by Heidi Perks
‘The voices in here had been quieted,’ she says with a sad laugh, tapping the side of her head. ‘And it was a good feeling, you know? Not having to think.’
I reach for her hand and hold it in mine.
‘Mum and Dad didn’t notice because they were both wrapped up in their own problems. I pretended I didn’t care, but it hurt,’ she says, her voice melting.
‘Oh, Bonnie,’ I say.
‘I think they expected me to disappoint them. I swear there was never anything wrong with me as a child, yet they insisted on taking me to those bloody Stay and Play sessions. Can you tell me why they thought I needed some shrink watching over me, and not Danny?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say softly. ‘I was too young.’
‘I was condemned from an early age.’
‘Bon, that’s not true. Mum and Dad loved you, you know they did.’
She laughs. ‘It was like they didn’t know what to do with me. They must have known something was wrong, but I honestly haven’t a clue what it was.’ She pulls herself straight and wipes a hand across her face. ‘Anyway, that’s why I had a drink today. Because I can’t deal with all the crap that’s being dragged up again. I made a choice long ago to blank it all out and now it’s resurfacing.’ She shuffles away until I have no choice but to pull my hand back. Taking a deep breath, she asks, ‘What did her mother tell you about Scarlet?’
‘Nothing,’ I admit. ‘Just her name. I met her in an area called Balsall Heath, though. How do I know that place?’
‘It’s where Gran worked,’ she says.
‘Was it?’ My grandmother was a social worker in the seventies, working with families who lived in slums. ‘Dad said something about Gran being the reason they went to the island. Do you know anything about that?’
Bonnie looks up, shaking her head.
‘He might have it wrong,’ I sigh.
‘You know, I read about a survey the other day,’ Bonnie says suddenly. ‘About mothers who admit to having favourites. Most commonly it’s their youngest.’ She looks at me expectantly. ‘And that if grandparents do, it’s typically the oldest. Do you think if Gran had still been around I’d have been hers?’ she says. ‘I doubt it.’
Choosing to ignore her, I say, ‘Did Iona ever mention anyone named Scarlet to you?’
Her eyes drop to my mouth and I can see there are thoughts racing through my sister’s head as she works out which ones to say aloud. Her fingers tap against her leg. ‘Please tell me,’ I plead. ‘Is that what you argued about? Because I don’t believe you can’t remember. Did she ever tell you who Scarlet was?’
‘She was lying,’ Bonnie sighs. Her hands have stopped tapping but I still see them shaking as she grasps them tightly in her lap. ‘That’s why we fell out.’
‘She can’t have been. Not when her mum told me there was a sister.’
‘She was lying, because she said it was me.’
If it’s possible for my heart to temporarily stop beating, it has done so. The air around me stills, catching our breaths, and even then I know it’s a fraction of time I will never get out of my head.
Chapter Twenty-Five
‘Iona told me I was her sister and that I’d been taken when I was a baby,’ Bonnie tells me.
‘What the hell does she mean by that? That Mum and Dad kidnapped you?’ My heart has raced back to life again and now it beats furiously as I push away from the bed, pacing the short space between it and the wall.
‘She said the reason I was taken …’ Bonnie swallows, and I can hear her words catching ‘… was so they could give me a better life. Only they left her behind.’
‘That’s ridiculous.’ I shake my head. ‘Bon, you must know it is, it sounds like a fairy tale.’ I crouch in front of her, reaching for her hands, prising them apart. They feel so cold against mine. ‘You don’t believe any of this, do you?’
‘I was never even going to ask Mum, but I couldn’t help myself. I broke one day. She told me it wasn’t true.’
‘Well, there you go.’
‘She’s hardly going to say, “Oh yeah, that’s exactly what happened,” is she?’ Her eyes flare defiantly but her body has slumped.
I shake my head. ‘But you know it doesn’t make any sense.’
‘Mum made me think Iona was jealous and made it all up. I was beginning to think she might have, you know, the way she was always cooing over the house and that damned island as if we lived in a palace.’
I realise I am frowning at Bonnie as she speaks, looking like I don’t agree, for she snaps, ‘She was. You just didn’t see it.’
‘I’m not saying she wasn’t,’ I reply, though if anything it always appeared the other way round. ‘What about Dad?’ I ask.
‘He was …’ Bonnie gazes past me, thinking back. ‘Dad was distant. He didn’t really talk about it. While Mum was going crazy that Iona had even said such a thing, he seemed more concerned about Iona.’
I push myself up angrily and pace towards the wall again.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ she snaps. ‘Will you stop doing that?’
‘Bon, I think Dad might have been having an affair with her.’
‘What?’ she laughs. ‘That has to be the most absurd thing I’ve heard.’
‘I saw them together. After she was supposed to have left the island.’ I turn to my sister. ‘I know Dad lied about taking her back, or at least about not seeing her again.’
‘What were they doing?’ she asks hesitantly.
‘Kissing.’
‘No! No. That’s totally not true.’ Bonnie snorts though she’s staring at me as if she isn’t sure any more. As if something else is dawning on her. ‘That’s totally sick. I mean, God …’
‘She never said anything to you?’
‘That she was seeing my father?’ Bonnie laughs but her face has paled. ‘Of course not,’ she mutters. ‘But I knew she was seeing someone. She’d just never tell me who.’
‘Dad says he wasn’t. When I saw him yesterday he seemed totally convincing. Only …’ I pause, shuddering. ‘Bonnie, the place I saw them was the spot Danny says he killed her.’
‘Oh my God!’ Bonnie cries. ‘This is getting even more horrendous. You have to stop.’ She falls into her hands as they clutch her head, her fingers digging into her scalp. ‘Just stop talking about it now. I wish I’d never come.’
I sit on the bed beside her again and for a while neither of us speak.
‘I never stopped wondering if what Iona said was true,’ Bonnie eventually says in a whisper. ‘But I decided I never wanted to know. And I don’t. I just can’t – I can’t even go there.’ She looks at me imploringly. She needs me to drop what I’m searching for. I can’t keep unearthing our past, because for Bonnie that’s where it needs to stay.
She isn’t like me. Or my client who admitted she would have begged for the truth regardless of its outcome. I was wrong to think everyone would. For my sister, it’s easier to accept that what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.
I wave a hand in the air. ‘Iona must have got the wrong person. There’s no way Mum and Dad were capable of kidnapping a child,’ I say, though my thumping pulse reminds me I don’t know what to believe any longer.
‘I don’t want to know, Stella,’ Bonnie says again.
She glances at the bed. ‘I’ll sleep here. We’ll both go home in the morning.’
‘Yes.’
‘Promise me, Stella.’
‘We will,’ I say.
‘I want you to promise.’
‘I promise,’ I tell her.
‘It’s sad, isn’t it?’ I say when we are lying together in bed. It’s the first time we’ve done this since right after Danny left when I’d turned up on her doorstep. Only this time it’s my arms that are wrapped around Bonnie. ‘That we never felt we could tell each other the secrets that have been eating away at us for so long.’
Bonnie nods but doesn’t answer.
‘Maybe if we’d all been more honest, things c
ould have been different,’ I say.
‘Maybe if they’d been more honest I might not be here,’ Bonnie murmurs. ‘I meant nothing to Iona, did I?’ she says.
I pull her closer. ‘How come you were still friends with her after what she said?’ I ask, and feel her stiffen in my arms.
I don’t think she’s going to answer, but at last she says, ‘I didn’t have any others.’
I close my eyes, burying my head in her hair, holding her tighter still. ‘Did you give her your friendship bracelet?’
She nods.
‘She was still wearing it when she died, Bon. I think maybe you did mean something to her.’
I know that in the morning Bonnie will continue to persuade me to leave without looking for Ange. I now understand why the thought of digging into the truth is unbearable for her.
I’ll have to cross that bridge then, but as we lie together I ask myself whether I can stop searching and put my sister first.
It’s only a fleeting question.
There’s no way I can walk away now.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I dream of the island again. My sleep is plagued with distorted images: the people; my secret place; Mum. She is always at the forefront, and when I wake I am cold but laced with sweat.
In my dream Mum had stripped off mask after mask, each time revealing another layer that was never her. I can’t shake it from my head, because if there was one person I could rely on it was her. She was my safety blanket.
Would you tell me the truth now, Mum?
Not that long ago I’d have said with certainty that she would. I lie next to Bonnie, trying to untangle Mum’s decisions, and it comes to me that maybe all she was doing was hoping to protect us. Maybe she thought the truth was too hard for us to hear.
Bonnie is snoring gently. I push off the covers and swing my legs from the bed. It also occurs to me that I’ll never know. Death has a way of making that a certainty.
It’s just after ten when Bonnie leaves, reminding me again that I’m to drive home too. I tell her I want to look around Shirley and she begrudgingly accepts this. The truth is, I’m dithering over my decision.
There are possibly answers that are a ten-minute drive away. But then I came looking for ones that could help Danny, not throw more shade on my family. Plus I made a promise to my sister, and I already know how much damage I would cause by breaking it.
I am pacing the car park when I get a text from Freya, making sure I let her know as soon as I find anything.
I sigh, kicking my foot against the wheel of my car.
I am torn in two, yet I can’t deny there is a greater tug on one side. And I know, deep down I know, that at some point in the future my need for the truth will outweigh everything else.
This is why, an hour later, I’m back at the pub in Balsall Heath. I hold my hand over my bag as I push open the heavy door, and the smell of stale beer hits me immediately. The barman from yesterday is rubbing a cloth around a pint glass. He looks up, surprised, as I walk over. ‘What can I get you?’
‘Just a Coke, please.’ I glance around. ‘I was hoping to find the woman I met yesterday. Ange?’
He gives one nod but doesn’t respond.
‘I was with another woman and we sat in that corner.’ I point to the booth at the far end of the bar. ‘The guy who came in looking for her, he looked like he knew where to find her, and you said she comes in most days.’
He stops cleaning his glass and lays the tea towel on the bar. ‘I don’t know why you’re here again, love, and I have to say I don’t think you look like a copper, but take my advice and keep well away from both of them.’ He arches his eyebrows, straightening his back as he begins to wipe around the glass again. He has pitted skin and a few missing teeth, and still I have no idea if I can trust him to help, but he’s the only hope I have.
‘Please,’ I beg. ‘This is really important.’
‘She left you suddenly, yeah? Didn’t seem like she wanted to talk to you. I don’t want to know what kind of trouble she’s in now.’
‘She’s not in any trouble,’ I say.
‘Doesn’t sound like it.’
‘I just need to ask her about her daughter. That’s all it is, I promise.’
He opens his mouth to speak when the double doors bang open. Closing it again, he turns his back on me, but not before I’ve seen his face pale. I look around as the man with the tattoos walks in.
‘Should I ask him?’ I hiss across the bar.
‘I wouldn’t,’ he says quietly over his shoulder. ‘Stay out of it. You don’t want him thinking you have anything to do with her. You’ve got to hope he doesn’t recognise you. The usual?’ he asks, turning as the man approaches the bar. When he has his pint and has sunk into a booth in the corner, I ask the barman again.
‘Can you tell me where she lives?’
‘One of the bedsits off London Road, as far as I know, but I can’t tell you where exactly.’
‘Thank you so much.’ I take another sip of my Coke and lay out a five-pound note on the counter, telling him to keep the change. As I turn to leave he leans forward.
‘Seriously, you don’t want to get involved with her,’ he says.
It’s a five-minute drive to the end of London Road where terraces of Victorian three-storey buildings, once beautiful homes, have long since fallen apart into run-down B&Bs and bedsits. I pull up by the corner of the road and, with no idea where to start, find one that’s slightly more well-kept than the others and ring its bell. An elderly man comes to the door in a brown dressing gown that flaps open at the knees, and after apologising for disturbing him I tell him who I’m looking for and give a description of Iona’s mother.
He doesn’t have a clue who I’m talking about, so I try the next door and then the next, until there are only a few more left. I’m giving up hope when I finally find someone who thinks she knows her, directing me to the end of the terrace.
I don’t believe Ange will actually be here but when I ring the bell, she answers, her face dropping as she takes me in. She glances awkwardly over her shoulder as she asks me what I’m doing here.
‘I just need to speak to you,’ I say. ‘Can we go somewhere and talk?’ I indicate the green over the road where there are empty benches opposite a small, deserted bandstand.
Ange nods, rummaging in her pocket for her keys before closing the door behind her. ‘What is it you want?’ she asks as we sit on a bench. A wind whips through the trees and I notice Ange shiver as she pulls her thick woollen cardigan tighter. She looks up at the sky. ‘Storm coming, I reckon.’
‘I need to know if the girl Iona went looking for is my sister,’ I say.
She looks at me, seemingly interested in what I’m asking, but doesn’t respond.
‘I found out she told my sister, Bonnie, that they were, but I don’t know if it’s true. I have a photo,’ I say, pulling out my phone and scrolling through until I find one of Bonnie and me. I enlarge Bonnie’s face but for a moment hold the phone in my lap where Ange can’t see it. ‘I know it’s a long shot. I don’t really expect you to recognise her.’ Regardless, I pass the phone to Ange.
She stares at the photo for a long while and I wait, my breath tight in my throat. ‘I don’t know,’ she says, ‘it could be, I suppose.’ She hands the phone back.
‘There’s nothing about her you remember?’ I say. ‘No birthmarks or features?’
Ange shakes her head.
I sigh as I let the phone drop on to my lap. Ange watches a squirrel intently as it runs across the path in front of us and darts up a tree.
‘What actually happened to Iona’s sister?’ I ask.
The squirrel disappears but she carries on gazing into the distance.
‘Why are you so desperate to know?’
‘Because I need to know if it’s Bonnie. I need to know if my parents did something that—’ I break off. ‘Please. My mum died. I can’t ask her.’
Ange gives a small flick of her hea
d, watching me carefully. ‘Someone once asked me how desperately I needed extra money,’ she mutters, after a pause. ‘Get myself on the right track, you know, sort myself out. I laughed in her face, told her she hardly needed to ask. All she had to do was look at the clothes me and the kids were wearing, look at the shithole we were living in.
‘She wasn’t laughing, though. She had a dead-straight face, and so I asked what she meant. What I had to do for it.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She looked at the baby and said there was this really nice couple who desperately wanted one but they couldn’t have one of their own. Said they could give her a real nice life, lovely clothes and all that.’
‘She asked you to sell your baby?’ I gasp.
‘You got no idea, so don’t try making out you have,’ Ange snaps. ‘I didn’t have enough money for food for myself, let alone to feed them. And I wasn’t well,’ she goes on. ‘Got taken into the hospital a couple of times and I couldn’t look after the girls. She’d told me enough times she wouldn’t let them get taken from me, but I didn’t believe her. I knew one day I’d be in hospital and they’d be gone.’
‘You knew this woman?’ I ask.
‘She was my social worker. One of the good ones.’
I pull back, my heart racing, trying not to put together the facts that link my family to this woman.
‘She told me the amount they were willing to pay.’ Ange lets out a chuckle. ‘Didn’t know anyone who had that kind of money to throw about. So I said, “What about the other one?”’ Ange pauses. ‘But Iona was older and they didn’t want her. Told me it would be too risky, that at her age she could remember or talk too much. Anyway, in the end I said yes. They could have the baby. It actually wasn’t the hardest decision I had to make.’