on the run?’ We both laughed. ‘Maybe he still lives with his mum and dad?’
I stopped laughing. That wasn’t such a ridiculous suggestion. James did keep running off from my place at the most bizarre hours, claiming he had ‘things to do’ and ‘stuff to sort’ and, no matter how much I interrogated him, he refused to expand on his vagaries, saying instead that what he had to do was ‘dull’ and I ‘really wouldn’t be interested’.
‘Definitely married,’ Hels said when I told her that. ‘Why else would he suddenly rush off and not tell you where he’s going?’
Before she went back to work she made me swear that I’d stop ‘fannying around’ and demand that James take me to his place or I’d end the relationship. I wasn’t sure about throwing ultimatums around but I promised her I’d bring up the subject when I meet him for dinner tomorrow.
I’m sure there’s a perfectly innocuous reason why he hasn’t invited me back to his place. So why do I feel so sick?
I come to on the floor of the porch. One of my cheeks is pressed against cold tile, the other is strangely damp. I glance up to see Milly standing above me, her big, brown eyes fixed on the empty dog bowl in the corner of the porch, her tongue dripping with drool. She senses me looking at her and smiles down at me before enthusiastically licking my cheek.
‘Hello Milly Moo.’ I sit up slowly, gingerly checking my body for injuries. Nothing appears to be broken, though by the way my left temple aches, I think I’m in for a pretty impressive bruise. For a split second I assume I tripped and fell but then I spot the postcard on the floor beside me and it all comes flooding back again. The image on the front shows James Stewart sitting on a step smiling a goofy smile whilst, behind him, a shadow of an enormous rabbit is projected on the wall. It’s an image from the film Harvey. The postcard could so easily be innocuous – a simple hello from one friend to another – only there’s no chatty text on the other side of this postcard, there isn’t even an addressee. There’s just a stamp, postmarked Brighton and an address, my address.
This isn’t someone forgetting to write a postcard and slipping it into the postbox with a handful of letters by mistake. That’s the explanation Brian would come up with if I told him about it. He’d give me a look, the look, the one that says ‘you’re going to have another episode, aren’t you?’ and then he’d throw it in the bin and tell me that everything’s fine and I’m safe. Only I’m not safe, am I? Harvey was James’ favourite film. I lost count of the number of times we watched that film together.
Milly startles as I kick out at the postcard, sending it spinning and scuttling under the shoe rack. If I can’t see it then maybe I won’t think about it. Maybe I’ll be able to ignore the fact that, twenty years after I left him, James has finally tracked me down.
I try as best I can to forget about the postcard but it’s like trying to forget how to breathe. Whenever my mind pauses, whenever it’s free of thoughts about Charlotte, Brian and what to cook for dinner, it returns to the porch, peers under the shoe rack and pulls out the postcard. No matter where I am in the house it haunts me from its dark, dusty corner. I want to visit Charlotte but I’m too scared to leave the house. What if James is waiting for me? If he’s been watching the house he’ll know I’m home alone but all the doors and windows are locked – I’ve checked three times – and there’s no way for him to get in. I’ve got my mobile phone in my hands, primed and ready to key in 999 if I hear the slightest noise.
There won’t be time to call for help if I leave the house and James attacks me. If he’s hiding in the bushes opposite the front door he could get me as I get into the car or, if he’s in a car down the lane, he could follow me to the hospital and attack Charlotte. It’s been less than twenty-four hours since I last saw her and I’m already consumed by fear and guilt because I haven’t seen her today. What if, deep in her subconscious, she knows I haven’t been to visit, and it makes her retreat deeper into her coma? What if she wakes up and I’m not there? What if she dies?
For the next couple of hours I don’t know what to do with myself. I jump when the phone rings and start when the wind rattles the letter box. When there’s a knock on the front door I run up to Brian’s study and peer down from behind the curtain, only to discover the electricity man pushing a card through our letter box. What am I doing? I’m allowing the memory of James to terrify me, to stop me from visiting my own daughter. I am not ‘Suzy-Sue’ – I haven’t been her for a very long time.
I return downstairs and fish the postcard out from its dusty hiding place with the fire tongs and burn it in the fireplace in the living room. I sit on the sofa, watching as the flames lick at the corners, dance across James Stewart’s lolloping smile and then envelop him. When he and his strange rabbit sidekick have turned to dust I sweep them up.
As I pour the ashes of the postcard into the kitchen bin a new thought occurs to me. What if the postcard was meant for Oli from one of his uni friends? What if they were too stoned to notice they hadn’t put his name or a message on it and I just burnt it! What if he asks where it is? How do I explain what I just did without sounding certifiable? My hands shake as I reach for my car keys and I steady myself on the kitchen table. I drop my head to my chest and inhale slowly – one, two, three – then out again. I do it again – one, two, three – then out again. I need to be calm. I need to think clearly, otherwise I’ll have another episode. This is how they start, this is how I go from normal, sane, rational Sue to neurotic, paranoid ‘I’d better lock Charlotte in her room for the weekend because Brian is away at a party conference and BBC news has reported a child abduction in the next town’ Sue. One, two, three. One, two, three. Slowly my breathing returns to normal.
I feel calmer and happy when I return from the hospital. The knots in my shoulders disappeared the second I stepped into Charlotte’s room and saw that she was still safe, warm and being cared for. There was no change in her condition and the nurses reassured me that she hadn’t had any visitors since Brian and I were with her yesterday. There is no reason to think James has found me. The blank postcard is just that. An innocuous blank postcard, sent to us in error or mistakenly delivered by the postman. I’ve barely slept since Charlotte’s accident. I can’t sleep at night for trying to work out why she did what she did. It’s no wonder my mind goes into overdrive sometimes.
For the second time today I attach a lead to Milly’s collar and lead her out of the house. She smiles up at me, delighted to be out in the fresh air again. We only tend to walk her early in the morning and late at night so an afternoon sojourn in the spring sunshine is an unexpected treat.
Judy, Ella’s mum, opens the door with a scowl.
‘Sue?’
I force a smile. ‘Hello Judy. How are you?’
‘Fine.’
I wait for her to ask what I want. Instead I am subjected to a long slow eye sweep that starts at the top of my head with my grey roots, pauses at the wrinkles and dark circles that line my unmade-up eyes, flits over my best M&S coat and settles, unimpressed, on my comfy brown Clarks slip-ons. Judy and I were good friends until we fell out when she took both girls to get their ears pierced for Ella’s thirteenth birthday without checking with me first. In retrospect I may have overreacted but we both said some pretty ugly things and the time for mending fences is long past.
‘Great,’
