Safe and sound, p.13
Safe and Sound, page 13
Freya lowers her own plate. ‘You haven’t been eating?’
I look back at her. Her eyes are hazel, I see now. Everything about them speaks of concern. ‘Not very well, I suppose.’ I never said any of this to Margaret. With Margaret, I didn’t know how. But Freya has arrived like a friend instead of a professional. Warm-hearted, casual, open-minded: it works so much better to put me at ease.
‘Or sleeping either?’
It’s as though Freya already knows how I am. ‘Or sleeping,’ I confirm, more honest with her than I have been with anyone in a very long time.
Perhaps by now she knows all about my case – or at least everything I chose to tell the team at the time. Which was never everything: never the worst part. Perhaps she has asked Margaret to go through what details they have. If so, then she knows what happened last year with Charlie. How it all started with me watching that TV documentary, the one about kids with cerebral palsy, and getting those awful fears in my head. The anxiety that turned into panic attacks, which then started happening all the time. And then that awful, awful incident at sports day when everything came to a terrible head. Charlie in the three-legged race and me watching his every movement like a hawk, my chest crushed with anxiety, a panic attack threatening to explode at any moment. Charlie was out in the lead, winning the race, but staggering and stumbling against the other boy, looking so monstrous, such a lurching mess. I rushed onto the field, unable to bear it, snatching him to me, fighting to rip the ties from his leg. And Charlie shrieking at me, screaming at me because he had been winning, Charlie lashing out with all his might, hitting me and catching his elbow as well on the little boy next to him, splitting his lip, bruising his face …
They called an ambulance for me in the end. Because when the panic attack took hold, it honestly felt as though I was dying. But also because I’d completely lost it. Because I’d seemed completely insane. When they came and checked me, and checked the little boy, nothing turned out to be as bad as it looked. It really was just a panic attack, they told me. And the little boy would be just fine, he was more upset about losing the race.
But no one from school looked at it that way. And they have avoided me and Charlie ever since.
‘The truth is,’ I tell Freya now, ‘I still struggle with Charlie sometimes. When he does certain things. When he looks a certain way …’ Freya holds her gaze steady on me as she listens. ‘I love him so much, you see, I never want him to not be okay. I just know, sometimes, it’s me that makes him that way. It’s me creating the problems in the first place.’
Freya nods, a gentle nod. ‘It isn’t easy,’ she says, swallowing her cake, ‘caring so much. Wanting things to be perfect and right. You’re doing your best. I can see how hard you’re trying and how much you love him. Just from how you speak, I can tell.’
The balloon of tension eases from my chest. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Thank you. Thank you for saying that.’
Now I manage to pick up my cake and take a bite. It tastes strangely synthetic, but I don’t mind. As I swallow, I glance at the clock. The five minutes she suggested have already rushed past. Part of me wants to just sink into her company, but I’m worried that if I don’t get on that bus to north London now, then in another few minutes I’m going to lose my nerve.
I put the cake down. ‘I’m sorry, Freya, I didn’t realize – I have a … a meeting. I’m sorry, but I really should go.’
‘Yes – I’m sorry.’ She tries to dust the crumbs from her hands. ‘You told me you were heading out.’ She puts her own plate down on the worktop but then her eyes move past me, catching on something. ‘What’s that?’ She pushes past me, back out through the hallway. ‘Jennifer, what’s all this?’
She is looking through the doorway, into the living room. Where the coffee table is strewn with pages, spilling over onto the floor.
‘This? It’s nothing really.’ But Freya steps forward, right inside the room now, and when I follow her in, close on her heels, I can’t help seeing it the way she does. A mess of paper, a spider web of notes. Like in the films when someone has scrawled all over their bedroom walls. She is staring at them and there is such intensity in her gaze. My words come out in a rush as I try to explain myself. ‘It’s just the thing I told you about. The woman who died. I’ve traced one of the people who knew her and I’m writing out what she told me about her, along with the other bits and pieces I know. She thought … she had no idea, but Freya, something must have gone so wrong somewhere. It doesn’t add up, how Sarah – the tenant – lived, how she died. I’m simply trying to piece it together.’
I scoop all the papers up off the table and pick the loose sheets up off the floor, ordering them in my arms until they seem like just a neat stack. Organized, sensible and sane. I step round Freya, heading back to the door. ‘Listen, thank you for the visit and your help and the cake. Don’t worry about this, I know how it looks, all lying out in a mess like that, but honestly – it’s just a few thoughts. It’s been good for me, really,’ I ramble on, aware of my need to convince her. ‘At least I’m doing something, not just being holed up in this flat on my own. I mean, I didn’t tell you before, but I’m suspended from work, just while they make some internal enquiries, and this whole thing has given me a focus, a purpose.’
We’re back out in the hallway now.
‘Jennifer,’ Freya says, ‘I really think we ought to …’ But I’ve already manoeuvred her back to the door. ‘I’ll call you, shall I,’ she says, ‘make a proper appointment? And you know you can come to me, any time.’
I give a little, light-hearted laugh. ‘Honestly, Freya, you don’t need to worry. You just caught me on a bad day before, when you called. I mean, you can come again if you like, in fact, that might be nice, but honestly, Freya, it isn’t that bad.’
And as she turns reluctantly to go, I tell myself I’ve misread the look in her eyes, the one that says: But maybe it is.
As soon as she’s gone, and I’ve got my coat and shoes back on again, I head to the bus stop on Brixton Hill, the one just outside the prison.
As I wait for the bus my brain tells me, You can go back, go home. But I don’t. Because I have to try at least. I read the text from Marianne again: let me know whatever you find out. And it’s true what I told Freya, I need something to focus on: a mission, a project. I haven’t heard anything from Abayomi and when I rang the office yesterday and Emma picked up, her voice bright and naturally friendly as always, she didn’t know any more than I did. Just that some people from head office had been by the other day and had looked on the computer system and at some files. ‘But hopefully,’ she added, her voice full of optimism, ‘you’ll be back soon.’
The bus is here now. Like I usually do, I take a seat on the top deck, and there’s a space free at the front, best place for views.
On the journey, I try to think of what I can say to Alastair if I find him. It was hard enough with Marianne, but this will surely be harder still. I try to imagine how it would feel if someone told me out of the blue that someone I once loved had died in such circumstances. It would be so painful, such a shock. How careful I am going to have to be.
The traffic is thick in London today; it is never much else in a city as full as this. People get on and off along the way, and for a while two women push in next to me, one right beside me and one across the aisle, each clutching a pile of bags. From their conversation, I can tell they are mother and daughter – grown-up daughter. They’ve been shopping together, a good day out. Their connection seems so strong, so easy. And then there’s me, and the three-monthly phone calls … I turn away and look out of the window. Before long, the two women get off.
It isn’t long before we reach the stop for the hospital. My legs are shaky as I step down off the bus. To my relief, from the outside the building looks completely different to that other hospital I know, the one lodged so firmly in my memory. Different stonework, a different shape and much bigger. I try to tell myself that, teaching my brain the differences between then and now. But it’s still a hospital, a place that normally I try so hard to avoid, and I suddenly wonder whether I can really do this. I can feel my mind skittering, tugging like a dog on a leash towards the past. I have to stand at the bus stop for a moment, pretending I’m studying the return bus timetable, before I feel ready to go on.
There is a path from the bus stop through the car park to the hospital entrance. When I step inside, I expect to meet the hospital smell I remember, one I would recognize anywhere, but instead the only scent I get is that of coffee from the Costa’s in the entrance area. It makes this easier.
I check that my hair in its bun lies perfectly smooth against my scalp and that the buttons on my blouse run straight down my front. I only wish I’d thought to bring a work badge as I walk up to the efficient-looking woman on reception.
‘Hello,’ I say. ‘My name is Jennifer Arden. I’m here to meet Alastair Matthews. I understand that he’s working here today.’
She looks me up and down: the smart blazer, the neat hair, the lipstick I’ve so carefully applied. Underneath my smart blouse, I’m aware of my armpits, slick with cold sweat.
‘Children’s ward,’ she says. ‘You’ll most likely find him up there.’
And it is as simple as that.
‘Thank you,’ I say. She is pointing to a sign on the wall behind me, with directions to the different wards and departments, and I can see the children’s ward clearly marked in bright pink.
The children’s ward.
‘Take the lift,’ she suggests. ‘Down there, at the end of the corridor.’
I take a deep breath and follow the direction of her pointing finger. My heels click on the polished floor as I walk. I find the lift, and ride it up to the second floor. When I step out, the hospital smell hits me. It takes me straight back and I have to force myself not to turn around and leave.
This children’s ward is light and bright and noisy. There’s another reception desk up here, and I go up to the nurse on duty and say the same thing as before. He looks at me more suspiciously than the woman downstairs.
‘Do you know Alastair?’ he asks. I shake my head, racking my mind for some better way to explain myself, but the smell is in my nostrils, all tangled up with my fear and shame from the past.
And all the lies that were told.
Before I can think of anything, I hear a voice behind me. ‘Are you looking for me?’
Chapter 16
BACK THEN
Prin climbs out of her bedroom window in nothing but her nightie. Neither Mum nor Daddy knows that she can do this. She only worked it out herself a few months ago. She has to shimmy right to the left-hand side of the window to reach the flat of the roof below with her feet. But she is big enough, tall enough now to do it. In the summer it gets so hot in her bedroom. But at night-time, she can come out here where there’s a breeze and it’s cool and she can look out over the whole world.
Or out over the back garden anyway.
It’s a very pretty garden. Mum does a lot of the gardening herself, but Daddy also pays for people to come and make it look extra nice. Daddy likes things to look pretty and perfect. Prin thinks about the word Mum used about him once, talking to a friend of hers in the kitchen with Prin secretly listening from behind the closed door. A narcissist, Mum said, I read about it. I think that’s what he is, and it made Prin think about the flower they learned about in school, narcissus, which meant a sort of daffodil, a very pretty flower.
Prin feels the roof below with her toes, warm and gritty. She lets herself drop down, then slips across onto the flat of the roof next to it. This is where she can lie down and look at the sky.
Tonight, even though it’s very late, the sky is still turquoise along the horizon. Turquoise there, and then deep ink-black on the other side. Prin knows that the sun sets in the west which is why one side of the sky stays light longer. She learned that in school, and her Daddy confirmed that it was right.
Prin’s nightdress feels light and thin now against her skin. She was so hot in bed before, kept kicking the covers off her and turning her pillow over and over trying to find the cool side. On the bed Mum set up for her against the far wall, Jane was fast asleep, seemingly unbothered by the heat. She’s only seven, Prin remembers. Prin remembers going to bed earlier and sleeping more herself when she was as little as that. Jane was so fast asleep she didn’t even stir when Prin lifted the sash window.
Now Prin lies herself down on the roof. It is hard under her back; she should have brought a blanket or something out here, made herself a little bed. She closes her eyes and imagines lying on a feather mattress, like the princess in her storybook, who lay on that whole tower of mattresses!
Up above her, faint stars circle. She can see all kinds of pictures that they make. Daddy taught her about the constellations. Plus Prin has made up constellations of her own.
She is just about getting used to having her cousin here. She’s getting used to sharing her room and her toys. She hasn’t even minded giving some of her old clothes to Jane, because it turned out there really wasn’t very much in just that one little suitcase she brought. Prin counts off the weeks on her fingers. They’ve had three weeks of summer holidays so far, which means there are another three left. Such a long time, ages and ages, really. She wonders whether Jane will go home then – at the end of the summer. She did try to ask a couple of days ago, as they all sat round the bright breakfast table in the sunshine and Daddy made pancakes for everyone, and there were strawberries and blueberries too, Prin’s favourite. She brought it up then, but Daddy turned round from the cooker and said, ‘Shush,’ and he was smiling, but it wasn’t his normal smile and then Prin’s mum put a hand over her own mouth and the other on Prin’s head, in that way that made Prin want to sink right down through her chair, and Prin knew then that somehow, again, she had said the wrong thing.
And the whole time, Jane just sat there, pushing one blueberry after another into her mouth.
Now, as she lies there on the roof, Prin hears the scrape of the patio door below her. Someone – Mum or Daddy – has stepped out onto the patio below. Prin lies still as a statue, quiet as a mouse. She wonders suddenly, for the first time since she’s been coming out here, what would happen if Daddy put his head round her bedroom door in the night to check on her unexpectedly. What would happen if he did that and saw her bed empty, the covers kicked off onto the floor? What would she do? She would be caught red-handed, and she wouldn’t be given a chance to explain. In future, Prin thinks, she will stuff pillows under her covers, the way she read about once in a book. She will trick Daddy into thinking she is in there. Everybody, really, can be tricked.
Now Prin hears a scraping sound, and a moment later she catches the smell of something on the air. A bitter, smoky smell. She recognizes it, but how strange! She doesn’t know what this smell is doing here.
Very quietly, Prin sits up. She can’t see any of what’s happening below her – she’d have to stick her head right over the edge to look and then whoever was down there would see her, and then, boy, would she be in big, big trouble. Instead she focuses on the tree branches that make criss-crossing silhouettes against the sky and stretches both of her ears to listen.
For a while there’s almost nothing but silence, just a tiny kissing sound, a tiny crackle and sounds of breathing.
Then she hears the patio door scrape open again, and her Daddy’s voice saying, ‘Susan.’
Prin draws her knees up to her chest and wraps her bare arms around them. It sounds a little bit mean the way he says it. He’s speaking the way he does when he’s telling Prin off.
Now Prin hears another voice. It must be Mum’s but it doesn’t really sound like her. It’s a low stream of words, sort of mumbled, when normally Mum speaks quite slowly and clearly. She’s so mumbly that Prin can only make out little bits and pieces: … my sister… do that … horrible.
Then comes Daddy’s voice again, even harder this time: ‘Susan.’
Now there’s a silence; complete silence this time. Then the stream of words becomes something else, turns into another sound, a very awful sound to Prin’s ears, one that makes her stomach grow uh-oh cold despite the heat, like it’s chock-full of sticky ice cream again. The smell of cigarettes is stronger than ever now too, and it makes Prin feel sick. She really feels as if she might throw up, like when she had that stomach bug last winter.
Now Prin almost doesn’t care if they hear her. She just wants to get back inside. She slides off the roof, back onto the lip below her window, pulls herself up and back inside. Over by the bedroom wall, Jane is sitting upright in bed, awake now. She gives Prin quite a fright as she comes in. Her round face is as pale as a moon.
‘What is it?’ she whispers. ‘What’s happened?’
Prin shuts the window behind her, cutting off the cool breeze from outside, trapping herself and Jane back into the heat. She gets back into her bed, her feet dropping crumbs of grit into the sheets, and pulls the stifling covers back over her.
She lies on her back, eyes wide open to the ceiling. ‘Nothing,’ she tells Jane. ‘You’re supposed to be asleep.’
And it must be nothing because there’s no tears in this house!
So Prin lies there and closes her eyes and refuses to listen to the voice in her head that tells her:
Mum was crying.
Chapter 17
When I turn around, a tall, slim man with sandy hair is standing there. He is pushing a wheelchair with a boy of six or seven in it. For a moment, I have the strongest feeling that we have met before, but we can’t have. And I have no idea how to handle this situation. Despite my time on the bus ride, I still have no idea what to say. So I just come out with it.
‘I’m Jennifer Arden,’ I say. ‘You don’t know me. But I’ve come about Sarah Jones.’
