All Your Fault

by NJ Moss

  “Yes, I’m a great example of the modern woman. Strong, unbreakable, that’s me.”

  “Hey.” Yasmin wrapped her arm around my shoulder and gave me a short hug. “You are, you know. I’m always telling people how you went from being a stay-at-home mum to the breadwinner. It’s great.”

  I nodded and yet a part of me was thinking about those long adventurous afternoons with Russ, sitting on the beach with one eye on the Kindle and one eye on him, with the sky grey and the wind whipping bracingly. It wasn’t all fun. There was duty there, and that felt good; it felt good to see my son build a castle and fail and then convince him to build it again. It felt good to hug him as he cried and tell him everything was going to be okay.

  I wished I could climb into those memories, secreted away in unceasing bliss, where spinning bike wheels and impossible girl ghosts and unapproachable guilt could never hurt me.

  37

  I stumbled into the living room and sat down and drank the cider. It was my first cider, but my fourth drink of the party and my sixth of the day. Red wine was still bubbling in my belly.

  You’re drunk. You imagined the text. None of what happened was your fault.

  Nobody could creep into my mind and twist my reason, play psychopathic tricks on me, make me see messages that weren’t there and girls that weren’t there and anything that wasn’t there. I knew what reality was, for Christ’s sake. I could trust my senses, my memory, my mind. I’d work out who was doing this and why.

  After a few minutes I realised somebody was talking to me, at me, some acquaintance. I was taking deeper and deeper breaths, but quietly, my own silent terrified moment. I felt as if I’d floated up and out of my body, and I was looking down at her, at me, and seeing how small and weak and vulnerable we looked. I took a large, large sip of my cider and then there was no cider left.

  It was then I heard my husband’s voice, raised in a high, half-posh way, affected as a defence mechanism, a very particular sound I associated with him arguing with his father. I looked across the room and saw Troy’s cheeks tremble and his skin bloom red. “Well, I don’t see it—”

  “Most men,” George cut in, “they want to be the earners in the household. I know you’ve got your own little arrangement going on here. But when do you reckon you’ll be earning again, proper like?”

  “I am earning,” Troy said, sounding like a boy.

  I hated it, hated that I couldn’t trust Troy or anybody and that my thoughts never settled, as though I was stuck in a loop, a sleepless endless loop that would eventually tie a knot around my neck. I hated that Troy couldn’t stand up to his father and I hated George for making him feel as though he had to.

  “It works quite well, actually.” My voice rang out icy cold across the room. I did not sound like I felt. I sounded strong. I sounded deadly. I sounded like somebody who didn’t have to be scared all the time, so let’s have it, if he truly wanted it, let’s have the big mess out in the open. I was rising to my feet and striding forward and all the time moving like nothing could stop me. “We don’t see it as an issue of husband and wife or man and woman. We see ourselves as partners. Troy supported my dream of staying home with the children and now I’m supporting his of becoming a writer. I don’t see that just because Troy was born with a dick and a pair of bollocks it should make any difference. Why do you always have to fucking put him down, George?”

  All the energy drained from the room and even if the music kept playing, it seemed quieter somehow. George didn’t get angry or even furrow his eyebrows. He smiled like I was joking and then looked at Troy as if to say, What are you going to do, lad? Your wench is starting up.

  “Why are you looking at him?” I hissed.

  “Listen, darling,” he said. “I didn’t mean to upset you, all right?”

  “No, I really want to know,” I persisted, even as Troy put a hand on my arm and asked me to calm down. “Don’t tell me to calm down.” I lashed his hand away and turned back to George. “I wasn’t asking for the sake of it. Why do you have to make him feel fucking worthless?”

  “Grace.” It was Troy. “The kids.”

  But I could barely hear him, so important had this moment become. Alcohol and caffeine and anxiety swirled through me. Perhaps if I could fix this for Troy, it would make everything okay. I wouldn’t have to worry about the text and the phone call and the drugs and the present, the man in the black hat…

  How had I been so stupid? How did I not understand this was more than Clive’s business? Somebody was out to get me. Somebody was coming to get me and on the phone, the prank caller, it had been a man’s voice. It could be George. It could be Troy’s dad because he wanted to wound Troy for disappointing him as a son, he was using me to get to him, he was somehow sending the texts and had arranged for the girl—the girl with Hope’s bracelet…

  “Father?” I said suddenly, looking around the room for him.

  I felt George looking at Troy again. I had snapped, in an instant, from the argument to this thought.

  “Um, yes?” Father frowned. He did not like confrontation.

  It was him, it was him.

  “Hope’s bracelet, the one that hangs in your workshop, has it been stolen recently?”

  “No, it was in there this morning. Why?”

  “But somebody could remake it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The whole room was watching and I noticed several people who seemed to believe they were looking at a madwoman, when really I was trying to puzzle this out. Olivia’s face was narrow and severe, and she looked like she might cry, which made no sense, and then she turned and walked out without saying a word. Her mother. I vaguely remembered her mother was ill. What was it? Dementia, a sickness of memory. I understood that. It was me. It was my fault.

  Focus, Grace.

  “The r-rocks,” I said, hating that I stuttered. “And the shells. Somebody could find some rocks and shells and drill holes in them if they wanted to remake it.”

  “I suppose so,” Father muttered.

  “They couldn’t,” Mother interjected. “Of course they couldn’t remake her bracelet. It’s one of a kind. It’s utterly unique.”

  “Mother, I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s as individual as a snowflake, with all those special quirks she applied. She was always so, well, hopeful, wasn’t she? Of course her bracelet couldn’t be remade.”

  “No, of course not.”

  It’s your fault. It’s your fault. You killed her.

  I turned to George, but I’d forgotten why I’d been so angry with him. It all seemed so meaningless. I looked around the room and saw Russ with tears in his eyes and Mia staring at me in concern.

  When Mia saw me look her way, my sweet daughter strode across the room and placed her hand in mine. She was so real. “Mum, come see my painting. You’ll really like it. It’s one I did last night when you were at work.”

  I gratefully followed my daughter out, feeling a river of love flow between us as we walked up the stairs and into my bedroom. I sat on the end of the bed and she sat on the vanity mirror chair, so I could see the back of her head in triplicate. She had such beautiful well-behaved hair.

  “Did you have too much to drink, Mum?”

  “You shouldn’t be talking about things like that.”

  “I was around Kelly’s house one time and her mum drank too much.”

  “Kelly?”

  Mia frowned. “You know Kelly. I met her at the after-school art class. I’ve went around her house for dinner like five times.”

  “I don’t remember…”

  I felt tears spring to my eyes as I frantically scoured my mind for any mention of this girl Kelly, but there was nothing, no conversation, no fragment. My mind was filled with the desire for real sleep and the demons, the horrible long list of them.

  There was something cruel about not knowing the name of my daughter’s friend. There was something wrong with me.

  “I’m a terrible mother
.”

  “What?” Mia laughed quietly. “Okay, yeah, you’re the worst mum in the world.”

  “I really am.”

  “Mum, come on, you’re actually making me want to be sick.”

  I smiled and felt a single teardrop slide down my cheek. “Is that right?”

  “Yeah.” She shot me a mega-pout. “You really are. Go to sleep and you’ll feel better tomorrow. That’s what you and Dad always tell us.”

  Go to sleep, ha-fucking-ha.

  “Yeah, that’s a good idea. I love you, Mia. You know that, don’t you? The day you were born was the happiest day of my life.”

  “You always say that.”

  “Because it’s true.”

  “Okay, goodnight, Mum.”

  She walked from the room and I threw myself backward, too numb to climb under the duvet. I curled my knees to my chest and lay there, listening to Troy and George downstairs. George’s voice was raised and he sounded so reasonable, so understanding. “I don’t know what I said to upset her.”

  I wrapped a pillow around my head and tried to block out the voices. But they were still there, jeering through the material. I buried my face in the blackness of the pillow and screamed long and hard until my throat hurt.

  This was enough. This was too much. I couldn’t do this anymore. It had to stop.

  38

  The next morning – feeling like a husk hunched over my desk, in no state to be at work – I tried to convince myself everything was okay. I wasn’t spinning like a bicycle wheel out of control and I wouldn’t roll out of my life and lose any sense of what I was. I wasn’t snapping, cracking, anything.

  I was normal. I was Grace Dixon. I was regular and middle-class and I went on camping holidays and drank lattes and there was no way I was splintered down the middle, a broken piece of chinaware.

  I stared at my computer screen and knew I couldn’t do any work. With the party and the girl – my sister – weighing me down I couldn’t focus; focus came and went but mostly went. Troy had smoothed things over with George, but this morning he’d looked at me like I was my grandmother, as though he could already see a jagged red line across my throat.

  “I think we need to talk later, Gracie.” He rubbed my shoulder kindly.

  About how you’re driving me insane? a bitter mad voice whispered.

  The text—the faceless man in the black hat—the phone call—the girl—the Christmas present…

  I buried my face in my hands and made a quivering trapped sound.

  When a knock pounded at the door, I leapt up and let out a cry.

  I clamped my hand over my mouth and killed the noise, taking a wheezing breath through my fingers. I wished I could sleep, lay on the desk and close my eyes and drift into nothingness. My body buzzed. Olivia hadn’t brought me a coffee yet, and I didn’t want to leave the sanctuary of my office to get one myself.

  “Yes?” I snapped, far angrier than was justified.

  “It’s me,” Derrick said, sounding inconvenienced like he always did.

  “Fine.”

  He opened the door and walked over to my desk and said something about a report. But it was the look in his eye that spoke louder than any words. It was as though he could see through my clothes and he was enjoying it, this petty power over me. He wore his perpetual smirk and I knew it was him, the sick bastard, the one who’d sent Hope. He thought I was sleeping with Clive and so had arranged for my little sister to come and visit me.

  Fuck you, Derrick.

  It made no sense. None of this made sense. No sleep since the party. No sleep in who-knew-how-long. I was sneering at him, and I was nodding and making hmm noises as though what he was saying – whatever it was – was the most important thing I’d ever heard.

  “But then you think I’m a whore anyway,” I broke in.

  He paused. “What?”

  “You think I’m a slut. You think I fucked Clive to get this job. You and Zora probably call me a whore and all manner of names behind my back. That’s your opinion of me, isn’t it, Derrick? I have a feeling something happened to you to make you hate women, especially promiscuous women, which you seem to believe I am for some reason.”

  He glanced at the open office door and the noise beyond, as if it offered safety. Then he smiled tightly and shook his head. “I don’t know where this is coming from—”

  “From your clumsy hints. From your little jabs. You know where it’s coming from but you’re not used to women defending themselves. So here’s an idea. Get the fuck away from me and get it into your thick fucking skull I would never, in a billion years, do anything sexual with Clive. Okay? Fine? Fuck off.”

  Derrick backed out, hands raised, a man who’d suddenly realised he was in a cage with a lion and not a house cat. I reeled and sat, panting, and Derrick must’ve said something because a few minutes later Olivia poked her head around my office door. “Grace? Is everything okay?”

  “Sure. I was just thinking about getting a coffee. Do you want one?”

  She winced. She looked like she was in pain, somehow, for some reason. “Maybe you should go easy on the coffees.” She walked toward my desk. The door swung closed behind her, sealing us in together. “I think you need to calm down a little.”

  “Calm down?” I laughed. “Why? I’m fine. I drank too much last night. It happens to the best of us.”

  “You don’t need any more coffees.” There were tears in her eyes as she gazed at me, her lower lip trembling. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Sorry? Sorry for what?”

  She turned and her face fell. “Nothing.”

  “No,” I snarled, standing up and pacing around the desk. I grabbed her arm and gazed at her firmly. I felt like I could break her arm if I wanted to. I made her look at me. “What the fuck do you mean, you’re sorry? Why would you be sorry?”

  “I didn’t think you’d get this bad.” Her words were contorted with her sobbing. “I didn’t mean to… I didn’t want to…”

  I grabbed her shoulders and shoved her right up against the wall. As I leaned close and growled in her face, it felt right. I was cracking. Fine. Fuck it. Then let me shatter. “What are you talking about?”

  “The coffees,” she whimpered, cringing away from my hands. Guilt streaked her features. It made her look younger, like Mia on the rare occasions she didn’t do the right thing. “I shouldn’t have… I didn’t want to—”

  “What did you do?” I screamed, part of me wondering if this was a dream. “Olivia, tell me what you did.”

  “I’ve been spiking your coffees. I’ve been drugging you this entire time.”

  I’m awake. I’m asleep.

  “Why?”

  “He made me. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to. But he made me.”

  “Who made you?

  I’m awake I’m asleep I’m awake I’m—

  She lightly brushed my hands away, as though I was a clinging branch in the woods, a mild inconvenience. She strode to the desk and she let out a shaky sigh. And then she told me.

  39

  The reports, the package, the late nights, the drugged coffees, Hope, dear little Hope, it all led here. Olivia had told me his name was Sonny Hatton, but that meant nothing to me. Perhaps it was a fake name, or perhaps somebody had hired this Sonny.

  Mother hired him. Troy hired him. Clive hired him. The whole world is conspiring against you. Walk. Get out of the car and walk.

  I felt like a zombie as I climbed from the car and dragged myself toward the house, a semi-detached in Weston-super-Mare. The walls were white but coloured with wind and time and sand. There was a child’s bicycle in the front garden, one of the wheels missing, upside down and laying on the rain-damp grass.

  Of course it had to be a bike; it was a sign.

  This is real, I told myself firmly, feeling the coastal breeze shiver over me. This is not a dream.

  “He made me do it,” Olivia had whimpered. “I didn’t want to. I wish I hadn’t.”

  “You’ve been dr
ugging me since the start.”

  “Yes.”

  I knocked and felt the reverberation go up my arm.

  Footsteps sounded behind the door, getting closer. As I was wondering how long it would take for me to turn and sprint to the car, he emerged.

  “Oh.” I gasped. “It’s you.”

  “Grace,” the man said. “I think you should come inside.”

  “No.” I took a step back. “Tell me what you did. What did you make her do? What did you put in my coffee? Why are you doing this to me?”

  He frowned. “You really have no idea?”

  I think I might. But I never look there. I never let myself.

  “No.”

  “Come inside and we’ll talk about it.”

  “Tell me here.”

  He made to grab my wrist and I snapped, lashing my hand up and striking him across the face. He took the blow, a feral look creeping into his eyes. “Don’t do that again,” he warned.

  “Or what?” I yelled, raising my hand again. “Tell me what the fuck is going on!”

  “Grace, please keep your voice down.”

  He made to grab my wrist again, and again I moved back, aiming a slap at his face. He slid aside, easily dodging the blow. He was still frowning.

  I don’t want to do this, his eyes said, even as he did it.

  He moved with the speed of a predator, whipping his fist and smacking me across the jaw. I felt my brain wobble in my skull and then I was falling.

  As the world suddenly turned to night, he caught me and dragged me inside.

  40

  I woke with a heavy feeling in my body, as though invisible weights were dragging me down.

  My wrists were sticky and when I tugged on them, something strained. I pulled harder and then sat back, feeling the duct tape over my mouth and the wooden chair beneath me. My hands were tied too, wrapped with layers of tape.

  I was in a cellar.

  Dust coated the floor and the walls and I struggled to suck in air through my nose. My face pounded from where he’d hit me, a headache making a tight band of tension around my forehead.