Who Did You Tell (ARC) Read online

  who looks remotely like the kind of person who’d be wearing

  Joint at half past eight in the morning. Or smoking one.

  My gaze returns to the sea. Wetsuit Guy seems to have dis-

  appeared. Maybe I imagined him too.

  Oh shit. I need a drink.

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  3

  By the time I arrive at AA, I’m wired. All I’ve done since this

  morning is drink endless cups of coffee and smoke myself

  stupid. I’ve also been researching barnacles. Apparently, they

  exude an adhesive- type substance that binds them to hard

  surfaces and cements them in place. It’s similar to the clotting

  mechanism in blood. I need facts like this to occupy my mind.

  To fill up the spaces where the bad stuff clings on. Anything to

  quell the compulsion to drink.

  And now I’m here, hugging my chest to keep my heart from

  exploding. It’s the first meeting I’ve been to since coming out of

  rehab. Mum’s been on at me to go for days.

  I take the chair nearest the door and do that thing I used to do

  on the underground. Quick, furtive glances at the other passen-

  gers. Just to get a sense of them. The cross section of people in

  the vestry of Flinstead parish church on this chilly May evening

  is, in fact, remarkably similar to that of a London underground

  carriage. I just wish I could get off at the next stop.

  A woman with peroxide hair and a ravaged face gives me a

  knowing smile. The crowns on her front teeth are so old they’re

  black at the gum line. She looks like she’s in her sixties, but

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  dresses younger, probably is. Drink ages a person. She’s wear-

  ing tight black jeans, grey vest over a black T- shirt and one of

  those long, shapeless cardigans, which trails over the tops of

  her ankle boots. Every time she shifts position I catch a whiff

  of stale cigarettes. Do I smell like that too? God, I hope not.

  ‘Is it your first time?’ says a cultured voice to my left. Its owner wears an expensive- looking charcoal- grey suit and polished brogues. He has the air of someone distinguished. A lawyer or

  consultant, perhaps. It’s a great leveller, this addiction of ours.

  ‘First time here, yes.’ My voice is hoarse from too much smoking and there’s an annoying twitch in my left eyelid.

  He nods politely, and I sense that he’s holding back another

  question. I’m glad. I’m not here for the small talk.

  More people drift in and take their seats. A gaunt- looking

  woman with bulging eyes and long, fidgety fingers sits opposite

  me. Her eyes veer in their sockets like pale blue marbles. Every

  so often they settle on me, before spinning off in another direc-

  tion. I stare at my knees. When I look up, I find her watching me.

  And she isn’t the only one. I’m clearly this evening’s main attrac-

  tion. A youngish man with bad acne keeps looking at me too.

  This is unbearable. I could be out of that door and back

  home in ten minutes. Except then Mum will know I didn’t

  come and I have to prove to her that, this time, I’ll do it. This

  time, I’ll quit for good. It’s my last chance – she’s left me in no doubt about that.

  A noticeboard with AA literature pinned all over it has

  been propped on a table against the wall, no doubt so it can be

  whisked out of sight when the mother- and- toddler group take

  over in the morning. My gaze drifts over the neatly typed list of

  the Twelve Steps, not that I need to read them again. After three

  months of rehab and daily meetings I could probably recite

  them by heart. Actually working them, step by step, is a differ-

  ent matter.

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  WHO DID YOU TELL?

  I can just about get my head round the first one and admit

  that for most of the time I’m powerless over alcohol, that my

  life has become unmanageable. But the next two are pretty

  major stumbling blocks: believing that a power greater than

  myself can restore me to sanity and, here’s the killer: turning

  my will and my life over to the care of God. I mean, I know

  they say it doesn’t have to be the old- man- in- the- sky kind of God, it can be anything I feel comfortable with – the cosmos,

  the power of the group itself even – but it’s hard to get down on

  your knees and pray to the collective wisdom of a random

  bunch of drunks.

  I close my eyes. The room has that old- church smell: stale

  and musty. It prompts a memory I thought I’d forgotten. A

  Sunday- school classroom. Being shown how to write a capital

  ‘G’ for ‘God’ and pressing down on the paper so hard my pencil

  broke. Even as a small child, something inside me resisted the

  notion of a higher power.

  Someone to my right clears his throat. He looks like the sort

  of man who might play the church organ or organize the local

  Neighbourhood Watch. Dull and worthy. He looks like my old

  physics teacher, Mr Staines. Semen Staines, we used to call him,

  poor bugger.

  ‘Good evening, everyone,’ he says, his voice as watery and

  colourless as the rest of him. ‘My name is David and I’m an

  alcoholic.’

  And so it begins.

  David is in the middle of the usual preamble when the door

  bursts open and a latecomer hurtles through. A tall middle- aged

  woman in a beige raincoat and red court shoes. Her messy hair

  is shoulder- length, mousy- coloured.

  ‘Sorry,’ she says, her face flushing as red as her shoes. Her

  flesh- coloured tights have gone all bobbly round the ankles.

  I give her a small smile. She looks so vulnerable, standing

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  there in front of us all, and I can’t help noticing that tremble in

  her hands. I bet she’s still drinking. Poor woman. She looks like

  she’d rather be anywhere but here. I know just how she feels.

  After the meeting, people drink coffee and chat. Some of them

  hug each other. The peroxide woman with grey skin – Rosie,

  eight years sober, AA evangelist – tries to hug the woman with

  red shoes, who clearly doesn’t want to be hugged. I’ve met Ros-

  ie’s type before. Homing in on the newbies. Oh God, now she’s

  heading straight for me. I hold out my hand instead and the

  woman with red shoes rolls her eyes at me over Rosie’s shoul-

  der. I can’t reciprocate, not without Rosie cottoning on, but I

  think she can tell from the way I look back at her that we’re on

  the same wavelength about inappropriate hugging.

  When Rosie finally slinks off to accost someone else, the

  man in the suit gestures at me with a cup. He’s standing next to

  the man with acne, who’s now openly staring at me. I shake my

  head. I have to get out of here. Now. But as I turn towards the

  door I bump straight into the woman with red shoes. We both

&
nbsp; say sorry at the same time.

  ‘My fault,’ she says, flustered. ‘I wasn’t looking where I was

  going.’

  Her voice is soft, tremulous, and though I haven’t come here

  to make friends I feel as if I ought to encourage her. Reaching

  out more, helping others – that’s how this whole fellowship

  thing is meant to work. Be nice, Astrid. Be nice.

  ‘See you next week?’ I say.

  ‘Maybe.’ Her eyes glisten with tears. She rushes to the door

  and stumbles out into the corridor, her exit as sudden and

  clumsy as her entrance.

  I imagine her running all the way home then opening a bot-

  tle of red wine and drinking the lot. Opening another. I pack

  the thought away before it takes hold.

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  WHO DID YOU TELL?

  Outside, wind hurls itself from the sea end of Flinstead Road.

  I tug my coat across my chest and walk straight into it, chin

  pressed down, the musty smell in my nostrils blown clean away.

  The street is deserted. Out of season, Flinstead is dead after

  nine o’clock. Actually, that’s a lie – it’s dead after eight. When I pass the alleyway that leads to the little cluster of overpriced

  boutiques, the ones only the tourists go in, I stop and stare into

  the shadows. This was the exact spot where I saw Simon last

  night. In the daylight, it looks enticing, with its coral- painted

  walls and that glimpse of courtyard at the end, the metal bistro

  tables and chairs, the hanging baskets. Now, it looks like the

  kind of place a girl might get strangled.

  I walk straight down it and sit on one of the chairs, the cold

  of the metal burning into the backs of my thighs. It’s a matter

  of pride. To prove to myself that I’m not scared. That I don’t

  believe for one second that it was really him.

  Once, I would have said he wasn’t spiteful enough to come

  back. But that was before.

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  I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve killed her. The number of ways.

  Yesterday, it went like this: we were standing on the pier at Mist‑

  den Sands and I just pushed her in. She was wearing those stupid Doc Martens she clumps about in and, what with them and her big, heavy coat, she couldn’t keep afloat. I stood there, watching, as she thrashed about and waited for her to sink. Her braids spread out on the water like long fingers of seaweed.

  The last thing I saw were those little blue beads at the ends, bob‑

  bing on the surface like fishing floats.

  It was too easy, though. Too clean. I prefer it when there’s blood.

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  4

  I’ve passed the Fisherman’s Shack almost every day since I

  arrived, but I’ve never been inside before this morning. I see at

  once what I’ve been missing. Creaky old floorboards and mis-

  matched tables and chairs. Vintage, but only because they’ve

  been here for years. They haven’t been specially ‘sourced’ or

  painted in Farrow and Ball and roughed up with a sanding

  block. And, most impressively, they just serve coffee (instant or

  filter, not a macchiato or ristretto in sight), tea, Fanta or Coke.

  Egg- and- bacon butties. Toasted teacakes.

  It’s an inspired choice. I love it.

  The barista has arms like Bluto. The devil in me wants to ask

  for a skinny latte, just to see his face, but I order a filter coffee, black, and take it over to a table in the window. I’m ten minutes

  late and he’s not here, which either means he isn’t coming or he

  couldn’t be bothered to wait. I don’t even know his name. For

  all his chatter on the beach yesterday, he forgot to introduce

  himself.

  I rub a circle in the steamed- up window and watch the good

  folk of Flinstead go about their usual business. Coming out of

  shops with papers tucked under their arms, waving to someone

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  on the other side of the street or nodding their endless hellos.

  Sometimes I think it’s like The Truman Show and all I’ve got to do is find the perimeter of the set and break out through the

  papery screen to the real world on the other side. The messy,

  chaotic world of noise and pain and sharp- faced strangers who

  look straight through you.

  Then I see her, the hugger from AA. Rosie, or whatever her

  name is. She’s wearing another of those long, trailing cardigans,

  only this one is black, and she’s dragging a rotating card stand

  out of the Oxfam shop. After she’s wrestled it over the step and

  wheeled it into position in front of the window she swivels her

  head round and looks straight at me, almost as if she’s sensed me

  watching her. For one awful second I think she’s going to wave,

  but then she turns away and goes back into the shop.

  My shoulders soften. There’s no way she could have recog-

  nized me from this distance and, even if she did, there’s an

  unspoken rule at AA that we don’t acknowledge each other in

  public, especially in a town this size.

  A girl in a puffa jacket emerges from the newsagent’s. She’s

  tucking into a huge bar of chocolate, biting straight into it as if

  it’s nothing more than a snack- sized bar. My mouth waters. If

  Wetsuit Guy doesn’t turn up soon, I’m going to buy some choc-

  olate too.

  I watch as she positions herself in front of the card stand,

  spinning it listlessly. Something about her looks familiar, but

  before I can work out what it is, she disappears into the charity

  shop.

  I turn away and stare into my coffee. Why am I still hanging

  around in here, waiting for some fitness fanatic to show up? I

  might just as well finish this and go.

  A door at the back, which has the word ‘Toilet’ written on a

  piece of card strung round the handle, opens with a loud squeak,

  and there he is. For some stupid reason, I hadn’t imagined him

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  WHO DID YOU TELL?

  in anything other than a wetsuit but, of course, he’s fully

  clothed. Faded jeans and a pale green rugby shirt. Blond, tou-

  sled hair. He’s even more good- looking than I remember.

  ‘You’re here,’ he says, grinning.

  For one awkward moment I think he’s going to kiss me, but

  at the last minute he offers me his hand.

  ‘I’m Josh, by the way.’

  ‘Astrid.’

  ‘Cool.’ He nods at my coffee. ‘Can I get you something to eat

  with that?’

  I could murder an egg- and- bacon buttie but have visions of egg

  yolk sliding down my chin. It’s not a great look for a first date. If that’s what this is. Dating hasn’t been part of my repertoire for

  ages. In fact, I’m not sure it ever was. Falling into bed, rat- arsed, with complete strangers is my usual modus operandi.

  ‘A toasted teacake, maybe?’ Christ, did I really say that? Itr />
  sounds like something my Great Aunt Dorothy would order.

  ‘Toasted teacake coming up,’ he says, and saunters over to

  the counter, reaching in his back pocket for some money.

  ‘One toasted teacake, one egg- and- bacon buttie and a cup of

  tea, please, Bob,’ he says.

  Bob nods and sets to work. I’m studying the back of Josh’s

  head – the way his hair curls over his collar – when an involun-

  tary shudder travels the length of my spine. I don’t have to look

  out the window to tell that I’m being watched, and I instinc-

  tively know that, this time, it’s not Rosie.

  Josh pulls out the chair in front of me and it scrapes against

  the floor. ‘Are you okay?’

  I swivel my eyes to the right. There’s no one there. Of course

  there isn’t. Get a grip, Astrid. It’s not him.

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.’

  Josh glances out of the window and frowns. Then he turns

  his attention back to me.

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  ‘So how long will you be staying with your mum?’

  ‘Until she gets better, I suppose.’ There’s just the faintest sen-

  sation of warmth in my cheeks.

  ‘What do you do?’ he says. ‘For a living, I mean.’

  My brain goes into overdrive. Breathe.

  Josh screws up his face. ‘Sorry. That’s a really annoying ques-

  tion. I sound like some tosser at a dinner party.’

  I smile. ‘I trained in scenic design. I work freelance.’

  What I don’t tell him is that the last job I had that was any-

  thing remotely to do with design was over seven years ago. I

  had a reputation for turning up for work late, still pissed from

  the night before. A walking health- and- safety hazard. A useless

  drunk. Since then it’s been a series of low- paid, temporary or

  zero- hours contracts. Boring clerical positions, supermarket

  work, that kind of thing. For the last year it’s been nothing

  at all.

  I take a mouthful of coffee and scald the roof of my mouth.

  Josh blows across the top of his drink, like I should have

  done. ‘I work in a university,’ he says. ‘Student services. At least, I will do, from the end of August. I was made redundant from

  my last job.’

  ‘Oh, sorry to hear that.’

  ‘Don’t be. I hated it. Anyway, it’s worked out pretty well. My

  dad’s bought a big old place overlooking the backwaters. So I’m