by Lucy Dawson
Mum looks blank.
‘She made a big deal out of it, suggesting I’d broken her shoe on purpose, but that’s where Caroline’s holdall was – which she would have seen – the one that’s now missing… Along with sixty-five thousand pounds of our money.’
‘Sarah Jayne Tanner!’ Mum exclaims, like I’m fourteen again, and she’s just found a packet of fags in my underwear drawer. ‘Kelly is a challenging girl in many ways, but to make an allegation like that, based on absolutely nothing at all other than the fact that you don’t like her, is unforgivable. If you don’t know what happened to the money, that’s fine. No one is blaming you. But don’t just make something up.’ Mum is appalled.
‘I’m not making this up.’ What was it Caroline said about Kelly? Some children do things that they wouldn’t do as adults, but others are born evil, and beyond redemption? That was surely alluding to some sort of criminal propensity. What if seeing Caroline so unexpectedly yesterday triggered something in Kelly?
‘Caroline’s already said she will repay you in full,’ Mum interrupts.
‘Yes, but then she’ll be sixty-five thousand down.’
Mum glances at the door and lowers her voice. ‘Oh well, there you go. I’m sure she can afford it.’
‘Mum!’ Now I’m appalled. ‘It’s an enormous amount of money, and OK, she’s not destitute, but she’s not got a huge disposable income either.’
‘She told Matthew not to involve you, remember?’ Mum whispers pointedly.
‘She also said she was sorry. She can’t just be expected to walk away from losing—’
‘Sally, I know what you’re doing,’ Mum interrupts, throwing down the cloth to come and sit opposite me as she takes my hand. ‘It’s very convenient to have this missing money to try and focus everyone’s attention elsewhere, but I don’t care if you flushed it down the loo, note by note. You don’t need to do this. Or the “I can’t remember anything, I just woke up in a taxi” bit either. If you don’t want to talk about what happened last night, that’s OK. I just want to help you get better. All I know for sure is that my little girl – who I love more than anything – was found confused and distressed last night, a long way from home in a very dangerous situation. Regardless of how that happened, or why – it did happen, and now that you’re a mother too, try to understand why I want to be here to look after you, make sure you are safe, and help you. Please, will you let me do that, as you would if it were Chloe we were talking about?’
I don’t answer, because next to me, my phone begins to ring – an ID withheld call. I almost don’t answer, then remember Caroline telling me the Crisis team would be getting in touch.
‘Mum, I should probably take this. Can you take over with Theo?’
She nods and takes the spoon from me.
‘Hello? Yes, this is Sally Hilman. Yes, I can.’ I stand up. ‘Just hold on a moment, please.’
I go straight up to my bedroom for a bit of privacy, where I spend the next five minutes listening to a woman called Maureen, who has the most droning voice I think I’ve ever heard.
‘Well, as I explained to you, Sally,’ she says – she’s used my name about five hundred times throughout the conversation and is speaking very deliberately – ‘we are here to provide short-term acute care and support. You don’t feel you need a home visit and that’s fine. I’m happy with everything you’ve told me and I appreciate you have the support of your mother-in-law in a professional and personal capacity. Which is, of course, great.’
‘Can you come and wipe my bottom?’ yells Chloe – which just about sums up my feelings on this phone call too.
‘Excuse me just a minute,’ I say, then cover the phone and shout back. ‘We talked about this, darling. You can do it yourself now.’
‘But I don’t want to,’ calls Chloe.
‘I’ll sort it,’ says Matthew suddenly, appearing from nowhere, and striding quickly across to the bathroom.
‘Sorry about that,’ I say to Maureen slowly, realizing he’s been listening outside the door all along.
‘It’s fine, Sally. Now I’m going to pass some discharge information across to your GP so they can be in contact with you. I expect it will be early next week. But if anything changes and you need support in the meantime, please contact us again. Have you got a pen and I’ll give you a number. You have? Oh, that’s great.’
‘Well?’ Matthew reappears as I hang up.
‘I’d have definitely killed myself if I’d had to listen to her for very much longer.’ I rub my neck tiredly and try to smile.
Matthew’s jaw drops in horror. ‘Sally!’
‘Sorry,’ I say immediately, chastened. ‘I was just trying to lighten the mood.’
He looks down at the floor. ‘I don’t think we can really trivialize this. It’s not fair on any of us, least of all you.’
‘I really am sorry.’
‘So did she say anything helpful? Offer you any support?’
‘Daddy!’ shouts Chloe. ‘I can’t turn the tap off and the floor’s all wet.’
‘Shit… Coming!’ he calls.
‘I’ll go.’ I automatically get to my feet. ‘I can sort her out.’
‘No, no.’ He holds out a hand. ‘I’ve got this. It’s fine. Everything is under control.’
He hurries out of the room before I have a chance to say anything else, leaving me to sink back down onto the bed redundantly. I glance at my phone. Have I really just spent five minutes talking to a Crisis team about support for a suicide attempt I don’t even remember making?
Everything is under control… Except me. I don’t feel under control at all.
I think about Kelly again, and Mum’s reaction to my accusation. If she’s right, and I took that sixty-five grand, what on earth have I done with it? I literally have no idea. No idea at all.
After the kids have had their bath, Mum insists on giving Theo his bottle and settling him for me. I actually don’t feel well – I’m badly nauseous – so I let her, but warn her that when he kicks off, to come and get me, not to try and struggle on through. I’m therefore amazed to see her slip out of his room after only fifteen minutes, giving me a silent thumbs-up as I’m sitting in Chloe’s room, reading her stories. Thank God Matthew can vouch for what Theo has been like, otherwise surely no one would believe I wasn’t making it all up. It’s a freak occurrence, surely? He’ll be awake again in a minute.
Chloe is thrilled to have me to herself for a change, snuggling into my shoulder as she sits in bed, and I park alongside her on the floor. She twists my hair absently as she listens attentively to Mrs Pepperpot, followed by Ella Bella, then last but not least, a Brambly Hedge. It’s the one about Primrose getting lost in the woods and her mummy and daddy finding her.
‘You weren’t here when I woke up today,’ Chloe says as we get to the last page, where Primrose is safe in bed and her mummy is tucking her in.
I pause. ‘No, I wasn’t,’ I say. ‘I went to work. Do you remember Dad and Granny told you?’
She nods. ‘Granny did my porridge, but she put the banana in it, not in the bowl on the side. I didn’t like it.’
‘Well.’ I put the book down, and as she lies back on her pillow, looking up at me with her bright blue eyes, I lean over and gently stroke her head. ‘Granny just doesn’t know how we do it, that’s all. I’ll put it in the bowl on the side tomorrow for you, OK?’
‘You don’t have to go to work again?’
‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘Not for a long, long time.’
‘Good,’ she says decisively.
‘I love you so much, Clo,’ I say, my voice breaking slightly.
‘I love you too.’ She turns over, away from me. ‘You can turn off the light for songs now, Mummy.’
I do as I’m told, and start to sing as she happily burrows down into her duvet, clutching Dog, who has accompanied her to bed since she was ten months old, and is now shiny where once he was furry. I look around me in the soft rosy glow of her nightlight at he
r cosy, pretty room. It’s real life Brambly Hedge. I want her always to feel this safe, to have me to love her, and take care of her. As her blonde hair slips through my fingers and her small face begins to relax and soften at the sound of my voice, I imagine her life if something were to happen to me, something that would mean I wasn’t there for her any more. It’s been my biggest fear since the moment she was born, and I am suddenly hit so hard with complete clarity, I almost gasp aloud – winded – as I realize there is absolutely no way on God’s green earth that I got in that taxi last night intending to kill myself.
I am tired, suffering from exhaustion even, severely sleep deprived, and yes, at times depressed – but I am not even close to being as desperate as some poor, poor person would have to be, knowing that a child or children they loved more than anything would be left behind, and yet still feel they had no choice but to end it all. Chloe and Theo make me want to live for ever. I never, ever want to be parted from them.
So what did happen last night?
Continuing to stroke her head, I pick up my phone and click onto the notes icon, and my log of Theo’s sleeping. The last entry reads: up 8.30, asleep 9.15 p.m. Next, I tap the clock icon and go onto my stopwatch. It’s still scrolling and is currently on 22 hours 23 minutes. I was trying not to let Theo go longer than four hours between feeds up until the ten o’clock evening one. Why would I have started a countdown I had no intention of completing? Or diligently made an entry to my pathetic sleep log? As I return back to the notes, I also spy a shopping list. The date next to it reads that it was composed yesterday, at 9.30 p.m. So just before I left the house to take my own life, I made a list for the following day consisting of tuna, sweet potatoes and Babybel? I don’t think so.
Heart starting to beat a little faster with the excitement of proof, I open my call list. If everyone else is right, I should find an outgoing call to a cab company, at around 9 p.m.
The whole thing has been cleared. There is no list of any recent calls at all.
I immediately stop stroking Chloe, who has already fallen asleep, and sit up straighter. I never clear the history on my phone. I have no reason – or the time – to.
So if I didn’t do that, who did? And what were they trying to hide? The identity of the cab company they called?
I get to my feet uncomfortably, my legs having stiffened up, and as quietly as I can, creep out of Chloe’s bedroom. I’m pulling the door gently to, when there’s a whisper of ‘everything all right?’ behind me, which makes me jump and spin around on the spot.
It’s Matthew. ‘I was just folding some clean towels.’ He motions to our room behind him. ‘She went down OK then?’
Considering this is the man who can’t even put his socks in the dirty clothes basket when he’s standing right next to it – to say nothing of my mother already having the entire house standing to attention despite being in it less than a day – I am immediately suspicious of the towel-folding alibi. It must be his turn to be on watch.
‘She’s fine,’ I say in hushed tones. ‘I think I might go and have a rest. Would you mind telling the others I’ll be down in a bit?’ I walk around him to our room.
‘I’ll come with you,’ he whispers.
Yup, definitely on watch. ‘I’m not going to do anything, Matthew. I really am just going to lie down.’
‘Oh absolutely! I know. I’m just tired too, and I thought it would be nice to be able to give you a hug.’ He shrugs awkwardly, and I sigh.
‘OK. Come on then.’
We climb, self-consciously, onto the bed and lie still alongside one another for a moment, before he reaches out and pulls me to him, so that my head is resting on his chest and he has his arm around me. Neither of us speak, we just lie there.
‘We haven’t done this in a while,’ he says eventually.
‘I should almost jump off a cliff more often.’
I feel him tense instantly. ‘Sally, please, you’ve got to stop this. You have no idea how it felt last night, to be looking for you everywhere, Theo screaming the place down.’
‘Matthew, I wasn’t going to kill myself.’ I twist slightly and look up at him. ‘I’m sure of that now. So how did I get into that cab? And the note in my pocket – who put it there, intending it to be mistaken for a suicide letter? You’re certain you didn’t notice it on your desk yesterday? When I picked it up from the floor last night, it looked as if it had been dropped. Although the window was open; I’d gone in to shut it,’ I remember. ‘Perhaps it had blown onto the floor earlier and you hadn’t seen it?’
‘I definitely didn’t see it. You really don’t need to do this, Sal. Mum explained how low you were last night about Will and Kelly getting engaged, and I know there’s been other stuff too. You weren’t even vaguely excited about Mum’s holiday idea. A totally free holiday! You absolutely refused to commit to it at all—’
‘Because I’m about two stone heavier than usual right now, not for any other reason. Matthew, the call list on my phone has been erased. You said you found my mobile and that’s what made you panic that something had happened to me. You must have looked at it to see who I’d rung, or to see if anyone had contacted me?’
He says quietly, ‘Yes, I did. There was nothing on it at all. As you say, the whole thing had been deliberately cleared. All of your messages had gone too – like you’d shut the whole thing down and just signed off.’
There’s a moment of silence. ‘You think I did that?’ I say, amazed.
‘Oh Sal,’ he says, his voice breaking slightly. ‘Please stop. I can’t bear watching you act out this whole charade, trying to justify the letter you had on you, or insisting that it was odd you had four hundred pounds in cash when there was a bag stuffed full of money in the house that’s now vanished, or why was it Cornwall you wound up in, when we’ve spent some of our happiest times there. People struggle, they find things difficult, impossible even. You’ve been looking after the children practically single-handedly for six months now: anyone would be at breaking point. The trouble is, yes, you’ve been depressed at points, but overall, you’ve seemed to be coping so well, I didn’t appreciate how bad it had got. No!’ He stops abruptly, chastising himself. ‘That’s crap. I didn’t take the notice I should have done, because I was so absorbed with my work. In fact, you ought to be furious with me for not supporting you enough! Everyone ought to be shoving this in my face and shouting: “Look what you made your wife do!” Not trying to pretend it didn’t happen! I don’t know what made you change your mind, or if it really was that bloke who told the police he saved your life, but either way, thank God you’re still here.’ He sits up, suddenly livid, and says energetically, ‘Say it! Tell me I’m a worthless bastard. There is no shame in what you did, it’s heartbreaking, and I’m a lucky, lucky man that this didn’t end tragically. I could so easily be having to spend the rest of my life explaining to my two beautiful children why they don’t have a mother, and it would be all my own fault.’ A tear slips down his cheek, and he wipes it away angrily. ‘Mum said that people often do it because they think their families will be better off without them. Please, please don’t ever think that! We – the kids, me, your mum and dad, everyone – need you so, so much, Sally. It would devastate all of us if anything happened to you. You must promise me you won’t ever, ever do this again. We’ll get you help, all the help you need, someone to talk to about how you feel, and some practical support too. Hey, you could go back to work!’ He looks at me eagerly. ‘No one says you have to be a stay-at-home mum. I know we talked about it being the way we wanted to bring our kids up when they were really small, but plenty of women would rather work, and that’s fine. I’m fine with that. Whatever you want, we’ll make it happen. I just love you so much.’
I stare in amazement at such an impassioned speech. ‘Matthew,’ I take his hand, ‘I didn’t clear my phone. I have no idea why or how I was in Cornwall. I cannot account for the ten hours I’ve been away from home. I’m not even saying I can’t remember; it’s
like they never happened. There’s nothing there – just a blank space. I’m telling you the truth!’
He lets his head hang for a moment, then rubs his eyes wearily. ‘OK,’ he says, ‘so, what are you saying – that you might have chosen to block it all out?’
‘No!’ I say, frustrated. ‘Did my mum tell you I’d said that about the period after Chloe was born? I didn’t mean it literally.’
‘You could ask my mum about it, I suppose,’ he suggests, ignoring me. ‘I don’t know if it’s even possible to supress memories, but she will.’
I’m about to ask him why he won’t just take my word for it, and trust me that I’m telling the truth, when the baby monitor crackles and the familiar sound of Theo waking shatters the stand-off between us. I knew he wouldn’t be down for long.
I get up, but Matthew reaches for my arm. ‘Just leave him for a minute, see if he sends himself back to sleep.’
‘He won’t. He’ll just wake up even more and be harder to settle. We’re way past that stage, Matthew. It’s like I’ve told you before, we’ve just got to wait until I can do proper sleep training with him.’
‘But—’
‘It’s only going to be another month at most. We’ve coped this far.’
His eyebrows shoot up in disbelief.
‘Oh, Matthew, I have!’ I whisper. ‘I am coping! I looked at Chloe while I was settling her and I knew, I just knew, there’s no way I was trying to kill myself last night. I nearly fell, but I wasn’t going to jump.’
‘That’s what this new-found certainty about last night is based on?’ He looks incredulously at me.