To Keep You Safe

by Kate Bradley

  Like a needle pricking my skin, I wondered if George knew I was broken. I thought of him saying: ‘I don’t know why you’re not getting it, love’, and wondered . . . no . . . I decided, he didn’t know I’d been in hospital. Neither teacher training nor the school had required any health info and I’d not volunteered my past.

  You’re not getting it, love.

  But perhaps I wanted to. Perhaps that’s what George meant, perhaps ‘getting it’ was a euphemism for caring about the right thing.

  I could care about the right thing. ‘Destiny, why did you run away before?’

  Destiny said nothing; instead she continued to play with her phone. She’d undone her long plaits and her hair swung like a privacy curtain around her. I couldn’t see what she was doing or what her expression was. Had she simply not heard me in that way I was used to from the kids at school? Or was there more to it?

  ‘Destiny,’ I persisted, ‘I’d really like to know why you felt you had to run away in the past.’

  ‘l don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘I think you should.’

  ‘There’s no point.’

  ‘You’re going to your aunt now, why not your mum? Is she dead?’

  Destiny laughed, ‘I wish!’

  ‘You want your mother dead?’

  ‘The joke of it is, last year, I used to run away to sleep on her floor. But then she . . .’

  ‘Then?’

  Destiny ignored me. Being alone with a teenager felt like being lost in unfamiliar countryside at night, with no map, torch or phone. I gave up for a few minutes and just drove. Rear-view check. Lane change. Sat-nav check. But I still wanted to know – I still wanted her to think I cared.

  I had an idea. ‘I realise it might be too personal or painful to tell me. So why don’t I tell you about myself? We might not be so different.’

  She darted a look at me.

  Good, she was interested. I might not know much about teenagers, but I did know that if you could get a kid interested, then you stood half a chance of being heard. I took a breath. ‘I didn’t grow up with my mum either.’ Pause. I’d never had this conversation with anyone. But then, I’d never needed to before. ‘She died when I was little.’

  Nothing, then, ‘How little?’

  ‘When I was three.’

  ‘How did she die?’ Destiny uncurled like a snake and stretched out as if seeking heat from the sun. She waited, watching me with eyes filled with deep expression that I didn’t understand.

  I heard the engine; the sound of the wheels on the tarmac; the sound of my breathing. But what could it matter to me, after all this time? ‘My mother killed herself,’ I said. My words sounded hollow, and in that moment I could hear it as clear as a rifle shot, I could hear the difference between me and other people. Normally I can’t, but then, as if through Destiny (the best teachers are the ones who care) I heard the lack of emotion in my voice. It was like a deadness. The sound of the car on the road; a functioning machine. Robotic. No, worse: I sounded like one of those creepy AI computers in a dystopian film, with carefully modulated tones hiding a deadly intention. I could be deadly – but I wanted to also be a teacher who cared. But how could I be, when I didn’t even know how to care?

  ‘That’s terrible,’ she muttered. She folded her hands on her lap; it was a careful gesture of a much older person. Although I watched the road, I could tell – for the first time – that she was now looking at me properly. ‘Do you mind talking about it?’

  ‘No.’ Of course I had to say this – the whole point of my bringing this up was to get Destiny to do the same herself – but I wanted to mind, I wanted to care.

  She seemed to consider this for a moment. ‘What happened?’

  ‘She hanged herself.’

  ‘Oh, Miss!’

  I glanced at her, surprised by the rush of emotion in her voice.

  ‘I suppose she was depressed,’ I added. Then, into her silence I added helplessly, ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I blinked. I wasn’t prepared for this question because I’d never had to answer it. I’d never discussed her death because I had nothing to say about it and nobody to tell it to. I found it hard to make friends as a child, so nobody came home to my house and found me motherless. As an adult, there had never been a time when I’d needed to tell anyone. In the army, it’s easier not to talk about home; when you’re together, you become each other’s family.

  All I knew was that my mother had hung herself. But I don’t even know how I knew it. It was merely something I had always known.

  Other than that, I knew shockingly little. She wasn’t ever discussed in our home and if there were any photos of her around before she died, they must have been taken down after, because there was nothing of her in the house, nothing that ever suggested that she’d ever even lived there. But she must have lived there because I do know that she’d hanged herself in her bedroom using a yellow silk tassel belt strung from the light fitting in front of the bay window. I blinked again. I didn’t even know that I knew that.

  – she’s left a crease –

  I shook my head, confused. What did I know?

  I breathed deeply. I knew that all she left behind was a crease breaking the smoothness of the soft counterpane, where she must have stood making final adjustments around her neck before she stepped her last step away from her life at 43 Teddingham Terrace.

  I walked past that door several times a day when I still lived at home. It was always shut, maybe locked, but I don’t know because I never tried the handle. The room could’ve been stripped bare, or perhaps it was freeze-framed in time, a perfect capsule of life before. But I don’t know and I don’t want to – not even one little bit. My dad quietly boarded the loft and built stairs and we were the first in the street to convert the loft into a room, and that became his bedroom. But we continued to live in the house and the door remained shut.

  That was all I remember, that and she called me her ‘Flower’, and if I was good she’d rub my hands with her hand cream that smelt of lily of the valley.

  I thought of her then, my hands suddenly slippery on the steering wheel. I had a brief scent of her, a wisp of something half-remembered. Flower, sit right there and don’t—

  Then it was gone.

  I glanced at Destiny again, and saw her watching me. I didn’t know how to tell her these things. These things were small enough to be nothing and yet . . . I was overwhelmed. It occurred to me that perhaps my story was worse than her own and she was curious now about me.

  ‘But why haven’t you asked what happened?’ she said.

  I debated turning on the radio. I didn’t know what to do. Eventually, I said, ‘There wasn’t anyone to ask.’

  ‘What about your dad?’

  I almost laughed at the thought. ‘I couldn’t ask my dad, Destiny.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I changed lanes to give me something to do. I needed to do something that allowed me a moment to think about her question. I didn’t know why not; I never thought about why not. A blue BMW came up on the inside and beeped its horn at me. Unsettled, realising I’d been travelling too slow in the middle lane, I pulled back into the inside one.

  ‘Why not?’ she persisted.

  ‘I don’t know.’ I thought of my dad, his heavy work boots, the set of his mouth, the way he carried himself as if his spine itself was fashioned from Sheffield steel. He had always been good to me: food on the table; clean clothes for school; trips to the dentist. He did his best but we never talked about the past. He was a man of the present.

  I realised Destiny was waiting for my answer. I wasn’t used to her being – what was this? – challenging, I decided. Was she trying to be? Was this testing me or was this curiosity? Or was it something else, something deeper, like trying to understand the world or draw parallels between us? I wasn’t sure, but I did know I wanted to think the best of her – had to, given what I’d done – and part of th
at was taking her questions at face value. ‘I’ve never asked my father because I don’t think he wanted to talk about it, I suppose. I didn’t want to upset him.’

  ‘But he must have talked to you about it at some point, otherwise how would you know?’

  ‘He never told me. Or maybe he did. Or maybe I was so young, I heard bits and put them together. Some things you just know, like osmosis. You know that word?’

  Destiny nodded. ‘I’m in the top set for science.’

  ‘You’re in the top set for everything, aren’t you?’

  She bit at her fingernail. ‘Did you always want to be a teacher?’

  ‘I always wanted to be a solider.’

  ‘Why weren’t you then?’

  ‘I was for many years.’

  ‘Did you have a gun?’

  ‘All soldiers have a gun.’

  She nodded slowly. ‘ I remember that assembly you did about that race you do every year and win. That was a cool assembly.’

  ‘I wanted you to know about grit and resilience.’

  Destiny looked out of the window. ‘I already know about grit and resilience. You don’t have to teach me about that.’ Her voice sounded like mortar shots.

  I didn’t know what to say, not wanting to return to any of the subjects we had been talking about. But as I flapped, she made the decision for me.

  ‘Why aren’t you in the army any more?’

  I could tolerate questions about my dead mother, but I couldn’t answer this one. I couldn’t talk about Billy. I had done nothing but think of Billy recently; this was supposed to help me forget and now we were here, talking about the army and I wasn’t forgetting at all.

  I wiped each hand in turn on my trousers, before tightening them against the steering wheel. Perhaps it was the look on my face, the set of my jaw or the hunch of my shoulders, but she realised that, although I could sometimes be pushed, this was a no-go area.

  Destiny lapsed into silence. After a moment, she rooted around in her bag, eventually finding a packet of sweets. ‘Miss, do you want a Starburst?’

  I stiffened. I didn’t eat sweets – fitness was my world. ‘Sure,’ I said, keeping my voice casual, ‘if you can unwrap it for me. And I think you should call me Jenni, now, don’t you?’

  She handed me a sticky red square. I sniffed it and popped it in my mouth. ‘This is an Opal Fruit.’

  ‘Starburst,’ Destiny corrected me.

  I laughed, glad to get rid of the tension between my shoulders.

  We sat in silence for a while, her unwrapping, and me accepting sweet after sweet. The fruit flavours coated my tongue, far too sweet for me, but it felt strangely comforting to chew the tastes of my childhood.

  We’d fallen into such a companionable silence, that when the sat-nav announced the turn-off for Tunbridge Wells, I was unprepared. I glanced at the clock. We had time to get to the shops, but it would be tight.

  As I left the motorway, I realised that as soon as we got out of the privacy of my car, we could be seen by CCTV, the police, even the men from the van, but I pressed my foot against the accelerator, still wanting to get there as soon as possible. After all, it would be easier than dodging questions I couldn’t answer about my past.

  Friday

  16:53

  Jenni

  We had parked the car without event in a multi-storey car park, and had opened the map facility on her phone so we could walk as directly as possible to the shop she wanted to visit.

  As we walked, I was reminded again of being on patrol in Iraq. Tunbridge Wells’ beautiful town centre couldn’t have been more different to the dry, arid landscape of Basra, but the feeling of being watched was the same. There were unseen eyes watching from windows, behind doors or through the children gathered on street corners. Again I was part of a moving convoy, in charge of my section, working as a team to stay safe. Again I knew the feeling of having to make a journey but knowing that journey could end badly. Tunbridge Wells might have pavement slabs and brick where Basra had dust, but the sudden heavy rain had emptied the streets just as our convoy would empty the streets of Iraq. Just as we didn’t know the difference between insurgents and civilians, I had no idea who was in the gang and who was a passing stranger. I had seen one of them; I knew there was at least one other because I saw him in the front of the van. But who else lurked inside of it? There could be two or ten, and each man who passed us could be one of them.

  My senses were heightened. I had a mission: to get Destiny into the shop and out with a disguise as quickly as possible. I thought about the town CCTV around us; I thought of using my bank cards or withdrawing cash and I thought of the car park that would have read my number-plate. There would be no denying that I had been here with Destiny.

  When I had left, I had thought it would be a round trip of two hours, broken with a quick get out of the car, a doorbell ring, a joyous reunion, and my being away after a cup of tea and back at my desk before anyone had seen me gone. Although the school would be empty of kids, there would be plenty of staff around that I planned on speaking to, to cover my tracks. I’d even imagined how I’d feel like a hero at keeping her safe. How naive I’d been.

  We walked quickly past shop after shop, all of which would be closing soon.

  Inside, the clothes racks were broken up by large mirrors, mannequins and huge photos of thin, beautiful young women. Pop music played. There were still a few shoppers, all women and girls, watched by a uniformed security guard. I would’ve felt more sure of myself in combat, but I held my chin up and touched the clothes like the other shoppers, wanting to blend in.

  I trailed after Destiny, who went quickly from rack to rack. She selected a pair of black skinny jeans with rips at the knees and black trainers. Satisfied, she moved on to the clothes racks at the back of the store. She pulled a shocking-pink hooded jumper off a hanger and held it up against her, looking at her reflection in the mirror. Then she grabbed a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan: Sleep, Eat, Game, Repeat. I realised that my life came down to Sleep, Eat, Teach, Run, Repeat. Would it always be like that? I wondered if I had grown tired of it without noticing.

  ‘Get another T-shirt if you need . . . pants and socks too, if you want.’

  ‘Really?’

  She smiled and I knew that meant that she was happy. It felt strangely powerful to give something to someone else and change them. Dad didn’t want for much, so apart from chucking in a couple of quid for staff leaving presents, I didn’t have anyone to buy anything for. ‘Get a couple of jumpers as well – you’ll need them.’

  We went to the till and as I paid, the strange sense of warmth increased. I couldn’t figure out what it was and then I saw a mother laughing at the till with her daughter. We are almost like them, I thought, puzzled, yet strangely receptive to the moment of make-believe. ‘My daughter,’ I said, ‘she wants to wear these now. Can she go into the changing room and get changed?’

  ‘Sure!’ said the bright young thing behind the till as she flashed me a smile.

  Flattered that she seemed to accept that I was Destiny’s mother, I passed the bag of clothes to Destiny and she broke into a huge grin.

  I realised that I’d never seen her happy in school.

  I waited outside the changing room. When she came out, she’d tied her hair into a bun and had put in a pair of huge hoop earrings I hadn’t seen before. Dressed in her new clothes, she still looked petite, but older, streetwise and more capable than before. ‘You look great!’ I told her as she stood there. Like a good parent I took the bags now containing the school uniform and we both left the store. The security guard didn’t even look our way.

  As we walked back through the town towards the car park, Destiny slid an arm through mine and for that moment our disguise was complete.

  Friday

  17:27

  Aleksander

  I watched them both leave the clothes shop, arm in arm, as if they were like everybody else. They didn’t see me. I held my paper up even high
er, waited until they’d passed my bench, then watched as they headed towards the car park.

  I let go of the paper that was full of boring stories written for boring people who live boring lives, and watched it flap into the wind, tumbling separating sheets. The old dear next to me on the bench watched it, then glanced at me, questions in her eyes. I gave her my special smile and enjoyed the way her eyes widened in reaction, before she got up and, with her hand on her stick, moved fast for someone her age. Granny Olympics – how fast can they run?

  I lit a fag as Destiny and her teacher disappeared out of sight. The teacher carried Topshop bags – if I knew Destiny, then she would’ve rinsed that stupid bitch for all her cash.

  About now, they’d be getting back to that sporty little Peugeot parked on the second floor of the multi-storey. They could fuck off, but I wasn’t worried. I could catch them anytime I wanted. And I will. And when I do, I’ll make that bitch go out screaming in pain.

  No one runs from me.

  I sat and smoked, planning, thinking. I finished my fag, flicking it to the ground. A seagull swooped down and pecked at it, dropping it when it burned. Anything else and I would’ve laughed, but I like seagulls – they’re survivors, like me. I found some peanuts in my pocket, I tore open the silver foil and tipped out a few for the gull. Then, after tipping the rest in my mouth, I got up and followed Destiny. I’ll get you, I thought, thinking about my hand on her neck, pressing against her windpipe so gently that . . . I smirked, letting the thought go, already aroused.

  I couldn’t wait to see her.

  Oh yes, Candydoll, Papa’s coming to get you.

  Friday

  17:39

  Aleksander

  In the multi-storey, I walked up to the fourth floor. I touched the sleek silver of my new Merc; I love to touch it, feel the smooth paint under my fingertips. It’s sexy, classy and it’s mine. With it, I can remember that I’ve made it. I didn’t even have to think about whether I should part with the cash, business is good. It’s a high-risk business and I’m not stupid, if I get caught, I’m looking at fifteen to twenty. But it’s worth it – every time I leave the country, I add a bit more to my hidden stash in Poland. One day, I might go back or I might stay here: either way, I’ll live like a king.