I head down to the floor below, another room, another design. This one is all about black leather sofas and low lighting, with modern art clinging to the walls. There are black blinds hiding the outside world from us, and us from it. And there’s another bar, housing a barman who hasn’t served me yet, one who can’t judge me the way I’m currently judging myself. This will have to be the last glass for now.
Down another flight of steps and I’m back where I started on the ground floor. I won’t make myself stay too much longer, but I can’t leave just yet. Besides, where would I go? I need to be seen to say hello to a few more people for the sake of my future self. So much goes on behind the scenes in this industry that the general public doesn’t know. Perhaps it’s for the best. When magicians reveal how they do their tricks, it’s hard to still believe in the magic.
Beyond the imposing façade of the Georgian architecture, I see a room I’ve yet to explore. This one is purple, with a metallic bar and lighting so low that the faces in the room are more like shadows. I feel a breeze, and I see something beyond the purple room: a garden. I step out into the secluded, yet spacious, hidden gem, such an unusual find in central London. A white tent in the middle of the walled courtyard is decorated in gold stars, with a champagne bar in the far corner. This is where everyone has been hiding—out in the open. I get myself another drink, ignoring the stern voice inside my head strongly advising me not to, then I scan the faces all around me and spot the director and his wife. They’re talking to some people I don’t know, but I join their group anyway, feeling a little safer surrounding myself with at least some familiar faces. I make an effort to listen to their conversation, hoping it might drown out the thoughts inside my head. I think I see the flash of a camera, but when I look up, I can’t see anyone pointing anything in my direction. Besides, there shouldn’t be anyone here from the press tonight, it’s not that sort of party.
The director’s wife takes a packet of cigarettes out of her bag. The smell of cigarette smoke can still transport me back in time, and the memories it invokes are not always good. I watch as she puts one between her gloss-covered lips and notice how unusual it looks—long and thin and completely white, as though there is no filter.
“They’re fancy-looking cigarettes,” I say as she lights up.
She removes it from her mouth with manicured fingers. “Would you like one?”
I haven’t smoked since I was eighteen.
“Yes, please,” I hear a voice say, before realizing it is my own.
She lights it for me, shielding the flame from the wind with her free hand, and I listen to her Hollywood stories without really listening. I inhale deeply, enjoying the temporary high of the nicotine. I’m starting to think there isn’t much I wouldn’t do to be the version of me I could live with. The version of me who could be forgiven for all the terrible things I’ve made myself do to get where I am today.
My attention is easily drawn away from the conversation, choosing instead to focus on the back of a smartly dressed man on the other side of the courtyard. His height, build, and the way his hairline tapers at his neck are all a little too familiar.
It’s him.
I can’t see his face, but every fiber of my being is telling me it’s my husband.
I feel a lot colder than I did before, and my fingers holding the cigarette start to tremble. My eyes are willing him to turn around, to prove to my mind that it’s wrong, but he doesn’t turn to face me; instead he starts to walk away. I follow, as quickly as I dare without drawing attention to myself, but I can’t keep up and soon lose him in the crowd. I retrace my steps, through each of the different-colored rooms, scanning wildly for another glimpse of Ben, before coming back to the courtyard, still unable to see him.
I must have imagined it.
I’m tired, a little drunk, my mind is playing tricks on me again, that’s all.
I return to the group I was standing with before—safety in numbers—then allow myself to get lost inside my own thoughts once more, the alcohol and the tobacco joining forces to coax them out of me. I’m still wondering whether I have just seen a ghost of a man or a memory.
Ben can’t be dead.
Because I didn’t kill him, I would remember if I had.
I remember everyone else that I’ve killed.
Forty-three
Essex, 1988
Today I’m learning how to shoot a gun.
Some bad people want to hurt me, and Maggie and John. Maggie says we need to be ready. I’m not sure what it is we need to be ready for, but I know that I’m scared. Maggie says that it’s all right to be scared, but that I have to hide my fear somewhere I can’t find it. I think that must be what she does with the car keys, because she loses them all the time. Maggie says I have to learn how to turn fear into strength. I don’t know what she’s talking about. I just want to go home, and I realize that home is the flat above the shop. I don’t think about my old home much anymore, I don’t ever want to go back there now. I have nice things here, and I don’t want to “die in the dirt,” like my brother once said that I would.
We drive to a place called Epping Forest. It’s morning, but it’s so early that even the sun isn’t up yet; the moon is still doing a sideways smile in the black sky. We walk for a little bit, Maggie, John, and me, crunching over leaves and twigs, and I decide that I like the forest. It’s nice and quiet, not like the shop. John says if we see anybody else, we have to say we are going for a picnic. I think that’s silly, nobody goes for a picnic this early in the morning and we don’t have any food with us.
The police took the gun that Maggie shot the bad man with, but we have two new ones now, presents from the man we call Uncle Michael. He gave them to us at the pub last Sunday. I think he needs a haircut—it’s grown so long he looks like a girl. I must have pulled a face when Maggie said I had to learn to use a gun, but then she promised it would be fun, like my Speak & Spell machine. The one I am going to learn to shoot is called a pistol—even guns have lots of different names, like people. It looks nothing like my Speak & Spell—it is silver, not orange—and it feels heavy in my hand.
Maggie opens up the bag she has been carrying and takes out some tins of Heinz baked beans. I wonder if we are having a picnic after all, but then I see that they are empty. She puts the tin cans all over the place; some on top of the leaves on the ground, and some in the branches of the trees. Then she comes back to show me what to do. John doesn’t do or say much. Maggie tells him, “Keep watch,” but I’m not sure what he is meant to be watching—there is nobody else here.
Maggie can hit the tin cans from real far away; they make a funny noise when she does and topple over. She puts them all straight again, gives me back the pistol, and says that it is my turn. The pistol is so heavy it’s hard for me to hold it straight. I close one eye, just like Maggie did, then I squeeze hard and fall backwards when the gun goes off. John laughs at me, but Maggie doesn’t. She makes me do it again, and again, and again. Until my arms ache and my ears are hurting from all the loud bangs. I start to cry because I don’t want to do this anymore.
Maggie tells me to stop, but I can’t.