Helen Callaghan - Dear Amy

I considered this for a long moment. ‘Thanks,’ I said.

She was still looking away, but she nodded, once.

‘What happened to your face?’ she asked.

I froze.

I was aware of the effect I had on people at present, and suspected it was why I had been moved on from the library and the department store. My face, and the reason I was homeless, had a very close correlation.

‘I tripped,’ I replied stonily.

She glanced back at me then, no doubt taking in my two black eyes and swollen, broken nose.

‘Yeah. You “tripped”.’ She snickered. ‘Of course you did.’

‘It’s true.’

She seemed to be thinking, her finger now at the corner of her mouth as she worried at the nail and its cracked casing of peach-coloured varnish.

Or perhaps, looking back on it, she was merely nervous.

‘Do you want to come to a party?’

‘A party? What, now ?’

‘Well it will have to be now because we have to be back at Flicks for nine or we’ll lose our beds.’ She didn’t wait for my answer, rolling once more to her feet, her sleeve falling to hide her wounded arm. Her back was straight, tense, and I realized that despite her affected accent, dramatic mannerisms and recklessness, that this was because she feared my refusal, my rejection. ‘Come on, if you’re coming.’

I couldn’t tell you how my relationship with her developed, how I got her name out of her, even whether we were friends or merely acquaintances forming our own pack for survival. I knew her name at this point – Angelique, which she pronounced carefully, lingering over each syllable as though it were music, which made me think it was not her real name at all – and before long we were staying out later and later each night before returning to the hostel. She was universally admired and introduced me to her friends – a grimy circle of skinny people I did not particularly like and who didn’t like me, though that might have been to do with the taciturn way I refused to answer any of their questions. They offered me draws on spliffs while Angelique vanished into the back rooms of their filthy squats with them before returning, her eyes dull, her limbs languorous. Before long she stopped hiding what she was doing and started shooting up in front of me.

I can’t remember when I started to join her in this. I just know that I did.

It was Tuesday night, and the reconstruction – ten minutes’ worth of vague acting and the appeal from me – had aired. I could barely watch it, caught between the twin poles of dread and exposure. Lily had wanted me to come round, for us to watch it with her mother; I had gently declined.

There had been no further communications from Bethan Avery in the meantime. Or Messrs Calwhit, Blank, Mettle. Or Eddy. Or Martin.

This last, funnily enough, seemed to rankle most of all. I fought the absurd feeling that I was being discarded for being insufficiently attractive to traumatized kidnap victims.

Yeah, that’s right, Margot – it’s all about you, I thought ruefully. Pull yourself together. It’s only been a day or two.

I sat down on the couch, in front of the grey and silent television, and looked at the clock on the cable box. It was six, and it was dark outside, dark early today in these days of early darkness, because of the fog. I don’t like fog. Apart from being inconvenient and dangerous, I dislike it on principle. Walking through it, there is the sensation of veils lifting and falling behind you, white gauzy veils, but there is no final one that is lifted, leaving what you are really looking for completely exposed.

Perhaps this is why I objected to the fog more today than I would on other days.

I stared at the blank television and kidded myself that I was thinking.

I kicked my shoes off and pulled my legs up under me on the sofa. I had a bag full of essays and a couple of letters for the column to answer, so I thought about them for a few minutes, without getting up. I couldn’t just sit here and helplessly watch the work pile up.

After all, I’m not helpless.

‘I’m not helpless,’ I said aloud.

The silence in the house mocked me.

I had never felt so worthless.

I had received a commission, an imperative, a cry for help… and I’d got nowhere. I’d learned that the plea was genuine, shortly before it had been smothered by my own bull-headed carelessness, insensitivity and stupidity. I hadn’t found out anything at all about where Bethan was now, or come any closer to learning about her state of mind. The void that Bethan had vanished into was still a void, issuing nothing but a trio of backward-looking letters. I could not shake the feeling that I’d failed somehow – the sensation one must have when one runs to a panicked shout heard in a wilderness, only to find a bloody garment nosed by wild animals, or a piece of rope hanging over the edge of a precipice, the frayed end wafting in a mountain breeze.

I tried to tell myself that the reconstruction had literally only just aired, but my spirits would not lift.

She was still with me; she was almost tangible. But I knew, in my heart of hearts, she would offer no more material help. The distance between herself and me bristled with tension, and her badly contained panic as she waited for her rescue; waited for the eyes hunting through the darkness to light on her, for the first and last time.

I walked into the kitchen, and switched on the light. The kettle rested on the counter, empty, and I picked it up, pulling out the plug. I took it over to the sink, placing the red and chrome spout under the tap. Before me was the kitchen window, looking into my back garden. I peered through it, swiping at the condensation on the cold glass.

There was nothing out of the ordinary, just the night and the fog.

What had I expected?

Disquieted, I turned off the tap.

The house phone rang – a sudden shrill squawk of electronic noise. Shocked, I dropped the kettle, which crashed into the stainless steel sink, water gushing everywhere. I swore and lifted it out, sure it had scratched the metal. Wiping my wet hands on my trousers, I hurried out to answer the phone.

I moved into the dark hall and swiped up the handset.

‘Hello?’

There was no reply, just a dense electronic silence.

‘Hello, can I help you?’

Nothing. But not quite nothing – there was breathing; not heavy, but light, silent, controlled. Expectant.

‘Who is this?’ I asked, though I knew by then they would not reply.

The click and purr of the receiver being replaced was my only answer. When I hit 1471 on the keypad, I was told that the caller had withheld their number.

The next morning, I was walking through St Andrews churchyard after my run, on my cool-down, and the bells were ringing. Today I felt a fierce, sharp optimism.

Watery daylight touched the shrivelled grass, the sky was pearly grey and thick as cream. Nearby, an old couple, smothered and muffled in heavy winter clothes, negotiated the broken and buried graves. The woman held a stiff brush of sturdy flowers, a no-nonsense winter bouquet. They were making their way to the newer part of the graveyard.

A pair of magpies fluttered down from the church tower, to strut and bob over the bodies of the ancient dead. I smiled at them, and they ignored me with cavalier indifference.

I paused by the old church door, and sat down on the step, delaying the start of my morning, with its fuss and bustle, just wanting to breathe in the peace and space. The bells chimed happily into the white sky. The magpies paused, too, as though listening. Then they hopped up into the cold air and in a few quick flaps were gone.