What Lies Between Us(6)

‘I brought you another book home,’ I say from the landing, and hear a rattling from inside as she lowers herself into the water.

‘Thank you,’ she replies.

‘I’ll leave it in your bedroom.’

I head back downstairs to the ground floor and return with a book whose cover image is the chalk outline of a body. I question if her preferred reading material mirrors the darkness beneath her surface.

Placing the book on one of her two bedside tables, I gravitate towards the window. With the exception of a moving car, all is quiet outside. I spy the flickering of television screens in some of the neighbours’ lounges and wonder what they’re watching. At this time of night, it’s probably the soaps. When I was a girl, we’d gather around the telly to watch Coronation Street and EastEnders. Well, Mum and I did. Dad would be catching up on the newspapers or sitting at his desk in his office upstairs designing buildings.

Outside, our neighbour Louise appears from her front door and collects something from the boot of her car. I spot her paunch in the streetlight – Mum’s right, she is definitely pregnant. Without thinking, my hands reach for my own stomach and I find myself cradling it, as if there’s a life growing inside me. I know there isn’t; it’s impossible. My insides are like a broken-down piece of old machinery with missing parts. However, it doesn’t stop the longing.

I look up to the burned orange and purple sky and am happy the light nights have arrived. I saved up the money I receive as my Carer’s Allowance and have treated myself to a new table and four chairs for the garden made of something called rattan. They should be arriving soon. I don’t need all that seating; it’s not as if casual visitors drop by. But one chair on its own would look pitiful.

For a moment, I picture Maggie and me eating dinner together in the garden one warm summer evening. It would be nice to do something that is different for us, but normal for other families. Then I dismiss the idea as quickly as it appeared. If I can’t leave her alone with a corkscrew for a couple of minutes, then how can I be sure she won’t be a danger to either of us if she’s outdoors?

I glance at my watch; she’s been in the bath for fifteen minutes and the water must be getting cooler. On my way to the bathroom door, I spot her reading glasses folded on her bedside table. Something glints and catches my eye so I step into her bedroom to look more closely. She has tried to hide a spring from her mattress under her glasses case, but the tip is poking out. Good spot, I think, pleased with myself but disappointed by yet another act of defiance I must now retaliate against. I use the bevelled end of the spring to unfasten the tiny screw that keeps one of the arms of her glasses attached to the frame. I slip both the screw and spring inside my trouser pocket and return her glasses, neatly folded, to where they were.

‘Are you ready?’ I ask from outside the bathroom door.

‘I’m just putting my nightie on,’ she replies, and I hear the clanking of metal again. Then she appears, clean and shiny. I follow her into her bedroom and she shuffles towards the window.

‘Okay,’ I say, ‘lift your leg up’, and she obliges, familiar with our well-practised routine. I remove a key from my pocket and undo the padlock attached to the clamp around her ankle. The chain falls to the floor with a heavy thump. I attach a second, much shorter clasp and chain to her ankle and lock it. This chain doesn’t extend far from the spike. Once again, I have her confined to her bedroom.

‘Right, I’ve bleached your bucket,’ I tell her and look towards the blue plastic pail and toilet roll in the corner of the room. ‘I’ll see you in a couple of days.’

Later, I’ll prepare tomorrow’s breakfast and lunch and leave them outside her door before I go to work in the morning. Her dinner can wait until I return in the evening.

I lock the door behind me and stand at the top of the stairs with my eyes closed. I wish it didn’t have to be like this, I really do. I think about a quote I read once in a letter written by one of my favourite authors, Charlotte Bront?. ‘I can be on guard against my enemies, but God deliver me from my friends.’ I wonder if that includes family members too.





PART TWO





CHAPTER 5





NINA


The number seven bus drops me off at the station in what used to be Northampton’s fish market. Even though they’ve torn the old building down and replaced it with this brick and glass monstrosity, if I inhale hard enough I think I can still smell seafood, forever caught between the past and the present.

I make my way through an empty market square, remembering when I was a girl and this grey, rough-hewn cobbled space was the heart of the town. For three days a week, it was a hive of activity with traders selling affordable clothes, pet foods, music, fabrics, fruit and veg, and videotapes. Now, there aren’t enough stalls to fill even half of it on the busiest of days.

I’m a quarter of an hour early when I swipe my way inside the library where I work. I head down the stone steps, following the grooves that thousands upon thousands of pairs of feet have made over the building’s 150-year history. I use my security pass again to enter the basement and leave my bag and coat in the staffroom before I return upstairs to the main floor.

I bid a cheery good morning to my colleagues – I count twelve of us on shift today, all of us of different ages. As I watch them interact with one another, it strikes me that people have an antiquated perception of librarians. They assume female employees are quiet, unassuming, bookish folk; that our wardrobes consist of a dull collection of cardigans and comfortable shoes; that we wear our hair tied back in tight buns and we spend our lives sitting behind desks shushing or fining people for late returns. Meanwhile, our male colleagues are equally dull, humourless virgins with beards, corduroy jackets and checked shirts, who still live at home with their mothers.