- -
- 100%
- +
No, this is Josh’s time.
‘Come on Josh,’ I say loudly. ‘Let’s go. We can get an ice cream on the way home, OK?’
Ice cream brings his head out of the book. ‘Yay!’ he says. It’s like he’s seven again – perpetually delighted by everything.
All that afternoon into evening we play. Aside from ice cream, there is Lego, chess, burping competitions, collaborative homework. Josh gets the best of my best self. When it’s time for bed, we nestle up together on his Lego Movie duvet cover (‘Everything is Awesome’ – yeah, sure it is), and read page and page aloud of his book.
For all that my mother didn’t teach me, one thing she did: the value of books as an escape tool. Tonight, every night, I’m passing on that lore. When it’s time to sleep, tonight (as every night) I don’t want to leave him, or turn out his light. I sit there a little while, until he gently nudges me away with his leg.
‘Night, Mum,’ he mumbles. ‘I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ I tell him. ‘Sweet dreams, Josh.’ I give that beautiful hair/forehead cusp a long kiss. I don’t let him see the tears in my eyes. He doesn’t yet understand all the reasons for crying. And I don’t want him to.
Josh settled, I fetch my customary glass of red wine (there are worse poisons) and pull some leftover potato salad from the fridge. I curl up with it on the sofa, then flick on the TV, softly, so as not to wake Josh. There’s a Jennifer Aniston film halfway through so I settle for that.
Jennifer Aniston at a wedding. Jennifer Aniston looking pretty. Jennifer Aniston with a boy. Good old Jen, out and about. Is that how people live? Do they really flit gorgeously from scene to scene with the only continuity being their subconscious pursuit of an honourable bachelor?
Maybe. Maybe there are people who always pursue and never give up. Chloe, for instance. Unless she really is done. Is that what all this ‘normality’ is that I’m playing at? Waiting to see if Chloe has finally left us alone? And if she has, whether I’ll ever get over my remorse at leaving her?
I change the channel. Some mating insects. Lovely.
I flick off the TV and eat my potato salad in silence.
I’m not sure this is living, really. Is it?
Should I, at twenty-nine, spend my evenings sitting quietly on the sofa, my only pastime respecting my son’s sleep? Unless you count tight-roping between guilt and fear a pastime – I should be a circus act.
But not counting that, should I just be cloistered away here? Yes, I should. And no, I shouldn’t.
Imagine for a moment that a man lived here too. What would that be like? What would we do? Would we sit quietly on the sofa too? Would we murmur sweet nothings? Would we drink wine together, dare the odd loud laugh, even if Josh’s sleep pattern were momentarily disturbed? Would we go out, maybe? Get a babysitter?
Would we feel life had moved on from having a newborn?
I allow my mind to drift back to the man from whence the newborn came. And to her. The evenings spent together. We weren’t alone then. And we weren’t drinking red wine then.
But that wasn’t romance. I can see that now. I can see the fucked-up twisty captivity of it. Wanting a father figure. Wanting stability (ha!). Wanting a house where the only rule is: You don’t touch what’s not yours.
She was his, the other girl. I never was. I need to remember that. But it doesn’t mean I’m safe from her. She’ll come looking, from time to time. A return to chaos. A return to life on the run. Should I check the phone again? Not my regular phone. The other phone. The one I keep under the bed. Probably. Just in case there’s anything on there, about Chloe.
I pull myself up off the sofa, pad into my bedroom, take the phone out of the shoebox. The old, clunky Nokia. Switch it on, half hoping it will beep, half hoping it won’t.
BEEP BEEP.
New message.
It’s from her. Shit.
‘ONE DAY I’M GOING TO FIND YOU.’
I clamp a hand over my mouth, so I won’t cry out. Sent last night – 11.54 p.m. A late-night spear shooting through the dark. When will she give up? When will she let us be?
I know the answer.
Never.
I could reply. I could put an end to it now. Say she’ll never find me unless I go to her first. Which isn’t going to happen. Can’t happen. Because think of Josh. It wouldn’t be safe.
And besides, she might be able to do something clever, like track my location, if I reply. Who knows – desperate times and all that.
No. Just put the phone back in its box. Close the lid on all thoughts of Chloe. You have to be strong. Ignore her. Stop trembling, put away those tears.
Shit. This is why I both should and shouldn’t spend the night on the sofa. Josh needs to be safe but I need somewhere else to put my brain. I should call Daniel tomorrow. Try and get a life. Everything is fine. Everything is safe. I pull myself up, ditch my supper things in the kitchen area. I go and run myself a bath. That’s what this girl needs. A long, hot, soak, to scrub everything away. Maybe one day I’ll feel truly safe. Truly clean.
***
Chloe. Sitting on a sofa. Her hair a wild loose mane, frizzing out to the side of her head. Eyes bright and wide and dark, made darker by the liquid eye liner surrounding them. Knees hugged up to her chest. I’m sitting next to her. On the other side of her, my knees bunched up too, touching almost like mirror images of each other. My hair tied back, not wild at all. We’re holding hands.
‘We’ve got to do it; you know that,’ says Chloe.
‘How? No one will believe us.’
‘They will. We’ll make them. We’ll be safe then. As long as we never ever tell anyone. They won’t know who to blame then, will they?’
I pretend to shake her hand, like I’m making a pact. Except I find I’m not shaking her hand at all. I’m shaking Josh’s hand. He’s there, in a nappy (except he’s as old as he is now), sitting in between us. Chloe gradually fades away, disintegrates into the light.
‘Wait, Chloe! What will I do without you?’
She doesn’t answer. She pretends to be gone. But she’s not gone. I can feel her. I know she is still there, watching.
***
I wake up in cold water, shivering. What the …? Christ, I didn’t know life malaise had spread to day-to-day tiredness. My fingers are shrivelled, my hair is wet, and the flat has a too-quiet feel. I clamber out of the bath and, shivering, grab my bathrobe from the back of the door. Push the recurrent Chloe nightmares to the back of my mind (‘it will take a long time for your subconscious to move on’ I was told).
What’s happened while I was sleeping? Hugging myself, I pad along the dark corridor to Josh’s room, and put my head round the door. There he is, sleeping sweetly. Of course, what else?
I’ve left his curtains open, though. Silly. I must have been so engrossed in him that I forgot the more basic maternal requirements. Still Disney print – Mickey and Minnie Mouse are separated by glass (you get what you’re given; we haven’t replaced them yet, now I’m earning). I’m about to reunite them when I see the car outside. My car. But with the inside light on.
Odd. Why would I have done that?
Maybe when I was hunting round for my bag earlier?
Do I need to go down and turn it off?
I look down at my bare, soggy feet.
Surely not.
But if I don’t, the battery will be flat, we’ll need to call the AA, Josh will be late for important playground business deals again … Urgh. Bloody adulting.
I pull the curtains shut and Josh stirs slightly. At least these days I don’t need to ‘shh’ him to sleep and rub his back, like when he was little. Tiny. In that first place. Jesus, what were they thinking, placing us there …? And maybe the back-rubbing was more for me than for him. Clutching him, facing the door, ready to dodge a bullet at any moment. ‘It will all be OK, Jen.’ All very well for you, love. You’re not the one who’s done this to yourself – to you and your newborn. Had this done to you, rather. We were the victims.
Josh is really stirring now and I don’t want him to think I’m watching him in his sleep (again) so I pad out of the room. I slip on some jeans, a sweater, and some trainers, find the key and pull the door gently shut. Even now, even when he’s a big boy, I worry about leaving him in the flat alone. That’s why I put the rubbish out in the mornings when we’re together.
There was that case, once, about a woman who popped round to her neighbour’s house while her kids were playing inside. While she was out there was a freak gas explosion. The kids died. How do you live with that? At least if she’d been in the house, they’d all be dead together. If all you’ve got are your kids, what do you do if they’re gone?
Outside, I open the car and flick off the light. As I’m doing so, I see the slip of paper on the windscreen that I’d noticed earlier when I was rushing to pick up Joshua. Shutting the car door, I pick up the bit of paper and read what it says.
I inhale sharply.
Because on it is written: ‘WE KNOW YOUR SECRET.’
What? The paper shakes in my hands. Shit. First the text message. Now this. We need to move again. I should go up and grab Josh now, put him in the car. Flee.
Then I turn the paper over.
‘… Even if you don’t. We’ll find the secrets in your family tree and share them. Look www.secretancestor.com today!’
Oh for fuck’s sake. Jen, it’s fine. It’s an ad. ‘We know your secret’ is a marketing slogan. You’re safe. Josh is safe. For once and for all, get over yourself.
I stuff the paper in my pocket and let myself back into the block of flats.
‘Go to bed and get a life,’ I mumble to myself as I climb the stairs.
I almost don’t notice the package on the doormat.
Chapter 7
‘I don’t live here, I don’t live here!’
‘You do. You have to stay!’
‘I don’t want to be friends with you. I have other friends, back in the other home.’
‘No you don’t. I know. No friends, no friends, no friends.’
The chanting, from everywhere. No friends, no friends, no friends.
Then the spitting, then the kicking. The hair-dragging. The head held out of the window, the ground too far but also too close below.
No friends, no friends, no friends.
‘Stop it! Stop it! Let me go!’
‘You’re sure? You want us to let you go?’
Her voice. The ringleader. Her, who I’d seen at another home, once before. Back again to torture me.
‘What’s going on? Chloe, what’s happening?’
A loud voice, an adult voice.
‘Stop this at once!’
And so they stop. She stops. I fall to the floor. People peel away.
All is calm. The rest of my first evening passes without episode.
But then, when I go to bed, there it is. An envelope on my pillow. One of those jiffy bags. I open it, thinking it might be a settling present from the home. But no. It’s shit. Literally. The envelope is fully of shit. A little welcome present, from my new friends.
***
Josh is shaking me awake. I open my eyes to find myself sitting at the kitchen table with a half-built Lego spaceship in front of me.
‘Your package arrived,’ I tell him. Because it was addressed to him. Not to me. What I found outside our flat last night.
No shit in this one. Doesn’t stop the memories though. I hope he won’t notice my eyes are puffy. Christ, there was much worse stuff. But it’s those little cruel ones that stick in your dreams. Emotional torment scars just as deep as the physical stuff.
Josh looks at what appeared in his package.
‘What! You built my spaceship? Mum, you can’t do that – it was mine to build!’
Urgh. What was I thinking? Of course boys like to build their own Lego. I look at my effort. It’s not that worthy of thanks, but some would be nice. I started another cup of tea between the booster engine and the hatch door. I think I lost my place in the instructions; the hinges don’t quite work.
Unhinged. Hah.
‘Sorry, Josh. I wasn’t thinking. Why don’t you break it up and start again, OK?’ He tuts at me, but he does as I say. ‘I’m going to go and shower,’ I tell him. ‘Grab yourself some toast.’
I rustle off, leaving him fussing over the spaceship.
I’m such an idiot. Why did I spend all night in a fitful half-dream, half-wake, full-of-hatred place just because my kid ordered a toy? Him and his mates, they’re members of some ‘Activity envelope’ club – you (I) pay a monthly subscription and some toy turns up. Usually they’re crappy bouncy balls or Airfix model aeroplanes. But Lego is cool.
Apart from when it gives you nightmares. Stupid. A neighbour must have received it for us earlier then left it on the mat outside our flat when I popped out. And I chose to spend the night sobbing into the kitchen table because of some stupid incident way back in another lifetime. When Chloe was still around.
But she’s gone. And she’s not coming back. Whatever those texts say, I won’t allow it. I think about it under my bed. I should check it again, shouldn’t I? No, not now. Focus. Jump in the shower, wham on some concealer, stick on a pretty dress and try not to lose my job through having cotton wool for a brain.
And get a life. Stop sitting on the sofa every evening, brooding. Move on.
Josh has finished the spaceship by the time I’m back from the shower.
‘Right, let’s fly to the moon!’ I tell him.
‘I need to get to school, not outer space,’ he chides me. I see his eyes flick to the clock. That child is a punctuality addict.
‘That’s what I meant, kiddo. Let’s go.’
‘No coffee?’ he asks.
‘You’re enough of a wake-up call for me, my love!’ I don’t tell him I was up half the night drinking caffeine.
‘Uh-oh! Don’t crash the car!’
‘Hah, hah. Come on, get your blazer.’
I manage not to crash the car either on the way to school or to the office.
In the car park I notice that no one else has a bit of paper on their windscreen claiming to know their secrets. But then, like me, I guess that everyone else has been home and removed it. Probably not after falling asleep in the bath and before having a panic attack but – hey! – that’s Jen Sutton for you. Full of surprises.
‘Pretty dress, Jen!’ Sheila calls out when I walk in.
‘Thank you! Coffee in a mo!’ I shout back.
Before I can even think about cleaning the cups, Bill is at my shoulder.
‘Ah, Jen. Can I have a word, please?’
He looks grave.
‘Sure, what’s up?’
‘In my office?’
‘Oh, of course. Sorry.’
I troop behind him. He shuts the door behind me. He offers me a chair and I sit across the desk from him.
‘Look, Jen,’ he starts. Fuck it. Conversations that start that way never end well. I smooth down my dress and try not to panic.
‘I know you’ve got, well, special circumstances.’ Bless him. He always speaks like we’ve been bugged. ‘But other people, they don’t know that. They’re not going to make allowances. Lucy, for instance.’
Oh shit. Lucy. In all my internal melodramas I’d forgotten about Lucy and her stupid forms.
‘Now, don’t worry, I’ve talked to her for now. She calmed down. Didn’t explain any, um, history, just explained that you don’t have anyone to help with the childcare and all that. Can’t help it if you need to rush away.’
‘Thanks, Bill. I appreciate it.’
‘Don’t worry, don’t worry. The thing is, though, there will sometimes be deadlines and we need to be able to count on you or … someone … to meet them. Or just be extra-efficient during the day. You understand?’
‘Yes, Bill. I do, but –’
‘Yes, I know, I know the buts. Listen, I get it, I really do. And I’d have a heck of a job explaining letting you go to – well, you know who. But I’m not running an outreach service. I’m running a law firm. OK?’
‘OK.’
I nod. I look earnestly into his eyes. I do the ‘you can count on me’ sincere smile.
And then I go into the bathroom and I cry.
He doesn’t fucking get it all. He doesn’t get that there’s only one of me. He doesn’t get how fucking hard I’m trying and how difficult, how fucking fucking difficult it is going around with ‘my secret’. How much I want to just be like everyone else, but it’s not my bloody fault – it’s not – I had to do it; I had to get out and you’d think, ten years on, that you might somehow have managed to escape that and that you could live like an ordinary person and that your boss who knows all (or some, a bit) of the baggage, would understand why I can’t just leave my son wafting around after school for anyone to collect. Fucking bitch Lucy. Fucking bastard Bill. Why can’t they be more like Tim?
But even as I rant I know; I know that he’s right. Of course I’ve got to do my work, like anybody else. Of course I have to balance my childcare responsibilities with my work. It’s the real fucking world. It’s what everyone complains about. I can’t hide in my shadow world. I’ve got to get real. I’ve got to find a way to keep a job, a child, a life going at the same time.
Yeah, sure, the State will pay me if I sit on my arse at home (a luxury, I wouldn’t even have to prove I was looking for work). Or even if I’d gone ahead and home-schooled him (at first it seemed like the only option – I couldn’t think about leaving him at school). But it wouldn’t be enough. It wouldn’t pay for monthly toy boxes. And it wouldn’t get me off that fucking sofa. Thinking. Brooding.
So. Calm down. Deep breaths. Be professional. At work, focus on work. Do something proactive. Show Bill he can count on you. Be indispensible. Dry your eyes. Go and see Tim about that case. Thank him for trying to smooth things over with Lucy yesterday.
I wait until I’m sure there’s no one around then I emerge from my cubicle.
Hah. Wasted effort with that mascara then.
I wipe away the black lines from under my eyes. Unfortunately much of the concealer comes off with it. So I look tired, but not like a tired panda. Which is probably for the best.
Jen, you can do this. You must do this. Forget the coffee for once. Go straight to Tim.
‘Oh, hi, Jen,’ says Tim when I knock on the door of his office.
‘Hey,’ I say. ‘Listen, thanks for yesterday.’
He looks surprised. ‘Oh, with Lucy? Don’t mention it. She was being a little … intense right?’
‘Right.’
‘She should maybe talk to someone about her stress levels, not make it your problem.’
‘But you didn’t have to do that,’ I tell him. ‘I appreciate it.’ I hear my voice waver. Oh, shit. Don’t be a wimp. What would Chloe have said if you began blubbing away at a simple act of kindness? Not that kindness and Chloe ever had much to do with each other.
‘Look, don’t worry about it,’ Tim says gently. Calm, soothing. Like I imagine a good dad would be. Not from personal experience, of course. ‘Besides, I couldn’t have her getting my new project member fired, could I? Just steer clear of her if you can. OK?’
‘OK.’
He looks back to his desk like he expects me to leave the room. When I don’t, he looks up again. ‘Anything else I can help you with?’
‘I just wondered if we could chat through the Rhea Stevens case, if you’ve got time?’ I ask. Deferential but enthusiastic. What a good adoptive daughter I would have made. If anyone had bothered with me.
‘Sure, why not, now you’re here.’
‘Thanks. I had a look through the exhibits file, but it would be good to get the wider background.’
I sit down. In my haste, I haven’t brought a notebook, so I prepare my brain for an onslaught.
‘Bit of a shocker, some of those photos in the exhibits file, hey?’ he asks me, sitting back at his desk.
It feels like a test. That I have to show my mettle, that I’m not too weak to handle the case.
‘It’s pretty tough to shock me,’ I tell him. I just hope he wasn’t there to see me go powder-white when I first opened that file. And that he won’t test me on the photos, because I couldn’t face looking at them all. Not because of what they are. But because of what they are to me.
‘Good, I thought I could count on you,’ Tim says, smiling. Then his smile fades. ‘Bit of a sad case, this one,’ he says. ‘For us, that is. Not much of a defence, even with Dan’s fine skills.’
‘OK, good start,’ I say. Doesn’t sound like I’m going to make myself a superstar in the firm’s eyes on this one, then.
‘The accused, Rhea Stevens, classic sort of drug slash prostitution background. String of offences stretching back over a decade. There was one real big one a while ago but the police couldn’t get her for it – the jury weren’t convinced – so it looks like the police are trying to pin everything else on her until they can finally get her.’
‘Did she do any of it?’
‘The police are satisfied she did. And they never get the wrong guy, do they?’
I squirm a little. I’m not used to these sorts of debates. Tim gives me a searching look then continues. ‘So we’re doing the usual sort of kicking dust in the jury’s eyes bit – were the witnesses credible, was it a dark night, was she under duress, all that sort of thing.’
‘OK,’ I tell him. ‘So, what, are we having a con with her?’
‘I already did that,’ he tells me. ‘The notes are on the full case file. First up: have a proper read in, now you know a bit of the background. I’ll see if I can tee something up with Dan for later today, seeing as you’re keen. I don’t think he’s in court.’
‘Great,’ I say. I try to push down the part of me that wants to shout, ‘It can’t be too late; I need to pick up Josh.’
‘You do school pick-up, don’t you?’ asks Tim. I nod. ‘I’ll be sure to work round that. When we get to trial it might be a bit tricky but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. OK?’
I nod. ‘Thanks, Tim. I appreciate it. Oh, and you don’t need to worry about the confidentiality. I get it,’ I tell him. I want him to know he can count on me. I certainly know how to keep secrets.
Tim smiles. ‘Good to hear, Jen. Look, you probably think I’m overdoing it. But I’ve seen these cases go wrong because someone who’s got a chum in the CPS drops a name over a beer. Has a laugh about a “no good” case. Lets slip a little strategy titbit because it’s all cosy-cosy, old pals’ chat. But then – wham! The old CPS mate happens to know exactly who is working on that case, exactly who’d like a tip-off and suddenly the other side have the inside track, and you might as well give up your case there and then.’
I nod. It makes sense. Maybe a bit paranoid, but it’s his case, not mine.
‘Normally, I wouldn’t care,’ he says. ‘But this case, this Rhea Stevens – it matters, OK? I want it to go right. Don’t want this girl robbed of any more life chances by careless talk.’
‘I understand,’ I tell him. And I do. It feels a lot like a lecture I had ten years ago about careless talk – that there are some things you don’t tell anyone. Ever. ‘I promise, I’ll keep it confidential.’
‘Good. I’d like to think my fellow partners here aren’t ones to gossip after a few drinks but I don’t know all of them that well yet, you know? And for God’s sake, don’t tell Lucy about it – I think after yesterday she’d happily blab just to get even with me.’
I nod again. Pleased to be working for one of the good guys at last, I pick up the file Tim indicated and take it back to my desk.
I flick through the file first to see what’s there. Lots of handwritten notes, clipped together with their typed-up counterparts. First witness meeting, copies of letters to the CPS, transcript of the committal hearing. Nothing about a court date yet, so far as I can see, and it doesn’t look like there’s been much from the CPS by way of advance disclosure.
A photo of Rhea. She’s beautiful. Her skin is the lightest caramel, with a smattering of darker caramel freckles across the bridge of her nose and her high cheekbones. Her eyes, sitting beneath perfectly arched eyebrows, are a deep brown, almost black. I’d like to say they shine. But they don’t. They are dulled by goodness knows what. I flick back to the beginning again and read the notes from the first witness meeting.