Caroline Corcoran - Through the Wall

Published by AVON

A Division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2019

Copyright © Caroline Corcoran 2019

Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2019

Cover photographs © Magdalena Russocka/Arcangel Images (apartment block), Shutterstock.com(women)

Caroline Corcoran asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008335090

Ebook Edition © October 2019 ISBN: 9780008335106

Version: 2019-09-06

To S, S and B, my team.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1: Harriet

Chapter 2: Lexie

Chapter 3: Harriet

Chapter 4: Lexie

Chapter 5: Harriet

Chapter 6: Lexie

Chapter 7: Harriet

Chapter 8: Lexie

Chapter 9: Harriet

Chapter 10: Lexie

Chapter 11: Harriet

Chapter 12: Lexie

Chapter 13: Harriet

Chapter 14: Lexie

Chapter 15: Harriet

Chapter 16: Lexie

Chapter 17: Harriet

Chapter 18: Harriet

Chapter 19: Lexie

Chapter 20: Harriet

Chapter 21: Lexie

Chapter 22: Harriet

Chapter 23: Lexie

Chapter 24: Harriet

Chapter 25: Lexie

Chapter 26: Harriet

Chapter 27: Lexie

Chapter 28: Harriet

Chapter 29: Lexie

Chapter 30: Harriet

Chapter 31: Lexie

Chapter 32: Harriet

Chapter 33: Lexie

Chapter 34: Harriet

Chapter 35: Lexie

Chapter 36: Harriet

Chapter 37: Lexie

Chapter 38: Harriet

Chapter 39: Lexie

Chapter 40: Harriet

Chapter 41: Lexie

Chapter 42: Harriet

Chapter 43: Lexie

Chapter 44: Harriet

Chapter 45: Lexie

Chapter 46: Harriet

Chapter 47: Lexie

Chapter 48: Harriet

Chapter 49: Lexie

Chapter 50: Harriet

Chapter 51: Lexie

Chapter 52: Harriet

Chapter 53: Lexie

Chapter 54: Harriet

Chapter 55: Lexie

Chapter 56: Harriet

Chapter 57: Lexie

Chapter 58: Harriet

Chapter 59: Lexie

Chapter 60: Harriet

Chapter 61: Lexie

Chapter 62: Harriet

Chapter 63: Lexie

Chapter 64: Lexie

Chapter 65: Harriet

Chapter 66: Lexie

Chapter 67: Harriet

Chapter 68: Lexie

Chapter 69: Harriet

Chapter 70: Lexie

Chapter 71: Harriet

Chapter 72: Lexie

Chapter 73: Harriet

Chapter 74: Lexie

Chapter 75: Lexie

Chapter 76: Harriet

Chapter 77: Lexie

Chapter 78: Harriet

Chapter 79: Lexie

Chapter 80: Harriet

Chapter 81: Lexie

Chapter 82: Harriet

Chapter 83: Lexie

Chapter 84: Harriet

Chapter 85: Lexie

Chapter 86: Harriet

Chapter 87: Lexie

Chapter 88: Harriet

Chapter 89: Lexie

Chapter 90: Harriet

Chapter 91: Lexie

Chapter 92: Harriet

Chapter 93: Lexie

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

About the Publisher

I sit, listening to the drip, drip, drip from a shower that only runs for a short time to prevent me from trying to drown myself.

There is a loud, unidentified bang at the other end of the corridor. A sob that peaks at my door and then peters out like a siren as it moves further away towards its final destination.

I slam my fist down on the gnarly grey-green carpet in frustration. Pick at a thread. Trace the initial that is in my mind: A. A.

A psychiatric hospital is such a difficult place in which to achieve just a few necessary seconds of silence.

Nonetheless, I try again, pressing my ear against the plaster and shutting my eyes, in case dulling my other senses helps me to hear what’s being said on the other side of that wall.

It doesn’t.

My eyes flicker open again, angrily. I look around from my position on the floor and take in what has now become familiar to me after my admission four weeks ago. The mesh on the windows. The slippers – not shoes – that are never far from my toes. The bedside table up there and empty of night creams, of tweezers, of the normal life of a bedside table.

And then I go back to trying to focus on what they – my imminent visitor and her boyfriend – are saying. Because it’s too good an opportunity to miss, when I can hear them, right there.

‘Both of them again,’ announces the nurse as she flings the door open.

She looks at me sitting there on the floor, raises her eyebrows. I stand up slowly, move back to the bed. If she thinks my behaviour is odd, she doesn’t say it. I imagine she gets used to behaviour being odd. Gets used to not saying it.

‘Just sorting out the paperwork and then we’ll let her in,’ she says. ‘He said he’s staying in the waiting room again. Not sure why he bothers coming.’

But he does. Every time it’s the two of them, in a pair like a KitKat.

I press my ear against the wall again, so hard this time that it hurts. But since when did pain bother me?

I listen to them have sex, frowning at how uncouth it all sounds.

And then I think – what a hypocrite. Because here I am having sex myself. With a man who I think is called Eli. I wonder if the couple next door can hear us too; if they are having similar thoughts.

Over Eli’s naked, olive-skinned shoulder I glance at the TV. I have no idea who turned it on but they have put it on mute, a breakfast news segment on turkey farming. What an odd juxtaposition, I think, to all of this sex.

As Eli finishes, I look away, embarrassed, from the poultry, then pull my dress back down over my thighs.

‘I’d better head to work,’ he says, no eye contact. I barely have the energy nor inclination to nod.

‘Door’s unlocked,’ I reply, and he slips out without another word.

I exhale and reach down to the floor to pick up my glass then take a sip of amaretto and Coke. It’s 7 a.m. but I haven’t been to bed yet so it’s not quite as bad as it sounds. Plus, it’s there and I’m thirsty. The door slams.

I rest my head back against the sofa, look around. Half-full glasses, Pinot Grigio bottles, cigarettes stubbed out into old chocolate dessert ramekins. Crisps, squashed into vinegary hundreds and thousands on a cushion. Student scenes; not what I had thought my life would be at thirty-two.

I turn the TV off and return my attention to the couple next door. I think they are doing it on their sofa, this couple, because intermittently the arm of their furniture is knocking up against the wall. Sorry, wrong pronoun: it’s knocking up against my wall.