The House Swap(59)

I close my eyes briefly, hating myself. I don’t even know who it is that I’m wanting. The you I knew wouldn’t have done this at all, yet alone sent that sinister photograph. At the thought of it, I turn to my phone and open up the email again, wanting to present myself with the evidence. The shock of it hits me afresh: the crudely doctored pictures, the ovals of blank space where my face has been removed. I keep looking until I’ve been staring at it for so long it’s starting to blur before my eyes. And then my focus shifts and, in the same way that you can look at an anagram and see the letters suddenly rearranging themselves into meaning out of nowhere, I see something else.

In the corner of the picture, the hallway mirror is hanging, almost out of shot. The light is dim, and the camera flash has hit the glass, but I can just about make out the figure in profile holding the camera up to take the photograph. I can’t see the face, but I can see the length of the hair, the slightness of the shoulders and the curve of the neck. The figure is a woman. It’s not you.



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Francis, July 2013


THE ONLY THING more frightening than the knowledge that you’ve hit rock bottom is the fear that you haven’t. I’ve been there several times these past few months. A dark place, a prison with no clear exit – a windowless box filled with the smell of decay and destruction. And then the gears grind into action and the lift shudders down another floor, and I realize that, wherever I’ve been, it was just a holding room. You can always go lower. That’s the lesson I’m learning, over and over, every day.

Today is a first. It’s almost 8 a.m. and the summer sun is shining through the French windows, and I’ve been awake all night. No patches of uneasy sleep, no drifting losses of consciousness at the computer screen that end with a violent jolt, as if I’ve been falling and am only just hitting the ground. I’ve been sitting here wired up for ten hours and my eyes are wide open. Not to say that I can remember much of it. When I cast back over the night in search of something to catch on to, it’s like looking for driftwood in a constantly churning sea. The sunlight hurts my eyes and, despite the heat, I’m shivering.

There’s noise in the rooms beyond. A child squawking and shouting, wordless bursts of song. Eddie. His name feels blank and unfamiliar in my head. Love sits uneasily on me, a worn-out, too-big coat that doesn’t mould itself to me in the way it once did. At some point, it’s going to fall apart, just like everything else.

Caroline comes into the room. A woman in a sleeveless vest top and a black skirt with transparent pleats that shine through to a short silk layer beneath and which fly out and settle again against her skin when she turns. Her hair is soft and she smells of roses. We have nothing to do with one another. In fact, the idea that this woman used to look into my eyes and tell me with passionate impatience that she loved me, that she used to come for me as easily as breathing, is so strange it makes me wonder if I’ve dreamed it all and woken up in a whole other life.

She’s checking her appearance in the mirror, rolling lipstick around her mouth. ‘We’re leaving in a minute,’ she says.

‘Where are you going?’ I’m not sure why I bother to ask. Life happens, and it doesn’t have much to do with me, but some habits die harder than others and I still want to know where she goes and what she does, or at least what she tells me she goes and does.

She stops, stares. ‘To my parents’ house.’ The words are slow and spaced out, as if she’s talking to a child. ‘I’m taking Eddie there for the weekend, remember.’

‘That’s next weekend.’ I do remember this being talked about. A little pathetic flicker of pleasure that something has filtered in. But it wasn’t happening today, or at least I don’t think so.

‘Today is the eighth of July, Francis,’ Caroline says. ‘This was always the plan. We’re leaving now, and we’ll be back on Sunday morning. That’s the day after tomorrow.’ I glance up sharply. That sounds like sarcasm, drip-fed info to an idiot. But when I meet her gaze it’s serious and straight. It’s like she thinks I can’t understand her.

‘Yeah, I know,’ I say, shrugging it off. ‘See you, then. Have a good time. Call me.’

She pulls her handbag on to her shoulder, spends some time adjusting and fiddling with the strap, while her thoughts dance like butterflies across her face, each one clearer than the last. ‘If I were you,’ she says at last, not looking at me, ‘I’d use this time to think about how you want this to go forward. Because you know how I’m feeling. I don’t think we’re going anywhere. And unless you can show me otherwise pretty fucking soon, then you know what’s going to happen.’ Despite the swear word, her tone is calm and sad. If she’s talking to anyone, it’s to herself.

The thought is vaguely reassuring. If you can’t even look me in the eye, I think, don’t think you can tell me what to do. And soon, it’s like it’s never been said at all.

Eddie gallops into the room. Red shirt, blue shoes. Before I know it, he’s launched himself against me, his head butting into my stomach. It hurts, like most things do now. I wince, drawing him back by the shoulders. His arms are reaching out, squeezing around my neck. ‘Bye, Daddy.’ A moment of wide-eyed contact. He’s the only person left in the world who doesn’t judge me, and it’s only because he hasn’t got the tools for it yet. He’s not old enough to know better. But, sooner or later, his eyes are going to cloud with suspicion and his lip is going to twist with distaste and he’s going to turn his back.