by Katie Lowe
‘If I what?’
‘I don’t think you did it – let’s be clear on that.’
‘You weren’t clear on that a few seconds ago.’
‘Hannah, I believe you. I love you. You’re a good person. A good mother to a good girl. So stop picking a bloody fight.’ It’s the closest I’ve heard him come to anger – though it’s more like exhaustion, an inability to go on. ‘I’ve known you long enough to know those things are absolutely true, because I’ve seen them for myself. I was there. I’m still here, even if you are being kind of …’
He sighs, and steadies himself. He takes the photo from my hand with such care that I’m reminded of something: the memory as crisp and clear as cold water. ‘I just think even if you did do it, there was probably … I don’t know. A reason for it.’ His eyes search my face. ‘You really don’t remember anything?’
I drown in the memory: a whisper to Evie, begging her to stay quiet. The knife, cold in my trembling hand.
I shake my head. All the words have escaped me.
‘Look.’ As his hand meets my skin, I feel myself crumble. ‘We will get through this. You, me, and Evie. As long as we’re together, we’ll be fine.’ He pulls me in, his heartbeat a sickening thump against mine. ‘I promise.’
I remember him saying the same words, as we sat in this room, only a little over four weeks before. At the time, I’d almost been able to make myself believe him, with the same force of will he’s using, now, to believe in me. Now, though, no matter how desperately I try, I know it isn’t true.
And now, I hate him for making promises he knows he cannot keep.
My heart sits in my throat, a bloody lump, as I wait for Evie to come home. Dan left to pick her up twenty minutes ago. Lissa’s house is five minutes away. It shouldn’t take this long.
I imagine them talking – about how they’re feeling, and whether they can trust me: her mother, his would-be wife. Every time we’re back on solid ground, something else comes along to make her question who I am, and what I say. I feel as though I’m being knocked down, drowning in freezing waves, one after another.
‘Evil,’ Marianne had called me. Graham’s mother. Evie’s blood, whether I like it or not. I wonder if Evie has ever thought of her, before now: if she’ll attach a special meaning to her words.
It’s a stupid question, of course. I wouldn’t be here – we wouldn’t be here – if I hadn’t thought of my own mother’s words so long ago. If I hadn’t hung so much on her – Margot – being ‘just like me’.
I think of my conversation with Darcy; of her suggestion that, if my grandmother’s papers don’t exist, nobody has to know. Though Darcy doesn’t know about the delusions, the voices, the circumstances of the murder of Margot’s husband and child. She didn’t read the papers. No one knows Margot’s story but me.
And I could make it all disappear, in an instant.
I open the cupboard and dig out the box. They could be home – if they’re coming home – any minute. I have to be quick.
I pull off the lid and pull out the papers. They’re surprisingly light, shot through with age. I run the kitchen tap and turn to push the papers under the running water.
My eyes catch on a date at the top of the page. 18 July 1949. Four years before the murders were committed. I stop the tap and frantically wipe the water from the now-smudged ink.
Mrs McLelland self-admitted last week, complaining of exhaustion and requiring rest.
She was otherwise well on her arrival, only suffering from forced insomnia after the birth of her youngest child. However, in the short time she has been with us, her condition has deteriorated significantly.
Mrs McLelland claims to have begun hearing voices since her arrival at Hawkwood House, believing herself to be the victim of ‘ghosts’. She insists that she be discharged immediately, though as her clinician I cannot recommend this – but as she has self-admitted, unfortunately it is her right also to self-discharge.
I see the swoop of headlights beneath the curtain, and stuff the pages back into the box.
Margot was fine before she went to Hawkwood House. That’s when it all went wrong.
I think of my first visit. The first time I’d felt Graham’s voice, ice-like, in my ear. The first time I’d come home to Dan and seen myself turn cold in the bathroom mirror. The first time I’d felt like some other woman: someone I didn’t know.
You don’t believe in ghosts, I tell myself as I kick the box back into the cupboard.
‘Uhhh … OK,’ Evie says, behind me, wide-eyed.
I turn, and try to laugh it off. ‘Sorry. I was trying to remember a … a thing. Tidying up this mess.’
I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m losing control. I’m going mad.
She gives me a brief, doubtful look. ‘All right, well … I’m going to bed.’ No hug. No kiss. She takes the stairs two at a time, and disappears.
Dan looks at me, all worry, all concern – but says nothing.
He doesn’t see Graham’s hands at my shoulders, fingers squeezing through the knots: a tenderness, and a threat. He can only see how I respond to it. So I smile. I pretend everything is fine. It’s a betrayal, and he senses it. He sees the falseness, even if he sees nothing else.
He turns away, and bolts the door from the terrors outside. He says nothing. Only climbs the stairs to bed, leaving me alone, again.
EPISODE FIVE
38
London, 2005
Lucie draws a figure eight on the arm of the chair with her finger.
I crouch down to meet her, and her eyes flick open. She tugs at the string of her headphones, plucking both earbuds out at once. The song continues with a hiss.
‘Shall we pick up where we left off?’
Her lips are dried out, chapped white; her skin almost translucent, cheekbones pressed up against the surface like knuckles in a fist.
I wonder what’s happened, overnight, that’s made her so much worse today.
I know I can’t tell her I feel it, too. But I wish I could.
Graham didn’t come home. After he left, I sat, and waited, the cold air dimpling my skin. I waited, knowing if he found me gone, it’d be worse.
But then, nine o’clock came. Then ten. Then midnight.
I cleaned up the dishes, the mess on the floor. I wiped the stain from the wall, still feeling his hands on my shoulders.
I went to bed alone, and lay there, all night, waiting for him to come home. I dug my fists into my ribs. I hated myself for wanting him to return, in spite of everything. A stronger woman – a better mother – would have taken her daughter and run.
But I didn’t.
I crawled out of bed this morning, feeling like skin bound to bone. As though something vital had been pulled from me, drained horribly away.
‘Come on then,’ I say, rising to stand. I nod to Lucie’s one-to-one nurse, who gives me a grateful smile. She’ll be glad of the break; the chance to freshen up, to steel herself for what remains of her ‘death watch’ shift (the name the patients give the one-to-one monitoring of suicidal patients, much to our displeasure – though in private, we’ve begun to call it that, too).
Lucie uncurls herself from her seat and shuffles along beside me. She says nothing as we walk to the treatment room and take the same seats as before.
‘So – how are you doing?’
‘Fine.’
‘Fine?’
‘Yeah.’ She looks towards the window, and I follow her gaze. It’s a beautiful day, the orange leaves crisp against the sky. ‘I want to go out. It’s so stuffy in here all the time. It makes me feel like I can’t breathe.’
I can’t argue with this. The air here is soupy, the heating turned up to full blast, day and night – though this doesn’t stop our clients stalking the ward in fleece jumpers and joggers, trying to sweat through their clothes.
‘I can crack a window, if you like?’
She shrugs. ‘If you want.’
I stand and push it open –
just a little. I’m grateful for the cool air, too. It brings me back to the moment, sharpening my focus.
‘So.’
‘So?’
‘Let’s talk.’
‘I’m not in the mood.’
‘All right. I’ll just sit here. Remember, I get paid either way.’
‘You’re a really shitty doctor.’
‘Try me.’
She scowls, but there’s a glint of humour in her eyes. She’s playing along.
I smile. ‘Something’s happened overnight, hasn’t it?’
She flinches. ‘No.’
‘No?’
‘No.’ She’s less sure, this time. ‘No.’
I say nothing. I let the silence do the work.
It’s minutes before she moves. A slight uncoiling – hardly anything at all. But it’s there.
Still, I say nothing.
‘I got a letter,’ she says, her voice barely more than a whisper.
‘A letter.’
‘Yeah.’ She looks out of the window. ‘From my sister.’
I search my memory for her name; the girl who’d so confidently handled both Darren and me, weeks earlier. I resist the urge to smile at the memory, the way Darren had flushed when questioned by a teenage girl. ‘Sophie?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How is she?’
‘Oh, she’s great.’ I feel a kick of anxiety, a slight surprise. There’s a viciousness in her tone that I hadn’t expected. ‘She’s doing amazing.’
‘You don’t get along?’
She looks up at me, something unbearably familiar in her eyes.
It isn’t dislike, or jealousy, that’s between them.
I recognize it. I know it – intimately.
It’s fear.
She closes off before I can find the right way in. She curls into herself, like she wants to disappear.
We sit in silence, again, for a while. ‘How’s your boyfriend?’ I root around in my memory for the name – one I’ve heard while eavesdropping on conversations between patients in the main lounge. ‘Matt, is it?’
She blushes a deep, blooming red. ‘Mike. But he’s not my boyfriend any more.’
‘Oh.’ I offer a smile. ‘Men, hmm?’
She looks up; meets my eye, squarely. I’ve given too much away. Her eyes flit to Graham’s diamond ring on my finger, the skin rubbed raw around it – an impulsive habit I can’t quite break.
So, I fold. I change the subject back, and make a bargain. ‘Let’s say I could arrange for you to go for a walk – a supervised walk,’ I add, quickly, as her eyes widen. ‘Do you think you could tell me about that – about your sister?’
‘How long for?’
I laugh. ‘The walk, or the chat?’
‘Both.’
I tap my pen against my pad, pretending to think about it. ‘Thirty minutes talking, for thirty minutes outside. What do you think?’
She runs her tongue along her teeth. ‘Deal.’
Half an hour later – exactly, Lucie watching the clock to the second, careful to give me no more than our allotted talking time – I root around in the nurses’ station for her paperwork.
‘Stay at that angle all day, if you want,’ a voice says from above. ‘It suits you.’
My skin prickles with irritation. ‘Pretty sure that’s sexual harassment, Dr Andrews,’ I mutter, without looking up. I find the file and lay it out on the desk. ‘Can I help you with something?’
‘Oh, don’t be such a miser.’
Darren’s eyes scan my chest. Instinctively, I run fingers to the buttons, checking for gaps. He seems to take this as an invitation. ‘That’s better.’
I try to breathe. To stay calm. ‘I’m really not in the mood.’
‘Oh no.’ His voice oozes what I suppose he thinks is charm, though it’s nauseating. ‘Can I help you out at all? The break room’s empty if you want to get off your feet. Mine can hold us both up, I’m sure of it.’
I scan the Grounds Access form, searching for the relevant section: Supervised/Unsupervised. I look up at Darren. ‘How do you think Graham would feel about the way you’re talking to me right now?’
He gives a snort. ‘Oh, come on, Hannah. Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘I’m not joking. If you talk to me like that again, I’ll tell him. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to find out his best friend is a fucking pig.’
‘As thrilled as he was when he found out his wife was a fucking whore, I imagine.’
The words – clipped, utterly cold – wind me. I blink away the tears that prickle in my eyes. I check the box, sign the form, and slip it inside Lucie’s file.
‘You know, you go about making it seem as though you’re some kind of angel – some kind of victim, just because he can’t keep his dick in his pants. As though you weren’t the one who bit the apple first.’
I feel a hot swell of hate spread through me; a reddish burn creeps up my neck, a betrayal.
‘I mean, his dad, Hannah? Really? Freud would’ve had a field day with that. And while I’ve been here this whole time. It’s quite hurtful, really.’
‘How do you—’ I stop, mid-sentence. An intern rounds the corner, talking a little over volume – the usual way visiting relatives are announced, a hint to quiet all closed-door conversations, or anything that might give these interlopers cause for concern.
‘Graham told me,’ he hisses. ‘Right after your honeymoon. Lucky for you, Marianne’s more concerned with keeping up appearances than dragging your name through the mud – publicly, anyway. But trust me: everyone knows. So I’d stop with the prim little madam act, if I were you.’
The intern glances at us as she passes. I ball my shaking hands into fists, hoping she doesn’t see. I’m going to leave him, I think, the thought alarming in its clarity. Graham, his awful family, his friends – all of them. I’m going to take Evie, and leave them all behind.
‘I’m done for the day,’ I say, though I’m an hour from finishing my shift. ‘I have some overtime to use. I’m going home.’
He smiles, pig-eyed and mulishly benevolent. ‘All right. But think about what I said. Laughter’s meant to be the best medicine, but … there are others.’ He winks, and smiles. ‘Buh-bye.’
39
Derbyshire, 2018
It’s been days since I’ve left the house. It’s tempting to think I might never leave again – that I might just close the curtains, lock the doors, and stay here.
But it doesn’t help. The outside world gets in anyway, like smoke through a crack in a door.
Every morning, I wake up, and I tell myself not to do it. Not to log on. Not to click the hashtags, visit the Reddit forums, browse the Facebook pages, all of which are about me. About the things that I’ve done. But I can’t help myself. It’s as though I’m drawn there by some gravitational pull.
People have called me narcissistic, in their armchair diagnoses – selfish, coldly self-absorbed. I guess in this respect, they’re right. It’s a compulsion: a habit as destructive and satisfying as peeling open a wound to watch it bleed.
Because, while before, these strangers talked about my guilt in the abstract – talked about me in the abstract, like a character in a play – since the last episode, and since Mike’s release, I’ve become somehow real to them. I’m the monster that must be destroyed.
My home address is out there, now. My phone number, my email address. Dan’s phone number and email address. My purchase history, on every website I’ve ever shopped, pulled from my inbox and pored through, as though it’s evidence. My prescriptions, from the online delivery service I use – a beta-blocker I’ve been taking since I was fifteen, for migraines I no longer have; the HRT I’m prescribed but am yet to use – all out there as proof of my guilt.
I’ve wondered how it’s possible for them to know all this. It’s occurred to me that it might be coming from within – Dan has all but barred me from asking Evie about her boyfriend, in any way beyond the most casual enquiries about his health. He
says anyone can find anything, about anyone, these days, on the internet.
He tells me not to worry. That it will pass. That it isn’t personal, not really; that these people are all talk, barely connected to the things they say. But it doesn’t feel that way – not now. Because the way they talk to me has changed; turned horribly direct. Suddenly, I’m a ‘you’, not a ‘her’.
I’m coming for you, bitch
you deserve to die slowly, for what you did
You’re pathetic
watch your back
I think about these people all the time.
I wonder who they are. How they can be so many. One in every crowded room, I imagine. One in every busy station, every supermarket. Every village hall. These anonymous people, living perfectly normal lives. Firing off death threats as they sit at their perfectly normal desks, in their perfectly normal jobs. As they eat with their families. As they lie in their beds.
I hear Dan’s car pull up outside, and glance at the clock. He’s early. He shouldn’t be here yet.
I click the laptop shut. I’d planned to tell him, tonight, about Hawkwood House. To lay the steps out in front of him, the hard parts already ticked off, loan application already under way. I know I have good credit – I took a pathetic pride in it, in those first years, when Evie and I were alone. No debts, to anyone, for anything. Total independence. Freedom, from everything and everyone. An investment, it turns out – because with his income, and the cottage, we can afford for me to buy Evie a more secure future.
But when he enters, he’s pale as a ghost, skin slick with sweat. He slumps into the couch cushions beside me. ‘I think I’m dying.’ He pauses; I feel a question coming. ‘Do you think you could take Evie to the match tonight?’
‘You’re not dying.’ I knuckle his arm, gently. ‘Can’t she get a lift from Lissa? Or one of the others?’
‘It’s the final. She needs someone in the crowd to cheer her on. All you have to do is work out which end she’s passing towards, and shout when she goes in that direction. Although they swap at half-time, so—’
He’s joking, I know. But today, being patronized grates: turns me cold. ‘All right, fine. Fine. I have played sports before, you know. I was a teenage girl, once.’ I expect him to laugh in response. To grant me a smile, at least. But he doesn’t. He closes his eyes; mutters ‘thank you’. We don’t speak again.