The Dare, page 19
The noise continues, so close it might be just outside the window. I turn my head towards the streetlight that shines through the gap in the curtains. Streetlight? How can it be night-time already? Then I recognize the noise. It isn’t the hiss of rain or the rustle of leaves. It’s whispering. The whispering that’s haunted me all my life. My parents whispering behind closed doors. Police officers whispering in corridors. Schoolfriends whispering behind my back.
It’s coming from beyond the curtains, which now I realize aren’t my bedroom curtains at all, but curtains around my bed. A hospital bed. The vestiges of a dream hover at the back of my mind. A nightmare about Ross and Catherine.
I struggle to sit up, but I’m so groggy I can barely move. It feels as though I’m shrouded in gauze. Every muscle in my body aches. Every sinew. Every bone.
I run my hands over my stomach, pressing ever so gently, and am, at last, rewarded with a faint sensation of movement. I exhale in relief, but the feeling is short-lived. My temples throb with the worst headache I’ve had in ages. There’s no saliva in my mouth and my tongue feels swollen and sore.
I sink back on to the pillows, defeated. A feeling of despondency settles like sediment in the pit of my stomach. The thing I most dread must have happened again. Another seizure.
Hands pull the curtains aside and Ross appears, his eyes tired and dull, the corners of his mouth pulled down in a worried, tense expression that turns into a smile when he sees me.
‘Hello, sleepyhead. How are you feeling?’
He perches on the side of my bed and strokes my cheek and, as he does so, the dream comes flooding back. Pulling my rucksack down from the top of the wardrobe. Flinging things inside. The old, familiar anxiety dream, but a particularly nasty one. The discovery that he didn’t love me, after all. That he and Catherine were laughing at me behind my back. Conspiring against me. I hate those bloody dreams.
I squeeze his wrist and kiss his fingers, tears brimming at the sight of him, so solid and loving, so absolutely here and on my side. The man I love. The father of my unborn child.
‘I came home and found you slumped on the floor by the bedroom door,’ he says. ‘Oh, Lizzie. Lizzie, darling.’
Something about his voice unsettles me. It’s that awful dream. For some reason, I can’t stop thinking about it. Nasty snippets keep arriving in my head. His baseball cap in Catherine’s drawer. His aunt living on Riley Road. It’s still so vivid and painful. So random and bizarre.
I let him hold me against his chest and stroke my forehead. I always have dreams like that when I’m worried about something. And I am worried about something. I’m going to have a baby, the most momentous, life-changing experience I can possibly imagine, and I’ve just had another seizure. No wonder I feel so weird and disoriented. No wonder I feel so scared.
They keep me in hospital overnight. More tests. More scans. I drift in and out of sleep, only waking when I hear the clank of a trolley, or when a nurse comes round to do my observations. I want to be at home with Ross, in my own bed. I can’t believe I missed his birthday evening – the trip to the cinema and the meal out I’d planned. But at the same time, I’m also glad to be here, being monitored. Because I’m terrified it’ll happen again. I know the dangers. The risks. And all that matters now is having my baby. A healthy baby, with no complications. Sleep drags me back down.
I’m discharged the next day, but it’s ages before we can actually leave because my phone’s gone missing. Ross says he distinctly remembers putting it in my bag when he drove me to A & E yesterday, but we can’t find it in the ward anywhere. We look through the cabinet next to my bed. We look in the bed and under it. We even take the pillowcases off, just in case it’s got caught up in one of them, but it’s nowhere to be seen. Ross fills in a lost-property form, but I don’t hold out much hope of it being found. Things get nicked in hospitals all the time.
When we finally get home, it’s as if I’ve been away for far longer than one night. The house feels different, smells different. Familiar but strange at the same time. Just like a dream. He follows me upstairs. I take each step slowly, gingerly, one hand steadying myself on the rail. I still feel shaky and tired. Ill at ease.
And I’m so pissed off about my phone. I know it can easily be replaced, but I can’t remember Mum and Dad’s mobile numbers off by heart – I stupidly never wrote them down anywhere – so I can’t let them know what’s happened. Although maybe it’s better they don’t find out straightaway. They’ve been looking forward to their week away for ages. I don’t want to spoil it by alarming them, and anyway, I’m fine now. I can tell them when they get home.
The first thing I see when I go upstairs is the emptiness of the spare room. The door is wide open and all of Catherine’s things have gone. I pause a moment, to take this in.
‘She had another call from the landlord of her new place,’ Ross says when he sees me looking. ‘The current tenant has left earlier than expected, so we’ve got our house back at last.’
I step over the threshold and reacquaint myself with the room now that it’s been cleared of her possessions. A faint trace of coconut oil lingers in the air. The carpet needs a vacuum.
‘Oh, right. That’s good.’
I’m surprised, especially after her saying she might have to stay for even longer, but I can’t pretend I’m not relieved, especially after that horrible dream about her and Ross.
Ross puts his hands on my shoulders and kisses me gently on the lips. ‘Why don’t you get into bed and rest while I make some tea?’
While he’s downstairs and I’m changing into a clean pair of pyjamas, the dream invades my mind once more. I look up at my rucksack on top of the wardrobe and remember the shooting pain in my side as I stretched up for it. But that was in the dream, wasn’t it? It didn’t really happen.
That’s odd. Something about the rucksack doesn’t look right. It’s pushed way too far back. I always make sure it’s right at the front so I can easily pull it down when I need it. Maybe Ross was going to use it to put my things in for the hospital and changed his mind, brought them in a carrier bag instead.
I have a sudden urge to check inside it. Being back here in the bedroom makes the dream seem real, as if it actually happened.
I stand on the chair I use at my dressing table and reach for the rucksack. It’s light and empty, as I knew it would be, and I make sure it’s positioned at the front so I can get it down next time I need it. That’s when I notice a slight bulge in one of the compartments at the side. I wonder what that is.
I unzip it and draw out a handful of blisterpacks of my meds. What are they doing in here? There’s something else, too. My passport and some folded-up sheets of medical information. An uneasy sensation uncoils in the pit of my stomach. Why on earth would I have put my passport in there? I always keep it in the box file under my bed.
Images from the dream race through my mind. My hands flicking through papers. The baseball cap in Catherine’s drawer with Ross’s initials on the label. The file marked ‘Aunt Jessie’. I feel a sudden chill. Something dark and twisted is coming into focus. My stomach falls away as the fog I’ve been drifting through ever since waking up in hospital finally clears. That was no dream. Oh my God! It really happened.
My stomach pitches with shock as the hideous truth begins to emerge. I must have been trying to leave before I had the seizure. Ross must have seen my rucksack when he came home and found me passed out on the floor. Did he realize I was trying to escape?
The stairs creak. I stuff the tablets and passport back into the compartment and get off the chair, just managing to put it back in front of the dressing table before Ross opens the door, my heart thumping so loud and fast I’m amazed he can’t hear it. The knowledge is like a bad drug speeding through my veins, turning my blood to ice.
I pretend to be putting something away in a drawer. I have to keep calm and act normal or he’ll know something’s up. I have to pretend that nothing has changed. That I’m still the same old Lizzie he thinks he knows. The one who thinks his Aunt Jessie lived in Sittingbourne. The one who has no idea how long he’s really known Catherine Dawson.
Oh God. So he knew who I was right from the start! His confusion at the party when I dropped the tray of wine – the whole thing was an act. And his questions when all the guests had left. He already knew all the answers.
He rests the tray of tea on top of my dressing table and runs the tip of his finger down my cheek. That loving, intimate gesture I’ve always loved. Is it nothing more than a calculated display of affection?
Fury swells inside me. He’s been playing a part all this time. The consummate actor. Nothing about our relationship is real. Everything that anchored me in this house, this life, is slipping away from me. Everything I know about him – everything I thought I knew about him – is gone in the blink of an eye. Ross has unravelled before me, been replaced by a clone of himself.
‘Glad to be home?’ he says.
Something about his voice is slightly off, at least that’s how it sounds to my suspicious ears. My fury turns to fear. What the hell is happening here? I don’t trust myself to speak, and yet I must or he’ll realize something is wrong.
‘Can’t wait to get into my own bed again,’ I say. Can he hear the tremor in my voice?
I hold my breath, bracing myself for his reaction, but he carries on chatting as if nothing is wrong. My mind whirls as I climb under the duvet. Even if he did look in the rucksack, he’d have only seen a few bits and pieces. Some items of clothing. He might have thought I was getting it ready for a yoga class or something. He obviously didn’t look in the compartments or he’d have emptied them, too, put everything back in its right place. And even if he did, even if he knew for sure that I was trying to leave, he’ll be assuming my post-seizure brain has forgotten all about it.
There’s a menace about him now. An indefinable quality that must have been there all along, only I never noticed it before. I never saw it because I was blind to his flaws. Blind and stupid. A gullible little fool. If only I hadn’t been so out of it in hospital, I could have alerted someone. Told them I didn’t feel safe. They’d have helped me. Now, with no way of contacting Mum and Dad until they’re back from New York, I’m on my own.
48
Ross hands me a mug of tea, but I can barely hold it. I’m always weak and shaky after a seizure, and tired. So terribly, bone-achingly tired. Too tired to think straight, but I must. I’ve got to force myself to stay awake.
He takes the mug out of my hands and pours some into the empty glass that’s still sitting on my bedside table from two nights ago.
‘Here,’ he says, putting the mug down next to me. ‘It should be easier for you to hold now.’
He fusses with my pillows. If I didn’t know any different, I’d be thinking how attentive and kind he’s being, how lucky I am to have him looking after me.
He carries the glass of tea over to the tray on the dressing table. ‘Try and get some more sleep, and maybe you’ll feel like something to eat when you wake up.’
I nod. I just want him to go away and let me think. I can’t even bear to look at him. I have to get out of here as soon as I can. But right now, I doubt I’d make it to the bottom of the road before collapsing. He’ll stop me if I try to leave. I can barely walk I’m so exhausted. Perhaps I should call the police on the landline when he goes downstairs. Tell them I’m in danger.
But am I in danger? Catherine has gone now. Moved out. Maybe that was another lie he told me. Maybe he asked her to leave. After all, he wasn’t exactly pleased when I offered her the room. And they were definitely being snippy with each other yesterday morning. Maybe they aren’t the couple I think they are. Maybe she’s using him to get at me and he’s just been going along with it.
But why? What kind of person would do that? He isn’t a little boy any more. He’s a grown man. A doctor. What possible motivation could he have had for colluding with her in this? Whatever this is.
The only motive I can think of is revenge. Revenge for Alice’s death. Has Catherine managed to convince Ross of my guilt, persuaded him to string me along in order to undo me somehow?
Besides, if I phoned the police, what would I say? My fiancé has been lying to me. He didn’t tell me he’s known one of his colleagues since they were children. She’s the sister of my best friend who was killed by a train. She’s never liked me and blamed me for her sister’s death, but now I’m friends with her. Or rather, I was.
They’ll think I’m a lunatic. That I’m having some kind of psychotic episode. Ross will be the sensible, respectable GP who tells them I’ve been under a lot of strain recently, what with the unexpected stress of the pregnancy. He’ll tell them how disoriented and poorly I always am after a seizure. They’ll only have to take one look at my pale face and wild hair to believe this. And the hospital will confirm my recent admission.
But when Ross plucks the phone from its cradle on his way out, my fear intensifies.
‘I’ll take it downstairs,’ he says. ‘So that it doesn’t wake you if it rings,’ and before I have a chance to synchronize my brain and my voice, the door closes softly behind him.
I sink back on to my pillows in frustration. It wouldn’t have worked anyway. The story sounds absurd. It is absurd.
The only thing I can do right now is think. Decide where I’m going to go when I’m strong enough to leave the house. I must have had a plan yesterday, when I packed that rucksack. If only I could remember what it was.
I start to mentally retrace my steps, thinking of every single thing I did from the moment I watched Ross and Catherine drive off in the morning, right up to the point when I pulled the rucksack down and started flinging things inside. After that, my mind is a blank.
I huddle down under the duvet, drawing it round my neck for comfort. Where was I going before the seizure put paid to my plans? I’d have rung Mum and Dad, wouldn’t I? It’s the first thing I’d have thought of doing. I can just imagine Dad’s fury with Ross for deceiving me. I might be twenty-five but he still thinks of me as his little girl. I dread to think what he’ll do when he finds out.
But I can’t have spoken to them, or left a message, because if Dad thought for one second that I was in danger, he’d have booked them on the first flight home. I know he would. And then he’d have driven me home to Dovercourt. My eyes fill with tears as I think of him. Dad will sort this out. I know he will. He and Mum might not have been entirely honest with me about their friendship with the Dawsons, but that’s nothing compared to what’s happening here.
Something clicks at the back of my mind. Home. Dovercourt. Mum and Dad’s house. Of course! I still have the key! I don’t have to wait till they come home from New York. Was that the conclusion I reached yesterday?
At last, the panic in my chest starts to subside. I have a plan. Somewhere to go. I only have to stay here long enough to regain my strength. I’ll leave tonight, when Ross is asleep. I’ll be safe if he thinks I don’t know about him and Catherine, or that my seizure has made me forget.
I just have to pretend for a little while longer.
49
The room is almost dark when I wake up. It takes me a few seconds to remember where I am and what’s happened. Catherine must be home from work. She’s in the living room with Ross. I can just make out the faint murmur of their voices over the TV. The thought of the two of them down there, while I’m in bed, woozy and defenceless, nauseates me.
Wait a minute. She’s supposed to have moved out. She has moved out. So why is she downstairs?
I get up, slowly and carefully. I feel raw and tender, the discomfort in my body mirroring the anguish in my head. The shock of betrayal. The anger. The fear.
I need to act normally. Prove to them that nothing is different. That I’m not in the least bit scared. Because if they did look in that rucksack, or I left something out in the study, if they have the slightest whiff of suspicion that I was intending to leave, I’ll be in real danger if they think I still remember.
My head is telling me to get dressed and leave right now. But they’ll hear me go down and I don’t have the strength to argue with them. I certainly don’t have the energy to run away. I have to keep the pretence going for a little while longer.
I stand in the semi-darkness of the landing and peer over the balustrade into the hallway below, straining my ears to hear what they’re saying, but the only thing I pick up is the tone. The conspiratorial tone of two people who don’t want to be heard but who obviously have a great deal to say to each other.
I give up trying to eavesdrop and go and wash my face. One glance in the mirror tells me I look as bad as I feel. I’m pale as a ghost and there are dark shadows under my eyes. My hair is wild and uncombed, my lips dry and parched. I drag a brush through my hair and put some Vaseline on my lips, rub my cheeks with my fingers to try to get some colour in them.
When I come out of the bathroom, I nearly jump out of my skin. Catherine is standing there, stock still, as if she’s been listening outside the door. It’s as much as I can do not to cringe at the sight of her.
‘God, sorry!’ she says, stepping back. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you.’ Her face is the picture of concern, but it isn’t real. I know that now. She still thinks I killed Alice.
‘Lizzie, how are you?’ she says.
That feeling I had when I first saw her in the hall, the night of the party, comes reeling back. The shock. The revulsion. But now it’s stronger than ever. I want to push her away from me, to pummel her chest with my fists and scream at her to get the hell out of here, but all I can do is smile weakly and pretend that I’m glad to see her. Surely she can see the suspicion in my eyes?
‘I thought you’d gone,’ I say, my pulse racing. It’s taking all of my efforts to keep my voice warm and natural. I feel like I want to vomit.
