

Genre: Mystery Thriller
​

Spoiler: Chapter 18

‘What’s her name?’ I said aloud to the TV.

But the news moved on to something else – a story about Lucy Newton, the so- called Dark Angel, who had been slashed across the face by another prisoner – and I was left flicking around the news channels trying to find more about the cleaner.

Giving up, I turned to my computer, went onto Google News and typed ‘acid attack West Norwood’. The page filled with results.

The second result was from my local paper, The Norwood Examiner, with the headline ACID ATTACK VICTI NAMED.

Heart in mouth, I clicked the link.

Police have revealed the name of the victim in a horrific attack in West Norwood last Friday, February 9th.
Kristi Tolka, 23, is originally from Albania but now lives in Streatham Hill and works as a cleaner.

She was on her way home from work last Friday evening when she was attacked by a man who threw sulphuric acid in her face. The attack has left her blinded in one eye and with severe chemical burns to her face, neck and hands.

The attack took place on Gipsy Road at approximately 6:15 p.m. and police are appealing for witnesses.
Detective Inspector Tom Jenkins, who is leading the investigation, told the Examiner: ‘The victim has described her assailant as slim-built and of medium height. He was wearing a balaclava and a black leather jacket. She says he appeared from behind a wall, as if he was waiting for her. She believes he ran off in the direction of Norwood Road. Unfortunately, because of the poor weather, there were very few people around.’

Tolka is being cared for at King’s College Hospital and is described as being in a stable condition.

Poor, poor Kristi. I could barely imagine it: the pain, the shock, and then much worse – her face ruined, her eyesight half gone. I had watched a documentary about a model who had been attacked in the same way; in that case, as I recalled, it was an ex-boyfriend or a spurned admirer . . . I couldn’t quite remember. Was the person who had done this to Kristi the same person who had left bruises on her face? Her boyfriend, assuming she had one? Surely he must be the most likely candidate. But if the police were looking for witnesses now, almost a week after the event, it seemed that the most obvious solution wasn’t necessarily the correct one. Or was Kristi protecting this guy? When I thought about Albanians in London, I couldn’t help bu think about gangsters and people trafficking, all those clichés. Was Kristi mixed up in that somehow?
All these questions rattled through my brain. Overall, though, I mostly felt terrible sympathy for her. I wondered if I should send something – a card, flowers? As if that would do any good. Besides, I was just some bloke whose flat she cleaned once a week. She probably didn’t even know my full name.

I would ask Charlie when she came round if she thought I should send something. She would know. Women are better at that kind of thing.

I took another codeine tablet. I now had only one left but the little twitch of panic this thought invoked was, I realised, pathetic compared to what Kristi was going through.

I awoke the next day knowing that I had no codeine left. I hadn’t told Charlie that I’d run out because I didn’t want her to worry about me. We’d had a relaxing evening, eating a curry, watching a Johnny Depp film, going to bed early. She’d told me that it would be a bit weird to send anything to Kristi but that maybe I should ask the cleaning agency if they had a collection for her, which seemed like an excellent idea.
The sun was out again and although it was cold and icy outside I felt optimistic that I would be able to go outside soon. This hope helped get me through the morning, but by lunchtime the pain had crept back into my leg so I swallowed a couple of Nurofen. It took the edge off. But as I tried to work in the afternoon, I couldn’t concentrate. I felt sick and the computer screen hurt my eyes, no matter how I fiddled with the brightness controls. The inside of my head felt tight, like there were metal bands squeezing my brain, and the noise of the traffic in the distance penetrated my skull. I could feel the blood throbbing in my veins.
Codeine is addictive, I heard the nurse from yesterday say, and I realised: I was dependent. The moment this thought entered my head, even though the ibuprofen was keeping the pain mostly at bay, I needed codeine. Could think about nothing else. When I was seventeen, during my most nihilistic period following my parents’ deaths, I had taken up smoking. I smoked for only a few years but I would never forget the struggle to give up, how I had barely been able to think of anything else as the nicotine left my system.
I paced about the flat on my crutches, then went for a lie down. What now seemed like a harsh winter sun penetrated the windows, causing little dots to dance about in front of my eyes. Oh my God, I thought. My retina is detaching again. I stared at the white sheet – I had forgotten to put the bedding in the wash yesterday and it stank of sweat and semen – and tried to work out if there was a dark shadow in my eye.
Get a grip, I told myself. It’s the withdrawal, making you paranoid. I lay down and closed my eyes, remembering something with a start.

The bottle of pills Charlie had left in the bathroom cabinet – or, to be precise, the bottle that Kristi had put there along with the toiletries. That had been codeine! I jumped up from the bed, momentarily forgetting all about my sprained knee. I yelled with pain and fell onto my side. Ah, fuck. That hurt. I lay there for a moment laughing at myself. For God’s sake, man, sort yourself out.

I hauled myself up and, back on my crutches, made my way into the bathroom.

There it was, right at the back of the cabinet: the little brown bottle with codeine printed on the label.
I tipped a couple onto my palm. They looked different to the ones I’d got from the hospital. Yellow and white capsules as opposed to the little white tablets I’d been taking. I downed one, thought about it, then added the second.

I went back to the computer. I was sick of being cooped up. If I don’t get out of here soon, I thought, I’m going to lose my mind. I was in that state where I was so bored that I couldn’t make myself do anything to relieve the boredom. I wanted some chocolate, a cigarette, a drink, a wank – anything to take my mind off the crushing tedium of my daytime existence.

Instead, I browsed the web, clicking listlessly from page to page, bored but unable to stop.

I was scrolling through a list of ‘21 kangaroos having a bad day’ when I started to feel sleepy. My eyes were heavy. My whole body felt leaden. I checked the time. Four o’clock. Could I squeeze in a nap before Charlie got back?

No, I should try to stay awake. Napping during the day almost always made me feel groggier than if I fought through it.

Temporarily giving up on the holiday idea, I went onto Facebook. I decided to look at Sasha’s page, to see if she had posted anything interesting since the other night. I wanted to contact her but still felt angry and unsure of what to say to her.

Sasha hadn’t written any posts, but an old university friend of ours, Tabby, had posted a link to a story about students on our course. I read it, and then, curious, decided to see what Tabby had been up to recently. But I couldn’t see anything on her timeline. She had unfriended me.

Another one! I went through to my list of friends. I was pretty sure I’d had about 250 friends last time I’d looked. Now it was down to 210. OK, so the numbers fluctuated all the time, but to lose forty friends in a month? That was worse than careless. What had I done? I tried to remember if I’d posted anything that might be deemed offensive or controversial. No, I hadn’t. In fact, I’d barely been o Facebook since meeting Charlie. Tha must be it, I decided, feeling that heavy weariness sweep over me again. My friends were bored with my lack of updates and were culling me.

I checked the time again. Four-thirty. Had half an hour really passed? How had that happened? I rubbed my eyes. So tired. So very tired. It felt like my blood had been replaced with syrup. My brain was finding it hard to formulate thoughts. My limbs were heavy, as were my eyelids. I couldn’t feel any pain though; my legs were numb, rubbery. Charlie’s codeine was doing its job.

I pushed myself up from my chair and almost fell over. OK, I really did need to lie down. The bed was too far though. The sofa was just a few steps away. I made it and lay down.

My phone chirped. With great effort, like all my muscles had wasted away, like the air in the room was crushing me to death, I found my phone in my pocket and squinted at it. The words in the little grey speech bubble on the screen floated about but, with a Herculean force of will, I was able to make out that the text was from Karen – Karen? Who was Karen? Oh, yes, my older woman, my Mrs Robinson – and that it said Please call me urgently x

One last struggle to stay awake, to stay afloat, concentrate . . . and then I gave in.

 

[kenny0112]

BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
by MARK EDWARDS

Genre: Mystery Thriller
​

Spoiler: Chapter 19

‘Andrew. Andrew? Can you hear me?’ The voice was soft, kind. A hand on my cheek, then stroking my hair. I was rising, floating up through the dark water, breaking the surface in a froth of bubbles.

‘Mum?’

A gentle laugh. ‘No, handsome. It’s me, Charlie.’

I opened one eye, then the other. There was a sharp pain behind my eyebrows and my mouth felt like I’d been crunching on spoonfuls of sand. I was warm, too, and I looked down to see that I had a blanket over me, the thick woollen one that I kept rolled up in the top of my wardrobe. I was on my sofa.

And there was an angel smiling at me, an angel with glorious flaming hair and big intelligent eyes.

‘Andrew?’ the angel called Charlie said, tilting her head. ‘Stay with me. Don’t go—’

I slipped beneath the water again.

I woke up with Charlie kneeling on the carpet in front of me, holding a glass of water and gazing at me with concern. As soon as I opened my eyes she said, ‘Oh, thank God. Please try to stay awake this time.’

‘There are cobwebs in my head,’ I said. ‘Spiders crawling around my brain.’

She looked at me with alarm.

‘No, I don’t mean literally.’ Was this what delirium felt like? ‘I mean . . .’ I couldn’t find the words to complete the sentence.

She held out the water, told me to drink some.

‘How are you feeling?’ she asked. ‘I can’t . . . I don’t . . .’

She smiled, showing her teeth. She had a little chip on the right front tooth. Had I noticed that before? ‘OK, don’t worry. I know what it’s like.’ I must have looked confused because she said, ‘I mean, I’ve been there. When I first took Temazepam.

Oh, that’s what was in that little jar.’

It took my brain a few seconds to work out what she was talking about. ‘Not codeine?’

‘No. I put them in that jar for safekeeping. They’re sleeping pills. I’ve been carrying them round in my bag for a long time . . . a couple of years at least. I got them when I was having trouble, well, sleeping when I lived in Birmingham.’

‘You lived in Birmingham?’

‘Yes. For a short while. I had a contract there. But that’s not important. The point is that the pills came in a huge box, in foil . . . and I popped them all out and put them in an empty jar I had. I guess they must have fallen out along with that other stuff – the shampoo and whatnot. How many did you take?’

I thought about it. ‘Two.’

She shook her head. ‘No wonder you were out for so long. One is enough to knock you out for a whole night.’

‘How long was I out?’ I looked towards the window. It was light.

‘Well, I don’t know when you took them exactly, but it’s two p.m. on Friday now.’

I had taken them on Thursday afternoon. ‘Oh . . . shit. I’ve been asleep for nearly twenty-four hours.’
I sat up, my body creaking like a geriatric’s. My bladder felt like it was on fire.

‘And I’ve been here,’ she said. ‘All the time. Looking after you.’

Charlie ran me a bath and sat on the edge while I let the hot water bring my limbs back to life.

‘I called in sick,’ she said, trailing her hand through the water. ‘I didn’t want you waking up with no one here, wondering what the hell had happened.’

‘Thank you. God, I think my brain evaporated while I was asleep.’ I splashed my face and rubbed it. ‘Why did you have those pills?’

She looked away. ‘I told you. A couple of years ago, I was having trouble getting to sleep.’

I waited for her to continue. When she didn’t, I said, ‘What was wrong? Why couldn’t you sleep?’

She shrugged. ‘It was just a phase. No big deal.’

But this hoarding of her past was beginning to bother me. For once, I pushed her.

‘Come on Charlie, there’s more to it, isn’t there?’

She fidgeted. Looked all around the room like she was seeking an escape route.

‘Can you look at me?’

She drew a breath and looked at me, tight-lipped.

‘I broke up with someone,’ she said. ‘Oh.’

‘It was a difficult break-up. Very . . . unpleasant.’ Her hand in the water was motionless.

‘What was his name?’ I asked. Another long hesitation. ‘Leo.’ ‘Was he a lion?’

She smiled at last. ‘No, he was a rat. A love rat.’

‘He cheated on you?’

She stood up, went over to the basin. The mirror on the cabinet was steamed up and, as she spoke, with her back to me, she traced lines in the steam: jagged lines, slashes in the condensation.

‘He was a bastard. A total fucking bastard. He was one of those guys, always eyeing up attractive women, like I’d be sitting with him in a restaurant and his eyes would be roaming about the room, perving over anyone with a bit of cleavage showing or legs on display. Very early on in our relationship he slept with someone else when he was on a business trip. But his excuse was that we’d only been seeing each other a few weeks, he didn’t know we were exclusive, it was a meaningless shag. So I gave him another chance.’
The condensation was all gone now, so I could see Charlie’s face in the mirror, frowning.
‘That was the worst mistake . . .’

‘You ever made?’

Her eyes had gone blank, and I knew she’d gone deep inside her head, had left my bathroom and withdrawn into her memory. The tap dripped. Plink. Plink. Plink. I counted. After eleven drips, Charlie came back into the room.

‘Are you all right?’ I said.

‘Yeah. I’m sorry.’ She shook her head and smiled, like the whole topic was forgotten, like we’d been talking about our favourite chocolate or childhood TV shows. ‘Want me to join you?’

Before I could answer, she had stripped off, chucking her clothes on the floor, and jumped into the bath, and while I wanted to ask her about her ex, Leo, and the worst mistake Charlie had ever made, yet again my body took over, told my mind to shut up, stop worrying. Enjoy the ride.

I leaned on my crutch by the front window, dried and dressed. Maybe it was because of the long sleep, but my leg felt less painful today, nothing a couple of normal painkillers couldn’t cure. And although I had mild cravings for codeine, I was able to distract myself, not think about it too hard.

‘The snow and ice have all gone,’ I pointed out to Charlie, who had been in the bedroom drying her hair.

‘I know. The thaw finally arrived.’ ‘I want to go out,’ I said.

‘Are you sure that’s a good idea?’

‘I’m going completely stir crazy here. If it’s not slippery, it will be fine. You’ll just have to catch me if I fall over! Come on, I’m not going to be dissuaded.’

Ten minutes later we stood on the street, after a wobbly journey down the stairs, wrapped in our coats against a bitter wind. But the cold breeze felt wonderful, like inhaling mints, filling my lungs, making my heart beat faster, my blood pump harder.

‘Let’s go to the park,’ I said.

It was far more challenging to walk on crutches outside than in the confined space of my flat, but Charlie stayed close to me, teasing me about being a ‘poor wounded soldier.’ I soon settled in to a rhythm and when I relaxed I felt more alive than I had in two weeks, like I’d been let out of prison.

‘Well, I’m glad you haven’t been institutionalised,’ Charlie said when I told her this.

‘You have been an excellent cell-mate though.’

‘Hmm. More like a warden.’

We passed through the park gates. ‘That gives me an idea,’ Charlie said, a wicked twinkle in her eye. ‘We could play prison guard and inmate. I’ll get some handcuffs and a big stick, and you can wear a jumpsuit.’
‘Kinky.’

‘If you behave yourself, you’ll get special privileges. But if you’re naughty, if you disobey me . . .’

‘You scare me sometimes,’ I laughed.

The park was beautiful. Tree bark glistened with frost. Spidery branches were framed by the steely-blue sky. Chunks of ice floated in the lake where Charlie and I had made love, though I shivered to remember the feeling of being watched and the second-hand memory of the boy who had drowned here, on a day just like this. I stopped to give Charlie a kiss, leaning on my crutches, and we walked on, up to the big house where we bought hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows and watched some pre- school kids running about on the grass.

‘Do you like kids?’ Charlie asked. ‘Kids? Yeah, definitely. I mean, I’m not ready to have any yet, but one day. How about you?’

‘I’m pregnant,’ she said.

I spat out my hot chocolate.

‘Just kidding.’ She laughed uproariously.

‘Charlie! Don’t do that to me.’

‘Judging by that reaction, you’re definitely not ready. No, I do like kids. I sometimes have dreams where I have a little boy who has hair the same colour as mine and he’s wearing a stripy T-shirt and he holds my hand and tells me he’ll love me forever.’

‘That’s sweet.’

‘They never do though. Boys, especially. They always leave their mums.’ She watched a pair of little girls running in circles, shrieking. ‘I don’t know how I’d feel about having a daughter though.’

‘I’m sure you’d be an excellent mum.

You’re so caring and nurturing.’ She laughed. ‘Really?’ ‘Yeah. You look after me.’

She ruffled my hair. ‘You’re my little boy. You won’t leave me, will you?’

‘Never. But the little boy thing is a bit creepy.’

‘Yeah. Sorry about that.’

On our way out of the park, we passed a woman with long blonde hair, wearing an expensive-looking black coat. She could have been a model, with sharp cheekbones and huge eyes.

‘See something you liked?’ Charlie said, after the woman had passed and was out of earshot. A switch had been flicked and Charlie’s mood had changed in an instant.

‘Huh?’

‘That girl. I saw you staring at her.’

Charlie stopped walking and I was forced to stop too.

‘Staring? What are you talking about?’ ‘I saw you. Your tongue fell out of your mouth. You were practically drooling.’

‘No I wasn’t.’

She moved in front of me. ‘So tell me you weren’t staring at her.’

‘Charlie, this is ridiculous. I looked at her, sure. But . . .’

‘Looked at her?’

‘Yes, but just an, I don’t know, appraising look.’

‘Appraising?’

Her voice had grown louder and I looked around, worried someone might hear. It was embarrassing. But there was no one nearby.

‘That’s the wrong word,’ I said. ‘Charlie, this is ridiculous. You’re accusing me of what? Fancying her? Planning to track her down and . . . hobble off with her?’

‘No. But you were wishing you could be with someone like her. Instead of me.’

I was flabbergasted. ‘Charlie, I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. I have no interest in other women. None. I promise you. This is crazy.’

Her face twisted into what I can only describe as a snarl. She jabbed a finger at my chest and hissed, ‘Don’t call me crazy. I am not fucking crazy.’

And she started to cry.
‘Charlie.’ I leaned on one crutch, reached out and pulled her against me, which wasn’t easy, especially when she resisted. Her muscles were wound tight, her back as hard as rock. But then she gave in, relaxed slightly, letting me embrace her awkwardly. I whispered reassurances to her, told her I loved her and didn’t want anyone else. She apologised and promised she would stop being so stupid.

But I was worried. She’d shown a few signs of being prone to jealousy before, but not this level of irrational insecurity. I was certain I hadn’t looked at the passing woman with my tongue hanging out, as Charlie had put it. But had I stared at her, shown signs of desire without even realising it? I tried to imagine how I would feel if it was the other way round, if some gorgeous bloke walked past and Charlie had looked him up and down, shown obvious signs that she found him attractive. I wouldn’t like it, that was for sure. I wouldn’t, though, accuse her of wishing she was with him. I wouldn’t have got upset about it.

Then it struck me. The conversation in the bathroom.

‘I’m not like him, you know. Leo.’ She looked up me.

‘I’m not going to cheat on you. I’m not going to start staring at other women. I’m not like that. And it’s hard to say this without sounding corny as hell, but I’ve only got eyes for you.’

She held me tightly, the chilly wind whipping around us, her head pressed against my chest, until my leg began to ache.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s go home.’

 

[kenny0112]

BECAUSE SHE LOVES ME
by MARK EDWARDS

Genre: Mystery Thriller
​

Spoiler: Chapter 20

It was a glorious sunny winter morning, mild and bright, and I opened the windows to let some of the mustiness out. A couple of days had passed since I’d awoken from my long sleep. Maria was due that afternoon but I decided to have a pre-spring clean, to sort out some of the admin of my life.

I emailed Victor to ask if it was OK for me to start work next Monday and he replied immediately: ‘The sooner the better!’ Knowing I would soon have some regular income, I went online to buy replacements for the clothes I’d lost when I fell. The postman brought the necklace I’d ordered as a gift for Charlie, which prompted me to buy some more gifts for her: a couple of lavish art books and, remembering our conversation in the park, some handcuffs with pink fluffy bits that I thought would make her laugh.

I even managed to get through all my unread emails. I contemplated sending a message to Sasha, whom I’d had no contact with since the unsuccessful night with Charlie, but decided against it. I would leave it a few more days. I didn’t want to risk anything spoiling my good mood.

As I ate my lunch – mushroom soup that Charlie had prepared and left in the fridge for me – I felt more relaxed than I had for ages. My hibernation period was over; not just the last two weeks, stuck inside in a codeine haze, but the last fourteen years, ever since my parents’ deaths. This felt momentous. I was about to embark on a new chapter of my life. No, not a chapter – a book. Andrew Sumner: Volume 2. Or was it 3?
Whatever, it felt like things were changing. And as I went around the flat tidying up and sorting out the messy piles of DVDs and books and clothes, I though about asking Charlie to move in. I was confident she’d want to. She was here all the time and still paying rent on her own place – which I still hadn’t seen. It made sense. Or was it still too soon? It might be a good idea for me to see her place before asking her to move in. What if it was an apocalyptic mess? What if she had a collection of creepy porcelain dolls that she’d want to bring with her?

I opened the wardrobe, still mulling over these questions in an unhurried way. I began pulling out old clothes, ones that I knew I would never wear again, and bagging them up. My leg was feeling a lot better and I was able to put a little weight on it, was limping about with no crutch, though it was still something of a struggle to lug bags around. By the time I’d half- emptied the wardrobe I was sweating, and I sat down on the edge of the bed to catch my breath.

I stared into the darkness of the wardrobe. There was a niggle at the back of my mind: something was missing, or different. I got up and peered inside, realising what it was.

When I’d last sorted out the flat, shortly after splitting from Harriet, I’d put all of my memorabilia of our relationship – photos, cards, notes and postcards – into a large reinforced paper bag. This bag already contained mementoes of my previous relationships, such as they were, along with a load of other bits and pieces that I didn’t want to throw away – fliers from university nights, a couple of mysterious Valentine’s cards whose sender had never revealed herself, my degree certificate and some silly letters that Tilly had written to me while I was at college.

Beneath all this, in a bag within the bag, were other personal treasures. These were items that were too painful for me to have on display, even though the rational, lucid part of me knew it would be better, healthier if they were out there. These items included photographs of my mum, with her long red hair, and dad, mainly during his eighties fashion-disaster period, when he’d sported a moustache and glasses with oversized frames. There were family pictures too: the four of us, Tilly and me as little kids, on holiday on a beach somewhere, or with our dog, Benji, a cocker spaniel who had died when I was twelve.

Along with the photos, there were other souvenirs of my parents’ lives. Their wedding certificate (Tilly had the rings and the photo album). Cards that my mum had written to me when I was too young to read, telling me how much she loved me, how proud she was of her only son. Most precious of all, there was my baby book, in which she had recorded not just the basic information like my birth weight and time but her feelings upon meeting me, her firstborn. Stuck into this book was a picture of her and my dad holding me when I was a couple of hours old. My face was pink and puffy but they were gazing at me like I was the most beautiful thing on earth.

Although Tilly had her own mementoes, every trace of my parents that I owned was in this bag.
It was missing.

I moved aside clothes, lifted shoes, pulled boxes and folded jackets off the top shelf. Then, frantic, I pulled everything out, chucking everything on the floor, coat hangers flying, until the wardrobe was empty. I checked on top of it, behind it. Under the bed in case I’d moved it absent-mindedly. I looked inside every cupboard in the house.

It was gone. I sat on the floor of my bedroom, my good mood obliterated, replaced by a dark, cold sickness.
The doorbell rang and, slowly, I got up to answer it. When Maria came in, and saw the clothes scattered about the room, she looked at them, then at me. Huffing and puffing, she systematically set about sorting everything out, while I sat in the other room, trying not to throw up.

As soon as Charlie came round, I said ‘I’ve got something I need to ask you.’
Her eyes widened. She could tell from my face, I hope, that I wasn’t about to ask her to marry me or move in. Since discovering that my bag had gone missing, I hadn’t even thought about my idea to ask her to live with me.

‘In my wardrobe, I had a bag of stuff.’ I watched her face grow pale.

‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry, Andrew. I was hoping . . .’ She broke off. ‘I was hoping it would turn up before you noticed it was gone.’

I stared at her, conflicting feelings shooting about beneath my skin. Anger. Horror. Confusion. Even sympathy. She looked so contrite and scared.

‘What happened?’ I asked quietly.

‘I found it the other night. You know, when you were in your sleeping pill coma. I was getting that blanket out to cover you? Well, I saw the bag and I couldn’t help but look inside – I’m sorry, I know it’s your private stuff but I couldn’t stop myself. I found the pictures of your mum and dad and the cards and all that stuff. And I started to think what a shame it was that it was all just stuffed in a bag in your wardrobe.’

I got up and poured us both a glass of wine while she talked.

‘I was planning to take some of the pictures of your parents and get them framed, maybe get a few of them made into an album. But before I could sort it all out, you woke up. And then the next morning, when I was leaving, I didn’t get a chance to pick out the pictures I wanted so I took the whole bag, smuggled it out without you seeing.’

I had a horrible feeling I knew what she was going to say.

‘And on the way to work, the bus was really busy, and then the Tube was even worse, and I . . . I forgot it. I’mso sorry. I’m sick about it. I stupidly left it somewhere – I don’t even know if I left it on the bus or the train. I’ve been wracking my brains, but I was half-asleep and engrossed in the book I was reading and —’

‘Have you reported it?’

‘Yes. Of course. I’ve been ringing London Transport’s lost property office every few hours, asking if it’s been handed in. They’re getting sick of hearing from me.’

I stared into my wine. I didn’t know what to say.

Charlie grabbed my forearm. ‘Please, Andrew. Please don’t be mad with me. I feel like shit, I really do.’

‘I’m not mad,’ I said.

‘If you want to stop seeing me, I’ll understand.’

‘Don’t be silly. I’m not going to break up with you over something like this.’

She inched closer. ‘You look like you’re going to cry.’

That was exactly how I felt. All my stuff. My only connection to my parents. Gone. At least Tilly still had some things.

I could probably get copies made, even though we didn’t have the negatives of any of the pictures. Negatives – it sounded so old-fashioned. These days, if you lose a photo you just get another one printed. These ancient artefacts, pictures from the 1980s and 90s, were irreplaceable. Gone forever.

‘The guy at the lost property office said it’s likely the cleaner would have thought it was rubbish. I mean, it’s not the kind of stuff someone would steal, is it? And I’ve looked into it, thinking maybe I could go to the rubbish dump, but depending on where it was chucked out, it could have gone to one of half a dozen dumps, and they destroy stuff really quickly. Like the same day.’ ‘Oh Charlie,’ I said.

‘Do you hate me?’

‘Of course not. I just think . . . Maybe should be on my own tonight.’

She looked at me like I’d suggested that she jump into a fire. ‘You want me to go home?’

A large part of me wanted her to stay, hated not being with her. But I heard myself say, ‘Yes. I think I need to have a night to myself.’

She nodded sadly. ‘OK.’

But after she’d been to the loo and got her coat on and was standing by the front door looking as miserable as a dog who’d just been told off, her hair hanging in her eyes, I said, ‘I’ve changed my mind. Stay.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. Come on. Take your coat off. I’ll pour more wine.’

She hooked her hands over my shoulders and pressed her body against me. ‘I love you. And I’m so sorry. Do you want to go to bed?’

I peeled myself off her. ‘No. Not yet. I’m not in the right mood. Just . . . please stop saying sorry.’

‘OK.’

‘So . . .’ I took a deep breath. ‘Let me tell you what else happened today.’

That night was the first night that we didn’t have ***. Although we cuddled, we kept our underwear on. I feigned exhaustion and Charlie was soon asleep, her arms still wrapped around me.

I lay and looked at her in the semi- darkness. Her chest rose and fell, her hand twitched in her sleep. She made little murmuring noises. I loved her. There was no doubt about that. But, for the first time, I wasn’t sure if I believed her.