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She wonders if she could have tried harder after Nick died, to stay in touch with the women. If it was partly her fault. If she’d never met Sasha, would she have been able to make those friendships work? She doubts it. She was too broken. She was damaged goods, and those women didn’t have the time or inclination to help fix her.
‘Anna?’ She swings around at the sound of her name to see Lucy Samson, and her heart sinks. Of all the people. Lucy’s dressed as if she’s just stepped out of a sleek Netflix drama. Beautifully cut trousers and jacket, a white silk shirt. Her pale blue handbag looks expensive. The clasps gleam.
Anna’s painfully aware of how frumpy she must look by comparison. Since taking on Kitty’s role she’s found no needto buy good clothes. Her dress is old, aeons out of date. She has better clothes, but they’ve been stored for years because she’s had no need for them since becoming the housekeeper at the Manor. She did consider trying to dress better to meet the police, thinking it would give her more credibility, but that would have attracted Olly and Sasha’s attention if they’d seen her.
‘How are you?’ she says. She desperately wants to bluff this out, to convince Lucy that she’s okay, to will Lucy not to judge her. But Lucy’s already clocked that Anna’s fortunes have taken a turn. Her eyes rake across Anna, assessing her outfit, her shoes, the extra weight she’s carrying, her limp hair, understanding everything a woman like Lucy needs to.
‘I’m fine, really well, actually,’ Lucy says. She’s holding her phone in one hand and Anna suspects that she’s dying to message her posse of friends to tell them how low Anna has sunk. ‘We’re just back from the Seychelles. Amy’s doing her marine biology placement there.’
Of course you are, Anna thinks, and, of course Amy’s placement is in the Seychelles. She’s starting to remember why it was so hard to fit in with these women. Amongst other reasons, she was never able to keep up with their naked competitiveness. Children and their achievements were weaponised to score socially. Gargantuan efforts were made to ensure the success of even the dullest and least promising offspring. It was one reason Anna liked Sasha and Olly so much when she met them: they hadn’t been handed life on a silver platter.
‘That sounds nice,’ Anna says, trying to keep the flat note out of her voice.
‘Are you still living at the Manor?’ Lucy asks.
Anna nods but she’s ready for this conversation to end.
‘I’m sorry but I have to go,’ she lies. ‘I have an appointment.’
‘Oh, sure,’ Lucy says and, unexpectedly, she looks disappointed. ‘I’ve missed you,’ she adds. ‘I felt bad for ages because you texted me about a coffee and I lost my phone and all my contacts before I texted you back. I felt terrible. You were always such a breath of fresh air. You used to make me laugh.’
Did I? Anna thinks as Lucy leans in to hug her. Anna stiffens, but confusingly Lucy’s embrace is affectionate, and Anna has the same dawning sense that she had when she read Olly’s novel that she’s been blind, not just to Sasha and Olly, but to everyone. Lucy didn’t snub her. She lost her phone. It’s a crushing feeling; it almost knocks the wind out of her completely and it makes her wonder about Catherine trying to get in touch with her when she came to yoga at the Manor. If she’d not been so absorbed with Sasha and so quick to assume that others didn’t like her, life could have been very different.
‘Shall we get together sometime?’ Lucy asks.
Anna nods. ‘Can you write down your number? I forgot my phone today.’ She doesn’t mention that she hasn’t had a mobile phone for years. After hers broke, Olly and Sasha persuaded her that she didn’t need one, that she’d be happier and healthier without. How did I not object to that, she thinks, when they’re glued to theirs all the time? How did I let any of this happen to me? But she knows why. It’s because they made her feel worthless outside of their orbit.
She takes the note with Lucy’s number on it. She won’t message her any time soon because that would take more socialcourage than she has right now, but maybe she’ll get in touch, one day, and that gives her some hope.
She dwells on this as she walks to the hair salon and while she’s having her hair washed, recoiling a little at the feel of a stranger’s fingers on her scalp, she thinks, who am I? No longer Kitty, that’s for sure, and I never will be again. But who am I, now?
Emboldened by seeing Lucy, she can brush away the shame of what’s happened to her more easily than usual. I will be Anna again, she tells herself. But not Anna who is awash with grief, driven crazy by it; not Anna who feels totally worthless. I’ll be new Anna, whole Anna. I’ll be worth something. She knows it’ll be hard to make herself believe this every day, but she will.
When she sits in front of the mirror, the temptation to tell her stylist to make a radical change to her hair is strong, but she can’t, not yet. She wants Olly and Sasha to pay for what they’ve done to her, and she’s gambling that the best way to achieve that is to stick to her plan and do whatever she can to remain invisible for a little while longer.
34
THURSDAY
Nicole
Nicole wakes to find her bedlinen tangled around her and her mattress damp with sweat. She feels as if she barely slept.
Patrick frightened me, she thinks. The memory of last night is as vivid as if it happened just seconds ago: how she watched with horror as the handle of her bedroom door turned slowly, before the door inched open and she screamed, long and piercingly loud, and Patrick rushed to her saying shush and I’m sorry. He tried to pull her into his arms, but the feel of his hands on her through her skimpy nightie was too intimate. She pushed him away and got back into bed and pulled up the covers. He took a seat at the end of the bed. When he put a hand down on the duvet, she drew her feet up.
He explained that he’d had a horrible row, with a friend, on the phone. He was worried she’d overheard and was coming to check on her and he was terribly sorry that he’d frightened her.
‘Which friend?’ she asked. ‘You sounded so angry.’ His voice had been ugly with rage. Even in the aftermath, she felt as if she could hear an echo of it, as if it was a soundtrack playing, muted, beneath the calmer tone he was adopting with her. Light from the corridor was falling across Patrick, making the scene feel unreal, as if she was watching a film.
He hesitated. Why? ‘A fling who thought she was my girlfriend,’ he said. ‘I broke up with her. She didn’t want me to. She got a bit nasty.’
‘Oh,’ she said. The way he spoke about it makes this girl sound sordid. She wonders how he treated her. Didn’t he tell her before that he hadn’t had any significant relationships? Perhaps this ugly break-up is why he’s been coy about that. ‘Did she do something bad? Why were you so upset with her?’
‘Did you hear what I was saying?’
She shakes her head, although she thought she’d heard him shout something troubling. He’d yelled, ‘Try that and I’ll hurt you.’ Or that’s what it sounded like. She can’t be sure, and she’s afraid to ask because she’s heard it before, the night he attacked and hospitalised a man.
‘I got more upset than I should have. I guess I’m not up to having a domestic right now. I told her it wasn’t the time, but she can’t cut me any slack even when I’m grieving.’
