The Girl Who Turned a Blind Eye

by Diana Wilkinson

  I’m suddenly afraid. Dad has grabbed the rolling pin. There’s a half-kneaded pizza base on top of the work surface but it’s the spilt flour on the tiles that has caught his eye.

  Suddenly a damp trickle weeps between my legs as urine seeps through my sweatpants. I’m now upstairs, outside the closed bedroom door and have slithered to the ground. Angry incoherent words are muffled and Dad thinks I don’t know what he’s doing. I need to talk to someone but I’m not allowed in. Huge silent sobs rack my body.

  I want to take my trousers off but instead I say, ‘Sorry, Ms Evans. I should have stayed in my bedroom like I was told.’ I’m not sure what I’m saying but my body’s trembling. Hypnosis was meant to make me feel better.

  ‘What mustn’t you tell?’

  I can’t remember. I think back to my parents, rewind the cogs in my brain.

  For a long time I didn’t realise what was going on. I was so young. The smiling, strong, handsome man, who swooped me up in his arms and twirled me round as I squealed in delight, couldn’t possibly be the same person screaming at Mum behind closed doors. At first I thought Mum had a ‘fancy man’ whom she let in after Dad went out. This fancy man, for some reason, beat her up and I decided one day I’d kill him.

  ‘I wanted a sister.’ I change the subject. I’ll worry about the damp legs when Ms Evans walks me back up the staircase. ‘Someone to talk to, someone to explain what was going on. “I’m sorry you’re on your own”, Mum said. Instead she bought me dolls to keep me company. Frozen Charlottes.’

  ‘Frozen Charlottes?’ Ms Evans’ low monotone is soothing. Although the dolls couldn’t speak, their staring glass eyes and icy cold cheeks kept me company while the banging went on. Like dead babies, I clung to them and shared my deepest darkest fears, telling them my tormented secrets.

  ‘My little sisters.’ It sounds ridiculous even to my own ears. ‘I chat to them. They tell me not to worry that they’ll always keep me company.’ At night I would dream that they were alive and dancing round the room. The hallucinations were so real that Mum locked them away. ‘They’re very valuable,’ I boast. After I accepted they weren’t real I learnt their worth.

  ‘Do you still have these “little sisters”?’

  ‘Yes.’ They’re displayed neatly on the new IKEA shelving unit. Not such a macabre presence but they still egg me on. I was going to let my kids play with them one day, but I don’t share that. I need to get up and change my clothes.

  ‘Okay, Beverley. Let’s walk back up the staircase now. When I count to five you’ll be here with me. With each number take another step until you’re at the top. When you walk through the door you’ll be wide awake again.’

  I’m a bit hesitant and deliberately take my time, treading carefully. I walk through the door on number five and try to open my eyes, momentarily forgetting the eye mask which I yank off. It’s been witness to secrets which I’ve tried to forget. I stretch out my neck and gently move my head from side to side.

  ‘Okay?’

  Instead of feeling refreshed and better from the experience, I’m aware of dampness in my legs and am mortified at having wet myself.

  ‘Oh my God. I’m so sorry.’ A very small blot has landed on the couch and the sight of the newly upholstered furniture makes things worse.

  ‘Don’t worry. No harm done. A clean cloth will sort it.’ Ms Evans’ melodic voice contains an irritated edge.

  I try consciously not to cry but as Ms Evans hands me a tissue, I realise it’s too late. Tears stream down my cheeks as my misery surfaces.

  12

  Cosette’s gurgling laugh could have come from a child watching a clown take a tumble. Lack of sleep had made Scott impatient, edgy, and his girlfriend seemed to think it was all a bit of a joke.

  ‘The silent calls aren’t some random mobile phone salesman. How many times do I need to tell you?’

  ‘I think you’re going a bit over the top. Okay, so Beverley is your ex but I’m cool with it. She never even mentioned you.’

  ‘You’ve no idea what she’s like, what she’s capable of. Listen, it’s no coincidence you’re at the same college.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. She’s learning Spanish and I’m doing English. We just happened to get talking.’

  ‘And I just happened to bump into her last week in Covent Garden. I didn’t tell you that. Yes, some coincidence.’ Scott gritted his teeth. He remembered the first time Beverley had bumped into Danielle, at the opposite end of some random café in Shoreditch.

  ‘How bizarre is that,’ Danielle had said. ‘She seems pleasant enough, if a bit weird. She even asked if I’d any holiday plans.’ It was only some time later, when Beverley turned up at the same doctor’s surgery, that he began to worry as it was one coincidence too many.

  The floor in Scott’s front lounge was strewn with tools: screwdrivers, nails, and pliers and a large electric drill was set to one side. Scott dipped in and out of the toolbox while he talked.

  ‘Can you hand me up the drill? This fixing’s still a bit loose.’ Scott jiggled furiously at a lock, trying to coax it away from the window frame. He gripped the top of the ladder with his spare hand, fighting off an attack of vertigo.

  Cosette handed him up his tools, one after another, feeling more and more anxious by his intensity. It was as if another Scott had appeared out of nowhere; someone she didn’t recognise who rechecked fittings, over and over again. He’d been working all afternoon and hadn’t even started on the upstairs doors and windows.

  ‘You don’t seriously think she’s going to break in?’

  Scott glowered down from his perch. ‘Please don’t speak to her again. Say you’ll not. Steer clear. Actually forget the “please”. Don’t go anywhere near her.’

  ‘Okay, I promise. But she didn’t even mention you.’

  Scott stretched up and drilled the final nail into a new set of blinds. ‘Make sure to keep these shut tightly at night-time. Perhaps it would be a good idea to keep them partly closed during the daytime as well.’ Scott turned the wooden slats up and down. ‘The lamp’ll give us enough light.’

  Cosette perched on top of a stool and took a swig of water. Scott was acting like a mad man on a mission. She didn’t know who he was and was more scared by his behaviour than of some random ex-girlfriend with a grudge.

  ‘Scott. She told me she’s got a steady boyfriend so I don’t think she’s still pining after you if that’s what you’re worried about. Don’t you think you’re overreacting?’

  Scott clambered down from the stepladders, tested the mechanism again and snapped the blinds shut.

  ‘Look, Cosette. I’ve got stuff to tell you and probably now is as good a time as any.’

  Scott lifted a bottle of wine from the fridge, uncorked it and poured out a couple of glasses. ‘Let’s go into the lounge and I’ll tell you all about her. All about Beverley Digby.’

  ‘We’d only been together for about six months when things started getting very intense. She became more and more demanding, phoning me at all hours of the day and night, checking where I was, who I was with. I felt I was being stalked.’

  Cosette, stretched out along the sofa, speared the ends of some dried-up olives with a stick.

  ‘It was only when I tried to break it off that she got really paranoid. When I started to ignore her calls, let her down gently, she became more and more persistent. She’d turn up at the bank or ring my doorbell in the middle of the night. The phone calls wouldn’t stop.’ Scott took a long gulp of wine and shifted in his seat, eyes firmly directed at Cosette. His fury simmered like a dormant volcano.

  ‘It was only after I met Danielle that things became unbearable.’

  ‘Why? Where did you meet Danielle?’

  Scott wasn’t sure how much to tell Cosette. He didn’t want to hurt her, make her feel second best, although as he closed his eyes he remembered meeting Danielle for the first time. After that evening he knew she was special. ‘The One.’ She became his soulmate, together for
ever. But Danielle had slammed the proverbial door shut when she left and he’d had to move on. He left these thoughts out of the telling.

  ‘I met Danielle at a banking seminar. It was a weekend thing in Brighton. We sort of hit it off.’ Her smile had lit up the room, her earthy laugh bouncing off the walls. Dressed in a skin-tight black satin dress, golden hair cascading over her shoulders, Danielle played the room. When her chocolate-brown eyes gazed at him, Scott was lost.

  ‘What did Beverley do when she found out you were seeing someone else?’

  ‘Sorry?’ Cosette’s question jolted him back. He leant over and took her hand, relieved that she didn’t seem jealous. She still had the confidence of youth, the belief in a happy ever after.

  ‘I don’t know how she found out, but she did. She wouldn’t accept we were over and when she learnt about Danielle she wouldn’t back off. I didn’t realise, when Danielle got pregnant, that Beverley was also pregnant.’

  It sounded like he was some careless fly-by-night gigolo but Beverley had told him she was on the pill and he’d believed her.

  ‘She miscarried,’ he said. ‘Beverley, that is.’

  Cosette set her glass down, her face powdery white in the half-light. Scott thought of an abandoned puppy, all watery downcast eyes and droopy ears.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t want to tell you any of this but if we’re going to make a commitment, you need to know about Beverley. This isn’t about Danielle, it’s about Beverley. Unless I tell you, you’ll not understand the reason for all the security.’

  Cosette got up from the sofa and wandered towards the kitchen. ‘Let’s get a takeaway. Here, I’ve got the menu,’ she said over her shoulder, waving a piece of card in the air.

  Rain hammered against the windowpanes and a break in the heatwave was being heralded in by a clattering of thunder which rumbled through the flat and shook the walls.

  Cosette jumped as Scott came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her slim body, leaning his face into her hair. She smelled of freshly squeezed lemons.

  ‘The future’s about us. It’s not about the past, but I need you to know why I’m so paranoid. I’ll not put bars on the windows, if that’s what you’re thinking.’ His smile was weak. ‘But I think it’s time for you to move in.’

  Silent tears flowed down Cosette’s cheeks as Scott hugged her close.

  ‘Have you got your case packed?’

  Cosette stood on tiptoe, kissed him on the lips and clung on, as if to a life raft tossing on choppy seas. A sudden flash of lightning streaked through a rogue gap in the blinds, like an accusation piercing through the lies. The abortion had been his idea but miscarriage, in the telling, didn’t sound accusatory.

  As Scott looked over Cosette’s shoulder towards the slightly off-kilter blinds, he felt no guilt at the second lie. It wasn’t true that he wouldn’t put bars on the windows, they were being delivered first thing in the morning.

  13

  I’ve held the small purse close to me for over a week. Cosette has been skirting round me with aplomb, changing direction whenever I get close, and tripping over a paving slab, not looking where she was going, was divine justice. The graze on her shin was nasty and the blood flowed, the blame pointing its finger firmly at Scott.

  I spot her squirreled away in a corner of the library, head down. She’s hedged in between laden bookshelves, skyscrapers that tower towards the ceiling and the only way out is past me. My eyesight’s good and I can see she’s holding aloft Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It must be part of her syllabus as she’s far too young to be intrigued by the monster angle of human creation and Scott hasn’t squashed her innocence quite yet.

  I snake in and out past the wooden chair ends, carefully negotiating rogue legs that jut out from students who lean forward.

  ‘Hi,’ I whisper. ‘Is it free?’

  Cosette freezes, stares at me, and after a second makes a reluctant little nod gesture. ‘Don’t talk to her. Ignore her. Just walk on past.’ She’ll be replaying Scott’s words, but she’s too polite to make a fuss; it’s partly an age thing. I sit down before she can tell me the spare seat is for a friend.

  ‘I’m leaving soon so you’ll be able to spread yourself out,’ she says with the merest upturn of lips.

  ‘It’s okay. I’m not staying. Only I’ve got something of yours.’

  I slowly unzip my handbag.

  ‘Shit. It keeps catching,’ I mumble. It doesn’t catch of course, but I’m enjoying myself, keeping up the suspense.

  Her angst is apparent. Scott has done a good job with his storytelling. I spend a few seconds searching around the bottom of my bag for the purse. I could be reaching for a handgun, loaded and ready to fire; that’s what Scott would have thought. Instead, I produce a small bright-red purse containing a twenty-pound note, a ring holding a single key, of which I’ve made a copy, three first-class stamps and a student railcard. Her eyes widen.

  ‘Where did you find it? I’ve been looking everywhere.’ She forgets to be wary and her face lights up. I like the word ‘find’. She lost it. It wasn’t stolen.

  I sit down, crowd her exit and keep my voice reverently low.

  ‘You dropped it in the café last week. I picked it up after you’d gone and I didn’t dare bring it round.’ I raise my eyebrows in mock exasperation. She knows Scott wouldn’t have let me in. ‘I’ve been looking for you to give it back.’

  ‘Thanks so much. There’s not a lot in there but it’s got sentimental value. It was Mum’s.’ She thumbs through the contents, lifting out the railcard and reinserting it into the slot. I’ve taken a picture of this as well in case it might come in handy.

  I’ve regained some ground as Cosette has no idea I lifted the purse out of her bag when she popped to the toilet. It was the last time I saw her before Scott must have had ‘the talk’. She’s been sidestepping round me ever since, weaving in and out as if in a minefield loaded with live ammunition. Anyway, I have the slick-fingered touch of Oliver Twist, a magician’s sleight of hand which can be useful.

  ‘I thought you’d be missing the railcard. You’ve also got a twenty-pound note in there. I hope there’s nothing missing.’ I continue to reel in her trust like an angler with a wriggly fish hooked on the spike.

  ‘I leave my bank card at home to stop me spending,’ Cosette says and zips the purse back up.

  An exaggerated tutting sound comes from behind the bookshelves and it’s hard not to share a silent giggle.

  ‘Can I get you a coffee? To say thanks. I’m nearly done here.’

  ‘Yes. Why not?’ The first battle in my favour. One–nil.

  We walk out of the library, Cosette a couple of steps ahead but I let her take the lead. It’s the best way because she’ll remember it was her idea.

  The café is located at the front of the building, near the entrance to the street. It’s bright and sterile, an unthreatening place to rendezvous, and quiet, with only a smattering of students dotted around the room.

  ‘Here,’ says Cosette, emboldened by her invitation, and plops her rucksack on one of two vacant grey plastic chairs. ‘What would you like?’

  ‘Cappuccino, please. Thanks.’

  I watch as she heads towards the counter and stands patiently in the queue. I wonder if she’ll tell Scott or keep the bold invitation to herself as he’ll definitely ask if there have been any random sightings of his ex-girlfriend.

  Cosette returns with a large milky coffee for me and a tall glass filled with a thick green gunge that resembles caked pond weed.

  ‘Kale and spinach smoothie.’ She stirs vigorously and offers me the straw. ‘Have a taste. It’s really refreshing.’

  It’s not the poisonous mix that makes me hesitate rather the fear of leaving rogue traces of DNA. My paranoia would give Ms Evans a field day.

  ‘Thanks but I’ll stick to coffee. A bit too healthy for me.’ I laugh.

  It takes a good five minutes until the elephant in the room is addressed. Scott. I’m deligh
ted that she’s the one to broach the subject, in fact seems keen to talk.

  ‘Scott told me what happened between you. I’m sorry.’

  I don’t answer because I want to hear her version of events. Scott’s unlikely to have gone into detail, and even more unlikely to have come clean.

  ‘He told me about the miscarriage and how things weren’t the same afterwards.’

  Her dainty lips sip delicately at the green mixture. Suddenly, loud laughter peels out from a far corner of the café where a mammoth frothy coffee has splattered across the linoleum, dotting it with pink and white marshmallows. A group of young girls stare, wide-eyed at the mess but continue to snigger behind their hands. I feel my age.

  ‘An abortion, actually,’ I say.

  Cosette, momentarily distracted, turns her head back. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I had an abortion. Not a miscarriage. Scott paid for it as he wasn’t quite ready to be a dad.’

  ‘Oh, I’m really sorry. I thought Scott said you miscarried but perhaps I misheard; misunderstood,’ she lies. I’ve scored another point. Two-nil. I keep my lips tight, giving her time to register the fact that miscarriage and abortion are completely different accounts of the same event; the loss of life. Scott will have told her how sad we both were after the event and how it tore us apart. But he won’t have mentioned how he whistled over supper after the deadly deed was done.

  ‘Scott had a doctor friend who arranged the termination. All expenses paid.’ A puff of disgust at this point does little to hide my bitterness but my jokiness should lessen the threat. Cosette’s trust is essential. ‘He promised me that when he was more financially secure, a little further up the banking ladder, that we’d start a family. Lots of kids.’

  The waitress, gripping a mop and bucket, glares at the gaggle of students who slink away. She scrubs the floor, like the doctor who scraped and cleaned away my baby, with efficient purposeful hands.

  The activity jolts Cosette to action. ‘Listen, I must get going.’ She stands up and fiddles with her hair. ‘I’ve got a lecture in five minutes.’ She’s not a bad liar, little white lies flitting like flies round a candle, but she’d better watch out as Scott’s mantra is honesty. Well, honesty from all around if not from himself.