Page 76 of The World Outside My Window

‘What is it? What’s happened?’

I was breathless too, not from exertion, but from sheer terror. I lifted my shaky arm and pointed at the blinds. ‘Out there.’ My voice was a croak.

Jim stalked across the room and yanked the cord of the blinds so they shot up. I shrieked. ‘Jim, no, they’ll see us! Put the blind down!’

He continued peering up and down the cul-de-sac, squinting into the semi-darkness. I cowered on the bed, head against my knees, eyes closed. Only when I heard the sound of the blinds being lowered again and the curtains being closed did I dare to look up. When I did it was to find Jim watching me, an unreadable expression on his face.

‘Did you see them?’

Jim shook his head slowly and lowered himself onto the bed beside me. Our thighs and upper arms were touching but he didn’t move to comfort me.

‘I don’t know what you think you saw but there’s no one out there, Laura. Again.’

‘There might not be now but there was. Right in the middle of the crescent, under the big willow tree. I—’

‘How did you see them?’

‘Wh–what do you mean?’

Jim let out a huge sigh. ‘I mean, how did you see them if you had the blinds closed?’

‘I—’ I stopped. ‘You don’t believe me,’ I said, sadly.

He still didn’t look at me. ‘It’s just hard, Lola. It’s not that I think you’re lying, more that your mind is playing tricks on you, which isn’t healthy either.’

‘But it happened before, in London, before all this, before the attack,’ I said, the words falling over themselves in their scramble to be heard. ‘I thought there was someone watching me and then there was, and I chased them down the street, you know I did, I told you and—’ I stopped when I saw the look on Jim’s face. ‘You didn’t believe me then either.’ I felt like a child whose parents had been humouring them.

Jim rubbed his face, clasped his hands in his lap, and finally, he looked at me. ‘It’s not that I don’t believe youthinkyou saw someone there.’ He paused, shook his head. ‘The thing is, even if there had been someone watching you all those months ago, how do you think they would have found you again, here, now?’

‘I—’

‘It’s not’s possible, love,’ he said, taking my hands and holding them gently. ‘Nobody knows where we live, so there’s no way anyone who meant you harm would have been able to track you down.’

I looked down at where our hands were joined and wondered whether what he was saying was true.CouldI have been imagining it, even back then? But I know I saw someone, and I chased them down the street. And this person I saw just now – who IthinkI saw just now – why would I imagine them if they weren’t there? Why would my mind do that to me?

But of course it would. My stupid mind wouldn’t even let me leave my own house. It could do anything it liked.

‘You’re right,’ I said, my voice small.

‘Look at me,’ Jim said, cupping my chin so I was forced to look right at him. I couldn’t read the expression in his eyes. ‘You can’t keep doing this to yourself. I’ve got to go back to work tomorrow and I can’t bear the thought of you here alone, terrified at the slightest noise, or imagining things that aren’t there.’ He let out a sigh, his cheeks puffing out. ‘I’ve been trying to ask you this for a while, but will you consider seeing someone? A psychiatrist, or a counsellor of some sort?’

‘You think I’ve gone mad?’

‘No, I don’t. But I do think you’ve had a terrible trauma and I want to help you. You can’t go on like this. We can’t go on like this.’

My heart thudded and bile rose in my throat. ‘You’dleaveme?’

A flicker of something crossed his face then disappeared before I could read it. ‘No. But if you won’t get help then at least get some drugs, some Prozac or tranquillisers, something so that theseepisodescan stop. Because something has to give. That’s all I’m saying.’ He stood abruptly and I looked up at him and there was so much I wanted to say – how I loved him,neededhim, how I wanted him to stop working away and stay with me all the time – but it all seemed to be stuck in my throat. Then he moved away, and the moment had passed. At the doorway he turned and looked back at me. ‘Promise me you’ll at least think about it?’

I gave a small nod. ‘Promise.’

* * *

After dinner, when Jim had gone to sleep and the house was quiet, I crept downstairs to the front room and stood peering through the tiny gap in the blinds.

Was Jim right? Was I going mad? Did I really need drugs to get me through this?

A movement caught the corner of my eye and I froze, my body on high alert. I stood watching, breath held, but there was no more movement, no more sound. The street was empty, the way it always was at this time of the night.

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