Page 224 of The Silent Appeal

I’ve missed you so much. Have you spoken to Elizabeth yet? I don’t think it will be as great a shock as you think. She can’t believe her marriage is in a healthy state, not if you haven’t slept in the same bed for years. She may even welcome an excuse to get away. Things will be hard to begin with, but it’ll be for the best, you’ll see.

I’ve made a decision about the Stibsons. I’ll wait until after the play (don’t want anything upsetting their performances now it’s so close) then tell them I need my flat back. They swapped over quickly enough, we should be able to swap back in a day. Until then I’ll keep them happy.

I was cleaning this place up last night and found a notebook down the back of the sofa. Clearly Georgia’s. A quick flick through and I found her mum’s email address, so sent her a message explaining the situation and why she really should consider taking her back. Well, not only can G go back home anytime, she’s been getting £800 a month from her mother! It’s only fair Amelia and Lucas know, so I told them and am confident Georgia will be sent packing as soon as the play’s over.

Like you, my home situation is difficult now, but the prospect of us being together in the end must keep us moving forward. With all my love, Fran xxx

Undated page from a decorative journal belonging to Isabel Beck:

TODAY IS DRESS REHEARSAL DAY!

Shaky. Because I just treated myself with a to-go iced coffee from Zephyr that must be made with super-strength coffee beans (and OMG it was £6.80 and is tiny).

Excited. Because I just remembered I’m in the play! Yay!

Terrified! Boo! Because the play is tomorrow and it’s our last rehearsal tonight!

Frumpy. Double boo. Because I look like a big sack of spuds in my costume, just when I’m trying to lose weight. Marianne says Gerda has to be unattractive, which is why she made me a flowery calf-length dress with an elasticated waist, but still—even though I’m playing Gerda and should think of her as separate from me, it’s still physically me, isn’t it?

When you’re rehearsing a play, a bubble forms around the cast. Then during play week, it closes completely. Even the director and assistant director aren’t included. We are all friends in the bubble. People who never spoke to me before suddenly talk as if we’re equals. Like Amelia. At the tech rehearsal on Monday, we were waiting for Joel and Kevin to adjust the lighting rig and she said, “Do I look okay on this?” She meant the little stool she uses onstage, to hide the fact she can’t stand for long.

I replied, “Yes, you look fine. I don’t think the audience will find it strange Henrietta sits down a lot. After all, a lot of people are mobility-impaired.” Then she said, “Have you seen Lucas? He’s supposed to carry me up and down the back stairs.”

I said no, and she said, “He’s probably outside the back door vaping or on his phone to work,” so I said, “I can get him for you.” To which she said, “No, don’t disturb him. It doesn’t matter.” But she looked as if it really did matter.

I feel sorry for her, because although he doesn’t remember me, Lucas was in my group therapy class with Fran a few years ago. He was using drugs then and would regularly show up the worse for whatever he’d just taken. Fran used to tell us “what’s said in the room, stays in the room,” which meant we weren’t supposed to repeat anything. Did she mean even so many years later and in a bullet journal that won’t be read by anyone but me?

When he spoke to the group, he said his problems started when he was bullied. He got a scholarship to a posh school, but never fit in. The bullying sent him off the rails, and he self-medicated with cannabis and cocaine. After he left school, that self-medicating didn’t stop. He dropped out of uni and was fired from a few jobs until he cleaned himself up and the father of a friend got him on a graduate program in a city bank. At first he was fine, but as soon as he got stressed he’d go back to the drugs until the bank finally “remembered” he wasn’t actually a graduate and fired him. He was lucky to be handed a suspended sentence with a compulsory rehab program when he was caught selling drugs he’d fished out of a toilet cistern in a pub.

One of the last group sessions I was in, Lucas said he’d met a girl he really liked. When Fran was still talking to me, she said she was worried he’d propose and get her to marry him, so he knew she’d stay when she eventually found out about his past. When I arrived at Fairways I saw he’d married her, and wondered how much she knew.

I am so happy! This time last year I was trudging back and forth between Specsavers and my flat. Nothing on the horizon to look forward to. Now I’m on top of the world. I have my friends in the play bubble and a special friend in Nicky-Rose. One way or another this week will be a momentous one and I can’t wait!

Message exchange between Georgia Taccuso and Lucas Stibson on June 4, 2025:

5:18 p.m. Georgia wrote:

Gonna tell A you were with NR.

5:18 p.m. Lucas wrote:

Don’t be a shit. Why would you do that?

5:19 p.m. Georgia wrote:

You’ve been lying to A from day one. But I won’t put up with you lying to me.

5:19 p.m. Lucas wrote:

What’s so fucking special about you?

5:19 p.m. Georgia wrote:

Baby?

5:20 p.m. Lucas wrote:

Seeing NR for business. Now you mind your own. I mean it.