“Something like that. Could be things are looking up!” He winks at me. “Get your lippy on, lovely wife. Let’s go out to the Peking Palace.”
All I want to do is take my shoes off, drain some wine, go to bed, and pass out, but I can see that’s not an option. He’s already pulling his jacket on.
“We can walk down to the Navigation for a drink first. Make it a date night.” He leans forward and kisses me. I don’t trust this good mood. I don’t trust it at all. He’s up to something. My nerves sing and my bruises throb in harmony as I follow him out and close the door. And it won’t end well.
31
2001
After
His face is an outline in the darkness. They’re both hidden in the night, only the rustle of cotton sheets betraying their existence as she talks. She loves him, she knows that. He says he loves her. He says they’re going to be together forever. He takes care of her. He wants her to move in with him. Joanne is happy she has a boyfriend but says she should take it slowly. Be sure. Joanne wants her to keep her flat for a little while, so there’s no pressure. Joanne says living together is a big step.
She still loves Joanne and can’t imagine life without her support but she wishes she’d stop treating her like a child. It’s true she’s only been with Jon for a few months but they’re inseparable and she’s a woman in her twenties. It sounds older than twenty-three. But still, twenty-three is hardly a baby.
Jon makes her laugh. No one has made her laugh like that since . . . well . . . since then. But her body is now made of different cells. She’s a different person. The sheets beneath her are damp, but with adult sweat, not shameful urine. This is her new life.
She leans back against the pillow, the world swimming a little. They’ve been drinking—him more than her—he drinks far more than she does but that’s what men do, isn’t it? Get drunk? She likes it when his eyes are hazy and he looks at her with so much love and a big boyish grin on his face. In those moments she thinks she’ll explode with happiness. And sometimes, just sometimes, when they’re sitting together on her little sofa in front of some comedy film and eating sweet-and-sour pork and chicken chow mein and he apologizes that they can’t afford to do more while she’s thinking she’s in heaven, sometimes, she can forget the secret she’s keeping from him. For so long she’s been worried about people knowing, but now she feels she’ll burst if she doesn’t tell him. How can she say she loves him and not be honest? How can he be sure he loves her if he doesn’t know?
The dark shape of him moves beside her and he leans up to take a swallow of red wine from the tumbler by the bed. He holds it out to her and she does the same. It dries her mouth but it’s warm and makes her head sing. The buzz reminds her of before too. When she was a different person. She’s been thinking about the past far too much. Worrying at it like a tiny splinter under a nail that she can’t get out. But it’s always there, between them. Even here in the echoes of their lovemaking.
“Jon,” she starts, before hesitating. He tries to pull her back in to lie on his chest but she doesn’t want the reassuring beat of his heart right now. Not until she’s sure it belongs to her. “I have something to tell you.” Her voice is disembodied, floating in the dark. His face is grainy and for once she’s glad of the thick curtains that block all brightness from the street lamp outside. Normally, when she can’t sleep, the darkness chokes her, but tonight she’s using it as a comfort blanket to hide within.
“You sound serious.” He laughs a little but there’s an edge to it and she realizes he thinks this is about them, that perhaps she’s done something, perhaps there’s another boy. It astounds her to think he could ever worry she’d leave him. She’ll love him until the day she dies.
“It’s something I need you to know. But something you can never ever tell another person.” He quiets, cowed by the seriousness of her words. “Do you promise?” she asks.
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” he says. His words suck the life from her for a frozen moment as her nerves jangle and her palms sweat. Was this a bad omen? Him saying those words that have haunted her for so long? Should she say nothing? Joanne has told her to stay silent. Joanne said it was human nature to want to tell. People want to share things but some things you have to carry on your own. If at some point in the future they had a baby, apparently that would be different. Then, perhaps, he’d have to know. But then he’d also have a reason not to tell anyone else.
He’s waiting for her to say more and her mouth moves guppy-like, opening and closing silently. There will be a baby, so why not tell now? Babies are what happen in the world when a girl and a boy fall in love, and it’s not as if they’ve always been careful. She should have made sure they were careful, but she found herself not bothering. She knows what that means. There’s been far too much analysis over the years for her not to see her motivations clearly. She wants a baby. It’s a thought that both excites and terrifies her. The idea of it is too fragile and precious to examine.
She opens her mouth again, still wondering how to begin. Once upon a time? Turn it into a dark fairy tale? Try and frame it all in something sugarcoated? It’s a stupid thought. However she tells it, it will be shocking. He may never speak to her again. He may strangle her right here in their bed, as so many strangers have said they’d like to do.
She will tell him. But she won’t talk about the actual event. She’s never talked about that. She can’t talk about that. She did it, what more is there to say? As it is, she starts with her name. Delivers the punchline first. Her cells might all be new but there has not been so much time passed that her real name isn’t at the very least a familiar ringing bell in people’s heads. A bogeyman to scare small children with. Be home for tea or Charlotte Nevill will get you.
She speaks into the gloom, stilted quiet sentences that belie their weight, and although she’s oh so aware of him lying beside her, his body inadvertently tensing with her words, she doesn’t turn to look at him once, but spills her story out until it’s an added layer of darkness, an extra sheet across them both.
When she’s done, and it really doesn’t take long to tell, the truth rarely does, there is only silence. He sits up and reaches for the wineglass. She hears him swallow. Everything stops. She’s made a terrible mistake. She wishes she could cry. The silence is endless as it all whirrs about in his head. She looks up at him and wonders if this dark silhouette is the last she’ll ever see of him. Her legacy life suddenly seems to be an origami horse, like the ones Mr. Burton makes with leftover paper. Beautifully constructed. So easily crushed.
“I’m sorry, Jon,” she whispers, and although her eyes are dry, her voice cracks. “I’m so sorry.”
But then he’s telling her it’s all right and that he loves her and he presses his naked skin to hers and they kiss. He loves her. He loves her.
In the weeks that come after, when she realizes the sickness and tiredness and constant hunger aren’t anything to worry about and that their two is about to become three, she thinks she knows when their baby was made. In that special, open, honest night.
It was as if maybe, maybe, God had forgiven her.
32
Ava
Now
Finally, finally I got them all to go. To give us “some time to ourselves.” It wasn’t easy. They act like we’re kids no one trusts to be safe alone, but after being all sweetness and light for a while I got my way. Some time alone with Mum. One night without any of them around.
It was weird when they all left. This tiny flat suddenly felt so big. Alison put a load of contact numbers on the fridge, which looks so normal until you remember they’re not for cleaners or babysitters, but police and psychiatrists and probation officers. Still, my stomach fizzes with excitement and nerves. Not my life anymore. Not after tonight. Even if he doesn’t show up—he will show up, of course he’ll show up—I’m not coming back. I’ve decided. Mum’s trying to be more normal but we haven’t talked about it. What she did that day. Alison says sh
e never has. I think they’re hoping that maybe she’ll open up to me, but that won’t happen. I don’t want to know and I don’t want to hear her speaking with my mum’s voice. She’s not Mum anymore, just some twisted freak from the newspapers.
Alison wasn’t her probation officer when I was born. That was some woman called Joanne. Alison came along when we moved areas when I was small. It’s a past life. Not mine. My life is in my future. Soon Mum will be a memory. History. She already is after all this. How can I try to love her or understand her, however much I might wonder about the years before I was born? She’s a stranger. She’s a lie. It’s easier to remember that now we look so different.
I didn’t want my hair cut but I gritted my teeth and let them do it and I actually think the bob suits me. They razor-cut it and it’s quite cool. Ange would fucking love it. I’m also a redhead now—not ginger but a deep auburn—and they gave me brown contacts. It’s weird how such small changes make me look like a new person. I’ve practiced doing my makeup differently too. Bigger lines around my eyes. Confident colors. With slightly different clothes on I’ll look like a totally new person. Mum looked like she was going to cry when she saw me. She didn’t though. She’s not a crier—that’s what they say about her. She didn’t cry then. Not in court or anything.
I told her I liked my new look and then she was okay about it. She says sorry all the time for everything. I’m so sorry about this, Ava. As if it’s a dress ruined in the wash, not our whole lives down the drain.
They’ve changed her too. She’s blond now. Not properly blond or anything hot, but a kind of sandy run-of-the-mill color. She looks younger, although that could be because she’s lost some weight. Alison and the police are less worried about how she looks. There are hardly any pictures of her for people to recognize her from. The papers aren’t allowed to print them, and now all her privacy and hating herself in photos and “What would I do with Facebook anyway?” comments are making sense.
We didn’t really talk at all on this night to ourselves I’d arranged. Alison left a supermarket version of a Chinese takeaway in the fridge and I heated it up and we ate it on our laps in front of the telly. I said I liked her hair and she started to apologize all over again. I said it didn’t matter and we’d get through it. She looked so relieved. How can she think it’s that easy? Like we can get back to how we were before? That life was a pack of lies anyway.
Yesterday, when I had started my campaign of niceness, she came into my room, picking at the edges of her fingers as she sat on my bed. She told me to write down any questions I had for her. It was Alison’s idea. Not questions about it—she can’t bring herself to say what she did—but about her life and our lives and anything else. She said she’ll answer them all as best she can. I told her I would, but I didn’t mean it. I don’t want to know any of it now. Okay, maybe I do want to know—tell me about my dad—but what good would it do? It doesn’t matter. Not anymore.
We watched more TV and drank cups of tea as if this were some normal evening at home, and I quietly clock-watched, desperate for the time to pass, wondering if he was feeling the same.
Eventually Mum took her sleeping pill—I wonder how many pills they’ve got her on right now—and I made a big deal of yawning and saying I was tired, and I kissed her on the head before going to my room. It was the only freaky moment in all this. Something about the smell of her scalp made my stomach cramp, and for a second I wanted to climb on to her lap like I did when I was small. When she was my world. It was a funny, horrible feeling and I slammed the lid on it hard. I don’t know if she’s capable of loving me—if she could love, she’d never have done what she did—and I can’t understand why she even had me. These are the sorts of questions Alison wants me to write down. But fuck them. I’m not going to be here. She’s not part of my new life. He’s my world and he’ll be waiting. He has to be.
I lie in my bed in the dark, my clothes on under the duvet that’s pulled up under my chin. What will he think of my new look? I’ll have to change it again, anyway. The hair color at least, because no doubt the police will look for me. But I’m sixteen. I’m not a child. They’ll think I’ve run away, and they’ll be right. I’m going to leave a note. It says, Don’t come and look for me. It’s short but does the job and I didn’t want to mention him. It’s not his fault this is such a fucked-up situation.
Has Alison noticed the money missing from her wallet? I took thirty when she was in talking to Mum before she left, and I took a twenty from the psychiatrist yesterday. She hasn’t been back today so fuck knows whether she suspected.
Anyway, fifty should be enough if I can find a phone box for a cab or a bus still running. I’ve got to get to the country lane where we’re going to meet. Where no one will see us. It’s farther away now, but still doable. We said four a.m. so I’ve got plenty of time. If he’s not there I’ll go to Ange’s or Jodie’s. But he will be there. He loves me. When we’re safely away, I’ll message my friends and tell them not to worry. I’ll have to deal with the other thing too, the thin blue line Jodie was going to help me sort out, but he’ll take care of that. I know he will. He’s been so understanding about Courtney, even though he got jealous. Will having an abortion make me feel more grown up? Will I seem more grown up to him? Maybe one day we’ll have children of our own but right now, I just want this thing out of me. Maybe it will go away all by itself. When I’m not feeling sick, I can almost pretend it’s not there.
I wait until the flat is completely silent. My heart thumps. My mouth is dry. He will be there, he will be there, I tell myself. He won’t let me down. I push my covers back and quietly stand. I don’t put my shoes on yet. They can wait until I’m out of the flat and in the corridor.
I gather my things and check my pockets for my money before creeping out the front door.
This is it, I think. And then I’m gone.
33
Marilyn
“Look. There. You see?” Richard holds the magazine out in front of me. “She’s done it.” Mrs. Goldman, the old bird who lives—lived—next door to Lisa stares out at me from the cover. She looks frail. Did someone bully her into this? It’s a lurid magazine, the gossipy kind found in dentists’ and doctors’ waiting rooms. I glance at the headline above the photo of Mrs. Goldman on her front step: “Charlotte Nevill’s Neighbor Tells All—the Secret Life of the Child Killer.” I take the magazine and drop it on the side, flicking to the relevant page. A quote stands out. “I always knew she was odd. A loner.”
“It’s bullshit,” I say, turning away to stir my coffee. “And she should be ashamed of herself. Lisa used to buy her bloody shopping for her, and add extra treats. She checked on Mrs. Goldman more than her own family ever did.”
“That’s not the point.” I hear it then. The anvil hardness. He’s running out of patience with me and playing nice hasn’t worked. “If she can peddle this shit to a national magazine, we can probably up the Mail’s offer. It’s your story they all want. You knew her best.”
“Given how things stand, I’d say I didn’t really know her at all.” I don’t have time for this. I have to go to work, so I slide past—gently does it—to get my coat and feel the tension radiating from him as he tries to keep his rage under control.
“I don’t understand why you won’t do it.” He follows me into the corridor. “It’s money for nothing. It could sort all our financial problems out.”
Not my problems, I want to say. Yours. “It’s not for nothing. It’s dirty. Sleazy. You’ve always said that about anyone who sells a story yourself.”
“It’s like you’re protecting her,” he growls. “Always defending her.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You did it just then. About the old woman.”
I pause at the front door. “I wouldn’t want Ava to read it. Me talking about them for money. She has no one to trust at the moment.”
“You’re never going to see her again so why does it matter! Why can’t you get that into
your thick head?”
I let the front door slam behind me. There are still a couple of reporters—for want of a better word—dirt diggers, maybe—loitering at the end of the drive, but I don’t look their way, let alone answer as they call out to me. I get in my car, put my sunglasses on, and drive—too fast for our 20 mph speed limit—until I’m free of them.
If only it was so easy to escape all of it. I think about the £40,000 the Daily Mail has offered. Richard said they got in touch with him, but he hasn’t knocked so much sense out of me this year I’d buy that. He called them, of course he did, and told them all about Lisa and me and our friendship and how much insight I’d have into her day-to-day life. His face was a picture when I said no. He couldn’t believe it. Especially when he realized how powerless he was in this. No one wants his story—it’s not worth a fraction of mine. How did I ever think this man was love? Even in the early days, when I’d help him with his work, study the shapes and spaces of houses with him, give him ideas for clients, I should have known it would come to this eventually. Why are you wearing red lipstick? Who are you wearing it for? The little accusations should have been my first clue, so many years ago.
My phone starts ringing. Him. I let it ring out and when I stop at the traffic lights I send a short text: I’ll think about it. I really should think about it. I don’t owe Lisa anything, and Ava probably isn’t looking at the papers anyway. Given everything else, I doubt it would matter to her. But it would matter to me. I’m angry at Mrs. Goldman, because she should know better. She’s lonely. I hear the words in Lisa’s voice. She’s probably just enjoying the attention. At least she can afford a cake now and then after this. I shut the voice down. Lisa doesn’t get to be Mother Teresa in my head now. She’s the fucking problem. Even now that she’s gone I’m still left carrying the can for her.