or pushing her ticket into the parking machine and pulling it out again while it spat out her change. She doesn’t care, though. She just dives inside her car and yanks the door closed, shutting the world outside, insulating herself from what she’s just done.
She throws her handbag onto the passenger seat and braces her hands on the steering wheel. It’s the only way she can get them to stop shaking.
NOW
Heather is tempted to park around the corner from her flat, even though she knows it’s a stupid idea. It won’t stop the police finding her. They might have tailed her all the way from Bromley High Street and down the hill into the depths of Shortlands. Or they could just look up her registration with the DVLA and find out where her flat is. They have computers in their cars that do that now. She’s seen them on TV.
She parks on the drive, as close to the front door as possible, then grabs her handbag and scurries into the large Victorian house. It was probably once the dwelling of a well-to-do middle-class family, but now it has been carved into three flats, nice but not particularly upmarket. Heather has her head down when she arrives in the hallway, her legs working hard to carry her to her front door as fast as possible. It’s only when she spots a pair of soft, brown desert boots in her field of vision that she stops and looks up.
‘Great,’ the owner of the boots says. ‘I was hoping I’d run into you.’
Heather tries to say something but her mouth has gone dry. ‘R-really?’ she stammers.
He smiles and nods. Even that small gesture has the power to cause her stomach to produce an Olympic-worthy somersault. Perfect tens from all the judges.
He runs his hand through hair that probably needs a cut. ‘Yeah… I’m having plumbing issues. A guy has been round to take a look, and it’s sorted for now, but he told Carlton the whole house might need seeing to, so don’t be surprised if he gets in contact.’
Heather nods. She doesn’t like Carlton, their landlord, much – he’s nosy, always wanting an excuse to get inside her flat and poke around – but she hasn’t had any issues with her water supply, so she reckons she’s probably safe for now. ‘Thanks for letting me know,’ she says quietly.
Jason puts a foot on the bottom stair, preparing to return to his first-floor flat. As he does, it breaks Heather’s trance and she remembers why she’s hurrying towards her front door, why her handbag is burning underneath her arm. She starts to move but he turns and smiles that smile again. She has to try very hard not to reach out for the cool, solid wall for support.
‘We never did get a raincheck on that coffee,’ he says, looking straight into her eyes. Usually, she finds it hard to maintain eye contact with other people, but with Jason it’s not as difficult. ‘My sisters clubbed together and bought me one of those fancy pod machines for my birthday. Don’t suppose you want to help me christen it?’
She feels as if everything inside her is straining towards him, even as she grips her handbag tighter against her body with her elbow. He must see her hesitation, because then he adds, ‘Or there’s always good old instant. I make a mean cup of instant, even if I do say so myself.’
The contents of the handbag burn hotter against her torso and she looks helplessly at him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers, ‘I can’t today…’ and then, before he can begin to unpick her shabby excuse, she turns and heads for her door. It’s only when it’s closed safely again and she’s leaning against it that she feels her pulse start to slow.
She exhales loudly. Jason Blake. He’s been living here for a few months now, and every time she bumps into him she feels like this. She thought it would wear off after a while, but if anything it’s getting worse.
She shakes her head, trying to dislodge the image of him, his long limbs relaxed and easy, his brown eyes smiling at her, and then she opens her eyes, pushes herself up so she’s bearing her whole weight on her feet again, and walks down the hallway to her living room.
Just being in here makes it easy to breathe again.
The living room of her flat is at the back of the house, leading onto a long, narrow garden that all the tenants share. She walks over to the large bay window with the French doors and stares outside. Jason moans that the garden is stuck in the 1950s. He hates the two thin flowerbeds flanking each fence, with the concrete path down one side, but Heather quite likes it. It’s soothing.
Also soothing is this room, her oasis. It has the minimum of furniture – a sofa, one armchair and a bookcase. A TV and a small dining table with a vase on it. She doesn’t believe in owning things that don’t get used regularly. They’re a waste of space and energy and emotion.
She likes the way she can stand in the middle of the room, close her eyes, and know that nothing is within touching distance. She does that now – closes her eyes – and the feeling of space, of knowing the walls are white and unmarked, that all of the books in the bookcase are perfectly lined up, that the fake hydrangea in the vase on the table will never drop a dry, dead petal, helps her to feel more like herself.
But then the handbag under her arm begins to burn again and she remembers she has one last thing to do. She walks back through the hallway (more white walls, no photos or prints to break up the space) and past the kitchen (sides swept clean of every crumb, all the teaspoons curled up behind each other in the cutlery draw), and stops outside a door.
Heather doesn’t think of this room as her second bedroom. It’s the flat’s second bedroom, foreign territory in her little kingdom. She stares at the brass knob for a few seconds. She can feel the calm she generated only a few moments ago in the living room starting to slip and slide, but she knows she has to do this. It’s the only way.
The long key sits waiting in the lock and she turns it, bracing herself against what she is about to see, against what she will try very hard not to look at before she shuts the door again, and then her hand closes around the doorknob, cold and slick, and she twists it open.
It feels as if the contents of the room are rushing towards her, as if they’re all fighting, climbing, spilling, falling over each other to reach her first. It takes all her willpower not to stagger back and run away.
From floor to ceiling, all she can see is stuff. Her mother’s stuff, crammed into the room in teetering piles. Stuff that came from her old family home, a house that Heather had not been allowed inside for years and never wanted to visit any more anyway. All this clutter is hers now, left to her in a will she didn’t even know existed and was shocked anyone was able to find. The cardboard boxes, the old suitcases, the plastic containers and carrier bags. All of it. All those things filled with stuff she doesn’t want and doesn’t care about. Just looking at it makes her want to go and take a shower.
She looks to the front of the hoard, to where there is a two-metre-square patch of carpet, holding out like a plucky little beach against the tide of belongings surging towards the door. Down on one side is a small chest of drawers. Piles of old newspapers and magazines threaten to slide off it when she tugs open the middle drawer, but she does it quickly, trying to kid herself that she’s doing it on automatic, that she’s really not taking any of this in.
The drawer is full of her guilt. She quickly pulls the tiny corduroy shoes from her bag and stuffs them inside, pushing down assorted baby hats, rompers, stuffed farm animals and blankets – all with the price tags still attached – to make room for the latest
