Don't Turn Around

by Amanda Brooke

  I’d expected to see him at every turn and hadn’t relaxed until I was safely in the stairwell. I’d hoped the climb would give me time to compose myself but my exertions had compounded my fear and my heart was punching its way out of my chest when I stumbled into the apartment. I took one look at Charlie’s startled expression and burst into tears.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what happened?’ he asks when I finally take a sip of water.

  I don’t know where to start but I’ve already decided I have to tell him everything, to hell with confidentiality and promises. ‘I’ve messed up,’ I say, releasing a heavy sob. It has to be the last one. I need to pull myself together. I take a deep breath. ‘I had two callers tonight and I failed them both. I panicked and said all the wrong things but I was only trying to help. I was thinking about what happened to Meg and I pushed too hard, I know I did. I’m supposed to listen, Charlie, but I didn’t and then he phoned and mocked me. He wanted to get back at me for Saturday and he has. I put a young girl on hold and then lost the call because I thought …’ I’m gulping for air. ‘But it wasn’t … It was Lewis. Oh, Charlie, what have I done?’

  I’m gasping for air as Charlie sits down beside me. He attempts to pull me towards him but my stiffened limbs refuse to move so he settles for rubbing my back. ‘What happened on Saturday?’

  He sounds curious rather than angry but I suspect that’s about to change. ‘I found out where Lewis was going to be and I went to see him,’ I say as quickly as I can.

  The back rubbing stops. ‘You did what?’

  ‘He runs a boot camp and they work out in Liverpool One.’

  ‘Did you talk to him?’ Charlie asks, then decides he can answer this one himself. ‘Are you mad?’

  ‘I have every right to be,’ I snap back. ‘He killed Meg.’

  ‘It was suicide.’

  ‘And he put the noose around her neck!’ I yell. Seeing Charlie’s expression, I add, ‘What? You don’t think he’s capable? I do, Charlie. Maybe I wasn’t sure before, but I am now.’ A shiver runs down my spine as I recall the anger in Lewis’s eyes as he pushed his face into mine. Little wonder Ellie sounded so scared of him; I’m scared of him, and despite what I’ve just said to Charlie, I never had any doubt that he was responsible for Meg’s death.

  I’m not saying I wasn’t fooled for a while. We all fell for the troubled-boy-with-a-good-heart image he projected at school. No one seemed to notice how his arrival coincided with the fractures that appeared in our tight group of friends, but looking back, I can see we all changed during those long evenings spent together in Meathead’s dad’s shed.

  The potent mix of hormones and alcohol in such a confined space had made for an extremely charged atmosphere. We were in that awkward transition phase; no longer children but not yet adults, and some of us took longer to develop than others. I couldn’t keep up with Meg, however hard I tried.

  Pushed to one side, I’d turned to Charlie and to my surprise, he finally noticed me. It was hardly red hot passion. We were awkward and self-conscious with each other, especially in front of the others, and on one particular night, Meg had started teasing us. Or maybe it was Lewis she was teasing. Either way, she ended up on Charlie’s knee and announced he was part of the family now.

  I told Meg to stop but she wouldn’t listen. Annoyed, I’d escaped to the bathroom and as I came back out of the house, I heard raised voices from within the shed.

  ‘I’ve had enough of this, we’re going!’ Lewis yelled.

  ‘Oh, you think so?’ Meg snarled back. ‘You don’t tell me what to do!’

  ‘Someone fucking needs to!’

  I crept closer to listen in, although I was hardly eavesdropping. Meg didn’t seem to care who witnessed her arguments with Lewis and this wasn’t the first.

  ‘You can be a right bitch sometimes, you know that?’ continued Lewis. ‘I don’t know what I ever saw in you.’

  ‘Neither do I!’ Meg screamed. ‘Well, fine! It was nice while it lasted, now skip on home to Mummy, because I’m staying here.’

  ‘With him?’

  ‘Why not?’ she answered petulantly.

  ‘Fine, do what the fuck you like,’ Lewis said in a low growl. ‘Good luck, Charlie.’

  The door swung open and the weak light from the shed trickled along the path to pool around my feet where I stood rooted to the spot. Meg had asked, why not Charlie? The answer should have been obvious. She couldn’t do that to me, could she?

  ‘She’s only saying that to wind you up,’ I told Lewis as he strode towards me.

  ‘You think?’ he asked, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he scrutinised my face. He smiled. ‘So how can we wind her up?’

  I shrugged. The sudden intimacy with Lewis made me feel uncomfortable but there was a connection too. We were both injured parties. ‘Nothing’s going on between them. Charlie wouldn’t let it happen,’ I said weakly, although I was wondering why my boyfriend hadn’t spoken up for himself during the argument.

  ‘You sure about that?’ Lewis asked. ‘You can do better, you know.’

  My heart raced when Lewis looked at me like no one else had ever done, not even Charlie. He looked at me as if I was there and his gaze fell on my lips. It wasn’t a conscious decision. It just happened. He kissed me and I kissed him back. When he slipped his arms around me, I lifted my hands to his face. I wanted him to pull me into the shadows and keep kissing me. That’s all I thought about, that and the heat rising up through my body, but in the next moment, he was pushing me off.

  His eyes never left my face as the shed door creaked open. It had been a close call and my heart pounded as I pictured what might have happened if it hadn’t been for Lewis’s quick action. If we’d been discovered, I wouldn’t only have lost Meg and Charlie. I’d have been ostracised by my friends and Meg’s family. But we were in the clear. No one had seen us. So why did I still feel unnerved?

  I caught a hint of a smile from Lewis as Meg pressed herself against his back and wrapped her arms around him. With his eyes still upon me, he said, ‘Why don’t you go back and keep Charlie company?’ He made it sound like a warning, like I’d been in the wrong and he hadn’t. Was that the story he’d tell the next time Meg provoked him?

  ‘And who’s going to keep me company?’ Meg asked, her words slurred.

  I didn’t wait for an answer but fled back to the shed. Charlie looked relieved to see me and didn’t let go of my hand for the rest of the evening; in fact his grip tightened when Meg and Lewis returned as if nothing had happened. But something had happened, and it played on my mind later as Meg and I waited for Geoff to pick us up. Meg was leaning against a wall outside Meathead’s house to stop herself from swaying.

  ‘What did Lewis say to you in the garden?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said, turning away from her.

  ‘Did he talk about me?’

  ‘No.’

  Meg’s voice wobbled when she asked, ‘Then why are you being funny with me?’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘Is it because I was sitting on Charlie’s knee?’

  ‘Of course not.’ I could feel the guilt sitting in my stomach like a lead weight.

  ‘I was only messing around, Jen. You know what I’m like,’ she said.

  When I didn’t respond, I heard Meg’s denim jacket scrape against the wall as she slid down to crouch on the pavement.

  ‘I don’t blame you for being angry. I’m a horrible person,’ she continued. Folding her arms across her body, she slipped a hand into her sleeve to rake her skin.

  I sank to the pavement next to her and reached out to still her hand. ‘It’s OK, Meg.’

  When she wrapped her arms around my neck, I could smell the sourness of the strawberry Kopparberg she’d been drinking. ‘I love you, Jen. Don’t ever think I don’t.’

  ‘I love you too.’

  ‘I’m so fucked up,’ she sobbed into my shoulder. ‘Why can’t everyone be happy and normal? Is it me, or is
the whole fucking world pretending to be something they’re not?’

  ‘It’s not you, Meg,’ I told her as I thought of Lewis leaning in for the kiss. Had he fancied me, or was it a trick to see if I fancied him? ‘You’re not the one who’s fucked up.’

  My assurance was enough to make her smile and she slumped back against the wall. ‘I really do love Lewis,’ she said, wiping her tears. ‘I know he was an arse tonight but that was my fault. I drive him mad.’

  ‘He’s the one with the problem,’ I’d tried, and there was a fleeting moment when I considered telling her exactly what his problem was, but my courage was chased away by the sweep of headlights from Geoff’s car. I kept the secret, hoping that Lewis would never use it against me, never doubting that he would.

  ‘How can you defend him, Charlie?’ I ask now, leaning back against the sofa and pushing down the old guilt that threatens to resurface.

  ‘I’m not saying Lewis is completely innocent. I saw what he was like, Jen, but I also saw what Meg was like,’ Charlie says, his harsh words knocking against each other as they tumble from his lips. ‘OK, he got angry but Meg loved the drama. She brought out the worst in people.’

  My jaw drops. I want to tell him that Meg didn’t bring out the worst in me. If anyone did that, it was Lewis, but my greatest fear is that Charlie already knows this. There’s a flash of emotion so intense that it burns my skin – anger or hate, I can’t tell which. As I jump up, my glass of water slops over my hand and I’m tempted to throw it in Charlie’s face. He needs to wake up.

  ‘What exactly does that mean, Charlie?’

  ‘Just that Meg knew what buttons to push with everyone.’

  Shock forces me back a step. This is the first time Charlie has ever suggested Meg was in any way responsible for what happened, but then he hadn’t said that much at all after she died. He’d run off to Warrington and when he came back, he refused to talk about her. Ten years later, I realise why.

  ‘You think Meg was asking for it?’ I say, spitting out the words. ‘So by the same logic, is it my fault that Lewis threatened me?’

  At last I get the reaction I’ve been looking for. Charlie leaps to his feet. ‘He threatened you?’

  ‘Yes, Charlie, he threatened me on Saturday. And before you tell me it was the shock of seeing me again that made him do it and, oh, let’s not forget the stress of caring for his sick mum, he’s had plenty of time since to calm down and come up with a more considered response. And do you know what that response was? Do you want to know why I was so upset tonight? He phoned the helpline just – as – I – was – about – to – leave,’ I tell him, pronouncing each word slowly and carefully in case he still doesn’t get it. ‘And I’m not talking about a simple put-down call. Oh no, forget about them. He stayed on the line. He wanted me to know he was there and he mocked me. So there I was, in the office on my own, about to walk home on – my – own.’

  Charlie wipes a hand across his face. ‘You should have phoned.’

  ‘What for?’ I ask as I storm over to the kitchen counter and slam down my glass. ‘According to you, Lewis is the victim. If he’d attacked me, it would have been my fault. I would have deserved it, just like Meg.’

  ‘No you wouldn’t and neither did Meg. I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean it to come out like it did.’

  But it’s too late. What he’s said can’t be unsaid. I press my hand to my forehead. ‘You’re unbelievable.’

  ‘Jen, please, I’ve lived with you long enough to know that there’s never an excuse if someone’s being abused. All I’m saying is that Meg could be self-destructive and dating someone like Lewis was part of the package.’

  ‘Self-destructive?’

  ‘She liked hurting herself,’ he says, not meeting my gaze.

  ‘And you don’t think maybe there was a reason for her self-harm?’ I ask. I want to laugh but my throat constricts and it comes out as a strangled gasp. If Charlie thinks he’s defusing the situation, he’s wrong. ‘Nothing is ever what it seems when you’re dealing with someone controlling like Lewis. You don’t need a black eye or a broken arm to be the victim of abuse. He intimidated and humiliated her, and right now I know how she felt being played by that man. Lewis hasn’t had to touch me tonight to scare the shit out of me.’

  ‘Jen, I didn’t—’

  ‘Why can’t you see what he did to Meg?’

  ‘Because she was confusing. None of us ever knew where we were with her,’ he mutters, his chin pressed against his chest.

  ‘It only got confusing when she met Lewis,’ I tell him, although I know I’m being economical with the truth. Meg’s lows and highs were always lower and higher than the rest of us.

  Charlie lifts his head and our eyes meet. ‘It got worse, I won’t argue with that.’

  ‘So why are you defending him?’

  ‘I’m not defending him, I’m defending us!’ Charlie snaps back. ‘Raking up the past won’t bring her back. You have to let her go and I’m sorry, but that means letting Lewis go too. Please, don’t give him that kind of power over our lives. Keep away from him, Jen.’

  The anger is gone and we’ve both been left a little dazed. I realise I haven’t told Charlie about Ellie and how she fits in to everything, and I don’t think I can. I feel like something is broken between us and it scares me more than Lewis ever could.

  15

  Ruth

  The nights are drawing in and as I sit alone in Geoff’s Audi on Friday evening, New Mersey Retail Park becomes a patchwork of artificial light and lengthening shadows, much like my life. It’s exhausting putting on a brave front that doesn’t reveal how the darkness has crept back into my soul, but I’m hoping that if I pretend long enough, the light will come back. That was how I survived Meg’s death. I told everyone I was strong until I believed it myself, and eventually it had worked. Except now I’m back to faking it.

  I keep my hands in my lap, resisting the urge to wreck my latest manicure as I watch Geoff hurrying out of Marks and Spencer laden with more food than we could possibly eat. He’s making an extra effort to sweeten me up and my fear is he’s planning to raise the subject of retirement again. I wish he wouldn’t, and not because I’m refusing to consider it, but because I might be tempted.

  I’ve read Meg’s space girl essay so many times that it’s burnt into the back of my eyelids. And despite Geoff’s protestations, I did contact the police. The officer who had investigated Meg’s death has moved on to another force so I had a lengthy conversation with a detective sergeant. I sent him a copy of what Meg had written and his view is that it’s not enough on its own to reopen the case. He’s asked that I drop off the original but what would be the point? No one’s listening to Meg. We never were.

  I’m hoping that Selina’s fundraiser tomorrow night will put me in a better frame of mind. The speeches and sur-vivors’ stories are always inspiring and it’s just what I need if I’m to resist the argument my husband is currently raging with kind words and ready meals.

  Geoff stows the shopping in the boot before slipping into the passenger seat. He had a few drinks at lunchtime with clients so I’m the nominated driver.

  ‘You don’t need anything else while we’re here, do you?’ he asks.

  ‘No, I’m ready for home,’ I tell him, returning his smile before starting the engine.

  The text alert makes me jump and my eyes dart to my mobile in its holder. I’m impatient for news from Gill who is on the helpline this evening, but it’s Geoff who checks his phone. I’m going to have to wait a little longer. The lines are still open and Gill could be talking to Gemma at this very moment.

  Gemma’s last call to Jen on Wednesday has left us all frustrated. I’d seen the scant information on the call sheet and immediately cornered Jen in the office but she had very little to add, in fact she didn’t want to talk about it at all. It had clearly upset her to have the call cut off mid-conversation. I’m hoping Gemma simply ran out of change but I can’t dismiss the possi
bility that Ryan caught her in the act. If he did, we may never hear from Gemma again and I don’t think I could handle that.

  ‘Who’s the message from?’ I ask Geoff as he holds his phone inches from his nose.

  ‘Just Sean telling us to have a good weekend.’

  I can feel my jaw tensing. I want to believe my husband but my mind is already tearing his lie to shreds. Sean rarely texts his father, and if he does, there’s usually a motive. I wonder if they’re planning something that Geoff doesn’t want me to know about. A little retirement cottage perhaps? Or the message might be from someone else entirely. It’s been a long while since Geoff’s affair and I’ve learnt to trust him again but it’s possible he’s looking for someone else to share his retirement plans with, should his wife turn him down. I hate to admit it, but I don’t know which of the two scenarios would be worse.

  It’s not that I don’t love Geoff, I do, but it was easier when we wanted the same things – to design buildings that inspire the next generation, to nurture our children, to turn our grief into something positive, to never forget Meg. I hope there’s a compromise we can reach that will make us both happy but, until we find it, it’s one more thing to fake. I take my eye off the road to offer a smile.

  ‘Send him my love.’

  ‘You can do it yourself,’ he says.

  It’s an odd reply but I think no more of it until we make the final turn home. The extension we added to our Georgian house gives it an imposing double-fronted aspect and it’s as if the garage had never existed. Keeping my focus on the present, my eyes narrow as I notice a people carrier parked next to my Ford Focus on the driveway.

  It’s Sean’s car.

  ‘He’s here?’ I ask as I pull to the kerb and peer at the welcoming lights coming from the house. A face appears at the window. It’s my daughter-in-law.

  This explains why Geoff bought so much food. I leave him to gather up the bags as I race across the lawn. The front door opens before I reach it and Sean and Alice step out with matching two-year-olds dangling from their hips.