she’d been like that even before Luke had died. She knocked, poked her head round the door. Laura was lying on the bed. Not reading, not watching television, just staring at the ceiling.
‘Are you all right, pet?’ Julie sat on the bed.
Laura turned, managed a bit of a smile. Julie thought she should stay in. She was reminded of Luke when he’d started to get depressed. But she couldn’t quite make the decision. If she didn’t get out of the house she’d go mad herself.
‘I was thinking of going out. Lisa’s asked me to hers. Is that all right with you?’
Laura stared at her for a moment before shrugging. ‘Sure.’
Julie thought she could never tell what Laura was thinking, never had been able to.
‘I might stay over. Nan will be here.’
‘I’ll be fine. Really.’
Julie sat in the old Fiat she’d had since Geoff had left, which was held together now with filler and paint. Each year at MOT time there was a crisis and her friend Jan’s mechanic son would work his magic and pull it through. This was another first. She hadn’t driven since Luke had died. She imagined the neighbours looking through their nets, waiting for her to drive away. What would they think? That she was a heartless cow or that she was brave to start putting her life together. She wasn’t sure herself which it was.
It was only eight o’clock but she went straight to the town. There was the usual panic when she hit the motorway at the old BT roundabout. She never knew which lane to take for the bridge. Then in Gateshead she missed the turn for the Sage and ended up in the car park for the Baltic. She couldn’t face going back and stayed where she was. She sat for twenty minutes, her mind quite blank, before buying a ticket at the pay and display machine. Nine o’clock. The light was starting to go. She realized she was relishing the sensation of being alone.
She left the car and walked around the front of the Baltic Gallery. There was some sort of reception in the downstairs bar. Through the long glass windows she saw women in long dresses, men in dinner suits. They were drinking champagne from narrow glasses. A fat woman with very short hair was making a speech. Julie felt as if she’d travelled to a new country, as if these were exotic creatures quite different from her. On an impulse she walked across the new millennium footbridge from Gateshead to Newcastle. She’d never done that before either. She stood in the centre and looked upstream at the arcs and towers of the other bridges, the Tyne, the High Level, the Redheugh, familiar landmarks seen in a completely different light. On the Newcastle Quayside, she pushed her way through the crowd in a bar, just to use the toilet. She wasn’t tempted to stop for a drink. She wanted to be clear-headed when she met up with Gary. She felt a bit mad as it was.
By the time she got back to the south bank of the Tyne it was quite dark. The river was draining towards the sea. The smart people were still in the bar at the Baltic, though the speeches were over. She sat on a bench outside, watching them. It was as if the big plate window was a giant film screen and though she couldn’t hear what they were saying she got caught up in the drama. There was a pretty young woman who couldn’t settle. She fluttered from group to group, talking and laughing, growing more and more unsteady. When she moved away, the groups turned in and talked about her. She seemed so lonely that Julie wanted to cry.
Her phone rang. She looked at the time as she answered it: 23.38. She’d been sitting here, watching, for more than an hour. And enjoying every minute of being alone.
It was Gary. ‘Hi. I’ve finished earlier than I thought. Where are you?’
‘I’m here already. At the front of the Baltic, by the river’ She was going to add that she’d just arrived. She didn’t want him thinking that she’d been sitting here for hours waiting for him. But he was talking about the gig and how well it had gone, a joy. Despite the crap music and the small audience. How some nights were like that. Smooth and sweet. And then she saw him walking towards her, still talking on his phone. He’d walked down the steps from the entrance to the Sage. She stood up, so he could see her. The phone went dead and she stuffed it into her bag, so her hands were free. They stood for a minute just looking at each other, then almost stumbled together, awkward like kids. She expected him to kiss her, but he didn’t. He held her for a moment, rubbing her back.
‘Where would you like to go?’
‘Can we go back to yours?’ she said. ‘I don’t feel much like company.’
‘Sure.’
‘I’d better follow you,’ she said. ‘I don’t know the way.’ She hoped he’d suggest something different.
But she didn’t want to make a fool of herself so she did as he told her. She waited at the car park entrance until the white van drove past and she followed it all the way back to Shields. If she lost him at lights he pulled in so she could catch up with him. She drew in behind him when he parked in a narrow street. Here there was another view of the river. Suddenly she was so nervous she wished she was back at home, sitting in her nightie in front of the telly, her mam wittering on.
In the flat it was easier. He opened a bottle of wine and she drank a large glass very quickly. Sod it, she thought. She’d never intended to drive home that night anyway. He put on some music she didn’t know. They both sat on the sofa, leaning back against the cushions so they were almost lying down. He had his arm around her and he was talking about the music, what he loved about it, but in a whisper, so she could feel his breath on her cheek. He put his hand on her neck, stroked it just underneath her ear.
And suddenly she thought of Luke. How someone had put their hand on his neck, pulled a rope tight around it and squeezed until he was dead. She didn’t scream. The last thing she wanted was to make a fuss. But Gary must have felt her tense because he pulled gently away.
‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘Nothing to be sorry for.’
She told him what she’d been thinking about. Luke in her bathroom and someone strangling him. ‘Sorry,’ she said again. ‘I’m a bit of a liability.’ But she’d drunk the wine too quickly and the word came out wrong. She giggled and he joined in.
‘We can do whatever you like,’ he said. ‘Do you want me to take you home?’
She thought how lonely she’d feel in the double bed. Her mother would have made it, so the sheets would be stretched tight, tucked into the mattress. She never bothered making it herself, she preferred the sheets soft, slightly crumpled. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Can I have more wine?’
He poured her another glass.
She woke with a hangover, lying on the sofa, fully clothed except for her shoes. There was a strange light, coming from a different direction, so she’d known at once it wasn’t her own bed. The smell of proper coffee came from the kitchen. She hadn’t thought he’d be into proper coffee. He must have been waiting for her to wake because he came in carrying a mug, a plate of toast.
‘You could have had the bed,’ he said. ‘But I couldn’t move you.’
‘God, I feel dreadful. What time is it?’ She did feel dreadful, but only the way she always did when she had a hangover, sick and heady, and that was reassuring, a sign of things getting back to normal. And she
‘Ten o’clock.’
‘Oh my God. Laura will have already left for school. Mam will kill me.’ She swung down her legs, so there was room on the sofa for him to sit beside her. ‘Look,’ she said. ‘About last night…’
‘It’s all right, I had a great evening.’
‘Really? I don’t think so.’
‘You’re good company. Even when you’re pissed. And we’ve got plenty of time.’
‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘I hope we have.’
She took the scenic route home along Whitley Bay seafront and past St Mary’s Island, singing along to one of the compilation tapes her dad had put together for her. Motown. She was trying to put off the moment of going back into the house. Here, driving the Fiat so slowly that the guy in the Astra behind her hit his horn, yelling at the top of her voice, she could almost believe that the rest of it, all the nightmare stuff, had happened to someone else.
