Nicci French - Killing Me Softly

‘Alice,’ said Jake, at the same time as I said, ‘Jake.’

‘Sorry, go on,’ I said.

‘No, you first.’

We were sitting on the sofa with mugs of tea, about six inches apart from each other. It was dark outside, and the curtains were closed. Everything was silent, the way it is when snow falls and muffles all sound. He was wearing an old speckled-grey jumper and faded jeans and no shoes. His hair was all rumpled up. He was looking at me very attentively. I liked him so much. I took a deep breath. ‘I can’t keep on with this, Jake.’

At first, the expression on his face didn’t change. I made myself go on looking into his eyes, nice brown eyes.

‘What?’

I took one of his hands and it rested limply in mine. ‘I have to leave you.’

How could I say it? Every word was like hurling a brick. Jake looked as if I had slapped him really hard, bemused and in pain. I wanted to take it all back, return to where we had been a minute ago, sitting together on the sofa with our tea. I could no longer remember why I was doing this. He didn’t say anything.

‘I’ve met someone else. It’s all so…’ I stopped.

‘What do you mean?’ He was staring at me, as if through a thick fog. ‘What do you mean, leave? Do you mean you want to stop being with me?’

‘Yes.’

The effort of that word rendered me speechless. I gazed dumbly at him. I was still holding his hand, but it lay nervelessly in mine. I didn’t know how to let it go.

‘Who?’ His voice cracked a bit. He cleared his throat. ‘Sorry. Who have you met?’

‘Just… no one you know. It just… God, I’m so sorry, Jake.’

He passed a hand over his face. ‘But it doesn’t make sense. We’ve been so happy recently. This weekend, I mean…’ I nodded at him. This was more awful than I could have imagined. ‘I thought – I – how did you meet him? When?’

This time I couldn’t meet his gaze. ‘It doesn’t matter, that’s not the point.’

‘Is the sex so good? No, sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to say that, Alice. I can’t understand it. You’re leaving everything? Just like that?’ He looked around the room at all our things, the whole weight of the world we had built up together. ‘Why?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘It’s that bad, is it?’

His whole body was slack on the sofa. I wanted him to shout at me, get angry or something, and instead he smiled across at me. ‘Do you know what I was going to say?’

‘No.’

‘I was going to say I thought we should have a baby together.’

‘Oh, Jake.’

‘I was happy.’ His voice had a muffled quality. ‘And all the time, you were, you were…’

‘No, Jake,’ I pleaded. ‘I was happy too. You made me happy.’

‘How long has it been going on for?’

‘A few weeks.’

I watched him considering, revisiting the recent past. His face puckered. He stared away from me, towards the curtained window, and said, very formally: ‘Will it make any difference if I ask you to stay, Alice? Give us another chance? Please.’

He didn’t look at me. We both stared ahead, hand in hand. There was a great boulder in my chest.

‘Please, Alice,’ he said again.

‘No.’

He took his hand out of mine. We sat in silence, and I wondered what came next. Should I say anything about sorting out my things later? Tears were rolling down his cheeks, into his mouth, but he sat quite still and made no move to wipe them. I had never seen him cry before. I put up a hand to wipe his tears away but he turned away sharply, angry at last. ‘God, Alice, what do you want? Do you want to comfort me or something? Do you want to see me howl? If you’re going to go, just go.’

I left everything. I left all my clothes and my CDs and my makeup and my jewellery. My books and magazines. My photographs. My briefcase full of documents from work. My address book and diary. My alarm clock. My bunch of keys. My French tapes. I took my purse, my toothbrush, my supply of contraceptives and the thick black coat Jake had given me for Christmas and went out into the slush in the wrong shoes.

It’s at a time like this when you’re meant to need your friends. I didn’t want to see anybody. I didn’t want family. I had wild thoughts of sleeping in the street, under arches somewhere, but even self-punishment had its limits. Where could I find somewhere cheap to stay? I had never stayed in a hotel in London before. I remembered a street of hotels that I’d glimpsed out of the window of a taxi the other day. South of Baker Street. It would do. I took a tube and walked past the Planetarium, across the road and a block along. There it was, a long street of white stuccoed houses, all converted into hotels. I chose one at random, the Devonshire, and walked in.

Sitting at the desk was a very fat woman, who said something urgently to me that I couldn’t understand because of her accent. But I could see plenty of keys on the board behind her. This was not the tourist season. I pointed at the keys. ‘I want a room.’

She shook her head and carried on talking. I wasn’t even sure if she was talking to me or shouting at somebody in the room behind. I wondered if she thought I was a prostitute, but no prostitute could have been as badly, or at least as dully, dressed as I was. Yet I had no luggage. A little corner of my mind was amused by the thought of what kind of person she took me for. I extracted a credit card from my purse and put it on the desk. She took it and scanned it. I signed a piece of paper without looking at it. She handed me a key.

‘Can I get a drink?’ I asked. ‘Tea or something?’

‘No drink,’ she shouted.

I felt as if I had asked for a cup of meths. I considered whether to go outside for something but couldn’t face it. I took the key and went up two flights of stairs to my room. It wasn’t so bad. There was a wash-basin and a window looking down on a stone yard and across at the back of another house on the other side. I pulled the curtain shut. I was in a hotel room in London on my own with nothing. I stripped down to my underwear and got into bed. I got out of the bed and locked the door, then dived under the covers again. I didn’t cry. I didn’t lie awake all night pondering my life. I went to sleep straight away. But I left the light on.

I woke up late, dull-headed, but not suicidal. I got up, took my bra and knickers off and washed myself in the basin. Then I put them back on. I brushed my teeth without toothpaste. For breakfast I had a contraceptive pill washed down with a plastic beaker of water. I dressed and went downstairs. There seemed to be nobody around. I looked in at a dining room with a shiny marble-style floor where all the tables had plastic chairs around them. I heard voices from somewhere and I could smell frying bacon. I walked across the room and pushed open a curtain. Around a kitchen table were seated the woman I had met last night, a man of her own age and shape, evidently her husband, and several small fat children. They looked up at me.

‘I was leaving,’ I said.

‘You want breakfast?’ said the man, smiling. ‘We have eggs, meat, tomatoes, mushrooms, beans, cereal.’

I shook my head weakly.

‘You paid already.’

I accepted some coffee and stood in the door of the kitchen watching as they got the children ready for school. Before I left, the man looked at me with a concerned expression. ‘You all right?’

‘All right.’

‘You stay another night?’

I shook my head again and left. It was cold outside but at least it was dry. I stopped and thought, orienting myself. I could walk from here. On my way down Edgware Road, I bought some lemon-scented wipes and toothpaste, mascara and lipstick from a chemist and then some simple white knickers. In Oxford Street I found a functional clothes shop. I took a black shirt and a simple jacket into the changing room. I put my new knickers on as well, wiped my face and neck with the wipes until my skin stung, then applied some makeup. It was just enough of an improvement. At least I didn’t look as if I was about to be sectioned. At just after ten, I rang Claudia. I had been intending to make up something about going through my papers but once I got her on the line, some odd impulse made me fall back on partial honesty. I told her that I was having a personal crisis that I was having to deal with and that I was in no condition to appear in the office. I could hardly get her off the line.