a sick aunt. I started to have those thoughts again, the ones that had persuaded me that I was already dead so it wouldn’t be a big deal if I committed suicide. It would be a relief, and everyone would benefit from it. I started to cry. No one paid any heed until my shoulders started bobbing up and down, and then a group of women gathered around me like hens and asked me what was wrong. I told them I’d broken up with my boyfriend.
“Dear, oh, dear,” one of them said, and another said, “Well, if you ask me, he sounds like a Grade A cockwomble,” and they hugged me to their fleshy bosoms.
The train stopped at Durham. The hens told me I was pretty and young and didn’t need a man, and then they got off the train. I dabbed my eyes and kept my gaze fixed on the cathedral, on its sharp spires jabbing the bellies of clouds. Cars threaded through the streets and a smudge of kids played in a back garden. I envied them their central heating and washing machines, the comfortable beds that they’d be able to climb into at the end of the day. I had none of that now, and I had the sensation of being a tiny boat cut loose and drifting rapidly along a thrashing river with a waterfall thundering in the distance. To make matters worse, it occurred to me that I’d left my medication in David’s flat. I found my mobile phone in my bra and rang his number, but it didn’t connect. He had blocked me.
Panic started to stir in me like a thousand manic butterflies. What was I going to do? Where would I go?
I would end it.
That’s what I would do.
Properly, this time.
My own reflection came into view in the glass, and I jumped, thinking at first that a woman had somehow materialized on the other side of the window. But no, it was me. I barely recognized myself. It had been ages since I looked in a mirror—I deliberately avoided this because I hated myself so much—but there I was, looking back at myself.
My reflection had a surprising look of grit. She didn’t look nearly as awful as I felt. She was thin, yes, and her outgrown bob was messy, and she had dark circles under her eyes, but she looked like someone I’d like to talk to. Someone who would listen and not wait until it was their turn to offer an opinion.
My reflection said, You’re writing a book, remember? If you die, the book won’t get finished.
I remembered I’d promised myself that I’d finish writing this damn book. This untitled Scandi noir that was unfolding quite nicely, unlike my miserable life. I owed it to that book—to the little girl in the story, Alexa, who suffered so much—to tell the world her story.
2
hauled in by the throat
NOW
The train filled with new passengers and started to pull out of Durham station. A couple of younger women sat in the seats in front with their backs to me, continuing a loud conversation about a job that one of them was applying for.
“But, Sophie, do you really want to go to Norway?” the one in the blue top said.
My ears pricked up. Norway? My novel was set in Norway. Oslo, to be precise. All the other Scandi noir novels I’d read were set there, and the murderously-hostile-but-dramatic Nordic landscape felt very much like the inside of my brain. So in a way, although I’d never been to Norway, the place felt intriguingly familiar.
“Well, not really,” Sophie said, “but Lucia’s starting school and Philippa said she’ll only need me during the summer holidays. And that’s not enough, is it?”
“Couldn’t you just get another job during the school term?” Sophie’s friend countered. “And then nanny for Philippa during the summer hols?”
“I’ve got my application all ready,” Sophie said, flipping open her laptop and turning it to her friend. “All I have to do is click send.”
I could see it through the gap between the seats. I leaned forward and saw the white page of a PDF with boxes requesting information about previous employment and a large white section where Sophie had written a statement—in Comic Sans—about why she wanted the job. A sentence began, The well-being of children is my number one priority, but I couldn’t make out the rest of it. Just then Sophie’s friend flicked her long black hair over one shoulder, obscuring my view.