Girl A(57)

I had a strange desire to give her a happy ending in every respect, so I told her, too, about the man whom I had met a fortnight earlier, at one of the university balls. It was four o’clock in the morning, and breakfast and the day’s papers were served in the gardens. He was standing behind Olivia and me in the queue for bacon sandwiches, and as we approached, it became clear that they were running low. I tried to calculate if there would be enough left for me, but I was too drunk, and too tired. ‘This’ll be close,’ he said.

The server handed me the final sandwich, and offered him a vegan patty.

‘I don’t suppose you feel like sharing,’ he said. He had a long-broken nose and he ate like he was starving. He had opened his collar and lost his dinner jacket, and I could see the press of his shoulders against his shirt.

‘Not really,’ I said, and took a bite.

‘It’s terrible hospitality,’ he said. ‘I travelled from London for this.’

‘To deign us with your presence?’ I said, and regretted it right away. I understood that there was a difference between being playful and cruel, but I only ever recognized it once the words were said. He chewed a mouthful of his patty, still smiling, and shrugged.

‘You don’t sound like you’re from London,’ I said, to make amends.

‘It’s a recent thing. But be warned. When you leave this place, you have to become serious. I’d advise against it.’

‘His name’s Jean Paul,’ I said, to Dr K. ‘But he isn’t French. Don’t you think that’s odd?’

‘I think that his parents might be odd,’ she said. ‘Certainly.’

There were things that I didn’t tell her. The following afternoon, after we had slept apart, I took him to the all-day breakfast cafe in town. That was our first in-joke: the bacon sandwich. That night, in my room, he asked if I was usually so bad at sharing. ‘I’m sharing my bed,’ I said, ‘so perhaps you should be more careful.’

‘Let me guess. You’re an only child.’

I hadn’t expected that. ‘Yes,’ I said, reminding myself that he was older than me, and already a barrister. I would probably never see him again, and the lie would neither need to be maintained nor corrected. He laughed.

‘Me, too,’ he said. ‘And there’s no way I would have shared it.’

Dr K took my disclosures as an offer; she felt that she owed me something in return. She leaned into me, close enough to see the pores and the lines beneath her foundation, and to smell a warm champagne burp which popped from her throat. I had never expected to encounter her this dishevelled, and I never did so again. ‘Let me tell you a secret,’ she said, ‘about the night that you escaped. When something like that happens, the police put together a list. It’s like a who’s who of practitioners, I suppose. The best psychologists that they’ve worked with. And for something like Moor Woods Road, everybody wants to be on that list. They only needed a handful of us, of course, and I understand that I was the last one to be included. I’d worked with the DI a few times, and that’s what he said: “You were the wild card”. But by the time they started to call us – midnight, one o’clock – I was the only one to answer the phone. I was working, I suppose – I don’t really remember. Anyway. When they called me, I requested – quite firmly – that I be assigned to you.’

‘To me? Why?’

‘Girl A,’ she said. ‘The girl who escaped. If anybody was going to make it, it was going to be you.’

There was no service to London for twenty minutes. A village station on a Sunday evening: it was the loneliest place in the world. I waited in the car, not wanting to be alone on the platform. It seemed important to speak to somebody before the train arrived. Evie answered right away, as she always did. ‘Lex,’ she said. ‘You don’t sound well.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not really.’

‘One moment,’ she said, and the noises around her dimmed.

‘I’m sorry. It’s just—’

‘Don’t be stupid – you don’t need to be sorry. Are you OK?’

‘I found Gabriel,’ I said. ‘But he’s so ill, Evie. I don’t know if he’s going to sign the papers.’

‘He isn’t?’

‘I don’t know. He’s confused.’

‘Don’t give up on him, Lex. Ethan – Delilah – they always know what they want. And there’s something Gabe’ll want, too.’

‘It isn’t just that, though. It was hard to look at him. And then I thought – when I had left him – about when he was younger. He was such a good kid. For the longest time, he never minded about anything.’

‘Stop, Lex. It’s OK.’

‘I don’t know if it is. Seeing him – you just remember things. Don’t you? Things that you couldn’t think about every day.’

‘I’m going to come,’ Evie said. ‘I can come to see you, and we can sort things out. We can go to the house together. I can come any time this month. Whenever your deal’s over.’

‘You can’t,’ I said.

‘Let me, Lex. It’s been too long.’

‘Don’t, Evie. I’m OK.’