The Daughter in Law

by Nina Manning

  ‘Mum. Not now.’ Ben sat down on the sofa next to Daisy and poured two brandies. I watched as he handed one to Daisy. Interesting how they wanted my brandy now, but they weren’t willing to stick around for more than twenty-four hours over Christmas and enjoy it then, when it was supposed to be enjoyed; when it really mattered.

  Ben downed his brandy and then stood and walked to the window.

  ‘It is cold though, I think it might snow,’ he said as he nudged the curtains with his finger. ‘Best not to drive anywhere over next few days. I heard reports of a storm.’

  ‘Oh, you know me, son, first sign of bad weather, I’m tucked up like a hermit. You wouldn’t catch me driving anywhere in this cold.’ As I spoke, my hand found its way into my trouser pocket and I curled my fingers around the cold metal of a circular mirrored keyring.

  Daisy downed her brandy in one then flopped back into the sofa, her eyes staring intently at the ceiling, as though she could see something we couldn’t. I pulled my hand out of my pocket

  ‘If you need anything to help you, Daisy, you know, I have a vast selection, painkillers, sleeping tablets, the works. Just let me know.’ I went to the opposite sofa and began to plump the cushions. I thought about these two people in my house, how it should only be Ben and me. Everything was off-kilter. As I moved along the sofa to the rest of the cushions, I felt metal shift inside my pocket and the slight sound of keys clinking.

  Daisy reached forward and poured herself a second glass of brandy and I watched Ben’s lips open to speak, then he closed them again. It only took a few more seconds to see that both shots of brandy had taken effect.

  ‘I need air.’ Daisy stood too quickly and Ben lunged to grab her. I began to pace the room feeling redundant.

  ‘Oh son, this is terrible. Just terrible. Poor Daisy. What will we do? You have some of your things here still, son. I told you it was wise not to take everything with you.’ Ben pulled Daisy into him, his strength and stature still surprised me sometimes. As he walked towards the door, he gave me a weak smile.

  ‘Thanks Mum.’ Just then I was reminded of the little boy that would come home from school, famished and worn out, ready to be looked after by his dear old ma. ‘Come on, let’s get you some air.’ He ushered Daisy forward.

  I followed then both into the hallway. Daisy had lost her blanket somewhere between the hallway and the sofa so Ben grabbed his leather coat and put it around her. I saw the devotion that accompanied the action. Something stirred deep within me and I had to look away.

  I sucked in my breath at the cold breeze that shot through the hall as Ben ushered Daisy outside. ‘It’s very cold son. You’ll both catch your deaths.’

  ‘We’ll be fine, Mum.’

  When they returned a few minutes later I was still standing there, not caring how it looked. I knew I had a purpose now.

  Ben took his coat from Daisy and hung it back up.

  ‘Should I get more brandy?’ I asked, knowing I needed to at least look like I wanted to be of more help.

  ‘I’m going to bed,’ Daisy said with no emotion or tone to her voice at all. It sounded almost digital.

  ‘Okay, I’ll take you up.’ Ben guided her up the stairs as I watched from the bottom.

  I was hovering around the bottom of stairs ten minutes later when Ben arrived back, as though I hadn’t really left. I had plumped the cushions where Daisy had been sitting and hand washed the glasses, then I had taken up my post again by the first step.

  ‘I don’t expect you to look after us, Mum. I have my job,’ Ben said. I followed him through into the lounge. ‘I’ll rent us a little place. The insurance money will come through and we can start to rebuild our lives. Don’t feel like we are imposing. We are not. This is very temporary.’

  I followed him through into the kitchen.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, son. I care about you.’ We both stopped near the kettle. I laid my hand on Ben’s wrist. He looked down at it then moved away to the table where I had left the brandy bottle. He poured himself a glass and paced with it. He seemed to be muttering to himself, but I couldn’t quite tell. When he finally stopped, he looked at me. Not just at me, he looked at me as though he was looking right through me into my soul.

  ‘Mum?’ he said, with such an emphasis on the question that I was sure he was about to say something profound.

  ‘Yes, son?’ Then I waited, three, four, five seconds or so for him to speak.

  ‘I’m going to bed.’ He put down his empty glass on the table.

  ‘Oh. Okay, son.’ He went to walk passed me. I put my hand out and caught his arm. ‘Son?’

  He stopped and bent his six-foot-one stature down towards me and allowed me to give him a little peck on the cheek; an act I had been doing for as long as I could remember. I watched him leave the room and I heard his heavy feet on the creaky wooden stairs. How I had missed that sound. I picked up his glass and cradled it.

  I could have been stood for a while that way, for in my mind I was off somewhere else entirely. I was with Ben, we were walking through the park, his little podgy hand in mine. He had asked for an ice-cream. He had already had a bag of sweets that morning and usually I wouldn’t have given in but there was something that resonated in me in his tone of voice that day; the way it went slightly up at the end of ‘Mum’ when he asked me could he have a white one with a chocolate stick. My heart thawed like the cold creamy substance on his little warm tongue. We walked together from the swings to the van, all the while Ben had his eyes firmly fixed in front of him, never wavering or stumbling once to point out a bug or an obscure-looking rock. When we reached the van, I leant down and Ben repeated his request too close to my ear; his voice broken and breathy in manner in which some mothers find endearing. I relayed his message to the server, still not ready to insert any independence into him, then looked on curiously as he consumed the confectionary in one tidy action – such a quiet, neat boy. I couldn’t have hoped for a better behaved child.

  The memory of my son as a perfect child momentarily faded as another memory filtered through. One from not so long ago and one that was of vital importance. Right now, there was a threat in my home. I had to admit, initially when I got the call from Ben, I presumed the worst had happened. But in fact the worst was here and sleeping under my roof; homeless and looking to me for support.

  He said there was some sort of explosion. Girls are so silly and irresponsible these days. Not thinking about anything except their hair and make-up. No home sense and certainly no safety sense. Neither Daisy nor her silly friend had any of the instincts I carried with me daily.

  With the two of them comatose by copious amounts of brandy and therefore safely out of my way for the foreseeable, I went to my bedroom. I felt a tingle in my stomach as I brought the box down from the shelf at the top of my wardrobe and took it over to my bed. Its presence under the circumstances was even more precious. It looked like it was once a vibrant duck egg blue colour but was well faded. I can’t remember what it once held, but there was a darker blue spiral pattern that ran around the whole of the box giving it a regal affect and hinting that it once was the carrier for something rather precious and beautiful. Funny how what was inside now didn’t bear quite the same splendour.

  I carefully lifted the lid off and turned my attention to what was inside. I glanced at the stacked papers I had been collecting for weeks and thought how I now needed these more than ever. I lifted a few pieces of paper from the top, and my stomach did a double flip as my eyes scanned hurriedly across the contents once more for what could have been the hundredth time but each time felt brand new.

  Things don’t always go to plan, we don’t always get what we want. Like the woman sleeping upstairs in my son’s bedroom. I did not want her here. But I knew for sure that everything was going to go to work out because I had before me exactly what I required to make sure my son never wanted to go within a mile of that deceitful woman ever again.

  Daisy

  The next two days
passed in a haze. I knew I spoke very little because when I did my lips were cracked and my throat was dry. I was sleeping a lot. One day rolled into the next. Each time I woke I would ask Ben the same thing. Was it a dream?

  ‘No, my darling,’ he would tell me as he stroked my head and I would feel my stomach tighten and my toes curl as a rush of adrenaline hurtled though my body. I would look at Ben – the blame didn’t lie with him but there he was, the only face I could see, the closest person to me, and I felt an overwhelming desire to lash out. But it was fleeting before once again exhaustion overtook me.

  Ben seemed to be carefully keeping Annie away. I could sense her lurking in a doorway and then I would hear tense whispers as her shadow followed her footsteps away.

  He had soldiered on without me these last few days – I knew he had spoken to Patrick several times and it was Ben who had broken the news to him. I tried to imagine Patrick’s crumpled face when he realised he would never see his beloved Eve breathing, laughing again. Even now, just a few days later, the regret at not telling Patrick myself, along with all the other tiers of guilt imbedded within me, lay heavy on my chest.

  On Monday the police arrived at the house. Ben had been lying beside me – the position he had adopted since we arrived – waiting to perform a duty for me however small. Last night Annie had given me some tablets. They were just what I needed. I took one, and I had taken another an hour ago. I wanted to prolong this feeling of nothingness that they provided me with. We both heard the crunch of car tyres on the gravel as I was hovering between sleep and consciousness. Ben swung himself from the bed in one swift flawless movement.

  ‘Coppers are here, Mum,’ I heard Ben say at the bedroom door as Annie came scurrying past.

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘To speak to Daisy. They called me yesterday.’

  Annie made her way aggressively into the dark room and pulled back the curtains, an offensive stream of light flooded in. I let out a groan and began to sit up.

  ‘Mum, what the… for Christ’s sake.’ Ben took Annie firmly by the arm and escorted her from the room then half-kicked the door to and approached the bed.

  ‘You don’t need to get up – you don’t need to do this today. I can turn them away,’ Ben said.

  I looked at Ben, my head rolling from side to side, my eyes heavy from the drugs. ‘No Ben, I’ll do it.’

  They arranged me between two large cushions on one of the sofas and I looked around the room. I heard the voices of the police constables, but their words moved out of sync with their mouths. I started to imagine I was in a TV show and the sound hadn’t caught up with the images. But this wasn’t TV, was it? This was reality. Wasn’t it?

  ‘Ah, well, that’s service,’ said the burly constable with a goatee beard as Ben handed him a steaming mug of Annie’s finest blend of coffee. His walkie-talkie that was attached to his shoulder, crackled and beeped and a woman’s voice came through. He twiddled a knob and her voice faded.

  ‘I’m only sorry it can’t be with a smile,’ Ben said as he perched on the end of the sofa I sat on and part of me wanted to laugh loudly at the bizarre way in which the comment fell out of his mouth.

  ‘I know. We’re so very sorry for your loss. It must be a terribly uncomfortable time for you and… your wife?’ said the woman constable.

  ‘Yes, my wife. We’re married.’ Ben reached for my limp hand and squeezed it too hard.

  ‘Hello, Daisy,’ the woman said brightly. ‘I’m Police Constable Jones and this is Police Constable Burns. How far gone are you?’ She motioned to my stomach. I made no effort to reply.

  ‘She’s almost six months,’ Ben spoke for me. I sat up with some effort. Ben leaned over to assist but I shooed him off. Jones waited for me to get comfortable as she took a pen from the front pocket on her chest.

  ‘Mr Cartwright. We’re here to talk to you about the death of Eve Parker?’

  ‘I can answer your questions.’ My voice was scratchy and crackly.

  ‘Let me get you some water.’ Ben picked up a glass from the coffee table and handed it to me. I took a sip and handed it back to him.

  Burns cleared his throat and sat forward on the edge of the sofa. ‘We’re so sorry for your loss, Daisy. I understand your husband here had recently moved in with you?’

  ‘Yes. That’s right,’ I croaked.

  ‘And how long have you known your husband, Daisy?’ Burns continued.

  ‘Six… six months.’ I heard the meek manner in which the line was delivered I never failed to feel a slight flutter of shame, admitting to strangers the foetus was as old as our relationship.

  Burns seemed unperturbed and continued. ‘We have the results of the post-mortem Daisy and they show that Miss Parker died of a blunt trauma to the head, now—’

  ‘What? What does this mean?’ I interrupted Burns. I could feel Ben squeezing my arm.

  Burns carried on, unperturbed. ‘We are yet to establish how it occurred and why. We’re here because we need to get as much information from you as we can. We have stayed away for as long as we possibly could, given you your time. We want to eliminate any other possible reasons for her death. Once we get the full report back then we can make the best analysis of what exactly happened.’

  I looked at Ben, trying desperately to make sense of what I was being told. Burns shifted on the sofa. He addressed his notes in front of him, licked his finger and flicked over the page.

  ‘Were you and Eve close, Daisy?’ Jones intercepted with a warm voice. I tried to focus on the woman in front of me. Her hair was alarmingly straight and tied neatly back in a ponytail. Her lips were a rich red but surely she wasn’t wearing lipstick? I was reminded of a shade I had at home that was called Ruby Woo. All the while her dark red lips were moving the words Ruby Woo kept falling through my head. Jones looked at me. Those lips taking on a form of their own.

  Ruby Woo… Ruby Woo… Ruby Woo. Then a shocking thought struck me. I didn’t have that lipstick at home, there was no home. It was burnt. Everything gone. I imagined my Ruby Woo, melted, the plastic outer casing dissolved to nothing. Those lips were moving again. I wondered if Jones had her Ruby Woo in her handbag. I looked down at her feet, of course she didn’t have a handbag. She was a policewoman. Perhaps the lipstick was in one of the many pockets of her uniform, more than likely it was in the car…

  ‘Daisy?’ A female voice filtered though. Red matte lips were moving. Ben was up and coffee was being handed to me. A biscuit appeared. I bit into it. It was a golden crumble one with a soft sweet vanilla cream in the middle. It was very tasty. Very sweet. I took a sip of the coffee. Strong. Wet. Was coffee always this wet? I licked my lips, there were crumbs on them. The crumbs were dissolving on my tongue. Then things were happening around me. People were moving, standing up. Jones was gone. It was just Burns. He was slurping his coffee loudly, Annie was fluttering around the sofas, Ben was saying something to her, and she sat down in a chair that was slightly away from the sofas. I could feel her eyes on me. Jones was back. She rubbed her palms on her trousers and Ben was saying something to her. She picked up her pen; began writing something.

  ‘Eve was a wonderful, beautiful human being. Inside and out. There is no way she would have ever done anything stupid. She was a bit reckless from time to time, rebellious even. But she was a psychologist, at the prison, for the prisoners.’ I could hear the words. Had I said them out loud? Jones was still writing. No one was looking at me, could anyone hear me? Jones looked down at her notes in the palm of her hand. Such a small notebook. Barely bigger than her hand.

  ‘Yes, we have that information here. You say she was reckless? Did she have any enemies? That she might have made as a result of her recklessness, perhaps?’ She was talking to me.

  ‘No, you misunderstand, she wasn’t reckless, and I didn’t mean that.’

  Jones turned her attention to Ben.

  ‘Do you have home insurance, Daisy?’ Burns asked bluntly.

  ‘Yes,’ I said too quickly th
rough a dry mouth.

  ‘And you, Mr Cartwright. Where were you on the evening?’ Jones looked down at her notes. ‘From our initial discussion three days ago, you were away in London. But on that evening, you had returned to the hotel room. Alone.’

  Ben looked down at me. ‘Erm, yes. I was tired after a day of meetings, so I went to bed.’

  ‘But you were back in town pretty sharpish when you heard the news,’ Jones said without question.

  ‘Of course. I had my phone on silent, but I woke in the night and saw the missed calls from Daisy. I came as soon as I could.’

  ‘So what time would you say you arrived back in town, Mr Cartwright?’ Jones continued

  ‘I can’t really remember now. It was late, 3 or 4 a.m. maybe?’

  ‘So what time did you leave London?’ Jones’ persistent tone caught my attention. I looked up at Ben with concern.

  ‘I got in a cab sometime after midnight, 1 a.m.? I don’t really remember.’

  ‘So if you were asleep when you missed her call, you must have been in bed by what? Ten? Ten-thirty? That’s rather an early time for a musician to go to bed on a Saturday night, wouldn’t you say?’ I looked at Ben, hearing the enormity of her accusations. I could see what was happening, but it was unfolding like a well-rehearsed drama, as though it was scripted.

  ‘Look, do you mind? My wife has just lost her best friend…’

  Jones closed her notepad. ‘We understand that, Mr Cartwright, but there are some issues we need to iron out here. We can ask these questions at the station if you would prefer.’ Jones raised her eyes and cocked her head in the direction of me. Ben looked at me.

  ‘Yes. Yes, let’s do that,’ he said and stood up. Both Jones and Burns stood as well.