by Heidi Perks
When Angela suggested it would be good to talk to Charlotte, I knew she’d be my downfall—I’d want to tell her everything. As adamantly as I refused, Brian was insistent, and eventually I caved. But as soon as my friend stepped inside my living room, I couldn’t bear to look at her. I wanted to freeze time around us so I could crawl across the floor and whisper in her ear, “I know where Alice is. This isn’t your fault. I’m sorry for what I’m putting you through, but I’m doing this for her.” As fear and guilt dripped from Charlotte’s words, I realized how stupid I’d been to convince myself she would one day understand why I’d done what I did.
Before that moment, I’d told myself it was only a matter of time before my daughter reappeared and Charlotte could move on with her life. Her abundance of friends would get her through the short term and no one would blame her. In fact, I’d not only thought they wouldn’t blame Charlotte, I believed they’d feel sorry for her. How dreadful she must feel, they would say. Their hearts would go out to her. It could have happened to anyone.
What I didn’t anticipate was that Charlotte would be posting on Facebook the moment my daughter was taken. That a journalist would pick that up and twist it until she looked like nothing more than a careless and inattentive mother who was ultimately as responsible as whoever had taken my daughter. To make it worse, every news report on Alice attracted comments from strangers lashing out at her, blaming her. Everyone was focused on Charlotte’s failings, and I couldn’t imagine how she was coping. Yet still I continued to reassure myself that as soon as Alice was back, everyone would forgive and forget.
But deep down I knew what I’d done. Because seeing Charlotte in my living room, trying to piece together how she could have lost my daughter, fractured my broken heart into more shreds. She would never get over it.
Later Brian paced the living room, loading every ounce of blame onto Charlotte, skillfully dodging it himself, as always. Of course, he could justifiably wipe his hands clean on this one, though it never stopped him when he couldn’t. This is your doing, Brian, I thought, watching him prowl, smacking a fist into the palm of his other hand when Angela wasn’t watching. If you hadn’t made it so impossible for me to leave, I would never have resorted to this.
It was ironic that the reason I’d never confided in Charlotte about my husband was because I didn’t want to lose her, when I knew now that I would anyway. When she came to the house that night, it was clear there was already too much separating us to be able to find our way back.
I’d had another friend once. After Jane and Christie and before Charlotte, I’d worked with a receptionist named Tina at my school in Kent.
Sometimes Tina and I would slip out and have lunch at the local bakery. She was in her early thirties and lived alone in a one-bed, purpose-built flat with two cats she wasn’t supposed to own. She was always intrigued by married life and how it didn’t seem to make people as happy as they should be.
“I’m happy,” I’d told her during one lunch.
Tina had snorted, wiping a napkin roughly across her nose, making me wonder how it didn’t catch the tiny stud that sparkled when she moved. She took a large bite of her sandwich. “No you’re not,” she’d said as sauce dripped onto her plate.
“Of course I am.” I’d been married a year and had a husband who was forever telling me he loved me and how beautiful I was, how I was the only thing in his life worth living for. We had just enough money to get by and I enjoyed my part-time job at the school, even if I wasn’t making the best use of my education. How could I not be happy?
“Really?” She opened her eyes wide. “Can you hand on heart say everything’s great?”
I fidgeted and looked down at my untouched sandwich. Brian might not be the person I thought I’d end up with, and maybe I didn’t always feel like I got things right. It was true I managed to upset him quite regularly. Just the night before, he’d questioned why I never showed him much affection.
“Why don’t we ever see Brian?” she’d persisted. “He turns up to collect you, but he never comes out. Nor do you, much.”
“I do,” I’d protested. I couldn’t tell her Brian couldn’t stand Tina’s brash sense of humor or how her loudness grated on him. “In fact, I’m coming to the end-of-term drinks on Friday,” I announced suddenly, knowing I’d get away with it because Brian was, unusually, away overnight at a conference.
That Friday evening, as Tina downed her sixth glass of Pinot Grigio, she’d slurred at me, “Brian has a weird hold over you.”
I brushed her off, though her words stayed with me, and a few months later when Brian and I had a row, I ended up walking out of our flat and staying at hers.
“I can’t believe what I’ve just done,” I’d told her. I was shaking. I’d never stood up to him before. Brian wanted me to cut my hours at school, but for once I wouldn’t agree. I loved my job and had even just been offered a promotion. “Mrs. Mayer’s job,” I’d explained to Tina.
“What’s the problem with that?” she’d asked. “And you should totally go for it. You could do that job with your eyes shut.”
That was what I’d thought, only Brian wanted me home more.
Tina choked on her wine, managing to spit a mouthful back into her glass. “You’re kidding, right?”
I wasn’t. He told me I should be more of a homemaker than a career woman, and asked me if I wanted our marriage to work, because if I did, I was going the wrong way about it.
But as Tina had continued to vilify Brian, I found myself drawing away from her, unable to defend my husband but increasingly anxious to do so. He was still the man I loved, and I didn’t think he was as controlling as she said. I needed to believe he was only worried for my sake, because if I didn’t, then what else was wrong with our marriage?
By the time Brian had turned up at Tina’s door, I was ready to run back into his arms and tell him I loved him. I wouldn’t go for the promotion, I’d assured him, but I stood my ground: I wasn’t prepared to give up any hours.
• • •
I TRIED IGNORING how much he continued to obsess over Tina and how she’d influenced me so easily. How unhappy I’d made him putting my friends and my so-called career first. At the time I was just pleased I’d stood up for myself, though deep down I knew he felt betrayed.
What I never expected, when I was back at school three weeks later after Easter, was for Brian to pick me up and tell me we weren’t going home to our flat anymore. “Surprise! I’ve bought you your dream, Harriet,” he’d said, clapping his hands.
“You’ve what?” I’d laughed. “What are you talking about?”
“We are moving, my love,” he’d said, straight-faced and carefully monitoring my reaction. “Everything is packed already, so you don’t need to worry about a thing.”
“But I like our flat,” I’d told him, watching his face fall. “You’re having me on, Brian.” I giggled nervously.
“No, I am not. I’ve bought us a house by the sea in Dorset. We are starting again. A new life,” he’d told me, a little more despondently than the conversation had started.
“But—” I began. “You mean you’ve sold our flat and bought a new house? You can’t have.” But I knew that was exactly what he had done, and because it was all in his name, he didn’t need me to approve it. “Why?”
Brian looked at me carefully. “It’s just going to be me and you, Harriet,” he’d said. “Isn’t that what you want?”
It took a long time for me to understand how threatened Brian had been, how close someone had come to seeing him for the man he was. Someone who, in his eyes, was turning me against him. I stood up to him. I refused to let my job go. It was Tina’s fault: it couldn’t have possibly been my decision.
Other friends had been more easily disposed of, but one of the reasons Brian disliked Tina was because she was so dogged. When Brian moved us to Dorset, he knew he couldn’t let that happen again. He needed another way to ensure I wouldn’t slip away from him. Having his daughter
wasn’t enough. He needed me to believe that without him I wouldn’t survive. So he chipped away at me until I doubted my own sanity. How could I leave when I was so reliant on Brian or had no money of my own? How could I leave when he’d set it up so he could effortlessly prove I couldn’t be trusted to look after my daughter?
As I pressed on toward Cornwall, I ignored the unsettling feeling Brian might have been right. If I could be trusted, I would know where Alice was right now. Instead I was heading to a place I’d only ever seen on the internet.
“It’s dirt cheap,” he’d told me, pointing to the pictures on the rental website. “It’s tucked away on a lane that’s pretty much deserted. There are only three cottages and no one bothers you. No one even goes down there.”
I shuddered at the mismatched furniture and the old-fashioned stand-alone units in the kitchen. The backyard was long and much larger than Alice was used to, but it was also overgrown and untidy, and I couldn’t imagine what she would have made of it when she was taken there from the fair.
But wasn’t it also perfect, I had thought at the time. We’d needed a hideaway where no one would notice a little girl and a man appear one Saturday afternoon, before they were aware the country was looking for them. A place where no one would look for her.
Only now, all the things I had convinced myself were good about it made me sick. The secluded shack of a cottage was more of a threat than a safe house, and I was still more than three hours away from getting to it.
NOW
Is there any news?” I beg.
They’ve told me so little of what’s happening—all I know is that Charlotte’s being questioned in another room somewhere down the hallway by the detective who’d turned up at the beach. But this isn’t the news I’m after.
Detective Lowry shakes his head no. Behind his small, circular, wire-rimmed glasses and his light-ginger stubble, his face is the epitome of blankness. It has been since he introduced himself when I was brought into the station, his short legs scurrying up the hallway as I followed quickly behind.
I am desperate to get back out there and find out for myself what is happening. I’m sure the detective is keeping something from me. Maybe he thinks that by keeping me in the dark he can manipulate me to his advantage, use my fear to break me down.
I peer at the clock and then at the door, dismissing a crazed yearning to jump out of my seat and run toward it. Is it locked? Can I run out? I’ve not been arrested, after all. He’s told me I’m here to help, and yet he’s stepping around me like I might snap at any moment. Of course, I could physically walk out, but what would I do then? Where would I go? If I did that, I’m sure they would haul me back inside in handcuffs. So even though I want to run, I know it’s impossible.
I gaze toward the wall on my right and wonder if Charlotte is on the other side of it. She could be saying anything, and I have no right to ask her not to. I lost that luxury the day of the fair.
“Are you okay, Harriet?” Detective Lowry asks.
“Sorry?” I look up at him and he nods at my wrist. I hadn’t noticed I’d been rubbing it. I pull my hand away. The skin is red but the searing pain has subsided and in its place is a dull throb.
“I think it’s okay,” I say, though no one has checked, but right now my wrist is the least of my problems.
He is still watching me, glancing at my wrist. He looks concerned as he strokes a thumb against his stubble, before he checks himself and looks down at his pad. Now he is moving on and is interested in my friendship with Charlotte. I tell him she was always a good friend to me.
“Charlotte knew I didn’t know anyone in Dorset,” I say. “She made me feel welcome.” I was grateful for that, more than I would have ever let on. It had taken me three months to find a part-time job and settle in at St. Mary’s primary school, and still I had no one I could call a friend. I’d seen Charlotte on the playground, huddled in her group of mums. She’d stood out from the others, with her long blond hair always swishing behind her in a ponytail, her skinny jeans, long gray cardigan, and sparkly flip-flops. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, for no other reason than she attracted me like a moth to a light.
I would go into school in the mornings and look out for what she was wearing. I used to pull my own tangled mass of hair back into a ponytail and see if I could look like her.
Charlotte was the picture you stick on the fridge: the one that reminds you there’s something to aim for. For me she epitomized everything I wanted in life: freedom and the ability to make choices without repercussion.
“Charlotte introduced me to her group of friends, but to be honest I didn’t have much in common with the rest of them,” I say.
“But you did with Charlotte?”
“Surprisingly, yes. We were both raised by our mums. We lost father figures in our lives at an early age. There was an understanding between us because of that, and not everyone gets it.”
Detective Lowry looks at me quizzically, but I don’t elaborate. Instead I say, “It just meant we had something in common. Something we could talk about,” I add, even though I was never the one to talk.
I tell him more about our friendship, the hours we spent chatting on the bench in the park.
“Your friendship sounds a little . . .” Detective Lowry waves a hand in the air as he searches for the right word. “One-sided.”
I look up at him.
“Don’t you think?” he says, tapping his pen lightly against the desk.
“No, I think she wanted it too.”
“Absolutely, Harriet. I meant it seems like she needed you a lot more than you did her.”
I smile thinly because he could not have been more wrong.
“Or maybe I have the wrong impression, but it sounds like you were there for Charlotte a lot more than she was for you.”
That might be true, but only because I made it that way.
“Do you think on some level she knows this now?” he asks, and his words sound shrill as they ring across the desk. I know what he’s getting at, but he doesn’t say it outright.
“It wasn’t a matter of either of us needing each other,” I lie, because surely that was the essence of our friendship.
“But why didn’t you ever share anything with her, Harriet?” he asks. “Were you afraid she wouldn’t believe you?”
No, that wasn’t it.
At first I was afraid I didn’t believe myself, and then I was afraid I would lose her. But I was also scared of what would happen, how far he would go. He had dispensed of Jane easily because I’d let him. He had moved our whole life because of Tina, but with Charlotte I couldn’t take the risk, because I had Alice to think of too.
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Brian told the doctor today that I am getting worse. He said that when he came home he found out I’d locked myself in a cupboard for most of the afternoon. He raised his eyebrows as if this were typical of me.
The doctor looked at me under his bushy eyebrows. I might have mentioned my fear of small spaces once. He asked me how I’d coped.
Brian butted in, saying he felt so sorry for me as I was claustrophobic. He added that I can’t even lock bathroom doors and told the doctor that I’d once made him walk up thirteen flights of stairs because I wouldn’t get in the elevator.
The doctor just nodded and asked if Alice was with me, but I still didn’t get a chance to answer. Brian said she was as he shook his head, calling her a little mite and saying that she must’ve been going out of her mind. Then he said that he’d explicitly told me yesterday morning not to go anywhere near the cupboard because the lock was faulty. Apparently this is what worries Brian—that he tells me things and I don’t remember.
I closed my eyes but I didn’t speak.
The doctor said my name, waiting for my side of the story, but what was the point? Brian would only contradict me. In the end I told him I couldn’t remember. But I can. I remember all of it:
I woke, relieved when I realized Brian had left the
house already, because I could start my day without having to look at my husband. Never mind it was raining heavily outside, Alice and I would stay in and watch TV and play games.
Alice was looking for something when I found her in the living room. Her toys were scattered over the floor and I remember thinking I’d have to tidy them before Brian came home.
Alice said she couldn’t find the game with rockets—the one with the aliens and spaceships—and we looked through her toys together but couldn’t find it. In fact, none of her board games were there, which was odd.
As I’m now in the habit of checking everything with Alice, I asked if we’d moved it, but she shook her head. I didn’t think we had, and we’d even played it the day before. Alice pointed to one of the plastic crates and said she’d put the game back in there.
The only other place I could think it might be was the downstairs cupboard, which we rarely use, but it’s the only place to store anything in this small house. I held the door open with my foot and pulled the light cord, but the light didn’t come on. The box of spare bulbs was at the back of the cupboard so I squinted in the darkness until I just about made out a stack of board games shoved onto a shelf at the far end. Edging closer, my heel still against the door, I leaned in to grab it but couldn’t quite reach. I shuffled a little more, and as I touched the box my foot slipped and I fell forward while the door slammed shut behind me.
I screamed out in the pitch-black. But with one hand on the game, I straightened and felt my way back to the door. It wouldn’t open. I shoved at it, pushing as hard as I could, but the door remained jammed. My heart hammered as I shoved and shoved, banging on the door, though what use was that when it was only Alice and me in the house?
I heard her whimper on the other side of the door. She was asking where I was.
I called out that I was stuck in the cupboard, trying my best to keep the fear from seeping out through my words, but I was scared stiff. I asked Alice to try pulling the door from the outside and felt it give a little as she did, but still it didn’t open.