'I'm sorry about what happened'
'No,' he interrupted. 'You did me a favour. I think I went mad.'
'I'm not sure'
'In the last weeks I was almost outside my body looking at myself as I laid waste to my life. You see I've always wanted to be a success, and to a certain extent I've always been a success. I've been thinking about it in the last couple of weeks and I've come up with an answer. I felt that people would only love me if I succeeded. Love was a reward for achievement. I think that I needed to make a complete fuck-up in order to make a total separation between my work life and my emotional life. It's me who should apologize to you. I put you in the position of having to do my dirty work for me. So I'm sorry, Abbie, I'm so sorry.'
And standing there in his own kitchen, Todd cried until his face shone with tears. I put my coffee mug on his kitchen table. I wasn't going to hug Todd, I just wasn't. It would be hypocritical. On the other hand I couldn't just stand there. So I took a couple of steps forward and put my hand on his shoulder. The problem was quickly resolved because he threw his arms around me and held me tight to him, sobbing. One side of my neck was wet with his tears. It was impossible for me to avoid some sort of reciprocal embrace. I didn't give him a full hug. I moved my arms round and gave him not much more than a light tap on his shoulder-blades.
'Todd,' I said feebly. 'I'm sorry about this.'
'No, no, Abbie,' he sobbed. 'You're really a good person.'
I slightly increased the pressure of my hug then eased myself free. I went over to his sink and tore off' a bit of paper towel. I handed it to him and he blew his nose and dabbed his face with it. 'I've been doing a lot of thinking,' he said. 'It's really been a positive time.'
'That's good,' I said. 'I'm glad about that. But if it's all right with you, I'd like to talk to you about what I was saying about these really vague memories of the last few weeks. For example, I remembered nothing at all about taking time off from Jay and Joiner's. What I'm doing is talking to people I know and seeing if they can tell me anything about that time. Stuff that I've forgotten.' I looked Todd in the eyes. 'Some people might say that we parted on pretty bad terms. I wondered if we had any contact after you .. . well, left.'
Todd rubbed his eyes. His face was puffy and red. 'I felt pretty bad for a few days,' he said. 'I was bitter. I felt I'd been shafted. But then, as I thought about it, I felt different. By the time you got in touch I was fine.'
'Got in touch? What do you mean?'
'You rang me.'
'When was this?'
'Two, three weeks ago.'
'I mean, exactly.'
Todd stopped and thought. He ran his hand over his stubbly hair.
'It was one of the days I go to the gym. They kept up my membership, you know. That was good. So it must have been a Wednesday. Afternoon.'
'Wednesday afternoon, right. What did I say?'
'Nothing much. You were being nice. You rang me to ask if I was all right.'
'Why?'
'Because you were being nice. You said you had things on your conscience and you wanted to sort them out. I was one of them.'
'Did I say anything?'
'You talked about your time off. You told me about the Avalanche job. You were lovely. You sounded happy. I mean in a good way.'
I stopped for a minute, thinking, going over the lost days in my head. Then I looked up at Todd. 'You mean there's a bad way of being happy?'
I rewrote my 'Lost Days' very neatly, underlining dates. It went something like this:
Friday January 11: showdown at Jay and Joiner's. Storm out.
Saturday January 12: row with Terry. Storm out. Go to Sadie's for night.
Sunday January 13: leave Sadie a.m. Go to Sheila and Guy. Meet Robin for shopping spree and spend too much money. Meet Sam for drink p.m. Go back to Sheila and Guy's.
Monday January 14: see Ken Lofting, Mr. Khan, Ben Brody and Gordon Lockhart. Phone Molte Schmidt. Fill car with petrol. Phone Sheila and Guy to say not coming back for night.
Tuesday January 15: go to Sheila and Guy and leave note saying found somewhere to stay. Collect stuff from there. Phone Terry and arrange to collect stuff next day. Book holiday in Venice. Order Indian take away p.m.
Wednesday January 16: buy bonsai tree. Phone Robin. Collect stuff from Terry's. Phone Todd.
Thursday Tanuary 17:
But Thursday was a blank. I wrote, in capital letters, 'morning after pill', and then I wrote jo'. I made myself coffee and then I stared at my piece of paper and let it grow cold.
Twelve
As long as I had things to do, I was all right. I just had to keep busy, keep myself from thinking, from remembering, for then memories engulfed me like icy waters and I was back in the dark, and eyes were staring at me, fingers touching. No. I mustn't go there.
I tackled the fridge first, throwing out all the old food and wiping down the shelves. Then, of course, I had to do a shop to refill it. I walked to Camden high street, where I went to the bank and withdrew 250 from my account, which was shrinking rapidly with no immediate prospect of being replenished. Then I bought satsumas, apples, salad stuff, cheese, coffee and tea, milk, bread, butter, eggs, yoghurt, honey, two bottles of wine, one red and one white, six bottles of wheat beer, some crisps and olives. I didn't get any meat, because maybe Jo was a vegetarian. I got washing powder as well, and toilet paper. Even though I felt precarious and strange in Jo's flat, I was making myself at home there lying in the bath, washing my clothes, adjusting the central heating, cooking myself comforting meals, lighting candles as the dark closed in. But I was always waiting for a key to turn in the lock and for Jo to walk through the door. And I was always fearing that she wouldn't. She was like a ghost in her own home and she haunted me.
I staggered back there now, weighed down by plastic bags that bit into my gloveless fingers. I had to stop every now and then to rest and get a firmer grip. At one point, a man came up and offered to help me as I stood bent over the bags, getting my breath back.
'I'm fine,' I snapped, and watched the benign expression on his face fade.
Back in the flat, I took three envelopes from Jo's desk, and put fifteen pounds into one, for Terry, fifty-five into another, for Sheila and Guy, and a further ninety into the third, for Sam. Later, I promised myself, I'd make a pilgrimage, paying off my debts and saying thank you.
It occurred to me that I should report my mobile phone missing; I should have done it immediately. I started to dial a number, but another thought clamped itself round my guts and I banged down the phone hurriedly, as if it might bite me.
I went outside again and walked up Maynard Street, then down another road, until I came to a public phone box that was working. Inside, it smelt of piss and the booth was covered with cards offering massages and very strict French lessons. I inserted twenty pence and dialled. It rang three times, and was picked up.
'Hello?' I said.
There was no answer, but I could hear breathing at the other end.
'Hello, who is this, please? Hello. Hello.'
The breathing went on. I thought about wheezy laughter in the darkness, a hood, hands lifting me off a ledge on to a bucket. Suddenly, the realization of what I was doing winded me. I managed to stutter out, 'Can I speak to Abbie, please?'
The voice at the other end a voice I didn't know whether or not I recognized replied, 'She isn't here now.' Sweat trickled down my forehead and the receiver felt slippery in my hand. The voice continued, 'I can say you called. Who's speaking?'
'Jo,' I heard myself say. I was going to be sick. Bile rose in my throat.
The line went dead. I stood for a few seconds, holding the phone in my hand. A man on crutches stopped outside the booth and tapped on the glass with the end of one of them. I put the receiver down, pushed open the door and ran back to the flat as if someone was chasing me. I'd put the bag of stuff I'd taken with me when I left the hospital the clothes I'd been found in, and the few odds and ends I'd picked up while I was there inside the
