How to Play Dead

by Jacqueline Ward

It feels like failure, but I know it isn’t. It’s just that I am rubbish at managing money. And school uniforms come before loan payments. I guess I’ve seen the absolute pits of life at SafeMe and this seems so trivial. Until the default letters began to arrive.

  I text Danny again.

  All good here love. Goodnight xxxx

  And it is good. Danny is getting us out of this fucking mess and the evening went well. What more could I ask for?

  Chapter Two

  Day 28

  I slept on and off. I’m in the kitchen at five-thirty drinking strong tea. I miss Danny. He’s completely and happily unqualified and works as a shop fitter. The money is rubbish but every so often he has the opportunity to work long, hard hours on a project for megabucks. Last week he came home and told me that there was a huge shopping complex in Dubai that needed to be ready quickly. He had thirty days’ work.

  The only catch was that it was thirty days away. Thirty days separated. We’ve barely been apart for more than one night since we met. I protested. He wasn’t getting any younger and it would wear him out. Thirty consecutive days. It was too much.

  But Danny wants his own home. A home for us. Neither of us earns brilliant money. I have a good job but it’s a charity salary and low for what I do. Danny works when he can. It works for us personally, but it means that if we are going to have our own house, we need a huge deposit. He has saved and saved and now he has his target. Thirty days and he will have enough to put down on a modest house in a decent area and clear all our debts. It’s what Danny wants out of life and if it wasn’t for my constant fears about money, it’s what I want too.

  Despite my protests, I knew he was going to do it. He sat at the kitchen table under the fake Tiffany downlight that makes the dark flat look homely. He got out his ancient Casio calculator and worked out how much he would earn, then deducted the air fare and accommodation. I could not imagine thirty days without Danny and when he announced that it would be possible, my heart sunk.

  ‘It’ll be fine, love. Fine.’

  I knew it would. On the surface. But underneath I know that this unit is what keeps me together, makes me able to deal with my job. I have to be OK for Danny and the kids. I have to be alert at work.

  I don’t start work until ten because I take the kids to school every day and Danny picks them up, so I go back to bed. I wake up in our bed with Jennifer’s face next to mine. Her red curls are damp with sleepy sweat and her cheek is squashed against my shoulder. Danny’s side hasn’t been slept in and I touch the cold sheets. Jennifer stirs and I envelope her warmth and hug her close. My heart leaps with happiness.

  I don’t want Danny to get an inkling of how much I miss him, and he can read me like a book – even my voice can give away my feelings. I know what he will do. When we first met we did the usual three dates, then straight to sex, staying awake all night afterwards talking. I made out that I’d done this before – that I was used to the flow of relationships but I wasn’t. Danny was so easy and free, so friendly and cool. He hung a string of fairy lights around the bed in the flat where I was renting a room and told me that he would be with me for ever. The inevitable getting-to-know-you questions came up. Tea or coffee? Sugar? Where did you grow up? How many sexual partners? Serious relationships?

  He’d pressed me. With a wide Danny smile and a twinkle in his eye.

  ‘How many, then?’

  ‘Serious or …?’

  ‘Serious. Just so I know what I’m up against.’

  It had been easy, really. Danny was beautiful. Quietly sexy and very, very interesting. And he believed every word I said.

  ‘Just a few.’

  He smiled.

  ‘So were you engaged or …?’

  ‘No. Not really. On and off. Came to nothing.’ His eyebrows were raised. He wanted more. ‘I went on a few dates but I can only sleep with someone I am in love with.’

  It was clever of me and I knew it. I’d been saving it until an awkward moment like this, where the surface of my life was about to be punctured with questions. Something grand to distract him. Something to make me stand out from all the other ex-teenagers moaning about their upbringing. He had melted into me and we were a couple.

  But one thing I do know about Danny is that he won’t take any shit. He told me right from the start that he expected complete fidelity, complete truth, and that anything else was a deal-breaker. Here, with me and his children, he is the gentlest, most patient man. But I have seen his temper flare, rushing out to protect and insulate our little part of the world, our relationship. I know that if he found out how much I was pining for him, he would be back on the first flight.

  Simon appears with his games console. He sits on the end of the bed and clicks away at it, his body moving with the game. My two babies, here with me. I close my eyes and listen to Jennifer’s breathing. Simon clicks away until Jennifer wakes and pushes her hair out of her eyes. She pats my face gently to wake me and Simon’s clicking stops.

  ‘Mummy.’ It feels good. I know in that moment I will do anything to protect this. That this is the right thing.

  I hurry into the kitchen and start breakfast. This is the metronome of the day and Jennifer is jumping up and down on the sofa.

  ‘Are we going to see Grandma after school?’

  ‘No, love. It’s only Wednesday. Saturday is Grandma’s day. Grandma Vi’s today, love.’

  I pop some bread into the toaster and she continues. We both know where this is leading. Finally, we get there.

  ‘Why have we only got one granddad, Mummy? Why do we only have Daddy’s daddy? Janet has two granddads. Where’s our other granddad?’

  I sigh. It’s a good question but one that it will never be easy to answer. When I had been seeing Danny for six months, he took me to meet his mother. Violet, a wonderful West Indian woman, welcomed me into her family with open arms. She asked me questions about my life and told me all about Danny’s exploits as a child, complete with photographs. His father was an older version of Danny, easy-going and vitally happy. The opposite of my father.

  When I left home I visited my parents about once a month. They live in a village at the other side of Manchester, high on a hill that sits at the foot of the Pennines. My childhood was spent traipsing across the heathered moors and running up and down the steep inclines with my best friend. I fancied myself as a Cathy and I was desperate for my Heathcliff. I never wanted to be indoors with my parents. Their semi-detached bungalow has been their home since they married, and my father’s armchair in the window was a permanent fixture.

  So when I took Danny to meet them he was the first thing we saw. His reaction took me completely by surprise, but on reflection I don’t know why, after how he had treated me. I had never seen him answer the door, not even once, always leaving it to my mother. But he was out of the chair, newspapers floating through the air, and at the door before we even got down the drive. He fixed his stare on Danny, stony-faced and hostile. We should have left then, I knew it instinctively, but Mum intervened. ‘Ria! Come in. Come in.’

  I walked in with only a brief glance down the road to Dougie Peter’s house. Danny followed me inside my mother and father’s beige home. Mum made tea and Dad just sat staring at Danny, seething. Finally, Mum beckoned me into the kitchen.

  ‘He seems nice, Ria. But are you sure …?’

  I totally missed the point.

  ‘He’s got a job and we’re moving in together.’

  I folded my arms and stood firm. She pulled her lips thin and looked down.

  ‘But children …’

  ‘I’m on the pill.’

  She turned away and fussed with some Madeira cake. I could hear the silence in the lounge and then Dad got up and went upstairs. Danny was very still. It’s the only time I have seen him visibly hurt. He took my hand.

  ‘Come on. Let’s go.’

  Mum stood in the lounge with a tray of cake, her hands shaking. We moved towards the front hallway and she followed us. Dad was
standing at the top of the stairs.

  ‘If you leave with him now, don’t bother coming back. Not you and not any kiddies. Bloody hell, Ria. I thought I’d brought you up better than … that.’

  I looked at Mum but her face was set in a look I had seen so many times before when he had proclaimed that we would not go abroad on holiday. Or that we would not eat that foreign shit when she cooked pasta. She looked from me to Danny and back again but she didn’t do anything. Not for a full minute. Then she put the cake down on the table and ushered us out. As I stood bewildered on the front doorstep, she smiled stiffly.

  ‘You can still phone.’

  She said it hopefully, and I still did. But if she wants to see Jennifer and Simon she must meet me in town. We’ve met almost every Saturday since I had them. I meet her outside Boots and she takes them to McDonald’s while I wander around the shops or sit alone in a coffee shop thinking about how I can make things right with her. She always manages to make it sound like she’s doing me a favour.

  ‘Come with Grandma while Mummy does some shopping.’

  The way she says ‘Mummy’ holds a mild sarcasm, as if she doesn’t really believe I’m their mother. That I could have produced these beautiful creatures with Danny. In many ways it suits me as it means I never have to think about my childhood. But it also means that my children have never met their grandfather.

  I still need her at times like this. I think about phoning her but it’s early and I know that she will be making his breakfast and might not answer. My father has never made a cooked meal in his entire life; she has to do everything for him. I once asked her why – why she let him treat her like this. But she told me to keep quiet. That nothing ever came of making accusations you can’t prove. To keep my mouth shut, which is the very opposite of what I tell the women I work with every day. I knew deep down she was thinking of my father. Of the trouble it would cause. Interrupting his going to work and coming home. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. She was telling me to do what she did: keep quiet and suck it up.

  I take the kids to school and go into work. The whole day is spent dealing with enquiries from the awards evening. The reporter who took the photographs phones and asks me for a quote. I answer him almost mechanically.

  ‘Two women per week are killed by their partners. I am making it my life’s work to stop this happening, whatever it takes.’

  He pauses and I hear him clicking away.

  ‘So what made you want to work in this area?’

  I snort. Journalism 101.

  ‘I grew up around controlling people. I just wanted to save others from it.’

  Vague enough for most people, but hopefully my father will read it and know it’s about him. The reporter is satisfied. He tells me it will be in tonight’s teatime edition and ends the call. It’s like throwing a grenade into a room with my mum and dad, but if change is going to happen, it might as well be now.

  Janice organises the rooms back to normal and talks to our guests. Danny’s sister Donelle has collected the kids from school so I go along to Danny’s mum’s to pick them up. I realise as I sit down at the table to dinner with her and Danny’s family how much they mean to me. Danny’s mum squeezes my arm.

  ‘All right there, Ria?’

  I smile at her. She means it. It’s not a platitude.

  ‘I’m fine, Vi. Fine.’

  She nods. ‘Work, is it? You’re a bloody saint, you know. Working there. Them women need you. Bloody saint.’

  I snort as I sip my tea. ‘I’m no saint, Vi. Your Danny’s the one who props me up. You did a good job there.’

  Jennifer joins in. ‘Daddy’s amaaaazing!’

  Donelle holds up the local paper, which has an old picture of me and the headline ‘Ria Taylor – Local Superwoman’.

  ‘But Mummy’s Superwoman, isn’t she? Or so I hear.’

  We all laugh and I’m tearing up again, thinking how this could have been me and my mum and dad. It’s not like me. Janice calls me Teflon: tough as nails and nothing sticks. But Danny’s barely been gone two days and I’m blubbing.

  I don’t want anything to spoil this. It may sound selfish, but this family, this round-the-table situation, is what I want to preserve. It suddenly strikes me that the past two days and all the worrying over money has made me count my blessings.

  At half seven we say our goodbyes. I finally sit down at home around half eight and ring Danny’s mobile. He answers in one.

  ‘Ri. Hi. Look I’m sorry I didn’t ring but. I just …’

  It’s so good to hear his voice.

  ‘It’s OK. I just wanted to check in. It’s been a hard day.’

  He laughs, deep and true.

  ‘Aren’t they fucking all! Look, I’ll be back in the real world sometime tomorrow. That flight then a full day labouring’s wiped me out. And I can’t wait until we have that deposit in our hands. Get looking. It’s gonna happen.’

  I smile to myself. I want to tell him I love him, and explain how much, tell him how happy he makes me. Because I do. So much. But the unspoken cost of a foreign phone call hangs between us, eating into Danny’s house deposit dreams and the debt-busting trip.

  ‘Yeah. Speak tomorrow, love, take care. Love you.’

  He ends the call and I immediately open my laptop. It’s better to look to the future. That’s what we agreed. I’d look for houses while he was away. We could still get a mortgage if we sorted the debts out now. He is right. I flick on to Rightmove and lose myself in what could be my future home.

  Chapter Three

  Day 27

  When I woke up this morning Danny’s jumper was in bed beside me. I must have reached for it during the night.

  I get up and make tea. It’s my ritual, holding the hot cup in my hands and having half an hour to collect myself before Jennifer and Simon burst forth. Our home is tiny but comfortable, most things recycled from either our previous homes or house clearances via work: the houses of women who are gone, their partners in prison or far away.

  Yes, I grow attached to them. It’s hard not to because they become my friends. I spend hours and hours helping them, sometimes sitting in silent witness to their oppression, other times an endless sounding board. Whatever they decide I will honour, even if it is returning, because it is their choice. But when the end of their world comes, it is devastating. SafeMe is a family, and it is like losing a sister. I always keep a memento of them, and they are here, dotted around my home: a thimble, a ceramic cat, a moulded plastic bangle. Nothing matches in my home, but everything matches people’s lives.

  I think it’s rebellion rather than general untidiness. Even as a child I cluttered my room with bits of toys I had collected from the street and from friends’ houses. In my mind, I was creating a toy hospital where I could put them back together and gift them, reconfigured, to my friends. In my mother’s mind it was a fucking mess. The bungalow was spotless and washed over with magnolia paint every six months to ‘freshen’ it. None of that for me.

  I sort through the various hats and gloves and boots. I take Simon and Jennifer to school and wave to them long after they’ve gone in. I walk to work through the backstreets of Manchester, social housing turning to quirky bedsits and old mills turned to posh flats. Once there, I pull out the work diary. Someone has complained about us. They mistook us for a bail hostel. I open a word document and think about how to explain that the women here are not criminals but not victims either.

  My thoughts are interrupted by Janice bursting into the room. She thrusts a package into my hand along with a bunch of envelopes with a thick elastic band around them. I see my chance. I produce a bundle of final demands out of my pocket.

  ‘Got a minute?’

  She turns around and sinks into a chair. She reads the letters, some of them in bright red ink. Her face reddens a deep beetroot in temper.

  ‘Fucking hell. Is this why Danny’s fucked off to Dubai?’

  ‘Yeah. That and a deposit for a house.’

  She whistles into
the air.

  ‘Bloody hell. Must be some job.’ She shuffles the letters. ‘Will there be time? I mean, some of these are quite … old.’

  I grin at her. We’re used to last chances.

  ‘Yeah. I’m going to ring round today. Give them a payment date.’

  ‘So is this why you’ve been a bit pissed off. Not the usual strength of Little Miss Sunshine?’

  I nod and grin still.

  ‘Yeah. That and Danny being away.’

  She looks at me.

  ‘Happens to the best of us. Wasn’t so long ago our Eamon owed Very five grand. And he’s an accountant.’ We both laugh. She’s right and I know it. She kisses the top of my head. ‘Got to run, Ri. But cheer up, Charlie. You did the right thing telling me even if it’s only so I know why you’ve got a face like a fiddle. We’ll chat later. I need to tell you about Tony’s girlfriend.’

  Normally I would be all ears. Janice is my female soul mate and the source of hilarity, but I’m already sorting through the post. I relax. Bills and benefits letter for the residents. I open the package and pull out the box inside. It’s a cheap mobile phone. I look at the label and it’s clearly addressed to me. Probably for one of the women. I turn it on and the screen bursts into life. There is an icon on the front that says ‘media file’, and underneath ‘play me’.

  I press ‘play’ and it’s me. It’s me walking away from SafeMe, down the road. It is filmed from a distance, probably from inside a car. I turn up the volume and I can hear rustling, the noise of traffic and breathing. I watch the footage until it ends, then flick to the numbers. There is a single number in the address book. The freeze-framed picture of me on the screen is half astride and there is something mildly comical, almost clown-like about it. I’m wearing black dungarees over a bright yellow T-shirt.

  I snort. Fucking idiots. I’ve had this kind of thing before, although not this blatantly – more catcalling and threats on the street outside SafeMe from disgruntled ex-partners who truly believe it is my fault their wife has taken their children and left them.