‘Do you remember when we first met, Frances?’
I stare at him. ‘Yes. You took me to the cinema. We watched Slumdog Millionaire.’
‘No. That was our first date. Before that. When we met.’
I stiffen. Why is he bringing this up now? I feel a cold frost creeping up my arms. ‘Yes,’ I say. My voice is very small.
William reaches up a hand and tucks a stray hair behind my ear very, very gently. ‘It’s almost like you had a twin,’ he continues, in that same soft voice, ‘but you killed her. Isn’t it?’
I don’t speak. I just look at him. There is no trace of the person I was when William and I first met. I razed her to the ground.
‘You remember the old you, Frances? What do you think she would make of you now? I often wonder.’
‘I don’t. I don’t ever think about it.’ Not true. That bright blue paint in long, looping spatters. The way the word had been written in letters four feet high across the hallway. Whore. ‘Why are you bringing this up, William?’
‘Alex said you’d been looking through the old photos. He mentioned that you’d been asking questions about it. About me, and my old friends. About Edie. I suppose I thought if you wanted to rake over my past we may as well do yours as well.’
‘That’s not fair.’
‘No?’
‘No! I was – that wasn’t me. Not who I am, not really.’ If you keep telling yourself that, one day it will be true, I think coldly.
When I think back to the day I met William Thorn for the first time, the memory is slippery and black as an eel. It comes to me in a series of images: the big house in a small town on Osborne Road, brickwork and windows blackened by soot, the sound of the door buzzer like an angry insect, the bed that sagged in the middle, the coldness of the mattress in the winter, a pile of used tissues, waking with the taste of cocaine in the back of my throat, cold sores, the thinness of the curtains that let the light through. Tiny flats with paper-thin walls. Worn carpet. The couple next door who had grinding, panicky sex that seemed to last forever. They spoke a fast, urgent language that might have been Polish. I don’t know.
A man followed me home one night. I remember blurred lights and chewing gum, my jaw clenched and aching. MDMA. No, speed. It doesn’t matter. He started talking to me, the man. Telling me I looked familiar. He started off nice but it soon turned nasty. What’s your name? Where do you work? We know each other, don’t we? Have we fucked? We have, haven’t we? Hey, hey, look at me. Look at me. We’re just talking. Don’t be shy. You do it for money, eh? I remember you. Sweet girl. Nice tits. Don’t – don’t ignore me. Come on, come on, baby. Are you still at that place – Osborne Road, yeah? You heading there now? You working there now? Fifty. Fifty. It’s all I’ve got. It’s cash. You can get something nice with that. Hey, where you going? You don’t need to be rude.
Running home, inside, up the stairs. Keys in my fist, jutting out between my fingers. Imagine a world with no men in it, and you could walk at night and simply not worry. I double-lock my bedroom door. In the morning, blue paint, all the way down the hallway. A single word: Whore. There were handprints all over the bannisters in that same blue, the colour of lapis lazuli. Looking at it made me feel sick. The man who lived downstairs came to help me scrub it off, rubber gloves and white spirit, his terrible jokes, designed to make me smile. William means ‘resolute protector’. I found that out after he’d introduced himself. I looked it up. Small towns strangle you; so many hands at your throat. I moved away, big city this time. I kept William’s number, hidden away between the pages of a book. I didn’t find it for another seventeen months and then I didn’t call him for another three. Mud sticks. That’s all I know.
‘Do you know why I’m bringing this up now?’ he asks me.
I shake my head.
‘Because the past is the past. I know you’re probably wondering why I didn’t tell you about Edie, but honestly, Frances – cross my heart – I never think about her. I didn’t treat her well, and when I dumped her she was mad about it. Talked about getting her mum’s knife and cutting me’ – when he says that I have a brief flash of Samantha holding the knife against me, the blood blooming on my T-shirt – ‘having me beaten up. All kinds of stuff. We were teenagers. You must remember what that was like?’
‘It was very different for me,’ I remind him. ‘I had to grow up very fast. I had no family.’
‘No, but look how far you’ve come. You’re a warrior, Frances Thorn.’ He smiles but I’m not mollified. I can still feel the hot pulse of my fury.
‘Do you love me, William?’
‘More than anything.’
‘What have you been spending our money on?’
‘What money?’ Smooth. Careful.
‘The money we put aside for the baby.’
‘Okay.’ He presses the palms of his hands together and holds his fingertips to his lips. He’s looking at me earnestly. ‘I might have lost a little on the poker. I
