by K. L. Slater
When she’d tried on the swimsuit to go to the swimming party a few weeks ago, she’d seen Piper’s mouth drop open and the glance that had passed between her and her mum.
They’d obviously been shocked at just how fat Maisie still was. Her swimsuit gaped despite its elasticated legs and neckline, but it couldn’t disguise the fact that the flesh underneath was like swollen lard.
Piper’s arms and legs were long and slender, and she still had a faint tan from their holiday in Gran Canaria earlier in the year. Maisie could see that her swimsuit fitted like a glove, hugging every inch of her perfect body; no lumps and bumps there to reveal.
Piper kept trying to get Maisie to jump into the pool like she was doing, but she knew it was only so they could see how big her legs were and have a good laugh about it.
She made a point of swimming up the other end and keeping out of their way, counting the minutes on the massive wall clock until she could finally get dressed and go back to Joanne’s apartment to spend some time with her dad.
After the swim, they’d had to go up to the café overlooking the pool, where the party food buffet was. Joanne ordered her a hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows without even asking Maisie her preference.
‘I have a stomach ache,’ Maisie told Joanne when she encouraged her to drink it.
Stomach aches were the best because adults couldn’t prove you were lying. Even teachers had to give in and let you sit out of PE if you grumbled about the pain for long enough.
When they got back to the apartment, Joanne told them to go and put their wet costumes in the bath while she had a quick word with Maisie’s dad about something. She looked meaningfully at Piper as she said it.
‘They’re talking about you, you know,’ Piper said spitefully when they were alone. ‘Your dad thinks there’s something wrong with you, with the way you look.’
Maisie felt like crying, but she jutted out her chin and said nothing. She knelt by the bath and began wringing out her swimsuit, inhaling the chlorine as the water dripped down.
‘Nobody even likes you at dancing any more. They all want to be my friends now instead.’ Piper tugged the swimsuit out of Maisie’s hands and threw it on the floor behind her, standing over her, hands on hips. ‘What’s wrong with you and your crazy mother? Are you both going mental or something?’
Maisie turned, picked up the wet swimsuit and lassoed it in the air as she stood up straight, enjoying the feeling of satisfaction when it hit Piper in the face like a big wet fish.
As Piper began to wail, covering one eye with her hand, Maisie turned and walked out of the large bathroom and across the landing into the spare bedroom, where she calmly closed the door, sat on the bed and waited for the brown stuff to hit the fan.
Chapter Sixty-Six
In view of what had happened, it was decided that Maisie should go home earlier than planned.
In the car on the journey back, her dad wouldn’t shut up about it.
‘I don’t know what’s got into you lately, Maisie. You seem intent on upsetting Jo and Piper, despite them trying very hard to include you in their plans.’
Maisie opened her mouth to speak, but her dad continued.
‘It’s an awful thing to have to say, but it does make me wonder if your mum is poisoning you against them both. And it’s not just me, even your gran is concerned. She spoke to me, you know. She’s worried about you and your mum.’
‘She—’
‘There can be absolutely no excuse for violence. You really hurt Piper’s face when you slapped her with that wet costume. You could’ve blinded her, do you realise that?’
Maisie laughed. She couldn’t help it. Piper was such a drama queen.
‘Enough!’ Her dad’s cheeks were blooming with angry red blotches and his eyes looked dark and full of unsaid words that would probably make Maisie cry.
She turned her whole body towards the window and stared out blindly until the car slowed and parked up outside her house.
Without waiting for her dad, she flung open the door and rushed up the path, into the house.
She heard her mum call out as she thundered upstairs, but she didn’t stop to answer. She ran straight into the bathroom and banged the door shut behind her.
After nearly half an hour of keeping her hands immersed, Maisie pulled them out of the bath to inspect her fingertips. She liked how the water dripped from them, marvelled at how its soothing warmth sucked the moisture out of her skin without her even feeling it was happening.
Her mum had followed her upstairs and tapped on the bathroom door.
‘Please don’t come in,’ Maisie had said calmly. ‘I want a bath. I’ll tell you what happened later.’
She heard her dad come into the hallway and Mum went back downstairs. Their low, concerned voices became faint and then disappeared as they went into the kitchen. Maisie heard the chink of cups and knew they’d talk in there for a while.
She stared again at her hands. The once smooth, plump fingertips had now transformed into little withered ravines that looked like the dry riverbeds they had seen in Spain on the coach that had taken them from the airport to the hotel. She’d been about six or seven then. Mum and Dad still loved each other and they’d been a proper family with no awkward stuff hanging in the air that nobody wanted to talk about.
Sometimes you couldn’t change the things that happened around you, but Maisie was beginning to realise that you could change little bits of yourself.
When your mind felt sad, scared and confused and everyone told you what to do, you still had control of your own body.
You could change small things that adults didn’t even notice so couldn’t do anything about. For a while, at least, until they realised something was wrong.
Some part of Maisie knew it wasn’t right, what she was doing. But she felt powerless to stop. She knew about eating disorders; they’d even had a session about them in school when a lady came in to talk to Year 6 in assembly.
But Maisie didn’t care about the label. She just cared about how she felt.
And she’d found she felt much better when she wasn’t stuffing her face with food.
Her dad had changed who he was. He acted so differently around Joanne and Piper. He was never tired and took Piper to Sunday league football training every weekend.
He’d never done that when he lived at home with her and her mum.
It was because Maisie was boring.
Maisie was ugly and rubbish at football.
She told her, all the time.
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Fourteen years earlier
You hated every minute of it. All that vomiting and purging and starving yourself as a child… it hurt you, set you apart from your peers.
Other children at school know when someone is different. They know when something is wrong, off kilter, but they don’t always know why.
But that didn’t matter. It was enough for them to isolate, to victimise, to force you to endure years of bullying.
And when you finally left school, it stayed with you. It was so hard to trust people, to make friends. Your worst relationship was the one you had with food, and with yourself.
The habits she forced you to endure somehow became part of you. They became who you are.
At twenty years of age, your stomach is raw, your skin is flaky and spotty, your flesh bags away from your bones. But still, she tells you that you are beautiful.
And you believe her.
When your mother dies, you are bereft. You mourn her, pine for your loss.
But you discover there is one way you can feel close to her again. One way you can be yourself.
You continue what she taught you. You purge, and vomit, and starve yourself of food, the enemy.
Yet better is to come. You find you can pass on your mother’s legacy. You can teach another young soul the same secret.
All you have to do is find the right girl.
Someone who is lonely and afraid.
> Someone who needs your help to be her best self.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Emma
I’m forced to admit that someone – probably Joanne herself – cleaned up the Internet pretty well in order to get the awful drowning incident forgotten.
The fact is, though, you might be able to erase Google results, but you can’t throw an invisibility cloak over real-life historical records.
I tell Mum I have to attend a conference away and she agrees to look after Maisie.
The trip up to Scarborough takes two and a half hours. The traffic during the day is quite light, and although I stick an audiobook on to listen to on the way, I barely take any of it in.
Making this trip was an impulsive decision, but checking out the woman who is almost certain to become Maisie’s stepmother is absolutely vital. I know I’m doing it for the right reasons, whatever others might say.
I don’t know who I need to speak to or what I’m hoping to find out. But I have to act on this drive, this gut feeling that there will be people there who remember the accident that killed Joanne’s husband and his daughter.
I know it’s no use trying to get answers from the Marine Accident Investigation Branch; they’ll be bound by data protection. But local people are free to talk, if I can just find the right person.
Thanks to the newspaper article, I know that the incident centred around the harbour, as well as initially being out at sea. There are bound to still be people around there that remember that terrible day.
After I’ve parked the car, I walk down there, salty wind whipping through my hair and my ears filling with the screeching of seagulls.
I spot a small café tucked away between the harbour buildings and decide this might be the perfect place not only for a much-needed cup of tea, but also for the lowdown on who I need to speak to.
The jolly plump waitress comes over right away.
‘What can I get you, love?’
I order tea and a toasted teacake and we get into polite conversation about why I’m here.
‘I’m just stopping off in the middle of a work trip, actually. My friend and his daughter drowned here in a terrible accident a few years ago. I’ve never been here since and… I just wanted to pay my respects, I suppose.’
Her face grows pale.
‘Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that. I wasn’t around that day but it was a terrible, terrible thing that happened; people talked about it for years later. Still do sometimes.’
‘I wondered… would there be anyone on the harbour who was actually there that day? Who I could speak to, just to hear about it first-hand? It might help a little, with the closure.’
‘I think Jack Hufton was down there earlier. He was there that day. Let me see.’ She stands on tiptoe and cranes her neck to stare down at the sloping harbour. ‘Yes, he’s still there, I can see his woolly yellow hat. He’ll be going out on the fishing boat any time, though, I should think.’
‘Thanks,’ I say, standing up and heading for the door.
‘Oh! What about your tea and teacake?’ she calls, but I’m too focused on the stocky figure in the yellow beanie hat at the quayside to reply.
Jack Hufton turns out to be a bullish man in his fifties with a craggy, weathered complexion. He looks up sharply as I approach him and runs a thick, mossy rope through his hands as he watches me negotiate the harbour slope in my fashionable ankle boots.
The wind whisks hair from my clip and splays it over my face. I forge through the freezing bluster of the wind and instinctively duck as a seagull soars just above my head with an ear-splitting screech.
I’m relieved when the fisherman smiles and I find him instantly friendly and approachable when I introduce myself and tell him the lady in the café said he might be able to help me.
He pulls off his knitted cap to reveal a head of thick salt and pepper hair and accepts my reasons for asking about the incident, no questions asked.
‘I’d really appreciate if you’d tell me, in your own words, what happened that day, Jack. I’m after the truth, not just what the papers said.’
‘I still have nightmares about it on occasion,’ he says softly in his broad Yorkshire accent. ‘I’ll never forget it, I know that. I’m sorry for your loss.’
I swallow down any temptation to provide him with further fraudulent reasons for my interest and listen intently as Jack provides a concise recap of the tragedy that day.
‘I don’t like idle gossip,’ he begins. ‘But you’ve asked for the truth and there were witnesses here, people I’ve known for years and trust, who said that the couple had been arguing like cat and dog, even before taking the vessel out.’
‘This is Paul and Joanne?’ I clarify.
‘Aye. Husband and wife, weren’t they? So you might say nothing unusual there. My own Mrs can certainly get a bee in her bonnet at times and—’
‘They say the sea was calm and untroubled, and yet somehow, Paul’s daughter, Bethany, fell in,’ I say, purposely getting him back on track. I didn’t read that in the online reports but I have to get him to believe I know a bit about the tragedy and steer his memory to certain parts of it.
‘I don’t know about calm, I reckon it was fairly choppy out there. Anyway, the child should have been wearing a life jacket, calm or not.’
He nods when shock registers on my face.
‘That’s right, that little lass had no protection out there. She was in charge, the woman; Joanne. It was her boat. She should’ve known better than to take a child out without observing the most basic safety guidelines.’ His expression is grim. ‘They said, when she was unable to turn the boat around, she threw a life belt to her stepdaughter and then raised the alarm.’ He blows air from his mouth, short and sharp. ‘Bit like shutting the door after the horse has bolted, if you ask me.’
‘Bethany was the first one in the water, then?’
‘Aye.’ Jack nods, looking out to sea. ‘So they said.’
When he stays quiet, I stare myself for a few seconds, mesmerised by the dark grey water that whips into a maelstrom of white peaks when it hits the harbour wall.
Then Jack tells me that Paul Stafford jumped straight in to try and save his daughter. He had a frozen shoulder, a problem he’d suffered from for some time, and he quickly tired in the cold water.
By the time rescue teams reached the boat and pulled Paul out, he was already dead.
‘There was an investigation, of course, went on for a while. It was a very big deal around here and everyone became obsessed with it. Those of us that work on the water felt a strange sort of responsibility.’ His voice softens. ‘The little lass washed up just over there.’
He drops the rope and points to the slick wet bend of the harbour wall, just over the other side of the slope where we are currently standing.
We’re both silent for a moment and I shiver, but not because of the arctic air. It feels like shreds of the horror of what happened still hang in the air down here, worming their way into my very core.
I pull my coat closer to me and try to focus on finding out as much information as I can from Jack while I have the chance.
‘You mentioned there was a lot of local interest. Did people suspect foul play?’
‘Interest is perhaps the wrong word. People were concerned, wanted to know a process was being followed to find out exactly what happened.’ He hesitates. ‘In their rush to blame, you always get some folks who can be unkind and say some pretty serious things without having any evidence.’
‘What kind of things?’
He looks around him and speaks a little more quietly. ‘Oh, you know, that the woman had it planned. Joanne. Wanted the kid off the scene.’
‘I see.’ I manage to say, shivering when I think about the time Maisie spends in Joanne’s company.
‘The little girl, Bethany, she was Paul’s own daughter, you see.’ He pauses to think. ‘I seem to remember they had a younger child together, who wasn’t there that day.’
�
��Piper,’ I say faintly.
‘Rumour was, Joanne Stafford wanted rid of little Bethany so she could play happy families with her husband and their own child. So, when Mr Stafford went below deck, she pushed Bethany overboard, knowing the kid wasn’t a strong swimmer. Some folks reckon she wouldn’t have expected him to jump in after her, what with his shoulder problems and all, but he came back up on deck unexpectedly and that’s exactly what he did.’ Jack frowns. ‘No surprise to me. Any father would do the same.’
‘How did these rumours start, if the three of them were out there alone with no other witnesses?’
Jack shrugs. ‘Joanne was devastated when her husband drowned. They brought her and the boat back in but she didn’t mention Bethany until people started trying to comfort her. Then, they said, she seemed to realise all eyes were on her and she seemed to flick a switch inside herself and suddenly started acting very differently.’
I don’t know what to say, so I stay quiet.
‘I know it all sounds a bit heartless. But what I’m telling you is first-hand from the folks that were there with her that day.’
He nodded across to the other side of the harbour.
‘Joanne stood over there, shaking, waiting while they dragged her stepdaughter out. Apparently, she blabbed stuff out to one of the rescuers, told him what really happened on the boat. That’s where the rumours came from; her own mouth. The people around her said it felt like she was acting, playing the role of grieving mother. They didn’t find out until afterwards she wasn’t the child’s mother. She denied it all afterwards, of course. Said it was the shock making her talk nonsense, said she loved the little girl like her own daughter.’
‘Was she arrested?’
He shakes his head. ‘She was questioned a few times, but her being a lawyer, she just tied them up in knots. No evidence, you see. The folks around here were convinced there’d been foul play, but nobody listens to idle gossip without any substance, least of all the authorities.’