Finding Jessica Lambert, page 6
“Oh Pen.” Anna covered her mouth. “It’s not even lunchtime.”
The phone announced another message and they both peered over. “Bibs misses you that is. I don’t miss Bibs. She’s here with me. Well with Lana anyway. I think. Will go and check.”
And again. “Yes, she’s asleep, dribbling on Lana’s shoulder.”
And again. “Can’t believe we’re at this pissing wedding. Save me a pancake. Love and snogs.”
There, at last, the messages ceased.
“Sorry, I only saw the first one,” Jess said, grinning. “Is that your best friend?”
“Yes.” Anna sighed, put her hands on her hips and stepped away from Jess's side. “My ebullient, loving, slightly inebriated, even in the morning, best friend.”
Anna swept her phone off the surface. She swiped up a photos app and searched for Penny at a birthday party. “This is my BFF.” She turned the screen towards Jess. The photo showed a short curvy woman, with a mass of red curls, arms thrust into the sky with two bottles of Champagne and an ecstatic look upon her face. You could feel the energy of the woman through the screen it was so potent.
“She looks awesome.”
Anna nodded. “She is. An absolute handful, but the best friend in the whole world.”
They relaxed apart and Anna put her phone away. The moment had gone. She was safe. Both luckily and regrettably safe.
Anna checked the large clock on the kitchen wall, and sighed, too obviously. “We should see Zehra,” Anna said. “She should have started her shift. Let’s make sure the CCTV footage is kept.”
–
Last night’s anxiety had seemed decades away and the reminder rudely brought Jess to.
“Yes,” she said, unable to keep the regret from her voice. She had no compulsion to leave Anna’s company. Quite the opposite. She wondered if Anna could sense her disappointment. It would have been written all over her face but her body too sagged with despondency.
Jess tried to say, with as much lightness as possible, “Yes, we should.”
Anna fetched her coat from a stand by the flat door and slipped on a pair of boots. She unhooked a set of keys, dropped them in her jeans pocket and glanced back. “Ready?”
“Yes,” Jess said, her throat constricting. She felt nowhere near.
This was it. She had to leave. This was the end of her time with Anna. No more sanctuary inside this airy flat in the sky. No more gentle company of this intriguing and beautiful woman.
Jess couldn’t move.
She had to go outside, into the cold, into the harsh noisy reality where everyone would stare. She would be on her own again. The demands would start from her manager, her agent, on social media, everyone clamouring for her attention and time and devotion and favours. She clutched her phone in her pocket, squeezing it tight, as if to keep the world from intruding.
Anna was disappearing down the stairwell. Jess made it as far as the door, but no matter her intention her body wouldn’t follow.
A cold numbness crawled over Jess's back, seizing her body in panic. It spread up her neck and enveloped her scalp as if anxiety were encasing her in ice. She stood, unblinking and not breathing, staring after Anna’s figure. She willed her body forward, to move at all, but it refused and she froze, acutely aware of her beating heart that pounded in her chest.
“Jess?” Anna called from the stairwell.
Mouth hung open, jaw aching, everywhere aching, as her muscles cramped like a statue, she couldn’t release her breath let alone issue words.
“Are you all right?” Anna said, more urgent. She emerged from the stairs, her movements uncharacteristically rapid. “Jess?”
Cold sweat broke on Jess's back in a rash of pin pricks. She gulped in air but it caught in her chest. Desperation threatened to burst, but she couldn’t even look at Anna’s face, and Jess stood trapped inside her own body.
“I’m here if you need me,” she heard. That soothing voice again, murmured beside her ear. Then warmth on her cheek. It was the soft human touch of Anna’s face beside hers. Arms encircled her waist, their tenderness melting Jess in their wake, and her body suddenly released its tension, becoming fluid in Anna’s embrace. Jess gasped as her whole body shuddered desperate for air.
“That’s it,” Anna whispered.
“Oh christ,” Jess said, before her throat throttled her words and she fought to inhale.
“You can sit down,” Anna encouraged, and Jess succumbed to her words as Anna walked her back towards the bed. She collapsed more than sat.
“Concentrate on breathing,” Anna said, calm but eager. Her hand cupped Jess's cheek, and the delicate and gentle care almost made Jess cry.
“Sorry,” she croaked, and her throat moaned as she tried not to sob.
“You’re fine,” Anna soothed. “You’re safe.”
She cupped Jess's face with both hands, a soft finger stroking across her cheek. Jess closed her eyes, and let her head drop, heavy with fatigue, but steadied by Anna’s caress. It made everything disappear, like her head was the whole world, and her body shrunk away to insignificance. Her head floated in a warm concoction of hormones, coming down from the attack, and the dreamy sensation of Anna holding her face in her hands.
When she opened her eyes, her first controlled action, concern was written all over Anna’s face and her eyes flitted over Jess's features, perhaps trying to take in her condition.
“Sorry. Am I worrying you?”
Anna’s features relaxed into a beautiful smile. It was utterly bewitching. Jess hadn’t appreciated how expressive Anna’s face was before. Sometimes, she realised, Anna was guarded and reticent. But in the intensity of the moment everything came flooding through and the concern had burned in her eyes and bored into Jess in a way that anchored her then brought her back gently to reality.
And when that face, so full of apprehension, had relaxed into relieved joy, well, didn’t Jess's heart do a little flutter that was completely unrelated to anxiety. That was a face that engendered love and devotion, especially when Anna’s blue eyes glistened with tears.
“Sorry,” Jess said again. This time staring too long and admiring more than a little.
“You did have me worried,” Anna said, quietly. “Is it always this bad? The panic attacks?”
“Oh.” That’s what they were. Her anxiety had spilled over into a full blown episode. “No,” Jess said, unnerved by the diagnosis. “Never like this.” She couldn’t think of a time when she’d been so paralysed, unable to move, think or react.
“I mean, often I get so tired I almost stop. I get worried about things, but never…” She felt fried. Her hands trembled and her whole body was jittery and drained in the aftermath.
Anna placed her hands over Jess's in her lap, and the trembling lessened but didn’t stop.
“Do you want to see a doctor?”
“No.” Jess said it too sharply. It would be another person to scrutinise and judge her. People were always watching and examining. This was the problem, there was never a break from prying eyes.
“These attacks,” Anna said, squeezing Jess's hand. “They’re quite severe. The doctor might be able to give you something.” Jess twitched and Anna must have felt it. “Just to get you past a bad spell if you need it.”
Jess’s throat constricted again, this time with despair. This is how bad it had got. The exhaustion, the schedule, the constant attention, the judgement, the life that wasn’t her own anymore. As soon as she’d tried to follow Anna out of the door, it had all descended. If she set foot outside, away from this sanctuary, the world would be spinning out of control with her manager after her blood, sponsors and TV shows clamouring for reimbursement, contracts torn up, the public demanding attention.
“Are you worried the man who followed you may still be around?”
And then there was that.
“Oh god,” Jess moaned. “That and everything else.”
She gasped again and tension seized her hands, crept up her arms and radiated into her chest. Her teeth clenched as the spasm overpowered her and the world swirled.
She closed her eyes and let it take hold, knowing she was safe, sat on the bed with Anna, sure she would come out the other side.
When Jess came to, Anna was holding her hand and a stillness descended. It was like Anna was the calm centre inside the storm, cupping her cheek in one hand, Jess's fingers in the other. A frown pinched Anna’s forehead but as Jess's breathing settled the frown relaxed and attentive regard remained.
“We should definitely request the CCTV footage from the café,” Anna said. “I can ask Zehra to make sure it’s kept. You can stay here if you like, if you need more time, and request a copy later. I’d hate for it to be lost, that’s all.”
“Please don’t go out of your way for me,” Jess said. Guilt gnawed at her. “I’m not even sure someone was following me last night. I was a mess from so many things.”
“But you thought you were followed on the Tube?”
“Possibly… Maybe... I think so.” Her head spun again.
“And someone took that photo.”
“Yes.”
What had the caption said? She didn’t want to check. Not such a hero? Degenerate Jess? Worse? They got much worse. Everything that people thought of her, everything they planned to do to her. It had been an account with a blank profile picture like so many others. They could all be the same person for all Jess knew. Or there could be tens, hundreds of them denigrating Jess from the mildest troll to those who were explicit about what sticky end she deserved. She shuddered as she thought of her phone, an innocent little box opening a door onto the worst of the world bursting with toxicity.
“I think I need a few minutes,” Jess said.
“Take as much time as you need,” Anna replied, the kindness in her voice washing over Jess. She wished she could bottle that soothing tone. It would be a balm for anyone.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Anna said. “I’ve spent enough time trapped here, too anxious to go out.”
“Really?” Jess frowned confused.
Anna looked down for a moment as if gathering herself.
“I had a stalker once,” she said, at last. “A very persistent one.”
“What?” Anna had said it so calmly. “When?”
“A few years ago.”
“What happened? Who was it?”
Anna hesitated and pondered in that way she had, always considered. “A man who was delusional about his relationship with me.”
“Someone you knew? Sorry,” Jess caught herself. “This is none of my business.”
“I brought it up.”
“And is he still following you?”
Again Anna hesitated. “No. He died in prison.”
Chapter 10.
It came out a surprise. Anna hadn’t thought she’d tell the young woman. She hadn’t expected her to be there still, or to be comfortable enough to tell her. Anna kept people at arm’s length and further these days, but this woman had entered Anna’s life unexpectedly and with the kind of fear she recognised as her own. It’s what had drawn her to Jess's plight, recognising that terror.
Anna could hear Jess's confusion and doubt about the man who followed her and Anna could guess at the thoughts and feelings that swirled inside her. Revulsion when someone assumed an intimacy that wasn’t there. The persistent and incessant need for attention and a reaction. The simple danger of the situation and threat that clouded over everything, then doubt and denial that it was happening at all. She knew them all. But there was guilt too, unjustifiable guilt at driving someone to irrational behaviour. Had she encouraged it somehow? Then fury at being made to feel you were to blame.
“What happened?” Jess said, her eyes upset and forehead crinkled in concern.
“He was a friend of a friend, more an acquaintance I learned later.” Anna stopped, her mind reluctant to resurrect the experience and remember her life how it was before – that was neatly packed away in the eaves.
“I chatted to him at a party, that was all,” Anna shrugged. “He placed more importance on our conversation than I ever meant and, believe me, I have replayed it often in my mind, wondering how he got it so wrong and what I did to give him that impression.”
“I can understand that,” Jess said, her eyebrows furrowing in sympathy.
“Then his attention escalated.”
It seemed innocuous enough initially, phone calls and messages that were a nuisance and to which she politely replied then ignored.
“Then, he was at every party I attended. I didn’t want to say anything to the hosts – I assumed they were friends.”
So she’d stayed away. Her first retreat inwards.
“When he missed me at parties, he started turning up near my work. That’s when I realised it wasn’t just my paranoia and mentioned it to others.”
She’d gained some sanity for a while when people could see what she feared. Friends had rallied round and the man was barred from places and parties. How sympathetic they’d been, at first, then they were scared at how she reacted. “This isn’t healthy, Anna,” her mother’s voice came through. “You need to get over it.”
“The fear had me by then,” Anna said. “I couldn’t go out without him being there, either in actuality or in my imagination. It does something to you, having that threat lurk over your shoulder day and night. Your life is dictated by the cruel whims of another.” She breathed out. “It was the unpredictability of his behaviour that shook me most I think. I felt like a prisoner in someone else’s world.”
Anna paused. She was finding this more difficult than she’d envisaged.
“Your flat?” Jess said, reaching out and holding Anna’s hand. “The tidiness, the order?”
Anna nodded. “I retreated from people and places, until I only felt comfortable here, the one place I had some control over, to the point of obsession.”
It was her well-guarded sanctuary, an attempt to regain control over her life and fears. It had become a different kind of prison, albeit one that kept her safe.
“Did you get help, from friends, family, anyone?” Jess asked.
“No, not straight away.” Anna tutted at herself. “I bottled it up, developed unhealthy coping mechanisms and a stomach ulcer. I was very British about it,” she smiled and Jess's face lightened like a mirror. “What about you?” she asked.
“I was thinking of doing the same.”
Anna chuckled. “Please try to see someone.” She hesitated, wondering at what else bothered Jess. “For everything. I wish I had earlier.”
“Maybe I will,” Jess replied. “God, everyone needs help sometimes.”
“The reason I mention all this and why I’m keen to go to Zehra’s is that I had a restraining order put on him. Later, when he broke it, my solicitor relied on CCTV footage to prosecute him.”
“Oh.”
Anna smiled. “So, please let me ask Zehra to hold on to it?”
“Yes, of course,” Jess said, as if coming to.
“The CCTV company can send you a copy of any footage, although they will blur out the faces of customers apart from you. You might find it useful. But most importantly it needs to be kept in case the police investigate – they’ll be able to see everything.”
“Thank you,” Jess said, her expression attentive and searching Anna’s face. “You seem so calm and capable about it though, after all that.”
“What you see now,” Anna said, “me, the organised flat, my regular haunt at Zehra’s, the Tube trip to work, my daily walk in the park where it’s open and safe, that’s my comfort zone. It took a lot of effort to establish my independence within even that boundary and feel like myself again. Beyond it…” she trailed off.
She hadn’t trespassed further for a long time. She would go for days without thinking about him. That had been the case for months, extending into years, but she hadn’t ventured far from her well-guarded world had she?
Jess smiled. “So, we’re trapped here?”
Anna laughed.
“What a pair we make,” Jess added.
The phrase fluttered pleasantly through Anna’s mind. Did she like the idea of Jess pairing them together? She rather enjoyed the young woman’s company, but Jess had probably not meant it like that, not now that she knew the extent of Anna’s world.
“So,” Anna sighed, not wanting to examine her feelings and wishes about the young woman. “There you are. That’s me. And while I rarely think of him anymore, my life has changed. It’s why I’m hesitant. Why I keep to familiar places. Why where once I was outgoing and confident, now I’m more circumspect. Why I have difficulty letting people in…” And for the first time in so long, Anna realised, she wanted to.
She stopped, feeling ashamed of what she’d become.
“And yet...” Jess's voice was more thoughtful. “And yet,” she continued, “you helped me. Out of everyone on that carriage, you were the one who asked me if I needed help.”
“Of course I did,” Anna whispered. “I know what it’s like to be followed and to feel vulnerable.”
Jess hesitated. “It was one of the nicest things anyone’s done for me in a while. I’m very grateful.”
Anna didn’t doubt her. Jess had said it choked with gratitude. Anna was compelled to add, “If it hadn’t been in my neighbourhood, where I’m confident, I might not have been so generous.”
“Then I have more faith in you.”
And Anna believed her.
“I’m sorry,” Jess said. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
Anna squeezed her hands to acknowledge it. “Now,” she said, not wanting to dwell on her experience, or the hopes she harboured about Jess. “I may have something to help you.”
Jess stared at her blankly. “Help me?”
“Something that will give you confidence when you go outside.”
This was something Anna could do. In fact she was a bit of a pro.
Chapter 11.
It had been all Jess could do to stop herself from flinging her arms around Anna. After all the shitty things people had done to Jess over the last couple of years. After all the times she’d been taken advantage of, here was Anna with nothing to gain, but fear to overcome, who’d been kind to a complete stranger.
The phone announced another message and they both peered over. “Bibs misses you that is. I don’t miss Bibs. She’s here with me. Well with Lana anyway. I think. Will go and check.”
And again. “Yes, she’s asleep, dribbling on Lana’s shoulder.”
And again. “Can’t believe we’re at this pissing wedding. Save me a pancake. Love and snogs.”
There, at last, the messages ceased.
“Sorry, I only saw the first one,” Jess said, grinning. “Is that your best friend?”
“Yes.” Anna sighed, put her hands on her hips and stepped away from Jess's side. “My ebullient, loving, slightly inebriated, even in the morning, best friend.”
Anna swept her phone off the surface. She swiped up a photos app and searched for Penny at a birthday party. “This is my BFF.” She turned the screen towards Jess. The photo showed a short curvy woman, with a mass of red curls, arms thrust into the sky with two bottles of Champagne and an ecstatic look upon her face. You could feel the energy of the woman through the screen it was so potent.
“She looks awesome.”
Anna nodded. “She is. An absolute handful, but the best friend in the whole world.”
They relaxed apart and Anna put her phone away. The moment had gone. She was safe. Both luckily and regrettably safe.
Anna checked the large clock on the kitchen wall, and sighed, too obviously. “We should see Zehra,” Anna said. “She should have started her shift. Let’s make sure the CCTV footage is kept.”
–
Last night’s anxiety had seemed decades away and the reminder rudely brought Jess to.
“Yes,” she said, unable to keep the regret from her voice. She had no compulsion to leave Anna’s company. Quite the opposite. She wondered if Anna could sense her disappointment. It would have been written all over her face but her body too sagged with despondency.
Jess tried to say, with as much lightness as possible, “Yes, we should.”
Anna fetched her coat from a stand by the flat door and slipped on a pair of boots. She unhooked a set of keys, dropped them in her jeans pocket and glanced back. “Ready?”
“Yes,” Jess said, her throat constricting. She felt nowhere near.
This was it. She had to leave. This was the end of her time with Anna. No more sanctuary inside this airy flat in the sky. No more gentle company of this intriguing and beautiful woman.
Jess couldn’t move.
She had to go outside, into the cold, into the harsh noisy reality where everyone would stare. She would be on her own again. The demands would start from her manager, her agent, on social media, everyone clamouring for her attention and time and devotion and favours. She clutched her phone in her pocket, squeezing it tight, as if to keep the world from intruding.
Anna was disappearing down the stairwell. Jess made it as far as the door, but no matter her intention her body wouldn’t follow.
A cold numbness crawled over Jess's back, seizing her body in panic. It spread up her neck and enveloped her scalp as if anxiety were encasing her in ice. She stood, unblinking and not breathing, staring after Anna’s figure. She willed her body forward, to move at all, but it refused and she froze, acutely aware of her beating heart that pounded in her chest.
“Jess?” Anna called from the stairwell.
Mouth hung open, jaw aching, everywhere aching, as her muscles cramped like a statue, she couldn’t release her breath let alone issue words.
“Are you all right?” Anna said, more urgent. She emerged from the stairs, her movements uncharacteristically rapid. “Jess?”
Cold sweat broke on Jess's back in a rash of pin pricks. She gulped in air but it caught in her chest. Desperation threatened to burst, but she couldn’t even look at Anna’s face, and Jess stood trapped inside her own body.
“I’m here if you need me,” she heard. That soothing voice again, murmured beside her ear. Then warmth on her cheek. It was the soft human touch of Anna’s face beside hers. Arms encircled her waist, their tenderness melting Jess in their wake, and her body suddenly released its tension, becoming fluid in Anna’s embrace. Jess gasped as her whole body shuddered desperate for air.
“That’s it,” Anna whispered.
“Oh christ,” Jess said, before her throat throttled her words and she fought to inhale.
“You can sit down,” Anna encouraged, and Jess succumbed to her words as Anna walked her back towards the bed. She collapsed more than sat.
“Concentrate on breathing,” Anna said, calm but eager. Her hand cupped Jess's cheek, and the delicate and gentle care almost made Jess cry.
“Sorry,” she croaked, and her throat moaned as she tried not to sob.
“You’re fine,” Anna soothed. “You’re safe.”
She cupped Jess's face with both hands, a soft finger stroking across her cheek. Jess closed her eyes, and let her head drop, heavy with fatigue, but steadied by Anna’s caress. It made everything disappear, like her head was the whole world, and her body shrunk away to insignificance. Her head floated in a warm concoction of hormones, coming down from the attack, and the dreamy sensation of Anna holding her face in her hands.
When she opened her eyes, her first controlled action, concern was written all over Anna’s face and her eyes flitted over Jess's features, perhaps trying to take in her condition.
“Sorry. Am I worrying you?”
Anna’s features relaxed into a beautiful smile. It was utterly bewitching. Jess hadn’t appreciated how expressive Anna’s face was before. Sometimes, she realised, Anna was guarded and reticent. But in the intensity of the moment everything came flooding through and the concern had burned in her eyes and bored into Jess in a way that anchored her then brought her back gently to reality.
And when that face, so full of apprehension, had relaxed into relieved joy, well, didn’t Jess's heart do a little flutter that was completely unrelated to anxiety. That was a face that engendered love and devotion, especially when Anna’s blue eyes glistened with tears.
“Sorry,” Jess said again. This time staring too long and admiring more than a little.
“You did have me worried,” Anna said, quietly. “Is it always this bad? The panic attacks?”
“Oh.” That’s what they were. Her anxiety had spilled over into a full blown episode. “No,” Jess said, unnerved by the diagnosis. “Never like this.” She couldn’t think of a time when she’d been so paralysed, unable to move, think or react.
“I mean, often I get so tired I almost stop. I get worried about things, but never…” She felt fried. Her hands trembled and her whole body was jittery and drained in the aftermath.
Anna placed her hands over Jess's in her lap, and the trembling lessened but didn’t stop.
“Do you want to see a doctor?”
“No.” Jess said it too sharply. It would be another person to scrutinise and judge her. People were always watching and examining. This was the problem, there was never a break from prying eyes.
“These attacks,” Anna said, squeezing Jess's hand. “They’re quite severe. The doctor might be able to give you something.” Jess twitched and Anna must have felt it. “Just to get you past a bad spell if you need it.”
Jess’s throat constricted again, this time with despair. This is how bad it had got. The exhaustion, the schedule, the constant attention, the judgement, the life that wasn’t her own anymore. As soon as she’d tried to follow Anna out of the door, it had all descended. If she set foot outside, away from this sanctuary, the world would be spinning out of control with her manager after her blood, sponsors and TV shows clamouring for reimbursement, contracts torn up, the public demanding attention.
“Are you worried the man who followed you may still be around?”
And then there was that.
“Oh god,” Jess moaned. “That and everything else.”
She gasped again and tension seized her hands, crept up her arms and radiated into her chest. Her teeth clenched as the spasm overpowered her and the world swirled.
She closed her eyes and let it take hold, knowing she was safe, sat on the bed with Anna, sure she would come out the other side.
When Jess came to, Anna was holding her hand and a stillness descended. It was like Anna was the calm centre inside the storm, cupping her cheek in one hand, Jess's fingers in the other. A frown pinched Anna’s forehead but as Jess's breathing settled the frown relaxed and attentive regard remained.
“We should definitely request the CCTV footage from the café,” Anna said. “I can ask Zehra to make sure it’s kept. You can stay here if you like, if you need more time, and request a copy later. I’d hate for it to be lost, that’s all.”
“Please don’t go out of your way for me,” Jess said. Guilt gnawed at her. “I’m not even sure someone was following me last night. I was a mess from so many things.”
“But you thought you were followed on the Tube?”
“Possibly… Maybe... I think so.” Her head spun again.
“And someone took that photo.”
“Yes.”
What had the caption said? She didn’t want to check. Not such a hero? Degenerate Jess? Worse? They got much worse. Everything that people thought of her, everything they planned to do to her. It had been an account with a blank profile picture like so many others. They could all be the same person for all Jess knew. Or there could be tens, hundreds of them denigrating Jess from the mildest troll to those who were explicit about what sticky end she deserved. She shuddered as she thought of her phone, an innocent little box opening a door onto the worst of the world bursting with toxicity.
“I think I need a few minutes,” Jess said.
“Take as much time as you need,” Anna replied, the kindness in her voice washing over Jess. She wished she could bottle that soothing tone. It would be a balm for anyone.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Anna said. “I’ve spent enough time trapped here, too anxious to go out.”
“Really?” Jess frowned confused.
Anna looked down for a moment as if gathering herself.
“I had a stalker once,” she said, at last. “A very persistent one.”
“What?” Anna had said it so calmly. “When?”
“A few years ago.”
“What happened? Who was it?”
Anna hesitated and pondered in that way she had, always considered. “A man who was delusional about his relationship with me.”
“Someone you knew? Sorry,” Jess caught herself. “This is none of my business.”
“I brought it up.”
“And is he still following you?”
Again Anna hesitated. “No. He died in prison.”
Chapter 10.
It came out a surprise. Anna hadn’t thought she’d tell the young woman. She hadn’t expected her to be there still, or to be comfortable enough to tell her. Anna kept people at arm’s length and further these days, but this woman had entered Anna’s life unexpectedly and with the kind of fear she recognised as her own. It’s what had drawn her to Jess's plight, recognising that terror.
Anna could hear Jess's confusion and doubt about the man who followed her and Anna could guess at the thoughts and feelings that swirled inside her. Revulsion when someone assumed an intimacy that wasn’t there. The persistent and incessant need for attention and a reaction. The simple danger of the situation and threat that clouded over everything, then doubt and denial that it was happening at all. She knew them all. But there was guilt too, unjustifiable guilt at driving someone to irrational behaviour. Had she encouraged it somehow? Then fury at being made to feel you were to blame.
“What happened?” Jess said, her eyes upset and forehead crinkled in concern.
“He was a friend of a friend, more an acquaintance I learned later.” Anna stopped, her mind reluctant to resurrect the experience and remember her life how it was before – that was neatly packed away in the eaves.
“I chatted to him at a party, that was all,” Anna shrugged. “He placed more importance on our conversation than I ever meant and, believe me, I have replayed it often in my mind, wondering how he got it so wrong and what I did to give him that impression.”
“I can understand that,” Jess said, her eyebrows furrowing in sympathy.
“Then his attention escalated.”
It seemed innocuous enough initially, phone calls and messages that were a nuisance and to which she politely replied then ignored.
“Then, he was at every party I attended. I didn’t want to say anything to the hosts – I assumed they were friends.”
So she’d stayed away. Her first retreat inwards.
“When he missed me at parties, he started turning up near my work. That’s when I realised it wasn’t just my paranoia and mentioned it to others.”
She’d gained some sanity for a while when people could see what she feared. Friends had rallied round and the man was barred from places and parties. How sympathetic they’d been, at first, then they were scared at how she reacted. “This isn’t healthy, Anna,” her mother’s voice came through. “You need to get over it.”
“The fear had me by then,” Anna said. “I couldn’t go out without him being there, either in actuality or in my imagination. It does something to you, having that threat lurk over your shoulder day and night. Your life is dictated by the cruel whims of another.” She breathed out. “It was the unpredictability of his behaviour that shook me most I think. I felt like a prisoner in someone else’s world.”
Anna paused. She was finding this more difficult than she’d envisaged.
“Your flat?” Jess said, reaching out and holding Anna’s hand. “The tidiness, the order?”
Anna nodded. “I retreated from people and places, until I only felt comfortable here, the one place I had some control over, to the point of obsession.”
It was her well-guarded sanctuary, an attempt to regain control over her life and fears. It had become a different kind of prison, albeit one that kept her safe.
“Did you get help, from friends, family, anyone?” Jess asked.
“No, not straight away.” Anna tutted at herself. “I bottled it up, developed unhealthy coping mechanisms and a stomach ulcer. I was very British about it,” she smiled and Jess's face lightened like a mirror. “What about you?” she asked.
“I was thinking of doing the same.”
Anna chuckled. “Please try to see someone.” She hesitated, wondering at what else bothered Jess. “For everything. I wish I had earlier.”
“Maybe I will,” Jess replied. “God, everyone needs help sometimes.”
“The reason I mention all this and why I’m keen to go to Zehra’s is that I had a restraining order put on him. Later, when he broke it, my solicitor relied on CCTV footage to prosecute him.”
“Oh.”
Anna smiled. “So, please let me ask Zehra to hold on to it?”
“Yes, of course,” Jess said, as if coming to.
“The CCTV company can send you a copy of any footage, although they will blur out the faces of customers apart from you. You might find it useful. But most importantly it needs to be kept in case the police investigate – they’ll be able to see everything.”
“Thank you,” Jess said, her expression attentive and searching Anna’s face. “You seem so calm and capable about it though, after all that.”
“What you see now,” Anna said, “me, the organised flat, my regular haunt at Zehra’s, the Tube trip to work, my daily walk in the park where it’s open and safe, that’s my comfort zone. It took a lot of effort to establish my independence within even that boundary and feel like myself again. Beyond it…” she trailed off.
She hadn’t trespassed further for a long time. She would go for days without thinking about him. That had been the case for months, extending into years, but she hadn’t ventured far from her well-guarded world had she?
Jess smiled. “So, we’re trapped here?”
Anna laughed.
“What a pair we make,” Jess added.
The phrase fluttered pleasantly through Anna’s mind. Did she like the idea of Jess pairing them together? She rather enjoyed the young woman’s company, but Jess had probably not meant it like that, not now that she knew the extent of Anna’s world.
“So,” Anna sighed, not wanting to examine her feelings and wishes about the young woman. “There you are. That’s me. And while I rarely think of him anymore, my life has changed. It’s why I’m hesitant. Why I keep to familiar places. Why where once I was outgoing and confident, now I’m more circumspect. Why I have difficulty letting people in…” And for the first time in so long, Anna realised, she wanted to.
She stopped, feeling ashamed of what she’d become.
“And yet...” Jess's voice was more thoughtful. “And yet,” she continued, “you helped me. Out of everyone on that carriage, you were the one who asked me if I needed help.”
“Of course I did,” Anna whispered. “I know what it’s like to be followed and to feel vulnerable.”
Jess hesitated. “It was one of the nicest things anyone’s done for me in a while. I’m very grateful.”
Anna didn’t doubt her. Jess had said it choked with gratitude. Anna was compelled to add, “If it hadn’t been in my neighbourhood, where I’m confident, I might not have been so generous.”
“Then I have more faith in you.”
And Anna believed her.
“I’m sorry,” Jess said. “I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
Anna squeezed her hands to acknowledge it. “Now,” she said, not wanting to dwell on her experience, or the hopes she harboured about Jess. “I may have something to help you.”
Jess stared at her blankly. “Help me?”
“Something that will give you confidence when you go outside.”
This was something Anna could do. In fact she was a bit of a pro.
Chapter 11.
It had been all Jess could do to stop herself from flinging her arms around Anna. After all the shitty things people had done to Jess over the last couple of years. After all the times she’d been taken advantage of, here was Anna with nothing to gain, but fear to overcome, who’d been kind to a complete stranger.
