Sweet Damage

  ‘Delicious.’

  When I’ve finished I push my plate to the side, watch Anna push her food around without actually eating any.

  ‘So. Last night,’ I say. ‘Thanks again. I had an awesome time.’

  ‘Oh.’ She waves my thanks away, glances at me for a second, then stares determinedly down at her plate.

  ‘Anna,’ I say. ‘Look. Last night. When we were dancing, I think maybe . . .’ I hesitate. Everything about her is telling me to stop. She’s hunched over the table. Her hands are shaking. She won’t meet my eyes.

  ‘Anna?’ I reach out to take her hand but she snatches it away from me so violently I’m stunned.

  And then she gets up and does what she always does. She runs away.

  42

  THE WAY SHE FEELS WHEN SHE’S WITH TIM SCARES HER.

  Tim is solicitous and kind all morning, making her coffee, bringing her biscuits. And cleaning the house together is somehow fun, not at all the boring chore it would usually be. But things are only easy between them while they’re busy and preoccupied, while they have something to do. As soon as she sits opposite him at the table she feels her throat grow tight with anxiety. She tells herself to calm down, tries to make her mind blank and empty, but when Tim starts talking about the night before, she knows she can’t manage any kind of conversation with him. Her fingers begin to tremble violently, her heart starts to beat too fast. She wants to disappear before he notices the panic. Before he realises how gutless she is.

  Friendship. Love. Romance. Whatever this might potentially become, it’s clearly not a possibility for Anna. Love is no longer an option. She can’t even bring herself to look at him, let alone talk sensibly to him.

  Tim reaches out and touches her hand, and without thinking or understanding why – she’s a pure ball of nervous reaction – she snatches it away. And when she looks up, to explain, to apologise, she sees scorn in his eyes. Scorn and pity. She can feel the red-hot flush of shame on her face and neck and she has to turn away. Tim thinks she’s a freak. She is a freak.

  And so she flees. Back up to the attic where she can breathe properly, where she can keep her already damaged heart protected and hidden. Safely locked away.

  43

  WHEN ANNA RUNS OFF I LET HER GO. I’M TOO TIRED AND HUNGOVER to chase after her. Trying to get close to Anna is impossible, not to mention humiliating.

  I go up to my room and crash for a few hours. I wake up in the late afternoon to the sounds of thunder and pouring rain – a full-on storm. I go down to the living room and lie on the sofa, switch between crap TV shows. When I get hungry I ring for pizza. I save a few pieces for Anna in case she appears, but she doesn’t, and by eleven I’m ready for bed.

  Before I go upstairs I check the windows and doors in every room, making sure everything is secure. I freak myself out a bit as I walk around, jumping at my own reflection, startling at every noise. I wish that I lived in some kind of unit. Somewhere simple and small and cosy. A place with one living area, one bedroom, one bathroom. A place with nowhere to hide. This house has far too many dark shadows, and it creaks and groans as if it’s alive. It’s impossible to feel secure, to be sure you’re not being watched. And as I walk up the stairs to my room I remember the dream I had the night before, the terror and agony of it, and am filled with a renewed sense of trepidation.

  I leave the hall light on, my bedroom door open. And despite the nerves that make me strain to hear every noise, I eventually fall asleep.

  44

  BY THE TIME SHE’S REACHED THE ATTIC, ANXIETY HAS OVERCOME HER AND she has to crouch on the floor and breathe her way through a full-blown panic attack. There’s nothing she can do once it’s started, no way to stop it except bide her time and wait for the overwhelming sense of dread to pass.

  When it’s over she feels emotionally drained and physically exhausted, as if she’s run a marathon. The fear is gone but she’s left with a horrible sense of emptiness, an overwhelming loneliness. Nothing will ever change. She has proven it today. Anxiety rules her life – and it won’t let her be happy. She’s destined to live alone, a madwoman in a mansion, hiding out in an attic, getting more neurotic with each passing year.

  The sadness feels like a hole in her belly, an aching void that needs to be filled. She takes a valium, washes it down with vodka straight from the bottle. She takes the rest of the vodka to her armchair and curls up, pulls a blanket over her legs. She swigs from the bottle, lets her tears fall.

  It’s probably better like this, she decides eventually. If she knows anything, it’s that love is a stupid, risky endeavour. Letting yourself love someone is like ripping your heart from your chest, holding it up in your hands, all bloody and exposed and vulnerable, and hoping nothing or nobody comes along to slap it to the floor and stomp all over it.

  45

  I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS THAT WAKES ME – SOME KIND OF SIXTH sense, I guess. I sit bolt upright and look around my room. It’s dark – the hall light is no longer on. I can feel a damp sweat on my forehead, the pounding of my heart against my ribs.

  And then I see it.

  The black shape of a person.

  Watching me.

  It isn’t in my doorway this time, but back further in the hall, closer to the staircase, hidden in the shadows.

  For a horrified moment I stare at it as it stares straight back.

  This isn’t a dream. I’m wide awake.

  My first impulse is to hide beneath the covers, to scrabble down and bury my head. To call out for help, like a kid. But I can’t do that, so instead I force myself to take a breath and shout.

  ‘Hey! What the hell do you want? What are you doing?’

  The figure doesn’t move and despite every instinct in my body screaming at me to flee, I get out of bed and approach it. But before I’ve even made it to my door the figure moves and disappears, blending into the shadows.

  ‘Hey! Stop! Fucking hell! Stop!

  ’ I turn my light on and blink beneath the sudden glare. There’s nothing. Nobody.

  I run down the staircase and when I reach the bottom I flick the hall light on.

  What I see makes my blood turn cold.

  Painted in something thick and red, in enormous, spiked letters, written over and over again, up and down the length of the hallway.

  DEATH LIVES HERE

  46

  IT’S NOT BLOOD, THOUGH IT LOOKS LIKE IT. WHEN I CAN MOVE again I examine the writing up close, press my finger against it. It’s sticky and wet, with a strong chemical smell. Paint. The hallway looks gruesome, the drips and splashes of red reminiscent of an abattoir, the whole scene like something from a horror movie.

  Forcing myself not to panic, I walk to the back of the house. The kitchen doors are locked, the room still, quiet and empty. I walk back through the hall and check the front door and the other rooms, though I’m certain I won’t find anything. I’m just going through the motions. Moving because I need to.

  When I’ve confirmed that the house is locked and secure, I stop in the hallway and look at the mess surrounding me. I don’t know what to do next. Should I call the cops? And say what, exactly? I think my housemate is playing tricks on me? I think she might be slightly mad?

  Should I go and find Anna? Confront her? Ask her to explain herself?

  The idea is not appealing. It’s the middle of the night and I’m exhausted. The last thing I want to do is play detective, put the hard word on poor Anna. But I’m going to have to talk to her eventually. Sort this shit out.

  As the rush of adrenaline eases off I realise how much I’m shaking, how fast my heart is pounding. I go to the kitchen and get a beer, drink the entire bottle in large gulps, standing in the light of the fridge.

  I trudge back up the stairs; hesitate in the hallway before deciding to check each bedroom, one by one. It’s just a token effort – I know I won’t find anything.

  I stop outside Anna’s door and lift my hand, but a sudden idea makes me decide against knocking.
I let my hand drop and go to my room. I turn my computer on and this time I do what I intended to do the other day, before I got sidetracked by Lilla. Some research.

  I google agoraphobia.

  The disorder usually starts with a mild anxiety about a particular place or event, which eventually escalates into a debilitating fear of going anywhere at all . . .

  An agoraphobic person learns to fear fear itself, their own overblown reaction to it, their own disordered response to non-threatening situations . . .

  Most of all, an agoraphobic person fears the humiliation they will suffer if they have a panic attack in public . . .

  All of which helps me understand Anna’s isolation a bit more, and her social nervousness, but none of which explains any of the other weird stuff that has been going on.

  I go back to bed when the sun starts to rise.

  *

  I wake a couple of hours later. I feel like shit, but I’m desperate to get out of the house and clear my head. I don’t bother with breakfast, just make a quick coffee and then head out for a surf.

  I try to keep my head down as I walk through the hall, try not to let the words on the wall get to me. But the red is so stark against the white, the letters so large and aggressive, it’s impossible to ignore, hard not to stop walking and stare. Even in the daytime it looks horrific.

  I surf for an hour then go back to the restaurant and dry off, get dressed. I buy a paper from Humphrey’s Newsagency and take it to a cafe, where I order a big breakfast. It’s a relief to be out of the house and away from Anna. It’s good to think about other things, catch up on some news, focus on other people’s problems instead of my own.

  I take my time, eat slowly. By the time I start the walk back up to Fairlight it’s almost midday.

  I can see that the front door is open from the other side of the road.

  Anna is in the hallway. She’s still in her pyjamas, scrubbing at the walls frantically, sobbing. Red runs in lines down her arms, all over her clothes. It’s on her cheeks and in her hair. She’s so focused on what she’s doing she doesn’t notice me come in.

  ‘Anna?’

  ‘Oh God, Tim,’ she says, glancing at me for a second before turning back to the wall. Her eyes are bloodshot, her hair is messy. She looks wild. ‘I have to get this off.’ She continues scrubbing, moving her arm against the wall in frantic, jerky movements. All her effort is only making things worse. She’s spreading paint everywhere.

  ‘Hey.’ I put my hand on her shoulder. I know she can baulk at being touched, but right now she needs my help. ‘You should stop. We should call someone. Get a professional in to fix this up.’

  But she doesn’t stop. She just moves faster, makes more mess.

  ‘No. No,’ she says. ‘I’ll do it. I can do it. I don’t have anything else to do.’

  There’s a bucket of red-stained water by her side. She bends over, dips her scrubbing brush in the water and then slaps it against the wall, only managing to mix more water into the mess of paint. Red runs in rivers down the wall, onto the floor. She cries louder and pushes the brush around uselessly for a while. Eventually she stops, lets her arms fall to her sides, and leans forward so that her forehead presses against the wall. Her shoulders heave as she sobs.

  ‘Hey.’ This time I put a hand on each shoulder, turn her carefully around so she’s facing me. ‘Anna. Let’s go and—’

  ‘Oh God, Tim. Please. Help me.’ She clutches the front of my T-shirt, pulls me against her. It’s a natural, normal response to put my arms around her – and at first I’m only trying to provide comfort – but then she lifts her face, kisses me. And I don’t resist or pull away. It’s nothing like the kind of kiss I would have expected from Anna. It’s hungry, passionate, her mouth open and pressed tight against mine, her tongue searching. She tastes strongly of alcohol, and of something sweet, like vanilla. I can feel the soft press of her boobs against my chest, the narrow arch of her back.

  Suddenly she stops, pulls away again.

  ‘Oh, shit. I’m sorry,’ she says. She puts her hand to her mouth, leaves a smear of red paint on her lips. I reach up and wipe it away with my finger.

  ‘Don’t be sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m not.’

  She drops the scrubbing brush to the floor, stares at the wall.

  ‘This is pointless, isn’t it?’

  ‘You’re only making it worse.’

  ‘Worse?’ She looks at me and smiles. It’s one of those surprising, full-on grins that transform her face. She looks slightly mad with her wild eyes and her messy hair, and red paint all over her, but she also looks kind of hot. ‘How could things get any fucking worse?’

  47

  WHILE ANNA IS UPSTAIRS TAKING A SHOWER I MAKE COFFEE. SHE comes back down in clean clothes, her hair wet and tucked behind her ears. She’s subdued and she looks very tired, but she doesn’t seem nervous. Her hands are still, her manner calm – for once, she looks perfectly comfortable in her own skin.

  We take our coffee to the living room and sit side by side on the sofa.

  I have a thousand questions, but I don’t want to force things. I’m happy to wait.

  ‘You must think I’m absolutely insane,’ she says.

  ‘Not really. Not insane.’

  ‘But maybe I am,’ she says. ‘Sometimes I’m really not sure.’

  ‘Did you . . . I mean . . . the walls . . . did you—’ ‘

  Did I paint them?’ She shrugs. ‘I don’t know. But I suppose I must have.’ She looks at me almost hopefully. ‘Unless you did it?’

  ‘Nah,’ I say. ‘And I’m pretty certain on that point.’

  I wait for her to continue.

  ‘I can’t remember. Sometimes when I feel bad, when the anxiety gets too much . . .’ She sighs. ‘Sometimes I take valium. Drink vodka. It’s not a good combination.’

  ‘Ahhh,’ I say. ‘So you’re a junkie?’

  I’m half joking, but she shakes her head vehemently.

  ‘No. No. I’m not that. I don’t do it often enough.’ She hesitates. ‘At least, I don’t think I’m a junkie. Or even an alcoholic. I don’t . . . I only do it . . . well, once or twice a week at the moment.’ She stops, frowns. ‘God, maybe I am becoming . . . maybe I should be more careful. I don’t need any more problems.’

  ‘I was actually kidding,’ I say. ‘But, yeah, I mean, if you can’t remember stuff it might not be so smart to mix your drugs like that.’

  I’m about to bring up the person I’ve seen watching me at night, the spiders on my bed. It seems a good time to find out exactly what she knows. But she leans closer, talks in a rush.

  ‘I wanted to apologise,’ she says. ‘For being so hard to live with. I don’t mean to be. I don’t mean to be rude and abrupt. It’s really not in my nature to be awful like that. It’s just my anxiety. Sometimes I’m so full of it, so wound up inside, that I can’t even look at you. I have this overwhelming fear that people will see inside me and see that I’m afraid, and they’ll despise me for it. For being so gutless, such a stupid fool. Such a scaredy-cat.’

  ‘But what are you scared of?’

  ‘Nothing. Everything. I’m scared of being scared, I guess. If that makes sense?’

  ‘A bit. It’s starting to.’

  She stands up, puts her hand in her pocket. She pulls a small box out and holds it towards me, smiling shyly.

  ‘I got you this,’ she says. ‘And then I couldn’t even give it to you. That’s how dumb I am.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘For your birthday.’

  ‘You got me a present?’

  ‘I ordered it online. I thought you’d like it. I wrote you a birthday note too. The one you found the other night at the party? But then I lost it and it didn’t matter because by then I’d chickened out of giving it to you. I thought you’d think . . .’ She shrugs, puts the box in my hand, sits back down. ‘Anyway. Here it is. Happy belated birthday.’

  It’s a very small cardboard box. I open it. Tucked neatly inside
is a tiny glass cube. There’s something inside the glass, but it’s so small I have to hold it up to the light to see properly. I’m amazed when I realise what it is: a minuscule man on a surfboard, legs bent, arms held out for balance. I don’t know how it was made – the whole thing seems amazing, impossible – but the surfer and the crest of the little wave beneath him are made up of tiny trapped bubbles of air.

  ‘That is so cool,’ I say, genuinely thrilled. ‘He’s riding the perfect wave. Forever. Living the dream.’

  ‘It reminded me of you.’

  ‘It’s bloody brilliant.’ Overcome with gratitude, I surprise myself by kissing her without even thinking about it. I lean over and press my lips against hers.

  She doesn’t blush or go awkward or turn away. Instead she looks right at me and smiles, and I don’t care about the paint on the wall, or the valium, or the spiders. All I can think is: beautiful, beautiful Anna.

  48

  TIM MAKES AN ENORMOUS POT OF PASTA AND THEY EAT IN THE KITCHEN. SHE sucks up her spaghetti unselfconsciously and laughs as Tim tells funny stories about the restaurant: impossible customers, cooking disasters, bratty staff members storming out in the middle of a busy night.

  When they’ve finished eating they leave the mess in the kitchen and go into the living room. There’s plenty of alcohol left from the party, so they share a bottle of champagne. They both become loose-limbed and talkative, and move closer on the sofa, until their shoulders brush and their thighs press together and their hands touch in a deliberate, lingering way.

  The television is on, but neither of them really watches it. They laugh occasionally at stupid ads, or random bits of dialogue from whatever’s on, but they spend most of the evening talking. Tim tells her about his parents, about his love of surfing.

  And she tells him things, too. None of the huge stuff. She doesn’t talk about Benjamin. But she tells him enough. He asks about her anxiety and, surprisingly, she finds it easy to be honest. She tries to explain the crippling fear that keeps her in the house. The dread of humiliation, the belief, when she’s having a panic attack, that she might even die.