The Other Half Lives aka The Dead Lie Down

‘Has Aidan hurt you?’ She folds her arms, blocking the corridor so that I can’t pass her. I don’t know where we’re going anyway; I have no choice but to wait.

‘No. I’ve got a… a bad blister on my foot, that’s all. It hurts when my shoe rubs against it.’

‘Why not say so, then? Why pretend a blister’s a sprained ankle?’

I can’t understand why I’m out of breath. I clench my teeth, against the pain in my foot and against her attitude. Knowing what she’s been through, I expected her to be kind. Understanding.

‘Here’s what we’re going to do,’ she says in a loud, clear voice, as if she’s talking to a small child. ‘I’ll settle you in one of our reception rooms, sort us out with some tea, see if I can find a plaster for your foot…’

‘I don’t need a plaster,’ I say. New beads of sweat prickle my upper lip. ‘It’s fine, honestly. You don’t need to-’

‘… And then we’ll talk about your boyfriend. Aidan.’ She starts to walk again. I have to half run to keep up with her. Is it a test? The pain is constant now; I picture a wide, weeping gash beneath my toes, with whatever caused it embedded in the wound, pushing its way deeper in with every step. The effort I’m making not to think about it is like a tight thread in my mind, winding tighter and tighter. My eyes ache to close. I’m aware of the sound of my breathing, of the air rushing out of my lungs and having to be dragged back in.

I follow Charlie Zailer round a corner and we are in another corridor, colder than the last, with windows all along one side. No pictures here, only a row of framed certificates, all with some sort of official-looking stamp on them, but they’re high up on the wall and we’re going too fast for me to read the writing.

I stop when I see a pale green door ahead. I’ve done this before: walked down a long passageway towards a closed door. Green. Dark green.

‘Ruth?’ Sergeant Zailer is calling me, snapping her fingers in the air. ‘You look as if you’re in shock. What’s wrong? Is it your foot?’

‘Nothing. Nothing’s wrong.’

‘Are you asthmatic? Have you got an inhaler?’

Asthmatic? I don’t know what she’s talking about. ‘I’m all right,’ I tell her.

‘Well, come on, then.’ When I don’t move, she doubles back on herself, takes my arm and, with one hand on my back, steers me down the corridor, saying something about tea and coffee that sounds more complicated than a simple either-or offer. I mumble, ‘Thanks,’ hoping it’s the right answer. She unlocks the green door, directs me to a chair, tells me to wait. I don’t want her to leave me alone but I’m unwilling to ask her not to, knowing how pathetic I’d sound.

The room contains two chairs apart from the one I’m sitting on, a waste-paper basket and a table with a white-flowered cyclamen on it. The plant is too big for its pot. It must have been for some time, yet someone has been watering it regularly, or else its foliage wouldn’t look so lush. What fool would water a plant day after day and not realise it needed re-potting?

Green. The door of our room at the Drummond Hotel in London was green. One night of my life, one night out of thirty-eight years, but part of me is still there, trapped in the night that Aidan told me. Part of me never left that hotel.

All my books say there’s no point wasting your energy on ‘if only’s. They offer no advice about what to do if you’re hooked on them. There are no patches available in chemists’ shops that an ‘if only’ addict can stick on her arm to help break the destructive habit.

If only Aidan and I hadn’t gone to London last December, the nightmare I’m living now would never have started.

‘My boyfriend told me he killed a woman, but he didn’t.’

‘I need the woman’s name, and details of where we can find her,’ says Sergeant Zailer, ready to write down whatever I say. When I don’t answer immediately, she says, ‘Ruth, if Aidan’s beaten somebody up so badly that-’

‘No! He hasn’t touched her.’ I have to make her understand. ‘She’s fine. Nobody’s hurt. I… He hasn’t been anywhere near her, I’m sure he hasn’t.’

‘Nobody’s hurt?’ Charlie Zailer looks stumped.

‘No.’

‘You’re certain?’

‘Yes.’

She thinks for a few moments, then smiles at me. ‘All right. Let’s come back to your boyfriend and this woman later,’ she says. ‘I’m going to take a few basic details first, if that’s okay.’ Suddenly, she has an entirely different manner; she is no longer impatient, suspicious. She’s ditched her too-loud patronising voice and is acting as if we’re friends; we might be at a pub quiz, on the same team-she’s writing down the answers. ‘Name? Ruth Bussey, right? B-U-S-S-E-Y?’

‘Yes.’

‘Middle name?’

Does she really want to know? Is she joking? ‘Zinta.’

She laughs. ‘Really?’

‘My mother’s Latvian.’

‘It’s a great name,’ she says. ‘I’ve always wanted a more interesting middle name. Mine’s Elizabeth. And your address?’

‘Blantyre Lodge, Blantyre Park, Spil-’

‘You live in the park?’

‘In the lodge house, just inside the park gates.’

‘That funny little house with the black and white top?’

Timber-panelled gables. I don’t correct her. I nod.

‘I see that house every day on my drive to work. That’s yours?’

‘I rent it. I don’t own it.’

‘One thing I’ve always wondered: how do you get those red leaves to grow down the roof like that, like a fringe? Did you plant something in the chimney? I mean, I can understand a plant growing up the side of a house, but…’

‘Why does any of this matter?’ I blurt out. ‘I’m only the tenant. I didn’t plant anything anywhere.’

‘Who’s your landlord?’

‘The council.’ I sigh, recognising the need to be patient, however impossible that might seem. If I try to speed things up, she will make sure to slow them down. Her cheery determination is like a restraint around me, pinning me in my chair for as long as she wants me there.

‘How long have you lived there, Ruth?’

‘Nearly four years.’

‘And no trouble paying your rent on time during those years?’

Another odd question. There must be a reason for it. ‘No.’

‘Not tempted to buy a place? Get on the property ladder?’

‘I…’ This is ludicrous. ‘I’m not ready to…’

‘Commit to home-ownership? Put down roots?’ Charlie Zailer suggests, still smiling. ‘Fair enough. I felt that way for a long time.’ She taps her pen against the hard cover of her notebook. ‘What was your address before Blantyre Lodge?’

‘I… Could I have a drink, please?’

‘Tea’s on the way. Where did you live before Blantyre Lodge?’

With my eyes fixed on the table in front of me, I recite my old address: ‘84 Pople Street, Lincoln.’

‘Also rented?’

‘No. That house was mine.’

‘So you’d put down roots in Lincoln. Why did you move?’

I open my mouth to lie, then remember what a hash I made of my last attempt at dishonesty: my fake sprained ankle. I rub the palms of my hands against my jeans, wiping off the sticky dampness. ‘Why are you asking me all these questions? What does it matter why I moved? I’m here to talk about my boyfriend…’

The door opens. A tall, thin man who looks too young to have left school comes in holding two mugs of tea.