The House Swap(28)
On cue, my phone buzzes in my bag, and I reach absently down to find it. Francis has woken up. Not on your way back yet? Let me know when you are. Would have been nice if you’d let me know you were staying out late, but I suppose, given what a bitch you were before you left, it’s not much of a surprise. I read it over a couple of times, momentarily lost.
‘Something wrong?’ Carl asks. I shrug and, on impulse, I flip the screen towards him, showing him the message before stuffing the phone back in my bag.
‘Hmm,’ he says, frowning. ‘Well. Don’t quite know what to say to that. He must know a different Caro from the one I do.’
The words are casual but something in them drives to the heart of me and rocks me to the core. It’s true, I realize. What is happening here is far more than the sum of its parts. It’s a transformation. There is someone inside me who has been fighting to get out for years, and he’s ripping open the doors and swinging them wide, dragging her and all her dangerous new desires and compulsions out into the light.
At first, it was difficult sleeping in Caroline’s bed – even though the sheets were freshly laundered, I couldn’t help thinking about her lying there, a ghostly presence beside me. Last night, though, exhaustion overtook me swiftly and deeply. I didn’t wake until ten and, when I did, it felt as if I was surfacing from something much greater than sleep. Like coming back to life.
I lie there for a while, staring at the chaos I still haven’t cleared up in her room, the debris of clothes and papers that mark my investigation. It’s another half-hour before I drag myself out of bed and get washed and dressed, then pick up my phone to scroll through my emails. When I see her name at the top of the inbox, I feel something inside readjusting, calibrating – a soft, internal blow to the heart. Are you there? It’s not that I didn’t expect it. I wasn’t sure how long it would take, or which one of the subtle clues I’d left scattered around the house would tip her over the edge, but I knew she’d fall eventually. All the same, there’s something about the message that gets me: its directness, its neediness, the acres of blank space packed with invisible meaning around the words.
I leave it unanswered for hours, knowing she’ll be checking for a reply. Of all the lessons I could teach her, one of the most valuable would be that the world doesn’t always spin to her rhythm. Not everything has to be adjusted to her needs, reconfigured around what is best for her. She isn’t the exact centre of anything but her own life. She isn’t exempt from judgement or tragedy, any more than those she sees as circling in her orbit.
What Caroline wants isn’t always what she gets. All the same, when I do reply, I find myself falling in line with her. I keep it short and simple, although it’s twice as long as her own message.
If you want me to be.
Away
Caroline, May 2015
THE TUBE IS packed and too hot, even at eleven in the morning on a weekday. We’ve been standing for more than fifteen minutes now, and every time the train pulls into a station it lurches and almost knocks me off my feet. I keep trying to remind myself to hold on to the rail, but the message doesn’t seem to be making it through. I can’t focus on anything for more than a few seconds. The strangers around me are fuzzy, sliding off the edges of my vision and seeping away into bright blurs of nothing. Next to me, Francis fiddles unconcernedly with his headphones, turning the music up.
At least, underground, I can’t check my email for a few minutes. I’d forgotten how it felt – the sick, compulsive need to look at my phone every five seconds, a needle scratching over and over again in the same groove. I’ve already convinced myself several times that I’ve imagined the whole thing. But then I think about that folder, and the password printed inside it, and I’m right back there in the kitchen, holding it tightly in my shaking hands and feeling as if I’m falling a thousand feet, with no way of stopping. I can’t prove it, but I know the person who created that password is you. And if that’s true, then you’re in my house. Looking at my things, touching them. Sleeping in my bed. You’ve put yourself back in my life.
The thought brings a complex surge of emotions. Confusion, sick excitement, even fear. I don’t understand why you would do it this way. I can’t reconcile it with the you I knew – unapologetically frank, direct to the point of bluntness. If you wanted to see me, why wouldn’t you just send a text? An email? Even as the thought lands, something about it doesn’t feel quite right, and I realize that you’re not seeing me; quite the opposite. You’re seeing the way I live, without me there. But why would you want to do that?
‘Come on.’ Francis nudges me, indicating the sliding doors ahead. I push my way automatically through the crowds of people and tumble out on to the platform. We must be at South Kensington already.
I try to gather my thoughts, concentrate on the day ahead. We’d agreed last night to take a trip to the Science Museum, a half-ironic nostalgia mission. I glance at Francis, smiling amiably at nothing as he wanders up the platform beside me, and a shiver passes up the length of my spine. I love him, I remind myself. Things are very different between us now from the way they were two years ago. If I really believe what I’m thinking, then even by typing that one question into an email I’ve crossed a line that is unacceptable. I owe it to both of us to push it aside, for now, at least.