One Step Too Far Read online

  Andrew had chased Caroline around the oval-shaped dining table whilst Frances picked shards of glass out of Emily’s face and arms and legs. Miraculously, Emily’s cuts were mostly superficial, but Caroline was still sent to her room until tea-time, despite Andrew trying to convince his wife that Caroline hadn’t realised what would happen – she was too young, he'd said, she can’t possibly have done it deliberately – and that they should let her come downstairs now. But Frances was unrelenting, she’d never been so furious in her life.

  Later Andrew hypothesised that it was only Emily’s speed at impact that saved her from Jeffrey Johnson’s fate, the boy four doors down who’d been left with a livid two inch scar on his cheek from a run-in with his own glass door. There was however one deeper cut on Emily’s knee which faded over time but failed to disappear completely, and she was never able to look at it without being reminded of her sister, and of course as she got older it reminded her of all the other things Caroline had done over the years, so the scar was much worse than it looked really. The Browns replaced the door with a wooden one after that, and although the living room was always that much darker, Frances felt happier that way.

  3

  At Euston the heat is still waiting for me as I step down from the carriage. The train is leaking people out onto the platform and everyone is rushing, busy, knowing where they’re going. I stop by a stanchion and remove my handbag from my armpit and shove it into my holdall, I can’t risk losing it. My clothes are too hot for the day ahead but I’m not changing now, I have too much to do – I have to buy a new phone, find somewhere to live, start my new life. I’m determined now. I refuse to think about Ben or my darling Charlie, I can’t think about them, about how they’ll be awake by now, will know I’ve gone. They have each other, they’ll cope, in fact they’ll be better off in the long run, I know they will. Yes, I’ve done the right thing.

  I’d tried to research how to find somewhere to live in London, in those final unhinged weeks back in Manchester, back when I was Emily still. I’d made sure I always cleared the history on our computer so Ben wouldn’t suspect what I was about to do. Until I get a job I can’t afford too much on rent, I don’t know how long my money will have to last me, so I’m going to try to find a shared house – the type where eight or nine people (usually Australians I think) live together and turn every room that’s not a kitchen or a bathroom into a bedroom. There’s also less need for ID, for references in those kind of places, I mustn’t be traced. I pick up the local papers in another newsagents, shuffle along another queue, and venture out into the hazy, infected sunshine.

  Where do I go now? I’m lost and feel panicky, like I want to turn back the clock and run home to my boy, like this is all a horrible mistake. I look around blankly until eventually I can process the images, can see the big ugly road in front of me, snarled up with traffic, drowning in car fumes. Sweat is breaking out under my right arm and across my shoulder where the strap of the holdall is touching my skin, and the hot smell of myself reminds me that I am really here, I really have done this. I cross over at the lights and walk straight, down a long wide road, across a square, past a distant statue, of Gandhi I think, and I don’t know where I’m going and it’s taking me forever. Eventually I see a mobile shop on the other side of the street and I’m relieved, like I’ve succeeded at something. The shop is large and dreary despite the posters and the video screens showing the latest offers – the bright moving images make the shop itself feel more dismal somehow. It’s empty apart from two shop assistants who eye me up as I enter, but then studiously ignore me for a couple of minutes although I can tell I’m being watched. The shop sells every network and I haven’t got a clue what to go for, it’s so confusing. All the phones look the same to me. A young man wearing a black uniform sidles up to me and asks me how I’m doing.

  “Fine, thanks,” I say.

  “Is there anything I can help you with? What are you after today?” His voice has a musical lilt to it and he has a handsome face with a neat black beard but he doesn't look at me straight and I don't look at him. We both stare at the shelves of phones, which are just dummy ones anyway and half of these are missing, there are just cables with nothing on the ends.

  “I’m after a new phone.” My voice is timid, unfamiliar to me.

  “Certainly, madam. Who are you with at the moment?”

  “No-one,” I say, and I think how true. “I mean, I’ve lost my old one.”

  “Who was that with?” the shop assistant persists.

  “I can’t remember,” I say. “I just want a cheap phone on pay as you go,” and my tone is sharper than I mean it to be, and I didn't used to be like this. I pick up one of the battered looking dummy phones.

  “This one looks OK, how much are calls on this?”

  The man is patient and explains that it depends which network I choose, and I realise he must think I’m an idiot, but the truth is I’ve never bought a phone from scratch before, my mum and dad bought me my first one for college and I’ve always just upgraded or had work ones since then. The shop assistant makes me go through the rigmarole of of saying how many calls and texts I’m going to use, whether I want access to the internet, so he can work out which package is best for me, and I really don’t care after what I’ve been through and I don’t understand any of it anyway and I just want to get out of this place and call some house-share ads before it gets too late, before I panic, so I have somewhere to sleep tonight.

  “Look, all I want is the cheapest deal, can’t you just decide for me,” I say, and it comes out wrong. The shop assistant looks hurt.

  “Sorry,” I say, and to my horror I’m crying. The man puts his arm round me and in his beautiful sing song voice tells me I’ll be OK, and through my embarrassment I wonder how I’ve become such a bitch. He finds me a tissue and then picks out something he says will be perfect for me and even insists on giving me a discount. When I finally leave the shop I have a working new phone, fully topped up and ready to make calls. He was so kind he somehow made me remember there’s more going on in the world than my own misery – I must go back and thank him one day.

  Out on the street I feel wobbly again – I need somewhere quiet to sit where I can compose myself, where I can make some calls, it’s much too noisy here. I take a bus, any bus, from outside Holborn station, and it takes me all the way down Piccadilly and drops me outside Green Park. I only know this because I’m reading the street signs, but I'm pretty sure Green Park is somewhere in the centre, and if I’m in the centre I can head in whichever direction to my new home, it can be wherever.

  I walk through the park and am surprised at how quiet it is, once you turn off the main thoroughfares, away from the deck chairs and the tourists. I find a banked area where the grass has been left to grow long and I walk up towards the top and set down my bag in the shade. I kick off my ballet pumps and lie down in the yellow grass and there’s absolutely no-one around, just the low rumbling of the traffic outside the park to remind me I’m actually here, in the capital. The sun through the trees feels warm on my face and I shut my eyes and feel almost normal, content even. And then the image that has seared itself into my soul appears suddenly, vividly, and I shrink inside myself for the millionth time and open them again. It’s weird that it didn’t happen on the train when the grief of leaving was so raw. Just now I was almost feeling happy, from the physical tiredness, the thrill of the privacy, the anonymity, the promise of a new start, here in the middle of this great city. And happiness Catherine, that is not allowed.

  I call nine or ten places, all over London. They’re either already gone (“Oh, you came through Loot, love, that’s a bit late, you need to call as soon as it goes online”) or there’s no reply, or the people don’t speak English well and don’t seem to know what I‘m talking about. I can always get a hotel, but the thought is depressing. To go through with this I need to start now, today. In a hotel it would be too easy to dwell on what I’ve done, what I’ve lost – too easy t
o hole up quietly and open my veins. I don’t trust myself.

  I call the last ad on the list – room in shared house, Finsbury Park, £90 per week. I’ve no idea where it is. It’s more than I wanted to pay. I’m desperate. I think no-one’s going to answer and then at the last moment before I hang up someone picks up.

  “Finsbury Park Palace,” says a laughing voice. I hesitate. “Hello?” she continues, in some kind of Essex accent, or at least that’s what I think it is.

  “Uh, hello, I’m looking for a room, I saw your ad in Loot.”

  “Did you? There’s no rooms here, babe.” Just as I’m about to hang up I hear someone interrupt in the background.

  “Hey, hang on,” the voice continues. “Oh, it seems someone’s moved out today, but it wouldn’t be advertised yet. You must be answering the last ad, but that room went ages ago.”

  “How much is this one?” I persist.

  “It’s the size of a cupboard I warn you, and Fidel was a pig. £80 and it’s yours – saves us advertising for it, and you sound more normal than the usual nutters who ring.”

  “It sounds fine,” I say. “I can be there by six,” and she gives me the address and I hang up.

  I haven’t eaten anything all day. Hunger forms like a fist in my gut and I leave the park in search of something, anything to eat. I’m not sure which direction to head in, I’ve lost my bearings, so guess and go right, as that’s the way most people seem to be going. I pass a kiosk and buy a bag of crisps and a Coke, that’s all they have and my dithering annoys the man, he must think I’m a tourist instead of a runaway. I stand in the street and eat and drink with my holdall gripped between my feet, I’m so scared of losing it. Then I make my way, with everyone else, down the tiled steps into the tube station, which is fortunately right there, right where I need it, towards my new home.

  The area feels rough and the house is a total dump. I’m not at all keen to go in and I question just what I’m doing here. (Have I gone properly mad at last? I wonder how it’s taken so long.) I have no idea what awaits me within but the outside is inauspicious – an untidy overgrown hedge, piled-up crates of empty beer and wine bottles next to three pungent over-filled wheelie bins in the garden, huge-patterned curtains hanging crookedly at the aluminium windows, chipped and dirty painted brickwork, a plastic porch. I think of our beautiful Chorlton cottage with its Chapel Green front door and geranium-filled window boxes, the scent of lavender, the trendy laid-back vibe of the neighbourhood. I realise I have little choice if I want somewhere to sleep tonight – I’m here now, it’s getting late – so I take a breath, straighten my shoulders under the weight of my bag and walk up the path.

  A surly black girl answers the door. “Yes?” she says.

  “Hi, I’ve come about the room,” I say.

  “What room? There’s no rooms here.”

  “Oh. I spoke to...” I realise I didn’t get Essex Girl’s name. I try again.

  “I spoke to a girl on the phone this afternoon, she said someone had moved out, that a room had come up...”

  “Nah, you must have the wrong house, sorry.” She goes to shut the door.

  “Please,” I say. “It was, er, Castro’s room I think, apparently he moved out today. Is there anyone else I can talk to who might know?”

  The girl begins to look annoyed. “There’s no-one here called Castro. I’ve told you, you’ve got the wrong house.” She shuts the door in my face.

  As I turn away humiliated hot tears are seeping down my face. I stagger under the weight of my bag and put it down on the pavement in front of the hedge, where no-one from the house can see me. I feel like I’m going to pass out, from the heat and the hunger and the homelessness, from yet another loss. I sit on my bag and put my head between my legs, waiting for the swimming to pass, wanting to go home, wanting my husband. I hear the front door open and a girl is running down the path, calling for somebody called Catherine. I keep my head down, unresponsive, and then there’s someone standing above me, so finally I look up. I look into the face of an angel and she says, “Are you here for Fidel’s room? Oh babe, don’t cry, she’s a miserable cow, just ignore her. Come on in, I’ll fix you a drink, it looks like you need it.” And that’s how I meet Angel, my angel, my salvation.

  4

  Emily met Ben on a parachute course, of all things. She hardly noticed him at first, he seemed so quiet, and when they were put in the same car for the trip to the tiny airport they didn’t talk much. The other passenger was Jeremy, a tall thin pierced boy who seemed way too anxious and uncoordinated to throw himself out of a plane safely, and as they made the hour-long journey she kept wondering how she’d got herself into this situation. Her friend Dave had persuaded her, and it was meant to be for charity, but still, now that it came to it jumping out of a plane seemed like a crazy thing to do. And why was she crammed in the back of Dave's bashed up old car with long folded-up Jeremy? Shouldn’t he be in the front where there was much more leg room? It occurred to her then that perhaps Ben was embarrassed of her, maybe that was why he’d insisted on sitting in the passenger seat – and then she told herself not to be silly, no-one was ever interested in her, although the truth was actually the opposite. When she noticed an ugly red boil on Ben’s neck, just below his hairline, she felt sorry for him – he kept shifting his jacket to try to cover it up, but he wouldn’t just go for it and put the lapel up, it would be too obvious. She knew he could feel her staring at it, so she tried not to look, but somehow it was distracting her from the thought of what she was meant to be doing soon, and the more she tried to ignore it the more she felt her eyes drawn back to it, or maybe back to him, she realised afterwards. She shivered although the car was fumey-hot, there was something wrong with the heating. She wasn’t feeling herself at all.

  The airport was hidden down country lanes behind tall hedgerows amongst green and yellow fields. As they drove through the entrance the little planes looked cow-like, herded together as if for company. There were corrugated-roofed sheds laid out on three sides of a rectangle – one for packing the parachutes, one for keeping the planes at night and one that housed a recreation area for the hours and hours parachutists seemed to spend waiting for the cloud to lift. Emily was too nervous now to even think about playing games and instead she excused herself and sat in the corner with a mug of stewed tea and her book – thank God she’d thought to bring one with her, sometimes reading was the only thing that could distract her. Her friend Dave came over and sat with her and tried to cheer her up with a succession of terrible jokes (“What’s the fastest cake in the world? Scone. What do you call a fish with no eyes? Fsh,” etcetera) but although she tried to laugh she almost blamed him for getting her into this and so he took the hint and left her to it. She sat quietly, feeling trapped and lonely while the other would-be parachutists played pool or scrabble and seemed to enjoy the boredom. She may even have made her excuses and left if she’d been in her own car, but she was stranded in the middle of a field somewhere in the Cheshire countryside, she could hardly walk home, and anyway she had collected so much money for charity she really had to go through with it now, she couldn’t let everyone down. She gripped her book tighter and tried to concentrate on the story, tried not to think, but her mind was catapulting – this wasn’t a practice, she wouldn’t be jumping off a platform in a sports hall this time, she’d be leaping out into air, and it all felt too real now she'd seen the planes.

  “Hey Emily, d'you want to play pool?” She looked up to see Dave looking eagerly at her, his stubble over-long like cut up spider-legs, his hair greasy, his ever-present leather jacket open over a black heavy metal T-shirt.

  “No thanks, I’m OK, honestly Dave,” she said, but he looked unconvinced. “Don’t worry about me, I’m at a good bit in my book.”

  “Go on, you can’t just sit there all day, it’ll be a ball, ha ha. You and me against Jeremy and Ben.”

  Emily paused and looked across to the pool table, which was wonky and threadbare, in time to
see Ben pot an impossible looking red, but he barely reacted, just moved around to the other side to take his next shot.

  “I’m rubbish at pool, I’ll let you down.”

  “No, you’re fine," said Dave. "Come on,” and he grabbed Emily’s hand and pulled her out of her seat. Ben glanced up from his next shot as they came across to the table, before looking down quickly. Maybe he did like her, she thought again, but immediately told herself she was imagining it – and anyway she wouldn’t really be interested, she tended to steer clear of relationships, she left that kind of thing to her sister.

  Once Ben had finished thrashing Jeremy, who was so tall he had to bend his knees to take his shots, they started their doubles game. When it was Emily's turn she leaned over and aimed for a ball down the other end of the table, but she scuffed her shot and the white ball skewed lazily off-course, just missing the yellow she’d gone for.

  “Sorry, Dave,” she said, but he just grinned and she handed the cue to Ben. For a split second they were both holding it, and it felt peculiarly intimate, so she let go quickly as he muttered thanks and looked away. He aimed at the easiest-looking red, but although he’d been potting everything before, he misjudged it and it bounced lamely out the pocket.

  “Damn,” he said, blushing a little, and went to hand the cue to Dave.

  “Two shots,” Dave reminded him, so Ben went again and although this shot was even easier he missed it too. Dave took the cue and went on a massive potting spree, showing off, and as Jeremy was useless anyway and Ben seemed to have gone completely off the boil, when it came to Emily’s turn all she needed to do was pot the black to win. She felt odd still and wasn’t sure what it was – fear of the jump itself, embarrassment about Ben’s apparent nerves around her – but she took aim and although it was tricky and she got the angle wrong, the table’s crazy slant sent the ball dribbling inexorably into the far end corner.