by Rosie Fiore
She returned to the flat, running up the stairs and double-locking the door once she was inside. She flopped down on the futon, shaking with relief. She was safe in there, for now at least. Once her breathing had returned to normal, she set up the tablet on the kitchen counter and went through the steps she had been shown to link it to her phone. The connection was slow, but adequate. She sat transfixed in front of the little screen for several hours, watching with trepidation as the story spread. She saw video of police teams with dogs searching the park and held her breath that they wouldn’t find something in the spot where she had cut her hair and changed her clothes. She read the comments posted below the news stories with increasing horror and nausea. And every now and then she logged back on to Sam’s Facebook and watched with horror as his post went viral all over the world. How the hell was she going to get out of this? She’d done her research, and she knew that what she had done wasn’t illegal. It wasn’t going to stop people hunting her down though. Unless she put a stop to it.
Several of the news stories had included a link to Missing People, a charity that helped those whose loved ones had gone missing. With shaking fingers, she logged on to their website. At the top of the page was a link titled ‘I am an adult who is missing or thinking of going missing’. She clicked it and read it. She thought about ringing them, but she was sure they would try to persuade her to go home, or at least to speak to Sam, and she knew that if she did that, she’d be lost. That wasn’t the answer, but somehow she needed to make the madness stop. Especially with what Monday held.
But within the site, she found the answer. All she had to do was go to a police station and identify herself. They’d ascertain she was safe and well, and that she had left voluntarily, and then the search would stop. After her painstaking escape, it was insane to think about walking into a police station, and the thought of it terrified her. It wasn’t as if her interactions with the police in the past had brought her any joy. But there didn’t seem to be any other way. She didn’t feel up to it right then, however. She felt naked, as if someone had stripped off not just her clothes but her skin, and the thought of going out into a world which was plastered with images of her smiling face made her nauseous with fear. She disconnected the tablet from her phone, curled up on the futon, pulled the duvet up to her chin and fell abruptly into a deep, dreamless sleep.
She slept for fifteen hours and woke up stiff and aching, in the same position. She sat up and stretched. There was a faint glow outside the window, and when she checked the time on her phone, it was just after four in the morning. She was wide awake, and much calmer than she had been. She got herself a glass of water and walked over to the window. The street below was deserted, and the sky was beginning to lighten. There wasn’t a soul about. Before she had fallen asleep, she had looked up the location of the local police station. It was a ten-minute walk away. The rest of Greenwich might be asleep, but the police station would be open for business. Now was as good a time as any. She went into the bathroom, showered and dressed, gathered her passport and keys, and went to declare herself safe and well. She didn’t feel safe, and she definitely wasn’t full of well-being, but she was sane and determined, and that would have to do.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Miranda
So we’ve had to move. It’s awful, and I can’t quite believe it. Dad sat us down and said that we needed to save some money and that the only way we could do it was by letting someone else live in our house. He said it was a ‘discussion’, but it wasn’t, because even though we said we didn’t want to, he’d already decided and gone to talk to an estate agent on the high street about it.
They found some people to rent the house really quickly. They are a family from Iran with two daughters who have come to London to go to university. The parents came to live in London too. They wanted to take the house with all our furniture in it and all the stuff in the kitchen and every cushion and every picture. I think that’s really weird. I’d hate to live with someone else’s stuff. Dad said they could, except for my room and Marguerite’s room. He put new things in our bedrooms for the two students, and took our furniture and toys with us when we moved to this flat.
Dad keeps telling us that it isn’t a bad flat – but it’s so small. Really, really tiny. It’s new, so at least it’s clean and everything works. The building is down the hill from the school, but luckily not close enough that any of my friends might see me coming out of there.
I hate it. I hate the hallways we have to share with other people. Smelling other people’s dinner cooking makes me feel sick. I hate having to carry my bike up the stairs into the entrance hall and then into the lift. I hate our tiny hallway, which is always a mess of shoes, bikes and coats. I hate that I have to share a room with Marguerite. Dad says I’m ungrateful, because it’s bigger than the other bedroom. He can hardly fit his funny small bed in that one. He says it’s called a three-quarter bed. I hate the minute, horrible bathroom, and the little kitchen, and the living room which is always a mess as soon as we play with anything. I hate it that there’s no garden and I can’t invite my friends over. Not that I would anyway – I’d be so embarrassed if they saw this place.
I hate Marguerite, who always has nightmares and moans in her sleep. She breathes so loudly with her rubbish tonsils and she still sometimes wets the bed. But, most of all, I hate my dad. I hate him so much. He’s such a giant loser. I hate him because I’ve needed to get my hair trimmed for about three months and he doesn’t even know where to take me. I hate him because he never knows where anything is. He never has money, and he drinks beer all the time. He drank a bit less when he first started being Lara’s boyfriend, but now he’s drinking loads again. I count the bottles in the recycling every morning, so he knows I know what a drunk loser he is. If I could run away and live somewhere else, I would. But the police would only bring me back. My life is a disaster.
To make us feel better, Dad took us to Bristol to visit Uncle Tim. Even though I still hate him, I was quite excited because I’d never been there before. Helen never liked Uncle Tim much, so if he ever invited us to go there to see his restaurant, she made an excuse that we were too busy and we didn’t go.
We left early on Saturday morning and it felt like we were going on a proper holiday or adventure, even if we were only going for one day. We weren’t going home though. We were going to stay at Granny and Grandpa’s for the night, because Granny wanted to take us shopping on Sunday morning. Marguerite was so dozy when Dad put her in the car, she fell straight back to sleep, but I watched the sun come up properly. We stopped on the motorway and Dad got us McMuffins for breakfast. Then he said, ‘You’d better make sure you still have space for lunch at Uncle Tim’s restaurant,’ and Marguerite and I said, ‘We will!’ and we both tried to pull our stomachs in to make them look hollow and flat, and Dad laughed.
When we got to Bristol, Dad drove straight to the restaurant. It was the kind of restaurant where you can see right into the kitchen over a counter, and Uncle Tim was in there doing something called ‘prep’. We sat at the counter on tall stools and watched as he chopped things super-fast and shouted and yelled at the other people in the kitchen, who were all bashing and crashing pots and pans, and shouting, ‘Yes, Chef!’ to Uncle Tim like he was the captain and they were all soldiers. It was cool.
We stayed there until people started coming into the restaurant for lunch, then we got the best table and Uncle Tim and the waiters brought us loads of little dishes of food. Everyone was so impressed with Marguerite and me because we eat everything, or at least we’ll try anything. That was something Helen taught us. The food was delicious, even though some things were a bit spicy.
After we’d finished eating, Marguerite started to get bored and whiny, and I didn’t really blame her. We’d been in the restaurant for hours, it seemed like. Then Uncle Tim came out of the kitchen in his ordinary clothes, not his chef’s whites, and said to Dad, ‘Let’s take the girls to Weston, to the beach.’
> No one had told us that there was a beach, so we were very excited. It turns out Weston is a place called Weston-super-Mare. It took us about half an hour to drive there, and by the time we arrived it was quite late in the afternoon and the wind was blowing hard. It wasn’t good beach weather, so we couldn’t do any swimming or even paddling, and the tide was out miles and miles. But it was the biggest beach I’d ever seen, and there was all the space in the world to practise my handstands and cartwheels. After a while, Uncle Tim stopped talking to Dad and took out his phone to take pictures of me doing my cartwheels, and a few of Marguerite in the sand. He’s not a soppy, kissing-and-cuddling kind of relative, but I think he likes us a lot, because he takes a lot of pictures of us whenever we see him.
I flopped down on the sand beside Marguerite, and we started building a castle together. The sand was perfect: wet enough to stick together, but not too wet, so using the bucket, we made lovely smooth towers. I sent Marguerite to look for shells and sticks for decoration while I carefully shaped walls between the towers. Using a stick, I drew lines so it looked like the walls were made of bricks. Dad and Uncle Tim were watching me and chatting at the same time.
‘So how’s it going with Lara?’ Uncle Tim asked. I pretended I was concentrating hard on my wall. Adults seem to think if you’re doing something else, you automatically become deaf, like they do.
‘Okay,’ said Dad. ‘I mean, it’s fine.’ He didn’t sound excited. I thought when people fell in love they got all gushy and kissy face. Maybe Dad and Lara are too old for that. Dad used to get gushy and kissy face for Helen though – he’d always say ‘Love you’ to her on the phone, or when he left for work in the morning. He’d often come up behind her in the kitchen and hold her from behind and kiss her neck. It was disgusting, but I suppose it was more the way things are supposed to be. Better than ‘Okay. I mean, it’s fine.’
‘How’s it going with your. . .?’ Dad said. ‘What are we calling her? Friend?’
‘I shouldn’t have said anything about it,’ said Uncle Tim, and he sounded uncomfortable, which made me pay attention. Uncle Tim is never uncomfortable. He’s always fun and easy-going. ‘She’s isn’t. . . It’s not. . .’
‘Not what?’ said Dad.
‘Not what you think. There’s nothing going on between us.’
‘But you wish there was.’
‘Well, what I wish doesn’t come into it. It’s not going to happen.’
‘What are you saying, Tim? Unrequited love? Why? Is she blind? You’re a catch!’
Uncle Tim laughed, but I could hear he wished Dad would stop asking. But Dad didn’t.
‘So, seriously, why not? Oh my God, is she married?’ He whispered the last word, but I could still hear.
‘It’s. . . complicated,’ said Uncle Tim.
I could see Marguerite coming back along the beach, holding her T-shirt out in front of her. She’d made it into a hammock and it was full of sticks and shells and things. When she came back, they’d stop talking, I was sure.
Uncle Tim saw her too, and he said in a rush, ‘I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about it. It’s someone I care about. Have cared about, for a long time. She needs some help and support, and I’m happy to give it to her.’
‘Without getting anything in return?’ said Dad, and he sounded cynical.
Then Uncle Tim turned to Dad, and for the first time ever, I heard him sounding cross. ‘Well, that’s what love is, isn’t it, Sam? Giving without expecting in return. Wanting the best for the person. I’d have thought you of all people would. . .’
He stopped talking, and I couldn’t help thinking it was only partly because Marguerite had reached us and tipped the big mess of stuff out of her shirt at Dad and Uncle Tim’s feet. I thought that Uncle Tim had also stopped because he’d realized that maybe Dad didn’t understand after all.
Sam
The morning after we got back from Bristol, my mum took the girls shopping for new clothes and I went back to the flat alone. It was a relief to get them out from under my feet. God knows, I never get any time to myself these days. And Miranda in particular has been a vicious little minx ever since we moved. Personally, I’ve found being in the new flat an enormous relief, and not just because I genuinely wasn’t keeping up with the bills. It was the way the house seemed to accuse me. Every week, it looked grubbier and less cared for – the dust growing thick on surfaces, the carpet stained and trodden flat, the lawn choked with dandelions. It reproached me for Helen’s absence and tortured me with memories. It gave me great pleasure to call in the deep cleaners (maxing out my last credit card) and hand over the keys.
I did consider pressuring Lara gently, to see if she wanted us to move in with them. I dropped the odd hint about us having to move, but she didn’t leap to offer and, in hindsight, I’m glad. At least this way I still have some freedom and my own bolthole. The flat is small and plain, but it’s a blank slate, and a lot easier to manage than that great big house. God knows what persuaded me to buy the house in the first place – I guess to show off. To flash the cash, show that I was the big shot now. The perfect, beautiful house was the ideal accessory for my perfect, sparkling wife. Goes to show how wrong you can be.
Lara was working all weekend, so I was all alone. I checked the time difference; it was midday in London, so 9 p.m. in Brisbane – a reasonable time to try and reach Judy. I opened Skype and saw that she was online. Hesitantly, I pressed the dial icon, and she answered almost immediately. The window showing the view from her web cam popped up, and I could see a wall with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves overflowing with volumes. Then Judy slipped into the chair, her smiling face filling the screen. She had a brightly coloured shawl around her shoulders, which she drew in with a shiver.
‘Bit of an autumn chill this evening!’ she said brightly, as if picking up a familiar conversation exactly where we’d left off.
I breathed out and relaxed. Like Helen, she had the knack of putting people at their ease. Unlike Helen, I hoped hers came from genuine kindness and interest. I checked myself. Bitterness came too easily to me these days.
‘Hey, Judy,’ I said, trying to imitate her easy, warm tone. ‘How’s it going?’
‘All good, all good,’ she said. ‘Getting the garden ready for winter, such as it is here. It’ll be mild, of course, nothing like yours.’
‘Have you experienced an English winter?’ I asked.
‘Me? No, never.’ She laughed. ‘Never been out of Australia, me. Went to Perth once on a school trip, and been to Sydney a few times, but that’s about it.’
‘So it was Helen who was the adventurous one. That’s what you said before.’
Judy frowned at this. ‘Did I?’
‘You said she dreamed of an exotic and adventurous life.’
‘Dreamed of it. Never had it. Not with what happened with Lawrence.’
There was something about this name, a name I had never heard from Helen, that punched me right in the gut. The way Judy said ‘Lawrence’, I knew he was significant. Judy assumed I knew who he was, even though she was aware I knew next to nothing about Helen’s past. I was certain I would regret asking the question, but I had to.
‘Who’s Lawrence?’
‘Helen’s first husband. You must have known. . .’ she began, but then, seeing my face, she abruptly stopped. ‘You didn’t know.’
‘No.’
There was a long, awkward pause. ‘Well then,’ said Judy. ‘It looks like I have a lot to tell you.’
Helen
Once she had finished with the police, the relief she felt was immense. They’d gone through all the steps of the safe-and-well check and had been satisfied that she was neither mad, nor a criminal nor being coerced. The gentle-eyed police officer tried hard to get her to contact Sam herself, or at the least to tell him where she was, but Helen was adamant that this was her choice.
It was nearly 7 a.m. by the time she stepped outside, and the streets of Greenwich were filling with commuters, many
of them grabbing an early coffee before they made their way into town for the last day of work before the weekend. Helen had things to do – she needed to be ready for the new week too. She’d only bought the most basic wardrobe online and would need to go shopping for more clothes. And there were all sorts of small things she needed for the flat – a drying rack for dishes, a spatula, some toiletries and some kind of hanging apparatus for laundry. There was a small, compact washing machine in the flat, but that was it. She thought about the spacious utility room in the house in north London, with its gigantic washing machine and tumble-drier, and sighed. This was another adjustment to her new life – knickers hanging on a radiator.
She knew, however, that the household errands would take no more than a few hours; beyond that, the weekend stretched like an infinite void. She thought about going back to the flat, but while its emptiness had seemed like a sanctuary, now it felt more like a prison. She couldn’t imagine spending forty-eight hours within those four walls. She knew that if she did, all she would do was think about how weekends had been before – crammed with dance classes, birthday parties, barbecues and social events. Her weekends had been busier than her weeks, and she’d had to plan them to the minute, issuing pick-up and drop-off instructions to Sam so that both girls got to where they needed to be, on time and with the right equipment. She hadn’t had an empty weekend for five years. What had she done before? Or on the odd days when the girls had stayed with their grandparents or had a sleepover? She couldn’t remember. She supposed she might have gone running. Helen Cooper loved to run. Helen Knight had run too – run fiercely, competitively and well – until she was stopped. But now, standing in the street, looking at the line of weary, suited people stretching out of the door of the coffee shop, she made a decision. Helen Day would not run. Helen Day would do the leisurely cultural things that the other Helens had had no time for.