The Woman at Number 24 Read online

  Smith was a stranger. One of the undead.

  The sea bounded in, then dragged itself back out. The spume fizzed just a few metres from their feet.

  ‘I’m sure you’ve got a speech all ready,’ said Smith miserably. ‘Go on. I won’t interrupt you.’

  Sarah had plenty to say. She’d had forty-eight hours to prepare her sermon, taking care to strike the correct note of righteous anger, but now she abandoned it. It would be wretched and empty, just the way she felt.

  Two days before, sitting opposite Jane at a kitchen table that still bore a John Lewis price tag, Sarah had listened to a tale of an egg and cress sandwich.

  ‘I’d spent the morning crawling over a manor house, so I stopped at this place called Dolly’s Kitchen for lunch.’

  The waitress, a chatty girl who seemed too large and charismatic for her staid surroundings, had brought her a sandwich and a pot of tea. When she’d cleared the table, her sleeve had ridden up to reveal a tattoo of Elvis astride My Little Pony.

  There couldn’t be two of those in existence. ‘Your dead friend,’ Jane told Sarah, her eyes sad, ‘is alive and well and serving cream teas in Suffolk.’

  Sitting on the pebbles beside her dead friend, Sarah had only one real question. ‘Why, Smith?’

  ‘Because . . . because . . .’ Smith’s shoulders were around her ears. She’d always hated having to account for herself.

  ‘Why’d you leave me?’

  ‘Don’t put it like that.’ Smith scoured her eyes with her fists. More silence. This woman could teach Una a thing or two.

  There was one basic mystery Sarah needed to clear up. ‘Did you . . . did you actually have cancer?’

  A long sigh, from the very depths of Smith. ‘No.’

  Sarah exhaled, disillusioned all over again. This woman beside her disgusted her. ‘How could you lie about something that affects so many people? I thought you needed help. I thought you . . .’ Sarah petered out, unable to articulate her scorn.

  ‘Do you really want to know why?’ Smith sounded weary.

  ‘I really do.’ Sarah stood. ‘Let’s walk.’ Did Smith feel that this grumpy schoolgirl act did justice to their situation? Where the hell is my apology?

  The path stayed loyally parallel to the sea, with high rustling grasses on one side and tumbledown chalets on the other. Southwold was a charming town, but Sarah would never return.

  Smith cleared her throat. ‘That morning you found me on the sofa and asked what was up, I was ill. I felt like I was dying.’

  ‘What was really wrong, now that we know it wasn’t an astrocytoma?’

  ‘It was a hangover. Not from booze.’ Smith hung her head and eyed Sarah from beneath her fringe, like a dog that’s eaten its owner’s favourite shoe. ‘Cocaine. I had a real problem a few years back. I never told you because, well . . . because. Thought I’d whipped it, but no. Coke’s a persuasive playmate.’

  ‘Impossible. I’d know if you had a drug problem.’

  ‘I’d been clean for months on end, but the night before this random guy in a bar offered me a toot and, well, I was off. Your classic binge.’ Smith looked away. ‘So. Now you know. I’m a drug fiend.’ She pulled an ironic face.

  ‘Don’t make out I’m Queen Victoria.’ Sarah had always stepped around drugs, but she’d never pontificated about them. Leo had been partial to a few lines when they met. He’d given it up, claiming Sarah was the only stimulant he needed. ‘You could’ve told me. I’d have thrown a blanket over you and brought you a sarnie when you were up to it. You know that.’

  ‘You’re very sure about what people know, Sarah.’ Smith blinked, shook her head. ‘I never kid myself I know what people are thinking.’ She turned to her as they strolled at the deadly pace of two people going nowhere. ‘Look, I’m not like you. I’ve been rejected since I was in the womb.’ Smith’s family was constantly at war. There’d been stints in children’s homes. ‘I never take anything for granted.’

  ‘We talked about this. I thought I was helping you to trust.’

  ‘You can’t solve people. Well, you can’t solve me. I’m too far gone. I always worried that one day you’d look at me and I’d see it in your eyes. To put it another way, I wouldn’t see it in your eyes. Love. Friendship. Whatever you call it; there’d come a day when I’d wear you out and you’d give up on me, just like everybody else.’ With sour triumph, Smith said, ‘And looky here! I was right.’

  Her throat tight, her eyes full, Sarah shouted at last, the way she’d fantasised all the way down in Jane’s car. ‘That’s not fair! We’re here because you dragged us here. I’m not a saint. Do you expect me to just forgive you for faking your own death?’

  ‘Seriously, you really thought I was dead?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Sarah was spluttering. Had Smith alleviated her guilt by assuming that Sarah saw through the game? ‘I grieved for you.’ She hesitated, unsure whether to show the extent of her pain. This woman was now an enemy of sorts. But it was true, so she said it. ‘I’m still grieving for you.’ The Smith Sarah knew was dead.

  ‘Look, wring the details out of me if you like, but the bottom line is; it was a shit thing to do. But then, I am shit, Sarah.’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ said Sarah before her brain caught up with her instincts. Even after all that had happened, Sarah couldn’t allow anybody to say that about themselves.

  Smith gawped at her. ‘Don’t be nice,’ she said in a small voice. ‘I can’t do this if you’re nice.’

  She walked Sarah through the scam. None of it would have happened if Sarah had simply stayed away that morning. Smith had woken on the sofa feeling like, ‘well, death’.

  Shivering, retching, her body begging for chemical intervention, Smith hated herself. ‘I’d spent money I didn’t have taking drugs with a shower of arseholes who wouldn’t spit on me if I was dying. I didn’t want to be me. I wanted to be normal. Like you.’

  But I loved you because you weren’t normal, thought Sarah.

  ‘Then in you walked, all fresh from the shower. You actually smelled of fucking roses and there was me, squirming in my own sweat. You were nice to me. You looked worried. I couldn’t tell you the truth. I couldn’t run that risk. Shush, Sarah, I know, OK, you would’ve understood, I get it, but remember, I was off my head on class A’s and paranoid as hell. I couldn’t bear you thinking I was a skank. I needed you.’

  Huh. ‘You needed me so much you disappeared.’

  ‘I know how it looks but . . .’ Smith bit her thumbnail. It was short already, and it bled. ‘I needed your approval to feel OK about myself. Bagging that flat on Merrion Road was a fluke, but it was the only decent base I’ve ever had. I never wanted to leave! I’ve always pissed people off. I make bad situations worse. But you liked me, so, well, I couldn’t be all bad. Because you’re so . . .’ Smith scowled. ‘I hate the word “nice” but you’re nice, Sarah. Not sugary, not girly. Strong. Real. You were good to me.’

  ‘It was easy to be good to you. That’s what friends do.’ It sounded hollow; Sarah felt hollow. ‘I would never have turned my back on you.’

  ‘Don’t you understand?’ Smith’s voice rose. ‘I couldn’t believe that. I’ve never been wanted, Sarah.’

  ‘You had a different guy every weekend!’

  ‘You’re the pscyho-wotsit. Does a happy woman drag home a tourist every Saturday night?’

  ‘You called it . . .’ Sarah faltered. ‘You called it celebrating your sexuality.’

  ‘I was pretending I was loved.’ Smith seemed disappointed in Sarah.

  Which is pretty bloody ironic. ‘Whatever. Go on,’ said Sarah, weary.

  ‘It wasn’t planned, this whole thing. When I said I was ill, the look on your face, the sympathy . . . it was more addictive than the coke. I upped the stakes. Said I had cancer.’

  ‘This doesn’t make sense. You had all the info at your fingertips, as if you’d researched it.’ Smith had been convincing. Although, thought Sarah, it’s easier to be convinci
ng when somebody trusts you.

  ‘While I lay there on the sofa, coming down, wanting to die, the telly kept me company. This documentary had been on, some medical thing.’

  ‘About, let me guess, astrocytoma.’

  ‘I just said the word. It leapt out of me. I was surprised, actually, how simple it was. You never challenged me.’

  ‘Again, Smith, you sound as if it’s my fault.’

  ‘I don’t mean to. But you . . . believed everything.’ Smith had shaved her head, patchily, to mimic the side effects of chemotherapy. ‘I went on the most drastic diet ever.’ While Sarah waited in the hospital reception area, Smith had sat smoking in the grounds. Letters from doctors had been created on Smith’s ropey laptop. ‘You took them at face value.’

  ‘Did it feel good making a fool of me?’ asked Sarah, who’d surfed through anger and was now on a miserable plateau where nothing she heard would surprise her.

  ‘Never. Not for one second. The situation ran away with me. There was no way to turn it round. No off switch. All the acting . . . it was so hard to remember to be weak all the time. Then you’d try to help me and it made me feel terrible. I could hardly look at you.’

  ‘I felt you pull away,’ said Sarah. ‘I thought I was crowding you.’

  ‘Nah. I couldn’t stand the kindness. Remember how you helped me shave my head?’ She looked pained. ‘You said I looked fierce.’

  ‘Being bald suited you.’

  They shared a tentative laugh, Sarah cutting hers short. I’m not here for a cosy chat.

  ‘Look, while I’m being honest, I have to say this: I liked the attention,’ blurted Smith. ‘Cancer was a magic charm. People wanted to help. Well, most people. That bird downstairs, Lisa, wasn’t interested. And Mavis never changed.’ Smith grudgingly admired the old lady’s consistency. ‘She gave me the same dirty looks.’

  ‘Does Dr Vera exist?’

  ‘The pictures of his clinic are a yoga retreat in Ibiza that I swiped off the internet. Don’t look at me like that! Once the first fib took hold I was trapped. I went downhill, picking up speed, making up more and more outrageous stuff. It got easier and easier. The worst bit, well, one of the worst bits – there were loads of them – was when you started raising money. Do you remember I was against it?’

  ‘Mmm.’ Sarah recalled Smith’s gaunt face. It seemed like she was resigning to fate, giving up. She’d refused to let Smith accept Death’s offer to dance. She’d pushed. She’d nagged. She’d created the ‘giving’ page as a fait accompli. ‘I thought I was doing the right thing,’ she whispered.

  ‘The money made me feel guilty. More guilty. I went to sleep feeling guilty and I woke up feeling guilty. When the donations started to mount up, I realised I’d have to actually go through with it. I’d have to, well, die.’

  ‘I sat in a bath of baked beans for you.’

  Smith laughed, then put her hand to her mouth as she realised she and Sarah weren’t in harmony.

  ‘It’s not funny, Smith.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘So, Christ, it’s hard to get my head around this.’ Sarah rubbed her temples. ‘What did you do when you got to Chile?’

  Smith looked blank. ‘Eh?’

  ‘You mean you didn’t go to Chile?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘But the ticket. I bought it online myself. And the taxi . . .’ Sarah remembered how she felt, watching it go.

  ‘The ticket just went to waste. The taxi took me to the station. I got the hell out of London.’

  ‘You faked pictures of your hospital bed. And hospital food.’ Sarah didn’t try to hide her disdain. ‘Hundreds of people commented on those snaps.’

  ‘I didn’t read the comments.’

  Sarah felt ill. She put a hand to her stomach, telling it, Not now! ‘Do you know how long it took me to return all those donations?’

  ‘What?’ Smith looked amazed. ‘Why didn’t you just, I dunno, give it to charity?’

  ‘Because pensioners and children gave their money. I did it for you.’ Sorting out the money had been a last act of love. Like her father’s letter. ‘I don’t know you, Smith. You’re a stranger. My Smith is the one I sat up late with, who was funny and who cared. Who helped me cope. Who made me laugh.’

  ‘Both Smiths are me. See?’ Smith was petulant. ‘I knew you’d turn against me.’

  ‘What?’ Sarah shook with consternation. ‘Nothing could spoil our friendship, Smith. I was your wingman. But, yes, I admit it, faking your death has got me a bit bloody peeved!’

  ‘Peeved is a very you word,’ said Smith.

  Ignoring her, Sarah said, ‘I’m still getting my head around this. So, if Dr Vera didn’t exist . . .’ Sarah could see him, solid and dark-haired, in a crisp white coat with glasses. ‘That means you posted your own death notice?’

  Smith nodded. ‘That was freaky. Then I realised you’d expect a funeral.’

  ‘You say that so calmly.’

  ‘I thought you’d smell a rat when you heard the funeral was a family affair.’

  ‘You’re still not in touch with your folks?’

  ‘God, no. You?’

  ‘Nope. When did you get back from Chile?’

  ‘Sarah,’ Smith stared at her. ‘I was never in Chile, remember?’

  ‘Oh. Yeah.’ This must be how Mavis feels when the world turns too speedily for her liking.

  ‘By that time I was in a commune in Dorset. Terrible place. A funny thing happened though. I—’ About to embark on a story, Smith thought the better of it. ‘Another time,’ she murmured.

  There won’t be another time. ‘How’d you end up here?’

  ‘It’s far away from London.’ The subtext was clear: far away from Sarah. ‘I fancied the look of Suffolk on the map. Like a bum sticking out into the sea.’

  There were questions queuing, but Sarah found she didn’t need answers any more. She turned. ‘Let’s get you back to work.’

  The cafe was animated, the eponymous Dolly run off her feet. Jane’s face was a question mark as Sarah sat down opposite her, and Smith tied her apron with a determined double knot.

  ‘Everything OK?’ Jane checked out Sarah’s face like an anxious mother.

  ‘Why don’t you go on ahead? I’ll say goodbye and catch you up.’ Everything had been said, and nothing had been said at all.

  Jane paid up and left, looking back, her face intent.

  When Sarah stepped out of Dolly’s, Smith followed, holding the door ajar behind her. There was the smell of cookies in the air, the content fug of all-day tea-making.

  Another leave-taking. Sarah was glad to know that Jane was waiting in the car. ‘So, goodbye I guess,’ she said gruffly.

  ‘Want to know the worst part of it all?’ asked Smith in an urgent whisper.

  Sarah was puzzled; she hadn’t realised that any of it was an ordeal for Smith. She thought of her as a schemer, a con-woman. I assumed she half enjoyed it.

  ‘The worst part was when you handed me your dad’s letter.’

  Sarah’s lips pressed hard together.

  ‘I knew how precious it was to you. It was like you’d given me a slice of your heart. The responsibility was too much. I read it over and over. It made me cry.’

  Sarah’s words had run out.

  ‘I don’t agree with your dad, though.’ Smith glanced over her shoulder as Dolly called her name. She spoke rapidly, edging back into the cafe. ‘There isn’t something beautiful in everybody.’

  That was it. The missing piece of Smith that meant she was doomed to know the price of everything, but not the value. Sarah had often wondered, in the old days, why such a warm and lively woman had no other friends. This lack of belief in people was her fatal flaw. Sarah grabbed her arm and Smith looked her full in the face.

  ‘I see something beautiful in you,’ said Sarah. ‘I always did.’

  Smith tried to pull away, saying ‘Just go, please,’ but Sarah held on tight.

  ‘It was beautiful of you
to return the letter.’ Sarah let go and the two women regarded each other with a fierce sadness. ‘Thank you for that, at least,’ said Sarah, and she turned away.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Notting Hill, W11

  This calendar is FREE to valued customers!

  Monday 29th August, 2016

  KISSING IS LIKE DRINKING SALTED WATER: YOU DRINK AND YOUR THIRST INCREASES

  Bank Holiday Monday was the final day of carnival, its crescendo and crowning glory. Music flowered everywhere, and number twenty-four felt festive, as if it was a sunny Christmas, with steel drums instead of carols.

  The parade crawled, swinging its hips, along the map of west London, bombastically loud, then muffled, then surging back to riotous life as it turned a corner. Sarah’s toes tapped as she brushed her teeth.

  The end of August, only two days away, was a just date, no longer a deadline. It would be Sarah, not some stranger, who’d enjoy the new Nordic feel of Flat A. If I can arrange a loan. Another thought followed, hard on the heels of the first. If I can reason with Leo.

  As it was a Bank Holiday, Sarah gave her troubling thoughts about Smith the day off. They eddied in a circle, going nowhere. Discovering that Smith was alive had cut off Sarah’s mourning at its root, but a different grief persisted.

  At noon, music struck up not outside the house but within it. Helena’s ‘famous’ carnival party kicked off, and Sarah fled the uproar to find sanctuary with Mavis. As she accepted a pleasingly cold glass of something, she said, ‘If I hear one more artificial laugh from Helena’s terrace I’ll . . .’

  ‘You’ll what? Storm in and demand they stop enjoying themselves?’ When Mavis was amused she looked utterly different; younger and less wrung out. This was one of her good days. ‘Envy gives you wrinkles, Sarah.’

  ‘Why not come to the carnival with me and Jane, Mavis?’

  ‘Last year I . . .’ Mavis passed a hand over her face. ‘What did I . . . ?’

  Last year, as every year, Mavis had glowered from the front step.

  ‘Please come.’