Lucy Clarke - You Let Me In

I wrap it in a tissue and, as I drop it into the bin, I glance down at the cream carpet and see it is marked with the crimson blush of my blood.

Oak, jasmine and something citrus – those are the smells that greet me as I step inside. There is a clean, fresh quality to the air that is different to my house: it is dry, free of cooking smells, or that earthy dampness that comes from washing dried on radiators.

I can’t help myself. ‘Hello?’

There is, of course, no reply. I smile. The quiet is beautiful, softened by the distant sound of the sea.

My black holdall looks incongruous on the solid oak floor. I kick off my shoes and leave them discarded. Yours, I see, are placed neatly beneath the oak settle.

I walk through the entrance hall, which leads straight into the spacious kitchen. The walls are a warm shade of white; I think the paint has been chosen with light-diffusing particles so that it feels as if the walls are breathing air into the room. The splashes of colour – chalky pastel shades – come from the painted wooden cabinets, the well-chosen artwork, the pottery carefully displayed.

The style is graceful, calming. It’s as if a handful of sea-bleached pebbles have been gathered and used as the basis for the palette. The modern, sleek lines of handle-less cabinets and a granite work surface have been married with a beautiful old farmhouse table, the wood ring-marked and age-worn. A long bench seat is set against the wall, strewn with hessian cushions. It’s a table for a family, or for dinner parties. Not a table for one.

I smile to see that the high chair, as requested, is placed at the end of this table, although it won’t be used, of course. On the kitchen counter there is a small bunch of wildflowers in an old honey pot, tied with brown string. Leaning against it is a handwritten card addressed to Joanna and family .

A thoughtful touch.

I pick up the card, tracing a finger across the elegant handwriting, but I don’t open it.

Setting it back down, I move past an aged dresser painted duck-egg blue, where earthenware mugs hang from neat iron hooks. Seagrass-speckled pots are stacked artfully between mason jars containing nuts, pulses and attractive spirals and ribbons of pasta. I slide open the dresser drawer and, as I reach into it, I experience the sharp sensation that someone is going to snap the drawer shut on my fingers, a child caught snooping.

I feel like a trespasser. Yet, in my pocket, I’m aware of the small but solid presence of the front door key resting against the top of my thigh.

I am no trespasser, I remind myself. You let me in.

‘If you’re going to throw a ticking bomb into the story, light the fuse at the beginning, and let us hear it tick.’

Author Elle Fielding

In the charcoal-coated dark of three a.m., I am awake. The cut to my heel throbs; my pulse seems to tick there.

Over the years I’ve tried a wealth of tips and tricks to soften insomnia’s grip: a soak in a lavender-scented bath; listening to an audio book; blackout blinds; a warm, milky drink before bed; that sodding meditation app that I’d thought was the key but eventually stopped working, too; no screen time; no sugar after dinner; sleeping pills; homeopathic remedies; acupuncture. Everything. I’ve tried everything.

People don’t understand that it’s not falling asleep that’s the problem. It’s staying asleep.

If only there was just a switch for my mind, some way of turning it off, or at least turning down the volume; instead, as the night draws deeper, worries begin to stir, stretch, wake. Harmless, innocuous happenings take on a different shape – the shadows they cast, stretching.

The chef I used to work with when I was waitressing in a pub called them the heebie-jeebies.

‘Don’t trust any thoughts you have between two a.m. and five a.m. It’s like listening to your drunk self.’

Reminding myself of this advice doesn’t settle me tonight. I inhale and exhale slowly, following the path of my breath.

But I can still feel it: the ice-sharp point of that shard of glass as it pierced my skin.

*

I lean against the kitchen counter, listening to the low gurgle of the coffee machine as the water begins to heat. What would I do without coffee? I finally stumbled into a deep, dreamless sleep at around five a.m., but now I feel thick-headed, disjointed.

Beyond the window, mellow white clouds blanket the sky, thin swatches of blue glimpsed beyond. A kayaker is powering across the bay, the paddle lifting and dipping with pleasing fluidity.

On the shoreline there’s a lone birdwatcher, collar pulled to their chin. They are standing with their head tilted back, binoculars raised towards the cliff. There’s a stillness about them that I admire – lovely to be so enraptured by bird life that you’d want to dedicate hours of your day to simply observing it.

I follow the direction of the birdwatcher’s gaze to see if I can locate what they’ve spotted.

As I follow the angle of their binoculars, unease trickles down my spine. Their gaze isn’t focused on the cliff. It is set higher.