S. Watson - Second Life

‘You don’t scare me.’

‘Don’t you get it? You and me? It was fun while it lasted. But now I just want what’s owed to me. You have to back off. I’m having my fun with someone else. You have to get it into your stupid head that it’s over.’

I’m shocked. ‘Anna? Anna? You make her sound like an object, but you asked her to marry you!’

‘There are lots of different types of games, you know…’

He’s a few feet away, a little further than arm’s length. It might not be close enough. I step towards him. I raise my voice.

‘What’re you doing with Anna? Really? I know you’re using her. You don’t love her, like you didn’t love me.’

He’s smiling. It’s an answer in itself, but I want to hear him say it.

‘What are you doing with her? I know this is about the money, my sister’s money, but why involve her?’

He leans in. ‘How else was I going to get close to you?’

I remember why I’ve come here.

‘You don’t love her? You’ve never loved her?’

I’m careful to phrase it as a question. It takes him only a moment to reply.

‘Me? Love Anna ? Look, we have a nice little arrangement going on, but I don’t love her. The sex is great, that’s all. And you know what? I like to think of you as we do it.’

I take a deep breath. There, I think. I have it. I almost smile. It’s my turn to feel smug now.

‘Oh, by the way, don’t even think about contacting Anna again.’

I can’t help but reply: ‘You can’t stop me.’

‘How so?’ He hesitates, he’s enjoying this. ‘Oh,’ he says. ‘You think you’re having lunch with her tomorrow?’ His smile is chilling. ‘I guess she hasn’t told you? She’s changed her ticket. Some family emergency, I think. Or something at work? I can’t quite remember. Maybe it’s just that she thinks you’re absolutely crazy and wants to get as far away as possible. In any case, you won’t be seeing her tomorrow. In fact, I reckon she’ll be leaving the hotel,’ – he looks at his watch – ‘around about… now .’

My eyes narrow. I have to make him think he’s beaten me.

‘What?’

‘You heard me. Anna thinks you’re crazy. She’s on her way back home, and I’m joining her in a few days. So why don’t you just toddle off home? Go back to your husband and be a good little wife for him? Eh?’

I don’t react. I can’t. I don’t want him to see how scared I am. I haven’t won, not yet. Not until I can speak to Anna. I have to make him think I’m going to do exactly as he says. Go back home.

I shake my head. ‘Fuck you,’ I say, and turn away from him.

His gaze burns into me as I retrace my steps. I don’t run, I have to look unconcerned. I daren’t turn round, I don’t want him to know how much I hope he’s not following. Everything depends on him leaving me alone, just for a couple of hours. Everything depends on me getting to Anna before she boards her train. I turn the corner and am out of sight. Then, I run.

I head through the bus station, on to the main road. I look behind me, but he’s nowhere in sight. Why would he hang around? He’s won. A taxi pulls up, at the lights. It’s available and I hail it. ‘St Pancras,’ I say, then get in.

‘Okay, love,’ says the driver. She must sense my urgency. ‘Traffic’s bad today. What time’s your train?’

I tell her I don’t know, I’m meeting someone. ‘Please hurry,’ I say again. The lights change and she pulls away. She says she’ll do her best. I take my phone out of my pocket, where it’d been the whole time, the voice memo recorder already running, and press done. I’d hit record as soon as we met. With any luck I’ve recorded our entire conversation.

I look over my shoulder. Lukas is still nowhere to be seen.

We’re in luck. Our route through Lambeth is pretty clear, the lights are in our favour. I listen back to what I’ve managed to capture. It’s muffled, recorded as it was from the pocket of my jacket, while the two of us were moving around. Some of it is okay – in places my voice is loud but it’s Lukas’s reply I need and it’s barely registered on the recording – but a good deal of it is usable. I can hear him saying ‘For old time’s sake’ after he kissed me, and he’d also raised his voice to say, ‘You’re crazier than I thought.’ But that’s not good enough. It isn’t what I’m looking for. I fast forward, desperate to find a section that is incontrovertible proof of what I need Anna to know; that he’s not who he says he is, that she’s in danger and that we need to help each other.

It’s there. The part I’d hoped for. Luckily, I’d stepped towards him, he’d been close; plus, my plan to raise my voice in the hope that it would encourage him to raise his had worked.

I rewind. Play it again. At first it’s broken: ‘…using her… love her…’ but then there’s a gap and the next sentence is clear. ‘I know this is about the money, my sister’s money, but why involve her?’

Lukas’s answer is clear, too.

‘How else was I going to get close to you?’

Then it’s me. I must’ve shifted on my feet as I spoke; the first part of the sentence is lost as something rubs against the microphone of my phone’s recorder. I recognize my own voice, but what I’m saying is all but lost. Only one word is audible: ‘her’.

It shouldn’t matter, though. I know it’s his response I need next; I remember what he’d said, but the whole recording is meaningless unless it’s audible.

Luckily, his answer is perfectly clear. I play it twice, just to be sure.

‘Me?’ he’s saying. ‘…Look, we have a nice little arrangement going on, but I don’t love her.’

I close my eyes, as if in victory, then rewind and listen to it a third time. It should be enough to convince my friend, I think. I just need to get there in time now.

I freeze. It occurs to me, as if for the first time. I don’t have to do this. I could just leave it, just walk away, go home. Lukas has demanded I leave them alone, so why not?

I think of his hands on me. I think of the places he’s taken me. Can I abandon my sister’s best friend to that? What kind of person would that make me?

From nowhere I think back to Anna’s reading, at the funeral. ‘To the angry I was cheated, but to the happy I am at peace.’

She thinks she’s happy, but it won’t last. I can’t abandon her now and live with myself, knowing I’ve betrayed her. I can’t.

I glance at the time and shift forward in my seat. It’s just after one o’clock. The traffic is bad, but we’re moving; already we’re over the river and skirting the city. If only I knew what time her train was, I think, then I’d be able to work out whether I have time, or no chance at all.

I look on my phone, navigate to the Eurostar webpage, to the timetable. It’s grindingly slow – I need to press refresh two, three times – but it makes me feel like I’m doing something, at least. Eventually the page appears. There’s a train just after two, and she’ll be checking in at least half an hour before it.

I look up. We’ve got as far as Lambeth North. It’s a twenty-minute trip, I’d guess, then we’ll have to find somewhere to pull in. I’ll need to pay the driver, then I have to find my friend. I’m desperate, yet helpless. I will the traffic to move, the lights to change. I curse as we get stuck behind a cyclist, as someone steps out on to a pedestrian crossing and we have to brake.

I’m not sure we’re going to make it, plus Lukas may ring her and tell her I’m on my way. It’s hopeless.

It’s almost one thirty when we pull up outside the terminal; I’m numb, certain I’ll have missed her. I pass my fare over to the driver – far too much, but I tell her to keep the change – and then I start to run. She shouts, ‘Good luck, love!’ but I don’t answer, don’t even turn round. I’m already frantically looking for Anna. I run in, towards the gates to the terminal, past the coffee shops and ticket offices, remembering as I do the times I’d met Lukas here. The images assault me, in Technicolor. I think of the second time we’d met, just after he’d lied to me and told me he lived near London after all. Back when I felt almost nothing for him, by comparison to what came later, at least. Back when it would’ve been easy, relatively, to walk away. Back when I was worried he had a wife, when really he was about to ask someone else to marry him.