43
LISA
It’s the sudden stiffness in Alison’s spine that alerts me. She presses the mobile phone a little too close to her ear. It must be Bray and my head spins and darkness threatens the corners of my vision. God no. Please, not Ava. Please, not Ava. The fear is about to overwhelm me when Alison glances back over her shoulder to where I sit on the edge of my chair, gripping my mug of tea. She’s furtive, not sympathetic, a wariness in her expression. A wariness of me. My fear for Ava’s immediate safety is replaced by my own survival instinct kicking in. Something is wrong.
Alison gives me a tight half-smile and tries to look casual as she goes to her bedroom to continue the call. As the door clicks shut I dart from my chair and press my ear against the wood. For the first time since they moved me from our house to this awful flat, I’m happy about its cheap manufacture. The door is thin, and although I can’t make out every word – she’s speaking quietly – I catch some phrases … will do … I’ll be fine … No, she’s the same as she has been. I’ll lock the door … act normal until you get here.
Shit, shit, shit. My face burns as my hands cool. I’m all animal instinct now, and my instinct is telling me I have to get out of here at whatever cost. Something’s happened and they’re coming for me. What happens to Ava then? Will that be the game over? I can’t risk it, and I can’t risk being arrested. I am still Charlotte Nevill. They won’t see a victim.
There’s movement on the other side of the door and I am suddenly terrifyingly calm. I run to the kitchen and grab the kettle, the water inside sloshing heavy as I run back. The bedroom door is opening as I reach it, and Alison steps back a little, surprised to see me so close. Fear. I see fear.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say quietly. She barely has time to look confused before I swing the kettle around and hit her on the side of the head. The thump makes my stomach clench and she reels backwards, crumpling on to the carpet, dazed and hurt, a gasp of air whoomping from her chest. I don’t hesitate but snatch the mobile phone and run to the front door, grabbing my old handbag and the keys from the table in the hall.
‘Lisa, Lisa, don’t …’ Her voice is quiet, an effort.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say again. My shaking hands pull the front door open before double locking it from the outside, the key almost dropping from my fingers as I hear her banging against the other side. Too late, Alison, too late. She’s trapped inside with no phone. I still don’t have much time. Bray is on her way here, I know it.
I run. I don’t hear sirens as I jog towards the town. Good. That’s good.
I pray to a God I don’t believe in before trying my debit card in a cashpoint, and I laugh with relief when it spits out the maximum two hundred and fifty pounds. In all this, they hadn’t got around to closing my bank account down yet. I ditch the card, my handbag and Alison’s phone in a nearby bin and quickly go to Boots and buy battery-operated hair clippers, pink and blue spray hair dye, make-up and black nail varnish. I visit three charity shops in a row and buy the hippiest, grungiest clothes I can find, along with an army surplus jacket and some second-hand Doc Martens that just about fit. I pick up a load of big junk jewellery of crosses and skulls and some leather bracelets. Sweat is slick on my skin and my heart is racing but my mind is clear. I’ve learned a lot over the years. They’ll expect me to be mousy still. Maybe change my hair colour and put some glasses on, but no more. They’d be underestimating me. Be big and bold and hide in plain sight. Be someone new.
In Costa Coffee I go to the disabled toilet cubicle that has a mirror and sink and I work fast. When I’m done, even I don’t recognise myself. I look younger, which is a surprise. Thirty at most. Thick kohl rises at points around my eyes, dark and angry. My lips are slashes of deep purple and my nails are black. My hair is almost gone; a buzz cut at the sides with a short pink and blue strip down the middle that leads to a narrow ponytail. The trousers are slightly too big and they hang on my hips, accentuating the youthful look. I’ve lost weight and the strip of belly that shows when I move is flat and taut.
I keep the make-up, dye, clippers and nail varnish, but stuff my old clothes into the sanitary bin and wash away all evidence of shaved hair down the sink. As I leave I find I’m walking differently. My hips are thrust forward and my shoulders are back. This woman doesn’t take any shit. This woman does things her own way. She’s hard as nails. This woman is my shadow and I know it. This is the Charlotte who could have been.
An hour or so later and I’m at the small services at the edge of the motorway. It’s still light, but there’s an edge of grey to the sky. I cruise up and down the rows of lorries that fill the car park until I find an occupied one. A driver, reading his paper, sipping from a flask, Burger King wrappers on the dashboard. All so ordinary. I tap on the side, smile, and he winds his window down to lean out.
‘I don’t suppose you’re going anywhere near Calthorpe?’ I ask. ‘There or Ashminster?’ They’re both close enough to home. I can get a bus from either and be back in Elleston in less than an hour.
‘I’m going to Manchester,’ he says. ‘So yeah I’m passing that way, but I’m parked up for the night. Done my hours. Sorry, love, but I won’t be leaving until about four in the morning.’
He isn’t an unpleasant-looking man. There have been worse men. I don’t give myself time to think about what I’m doing but shrug and smile. ‘I can wait.’ No one will look for me in a parked-up lorry. I’ll be safe there.
He looks at me for a long moment. ‘What’s your name, love?’ His tone has changed. Almost nervous but also wily. He’s sensing an opportunity. The sort of situation he’s probably only read about in top-shelf magazines.
‘Lily,’ I say. It comes from nowhere and is at odds with my wild look but also kind of suits it for exactly that reason. Lily is a nice girl from a good family who rebelled and never went back. Her story is weaving together in my head as his eyes flicker up and down and I see his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows.
‘I’m Phil.’ He opens the cab door and pulls me in. I’m relieved to find he smells clean and so does the cab. No cigarette smoke. No stale booze. Only leather and deodorant. It could be worse. It could be much much worse.
‘I’ll have to have a kip.’ He nods back to where the rear seat is covered by a duvet. ‘Sooner I sleep, the sooner we leave.’ His eyes slide over me again. ‘I normally have a wank, if I’m honest, but …’ He half laughs, as if he’s making a joke, but his eyes are watery nervous.
‘I guess I should pay for the ride somehow,’ I say, knowing I sound like something from a cheap porn film but hoping it will make him come quicker. He’s overweight and middle-aged and I doubt he and his wife do it often. Even if he gets a second wind I can make him finish fast. I’m thinking like Charlotte. I have to be Charlotte Nevill now. My old self. I need all her anger. All her strength. Ava needs me and I won’t let her down.
I am Charlotte Nevill, I think, as I reach across to find his belt buckle under his gut. I’ve done worse. I can do this.
44
BEFORE
1989
It’s May half-term for Katie but that doesn’t mean anything to Charlotte. She barely goes to school any more and no one cares. None of the teachers want Charlotte Nevill in school. She breaks things. She swears. She hits the other kids. There’s no controlling her. She’s getting worse. The little ones are scared of her. Her anger is like a grinning wolf, gobbling up the bairns’ fears to kill her own. Big bad wolf. Little Red Riding Hood.
‘Charlotte? Are you listening?’ Katie twirls circles in the empty shithole of a room, sending dust up in a cloud around her ankles. ‘His skin was all grey and sort of baggy. Like he was empty. I could have stared at him all day.’
They’re in one of the condemned houses on Coombs Street, stripped of lead by grasping estate hands, and now forgotten until the bulldozers get round to demolishing it which doesn’t seem to be happening in any hurry as Mrs Copel next door keeps banging on about.
‘Grey
,’ Katie says again, rubbing dust between her fingers. ‘Like this.’
Katie’s granddad died and she’s only been back from the funeral a couple of days and she can’t stop talking about it, which is good because it stops the words inside Charlotte’s own mouth spilling out.
‘Gross,’ she says, as Katie flops down beside her. They’re sitting on Charlotte’s jacket in case Katie gets dust on her dress, but their backs are pressed against the wall and Charlotte makes a note in her dull, fuzzy head to check Katie’s clothes before she goes home. She’d hate for Katie to get in trouble because that would mean she wouldn’t be able to see her and right now, Katie is all she has to stop her from snapping completely.
‘Yes, but wonderfully gross.’
Charlotte’s never seen a dead body but sort of wishes she had. She wishes she’d seen it with Katie. ‘Did he smell?’ This house smells, damp and rotting, even though it’s sunny and warm outside.
‘No, not bad anyway. A bit like chemicals maybe. Like a science lab at school.’
Charlotte has no idea what that smells like but she hmms in agreement.
‘Of course it’s all made Mummy worse.’ Katie lets out an exaggerated sigh. ‘Doctor Chambers has given her some pills for her nerves but they don’t seem to be doing anything much.’
Charlotte doesn’t want to think about pills and leans in closer to delicate, beautiful Katie who’s so strong inside, and drinks in her lyrical voice. ‘She’s obsessing about death. She thinks I don’t notice, because they all think I’m a bit simple, but it’s so obvious. Daddy says it’s grief, but I don’t see why she’s so sad. He was old, after all, and she’s got the seaside house now so it’s all rather good. She doesn’t see it that way, obviously. When we got home she polished the stairs of our house so hard – to distract herself Daddy said – that she slipped down them! She said she nearly broke her neck!’ She lets out a tinkling laugh with an edge of venom. Katie hates her ma. She hates her da too, but her ma the most.
‘Of course then she got sandpaper and rubbed the shine away, worrying I’d fall down them. As if I would. She’s making me take vitamin pills now. To keep me healthy. Honestly, Charlotte, she doesn’t let me breathe. Daddy tries his best to make her see reason but she controls him too. At least he gets to go to work. Thank God the pills make her sleepy and I can come out and see you.’ She smiles, so sweet and fresh, and Charlotte clings to her.
‘I put one in her coffee today,’ Katie says, impish. ‘And she’d already taken one. She won’t wake up for ages.’
‘Maybe she should go to sleep forever,’ Charlotte murmurs. Would that be so bad? To sleep forever?
‘Yes!’ Katie leaps to her feet. ‘Maybe she should! What would we do then? Would we run away?’
All their games and fantasies start with running away – drive away, baby – who they’ll be and what they’ll do, and Charlotte leaps up despite her tiredness, despite her raw anger, despite the tears trapped inside that threaten to humiliate her. ‘Bonnie and Clyde!’ she says. ‘We’ll rob banks and shite people up! We’ll be legends!’ She feels stronger already, basking in the glow of Katie’s admiration. Katie thinks she is wild and crazy and free. Katie thinks she is the big bad wolf, terrorising everyone in the estate. The big bad wolf.
‘I’ll be Bonnie and you’ll be my handsome Clyde.’ Katie pretends to fan herself with one hand, and pulls an invisible gun from her hip with the other. ‘We’ll be inseparable and people will envy our love.’ She leans in and kisses Charlotte on the mouth and her lips are so soft Charlotte’s face burns and contorts as the tears she dreads threaten to overwhelm her. She pulls a cigarette out of her top pocket and lights it, trying to control her trembling mouth.
‘Charlotte?’ Katie says, so full of concern. ‘What’s the matter? Has something happened?’
She shakes her head. ‘Just shite with Daniel. The usual. Family. Nothing I want to think about.’
‘You can tell me anything.’ Katie holds Charlotte’s face in both hands, not gently, like a girl, but strong.
‘I know.’ She can’t though. This is not like Katie’s overprotective ma. Instead, Charlotte breaks away and lets the cigarette hang from her lips as she stands in a pose she imagines a gangster would take. ‘Let’s go on the rob, Bonnie! There’s a bank in town we need to hit!’ She wiggles an eyebrow and holds out her hand and Katie laughs and claps her hands together and jumps up and down. Always so much energy. It feeds Charlotte and almost makes her feel better.
They clamber out of the house back into the sunlight and they run fast across the wasteland hand in hand. The bank will be old Mrs Jackson’s stupid shop and their gold will be sweets and drinks that Charlotte will steal. She is the big bad wolf, she is, she is. She doesn’t want to think about last night. She wants to run so fast the past can’t keep up.
Stupid Daniel. It was all stupid little shite Daniel’s fault. She can feel it, the memory of it, chasing her like hot breath on her neck. She runs faster, but she’ll never be fast enough.
‘Daniel’s sick,’ her ma says, standing in the doorway of her bedroom. ‘I need to stay at home.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with him,’ Charlotte growls and doesn’t look up. ‘He was fine earlier. He’s fine now.’ It’s not totally true though and she knows it. He has been quiet and pale and not nagging at her to play with him since she got home. Just sat in a corner with Peter Rabbit, sucking on one of the ears. She feels a tug of something inside. Not love. She can’t love Daniel. Everything is worse for her since he came along, but a tug of something. ‘I’ll watch him while you work.’
Ma shakes her head. She’s like this whenever Daniel gets sick. Won’t let Charlotte near him. ‘It’s me he needs.’
‘So what’re you telling me for?’ She was never like this when Charlotte was small, when it was only the two of them. She never stayed in for her.
‘We need the money.’ Ma isn’t looking at her now, focusing instead on the listless toddler on her hip clinging to his rabbit.
‘And?’ Alarm bells are starting to ring in Charlotte’s head. Her ma says nothing for a moment, chewing her bottom lip. Her eyes are glazed over, from drinking with Tony all afternoon probably. Red-ringed too. Has Ma been crying?
‘You talk to her. I’ll take him.’ Tony appears and lifts the boy out of Ma’s arms as her hands flutter to take him back. Daniel starts crying, little quiet sobs.
‘Charrot come with me,’ he says, and then he’s gone.
‘I’ll come and tell you a story in a minute,’ Ma calls after him. ‘Little Red Riding Hood. Your favourite.’
Charlotte’s racing heart hardens. There were never bedtime stories for her. No one looked after her when she was sick. Daniel’s such a lucky shite and he doesn’t even know it. Ma comes and sits, carefully, on the edge of the bed. This, this is something else. Danger tingles in every cell of Charlotte’s body.
‘You should take this,’ Ma says. She holds out one of her ‘back pain pills’.
‘Don’t want it.’
‘Just bloody take it!’ Tony’s voice bellows from the corridor and both Charlotte and Ma flinch.
‘Go on. It won’t hurt you. It’s a good feeling.’ Ma half smiles but her eyes still slide sideways. ‘I know you, Charlotte, you like a buzz.’
‘Haven’t got a drink.’ Delay, delay, delay. It’s all she can do, but she’s cornered and she knows it. Daniel’s crying sounds like it’s coming from far away. There is only her bedroom and it’s no longer her sanctuary. A can of lager is thrust in her hand and she takes it and the pill, and while wanting to scream with all the fear and the knowing unknowing of what she thinks is to come she swallows it.
‘There’s my good girl,’ Ma says, and strokes her hair. Ma looks like she’s going to cry which scares Charlotte more than anything. ‘Don’t worry,’ she says. ‘It’ll be all right. It’s always all right if you just don’t think about it.’
‘His nappy needs changing,’ Tony says, appearing once again in the do
orway. ‘You do that. I’ll get her down the chippy. She can have a wash there.’
Charlotte finds herself getting to her feet. She can’t fight Tony. Ma doesn’t fight Tony. No one fights Tony. Her legs are trembling. She won’t cry. There’s no point. She wonders how long it will take for her ma’s pill to kick in and finds herself thinking hurry up hurry up hurry up. She turns to pick up her jacket.
‘Only her mouth, yeah?’ Ma whispers, and it’s frantic, guilty, ashamed. Tony grunts in reply. ‘I mean it, Tony. I mean it. She’s only eleven.’
Charlotte thinks she might be sick, but she keeps her chin up. She has Katie. One day they’ll run away. One day they’ll fuck this fucking shite right off. Only when she gets to the front door does she glance back. Ma’s at the top of the stairs, Daniel on her hip again.
‘Once upon a time there was a forest. In the forest there was a little girl called Red Riding Hood. There was also a big bad wolf …’ She doesn’t look down at Charlotte as she talks. Daniel does, though. Clutching Peter Rabbit with one hand, he gives Charlotte a half wave with the other. A small gesture. Just for her.
Fuck you, Daniel, she thinks, as she follows Tony outside. Fuck you, you little shite.
45
NOW
MARILYN
I’m shattered. What a day. What a mixture of a day. The adrenaline of being back at work and acting as if everything was fine at least kept me awake at my desk, and it felt surprisingly good to be back in the grip of humdrum normality.
That feeling lasted a whole hour before Richard arrived, unkempt and wild, banging on the glass doors, demanding to be buzzed in. I wasn’t surprised. Not really. On some level, I knew he’d be watching the car park every day, waiting to see me arrive. If it hadn’t been such a humiliation it would almost have been a relief.
When I went out into the corridor he did everything I expected. He begged me to come back. He pleaded. In the very predictable end, he threatened. Loudly. He slammed me up against the wall. You’re so fucking ugly no other man will ever touch you! Who the fuck do you think you are? I will fucking destroy you, you stupid bitch! All so grotesque, the monster inside showing on his contorted face. I cried. I couldn’t help it. Being pressed up against the wall hurt my ribs and all his anger hurt my heart. How did we come to this?