by Kate Bradley
Although I hadn’t even been close to fleeing, the fact that it was no longer a possibility felt suffocating.
‘Lisa, don’t shake your head like this isn’t happening. I know you bury your head in the sand, but you’ve got to see: it’s worse than we thought. She had a hole in her cheek, Lisa. It’s obvious there’s something massively, hugely, fucking wrong with Jack and I want us to try to get professional help again. Something specialist. We mustn’t give up this time, we’ve got to make a fuss. Take it all the way down the line and get him something secure.’
‘Something secure?’ I could hear the horror screeching nails down glass in my voice. ‘What do you mean . . . secure?’
Nick swallowed but he kept his gaze steadily on mine. ‘Somewhere where he can’t do anything . . . worse.’
I didn’t move, didn’t breathe.
‘We’ve lost control.’ He gave a dry laugh. ‘Who am I kidding? We never even had it.’ He shook his head. ‘Lisa, he took the flesh out of her cheek.’
I thought of Nick’s lovely mum and felt my heart bruise for her.
‘And what about him breaking your rib?’ he continued. ‘And the kid he put in hospital with concussion in his last week at nursery, before he left? Now the earlobe in school? I’m so scared of what he’s going to be like when he’s bigger. Lisa, I worry he’s going to kill someone –’ he struggled against his now openly flowing tears – ‘I’m worried he’s going to kill you.’
My voice was a whisper: ‘When were you thinking?’
‘I want to make a call today. Now. To social services. I shouldn’t have lied at the hospital – I just panicked. I wanted to talk to you first. Then all the way home, I kept thinking that moment was my golden opportunity to admit the truth. I was furious with myself: I thought I’d blown it, missed my chance. But, Lese, we don’t have to miss it – I could ring now and explain.’
I shook my head: no.
I knew the damage of what it was like to grow up without parents. He was our son. We couldn’t just send him back: No, sorry, parenthood just isn’t what we’d thought.
We were trapped, I knew that, but I thought we were both trapped together. I didn’t know that within three days that would change abruptly and for good.
Nick didn’t know it either, because he kept going. Even when he might’ve stopped, he kept pushing the point. ‘Lese, please stop shaking your head. Think about what I’m saying. We need to come clean – we need to admit we aren’t coping. We will still visit and love him every day, but we tell them the truth. I rang my mum before you got home and I’ve discussed it with her. She’s agreed to talk to them, tell them what happened. I’ve told her everything about Jack.’
He pressed his hand to his chest and looked almost happy. ‘I can’t tell you how good it feels to have told her the truth. She’s horrified for us but fully supports us. She thinks it’s best to seek help too. Particularly in light of what’s happened at his school – she says they might get in touch with social services anyway. Don’t you think it’s best that we tell them before they do?’
He took my hand, squeezed it. ‘We love him but we have to accept that we’re not the best people to look after him. It’s not working. There has to be a breaking point – let’s do it while you’re still alive.’ He kissed my hand. ‘It might not need to be permanent. Perhaps there’s somewhere that can cure him.’
That’s when we noticed Jack standing in the doorway.
Everything then got very . . . smudged, but I don’t remember the details. Just the noise. The stinking, spiky cacophony of noise in our kitchen.
And then the duvet . . . but after the pills.
Always the pills.
sixty-four:
– before –
The day Winston died was the end of us.
It was deeply disturbing when Jack killed Winston. He said he didn’t do it, but when Nick came home and found the dog’s body in the hall, Jack playing Lego in his room, and the bloodied broom hidden under the sofa, it was clear what’d happened. The yelling got me out of bed.
I’d been in the flat, but I never heard anything, because I’d had the duvet over my head, my earplugs in and a large dose of fentanyl in my blood. In my defence, there was a reason I was hiding. I’d been very upset because the letter from Jack’s school had finally arrived. With shaking fingers, I’d opened it and read that the permanent exclusion had been agreed and was finalised. I’d phoned the local authority, listened to our remaining education options, and my anxiety had gone skywards. I just didn’t even want to look at Jack. But thinking of earlobes, I did remove the scissors – and then after a moment’s thought took the knives too and hid them in my room. Duvet up, I’d cried myself to sleep.
The next thing I knew was the shouting.
Then after I lost it with Nick and beat him with the broom handle, and the neighbours knocked on the door and threatened to call the police, and I apologised to Nick, and Nick apologised to Jack for hitting him, and I cleaned up Jack’s split lip, we then sent him to his room.
Nick couldn’t understand this: ‘The dog is dead and you were in bed?’
‘Because of this,’ I said and showed him the letter.
He read it. ‘Shit, Lisa,’ was all he said. He sank to the bed next to me, rereading the letter, whilst I sat crying, head in hands.
It had been a horrible shock. Biting cheeks and snipping earlobes was one thing – but killing was new. Now Nick was hitting Jack and I was beating Nick. It had all gone so very toxic.
Eventually, he put down the letter and started to pace up and down our room – which was ridiculous given that the room wasn’t very big. I couldn’t bear to look at him. He loved that dog. We both did.
Losing Winston just killed us.
‘So tell me again what happened after I left for work this morning?’
My hands flung up in despair: ‘This isn’t some police interview, Nick! I’m not the guilty one here.’
‘Aren’t you?’ he raged. ‘Are you sure about that? Because something has gone wrong – badly wrong. I told you yesterday he needed locking up.’
‘Don’t mention that secure place again – look what happened because of that! He heard you say that and that’s why he killed Winston!’
Nick stared at me, only then comprehending what I’d understood straightaway. There was a clear sequential line running through this, starting with Irene’s bitten cheek.
‘We can’t go back to how it was now, you realise that, don’t you? That thought has occurred in your spongy, drug-addled brain?’
He’d never called out my drug abuse before. ‘Don’t be rude!’ I cried. ‘Just don’t be rude to me!’
‘Why not, Lisa? You were at home. It was on your watch. If someone got clubbed to death in the next-door room to me at work, I think my boss would want to know what I’d been doing whilst it’d been going on.’ His voice dropped to a new, flinty tone that I hadn’t heard before: ‘My boss might sack me if I was asleep on the job.’
My head jerked in a way that I suspected gave me away. My shame made me angry: ‘You’re only getting at me because you were the one who said you wanted Jack sent away. This was a revenge attack against you. And, for the record, you’re not my boss.’
‘No, I’m not. But if I was, we wouldn’t be in this mess, because we would’ve called social services yesterday. I shouldn’t have listened to you. I’m disgusted – him killing Winston and you zonked out in bed in the middle of the day.’ His voice was cold. He stopped pacing and looked at me a long time. His handsome face was thinner, I realised, and his jaw had tightened his cheekbones to new, drawn angles. He looked ill. ‘And let’s face it, if I was your boss, you’d have been sacked a long time ago.’
I stared at him, chilled. I wasn’t sure what he was saying. It wasn’t clear, but nothing was. It occurred to me that Jack could be listening to all of this, but I realised for the first time that I didn’t care. We always tried so hard to keep our arguments away from h
im, particularly when they were about him, but after today, we were way past that. Perhaps it was better that Jack heard what we thought anyway.
We stared at each other for a long moment.
We didn’t really look into each other’s eyes anymore. Who wanted to see what was there? But now we did. I think we stared to see if what the other one was thinking the same.
Nick blinked first.
After he slammed out of the room, I found an unconcerned Jack playing Lego again in his bedroom. He very compliantly let me bath him and feed him cheese on toast, which he ate in his room, whilst I read to him, to keep him out of Nick’s way. I put him to bed early, expecting a fuss, but he was placid. I would’ve taken raging if it’d meant there was any sign that he engaged with the idea that killing our family’s dog was wrong, but I didn’t get that.
I remember smoothing his Peter Rabbit covers around him, with him just lying there staring at me, and me pretending not to notice, instead adjusting the teddies around his bed as if those simple actions made me a good mother. Made me the mother that I’d had at the start of my life. I wanted to be good, but I knew I wasn’t. I had beaten my husband with the broom, not just because he’d crossed a line with Jack and I was frightened, but because I was so upset about the dog that if I hadn’t hit Nick, I think I would’ve hit Jack instead. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as sad as I did then. That sort of crashing heartbreak which threatens to drag you under and hold you there, suffocating until you can’t breathe anymore.
I smoothed his covers again, waiting for some sort of acknowledgement that Jack was sorry. I needed to hear his regret, see his tears, so I could reach for him and comfort him. I wanted him to be sorry so I could feel relieved. I also wanted him to feel bad because then there would be recognition for Winston. And if I’m honest, I needed him to be sorry so there would be a sneaking chance that he would learn his lesson and not do anything like this again.
I wanted to be able to take his regret to Nick and spread it at his feet like a golden blanket, an offering to make it just a fraction better. Your son is truly sorry. But Jack just looked at me. I wanted a line, some dialogue that would happen in a movie – something significant – but I got nothing.
I remember that I bent over and kissed Jack’s forehead. I remember feeling unsure – so unsure. Everyone I knew seemed to know instinctively how to treat their children, like they’d been to parenting college and had lessons. Like someone wise had given them advice on how to behave when this or that happens. But if there was a parenting college, no one had sent me the invite. And so I didn’t know if I should rage at Jack for what he had done, or be caring and nurturing because he was so clearly somehow broken. I just didn’t know what to do with him. And it felt like I wouldn’t be able to count on Nick for much longer.
In the end I just said: ‘We will have to talk about what you did to Winston another day. I’m afraid it’s too serious not to talk about it.’
‘What I did?’ he asked me, small hands gripping the top of his duvet.
‘Yes,’ I said, angrier now at the angelic look of innocence on his face, ‘yes, what you did to Winston.’
‘But Mummy, I didn’t do anything. You did, Mummy. You hit Winston with the broom and his back went crack.’ He blinked. ‘Don’t you remember?’
sixty-five:
– now –
I’m standing on my own back doorstep, blinking. The man is still holding the door, but as he steps forward, his face becomes clearer. I only see more plainly what I already know.
He’s nearly six foot; he has a heavy beard and broad shoulders. I can’t see the colour of his eyes, but I can see the look of contempt in them. I feel skittish, nervous.
Nick has never hated me, but judging by his stare, I fear he might hate me now.
sixty-six:
– now –
‘Lisa,’ Nick says, standing at the door, looking out at me. ‘What are you doing?’
I hear his disdain and feel weak and weary to the point of dying. I don’t think I can take any more of this day. I haven’t got the strength in me to hide my feelings for him. ‘What are you doing here, Nick?’
‘I’m not talking to you whilst you’re near that thing,’ he says, pointing at the gun now lying on the lawn. ‘And where the hell did you get it, anyway?’ He looks me up and down. ‘Shit, Lisa, you look like you’ve been pulled through a hedge backwards.’
Perhaps he’s trying to be funny. ‘You’re wrong – I push myself forwards through them,’ I say, meaning to sound sharp. Instead I just sound like I’m about to cry.
‘Where did you get a shotgun?’
‘I just borrowed it,’ I tell him.
He rolls his eyes. ‘You are not bringing that thing in this house with my son and grandson in here.’
I want to tell him that I wasn’t going to – that I’d already changed my mind – but suddenly I’m too exhausted to even speak. I don’t move.
He knows me so well that he adds to his point. ‘Lisa. If you don’t move away from that gun, I will call the local police myself. I should do it anyway. Unless, of course, you’ve got a licence for it?’
I am just too tired to talk about the gun. I’m still stunned he’s here.
‘Even if you have,’ he adds, eyes narrowing, ‘I’m guessing you don’t want the police here. I’m guessing you’re still avoiding them at all costs, after what you’ve done?’
I leave the gun where it is and walk towards the door. We are now close enough to touch. Oh, baby, how I still miss you. Don’t ever think that I don’t. I told you I would never give you up, and I haven’t.
But I don’t stay that. Instead I ask: ‘Why are you here?’ I’m slow to process but I’m amazed to find I’m both pleased to see him but also frightened. I don’t know what this means.
He drops his hand away from the door and stands aside to allow me entry to my own kitchen. ‘Jack asked me to come.’
‘Jack?’ I’m distracted by the moan of relief as my hurt, tired, beaten-up feet step onto the cool kitchen tiles. For a moment, I imagined Jack finding my mobile and somehow managing to call Nick. But of course, it was ridiculous – he doesn’t have his number.
He knows me so well, he’s followed my train of thought. ‘Your son. Your son who is called Jack.’
‘Excuse me,’ I say, overwhelmed by too many mixed emotions, and stumble into the pantry. I retrieve my pills and swallow only one. I want far more, but don’t dare. Just as I’m rethinking this, I glance up to see Nick standing in the doorway looking at me.
Shame stings: the chunky kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar. ‘Only one. My feet hurt. My head hurts. My wrists are burnt. You have no idea what I’ve been through tonight – what he has done to me.’
Nick puts up a hand as if to say: Tell me no more, and disappears back into the kitchen.
I feel anger flare up. ‘Look at me!’ I shout to the half-closed pantry door. I feel unintentionally comedic, the Hammer House film villain, as I limp towards it.
The door recoils under my touch and smacks back against its hinges. ‘Look at me!’ I repeat, wanting him to hear the point. ‘Look at what he has done to me!’
Nick is now sitting at the table, an empty tumbler in front of him and my bottle of whisky. I want to shout at him, but I need to get to Jack. I need to save him – that’s all that counts.
I stumble through the kitchen door and just make it into the hallway when Nick reclaims me by the scruff of my fleece, pulling me, like a naughty child, back into the kitchen. We struggle, a silent dance that I never, not at any point, come close to winning. Even though I’m already resigned, it seems I can’t help but just try one more time. He holds his own. He is like his son – determined and strong.
Finally, when I know I’ve given up, I rest my head against his chest and wrap my arms around him, just like I used to. Holding him is like slipping on old trainers. I want to cry against him but I don’t. He holds me back, though, and for several minutes I simply rest.
‘Lese? You OK?’ he says finally, when he’s probably thought of Anne-Marie. He pulls me away a little and looks at me. ‘Seriously, what’s happened to you? Where have you been?’
I glance down at my filthy clothes, the deep, red welts on my wrists, the mud that clings to my legs and feet. Suddenly, I’m annoyed that he seen me looking like this – that this is what I look like when he hasn’t seen me for so long. I’m irritated that I even still care. ‘Jack did this to me,’ is all I manage. Then: ‘But is Jack – little Jack – is he OK?’
‘Our son did all this?’ Nick gestures to the mud, the scratches, the burns.
‘Well . . . no, but yes. I’ll explain – but please tell me first, is Jack all right?’
‘He’s fine, I promise. He thinks you went to visit a friend. He’s still awake, though. Too excited. Jack’s with him now. You’re going to sit down and rest, and then I think you need a bath.’
I sob again; I’m frightened at what will happen next, but I’m so exhausted. Emotions rise and I can’t stem my tears as they flow. I sob, feeling the overwhelming surge of feelings that I can’t tease apart. I’m just too tired.
Nick has placed his arm around me again. ‘Lisa, don’t worry,’ he says at some point and I feel his surety flow through me. His arm is welcome, a bough I can shelter under. I want more: I want him to lift me up and put his arms around me, just like he used to.
Instead he lowers me into a chair. Then he pours me a stiff drink and slides it over like a bartender in an old Western. I catch it and try not to smile. With stiff movements that make him seem older than I remember, he gets up and goes to the larder. He comes back and gives me the green first-aid kit.