I looked away, p.15
I Looked Away, page 15
Eventually, camp ended. Everyone else’s parents collected them by car. I had hoped my father would do the same, but he was at work. Instead, I was instructed to catch the train, and he’d meet me at the station. But as I came out, struggling with my haversack, trying to avoid the pavement cracks, I saw Sheila waiting in the car. She didn’t bother getting out to help. Instead, she flipped down the vanity mirror and began applying pink lipstick very slowly and deliberately, as if my arrival was of no consequence to her. Then the back door opened and Michael flew towards me, his arms outstretched. ‘Ellie,’ he said, clasping his arms around my neck as I knelt down so our faces were close. ‘I’ve missed you.’
I breathed in his smell and held him tight.
‘Come back, Michael!’ Sheila shouted. ‘That’s dangerous. Ellie – stop standing in the road like that. Get him into the car safely.’
I was in trouble before I’d even said hello.
Michael held my hand tightly, insisting I sat in the back with him. When we eventually got home – Sheila was a nervous driver and never exceeded 25 mph – he followed me up to my bedroom, watching as I unpacked my clothes, most of which I’d almost outgrown.
‘Are you coming with us to France?’ he asked.
His speech had come on so fast during my absence. To think he was five now!
‘Yes,’ I said, picking him up and twirling him round in the air before gently putting him down. ‘We’ll be able to visit some castles. ‘Won’t that be fun?’
He frowned. ‘Will there be dragons inside? I saw one on television and it scared me.’
‘No.’ I sat him on my knee, remembering how I’d got told off about my crocodile story. ‘Dragons are just pretend.’
He wriggled off. ‘Can we go to the park?’
Sheila gave us permission, providing I was ‘careful’. We had a great time on the swings. ‘I do admire you young mums,’ said an elderly woman who was pushing her grandson. ‘You have so much energy.’
I flushed. One of the girls at school had taught me how to use mascara so I looked more sophisticated than I used to. ‘I’m not his mother,’ I said. ‘He’s my little brother.’
‘You don’t say!’
I rather liked the idea that a stranger thought Michael was mine. It made me feel special. And I also knew it would annoy Sheila if she knew.
When we got home, Michael still wasn’t tired so we played football on the lawn. ‘More, more!’ he kept yelling. ‘Get this one, Ellie!’
‘Someone’s back, then,’ called out my father from the patio doors.
‘Daddy!’ yelled Michael, hurtling towards him.
I felt a pang even though I knew my father’s words had been for me. Michael had his company every day. This was my turn. I couldn’t help running up to him like a child myself.
‘Good to see you,’ he said, giving me one of his lovely warm hugs.
Behind him, I saw Sheila glowering.
‘Everything all right?’
‘Of course it is,’ she said, despite the fact that he hadn’t been asking her. ‘Why wouldn’t it be?’
‘Looking forward to the holiday, Ellie?’ It was as if my father was ignoring her. I could sense tension. Maybe they’d had an argument. Good!
‘Yes.’
‘Sorry I couldn’t meet you at the station but I had to pick something up for your mother.’
Instantly I felt hurt. ‘I thought you were at work.’
‘I was.’ He looked sheepish. ‘But, like I said, I was asked to do chores on the way back.’
Now I got it. My stepmother hadn’t wanted him to meet me. She knew I’d be disappointed if he wasn’t there, and I had been.
‘We’ve just got an invitation from the Daniels to their lunch party, Nigel,’ said Sheila in a brighter voice.
My heart leapt. The Daniels were a local family who lived in a big house and entertained a lot. They were regular customers at my father’s stationery shop and my own mother had been friends with Mrs Daniels through church. Even though Sheila usually didn’t like mixing with anyone who was connected with my mother, it was clear she was happy, for snobbish reasons, to make an exception. The Gordons knew them too, and Peter had actually mentioned their party in his last letter to me. He would go with his parents, he said, in the hope that I would be there as well. I promised I’d do my best.
My father groaned. ‘Do we have to go? It’s a Friday after all. Surely people will be at work. It means I’ve got to take a day off myself.’
Sheila rolled her eyes. ‘It’s the Daniels’ twenty-fifth and they’re holding it on the actual day. Most of the guests are the kind who can take a day off work. Frankly, it’s an honour to be invited even though it is so late. We’re probably filling in numbers as so many people have already left for their summer holidays.’ Her lips tightened. ‘The children have been asked too. Goodness knows why. Anyway, I accepted. You’re always saying you want to do family things together.’
‘That’s good,’ he said with more enthusiasm. ‘Now come inside, Ellie. I want to hear all about school.’
‘Careful when you go into the kitchen,’ called out my stepmother. ‘I dropped something just now and haven’t had time to sweep it up.’
Blue-and-yellow china fragments were all over the floor. ‘No!’ I fell to my knees. ‘Mummy’s cup.’ I picked up a small piece, the flowery pattern taking me back years in an instant.
I leapt up and grabbed my father’s arm. ‘She broke it. She did it on purpose.’
‘Come, come, Ellie,’ admonished my father. ‘I’m sure that’s not true.’
Of course it was! Why wouldn’t he stick up for me? But all he wanted was to please that stupid woman.
It wasn’t fair. I ran upstairs, sobbing, holding the broken china carefully in my hands. ‘What shall I do, Mummy?’ I wept, lying on my bed. ‘I can’t take any more.’
26
Jo
Tim makes me have the bed. ‘You need it,’ he says awkwardly. Someone once taught that kid some manners.
So he and Lucky take the narrow bench by the table instead.
We start getting into a routine. We sleep in late because it’s warmer that way. Later, we take it in turns to go foraging for sweet chestnuts. Then we go together to the shop to get more tins. I stand guard while Tim crawls through the broken window at the back. In the afternoon, we listen to the radio – there’s an old transistor on the side and we found new batteries in the shop. I like the Steve Wright show. He sounds really nice. We also go for walks with the dog. In the evening, we play snakes and ladders or draughts or one of the other games we found in a cupboard.
For the first time I can remember, I start to relax. We’ve got everything we need. There’s a kettle and even a little red teapot to make tea. We might not have any water inside but there’s an outside tap and a bucket. There’s also a pile of matching blue-and-white towels which the owners have left in one of the cupboards.
It’s almost like being on holiday – not that I remember when I last had one. In a drawer, along with knives and forks, I find a pack of cards. Tim teaches me to play a game called ‘cheat’. I don’t let on that I already know it.
At night, he talks in his sleep. ‘Mum,’ he moans over and over again. His cries sometimes wake Lucky, curled up in his arms as if he’s always belonged there. Then the dog licks Tim on his face and they both go back to sleep again.
One evening, Tim leaves the dog with me and goes out. ‘Got something to do,’ he says.
I get all twitchy when it becomes dark and he’s still not back. I’m also cross with myself for starting to rely on him. Isn’t this why I usually travel on my own? It gets complicated when you’re with someone else.
‘Where were you?’ I demand when he finally returns. I haven’t got a watch but the clock on the caravan wall says it’s nearly 2.30 in the morning.
‘What’s it to you? You’re not my mother.’ Something seems different about him tonight.
‘You’re right,’ I say. ‘But it’s a scary world out there. I’m just trying to protect you.’
He rolls his eyes. ‘I’m the one who saved you, remember?’
True.
‘I went for a walk, OK? I wanted some time on my own. Sometimes I feel strange and I need to get out. I’m going to bed.’
I let it go.
This time Lucky chooses to curl up in bed with me. It’s like he knows Tim needs to be on his own. I bury my nose in his fur and fall instantly asleep, his warm heart beating against my chest.
When I wake, Tim is peering over me anxiously. ‘You OK?’
I sit halfway up on my elbows. ‘Why?’
‘You were having a bad dream.’
Not again. ‘What did I say?’
‘You kept calling out, “You killed him.”’ His eyes narrow. ‘Is someone after you? Or is it you that’s looking for someone?’
I lie back down on my pillow. ‘I’ve told you, it’s none of your business,’ I say. ‘You have bad dreams too and I don’t ask you questions. Want to tell me why you keeping calling for your mum?’
‘Piss off.’
‘Exactly. Now go to bed.’
After a week, I’m going a bit stir-crazy.
‘I’m off for a walk,’ I say.
Tim mutters and turns over in his sleep. Outside, the air feels clean and fresh after the stuffy caravan. The dog comes with me. We don’t have a lead but Lucky just follows me around. He starts digging in the leaves. ‘Any rabbits?’ I ask.
His ears are cocked like he knows what I’m saying.
I’m wearing black leggings and a thick navy-blue fleecy sweatshirt that Tim nicked from the caravan shop. I start whistling as we head down a hill and then up another. I don’t mean to go far, but somehow I end up in a small village. The signpost has a weird name that I can’t get my tongue round. But it’s pretty. I find myself wondering if I might be able to find a job here, where they don’t ask too many questions. Maybe we could stay all winter.
There’s a pub ahead. I wouldn’t mind a swig of something strong but I don’t have any cash.
And that’s when I see the newspaper poster outside a small village shop. It’s wet with rain. But the photograph is clear enough. And the words are still readable.
HAS OXFORDSHIRE MURDERER DONE IT BEFORE?
‘Get a lot of runaways in these parts, we do,’ says a voice.
A large man in a pair of dirty old jeans and a fisherman’s jacket is standing next to me, shaking his head. ‘Plenty of places to hide down here. Sometimes it works out for them. They stay on and settle. That’s if the wind and sea don’t get them first. Not to mention the police.’
I turn away, not wanting to talk about it. I didn’t like the look of that woman in the photo. She seemed the kind of person you’d want to stay well clear of. I shiver. Part of me thinks I might have seen her before. But where?
By the time Kieran’s born, Barry has started to come back later and later. Not just on Friday nights either. Sometimes I’ve been so busy with the kids that I haven’t got his supper ready. He doesn’t like that.
‘What have you been doing all day, woman?’ he’ll shout.
‘Looking after your bleeding children!’ I’ll yell back. ‘I’m on my knees like you would be if you did anything to help round here.’
‘I’m earning the bread, aren’t I?’
Then the neighbours thump on the walls to tell us to shut up. If we’re not careful, we’ll get evicted. There’ve been complaints before. We’re behind with the council rent too ’cos Barry keeps drinking.
Liam is whining ’cos he’s hungry. I’ve had nothing to give him but packet noodles for the last three days ’cos they’re cheap. My milk has dried up ’cos I’m not eating properly myself.
Then one Friday he comes back without any cash at all. ‘You’ve spent it all on booze, haven’t you?’ I yell.
‘What if I have? I work for it, don’t I?’
‘I can’t feed us on fresh air.’
‘Shut up, woman. You’re making my head hurt.’
That’s when I see it. An ugly blue bruise on the side of his neck.
‘You’ve been with someone else, haven’t you?’ I yell.
‘So? It’s not like you want me any more.’
‘That’s ’cos I’m bloody knackered with this lot.’ I get right in his face. ‘Who is she?’
‘No one you know.’
Furiously, I batter my fists on his chest. Liam starts to cry. The baby yells.
‘Get off me, you stupid woman.’
He pushes me hard. I spin and my face slams against the wall. My nose starts to bleed, just like it did with Dad.
Liam’s in the room. ‘Daddy, stop it.’
‘Go to bed, love,’ I say, trying to get him out of here.
Barry comes towards me, his eyes blazing. I won’t let it happen. I pick up the nearest thing to hand – the china bowl Barry bought me with his first pay packet – and slam it into the side of his head.
He slumps to the ground. Blood trickles down his face. His eyes are closed. I can’t see him breathing.
There’s more knocking on the wall from the neighbours.
I go hot and cold. ‘Think,’ I tell myself. ‘Think.’
Quickly, I chuck some stuff for the kids in a bag and gather them up in my arms.
Then I run.
Part Two
* * *
AFTER THE ACCIDENT
Lady’s bedstraw (Galium verum)
A delicate, yellow flower that smells of new-mown hay when dried. Brings to mind young lovers lying in fields.
27
Ellie
I’ve always seen my life in two parts. The days before the party. And the days after. But those twenty-four hours in the middle didn’t exist. I couldn’t let them.
‘It might help you to talk,’ Cornelius had told me soon after we met. ‘It’s a bit like clearing out the kitchen cupboards and then putting the new stuff back.’
He was the chief psychiatrist at Highbridge, who had been put in charge of me. There was no question of me going back to school or having any kind of normal life after what happened.
At first sight, Highbridge didn’t seem like a ‘secure unit’. It looked more like a smallish stately Victorian home with its warm, red-brick, ivy-clad exterior and courtyard with a clock tower. There was a chime every hour. A deep resonating sound that made me jump the first time I heard it and continued to do so.
Lots of things made me jump then. I got piercing headaches too. They would start in the side of my head in what the nurse called my ‘temples’. Especially when Cornelius kept suggesting that I should talk.
‘No,’ I would always reply.
My vocabulary had become minimal. There seemed no point in saying any more than I had to.
I also found myself bursting into giggles at the wrong time. Cornelius said that sometimes the brain could make you laugh when you really wanted to cry. That didn’t make sense to me, but then again, nor did anything that was happening.
I stopped eating. My clothes began to hang loosely and my facial features sharpened. Often my stomach rolled to suggest it was empty but I couldn’t bring myself to swallow anything.
‘You need food to live,’ said one of the kitchen servers kindly when I put three peas on my plate and nothing else.
But what right did I have? Not after what I’d done. So they force-fed me instead, with one of the staff holding me and another pouring soup down my throat from a spoon. It wouldn’t happen now, but back then it wasn’t uncommon in those places.
Cornelius was a large man with piercing bright-blue eyes who always wore checked shirts without a tie. He reminded me of my old art teacher at school and I felt a bit embarrassed when he invited me to address him by his first name and not his surname. Surely that was disrespectful. In those days, he seemed like a cross between a father and grandfather in terms of age. Later I found out he was only fifteen years older than me.
‘If you don’t want to talk,’ Cornelius said during one of our early sessions, ‘would you like to write something instead?’
‘I’m not a kid,’ I wanted to say. I shook my head.
‘Sure?’ He opened the drawer of the desk between us and brought out a pen and a notebook. There was no top on the pen and no metal spiral binding on the notebook. Both were considered ‘safety risks’ in Highbridge. They even took away my music box, which my father had packed in the small case I was allowed to bring with me. ‘She might swallow the key,’ one of the nurses had said over my head. When you don’t talk, people forget you can still listen.
Cornelius was toying with the pen. How many times had we gone through this ritual since I’d arrived? Didn’t he realize I had no intention of committing my thoughts to paper? I barely knew what they were myself.
Instead, I looked out of the window. It had white bars across it. I wondered how secure they were. The girl in the bed next to mine told me that, last year, someone from the boys’ wing had managed to remove them with a makeshift screwdriver made from a filed-down toothbrush. ‘Then he jumped,’ she said, matter-of-factly. It was four floors up.
Sometimes I felt like doing that.
‘Do you enjoy reading?’ Cornelius asked.
I used to. But what was the point? Nothing mattered any more.
He got up and ran his finger along the spine of the many books that lined the walls. Then he stopped and picked one out. ‘Take a look at this,’ he said encouragingly. I glanced away, but not before I’d taken in the title. Palgrave’s Golden Treasury. My father and I used to read it together, our heads bowed as one, in the days before Sheila had ruined our lives.
‘I don’t want to look at it,’ I say gruffly.
