by Alex Marwood
Sarah puts her wine down, feels slightly sick all over again, though she’s read it and read it until she should be immune, really. She stares at all the other faces on the page. Young ones, thin ones, sad ones, ones that smile dutifully for the camera – decades-old photos donated by long-abandoned families. She still doesn’t know where they got this photo. They certainly didn’t contact the school; it would have been Sarah who would have answered the phone if they had. One of her sister’s former friends, she guesses.
She reads again, though she remembers the words by heart:
Alison Maxwell, 38. Born Finbrough, Berks, a member of the Finbrough Congregation evangelical church. Having developed a reputation in the town as a ‘wild child’, she left the family home at 17 when she fell pregnant. Last seen in Finbrough in the winter of 1995. Spotted a handful of times with her baby, working stalls on the music festival circuit the following spring and early summer, then vanished from sight. Two further children, born at the compound in 2001 and 2003. ‘She was lovely,’ said an old schoolfriend. ‘She was a rebel, but anyone would be, coming from that set-up: it was stifling. I can’t believe this was what happened to her. But I can see, if you’re all alone with a baby and you’re looking for something better, how easy it would be to catch you.’ The Finbrough congregation apparently disbanded some time ago, and her family are uncontactable.
Sarah sighs. Drinks. Puts her glass down. So much for the press’s fierce reputation for tracking down their targets. Though to be fair they will have had enough easy pickings available that they’d not have needed to spend much time on the dead ends.
‘So, what do you think?’ asks Helen. ‘About the kids?’
‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘I don’t, Helen. Social Services are all over my arse about taking them, but I don’t know anything about children.’
Helen makes a pfft noise. ‘You deal with them literally every day.’
‘No, but ... that’s shouting at them about lunch money and telling them not to run in corridors. It’s not ... it’s other people’s kids. Not my own.’
Helen wrinkles her nose. ‘Nobody knows anything till they have them. The global population was still growing last time I looked.’
They fall silent. She knows Helen is waiting, like the therapist she is, for her to say something, but she doesn’t know what to say. Looks around her gloomy parochial home, all dark wood and ancestral portraits, and listens to the sound of the grandfather clock clearing its throat in preparation for striking. All those nights lying awake in the dark, feeling its malevolence as it waited to count off another hour of life with nothing achieved.
How can I provide a happy home for another generation here? she thinks. This place I was so keen to leave that I married the second I got the chance? I’m so stupid, coming back here when there was literally a whole world out there to move to after my marriage broke down. I should have sold it straight away. The only use for a house you hate is to get the money to buy a house you don’t.
She especially hates that clock. Hates the sound of it, the tick, tick, tick, the whirring strike mechanism. Hates the sound of all clocks striking. She wanted no clocks, she stipulated, in her marital house in Reading, and Liam went along with that. They timed everything by mobile phone. Yet now, every Saturday night, she dutifully winds the evil thing, like her father and his father before him.
‘I’m going to meet them on Saturday,’ she says, eventually. ‘It’s the right thing to do. I’ll put faces to the names, at least.’
‘Okay,’ says Helen. ‘But that doesn’t commit you to anything, just remember that ... What are their names?’
‘Eden,’ Sarah says, ‘and Ilo. Fifteen and thirteen. And there’s a girl – woman, she must be twenty or so by now – called Romy. She’s the one they found in the Infirmary. The sole survivor. Adult survivor.’
‘Oh, God, I remember the photo,’ says Helen. Sarah does too. A skeletal form that looked dead itself, oxygen mask strapped to her face, body strapped to a stretcher, snapped by a thousand lenses as they carried her past the piled-up corpses to an ambulance. ‘I didn’t realise she was ... another of yours ...’
‘Yes. She was the reason Ali left home in the first place. Well, I say “left”. She wasn’t exactly given a choice in the matter.’
Wow, I sound bitter. Well, I am, I am. They kicked her out, and now she’s dead, and I have to make a decision and I don’t know ...
The clock strikes, and she jumps. It’s literally hard-wired into her, now. Pavlovian. I’ll sell the bloody thing, she thinks, whatever else I do. Get an antique dealer round and flog him the lot. And then I’ll sell the house. I don’t have to put my life on hold for people I didn’t even know existed until yesterday.
‘I was going to go travelling,’ she says, mournfully.
‘I know,’ says Helen, ‘it’s a bugger. Life does have a few curveballs up its sleeve.’
‘Can’t I just ... I don’t know. Put money in trust for them when they’re adults or something? You know – give them what would have been Ali’s share of the house? That would be fair, wouldn’t it?’
‘If you can be okay about leaving them in care, I guess.’
‘I can’t do it, Helen. Except – God, I don’t know how I’m meant to do this. They’re going to be a mess. They saw everybody they’ve ever known die, for God’s sake ... and a cult! The closest I’ve ever come to knowing about kids and cults is maintaining the anti-radicalisation staff training spreadsheet.’
‘Well, you wouldn’t be doing it alone,’ says Helen. ‘If they come to the school, there’ll be me, for a start.’
‘But they ... they need someone who knows them. Someone who knows how to comfort children. Look at me. It’s not just them who’ll be a mess. I’m a mess.’
‘I wouldn’t say so,’ says Helen. ‘No more than half the parents I come across.’
‘I am! Come on – who would live in a place like this if they weren’t a mess? I need to sort myself out before I can be any use to anyone else. What if I screw it up?’
‘That’s fear talking,’ says Helen. ‘Which is perfectly understandable. You don’t have to do this, Sarah.’
But it’s not their fault, Sarah thinks, and feels the guilt all over again. They’re orphans of a storm created by other people’s wicked choices.
3 | Sarah
They enter the room on light feet, smiling, the taller one leading and the shorter – not much shorter, just a couple of inches – following behind.
They’re extraordinary. They look like space aliens. Not of this world, certainly. Long and thin, with delicate wrists and long fingers and big blue eyes with eyebrows dark and arched. Small noses, flared nostrils. And hair so fair it’s as though the sun comes out as they come through the door, curling close around elegant skulls like lambswool. They have got that, at least, from their mother, and the startling eyebrow colouring; little else reminds her.
The hair has grown in from near-total baldness, she knows from the reports she read in the papers. They shaved their heads once a month, men and women – and children as well, once they reached puberty. A gesture of equality or something: everyone reduced to the same androgyny, no one able to flaunt a crowning glory. Whatever; an upmarket wig supplier came forward and claimed that it had been a regular customer for their shorn hair, which fetches a surprising amount on the open market. Nothing gone to waste, then.
‘Hello,’ says Sarah.
It’s hard to tell which is which, to tell boy from girl. They’re both wearing jeans, loose-cut, and striped T-shirts that were clearly bought to be grown into. They’re thin, and Eden, the girl, is small-breasted even for her age. It’s only when they speak that she identifies who is who, for Ilo’s voice has started to break and he speaks in a rusty, uncertain tenor. He’s the shorter of the two, the best part of two years between them.
‘Hello,’ they say, both at t
he same moment. Same accent, same intonation. Surprisingly posh, though she’s not sure what she’d been expecting. Some sort of deep Welsh accent, probably, given where they were born.
‘Are you our aunt?’ asks Eden.
‘Yes,’ she replies. Awkwardly, for despite the fact that she’s been one for twenty-one years, she’s never thought of herself in that role. ‘I’m your Aunt Sarah. Sarah Byrne.’
‘Sarah Byrne,’ says Ilo. Considers it for a moment. ‘That’s a nice name,’ he says. ‘Did you choose it yourself?’
An odd question. But she’ll be getting odd questions; she’s been prepared for that. These two strange children have grown up away from the world. They’ve been in this care home in Barmouth for three months, but you can hardly expect the ferals they’re sharing their space with to have educated them in the ways of the outside world. ‘No,’ she replies. ‘Byrne was my husband’s name.’ She’s considered reverting to her maiden name since Liam turned out to be a cheater, but on balance going back to being a Maxwell feels even more like regression. If there’s one thing Liam has given her, it’s that she doesn’t have to walk round Finbrough with the burden of that surname, everyone wondering, just vaguely wondering, if she was related to that weird church on the High Street. As a Byrne, even though she lives in a house that belonged to the Congregation, sits on furniture it paid for, is gazed down on from the walls by generations of pastors, she is, at least, anonymous when she walks out of the door. Not an obvious target for press looking for relatives of the dead.
‘How interesting,’ says Eden. ‘We’re all called Blake. We were born Blake, but there were lots of adults who didn’t start off that way, like you. We were named after our Father.’
Sarah doesn’t know what to say to that. What strange little creatures. ‘I thought you had different fathers,’ she says, confused.
‘Yes,’ says Ilo. ‘That’s right.’ Then ‘Oh! I understand! Yes. We had different conception fathers. But Lucien Blake was Father to all of us.’
‘And my actual father,’ adds Eden, proudly.
‘Yes,’ says Ilo. ‘Have you come to take us home?’
Sarah starts. Another question she hadn’t expected. ‘I—’ she stumbles ‘—it’s not that simple, I’m afraid.’
Their smiles never falter. Haven’t left their lips since they entered the room. She looks imploringly at the social workers for back-up and receives nothing in return. Hell, she thinks, I should have paid more attention to the hints they’ve been dropping about the strain on Social Services. These children aren’t really people to them, they’re just the remnant of a massively increased workload in a system that’s already creaking. Christ, they’d be encouraging me to take them if my surname were Hindley.
‘Look,’ she says, ‘I came to meet you, and see that you were all right. I only found out you existed a few days ago.’
‘I understand,’ says Ilo. There’s something eerie about that smile. She can’t put her finger on it. Maybe it’s just its constancy, or the fact that it’s another thing that makes it so hard to distinguish him from his sister. ‘Our mother told us about her parents.’
Silence. Of course she did, thinks Sarah. Bruce and Barbara Maxwell and the Little Baby Jebus. I made a joke of them at university, still share eye-rolling laughs about the Congregation with the staff at the school, though they haven’t had any pupils from there in years. Turning them into a joke made it easier to live with. I should think Alison must have made them monsters, to her children.
She attempts to move the subject on. ‘So, how are you both doing?’
‘Oh. We’re well,’ he says.
‘Everyone’s been very kind,’ says Eden.
She doubts that. But then, she doesn’t really know much about their previous lives. Maybe life in a council care facility is a breeze by comparison. ‘I’m so sorry about what’s happened to you,’ she says. Has to cut herself short, for she’s shocked to find her eyes filling with tears. What for? My sister? The thought of their loss, the things they’ve seen, the mark it will leave on their life? She blinks them hurriedly back.
‘Thank you,’ says Ilo again. He seems amazingly composed. Shock, probably, she thinks.
Eden breaks the uncomfortable silence. ‘It’s nice to meet you,’ she says, and gives her the brightest of smiles. ‘Our mother always said that the one thing she regretted was not knowing you. I hope we’ll get the chance.’
4 | Sarah
The hush just before the bell goes is like the calm before the end of the world. Every day, at 12.25 and 3.40, the school enters the eye of the storm, the silence palpable as the students listen for the bell, the teachers’ voices suddenly audible above the shifting hubbub.
Sarah, behind her desk in the administration office, has become so accustomed to it that she no longer needs to look at the clock. As the sound drops, she picks up her keys, locks the office and hurries down the raised corridor by the dining hall to stand on the doors. The last thing she anticipated when she left the Wellesley Academy – Finbrough Church of England School, as it was then – was that she would one day return to work there. But there’s barely a thing about her life now that she would have predicted three years ago.
Helen Brown is waiting in her usual spot. They team up for this duty every day, since these supervisory roles are often handed out to the people who won’t be shut in a classroom when the bell goes. It was how they became friends in the first place; two-minute chats before the dam breaks, just short enough that Sarah didn’t get nervous, didn’t get shy, didn’t worry that she was boring Helen the way Liam said she bored him.
She smiles as Sarah approaches. ‘Afternoon,’ she says. ‘How did it go?’
‘Um,’ says Sarah, ‘it was ... interesting.’
‘Nice to hear some enthusiasm.’
‘Yeah, maybe I need a while for it all to sink in?’
‘I should think so.’
‘Social Services seem to have practically decided I’m going to take them whether I like it or not.’
Helen frowns. ‘Maybe we should talk about this in my office?’
Am I a client now? she wonders. I thought we were friends. ‘No, it’s okay,’ she says. ‘I think I’d rather have a friend’s opinion than a therapist’s.’
Helen nods. ‘Okay. Friend’s advice: you don’t have to do anything, Sarah. I know you probably feel like you don’t have a choice, but you do. I think you need to think hard about whether you’re up to the job.’
‘Surely nothing can be worse than the care system?’
A little twitch of the eyebrows. ‘Why do you think the care system exists, if that’s really true?’
‘Okay, fair point.’
‘Look,’ says Helen, ‘devil’s advocate. They’re going to be a massive mess, you said it yourself. I mean, the stuff they’ve seen, by itself ... there’s going to be trauma, and PTSD, and God knows what cognitive dissonances, and brainwashing, and survivor’s guilt, and ... you don’t know them, Sarah. It’s not like taking on a real niece and nephew. It’s not going to be, you know, Little Orphan Annie.’
‘They are a real niece and nephew, though,’ says Sarah. ‘They’re the only family I’ve got left.’
Helen glances at the clock. Two minutes till the barrage breaks. She glances around in case an early bird has broken loose to overhear, then steps over to stand beside Sarah and lowers her voice. ‘But you’ve never met them before yesterday. And a cult, Sarah. A cult. And they’ve not left it, you know, voluntarily. They’ll not be looking for ways to liberate themselves from their beliefs.’
‘I don’t know,’ says Sarah. ‘Don’t you think a mass suicide might straighten your head out a bit?’
‘I’ve no idea. Seriously, this is well out of my zone of expertise. I mean, if they come to Wellesley Academy they’ll most likely be passing through my office, but I can’t say I feel confident about he
lping them. I’m more handsy dads and boozy mums, you know?’
‘But surely Social Services ...’
‘I wouldn’t count on it. They’re buried under piles of shaken babies. You’ll be on waiting lists all over the place. Sorry. I know I sound pessimistic, but you need to know what you’d be getting yourself into. How did they seem, to you?’
‘Polite,’ says Sarah.
‘Polite?’
She shrugs. ‘They said Alison talked about me,’ she tells her, and is surprised to feel that swell of grief again. How can I be grieving for someone I’ve not thought of for years? she wonders. Maybe it’s the other stuff I’m grieving. That my life has ended up so empty that Helen is the closest thing to a confidante I’ve found since I came back here and all the old friends somehow melted away with my husband. Alison was the only person who knew what it was like, in our family. If things had been different, we might have been friends. Might have been each other’s armour against the world.
‘Did they?’ asks Helen. ‘Do you know what she said?’
‘She said I was her one regret,’ says Sarah. ‘That she left me behind.’
‘So you think that makes you responsible for her kids?’
‘Well, at least I have a house,’ she says, lamely.
‘Which you were going to sell,’ says Helen.
‘I know,’ she says, and the sense that the prison bars are closing around her once again is almost overwhelming. ‘But you know, by rights half of it should have been their mother’s ...’
‘You don’t even know them,’ says Helen. ‘You didn’t even know they existed till last week.’
‘I knew about the older one.’
‘It’s not the older one they want you to take. Have they given you any sort of timeframe for this?’
‘I’ve not said I’ll do it yet.’
‘Mm,’ says Helen. ‘Look, do you know anything more about the sister? How about her? They know her.’