Stalker

She needs this downtime more than ever since she embarked upon a demanding course in advanced neurology at the Karolinska Institute.

She undoes her sweaty sports bra, thinking that she can use it again on Sunday before she has to wash it.

She can’t remember a summer as hot as this before.

A scratching sound makes her turn towards the window.

The back garden is so dark that all she can see is the reflection of the bedroom. It looks like a theatre set, a television studio.

She has just made her entrance, and is standing under the floodlights.

Only I’ve forgotten to put any clothes on, she thinks wryly to herself.

She stands for a moment, looking at her naked body. The lighting is dramatic, and makes her reflection look thinner than she actually is.

The scraping noise is repeated, as if someone were running their nails across the windowsill. It’s too dark to see if there’s a bird sitting out there.

Susanna stares at the window and walks cautiously towards it, trying to see through the reflections, and grabs the dark blue bedspread and holds it up to cover herself. She shivers.

Fighting an instinctive reluctance she goes over to the window, moves her face closer to the glass and the garden becomes visible, like a dark grey world, like the underworld in a Gustav Doré engraving.

The black grass, tall shrubs, Morgan’s swing moving in the wind, and the panes of glass behind the playhouse for the garden room that they never got round to building.

Her breath mists the window as she straightens up and pulls the curtains. She lets the thick bedspread fall to the floor and walks naked towards the door. A shiver runs down her spine and she turns back towards the window again. A strip of black glass is shimmering in the gap between the dark-pink curtains.

She picks up her phone from the bedside table and calls Björn, and as she listens to the call being put through she can’t help staring at the window.

‘Hello, darling,’ he answers, far too loudly.

‘Are you at the airport?’

‘What?’

‘Are you at …’

‘I’m at the airport, I’m just having a burger at O’Learys, and—’

His voice vanishes as a group of male voices in the background shout and cheer.

‘Liverpool just scored again,’ he explains.

‘Hooray,’ she says, without enthusiasm.

‘Your mum called me to ask what you want for your birthday.’

‘That’s sweet,’ she says.

‘I said you’d like some see-through underwear,’ he jokes.

‘Perfect.’

She stares at the shimmering glass between the curtains as the phone-line crackles.

‘Is everything OK at home?’ Björn’s voice says in her ear.

‘I was just feeling a bit scared of the dark.’

‘Isn’t Ben there?’

‘In front of the television,’ she replies.

‘And Jerry?’

‘They’re both waiting for me,’ she smiles.

‘I miss you,’ he says.

‘Make sure you don’t miss the plane,’ she whispers.

They talk some more, then say goodbye and blow kisses to each other, then the line goes dead and she finds herself thinking about a patient who was brought in the previous night. A young man who had crashed his motorbike when he wasn’t wearing a helmet, resulting in severe head injuries. His father had come straight to the hospital from his nightshift. He was still wearing his dirty overalls, and had a breathing mask dangling round his neck.

Holding her pink kimono in front of her, she walks back to the living room and closes the heavy curtains.

The room feels suddenly blind, as if a silence had settled on it.

The curtains sway in front of the windows, and she shudders as she turns away from them.

She tries the ice cream. It’s much softer now, just right. A dense taste of chocolate fills her mouth.

Susanna puts the tub down and walks to the bathroom, locks the door, turns the shower on, loosens her ponytail and puts the scrunchie on the edge of the basin.

She lets out a sigh as the hot water washes over her head and neck and envelops her whole body. Her ears are roaring as her shoulders relax and her muscles soften. She soaps herself and runs her hand between her legs, noticing that the hair has already started to grow again since the last time she waxed.

Susanna wipes the steam from the glass door with her hand so she can see the handle and lock of the bathroom door.

She suddenly remembers what she thought she had seen in the bedroom window just as she was pulling the bedspread towards her to cover herself.

She dismissed it as a trick of her imagination. It’s silly to let yourself get scared like that. She had thrust her anxieties aside, and told herself that she couldn’t even see through the glass.

The room was too bright and the garden too dark.

But in the reflection of the dark bedspread she had thought she could see a face staring back at her.

The next moment it was gone, and she realised she must have been mistaken, but now she can’t help thinking it might have been real.

It wasn’t a child, but possibly a neighbour out looking for their cat, who then stopped to look at her.

Susanna turns the water off and her heart is beating so hard that it’s pounding at the top of her chest as she realises that the kitchen door leading out to the garden is open. How could she have forgotten that? She’s had it open all summer to let in the cool evening air, but usually shuts and locks it before taking a shower.