The Woman He Loved Before Page 16

  Everyone was shocked but not very surprised. We all clapped and smiled, but EVERYONE was worried about their jobs, you could tell. Despite what Beatrix said, I’m worried too. I think I’d be stupid not to be.

  Ophelia told everyone it was a very exciting move and that we should all do our best to make the transition as smooth as possible because we would be moving to The City. She thanked us all for our hard work and said we should pat ourselves on the back for helping to make the company such a success that a company as prestigious as the one that bought us out wanted us.

  I didn’t want to say anything but I wasn’t sure if anyone else had noticed that Ophelia didn’t tell us at any point that there wouldn’t be any job losses.

  Please God, let me keep my job.

  Eve

  25th June 1988

  Why does everything go belly up just when you think it’s all going so well? We moved offices, and Maggie and I were really involved with it all. We had to do most of the organising because even though the company had been sold they still had to get on with every-day business. Lots of people were calling in ‘sick’ – meaning going for interviews – and we’d been picking up the slack, as Maggie called it.

  Anyway, we got the move done and everything and we were all really pleased. Maggie and I had been trying to talk to Ophelia about our jobs but she just kept saying she’d look after us.

  We had to apply for our jobs again. The big firm had their own office manager and lots of assistants, so Maggie was going to have to take a demotion – which she had to apply for – and I was going to have to apply for a job that another girl on trial was also doing.

  That was two weeks ago – Ophelia kept saying she’d done her best and her hands were tied when we managed to get to speak to her. Neither of us got our jobs. Maggie was so hurt because she’d worked for Ophelia for years. I didn’t think I’d get the job because everyone knew the other girl. I worked really hard and was always first in and last out, but it made no difference.

  So there I was, with no job. Maggie was too upset to say anything much. I could tell she wanted to give Ophelia a piece of her mind but couldn’t because she needs a reference from her.

  I’ve gone to a few job agencies and they’ve been more positive than last time now that I’ve got more experience and a nice reference – which is what I think Ophelia meant when she said she’d take care of us. But it’s not as if she had anything bad to say, is it? I mean, she couldn’t exactly write, ‘Sits on her bum all day eating chocolate and burping,’ could she? I ALWAYS worked hard. So did Maggie.

  The thing is, everyone keeps telling me there’s a recession on and employers are making do without temps and aren’t really taking on new staff. I could go and sign on, but then I’d lose this flat because the landlord told me absolutely no benefits. I’ve got enough for next month’s rent but I need to get a job fast.

  About the landlord: I am soooooo stupid! I rang to tell him that I’d lost my job but I could pay the rent and he was over here like a shot – literally, less than an hour later he was at the door. He wanted to check the place over, which was fine – I haven’t done anything to it. In fact, I’m quite proud of how nicely I’ve kept it. I’ve even cleaned away all the mould and painted the bathroom again. He looked around and didn’t say anything really. Then he sat down next to me on the sofa and asked me what happened with my job. I told him, like the idiot I am, pouring my heart out to him and he was so sympathetic.

  ‘It tough out there, Eve,’ he said. ‘I no envy you trying to find a job. But I sure you get something.’ I don’t know where he’s from but my favourite thing about him is his accent and broken English.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  Then, the next thing I know, he’s only got his hand on my knee, hasn’t he? I mean, really! And then he says, ‘In meantime, we come to some kind of arrangement?’

  And I said, like the idiot I am sometimes, ‘What sort of arrangement?’ while trying to get his hand off my knee without offending him.

  And he goes, ‘Bunk-up or two once a month – rent sorted.’

  Honest to goodness, that’s exactly what he said! Well, I wanted to tell him where to stick his bunk-ups but I couldn’t, could I? I need a place to live, so I said, ‘That’s very nice of you, but I’ve got a couple of interviews lined up for tomorrow’ – I hadn’t at all – ‘so I wouldn’t want to put you out.’

  ‘Ahh, well,’ he said, not at all bothered, ‘you change mind or want extra cash, let me know.’

  He seriously expected me to call him for a ‘bunk-up’ so I could pay my rent. I’d rather live on the street.

  Why is it all so hard sometimes? Everything was ticking along really well and now this. Which means my home’s in danger. And the landlord expects me to – urgh!

  OK, I’m going to be more positive. I’m sure it’ll all turn out all right if I get out there every day and look for a job. I don’t for one second want to be in a situation where I start thinking about his offer.

  I wonder, though, how many of his other tenants have taken him up on it? Urgh, the thought of his belly jiggling away and his fat hands on your skin … I’ve only ever done it with Peter, and that’s because I loved him.

  It’s weird to think that some people not only do it when they’re not in love with someone but they do it to make money or to pay their rent. Weird and sad. I could never do that.

  Might ring Dawn and see if she can get me any cleaning shifts at her place.

  Eve

  PS With everything that’s been going on, I’d completely forgotten it was my birthday today. My mother forgot as well, it’d seem, and you’d think if there was one person who’d remember it’d be her. Happy Birthday to me.

  libby

  Butch, who has been sitting patiently beside me on the floor of the cellar, suddenly cocks his head then scampers to his feet, as he does every evening when Jack comes home.

  Is it really that late? I think as Butch bounds up the stairs to go and wait for Jack to come in. I don’t have time to tie the diaries back up in the ribbon, only to wrap them in their velvet cloth, return them to the plastic bag and then to replace them in the fireplace. I need to be careful because if I don’t put them on the ledge in the fireplace and they fall onto the floor I won’t be able to get them again without having the whole surround removed.

  From upstairs the sounds of Butch’s happy barking floats down and I pull the fireplace plate into place. Then, thinking quickly, I grab a bottle of wine and start to climb the stairs.

  Jack’s waiting for me at the top with Butch happily running in circles around his feet.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Jack asks.

  ‘Yeah, fine, why do you ask?’ I reply, avoiding eye contact and moving away from the cellar door.

  ‘You don’t usually go down to the cellar unless absolutely necessary,’ he says, still puzzled.

  I hold up the bottle of red I’d grabbed. ‘I thought I’d get us a bottle of wine to go with dinner.’

  ‘Can you drink with your tablets?’ he asks.

  ‘Probably not,’ I say, ‘but I can watch you.’

  Jack stares at me and I stare at him. My heart is racing in my chest. I’ve never really kept anything from him before; I’ve always been honest and open. This doesn’t feel right, but it’s necessary because Jack won’t tell me anything about her. And with each night that we spend in the same bed, with him thrashing about and calling for Eve, the more I believe that he is hiding something about what happened during or directly after the crash. Actually, the more I know deep inside that it isn’t trauma that is giving him nightmares: it’s guilt.

  We continue to stare at each other, both of us obviously with something to hide.

  chapter eleven

  libby

  I wake up in my bed upstairs, and for the first time in months, I am not in pain. It doesn’t hurt to shift even a little in bed. Stretching my arm out, I can feel the normal, natural pull of muscles reordering themselves after a night of sle
ep.

  I throw back the covers and smile to myself as again there is no pain. The months have flown by and my body is healing itself. A funny fluttering on my forehead reminds me that my hair has grown back. Yesterday, Angela straightened it for me and it reaches my ears now, and covers the scar. I don’t need to look in the mirror to be reminded that the scar across my face looks like nothing more than a faint thread vein, and is virtually invisible to anyone who isn’t looking.

  The radio or television is on downstairs and as the delicious, intoxicating smell of cooking bacon and eggs wafts up to me, I remember that Benji and Butch are here to stay. The smells and the chatter draw me towards the kitchen.

  At the big range cooker, a woman is cooking my porridge with the berries and apple pieces. On the wooden worktop beside the cooker, the empty porridge box gapes open and the last packet is half-crumpled. There’s none left for me. Jack and Benji are leaning over the open paper, checking the football news.

  I go to the woman at the cooker. ‘That’s my porridge,’ I say to her. ‘And you’ve used it all.’

  She turns to me, the large waves of her dark hair moving like a whisper as she smiles with her perfect mouth and unusual blue eyes. She is wearing my black pyjamas with the floro-pink piping and ‘I AM DIVINE’ emblazoned in clear rhinestones across the front. Jack bought me those pyjamas on our first Christmas together. ‘Sorry, Liberty,’ she says regretfully. ‘This is my porridge.’

  ‘No it’s not, it’s mine. No one else likes it, only me.’

  ‘Liberty, stop fighting it,’ Eve says to me. ‘This is my porridge, just like this is my house, and that is my husband and my nephew. You don’t have anything any more because you died, remember? You need to let go now. You’ll be much happier on the other side.’

  I look to the table where Jack is nodding at me, as is Benji – except it’s not Benji, it’s another boy. He is Benji’s age, but he is white with the same dark hair as Eve. I look to the dog basket beside the kitchen door and a cat sits there instead of Butch.

  ‘I’m dead?’ I ask Eve.

  ‘Yes,’ she says, gently. ‘You’re the woman he was with before.

  I’m the one he loves now.’

  ‘But you’re dead,’ I say to her.

  ‘No, you are. You were in that hideous crash, remember? You were in a coma for a while, then you slipped away. Jack met me a few years later.’

  ‘OK,’ I say to her because she sounds so convinced. And if the other two are nodding and the cat is staring at me, I must be wrong and she must be right. They can’t all be mistaken, can they? ‘If you’re sure …’

  ‘Why don’t you go back upstairs and lie down? It’ll all come to you and you’ll realise that I’m right.’

  ‘OK,’ I say, and go back upstairs to the bedroom. At least it’s still my bed in here. I climb back under the covers, pull them over me and snuggle down into the mattress. I close my eyes and go back to being de—

  I open my eyes to find Butch staring at me with his little doggie head on one side. I’m sitting at the dining table in the living room having fallen asleep with my head on the notebook in front of me. I lever myself upright, ignoring the shooting pains in my torso. Stupid could be my middle name, falling asleep like that in my condition.

  Butch is still staring at me with furry interest.

  ‘What, was I whimpering again?’ I ask him.

  He lets out a little growl-bark.

  ‘You know what?’ I tell him. ‘You try being dead in your own life in a dream and see how much whimpering you do.’

  Butch stares at me a bit longer then turns and walks away, padding into the kitchen for a slurp of water.

  Ever since I found those diaries, I haven’t been dreaming about the crash; I’ve been having this dream, about Eve. I haven’t looked at the diaries in a few days, instead I scrawl things down on pieces of paper, snatches of things I think I remember from the crash to see if they will jog my memory. It’s almost as if Eve is taunting me with the dreams because I haven’t had the guts to go back; she is reminding me that this is all, essentially, about her and that if I want to move forwards, I need to find out more.

  I’m a little scared of those diaries, if I’m honest. They are reminding me of things I’d rather forget. I know exactly what it’s like to have no source of income and to be terrified of losing your home, your dignity, your place in the world.

  When I began my PhD, my supervisor had been very supportive of the subject I was proposing, especially because it hadn’t been studied at the university before. We were both confident that I would find outside funding, that some companies would be interested in it. Very few were and the ones who were … I had one meeting with one person from a company that seemed keen, and the same thing happened to me that had happened to Eve with her landlord – I found myself with a man’s hand on my thigh, offering the funds to do whatever I wanted if I was ‘friendly’ to him.

  I’d stared into his blue-green eyes and his face – which I had thought wasn’t unattractive when we’d sat down in the meeting room to discuss my proposal – and felt revulsion as his hand edged a little higher up my thigh. Outside the room, on the other side of the door, were hundreds of people, but inside the room he felt safe enough to do this.

  ‘Are you serious?’ I’d said.

  ‘Research, and the funding to do it, is a serious business,’ he’d replied. ‘We, the potential sponsors, all need something to sweeten the pot, and you, the applicant, need to stand out from the crowd.’

  Reading Eve’s description of that moment with her landlord had churned me up inside. Had reminded me that in that split second I had asked myself, ‘Is this what I need to do to be able to get what I want?’ before I took his hand away, thanked him for his time and left.

  I realised on the way home that I’d have to stop doing my research if the only person interested in backing me wanted sex from me first. I was scared of what choice Eve had been forced to make.

  It didn’t sound as if she could go home and she was so close to the wire with money: what choice did she have? I didn’t want to read those diaries in case Eve had been forced to go the other way, and I would have to face up to what could have happened to me if I’d chosen to have sex to survive.

  But I’m being drawn back to the diaries. I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach that the answer to all my problems – from Jack’s calling for her to my memory loss after the crash – are within the relationship that she and Jack had. Have. Because it’s not over, and I need to know why.

  I return to the notepad. Once I’ve finished jotting down everything I remember, I’ll think again about the diaries. Because they are a path I’m still not sure I want to continue down.

  libby

  ‘This is all your fault, you know.’ I say to Butch. ‘If you hadn’t been scratching at the door, I wouldn’t have remembered the stupid Eve cupboard was down here and I wouldn’t be doing this.’

  He lets out a lazy, unbothered sound without even raising his head. He’s very good at adapting to the person he’s with. When he’s with Jack, or even Benji, he’s full of life and can’t stop moving, barking, jumping – with me, he is very slow and considered. Most of the time, wherever I am, he is too, almost as if he is watching over me. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he liked me, but I get the impression he feels responsible for me.

  I suppose it’s nice to have the world’s most cynical dog watching your back.

  I’ve brought a cushion down here for comfort, and a small clock so that I know when I need to finish reading by and I don’t have a close shave like last time.

  Feeling uneasy about it still, I unwrap the diaries and pull out the one I was reading.

  Flicking through the pages for where I was, I notice that she’s back, sitting on the document boxes. She’s still wearing her dress, her feet and arms are bare, but this time she is resting back on her arms, while her legs swing over the edge of the box as you would if you were dangling your feet at the end of a
pool.

  ‘Where were we?’ she says, that rich, smooth sweetness in her voice making me touch the scar on my head. I feel so lumbering and grotesque beside her, even though she is a figment of my imagination.

  She watches me as I remind myself what I look like, and shakes her head. ‘When will you get it, Libby?’ she says. ‘It’s not about you. It’s all about me.’

  I say nothing to her. Instead I concentrate on finding my place in the diary.

  ‘Oh, yes, that’s it. I’d just lost my job, I was running low on money and I was going to ring Dawn to see if they had any cleaning shifts at her place.’

  eve

  27th June 1988

  Went to see Dawn today. I rang her to see how she was doing and to ask about the job. She sounded so far away and disconnected on the phone I thought I’d go over, since I haven’t got anything else to do.

  Had such an awful shock when she eventually opened the door. She was like a skin-covered skeleton, and her face was hollowed out with huge dark circles pressed under her eyes. Her face lit up when she saw me and I felt really bad that I hadn’t been in touch all this time, especially when she had clearly been ill.

  ‘God, Eve, you look so different. Did you have a wash or something?’

  Her pyjamas were hanging off her and her indigo dressing gown – which used to be mine – was off one shoulder and almost dark with dirt. She obviously hadn’t washed it since I’d left.

  ‘Yeah,’ I laughed. ‘That, and I grew up a bit.’

  ‘Ah, must try it myself one day. The washing, not the growing up – that’s just not for me.’

  She lay on the sofa – which had been my bed for months – and I made us tea in her tiny kitchen. It was all clean and neat, and there was tea in the cupboard but no milk. That was fine because, for lots of us, I think things like milk were becoming a luxury.