Reluctantly Home(14)

‘Well, I hope it goes well,’ Pip replied quickly, keen not to get volunteered into helping, and then sidled away to unlock her bike before the thought could occur to Audrey. Even though she wasn’t fit enough to be holding down her proper job in London, this parochial little life with its unimportant problems was driving her mad. How did all these people not die of boredom, tucked away out here in the middle of nowhere? A bring-and-buy sale, for God’s sake.

With the plastic bag containing the stolen diary wedged into the bicycle’s basket, Pip rode back to the farm down the narrow leafy lanes, planning out her evening as she went. She would escape from the kitchen as soon as she could after supper, run herself a deep, hot bath and then have an early night with the diary.

What was happening to her? Rose would be horrified at the prospect of such a dull evening. But Rose wasn’t here and Pip was doing her best to hold things together in whichever way she could. She could hear Dominic scoffing at her plan, too, but she didn’t care. She felt a weird connection between herself and the diary writer, and she needed to investigate it. The writer appeared to be stuck in the wrong place just like she was, although Pip hadn’t yet worked out why. She needed to read some more.

But it wasn’t just the puzzle of the situation that was sucking her in. Spending a few hours lost in someone else’s life would also be very welcome, giving her mind a chance, however fleeting, to break free from the horrible loop that played constantly in her head – guilt, fear, recrimination, grief and then back to guilt.

On her brighter days, Pip could convince herself that it hadn’t all been destroyed, that the world she had painstakingly built for herself before the accident was still there, just waiting for her to step back into it. All she had to do was get well enough to pick up where she had left off.

If only it were as simple as that.

Her parents, delighted though they had been to welcome her back to the farm, didn’t seem to understand why she had had to leave London in the first place. She had tried more than once to explain it to her mother, who, whilst sympathetic, struggled to follow.

‘I had a panic attack, Mum,’ she told her, unable to keep the frustration out of her voice. ‘Well, I had loads of them, but I had a really big one at work.’

‘But surely they should have made allowances for you, Pip, after what happened.’

Nobody would say the words, Pip noticed. The fact that she had killed a child was so washed in euphemism that it came out if not clean, then certainly less bloodstained.

‘They’d already made plenty of allowances, Mum, but I let them all down. I collapsed in the middle of the Supreme Court with everyone watching me. I didn’t even know my own name. They couldn’t let me carry on working after that. They have their reputation to think of, and mine.’

‘But that wasn’t your fault,’ said her mother indignantly. ‘You were ill.’

Pip suspected that her mother had read that panic attacks were a symptom of mental illness and whilst she struggled with the concept, was determined to embrace it for her daughter’s sake.

‘But that doesn’t make any difference, Mum. Clients pay a lot of money for me to act for them. If I can’t do that without breaking down and making a show of myself, then they just won’t give me any more work.’

Her mother nodded as if she could understand this. ‘That doesn’t seem fair,’ she added. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’ She was quiet for a moment or two and then, twisting the tea towel she was holding in her hands, she said, ‘Can I ask you something personal?’

Pip nodded, worried about what was coming but unable to come up with a reason to avoid it.

‘What does it feel like?’ her mother asked. ‘Having a panic attack, I mean. I’ve tried to imagine it, but I can’t, not really.’

Pip didn’t want to have to explain in case the mere description triggered one, but it had clearly cost her mother a lot to ask her.

She took a deep breath. ‘It’s horrible, Mum. I feel completely out of control, and you know how much I hate that.’

Her mother nodded. They could both agree that Pip liked to be in control.

‘It kind of starts with my scalp,’ Pip continued. ‘And then my neck and my cheeks go numb. That’s when I know it’s coming and I can’t do anything to stop it. It’s like I can’t get any air, like there’s a band squeezing my chest so I can’t breathe. Then my vision goes wobbly and in the end I just black out and . . .’ She stopped. She didn’t know what happened after that. She glanced up at her mother. There were tears rolling down her cheeks.

‘Oh Pip, love,’ she said, her voice cracking a little. ‘My poor baby.’

Pip had no tears. They just wouldn’t come. It was as if her emotions had been sliced away from her. ‘It’s okay, Mum,’ she said. ‘You get used to it after a bit.’

But that wasn’t true. She had lost count of the number of flashbacks and panic attacks she had had since the accident, and yet she still couldn’t come to terms with it. And that was why she couldn’t believe she would ever be able to pick her London life back up. She was starting to forget what it was like to be Rose.

In fact, she’d been so wrapped up with what was going on inside her head that she barely looked beyond her own problems these days. But now, the more she thought about the diary and what it might contain, the more excited she became. And this curiosity was something new.