The Girl Before

I wake to find him no longer beside me. Padding to the top of the stairs, I see he’s down in the refectory area, tidying up.

Still hungry, I set off to join him. I’m halfway down when I see him pick up Simon’s teapot and carefully pour the remains of the tea into the sink. Then there’s a crash and the teapot’s in pieces all over the floor.

I must make a sound because he looks up. I’m so sorry, Emma, he says calmly. He holds up his hands. I should have dried these first.

I go to help but he stops me. Not in bare feet. You’ll cut yourself.

Of course I’ll replace it, he adds. There’s a good one by Marimekko Hennika. Or the Bauhaus is still very fine.

I go into the kitchen anyway, crouching down and picking up the broken pieces. It doesn’t matter, I say. It’s only a teapot.

Well, exactly, he says reasonably. It’s only a teapot.

And I feel a strange little thrill of satisfaction, of being owned. You’re mine.

NOW: JANE

Carol Younson is based in a quiet leafy street in Queens Park. When she opens the door she gives me an odd, almost startled look, then quickly recovers and ushers me through to a sitting room. Directing me to the sofa, she explains that this will just be an exploratory session to see if she can help me. If we decide to go ahead, we’ll meet at the same time each week.

“So,” she says when these preliminaries are out of the way. “What brings you to therapy at this time, Jane?”

“Well, several things,” I say. “The stillbirth I mentioned on the phone, primarily.”

Carol nods. “Talking about our feelings of grief gives us a way to sort through them, to begin the process of separating the necessary emotions from the destructive ones. Anything else?”

“Yes—I think you may have treated someone I have a connection with. I’d like to know what was troubling her.”

Carol Younson shakes her head firmly. “I can’t ever discuss my other clients.”

“It might be different in this case. You see, she’s dead. Her name was Emma Matthews.”

I can’t be mistaken: The look in Carol Younson’s eyes is definitely shock. But she quickly recovers. “I still can’t tell you what Emma and I talked about. A client’s right to confidentiality doesn’t end at her death.”

“Is it true that I look a bit like her?”

She hesitates for a moment before nodding. “Yes. I noticed it as soon as I opened the door. You’re a relative, I take it? Her sister? I’m sorry.”

I shake my head. “We never met.”

She looks puzzled. “Then what’s the connection, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“I live in the same house as her—the house where she died.” Now it’s my turn to hesitate. “And I’m having a relationship with the same man.”

“Simon Wakefield?” she says slowly. “Her boyfriend?”

“No—although I have met him, when he came to leave some flowers. The man I’m talking about is the architect who built the house.”

Carol stares at me. “Let me make sure I have this straight. You’re living in One Folgate Street, just as Emma did. And you’re Edward Monkford’s lover. Just as Emma was.”

“That’s right.” Edward had talked about his relationship with Emma as if it had been little more than a brief affair, but I decide not to lead the witness.

“In that case, I will tell you what Emma and I discussed in therapy, Jane,” she says quietly.

“Despite what you said just now?” I say, rather surprised to have won so easily.

“Yes. You see, there is one special circumstance in which we’re allowed to break our professional duty of confidentiality.” She pauses. “Where it can do no harm to the client, but may prevent harm from coming to someone else.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. “What harm? And to who?”

“I’m talking about you, Jane,” she says. “I believe you may be in danger.”

THEN: EMMA

Deon Nelson stole my happiness, I say. He shattered my life and made me afraid of every man I meet. He made me feel ashamed of my own body.

I pause and take a drink from a glass of water. The courtroom is very quiet. Up on the bench the two magistrates, a man and a woman, watch me unblinkingly. It’s very hot, the room windowless and beige, the lawyers perspiring a little under their wigs.

Two screens have been rigged up so that I can’t be seen from the dock. I can feel Deon Nelson’s presence behind them. But I don’t feel scared. Quite the opposite. The bastard’s going to prison.

I’ve been crying, but now I raise my voice. I had to move because I thought he might come back, I say. I suffered flashbacks and memory loss and I started seeing a counselor. My relationship with my boyfriend broke down.