‘I should have spoken to you first, I realise that now.’ Helen says, biting her lip. ‘I hear you on the phone tonight and I know I could not leave without explaining. You deserve to know what happened.’
Do I deserve this? I ask myself. I’d told Ellie earlier that I wanted to hear what she had to say, no matter how painful, but I don’t know if that still holds true. Despite my grave doubts, I manage a nod.
‘And you will believe me? You will give me back my passport?’
‘I’ll make sure that whoever has it returns it to you,’ I reply, not comforted by the idea that Helena thinks it’s within my gift. ‘I can see you’re scared and so am I, but I promise to help you no matter what you say. Don’t be afraid of the consequences.’ I’m aware that time is against us. Once other people start arriving, Helena is going to clam up. ‘Helena, I need to know who it is that’s been hurting you.’
‘I know.’
I was expecting a name but she’s not ready yet. It’s more in desperation than hope when I ask, ‘Is your boyfriend the same man who was involved with my daughter?’
‘Boyfriend is not the right word, Mrs McCoy,’ she replies as a fat tear rolls down her cheek. ‘He should not have touched Megan in that way. It was not natural.’
The mention of my daughter’s name sends a warning jolt zapping through my body. I don’t often refer to Meg by her proper name, in fact there’s only one person I know who persists in using it. Could Helena have picked it up from Geoff during her brief time here? Had he talked to our cleaner about his daughter? I can’t imagine why and tell myself it’s an affectation of Helena’s, no more. Her English is good but her speech is quite formal.
‘Who is he, Helena?’
‘I am sorry. I am so sorry,’ Helena says, pressing her hand to her mouth.
Before she can build the courage to speak his name, our attention is caught by the rumble of an engine: Geoff’s Audi is pulling onto the drive. I’d expected him to abandon his car in the car park so he and Oscar could drown their sorrows. ‘It’s my husband but don’t worry, I’ll keep him out of the kitchen so we can carry on talking.’
Helena is backing away, searching for a way out. She eyes the door to the utility room and I’m not sure if she remembers the house well enough to know it leads out to the garden. ‘Please, stay,’ I ask as keys jangle in the front door.
‘He cannot know I am here,’ she whispers, her lips trembling.
‘That might be a little difficult but I’ll see what I can do.’
Helena shakes her head, her hand reaching for the utility room door.
‘OK, OK,’ I say softly but her fear is unnerving me. ‘You can hide in there until the coast is clear. I said I’ll keep you safe and I meant it.’
Hoping she’ll still be there when I get back, I hurry out of the kitchen to waylay my husband. I enter the hallway as the front door is flung open hard enough to rebound off a wall. Geoff staggers over the threshold. ‘You drove home in that state?’ I ask.
His eyes are bleary and bloodshot. ‘I’m fine,’ he says as he puts a hand against the open door to steady himself. The door moves and he almost topples over.
‘You’re not fine. You could have killed someone.’
He starts to laugh but I don’t get the joke. I simply glare at him until his laughter transforms into a sob. ‘It’s all falling apart, Ruth. Why does it keep happening to me? Am I such a bad person?’
‘Go into the sitting room and I’ll make you some strong coffee,’ I order as I look over his shoulder and glimpse a set of car headlights sweeping the road. I’m relieved to see a cab drive past but time is running out. I wonder if I could slip out of the house with Helena and drive to some place where we won’t be interrupted.
‘The deal’s fallen through so we’re going to be stuck here,’ Geoff says, his lower lip protruding into a pout. ‘Don’t know why I thought it would work.’
I’m more interested in getting Geoff moving so that I can close the front door, but as I prepare to bundle him towards the sitting room, a shadow moves behind him. Lewis’s shoulders are broader than I remember and the look on his face makes me quake to my bones. He has come for Helena. He is the one.
‘What do you want?’ I ask, shoving my drunken husband out of the way to grab the door. As I try to close it, Lewis slams it open again.
‘I want that,’ he snarls, pointing his finger over my shoulder.
When I hear a whimper behind me, I think it’s Helena, drawn out of the kitchen by the commotion, but as Lewis sweeps past me, there’s only Geoff. He cries out as Lewis grabs him by the throat.
‘You evil, stinking piece of shit. I know what you did.’
Geoff’s eyes bulge as Lewis’s grip tightens. ‘Leave me alone,’ he rasps.
‘Stop!’ I yell, wishing I could pause the scene like one of Meg’s videos to give me time to think. I yank Lewis’s shoulder and although I’m no match for his strength, he lets go.
My husband splutters as he catches his breath. ‘I don’t know what this is about but if you don’t leave this minute, I’m calling the police.’ He cowers as Lewis raises his fist.
‘I could smash your face to a pulp and I don’t think anyone would care.’
Car doors slam and the sound of hurried footsteps grows louder. Jen is panting when she reaches the open door. ‘Oh, shit,’ she says.
Charlie stands behind her. His face is grey except for the dried blood crusted around his swollen nose. ‘Leave him alone, mate,’ he says to Lewis.
When Charlie slips past Jen to stand next to me, Geoff makes a pathetic, drunken attempt to puff out his chest. ‘Lewis, I want you out of my house now!’
Lewis smiles a terrifying smile. ‘Too late, Geoff. They know.’
As the blood drains from Geoff’s cheeks, my fingers begin to tingle. Spots of darkness pock the faces of the three men standing in my hallway but I’m determined not to pass out. A decade of questions is about to be swept away by two words. Am I ready? Yes, Meg. I’m ready to listen now.
‘Helena’s here,’ I say, checking to see who reacts first.
When Geoff begins to cry, my world implodes.
44
Jen
I’d spent the fraught journey to Ruth’s trying to catch up with thoughts that were unthinkable. Geoff wasn’t capable of hurting anyone; not Ellie, and certainly not Meg. My cousin had worshipped her dad and he could do no wrong. Even when he’d had that affair with a young barmaid, it was her mum who Meg blamed. Except the barmaid had been very young …
I’d run up to the house prepared to be convinced of any other explanation, but as Geoff begins to howl at the mention of a woman’s name, I see a guilty man. So does Ruth, and she charges at him with her fists raised.
Geoff staggers back against the wall and cowers beneath the punches raining down on him while Lewis and Charlie look on impassively. Realising that they won’t intervene until Ruth’s killed him, I’m the one who has to step in.
Ruth claws at Geoff’s face and as I pull her off him, one of her iridescent acrylic nails slides down his cheek and onto his torn shirt. ‘You bastard!’ she cries, spittle flying from her mouth. ‘How could you do that? Why?’
Geoff sinks to the floor and covers his head with his arms. His words are a mixture of sobs and splutters and make no sense. None of it makes sense.
Ruth shakes violently in my arms and I don’t know if I’ll get much sense from her either. ‘Who’s Helena?’
I follow Ruth’s gaze and my breath catches in my throat. The young woman who has appeared in the doorway is as pale as a ghost; Meg’s ghost.
‘Hello, Jen.’
I recognise the voice immediately. I’ve spent weeks longing for this moment and I don’t know how I hold back the sob. ‘Ellie!’
‘You’re Ellie?’ Charlie asks. ‘Shit.’
‘This is why I wanted to go home, Charlie,’ she says.
The confusion on my face is mirrored on Lewis’s. ‘Who is she?’ he asks.
‘I thought you worked in a shop?’ I ask Helena.
‘Yes, cleaning,’ she says.
‘In the retail park,’ Charlie adds. ‘But she handed her notice in last week and I thought Ellie could fill the vacancy.’ He shakes his head in disbelief as he looks back at Helena. ‘I can’t believe you were one and the same.’
Ruth takes a deep breath. ‘It wasn’t the biggest thing we missed,’ she says. ‘Lewis, Charlie, get him into the kitchen, please. He needs to stop crying and, God help us, start talking.’
No longer needing my support, Ruth steps across Geoff’s prostrate legs and puts her arms around Helena. ‘It’s going to be all right, sweetheart. We’ll get through this together.’
Ruth’s calmness is as unsettling as her attack on her husband was frightening. We all follow her into the kitchen, Geoff needing to be dragged, but it’s Lewis who stumbles as the three men cross the threshold. He’s familiar enough with the house to know where this door led in another incarnation.
‘Prop him up on that bar stool,’ Ruth says.
As he’s pushed towards the breakfast bar, Geoff writhes in protest but eventually crawls onto a stool. Lewis remains standing guard but Charlie comes around to the rest of us on the opposite side of the counter. I step away from him as he approaches and slip my hand into Helena’s. She squeezes back and I can’t tell if the tremble I feel runs through her body or mine – or both.
‘This is all a mistake,’ Geoff mumbles as he lifts his head and spies an unfinished glass of whiskey on the counter. He reaches out for it but Ruth gets to it first. She hurls it over Geoff’s head and we all flinch as it hits the wall opposite and shards of glass rain down onto the floor.
As whiskey runs down the wall, Ruth picks up a glass of water and weighs it carefully in her hand before taking a sip. When she sets it back on the counter, she leaves rusted impressions of her fingerprints. Many of her false nails have been ripped off but Ruth is oblivious to the blood trickling down her hand as she turns her back on her husband to face us.
‘Helena, I’m sorry, but I need to hear it. Was it my husband who was abusing you?’
‘No, my love,’ Geoff says. ‘Please, stop this.’
Ruth doesn’t move an inch but her voice reaches out like a whip. ‘Keep quiet. You’ll get your chance.’
We wait for Helena to answer, which she does with a slow nod of the head.
‘And he told you he’d done the same to Meg?’
Above a moan from Geoff, Helena whispers, ‘Yes.’
What she’s telling us, what Geoff has confessed simply by his response to her presence, is implausible and yet I know it’s true. In this room where Meg took her life, there are two victims, speaking with one voice.
Ruth sucks air into her lungs and releases it with a hiss. On the second try, her voice breaks but she manages to ask, ‘He forced her to have sex with him?’
Helena clears her throat. ‘He raped her.’
45
Ruth
The smell of whiskey from the shattered glass makes me want to gag as I turn to face my daughter’s abuser. One glance at Geoff disgusts me and I look away, catching Lewis’s eye instead. He gives me a nod of encouragement. His glasses have gone and age has smoothed the sharp features that set him up to play the villain. There’s a nervousness about him that he would have disguised with over-confidence in his youth. He knows he’s arrived ten years too late to save Meg, but he’s not the only one.
I can think of only one reason Meg didn’t turn to me for protection: she didn’t expect me to believe her. She presumed I’d be swayed by whatever arguments Geoff might have conjured up to discredit her accusations, and I hate to say it, but back then I don’t know what I would have thought. The idea of Geoff touching our daughter is so abhorrent that it’s unimaginable – unbelievable. I would have resisted the idea, I might have said the wrong thing or asked the wrong question, but I’d hope that I would have believed her. There’s only one way to prove it. I have to believe Helena now.
‘Send them home,’ Geoff slurs. ‘They don’t need to be here. Go home, Helena. Go away, all of you.’ He swings out his arm and almost topples off the stool.
‘Everyone stay where you are,’ I tell them as I force myself to look at my husband. His face dissolves and he presses his palms into his eyes.
‘Those are tears that should have been spent on our daughter. You’re crying for yourself now so you can damn well stop.’
‘It’s not what you think,’ Geoff says, sniffing back the trails of snot dripping from his nose. ‘What I did with Helena was unforgiveable, I know that.’ He waits for me to respond but I hold myself taut. One move and I might just crack.
‘You’ve got it all wrong,’ he continues. ‘It was a sick fantasy. I was playing out what someone else did with Megan, not me,’ he says, not daring to look at Lewis. ‘I never touched her, Ruth. You have to believe that.’
‘You’re lying,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘It was you. And it was your abuse that made Meg hate herself, hurt herself and then kill herself.’
‘No, that’s not true,’ Geoff insists. He lowers his voice, and adds, ‘It was Lewis who turned her against us. She’d be alive today if it wasn’t for him.’
‘She’d be alive today if you hadn’t raped her,’ I say, my mouth left gaping open in a silent scream as the full horror of what he did hits me.
Geoff’s eyes widen and the gouges I scraped down his face glow red. ‘Don’t listen to Helena. It wasn’t rape! How can you think that?’
I take a gulp of air but it’s difficult to breathe the same air as my husband. ‘Tell me what you did to her!’
‘We loved each other, it’s as simple as that. What we had was special.’
My stomach clenches as if from an invisible blow, and I hear Jen gasp behind me.
‘Give me ten minutes alone with him,’ Lewis mutters.
‘That’s not how this is going to be done,’ I say firmly. ‘Geoff’s punishment is going to be long and drawn out.’
There’s the crunch of glass against porcelain tiles as Lewis begins pacing the floor. He threads his hands together on top of his baseball cap, presumably to stop him using them on Geoff.
‘What do you want me to say?’ Geoff asks as I turn my attention back to him. ‘That I hurt her? No I didn’t. I never, and I mean never, did anything Megan wasn’t happy to go along with.’
‘Happy?’ I ask, my resolve beginning to crumble. ‘She stopped being happy the day you forgot she was your daughter. When did it start? How long did you make her suffer?’
Geoff squirms in his seat, his movements uncoordinated. The shock of being unmasked hasn’t been enough to sober him up. ‘I tried for so long to fight against it, and you didn’t make it easy for any of us. You didn’t want me, that’s why I had the affair with that girl at the club. Megan knew all I wanted was to be loved and she was happy for me.’
‘And why was that? Had you been grooming her? Did she know you’d prey on her if you weren’t being distracted elsewhere?’
‘See what you’re like? You were the same back then. All you did was snarl at me after our little falling out. I had no one to turn to except Megan. She was the only one who cared about me,’ he says, jabbing a finger at his chest. ‘Sean had left and you went off to do your own thing. You left me alone with her.’
‘Because I trusted you! But Meg didn’t, did she? That’s why she wanted Jen to move in. She knew she needed protection from her own fucking father!’
‘That had nothing to do with it,’ Geoff says. ‘She knew what she was doing when she encouraged you to take up those stupid pottery classes.’
‘No, she didn’t – stop rewriting the past to fit your broken narrative. She encouraged us both to take up ballroom dancing. She wasn’t trying to get you alone, you fucking psycho,’ I
shout. This was why Meg resented me finding a lone pastime. When I’d smashed the pots against the kitchen wall, I’d been consumed by the shame of my guilty pleasure, but this is something else. I am well and truly broken.
‘Stop this. Please, Ruth. Let’s move to Stratford. It’s going to be fine if you just – stop – talking.’
My mind turns in circles. ‘Something happened around the time of our anniversary party, didn’t it? Was that when you first raped her?’
Geoff’s hands clamp around his ears. ‘Stop calling it rape,’ he moans. ‘It wasn’t.’
‘Then what the fuck was it?’ I scream.
He pulls at his hair and moans. ‘It was something neither of us could fight. It was beautiful. Megan had booked the honeymoon suite and I found her waiting for me with champagne.’
‘She wasn’t waiting for you,’ Jen says. ‘She was going to sneak into the room to leave it for you and Ruth as a surprise. When I saw her later, she’d been crying. I thought it was because of Mum.’
‘I don’t expect you to understand,’ Geoff says, dismissing Jen’s words. ‘We didn’t understand it ourselves.’
‘Try me,’ I hiss. Lewis isn’t the only one fighting the urge to strike Geoff. I fold my arms across my chest and grip my upper arms tight enough to cut off the circulation. ‘Tell me about the scarves.’
The hands Geoff used to inflict pain and violate our daughter cover his eyes. ‘It wasn’t meant to be what it was,’ he says. ‘She needed to stay quiet.’
Pins and needles run down my arms like the tips of a thousand spears piercing my skin. ‘Why? Was I there?’
‘You came back early one day. But we did stop. I wouldn’t have … Not with you downstairs,’ he says as if the idea of having sex with his daughter was only abhorrent if I was in the house. ‘But the next time, she pushed it in her mouth herself. I told her not to but you know what she was like. She knew how to press our buttons. That’s why she dated Lewis.’
The sound of glass being crushed underfoot stops as Lewis turns to the nearest wall and smashes his fist through the plasterboard.
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