Chapter 3
I stumble home from the Tube, across the Thames and London Bridge, my sunglasses on the whole way in case I cry.
Now I’m on my street, not far from Borough Market and the flat where Bridget Jones lived in that movie.
I can see my building just up ahead. It’s brown brick with black awnings and old Dickens-style lights on the walls, and right next door to a pub called Bunch of Grapes.
Usually there are flowers hanging in baskets outside that pub—a burst of pink, orange, yellow and red.
But right now, those flowers are covered in snow, the pavement outside, iced over.
I pass the pub and the bins, pull open the flimsy black wrought iron gate, and rush down the stairs to the front door of my basement apartment.
The neighbour’s cat is waiting on the mat by my door—a little ball of white fluff. Animals like me, and I feel like that’s a good sign—surely that means I’m not a bad person, no matter what the books and TV shows say about me.
‘Hey, Cat,’ I say, my voice cracking as I fumble the key into the lock then push the door open. She meows and runs in after me, purring and rubbing against my shins as I close the door, take off my coat and sunglasses, and drop my bag on the beige leather sofa.
I move through the darkened living room, past my bookshelves, full of my favourite dog-eared novels (Hunger, Bonjour Tristesse, Frankenstein), a bunch of beloved romances, a few self-help books (that clearly didn’t work) and my first edition copy of The Vampire in Europe, which I bought the day it was published in 1929 and which has taken an active role in the destruction of my mental health ever since.
In the kitchen, I pull open the fridge. Light spills out, cool air hits my cheeks and I look inside: a mini carton of lactose-free milk, a small bag of artisan cat treats, a few bottles of nail polish (there was a trend a while back to keep it in the fridge and I have to use the storage space for something), and a turquoise Fortnum & Mason biscuit tin.
Just for the record, it turns out I can eat human food. I can also drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes and the like, but the only thing I need to sustain me is human blood.
And I still hate that about myself. I’d still give anything not to be a vampire. To be human-me again. It’s not like I’m suddenly okay with being the blood-sucking villain of my own story.
But how can I be human-me again when I still don’t know who I was?
I reach for the biscuit tin and lift off the lid. It’s one of those musical tins that you twist and then it plays an eerie tune. But I don’t use it for biscuits.
I pull out the almost empty bag of blood, pour what’s left into a mug and put it in the microwave. As it spins round and round in its lit-up cage, I grab a nappy out of the middle drawer, wrap it around the empty blood bag and drop it into the rubbish bin. Nobody opens a dirty nappy.
This is my life: a carefully constructed set of rules and rituals to keep me safe.
Hidden. A functional part of society. I get my bagged blood, I go to work, I go for long nighttime walks and then I sit at home with Cat, watching the world through my phone, my laptop, through the bars on my windows.
Pushing down my darkness. Hiding my bags of blood like an alcoholic hiding vodka bottles.
There’s not a lot of meaning or hope in it—or at least, there wasn’t until I met my boyfriend, Jonathan.
Sorry, ex-boyfriend. Fresh tears well in the corners of my eyes.
Cat meows a little louder, pushing against my legs as I grab the bag of cat treats and put some into a saucer, then add a little milk.
It’s lactose-free, so according to the internet it shouldn’t harm her, but apparently it’s not great for her either.
Problem is, she loves the stuff. She begs for it.
She always wants more. Even Cat has a self-destructive vice, it seems.
I put the saucer on the ground and she purrs and eats as I open the freezer and reach into a spinach box for another bag of blood to defrost for tomorrow. But all I can feel is cold cardboard. It’s empty.
Great.
Just what London needs over Christmas: a heartbroken vampire who’s run out of blood.
But then: Beeeeeeep.
My dinner is ready.
I pull out the warm mug and take a sip. A calm moves through me, the fatigue lifts.
As I take a second sip, I feel a little less dead inside.
It’s not the same as drinking from the vein, not even close, but it does the job, and this way no one gets hurt.
Because, after 150 years of trying to be good and sometimes slipping, here is what I know for certain: when I drink from the vein people always get hurt, and once I start I can’t stop.
Which is why I can’t have even a single taste.
I never want to go back to that. Thankfully, it’s been so long now, that I’m no longer tempted—I’m happy with my bagged blood, and I have my darkness totally under control.
Well, unless I get really, really angry. Then my darkness controls me.
I carry my mug to the sofa by the misted-up window. Cat jumps up and settles down on my lap and starts licking my hand with her rough little tongue, looking up at me now and then, like she can tell something is wrong. I stroke her and look out the window.
This is my favourite spot in the flat, especially at night.
If I look up, I can see the street through the bars, see couples falling in love, see the leaves on the trees turning rust-red and amber, illuminated by streetlights—but nobody sees me.
Nobody knows I’m down here. Right now, a couple is standing at the top of my stairs, leaning against the railing, kissing. His hands are in her hair.
And that was us.
Until just a couple of hours ago.
I look around my little flat now: my windowless bedroom, the TV, the low ceilings, the chipped beige tiles in the bathroom, the front door with the rickety lock, the toaster and kettle that came with the flat but I’ve never used yet keep on display for the same reason I keep tampons in my handbag: optics’ sake.
I mean, I have a rental inspection every six months and I’ll be damned if after all these years of hiding, I’m outed by the absence of domestic appliances.
I’ve lived here for the last four years and never had a problem with it—living humbly helps me fly under the radar, blend in—but now I’m thinking, Is this really all there is for me?
Because, for a moment there, I’d imagined a life.
A real life. With complications and make-up sex and throw pillows and dinner parties and shared memories in photo albums and him . . .
And how can it just be over?
I pull my phone from my bag and stare at the screen, willing it to light up with his name.
For this to all be a big mistake. But nothing comes.
And now all I can think about is the afternoon we met.
And how is it, that someone can come into your life, with no warning at all—one person out of hundreds of thousands, one moment in 150 years—and then boom, nothing is ever the same again?