I’d be there if I could, shouldering that burden with Bel, taking part of the blame too. But I was a pariah.
We walked on and a sudden movement caught my eye. A brown daub, dot of white. A rabbit. Black pellets scattered along the edge of the path.
We crossed a brook, the water copper brown. The sound made me thirsty.
I got our water out of Mac’s rucksack and we drank. The wind was colder now, with a keen edge that made my nose run.
‘I think we should go back to Leeds, move before Christmas,’ I said. ‘We can give notice to the tenants.’
‘Yes,’ Mac said. No need for discussion. He looked up at the sky: dark clouds were coming in from the coast. ‘Home?’
I nodded.
Then my phone rang.
It was the children’s home.
Chloë had run away.
Chapter Forty-nine
The hours dripped by, water torture. I imagined Chloë wandering round Darlington, unfamiliar streets, strange estates, looking for somewhere to hide. Or somewhere to buy weed. Looking for new friends, kids like her, on the edge, off the grid. Had she any money?
I imagined worse: offers of a roof for the night, food or cigs in exchange for sex.
And worse still: Chloë on a railway line, Chloë walking into traffic, Chloë poised on the roof of a multi-storey car park.
I didn’t know what to do with myself but I was unable to sit still. Mindlessly, I made a start on chores we’d neglected, filling the washing-machine, sweeping the floors, cleaning the hob.
‘You hungry?’ Mac said, when it got to six o’clock.
‘A bit. There’s probably something in the freezer.’
We had just started eating chicken pie and chips when my phone rang. A Leeds number. I looked at Mac, put the speakerphone on.
‘Is this Lydia Kelly?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your daughter is Chloë Kelly-Ross?’
‘Yes.’ Tell me.
‘My name’s Harry Stokes from the West Yorkshire Youth Offending Team. Chloë was apprehended by British Transport police at Leeds station for travelling without a ticket. I understand she’s been remanded in care of the local authority and has absconded.’
‘Yes. Is she all right?’
‘She appears to be. I’ve no immediate welfare concerns. Chloë’s at the Crown Court here in Leeds and the judge in chambers has just now remanded her into custody.’
Christ. She was going to prison.
‘Yes. Thank you,’ I managed.
‘I’ll be back in touch when we know where Chloë will be placed. I’ll need to talk to you some more about Chloë’s situation, find out what I can from you, her background, history and so on. And I can explain what happens next from our end.’
‘Thank you.’
‘She’s all right,’ I said to Mac, when the call was over. ‘I kept thinking she might have done something . . .’ I didn’t need to spell it out. ‘But they’re sending her into custody . . .’ I shook my head. ‘Mac, those places. The reports come out one after another. She’s meant to be looked-after, how can she be looked-after somewhere like that?’
‘There’s nothing we can do,’ he said, ‘except make it clear to them that she needs a lot of help and that she’s vulnerable.’
The young offenders’ institution was part of a women’s prison an hour and a half’s drive south of us on the way to Hull. Visiting time was between two and four in the afternoon, except Monday and Friday. The youth justice officer had advised us how to book in. He gave us Chloë’s prisoner number and emailed us a list of clothing we were allowed to bring in at our first visit. He stressed we had to bring photo ID with us or we’d be refused entry.
‘It’s not a nice place for anyone. We always try to avoid people being remanded in custody but, unfortunately, it’s too late for that. However, Beck Bridge does have a good reputation compared to some units. Big emphasis on support between the residents and on education. You’ll meet Chloë in the visiting hall. There’s no privacy, really. It’s going to take time to adjust, for Chloë and for you. But the team there know all about our concerns and she will be monitored as a vulnerable person. Chloë will be allocated a youth remand officer. Within the next ten days they’ll hold a remand hearing at the facility, involving you and social services. And after that they will be seeing Chloë on a monthly basis.’
When I thought of her locked up in her cell, I couldn’t shake the image I’d always had of her as a baby in her cot, cold and hungry, alone, ignored. Howling. Until she’d learned the lesson that when she cried no one came.
The route took us up and over the moors, then down into farmland, the flat terrain divided into fields ploughed for the winter. We drove through a series of small villages, passing garden centres and country pubs, the occasional caravan site along the way.
We arrived early and went to the visitors’ centre where we were checked through a metal-detection scanner, like the ones at the airports. We had to put all surplus belongings in a locker.
There was a spaniel. I thought it a nice touch, pet therapy perhaps, before realising with a jolt that its job was to sniff out any drugs.
The large visiting hall had machines for refreshments along one wall and opposite that a section with toys and books for children. Comfortable chairs in threes and fours were placed around tables in the central area.
The prisoners came through. Chloë was one of the last. My heart gave a thump when I saw her.
She looked tired out. There were dark circles under her eyes and her lips were chapped. Her hair looked brittle; it had lost any lustre.
‘Are you all right?’ I said.
She nodded.
‘Do you want a drink?’ Mac said. He bought chocolate, Coke and coffee from the machines.
I tried to focus on the practical, telling her what clothes we’d brought, asking if there was anything else she wanted.
‘We put some money in your account for cigarettes and snacks,’ Mac said.
‘What’s your room like?’ I asked.
‘OK.’
‘Small?’
‘Fairly.’
‘Have you got a telly?’ I said.
‘Yes. We can’t have phones.’
‘And you’ll be doing lessons every day.’
She nodded.
Across the room a woman in her twenties, wearing a tabard to show she was an inmate, laughed as she picked up a toddler. The woman had discoloured teeth, and tears in her eyes. The child was crying, red-cheeked, teething perhaps. How she must miss him.
Another woman, a prisoner with grey hair, was talking to an old man. He had a walking stick and hearing aids. I wondered what had led her there and how long he’d been visiting.
‘I spoke to Gregory,’ I said. ‘He’ll be happy to write a report for the court.’
She didn’t react to that.
She finished her chocolate bar.
‘We were so worried about you, Chloë. If you feel bad while you’re here, if you start thinking about hurting yourself, you must tell someone.’
‘They check on you,’ she said.
‘That’s good.’
‘There’s a window so they can see in at night.’
‘Good.’
The conversation ignited again briefly as she told me all about the latest episode of The Great British Bake Off. Then it sputtered and died. She turned her attention to the chocolate wrapper, tearing it into ever smaller pieces.
I kept talking. Dredging up questions about food, how many girls were in her lessons, what subjects they had to do. Getting monosyllables back at best.
I could feel her mood, which had been muted, start to tighten and darken.
‘You can ask about medication,’ I said. ‘I’ll mention it too. There might be something they can give you to help you relax, or help you stay calm. And I’ll chase up the social worker about counselling.’
She met my eyes for a moment. Hers were jaded, sceptical.
Around us
people were saying goodbye, picking up children, exchanging quick hugs and kisses.
‘Think of what you’d like to do when this is all over,’ I said. ‘Maybe we could go abroad, do a trekking holiday. Or if there’s a course you’d like to do. Some things you can study online. It’d be good to have something to look forward to.’
‘I want to see my birth-family, my mum.’
It was like a slap in the face.
I blinked. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Of course we can help you do that.’ I was fumbling with the buttons on my cardigan.
‘Look after yourself,’ Mac said.
‘We’ll see you on Saturday.’
‘We love you,’ I said. ‘It’ll be all right, you know.’ I stepped forward, stooping to kiss her head but she leaned away. I reached out my hand, let it hover over her forearm.
She looked around, as though bored, and moved to the door that would lead back to the prison.
And we went out through a series of heavy metal gates to drive home through the flatlands, in the pouring rain.
Chapter Fifty
That night I dreamed of Freya. Freya teetering high on a mountain top and me at the foot of the slopes calling to warn her: ‘Go back! Get away!’
She couldn’t hear. The wind snatched my cries. She saw me but stepped closer, perilously near to the edge, turning her head, hand to her ear.
‘Go back!’ I thrust out my arms, palms facing up at her, to demonstrate.
But she took another step forward.
I jolted awake, screaming.
I told Mac about it over breakfast. ‘I can’t stop thinking about Freya,’ I said. ‘All those things she’ll never do, never be . . . It’s so awful. And for Chloë . . . Do you think she’s sorry? Truly sorry?’
‘I’m sure she is, as much as she can be.’
‘I’d like to do something for Freya, I think, to remember her.’
‘What like?’
‘I don’t know. Make a memento or something. Leave it for her,’ I said.
‘Where? We don’t even know where she’s—’
‘Here on the cliffs. I’m not sure what. She’d hate anything tacky. But something natural. Could you draw her, make a picture? I’ve got photos,’ I said.
‘Sure.’
‘Would it last?’ I said.
‘We could get it engraved, use brass or slate,’ he said.
‘Slate. There’s that place in town does engraving.’
‘I could do it myself but I’d have to buy some tools,’ he said.
‘You design it then and get them to make it. Nothing too big.’ I held my thumb and finger a few inches apart to show him.
He did the sketch that evening and we agreed on words to go around the edge: Remembering Freya, with all our love, Lydia and Mac.
I had a moment’s doubt. ‘I’m just . . . what would Bel think about it?’
‘Will she ever see it?’
‘I don’t know.’
I pictured her wrenching it from the fence, stamping on it until the slate cracked.
‘And what if it came out, our names, who we are?’ I said.
‘How would it? Chloë’s identity is protected.’
‘I just don’t want to hurt anybody.’
‘It’ll be fine,’ Mac said. ‘I think it’s a good idea.’
It was a glorious autumn day, the sun warm, the air clear and still, when we went to place the engraving on the fence.
We drove up to the car park, which was as busy as ever with tourists visiting the abbey.
As we walked down the road towards the graveyard, I felt sick with tension; sweet saliva filled my mouth. I stopped. Head full of that night. Chloë on the top step by the graveyard gates, me shaking her, demanding to know where Freya was. Seeing the bottle of vodka and Chloë’s backpack on the ground. The moon’s dazzling light. Chloë tackled to the ground. The beat of the helicopter blades thudding inside me.
‘I can’t,’ I said.
‘Let’s sit down.’
I went with Mac to one of the benches on the grass outside the graveyard wall. I was shuddering, blowing my breath out, riven by panic.
Mac took my hand and held it, rubbing his thumb in stroking motions, soothing.
‘This place,’ I said, ‘I know it’s beautiful but—’ I looked up at the abbey, its ribs and columns honeyed by the sun. The outline of the great windows patterned against the blue sky. Gulls weaving in and out of the ruins.
‘Eight weeks and we’ll be gone,’ he said.
A trio of people came walking up from the 199 steps. Goths. Two girls and a boy. Black clothes and pale faces, silver-buckled boots and frock coats. Laughing and smoking. Full of life.
‘They’re early,’ Mac said. The festival wasn’t for another fortnight.
They were beautiful.
We sat on, and slowly my terror ebbed away, leaving just a wash of sorrow.
‘OK,’ I said to Mac.
We walked through the graveyard with its huge tilting headstones, its biers and family plots, to the top corner by the cliff’s edge. I saw someone had repaired the broken wooden gate and a new sign had been fitted, warning of the danger.
Mac held the picture up, suggesting a place.
I nodded my agreement.
I let the tears come, soundless, tasted salt at the corners of my mouth.
He clipped it onto the wire fencing with the bracket we had brought.
My vision was blurred as I looked at the image of Freya. I shut my eyes and said a silent prayer, then stepped back a little.
The horizon was clear, an indigo stripe marking the point where the steel grey of the sea met the bright blue sky. Closer in, a trawler was coming back to port. Down to our left, along the harbourside, people thronged the promenade and the piers. And further into town a puff of steam, a plaintive whistle, marked the arrival of the train from Pickering. ‘Rest in peace,’ I whispered.
We walked back slowly to the car. Mac’s arm around me. The sun on our backs. Past the vast stone shell of the abbey.
Chapter Fifty-one
Once we’d agreed to move back to Leeds I searched for haematology jobs in West Yorkshire. My old department were advertising for maternity cover, six months starting in January.
The irony was not lost on me.
I filled in an application and was invited for interview.
‘What if I blank out? Just freeze?’ I said to Mac, as I tried on out-fits a couple of days before.
‘You’ll smash it,’ he said. ‘You’ve over twenty years’ experience.’
‘Twenty-five. But my head’s gone to mush. My concentration. With everything that’s going on . . . And I’ve not really done interviews before, not since I started out. I’ve never needed to, working in the same place. And what do I say about moving back?’
‘You miss work, miss city life,’ he said.
‘Green or the cream?’ I held up the tops in front of me.
‘Yes,’ he said, teasing me.
I turned back to the mirror. ‘If I can get into them.’ I look so old, I thought, with dismay. Grey hair unkempt, dull eyes. My face was plump enough to mask wrinkles but there were deep grooves above the bridge of my nose, frown marks, worry lines.
Waiting to be called into the interview room, I sat wound up tight, trying to practise answers to potential questions in my head, worrying that my face was shiny, my clothes not smart enough.
But within minutes of starting, I was actually enjoying myself. I had no difficulty explaining what I might do in certain clinical scenarios or talking through the advantages of various diagnostic tests and the merits and disadvantages of different anticoagulants. My boss had retired but the new one was welcoming, and there hadn’t been many changes since I’d left. It might have felt like years but it was only thirteen months.
I didn’t stumble over the more personal questions about availability and they didn’t even ask me why I was moving back to Leeds.
I came out on a high. ‘It was amazing,’ I
said to Mac, on the phone, before I set off for home. ‘It was like – I can do this, I’m good at this.’
The interview had lasted thirty minutes. Thirty minutes when I hadn’t thought about Chloë once. And that was how it used to be, once we’d had Chloë: work was a safe space; it was constructive; there was validation there. I could exist there, breathe, do well.
‘Jaysus, I hope you get it,’ he said.
‘They’ll let us know tomorrow. But if not I can try other hospitals, even if I have to commute a bit.’
I rang Colin to let him know we were moving.
There was an odd tone to his voice when he answered the phone. I was trying to decipher it as he said, ‘Bel’s not well. She’s in hospital, a psychiatric unit. She . . . It was an overdose. She took a load of stuff, coke and pills, and she was drinking.’
My stomach turned over. ‘Oh, Colin. I’m so sorry.’
‘They want to keep her in but I don’t know if she’ll stay. She’s there voluntarily at the moment. She’s been in a bad way. Just . . . impulsive, destructive.’ He sighed. ‘You knew about Barnaby?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Well, she showed up at his house, made a scene.’
Fuck. I could see her, high and vengeful, lashing out at whoever she could. Wanting to hurt someone like she was hurting.
‘Oh, no,’ I said.
‘He’s taken out a restraining order,’ Colin said. ‘His wife was there. And the kids.’
‘What a mess.’
‘I know. Anyway, how are you?’ he said.
‘Not great. Just getting on with it. Still waiting for a date for the court case.’
‘And Chloë?’
‘Well . . . just about coping. It’s so hard.’
‘I can imagine,’ he said.
‘We’ve no idea whether they’ll convict her or what sort of sentence she might get.’ If she was released, would she come back to live with us? I thought Mac would leave if that were the case.
‘We’re moving back to Leeds in December.’
‘Oh, that’s good,’ Colin said.
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