Free A Room Swept White by Sophie Hannah

I’d take on the film without asking me if I wanted to.’
    Tamsin rolls her eyes and shakes her head. ‘What?’ I mouth at her. I refuse to feel bad about any of this; it’s Laurie’s fault, not mine.
    ‘Why don’t you want to?’ Rachel Hines asks, as if it’s the most natural question in the world.
    I imagine myself giving her an honest answer. How would I feel afterwards? Relieved to have it out in the open? It’s irrelevant, since I’ll never have the guts to put it to the test. ‘I don’t mean to be rude, but I don’t have to explain myself to you.’
    ‘No. No, you don’t,’ she says slowly. ‘This is going to sound pushy, but . . . could we meet?’
    Meet. Me and Rachel Hines.
    She can’t possibly know. Unless . . . No, there’s no way.
    ‘Pardon?’ I say, playing for time. I grab the pen from Tamsin’s hand and write, ‘She wants to meet me’. Tamsin nods furiously.
    ‘Where are you? I could come to you.’
    I look at my watch. ‘It’s ten o’clock.’
    ‘So? Neither of us is asleep. I’m in Twickenham. How about you?’
    ‘Kilburn,’ I say automatically, then mentally kick myself. There’s no way I’m having Rachel Hines in my home. ‘Actually, I’m . . . I’m out at the moment, in the Grand Old Duke of York pub in . . .’
    ‘I don’t go to pubs. Give me your address and I’ll be there in an hour to an hour and a half, depending on traffic.’
    Pros and cons race through my brain. I don’t want her in my flat. I don’t want anything to do with her apart from to know what she wants from me.
    ‘You’re worried about having someone who was once a convicted child murderer in your house,’ she says. ‘I understand. All right, I’m sorry I bothered you.’
    ‘Why do you want to meet me?’
    ‘I’ll answer that question, and any others you might have, face to face. Does that sound fair?’
    I hear myself say, ‘Okay.’ Unable to believe what’s happening, I recite my address.
    ‘It’ll be just the two of us, won’t it? No Laurie?’
    ‘No Laurie,’ I agree.
    ‘I’ll see you in an hour,’ says Rachel Hines. That’s when it hits me: this is real, and I’m scared.
    Three quarters of an hour later I’m at home, trying to cram a drying rack draped with wet washing into my wardrobe. Normally it lives in the bathroom, but that’s a part of the flat that a guest might conceivably see, so I can’t leave my damp underwear on display there. I succeed eventually in stuffing the rack into the cupboard, but then I can’t close the doors.Does it matter? I’m so jittery, I can’t think straight. Rachel Hines is unlikely to force her way into my bedroom.
    A panicked voice in my head whispers
How do you know what she’s likely to do
?
    I pull the drying rack out of the cupboard. Half the clothes fall to the floor. Even if she wouldn’t see it, knowing it was there would bother me. It’s crazy to put wet laundry in a wardrobe, and I’m not going to start acting like a crazy person before anything’s even happened.
    I shudder.
Nothing is going to happen
, I tell myself.
Get a grip
.
    I put the clothes back on the rack, stand it in the middle of my bedroom and close the door on it. Then I run to the kitchen, which I left in a state this morning: plates and magazines strewn everywhere, toast crusts, milk-bottle tops, orange peel. The fat black bin bag that I should have taken out days ago has leaked oily orange sauce onto the lino.
    I look at my watch. Nearly eleven. She said an hour to an hour and a half. That means she could arrive in five minutes. I need at least fifteen to sort out the kitchen. I yank open the dishwasher. It’s packed with shiny clean cutlery and crockery. I swear loudly. Who said dishwashers make life easier? They’re the devious bastards of the household appliance world. When you want a clean cup or plate, you get a stinking cavern full of curry stalactites dripping baked-bean juice. When you want the damn thing empty and ready to receive,