All Your Fault

by NJ Moss

  I leapt up, forgetting the wine, and ran up the stairs. Troy was already standing at her bedroom door.

  “Mia,” I said, my eyes moving over the scene.

  All her sketches and her paintings – the ones she’d been sticking to her walls since she was a toddler – lay in crumpled paper petals on her bedroom floor. She had tears in her eyes and her fists were bunched.

  “Why have you torn down all your lovely paintings?” My voice cracked, my emotions far too close to the surface.

  It’s your fault.

  Mia slumped onto the bed and folded her arms, toeing the floor. I heard Russ moving around in his bedroom, probably waking at the sound of the commotion.

  “Mia?”

  It’s all your fault.

  She looked up and then my phone blared from my pocket. Troy looked at me, face tight, and I knew he was giving me a silent message to answer it. More and more lately, Clive had been ringing me after working hours. It was always with some bothersome task for me to complete on my work laptop. The look my husband gave me said, I know it’s a pain in the arse, but you’re the breadwinner now, and it has to be done.

  I took out my mobile. Of course it was Clive. But when I answered, he hung up. Fine, screw him. I needed to help my daughter.

  “Mia, your paintings. What happened?”

  Again my phone rang, blaring loudly, as if purposefully interrupting me.

  “It’s okay,” Troy said. “I’ll talk to her. What do you think, Mia? Want to have a chat with your old man?”

  “I don’t care.”

  The sight of Mia like this, usually so composed and now anything but, caused tears to rise in my eyes.

  I made to answer my phone again. It went dead.

  A moment later, a text came through from Clive: Signal is terrible. I need you to pick up a work-related package. They know you’re coming. I’ll text you the address. This is IMPORTANT, Grace. I’m sorry for any inconvenience.

  A stabbing sensation lanced through my skull. Clive was taking the fucking biscuit. He’d already pushed far past any reasonable limits, and this was getting thoroughly ridiculous. Not only was I the hand-copier of useless reports. Not only was I the warden of a phone that only dickheads who wanted to play sick games with me rang. Now I was his courier.

  I looked at Troy and Mia, sitting side by side on the bed. Troy was in his dressing gown and Mia was in her grey pyjamas, looking smart with her buttons done up all the way to the top, except for her hair, all mussed and tangled. Her eyes were red, and Troy took off his dressing gown and draped it over our daughter’s shoulders.

  I have to do it for them.

  If I didn’t go, I could be fired. Any moment the scythe could drop.

  “I’m going into work. I won’t be long. Okay, Mia? I won’t be long.”

  Mia sniffled and Troy hugged her close to him. Even if it was unfair of me, I couldn’t help but feel jealous at the sight. I turned toward the bedroom, imagining what it would be like to scratch my fingernails down Clive’s face, to slash him hard and deep so he bled and never stopped bleeding. He had it out for me. He was torturing me, playing macabre games with me, the same way my grandfather had played games with Cecilia.

  But why?

  What had I ever done to Clive?

  32

  I was in Gold Street, one of the more crime-ridden streets in Bristol. It was the sort of area the adults in our lives had always warned us to avoid. After Hope’s death I’d spent a fair amount of time around here, smoking, drinking, generally doing what I shouldn’t be doing because it was easier than trying to deal with what had happened.

  I felt out of place, dressed in my blazer and my trousers with my heels clicking far too loudly on the stone pathway.

  As I walked from my car toward the cluster of houses – dance music pumping from the one I was heading for – a group of teenagers in tracksuits asked to borrow my phone. They needed to make a call, they claimed. It was important. His mum was sick. I kept my head down and walked quicker.

  “Stuck-up slut,” they called after me.

  Perhaps it was prejudicial. Perhaps it made me a bad person. Perhaps I was exactly what was wrong with modern England and blah-blah-blah, but it was clear to me, as I stood there trying to summon the courage to knock on the door, this was a drug dealer’s residence.

  My employer had sent me to pick up drugs.

  A light rain fell and settled coolly on the back of my neck. I stood up straighter and made myself Work Grace, which was essentially Mother. I’d do this and then get the hell out of here. I should have walked away. I was an idiot for not doing so. But the sleeplessness and the anxiety and the catastrophising told me if I left now, I’d lose my job, and if I lost my job I’d fail my family. And I couldn’t fail my family, not when Troy had worked so hard for so many years at a job he hated.

  The doorbell was broken. I hammered with my fist so they’d hear me past the music.

  “All right, all right,” somebody grumbled from the other side. “Who the fuck is it?”

  “I’m here on behalf of Clive Langdale.”

  “Ooh-err.” The man laughed. “You sound like you’re here on behalf of the queen.”

  A round of laughter went up and rage pricked me. “I’m here to collect a package. I haven’t got all night. I’d be grateful if you’d hurry up.”

  The door swung open and a tall shirtless man stepped forward. His torso was a patchwork of tattoos and when he smiled, the swollen roll-up between his teeth bobbed suggestively. “No need to get excited, sweetheart. I was just having a laugh.”

  “Yes, well,” I muttered non-committally.

  “You’re not the usual type we get here. Your name ain’t Grace by any chance, is it? We’ve been expecting you.”

  I bristled. The last thing I wanted was these men knowing my name. The smell of marijuana came blasting from the house. I breathed as shallowly as I could. I’d experienced the high – or low – at university and had no desire to repeat it. I remembered the paranoia, the screaming at the edge of my reality, the way the floor seemed to swerve toward the ceiling as I knelt next to the toilet, panting.

  It’s not my fault, it’s not my fault, I’d ranted, as my flatmates giggled and exchanged looks of hilarity, one of them asking what wasn’t my fault. “She’s a lightweight. She’ll be all right in a minute.” I couldn’t tell them; I didn’t know. I couldn’t know. Yasmin was rubbing my back and yelling at them to get the fuck away from me, and then asking me quietly afterward what I was talking about. It was the first time I told the story of that evening, half-remembered through a haze of intoxication and shame.

  “Do you have the package?” I asked, snapping back to the present.

  “Ain’t even Christmas and you’re getting a proper sweet bundle. Yeah, wait here. Unless you wanna come in for a drink?”

  “I’ll wait here.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  I tried to project the appearance of a strong controlled person as I stood there. Even as my heartbeat tried to choke me out, I made myself stiff. I clasped my hands behind my back. But when the man brought out the package and I saw what it was, I felt my chest seize and my hands flutter in panic. “What sort of game is this?”

  He laughed. “Spunky, ain’t you? Listen, darling. I don’t know why your bloke wanted me to wrap up this fine product like this. But I’m not about to hold a goddamn inquiry on the doorstep about it. Are you taking it or not?”

  Don’t take it.

  Before I had a chance to answer, he thrust the package into my hands and slammed the door in my face. I stared down at it, my mouth dry, wondering how my life had led me here, to this moment, collecting what could only be drugs for a client of Clive’s. But the worst part was how it was presented: wrapped in green wrapping paper, with small white trees dotted all over it, tied with a red ribbon.

  It was the same wrapping paper we’d used on Hope’s final Christmas.

  I took out the plastic bag I’d stowed in my pocket
and shoved the package inside, wondering why Clive was doing this. Or perhaps Mother was behind this somehow; she’d observed her father first-hand and learnt his methods, and she was exacting her long-awaited punishment. She hated me.

  This was proof. Somebody was out to get me.

  But it could also be true this was an inside joke between these drug dealers and Clive’s client. But he’d said he didn’t know why my bloke had wanted it wrapped like this. Who was this bloke?

  I shoved the bag into the footwell of the passenger side and gripped the steering wheel, gripped it until my knuckles became skeletal. I had to glance at the package several times to convince myself it was real.

  My mind skirted close to the possibility Clive was him, the bonnet in the rain, slicing—

  But whenever my thoughts steered too close to that evening – to anything after she started pedalling – I felt a gnawing at the fabric of something unknowable. It was as though something was trying to break through. And I wouldn’t let it. The bottom of that hill would forever remain dark.

  I picked up the bag and ran my hands over the wrapping paper. Hope had giggled so sweetly when she’d torn open her present to find the doll inside, complete with a miniature vanity unit and a hairbrush. She’d spent hours and hours arranging everything, brushing its hair.

  She wouldn’t let me near it. She was afraid I’d break it in front of her just to hurt her, to see her cry, because that was me, the wicked older sister, the vindictive sadistic bitch—

  Quiet, Grace.

  I searched my mind and tried to remember if this was, in fact, the exact same wrapping paper. Or if it was close. Or perhaps it was utterly different and it was nothing to do with me; I was only a pawn in Clive’s bizarre approach to business. I was out of my depth and floundering.

  It was driving me insane.

  I cursed quietly and threw the package down, and then drove through the night toward the Langdale Consulting offices. I thought about opening it, and told myself I didn’t because a client’s trust mattered too much to me; it had nothing to do with the notion of tearing the paper away to reveal severed fingers and reeking eyeballs and a braid of brown hair turned bristly with time.

  I stowed the package under Clive’s desk and drove home. Soon I’d have to make a stand. I’d have it out with Clive and figure out what was going on. I couldn’t live like this. It wasn’t fair. I needed one good night’s sleep. Just one. Then I’d be able to think all of this through with something approaching clarity. As it was, I was a blind woman in a mist-covered field, no idea how far I’d gone or how far I had to go.

  * * *

  When I returned home, I wore my smiling, everything-is-okay face. But I prayed for Troy to sense something was wrong. I sat down at the kitchen table and took the proffered hot chocolate, and I silently willed him to see how badly I was losing it.

  “How’s Mia?” I asked.

  “Sleeping. One of the kids at school made a joke about her being a crap artist. She took it to heart. You know how she is. Anyway, we had a talk. I think she needed to vent. I wish she wouldn’t keep everything locked inside her so much sometimes, you know?”

  We’re similar in that way.

  “Yes. I do know.”

  “She’s put most of the pictures back up. She decided not to let immature dickheads dictate her life.”

  “I hope those weren’t her words.”

  Troy wrapped his hand around mine which was curled around my mug, enveloping me in warmth from all angles. “I was thinking we could have a little shindig for your birthday. What do you think? We’ll have to invite my parents, which’ll be a pain in the arse. But it could be fun. We’ll do our own thing too, a meal, a hotel room, maybe a chariot ride.”

  “A chariot ride?” I laughed hollowly. “Aren’t you pushing the boat out? Yeah, that sounds nice. I’ll invite Yasmin. And maybe Olivia from work.”

  He smiled and I smiled and inside I was dying a little, but my husband didn’t notice. Or he didn’t want to notice.

  It’s him. He’s behind all of this, a voice hissed. Don’t trust him. You can’t trust anyone.

  33

  “I don’t see why I can’t meet this client. I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to tell me this is an unorthodox company, a hipster company, whatever. You do things your own way. Fine. But not even being able to meet the man I was sent to pick up drugs for is ridiculous, Clive.”

  Clive’s face dropped and he peered at the door behind me, double-checking it was closed. He fiddled with his Rolex and let out a sigh that made his jowls tremble. “Jesus, will you keep your fucking voice down? I don’t think the deaf bloke in Cornwall heard you.”

  “Don’t you agree?” I strode up to his desk. “I don’t remember you mentioning any of this in the interview. Copying those reports by hand, fine, perhaps that’s a quirk. But the phone calls, waiting for the phone calls that never come?”

  “Never?” Clive asked, perking up a little.

  It’s all your fault.

  “Never. And picking up drugs? I’ve committed a criminal offence for you and if you think that is in any way acceptable, I’m fucking done.”

  “Grace, it was a bloody bootleg games console for my nephew. I knew this bloke who knew this bloke who got some cheap. They wrapped it up as a joke. When I spoke to him about it I asked if they did a wrapping service. I’m sorry I lied, all right? Jesus.”

  “A games console.” He was lying to my face, he was lying… but why? Why? It wasn’t my fault. “So why did you tell me it was for a client?”

  “Because he was gonna sell it to somebody else and I didn’t know who to send. They’re all right. Maybe they smoke a joint every now and then. But so what? Did you think I’d sent you to pick up a big bag of cocaine or something?”

  “Well—”

  He sat forward, becoming the Clive he was in client meetings, when the feelings of whoever he was talking to were secondary to the objective. He gained a new purpose and suddenly seemed less defensive.

  “Grace, you’re doing a great job. You’re confident as hell, you’re bloody smart and you’re a quick learner, all right? I value having you on my team. But if you think you’re working for the kind of company that would send you to collect a package of drugs, then you’re in the wrong place. The report copying assignments are for a – like you said – a man with character quirks. The phone calls are an inconvenience, but fucking hell, getting paid to sit next to a phone and play Solitaire for an evening? You’ve got a habit of looking gift horses in the mouth and if you honestly don’t think you can trust me, then you know what to do.”

  He was looking at me like he hated me, like I was somebody else, some enemy in his life who’d wronged him. I cleared my throat and took a step back. “Are you firing me?”

  “Don’t be so bloody dramatic. I’m just telling you. Don’t start making accusations when you haven’t got any evidence. If you really thought you were there to pick up drugs, why did you do it? What sort of person would go through with that?”

  “I…”

  The sentence that rose on my lips would seem melodramatic, like I was the victim, and I wasn’t the victim. I did it for my family. He’d laugh in my face. And he’d be right to. I’d picked up what I thought was a package of drugs – risking prison – for my family? It made no sense.

  “And the wrapping paper?” I asked after a pause.

  “Like I said, it was their idea of a joke—”

  “No, I mean the style of wrapping paper.”

  “What do you mean? It was just wrapping paper.”

  Actually, Clive, I’ll have you know it was the same wrapping paper we used on my dead sister’s last Christmas with us. I checked on Facebook last night.

  What the hell was I thinking? I couldn’t say this at work. I couldn’t say this anywhere. I couldn’t even check; the package was gone.

  I turned toward the door. “All right then,” I said, as if that meant anything.

  I went into my o
ffice and kept my head down for the rest of the day, going over and over the package in my head, trying to remember if it could’ve been a games console. But wasn’t it soft? They could have bound it in bubble wrap. But was it heavy enough to be a games console? I couldn’t remember.

  Perhaps I’d let my mind play a trick on me.

  Again.

  Like the phone call. When you imagined somebody’s voice.

  I squeezed the edge of the desk and let out a shivering breath through clenched teeth. My belly stung with last night’s wine, guzzled at midnight as my house slept. My eyes ached with lack of sleep and too much staring. My body felt hollowed out, somehow. I didn’t want to admit weakness, fine, but was I really supposed to keep all of this bottled up inside?

  I’d have to talk to Troy about lowering my hours or even quitting. I’d come too close to falling into my own mind. It was time he knew what I was going through; it was time I shook him awake instead of lying like a dead woman next to him all night, my eyes open, staring lifelessly at the ceiling.

  But when I got home, Troy gathered me into the living room. Vanilla-scented candles were lit and flickered along the mantelpiece of the fireplace. Mia was quietly proud and Russ was bubbly as they wrestled over who got to show me the A3 card. Mia had drawn a yawning nature scene, with rivers and hills and, in the sky, a soaring woman with the wind at her back. World’s Most Hardworking Mummy, the text read, each letter meticulously drawn and painted.

  “Time for the best bit.” Russie opened the card and pushed it into my hands. “It’s eighty-two, Mummy. I counted. Didn’t I, Mia? Didn’t I count?”

  “Yeah.” Mia smiled, rolling her eyes. “Out loud. It was really annoying.”

  “Why eighty-two?” I asked.

  “One for every day you’ve worked at Langdale Consulting,” Troy said, massaging my shoulder and leaning over to kiss a warm tear from my cheek.

  “Count them, Mummy!”

  He leapt into my lap and I felt a sob rise in my throat. My son took my hand and moved my forefinger to each one of his thumbprints. They were every colour of paint Mia owned. Reds and greens and blues and purples, a glorious mess of colours, and in the middle of it all was a smiley face made of thumbprints.