by Amy Beashel
‘What did everyone say?’
‘Her mum was crying, my dad too, but Kiera’s aunt had an abortion while she was at uni apparently. She has three kids now…Kiera’s mum said it was Kiera’s body. Kiera’s life. Kiera’s choice.’
‘And you?’
‘I think she was right. Kiera asked me straight up what I wanted, and truth is, for all my talk about stepping up and being a man…’ Harry shakes his head, like, whatever that means, ‘I wasn’t ready to be a dad.’
‘But don’t you think you would have got yourself ready? That once “the baby” arrived, something would have kicked in and you’d have loved it?’
‘Probably,’ he says, checking his mirrors, indicating left, ‘but maybe things are better this way. A baby should be wanted, don’t you think?’
‘I s’pose.’
‘Look,’ Harry says, coming to an almost standstill as we pull into town, ‘it’s never gonna be a decision I’m happy about, but that doesn’t mean it was the wrong decision. Just means we made a mistake and we chose the path we most wanted to live with.’
Even I don’t know if I’m not not saying anything when I sit there not saying anything at all.
‘And it sounds odd but there are positives to come out of it, Iz. I might not have had to grow up enough to be a dad, but I did grow up. My own dad saw to that.’
‘What do you mean?’ In my head, I see the kind of ‘lesson’ Daniel would dish out in the same situation. Maybe he feels my panic cos Harry’s all ‘no no no’s and a hand from the steering wheel to my knee to reassure me it was nothing like that, nothing like Daniel – it was OK.
‘He said I had to have more respect for women. For myself too. That talking girls into unsafe sex was…’ He pauses, looks at me, like, you can draw your own conclusion. ‘Let’s just say he wasn’t happy.’
‘And what happened with Kiera? When she went for the…’
‘Abortion?’ Normal volume this time. ‘We went to the appointment together. Her mum waited in the car. I’m glad I was with her. She was a bit nervous, I s’pose. But the staff were nice, and she was given these pills. She messaged me after a couple of days to say it was all over. And that was it.’
‘And that was it?!’ For the first time in this conversation, I feel the rise of something. ‘Just like that?’
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ Harry says. ‘Not like, Kiera had an abortion, there we go, all done and dusted.’ And he’s rising too, his hand snapping away from my leg and his voice like, don’t you judge me. ‘What I meant was, it was straightforward, not the decision exactly, but the actual procedure. And that was it. That was it for the idea of “the baby”. That was it for Kiera and me. And, if I’m really, really honest, that was it for the sheer panic that owned me for the previous few weeks.’
At least Harry doesn’t recoil when I reach for him.
‘And like I said, that was also it for me being a mega dick. For most of the time anyway,’ he says, giving me this smile, like, cut me a break, I’m really trying here.
‘Do you not think it’s different for my mum though?’
‘I think it’s probably different for everyone, Iz. But if she doesn’t want “the baby” – and from what you’ve told me there are good reasons why she wouldn’t – then maybe it is the right choice for her.’
We sit with the lights on red.
‘It’s like Kiera’s mum said. It’s her body. Her life. Her choice.’
And I can feel it, the weight of Harry’s expectation that I’ll suddenly be one hundred percent OK with this.
The car behind us sounds its horn, and we move on.
FIFTY-THREE
We scull for exactly thirty minutes. Harry times us to be sure.
‘You positive I can’t drive you to the refuge?’ he says when we’re back at the clubhouse.
‘Absolutely.’ I grab Grace’s bag from his locker. ‘It’s against the rules anyway. No one can know where it is. Safety, innit?’
He doesn’t look convinced. ‘It’s your safety I’m thinking about.’
‘What? You worried those bloodsucking eels are gonna get me, Harry?! Listen,’ I say, ‘I’ll call my mum, tell her I’m on my way, OK?’
‘OK.’ He kisses me once, twice. ‘Three times for luck,’ he says. ‘Tomorrow then.’ And one more kiss goodbye.
‘Tomorrow.’
And although, as he walks away, I’m already wishing tomorrow was today, I’m also glad for this time by the water, for the mum who answers the phone when I call to let her know I’m heading back from the river. Glad too for her saying ‘It’s fine, Izzy. Honestly, it’s fine’, when I repeat my sorries, meaning it this time when I tell her I respect her choice.
‘I do understand, Mum, why you can’t keep the baby. It’s sad, but I get it. I understand.’
‘I know I said it before, Izzy, but it hasn’t been an easy decision,’ she says, and I think of Harry, how he wasn’t being a diplomat – he was merely being fair. ‘I love you so much.’
And Mum’s voice is a bird’s nest: all these things she’s pulled from the world around us might look like a mess, but she’s building with them, bringing me into the shape she’s made with them, promising she’ll keep me safe.
‘I love you too,’ I tell her, poking a stick in the river, watching how the water moves around it; how, whatever happens, the water flows on.
FIFTY-FOUR
‘Isabel?’
I cling on to Grace’s bag like it’s one of those lifesaver rings you toss into the water if someone is drowning.
‘I thought it was you.’
And even though my heart is a pneumatic drill, Daniel’s voice is a tannoy linked to the sky.
‘You left this behind,’ he says, and even though it’s quiet, his voice drowns out everything. The birds. The river. The wind.
I see his feet first, the Adidas Gazelles he’s had for months but are still looking box fresh. Like the rest of him. Still so handsome. Still so George. Still so butter wouldn’t melt.
‘Your mum’s purse, isn’t it?’ He’s holding it out to me, the same smile he had when I first met him all those years ago when I smiled back and let him in. ‘I thought you might need it.’
And his eyes too are the same, that way he can look at you, make you feel like there’s no one else in the world. And it used to be a good thing. But here by the water, it feels like the scariest thing of all.
‘I wouldn’t have minded bringing you back, Isabel. If you’d told me you were coming. You didn’t need to make that boy drive all the way up here from Kent. You should have asked.’ He drops Mum’s purse into my lap when I don’t take it, sits down next to me on the riverbank, watching me the whole time, still with that smile and those eyes and that confidence in his body that’s so different from Harry’s confidence in his.
‘I got home just after you left.’ He tucks my hair behind my ear like Mum used to when I was little, his finger lingering on my neck. ‘Found that.’ He nods at the purse on my thighs. ‘My mother said you’d been.’ Your ‘dead’ mother, I think. ‘And what luck –’ he pulls gently on my chin so my face is turned towards his – ‘to see you outside Tesco like that. To be able to follow you here.’ And the word ‘here’ sounds like a prize, like the peopleless place that it is.
‘I’ve missed you, Isabel.’ His breath is coffee and mints, those strong ones he keeps in his car. ‘Did you like the pictures I sent?’ And when I don’t say anything, he points at Grace’s bag. ‘Is it in there? Your jar.’
I don’t nod. I don’t do anything other than just about breathe.
‘I can give you a lift now, if you like.’ His head cocks to the side as he waits for an answer that won’t come. ‘Well?’ His face is frozen, his voice has dropped a few degrees, ice crystals dancing on every one of his syllables when he tells me how much effort he’s made to find me, to keep me safe. ‘I kept my eye on you all the way up in that boy’s car. At the services too.’ His thumb and forefinger make a small cl
amp on my jaw. ‘Things got quite intense between the two of you for a while there, didn’t they, Isabel?’ Daniel’s grip tightens, and he pulls my mouth closer to his mouth. ‘All that kissing. Not for the first time from what I hear. From what I’ve seen.’ And he pulls his phone from his pocket with his free hand. ‘Harder for little sluts to keep their secrets these days, don’t you think?’ And there on his screen is the Fingers photo.
His laugh is so soft it tickles my nose.
It’s funny what you notice when you’re this near, like how Daniel’s eyebrows need waxing, like how his hair isn’t George’s exact shade of grey.
‘I’ll sort that boy out for you.’ He’s so close, everything that comes from between his lips snakes its way between mine, filling my throat and my chest with the heavy threat of everything he’s not saying, of everything he could possibly do. ‘That’s what good dads do, Isabel. Look after their children. Keep them from harm.’
Everything I want to say gets caught up in my throat like swallowed vomit.
‘I’ve tried to be a good father to you, Isabel. Your mother knows that. That’s why I don’t understand.’
‘Understand? Understand what?’ I don’t mean to spit them, but the hate I have is too thick with bile to keep the words down.
‘Why Stephanie wouldn’t want my baby.’ His eyes are fixed on me.
And right here, right now is when I need Daniel not to take any of the control I’ve clawed back over my body, because this is when I need it to be still, to be neutral, to do the opposite of what Grace says it should, to be as silent as the rest of me and give nothing – nothing! – away.
‘Your mum’s pregnant.’ He’s barely audible. ‘Isn’t she?’ And Daniel’s voice is like that man on the news programme he listens to on the radio in the mornings, the one whose tone is calm but with an impatient edge to it when he has to repeat his question. ‘Isn’t she?’
‘No.’ I pull my head from his hold, reaching over to Grace’s bag, putting Mum’s purse in, taking my phone out, trying not to look too scared, not to look at any part of Daniel, not to let my stumbling thumb prevent me from unlocking it so I can dial 999.
‘Liar.’ He slips the unlocked mobile too easily from my palm. ‘I heard you, Isabel. On the phone just now. “I do understand, Mum, why you can’t keep the baby.”’ The same impression as Jacob. And the same assumption as the rapper boys: that he has this god-given power to whittle me down. ‘Tell me the truth, Isabel,’ Daniel says. And then slower. Each word a bullet from a gun. ‘You. Will. Do. As. I. Say.’
I feel it then, that simmering in the pit of my belly as I look him square in the eye and say, ‘No.’
‘No?’ And his voice is a black hole, sucking in everything around him so that nothing can escape the pull of his gravity.
Except me. Because Daniel may have thought I was broken, but here I am, filled with a blast of sunshine making a kintsugi kind of light.
‘No,’ I say to all that hurt he hurled at my mother. ‘No’ to all those times he stole our hope. ‘No’ to the silence in which he buried us. ‘No,’ I say to Daniel. To Jacob. To those boys on the river. ‘No. No. No.’
‘You’ve found your voice,’ Daniel says. ‘How sweet.’
‘No,’ I say to his hands on my shoulders.
‘No,’ I say to his knee on my thigh.
‘No,’ I say to his mouth on my ear telling me that if my mother’s going to get rid of his baby, he might just get rid of hers.
‘No,’ I say one last time, knowing, as always, that whatever I say is useless, because Daniel climbs on top of me and the sheer mass of him eclipses the sun.
Daniel holds me down with one hand and scrolls through my unlocked phone with the other, hitting dial when he sees Mum’s number, muttering something about babies and bitches and ‘I should have known…I should have known.’
‘After everything I’ve done for you.’ His saliva smears dirty rainbows on the screen, which he presses hard against my nose, so I hear Mum’s distant ‘Izzy! Izzy!’ and the sudden lurch of her tears.
‘Eye for an eye,’ he says.
Mum’s scream is a lightning bolt firing from the refuge to the river, where Daniel tosses my phone in the water and kneels over me, slowing the world on its axis and raising his hand like he’s revving up for a strike.
And that thing, what they say about your life flashing before your eyes – well, it’s sort of but not quite true. Nothing flashes. Everything muffles. And I begin to blank. That muscle memory luring me into flat lines and whatever will be will be. Daniel’s fist comes slowly, slowly towards me, the inevitability of its punch so blunt it’s like my blood vessels aren’t even waiting for the blow before they cave and leak beneath my skin. The same old, same old story so familiar we both know where it ends.
My songs play somewhere beneath the water, like a farewell, distant and drowned. But then as Daniel’s knuckles loom closer, I swear I see their notes pushing their way up on to the riverbank, breathing life into the beat of them, and then they rise.
And as they rise, I rise, my muscles pushing aside the memory of least resistance and dancing to the moon, the lagoon, the sunshine, the perfect and the roar, which have brought me here and given me a choice.
My body.
My life.
My choice.
And given a choice to trust my body’s power, I say yes to it. Because Daniel may have thought Mum and I were as breakable as my necklaces, but there is light in our broken pieces and it is strong.
Daniel’s pinned me with his left hand and his right hand is coming down fast; I twist my head from its path and watch it lift again, higher this time, his fingers almost catching the sun.
Yes.
I half expect to feel the heat of the Jar of Sunshine as I grab hold of it from Grace’s bag. But there’s no magic. When I pull it clear of the rucksack, it doesn’t blind Daniel with its love light, it doesn’t make him disappear, but when I pull it down harder and faster than I thought humanly possible, smacking it with all my burning power on his head, it’s just enough to stun him, for him to lose his grip and drop to the side of me on to the cracks of the sun-baked mud.
I wiggle upwards, just about standing, and run.
And I run. And I run. And I run.
Along the river. Beneath the trees. Looking for someone. For anyone. I run.
My breath horror-movie heavy. My arms pumping action-movie hard. I run.
Eyes forward. Heart huge. I run.
Where are the dog walkers? The ramblers? Even the river rappers?
I run.
Away from his ‘Isabel! Isabel!’ Away from his ‘Stop, Isabel, please!’, getting louder as he runs harder and faster than me. I run.
I run where the bank expands into a field of green, but if I run into the open, there’ll be nowhere to hide and so I run into the dark corridors of the weeping willows, hoping their branches will conceal me as I run not just away from but to. To the bend in the path, to the slope of the hill, to the bushes and behind, where I bury myself down in the burning sting of the nettles and hush those horror-movie heaves into slow silent breaths as I lie still and watch him appear around the corner and run.
And stop.
Daniel stops, turns full circle and smiles.
‘Is-a-bel,’ he sings, voice like a child in a game of hide-andseek. ‘Is-a-bel.’ Turning and circling as he’s seeking me out. ‘Is-a-bel.’ Warm. Warmer. Warmer. Hot. Hotter. Hotter. Until he’s just a few metres from where the nettles lick at my ankles.
I bite on my thumb knuckle to stop the scream.
Then something flickers in the distance.
‘You.’
It’s not me he’s talking to but someone at the top of the hill who is running down, running hard, running strong.
Mum.
I see her when she spots him, how she stands still but doesn’t droop. Her feet wide. Her fists clenched. Her bald, bold head held extraordinarily high.
‘Where is she?’ Mum’s voic
e is a rise in the sea level. ‘Where’s Izzy? ’ she says again when he doesn’t answer.
I push myself up from the ground and show her I’m here.
I run, and Mum runs, and her arms are a tent in the storm.
‘Stephanie.’ He smiles, and she may as well be a guest at a party cos Daniel’s voice is all how nice to see you, and his hands are open like he’s beckoning a hug. ‘What happened to your hair?’
He takes a small step closer, and we take a small step back, but our steps are three-legged-race awkward and uphill and backwards so we literally can’t see or feel our way out.
‘Isabel told me the news. It can be our new start.’ Daniel’s voice is blossom as he looks at Mum’s belly.
I whisper, ‘Sorry.’
And she tells me very clearly, very calmly, ‘It’s OK.’
‘Your hair will grow back, Steph. And it can be you, me, Izzy and the baby,’ he says in that tone as delicate as roses.
I expect her to flinch, but Mum’s voice is a fossil and Daniel hears it, sees it too, how she’s unearthed this part of her that’s been buried for years. ‘There won’t be a baby, Daniel.’
‘You won’t get away with it, you know.’ His thorns come out, but Mum’s bald head pushes closer to the sky. He’s an arm’s length away now, his hand reaching for Mum’s neck, Mum’s ear, Mum’s scalp, his eyes narrowing when she doesn’t buckle under the nasty promise his fingers circle in figures of eight on her skin. ‘Where’s my pretty little girl gone, Stephanie?’
And then comes the flash. The flash of our lives since we met him. The flash of him on my mum and his fingers in her nose and his elbows in her stomach and his words constantly streaming in her head. The flash of his gifts and his promises and his shining-armour rescues and his tear-stained pleas. The flash of him pulling on her hair on her pretty little head. And as I push his arm away from her, she reaches into her bag and grabs the hairspray he’d insisted she carry everywhere, and as I raise my foot to his groin, she aims for his eyes. And even though we’re not quite in sync, we make it work because together we move faster, stronger than if we were alone.