The Accusation

by Zosia Wand

  He’ll try to fix it.

  But as far as he’s concerned, the accusation remains. He sees he’s the problem. The only way he can solve the problem is to take himself out of the picture. I look at Betty. She can’t raise her head.

  This fear slithers up from behind. Cold, slimy, creeping the length of my spine and over my shoulders. I shudder, but it holds fast.

  I need to find Neil.

  34

  I get the train back to Cumbria. Four trains. Hitchin to Stevenage, Stevenage to Leeds and then the bone-rattler with its vinyl-covered benches careering across the width of the country to Carnforth where I pick up a connection to Tarnside. There’s a more direct route with just one change at Lancaster, straight into Euston, but I’d taken the cross-country route on the way down with Milly, to avoid being stopped, and it didn’t occur to me to simply buy another ticket until I was on the Leeds train, by which time it was too late. I’ve tried calling Shona but she’s in a meeting and hasn’t got back to me. I left a message telling her as much as I know. They’ll need to talk to Ann and possibly Tina, of course, but this will take some of the pressure off Neil.

  Mike returned having failed to find him. I didn’t ask where he’d been looking. He and Betty were talking about notifying the police but I’m not sure what the police can do. Neil’s an adult. He hasn’t been missing long. We might be worried about his state of mind, but I suspect the police have more urgent matters to attend to.

  Where would Neil go? Who would he talk to? We don’t know anyone up here well enough to be able to confide the horrors of this situation. There’s Lizzie, but Neil isn’t close to Lizzie. Our life in Tarnside has been about creating a good impression, impressing our employers and gaining the respect of our staff, making gentle inroads into an established community, presenting a positive front to social services, persuading the adoption panel that we are suitable parents. We are only just beginning to forge friendships. I have Naz, back in Hitchin, but Neil doesn’t even have that. Neil has his sisters, his family. He never had a best friend. He was sociable, popular, but always self-possessed. He never needed anyone else.

  Neil has most likely driven home. I cling to this possibility and do my best to ignore the darker scenarios unfolding in my head. I tell myself that Neil’s angry about what’s happened, not defeated. I remember his fists clenched the day my mother went off with Milly. I picture him raging at the injustice of what’s happened to him, to his life, to his family. He will have gone to confront the person who is responsible: my mother.

  I ignore the memory of his voice on the phone the last time I spoke to him. How broken he sounded. I ignore the fear I saw in Betty’s eyes before she closed them and shut out the awful possibilities parading in front of her.

  I could call my mother, but I don’t. I tell myself that this is because I don’t want to warn her. Let her face his rage. But the truth is I’m afraid to phone because I want to hang on to the belief that he’ll be there and I don’t want her to tell me otherwise. I’ve tried calling him repeatedly but his phone is still switched off. I have left a message reassuring him that Ann has declared him innocent, but he isn’t checking his phone. I picture him in my mind, talk to him silently across the miles, as if by conjuring him I can protect him. I will him not to give up.

  At Carnforth, I climb onto the local train which carries me over the sands of Morecambe Bay. Pools of water encircle banks of white gold and grassy mounds where sheep graze, blissfully unaware of anything beyond their own immediate hunger. I realise I’m chanting the same phrase over and over in my mind, to the rhythm of the train: Please be safe. Please be safe. Please be safe.

  *

  Home. Tarnside, not Hitchin. Cobbled streets, dark ginnels and pretty shopfronts. Houses fanning out from the park and the tarn, sparkling in the weak evening sunlight that filters through the bulbous clouds. This Cumbrian market town. This community. This is where we dropped our anchor and came to rest. Tarnside, Neil and Milly. I will find him and I will bring my family home.

  As I come up the path, India’s front door opens and Kath steps out. I give them both a quick wave. I have no time for idle chat now, but India intercepts me. ‘Eve?’ She steps out in her slippers, pulling her cardigan tight around her chest. ‘Is everything all right?’ They’re both watching me. Not searching for gossip, but genuinely concerned. India continues, ‘It’s just, I saw Neil earlier and he seemed… in a bit of a state.’

  ‘Neil was here?’

  Before she can say any more, Mum opens our front door. She will have heard our voices outside the living room window. ‘Evangeline!’ She breaks into a smile, as if this is her house and she’s welcoming me in. Only her dishevelled hair and the fact that she’s wearing the same clothes she had on when I left give any clue to the devastation she’s caused. She throws Kath and India a wide smile, ‘Oh, hello!’ and turns back to me. ‘I’ve been so worried about you. Come on, let me take that bag.’

  ‘Is Neil here?’

  Her face drops. ‘No, darling.’ She throws a pained look in Kath’s direction. ‘Come in. You’ll catch a chill hanging about out there.’

  I look back at India. ‘You saw him?’

  India hesitates. She glances at Kath and then back at me. ‘He came up the path earlier.’ She looks at Mum. ‘He must have lost his key, because he was banging on the door.’

  Mum’s face is pink. She drops her eyes and shakes her head. Her voice trembles. ‘I didn’t know what to do! The things he was saying! That temper.’

  I look at India. The fine line between her eyebrows deepens. She will know all about the Child Protection investigation from Guy. There is nothing to hide here. ‘I’m sorry, India. Could you do me a favour?’

  She nods. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Guy has Neil’s number, doesn’t he? Could you ask him to try calling Neil for me, please?’

  My mother snaps, ‘Evangeline!’ but I ignore her.

  ‘He isn’t answering my calls and I’m worried about him.’

  ‘Worried about him?’ Mum spits, forgetting herself, and then, immediately, the timid old woman is back. ‘Darling, you need to stop worrying about him. He can look after himself. It’s you we need to worry about.’

  I look at Kath. She is competent and resourceful. She will help. ‘We need to find him.’

  She nods and that nod acknowledges the urgency in my voice. I give them both a weak smile, turn and step inside the hall, pulling the door closed behind me.

  As soon as the door is closed, the frail old lady routine is dumped. Mum is torrential, ‘You need to stay away from him, Evangeline! He’s dangerous! He was like a wild animal. Out of control. Banging on the door with his fists, and then the window.’

  ‘Why couldn’t he get in?’

  ‘I put the bolt across. He isn’t allowed to come here!’

  ‘He isn’t allowed to be near Milly right now, but she isn’t here. What did he want?’

  ‘You. He was demanding to see you. As if that was his right. As if you belong to him. Well, I gave him what for.’ She gives a satisfied sigh. ‘He won’t be bothering you again.’

  I take a deep breath. I don’t want to scream and shout. I need to stay calm. I need to remain in control if I’m to have any power here. ‘You said he threatened you?’

  She nods, her lip trembling. Oh, she’s good. Now I see through her it’s so obvious. I’ve been blind for so long. I’ve been blind for the same reason that everyone around me is blind. Mothers are good. Mothers are self-sacrificing. Mothers only want what’s best for their child. The alternative is sickening and too awful to contemplate.

  I close my eyes, to contain the rage that is coursing through me right now. Neil was here. He needed me. He’s devastated and vulnerable and she drove him away.

  Mum shifts gear, switching from trembling victim to loving mother in an instant. ‘Are you hungry? You must be shattered. Come and sit down.’ It’s as if none of this has happened. I could be returning from college, or a school tr
ip and she’s waiting to greet me. I don’t move. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’

  I stare at her. This woman. My mother. This apparently harmless, doting, lonely mother who loves me so much. Loves me so much she’ll stop at nothing to keep me. She’ll slander my husband, wreck his reputation, his career, our marriage, our life, to be rid of him. And Milly? I’ve been such a fool. I thought she would love Milly like we do, that this would be the start of something new and wonderful, but Milly’s just debris to my mother. She’s of no consequence. A distraction. Her needs, her security, her mental well-being, don’t matter; all that matters is me. And not really me, not Eve, the adult woman with a life of her own, but Evangeline, her Evangeline, the daughter, the child she still sees when she looks at me. I’m her possession that she feels Neil has stolen from her. I’m Rapunzel trapped in the tower. Another Ladybird book from my collection. The princess with the long, golden plait, locked up by the wicked hag, jealous of the prince who came to Rapunzel’s rescue. This is my story.

  I belong to her. She will never let me go. Neil took me away, so Neil must be destroyed. She really will stop at nothing. And that’s frightening, but this, this cool denial, this pretence that everything here is normal, this is more dangerous than any physical attack, because it’s so easy to accept her reality; it looks so plausible. Here she is, a concerned mother, and all she wants is what’s best for her daughter. She’s simply protecting me. In her reality, she is my rescuer.

  I think of the relationships in my life she’s curtailed. I begin with my father. I only have her version of events. Who was he really? Did he betray her? If he did, did that make him a monster? How do I know that he abandoned us? That’s what she told me, but now I wonder if that was also a lie. Maybe he loved me. Maybe he did want to keep in touch but she wouldn’t allow it. Friends of mine she didn’t like, who presented a challenge, she’d chip away, insinuating, undermining. ‘I don’t think you can trust her, Evangeline. She’s the sort that would be nice to you one minute and then bitch about you the moment your back is turned.’ She told me Daisy Prior stole her watch and sold it, that she heard her bragging about it in the playground. She said Patrick, from next door, who used to knock for me, was laughing about my greasy hair to his friends. She tried to do the same with Naz, but Naz never gave up. If I ever had a wobble with Naz over something Mum had said, Naz would challenge it straight away: ‘What’s the old bat said about me now?’ And Neil. It took Mum a long time to undermine my faith in Neil, but she did, eventually. She made me doubt him and I’ll never forgive myself for that.

  She hasn’t asked where Milly is. She’s forgotten all about Milly, because Milly doesn’t matter to her and that rage that stirred in me when Lesley Butler failed to respect my daughter expands, filling me out to the tips of my fingers, the ends of my toes, pressing against the top of my skull, hot behind my eyes. ‘What have you done?’ My voice is so much smaller, so much quieter than I expected it to be, but it slices through the silence. She gives a little moue of distaste, but I’m done with this. ‘Go and pack. I want you to leave.’

  Her face hardens. She pulls back her head in that injured gesture, but there’s steel there. I’ve crossed a line, but I’m not afraid of her any more. ‘Get out. You’re not welcome in our home.’ I can feel myself growing taller, straighter, bolder. A weight that’s been bearing down on me for years has taken flight. I drop my shoulder blades, shake my head, lengthen my neck.

  The words she wants to spit at me tremble inside her lips but she holds them back. She can smell the power in me. Turning on her heel, quite nimbly, I notice, she marches towards the staircase, but remembers suddenly, and feigns a stumble, gripping the newel post and reaching for her stick, which is propped against the shoe cabinet. I’m wise to her now. I don’t rush to help. I don’t ask if she’s all right as she leans heavily against the banister and laboriously makes her way up. I turn away.

  And as I turn I see it: a flash of yellow poking out from under the shoe cabinet. I bend over and tug it free. Milly’s Gerry.

  Milly? I shout, ‘Milly!’ Why is Milly here? Mum turns on the half landing outside the bathroom and looks down. She’s slow to respond, her face unreadable. ‘Where is she?’ Mum’s eyes are on me, silently accusing. ‘Milly!’

  ‘She’s not your child, Evangeline. She will never be your child.’

  ‘Where is she? Did Shona bring her back?’

  Her words rain down, cold. ‘You and I, we’re blood. That bond. That sacrifice. Does that stand for nothing?’

  ‘What have you done with her? Tell me!’

  She watches me, eyes narrowed. ‘That child you’ve known for five minutes, that stranger, is more important to you than me?’

  ‘She needs me. I’m her mother. She comes first now! Get used to it! SHE COMES FIRST!’

  A slow, half smile settling on her lips. A slight shake of her head, as if she can’t quite believe what she’s hearing.

  ‘Where is she? What have you done?’

  Low, cool. ‘You don’t need to worry about her.’

  A cold fist unfurling inside my gut, clawing up to my throat. ‘Milly!’ I spring up the stairs, two, three at a time. Mum backs against the wall and I’m almost at the top when I see her raise the stick, stretching herself to full height. She swings it down with a sharp crack. The blow sends me tipping back. My shoulder hits the wall and I grab for the banister but she’s raised the stick again, her face red with fury. It comes down across my chest, catching my chin, and I’m crashing backwards down the stairs.

  35

  There’s a cry and my mother hurries down after me. I’m lying awkwardly, my cheek resting against an oiled floorboard, left hip pressed against the stair-rise, my legs behind me, one foot trapped between the spindles of the banister. An insistent, siren pain emanates from my ankle. ‘Evangeline! Oh my God! My darling! Are you all right?’

  There are balls of hair and dust coiled beneath the hall cabinet, a hair grip, a dry leaf that will have blown in through the front door. I groan and try to release my foot, but the pain explodes, sending an alert to every cell in my body. ‘Don’t move.’ My mother’s hands are on my foot. Gentle hands, stroking along my shin, manipulating my calf and coaxing my foot free. Did I imagine what happened back there? My legs and hip slide down to the floor and I lie, face down, aware that as soon as I raise my head I’ll have to look her in the eye. I need to wrestle control and I have no idea how I’m going to do that. Already what happened is blurred. Did I stumble? Did I imagine that stick arcing through the air?

  Focus. This is about Milly. Milly is upstairs. Milly’s in this house. I don’t know how or why. Shona would never have allowed this. But my mother is a resourceful woman. Milly was with the foster family. Their details are in the hanging file I keep in the study. My mother’s seen me take papers from that file, check Milly’s NHS number, details of vaccinations. She’ll have contacted Ruth. Ruth’s not stupid, she’s been trained, she’ll have been cautious, following the rules, but that won’t have stopped my mother. She’ll have found a way. She’ll have lied. She’s a good liar, my mother. That kindly, rather pathetic little old lady routine works well. No one would expect a doting grandmother to lie. No one would believe that this woman could be dangerous.

  Milly is upstairs. Why hasn’t she come out of the bedroom or responded to the noise? What’s my mother done to her? An absurd image leaps into my mind of Milly bound and gagged and thumping her heels against the floorboards, but there’s no sound from upstairs and my mother’s too subtle for that. Milly will be sleeping, drugged with whatever it was Mum fed me after Neil left.

  ‘Let’s get you up.’ She slides her hands beneath my ribs and tries to turn me onto my side. She’s determined, however hard I press down against her. Surprisingly strong. I’ll have to give in. My ankle is too painful to stand on. I won’t be able to shake her off or get up the stairs. Physically, I’m no match for her now. This is no accident; she has me where she wants me. I didn’t imagine what ha
ppened at the top of the stairs. I must hang on to that truth: her arm rising, that stick cracking down. She meant to do this. She didn’t help me right myself; she hit me again.

  I let her manoeuvre me into position with my back against the wall, keeping my eyes on my legs as she straightens them out in front of me. My right foot rests at an awkward angle and the pain pulses through me leaving a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach. She unties the laces on my shoe and slips off my sock. My ankle is already beginning to swell. ‘This will need ice.’ She’s kneeling on the floor beside me. I can feel her looking at me. I raise my eyes. She’s all worry and loving concern. ‘Those stairs!’ she says, shaking her head. ‘It’s that carpet. It’s slippery. I’ve nearly taken a tumble down there myself.’ So, this is how it’s going to be: an accident. I slipped. Already she’s rewriting the story to absolve herself and I can see it gathering substance, this gossamer-thin image becoming a faint piece of footage. I can see the definition improving with each telling, the colour being added, until it’s as strong as a memory. Stronger. This is how it’s been. All my life. Her story, formed inside her head and related to me as a truth. Did my father even know I existed? Did he send me a birthday card, or was she lying about that too? I have no memories of him. She told me she burned every photograph. But what if there were no photographs? What if he, like Neil, never knew I was born?

  Milly’s upstairs. I need to get to her. ‘Could you get me some ice? Please? It’s in the top drawer of the freezer in a blue tray.’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ She grabs the newel post and pulls herself to her feet. I glance up the stairs. How long will it take to drag myself up there? There’s a landline in the spare room. If I could reach that I could call someone: Shona, the police. But as I glance back, my mother’s looking down at me. Her face hardens and I flinch, pulling my injured foot towards me instinctively, bracing myself, but in an instant the look has disappeared. A flick and she’s back to her part: anxious, maternal. Could she do that? I can imagine it. I’ve glimpsed what I’m up against. There’ll be no negotiating with her. I don’t have the physical ability to overpower her. I can’t get up the stairs.