Don't Turn Around

by Amanda Brooke

  ‘I was the only one trying to stop her,’ he says, with a sigh that sounds remarkably sad. ‘Where was everyone else? Where were you? You must have known, Jen. She talked about it all the time.’

  ‘Not to me, she didn’t!’ I tell him as I shoot an accusing look at his reflection.

  ‘Oh, come on! I can’t have been the only one to see how much pain she was in. You must have known she was self-harming.’

  ‘I saw the marks … I didn’t know what they meant at the time.’

  ‘Neither did I. And I still don’t get where all that self-hate came from.’

  ‘You can’t work it out? Seriously?’ I ask. ‘You abused her and humiliated her until she couldn’t take any more. She hurt herself to take back control. The marks made the abuse visible in the hope that someone would ask what was wrong, but no one ever did. We were too afraid of the answers.’ My eyes sting with tears but I blink them away. ‘She was alone, trying to work it out for herself, trying to work you out, and what did you do? You tied the noose around her neck.’

  ‘No! It wasn’t like that. I was too late …’

  ‘My God, so you were there,’ I gasp. I want to turn around but my hand tightens around the door’s safety bar to keep me in place. I have to keep my back to Lewis if I want to hear more, and I do.

  ‘She’d been texting me all morning but I’d had enough of her games by that point. I’d lost count of the times she’d send a message that sent me into a panic. Then she’d forget about it, or ignore my calls until I was convinced something bad had happened, only for her to pop back up again and say, “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” Except that last time, she never did get back to me. The one time she was serious, I’d ignored her.’

  ‘If you’re going to spin the same old story, why are you here, Lewis?’ I demand.

  I hear him sigh behind me. ‘I’m here because it was never the full story, was it? There was a lot more going on back then that none of us wanted to share.’

  Shame scorches my cheeks. ‘If this is about that stupid fucking kiss we had, don’t bother. I already know you told Meg,’ I say, my words punctuated by a gulp to hold back the sob. ‘That isn’t why she killed herself. I don’t believe it.’

  Except I do believe it. I only have to think back to the last time I saw my cousin.

  ‘You really shouldn’t be here,’ Meg had snarled when I’d showed up at her door uninvited. Despite the midday heat, she had a heavy towelling bathrobe wrapped around her and was holding the collar beneath her chin. Her hair was unwashed and her eyes hollow.

  I hadn’t seen Meg since the day we’d received our A Level results. The tension between us had become unbearable, providing the ideal opportunity for Lewis to cut the final threads of our friendship before I disappeared to uni, and I’d known what weapon he would use. It didn’t take much imagination to work out how he’d explained that kiss last summer to Meg. He’d probably told her I made the first move and that I’d been jealous of Meg ever since. I should have confessed straight away but I hadn’t had the guts to face Meg and I was still a coward.

  ‘I was sort of hoping you wouldn’t answer the door,’ I replied honestly. ‘But I thought you should know that Lewis beat up Charlie and broke his nose. Charlie’s refusing to say what it was about.’

  ‘And you want me to tell you? You’re the clever one who passed all her exams, Jen. You work it out.’

  Meg’s hostility told me all I needed to know – Lewis had definitely told her, and one or the other had told Charlie. ‘Whatever went on,’ I said, ‘Lewis didn’t have to beat him up like that.’

  ‘It’s not all Lewis’s fault,’ Meg replied curtly. ‘Do I seriously need to spell it out, Jen? Haven’t I been humiliated enough?’

  Those words haunt me to this day, and as angry as I am at myself, I’m angrier at Lewis. He would have known she couldn’t take much more after failing her exams, and yet he had chosen then to tell her about us.

  ‘But I didn’t tell her, Jen,’ Lewis says, jolting me back to the present.

  ‘Don’t lie!’ I yell at his reflection in the window. ‘You and Charlie had a fight over it. Meg said—’

  ‘Meg said what?’ he interrupts. ‘Even if she had known, you’re right, it was only a kiss. Hardly a betrayal when you look at what she did to you.’

  ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

  When Lewis doesn’t reply, I find myself replaying that last conversation on Meg’s doorstep. She’d said she didn’t want to be humiliated so I hadn’t pressed home the point about what Lewis and I had done, but I couldn’t leave without trying to make it right between us.

  As I’d stood my ground on her doorstep that day, tears had sprung in Meg’s eyes. ‘Why are you even pretending you care?’ she asked. ‘We’re not family any more, Jen! Families don’t go around chasing after their cousin’s boyfriend, do they?’

  ‘It was an accident.’

  ‘No, Jen,’ Meg snarled. ‘It was deliberate.’

  I shook my head, no, not deliberate. I’d been a bit tipsy that night in Meathead’s garden and the kiss had happened so fast that I hadn’t had time to react. Except I had reacted. When Lewis kissed me, I’d kissed him back. ‘Can’t we just pretend it never happened?’

  ‘I spend too much of my life pretending and I’ve had enough. Please,’ she said, closing her eyes so she didn’t have to look at me. ‘Go away, Jen. This hurts too much.’

  ‘I don’t—’

  ‘Go away, Jen!’ she screamed at me.

  ‘Why do you have to be like this, Meg?’ I asked. When she didn’t answer, I felt my heart wrench. I should have been begging for forgiveness but I was too angry at her for shutting me out over one stupid mistake. ‘I’m so glad I didn’t end up living with you!’

  Meg’s features fell. ‘Not as much as I am.’

  When she closed the door in my face, I had four more days of being angry at Meg, followed by ten years of being angry with myself.

  Lewis releases a sigh of frustration that echoes down the stairwell. ‘Do I need to spell it out for you, Jen?’ he asks.

  Meg had said the same thing right before her remark about someone chasing after their cousin’s boyfriend. She thought I was clever enough to work it out for myself, but I wasn’t. I was stupid.

  38

  Ruth

  As I step into the unlit house, there’s something comforting about remaining in the dark. I pause amongst the shadows in the hallway, tip back my head, and listen. There was a time when the best I could hope for was the sound of shuffling feet or the bang of Meg’s bedroom door. It used to hurt, but not as much as the silence that greets me tonight. I want to tell my daughter that I’m pulling down the barricades she hid behind. I’m uncovering what once was hidden and my pulse quickens as I feel my way through the darkness to the kitchen.

  ‘Stay with me a while,’ I say, speaking to my daughter as if she has never left. ‘Let’s do this together.’

  I fumble around in a cupboard for the bottle of whiskey Geoff opened last night. It feels half full and I pour a generous measure into a tumbler. The smoky liquid burns the back of my throat before flooding the hole in my chest with warmth. I can understand how it helps my husband trudge through days mired by grief.

  It was meant to get better by now, and there have been good times through the years when I could laugh without guilt and look back without trepidation. I hadn’t realised how much Meg’s tenth anniversary would upset our equilibrium. I wish we’d treated it like any other date on the calendar. The day she died doesn’t deserve to be noted. It’s the other six and a half thousand days of her life that are important – those treasured times when our family of four was complete.

  As I grab my laptop from the dresser and collapse onto the sofa, I prepare to revisit those years. My eyes sting from the brightness of the computer screen as I open the media player and I browse the selection of memories I have at my disposal. I start with the New Year’s Eve party I’d watched with
Jen at the weekend.

  I’d been looking for Lewis amongst the shadows that scattered the moment Geoff and I appeared in the garden but, according to Jen, I’d been searching in vain. Lewis wasn’t there. He hadn’t started dating my daughter until she returned to school in the new year.

  I lean forward as Geoff’s camera focuses on Jen holding a bottle of champagne. When Meg appears behind her, our daughter refuses to look at the camera. What was she hiding back then if it wasn’t Lewis? I stare at the glasses she’s wearing and watch her push them up the bridge of her nose for fear of her mask slipping. It would be two summers later before I’d see those glasses again, caught in the narrow gap between the mattress and my bedside table. These two moments in time are connected by one item, and one person. Charlie.

  Returning to the list of videos, I work back to Christmas morning the week before. I watch Meg open the heart-shaped pot and cast it to one side. Her head remains bowed as again she avoids the camera – she’s hiding here too.

  My hands tremble as I go back a month to our anniversary party at Thornton Hall. There are a dozen videos of the party but I choose the one the local reporter had used in the video montage. I remember noticing at the time that the clips she used had been placed out of sequence, showing our anniversary as post-dating Christmas. It was an easy enough mistake because the reporter had wanted to show Meg’s slow decline.

  As I watch the video again, I see Meg look up and recoil as her dad points the camera at her. I’d presumed she was upset because Eve had refused to allow Jen to move in with us, but I’m not looking at a child who’s sulking. Was that why Eve mentioned the party the other day? Had she seen what I’m only registering now? Meg’s eyes are hollow. There’s no doubt this time. Meg had been damaged back then – before Lewis.

  Not liking where my thoughts are taking me, I swallow a mouthful of whiskey before grabbing up my mobile. Sean whispers, ‘Hello?’ when he picks up.

  ‘Sorry, have I woken up the girls?’

  I hear shuffling footsteps until the noise of a TV fades into the background. ‘No, but Alice and I might have been dozing,’ he admits with a yawn. ‘The girls are in bed but they’ve decided in the last few days that sleep is so last season. Roll on the days when we can dump them on Granny and Grandpa and do something crazy, like sleep in till seven.’

  Fearful of speaking my fears aloud, I let the silence stretch out.

  ‘Mum? What’s wrong?’

  I can’t answer. My gaze is fixed on the image frozen on screen. The recording of Meg at the anniversary party has stopped at the point where she turns her head from the camera. The image of the back of my daughter’s head is painfully familiar and long-felt fear and frustration sends a rush of adrenalin through my body as I picture myself storming into her room on that last morning.

  I’d opened my mouth ready to scream her name and raise her from the bed she hadn’t moved from for days, but Meg was sitting at her dressing table with her back to me. Her bed was made and if the silk scarves that hung from her bedpost had been taken down in preparation for what she was about to do, I didn’t notice.

  ‘Oh, you’re up.’

  ‘I’ve got lots to do today,’ she replied, her eyes meeting mine as I drew closer to her reflection.

  The makeup she’d applied lifted her complexion but her hair fell lank at the sides, and her perfume didn’t quite conceal the stale smell of body odour. I wanted to suggest she take a shower but progress was progress. Or so I thought.

  ‘What are going to do with yourself, sweetheart? Would you like to meet me at lunchtime and go shopping in town? You could pick out a new outfit for your birthday.’

  ‘Sorry, I have plans.’

  I placed my hands on her shoulders and my heart skipped a beat when she didn’t reject me as she had so many times before. ‘Care to share?’

  The smile she gave me is etched in my memory. It was full of sadness and regret and yet offered such hope. I thought I was getting my daughter back, and maybe, maybe if I’d held her a second longer, or wrapped my arms around her body and held her tightly, I might have kept her safe. I might have made a difference. I didn’t know … I couldn’t know that our bittersweet connection would be the last.

  ‘Later,’ she said.

  ‘Things will get better, Meg,’ I promised. ‘You know we love you.’

  When I felt her body tensing, I chastised myself for being too pushy. I told myself that my baby girl had this, and I should trust her.

  ‘I don’t want you worrying about me,’ she said. ‘I’m going to be fine, Mum. I’m untouchable.’

  And I never touched her again.

  39

  Jen

  ‘Jen, Meg didn’t kill herself because of what we did. She killed herself because of what she and Charlie did.’

  Lewis’s tone is flat and even. He wants me to think he’s taking no pleasure in breaking the news, but the Lewis I know thrives on causing emotional as well as physical pain.

  ‘Meg and Charlie slept together the day we got our A Level results,’ he continues. ‘That’s what Charlie and I were fighting over. Not you.’

  My toes dig into the floor as I prepare for flight, but if I run now, it would look like I’m running away from the truth when I know that’s not the case. It can’t be. I was aware that Charlie fancied Meg but she’d never shown any interest in him. No, Meg was angry that day because of what I’d done.

  So why was she so defensive? I ask myself.

  Because she thought I was there to attack her, not apologise. My next words scratch like sandpaper over my vocal chords. ‘If what you say is true, why wait until now to tell me?’

  ‘The last thing I wanted was everyone knowing that Meg had cheated on me with Charlie, of all people.’

  ‘Even after she died?’ I ask, desperately searching for reasons to discredit what he’s saying, but it’s futile. I can feel my knees ready to buckle and my grip on the door tightens.

  ‘Everyone had already made their minds up about what I did or didn’t do,’ Lewis explains. ‘And I could tell by the questions the police asked that they were looking to pin Meg’s death on me. I didn’t want to give them another motive so I kept quiet. And so did Charlie, but I suppose he had his own reasons. You really need to speak to him about what happened between them.’

  Lewis waits for my reaction but I’m not going to give him one. Even if I can accept that Meg slept with Charlie, it doesn’t explain or excuse the abuse Meg suffered at Lewis’s hands.

  ‘I never thought I’d ever move back to Liverpool. I never wanted to revisit that part of my life,’ he continues, ‘but when Mum got sick, I had no choice. I thought if I used her maiden name I’d be able to keep under the radar. I did it out of respect for Meg’s family, and for what? So you and Ruth could attack my family? This has gone too far and I’ve had enough. Sorry, Jen.’

  No, he’s not. If Lewis were that remorseful, he wouldn’t be hurting Ellie the way he is. Lewis didn’t change his name out of respect, he did it so he would go undetected, but we found him anyway. We’ve messed up his life and now he wants to screw around with ours. ‘I don’t believe you.’

  Lewis digs a hand into his jacket pocket and my heart leaps into my mouth when I see a snatch of something yellow. Could it be the missing half to Meg’s suicide note? I don’t get the chance to find out because Lewis shoves it back out of sight once he’s found his phone.

  ‘Charlie sent me a message. Do you want to hear what it said?’ he asks. Giving me no time to answer, he clears his throat. ‘“I don’t know what your game is but you’ve gone too far. Leave Jen out of this. The past needs to stay in the past for everyone’s sake.”’ Lewis laughs. ‘I presume that’s his version of a threat.’

  ‘He told me he’d sent you a message.’

  ‘Yeah, well, he didn’t tell you everything, did he?’ Lewis continues. ‘Meg said that what happened between them was a one-off, but Iona showed me that page from Meg’s notepad, the one with the cryptic messag
e about her being hurt over and over again, and it got me thinking. How much of the past does Charlie want buried? Could it have been going on for longer?’

  ‘No,’ I say firmly.

  ‘So what Meg wrote was just another of her stupid games?’

  I’m staring at the window but my focus has moved past the reflections to the darkness beyond. I don’t know what or who to believe any more.

  ‘It was no game,’ I say. ‘She was describing her innermost thoughts and she hid what she’d written. The only thing I think we can agree upon, Lewis, is that Meg was hurting. She was describing something that was happening to her months before the thing with Charlie.’ I pause, realising I’ve stated Meg and Charlie’s liaison as fact. So be it. ‘Now you might believe that what you did to Meg was normal, but it wasn’t. That page from her notepad tells you it wasn’t.’

  ‘I don’t claim that what we had together was normal but I don’t recognise what she described, not at all. I never forced Meg to do anything she didn’t want. She was the one who took the lead, just ask Charlie,’ he says. The sound of Lewis taking a deep breath draws me back to his reflection. His phone is back in his pocket and he has his fingertips pressed together as if he’s in prayer, or about to make a confession. ‘I never knew where I was with Meg from one minute to the next. There were times when she wanted me to hold her and take things slowly but I’d make one wrong move and that would be it. Sometimes she’d go completely still and it was like having sex with a mannequin, so after a while, I stopped trying. For most of our relationship, it wasn’t even sexual.’

  ‘Oh, so I suppose Geoff caught you that time in their bedroom playing Monopoly.’

  ‘I did what Meg wanted,’ he insists. ‘And when Geoff caught us, we were lying on the bed but that was all. I was glad you all thought otherwise. I didn’t want anyone knowing we were happy enough just cuddling. Except, Meg was never happy. She tried to get me interested again but the stuff she wanted me to do … I couldn’t do it, Jen. And I didn’t.’