John backs away, palms turned upwards. Guilt clenches a crippling fist in his chest. ‘John, darling. Are you OK?’ He is faintly aware of a pair of hands cupping his shoulders. Sally. It is Sally, Rachel’s mum. John stares at her. ‘Sal, I thought he was—’
‘I know, darling, I saw. Come on. Pippa’s OK. You were just trying to help. It’s fine. Everyone’s OK. Jean – Pip’s mum – would have done the exact same thing.’
John turns and makes his way back under Sally’s soothing wing. Pippa’s mask of fear is imprinted on his mind. His legs buckle and he slips onto the bench. He lowers his head into his hands and cries. Squeezing his eyes shut, John feels a small hand tentatively take his. When he looks up he sees Rachel, but for a moment, just a moment, he is sure it is Bonnie.
Chapter 27
Maisie
Friday 22 January, 2016
The blue fabric is soft in her hands. She can tell they are the same ones because of a mark on the sole. Now, though, they are at the reduced rate. A cheap price for old stock. No one bought them because blue wasn’t the ‘in’ thing. Purple was. That was all she saw: purple coats, purple shirts, purple trousers. She would have. She planned to. They were to be the first pair of booties Billy ever had. She and Ben were going to make a special trip into town to buy them. They didn’t have much money then – even less after everything they had already bought for the baby – but these booties they left for last. Ben even went as far as to ask his boss for a raise. When that didn’t happen, her mother posted the remaining money for the booties as a treat for her grandchild.
That was a few days before Billy died.
She holds them to her cheek and closes her eyes. She knows she must look strange to the security men standing by but she doesn’t care.
She’d tried her best to avoid Mothercare in the past year. But there was a store on her way to work she couldn’t detour from. Every day she turned her head and looked away, pretending it didn’t exist, and for the most part it worked. She did well, keeping calm, not letting the pain get to her. But when she saw a mother bend down to her child in the street or another wipe her baby’s mouth or even just touch its head, her inner strength crumbled. She rushed in the opposite direction, cupping her mouth to stop herself being sick, tears streaming down her cheeks. One man asked if she was OK but she ignored him, dodging families everywhere, feet pounding the floor in a bid to escape. She garnered a clutch of dirty looks from people and, along with them, eye-rolls, tuts and hushed words mocking her. It was nearly laughable that they thought she cared enough to be bothered by it.
Maisie runs her finger along the golden stitching. She likes them because they remind her of Cornwall, the way the waves toss and turn and how the wind whips the spray into your face when you least expect it. Little sailor booties for her boy, like the little sailor her brother had hoped to be when he grew up.
Moisture gathers in the corners of her eyes. She lowers the booties and sees the fabric is wet. A woman walks up to the reduction stand, a toddler propped on her hip, his hair falling into his eyes. He puts the toy dinosaur he is holding into his mouth. When his mother pulls it out, a soft pop ensues. The boy laughs at the noise and the mother laughs with him, planting a kiss on his head.
Maisie turns and makes her way through the shop. Why did she have to lose her child? Why did it have to be her Billy? Every day mothers gave birth to healthy babies, girls and boys they didn’t want and certainly wouldn’t love. But she would have loved her son. She would have protected and cared for him. She would have given him a good life, striving for perfection every day. She would have been firm but kind. Tough but loving. She would have wiped away the tears and stuck a plaster on the cuts. She would have given him everything.
She moves through the sea of children, heart pounding, tears now streaming down her cheeks like they have done so many times before. She hears a scuffle and shouts behind her and wonders if a child is having a tantrum over a toy.
It is only when she runs out of the shop and the alarms begin to wail that she realises the booties are still clutched in her shaking hands. When the security guards come, she is quietly sobbing into the shoes her son should have worn.
Chapter 28
Miller
Wednesday 5 September, 1990
She tells me you were born early, two months before you were due. You get it from your father, that undeniable thirst for life. When she returns from the trip to see your parents this morning, Mother tells me what she learnt about you, word for word. I make her write it down in her neatest handwriting so I can come back to it later. I won’t forget, I will never forget even a single detail of you, but I like the thought of hanging you over my bed at night. Watching over me as I sleep.
I also keep a photo of you I stole under my pillow so you are above and beneath me. Surrounding me. In the picture you pose with your mother and father, your sister, Bessie, sitting on your shoulders. All smiling, all happy. Already your face is beginning to smudge where my finger has run over it. I almost do it now but I stop myself.
*
I can’t resist a special trip upstairs when I sneak into your house. The lure of your room is just too strong. You keep things tidy, bed made, floors clear, toys sitting neatly in the corner. All except the ten action figures – dolls – you have stood on your dresser. An honorary place in your life. I open your wardrobe and pull out the red jumper you wore the day we met. It smells of wool and sweat. A combination that takes me right back to that moment in the garden when I first touched you. I run my fingers down to the cuffs. A clump of fibres are stuck together in a dried substance. Blood.
Your blood.
I hold the cuff to my lips and rub it across my cheek. Holding the jumper to my chest like a baby with its comforter, I wander round the room. When I sit on your bed, I sink into the impression your body has made. A perfect fit.
Underneath the bed is a Monopoly board game. You have scrawled a J onto the blue car. Beside it are a deck of cards and a piggy bank. Your hidden treasures, perhaps? I tip over the piggy bank and watch money fall into my lap. Mixed up in the coins is a lollipop, half-eaten. I pull the wrapper off and stick it into my mouth.
I can taste you, John.
I rub my tongue over it until it begins to bleed. Only then do I reseal it in the wrapper and put it back in the piggy bank for you to find. When you next sneak a treat, you’ll be sneaking it with me.
I stuff the jumper into my rucksack and leave, my fingers brushing your bedcover as I go. I am careful to avoid detection as I skip over your fence into my garden. I can’t have anyone seeing me. If they do and rumours start to spread, you won’t want to be my friend. But I want to be yours, John. I want to be so very close to you.
*
Mother wants to tell me to stay away from you like Father did with Sarah, but I don’t think she will. She will bite her bottom lip and nod tentatively like a child after a few seconds, like this morning when I told her to go round to your house and introduce herself to Molly, chat about life with children, find out all she could about you. I think she knows how I feel about you already. She can probably sense it. I exist for you now, my beautiful Blue-Eyes.
Saturday 8 September, 1990
I tag along when you and your friend head to the river to play. It faces our houses and is only a short walk from our doors. We flop on the ground and throw rocks into the water, laughing. I don’t understand what is funny but you obviously do as you are the one who laughs loudest. Your friend, a chubby boy whose jovial, silly personality makes you clutch your sides, sits next to you, twirling a strand of grass between thick fingers. You pluck a strand and copy him. When I do the same, cup my hands and blow through a gap in my fingers, both your faces burn with awe. You try and try but you cannot do it. I ask you to cup your hands and when I blow for you your skin makes my lips tingle.
The chubby boy pulls a notepad from his pocket and begins to sketch a robin. You watch him, brow furrowed. Then with a gasp you pat us on the back and say
, ‘Why don’t we sign our names with sketches? Different types of birds? Then, when we’re at school, we can pass notes back and forth to each other, and if Mr Donaldson finds one, he won’t know whose it is.’
Chubby Boy grins, clapping his hands – an imitation of your sister when she gets excited. I feel a thread of jealousy being sewn through my skin at the thought of him knowing what will make you smile. I want to know these things. I want everything. I drop the grass onto my knee, lean forward and laugh. ‘That’s a good idea!’
You nod. ‘Yeah! I’m going to be a woodpecker. What do you two want to be?’
‘A robin!’ I gather it is Chubby Boy’s favourite bird. You both look at me and I struggle to hide my smile. ‘A raven,’ I say. When you both frown, I add quickly, ‘I like the black feathers. They’re shiny.’ That does it. You both smile.
We practise our drawings on Chubby’s notebook. He is the most skilled of our trio but that is only because I am pretending to be bad. I could make you both look at me in awe if I tried hard enough but I don’t want that. Instead I grumble under my breath and say, ‘Aw, I’m rubbish.’
‘No, you’re not! This is great!’ You pat me on the back and I smile. The reaction I wanted. You are actually the worst. Your skill at drawing is practically non-existent.
‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ I ask.
You reply, ‘A writer.’
Chubby says, ‘A paed… paediatrician. Like my Dad!’
When you both look at me, I shrug. ‘Not sure. My dad used to fix cars – maybe that.’
Chubby throws another rock and it passes through a spider’s cobweb. We cheer, as if this is suddenly the aim of the game. When you are both bored, we play rock-paper-scissors. You win five times in a row with scissors. I am letting you win and Chubby is too dim to understand the rules. You wave your arms in the air and squeal, kicking your feet out. Chubby laughs, rolling himself along the grass, and I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes, telling myself this is the behaviour of ten-year-olds. I am not used to it. But I soon will be.
Chubby has been your friend for a long time. This much I can see. It is in the way he casually asks you something personal and the way you casually reply when you don’t to me. It is in the way you share a sneaky look, comrades-in-arms. The way you fall into each other laughing when you are too weak to stand. It is the small things. And they make me want to break them. I want what Chubby has with you.
When I look at him, I force away the hatred and anger rising in my chest and focus on the space near Chubby’s waist where I imagine a piece of string tethering him to the ground.
When neither of you is looking, I reach out and snip the string with my fingers like you snipped the paper in our game.
Sunday 9 September, 1990
I saw you sneak into your mother’s room, tiptoeing across the floor like that grey cat – Tom – you love so much in that cartoon. You sat on her bed and unscrewed the top of her hand cream, head whipping around like an owl, lips curling at the corners. You slipped a finger inside and rubbed the cream into your skin. Smiled. It’s the scent of mangos; I know because I frequently smell it on you.
When your mother caught a whiff later, your cheeks burnished red and you embarrassedly nodded when she asked if that was her hand cream. I watched from behind a bush, enamoured of the sweet emotion running across your features. It is the same when you are watching your cartoons with Bessie, curled up together in front of the television, giggling, like a cat chasing a mouse is the funniest thing in the world. I pretend I enjoy them too, on the occasions you invite me in for breakfast, when in actual fact I am watching you.
It is taking time to build the ‘friendship’ between us but I can see it growing stronger each day, brick by brick, cementing our joint future.
*
Every Sunday you take Bessie to the sweetshop for acid drops. It is your special time with your sister, and as you begin the walk down the street, gloved hands clutched together, I see for the first time just how much you love her. It is beyond what you feel for Chubby, even your parents. It is something without restriction. Something unparalleled. And it is something which even now, as I follow you step for step, keeping myself hidden, I already know I want.
Chapter 29
John
Friday 11 December, 2015
Amy had told them the little girl they mistook for Bonnie was on her way to Disneyland with her father for a special treat. Apparently he’d surprised her with tickets a few days before, saying it had been a hard couple of years since her mother died and they deserved a trip away. The girl’s name was Penny and she was distraught because they’d missed their flight.
John’s throat had closed up and his chest begun to ache. Jules had sighed and he knew she felt just as guilty as he did. They had done that. Broken that little girl’s heart. He had asked Amy if they got the next flight. When she said no, he felt even worse.
He has received no further texts from Alice and assumes it is because she doesn’t want to take any more risks. It must go against the rules. He is grateful, though. Her gesture hasn’t gone unnoticed by him and Jules. Neither has the way she helped him in town.
After he and Jules crawled into bed the day they heard about Penny at the airport, John stared at the text for hours, unable to sleep, imagining ‘it’s her’. They would have arrested the bastard and brought Bonnie home. She would have been safe and loved. They would have been able to resume their lives and move on, albeit as parents a thousand times more protective.
John’s life has become a series of what ifs. What if they find her tomorrow? What if they never find her? What if this person kills her? What if he or she doesn’t kill her?
He takes the mobile from his pocket and stares at the text now, running his fingers across the screen, wishing he could smudge the words into a happier dialogue.
*
John slips into the water as easily as if he is slipping into a dream. The first fingers of panic slice through his reserves of strength as the water rises over his waist, his chest, his neck, flicking across his cheeks. He feels droplets settle on his eyelashes and the cold punch a hole through his chest. But he doesn’t care. He has found her. He has found his Bonnie. He remembers coming here as a family months ago, to this beautiful spot in Florence Park, away from the tornado of life at the play area. But the happiness he felt then is leagues away from the joy he feels now. The nightmare is over. The world has been put back to rights.
Her hair floats across the surface of the pond, like seaweed carried on the restless tide. Lily pads and cigarette stubs bump and poke at the top of her head. Glimmering just beneath the water, he can see her pale skin, like the moon in the murky depths of the sky. Her lips are frozen in a translucent smile: a ghost teetering between the edge of this world and the beginning of the next. And her eyes.
Her eyes…
They send a pulse of shock down his spine, turning his arms limp and his heart rigid. There is no love, not even an ounce of familiarity. She is looking at him as if he is a stranger. ‘You should have protected me,’ she seems to be saying. ‘You should have saved me. You should have done better.’
John beats against the water, legs kicking in a desperate bid to reach his daughter. He hears an agonised wail, and it cripples him, the strands of horror weaving through it like a stitch sewn through the fabric of his mind. He looks at Bonnie. But it isn’t her.
It’s him.
The noise pours from his lips until it dips away into a long rasp.
‘Hey, mister! What are you doing? Jesus. Get out! You’ll freeze to death!’
The voice comes from behind him, ringing with a note of shock. John ignores it and dives under the water, his chest tightening, fingers tangling with reeds and plastic bags. He reaches out, his fingertips inches from his daughter. And in his mind he counts the seconds until he can touch and hold her again.
One.
‘Mister! Jesus Christ! I’m coming!’
Two.
She was never there at all.
Three.
*
Jules sits at the dining table with vacant eyes and pale lips. ‘John, can you fetch me some painkillers, please?’
He rummages through the cupboards and hands her the blister packet. He doesn’t mention earlier. He doesn’t mention how he thought he saw their missing daughter floating in the middle of the water. He doesn’t admit to the way his mind is playing tricks on him because then he will have to admit it to himself.
She tips two into her palm and gulps them down. ‘Headache?’ he asks.
‘A bad one.’
‘Why don’t you try and sleep?’
‘I can’t, John. Every time I close my eyes, I see Bonnie.’ She runs a hand over her face, greasy hair slicked across her head.
‘Do you think that girl – Penny – was frightened?’
‘I don’t know – I hope not. Alice probably would have handled it well. She obviously has a compassionate side.’
‘I keep going over things in my head, trying to remember anyone strange from my childhood, but I can’t. I didn’t have any enemies. Do you remember anyone?’
‘I’ve told you I don’t, John. There was no one. Maybe… maybe this person hasn’t been following you. Maybe he or she has met someone you knew when you were younger and is getting information from them.’
‘Can’t be. I didn’t know anyone aside from you, my parents and a few friends. And none of you are missing.’
Lies Between Us Page 13