by K. L. Slater
He stares at me, says nothing.
‘If you don’t do it, then I will,’ I say.
‘You’ll do nothing of the sort, Emma. This is gone on long enough.’ His jaw sets. ‘So far as I can see, the only person who is harming Maisie with your wild accusations is you. If you carry on with this paranoia, I might… well, I might have no choice but to seek custody of Maisie.’
‘Over my dead body,’ I hiss.
He looks at me, a strange expression on his face. Then he shakes his head sadly and walks out of the house.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Maisie
Maisie walked into the tiny foyer and stood outside the doors. She could hear the noisy buzz of voices and laughter from within. Everybody would’ve arrived for the class now, pulling on their dance shoes and tying their wraparound ballet tops at the waist.
When her mum dropped her off, the thought had crossed Maisie’s head to wait for two or three minutes in here to give her time to get out into the traffic and well away from the building before walking out and sitting in the little park a couple of streets away.
But it had started to drizzle with rain, and how would she explain being wet through when her mum came back to pick her up?
She glanced at her watch. Still three minutes until the start of class. They had been late leaving home thanks to Maisie ‘kicking off again’, as her mum described it.
‘What’s the matter with you lately, Maisie?’ Mum stood in the doorway of her bedroom, glaring at her empty dance bag lying on its side on the floor. ‘You’re never going to keep your part in the Christmas show at this rate. If you don’t buck your ideas up, Miss Diane is sure to notice.’
Talk of the show made Maisie want to throw up, but she’d be asking for trouble if she said as much to her mum, who had invested a lot of time and money in her dance classes. And Miss Diane had expected her to be delighted with her role.
She had to find some way of speaking to her mum properly about what was happening. How the fact that she’d got the lead role was making everything worse. She was still waiting for the right moment.
She couldn’t find the words to answer her mum, so she just looked down at her hands and waited for her to go away again. She couldn’t help noticing how heavy her heart felt when only a few months ago she would’ve been bouncing with excitement by the front door with ten minutes to spare before it was time to leave.
But her mum didn’t go away. She walked into the room and sat on the side of Maisie’s bed, placed her hand on her daughter’s shin.
Maisie bit down on her tongue. She could deal much better with her mum when she was screaming at her like a banshee.
‘You’ve not been yourself for a while, poppet. What is it? Don’t you like dancing any more?’
This was a surprise. Maisie had assumed her mum just thought she was being stubborn and misbehaving for the sake of it.
‘Come on, you can tell me. What’s wrong?’
Maisie smoothed a patch of creased quilt cover with the flat of her hand. Was this the right time to open her heart? She didn’t think so.
‘I just don’t… It’s not the same there any more.’
Her mum pressed her lips together. ‘Is this because Piper goes to all your classes now? You shouldn’t let that bother you.’
Easy for Mum to say. Piper flounced around as if she’d been going to the classes for years. Last week, she’d brought in two gift-wrapped rose petal bath bombs for the teacher’s birthday and Miss Diane had been apoplectic with delight.
‘Maisie?’ Her mum squeezed her shin until Maisie looked up at her. ‘This has got to stop, love. Tell me what’s wrong.’
Maisie’s heartbeat began to race and her fingers gathered the quilt into a tight bunch. This did seem like a good moment. Her mum was calm and concerned, and if she didn’t say anything, then how could things change?
‘I just… I don’t think I want to go there any more. They all hate me.’
There. She’d said it. Her shoulders relaxed a little and her fingers released the bunched-up fabric.
She looked at her mum, expected to see a sympathetic smile, a concerned expression. But there was no trace of that.
‘You’ll get nowhere being a quitter.’ Her mum stood up, brushed down her loose tunic top over her jeans. She looked down at Maisie, and when she saw her shiny eyes, her face softened. ‘Look, sweetie, I know you’re struggling at the moment, but all your classes are paid for in advance until the end of term. See it through and then we’ll talk about it, OK? You spend enough time stuck in your bedroom as it is. I really don’t think it’s a good idea to cut yourself off even further from your friends and hobbies.’
Friends? Didn’t her mum listen to anything Maisie said? The nail of her index finger worked its way slowly into the soft flesh of her palm.
‘I know I’ve been busy at work, and it’s been hard for both of us since your dad moved out, but we can get through this together.’ She sat down on the bed again. ‘We both have to be brave and not let circumstances affect us. You hardly see your friends these days and that’s probably why you’ve drifted apart; how about organising a sleepover here Saturday night?’
Was she really that clueless when it came to how girls acted with each other?
Maisie managed a weak smile, enough to hide the dread trawling through her stomach at the thought of being forced to invite people and nobody turning up.
‘So.’ Her mum squeezed her arm. ‘Are we agreed? You’ll carry on with classes for another six weeks and try a bit harder to reconnect with your friends?’
Maisie looked at her mum’s face. She could see tiny lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth.
Dad leaving had been hard on Mum too, she thought guiltily. Maybe her plan wasn’t such a bad one after all.
She smiled weakly and nodded.
‘Perfect! That’s settled then.’ Mum stood up again, checked her watch. ‘OK, five minutes tops before we have to leave, so get that bag sorted and let’s go.’
And that had been it. Six more weeks of dance classes agreed. No more arguments.
The double doors leading to the dance hall flew open now, the hum of voices exploding out into the foyer. Two girls Maisie recognised but didn’t know well scurried past her towards the bathroom.
Their heads bobbed closer and they glanced back at her, both suppressing giggles. As they disappeared into the bathroom, Maisie heard a burst of laughter.
They’d seen her now. If she didn’t go into class, they might tell Miss Diane.
Steeling herself, Maisie gripped the handle of her bag with one hand and pushed open the door with the other.
As she stepped into the dance hall, the noise surrounded her, invading her ears like a swarm of angry wasps.
Her heart began to hammer and the bottom of her back felt hot and sticky. She always felt like this now when she was in a crowd of people, or first thing in the morning at school when she had to walk into class.
Her chest felt tight, as if she couldn’t get enough breath in, and sometimes her face went all red and blotchy. It was stupid. Embarrassing.
Everyone was too busy chattering to notice her. She crept around the edges of the room, trying to mingle with the small clusters of girls dressed in grey and pink.
She used to march in and cut through the middle of the dance hall to where Zoe and Sandeep and the others would be standing at the top, near the stage. But now she avoided that end of the hall as she knew she would be there, waiting to make her look stupid.
Halfway up, on the right-hand side, she spotted Julia, and finally she breathed out.
She felt a flicker of guilt. Julia had a much worse time of it here than her. Nasty rumours had circulated for as long as Maisie had attended classes that Julia was really a boy called Julian. She was always alone and never got invited to birthday parties or anything like that.
To her shame, Maisie had joined in with the sniggering sometimes in the past, even though she’d felt a bit sorry fo
r her… him. Whatever.
If Julia could find the courage, then surely Maisie could see it through for a few more weeks.
She sat on the floor and pulled her ballet slippers on, just as the two girls she’d seen in the foyer returned from the bathroom. One of them barged into Julia’s arm when she could’ve easily walked around her.
They giggled as they passed. Maisie opened her mouth to say something and then closed it again. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself.
‘All line up at the barre, please,’ Miss Diane called out, and the room fell quiet.
Julia turned away, fumbling with her pink knitted top, and Maisie saw a tear roll down her cheek like a wet diamond before Julia’s hand furiously wiped it away.
‘OK, I’m looking for someone to demonstrate the perfect plié.’ Miss Diane beamed, looking around.
Not me. Not me. Please, not me, Maisie wished silently.
‘Maisie… our lead show dancer this year! Come up to the front.’ Miss Diane smiled.
Maisie stepped forward slowly, ignoring the nudges and suppressed giggles from the others. She was taller than most of them and felt like a flabby giant now as she clomped past slim, pretty Piper and the smirking girls who used to sleep over at Maisie’s house at weekends.
That was what it was like here when people switched friendship groups. If they decided you didn’t fit in, that was it.
Nobody got a second chance.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Emma
Finally, I have the time to spread out the printed copies I’ve made of the screenshots of Joanne’s certificates.
The first one is Piper’s birth certificate. Her father is named as Paul James Stafford. I feel sure this must be the man in the photograph I found. Piper’s name is documented on there as Piper Stafford.
The second document is a copy of a deed poll certificate dated two years ago, when Joanne changed Piper’s surname to Dent. The third and final piece of paper is a copy of Joanne and Paul Stafford’s marriage certificate, where Joanne’s maiden name is stated as Dent.
I assume there must be a deed poll certificate for her too somewhere, changing her married name back to her maiden name.
It’s been a messy process, but now Joanne and Piper are a matching pair, with no untimely reminders of Paul Stafford. The man they used to share their lives with, now deceased according to Shaun.
I open my laptop, and remember for the first time that I haven’t seen Shaun’s laptop lying around since he left home. Joanne bought him some fancy new model, so he left his old one here. I’ll have to have a hunt around for it. Maybe we could erase everything and Maisie could use it for her homework, instead of commandeering mine to search various subjects.
I open Google and type Paul James Stafford into the search bar. I spend a while sifting through the results and clicking on the odd one that looks promising. But all I get are Paul Staffords who are still very much alive.
I amend my search: Paul Stafford+death+Joanne+Piper.
The results load again. This time I hit gold with the first item. A newspaper article from the Yorkshire Post loads.
A man and a young girl have died after falling from a privately owned boat off the North Yorkshire coast. The RNLI confirmed it sent out three lifeboats to rescue the man, Paul James Stafford, from Leeds, and his daughter Bethany, aged ten, who fell overboard from the vessel a few miles north of Scarborough.
Mr Stafford and his daughter were pulled from the sea and flown to James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, where they were both sadly pronounced dead, said North Yorkshire police.
Joanne Stafford, wife of Mr Stafford and stepmother to his daughter, Bethany, was also aboard the vessel at the time and raised the alarm.
The couple have a younger daughter, Piper, who was with a childminder that day.
The Marine Accident Investigation Branch is investigating the fatalities.
My fingers quiver over the keys. I’m in shock as I struggle to join up the dots.
The other child in the photograph… she must be Paul’s daughter, Bethany, as referred to in the article. Now tragically dead, just like her father.
I read the report again, slower this time. The heating is on but I feel so cold, my forearms pepper with goosebumps.
It’s simply terrible… just the worst thing I can imagine to happen to a family. And I am so shocked that Joanne herself was there to witness the death of her husband and his daughter.
I feel physically sick when I realise Joanne’s relationship to Bethany is identical to the one she’ll have with Maisie if she and Shaun get married.
Yet, what were originally facts to discover and use against her now feel intensely personal and terribly sad. I feel ashamed of myself for prying but at the same time, I’m filled with a powerful sense of utter dread.
This is not about me, I remind myself. What Joanne went through, I can’t imagine. What right have I got to dredge up an incident that she wanted to bury? I’m even beginning to understand why she wants to erase the whole event from Piper’s mind.
Still, there’s no time for sentimentality here. That’s a rule I know well from working in the legal system. I’ve taken risks to get the information and I need to finish the job. If nothing else, to put an end to the constant wondering about Joanne’s past.
I search for more results on the accident, but can’t find another article, which is odd.
I’m baffled momentarily, until I remember the ‘right to be forgotten’ rule. The gappy search results are a perfect example of someone applying for information to be removed.
I happen to know, from previous cases I’ve been involved in at work, that removing online historical entries is a lengthy process. Each case is dealt with on its own merit and not all requests are approved.
But it seems as though someone who knew exactly what they were doing has done a pretty good job of erasing the accident that killed Paul Stafford and his daughter from the public domain.
I can understand Joanne wanting to forget the terrible tragedy in her past, but effectively attempting to erase it from history seems a step further than most people would venture.
In true paralegal style, and in the spirit of trying every single loose end before giving up, I enter different combinations, different words, that amount to the same question and the same event.
Finally, I manage to conjure a search query that gets me one more result.
A short report loads, which I stare at open-mouthed before sending it to the printer set up in the office upstairs.
It’s a follow-up article from the original report of the accident in the Yorkshire Post, which confirms that Joanne Stafford, the wife of Paul James Stafford, has been formally questioned by police in relation to his death and that of his daughter.
Chapter Sixty-Five
Maisie
It was hard, seeing Mum and Gran so worried and knowing it was because of her own actions. She’d never meant to hurt them, but she was powerless to make it any better.
She’d become immune to their pleading, their lecturing. The phrases they used to try and scare her held no power over her.
These days, it felt like she was an observer in her own life; as if she were hovering somewhere close without actually being part of herself.
At one time, if she’d had to describe how she felt about her life, she would have said it was like a kaleidoscope of colour inside her head. She loved so many things: music, dancing, reading, school, animals… There wasn’t enough time in the day to do all the stuff she enjoyed.
But now? Now everything in her head was grey. Plain, dull grey, no colour, no bursts of excitement. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d looked forward to anything; life was just one big ordeal.
She found she had a talent, though. She was brilliant at covering up how she really felt, and had also become a very good fibber, covering her tracks so it was virtually impossible for her mum and gran to track what she was actually eating.
; She preferred to think of it as fibbing, not outright serious lying.
She didn’t like lying to the people who loved her the most.
She felt certain that one day, if she lost enough weight and looked the way she should do, the pain would stop and she’d be back to her old self. Then everyone would like her again.
One day.
In the meantime, she had a constant battle to hide the true extent of it all from Mum and Gran.
She opened her wardrobe door, stood back and stared into the full-length mirror. One of the tricks she’d learned from the Internet, where there were forums to help people like her, was to pin her clothes, use belts on her jeans and wear baggy tops with two or three layers underneath, so it was more difficult for people around her to see how much weight she’d really lost.
It was easy to spend hours on the Internet in her bedroom now without her mum knowing. She’d smuggled in her dad’s old laptop he’d left behind – he had a fancy new iMac now that Joanne had bought him – and Mum hadn’t even noticed it had gone from the kitchen worktop.
Mum was always so busy with work, with trying to be the best. Maisie’s Internet use was completely off her radar these days.
She shrugged her dressing gown from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor.
Her face contorted in disgust as she scanned her misshapen body.
Her hip bones stuck out, but she didn’t really notice them. She was too distracted by the soft pads of flesh just above them. She thought this was what people meant by the term ‘muffin top’.
Her thighs were too pale and seemed to balloon out at the sides. They were so fat and wide compared to her ankles. That couldn’t be right, could it?
Her skin was blotchy, and if she rubbed it, dry flakes would slough off like fish scales. She felt like one of those shedding amphibians they’d learned about in science.