LITMIR.BIZ

       8

      Sarah lay in bed, eyes open. She had got back from Jean’s house at eleven and had struggled to fall asleep. Now, after not much more than four hours of fitful sleep, she was awake.

      Wide awake. Too much wine had given her a headache and, although the ibuprofen she had taken had dulled the pain, it was not much use in calming the other problem with her head, namely the questions rolling around and around in a futile search for answers. She wanted to know who was behind this, and why.

      And she wanted to know if it was dangerous. Because it certainly felt like it could be. Whoever had done this had been at her daughter’s pre-school. In a restaurant with her and Ben.

      They had been in her house.

      She felt her chest tighten and she inhaled deeply, held her breath, then slowly exhaled.

      Not this, she thought. Please, not this.

      It had been a few years since her last anxiety attack, since the last time her mind had run away with itself and sent her fight-or-flight reflex haywire, leaving her short of breath, dizzy, heart racing and gripped by a powerful nausea. It had felt like she was having a heart attack, or, on occasion even worse: she’d felt like she was dying.

      And, at times, she’d caught herself thinking maybe she would be better off dead. The panic could start at any time. In the car, in the supermarket, at work. She lived in a debilitating fear, and she wasn’t sure she could go on.

      She had always been anxious, but what made the panic attacks even harder to bear was that they had started in earnest when Miles was born, and so she associated them with him. This in turn made her feel guilty, which triggered the panic.

      Ben had been very worried – this in itself was a big deal, which made her even more anxious – and had spoken to some of the other doctors about possible solutions. In the end, Sarah had seen a colleague who had given her some coping strategies – deep breaths, positive thinking, exercise, and, initially, medication. She had, mercifully, managed to avoid them since.

      But the threat of their return had been in the background; they were gone, but there was always the lurking thought: only for now.

      And, right on cue, here they were. Hands shaking, heart skipping out of control, she sat up, her head against the cool wall. Next to her, Ben snored gently.

      There was no point trying to go to sleep. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and went downstairs.

      She was watching the local news when the door to the living room opened. It was Ben, hair tousled, in his boxer shorts.

      ‘You’re up early,’ he said.

      ‘You too,’ she replied. ‘You should go back to bed.’

      ‘I can’t sleep when I know you’re down here.’ He sat beside her and took a swig from her coffee, then began to massage her shoulders. ‘You OK?’

      ‘I guess. But this Facebook thing has freaked me out. I can’t stop thinking about it. I felt like I was going to have a panic attack. You know, like I used to.’

      ‘Hmm,’ he said. ‘Not good.’

      The pressure from his fingers intensified. It felt wonderful, and she leaned against him. His left hand slid forward, over her shoulder and on to her breast.

      ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘I thought this was a back rub?’

      ‘I never said so,’ he replied. ‘And I think you need to take your mind off all this Facebook nonsense.’

      ‘A back rub would do the trick,’ Sarah said. She leaned back and kissed him. ‘But maybe something else would be good, too.’

      The sex distracted her, but as she sat and ate breakfast with Miles, Faye and Kim – Ben had gone to work – the questions came back: Who was it? Why? And with them, the anxiety. It was awful; she had an all-pervading sensation of impending doom which occupied most of her attention. For everything else, she was going through the motions, almost mechanically. She felt disengaged from her kids, her home, everything.

      Work helped, a little. When she was with the patients, she was focused on them, but whenever she looked at her phone she got a kind of low-grade jolt of worry, a shot of fear that there would be a message, another friend request, or some new, unwelcome contact from the other Sarah Havenant.

      But there was nothing.

      At eleven forty-five she saw her last patient before lunch.

      She looked at the schedule: Derek Davies. His last visit to her office had been less than a month ago; he had been complaining of back pain, but she had been unable to find anything wrong. She opened the door to the examining room and walked in.

      ‘Mr Davies,’ she said. ‘How are you?’ She logged on to the computer and brought up his notes. It was the fourth time he’d been in the last few months, each time with a different complaint, and each time she had found nothing to be concerned about. ‘Is it your back again?’

      He shook his head. He was in his mid-fifties, and drifting toward obesity. He was wearing a crumpled shirt with grease stains on the collar. ‘It’s my leg,’ he said. ‘I get a pain all down it.’ He pressed the side of his left buttock. ‘It starts there.’

      Sarah nodded. ‘How long’s it been bothering you?’

      ‘Two weeks. It’s very painful. I called for an appointment but there weren’t any.’

      ‘Really? Normally we can fit someone in at shorter notice.’

      ‘I wanted to see you. And you had no availability.’ He smiled at her, his teeth a little yellow.

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