by Celia Walden
‘What’s this game?’ Her phone was buzzing in her bag, but she had no desire to answer it.
‘You know – giggle coin.’
Nicole shook her head. Why did she always feel like these women were speaking a language she didn’t understand?
‘It’s basically pass the parcel, only you pass a coin around and …’
Nicole smiled and nodded, but again she was back in that Chiswick kitchen, trying to pull Alex off Maya, her limbs heavy and movements nightmarishly ineffectual. And as she’d crouched by Maya’s body, waiting for the ambulance to get there and watching the blood trickle from the back of her head, filling the grouting between the Silestone tiles in orderly crimson right angles, her single thought had been: ‘This is all my fault.’
They hadn’t let her ride with Maya to the hospital and for one ghastly moment Nicole had pictured Jamie turning up to find her there, holding his baby. The sound of a key in the lock had made her heart dip, but then a tiny Filipino woman had appeared in the doorway, holding a little girl – Christel – by the hand. Remembering the blood, so much blood, Nicole had blocked their path. ‘Something’s happened – they’ve taken Maya to St Mary’s,’ she’d told the nanny. And as she’d handed her Elsa, trying to ignore the collapse of Christel’s face, Nicole had experienced such a yearning to escape this toxicity and breathe in the clean soapy smell of her own child’s hair that she’d felt dizzy.
‘I’ll go there now,’ she’d assured the ashen-faced woman. ‘And call as soon as I know anything.’ A pause. ‘Can you … will you call their father?’
While Lizzie’s mum went to ‘check on the cake’, Nicole took advantage of a brief moment alone to glance at her phone. Two missed calls from an unknown number. Would it be the police, telling her they’d found Alex? Even if they had left a voicemail, she wouldn’t have had the courage to listen to it.
No matter how many times Nicole had turned it over in her head that night, looking for an absolving loophole, she couldn’t absolve herself of responsibility when it came to Alex, and she had seen Alex’s instability developing at close quarters. She’d even spotted the warning signs, but had chosen to ignore them because Alex’s fixation with Jamie, with revenge, had suited her.
‘Need another top-up?’ How long had the hostess been watching her? Long enough to see Nicole drain what was left of her Prosecco in one, eyes closed. The question was all too clearly going to lead on to … ‘Been a hard week?’
And there it was.
‘Yes.’ Nicole was too tired to put on any kind of front. ‘But I think you know that. Everyone seems to know that Ben and I have split up.’ It seemed an adolescent way of describing the smashing up of two lives – three, really, although she couldn’t bear to think about that. ‘It’s been tough. It’s going to be tough.’
‘I bet.’ Out of nowhere another mother, probably one of Ben’s little admirers, had joined their conversation, and was nodding sympathetically along.
Nicole took a breath. ‘I’m just grateful he’s being so civilised about it all.’ And she was.
Taking in the translucent skin of her daughter’s neck now as she sat with her back to Nicole – so innocent, so exposed by those two bunches – brought tears to her eyes. Where had that freckle come from? Was it a freckle or a mole, and how much more had she missed? All those business trips she’d been on, they’d seemed manageable, enjoyable, even, if Nicole was being honest with herself. But maybe only because she’d known that her daughter was there whenever she wanted, needed, to hear her prattle on about Peppa Pig. And every day without Chloe, Nicole had woken up feeling like she had a limb missing.
‘She’s adorable,’ Lizzie’s mum murmured in her ear, eyes lingering on Nicole long enough to make her want to turn and say, calm and still smiling, ‘Yes, this is what a woman whose marriage has broken down looks like.’
But instead Nicole heard herself laugh. ‘She is. Am I allowed to say that? I never know.’
And maybe it would all be OK? Painful and long drawn out, but OK.
‘I’m getting so awfully confused!’ boomed Trudy Tickle, looking down, hands on hips, at the circle of enraptured faces. ‘But I think it might be time for the cake!’
Again, Nicole’s phone buzzed in her bag. This time, she knew she would have to answer it.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s …’ A pause. ‘It’s Jill.’
‘One sec.’ As the party blowers honked, Nicole covered one ear, and headed for the door. ‘Sorry, who?’
‘It’s Jill.’
She would be wanting an update, but Nicole had nothing new to tell her.
‘Sorry, I’m at a kids’ party with my daughter. They’re about to bring the cake out. Can I call you back?’
‘No.’
Afterwards, Nicole had fixated on when. At which point exactly did she know that Jamie was dead? Was it with that ‘No’? Was it in the congested silence before Jill spoke again? Because by the time she said it – ‘Jamie’s dead’ – Nicole somehow already knew.
‘They found him this morning. The police want to talk to me. They’ll want to talk to you, too. And Nicole –’ Jill’s voice dipped down ‘– I can’t get hold of Alex.’
Leaning against the pink-painted door frame, Nicole doubled over, the shock fluid as it ran through her.
‘How?’
They’d found him behind the Vale Theatre that morning, Jill went on. He’d been alive, then, kept alive by the railings he was impaled on. But he’d bled out in the ambulance. Jill’s voice was high-pitched with fear: ‘We’ve got to find Alex.’
Nicole tried to speak.
‘Nicole, are you there?’
‘Yes. The theatre,’ she managed. ‘There’s this little glass hut on the roof. No one knew about it but us.’ That she was still able to form coherent sentences was surprising to her. ‘I took him up to see it. We … Jill? Jill?’
But the line had gone dead.
CHAPTER 32
ALEX
From her upside-down position on the bed, the painting looked like a cat. A cat or maybe a tiger, painted in the kind of watery style that leaves traces of brush marks on the canvas. But if Alex twisted her head around to look at the picture the right way up it looked more like a girl with deep-set, feline eyes. Her mother’s eyes.
‘That,’ she asked the woman who had appeared beside her. ‘What is it?’
‘What’s what?’ She didn’t look up from the clipboard in her hand.
‘The picture. Is it a cat or a girl?’
As the woman’s eyes flicked briefly to it, Alex saw that she was very young, sullen-mouthed, and … why was she wearing scrubs?
‘That? That’s a fox.’
Alex tried to focus her eyes, but the lids felt heavy and the corners gunged up, as though she’d fallen asleep in full make-up.
‘Where am I?’
The hard horizontal of the woman’s brow softened slightly, but her tone remained detached. ‘You’re in hospital –’ she looked down at her clipboard ‘– Ms Fuller. You’ve had a very long sleep. Almost two days. How do you feel?’ Then, without waiting for an answer, ‘The doctor’s going to come in and explain a few things now that you’re awake.’
‘Hospital?’ But the nurse was already on her way out. ‘Two days? Hey!’ Her voice was weak from disuse. ‘That’s not a fox!’
Attempting to stress this with a hand gesture, Alex heard something heavy and wheeled dislodge itself from behind her left shoulder and turned to find an IV stand beside her. She followed the progress of the pee-coloured liquid in the bag down to the catheter implanted in her inner forearm.
‘Hey. come back!’
By pushing and pulling the IV stand against the metal-framed bed, Alex succeeded in making enough of a clattering to bring the nurse back.
‘Can we stop that please, Ms Fuller. I said can we stop that!’
‘Why am I here? Where’s …’ A memory, shadowy but growing sharper, came and went. Something vital she’d forgotte
n. ‘I need to get out of here.’
But the nurse had disappeared and sent in a small bearded man, who seated himself at the foot of the bed.
‘I’m Doctor Chua.’
Her mouth felt metallic: the drugs. ‘What’s in that drip? Can I … can I have some water?’
The doctor handed her a paper cup and waited patiently as she drained it. He seemed like a nice man, not like that bitch of a nurse.
‘You were very dehydrated when they brought you in,’ he explained with a nod at the IV.
‘But Doctor …’ Again, that suspension of breath: something had been forgotten, left behind. But what? Catching sight of a strip of redness across her knuckles where her fingers were wrapped around that paper cup, Alex remembered the scrubbing, the smell of the baby powder: Katie. A sound rang out that was so high-pitched she thought it might be an alarm in the street below. Only when Dr Chua’s face loomed, concerned, over hers did Alex understand that it had come from her.
‘Katie,’ she whispered. ‘Where’s my baby? What have you done with her?’
‘Ms Fuller … Alex.’ Dr Chua had taken her hand. ‘Your baby’s safe and well and with your mother.’
‘With my …’ Deep pockmarks scored the doctor’s cheeks: childhood acne. ‘That’s not … no. You don’t understand. She’s in Portugal.’
Wordlessly, Dr Chua went to the large rectangular window by the door, and with a sharp tug pulled open the vertical blinds to show the corridor beyond, before resuming his perched position on her bed.
It took Alex’s brain a few seconds to make sense of the face staring back at her through the white slats.
‘Your mother got here the morning after you were admitted. Apart from taking your daughter for fresh air and formula runs, she’s been here the whole time.’
‘Mum,’ Alex mouthed, as their eyes met through the glass. Her mother was pressing her lips together the way she did when she was trying not to cry, but her eyes were smiling. She blinked once, twice, three times, and Alex recognised it as the form of Morse code they’d developed when she was a little girl: a way of silently reassuring one another after the worst of her father’s outbursts. Three blinks meant ‘I love you’.
‘She can come in. But first you and I need to have a chat.’ Dr Chua regarded her calmly for a moment. ‘Do you have any idea why you’re here?’
Alex couldn’t take her eyes off her mother – her mother who had come and stayed. But how? Wouldn’t her father have found out about the loan by now? She didn’t want to think about how dearly her mother had paid for that secret. And yet, somehow, he’d allowed her to get on a plane and come here.
‘You’ve not been doing so well, have you?’ Dr Chua raised a sparse eyebrow. ‘Can you tell me a bit about that? Did it start when Katie was born, perhaps, or soon after?’
‘Because you think … no, no. This isn’t some post-natal thing.’ Whatever they’d given her was making her nauseous. She swallowed hard. ‘I wasn’t getting much sleep, and doing it all alone – well, it hasn’t been easy.’
Dr Chua was nodding as if he understood.
‘I just thought that if only I could get it right, you know? Be as good a mother to Katie as I was at my job.’ Her stomach dipped as she remembered. ‘But then they took that job away.’
One after another, the memories began coming in, like phone messages held back by a bad connection, and then Alex began to cry so hard that she lost control of her features. Embarrassed, she turned away from the doctor, burying her face in the pillow.
‘Alex, sometimes when a person suffers a trauma, like the loss of a family member or a job that means a lot to them, it can awaken or exacerbate an issue that has been there, dormant, for some time. It’s also possible for that issue to rear its head postpartum. Either way, we believe that what you experienced was a psychotic episode.’
Alex stared.
‘In the build-up to that, reality can sometimes feel distorted or even taken over by paranoias, manias and fixations on things or people.’ He paused, but not long enough to be expecting an answer. Which was just as well, since she had no idea what he was talking about. ‘But they tend not to come out of nowhere. And we’d like to explore various contributing factors: the impact of the job you lost …’ He paused, glancing through the blinds at Alex’s mother. ‘Your father, possibly.’
‘My father?’
‘Your mother and I have spoken. She’s given us a bit of background, told us of the problems you experienced growing up, that you were fearful of your father, often with good reason.’
‘She said that?’
Dr Chua nodded.
‘Did she …’ Alex glanced back at her mother. ‘Did she tell you anything else? Did she tell you it wasn’t just me?’
‘Your mother’s not my patient,’ said the doctor firmly. ‘So it’s not up to me to discuss any experiences specific to her. But I will say that domestic abuse in any form is rarely restricted to a single family member.’
‘Domestic …’
‘I think you two have a lot to discuss. Because this …’ He gestured at her, and although he’d spoken warmly, compassionately, Alex felt a flush of shame at the reductive nature of the pronoun. ‘This isn’t you, is it, Alex? And I’m guessing you haven’t felt like you for some time. But once we have a better idea of exactly what has been going on in here –’ he tapped his temple lightly with his index finger ‘– we’re going to be able to get you treated. OK?’
What could Alex do but nod?
‘Now I’m going to step out and give you and your mum a moment alone. But just a moment, because there are things – pressing things – you and I need to discuss.’
Again Alex nodded, desperate now to hear her mum’s voice and to bury her face in the warm, ruckled crook of her neck. But when, after some low murmuring in the corridor outside, her mother appeared in the doorway, all Alex could think of was how badly she’d let her down, how furious her father would be about the money – and now this.
As her face crumpled, she managed: ‘I’m so sorry, Mum. I’m so sorry.’ But her sobs were muffled by her mother’s jumper, and for what felt like a long time the two women just held one another. When Alex again tried to speak – ‘Katie?’ – her mother explained that her daughter was safely back at home with a baby nurse, and not to worry. Further questions were shushed, as her mum continued to run a hand down the back of Alex’s hair in long, rhythmic strokes.
‘My love.’
‘Mum …’
‘It’s going to be OK. It’s all going to be OK.’
At that, Alex wrenched herself away from her mother’s chest. ‘How? How is it going to be OK? I can’t get you that money, Mum.’
‘I don’t care about the money. None of that matters, love. All that matters is getting you treated – getting you better.’
‘But Dad … the new house …’
Her mother’s jawline hardened. ‘There won’t be a new house – not for us. Not for me.’ She cradled her daughter’s cheek with one hand. ‘I should have put a stop to his behaviour years ago, decades ago. And I would have if I’d had any idea what it had done to you. But I was so weak. I was …’
‘You were scared.’
Her mother nodded, and Alex watched her wrestle with tears before her face assumed an expression she’d never seen before: part anger, part iron determination.
‘When we got the call … when we found out what had happened to you, and he actually tried to stop me from getting on a plane …’ She shook her head. ‘Neither of us will ever be scared or controlled by him again, I can promise you that. And I’m going to stay here with you –’ her mother pulled her in for another hug ‘– for as long as you’ll have me. It’ll be just you, me and that precious little girl.’
‘Sorry to interrupt.’ Dr Chua was back so soon.
‘Can we just have a few more minutes?’ Alex pleaded.
A silent message passed between the doctor and her mother.
‘My darling, I’m
going to check on Katie. But I’ll be back in an hour or two.’
Alex clung to her, but her mother gently disengaged herself before kissing her forehead.
‘Just a couple of hours, I promise. And if Dr Chua here thinks it’s all right I might even bring the little one with me.’
This time Dr Chua pulled up a chair.
‘The sedatives we’ve given you might be making you feel a little woozy. Longer term we’re going to need to put you on an antipsychotic and an antidepressant. Finding the right mix can take time, so you’ll have to bear with us, but it’s important you understand that we’re dealing with something a little less predictable than depression or even post-natal psychosis here, and therefore harder to manage.’
‘My mother …’ Alex cleared her throat. ‘She mentioned a phone call, and something happening. What happened? What did I do?’
‘I’ll get to that,’ he said quietly. ‘We’ve spoken to friends and colleagues who have told us that you’ve been focusing quite intently on the man who let you go over the past few weeks and months. Unhealthily so. One described it as an obsession.’
Flashes, as though her brain were going in and out of signal again: Jamie holding Katie, surrounded by cooing women. How could she have let him touch her? And when did that happen? Jamie behind a desk reciting sentences from some HR manual. Jamie in a pub, full of bonhomie, lapping up the applause. Jamie’s weekly schedule, with all its colour-coded blocks.
‘We think that this fixation culminated in the episode.’
Alex felt nauseous again.
‘You became violent, Alex.’
‘No. That can’t be.’ She’d never lifted a finger to anyone in the whole of her adult life. ‘I’d never …’