The Stuff of Nightmares (25 page)

I stepped aside, closing the door behind her as she walked into my hall. I didn’t offer her a seat.

‘I didn’t come to complain or to lecture you,’ Mrs Guy began. ‘I want you to know that I’m your friend – whatever you may think of me. And you need a friend. I won’t take up too much of your time. I just came to give you some advice.’

Here we go! I thought with a sigh.

‘Don’t let that man – or any man – bully you or terrorize you into going back to him. If you don’t want to see him again, then don’t.’

I stared at her. That was the last thing I expected to hear.

‘You’ve got to stand up for yourself. And I know what I’m talking about. A while ago I walked out on my abusive husband. He pestered me into going back to him in the same way as your boyfriend. He’d ring my bell at all hours, he’d wait for me outside this apartment block, he’d pester my friends, until in the end I gave in and agreed to live with him again – against my better judgement, I might add. But I was so tired of the whole sorry mess. Well, it was a mistake. A mistake I’m still paying for. So stand up for yourself, Kendra. You’ve got to be true to yourself. If you want him back, that’s one thing. But if you don’t, then tell him so. And don’t let him persuade you otherwise.’

And so saying, Mrs Guy left me staring after her as she went out of the door. I sat up all night thinking over what she’d said. She was right. I was close to giving in to Zach. I was so tired. Tired of his constant harassment. I just wanted some peace and it seemed like giving into Zach was the easiest way to get it. But where would I be if I gave in? Right back where I’d started. And something told me that it would be harder to leave Zach a second time. He’d never let me leave him a second time. I finally drifted off to sleep in the early hours of the morning, still thinking about what Mrs Guy had said, still wondering what I should do.

Saturday morning, at nine o’clock precisely, the doorbell rang. And rang. And rang. Zach again. He was twelve hours earlier than he should have been. I marched to the door in my pyjamas without even putting on my dressing gown and flung it open. I caught Zach’s look of surprise at my action.

‘Yes? What do you want, Zach?’ I said angrily.

‘Can I come in?’ he asked quietly.

‘No, you can’t. You and I have nothing to say to each other.’

Zach regarded me. Then he turned on his most beguiling smile. The one I never used to be able to resist.

‘I just want you back,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t all this prove that?’

‘You can’t have me,’ I replied. ‘When we first split up I wasn’t sure if I’d done the right thing, but now I know I had a lucky escape. Do you really think I’d come back to you after the way you’ve hounded and harassed me? Do you really believe I’d let myself be bullied into staying with you? Let me tell you something – and like all clichés it’s absolutely true – I wouldn’t come back to you if you were the last man on the entire planet. So you can ring my bell until your finger drops off and it still won’t get you anywhere. I’m not going to let you ruin my life any more. You are not a part of my life, Zach, and you never will be. So leave me alone and move on.’

And I slammed the door in his face. I held my breath as I waited for his response. I was elated and
excited
and terrified all at once. But the best thing of all was I wasn’t scared of Zach. No, I was scared of myself. I really didn’t know I had it in me. I would never have found out either if it hadn’t been for Mrs Guy. I listened to the sound of Zach’s footsteps walking slowly down the stairs.

I couldn’t believe it. I’d won. I’d done it. Grabbing my key off the hall table, I ran out of my flat and up the stairs to Mrs Guy’s. I rang her doorbell, bobbing up and down with excitement. A tall, good-looking black man I’d seen around occasionally but had never spoken to opened the door.

I smiled at him. ‘Can I speak to Mrs Guy please?’

‘Who?’

‘Mrs Guy. She lives here.’

‘No one lives here except me and my girlfriend, Tricia Clarke,’ the man said. ‘I’m Sam Filey.’

I checked the flat number on the wall. I was at the right flat.

‘Mrs Guy doesn’t live here?’ My smile faded. I still couldn’t take it in.

‘Sam, who is it?’ A woman of about my age came to the door. ‘Oh, you’re from downstairs, aren’t you?’ She smiled. ‘I’m Tricia.’

I smiled back, uncertain. ‘I’m Kendra … Kendra Boland. I … I was after Mrs Guy. I thought she lived here.’

‘Mrs Guy?’ Tricia frowned. ‘The only Mrs Guy I know lived in this building about five … no, six or seven years ago.’

‘Where is she now?’ I asked, an icy hand stroking my back.

‘Well, I heard’ – Tricia lowered her voice – ‘I heard that she left her husband in Cornwall and came to live up here in London. He followed her up here and persuaded her to come back to him. Then, on the day they were due to return to Cornwall, there was a huge quarrel and her husband … well, her husband battered her to death on the stairs over there.’

I stared at Tricia, hoping against hope that she was winding me up.

‘That’s impossible. I saw her this morning.’

Tricia and Sam exchanged a look.

‘I did see her this morning,’ I persisted. ‘She’s in her late forties, slim build, blonde collar-length hair.’

Still Tricia and Sam said nothing.

‘You must think I’m crazy,’ I said, running my right hand through my braids.

‘Of course not. But we know you’ve been under some stress recently.’ Tricia smiled. ‘I tell you what, why don’t you come to ours for lunch later?’

‘Good idea,’ Sam agreed.

Surprised by the gesture, I reached for my automatic refusal. ‘I wouldn’t want to intrude—’

‘It’s not an intrusion,’ said Sam. ‘We’d love you to come. Say one o’clock?’

I thought about it. ‘Well, I do have some shopping to do first, but OK then. I’ll bring a bottle of wine.’

I smiled again and went back downstairs, my smile fading to nothing as I returned to my flat. I didn’t
understand
at all. I knew what I’d seen. Mrs Guy was real. She was as real as I was. I slipped on my sandals, grabbed my bag and left the apartment to go to the shops. As I walked across the gravel forecourt I had the feeling that I was being watched. I turned back and looked up at the windows.

There, on the second floor, watching me, was Mrs Guy. She smiled at me and waved. I waved back before I realized what I was seeing. The sunlight glinting off the window where Mrs Guy stood made me squint. When I looked again, she had gone.

24

THANK GOD KENDRA’S
dream had a happy ending. She was going to be all right. Whatever happened to her, she was going to make it – if her dream came true … when her dream came true. Strange, but at first I thought all the dreams were just my mind playing tricks on me. Now I knew better. Of the dreams I’d seen that weren’t set in the past, most were possibles, a few were probables. Kendra’s felt like a probable – but at least she’d survive.

‘Why didn’t you stay in Kendra’s head?’ asked Rachel. ‘Her dream turned out OK.’

‘But it was
her
dream, not mine,’ I replied.

I must admit, I had been tempted, but the idea of being nothing more than a mere spectator in someone else’s life … well, that just didn’t work for me. If I went too far down that road, who knew when or even if I’d ever be able to find my way back.

‘It doesn’t have to be for ever, you know,’ said Rachel.

How on earth had she guessed what I was thinking?

‘You have a very expressive face.’ She answered my unspoken question.

It doesn’t have to be for ever …

But it would be if I lost my way, and that would be so easy to do.

I looked down the carriage towards Death. He was becoming less ephemeral and more real with each passing second. But that was strange in itself. Why wasn’t Death real to begin with? Why was he taking so long to materialize? Surely that wasn’t the way Death worked? Or did he always play these kinds of games first, killing his victims slowly, nanosecond by nanosecond, as the dread inside them grew fiercer?

Well, no more.

I was going to prove to everyone, as well as to myself, that I could do this. No more running and hiding. I started walking towards him.

‘Kyle, no!’ Rachel called out. ‘Don’t be a fool.’

I kept walking. With each step, it felt like my legs were slowly dissolving, but I willed myself to keep going. When I reached Lily, to my surprise she grabbed hold of my hand.

‘Thank you for helping me,’ she whispered.

‘It was no—’

But her hand was prickling against mine, sending a swarm of stings shooting up my arm and across my entire body.

I didn’t want this to happen again. I was ready to
meet
Death, not jump into another dream. But I was given no choice. Lily was in her bedroom and I was there too, looking through her eyes – watching the world as the world watched me.

25

Lily’s Nightmare

I KNELT DOWN,
feeling every weary second of my fifty-three years. I tugged at the bottom drawer of my dressing table but it refused to budge. Rocking open the drawer was a slow, frustrating process. My knees were beginning to hurt, even though the carpet beneath them was good-quality, thick wool. Shifting my weight, I sat down, carefully stretching my legs out in front of me. I looked around the bedroom. How many years had I spent in this house, in this bed? More than twenty. Almost thirty.

I smiled at the Christmas decorations my grandchildren had insisted on putting up for me. Paper-chains and tinsel boas and glittering baubles covered the walls and hung down from the overhead lampshade. I hadn’t wanted my bedroom decorated, but as usually my beloved grandchildren had won me over.

‘Oh, come on, Nan. It’s Christmas,’ Julian pleaded.

‘Please, Nan,’ Judy joined in. ‘It’ll make your room look so pretty. Please.’

And of course I gave in. When had I ever refused my grandchildren anything? I ran my fingers across my tear-filled eyes. This wasn’t helping.

‘Keep searching,’ I told myself. I had to find some clue as to why this had happened. I turned back to the open drawer. Diaries. Diaries of different sizes, colours, shapes. All my private diaries, holding each secret thought and fear. The yearly diaries I’d faithfully kept since my sixteenth birthday, when I’d received my very first one. I’d never shown them to anyone. I’d never wanted to, never dared to. And I’d never re-read them. Once a page was written I never returned to it. What was the point? Writing the truth, but never reading it, was my way of burying the past. And starting a new page each day had been somehow symbolic, not to mention therapeutic.

But now I needed to see them, to read them.

I looked down at the diary on the carpet beside me. My current diary had only a few pages left before the end of the year. But I would only make one more entry – and that was for today, Christmas Day.

I took my diaries out of the drawer. Opening them one at a time, I carefully laid them out in a line on the carpet next to me. There were so many of them that it took some time to arrange them in chronological order. I shifted again so that my back was against the dressing table. I had thirty-seven diaries on either side of me.

That was when I felt a frisson of anxiety. The gateway to the past was now open. All I had to do was walk through.

But this wouldn’t be like arguing with my memories. They were old and frail, as I now was, and could easily make mistakes. But my written words – I couldn’t argue with them.

I ran my fingers over the oldest diary. The blood-red velvet was skin-smooth and almost warm to touch. My fingers moved to the next diary, then the next and the next. I saw the one I wanted, a small diary, palm sized, with a raspberry-pink cover, decorated with yellow flowers. I held it to my nose. It still smelled of playing cards and old spices. I opened it.

14 February

I’m happy, happy, happy. Alex met me outside the Italian restaurant. He was holding a dozen long-stemmed red roses. He ordered champagne with the meal. It was wonderful. Then, guess what? He handed me a small box and asked me to marry him. I tried to stay calm, I really did. I thought to myself, Lily, act like you get a marriage proposal every month at least!

But I couldn’t. I leaped up and hugged him right there in the restaurant. I didn’t care. I’m so happy I want to scream and scream and never stop. So what if Alex is thirty-three? I like older men. They are so much more mature. Besides, I’m only ten years younger than him. That’s not such a gap. And Alex is wonderful. He says that we can get married exactly a year from today. How romantic!

He loves me. Me!

And the only itsy-bitsy fly in the ointment is that he wants us to start a family as soon as we’re married. When
he
said that I got a peculiar stirring in my stomach.

I’d rather wait a while before starting a family. But never mind. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

He loves me. No one has ever loved me before.

I think I’ll never again be as happy as I am now …

There was a dull thud as I slammed the diary shut. I could hardly hold it, my hands were trembling so much. Putting the diary back in its place, I picked up one for the following year.

16 October

I hate this. I hate this so much. And Alex doesn’t care. He has no idea how I feel. All he keeps talking about is how wonderful it will be when the baby arrives.

I’ve made a colossal mistake. The biggest mistake of my life.

Alex wants children. I don’t. I love him desperately, but the thought of this thing inside me terrifies me. I should never have got pregnant, but Alex wanted it so much. I knew the instant I conceived. A hollow, nauseated feeling bit down deep inside me. The feeling hasn’t got any better. In fact, it’s worse. Something repulsive and alien has been planted in my body and slowly but surely is taking me over. I’m no longer in control; it is. It dictates when I should eat, when I should sleep, even when I should pee.

I’m going crazy.

I fight against it, but it is too strong. It’s got to the stage now where I can’t bear to look at any part of my body, except my face. At least my light-brown hair and my grey
eyes
are the same. My cheeks are a little thinner, but they’re still mine. Nothing else is.