Clare Mackintosh - I Let You Go

The silence is palpable, and I slowly straighten, standing upright, my heart banging against my ribcage. Patrick’s hands are by his sides, his expression horrified. I try to speak, but my mouth is devoid of moisture and the feeling of panic in my throat has yet to subside. I look at Patrick, at the confusion and guilt on his face, and I know I will have to explain. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I begin. ‘I…’ I bring my hands up to my face in dismay.

Patrick steps forward. He tries to take me in his arms but I push him away, ashamed of my reaction and battling with this sudden impulse to tell him everything.

‘Jenna,’ he says softly, ‘what happened to you?’

There’s a knock at the door and we look at each other.

‘I’ll go,’ Patrick says, but I shake my head.

‘It’ll be Iestyn.’ I’m grateful for the diversion, and I scrub at my face with my fingers. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

As soon as I open the door, I know exactly what is happening.

All I ever wanted was an escape: to pretend to myself that the life I lived before the accident belonged to someone else, and to fool myself that I could be happy again. I’ve often wondered what my reaction would be when I was found. I wondered how it would feel to be brought back, and whether I would fight it.

But when the policeman says my name I simply nod.

‘Yes, that’s me,’ I say.

He’s older than me, with dark hair cropped short, and a sombre suit. He looks kind, and I wonder what sort of life he has; whether he has children, a wife.

The woman next to him steps forward. She looks younger, with dark hair that curls around her face. ‘Detective Constable Kate Evans,’ she says, opening a leather wallet to show a flash of metal badge. ‘Bristol CID. I’m arresting you for causing death by dangerous driving, and for failing to stop at the scene of an accident. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court…’

I shut my eyes and exhale slowly. It’s time to stop pretending.

PART TWO

22

You were sitting in a corner of the Student Union when I first saw you. You didn’t notice me, not then, although I must have stood out: a solitary suit among a crowd of students. Surrounded by friends, you were laughing so hard you had to wipe your eyes. I took my coffee to the next table, where I flicked through the paper and listened to your exchanges, which flitted incomprehensibly between topics in the way women’s conversations do. Eventually I put down my paper and simply watched you. I learned you were all art students, and that you were in your final year. I might have guessed that from the easy confidence with which you took over the bar, calling to friends on the other side of the room and laughing with no regard to what others might think. It was then that I found out your name: Jenna. I felt faintly disappointed when I heard it. Your luxurious hair and pale skin gave you a Pre-Raphaelite quality, and I had been imagining something a little more classic. Aurelia, perhaps, or Eleanor. You were, however, undoubtedly the most attractive of the group. The others were all too brash; too obvious. You must have been the same age as them – fifteen years younger than me, at least – but you had a maturity that showed on your face even then. You looked around the bar, as though searching for someone, and I smiled at you, but you didn’t see, and I had to leave for my lecture a few minutes later.

I had agreed to deliver six of these guest lectures; part of a drive to integrate the college into the business community. They were easy enough: the students were either half asleep, or keenly attentive, leaning forward to hang on every word I uttered about entrepreneurship. Not bad for someone who never even went to college. Surprisingly for a Business Studies course, there were a number of girls in attendance, and I hadn’t missed the exchange of glances between them when I walked into the lecture theatre that first day. I was a novelty, I supposed: older than the boys in halls, yet younger than their professors and resident lecturers. My suits were handmade; my shirts well-fitted, with flashes of silver at the cuffs. I had no grey in my hair – not back then – and no middle-aged spread to hide beneath my jacket.

As I spoke I would make a point of pausing mid-sentence and making eye contact with a female student – a different one each week. They would blush under my gaze, returning my smile before dropping their eyes away as I continued with the lecture. I enjoyed seeing what spurious reason they would find to hang back after class, falling over themselves in their effort to reach me before I packed up my books and left. I would sit against the edge of the table, one hand supporting my weight as I leaned forward to hear their question, watching the glimmer of hope in their eyes fade as they realised I wasn’t going to ask them out. They didn’t interest me. Not like you did.

The following week you were there again with your friends, and when I walked past your table you looked at me and smiled; not through politeness, but a wide smile that reached your eyes. You were wearing a bright-blue vest top under which the straps and lacy edging of a black bra could be seen, and baggy combat trousers that hung low on your hips. A tiny ripple of smooth, tanned flesh protruded between the two, and I wondered if you realised, and if so, why it didn’t bother you.

The conversation moved from coursework to relationships. Boys, I suppose, although you called them men. Your friends spoke in lowered tones I had to strain to hear, and I braced myself to hear your part in this litany of one-night-stands and careless flirtations. But I had judged you correctly, and all I heard from you were peals of laughter and good-humoured digs at your friends. You weren’t like them.

I thought about you all that week. At lunchtime I took a walk through the college grounds, in the hope I would bump into you. I saw one of your friends – the tall one, with dyed hair – and I walked behind her for a while, but she disappeared into the library and I couldn’t follow her inside to see if she was meeting you.

On the day of my fourth lecture I arrived early and was rewarded for my efforts by the sight of you sitting alone, at the same table I had seen you on the previous two occasions. You were reading a letter, and I realised you were crying. Your mascara had smudged beneath your eyes, and although you would not have believed it, you were far more beautiful that way. I carried my coffee over to your table.

‘Do you mind if I sit here?’

You pushed the letter into your bag. ‘Go ahead.’

‘We’ve seen each other here before, I think,’ I said, sitting opposite you.

‘Have we? I’m sorry, I don’t remember.’

It was irritating that you had so easily forgotten, but you were upset, and perhaps not thinking clearly.

‘I’m lecturing here at the moment.’ I had discovered early on that being on the teaching establishment held immediate appeal for students. Whether it was the desire for someone to ‘put in a good word’, or simply the contrast with the male students, barely out of their teens, I wasn’t sure, but it hadn’t failed yet.

‘Really?’ Your eyes lit up. ‘What subject?’

‘Business Studies.’

‘Oh.’ The spark disappeared, and I felt a burst of resentment that you could write off something so important so quickly. Your art was hardly going to feed and clothe a family, or regenerate a town, after all.

‘So what do you do when you’re not giving lectures?’ you asked.

It shouldn’t have mattered what you thought, but it was suddenly important to me that you were impressed. ‘I own a software company,’ I told you. ‘We sell programs all over the world.’ I didn’t mention Doug, whose share was sixty per cent to my forty, and I didn’t clarify that ‘all over the world’ currently meant Ireland. The business was growing – I wasn’t telling you anything I hadn’t told the bank manager on our last loan application.