Wall of Silence

by Tracy Buchanan

  He’d been there when Patrick had been strong enough to visit Lilly the day before, wheeled to her bed by Melissa. Patrick had just laid his head on her bed and sobbed as Lilly looked down at him, face expressionless. Seeing him like that, so vulnerable, made Melissa realise even more that Bill was right. She had a chance to make things right and sew her family back together if she could only forgive Patrick for his infidelities . . . what else could she do? Leave Patrick when he was in such a state, have the twins endure the separation of their parents when they’d already been through so much?

  After talking with Bill on the day Lilly tried to take her life, she went to Patrick and told him she forgave him, that they needed to be strong for the kids. He didn’t seem surprised. It seemed easy enough for him to fall back into his confident old ways, as though all the horror hadn’t really happened. Melissa was too exhausted not to go along with it. Like today, watching him at yet another physio session, just as she used to watch him doing his speeches at local events as he tried to raise his profile for the election. She might as well; she was practically living in the hospital, dividing her time between Patrick and Lilly.

  Today was different from the past week, though. Today she would be visiting Grace . . . plus, as their house was no longer under scene guard, she’d decided it was time to move back. Truth was, she’d been avoiding it – easily done as she was spending most of her time in hospital. She wasn’t sure why she’d been avoiding it. Maybe because it would all feel so fake now, their seemingly perfect ‘family home’ that belied so many fractures. But it really was time to return, maybe even clean the place. Do something normal.

  ‘Melissa, look!’ Patrick said now. He’d reached the end of the bar, his handsome face alight with a bright smile.

  ‘Isn’t he doing well?’ one of the nurses remarked as she passed. Melissa smiled.

  Patrick really was doing so well. There was just one area of his recovery he was having particular problems with: his speech. His nurse said it was probably due to how sore his throat was after having pipes in for so long. It meant Melissa had to make do with brief sentences and laminated cards to communicate properly with him.

  It was frustrating for him, but even more so for Melissa, as it was impossible to get a clear picture of what had happened that Thursday afternoon. She wanted to know all the nuances of it, what led up to it, how Grace had seemed to Patrick in the weeks and days before. They had always said they were a team when it came to the kids, but she still felt like she was a member down, even though Patrick was awake now.

  Patrick threw Melissa another smile as the nurses helped him into his wheelchair. When he got to Melissa, he instantly looked at his phone. The local elections had been the day before, not that Melissa had really taken any notice. But it meant a lot to Patrick, and now he was desperate to see if the votes had been counted.

  ‘Any news yet?’ she asked him.

  He shook his head, his forehead shiny with sweat and his dark hair glistening with it too.

  ‘Well, you did great up there,’ Melissa said.

  He beamed at her. ‘Did good, didn’t I?’

  ‘Wow, you are talking so much better too! That was really clear,’ she said, clutching on to his hands. ‘Did you hear yourself?’

  He nodded, putting his hand to his throat and wincing. ‘Hurt, though,’ he whispered.

  ‘But it’s a good start. We should tell your nurse. Can you try to say something else?’

  He frowned, shaking his head. ‘Hurts.’

  ‘Please try, Patrick,’ she said, searching his face. ‘It would be so good to talk. I still don’t feel I’ve got to grips with what happened that afternoon, if—’

  He shoved her hands away. ‘Hurts!’

  She looked at him in surprise.

  The nurse strolled over. ‘Everything okay here?’

  Melissa sat back against the bench, watching Patrick. ‘Patrick just said a few words. But it’s clearly very painful for him.’

  ‘Well done, Patrick,’ the nurse said, crouching down in front of him. ‘Want to try a few more for me?’

  Patrick shook his head, gesturing to his throat. ‘No worries,’ the nurse said. ‘We’ll try later. Shall we get you some lunch?’

  She wheeled Patrick away as Melissa stayed where she was for a few moments.

  Patrick turned and looked over his shoulder, jutting his chin to beckon her to him. She got up and went to him.

  St Fiacre’s was a large three-storey house on the outskirts of Ashbridge with views of Forest Grove in the distance. Melissa had been desperate to visit Grace before, but this was the first time she had been allowed, two days before Grace was due in court to hear the charges against her. While Grace was there, the staff were focusing on getting her assessed.

  ‘It will help her case,’ Detective Crawford had told Melissa when she’d spoken to him on the phone. ‘If we can get a full psychological assessment, and maybe her version of the story in the process, we can put together a fair trial.’

  Trial.

  Melissa couldn’t believe her daughter would be dragged through the courts, even if they were the Youth Courts. At least the public and the media wouldn’t be present. The thought of the media finding out it was Grace who had stabbed her dad, a man running to be the local parish councillor, struck fear into her heart. It hadn’t got out yet, but it would. A ten-year-old from a village like Forest Grove stabbing her father was perfect tabloid fodder. Detective Crawford warned Melissa to brace herself; somebody was bound to leak it to the press.

  Nothing yet, though, thank God. Even the Forest Grove Facebook group had gone quiet.

  She walked towards St Fiacre’s now with some trepidation. She couldn’t help but play over Jacob Simms’s experience there, despite Detective Crawford’s reassurances that the home had had a complete overhaul since that incident. The house looked innocent enough from the outside, a fine white Edwardian property with large windows, the small silver sign and the buzzer at the front the only clue to it being anything other than a family home. Melissa pressed the buzzer and was allowed in when she gave her name. She was greeted by a woman with a name badge and taken through to the room where she would be seeing Grace. It had a range of comfy sofas and shelves laden with books and games. There was even a TV. Clearly the people running the place wanted to create as normal an environment as possible for the children there, and for their visiting families. But for Melissa, it was hard to see it as normal, especially when she took in the other visiting families and the children they were coming to see. Melissa wasn’t the type to judge, or at least she tried her best not to. God knows she’d not exactly come from an auspicious background herself. But it was clear the people there had had hard lives. It was written across their faces, in their choice of clothing. Melissa stood out like a sore thumb with her Boden tunic and Salt-Water sandals.

  Grace did too as she walked in, a book in her hand, a member of staff behind her. She looked particularly young, with her hair in plaits. She never usually wore her hair in plaits. Melissa jumped up and went to her, hugging her tight and trying her best not to cry. The woman behind her nodded, walking off to a nearby chair and taking out her iPad.

  ‘How are you, darling?’ Melissa said, leading Grace to a comfy chair. ‘Have you been eating enough? Is the food nice?’

  Grace shrugged and Melissa bit her lip. She looked exhausted up close, dark circles under her blue eyes. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, really. But still, it worried Melissa.

  ‘Are Lilly and Lewis okay?’ Grace asked quietly.

  ‘They’re fine, darling.’ She couldn’t bring herself to tell Grace what had happened to Lilly. She had enough on her small shoulders as it was.

  ‘When can I come home?’

  Melissa forced herself not to start crying. ‘There needs to be a trial first.’

  ‘When will that be?’

  ‘I don’t know, darling, Detective Crawford said maybe six months. We have the court date first, of course. I’ll b
e there.’

  Grace tensed in her arms. ‘I don’t think I can do this, Mummy.’

  Melissa grasped her shoulders. ‘Nonsense. You need to be strong,’ she said, realising this was the best approach now for Grace. No more mollycoddling. ‘Think Maleficent kind of strong, when she gets her wings cut off in that Angelina Jolie film.’

  Grace nodded, leaning her head on her mother’s shoulder.

  ‘Did Maleficent have a mum and dad?’ she asked.

  ‘You know what, I don’t know.’

  ‘Aurora was brought up in the woods with the fairies, right?’

  Melissa nodded and Grace peered out of the window in the direction of Forest Grove. ‘If I’d got to live with Ryan,’ she said, ‘maybe I would be living in the woods with him. Maybe I wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Why would you live with Ryan?’

  Grace turned back to look at her mother. ‘He’s my dad.’

  Melissa shook her head, grabbing her daughter’s hand. ‘He isn’t your dad, Grace. Where on earth did you hear that?’

  ‘Dad told me.’

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Friday 3rd May, 2019

  11 a.m.

  Melissa walked up the drive to her house, still trying to process what Grace had said to her earlier. She’d considered going to Patrick right away, asking him what the hell he’d been playing at, telling Grace she was Ryan’s. But she needed time to think.

  She put her key in the door, not quite believing it was just over two weeks since she’d done the same, expecting to be greeted by the usual chatter and calls for food. As she stepped inside, a bag with Lilly and Lewis’s dirty clothes in her hands, she felt as though her legs were filled with lead.

  She paused and looked around her. Things felt different now. It no longer felt like a home. She walked through into the kitchen and sat on a stool, staring at the place where Patrick had lain. Over two weeks ago, just two weeks, and yet so much had happened to change the course of their lives here. She yearned for the humdrum of the time before, the whir of the washing machine and the sound of music drifting from the twins’ room upstairs. She yearned to see Grace reading in her favourite corner of the living room and Patrick throwing a toy for Sandy. But instead all she saw now was Patrick and Grace standing across from each other, shouting over a broken bloody watch!

  She sighed and got the mop out, beginning to clean the floor. But the blood was so congealed into the grout that she had to get down on her hands and knees, scrubbing at it with a hard brush, tears rolling down her cheeks as she thought of Grace stabbing Patrick in this very spot . . . of Patrick telling Grace she was Ryan’s!

  There was a knock on the door. Melissa took a deep breath, wiping her tears away with her wrist, then she walked down the hallway, the scrub brush still in her hands.

  She opened the door to find Daphne there.

  ‘Oh, Melissa,’ Daphne said, pulling Melissa into her arms. ‘Maddy told me about Lilly. I’m so sorry you’re going through this.’

  ‘It’s horrible.’

  ‘I can’t even imagine.

  Daphne’s eyes dropped to the brush in Melissa’s hand, which was dripping bloody water on the floor.

  ‘I’ve been trying to get the blood out,’ Melissa said.

  Without saying anything, Daphne took the brush and went to the kitchen. If she was shocked by the sight of the bloody swirls on the floor and the police tape on the side, she didn’t show it. Instead, she knelt down and started scrubbing until every drop of the blood had disappeared. Then she turned her attention to the rest of the kitchen as Melissa sat at the kitchen table, watching her friend.

  ‘Patrick recovering well, then?’ Daphne asked, without looking up.

  Melissa nodded. ‘Yes, apart from his speech. It means we’re not able to get much more out of him about what happened.’

  ‘And what about you guys? How are you after, you know, all the rumours about Patrick?’

  ‘We’re hanging in there.’

  Daphne’s jaw clenched as she scrubbed harder at the kitchen worktops. ‘So you’re going to stay with him, are you?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  Daphne stopped scrubbing and looked up at Melissa, wiping her brow. ‘You know people like him never change, Melissa. I just—’ She sighed, shaking her head. ‘Sorry, it’s none of my business.’

  ‘No, carry on. Maybe I need to hear it,’ Melissa said, thinking of what Grace had just told her.

  ‘I don’t want you being influenced by Rosemary and Bill,’ Daphne said. ‘I hope you know you have your own strength without them . . . without Patrick too. You can do fine on your own. You need to learn to trust your instincts, something that can easily get lost when you’re hugged too close.’

  Melissa had heard a similar speech from her mother a week before she died. Her mother had broached the subject of them getting their own place a few villages away. Melissa hated the idea. She loved staying at Bill and Rosemary’s, and she’d told her mother that.

  ‘But I can’t breathe properly here, Lissie,’ her mother had said. ‘I feel smothered by Bill and Rosemary, by the whole Forest Grove community.’

  ‘They’re not smothering us,’ Melissa had whined. ‘I love it here!’

  Her mother had grown quiet and reflective. Then she’d looked at Melissa with her big blue eyes. ‘There’s this interesting story I once read about a forestry school in the Philippines.’ Melissa had sighed. Her mother had a tendency to go off on tangents. ‘The school decided to revive a forest nearby, which had fallen into disrepair. They planted a huge variety of trees in the woods, using various seeds, including mahogany seeds from India. And my, those mahogany hardwoods were wonderful, spreading like a good’un, nourishing those floundering forests and providing shelter to animals and students alike.’

  Melissa had rolled her eyes. ‘India. Philippines. Mahogany seeds? What’s this got to do with anything, Mum?’

  ‘Patience, child!’ her mother had said. Melissa had gone quiet. Truth was, it was the first time her mother had properly talked since they’d left the cottage. It was almost like she was back to her old self. Her mother leaned forward, looking her daughter in the eye. ‘Problem is, those trees began to take over. They became a nuisance, stifling the surrounding plants. Not to mention the fact those trees did nothing for the ecosystem, producing leaves that proved too bitter for animals to eat. In the end, the natural ways of those ancient woods were trampled on. They died.’

  Melissa had sighed. ‘So what am I, the ancient woods or the mahogany seeds?’

  Her mother had taken Melissa’s hand in hers. ‘We are the ancient woods, my darling. We were here before Forest Grove and its residents, and we would have survived without them, darling, trust me. Our roots are strong, you are strong. All I’m saying is, Lissie, save a part of yourself, keep it close, trust your instincts. You don’t always have to look to the community, to Bill and Rosemary, to know what’s right.’

  Melissa had grown angry then. ‘But they do know what’s right, don’t they, Mum? Because without them, we both might be dead right now.’

  Her mother’s eyes had narrowed. ‘I had a plan, Melissa. I just never got a chance to follow it through, thanks to Rosemary and Bill. Be careful with those two, darling.’

  Truth was, her mother had felt so stifled by them she walked out in the middle of a freezing-cold night.

  Melissa shook her head now, the memories dissipating.

  ‘Sorry. I’m going on, aren’t I?’ Daphne said.

  ‘No, I was just thinking you sound like my mum, actually.’

  ‘Now there’s a compliment, from what I’ve heard of your mum.’

  ‘Is it, though? My mum died of hypothermia in the middle of the woods.’ Melissa fiddled with the sleeve of her cardigan. ‘I think it’s easy for people to look in from the outside and judge women who stay with their husbands. But sometimes, the decisions we make are based on bigger things, you know? Sometimes it’s the best thing for the kids.’
r />   ‘You think Patrick is the best thing for the kids?’

  ‘He loves them.’

  ‘There’s something not right about him, Melissa. Always has been.’

  Melissa frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Did you know he was chucked out of his first school before coming to Forest Grove because he cut some girl’s hair off? That’s why Rosemary and Bill moved here. He told me when he was drunk once. Really drunk,’ she added. ‘The confessional, lay-it-all-out-on-a-plate kind of drunk.’

  Melissa looked at her in surprise. When had they had a chance to get so drunk together?

  ‘He told me he was thirteen,’ Daphne continued. ‘He had this thing for one of the girls in his class. But she dyed her hair for some charity event and he was so furious he cut it with a knife, accidentally cutting her in the process. Her parents went mental, the Byatts were driven out of town, so they ended up here,’ she said, gesturing outside. ‘Wasn’t the first time he’d done something weird like that either, but Bill and Rosemary just kept covering for him, sending him to Kitty bloody Fletcher. He isn’t right in the head.’

  Melissa slumped back in her chair. ‘Wow. I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Melissa,’ Daphne said. ‘I know he’s hurt in hospital, but it’s the truth, I swear. So maybe staying with Patrick isn’t the right thing for the kids.’

  Melissa bristled. ‘He was just a kid then. And I know the right thing for my kids, okay?’

  Tears flooded Daphne’s green eyes. ‘You’re not going to leave him, are you?’

  Melissa examined Daphne’s face. She looked really upset. Melissa suddenly felt bad for snapping at her. She got off the stool and put her hand on her friend’s back. ‘What’s wrong, Daphne?’

  Daphne shrugged Melissa’s hand off. ‘I don’t deserve your sympathy. I really don’t!’

  That was when it dawned on Melissa.