by Marc Scott
The silence returned to the living room. The furry creature with his personally monogrammed pillow was sprawled out on the carpet near the front door, one of his eyes was open, one closed, the piano wire wrapped firmly around his neck. Poppy looked down at the poor lifeless creature. She felt no remorse, if anything she thought that Skittles should be thankful. After all, Poppy had saved the animal from having to spend the rest of his days with that tyrant Mr Houghton. Skittles, she thought, in a strange way, might just understand why she had to do what she had just done.
Making her way to her bedroom, Poppy took off her dress and left it on the bed. She thought of writing a small note to let Mrs Houghton know that the missing button was not her fault, but she did not have time. She put on her comfortable jeans and favourite black top and began to pack her things in the nice suitcase that Laura had bought for her. She left the other dresses hanging in the wardrobe. She did not want any reminders of her time at that house. She didn’t want to be a ‘little poppet’ anymore and she never wanted to wear a dress again in her life. Folding her clothes neatly, just as Mrs Houghton had shown her, she emptied her drawers as quickly as she could. She hoped her clothes would not be creased when she arrived at her next home, she would want to make a good impression there. Poppy walked calmly down the staircase and sat on the bottom stair with her little suitcase by her side. She looked down at the time on the DVD player. Nearly time, she thought, nearly time.
They were laughing when they came in, Mr and Mrs Houghton, they were laughing very loudly, but they did not laugh for long. At the sight of her precious Skittles on the living room floor Mrs Houghton let out the most earsplitting scream Poppy had ever heard. Mr Houghton shouted, directly at Poppy, he shouted very loudly in her face. He waved his arms around, while he was screaming at her, but it did not frighten Poppy. She knew he could not hurt her anymore.
Laura did not get to the house until past midnight. Her caseworker had struggled to find another placement for her, with it being so late and on a Sunday. Poppy had not moved an inch from the bottom stair, not to go to the toilet, not even to let Mrs Houghton pass as she retreated to her bedroom in tears. When Laura came into the house, Mr Houghton said very little to her. He had said most of what he needed to during their earlier telephone conversation. His wife could clearly be heard sobbing loudly in the upstairs bedroom. Poppy said nothing at all.
Poppy was convinced she would be going back to Bluebridge now, back to those evil Baxter brothers, and Mr Donovan’s wandering hands, but at this moment in time she did not care. Laura sat Poppy in the passenger seat of her car, offering to put her small case into the back seat, but Poppy gripped it tightly and sat it on her lap, as though she thought it might offer her some form of protection. The journey seemed to take hours, the roads were dark. They drove a long way, much further than where the children’s home would have been. Poppy sat in the passenger seat of Laura’s car as her caseworker drove through the night. She was hungry, she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She was desperate to go to the toilet, but she was holding it in. The poor girl was tired. She fought desperately to keep her eyes open, but she said nothing, she said nothing to Laura for the whole of the journey. She could not understand why her new caseworker had let her stay in that horrible house with that evil man, so she said nothing to her at all. Poppy liked her new pink and grey suitcase, but she did not like Laura. She did not trust her anymore.
Eventually they stopped at a small cottage at the end of a dark country lane and Laura introduced Poppy to her new foster family, the Lockwoods. She did not know it at the time, but it would only be a couple of weeks before she would be packing her small suitcase to move on again.
* * *
Poppy shivered as she sat on the cold floor of the kitchen in her flat. Her eyes were still fixed on the dark sky between those grubby torn curtains. That plane was probably halfway to its destination by now, its passengers filled with eager anticipation of the holiday ahead of them. As she touched her scalded neck a strange thought crossed her mind, not for the first time. Why did the Houghtons’ daughter move so far away from them? Maybe it was a handsome young man she had met or perhaps it was an exciting new job that took her all the way to Canada. Or maybe, she simply moved away because she knew the kind of man that her father really was. Maybe, like Poppy, she did not like wearing those dresses on Sundays either.
The sun could be seen rising in the distance. Poppy did not know how long she been sprawled out on the grease-covered floor, but she was sure that Cameron would be asleep now. So if she had some piano wire here, right now, maybe in one of those kitchen drawers, she knew what she would do. She would make him pay for all the pain she was suffering. She would wrap that wire so tightly around his neck and pull it so hard and for so long that his face would turn blue and his eyes would pop of his head. She would be too strong for him this time, she wouldn’t let go, not until he was gone, not until she was sure he was dead. She knew if he was gone for good that she would not have to forgive him the next morning. Forgive him, like she had done so many times in the past. If he was gone, she could start again. Maybe, she thought, there might be a better life for her out there after all.
But there was no wire in those drawers. Poppy laid her head back down on the dirt-stained floor of her kitchen and closed her eyes.
Chapter Eight
A tiny ray of sunlight peeped through a gap in the heavy grey curtains in the lounge. It sent a beam across the room, highlighting the food-stained plates and unwashed coffee mugs littered across the dust-covered table. Next to those dirty dishes lay a handful of sympathy cards, carefully worded thoughts from family and close friends of Jamie.
Bree sat on the sofa, a duvet, the cover of which was in bad need of a wash, was wrapped around her shoulders. The room wasn’t cold, it was less than two weeks until the start of spring, yet Jamie’s sister felt the need to be surrounded by the warmth of her brother’s quilt. She was dressed in a crumpled brown T-shirt, another one of her twin’s treasured garments, and a pair of jogging bottoms, which carried the stains of a spilt mug of coffee. Nobody would have recognised the girl that could turn heads wherever she went, the one that was often mistaken for a fashion model.
She sat in complete silence. Her unwashed hair was becoming matted, strands of her greasy mane dangled across her forehead. She looked pale and drawn. The lack of sleep and the river of tears she had shed over the past three months had done nothing for her once radiant complexion. In truth she would not have looked out of place with the small crowd of homeless people that were living under the nearby viaduct. It had been eleven weeks now, eleven painful weeks since her world had stopped. She no longer recognised her own reflection, she was living someone else’s life now. Reaching across the table she lifted one of the cards, running her fingers delicately over the embossed wording on the front. She had memorised every word in every card on the table, but no words of sympathy would ever ease the hurt she felt inside. Bree was beginning to find it harder to picture his face, to remember his voice, his funny laugh. The only time she was reunited with him was in her sleep, but even then, she was always there to take him away from her, the girl, the girl in the raincoat.
Bree suddenly sat upright. Almost as soon as she heard them, the footsteps, they were coming down the path, they were heading for her house, it was him, she was sure it was him. The key turned in the front door, he was back, this wasn’t real after all, he was here, Jamie was here. He would open the door now and she would hear his voice again. ‘You see, sis,’ he will say, ‘I got you, you believed it all.’ Yes, of course, it was just a prank, one of his silly pranks, Jamie was back. She would forgive him for his cruel joke, she would tell him that he was wrong to put her through all this misery, but she would forgive him, forgive him anything, just to have him back.
Bree swiftly pushed her hair back across her head. She had to look her best for Jamie. She raised her heavy head to greet him as the door opened, b
ut her heart sank faster than a vessel full of holes as her friend appeared. ‘Hi, babe, I just thought I would call in on the way to work, to see if you needed anything.’
Bree slumped back to her resting place, the feeling of prolonged numbness restored to her body. ‘Hi, Kayleigh,’ she said, in a muffled voice that hadn’t been heard for days.
‘Have you managed to get some sleep?’ Kayleigh asked. ‘Are those pills the doctor gave you helping?’
‘Not really,’ Bree replied, her usual voice starting to return. ‘I am still having those nightmares.’
Kayleigh put down her bag and looked around at the messy room, wondering if Bree had been entertaining a group of vagrants. She reached up to pull open those big curtains. ‘Leave them!’ Bree screamed. ‘I don’t want them open.’
Not wanting to unsettle her friend, Kayleigh switched her attention to the floor around the table. ‘I will give the place a hoover and clean these dishes before I go,’ she said, not that Bree was paying any attention to her. It had only been a few days since her last visit, but the room had an air of uncaring abandonment about it. Kayleigh picked up some plates and cutlery from the floor, together with some half-eaten French bread and what looked like the remains of a bowl of spaghetti. She placed the unopened mail and some photographs on the table as Bree watched on.
‘Why don’t I run you a nice bath and maybe we can have a walk down to the shops together?’
‘No!’ Bree snapped. ‘I don’t want to go out.’
‘But you haven’t left the house since…’ Kayleigh stopped herself mid-sentence, but she knew what was coming next.
‘Since the funeral, Kayleigh!’ Bree barked. ‘Just say it, the funeral.’
‘Some fresh air will do you good, babe, it will put some colour back in your cheeks.’
‘Tomorrow,’ Bree said, curling back up into her duvet. ‘Let’s do that tomorrow, I am too tired today.’
‘What about a nice cup of coffee?’
‘That would be good.’
Kayleigh’s hand moved the cards on the table to reach the stained coffee mugs. ‘Don’t touch those cards!’ Bree screamed. ‘Don’t touch them, they are all I have of him now.’ Her friend simply smiled and retreated to the kitchen to clean the dirty cups and plates.
Kayleigh thought some small talk might be needed, she did not intend to open any sore wounds that day. She called out to her friend as she waited for the kettle to boil. ‘I saw Luke Stevenson the other day, he was at the Esso petrol station.’
‘Really!’ Bree replied, not in the least bit interested, but making a small effort to give the impression that she was. ‘Is he still with that girl, you know the one that looks Asian?’
‘She is Turkish,’ Kayleigh called back. ‘Turkish-Cypriot I think. Yeah, they are getting married next year.’
Bree’s effort to make idle conversation was short-lived. She pulled her cover tightly around her shoulders and slumped back into her usual resting position.
Returning to the room with two steaming hot cups of coffee Kayleigh made the mistake of asking her friend another question. ‘Have you spoken to your mother?’
Bree looked up from her self-made pit on the sofa. ‘No!’ she snapped. ‘And I don’t want to.’
Kayleigh thought it best to park that conversation there and moved on. ‘So are you still getting the nightmares?’
Bree nodded. ‘All the time, the girl, the one in the raincoat, she always seems to be in them.’
Her friend was becoming concerned for Bree. It was clear that she was struggling to cope and the anti-depressants she had been taking did not seem to be helping her at all. Part of her wished that her friend would take up her mother’s offer of counselling. It was becoming clear that she needed professional help.
‘You must have seen her,’ Bree said. ‘The girl in that coat.’
‘No. You have asked me that before.’
‘That night, in the pub, in the Rising Sun.’
‘I don’t remember her.’
‘You were there, Kayleigh, you must remember her.’
‘It was busy. I left early, with Tom, remember?’
Bree shook her head. ‘You must have seen her. Those eyes, you wouldn’t forget those eyes.’
She really didn’t want to revisit the subject, but her friend felt the need to discuss it. ‘You should really speak to your mum, babe. She is hurting too, you should be helping each other now.’
‘Hurting so much she fucked off to her hideaway in the snow!’
‘I don’t think she wanted to be here, you know, with all the memories. She is really hurting inside, babe, you know that, don’t you?’
‘Why are you always sticking up for my bitch of a mother, Kayleigh? Why do you always do that?’
‘She asked me to keep an eye on you, you know, after…’
‘Funeral, Kayleigh! Just say it, after Jamie’s fucking funeral.’
‘Yes, after the funeral. She was worried about you. She really didn’t want you to be on your own.’
‘Is that why she got the first plane out of Heathrow? She couldn’t fucking wait to get away from all this mess.’
Kayleigh tried to find some words of comfort but everything she said seemed to be aggravating her friend that day. ‘I don’t think that’s fair, babe. I think she was still in shock.’
The two friends looked across at each other, sipping their cooling coffee. An awkward silence ensued. Kayleigh was considering the best way to keep this conversation going without antagonising Bree further, but something told her that she would be fighting a losing battle. Bree was also deep in thought, but she was certainly not in the mood to hold back now the subject of her mother had been thrown on the table. ‘She was jealous, Kayleigh, my mother was jealous.’
‘Of you?’
‘Of me and Jamie, of what we had, how close we were, she was so jealous.’
‘I don’t get it, babe, why would she be jealous? You are her kids.’
Bree sat forward. Her whole demeanour began to change. She seemed to be on a mission to make her friend understand her growing hatred for her parent. ‘She hated everything we had together, how close we had become, everything. And now I hope she rots in fucking Finland. I hope she stays out there, I hope she dies out there, for all the shit she did!’
‘No, babe, you don’t mean that.’
‘You don’t understand, Kayleigh, that’s why she sent him away, that’s why she made him go.’
Her friend was startled. She wasn’t sure what Bree was trying to say. ‘It wasn’t her fault that Jamie died, babe, it was an accident.’
Bree shook her head. ‘You don’t get it, you really don’t get it. When she took him away from me, when she sent him off to that Holme Vale place.’
‘The boarding school?’
‘Yes, you see you do remember.’
‘But that was a long time ago. She sent him there because he was struggling at school. He was always playing up, babe. She did it for his own good.’
Bree continued her rant. ‘She was a fucking bitch. You see, Kayleigh, you do remember what she was really like.’
‘But the school helped him. He would have never got the grades to go to university if he hadn’t gone there.’
‘It wasn’t about his fucking grades, Kayleigh, she just wanted to take him away from me.’
‘Why, babe, why the hell would your mother send him all that way to Holme Vale? It was in Middlesbrough, it was over two hundred miles away.’
Bree sank back into the sofa. ‘Because she found us.’
‘Found you?’
‘She found us in bed.’
Kayleigh wasn’t sure what to make of it. She struggled to understand. ‘So you were in bed together?’
Bree began to think back to the day it happened. ‘It was the weekend, she had gone out to som
e charity do or something. Dad was away on a location shoot in Norway. We were watching television in Jamie’s bed, we always did that, he had a bigger screen than the one in my room. You know, munching midnight snacks and watching a horror film or listening to music or something.’ Kayleigh nodded as Bree continued. ‘Suddenly, she burst into his room like she was the fucking riot police or something. She dragged me out by my hair, all the way along the hallway and threw me on my bedroom floor. Who does that to their fourteen-year-old daughter?’
‘Jesus!’ Kayleigh asked. ‘Why was she so angry?’
‘She thought we were, you know, doing it. She thought I was having sex with my own brother.’
Her friend was now in total shock. ‘Wow! That’s mad, that is insane!’
‘We told her she was wrong, both of us, but she wouldn’t listen. She got on the phone to Dad and told him he had to fly back straight away. She lied, she told him she had found her disgusting kids naked in bed together, having sex.’
‘Wait! You were naked?! You were both naked?’
‘Yeah, we used to do it all the time. He was my brother, Kayleigh, my brother.’
‘I know, babe, but that is still a bit strange. What happened?’
‘Dad flew home, he always did what that bitch told him to do. They paid a lot of money to get Jamie into Holme Vale, just to get him away from me. She was so jealous, so fucking jealous. She knew how close we were, she just fucking sent him away.’
‘Jesus, babe. It is a lot to take in.’
‘The bitch made me do a pregnancy test. How fucking stupid was that? I kept telling her, over and over again, that we never did anything. And then she made me go see some woman at the counselling place, like I was a freak or something. All because we were watching television, all because we were watching fucking television.’
‘So, they sent him to Holme Vale?’
‘Yeah but that wasn’t all. Every time he came home for holidays she would pack me off somewhere, to stay with dad in Tampere or to Auntie Millie’s place. Do you remember the trip when she paid for you and me to go to Belgium?’