The Classroom

by A. L. Bird

  Obviously, Kirsten had explained, she couldn’t leave Harriet at the school after that. Ms Robertson would know where to find Harriet, and so Harriet wouldn’t be safe. Home-schooling would be the only possible option for a while. Mrs McGee had recommended another school in the group. But surely Ms Robertson would look there? Or (and Kirsten didn’t tell Mrs McGee that) even if she didn’t, Ian would, if Becky put him up to it. He knew how these things worked, and before Kirsten knew it, he’d have turned up and whisked Harriet away.

  After the meeting with the headmistress, Kirsten wanted to go back home and hide with Harriet under the bedclothes. Wouldn’t it be lovely if they could just have a duvet day, the pair of them, lazy and safe together? But being a grown-up isn’t about that. You have to fight on, go to work, show your child how to face the world. Plus Kirsten didn’t want to risk an encounter with Ian or Becky. True, they could turn up at the surgery. But if Kirsten’s own attempts at stalking were any guide, the home of the person you were watching was the most obvious first stop.

  And so, when it came to the last patient of the day – a sad case, most likely early onset Alzheimer’s, which left her ruffled about how much could so quickly be taken away from anyone – Kirsten was reluctant to leave. She wondered if they could stay in a hotel for the night. But no. There was preparation to be done. And she’d taken every step she could to make it safe, working round the clock these last few days. A locksmith to change the locks – it would stop Ian temporarily, particularly if he didn’t have proof of address on him to get them changed again. New surveillance lights outside, so she’d be able to see the outside of the house properly as they approached. A taxi would take them right to the door; she’d left the car at home, as a decoy. If they could just get from the taxi to the house, safely inside, chain and bolt it, they’d be OK. Until the next morning.

  And then in just two more days, everything would change.

  Chapter 36

  BECKY

  Anger propelling her legs forward, Becky strides from Angel tube to Kirsten’s house. Phrases from the letter inviting her to a disciplinary board play through her mind.

  ‘Threats to the security of Dr White and her child.’

  Did they include any written evidence of these so-called threats? Of course not. It was all Kirsten’s word against hers. And what a good word it appeared to be – a nice wealthy parent, a doctor no less, without apparent reason for fabrication. Except the whole thing was a fabrication.

  ‘Unprovoked drunken declamations at parents’ evening.’

  Unprovoked? Hardly. The things Kirsten had done. Becky wanted the disciplinary hearing to be able to see back to her as a vulnerable seventeen-year-old. How she’d been the morning after her ‘friends’ had drugged her into sleeping with the drama tutor. How horrified she’d been when she’d discovered she was pregnant. How she had tried to get her parents’ help in making the right decision, but time had ticked on, and they hadn’t helped her, had done quite the opposite, leaving her no choice but to go through with the birth. How Kirsten had callously misrepresented the picture to her psychiatrist friend, so that Becky felt she had no option but to give up her daughter.

  But the reaction of Mrs McGee had shown Becky that she didn’t have the tools right now to stand up to Kirsten. Not without Ian’s testimony, anyway. The letter had invited character witnesses. Ian wouldn’t admit it. Of course he wouldn’t. Ted, maybe? She would call him later. But he’d known her, what, three months? Even if he did have the hots for her, he wasn’t going to vouch for what sounded, even to her ears, like shades of crazy.

  So she was going to talk to Kirsten. Kirsten wanted her out of Harriet’s life, for ever. And Becky wanted the same for Kirsten.

  Finally arriving outside Kirsten’s house, Becky stops with amazement. There are lorries and packing crates everywhere. Kirsten must be running away! She’s escaping with Harriet, and who knows where she’s taking her!

  If Kirsten takes Harriet away, Becky might never see her daughter again! That is not a possible outcome.

  Becky jogs up to the house. The front door is shut. She’d ring the bell, but Kirsten won’t let her in. Instead Becky scouts round, looking for a more subtle opening. Windows all shut. But what’s that? Men with packing crates coming through the back gate. She runs up to it, then slows, trying to look relaxed.

  ‘Let me hold that gate for you,’ she says, like she has some proprietary right to do so.

  ‘Oh, thanks, love,’ says the removal man, barrelling through with a box.

  Once he’s gone, Becky slips through the gate, and quietly, quietly pads into the garden.

  There’s Harriet! At first, Becky thinks her daughter is alone. There, in the middle of the garden, playing with a watering can. Becky’s about to rush up to her, when there’s a little ‘ahem’ from the corner of the garden. Becky turns, expecting to see Kirsten. Instead, it’s a woman she doesn’t recognise.

  ‘I’m Yvette,’ says the woman. ‘I live next door.’

  ‘I’m—’ begins Becky.

  ‘I know who you are,’ Yvette says, softly.

  Shit. Perhaps Becky should just run now. Try a different tactic, later.

  But then the woman says something else. ‘I think Harriet has been getting bored, waiting for her mummy. It’s not right. She’s due a little walk.’

  For a moment, Becky can’t quite understand what this Yvette woman is getting at. Then Yvette nods ever so slightly in the direction of the gate. Becky gives her a questioning look. Yvette nods at her.

  Becky takes a deep breath, then walks up to Harriet and takes her hand.

  Chapter 37

  KIRSTEN

  Amidst all the chaos, Kirsten would look to any observer like an oasis of calm. Around her are half-filled packing crates, workmen topping them up with long-loved items, briskly wrapped in tissue paper.

  But Kirsten is not calm. Kirsten is holding a letter. A letter that dropped oh-so-casually onto the doormat this morning. A stiff envelope, a formal crest. With a name so convoluted that it must be a law firm’s. It wasn’t a letter that Kirsten could ignore or put aside for later. So, hurriedly, she’d opened it. Skim-read it. Then she’d had to sit down.

  Dear Dr White, the letter said.

  We act for Dr Clare Sergeant in the matter of antenatal advice given at your request five years ago.

  Our client has received the enclosed threatening letter from the individual in respect of whom you procured the advice. She regards its contents as defamatory and, in conjunction with the other letter she received recently, as amounting to criminal harassment. She wishes to take steps to prevent further publication. In our client’s view, the individual is under your control, and must be regarded as acting as your agent in these matters. If you are not able to provide the necessary assurance that the individual will not write more letters such as this, or otherwise spread the defamatory content, and cease harassing our client, then (without further recourse to you) our client reserves the right to set the matter straight in the public domain, including your involvement.

  We trust that we will hear from you shortly.

  Kirsten had hardly dared to flick over to the enclosure, but she knew she had to.

  It was another letter from the Croydon address. From Becky. And it was much more stark than the previous one.

  Dear Dr Sergeant,

  Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear in my last letter.

  When you agreed with your friend Kirsten White to make up the prognosis that I had post-natal depression and would be a danger to my baby, and arranged to have my daughter taken away from me, you were in breach of so much more than trust. You betrayed your Hippocratic oath, you were criminally negligent, and I can’t believe you are still allowed to call yourself a doctor. I am going to report what you did to the medical authorities and to the press, and I hope you are struck off and put in prison. I hope that Kirsten White will join you there. You both deserve to be ruined.

  UNLESS, that is, you are abl
e to persuade Kirsten that she must give me back my daughter. You have seventy-two hours, or I am going public with this. Get my girl back to me, and none of this has to come out – your career and your liberty will be safe. The choice is yours.

  Very sincerely,

  Becky

  Kirsten sits, still staring at the letter. It’s all going to come out then, regardless of what she does. She thought she had it all figured out: stick the house on the market, rent it out before it sells, get all their stuff stashed in storage, and head up north with Harriet to a caravan site. Live some kind of eco-existence before settling somewhere more permanent. It’s amazing how quickly you can clear out when you throw money at a problem.

  But after seeing this letter, maybe she needs to go further. Whether it’s Clare or Becky who first breaks the story, then Kirsten, Ian and Harriet’s pictures are going to be all over the news. There’ll be people looking for them. And Harriet is so pretty, and Kirsten knows she herself is not unattractive – people will notice them. England is too small. She needs to go abroad. They need to get tickets to France or, ideally, somewhere outside Europe that doesn’t need a visa. Somewhere not hugely swamped with international newspapers. She gets out her phone, begins Googling destinations. That’s stupid, though. She should just take Harriet to the airport, see what flights they can get. And go.

  Resolved, she gets to her feet. Thank God for Yvette looking after Harriet while this fresh new crisis broke. She’d offered, this morning, when she saw all the removal men, to lend a hand.

  Kirsten wonders, as she walks through the hall to the kitchen, whether she should pack sundresses for herself and Harriet, if they end up flying to somewhere with winter sun. There’s a sweet blue cotton one with parrots on, with a matching straw boater, that Harriet looks so pretty in. She can just visualise Harriet’s beautiful face in it now.

  She steps out into the back garden, expecting to see that same beautiful face.

  But there’s no Harriet. She scans the garden again. No Harriet. Just Yvette, sitting snoozing in a chair.

  Chapter 38

  BECKY

  ‘Isn’t this an adventure?’ Becky asks Harriet, for perhaps the third time.

  Harriet nods gamely. But her pace is slowing. Becky holds her hand more tightly, and picks up her own pace, scanning the horizon for taxis. If they get the tube, CCTV footage will show them for all to see – when the kidnap investigations begin. Finally, here it is, the outing with Harriet that she’d imagined. And look how good Harriet is being! Just like Becky had imagined she would be. Now’s probably not the moment to post on Facebook, much as she’d like to. She’d dreamt of putting mother and daughter posts up, all the time she was looking at the posts her sister had made of the niece Becky doesn’t see.

  ‘Help me try and spot a taxi, OK, Harriet?’ she says.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Harriet asks.

  ‘It’s a surprise,’ Becky says. By which she means she doesn’t know. She has until she finds a taxi to come up with a plan. They can’t go home – it’s the first place Kirsten will have the police look. St Pancras, maybe. Lots of trains go from there. To France, even. Except Becky doesn’t have her passport. Or Harriet’s. Shit. Or the money. They’d last two days, tops. Get some wired from Ian? More guilt money. Or a ransom, she supposes. But they’d be traced. Ian will be traced.

  She could hire a car. If she could drive.

  Shit.

  ‘There’s a taxi!’ Harriet shouts.

  ‘Great,’ Becky says, reluctantly sticking out her hand.

  The driver pulls up along the side of the road. ‘Hop in,’ she tells Becky.

  ‘Are we going to school?’ Harriet asks once they’re in.

  ‘Ha, she’s keen, isn’t she?’ The taxi driver laughs. ‘School on a Saturday! Where can I take you two lovelies?’

  ‘Victoria station,’ Becky blurts out.

  ‘Coach or train?’ the driver asks.

  They were in the same place, surely? Why must she keep making all these decisions?

  ‘Um, coach,’ she said. Because that’s what women do, in all the films, don’t they, when they want to disappear? They get a coach. After having dyed or cropped their hair, and bought a baseball cap. Fine, she and Harriet can get hats too. Except in those movies, women are travelling across America. Which is big. And they have a wad of cash in their backpack, or down their bras. So even if you know, plot wise, that it’s going to be stolen from them, at least they start out with it. Oh, and importantly – they don’t have a child in tow. Usually.

  ‘Are we going to find Daddy?’ Harriet asks.

  ‘Not just yet, sweetie.’ Becky says. ‘We’re playing Miss Honey and Matilda today.’

  Harriet seems to accept this, sitting back further on her seat. But then: ‘Is Mummy going to come and play it with us?’

  This isn’t the moment to say: actually, Harriet, I’m your mummy. Becky doesn’t know when that moment will come, but it’s not in the back of a taxi, where the driver can hear their every word. Instead, Becky endures the silent heartbreak.

  ‘No, sweetie. It’s just me and you. That’s how the game works.’

  ‘We can see Mummy later,’ Harriet says, nodding sagely.

  Becky nods along. Because Harriet is right. It’s just not the same ‘Mummy’ that she’s thinking about.

  Chapter 39

  KIRSTEN

  ‘Yvette! Yvette!’

  Kirsten is shaking her but she doesn’t seem to understand the emergency. Very slowly, her eyes open. Then she stretches and yawns.

  ‘How’s it going?’ is the first thing she says, as if this is a lazy Sunday afternoon, and cat-napping in the garden was part of their plans.

  ‘Where’s Harriet?’

  ‘Ah, Harriet.’

  ‘Yes, Harriet, my daughter, who you’re meant to be looking after!’ Kirsten can hear her voice getting high, histrionic. But so what? She’d left Yvette in charge!

  ‘She must still be on her walk.’

  ‘What do you mean, on her walk? She’s five; you’ve just let her go for a walk? Shit!’ Kirsten runs to the gate. ‘How long ago did she leave? Did she say where she was going?’ Kirsten’s already out the other side of the gate before Yvette can even answer. She runs down to the street, looks left and right, but there’s no sign of Harriet.

  ‘Shit!’ she says again, and runs back into the garden.

  Yvette has got up from her chair.

  ‘You go one way, I’ll go the other,’ Kirsten yells at her. She should never have left Harriet alone, never have trusted Yvette with her child. All for that stupid letter! And the stupid master plan!

  ‘Kirsten,’ Yvette says, quietly.

  There’s something in her tone that makes Kirsten stop dead.

  ‘Yes?’ she says.

  ‘Harriet wasn’t alone.’

  There’s a beat. The outer world is silent. In Kirsten’s head, there’s a storm of noise, names flying around.

  ‘What do you mean? Who was she with?’

  ‘She was with her mother.’

  Kirsten stands and stares at Yvette.

  ‘I’m her mother,’ Kirsten says.

  ‘No,’ Yvette says, calmly. ‘Her real mother.’

  Kirsten slaps Yvette in the face.

  Yvette stands there impassively.

  ‘How dare you?’ Kirsten shouts. Her voice cracks. She finds herself holding Yvette’s shoulders, shaking them. ‘How dare you?’

  Eventually she becomes aware of her grip slipping, of Yvette’s arm on her shoulder, of Yvette guiding her to the garden chair on which she was recently ‘dozing’.

  ‘How did you know?’ Kirsten asks Yvette, her voice flat.

  ‘I told you, remember? I know lots of things.’

  ‘Yes, but how? And what, what do you know?’

  ‘I know that when my friend sold me the house next door, she told me that the walls between the houses are not so thick that they’ll disguise the worst marital arguments. That sometimes
, you hear things, think they can’t be true, move on with your life. But then she told me that you’d gone from not pregnant to suddenly very pregnant. When you came out of the house, that is. Yet on occasion, when she came to the door, and glimpsed you in the living room before you answered, you didn’t look so pregnant at all. She had a theory. When I saw Ian with that young woman, that cemented it. And, you know, you get certain vibes from men who aren’t always faithful. So as I say: Harriet has gone for a walk with her mother.’

  For a time, Kirsten has no words. They’d thought they were so clever, Ian and Kirsten. That no one knew. No one apart from Clare. Or Kirsten’s sister, Nina. Kirsten had confessed one evening when she couldn’t hold the secret in any longer, when she’d needed to bitch about Ian, to share her despair but the possible joy of having a child. Nina had told her in no uncertain terms that she was doing the wrong thing: that she should leave Ian, and let the young mother make her own decisions about the child. Yes, even if it meant the child temporarily being put into social care. Kirsten shouldn’t make the bonds, she’d do herself too much damage.

  They hadn’t seen each other since – nor had Kirsten been allowed to visit her niece.

  And yet, here was her next-door neighbour, who had apparently inherited knowledge from the previous neighbour. All along, she’d known. Those times she’d dropped Harriet at school. Had she just been waiting, then, for her chance to ‘do good’, to reunite mother and child?

  The anger comes back to Kirsten. And the fear.

  ‘But what were you possibly thinking, letting Becky take her?’

  ‘They’ll be back soon,’ Yvette says.

  ‘No, no they won’t.’ Kirsten is on her feet again.

  ‘They should have whatever time they need, Kirsten. You have, after all. It’s not right, Kirsten.’

  ‘That doesn’t give you the entitlement to muscle in and sort things out yourself! We don’t know anything about Becky. She might be unstable; we might lose Harriet for good!’

  ‘They will come back. It’s only been, what ten, twenty minutes?’ Yvette looks at her watch. ‘OK, maybe thirty minutes.’ Her poise falters slightly. ‘But maybe they just went to get a milkshake, or something?’