Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner (read book txt) 📗

me. What happened to me? The quiet one is on top of me. The pain is him. The wrists is him. The noise is him. It’s all him. The blanket scratches on my neck.

Huh. Huh. Huh.

And behind him, another. A laughing face.

Huh, huh, huh.

The panic comes now, replaces the pain. I pull my head up off the ground, but my shoulders won’t follow. My wrists are pinned. I open my mouth. I have to speak.

Hey, I hear myself say. I mean it as a shout but my voice sounds far away. Like a whisper. It’s all I can say. Hey. Hey.

37 WEEKS

HELEN

The morning after the party I wake with my head heavy and spinning, almost as if I had been drinking last night. I am aching all over, my chest clammy against my clothes. I wonder whether I might be getting the flu.

I walk downstairs to survey the damage. The kitchen floor is cold, and when I run the hot tap, ghosts of hot steam drift out of the boiler pipe, escaping into the frosty garden air. I take a deep breath, rub my eyes, flick the kettle on. My shoulders ache. I don’t feel right. Maybe I should take some paracetamol. I put my hands to my throat. It feels red raw, as if I have spent the whole night screaming.

I pull my blue check coat over my pyjamas, stepping into my wellies with one hand on the wall in case I topple over. The coat will no longer fasten over my bump.

Outside, the bonfire has burned out, leaving a huge black wound in the centre of the garden. There are crows in the trees and on the fence, diving down to pick over the charred remains. I shoo them away, pick a path through the wet grass to check on my roses. I pluck a cigarette butt out of their beds, retrieve an upturned wine glass. When I stand up again, the earth swims. I grasp at the trellis. I can see those twists at the sides of my vision again. Little spirals of black and white, like tickertape.

I make my way back to the kitchen to make tea. It is spotlessly clean, the surfaces wiped, with that artificial forest smell everywhere. The mugs and glasses are all washed up, sparkling and stacked neatly on the draining board. Did I do all that? I don’t think so. Katie must have stayed after I’d gone to bed, helped to clear up the house. I suppose it might have been Daniel, though he doesn’t normally leave anything this neat. It won’t have been Charlie. Charlie always disappears whenever there’s work to be done.

I lift the lid of the bread bin, reach inside. Empty. I sigh, crossly. Rachel must have finished the bread again. With the thought comes a memory. We argued last night, Rachel and I. The laptop! That’s right. I found the laptop in her room. I told her to leave. Did she leave?

When I knock on the spare-bedroom door, there is no answer. I push it open and stare. Rachel is gone. All her stuff is gone too. No suitcase, no mess. The bed has been stripped, the bedside table cleared. The sheets and the towels she’s been using have been piled into the laundry basket.

I go to wake Daniel. I push his books and glasses to one side on his bedside table to make space for the tea. Then I sit down on the bed, lay my hand on his chest. He is still sleeping, but fitfully. His T-shirt is drenched in sweat. When I move my hand to his arm, his eyes snap open.

‘Daniel?’

He sits up, wincing, as if his body aches all over, too. Oh God. I hope it isn’t flu.

‘What?’

He rubs his eye sockets with his fingers. He sits up, takes the coffee and drinks deeply from it. Pats around for his glasses, then fumblingly pushes them onto his face with a flattened palm.

‘What’s up? Why are you looking like that?’

‘Rachel’s gone.’

Daniel stares at me. He doesn’t look at all well. His skin is almost green, as if he is about to throw up.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Rachel. She’s gone. All her stuff is gone. She stripped the bed and everything.’

Daniel throws his legs over the side of the bed and marches down the stairs in his T-shirt and pants, as if he doesn’t believe me, wants to see it for himself. After a few minutes he returns. He looks agitated.

‘Didn’t she say where she was going?’

I shake my head. ‘No. I feel terrible now – we had an argument last night …’

‘What about?’

‘You’re not going to believe this. I found your laptop in her room.’

‘Seriously? She stole it?’

I shrug. ‘I suppose so.’

‘Jesus. And then what?’

‘That’s the thing,’ I say slowly. ‘I know I told her to leave. But – it’s so weird – I can’t seem to properly remember what happened afterwards. Going to bed, and stuff like that – I only remember it really vaguely. It’s almost like I’d been drinking.’

Daniel sits down on the bed next to me, pushes his glasses up his nose. ‘Could you have drunk something by mistake?’

‘Of course not.’ I pause, start to pick at the skin around my thumbnail.

‘Oh, Helen.’ Daniel pulls me towards him, holds me tightly. ‘You’ve just been so tired.’ He starts to rock me gently.

I squirm away from him. ‘Something’s not right. Did you see her, before she left? Was she upset? Did she tell you she was leaving?’

‘She didn’t say anything to me.’

‘Did you actually see her leave the party last night?’

‘No. I must have already gone to bed.’

He stretches his head one way, then the other, his neck clicking slightly. Then he takes my hand.

‘Do you think we should do anything?’ I ask.

‘Like what?’

‘I don’t know.’ I rub my eyes with my hands.

‘Come on, Helen,’ Daniel says. ‘Rachel is an adult. She can look after herself. And I’m sorry if this sounds harsh, but