by Suzy K Quinn
‘I think … she’s Annalise, isn’t she? The girl who went missing.’
Skywalker trots behind us, his paws making a gentle puff-puff sound on loose soil and fallen fir frongs. We come out of the woodlands into full sunshine.
‘What makes you think that?’ Michael asks, turning to me then, eyes sharpening.
‘I was born around the time Annalise went missing,’ I say. ‘I’ve checked all the dates. I have her middle name, which is weird and no one has ever explained it to me. And I was watching Cat Cannon at the party. I look a little like her. These two crazy canines.’ I point to my teeth. ‘And it also explains why you’re putting off telling me. Because Annalise would have been really young. Like, far too young when she had me. And I might think badly of you for it.’
Michael stares at me then, eyes dark and curious. ‘You, Liberty bell, are a very clever girl. Maybe too clever for your own good.’
‘I’m not that clever. I just pay attention.’ We carry on walking. ‘I’m right though, aren’t I? And Annalise was underage when you were together. Fifteen.’
Michael sighs. ‘Annalise was a beautiful thing. Such a beautiful thing. You know, love … it can be ageless. We have a soul age too. Not just an earth age. Annalise was an old soul. I loved that girl so much. People get caught up in labels when it comes to relationships, Liberty. Age. Gender. Race. But you love who you love. I’ve never believed in putting limits on that.’
‘Does Diane know?’
‘No. And it would kill her if she found out.’
‘You should tell Diane the truth. You owe her that.’
‘Diane can NEVER find out about Annalise. Do you hear me? Never.’ Michael’s sudden fury knocks me sideways.
‘Okay, okay.’ I hold my hands up. ‘Chill out.’
Michael’s face loosens. Then he starts nodding and manages a laugh. ‘You’re right. Sorry. It’s just I want to protect Diane, you know? She’s been through enough pain thanks to me.’
‘How could you sleep with someone so young? You must have been … what? Nearly forty? And to get her pregnant too. I mean … that’s pretty bad. Not to mention illegal.’
Michael snaps his head towards me. ‘You’ve made your point, okay? Things happen. Love happens. Have you ever been in love, Liberty?’
‘Lots of times. But always with people I’ve never met. Like David Bowie.’
We’re nearing the main house now, and Michael is still walking fast.
‘You’ll learn in time,’ he says. ‘Love is complicated. You don’t choose it. You fall for who you fall for. Look, I’m not proud of being with such a young girl. But Annalise and I were like Romeo and Juliet. Star-crossed lovers. Soul mates.’
‘Even though you were married and she was underage?’
‘Diane and I were separated for a few years. The years Lorna and Annalise happened.’
We cross the moat, me looking at Michael’s turreted mansion.
‘Diane told me that you two never separated. She said my mother made that part up.’
‘Women sometimes kid themselves,’ says Michael. ‘Listen. The world of adult problems is … complicated. Don’t you get caught up in all the rules and have to’s. Love is beautiful. In whatever form it takes.’
‘I don’t get how you can make out that a relationship between an adult man and a fifteen-year-old girl is okay,’ I say. ‘It’s not beautiful at all. It’s a power imbalance.’
Michael pulls open the front door with force. ‘So what are you, Liberty? Just a little Lorna parrot? Is she telling you what to think now? Has she sent you here and put words in your mouth?’ His eyes go wild suddenly, swimming in their sockets. ‘Just get inside the house, for goodness sake.’
I take a step back. ‘I say my own words. And I know my own mind.’
Michael studies me for a moment. Then he shakes his head. ‘Sorry. You’re right. Look, I didn’t mean to lose it. But it was such a hard time, you know? For everyone. And I don’t know how to explain Annalise to you. I didn’t expect you to work out she was your birth mother.’
‘So what were you going to do? Just keep me hanging on, desperate to know who my real mother was?’
‘To tell you the truth, Liberty, I didn’t have much of a plan at all. Come on, let’s get things back on track. You’re a great artist. You and I should be talking about music, not arguing.’
‘Do you have any idea what happened to Annalise?’
‘Nobody knows, love.’ Michael considers the front door, with its iron studwork. ‘Cat and I have spent millions of dollars searching for her.’
‘I saw Cat at the party. Does she know—’
‘Cat doesn’t know about you. And I for one am not going to tell her. She’s just given up drinking. I don’t want to send her straight back to the bottle.’
‘Oh, so you have a virtuous reason. Nothing to do with not wanting her to know that you slept with her fifteen-year-old daughter?’
Michael gives me big, earnest eyes. ‘Look, maybe I sound like I’m excusing my behaviour. You’re right. Me and Annalise – it wasn’t right. She was too young and it wasn’t okay. When you’re a rock star … people make you into this sort of godlike figure. Normal rules don’t apply. It warped my thinking. But losing you … it was God’s punishment, you know? For the life I was living. It put me straight. And I’ve been straight ever since. Can you forgive your old man for being the devil who made all those mistakes?’
‘I don’t know. I’m still trying to get my head around everything.’
‘You don’t know?’ More anger flashes across Michael’s face. It’s so quick this time that I’m not sure if it was ever really there. But now Michael is smiling and putting an arm around my shoulder. ‘Of course you don’t know yet. This must be so hard. You’ve lost a mother, found a mother, then lost her again – all in one day. It’s a lot to deal with. Can you see now why I didn’t want to tell you who your real mother was? There’s so much pain there. For all of us.’
‘What do you think happened to my real mother?’
‘God forgive her, I think that beautiful girl took her own life. She was a child having a child. And then to have her baby taken from her, stolen by a jealous rival … it broke her.’
I shake my head. ‘I can’t believe Lorna did that to her. Stole me away.’
‘I think evil is the word for it.’
‘So … what was my birth mother like? I mean, by the sounds of things you knew her better than anyone.’
Michael drops his sunglasses down onto his face. ‘And I’m ashamed of it, Liberty. God help me, I am. But Annalise was quite something. She had the most beautiful singing voice. It was from another world. She felt music in a way I’ve never seen before. For a soul like that to just disappear … utterly tragic. In my opinion, Lorna destroyed that girl just the same as if she’d held a gun to her head and pulled the trigger.’
‘Maybe Annalise isn’t dead. If no one has ever found her … I mean, it’s possible she’s still alive, isn’t it?’
Michael shakes his head. ‘She would have been found by now. I think she hurled herself off a cliff somewhere and was swept out to rot at sea. Let’s get ourselves into the house and we’ll talk some more.’
I turn and click my fingers at Skywalker. ‘Come on, boy. Come on. Stop being a dead weight.’
‘What’s he doing, that dog of yours?’ says Michael, frowning. ‘Get him inside, would you?’
Skywalker is lying on the brick moat bridge, nose to the ground.
I shake my head. ‘I’ve trained him, but he’s still a rescue dog. He’s always doing crazy stuff. This is probably a protest. He wants to go back and run around the woods, sniffing everything.’
‘He looks like he’s having a rest,’ says Michael. ‘Get the old boy moving.’ He whistles. ‘Come on, doggy. Let’s be having you.’
I walk back to Skywalker, standing over him. ‘Come on, friend. On your feet. Let’s go inside and feed you.’
Skywalker doesn’t move.
>
‘Is he in a huff with you or something?’ Michael asks. ‘Maybe we’ll just leave him out here. He can catch his own lunch. But you and I should go inside. Let’s go now, Liberty. Come on.’
I kneel to Skywalker, hand on his back. Skywalker is almost totally still, the only movement being the gentle rise and fall of his chest.
‘Skywalker?’
He doesn’t respond.
‘Something’s wrong,’ I say, crouching. ‘He feels too cold.’
I give Skywalker a shake, but his body is unmoving like a corpse. ‘Michael, something’s wrong. He’s … sick or something. We need to take him to a vet. Can we use your car?’
Michael’s eyes turn shadowy. ‘Poor little doggy. Let’s get him into the house and have a vet come to us. That’s the best way to do things. Here – I’ll carry him.’ He scoops Skywalker into his arms and half walks, half staggers into the house.
‘Wait.’ I jog after him. ‘If we take him to a vet surgery, they’ll have all the equipment—’
‘There isn’t anywhere like that for miles, love.’ Michael walks sideways through the front door with Skywalker in his arms. ‘We’re way out in the country. But I know a vet who lives in the next village. He can come here. That’s going to be a lot quicker.’
‘How quick are we talking?’ I stay close, stroking Skywalker’s head as I follow Michael into the entranceway.
‘Let’s put your doggy in the guest bed upstairs,’ says Michael, climbing the staircase. ‘Put a blanket on him. Warm the poor fellow up. And I’ll call a vet. No more talk of leaving now. We have everything we need right here.’
Michael takes us right up to the turret room – the same one I slept in last night – and lays Skywalker on the bed.
‘Stay with him, Liberty,’ says Michael. ‘Stay right there.’
‘Please, I really don’t think … if he needs his stomach pumped, he’ll need a veterinary surgery. We’re wasting time.’
‘Sit on the bed with him, love. Or he’ll get upset. Don’t move from there, okay? You’re not going anywhere.’ Michael leaves, closing the door behind him. There’s a clicking sound.
‘Wait.’ I go to the door. ‘I don’t think this is the best way—’
But the door is stuck. I shake and rattle the handle.
There is another clicking sound, and the door opens. Michael fills the doorway. His eyes aren’t nice guy eyes anymore. There are no crinkles. They are empty, churning black holes.
‘I told you to sit down on the bed, love. And not move. There’s a girl. Sit right on that bed or there’ll be trouble. Lorna will be here any minute.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve sent Lorna a message. She’ll be on her way here right now. So you just wait up here in the princess tower until she arrives.’
‘I don’t understand.’ I start to cry. ‘What did I do? Why are you being so mean all of a sudden?’
Michael leans his face right close to mine, so I can see his fury up close. Then he intimates my voice: ‘I don’t know. I’m still trying to get my head around it. An older man and such a young girl. She was only fifteen. It’s a power imbalance.’ He pulls back then, eyes still churning. ‘Of course it’s a bloody power imbalance. What do you think this world is? One big hippy festival? Do you think my father played fair when he beat the living daylights out of me and my brothers? That’s the way the world really is, Liberty. You get strong or you die. That, baby girl, is the only lesson in life worth learning.’
‘I’m leaving.’
‘No, you’re not. You’re staying right here until Lorna comes. You’re my flesh and blood and you’ll do as you’re told.’
‘Why do you even want me here? You sound like you hate me. What good am I to you?’
‘My goodness, Liberty. You might be good at chess, but you didn’t inherit my brain. You’re here so Lorna will come here.’
‘What?’
‘You’re the bait in a trap I’ve waited years to set. Lorna belongs to me. I trained her to be the perfect, compliant mate but she ran away and now she thinks she’s in charge. She needs to remember who owns who.’
‘So that’s your problem? That she got away from you? That’s what all this is about?’
‘Lorna didn’t get away,’ Michael snaps. ‘Did she? She’s on her way here right now. I got her in the end.’
I stand.
‘Let me get past.’
‘Without your dog?’
I turn back to Skywalker. His chest moves up and down, but only slightly. The rest of him is totally still.
‘He doesn’t look well, does he?’ says Michael, snapping his reasonable face back on. ‘Best you stay with him. Wait until your mother gets here. I can’t let you go running around on your own. What kind of parent would I be?’
‘Did you do something to my dog?’
‘He’s probably eaten something he shouldn’t.’
‘Will you call a vet at least?’
‘Not until Lorna gets here,’ says Michael. ‘Let’s hope your mother has a spring in her step.’
My eyes dart around the doorway. ‘Please. Let me phone a vet or—’
‘Sit down.’
‘Please, I—’
‘SIT DOWN.’
I plop down on the bed, my hand going to Skywalker’s fluttering chest.
Once upon a time …
I’ll bet you feel so lonely, you could die.
I hummed the David Bowie song to myself as I carried a food tray to my bedroom.
I’ll bet you feel so lonely, you could die.
Michael was entertaining journalists in the lounge, so I’d been told to stay out of sight.
‘It’s not the right time to show you off. I still haven’t finalized the divorce. We’ve got to keep you a secret just a little bit longer …’
I’d been in the gym room all morning and was about to undo all my good work by eating potato chips and chocolate fudge cake, washed down with Coca Cola. Michael hated me eating junk food, but he still kept cupboards of it in the kitchen for himself. Comfort food. In the absence of love, food would have to do.
Michael hadn’t visited my bedroom since Annalise came to stay.
Yes, Annalise was still here. Days had turned into weeks and now months. I could hear her at night, sometimes singing in a nightingale voice, sometimes moaning. She was moaning because she was sick, Michael said.
As I reached the landing, I noticed something – Annalise’s bedroom door was open. It was never open.
I set my tray down, stuffing a handful of potato chips into my mouth. Instinctively, I glanced at the stairs in case Michael was watching.
‘Annalise?’ I knocked softly on the open door.
Annalise was on the bed, her back to me, looking out of the window. She was staring at the large concrete hole that was destined to become a swimming pool, and the acres of fir tree woodlands beyond. Her room was a mess – piles of chiffon dresses on the floor, books, underwear …
Annalise was a mess too. Her long, brown-blonde hair was unwashed and unbrushed. She’d put on weight – which pleased me. Her middle was round and large, something I knew Michael would loathe.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked. ‘I heard you making noises again last night. Michael says you’re sick.’
Annalise didn’t answer. Just sort of gawped at me, staring with her big, dumb fish eyes.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I get it. I’m not Lord Michael. Only Lord Michael is good enough to waste your words on. But listen, you can’t stay here forever. Don’t you think it’s time to pack your bags and go home to your mother? Michael’s getting tired of you being here. He … he told me.’
A lie.
As I turned to go, Annalise said, ‘I’m not going home. I’m going to stay here with Michael. We love each other. We’re having a baby. And when the baby comes, Michael says we’ll all be one big happy family.’
I put my hands on my hips. ‘What are you talking about? What baby?’
‘Michael and I are h
aving a baby.’
I laughed. ‘Don’t be stupid. You’re living in fantasy land. I’m his girlfriend, get it? His real, actual girlfriend. You’re just some silly girl with a crush who’s come to stay.’
‘I’m the mother of his child.’
I laughed again. It was so ridiculous. But then Annalise put hands to her stomach. It was round and solid-looking under a flowery summer dress.
I stared at her. My hand went to my own stomach, and to the scar running across my abdomen.
‘Who’s the father?’ I asked, swallowing thickly.
‘I told you. Michael.’
‘Come on, Annalise. Who’s the real father? Is that why you left your mother’s house? Because you were pregnant and didn’t want her to find out?’
‘Michael is the father,’ said Annalise again. ‘We’re in love. He’s going to divorce Diane and marry me.’
I laughed. ‘You’re just a dumb kid making up stories. You probably got pregnant by some roadie on tour and now you want Michael to be your happily ever after. Been there, got the T-shirt. But I got there first. So it’s not going to happen for you. Michael loves me.’
I stormed right downstairs to the lounge, where I found Michael entertaining two journalists – both women. They were laughing, while Michael topped up champagne glasses and offered cucumber sandwiches.
I hesitated, feeling sickly terror. Interrupting Michael when he had guests … there would be consequences. I felt them in every sinew of my lean body. But I couldn’t stop myself.
‘Michael.’ My voice was shaking.
Michael’s eyes lit with anger when he saw me in the door way. ‘Excuse me, ladies. My assistant has come to bother me when I’m meeting important people.’ His words and lips were tight. ‘Lorna here is my Girl Friday. She’s here to do the very dusty and thankless job of stocktaking merch out there in the cottage. I should lock the door to keep her out there. She’s always sneaking into the house for tea breaks.’
The two female journalists laughed.
‘I need to talk to you,’ I said.
Michael’s black eyes burned. ‘Not now, okay?’
‘No. Now.’ I smiled at the journalists. ‘Sorry. Urgent stock taking business.’