Page 73 of Behind Her Eyes

I’d practised with the heroin, so I knew just how much I could inject myself with – between my toes and out of any track mark sight – and not fall into an immediate haze. I’d been practising that day when Louise turned up and then blamed my state on the pills. An unexpected bonus.

I prepared the fire, but didn’t light it. When it got late enough, I texted her my wordy intent to kill myself. Iwatchedher. I saw her trying toseeme and giving up. Just before the taxi pulled up outside, I lit the fire and ran upstairs. On the first doorbell ring, I injected just enough heroin, and then hid the remainder of the drugs under the bed where I’d already placed a pair of David’s surgical gloves. I went through the second door. Isawher outside. And here was the trickiest bit. Picking my time after she was empty to go into her. Waiting for the first tremble that something was wrong. A vibration in the air behind me to let me know she was going into my body. If she had pulled back to her body, then I was sure I’d be kicked out.

But fortune favours the brave, and her skin became mine. I grabbed the key from on top of the door lintel where I’d hidden it and raced up the stairs through the thickening smoke.

She was moaning slightly on the bed, her eyes glazed. Unexpected heroin will do that to a girl. She focused slightly when she saw me. Louise there, behind my eyes, looking at me in her body. She was afraid then, in spite of the high. I think she tried to say my name. She gurgled something, at any rate. I didn’t pause for goodbyes. We didn’t have the time for that. I snapped on the gloves and retrieved the rest of the syringe. I injected it between her/my toes. Then it was goodnight sweetheart and all over bar the shouting.

I dropped the syringe on the floor, stuffed the gloves in my pocket to get rid of later, and then hauled her up, thanking myself for having got so skinny, and thanking her for at least going to the gym a little bit. Then I half carried her down the stairs and out into the night. Sirens were wailing in the darkness by then, and the little old lady next door was standing in the street in her dressing gown clutching her yappy dog.

And that was that. When the fire engines turned up, I told them about the text and how I’d dug the spare key up from the plant pot and got in to try to save her. She was dead by then though. She’d probably died halfway down the stairs.

Goodbye Adele, hello Louise.

If you love someone, set them free. What a load of bollocks.

57

THEN

‘I was doing it when my parents died,’ Adele says. They’re stretched out in front of the fire, the Shakespeare book she’s been reading to him, abandoned. ‘Just flying everywhere. Like I was the wind or something. Soaring out over nature.’ She passes the spliff back to Rob, not that he needs it. He’s beenchasing the dragonas he calls it. Smoking some heroin. At least he’s not injecting. That’s something.

‘It started when I was little,’ she continues. ‘I read about lucid dreaming in this old book that David gave me, and then once I’d managed that, there was this whole otherthingthat started. At first I could only do it when I was sleeping. Maybe it was hormones or something. Maybe I didn’t have that mental control as a child. But God, it was always so wonderful. This secret skill. At first it was only places I could picture. And at first I couldn’t go very far at all. Then, as the years went by, I got better and better at it. Or it became more natural or something. Now I can do it at the drop of a hat, and soar. I tried to tell David about it once, but he just laughed at me. He thought I was joking or something. I knew then that he’d never believe it, not really. So I’ve kept it to myself. Until I met you.’

‘That’s why you wouldn’t sleep,’ Rob says. He takes her hand and squeezes it and it feels good. It feels good to be able totalkabout this with someone. To share itall.

‘Yes,’ she says, softly. ‘It was my fault my parents died. The fire was accidental, whatever anyone says, but if I’d beenthere, even if I’d been normally asleep, I would have woken up. I could have done something. But I wasn’t. I was high up in the trees watching the owls and the woods and all the life that comes out at night.’

‘Sometimes shit happens,’ Rob says. ‘You have to put it behind you and get on with life.’

‘Agreed,’ she says. And then, more honestly, ‘And I don’t think I could give it up if I tried. It’s a part of me. Who I am.’

‘So that’s what the second door is all about,’ he says. ‘I’ve had it a few times already, but it weirded me out. I wrote about it in the notebook.’

‘Why didn’t you say anything before today?’

‘I didn’t want you to think I was a freak.’

She squeezes his hand back. She loves Rob, she really does. And David might not have liked him much – she could tell even if he didn’t say anything – but she’s sure he’ll grow to.

‘Well, if you’re a freak, then you’re a freak like me,’ she says, and then they laugh. She’s happy. He’s happy. And David’s wonderful. Her future looks so bright. ‘I love that you can do it too. It’s brilliant.’

‘Hey,’ Rob says, rolling on his side and pushing himself up on one elbow. ‘We should try something. Something really mindfuck crazy.’

58

ROB

We stand by the graveside, hand in hand. We’re laying the past to rest by being here. Saying our farewells. There is little to see, just a name and two dates. What else could David have carved there on that black marble headstone? Loving wife? Hardly. And, anyway, it might be Adele’s body, but it’s Louise who’s really buried in this patch of earth.

Poor, sweet Adele. My tragic Sleeping Beauty. So sweet and kind and yet so simple. I did love her in my own way, I really did. But it was like Romeo and Juliet. Romeo thought he loved Rosalind until he saw Juliet. Some love is so powerful it sweeps everything else away.

I remember everything about the moment I first saw David. Adele on the gravel, all girlish excitement, and me, lingering back in the shadows on the steps, full of resentment at his impending invasion of our paradise.

And then he got out of that battered old car and he was … arevelation. For a moment I couldn’t breathe. I felt blinded and enlightened all at once. It was love at first sight – a love that could never die. Adele and all her soft kindness paled in comparison. What I felt for her was simply dust on the wind. Gone in a second. David was strong. Clever. I loved the quiet way he had about him. All that calm. I finally understood why Adele loved him so much, but I could also in that instant see how she would hold him back. She was too damaged for someone as brilliant as David. He needed someone who was his equal. He neededme.

I could barely speak all weekend, just muttering answers to his questions, or making an absolute fool of myself trying to be funny, and wishing Adele would just fuck off with all her fussing and leave us alone together so I could revel in his presence. I knew then that I had to have him. I had to. It was fate.

I lay awake both nights listening to them laughing and fucking, and it burned at me. I wanted to feel those strong farmer’s hands on my skin. I thought of the blow job I’d given the nurse to get the weed at Westlands, and I wondered how brilliant it would be to do that with someone like David. Someone I adored. I wanted to touch David’s scars and remind him that if it weren’t forherhe’d still be whole. I went through the second door and watched them for a while, torturing myself with the sight of his strong back over her as he thrust into her. I wanted to feel that passion. That love. That body pounding its lust into mine.

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