The Day She Can’t Forget: Psychological suspense you’ll just have to keep reading

by Meg Carter

  I lost count of the times he lost his rag with Tony in the weeks before my baby passed. It was the crying that got to Phil, especially late at night. He told me Tony would only learn if I was strong enough to let him be and cry himself to sleep. Then, when that didn’t work, he’d go into Tony’s room to tell him to quieten down. There was only one time I can recall actually seeing Phil throw Tony into his cot. But there were often bruises. I’m ashamed to admit, Pete, that I always knew it happened more than once.

  To be blunt, though our solicitor said otherwise, I never believed Alma was to blame. Obviously I never dared mention this to anyone, especially Phil. But then, when Phil died a long time after, I wished I had. Because I believe that leaving you and your daughter that money was his way of offsetting his lingering guilt.

  Putting down the letter, Zeb flicks through the newspaper cuttings. The top ones are the oldest and cover Alma’s trial. The ones at the back are more recent and outline other cases of shaken baby syndrome where convictions were quashed or appeals upheld. Struggling to make sense of it, Zeb picks the last item from the envelope – a cream-coloured postcard. On one side is printed Michael Jenkins’ contact details, on the other is Alma’s address and phone number.

  First Dad, Zeb thinks, now Phil and Cynthia. None of them should have lied for so long. But then, who has any right to judge? I’m hardly blameless, either. Who is? How awful to have lived with so much for so long.

  Raising a hand to her throat, she feels for the silver chain beneath the collar of her shirt. She wishes her dad were still here. Then her thoughts turn to Alma and how conflicted she feels towards her. Though it’s hardly surprising, given how undeserving the woman appears – a result, no doubt, of the needless burden she’s carried for so long.

  What a waste of life, she thinks, as she takes her mobile from her bag.

  ‘Mummy!’

  Looking up, Zeb sees Matty aeroplaning towards her with arms spread wide. The wind is lifting his hair, and his expression is joyous. She closes her eyes, determined to imprint the moment in her mind. She can do this; be the best mum she can be. Work with Richard, too, in the best interests of their son. They may be a small family – and fractured, too – but they are all she’s got. The clarity of this thought, she senses, marks a coming of age.

  As her son hurtles towards her, Zeb scrolls through her mobile’s address book, quickly finding the entry she is looking for. She presses call.

  It is the moment she’s held off from for weeks, ever since she reluctantly accepted the woman’s number. A step she’s given more thought to than Dad could ever have expected. But now, at last, the mist has lifted and she can see. That there is no black or white any more, no right or wrong; just shades of grey. Dad could only ever do what he thought was best – the only thing any parent can do. He was merely mortal, after all. Like Alma.

  Matty is by her side now staring up at her, expectantly. His mouth is stained with ketchup and there’s a morsel of chip in his hair. Crouching down by her son’s side, Zeb tugs him towards her.

  ‘Who you calling?’ he asks in a conspiratorial whisper.

  Zeb lowers her finger. ‘You’ll see.’

  The world around her becomes a distant hum as Zeb presses the phone closer to her ear. Once, twice, three times she hears it ring.

  As she rehearses what she is about to say, she savours the unfamiliarity of the words. Considers the conclusion she has come to that Fraser is wrong: not knowing who you come from is not best. Recalls how she’d never been asked to speak of or to Wendy by anything other than her first name. Stares at the slender hands of the child before her.

  Piano-playing fingers, the midwife who delivered him said.

  At last she hears Alma’s voice as the answerphone kicks in.

  Zeb hangs up quickly, without leaving a message.

  30

  Beauloch, June 2016

  Alma prises the plastic cover from her paper cup and pokes the teabag with the wooden stick she’s been given in lieu of a spoon. Because it’s biodegradable, the woman behind the counter has just explained.

  She scoops out the bag and drops it onto the side of the paper plate she used for the flapjack she’s just eaten. Taking a sip of her drink, which she always has black, she relishes the brackish taste of it even though the water is still scalding. She replaces the cup on the wooden picnic table. Then, moving along the bench, she stares out from the hilltop viewing point.

  A web of dry-stone walls divide the patchwork fields below. Ribbons of grey mark the tracks and roads leading back to Beauloch. Somewhere in the distance, hidden behind rolling hump-backed mountains, is Fort William.

  This is the first time she has returned here, to the spot where she met Elizabeth on a brighter, warmer day. That was over two months ago, just before Easter – the weekend that traditionally heralds the reopening of the cafe. But now, with the landscape finally unfurling beneath a softening sky, the time is right to gather herself and face down her demons; the final – and now, absolute – loss of her daughter and the need, despite this, to carry on.

  At the memory of their dreadful encounter, her eyes prick.

  Though the yearned-for moment had come, Alma had found herself numbed by fear. For years she had lived as if her mind were cauterised – as if its neurons and synapses had been burned to prevent any spread of her infection. Yet rather than wipe the pain from her memory, all Alma had been able to think of as she moved towards her daughter was the sadness of an encounter long ago.

  Shiny-eyed and defiant, Elizabeth had been just shy of five.

  They were sitting either side of one of the tables in the visitors’ room while Pete tried to juggle their daughter, a soft toy and a dog-eared book. Though she’d tried to calm her, Elizabeth was fractious and tired. Pete, with the cumulative strain of managing everything, had not been much better.

  The child had cried out as soon as Alma had tried to hug and kiss her. To read her something. To make conversation with her via the cuddly tiger whose tail was held firmly in her right hand.

  Don’t want to be here, Elizabeth mumbled, sucking on her thumb. Don’t want to be talked to. To be kissed, or held – she’d tried once more to wriggle free, more vigorously this time. Roughly enough to knock the table with a flailing leg and spill a plastic tumbler full of water. Don’t. Want.

  Exasperated, Pete had taken her to the far corner of the room which once a week was turned into a makeshift play area with an old rubber gym mat, a few cushions and two boxes full of second-hand toys. This can’t go on, he’d said as their daughter sat cross-legged on the floor a few feet away, upending a duffel bag of Galt block-wood building bricks. We’ve got to rethink this.

  Alma rubs each eye socket with the heel of her palm. She can still hear his voice.

  There must be a better way for all of us to get through the next ten years.

  Alma zips up her fleece. She digs in her bag for a tissue as her eyes start to water. As she fumbles, blindly, her fingers brush against the solicitor’s letter she received in the post that morning. The envelope beside it – from Pete, personally addressed to her – is still sealed.

  Whether or not there is some kind of apology, she expects a heartfelt explanation of how difficult it had been for him. How he had tried to keep the faith – and succeeded, too, for a number of years… But then, he would insist, who wouldn’t have struggled with raising a daughter without any family support, while trying to maintain a business? It would have tested the resolve of anyone, even a saint.

  Which, clearly, he was not.

  Pete had left her a small annuity, the covering letter noted. And he ensured her daughter and grandson would be provided for with what was left. Which is what Alma would have asked him to do, if she’d ever had the chance. But now, as she sits on the hilltop, wondering for the umpteenth time this morning whether her decision not to read Pete’s letter is the right one, she feels misused.

  What happened with Tony wasn’t Pete’s fault. But nor was it hers
.

  Yet it was she who’d been forced to pay – with a quarter of her life. All these years later, she has just about come to terms with that. And yet, despite this, she still feels unfairly blamed. Tainted by the knowledge that, had it not been for Tony’s death, another child would have died: her own. Infuriated by the fact that had that happened it would have been a joint responsibility – not just hers.

  As she carefully places Pete’s unopened letter on the wooden picnic table, Alma can’t help but wonder what Viola would advise her to do.

  They had exchanged letters a few times over the first few years of Alma’s sentence. During that time, on returning from her travels with Geoff, her friend’s singing career had stalled and she had switched to acting. But around the time Elizabeth turned three, the letters stopped.

  She only found out what happened next by chance when, thumbing through an old edition of Hello! a few years later, she discovered Viola was dating an up-and-coming film producer, having recently relocated to New York. A few years later – by which time her old friend had married, borne three sons and proudly declared herself, this time in Cosmopolitan, to be a soccer mom – Viola was living on the West Coast administering some charitable foundation or other set up by her husband, by then a major player in Hollywood.

  Two figures appear in a gap between the trees. Aileen and Davy are plodding up the hill towards her.

  Glancing back at the letter, Alma makes her decision. She tears it in two, lines up each half and then tears them in half again and again until the message is confetti, scattered by the wind. She then whistles sharply to attract her friends’ attention.

  Davy, who clutches the empty dog collar, does not respond. He looks dejected, which is a shame considering the progress he’s made in the fortnight since adopting the new puppy. The recent change of his prescription drugs has helped too. But as Aileen waves, something small and furry hurtles out of a clump of bushes and heads for the picnic table. With no time to think, Alma drops to her knees and opens her arms.

  ‘Angel!’ she exclaims, urging the bounding creature towards her. ‘Come on, now.’ Alma finds a bone-shaped dog biscuit in her fleece, which she offers up in the palm of her hand. ‘Here you go, then,’ she coaxes, gently. Then, grabbing hold of the puppy, she cradles her tightly. ‘There’s a good girl.’

  Straightening up, Alma holds up the baby Alsatian to show the approaching walkers. Warm and solid, the dog crouches in her arms with one ear cocked; the other is down.

  With a whoop of joy, Davy breaks into a run.

  * * *

  Alma’s phone rings as the three of them are finishing their sandwiches. As she wipes her hands on her trousers, Aileen kicks the tennis ball they have brought for Angel. Davy laughs as the puppy stumbles in its scramble to chase it.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Alma?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Goodness, I’ve been trying you for days.’

  Alma’s throat tightens. They have not spoken, even by phone, since they last saw each other in the hospital in Fort William. Though Alma has thought of her daughter often, she has struggled to find enough courage to get in contact with her via Fraser, and a letter she began writing remains unfinished beneath a pile of paperbacks on her bedside table. Because it is pointless. Existence is a brutal struggle for survival, rather than a rose-tinted happy-ever-after. Not everything in life can be resolved.

  ‘Eliza– Zeb, is that you?’

  ‘It is. Listen, there’s something I need to talk to you about.’

  ‘It’s all right, I know.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘I got the letter this morning, from the solicitors.’

  ‘Oh. Well that’s great, isn’t it?’

  ‘The annuity? Yes. It will be a big help.’

  ‘What? No, not that. Dad’s letter. He wrote me one too.’

  Alma hesitates, her attention snagged by a fragment of ripped paper lodged between the slats of the wooden table. Idly, she places her nail into the gap and pokes it through.

  ‘The letter.’

  ‘Yes, you have read it, haven’t you?’ Zeb replies, quickly.

  ‘Not yet, no…’

  ‘Well, you must. It’s important.’

  ‘Actually, that might be a bit—’

  ‘It’s about Cynthia. Did you know she contacted Dad last year about, you know, what happened?’

  Alma’s chest tightens. ‘No.’

  ‘Well, you need to know she’s been trying to contact you.’

  ‘Oh no,’ the older woman gasps. ‘Really, I can’t—’

  Taking a seat at Alma’s side, Aileen gives her friend’s hand a squeeze. ‘Are you all right?’ she mouths. ‘Is everything OK?’

  ‘Listen, it’s a good thing,’ Zeb continues. ‘Kind of. Cynthia wrote that she never thought what happened was your fault. Phil had such a temper he’d hurt Tony a number of times before. She said she felt terrible about what happened to you, but that she’d been so upset by Tony’s death she had some kind of breakdown. She was on drugs but also drinking for many years. Anyway the thing is, she wanted you to know that she is sorry, and that she knows it wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘Not my fault,’ Alma echoes.

  Aileen watches her, expectantly.

  ‘Yes,’ says Zeb.

  Alma struggles to comprehend the meaning of this moment – what her daughter is saying and, more importantly, why she has rung. Because she is guilty and always has been, in the broader sense; tainted, too, by what happened with Leonard and the subsequent decisions she made. A liar and a cheat. A naïve fantasist who dreamed her salvation lay not in her own sense of self and right and wrong, but with Pete. She was selfish and undeserving. Not a good person. Certainly a bad mother.

  ‘Hello?’

  Finally, she knows for sure that what happened to Tony wasn’t her fault. But rather than relief, all she can feel is curiosity at the void in her emotions. The truth is numbing. It changes nothing. Her punishment had been unfair, yet she had chosen to embrace it.

  What’s left? Who is she now that Cyn’s taken that away?

  ‘Are you still there?’

  What she endured was no more than she’d deserved.

  ‘Mum? Is everything OK?’

  Mum. She called me Mum.

  ‘Say something, please, you’re beginning to worry me—’

  Alma gasps. ‘I’m still here.’

  ‘Can I see you?’

  ‘Come here? I’m not sure that’s a good…’

  Aileen’s vigorous head-nodding makes Alma pause. ‘For God’s sake,’ her friend is whispering, emphatically. ‘Yes. Say yes, you fool!’

  ‘I’ll think about it. Some time soon, perhaps. If you give me your number, maybe I can—’

  ‘No, Mum. Today! I’m here already, in Beauloch for a few days, with Fraser.’

  Without warning Alma thinks of Jean-Claude and what he said when they met in Vienna, about the importance of dealing with what happens in life and not letting it define you. Her hands start to shake.

  ’What’s a good time? We’d love to see you.’

  ‘I’m out at the moment, I’m not sure—’

  ‘Hang on a minute.’ Zeb’s voice becomes muffled. ‘What is it?… Oh, right. OK… Mum? There’s someone else here who’d like to talk to you.’

  ‘Really?’ Alma mumbles, tightening her grip on the phone.

  This isn’t happening. Can’t happen, she thinks. She mustn’t risk her sanity by building her hopes up, then having them dashed when things go wrong once again. They’ve lived apart for so long; have coped without each other and will surely continue to do so, quietly. Each of them must protect themselves by turning their backs on the past and moving on.

  As Alma thinks this, however, she knows it is untrue. To move forward, you need to know where you are going. But how can you know where you want to go if you’re still fighting against where you are now? And that’s what she’s doing, surely: fighting against a present she’s never
wanted and – worse – actively hates.

  Finally, she knows she must accept everything that’s happened. It’s the only thing to do if she is to be healed.

  ‘Hello?’ It is a child’s voice.

  Confused, Alma looks at Davy, who is squatting on his knees. He is cooing at Angel as he rubs her tummy, and as she squirms joyfully on her back the puppy offers a playful yap.

  ‘Ooh,’ the voice on the phone exclaims. ‘Is that a dog?’

  ‘It is. My godson has a puppy. Who’s that?’

  ‘It’s me, silly! Matty. Can we come? Mum bought cake. Only I’d love to see the—’ The child is paused for a moment by muffled whispers on the far side of the phone before speaking once more. ‘Puppies are my favourite thing, ever,’ he exclaims. ‘But more important, Mum says, is we’d love to come and see you, too. We’re really close by. Say yes, Granny, please do.’

  Alma stares into space. She is oblivious to her companions. The puppy at her feet. Her family, holding their breath as they wait for her to speak. Until she finally starts to understand what’s just happened. Who she’s been talking to.

  Her lips curve into a smile as the years between her past, present and future fall away.

  THE END

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2016 by Canelo

  Canelo Digital Publishing Limited

  57 Shepherds Lane

  Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU

  United Kingdom

  Copyright © 2016 by Meg Carter

  The moral right of Meg Carter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.