‘You look like a tiny snow angel,’ Robin says.
And that’s it. One minute I’m with him; the next I’m gone. I’m in the unit and Molly is playing her sax, the long, low notes of it keening as I watch from the doorway.
I never did get jazz, not really. Everything sounded jumbled up, like someone had snipped a load of random words from a newspaper and dropped them on the floor and she’d play first one phrase then another, yet nothing connected. Except it did that winter’s day. I heard her playing from my room, and even though I wasn’t supposed to, I crept down the corridor and eased her door open. The notes were long, a minor key. Less frantic than normal. She met my eyes, but didn’t stop playing. Get-well cards from family and friends were plastered all over her wall. Photos too. But none of Molly. Some had snipped edges, a hole in the middle of a laughing group of people around a barbecue where she’d erased herself.
I went to the window, watched the trees shake frosted leaves in the wind. Molly kept playing. She played, and it seemed those leaves were in her music, beautiful but iced over. I might have made a movement, or sighed, I can’t remember. The next moment, Molly put down the sax. I felt the air behind me shift with her breath.
Her fingertips pressed my shoulder blades, light as a flower. ‘They’re like angel’s wings. Don’t let them fly you so high you can’t get back.’
I didn’t say anything. In that winter place, with everything normal stripped away, what was there to say?
She knew it too, because she grabbed her sax again and started playing something else, something more upbeat. The moment was over, and they were calling us to the table for dinner.
‘Are you OK?’ Robin says. His eyes are so warm.
I blink, trying to dislodge flour from my eyelashes. It’s only the flour that’s making my eyes water. Just the flour.
‘I think we’ve run out of ingredients. Looks like we’ll have to do the cake another time,’ I say. I take a step back, but my heart is going hard.
Robin’s hand drops to his side.
‘Happy birthday though,’ I say.
Robin’s face falls slightly, then he looks around the flour-spattered kitchen. ‘You sure you don’t want a hand clearing up?’
‘Nah, I’ll do it.’
‘OK.’ He hovers in the doorway for a second longer, then says in a rush before leaving, ‘Thanks for the plant.’
It isn’t until after he’s gone that I realise he never finished whatever he’d been about to say. I tell myself it’s nothing, but still it bothers me, like a sock that’s twisted wrong under your foot, but I end up walking on it anyway.
Running late. Be there in ten. Hed x
I’m meeting Laurel in the park a few minutes’ walk from the flats. Without Rose. Laurel sounded pretty upset on the phone and Robin offered to have Rose and I realised I haven’t left her with anyone else yet. But it’s harder than I thought to step out of the door.
‘Do you think I ought to leave more nappies? Just in case?’
‘She’s fine. Anyway, you’ll only be gone an hour, won’t you?’ Robin says.
Right. I can do this.
‘OK,’ I say. ‘Be good for Uncle Robin. See you soon.’ I kiss Rose’s head and walk out of Robin’s flat fast, before I change my mind.
Outside I feel naked without a sling or a buggy in front of me. There’s all this space I don’t know what to do with. I keep running my hand over my phone in my pocket, as though a bomb might go off in the flats behind me, or a flood, or fire, or …
I spot Laurel on one of the swings, trailing her feet on the floor. How has she lost so fast? She’s going some, even for us. She turns a white face to me as I sit on the swing next to her and loop the tops of my arms round the chains. She has a piece of paper in her hand.
‘What’s that?’ I say.
‘My “transition plan”.’
Oh. Laurel’s eighteen now. She’s still an outpatient at Dewhurst, but she must have known they’d be moving her into Adult Services sometime soon.
She crumples the plan in her fist and chucks it on the ground. ‘It’s a pile of crap anyway.’
‘When are you transferring?’
‘Don’t know. Soon. It’ll be good. They don’t bother with you as much, anyway. I’ll be able to do what I like.’
I spent a week in an adult unit once, when there were no beds available at Dewhurst and the children’s ward at the hospital couldn’t have me either. It’s a place I try hard not to think about. It’s not somewhere I ever want to go back to. But it seems Laurel is heading there soon by the look of her.
‘So what are you doing these days?’ I say.
‘Arguing with Mum mainly. I applied for a job though.’ She tries to smile.
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Topshop. I’d get a staff discount.’
Figures. Laurel loves her clothes. Today she’s got on a jumper slashed at the neck to show off her collarbones and skinny jeans that are wrinkled up round her thighs because there’s nothing much to fill them. I wonder what size they are.
‘I hope you get it,’ I say, like there’s really any chance she’ll be able to take up a job even if they do offer one to her.
She leans her head against the chain of the swing. ‘Do you miss it? The way it was before?’ she whispers.
I push my head down to mirror hers, but I don’t answer.
‘I miss Molly,’ she says.
Me too. All the time.
‘Do you remember Dr Lishman?’ Laurel says.
I smile. Dr Lishman was a locum who showed up one day last year on the unit, in mega heels and the sort of hair you only get if you spend hours with the straighteners. Molly took a dislike to her on sight.
Two days in, when Dr Lishman arrived during dinner time, which up until then had been a bit of a tense affair – I seem to recall Laurel chucking her roll – Molly looked up with a massive grin and said, in a reasonably good Bugs Bunny impression, ‘Eeh, what’s up, Doc?’
Dr Lishman’s red lips disappeared.
Then Molly flicked her eyes to me, and I couldn’t help myself. I sat up straighter and said, ‘All right, Lish? How’s it going?’
Dr Lishman went pink and said, ‘Yes, thank you, girls,’ then sat and picked at a spare tray of food with extremely bony fingers.
Molly watched her for a bit, then said in a conversational tone, ‘So how’s your BMI, Doc?’
At which point I lost it. This massive snort came out of nowhere. That set off everyone, and before you knew it we were all in hysterics. It was one of those unit moments, where we all forgot we were supposed to be ill. Lish was pretty pissed off. I still think it was funny though.
‘So do you? Miss it?’ Laurel says.
I think about my list of crap stuff about the unit; how it’s ended up with things that were not so crap on it. The list Felicity’s making me write; how I said it made me safe, being in there, away from the world. Molly’s face on that last night, when she said I liked it there. And I wonder what the truth is.
‘Yeah. Sometimes I do,’ I say softly.
But it’s too much to think about, sitting here on these swings, with the sky blue above us, and the tower block in the distance, light flashing over all its windows. I look up, trying to pick out mine, spot Robin’s flowers in his window box.
‘Well. You know, there’s really only one thing for it,’ I say.
‘What’s that?’
‘We need to find out who can swing the highest.’
I push off with my feet and lean back and in a few seconds I have a rhythm going. Air whooshes in my ears and my stomach dives, but I push my legs out to go higher, hear Laurel giggle, an odd, high-pitched sound next to me. She swings until she’s caught me up and then our legs go in and out in time, higher and higher until I feel like I could take off like one of the fat pigeons round our way and soar into the sky. Laurel is a swallow next to me.
‘I’m beating you!’ I yell out and lean back the furthest yet, and as I do I realise
Laurel’s gone quiet.
Her legs drop. Then I see her slump sideways and on the next backwards swing, she rolls off and hits the ground.
‘Laurel!’ I scrape my feet once, twice, along the ground, trying to slow down, and then jump off, jarring my knees and pelvis where I land.
I crouch down and turn her over. Her eyes are closed and she’s completely grey and suddenly all I can see is one of the nurses, pushing hard on Molly’s ribcage. Sick scrapes at the back of my throat and I turn and spit a mouthful out, then reach a shaking hand to the side of Laurel’s neck.
I can’t feel a pulse. I put my head to her chest, feel the hard ridges of her ribcage. I think there’s a flutter there. I pull out my phone, listen to a man’s voice on the other end.
‘Ambulance,’ I say. ‘I’m not sure if she’s breathing.’
I manage to explain where we are and then Laurel lets out a noise between a cough and a sigh and her eyes open, then roll back shut.
I grab her hand and it’s not until we get to the hospital and she’s been whisked into a cubicle and the curtains shut, with me on the other side, that I realise I’ve left my phone in the park.
On the bus home, guilt burrows between the ribs, over my crappy heartbeat, which is going too fast. I will the bus to go faster, but every light seems to be red, each stretch between roundabouts a million miles of cars and bikes and people stopping me from getting back to Rose.
I couldn’t remember Robin’s phone number. I stayed at the hospital as long as I could, until Laurel’s mum arrived, but they wouldn’t let me see her. They were doing tests on her. Laurel’s mum recognised me from the times she’s seen me on the unit and gave me this look like she was holding me personally responsible for Laurel collapsing.
‘Will you call me and let me know how she is?’ I said.
She didn’t bother to reply, and then I realised my phone will be long gone by now even if she does remember to call me. I suspect she won’t anyway.
I’m out of breath, and there’s a stabbing pain in my pelvis, which is still not right even after all these weeks, but none of it matters, because I’ve left Rose. I’ve left her for hours. Robin must be out of his mind.
I stagger up the stairs as fast as I can, but it feels like the bones are grinding together inside and I have to stop four flights up to catch my breath. By the time I reach my floor, I’m hobbling like a duck. I strain my ears for sounds of Rose crying, but everything is quiet – scarily so.
What if he called the police? Or social services?
I waddle faster up the corridor and thud on Robin’s door. When it swings open, I’m already saying, ‘Sorry, I’m so sorry,’ and it takes a while for my brain to work out what’s happening.
A girl is standing on the other side, holding a baby.
My arms have started to reach out automatically, when I spot the dark hair, the blue babygrow with tractors on, that he’s much bigger than she should be.
It’s not Rose.
‘I take it you’re Hedda,’ the girl says.
Chapter 24
10 WEEKS
Rose is gone.
Gonegonegonegone.
This is your fault, you stupid cow.
Nia.
Why won’t my brain work?
Rose is gone. Where is she?
I take a step towards the girl in front of me.
‘I’m Jade and this is Ellis.’ She smiles down at the baby on her hip, his arms clinging to her.
I nearly push her to the floor. It’s only the baby that stops me. The baby that’s not mine.
‘Where’s my baby?’ I practically scream in her face.
She steps aside and behind her I see Robin putting out a hand with a warning look. In the bend of his other arm, fast asleep, is Rose.
I run to him and snatch her out of his arms, pulling her close to me. She wriggles, opens her eyes and gives me this chilled-out look like she’s not at all bothered I’ve been gone, then settles back down to sleep.
‘What the hell is going on?’ I hiss.
Robin takes off his glasses and passes a hand over his eyes. ‘I could ask you the same question,’ he says, but it’s weariness rather than anger in his voice.
‘Laurel had an accident. I had to go with her to the hospital and I left my phone … It all happened really fast. I’m so sorry. Did I leave any formula? She must be hungry.’
Jade speaks from the corner. ‘No need. I gave her one of Ellis’s bedtime bottles.’
I look at Robin. ‘I don’t … Who’s Ellis?’
He pushes his glasses back on, avoiding my eyes, then says, ‘Hedda … there’s something I need to …’ He can’t seem to finish.
Jade is watching us both.
Jade, I realise now, is beautiful.
Jade is also thin.
Thinner than me?
Perfectly shaped legs. Hip bones peeking over the top of her leggings, framing the flat space where her top doesn’t quite meet them. Huge dark-lashed eyes – falsies? I don’t think so – and a shaped top lip, braided hair. She looks like she almost feels sorry for me.
‘Ellis is our son. Mine and Robin’s,’ she says.
Sometimes, I think my heart will stop. At night, I wake up with a start and lie there feeling the way its beats change rhythm, like Molly’s jazz. It does it now, thudding, faltering, speeding back up. I keep hold of Rose and try to make my brain process properly, but all I can hear is a rumbling sound.
I stare at Jade. She has studs in her ears that reflect the light bulb in tiny glints. I put one hand up to my own bare ear. Did I even brush my hair today? My teeth? I stink of hospital and sweat.
My arms ache from holding Rose so tight. My heart is squeezing in on itself. I imagine it in my chest, like a shrivelled walnut after years of Nia, hard and dry. Except there’s a spot somewhere in there that’s warmed and expanded these last few weeks, for Rose, and partly for Robin too.
‘Robin’s just been telling me about you,’ Jade says, and I see the mixture of vulnerability and jealousy in her eyes. How in other circumstances I might quite like her.
She still loves him. I can tell.
I knew it. I knew he wasn’t telling me something, that I shouldn’t have thought … My face starts to heat up. Why didn’t I listen to myself, to Nia?
‘Me and Ellis, we’ve come to bring Robin home,’ Jade says in this firm voice, gazing at Robin like she’s confirming something they’ve been talking about. Then she gives me a long look, like she’s working something out about me, and adds, ‘He doesn’t belong here.’
I turn to Robin. I need him to say something, anything, to tell her she’s wrong. But he can’t meet my eyes.
I sway, Rose still in my arms, and lean back to steady myself against the wall. Jade hands Ellis to Robin and he takes his son smoothly, with that practised air he had when he first picked up Rose. I remember thinking how good he was with her, how natural he was.
Well, it makes sense now.
I’ve been so stupid.
As Jade stands back, I realise she’s wearing an engagement ring and the little splinters of pain wriggling under my skin seem to sharpen and multiply until I’m crawling with them.
Robin is still sitting there, and I think that hurts the most. Why didn’t he tell me? He leans forward, opens his mouth, but I shut him up with one look.
‘Thank you for looking after her,’ I say with as much dignity as I can, and then that’s it, I’m out of there, keeping my back straight though my arms are killing me.
Nia chants in my ear all the way back, and I let her words comfort me in a familiar chatter, like she’s narrating my life for me.
Open the door.
I’m going.
Shut it, quietly, behind you.
Going, going, going.
Don’t you dare think about crying.
Gone.
PART FOUR
NIA
Chapter 25
The Reasons Why
So, Felicity, you want me to t
ell you Why I Think I Developed An Eating Disorder. It would be great, wouldn’t it? To come up with a lovely simple reason wrapped up in shiny paper you can open and then you will have fixed me. Go, you. Have a gold star.
But what if life’s not as simple as that?
Maybe I developed an eating disorder to even the score up. I’m thinking of all those people buying food then chucking it away, or eating more than they need even though some people don’t have enough. Perhaps I thought if I took less, it would all balance out. I was a girl on a noble mission. I could make a case for it. Why not?
Or maybe it was something more boring than that. Maybe I simply liked being small. I wanted the other girls in the playground to put their arms around my waist and lift me up and squeal, ‘You’re tiny!’ I liked the attention.
I could cut myself some slack, tell you there’s a big trauma in my deep dark past – you lot love all that stuff, don’t you? But since when do I like things neat and easy?
We could pin it all on evil culture, if we wanted to. You know, red circly magazines, diets everywhere, how if you’re a girl there’s no way to look anything except wrong, wrong, wrong. You pick it all up pretty early on. Or, ooh, we could blame Barbie and, let’s face it, pretty much every Disney princess ever.
Or Peer Pressure.
Or School Pressure.
Or Family Dynamics – I know you’re keen on that one. Let’s pretend I was jealous of my perfect sister.
Or maybe it was nothing.
Maybe it was just me.
Isn’t the more interesting question the how, not the why? It’s easier and harder than you think. And perhaps there’s a price. But maybe I simply didn’t care if it was high or not. Before Molly, I figured I could keep paying forever anyway. People do, you know. Just look at the Walking Woman.
Felicity scans through the pages of notes, which look more like a spider has dunked itself in a pot of ink then wandered across the page than actual handwriting. Anorexics are supposed to have tiny, neat handwriting. But then again I don’t want to be a complete walking stereotype. And I guess it’s fair to say I was pretty pissed off when I wrote it.
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