_OceanofPDF.com_The_Girl_on_the_Train_-_Paula_Hawkins

fades. “Focusing on senses other than sight often helps. Sounds, the feel
of things . . . smell is particularly important when it comes to recall.
Music can be powerful, too. If you are thinking of a particular
circumstance, a particular day, you might consider retracing your steps,
returning to the scene of the crime, as it were.” It’s a common enough
expression, but the hairs on the back of my neck are standing up, my
scalp tingling. “Do you want to talk about a particular incident, Rachel?”
I do, of course, but I can’t tell him that, so I tell him about that time
with the golf club, when I attacked Tom after we’d had a fight.
I remember waking that morning filled with anxiety, instantly
knowing that something terrible had happened. Tom wasn’t in bed with
me, and I felt relieved. I lay on my back, playing it over. I remembered
crying and crying and telling him that I loved him. He was angry, telling
me to go to bed; he didn’t want to listen to it any longer.
I tried to think back to earlier in the evening, to where the argument
started. We were having such a good time. I’d done grilled prawns with
lots of chilli and coriander, and we were drinking this delicious Chenin
Blanc that he’d been given by a grateful client. We ate outside on the
patio, listening to the Killers and Kings of Leon, albums we used to play
when we first got together.
I remember us laughing and kissing. I remember telling him a story
about something—he didn’t find it as funny as I did. I remember feeling
upset. Then I remember us shouting at each other, tripping through the
sliding doors as I went inside, being furious that he didn’t rush to help
me up.
But here’s the thing: “When I got up that morning, I went downstairs.
He wouldn’t talk to me, barely even looked at me. I had to beg him to
tell me what it was that I’d done. I kept telling him how sorry I was. I
was desperately panicky. I can’t explain why, I know it makes no sense,
but if you can’t remember what you’ve done, your mind just fills in all
the blanks and you think the worst possible things . . .”
Kamal nods. “I can imagine. Go on.”
“So eventually, just to get me to shut up, he told me. Oh, I’d taken
offence at something he’d said, and then I’d kept at it, needling and
bitching, and I wouldn’t let it go, and he tried to get me to stop, he tried
to kiss and make up, but I wouldn’t have it. And then he decided to just
leave me, to go upstairs to bed, and that’s when it happened. I chased
him up the stairs with a golf club in my hand and tried to take his head
off. I’d missed, fortunately. I just took a chunk out of the plaster in the
hall.”