‘Tell him, Laura.’
She stared at the kitchen table, chewing a thumbnail, unable to meet my eye. ‘I think . . . I thought someone tried to kill me.’
‘Oh my God. Where? How?’
‘At Charing Cross Tube station. I was heading home from Australia House, you know, where you go to apply to emigrate, and . . .’ She broke off, still staring at the table surface, then told me what had happened at the station the day before.
Chapter Eleven
L aura walked down the steps of Australia House, the paperwork neatly folded in her shoulder bag, feeling curiously light. She pictured herself as a helium-filled balloon, set free by a careless child’s hand, alighting from the frosty city streets, up past the windows of the imposing buildings here on the Strand, floating towards the clouds. Set free. How wonderful that would feel.
As she walked towards Charing Cross she kept as close to the buildings as possible, feeling reassured by the solid concrete, as if it offered protection. A man emerged from one of the tiny snickets between the buildings and Laura jumped, slapping her hand to her breastbone. She put her head down and scurried on.
The last week or so she’d felt like she was being watched. She kept seeing a figure flickering in her peripheral vision, but every time she looked the figure was gone. She knew she was imagining it, and as if to prove this she saw the figure again, on the other side of the road, a glimpse of black clothes and white skin that vanished i n th e crowd. She forced herself to keep walking, eyes straight ahead. She wanted to be home.
She knew she shouldn’t really refer to Erin and Rob’s place as home. It was temporary. A temporary shelter. Which was exactly what she needed at the moment. She felt guilty about imposing on her pregnant friend for so long, but Erin insisted it was fine.
‘You were there for me when Rob and I went through our sticky patch,’ Erin had said, referring to a period a couple of years ago when she had discovered Rob had come close to having an affair. Thankfully, they had worked it out. ‘Besides, it will be handy to have a live-in babysitter when the little one arrives!’
Everybody was being helpful. Her manager, Simone, was letting her work from home. Simone had confided in Laura that she used to suffer from agoraphobia too, believing what Laura had told her, the day she’d found herself crying at her computer while her colleagues gawped at her. ‘Take your time,’ she had said in that soothing voice that made Laura want to cry again, from gratitude.
So, thanks to Erin and Simone, Laura had a place to hole up during this period. Her ‘tarantula period’, as she secretly thought of it.
Last week she had watched a documentary about these spiders. The tarantula sheds her skin once a year , the narrator explained, then seals herself away behind a wall of silk until her new skin has hardened. Only then can she re-emerge and start to feed again.
Laura never thought she would compare herself to a big, scary spider. But that was exactly how she felt. She was waiting for her new skin to grow, to harden.
Since Romania, the shell around her heart, like the spider’s skin, had been ripped away, leaving it exposed. She was in constant pain, unable to bear the sight of others suffering. And she had realised that she was never going to heal here. That was why she had to get away.
She was dreading having to tell Daniel about her plans the next day, but knew she had to do it. She hadn’t spoken to him for several weeks. Maybe he had a new girlfriend by now. He had never struggled to attract women. There was a certain type of girl, like her, who was attracted to the sexy geek type, who liked Clark Kent more when he was wearing his glasses than when he transformed into Superman. And Daniel hated being on his own, had barely spent a night alone in his life. There were times when she’d gone away on business and he’d told her he’d spent the week pacing the
She stared at the kitchen table, chewing a thumbnail, unable to meet my eye. ‘I think . . . I thought someone tried to kill me.’
‘Oh my God. Where? How?’
‘At Charing Cross Tube station. I was heading home from Australia House, you know, where you go to apply to emigrate, and . . .’ She broke off, still staring at the table surface, then told me what had happened at the station the day before.
Chapter Eleven
L aura walked down the steps of Australia House, the paperwork neatly folded in her shoulder bag, feeling curiously light. She pictured herself as a helium-filled balloon, set free by a careless child’s hand, alighting from the frosty city streets, up past the windows of the imposing buildings here on the Strand, floating towards the clouds. Set free. How wonderful that would feel.
As she walked towards Charing Cross she kept as close to the buildings as possible, feeling reassured by the solid concrete, as if it offered protection. A man emerged from one of the tiny snickets between the buildings and Laura jumped, slapping her hand to her breastbone. She put her head down and scurried on.
The last week or so she’d felt like she was being watched. She kept seeing a figure flickering in her peripheral vision, but every time she looked the figure was gone. She knew she was imagining it, and as if to prove this she saw the figure again, on the other side of the road, a glimpse of black clothes and white skin that vanished i n th e crowd. She forced herself to keep walking, eyes straight ahead. She wanted to be home.
She knew she shouldn’t really refer to Erin and Rob’s place as home. It was temporary. A temporary shelter. Which was exactly what she needed at the moment. She felt guilty about imposing on her pregnant friend for so long, but Erin insisted it was fine.
‘You were there for me when Rob and I went through our sticky patch,’ Erin had said, referring to a period a couple of years ago when she had discovered Rob had come close to having an affair. Thankfully, they had worked it out. ‘Besides, it will be handy to have a live-in babysitter when the little one arrives!’
Everybody was being helpful. Her manager, Simone, was letting her work from home. Simone had confided in Laura that she used to suffer from agoraphobia too, believing what Laura had told her, the day she’d found herself crying at her computer while her colleagues gawped at her. ‘Take your time,’ she had said in that soothing voice that made Laura want to cry again, from gratitude.
So, thanks to Erin and Simone, Laura had a place to hole up during this period. Her ‘tarantula period’, as she secretly thought of it.
Last week she had watched a documentary about these spiders. The tarantula sheds her skin once a year , the narrator explained, then seals herself away behind a wall of silk until her new skin has hardened. Only then can she re-emerge and start to feed again.
Laura never thought she would compare herself to a big, scary spider. But that was exactly how she felt. She was waiting for her new skin to grow, to harden.
Since Romania, the shell around her heart, like the spider’s skin, had been ripped away, leaving it exposed. She was in constant pain, unable to bear the sight of others suffering. And she had realised that she was never going to heal here. That was why she had to get away.
She was dreading having to tell Daniel about her plans the next day, but knew she had to do it. She hadn’t spoken to him for several weeks. Maybe he had a new girlfriend by now. He had never struggled to attract women. There was a certain type of girl, like her, who was attracted to the sexy geek type, who liked Clark Kent more when he was wearing his glasses than when he transformed into Superman. And Daniel hated being on his own, had barely spent a night alone in his life. There were times when she’d gone away on business and he’d told her he’d spent the week pacing the
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