‘Drink this,’ she says, and I take a long swallow. The sudden burn makes me cough and splutter. Not water. For a moment I think it’s acid or something equally lethal but then the memory kicks in. Vodka. Neat. Cheap. The shock wakes me up and I shake my head, ignoring the pain.
Katie takes a sip and grimaces. ‘I never could understand how you drank this.’
‘It did the job,’ I answer.
‘You always did like to be numb. To dull all your energy.’
I look over to the mattress and Katie sees my alarm. Ava is covered with a blanket, head to toe. Oh God no, please no—
‘Don’t worry, she’s not dead.’ She turns her head. ‘Wriggle for your mother, Ava, let her know you’re alive.’
The blanket squirms and I hear a whine. I’m glad to hear some anger mixed in with the terror. That’s my girl.
Katie leans in, conspiratorially. ‘She’s had some vodka too.’
‘When are you going to let her go?’ I ask. My voice is clearer now. I slur on purpose. Let her think whatever she gave me is still knocking me out a bit. ‘You said you would.’
‘I did, didn’t I?’ She pulls a chair up close to me. All the plastic surgery she’s had done is one thing, but why didn’t I recognise those eyes? The over-bright sparkling joy at the world that I should have, even back then, known was touched with madness. ‘But people change their minds, don’t they, Charlotte?’
‘I know I broke our deal,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry I let you down. I’m sorry I called the police. But I did that, not Ava. This is nothing to do with Ava.’
‘You betrayed me and you don’t even know it. I loved you and you betrayed me.’ Tears prick at the corner of her eyes. ‘And for what? This life? We could have had everything. We could have been glorious. But look at you. Such an ordinary mouse of a woman.’
I let my head loll a little and pretend to drag it upwards as if I can’t quite hold it myself. Something she said jars in my head. ‘What do you mean, I don’t even know it?’
‘What do you remember, Charlotte?’ she whispers, pulling my hair back hard and tipping another slug of vodka down my raw throat.
‘I don’t remember,’ I say. I know I did it so why would I want to remember it? I’ve spent a lifetime not remembering. I don’t want to think about it. Ever.
‘Of course you do,’ she purrs. ‘You just don’t remember it right.’
72
THEN
1989
Katie isn’t at all unhappy to see Daniel. He’s shy and clingy but eventually settles down on the floor with Peter Rabbit and plays with some old bricks Charlotte brought in from outside. His eyes are wide and nervous though, and Charlotte doesn’t like looking at them. They make something inside her squirm. Maybe she should have left him at home.
She drinks more vodka, and Katie produces another half-bottle, and a couple of her own mother’s pills, some anti-anxiety or anti-depression shit. ‘Been carrying them around for a special occasion,’ she says, smiling. ‘Let’s get high together!’
‘Play with me, Charrot,’ Daniel says, carefully balancing one brick on top of another. ‘Building a fire station.’
‘I’m talking to Katie,’ she says, taking a pill and swallowing with booze. ‘Play by yourself. Here, have some of this.’ She holds the bottle out to him and he takes a small sip before she swipes it away. He’s coughing and for a moment looks as if he’s about to cry and then stops himself. Maybe he’s learned already that being a crier in this family doesn’t get you very far. Maybe he knows Charlotte well enough to know she won’t cuddle him better. ‘Don’t like it,’ he says.
Somehow his reaction gives her some satisfaction. ‘Then shut up and play quietly.’ It’s a growl and she doesn’t look at him. She doesn’t want to feel sorry for him. She only wants to feel sorry for herself.
Katie’s mood is electric as the world starts to spin a little too disconcertingly for Charlotte. They drink more and Katie plays their tape on her pink double cassette player, the music tinny in the damp, cold house. A breeze comes in through the broken window, and it makes Charlotte shiver pleasantly.
‘I can’t believe we’re doing it,’ she says.
‘Doing what?’ Charlotte is having difficulty focusing. It feels good though, this chemical warmth inside her. She can’t feel the soreness down there from last night any more. Just a little throb inside, like her heartbeat. Even her anger feels good. Katie leans against her, and takes another sip of vodka before passing it over.
‘Our pact!’ Katie huddles in close. ‘That’s why you brought him here, isn’t it? We’re going to do it today!’
Charlotte frowns. Is that why she brought him here? Does she want that? ‘He just followed me,’ she says. ‘I haven’t stolen anything. Got no money.’
‘I’ve got all we need. And we’ll go to my granddad’s house and hide there for a couple of days. I know the perfect place.’ Katie squeezes her arm. ‘Let’s get drunk and do it. Then we’ll go and do my mother when she’s home this afternoon. After that, we’ll be free! Bonnie and Clyde!’
Charlotte thinks about it for a moment. There’s nothing she wants more than to be away from here with Katie. No more Tony. No more Ma. She looks at Daniel, muttering away to Peter Rabbit as he plays. She hates him. She knows she does.
‘Maybe we should just run away,’ she slurs. ‘Forget the other shite. Fuck them.’
‘They’ll never let me go,’ Katie is slurring too. ‘My mother will keep me forever if she can.’ She rests her sweet-smelling head on Charlotte’s shoulder. ‘And we had a pact. Cross my heart and hope to die. Remember.’
‘Cross my heart and hope to die,’ Charlotte murmurs. ‘Let’s get drunk first.’ She doesn’t want to think about their plan. It was a game that now feels too real. ‘I want to get out of my face.’
When the pills hit, they hit hard and for a moment she has a blind panic she’s taken too much. She fades in and out of darkness, a haze enveloping her, almost lifting her out of her body.
‘What is this?’ she tries to say, and for a moment it looks like Katie is smiling and glowing at her, and then she’s slumped asleep against the wall. She has no concept of time, drifting in and out of confusion. Everything is a blur.
‘Charrot?’ Daniel’s face suddenly looms large in front of her. His eyes, Tony’s eyes, fill her distorted vision. ‘Feel sick, Charrot.’
Is he feeling sick or is he asking her? Whichever, she doesn’t want to see him. Doesn’t want to think about him. ‘Shut up, Daniel,’ she mutters, although her words are thick on her tongue. Too much. She’s drunk too much with these pills. She closes her eyes, even as she’s aware of Daniel tugging at her.
It’s all his fault, a voice in her head says. Everything. The chip shop. Your ma not loving you any more. Tony and his belt. None of it was there before he was. They didn’t realise how little they loved you until they loved him and that’s the truth of it. It’s all his fault.
She drags her eyes open, the voice confusing her. It’s in her head, it must be her voice. Daniel is still in front of her. He looks hazy too. Has she given him more to drink? She can’t remember. Maybe. She can’t remember how much she’s drunk herself. Is it all his fault? Yes, she thinks. Yes, it is. She knows it is, like the voice in her head is saying, but he’s only a baby and it can’t really be his fault. He looks scared, sucking the corner of Peter Rabbit’s ear. She doesn’t want him to look scared. It jars something inside her.
The voice in her head is still talking, reminding her of all the love and care her ma has given him and all the pain she’s had to suffer. How if something bad happened to Daniel it would punish Ma as she deserves. How this is what she wants. It is what she wants but also not what she wants. She doesn’t know what she wants. She wants to pass out. To sleep. To forget about everything. But the voice won’t shut up, needling her from inside her own mind. He’s a little shite and you know it. He’s spoiled. He’s a brat. He’s the reason they hurt you.
Everythi
ng fades to black, hazing out – Do it, try it, squeeze his throat and make everything better. She sees her hands on his neck, feels his soft skin under them, the voice in her head is raging, and his little eyes are wide, and she’s not quite sure what’s happening. Blackness again. She’s here and yet not here. She’s doing it and yet not doing it. Her brain won’t work properly and her body feels all wrong. At some point there’s the thump of a brick. And then nothing but swimming in the darkness.
When she opens her eyes next, her vision is clear but her head feels like it’s going to explode and her stomach roils with puke waiting to happen. What the shite kind of pills does Katie’s ma take? She doesn’t want any more of those, never again. Katie is passed out beside her, slumped up against the wall, her legs splayed out at a very non-Katie angle. ‘Katie?’ she says, and the world spins slightly again with a wave of nausea. ‘Katie, you awake?’
Peter Rabbit catches her eye, abandoned on the floor by her feet. A flash of something comes to her: hands, neck, Daniel. A dream? The nausea fades with a wave of something cold. Dread. A small shoe in the corner of her vision. A leg very still. She doesn’t want to look, oh she desperately doesn’t want to look, but she can’t help herself.
Oh shite, Daniel. His face is turned away, but there’s blood on the ground and he’s not moving at all, and he’s dead she knows he’s dead and she thinks she might scream or—
‘Oh my God, Charlotte.’ Katie is dragging herself upright, eyes blearily widening. ‘You did it. You actually did it.’
Charlotte’s shaking, her whole body trembling like she’s standing next to one of those stupid pneumatic drills they’ve been using up on the high street, and it’s so surreal, it’s all so surreal and he can’t be dead, not really dead, not like we talked about, hands around his throat, oh God Daniel you little shite I’m so sorry, Katie takes her cold hands and holds them up to her face.
‘Look at me, Charlotte.’
She does. She wants to look anywhere but at little Daniel and oh God what will Ma say, and so she stares straight into Katie’s perfect eyes. ‘It’s done,’ Katie whispers, hot breath on her cold face, Daniel will never breathe again, oh shite oh shite. Katie kisses her gently on her open mouth. ‘You’ve done it. It’s the beginning, Charlotte. We can be free! I can’t believe you did it, but you did. Oh, Charlotte, you’re my hero. There’s no going back now. Next, my mother. Then we run. We fly like the wind. Just us. You and me, forever. No going back.’
Charlotte’s teeth are starting to chatter. It can’t be real, how can it be real, it was only a fantasy, a crazy game. Everything is too bright, too real, and yet at the same time too surreal. No going back.
‘I need to go home first,’ she hears herself saying. ‘Make things look normal. If Ma’s home I’ll say I’m going to look for Daniel. Then come to you. They don’t know about you. They won’t look for me with you.’ How does she sound so normal? So calm. ‘We’ll do your ma and go, right?’ She kisses Katie back although her own mouth tastes sharp and bitter. Rotten.
‘Half an hour? At mine?’
Charlotte nods. She needs to get out of here. She needs to get away. Where is her anger now? Where did it all go? Into your hands and round little Daniel’s neck, that’s where it went and oh shite no going back.
‘I love you,’ Katie says with a smile as they clamber back out into the cold October air.
‘I love you too,’ Charlotte answers, her own smile a sickly grimace. And maybe she does. She does. But everything is broken now. She’s broken now. Daniel’s broken can’t be fixed never be fixed oh God oh God. ‘See you in half an hour.’
They go their separate ways and Charlotte knows she’ll never see Katie again. Not like this. She throws up around the corner, vodka and bile spilling out on to the dirt and leaving her empty. Hollow.
She looks back at the house, a wreck, unloved and unlovable. She doesn’t want to leave Daniel there alone with only Peter Rabbit for company. He’ll be afraid. He won’t understand. He’s dead you stupid shite cunt, he will never understand anything again because of you and your pills and your stupid voice in your head and your stupid hands and your stupid anger and he never hurt you, not really, Daniel never took you to the chippie or beat you or did the thing Tony did last night. Why is everything so clear now? Why is she always one step behind?
She knows what she has to do. The only thing she can do. No going back. She runs, faster than she ever has before, all the way to the train station. There’s a pay phone there. Her breath is raw in her chest. Her head is still spinning with the booze, the pills and the numbing shock, but her trembling fingers punch in the 999. I’m sorry, Katie, she thinks, when the call is done. I’m so sorry, Katie.
Daniel. I’m so sorry, Daniel.
She wishes she could cry. She wishes she could die. Instead, she goes home on numb legs with a numb heart and waits until she hears the sirens. It’s not long before Ma is wailing too, pushing Tony away.
When they take her to the police car, she doesn’t look back.
There’ll never be any going back.
73
NOW
MARILYN
I park up on the secluded road, away from the house, a black shape in the darkness up ahead, and get the torch from the boot of the car. I keep it turned off for now, walking carefully on the uneven track. My feet are invisible, no street lights to cut through the heavy darkness of the night. It’s not raining but the air is damp and heavy with pressure, the clouds hanging low under their own weight. As I turn into the drive I can’t see any other cars, certainly nothing resembling a police car, and for once I praise all the recent government cuts. No lights on. No sign of life. If they’re here, Katie’s dumped whatever car she’s been using out of sight. Without hesitating, without giving myself time to chicken out and turn around, I climb the steps. No police tape, no boards nailed across the door. No sign the police have taken this lead seriously at all.
When I push the door open, I understand why. The house is empty. In its soul it’s empty. I turn the torch on, a pool of yellow in blackness. There’s not much to see; wooden floors and pale walls and then a wide modern staircase that turns on a landing, before heading up to the next floor. I can hear nothing but the hum of my own body in my ears.
There’s no furniture to speak of, most rooms empty, but as I methodically search from top to bottom, there are some items that have been left behind. A mirror with no reflection in one room gives me a start. Illusionist, I remember. Was this part of a trick or was it put here to frighten guests? Some books still in the built-in bookshelves in one of the sitting rooms. Some crockery in the cupboards in the kitchen. If this was going to be a museum, where was everything else? In a lock-up somewhere? And surely it was all too bland and modern to attract any visitors? It could be a banker’s house, or a businessman’s. Not a magician’s.
I make my way back to the hallway and let the torch methodically search. A rug on the floor. An old projector of some sort high on the wall above the door, boxed in wood painted white to match the walls, an illusion to hide it. Sneaky. Like grandfather, like granddaughter. So far, though, no clues.
I find the door to the basement past what might have once been a utility room, and I open it carefully, listening out for any sign of life. Nothing. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. I shiver involuntarily. I’m a grown woman. It’s only a cellar. I’m about to head down into its depths when the phone in my pocket starts buzzing. Shit. Simon.
‘Where the hell are you?’ he asks. ‘I thought you were going to bed. You took my car?’
For a moment it could be Richard, demanding and annoyed, and my first instinct is to apologise, but I don’t.
‘I’m in Skegness.’ I’m speaking quietly but the sound is almost too loud in this mausoleum of a house. ‘At the house.’
‘You’re where? Jesus, Marilyn, if the police—’
‘The police aren’t here. No sign of them. But I can’t sit around and do nothing. And this hous
e is part of it, I’m sure. A clue. It has to be. But if I can’t find anything, then I’ll drive straight back. No one will know I was even here.’
‘I don’t like you being down there on your own. I wish you’d told me. I’d have come with you.’
Not like Richard at all, I realise. This isn’t irritation, it’s concern. Same coin, different sides. Richard used to hide his paranoia as concern. Don’t wear that dress today, you know what men are like.
‘But listen,’ he says. ‘We’ve got something. I’m about to call the police with it. Amelia Cousins …’
‘You can track her back to Katie?’ My breath catches in my throat with the sudden speed of my heartbeat.
‘No, not quite, but her history doesn’t add up. Not if you go back a few years. It’s paper-thin – and trust me, there’s a lot of paper. But it’s not that.’
‘What then?’
He pauses. ‘I think Katie was pretending to be two other people.’
74
AVA
Jodie. The fucking bitch. A small sob escapes my gag. Jodie. I trusted her. She was my friend. She was my best friend. My head hurts and I’m horribly drunk and it’s making it hard to think. No, she was never my friend. She was Mum’s best friend. Katie. Girl B. Whatever.
I’m going to die here, I know it. Me and Mum together. Jodie’s going to kill us, because Jodie isn’t Jodie and she’s batshit crazy and I’m so ashamed and I feel sick and I’m so sorry Mum is going to die here with me and I keep thinking about the baby inside me and that’s going to die too and this is not its fault. Maybe it’s dead already. Fresh tears threaten and I fight them back. I can’t breathe when I cry. I’m scared to cry. I’m scared to die. I’m so scared and I just want my mum to make it all okay, but I don’t think she can. I’m not even ashamed any more. The stupid Facebook messages feel like a lifetime ago. I was different then. I was stupid then.
Cross Her Heart Page 26