The very name of the button deters me. Am I panicking? Is it possible I’m dreaming? I do feel bleary and dazed, the effects of the fall and the painkillers, no doubt. I hold still and listen again. Thump, thump, thump. Maybe it’s a heater or a filter playing up. That’s more likely, isn’t it? My rational self fights for a logical explanation. What if I hit the button and the guards come and there’s no one here? I’d look like a hysterical woman. Foolish. Paranoid. Nervous. I’m none of those things. At least, not normally. I’m a strong, independent woman and I was even before the phrase was invented. Even if someone is here, I tell myself it must be stupid prankster kids again – not thieves or rapists – and they’ll flee the moment they spot the security guards’ car arrive.
I consider going down to investigate whether it is a mechanical fault that’s making the noise, but I can’t quite shake off the fear of it being a person. Even if it is just bored teens, I don’t want trouble. Things can escalate, go wrong. My phone is on my bedside table, within easy reach. I could simply stretch out my arm and pick it up, call Matthew. He wouldn’t judge me as foolish, paranoid, overly nervous. Would he? If the intruders do vanish by the time he arrives, he’ll simply be pleased that I’m fine. Right? If there are no intruders, all the better.
Yet I do not stretch out my arm. I’m not certain why. Maybe because calling an inebriated man to rush to my rescue somehow goes against the grain. He can’t get in the car to come to me, he’s too drunk, so it would take him ages to get home. I pull the covers over my head and try to ignore the bangs that are shuddering through the house. I tell myself I’m imagining them. I tell myself they are benign. I don’t want to know if they are not. I’m trying to remain logical. I don’t want crazy, catastrophising thoughts. But suddenly I wonder: am I mad? If I am a madwoman, do I want anyone to know? The articles I’ve read online swirl around my head. People talk of not being believed. Being dismissed and derided.
The thing is, people are often afraid of being alone. I’ve been asked about that a lot throughout my years of being single. There was a lot of self-examination, too. Being an unmarried woman, even today, is often brutally lonely. The world is set to convince you that you are a bleak case, that your life is less valuable as you are devoid of those significant connections a person could have – partner, children, grandchildren. It’s insinuated that we are in eternal danger of sinking into egotism, isolation or irrelevance. We are left wondering who will look after us when we grow old, who will remember us or miss us when we die. And we are left worrying whether a life without intimate companionship is a life half lived.
Before I met Matthew, I was often asked whether I was afraid of being on my own. I’m only just realising that there’s something to be more terrified of.
Maybe I’m not alone.
26
I don’t remember when my body gave in and let me disappear into slumber, but I must have fallen asleep eventually, because the next thing I know the sun is flooding through my bedroom window. A new day. A beautiful day. I take a deep breath. Tell myself it’s going to be OK. No matter what I’m facing.
I am not up to a run, obviously, not with my injuries, but I must get up, ensure there is some level of normality, discipline. I am not one for giving in or giving up. The thoughts I had last night embarrass me. I have to forget that childish nonsense; it just can’t be. I shower and dress, swallow a vitamin and a painkiller, turn off the alarms, unlock the front door and set out along my usual running path. I do everything slowly and carefully, as my injuries throb, but I want to get out of the house. I see, but do nothing about, the hardback books that are scattered all over the floor in the main reception room. The intruder has picked up each of my gorgeous Taschen coffee table books, huge, weighty tomes, and flung them at the wall. A deliberate, concerted effort. Thud, thud, thud. The books are now sprawled wide open like pinned butterflies, linen spines broken, glossy pages torn. Damage done.
I did not imagine last night. Another intrusion. Another attack. My optimism is immediately assaulted. I can’t deal with it right now. I know ignoring it is not rational, but I just can’t think about it. Instead, I take a walk and hope that by the time I get back to the house, Matthew will be there. If he is, I have to tell him my theory about who is targeting me. However difficult it is to explain.
When I get home, he is waiting for me in the kitchen. He hands me an oat milk latte and kisses my forehead. I glance towards the reception room, expecting to see the books lying on the floor in ugly disarray, but they are not there. He has cleared them away.
‘How are you feeling?’ we chorus.
‘I have a headache,’ we both say, again simultaneously. This makes us laugh. I’m so grateful for his presence, his normality. He smells of beer, sweat and cigarette smoke. Not on his breath; the smoke is lingering on his clothes, second-hand. The pub landlord is obviously lax about smoking regulations when he has his lock-ins. Matthew starts to tell me stories about last night’s antics. He gives a lot of detail and colour. Recounting various conversations with people he instantly sees as friends. He’s a good storyteller, and I can imagine the warm scene full of bonhomie. He laughs a lot to himself whilst describing events, and repeatedly reiterates that ‘Everyone asked after you.’ He suggests we both go next Saturday, ‘If you’re feeling up to it.’ He also tries to get me interested in joining a pub quiz team. ‘That’s Tuesday nights. I bet you’d ace the science questions.’
I cut across his chatter. ‘I want to check the security footage. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it yesterday when we got home from the hospital.’ After the first act of vandalism, Matthew insisted that we beef up the number of security cameras on the property. Now, not only do we have them trained on the gates (which are electric, and no one can get in or out of the grounds in a vehicle without passing through them), but we also have them on the front, back and side doors and the outbuildings. Whoever was skulking about yesterday must have been caught on one of the cameras.
But no, yesterday’s footage does not show any intruders. My blood slows. I wanted to be wrong. The only sign of life is Matthew leaving in the morning and returning at speed after I called him home. No one else passes through the gates. The cameras are not pointed near where I was working on the gutter, although the front door camera does capture me crawling into the house. It’s strange watching the low-res, grainy version of myself in so much pain, vulnerable, alone. I rerun it three times without saying anything, then look up at Matthew, who is leaning over me, watching too.
‘What a shame the cameras didn’t pick up anyone,’ he says with a sigh. ‘It looks awful. Poor you, going through that. Maybe you shouldn’t keep watching it over and over. It must be traumatising to see yourself like that.’ Gently he spins my desk chair around so I’m facing him. He kisses me carefully on the lips.
He hasn’t asked how my night was. He hasn’t mentioned the books scattered over the floor, battered and abused. I wonder why not; maybe he just thinks I was reading and simply left them out. Untidy and out of character, but not impossible. But that wouldn’t account for them being damaged. Then I understand, and the thought makes my skin prickle with embarrassment and frustration. I remember the first thing he said when he came downstairs and found the bolognese sauce all over the kitchen. What have you done? Is it possible that he thinks I’m the one who threw the books at the wall? Is he avoiding the subject in order to be tactful, careful? Does he assume I flung them in temper or frustration, perhaps after he went to the pub, or when I received his text to say he was staying out? I’m mortified. This is so unlike anything I would ever consider doing. Why would he assume I’d destroy my own property, that I’d lose control in such a way?
Is it something Becky might have done?
I am controlled and rational; I would never indulge in that level of chaos. I have to set him straight. He is likely to feel dreadful about last night – after all, he left me alone and intruders once again invaded my home – but he has to know that I did not throw the books; someone was here again. ‘Matthew, about the books …’ I begin.
‘Books?’ He looks quizzical.
‘I didn’t fling the books against the wall.’
He grins. ‘I would never imagine you would fling books against a wall. What are you talking about?’
‘The books you tidied away this morning.’ I point to the place where, before my walk, the books were strewn. Matthew looks that way too, but still appears perplexed. ‘Someone threw them around the room last night. While you were out. That’s why some of them were torn.’
‘Hold on. What?’ He shakes his head, then says quietly, ‘I didn’t tidy any books.’
‘But you must have, because they aren’t there now,’ I point out. I’m confused, and he looks concerned.
‘Emma, babe, who do you think threw the books?’ he asks gently.
‘I don’t know exactly,’ I admit. ‘I didn’t dare come downstairs to see. But I heard them being thrown.’ I want to tell him who I think threw them, but it sounds insane.
‘You agree there are no books there now, don’t you?’ His tone of voice is ridiculous. It’s as though he’s talking to a child, or a startled animal.
‘Obviously there are no books there now. That’s why I thought you’d cleared them away.’
He shrugs. Mystified. ‘Who could have thrown your books?’ It’s not a genuine question so much as a firm statement that no one could have, that what I’m suggesting is impossible.
I don’t want to sound screechy, but my voice rises with frustration at not being believed. I try to quell the panic of not understanding what is happening. Whatever it is, it’s bad and wrong. ‘I don’t know. The same person who locked me in the sauna, who broke my plant pots, made the mess with the sauce, who wrecked my parents’ graves.’
‘Do you still think it was Heidi?’
I feel heat rush through my body. I shake my head slowly and sorrowfully. ‘No. She and her family are in Spain this week on hols. I saw it on Instagram this morning. It can’t be her.’ I feel ashamed that I ever thought it might be Heidi doing such destructive things. She is my friend, my oldest friend. Or at least she was, until I ruined things between us. It stung to find out via social media that she’s out of the country. Normally we talk about her holiday plans extensively before she sets off; everything from where she should go to what colour she should paint her toenails. Often I am invited to join them. ‘But someone is doing this to us.’ To me. The ‘someone’ has a problem with me. ‘I heard the banging.’ I realise my voice sounds a bit whiny and insistent. Unsure.
‘Did you call security?’
‘I didn’t want to make a fuss.’
‘You always say that.’ He shakes his head. ‘And this was when?’
‘Two a.m. or thereabouts.’
‘You probably dreamt it.’ His tone is patient, not unkind, but it annoys me. I feel ignored.
‘No. I didn’t. I thought that at the time, but the books were scattered everywhere this morning.’ I turn to him, agitated. ‘You moved them.’ It isn’t an accusation so much as a hope. He shakes his head slowly. ‘But you must have,’ I insist. ‘They were there this morning. I saw them.’ I walk to the shelves and run my fingers along the spines. The books are all back on the shelves, in the exact order that I always keep them. Tallest on the left, shortest on the right.
Matthew follows me to the shelves. He kisses me on the forehead again. Paternal, concerned. I wish he’d kiss my lips. ‘I’m going to go to bed. It was a crazy night last night. Maybe you need some more sleep too, Emma. It is bloody early. You do know other people stay in bed if they have broken ribs, right?’ He’s smiling, but his expression is tight and strained, suggesting he’s forcing his positivity. ‘Then after you have a nap, we can go out for lunch. You need to take it easy.’ I can hear the concern in his voice. The worry.
