The Day I Died. Polly Courtney

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       Chapter Three

      Jo’s basket was filling up quickly. She hadn’t eaten since, well, sometime before the explosion, presumably. She was ravenous. Everything in the shop looked appealing: cakes, bread, meat pies…She even found herself salivating over the Budgens own-brand malt loaf.

      The cashier girl was politely trying to extract herself from a conversation with the pensioner, but he clearly wasn’t seeing the urgency.

      ‘Well, it is August,’ she said patiently. ‘It gets quite warm. D’you need a hand?’

      The man attempted to balance his shopping on his walking frame and started to release his grip on the checkout.

      ‘I need new legs!’ he cried as the load slipped off for a second time and he started all over again.

      Jo wondered where she usually did her shopping. She had a feeling that old-age pensioners and conversations about the weather hadn’t featured much in her life up until now. London, she thought. That was where she had lived. The paranoia–the ugly, dark fear of whatever it was–had originated in London.

      She tried again to determine what had featured in her life. Friends. A mum. A dad. Brothers. Sisters. School mates. Neighbours. Any or all of the above. They’d start missing her soon, she knew that. It was selfish to vanish without a word to any of them–but this was the problem. It seemed too daunting, too dangerous to turn herself in. She couldn’t face the idea of going to the police. And without going to the police, she couldn’t let people know she was OK–unless she could somehow enlist the help of Saskia Dawson without giving herself away–whoever Saskia Dawson was.

      ‘Do you know of any B&Bs around here?’

      ‘Any what?’ asked the girl, mechanically scanning the pack of chocolate digestives.

      ‘B&Bs. Bed and breakfasts. You know, places to stay.’

      The girl looked momentarily enlightened. ‘Oh, right. Um…’ She scratched her greasy forehead. ‘No. Sorry.’

      ‘Is there another town nearby?’ asked Jo. She wondered whether she’d be better off asking one of the deaf pensioners instead.

      ‘Yeah. Abingdon. That’s four pounds fifty-four.’ She glanced at the growing queue.

      ‘Thanks. Is that far? Can I walk there? Do they have clothes shops, that sort of thing?’

      The girl shrugged and took Jo’s crisp twenty-pound note. ‘I guess.’

      ‘Thanks.’ Jo sensed that she wasn’t going to get much more information out of the girl. She held out her hand for the change. It was shaking badly, she noticed, and sweating. The fear had receded a little since she’d come to Radley but it was still there, looming in the back of her mind.

      ‘That’s fifteen forty-six change.’

      Jo took the money and tipped it into Joe Simmons’ wallet. As she was leaving, she glanced at the shelves behind the cashier’s head.

      She stopped and looked harder. Suddenly, she knew what had featured in her life before now–what would cure the shaking hands, the sweating, the anxiety. She knew what would relieve the nagging sensation that she hadn’t been able to identify up until now. And the revelation brought on a fresh wave of nausea.

      ‘Sorry–one more thing.’ She reopened the wallet.

      The girl gave her a look that she’d previously shown the old man.

      Jo picked out the cheapest bottle, paid the cashier and rushed out.

      The high street was empty save for a couple of hunched-over residents shuffling from shop to shop. Jo perched on the wall by the parish hall and drained the bottle of water she’d bought, then quickly decanted the vodka. She was desperate, but she wasn’t desperate enough to swig from inside a plastic bag–not around here.

      She took her first sip. It burned her insides, ripping at her throat and leaving an aftertaste that was instantly familiar. The reactions of her body and mind were at odds. It was good to have fed the need, allayed those symptoms, but it was frightening to think of the implications.

      OK, so she had had quite a shock and everyone knew alcohol was known for curing the shakes, but this was more than the shakes. This wasn’t a taste for vodka; it was a need. Her body was craving the stuff.

      She stared at the parish notice board, trying to make out where Radley was in relation to Abingdon and Oxford. She couldn’t focus. All she could think about was this new, abhorrent revelation. She swigged and thought, swigged and thought. What did this mean? What sort of life had she been living up until now? And why was she so damned scared about turning herself in, coming clean? What had happened in her past? Who was she?

      Jo took another swig and delved into the plastic bag. Her fingers curled round the little notebook she’d bought and then felt about for the biro she’d nicked from the cashier. That was another thing: why had stealing the pen come so naturally to her? It wasn’t the incident itself that troubled Jo–the biro leaked and was worth nothing anyway–it was the principle. She was a thief. The pen wasn’t the only thing she’d pinched, either. First, there had been the wallet, then the Polish girl’s job…It was a worrying trait.

      She pushed aside her concerns and glanced at the food in her bag. Drinking on an empty stomach was stupid, she knew that much. But the eating could wait. It had to. Before she did anything else, she had to straighten out her thoughts–pull together what she knew. She tore the cellophane wrapping off the notebook and started to write.

      Nightclub near Piccadilly

      Live in London?

      Impatient, intolerant–feel wrong in small village

      Thief–comes naturally. Survival?

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