The Brighton Mermaid

  ‘Well, I haven’t got any proof of that, but if you saw them together you’d know instantly that it’s not as straightforward as they make out.’

  ‘Why am I here?’ Zach asked tiredly.

  ‘So I can get back at Nell for taking my children away from me ,’ I almost said. Even though I didn’t actually know that was what I was doing until that moment, I almost told Zach that. ‘So I can ask you if I can stay at your place.’

  ‘What? No.’ He drew back, horrified and disgusted at the idea. ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘I’ve left home. Nell was staying with us and it got too much for me with her and Shane and not knowing what actually went on between them. And Nell kind of took over, doing everything for the children, and I couldn’t take it any more. I’ve left them. All of them. Even the children, who are my whole world. But I couldn’t cope any more.’ I wiped at my teared-up eyes and my now running nose. ‘I had to get away. I have nowhere to stay where they can’t find me. I need a break from Nell and Shane.’

  The muscles in Zach’s jaws rippled as he listened to me talk, and they rippled when I stopped talking and they continued to ripple as he was deciding what to do. I could see why Nell liked him. Even without hair he was very good-looking. Handsome. Wholesome. ‘All right, you can stay for a few days.’

  ‘Thank you!’ I said, relieved.

  ‘But I’ll have to tell your sister where you are.’

  ‘No! I don’t want anyone to know where I am. If I wanted them to know, I would have gone to my parents’ house. I just want to be free of them all. I just want to be Macy alone for a bit. If you tell her, I’ll leave and disappear.’

  ‘Macy—’

  ‘I’m serious,’ I cut in. ‘If I get even a hint that you’ve told her, I’ll disappear and no one will ever hear from me again.’

  ‘Fine, fine. You can stay. And I won’t tell Nell. I won’t tell anyone where you are.’

  As far as I know he’s kept his word. And he’s let me stay. He doesn’t like me being here, though, I can tell. Last night starts to seep in and I cringe. He’s going to like it even less after last night.

  He was right, the other day, I looked ridiculous with my Nell makeover. I don’t know what I was thinking, really. So I kind of ditched that stuff in favour of his clothes. ‘Not even Nell wore my clothes,’ he said when he came home from work and found me in a pair of his boxers and a T-shirt, cleaning his flat .

  ‘Come on, Zach, it’s Saturday night,’ I said last night. ‘Have a couple of drinks with me.’

  ‘I think you’re drinking enough for the both of us,’ he stated without taking his eyes off the television.

  That evening’s foray into Zach’s wardrobe had resulted in me donning one of his casual checked shirts and knotting it under my breasts. Paired with the only pair of jeans I’d brought with me, I had to admit I looked good for a mother of three.

  Zach was sitting on the armchair at this point. He’d begun the evening while I was clearing up after dinner sitting on the sofa, but when I dropped down beside him he immediately moved to the armchair.

  I rolled my eyes and stuck out my tongue at him. He was no fun. Literally the opposite of fun. It was Saturday night, for goodness’ sake. Didn’t he understand that women like me – mothers of three – didn’t get that many Saturday nights off? Didn’t he understand that women like me – mothers of three – didn’t often need to drink so much to drown out the voices in their heads of their children asking when they’re coming home? At first, I’d been drinking because I was enjoying it. Now I needed it to help me forget about my children.

  I leant across to pick up the remote control and whoops! I dropped half the glass of wine all over my front. Urgh! What a waste of good wine. I put the wine glass on the floor without knocking any more over and then slowly unknotted the shirt and then undid the buttons. I slipped it off and was tempted to suck the wine off the front, but that would be way too crazy, even for me.

  ‘Look what I’ve done!’ I said.

  He half turned to the sofa and then whipped his head away. ‘For pity’s sake, Macy, put some clothes on! And stop this!’

  ‘What? ’ I could hear myself whine because of the wine. ‘I dropped some wine down my top, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s not all and you know it. Macy, I’ve had enough of this. I had reservations about you coming here, but I didn’t want you staying out on the street. You’re Nell’s sister, I know how much she cares about you, so I don’t want anything to happen to you either. If you don’t stop this behaviour, though, you can leave.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘But nothing! I’m not going to sleep with you. And don’t pretend that’s not what you’ve been angling for to get back at Nell. Whatever you think you’ll achieve with this, it’s not going to happen. So stop all this crap before I’m forced to ask you to leave. And I will ask you to leave and I will not worry about where you go.’

  With that, he got up and left the room, taking my dignity with him.

  I felt terrible, truly awful. The only sane thing to do in that situation was to drink some more. And hopefully the humiliation would go away, too.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ are the first words out of my mouth.

  Zach has his back to the kitchen door and stiffens when he hears my voice. ‘It’s fine,’ he says without turning round.

  ‘It’s not fine,’ I say. ‘It’s so far from fine. I’m so sorry. I’m missing the kids so much and it’s making me act out.’

  ‘Why don’t you just go home, then?’ he asks.

  ‘Because I shouldn’t be there. Nell is just better for them. She gets them, she can do all that stuff they need without breaking a sweat. She’s perfect for them and I’m not.’

  ‘You’re their mother. And I’d imagine it’s easy to do all that stuff without breaking a sweat, as you say, when you know it’s not permanent. When you’ve got day after day after day of the same thing, I can imagine it getting pretty wearing, and not being at your best all the time.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right. But I don’t feel ready to go back yet. Is … is it OK if I stay here a bit longer? No more funny stuff. I swear.’

  ‘All right, you can stay here a bit longer. I think you should let me tell Nell where you are, though. She and Shane must be going out of their minds with worry.’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’

  ‘Macy, seriously, I really think you should think some more about going home if being away from your children is going to have this big an effect on you.’

  ‘It’s not just that, though … can I trust you with something?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘I feel terrible, all the time. I was married to this guy, the children’s dad. And he left me. I found him again recently and he’s got this whole new life with another woman and four children. I don’t know if they’re his but either way, it makes me feel terrible. I just feel so inadequate. That I did terribly by my children by not being good enough that he stayed. I mean, it’s all there, every picture she posts of him she says he’s an amazing father. I just … Why couldn’t he be an amazing father to our children? What was wrong with our family?’

  Zach turns around to look at me. ‘Well, first off, never believe what people write on social media.’

  ‘I know, I know, but when you see the photos and read stuff like that, it’s hard to believe it’s fake.’

  ‘And second of all, every guy I know, every single one , who is described as an “amazing father” is a tosser.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘I know it. Women only wax lyrical like that when a guy does something so mundane but needs praise to make sure he, at some point, does it again. All the millions of fathers who pull their weight and parent their children are never described as amazing because they do stuff for their kids without needing accolades. What would Shane need to do to make you describe him as an amazing father?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Have you ever had cause to describe him as an a
mazing father?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But does he do all the stuff a father does without needing you prompting him all the time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There you go. Your ex playing happy families on social media doesn’t mean it’s real. The best indicator of future behaviour is past behaviour, I’ve found. You don’t know what’s going on beyond the computer screen.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Look, Macy, I know you don’t want to, but think about going home. You need to be with your children. They need you, too. There is nothing wrong with you.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll think about it. I’ll definitely think about it.’

  I like Zach. I can absolutely see why Nell liked him. He’s so decent. I wonder what it was that made her break up with him. I feel I can talk to him about anything. The other thing that’s been on my mind, that has been keeping me away from home and from Nell, of course, is the stuff with Jude. I was heading back to that place where I wanted to tell Nell to hurt her. Just to show her that what she was doing was dangerous for all of us.

  ‘Is there something else you want to talk about?’ Zach asks.

  Tell him , a voice in my head says. Hear what it sounds like out loud. Get it done now so when you do eventually tell, it won’t be so alien . ‘I … well …’ Have you lost your mind? I ask myself. You can’t tell him that. You can’t tell anyone that . ‘Nothing.’ I shake my head. ‘Nothing.’

  From the expression on Zach’s face, I’m sure he doesn’t believe me.

  Nell

  Sunday, 27 May

  ‘No way, not going to happen,’ Shane says. He’s keeping his voice down because the children are asleep upstairs, but I can see it’s an effort to do so. He’s incredibly angry and I think he wants to cross the room, grab me by the shoulders and shake me. Hard.

  ‘Shane, it’s the only way.’

  ‘Don’t you understand me? No.’

  I press the palm of my hand onto my forehead and rest my elbow on the table. I’ve had this headache since Macy disappeared. Actually, probably since my face was slammed into a door frame and I had a brain scan to check I didn’t have any real damage. It seemed to abate for a few days, twinging every now and then when I am stressed, peaking when the rat incident drove me from my home – but it’d started to go away. Now, with an additional layer of stress on top of trying to work out who is out to get me and why, this headache is a permanent fixture in my head.

  ‘Shane, if you think about it, it’s the best plan.’

  ‘They’re my children and you’re not going to take them away from me, not without one hell of a fight.’

  Wearily, I get up and go to shut the door over properly. Ideally we would have talked about this before the children came home from school on Friday, or at any point over the weekend, but Shane has not worked from home since Macy disappeared and was barely there over the weekend. Except at 5:17 a.m. yesterday, when I could hear him lurking outside my bedroom door, waiting for Macy to call. She didn’t call and he eventually went away. I’ve hardly seen him so I’ve not had a chance to have this chat, but it is a conversation that needs to be had.

  ‘No one’s taking the children away from you.’

  ‘What do you call this plan of yours?’ Shane snarls.

  ‘I call it taking the children to spend the half-term holidays with their grandparents, since there’s no one else who can look after them.’

  ‘What about you? You can look after them. You haven’t got a job, remember?’

  I observe my sister’s partner across the kitchen in a cool manner. I’d forgotten how good-looking he is: tall and slender, with an easy smart-casual dress sense, his brown-blond hair messy but stylish. I haven’t looked at Shane properly in years. Not since I found out he and my sister were together. I would look at him, sure, but I wouldn’t see him, not properly, not like I am right now. And I’m looking at him like I am right now because he’s just said something that has made him a tosser in my eyes. Not the man I used to go out with, not the guy who has wanted to marry my sister since he met her, but the guy who has just basically said he thinks I should be free childcare.

  ‘Don’t be an arse, Shane,’ I say. Since Macy disappeared, I have stepped up the looking-after-her-children role while Shane seems to have stepped back – way, way back – from it. With half-term coming up, I need to get them away from here. I’ve always felt they were safer at school, and not with me when someone is trying to harm me. I can’t have them with me all through the holidays. And even if I didn’t think being around me was dangerous, why should I? ‘I do have a job,’ I state. ‘It’s just not one that pays at the moment. I’ve not done much in the past couple of weeks because of what happened to my flat, and then Macy disappearing, but I need to get back to it.’ I need to get back to it before Pope forces my hand . ‘And I need to know the children are being looked after properly.’

  ‘Look, I know it’s not ideal, but you can’t just dump them with your parents and think that’s going to solve anything.’

  ‘All right then, you take the week off,’ I say.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know what it’s like in your world,’ Shane snaps, ‘but in this house, all the bills, the food on the table, comes from my wages. If I don’t work, our family doesn’t eat or have somewhere to live. That’s what a proper job does – not what you’ve been doing.’

  ‘I’ve earned the money to pay my mortgage and everything for the next year, Shane. I earned it and then I saved it up. That’s why I’m not being paid for what I do. And I don’t know why I’m justifying myself to you. This situation is simple: you can’t look after the children during half-term, I can’t look after the children during half-term, my parents will do it.’

  We’re talking as though Macy doesn’t exist. Neither of us has mentioned her since we found out that she had taken a three-week leave of absence from work, and had told the children she was going on a special trip and would call them when she could. So it wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment thing; she planned this. She wanted out and laid the groundwork with the important people – the children – to make sure it happened with as little disruption to them as possible. She also sent the children a postcard saying ‘Missing you lots and will be back soon’ that arrived yesterday.

  It was a Brighton postcard, postmarked Gatwick, so she was still in the area. Knowing she is safe and made provision to do this meant we didn’t go to the police and we didn’t talk about her. I suspect Shane is worried as well as angry with her for doing this, whereas I am just relieved that she is OK. All right, I’m a little bit angry, too.

  ‘It’s only for a week,’ I tell him.

  ‘It’s not going to be for a week because it’s not happening. And that’s final.’

  ‘I really want you to be all right with this, Shane,’ I say carefully. I stop looking at him and stare instead at the area near his feet while I continue to try to press my headache away. ‘I really want you to agree to this without …’ I stop because I know how this will come out, how much it will hurt him. And I don’t want to hurt Shane. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I never do. Not even Pope. And I hate him.

  ‘Without what?’ he asks.

  I have to look him in the eye when I do this. He has to know I’m serious, that, as unpalatable as it is, this is the truth of our situation and I will invoke it if he doesn’t agree. ‘You and Macy aren’t married. You haven’t formally adopted the children. I … I am legally their next of kin, not you. Macy made me their legal guardian years ago, and I get to decide what happens to them over you.’

  He stares at me for long, long seconds. What I’ve just said is like a body blow to him, like I’ve just discharged the whole voltage of a Taser into his most vulnerable parts. ‘You fucking bitch ,’ he says quietly, viciously. ‘You fucking, fucking bitch .’

  I have to look away. His words don’t hurt me, they bounce off me like raindrops off an umbrella – it is the be
trayal and wounding on his face that cut me up inside.

  ‘Five years, five long years I’ve been providing for those children, loving them, bringing them up, and you’re basically saying I mean nothing and you get to decide everything. You bitch .’

  ‘Shane, it doesn’t have to be like this. I just want them to spend time with my parents. Give us both a chance to—’

  He waves his hand as if to dismiss what I am saying like a king dismisses a lowly courtier. ‘Do what you want, Nell. You’re going to anyway. Just don’t be surprised if I’m not here if you decide to bring my children back.’

  He leaves the room without looking at me again.

  I close my eyes and give in to the headache. Give in to the pain of it, which is basically fuelled by the tears I’ve been trying not to shed since I read Macy’s note and realised how much she hates me. Now Shane hates me, too. I don’t even bother to wipe away the tears. Right now, crying is the only thing I can do that doesn’t feel wrong.

  Nell

  Monday, 28 May

  Dad’s smile is something I haven’t seen in years.

  He does smile, obviously, but when the children run through the door, throwing down their backpacks and kicking off their shoes while heading for the kitchen, his face glows with the radiance of his smile.

  ‘Wash your hands,’ Mum calls to them as they hit the kitchen, aiming for the rack of freshly baked cheese and leek scones. The house is filled with their divine savoury scent and I take in a few lungfuls, feeling comforted at once. When Dad had to give up his shops and they moved here, he chose this place because of the substantial size of the garden. It allowed him to cultivate the soil to grow vegetables and to have a large greenhouse to try to grow more tropical fruits and veg. I think Dad feels sometimes like he gained this when he lost almost everything else, and he would love to share it with someone. Mum is so not interested and, I can tell, frets about the cleanliness of Dad’s hands after he’s been working in the garden. I’m sure the children will have a great time here and Dad will have a wonderful time teaching them about gardening and growing food.