A Double Life. Charlotte Philby

reporter returns … Listen, when are you going to give up that local paper shite and come work for me? Tell you what: wash your hair every so often and you’d have a face for TV.’

      ‘Have you seen Jess?’ I ask, focusing on the smudge of dye that has leaked from his newly chestnut locks into the peak of his receding hairline. Christ, if I’m still rolling around in shit-holes like this when I’m his age I only hope someone slits my throat. With that fleeting image, I remember the spate of stabbings in Somers Town I’m planning to dig into next week, focusing on the circulation of weapons across our part of the city. If I can pitch it around the ongoing tensions in Camden, I’m pretty sure I can spin a legitimate local interest angle.

      ‘Yeah but what’s the angle?’ I picture my news editor, Ben, pre-empting the words of the editor, tucked away in his cheap glass box at the back of the room. ‘We’re a local paper, Isobel, not the New York fucking Times.’

      Hugh’s face contorts, as if he is trying to place Jess’s name – the name of the woman who has been his assistant for the past six years … Assistant Producer, actually, I can hear her voice correcting me in my head.

      ‘Sit down,’ he slurs. ‘Want a line?’

      He returns his attention to the table, haphazardly scraping and crushing white powder with his card.

      ‘Have you seen her?’ I repeat and he looks up again.

      ‘Who?’

      ‘I’m all right for shit K, thanks, Hugh,’ I say, not bothering to answer, and he puckers his face into a grin, attempting a South American drawl.

      ‘Issy, darling, this is pure cocaine straight from the streets of Ecuador!’

      Is it fuck. ‘Can I use your phone?’ I ask and he slides it across to me before returning his attention to the pile of powder.

      Jess’s number goes straight to voicemail.

      ‘Where are you?’ I whisper into the handset before tossing the receiver back at him.

      ‘Go on then,’ I say, snatching the rolled £20 from his fingers, hoovering up both lines, wincing as the chemical hits the back of my throat.

      Grateful for the instant burst of energy, I stand.

      ‘Wait, where are you going?’ I hear his voice fade into the distance as I move across the kitchen, through the doorway and towards the stairs, without looking back.

      Walking out onto the street, my whole body seems to move as if by remote control. Sunglasses on, though autumn has long set in, I drift along Chalk Farm Road. Ordinarily I’d have walked through Camden Lock, past the tube station and onto the high street where my shoebox of a flat awaits me above the newsagent’s. But this morning, the coke rushing through my veins, I need a horizon – the prospect of main roads, of roaring traffic, of crackheads and knowing shopkeepers making my chest tighten.

      Moving towards the estate, I weave instinctively through a warren of concrete alleys, the streets I have walked so many times that I no longer see the dog-ends or the piss stains on the walls.

      I have no idea how long it takes, moving on autopilot down Prince of Wales Road towards South End Green, where the air has a certain clarity. Flinching, I step back as an ambulance swings past the curry house; the steel shutters clamped to the floor, the body of a man slumped in front of it.

      My feet keep moving and soon I pass the old cinema which has been transformed into a chain food hall, towards Hampstead Heath overground, past the Magdala pub, and up past the terrace of big stucco-fronted houses. A woman leans out of the front door of the most beautiful building on this stretch, with tiled steps and wisteria hanging precariously over the top. She is stooped over as if shielding herself from the outside world, collecting the morning papers from the step, her pale blonde hair falling in front of her face. When she looks up and sees me, there is a flash of fear and for a moment I see myself through her eyes.

      The image haunts me as I move, more quickly now, drawn onto the Heathland I know so well. Instinctively, I drift away from the path. It must be sometime around 6.15 a.m. and yet I cannot face the prospect of bed, knowing there will be hours of tossing from one side to another before sleep finally comes. For now, the Heath is calm and familiar: safe until the hordes descend with their flat whites and Bugaboos.

      Steering across the hill towards the pond, I reach down and slip off my trainers, enjoying the sensation of the dewy grass against my toes; above me, the sky lingers somewhere between night and day. When I reach the bench overlooking Kite Hill, I sit, pulling my knees up under my chin, aware of the smell of mould and earth seeping up through the slats of wood. As a wave of cognisance strikes, I push it away, trying not to think about the press conference with the local council I am due to cover on Monday. It’s the kind of painfully provincial story that makes me remember that I was approached by one of the nationals, just before everything fell apart. Would I even have taken it? Either way, there is no point thinking about that now.

      My mouth is dry, my eyelids heavy and at the same time bolted open as if held in place with a match. Fumbling in my bag, I pull out a tiny block of hash and a lighter, enjoying the burning sensation at the tip of my thumb as I crumble it into a Rizla. The first drag burns the back of my throat.

      Some time later, I feel a welcome wave of exhaustion float in from behind. The new day is sneaking in and soon London will be ablaze with sirens and the clinking of coffee cups. The park bench has started to embed itself into my bare thighs; suddenly drawn by the prospect of a pillow and fresh sheets, I stand, feeling in the pocket of my denim shorts for my front-door key and my phone, my trainers protruding from the top of my bag as I start the final walk home.

      As the path splits, I veer slowly towards a forested patch of parkland. Pulling out a bottle of water from beneath my shoes, I take a sip. The pressure against my bladder is almost instant.

      Above, I hear the distant calling of a crow as I lower myself beneath a thick canopy of trees. Pulling my hoodie closer around me, I shiver, the air cold and dank as I weave beneath the branches; by now my head is throbbing, the silence no longer comforting.

      Finding a spot, I squat down in the shade of the tree, trying not to pee on my bare feet. Just as the relief comes, a warm trickle forming a pool beneath me, I feel my skin scratch against something sharp, a twig or a piece of glass.

      The unexpected sharpness of it makes me jump and I glance down, a sliver of dark red blood trickling down my ankle.

      ‘Shit,’ I mutter, unsteady as I balance my weight on just one foot, lowering myself into a dark patch of moss and rummaging through my bag for anything that vaguely resembles a tissue. As my fingers comb the contents of my bag, I forget about the tissue, distracted by a more pressing realisation. Patting with increasing desperation amidst the crumbs and the loose tobacco lining the bottom of my bag, waiting for the tell-tale brushing of my skin against the small plastic baggy containing the hash. I can’t have lost it, but I have. My fingernails dig into the palms of my hand at the memory of how much I had paid Tariq for that quarter.

      Briefly I consider turning back, retracing my steps to the bench, but the thought fills me with fear, imagining the morning runners and the early-bird mothers with their toddlers who by now could well be roaming the pathway.

      What I need is to get home, back to a safe space in which to let my mind melt into perfect nothingness. Slowly I stretch my legs back to standing position, ready to retreat to the safety of my flat with its four solid walls to fester behind. One moment I am standing, feeling my shorts brushing against my thighs; the next I hear a scream, which at first it might be another crow circling in the distance. And then I hear voices, unmistakably human, like a wall clattering down around me, fixing me to the ground.

      For a moment in my disorientated state, I wonder if I have imagined it. It wouldn’t be the first time, after all. But then they are there again, close enough that I can almost smell their breath. Taking a slow step forward, a twig quietly crunching beneath my foot, I hear a man’s voice again, this time followed by a name: Eva. Amidst a distorted mush of syllables, a language I cannot