Chapter 13 All Very Alarming
All Very Alarming
I wake up in pitch darkness, not in bed but standing in my own kitchen.
I shiver.
I must have wandered down here somehow.
Then I notice an electronic blip sound coming from the hall behind me and I feel, then see, the little metal key in my hand.
The entire house explodes with the skull-piercing wail of the alarm. My hands fly up to protect my ears, the key tumbling away.
I run for the hall. Is someone in the house? Why was I in the kitchen? Why was I by the back door with the key in my hand when I’d hid it in the cutlery drawer?
I tap in the alarm code numbers. The noise continues.
I tap in the numbers again, squinting into the glowing screen.
Instructions appear in the readout panel of the alarm unit.
Call to Reset.
No, no, no.
The sound is too much. It is too loud to think, to function. I pat my nonexistent pockets for a phone but of course I do not have one. It is still on the nightstand, upstairs.
I snap back to it and race upstairs, taking two steps at a time, the blare of the alarm shrieking into the night. I will be waking the entire neighborhood. The embarrassment and panic are unbearable, and inescapable.
I skid into my bedroom, grab the phone, and race back to the alarm panel, jabbing the number shown onscreen into my phone keypad.
I look out of the frosted glass of the front door and see neighbors’ lights flicking on along the street in the darkness. It’s happening.
My call connects to the alarm call center, but I cannot hear, so I bound back to the kitchen, grab the key glinting in the moonlight, and burst out into the garden. I have to run all the way to the end wall before the noise fades enough to hear.
As I wait, phone to ear, I notice other lights bursting on in the houses that back mine.
My face is burning hot with panic in the darkness.
My hands shake as I clutch the phone, anxiety prickling through my veins while the call connects.
Breathlessly, I explain the situation to the cheerful-sounding Scottish woman on the other end of the phone.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. It’s out of my hands, unfortunately. Once the call has gone through to the police, we only accept a disarm code from an attending officer,” she says. Her tone is sympathetic.
“What?!” I yelp into the receiver. “The police are coming here?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Oh my God.” I hang up and, utterly powerless, wait.
In the dim light of the garden, the muffled alarm blaring on, I let the sounds of my awoken street wash over me: dogs bark frantically, back doors open and slam closed, windows slam shut, and concerned voices opine beyond distinct earshot.
Blue pulsing lights finally appear, flickering all the way through the house, from front door to the deepest garden.
Hands firmly over ears, I run back inside the house to the front door and swing it wide to reveal two police officers, one male, one female. I hope my embarrassment is palpable but their expressions do not soften at my wan smile.
Beyond them I see figures in lit doorways along the street, arms folded. I try to block them from my mind for now.
“Ma’am, is it okay for us to come in?” the male officer asks. It’s respectful but I get the feeling it’s not really a question.
I press into the Farrow and now that there is no one else here to corroborate my existence—I need physical proof that I am me.
I find the license, its holographic sheen prismatic in the lamplight. I hustle back down to the hall, the officers breaking off their private conversation as I reappear.
I hand over my DVLA license to the female officer, and again she gives me that pointedly patient smile as she angles it to the light and checks the photo, glancing back up at me and down again a few times to confirm a match.
My hair is longer postdivorce, my IVF hormone water-weight long gone.
She seems satisfied and is about to hand back the card when she stops and frowns.
She passes the ID to her partner, who looks up, puzzled.
“What’s your name, madam?” he asks without ceremony.
“Francesca Green,” I answer, but as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I know I have said the wrong thing.
“That’s not the name on this card,” he retorts.
My stomach drops.
“Um, no, but I mean the first name is the same, right. I’m clearly the same person. It’s just the card I got issued after I got married, and now I’m divorced, and I’ve gone back to my maiden name. Green.”
“Yes. The homeowner’s name, according to the alarm company, is Green, but it’s not the name on this card, ma’am.
” The female officer straightens, the male officer taking over now.
“We need to see some valid ID with a matching name on it or I’m afraid we’re going to have to escort you from the property. ”
A shocked laugh bursts from me. “Seriously? This is my house. I have house keys. I clearly live here, I’m in my pajamas!” I manage, my cheeks flushing deeper with embarrassment and a little bit of outrage now, too.
“Trust me, miss, we’ve seen stranger things than people breaking into properties wearing pajamas. We need some ID. Now.”
I give in.
“I don’t have any ‘valid’ ID. I’ve sent my passport off so they can change my surname. I just got divorced. I don’t want to be called by my ex-husband’s name for the rest of my life. I’ve gone back to my maiden name, which is Green.”
They share a look, then the female officer nods at me. “Right, we’ll need to see something with the old name and the new name. Marriage certificate and the decree absolute paperwork? You have those, miss?”
“I have,” I respond, dizzy with powerlessness.
I wish I could say this was all incredibly unusual, but I had to take the same documents to the bank when I opened my new bank accounts.
It is as if the world has never experienced female-sided divorce and cannot countenance the paperwork involved in simply being a woman.
But I wasn’t expecting to have to do this here, now, in the middle of the night.
“If you could go and get them. We can check the names match up with the alarm account holder,” she says nudging, her eyes everywhere but on mine.
At this point I can feel her embarrassment on top of my own, as they wait for me.
“And that’ll do it, will it? If you see those papers, that’ll be it, then?” Shame drips from me, at the idea that I am not who I say I am, that I do not own my own house, and the only way to prove I am me is by showing them a document with my ex-husband’s name on it.
Funny, in a sense, that I could be so easily removed from my own life simply by not being able to prove I am me.
The officer pulls a tight but polite smile. “Yep.”
—
Documents accessed and handed back, no apologies given, they nod, finally satisfied.
“Okay, ma’am. Be a little bit more careful next time. We can’t come out every time you forget you’ve set the alarm.”
I gulp back my desire to say something I’ll regret. “Um, great, nope, will do. Oh, and sorry for the left-field question but, can I ask you, seeing as you’re here, if one were to see something concerning recorded accidentally in someone else’s house on their pet camera, what should they do?”
The male officer nudges the female. She sighs.
“Ma’am, can I ask, have you been drinking?”
“I’m sorry? What?! No.”
My shame and outrage can go no deeper.
“It’s just a courtesy question, ma’am, no need to take offense. Just, given the circumstances, with the alarm being triggered, and your recent…you seem a little…confused. We wouldn’t be doing our jobs if we didn’t check everything was okay here?”
I drag in a mighty inhale. At this point all I want is them gone. “Oh, well, thank you for your concern but, no, I haven’t been drinking. I mean I’ve suddenly woken up to a blaring alarm and the police—so that probably explains any confusion. Right?”
“No, you haven’t suddenly woken up, ma’am,” she corrects me instantly. “You told us a minute ago that you came downstairs to get a glass of water and then the alarm went off? Was it that? Or were you upstairs asleep when the alarm went off?”
Oh God. I am so bad at lying.
“Sorry—I meant before. I was asleep before. Then I came downstairs, then all of this happened. I’m really tired,” I concede with a defeated shrug.
The female officer seems grudgingly convinced. “Right,” she concludes, then signals for the other officer to open the door. “Well, good night, ma’am. And try to get some sleep, yeah?”
I am seeing them out when she turns back to me, as if an afterthought. “Oh, and in answer to your previous question: you should tell your friend to stop recording inside people’s houses. They’re breaking the law. It’s an arrestable offense.”
I watch them head out to their car, my nullified marriage certificate clutched tightly in my hand. My broken dreams, and the receipts.
Any plans to go to the police with footage, vetoed.
Their car glides away, blue lights flickering silently across the edifices of the terrace houses as they go. I look to the glowing windows along the street and the few remaining concerned faces staring back at me. Some shake their heads, then turn back inside.
I wanted to see my neighbors, and here they are. They know me now, though this wasn’t the introduction I hoped for.
God knows what they think happened here: a burglary, a home invasion, worse.
Across the street, I lock eyes with two women bundled up in their doorways chatting over the dividing wall—they don’t look as concerned as the other faces in the windows and seem to be chatting about something else in the predawn air.
I realize with a start that it is the two women from the first day: the one with gray hair and the woman I now know as Marina, whose hair is tied back tightly in a bun.
The older woman is swaddled up in a Dryrobe and raises a hand to me in silent greeting.
I am sure now that she was the person I saw in the window opposite me on my very first night.
I raise my own hand to greet her, an apologetic smile on my face for the chaos I have wrought on the street. As she catches my look, Marina frowns. She mutters something to the older woman, then, with a last glance, disappears back into her house. It is Number 15.
Marina, whose husband thinks it is okay to scream at his wife, the woman who wanted to knock on my door the first day I arrived, lives in Number 15.
Now I know where they live. I pause, my own selfishness burning, but then a little voice says, She looked fine, cheerful, even—until she saw me, of course.
The older woman is still looking across the street at me, and when I catch her eye, she moves as if she might come directly over, but she thankfully changes her mind.
Instead, she gives a sympathetic smile and disappears back into her own house, Number 17.
The sound of a window thumping closed brings me back to the street.
I scan along the windows, but most are dark now. No faces stare back at me.
The lights of Number 15 flick off. He must be in there, too, the blond man, still sleeping or angry. I shiver against the early-morning air. I head back inside.
In the kitchen I lock the back door and pull a kitchen chair over so it sits underneath, wedged under the door handle, before going back upstairs to bed.
Blue slowly crawls out from under the bed as I lock the bedroom door.
“Sorry, Blue-Blue. Mummy’s had a full psychotic break, I think,” I tell him.
It’s meant to be funny and lighthearted and make me feel better, but Blue looks scared. I am, too.