Isolation

by Jenni Regan

  'Actually, I tried. Do you remember the train crash?’

  ‘Of course I do. I was so scared for you when that happened.’

  The officers clearly looked confused, so Tom explained it to them.

  ‘Do you remember the fatal train crash in 2008 near Poole?’

  They nodded. It had, after all, been national, even international news. A train went through a red light at a crossing not only destroying a car that had been taking their newborn back from hospital but also killing five and leaving life-changing injuries for the others. I had been the only one in my carriage—the one that bore the brunt of the impact—to actually walk away. I had always known how unfair this was and that it should have been me that died that day rather than the innocent families who lay broken beside me.

  I went on to explain this. ‘What I told no one was that things had become so bad, I was running away. I had a crazy idea I would track Rachel down in Bournemouth. I must have only been about ten. I had only ever been on a train once before. But look what happened there. Me trying to do that ended up in people dying.’

  'You had nothing to do with that train crash! It was a driver fault, they proved that,' Tom pleaded with me.

  'Maybe, but I know that it was God’s or whoever's way of trying to punish me. They just got the wrong people.'

  Just then, someone popped in with a note. The tape recorder was switched off, and the male officer talked gently. It felt like I had gone from perpetrator to victim. I didn't know which was harder to deal with.

  'Alice, it sounds like you have had a lot of trauma in your life. I am so sorry that you were abused. You know we need to investigate what has happened here, but I also want to make sure you get the support you so obviously need. I will arrange for one of our doctors to come in here and talk to you after we have finished this interview, and then I will arrange for you to come back in and report the crimes against you.'

  He was being so nice that I burst into tears. It was probably the first man who had ever shown me kindness, apart from Uncle Tom. Somehow, I felt a bit lighter. I had always thought if I told anyone else my world would collapse—that nobody would believe me, or even worse, they’d blame me—but it was actually a relief to get it out in the open. Tom was holding my hand now. I was worried he would run a mile when he found out what had happened.

  Even though I was in tears, I was so relieved that I would hopefully be out of here soon to see Rachel and maybe even start putting my life back together. All thoughts of a future were then smashed when the Scarlet Detective swept back into the room with a triumphant look, and I was switched back to being possible criminal again.

  'It seems they have found other remains in the home that don't appear to be connected to this case; it’s more of a historical crime. Alice, I think there may be a few things you are not telling us.’

  Alice

  I had never told her, and, of course, she never asked me—that wasn't the kind of family we were—but I knew that she knew. I think she knew that if she did probe me, then she would be forced to confront the truth, with no Jeremy Kyle around to sort us out.

  She had almost caught him at it once. He was tucking me into bed, even though I was quite capable of putting myself to bed; in fact, I often begged to go myself. Often, I was allowed, but on Fridays, usually after Grandad had been at the pub, he would insist on putting me to bed after my Friday treat, which was usually a packet of Scampi Fries. They had been my favourite for a while but now even the smell turned my stomach. I managed to hide all the unopened packets in the bin each week. I didn't want to appear ungrateful.

  One time, my fish and chips dinner was sitting heavy in my stomach, and I was feeling a bit sick knowing what was to come. I had told both him and Granny that I had a funny tummy hoping it might put him off, but he still made a big show of getting me dressed in front of the electric fire.

  He had a routine. He would like to get me dressed in my clean pyjamas and carry me upstairs over his shoulder. He would make me say my prayers like a good girl, and then as soon as I was in bed, he would turn out the sidelight and tell me to pull down my pyjamas. I often wondered why he was so interested in them going on if all he was going to do was take them off again. Then he would climb in next to me and would touch me there and make me touch him there. It was always the smell that was the most powerful. It was a mixture of whisky and sweat that made me gag.

  This whole thing would never last more than a few minutes. He would never say a word when it was going on—it was all just action—but as soon as he was done, he would cuddle me and call me his special girl. The rest of the time, he was a fairly cold, unapproachable man, and in some ways, although I knew that what he was doing was wrong, I somehow craved this affection. I knew if I gave him what he wanted then he would give me what I wanted.

  That night, while he was doing this to me, I realised that I could magically leave my body when this happened. This meant although I was definitely in the room, it didn't feel like this was happening to me. Suddenly my gran walked in and turned on the big light. Both of us jumped up guiltily. It was all done under the covers, so she wouldn't have been able to see clearly what was going on.

  She stood there for a few minutes, and then she spoke. 'Frank, leave Alice to sleep and come down; your cup of tea is getting cold.'

  This was when I realised that quite often a cup of tea could cure anything.

  Alice

  Far from being over, this news meant that the interview was back on. Scarlet the superhero—or supervillain, I wasn’t sure which right now—had obviously reapplied her lipstick. She looked more powerful than ever, and I knew I needed her on my side.

  The nice officer switched the tape recorder back on, and he looked confused. Scarlet Detective didn't know whether to pity me or hate me right now.

  'So, Ms Carmichael, it appears there is a theme arising. The theme being dead bodies turning up in the home you have now told us you have lived in all your life. Are you able to tell us any more about these remains or do we need to wait for some identification?'

  I didn't have to lie this time. I actually didn't officially know about this body, but I knew—I had known for years. Just like Granny had known what he had done, I had known what she had done, and of course I had protected her. She had only done it because of me.

  'I'm afraid I can't help you with that. I have told you everything about what happened with my granny, but I have no idea about this.'

  'Do they have any idea how old the remains are?’ Tom asked, switching back to lawyer mode. ‘Can you tell me where they were found?'

  'I'm afraid we can't tell you any more, and actually, because of the location of these remains and the fact that you, sir, were also a previous occupant of this house, it means that you may need to be questioned about this, alongside your sister. Rachel, is it?'

  I couldn't bear the thought of Rachel and Tom being questioned over this, but I equally wanted no one to find out what Granny had done, or what I thought she had done and why, so I kept quiet.

  The two officers left the room again, and Tom turned to me in horror. 'Alice, what the fuck has happened in that house? Is this going to turn out to be some kind of Fred West situation?'

  I didn't actually know what he was talking about but assured him I knew nothing. 'I know it is hard to believe, but Granny died naturally. And, OK, I was stupid to try and hide this, but do you now know why I didn't want other people getting involved?'

  'I know what you have told me, and you have to know that I am so sorry about what happened to you. I believe you fully, and I only wish I had known. You know I would have had you out of there and him in prison as soon as possible, right?’

  He stopped to fiddle with his watch. I had noticed him doing this a lot during this interview. I wonder if it meant he was nervous.

  ‘But now I am becoming concerned that the reason you wanted no one in the house was because you were hiding something else. You know you can tell me; whatever you tell me is confidenti
al. Were there others like Stan? No one would blame you if you had done something. I mean, there was clear provocation.’

  I was about to tell him my theory when the uniformed policeman who had put me in my cell earlier came in again. He was still kind and spoke to us nicely. They obviously hadn't told him what they thought I had done.

  ‘They have decided to release you on bail for now while we investigate the situation further. We will need you to hand in your passport and report to us regularly, and we will need to continue to speak to you about this situation. I understand it has become more complicated in the last hour or so.’

  He must know; he obviously just has a nice manner.

  'I don't have a passport; in fact, I really have nothing now. I guess my phone and computers have been taken away as well, right?'

  'Yes, they have, love, but as soon as we have taken what we need from them, you can have them back for your surfing or whatever it is you youngsters do these days.'

  Strangely, the idea of allowing social media back into my life was a scary one.

  Tom looked at me. 'So I guess that whole story about being an air hostess and flying all over the place was a lie too?’

  'Afraid so. Before today, I hadn't left the house for years.'

  'It feels like you really are someone completely different to who I thought. But then again, nothing is what I thought it was. My entire world feels like it has been turned upside down.'

  After Tom posted bail for me, we left the station and arrived at the hotel where Tom and Rachel were staying. He had obviously texted ahead as Rachel was waiting outside for us. I needed to get inside to the safety of a room somewhere. I was amazed that my heart hadn't stopped when I had walked out of the door, but my body was buzzing with adrenaline just being out in the world.

  I was looking for signs of a war, and still nobody had told me anything. I guessed I would get the chance to ask more now. Rachel ran up to hug me, but I was so focussed on getting to safety, I couldn't really speak to her. I noticed everyone looking at us. I guess news travels fast when you have a mobile phone. I was close to collapse again as Tom got me in the lift.

  'Let's get away from all these prying eyes.'

  We went up to the fourth floor, and Tom used a card to unlock what was apparently my room. Rachel and I followed him in.

  I had never been in a hotel room before, despite my social media pages being littered with views from hotel rooms across the globe. This wasn't a fancy one, but I still loved walking around the room, delighting at the sachets of coffee and the mini bottles of shampoo. The room didn't have a sofa or anything, so we all kind of stood around awkwardly.

  'You must be starving; shall I order something up for you or would you prefer to go out and eat?' Rachel asked.

  Tom looked like he was about to unveil the sad human I had become, but I didn't want my own mum to think of me a failure, so I quickly grabbed the room service menu. The silence was so deafening that Tom picked up the remote and put the telly on. It was on some news channel and the headlines screamed out to me.

  'House of Horror!'

  I was amazed to see that the channel was live from outside my home. It looked different on the TV—scruffy, unkempt, invaded. I could see the text on the page was providing updates on the 'situation', telling the audience that two bodies had been found and that a suspect had been released on police bail. I was relieved when Tom turned it over to some kind of programme about finding homes abroad.

  He could obviously not handle the stress in here and made some excuse to go to his room. I felt relieved we all seemed to have our own rooms. After he left, the atmosphere was even more strained. After all, I hadn't been in the same room as Rachel for nearly twenty years.

  'So, Tom tells me you are an air hostess. I would have loved to have done something like that, just taking off to different countries each week.' Rachel sounded like she was interviewing me for a job. I didn't want to disappoint her, but I was also sick of lying.

  'Well, actually, no. This is something I would love to do, but I have been stuck at home looking after Gran for so long that all my plans were put on hold for a while. I guess I kind of embellished the truth here and there. I actually never even moved out.'

  Rachel had probably seen my social media profiles since this had all happened and so must have known it wasn't just Tom I was lying to. I couldn’t tell if she was disappointed in me.

  'Uncle Tom says you have two little girls?' I acted dumb. I didn't want her to know I had been stalking her on Facebook and knew everything about her happy little life.

  She came alive at this, in the same way Stan had come alive when he talked about his car. She got her phone out and showed me pictures of the girls, many of which I had seen before. I felt sad. I had been expecting more. I thought maybe we would instantly click and she would fall in love with me again, but she still seemed to be completely caught up with her youngest children.

  We were interrupted by a knock as the room service arrived. I had ordered a burger and chips, something I had been dreaming of for several months. Now that it was in front of me, it had lost some of its allure and looked like a greasy pile.

  'So what kind of music are you into then?' Rachel asked. This made me so angry. I was reunited with my mother, who had abandoned me as a child, according to my grandmother. We had met for the first time in all those years after I spent the night in a police cell, and she was still asking me the questions you reserve for a distant family friend.

  'Listen, I think I am going to finish this and then have a sleep, if that's OK. I didn't get much sleep last night.'

  She jumped up. 'Oh god, yes, of course. I'm so sorry. You must be exhausted, and this must all be overwhelming for you. Can I get you anything before I go? Shall I leave you with my number? Oh, no, you don't have your phone, do you? Well, you can always use the hotel phone to call either the reception or one of us. Mind you, my kids haven't got a clue how to use an actual phone!'

  'I'm sure I will be fine.' I bristled at the mention of her kids, as though I was excluded from this label. I added silently that I had looked after myself for the last twenty years without her help.

  'OK, I will take one of the cards and pop back in an hour or so to check that you are alright.'

  I nodded, and she reached over as if to give me a kiss, but that felt way too strange at this time, so I turned my face and she got a mouthful of hair.

  I let out a big sigh of relief when I was finally alone again. This was the moment I had been waiting for almost all of my life. I had dreamed that I would run into my mother's arms and be welcomed into her life, but it had all been such a letdown.

  I put my untouched dinner onto the side table and switched back to the news again. They had moved on, not too far away, to the terror attack in Bournemouth. The local news outlets must think it was Christmas with all the top news happening in their county.

  Apparently, someone had been arrested in Birmingham in connection with the killer. As the reporter talked through these latest developments, the image of a row of houses turned into one of a young man laughing into the camera. This was apparently him, the one who had shot all those people in the middle of the town. He looked so normal, so nice, the kind of boy I would have probably had a crush on.

  He was clearly dead now the way people were talking, and I wonder if this was what he was thinking of when he recorded the carefree video image, messing round with his mates one day. The teenager in this film looked like a world away from the boy dressed in black who had a beard and was forever immortalised because he decided to cause carnage in the middle of a town centre full of shoppers.

  The story moved again onto something about Brexit. Grey men in suits were talking about how we would divorce ourselves from our nearest neighbours. I watched for the full hour, but there was no mention of the war I had been so scared about, the war that had kept me petrified that my home was about to be bombed or that I would be captured by some strange foreigners with a grudge.

&
nbsp; I slowly came to the realisation that maybe the war was also a figment of my imagination. No one else had talked about it, and now that I thought about it, I had only seen a couple of mentions on social media that made me build the story myself.

  Of course, it wasn’t just the fear of war that had kept me inside for so long. That was simply the latest in a long line of excuses my mind had offered up.

  There was irony in the fact that, despite some of the worst parts of my life taking place in the home that I later found impossible to leave, it was the world outside my door that scared me. My body had now left the physical prison, the house I locked myself up in for so many years, but I was beginning to realise it wasn’t going to be as easy for my head to break free.

  Tom

  Tom was in his room trying to answer some work emails when Rachel knocked on his door.

  'She is having a sleep, so I wondered if you wanted to grab something to eat and drink downstairs.'

  'Sure, I guess we need to keep doing normal things like that. Wait there, I will just nip to the loo.'

  As Tom looked at himself in the mirror, he knew he looked terrible. Just a few days of crap food, no exercise and minimal sleep had aged him by ten years. In some ways, he longed to go back to his uncomplicated life in New York. Never again would he complain about having to go to dinner with boring people or staying late to finish a case. Getting away from all this emotional shit would be enough for him. He would have to keep his shrink on retainer with the amount of crap he would have to offload and process on his return.

  Yet, there was another side of him that had never felt so alive. He had forgotten how infuriating yet almost wonderful it was like to be in a family. Not that he had ever had a chance to really live a normal family life. These people were growing on him.

  They found a table in the corner of the hotel bar, and Tom went to order drinks, picking up a bottle of wine and some fizzy water without even asking what Rachel wanted. He was surprised that she went for the water first. He had no such restraint and poured himself a large glass.