by Sam Hayes
‘I hear you’re the competition,’ the man said, stooping down beside me. Ruby tugged at my other hand, whining, sensing danger, and I felt I was being torn in two. ‘I can recommend a reliable wholesaler for your stock,’ he continued and I couldn’t understand why he gently guided Ruby and me into his perfumed flower shop. When I fell to the floor sobbing and pleading with him not to call the police, he sat me down and gave us orange juice and Belgian chocolates. It was all we could do not to scoff the lot.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I won’t steal from you again. It’s just that your flowers sell the best and we get starving.’ The man liked my honesty.
‘I’ve been watching you for a week now, when I realised that my anthurium hadn’t grown legs and walked away. I even bought one of the arrangements you had made on the seafront, although you won’t remember.’ I didn’t.
He told me his name was Baxter King and that he was looking for an assistant. He offered me the job right there and then because I had an eye for colour. He called for his partner, Patrick, to come and see what he had found. The pair stood staring at me in a loose embrace while I sipped my juice and Ruby sucked on a coffee cream. Within a week I had learnt the ropes and been invited to move into the couple’s comfortable flat to help them keep house.
‘Baxter,’ I say, breathless, as he comes in smelling of salt and the wind. ‘Someone telephoned again. I know it’s him.’ Without taking his eyes off me, Baxter lets his jacket slide onto the chair, wraps his hands around Patrick’s shoulders for a second and then comes up to me to give me a hug.
‘It was all too long ago,’ he says. ‘There are things in life you have to let go of. There’s no way he could trace you. It’s a wrong number, you’ll see. If it bothers you, I’ll get the number changed.’
I nod and try to believe him although I don’t. Not even Baxter knows my full story.
I saw the body. I nicked his money, a passport and a little girl. I’ve got secrets even though I know how to keep my mouth shut. I have a new life now, far away from anything I left behind in London, and the thought of Becco seeking me out and forcing me back to work . . .
I shiver and tell Baxter about my day at the shop, how popular the new stock is proving to be and how well Ruby is doing at school.
‘She didn’t get the part in the musical, by the way. She’s not Annie, not even one of the other orphan girls. But she’s pleased as pie.’
Baxter raises an eyebrow, one of his tricks, and seems relieved that I don’t appear worried any more, even though I am. ‘How come?’
‘She’s in the orchestra. The pianist.’ I watch as his pale face turns pink with the pride of a father, even though he’s not.
Baxter had Ruby sitting at his piano from the very first day we came to live with him. She learnt quickly and eagerly although she wasn’t even school age. Playing the piano, simple nursery rhymes and jingles at first, became Ruby’s passion. It was a vent for all the agony she had absorbed in the first few years of her life, a way to let it all out. I will love Baxter forever for giving her that.
‘I’m so happy for her,’ he says, staring out of the bay window of the first-floor flat, down the street to the sea. ‘Looks like a storm’s blowing up,’ he comments and I know he’s right.
Someone sends me flowers. Someone has sent flowers to a flower shop. The delivery man looks as bemused as me when he confirms my name and says, yes, they are for you.
I call Baxter to come from the storeroom but remember that he has gone out to run errands. I am all alone. I peel open the envelope and read the card. A chill works its way from my feet to my heart as I read his name in black handwriting. He has found me. He hasn’t given up looking, after all this time. He wants me back, to keep me quiet.
I shut up the shop early and sprint to Ruby’s school, waiting outside for her to finish, stepping from one foot to the other as if her class will never finish. She looks bewildered when she sees me. Normally, she will walk alone to the shop and take delight in rearranging the displays or beg for coins to buy an ice cream and sit on the seafront shooing away the gulls until it’s time to go home.
Today I drag her by the hand and we take the bus straight home and bolt the door. Just in case and without Ruby knowing, I pack a bag. I cram in all the things I couldn’t bear to lose and all the things we’re going to need. Twice I have fled and left my life behind. The telephone rings. I don’t answer it. When I listen to the message, I know it’s him. I would never forget that voice, those weasel eyes searching me out.
He wants me back even though I’m not me any more.
The stench of smoke wakes me. They say that fire spreads quickly but panic and noise fill the flat as much as the swathes of dense blackness that invade our bedroom.
‘Ruby, wake up!’ I scream. We sleep in the same room and she is so still that I wonder if the smoke has already got to her and I will be carrying a body as, once again, I flee for my life. But she stirs, her nose twitching and her eyes watering as soon as she opens them.
‘What’s happening, Mum?’
‘Get up now. There’s a fire!’ I hear Baxter screaming, banging, glass shattering. I yank Ruby off the bed and undo the sash window catch. My fingers aren’t mine and I can’t make them work. ‘Shut the door,’ I cry. It’ll give us precious extra seconds.
Finally, the window catch gives, years of paint crumbling as it opens. I slide up the heavy pane and push Ruby onto the window sill. The metal fire escape at the rear of the building clatters and creaks like the hulk of an old ship sinking as she climbs onto it. I drag the pre-packed bag from under the bed and sling it onto my shoulder. Without looking back, we clamber down the fire escape and run as fast as we can down the street. I know he won’t be far away.
Even when we are panting on the beach I can smell burning in the night air, see the flicker of orange above the rooftops as sirens scream through town. We sit, shaking, Ruby in her ballerina pyjamas resting her head on my shoulder, me in sweatpants and a T-shirt, and once again I’m thinking of catching a train.
The tide creeps up the pebbles, the noise of the wash getting closer, and when we can feel the spray on our ankles, we move further up the beach and huddle under the storm wall. I think about the consequences of running away again as well as the outcome if we stay.
We could stand up now and walk back to the smouldering ruin that is Baxter and Patrick’s flat. I can’t bear the thought that I have brought this upon them. But they’ll be OK; they’ll survive. They can rebuild and they have each other and the shop. I know that they’re better off without me. It’s a fact that my parents are better off without me – the teenager who shamed them by getting pregnant at fifteen. Now it’s a fact that Baxter and Patrick are better off without my sordid past darkening their lives.
When it comes down to it, Ruby would be better off without me too. But I am her mother now. She falls asleep against my shoulder.
In the morning we take a bus to the station and ride a train to the place Becco will never think of searching; the last place he’d expect me to hide. London.
At Victoria Station, I push fifty pence into the telephone and dial Baxter’s shop to tell him we’re OK. In a voice warped by grief, he tells me that Patrick is dead.
TWENTY-FIVE
She called ticket number thirty-two, oblivious of the consequences. At first, Robert didn’t hear her over the noise in the pub. He had gone to sit down on a leather banquette but wished he hadn’t because he was positioned beside a fruit machine that spewed out coins and jangled his thoughts. Then he glimpsed Cheryl’s face through the crowd, watched her mouth his number. As if he was walking underwater, he pushed his way to the woman whose life he could to bring to a halt.
Something in Cheryl’s eyes flickered as he approached. Without a word and only a heavy drag of her eyes up and down his body – a sure-fire way for a psychic to gain a starting point – she beckoned him into the sanctuary of the clairvoyant’s room. It was peaceful and smelled of sandalwood and there
was a hint of tranquil music trickling from a couple of speakers. Three other tables were set out with a generous gap between each of them so that the consultations could take place in privacy.
‘Please, sit down.’ Her voice was quiet and structured. Built on grief.
Robert did as he was instructed, not taking his eyes off her. She wasn’t routinely attractive but there was something beautiful about the warp and weft of her skin, the way the fabric of her soul bared through as honest as her blushed cheeks or as devious as her dilated pupils. The saucer eyes made her look crazy. Robert would understand if she was.
‘I’m Cheryl,’ she said. Her gaze flicked over him, perhaps to read his past, his future.
Robert knew that was how they worked, these so-called psychics. One snippet of information, one fact too many and they were on to something, had you all wrapped up hey presto and pocketed your money. Except that in this case, he was about to predict her future, change it forever.
‘Robert Knight,’ he said and held out his hand which seemed to surprise her. She didn’t take it.
‘Did you want the tarot, crystal ball, runes? I can do most things.’ She didn’t look at him as she spoke.
‘I’m not sure,’ Robert replied honestly. He didn’t care about his past and he didn’t think he had much of a future any more. He would rather talk about her, the woman he believed was Ruby’s real mother, the woman who had suffered incalculable loss because of his wife. The woman who, if he turned the whole matter over to the police, would have another chance to be Ruby’s mother. Then he thought of Erin – he loved her, didn’t he? – broken, in prison, unable to forgive him if he turned her in. His heart beat so hard he could feel it in his throat.
Was it coincidence that Cheryl’s hair, although deep brown, almost black, shone silver-blue in the light of the many candles positioned around the room, like Ruby’s sometimes did? Was it not hereditary that she had the same full lips as his stepdaughter, the long limbs, the bony fingers and extra-slim neck that disappeared elegantly inside a purple chiffon top?
‘What do you recommend?’ He was gentle with her, hardly able to imagine what her life had held.
‘Give me your hand,’ she instructed, still not making eye contact. Does she know why I’m here? he wondered. She’s meant to be psychic, after all.
She wiped her fingers over his palm. ‘Ah.’ She laughed, her smile a temporary tributary of her innate sadness. ‘A businessman.’ It wasn’t as if he was wearing a suit or carrying a briefcase. He wondered why she found the fact amusing. ‘And the usual stress to accompany that?’ It was a question not a statement.
Finally, she made eye contact with Robert. He knew she’d seen the stars of sweat seeping from his palm. He nodded, not wanting to give too much away. ‘Everyone has problems, don’t they?’
The low voices from the consultations around them dissolved and the background noise from the bar passed to another dimension.
Cheryl closed her eyes and sighed before opening them. Her hand quivered and she let go of Robert’s before he could notice.
‘Well, you’re going to live a long life, if that’s any use.’ Cheryl leaned back in her chair, the smile daring to spread.
‘A long life full of stress? Hmm.’ Robert mirrored her grin.
‘It’s not all bad.’ She took a swift look at his palm again. ‘But now is the hardest time. Once you get through that—’
‘Couldn’t that apply to anyone? Don’t most of the people who come to see you have problems?’ Robert instantly regretted challenging her. It wasn’t what he had come to do.
‘We all have our problems, Mr Knight. It’s how we deal with them that makes each of us unique.’ She slid Robert’s hand off the velvet cloth, a sign that she was rejecting what he’d said, and positioned her own hands round the crystal ball. Robert could see her reflection in it, her glassy face morphed by refraction, twisted and wrecked by events outside her control.
‘Tell me about my family and what their future holds.’ He had now revealed that he had a family but he wasn’t testing how credible she was. He was trying to find a way to talk about Ruby. Ideally, he wanted Cheryl to see her future through his and save him the ordeal of breaking the news; save him betraying Erin completely.
As she lost herself in the crystal ball, Robert considered the consequences if he had got it wrong. But the police had drawn the same conclusion thirteen years ago; the detective who had handled the case of Cheryl’s kidnapped baby, Robert had noticed, had also handled Ruth’s disappearance.
He, too, stared into the crystal ball and contemplated the impossible scenario of Ruth, his Erin, stealing another woman’s baby. But all he saw in the glass was the face of Mary Bowman as she was denied her children.
‘I can see a woman. Her life is as fragile as the wing of a moth.’ Cheryl’s voice was barely there. She continued to stare into the glass. ‘She’s always scared. Always running away.’ Cheryl suddenly pulled her hands away from the ball. Her face went blank and her eyes hardened. She turned round and pulled a mohair wrap off the back of the chair and slung it around her shoulders. Robert noticed the hairs on her arms standing upright.
‘Go on,’ he urged, knowing she’d seen something, even though he didn’t believe in this kind of thing.
She gazed at the ball again. ‘Do you want me to be honest?’
‘Of course.’ He wished he could be honest but the truth, although it would change this woman’s life, would destroy Erin’s.
‘You lost someone dear, not so long ago. You blame yourself and live in circles, dizzying yourself with old habits, tired ways.’ Cheryl hugged the shawl tighter. ‘So scared,’ she whispered with a look that said the same about her.
‘And?’ Robert’s hunger for more information nearly outweighed the reason he had come. Cheryl had clearly seen Jenna.
‘I don’t see any more.’
‘Can’t or won’t?’ Robert said too loudly, wounded by her words even though he knew they were true. He wanted to shout at her and shake her cold body then cup her face in his hands and whisper that she could stop hurting now, that the pain could be over, that he had found her lost baby; that his wife, Erin, had stolen her and brought her up as her own, for whatever reasons, when she ran away from home, and that if she liked, she could have her back, to keep.
Except that to say those words would also be to shatter the life of a young girl who had just discovered confidence and happiness. How could he strip Ruby of the only mother she had ever known? How could he betray the woman he loved? Without doubt Erin would be tried and sentenced and the whole nation would know her story.
How could he?
Robert slouched in his chair. He groaned loudly, causing several other clients to stare. ‘I’m sorry.’ He straightened again when a look of surprise swept over Cheryl’s weary face. ‘It’s been a tough week.’
To ease the awkward moment, Cheryl dealt a spread of tarot cards. Robert focused on the elaborate pictures, not caring what they meant. She could tell him that he was going to be run over by a bus tomorrow and he wouldn’t mind. He just wanted her to mention her baby.
‘As I thought,’ she said, businesslike again, as if the moment between them, that thread of near connection, had never happened. ‘A long life with lots of changes afoot. But for the better,’ she added. Then, ‘You must have specific questions. Everybody does.’
Oh, I do.
‘Does anyone ever tell your fortune?’ he asked.
Cheryl relaxed, amused. ‘I can read my own future. Why would I need anyone else to?’
Robert let it pass. She continued to translate the cards, while he tried to lay the map of what she said over real life. There was something about a dilemma, crossroads perhaps, nothing that wouldn’t fit the next punter as easily. Cheryl mentioned his work but told him he was in the wrong job. He knew he wasn’t. Robert looked at his watch, wondering how long he had left.
‘Can I buy you a drink when you’ve finished working?’
‘I’m running late. I have five more clients to see yet.’ No eye contact. Her cheeks reddened.
‘Lunch tomorrow?’
‘Mr Knight, did you come here to ask me on a date or do you want a reading?’ She folded her arms, abandoning the tarot.
‘I’m sorry.You’re probably married with a family and think that I’m a sleaze—’
‘You already told me that you have a family!’
‘It wasn’t meant to be a date. Just a drink.’ Robert swallowed, felt his jaw twitch. He knew she was experienced in noticing the signs, just as he was. ‘So are you married?’ He remembered there was a husband – Andrew Varney? – mentioned in the newspaper reports following the abduction. Robert instantly regretted probing. Cheryl dipped her head and clasped her hands on her legs. She was barely breathing.
‘I’m divorced.’ It was as if she was lifting a boulder. ‘A long time ago now.’ Signalling a degree of bravery, she shuffled the tarot cards around.
‘I’m a widower but married again now.’ Robert waited for her to absorb their connection, that they had each, somehow, lost loved ones. He waited for her to cross the bridge. ‘Do you have children?’
The gap of time was intolerable. The moment stretched to infinity but the immediate blankness on her face was what he had expected. Robert knew that underneath the layers of chocolate hair, beneath her flawless skin, behind the unfathomable eyes that had seen so much pain, was the core of her feelings.
‘No, I don’t.’ Her reply was the javelin of an Olympic athlete. The words were driven with finality: don’t ask me any more.
‘I have a daughter.’ There. It was said. He had shown her Ruby. ‘She’s thirteen.’
Cheryl smiled. ‘Difficult times then.’ She seemed grateful for the reprieve.
Robert heard the clairvoyant at the next table delivering a glimpse of the future to his client. He stole a look. A young woman sat riveted by the older man’s revelations. He was reading her palm.