Mike was an only child, his parents too old to help. I would have to call them, tell them to come from France. They hated doing anything last minute, they would be upset and flustered. Our children were the only possibility for donation. Or at least, that was what I’d thought until a few days ago. ‘There is another option,’ I said, leaning forward slightly, lowering my voice. The doctor frowned, as if she understood. ‘A . . . blood relative.’
‘Over eighteen?’
‘Just.’ By three days. Jake had celebrated his coming of age in prison. I hadn’t bought him a present, and even with all this happening that felt wrong. Stupid.
‘And would they give consent?’
‘I . . .’ I thought of everything we’d gone through in the past two weeks. Jake stabbing Mike, the blood pooling on the pavement. The look on Mike’s face as it ran over his fingers. The pictures I’d handed to the police. I need you to know who Karen really is. ‘I really don’t know,’ I said.
Cassie and I drove home, my head throbbing. I was surprised to see a car in the drive, a people-carrier. My mind ran through possibilities – the police with yet more bad news, reporters, bailiffs – before realising it was Jodi and Callum’s car. What were they doing here?
Callum was standing on the drive as we pulled in, a hand raised in greeting. He wore a work suit, and looked tired. I rolled down the window. ‘Cal!’
‘Sorry to barge in. I was just in the area. Thought I’d check on you.’ That was strange – Callum worked in the City, and I couldn’t think of a reason he would be in this part of the country – but I led him in, sending Cassie upstairs with stern instructions to study.
‘Tea? Something stronger?’
‘Tea would hit the spot – got the wheels with me.’
‘How’s Jodi?’
‘Oh, you know. In the home stretch. I think I’m just getting under her feet.’ He barked a laugh, sitting down at the kitchen table. ‘How are you coping, Al?’
‘Oh . . . Not so well.’ I found myself spilling out selected highlights of the story. Cassie suspended (I glossed over why). Our money problems. Mike in hospital, needing a transplant.
Callum looked grave. ‘Bugger, I’d no idea it was so bad. Ali, I’m sorry. We’ve been rubbish – it’s just Jodi can barely leave the house, and I’m so slammed at work. I’ll call in and see him, shall I?’
I shook my head. ‘He won’t know you’re there. Thank you, though.’
‘Wish I could do something to help.’
‘The main thing you could do would be help me figure out these payments.’ I shuffled among the papers on the table – clutter that would never have been there before all this – to find the financial statements Bill had been going through. ‘Bi – er, I managed to find out it’s some kind of shell company, but I don’t know which, or why Mike would be paying money to it.’
‘Hmm.’ Callum took the papers, frowning. ‘I can take a look, sure. These things can be tricky to decipher though.’
I popped teabags into mugs and poured the water on. As I carried them over, Callum said, ‘Heard you went to Oxford.’
‘Oh?’
‘Victoria and Jodi keep in touch. She’s very good at that, keeping in touch.’ Jodi was good at everything. ‘Why did you do that, Al?’
‘I just . . . they’ve reopened the case. Martha’s. They might charge Mike with it.’
He looked incredulous. ‘After all this time?’
‘Maybe. Cal, did you . . .’ I hesitated. ‘You’ve told me everything you remember about the ball, right?’
He was thoughtful. ‘He was with her. You know that.’
‘For a while?’ I held his gaze. Had Mike lied to me about this too?
Callum screwed up his face. ‘Yeah. I saw them together, in the garden. Kissing.’
‘And then?’
‘I left them to it. I was – well, I was bloody angry, to be honest. That he’d do that to you.’
‘So it wasn’t the truth – that he just took her to the garden and went?’ He told me he’d left her there and immediately gone back to the ball, looking for me. But that wasn’t true.
‘I don’t think so. Sorry, Al.’
‘He lied to me.’ That explained Mike’s panic after Martha had been found – he knew he’d been with her much longer than he’d said. That people could have seen them. That maybe his DNA was even on her, if he’d kissed her. ‘Jesus.’
‘I wanted to tell you but – well, let sleeping dogs lie, that’s what they say. I thought it was best. I’m sorry.’ Callum closed his hand over mine, and I was grateful for it, but at the same time I couldn’t believe the way everyone had kept secrets from me all these years, covered for Mike and his indiscretions. Although, of course, I’d kept secrets of my own as well.
1996
‘Hey,’ said Bill, as I reached him on the lawn.
‘Hey.’ I downed my drink, feeling it pour through my veins. ‘Bill, let’s get drunk, want to?’
‘Aren’t you already drunk? I am.’
‘Drunker then. Please. I want to watch the sun come up with you.’ The sky was lightening, showing the remnants of the party, everything a bit tattered and stained. I began to screw my eyes up.
Bill hesitated a moment, as if he knew what I was really asking. ‘What about Mike?’
‘Who knows. Who cares?’
He watched me. ‘Ali.’
‘Please, Bill. It’s the last night. Our very last night.’ I threaded my arm through his, tossing my plastic cup on to the lawn. He followed it with his eyes but said nothing. The place was a mess, what difference would one more cup make? I bunched my dress into the hand with the shoes. I imagined how we’d look, a girl in crumpled silk with bare feet, a boy in an outdated tux and floppy hair, on the lawn as the sky streaked pink. I bet we looked beautiful. Powerful, young. Sexy. Suddenly I was in love with the idea of Bill and me. Of course it made sense. He’d been there all this time, waiting, carefully not asking for more, while I ran about after Mike, making a fool of myself. Karen was blue in the face telling me he didn’t love me, he used me, he’d never settle down with me. At last, I knew she was right.
Bill hesitated. ‘Wait here a sec. I saw some bottles of champagne no one’s opened.’ He dashed across the lawn with his loping stride, and I waited. As I did, someone else lumbered up to me – Callum. ‘There you are!’ I said. ‘Jodi was looking for you.’
‘Oh.’ He seemed vague. He was very drunk. ‘Al – wanted to say. You look good tonight. Beautiful, really.’
‘Thank you.’ I smiled at him.
‘Heard about your dad, earlier. My old man, he’s the same. Always saying Callum, do better, Callum, you’ve messed up again.’ He wiped a hand over his mouth. I began to feel worried I would get stuck there, that because Bill was nice, he would stay and try to listen to Cal’s drunk ramblings. I wanted to go, be out of here, alone with Bill.
‘Thanks, Cal, I appreciate it. But I’ll be OK.’
‘You ever need anything . . . I’m your friend, you know?’
‘I know.’ I looked around me; where was Bill?
Callum put his hand on my arm. It felt hot, heavy. ‘He doesn’t deserve you.’ His words ran into each other. ‘Mikey-boy. Al. You don’t even know what he’s . . . he’s not good to you.’
I didn’t want to hear about what Mike was doing – a vague sense it would be something I didn’t want to know – so I pulled away. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’m fine. Listen, Cal – I think I just saw Jodi in the next quad.’ I hadn’t, but I wanted him to go, I wanted out of this situation.
His face looked woebegone, and I didn’t understand why. Again, he put his hand on me, this time around my waist. The other too. Oh no, I thought. ‘Cal – I have to go.’
‘He doesn’t deserve you.’ His breath was boozy, and for a second I panicked that this was all going to go wrong, but then Bill was there.
‘Everything OK?’ There was a bottle of champagne in his hands.
‘Fine.’ Callum rel
eased me and I stepped back. ‘Cal’s just a bit drunk. He’s going to find Jodi now, aren’t you?’
Cal nodded, sadly. ‘OK.’
‘Come on, Bill.’ I felt him hesitate, knowing he should stay, that something was going on that needed to be smoothed over, but I pulled him on and he came, and we walked out of the quad and through the lodge, into the street.
‘We could go to the park,’ he suggested. ‘See the sun rise there. Come back for breakfast.’
‘Let’s do it.’ And we left. I’m not sure of the timings for that night. I’ve always wondered what difference these small interactions on the lawn made – if they made any difference at all. If by arguing with him I’d kept Mike back for a crucial moment, allowing someone to slip into the garden and hurt Martha, or if Martha was already dead by then, behind the wall in the Fellows’ Garden, while the rest of us danced and drank and kissed just metres away.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I kept checking my suitcase obsessively. Did I have my purse, my phone, my charger? It was so long since I’d spent a night away. ‘You will be good?’ The pleading note was back. ‘I mean, you better be good.’ Could I really leave, when Cassie was in such a slump, hardly getting out of bed unless dragged? I’d even seen her leave her phone switched off, which was unheard of. Probably the picture was still circling. Maybe it would never truly go away.
‘But where are you going?’ Benji still looked confused, standing in the doorway of the bedroom as I crammed clothes in my case. I’d shouted at him so rarely in his ten golden years on the planet. ‘And who’s going to mind us?’
‘I’m – I have some things to sort out. To help Daddy.’ Although it seemed like such a long shot that my breath bunched up under my ribs.
‘But who’s going to mind us, Mummy?’
‘I – I’ll explain when they get here.’ If she got here. I’d taken her long silence, the request for my address, as agreement, but I wasn’t at all sure. ‘Benj, let me past.’ I lugged my case into the hallway, catching sight as I did of the mess in his room. I knew what she would think. She wouldn’t say anything, but that didn’t matter. ‘For God’s sake, can you tidy up? Is it too much to ask that you keep your own room clean!’ I saw him flinch again, and remembered it. Remembered that a rain of criticism, of shouting, can feel like blows as a child. ‘Oh come on, let’s just get these out of sight.’ I dashed into his room and started picking up Lego and Minecraft toys, lifting the lid of his chest-shaped toy-box to chuck them in. Something was in there – a flash of red. A whiff of smoke.
‘Mum—’
‘What is this?’ But I knew what it was. I recognised the bright colour. I’d finally found Mike’s missing jumper. My heart began to race. What did this mean? ‘Benji, where did you get this?’
He squirmed. ‘Don’t know.’
‘Tell me!’ My voice cracked like a whip.
‘It was in the rubbish pile. Mummy, I’m sorry! I didn’t want Dad to get in trouble so I – put it here.’
Benji’s head hung, the picture of guilt, but I didn’t have time to take it in, because there was a sharp rap at the door, and Cassie was running to answer, the one time I would have wanted her to be lazy and inattentive. ‘Mu-UM!’ Confusion in her voice. The sound of another low one, which struck me to my core.
I hissed to Benji, ‘We’ll talk about this later. Go down.’
I shut the toy-box and steered him in front of me like a human shield, and when we rounded into the kitchen there she was, with one small bag at her feet. She looked old, her clothes cheap and unfashionable, bought in Tesco or Asda no doubt. My heart ached to see her, to feel all the things her face made me feel. But like it or not, I needed her here.
‘Cassie, Benji – you remember your grandma. Mum. Thank you for coming.’
The kids gaped at me. We did not hug, my mother and I. I think both of us knew that the two foot of kitchen between us was an insurmountable distance to cross.
It was a long, sweaty train journey. I’d been lucky to get a seat, but the aisle was so crammed, people sitting on the floor, that there was zero chance of making it to the loo or buffet car. Instead I sat and brooded, unable to focus on the magazine I’d bought. All those things I used to care about, like matching tableware and new face creams. I felt torn in all directions. Cassie, weeping. Mike in hospital. That jumper in Benji’s room. Someone had hidden that in the garden waste heap, likely hoping it would get destroyed. Did that mean it was someone who knew about Andrej and his bonfires? I sat and thought about it all. About Bill, the look on his face as he left. Karen. Her white face, her shaking hands. And long ago, Martha, dead in her silk dress under a moon as pale as bone.
I almost turned and ran at the base of the street. I could only imagine DC Devine’s face if he knew I was here. It might even be a crime of some kind. I didn’t know. I’d come anyway – I had no choice.
I’d got it out of a reluctant Jodi that Karen had gone home to Birmingham. Probably, the police housing budget had run out, so they’d sent her back to her old life. It was a long time since I’d visited Karen here – had it always been this shabby? The kind of road that made me pull my handbag closer to myself, walk stiff and fast. Bins in what had been front gardens, litter in the gutters, a house boarded up and graffitied. The last time we’d come, I remembered, we’d swooped Karen and Jake off to stay in a cottage in the Cotswolds with us. Thinking we were being kind, giving Jake a glimpse of fun and wealth. Not realising that maybe we were being cruel. I put my hand on the gate then pulled it back as if it was hot. The paint was rough and peeling, and someone’s takeaway sprawled across the pavement like a crime scene, chilli sauce ebbing against my loafers. I tutted, wiping it off as best I could, and rang the number for Karen’s flat. It was a lifetime since I’d lived somewhere like this – right after uni I’d floated along with Mike to a Clapham houseshare with Callum. Even that had been nice, the boys’ salaries propelling us right through the scuzzy broke stages of life, scraping together coins for a gas meter, living off brown rice till payday. For the first time, I registered that maybe this wasn’t right. At least it told me one thing – if Karen and Jake lived like this, they were unlikely to be getting money from Mike every month.
I rang the bell. A large part of me was hoping she wasn’t home. But where else would she be? She hadn’t been able to work, she’d said. Leaving the flat was too much for her.
There was a moment of silence, and I heard feet scuffling in the hallway. Karen stood in her doorway, the communal hallway behind her littered with pizza leaflets and dead leaves. She wore too-large jeans and a baggy sweatshirt I registered as our college hoody. It was the first time in my life I’d no idea what was going on behind her eyes. Her daily hopes and dreams. Her wish list, who she hated most at work, which particular quirk of Jake’s was causing alarm. She was like a stranger. She was wearing glasses. I tried to think: had I known Karen wore glasses? She said, ‘Oh.’
‘Hi.’ Would we ever be like we had been, words tumbling over each other, carrying on five conversations at once? Mike had always shaken his head. How do you keep track of it? And we’d smiled indulgently over his head. Because what we had was special. And look, that was gone now. Every memory involving Mike was spoiled like a sheet of paper dropped into water, a dull stain spreading through it. ‘Can I come in? I need to discuss some things with you.’ Business-like. That was the best way.
A flicker of anger crossed her face, and she went to shut the door on me. I held it open. ‘Please, Kar! Please. I need to talk to you.’
‘You shouldn’t be here.’ Her voice was low.
‘I know. But you came to me. I’m doing the same, OK? Please.’
As she led me upstairs, saying nothing, I tried not to look around me. I wasn’t sure I could control my face at the smell of cooking and the dirt on the stair carpet. The loud noise of CBeebies blared out from another flat. Karen and Jake’s was nicer, prints hung on the wall, stacks of second-hand books, a throw on the sofa. But there was
no disguising the mould on the wall or the stink of damp in the corridor, Jake’s room little more than a cupboard. She stood in the living room with her hands on her hips. No offer of tea. I sat down on the old brown sofa. I realised suddenly it was the one we’d had in our first London flat. Handed down.
‘How are you?’
She ignored my question. Just as well really. I wasn’t ready to hear the answer. Instead she crossed to the mantelpiece and took a cigarette from a packet of B&H. Karen hadn’t smoked since uni – not until the night it happened, of course. She saw my look. ‘It’s either this or vodka.’
‘Right. Sure.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I think we need to talk. Mike and Jake are . . . we have to do something.’
Karen’s eyes were blank. I couldn’t read her at all. ‘He won’t get a long sentence. It was too much for him, finding out who his father was.’
‘You told him before the attack?’ I didn’t believe this for a second – why would she tell him something like that at such a moment? But there was no way to prove it and Karen didn’t bother answering again. She lit her cigarette, sucking deeply; for the first time, I saw her as someone I’d cross the street to avoid. A poor woman. A woman who drank too much, smoked, had a kid with no father. Like mine, Karen’s family were not wealthy. If I hadn’t hitched myself to Mike after college, this could have been me.
I said, ‘He stashed the knife beforehand. That looks bad – attempted murder.’ It might be actual murder if she didn’t agree to help me, if Mike died. ‘I know you’re angry but surely you don’t want Jake in jail? He could be tried as an adult. It’s at least five years, probably more. It’ll ruin his life.’
‘You’ve got some nerve,’ she said quietly, dragging on her fag. ‘Telling me how to raise my son.’
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