I run my hands over my head, agitated, annoyed, highly irritated that after all this time he still hasn’t let me go. ‘I really thought he’d have given up by now. Especially since he’s been married twice and is engaged again.’ Is it because I was the one who ran away? With all the others he has had very public break-ups, copious amounts of mud-slinging on each side, some of it sticking in unpleasant clumps. He never had the chance to do that with me, so maybe that’s why he can’t let it go. Todd hated to lose more than anything: if you gave him the choice between winning something or being eternally happy, he wouldn’t have to think carefully about it, he would choose winning any day of the week.
‘You know all that about him?’ she asks.
‘Yes, I always try to make sure I know where he is.’
‘Where’ve you been all this time?’ she asks.
I stare at my older sister and suddenly I feel antiquated compared to her. I feel like an ancient being who has much knowledge and wisdom to impart to an unwilling pupil. She doesn’t really want to know – she wants to hear a neat, nice story about what I’ve been doing and where I have been living. ‘Birmingham, mainly,’ I say. ‘How come you moved in with Mummy and Daddy, then? Is one of them sick?’
‘No, no … Ralph lost his job a while back. We tried to struggle on, but in the end we had to give up the house or declare bankruptcy. So about a year ago, all of us moved in with Mummy and Daddy. It’s really generous that they’ve let us stay this long, really. We’ve nearly got enough saved so we can move out again soon.’
‘That sounds like it was really hard. I’m really sorry to hear that.’
‘It was hard; Ralph was so depressed, I almost lost him … But, you know, onwards and upwards.’
‘What do you mean, all of us moved back in? Has Marlon come back, too?’
‘No, I mean … Oh my God!’ Sasha sits upright in her seat, claps her hands. ‘You don’t know, do you? I’ve got a daughter! You’re an aunt!’
The world seems to slow right down, the people, the air, everything is barely moving. I’m an aunt. I’ve missed out on being an aunt. ‘That’s amazing!’ I shriek and throw my arms around her like she’s only just told me she is pregnant. I suppose she has only just told me – that she’s pregnant, had a baby and has had a certain number of years with her. These are several bits of fantastic news all bundled together and delivered in one go – that deserves a shriek. ‘How old is she?’
‘She’s six and she’s called Tracy-Dee. And she’s the light of my life.’
‘Where is she?’ I ask.
‘Mummy’s taken her out to some family day thing up at the library. You know what Mummy’s like – loves a baby and a toddler, can’t really deal with anyone above eight though. She dotes on Tracy-Dee.’
From the pocket of her jacket, Sasha produces her mobile phone and, after pressing a few buttons, hands it to me with a photo of the most gorgeous little girl I have ever seen filling the screen: her hair is in three neat sections, each plaited and tied at its base with yellow ribbons that have huge, bunny-ear loops. She smiles at her camera, with a glint of mischief in her eyes. ‘She’s beautiful, adorable,’ I say. ‘I love her and I haven’t even met her.’
‘You don’t have any …?’ Sasha asks gently.
‘Me? God, no, no.’
After a beat of silence, after watching me look at her daughter, she speaks again. Quietly determined this time, she asks again: ‘Where’ve you been, Nika?’
‘I told you, Birmingham.’ I turn my attention to the box she brought with her. It is not big, but it is awkward to carry. The brown lid is folded together to form a cross that provides a flimsy security. ‘What’s in the box?’
‘Your letters and some of the things your ex brought back. Your passport’s in there, your birth certificate, National Insurance card, I think. Some of your old payslips. I hope you don’t mind but even before we moved in I’ve been destroying all the really old bank statements and stuff because they were really piling up and Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t do anything with them. You can always get new statements from the bank. And I think you got a new bank card recently, which should be in there, and the pin number, I think.’
A bank card, a pin number. That would mean I could get money from my old bank account. Yes, Todd was probably keeping an eye on it, but if I took all the money out in London, I could close it down, open up a new account wherever I moved to. Yes, I had planned to stay here, but if Todd is still around, it’s probably best if I stay well away. But this is a lifeline: I have ID. Yes, it’s in the form of an out-of-date passport, but I have cards and people rarely question cards. I have money and I have no need to beg my parents for forgiveness nor consider the ‘sleeping rough’ option.
‘Where have you been, Nika?’ Sasha asks again. She raises her hand. ‘And don’t say “Birmingham”. I mean really, where have you been?’
I shake my head at her, try to find the words from all the millions out there that will make some sense of it all. When I can understand it, I will be able to explain to her. ‘I can’t talk about that, not right now,’ I confess. ‘Can you take my word for it when I promise you that I will tell you about it one day?’
‘Suppose I’ll have to, won’t I?’
I reach out and rest my hand on my sister’s shoulder. I’m overwhelmed by having the ability to touch her. Since her reaction to seeing me, I’ve been wondering why we weren’t close, and why I didn’t send her a card just to let her know I was still alive. Was it all the secrets I had, the ones I shared with the other Veronica Harper that I didn’t dare share with her? Was it that she seemed so happy when we were growing up that I seemed insignificant to her? Or was it that our parents seemed to have pigeonholes for each of us to fit into: Golden Boy (who could do no wrong); Good Girl (who sometimes did as she was told); and The Other One (who told a secret that they didn’t want to hear) and those pigeonholes meant we played our roles and we never tried to cross over into the other’s place. Touching her now, feeling that she is real and human and someone who I could probably relate to, I am wishing myself back into the past. Back to the point where she is the person I turn to, I confide in, who I ask for help. I am wishing that I realised who my sister was, could be, all those years ago. ‘Sash, please don’t be angry with me for not telling you. It’s not a simple story of I went to there and I did this and now I’ve decided to come back … I will tell you, everything, one day, but not today, not right now.’ I’m still reeling from having to escape from a life where not only the police but a very dangerous criminal are both going to try to hunt me down.
My sister heaves a deep sigh and looks me over. It’s not often people look me over, or really see me, and it’s an odd sensation, someone checking me out. ‘I like your hair,’ she says after a bit.
‘I like yours,’ I tell her.
‘Do you have somewhere to stay tonight?’
‘Not right now, but I’ll find somewhere.’
‘Look, we can go back and wait for Mummy and I’ll tell them not to call your ex. I’m sure they’ll let you stay for a few nights.’
‘You know, thanks, but I’ll be fine. I thought I wanted to see them, but now I’ve seen you I’ve realised that I don’t need to. You’re enough. I’ll come back and see them another time.’
Her face is suddenly fierce and hard. ‘You’re not going to disappear again, are you?’ she asks sternly.
I shake my head. ‘No, no, I’m not. I’m probably not going to stick around London, especially now I know Todd is still hanging around, but the last thing I’m going to do is disappear again. I can promise you that if nothing else.’
I’m going to do things differently this time. That policeman has put the kernel of the idea of living a different life into my head. I am going to do that. With my identity in the cardboard box, I am going to start again, properly. I am not going to disappear again.
London, 2004
The shock took a little while to wear off.
I sat on
a bench in Victoria train station, the world whizzing around me at a breakneck speed. I did not know where I was going, I did not know what I was doing. I had virtually nothing with me because Todd was right: it was all his. He had bought almost everything for me. I had disappeared into the role he had carved out for me: I had become Nikky. Because he was nice to me, because he didn’t seem as bad as what had gone before, I had let him lead me into being a person of his choosing.
The shock was wearing off, I was shaking and I didn’t know what to do. When I had run away from home last time, I’d been seventeen and had planned how to get away from the life I was living for nearly two years. I had a rucksack and an old red suitcase I’d found in my parents’ loft when I finally packed up to never come back to them. I had been through Loot every day until I’d found a house share and with the money I’d saved, I’d been able to move in. That was only seven years ago, but the world felt different now. I was different now. I hadn’t worked in years because it had caused Todd such angst me not being there when he got home. I would need a job so I could get money, so I could find somewhere to stay.
I needed a place to stay.
I stared around me, at the people who rushed on by, all with somewhere to go, somewhere to be. I could be her – the woman in the grey skirt suit, her head down, her bag clutched to her shoulder, weaving in and out of the crowd, desperate to get somewhere. She had a purpose. I could be him – the man with the slow walk, a large rucksack on his back, no worries on his face, hood up, no sense of needing to be anywhere in a hurry, but still with somewhere to be. I could be that toddler, ambling along with bunches in her hair, trying to keep up with her adult, but wondering at the world of busyness around her. I could be them: all of them, any of them, except they were there for a reason, passing through – I was there because I had nowhere else to go.
I could go back to Todd’s to grab some of the things there, but almost everything there belonged to him, had been paid for by him. If I went back, he would keep me there.
I knew what he’d be doing right then: he’d have called my mobile, only to find it was ringing and ringing itself out on the bedside table. Then he’d sit and go through my phone, looking for something, any clue that would prove that I was cheating on him, that I was contacting people without clearing it with him first. When he found nothing, absolutely nothing, he’d really panic. He’d call Murray, start screaming about how I’d betrayed him, stabbed him in the back, and how they had to find me. ‘Murray, mate, she knows stuff, stuff that could hurt me, hurt you, too. We have to find her,’ he’d be shouting. Because he knew what it could mean for him if I told anyone the truth about what he got up to. The things he sniffed and smoked, the stuff he got turned on by. He knew, too, that I wouldn’t need proof. Just the hint of scandal, just the right words in a few ears, and he would be sunk. All those advertisers and sponsors who paid him huge money now he was in a team at the top of the Premier League, who had decency clauses in all their contracts, would desert him in an instant.
It was him, I realised. All along he had been the ‘anonymous source’ who fed the press those stories about me, who had given them photos of drugs in my handbags, who had started public rows so he’d be seen telling me off. Of course it was him. It had never occurred to me he would do that, because we were ‘in it together’, but there was no one else who would bother with that. It benefited him in so many ways, not only to deflect anything off him, but also to keep me isolated, paranoid, reliant on him. Every time I thought someone was talking about me behind my back, it made me cling to him tighter because it proved that I didn’t have anyone else to go to.
He’ll find me, I thought to myself. He has the money and the single-mindedness to do that.
The only things I had in my pockets were my keys and my purse. I didn’t need to open my purse to know that I had £100 cash with four credit cards and two cash cards – one for my account and one for the account Todd had opened for me, the one that he put money into. He preferred me to use credit cards because he could see what I was spending money on – cash meant I could do something he couldn’t control.
I was scared then. All these things coming into focus, all the big ways and little ways he controlled me, dressed up as love, painted as concern and care, were all ways to make me helpless and dependent. I wouldn’t get far with the little cash in my purse. If I used credit cards he’d find me. If I used the cash cards for my accounts, he’d find me. Todd had shown me quite clearly when he got the car service to record my conversations that he had the means and determination to find someone willing to look the other way or do something completely unethical, to get what he wanted.
My eyes scanned the people moving around the station, the people I could be in another life, the people who had purpose and a place to be, and I realised that all of them were strangers. And I was safer with strangers than I was in the place called home. We’re always taught to be scared of strangers: stranger danger, the person lurking in an alleyway, the person who will plan your demise. But what about the people you know? It’d only ever been the people who knew me who had hurt me. Even Todd had been nice to me when I was a stranger, when I didn’t know him. And people like Frank, poor Frank who was essentially a stranger, who was now out of a job because he was kind to me.
I had to walk away from this life I had, where, once again, someone I knew was hurting me. I looked around the station, looking for a cashpoint. I spotted one, right across the concourse, right near where the trains went to Gatwick Airport, and the coast. Todd had taken me to Brighton a few times: he liked to stay in the big, posh hotels and go out clubbing. It was a smaller city, but there were fewer photographers, more people who wouldn’t recognise us, and even more who would look the other way if he got his stash out as long as he shared. I’d loved it there, and fleetingly I thought of heading there, but I couldn’t go there now. Far too likely to be spotted and remembered.
No, Brighton was out. I would get cash out now. I would sit and wait until after midnight, then I would get another lot of cash out to the limit from both accounts. Then I would use the credit cards to buy some things, ditch them all and then leave London. London would be too unsafe; I would be forever looking over my shoulder, always wondering when I would bump into someone who knew Todd, knew me, knew us when we were a couple. It wouldn’t take long for Todd to give up – a couple of months should do it. He’d realise that I wasn’t going to say anything to anyone, he would find someone else and everyone would forget that I ever existed. Three months was all it would take, I was sure of it.
I handed the driver my brown leather rucksack, filled with three pairs of jeans, five jumpers, five vests, seven bras, seven pairs of knickers, socks and another pair of Converse trainers. All things I’d managed to find in the shops around Victoria station earlier that morning. It obviously hadn’t occurred to Todd to come to the station. He’d be driving round to his friends’ houses, begging their wives to tell him if they’d seen me because we’d had a huge row and he was so sorry.
I had walked the streets around Victoria most of the night. Each street was unique in how it felt. Some of the darker streets were not as threatening as the brighter, neon-cast ones; others were deathly quiet, the silence seeming to hide a thousand dangerous secrets. As I had walked, I’d suddenly started to see them: the people who were living on the streets, the ones I was like, who had nowhere to go. They curled up in doorways, grimy sleeping bags pulled up to their chins, hats pulled low over their ears, rucksacks used as pillows. I knew thousands of homeless people were out there, but I had never seen them so vividly before. It was like, before, they had been invisible but now I saw them. Clearly. I saw them and I knew that I could soon be like them.
I hated myself for that. For not seeing these people until it was a sudden possibility that I could be living like that. But if I left London, which I had to do anyway, went to a cheaper city, maybe I could make the money last a bit longer until I found a job and could maybe get a house share, mayb
e a long-term youth hostel. Anything but going back to Todd. Anything but going even further back to the world of my mum and dad. I had to move on.
I didn’t bother to look around one last time as I boarded the coach. What was there to see? A city that I had loved, that I had believed in, that had let me down twice. London had been my one true love, it had so many wonderful parts to it, but at the end of it, when I analysed it, the city I loved had let me down. Let me get hurt. And I had to leave her behind. Maybe, one day, I’d be able to come back and stay here. Maybe we’d find each other again and we’d be happy together.
In the meantime, I walked the narrow walkway, head down, ignoring the other passengers, until I found a seat near the back of the coach, flopped myself into the seat by the window. I was on the slow coach so I’d have the chance, after the night I had just spent walking around, to sleep for a few hours. Before we even set off, I pulled my knees up to my chest, draped my jacket over myself and closed my eyes. I thought of poor Frank again just before I drifted off. I hoped Todd would do the right thing by Frank to sweeten the deal of me coming back if (probably when, in his mind) he found me. I wanted to help Frank, wanted to plead his case with his employers, possibly threaten them with exposure because them recording clients becoming public knowledge would be bad for business, but I couldn’t. If this was going to work, if I was going to completely escape Todd and the life I had been living, I wouldn’t be able to contact anyone from this life or my previous life again. In fact, I had to leave behind Nika Harper and become someone completely new by the time I arrived in Birmingham.
Roni
London, 2016
I am back in front of the suitcase, trying to guess what is in it rather than simply opening it and finding out. What if I’d gone rogue during my forgotten period of packing? What if I’d ‘borrowed’ the large wooden crucifix without the body of Christ from my wall? What if I’d decided to appropriate a hymn book or two so I could observe and sing Lauds, Vespers, Compline and other parts of the Divine Office, too? What if I had packed my habit? I am a little fearful that the stress of leaving, combined with the anxiety of returning to Chiselwick (and the unknown of who I might bump into), had turned me into a kleptomaniac who wanted to hang on to the important parts of convent life.