The Woman at Number 24 Read online

  ‘How is Nadia? After Friday, I mean?’ Sarah followed Keeley to the kitchenette where a valiant kettle boiled all day long. St Chad’s clinic ran on tea.

  ‘As you know, Nadia isn’t your case any more, so I can’t comment.’ Keeley looked away, fussing with the mugs. ‘We picked up the pieces, OK?’

  ‘Pieces I broke.’

  ‘Don’t do that sullen thing, Sarah.’ Keeley’s fuse was short; she was overworked. ‘You had a little wobble.’ She softened. Theirs was a strong working relationship. As manager of the clinic, she supervised Sarah, sitting in on her sessions once a month, a reliable sounding board. ‘We all burn out. You get back on the bike and—’

  ‘It’s more than that.’ Sarah screwed up her face.

  ‘Tell me about what really happened on Friday.’ When Keeley had finally got through to Sarah, she’d admonished her for shutting her out. Sarah had heard the beads in Keeley’s hair hiss as Keeley shook with anger. She’d given Sarah Monday off to gather herself. ‘So . . . talk.’

  In the chaotic cubbyhole that was Keeley’s office, Sarah moved files off an office chair and sat down. ‘I was in the consulting suite with Nadia. She was moody, picking her nails. Nadia always starts off like that, but I’ve worked out little ruses to relax her. There was this stupid joke I wanted to tell her. And . . .’

  ‘And?’ prompted Keeley, her voice gentle.

  Sarah had thought of little else over the weekend. She closed her eyes and tried to make Keeley understand. ‘I couldn’t do it. I had no idea what to do next. I looked at Nadia and it was like one of those dreams where you’re in charge of an aeroplane and you don’t know what all the controls are for. So I ran away.’ Sarah was ashamed of that. She’d left Nadia sitting on the leatherette chair as she wrenched the door open and dashed down the pastel corridor. The receptionist had stood up, called her name, but Sarah kept going.

  Nadia had said nothing; at seven she was already accustomed to adults letting her down. For a second, Sarah had hesitated before the revolving doors and contemplated going back to wrap Nadia in her arms and take her home. Best not share that with Keeley.

  ‘I often feel like running away.’

  Sarah ignored that; Keeley would never desert St Chad’s. ‘It was as if Nadia was on one riverbank and I was on the other. I could see her but I couldn’t reach her. I couldn’t help her. If I can’t help, then what use am I?’

  ‘Nadia’s been reassigned.’

  Sarah hated that word. It sounded as if Nadia had been tidied away. It was time to confess. ‘I can’t connect any more, Keeley.’ She saw her supervisor shift from one buttock to another, uneasy. ‘I’ve known it for a while. There’s a black hole in the centre of me and it’s eating my ability to reach out to the children.’

  As she often did, Keeley surprised Sarah with a question that felt irrelevant. ‘How’s the work on the flat going?’

  ‘Fine,’ lied Sarah.

  ‘It must be getting near your deadline. End of an era.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Does that worry you?’

  ‘A little.’ Sarah’s heart now beat to the rhythm of the countdown, each tick louder than the last.

  Compassionate but knife-sharp, Keeley subjected Sarah to one of her stares. ‘Let’s go through your recent history.’

  ‘Do we have to?’

  ‘I’m the boss, so yeah, we do.’ Keeley recited the significant events as if revising for a history exam. ‘In the past year, your husband has had an affair, the whole Smith thing came to a terrible end, Leo divorced you, then remarried, and now he lives under your nose with Helena. Or, as we like to call her, That Bitch.’ She shrugged. ‘I’d be worried if you didn’t wobble, to be honest.’

  ‘Stop calling it a wobble.’ Sarah loved Keeley for trying so hard, but facts had to be faced. She thudded her fist against her chest. ‘I don’t feel it here. There’s a blank inside me. I’m not the same as I was.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ said Keeley with feeling.

  ‘My heart’s not in it. It’s like I’m reading a textbook. We work with children, Keeley. They have the purest, simplest connection of all. How can I ask them to rely on me?’ Sarah was crying, much to her surprise. ‘How can I help them?’

  Handing her a tissue, Keeley said, ‘I hear what you’re building up to, and no, I won’t accept your resignation.’

  Wiping her nose, Sarah said, ‘You have to. I spent ages on the letter.’

  ‘You shouldn’t make major decisions in this state of mind.’

  ‘I’m a danger to the children.’

  ‘Lord help us!’ Keeley laughed a rollicking laugh. ‘Shut up, you drama queen.’ She was all bustle, keen to get on. Standing, stacking papers, she said, ‘I’m going to let you take a back seat. You know I haven’t had time to interview a replacement since what’s-her-name let us down.’ The clinic had – or should have – two people on the front desk, but the new girl had failed to turn up for work one morning and was never heard of again. ‘Take over her job. Just for a while.’ Keeley put on her glasses and looked sternly over them at Sarah. ‘While you recuperate.’ She closed her eyes and shook her head as Sarah tried to protest. The beads in her hair clacked, and settled again. ‘Don’t argue. If you’ve really lost your mojo then I’ll have to accept your resignation. The children are my priority. But try this first. We need you, Sarah.’

  June stretched like a cat, the evenings longer, the air more sweet. As Sarah dawdled down Merrion Road after work, she heard a vacuum cleaner roaring inside Flat C. On the floor above, Leo’s blinds were down. The front door was opening and two figures emerged into the light. On the kerb, a parcel delivery guy squinted up at the house.

  ‘Can’t get a reply from Flat E,’ he said, foisting a package onto Sarah.

  ‘But—’ said Sarah to his disappearing back. The man didn’t know that he’d condemned her to another conversation with Mavis.

  The figures leaving the house firmed up in the hard blast of the sun. ‘Hi Lisa!’ sang Sarah, doing Jane proud. She bent towards the little girl, whose round brown eyes were set in a moon face with a blob of nose in the centre. ‘I don’t know your name,’ she smiled.

  ‘That’s Una.’ Lisa looked down at the girl with a static face. Dark, spare and sharp-featured, she lived in a perpetual huff.

  Accustomed to reading people, Sarah found Lisa’s refusal to meet her eye unnerving. ‘Where are you off to, Una?’

  The therapeutic tone of voice, carefully shaved of excitable top notes or low notes of emotion, came easily.

  The big eyes held Sarah’s as Una fidgeted with a button on her shirred dress.

  ‘Save your breath,’ said Lisa. ‘She’s given up talking, this one.’

  ‘Really?’ Sarah was careful not to overreact, not to show Lisa that she’d hit a nerve.

  ‘Yes, really.’ Lisa’s lips were thin, her tone uptight.

  Sarah thought fast.

  It would be madness to get involved. The parallels were too stark. Empathising with the child of a single mother was one thing, but now Una’s placid face stared back like a snapshot of Sarah’s past. A past she’d been glad to leave behind.

  ‘Could you help her?’ said Lisa suddenly. ‘You know, professionally. I heard you’re a child whatsit, aren’t you?’

  ‘I am indeed a child whatsit.’ It was too close to home, in so many ways. ‘Lisa, I can’t really, it’s a bit—’

  Lisa’s scuffed face, accustomed to knock-backs, lost its light. ‘Forget I asked.’

  ‘Hang on.’ Sarah felt herself fracture; she couldn’t let a child slip through the net. ‘Of course I can help.’

  ‘Thank you,’ mouthed Lisa, blinking, grateful.

  ‘Take this card.’ Sarah rummaged through the slurry of receipts and wrappers in her bag.

  Lisa grabbed it, greedily scanning the details.

  ‘Tell him I sent you. He’s one of the best.’

  Lisa dropped her eyes. ‘I thought you’d . . . OK. Ta.’

&n
bsp; ‘Call him!’ Sarah repeated as Lisa tugged Una down the path. She watched them both until they were lost from sight, knowing the little face would remain with her all evening. At St Chad’s, when Sarah despaired of making a difference, Keeley reminded her ‘we can’t save everybody’. She told herself that Una would be OK. Things would work out. I was OK, thought Sarah. Eventually.

  She could have left Mavis’s parcel on the hall table, but her weapons-grade conscience forced her downstairs. From within Flat E, Peck made hoarse threats. ‘And you, mate,’ muttered Sarah, jumping back as the door flew open. Half expecting to see a man-sized cockatoo, she was relieved that it was only Mavis.

  ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘Nothing. Just . . .’ Sarah held out the package.

  ‘That was kind of you,’ said Mavis.

  Taken aback by Mavis’s civility, Sarah was as mute as Una.

  ‘Was there anything else?’

  The tiny blue eyes were so vivid, so quick, that Sarah found herself staring, seeing for the first time the ruins of beauty in Mavis’s face.

  Behind his owner, Peck bobbed indignantly on his perch, his own eyes – two suspicious raisins – also fixed on Sarah. ‘Fool,’ he cried, fanning out the immaculate white feathers on his head. ‘Scrawny cow.’

  ‘How are you, Mavis?’ Sarah had to ask. This woman, however crotchety, had just lost her sister.

  ‘How,’ replied Mavis, ‘do you think I am?’

  ‘I think you’re feeling low. There may be shock. Many people feel anger, or even guilt.’

  ‘Guilt?’ Mavis spat the word. ‘Why guilt?’

  ‘It’s only natural,’ said Sarah. ‘When my father died—’

  ‘My situation’s nothing like that.’ Quivering, furious, Mavis stepped back, the dark fog of her flat lapping at her outline.

  ‘Of course not, no.’ Wrong-footed, Sarah regretted throwing Mavis a lifebelt; the old bat had thrown it back, and tried to concuss her with it. ‘I’m sorry, I—’

  The door was half closed, but those blazing eyes were still on Sarah’s. There was anger there, without a doubt, but Sarah perceived something else. The letter piped up again and despite Sarah’s misgivings she applied the magic formula. Mavis was, first and foremost, lonely. ‘Look, it’s silly you being on your own down here and me on my own up there, so why don’t I make us both something to eat and we can—’

  The door slammed so resoundingly that the brass letter ‘E’ fell off and bounced on the stained carpet.

  ‘Leopards. Spots,’ said Sarah to herself as she took the stairs.

  The official term for Flat A was ‘work in progress’, but a more honest description was ‘Ground Zero’.

  It had been a sound notion to knock through from the sitting room to the cell-sized third bedroom, but now the hole gaped like a wound. Ragged squares of paint colours – aqua, coral, and a daring red – framed the gap.

  The bare bones of Sarah’s home were classic, with the original windows and all-important ‘flow’ that interiors magazines drool over. The kitchen had the window seat she’d dreamed about as a child. In theory, the second bedroom doubled as a dressing room, which sounded luxurious but which was in reality a camp bed and a clothes rail.

  Her own bedroom, the ‘master’, was strenuously simple, a respite from the anarchy of the other rooms. Just a bed with a silk cover the colour of pistachios. A muslin square tacked over the window softened the sunshine to golden talc.

  Their plan had been to flip it.

  ‘How have you never heard that term before?’ Leo had been in love with Sarah back then, and found her ignorance enchanting. ‘It means we buy a neglected flat in a good area. We set a strict budget and refurbish it quickly with all the current must-haves. Let’s say, a dressing room, an en suite, a range cooker. Then – bam! – we sell. In and out. Big profit. Move on and do it again. Soon we’ll have enough to buy that dream house of yours.’

  Before Leo, the dream house had been just that, a dream. With him, it felt achievable. It would have a garden, and open fires. It would be full of cushions and books. Sarah didn’t want a mansion; she wanted a home.

  Instead, she was marooned in a failed flip, staring at a workload that had been ambitious for two. For one it was daunting. Sarah changed into the baggy overalls she wore every evening. She put her hands on her hips and said, ‘Right!’ out loud.

  Then she said, ‘Yeah!’

  After that she said, ‘Let’s go!’

  Long menus had the same effect on Sarah. Faced with too much choice she could never decide between an omelette and a full roast dinner. There was so much to do in the flat she was paralysed.

  It didn’t help that she was a novice. She’d relied on Leo to know about things like grouting, or spirit levels. She had two spirit levels and used one of them as a paperweight.

  The deadline was set in stone. It had to be met. It was now mid-June, and by the end of August the flat had to be a clean, blank canvas for the next owner. Both a whip and a carrot, the deadline merely added to the paralysis.

  It’ll be good to move on, Sarah told herself, picking idly through a toolbox, looking for sandpaper. The sitting-room door needed to be painted, which meant it first had to be sanded down; every project involved at least two or three steps, she’d discovered. Moving on, the healthy thing to do.

  A new home, probably a new job. It was the thought of a new man that revealed the flaws in her optimism. Sarah had one foot in her marriage; everything had happened so fast she’d been left spinning while everybody else got used to the new order. She was still Leo’s, even if he was no longer hers.

  Sarah bought a lottery ticket every week, hoping to win enough to buy Leo’s half of the property. The lottery had so far yielded nothing, and Sarah had no obligingly frail rich aunts who might die and leave her a fortune.

  She applied the rectangle of sandpaper to the panelled door. It was easy at first, swiping it over the wood, but soon her fingers were sanded too, and the repetitive movement put a strain on her arm. The rhythm and the sssh-sssh hypnotised her. Her mind wandered.

  A creature of habit, Sarah’s mind always wandered to the same place. Hours had been lost to standing with a tool in her hand, staring into space.

  Sarah had tried to hate Leo. Hatred was the sensible option, but Sarah couldn’t think of him as the real Leo. The new model was so different to the one she’d met seven years ago it must be suffering a malfunction.

  The real Leo had been the first man to properly excite Sarah. There’d been school boyfriends she’d tolerated, enduring football-based chat in order to get to the snogging part of the evening. In her twenties there’d been handsome man-boys who’d left her cold when their lips locked. But worldly Leo – older, raffish, wicked – had put a match to Sarah’s desire.

  They met amongst old things. Sarah had wandered into a Denmark Hill bric-a-brac shop, whiling away her lunch break from the Maudsley hospital. Leo, sizing up a rival’s stock, eyeballed her as she mooched.

  The untidy, upper-class, flamboyantly haired guy hadn’t piqued her interest until he leaned across and said, ‘Do you know what that is you’re looking at?’

  ‘Of course.’ Sarah hastily scanned the label. ‘It’s a commode.’ Up close, his grape-green eyes were naughty, as if he’d heard a joke he wasn’t yet ready to share.

  ‘And you know what a commode is?’

  ‘It’s, um, a chair.’ Living in a forest of Ikea, Sarah had little interest in antiques. The throne-like chair was ugly; that she did know.

  ‘Not quite.’ Leo lifted the hinged seat to reveal a chamber pot. ‘It’s a discreet bog.’

  ‘Handy,’ grimaced Sarah.

  ‘I’m Leo,’ said Leo.

  ‘I’m not,’ said Sarah.

  She played hard to get. For a whole hour. By the time he walked her back to the antiseptic maelstrom of the Maudsley, Sarah had decided that this Leo guy wasn’t gangly but rakish, that he didn’t look like an aristocratic tramp but had been manufactured i
n some celestial factory just for her.

  Every time they met – in theatres and galleries, rather than the usual pubs and clubs – Sarah’s blood fizzed in her veins like the good champagne he introduced her to. He was, she decided, amazing, with the superpower to make everything around him equally amazing.

  Including me. Sarah felt amazing. And powerful, and sexual. As if she mattered.

  For Sarah, love equalled Leo. The two words were even spelled alike; just jumble up the letters and excise that spiky ‘V’.

  Theirs was a short courtship. The language Leo used was extravagant; she’d ‘entranced’ and ‘possessed’ him. He wanted to meet her parents; like a suitor of old, he had a special question to ask her father.

  Sarah was stung into silence. Hadn’t he listened? She was certain she’d told Leo about her father’s death, precisely because it wasn’t something she spoke about readily. Not the whole story, not yet, but she was sure she’d told him the bare bones . . . Sarah ironed out this bump in their smooth road by blaming her memory.

  ‘Brace yourself,’ she warned as they pulled up outside her mother’s house.

  Leo needed a whisky after they left. ‘I see what you mean, darling. She’s . . .’

  ‘Isn’t she just?’

  That was the moment to tell him about what her mother had done, about the consequences Sarah had suffered, but she missed her chance. Leo was already yammering on about this incredible little bistro, where he would kiss her in a dark corner and give her an extra-special present. By midnight, Sarah was wearing an emerald ring and doodling ‘Sarah Lynch-Harrison’ on a napkin.

  The age difference didn’t matter. If anything, she relished it, the psychologist in her ignoring the words ‘Father Figure’ picked out in neon lettering. Sarah grew up in Leo’s arms.

  Her mother’s approval of Leo felt like a jinx, but while it lasted Sarah had beaten the curse, repeated throughout her childhood: You’re just like your father!

  A diehard daddy’s girl, Sarah had lived through the carnage her dad left behind when he moved out of the family home. She loved her father with the fierceness of a daughter, but she didn’t want to be the person her mother described. Sarah was loyal and steady; these were the qualities she valued in others.