I stare at it, and she sees me looking and grins, a horrid, slow, grin that shows her perfect white teeth. A woman pushes past me, pulling her son along by the hand, tutting because we’re in the way, but I can’t move, I can’t do anything but stare at the watch, my dad’s watch, at the little brown face of it glinting on Erin’s wrist.
‘Where did you get that watch?’ I touch it with my fingertips, feel the cool glass face and then the cold, clammy skin of her wrist.
‘Dad’s watch? That’s what I’ve been meaning to talk to you about, Corinne,’ she says. She circles the watch round and around her wrist, it’s bigger on her than it even was on me. The leather goes round and around, the skin underneath reddening. The gesture is eerily familiar, it’s exactly what I used to do when he let me try it on. Dread starts to thud through my body. Every muscle in my body is urging me to run, to get away from her, but I am frozen, hypnotised by Dad’s watch.
I swallow. ‘Tell me what you mean.’
‘Our dad said he was going to leave you, Corinne. Did you know that?’
The words hit me like a knife in the stomach.
‘Our dad? What are you talking about? You’re lying.’ There’s a roaring sound and the next train is beside us, a stream of people starts to disembark, clutching their briefcases, their buggies, their bags of shopping. None of them so much as looks at us, standing close together, our eyes locked. It’s too loud, I can’t hear anything apart from the Tube. Erin waits, her head cocked to one side. The big orange clock on the station sign behind her flicks over: I am beyond late now. Ashley will be worried.
The train pulls out of the station. Erin shakes her head. ‘I’m not lying, Corinne. Your dad told my mum we’d be a proper family. He promised us everything. I should have had that doll house.’ She looks away from me briefly, at the dark mouth of the tunnel. ‘I got that in the end.’
‘My dad never left us,’ I say. ‘He never did anything wrong. He loved Mum. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
She shakes her head, tuts under her breath as though I’m a naughty child.
‘My dad wouldn’t have had an affair,’ I continue, and, as I say the words, I cling to them in my head, cling to the truth. It has to be the truth. It just has to be.
‘You ought to be careful with Dominic,’ Erin says then. ‘Men are all the same.’ She pauses, narrows her eyes at me. ‘Do you really think Dominic is with Andy every time he goes out?’
I cannot look away from her. My heart is beating beneath my coat, far too fast. I think of the shards of glass falling out of it, of what she’s said about the doll house. I don’t feel safe. I need Dominic. Where is he?
A wave of sickness rolls around my stomach. I’m not sure how long I can stay calm, I’m trying so hard, for the baby. Breathing in, and out, in, and out. I want to catch somebody’s eye but everyone is glued to their phone, there’s a teenager fiddling with her headphones to my right, a group of tourists studying the Tube map on the wall. One of the Underground attendants is further down the platform but he’s not looking our way, he’s looking at the railway tracks, tapping out a beat with his foot. No one is going to help me.
‘I don’t believe you,’ I say, because I can’t, I can’t believe her, I can’t believe that Dominic would lie to me, and I can’t believe that my dad would have done this. To my mother. To us. To me.
Erin twists her wrist, looks down at my dad’s watch.
‘No?’ She shrugs. ‘Oh well. Have it your way. Your sister believes me, I think. Not that she’ll be much help to anyone now.’ She gives a half-smile, tosses her blonde hair over her shoulder. Her blue eyes burn into mine. She leans in to me, her breath right up against my cheek like she is going to tell me a secret.
‘He loved you the most,’ she whispers, curls her mouth upwards in a grin. ‘I knew you were his favourite. Oh, he loved Ashley.’ She nods. ‘Of course he did. But not as much as you.’ Her eyes search mine, as though looking for a secret that I don’t have. ‘That must have felt nice.’ She sighs, a flicker of disappointment crosses her face. ‘It’s a shame you won’t listen to the truth. We might have been friends. I’m not a bad person, Corinne. I’m just trying to make things right.’ For a moment I see it in her eyes – a flash of humanity, of some great sadness that is hidden just beneath the glassy exterior.
I hesitate, then make a sudden movement, try to dart past her. Her hand flies out and she grabs my arm, jerks me back towards her. I cry out, the pain travels up to my shoulder. Her nails dig into my flesh.
‘Come on, Corinne, we’re only chatting,’ she says. ‘Don’t go making a scene, will you. No one likes a drama queen.’
‘You’re insane,’ I gasp, my breath coming in short pants. ‘You’re totally insane. None of what you’re saying is true.’
‘It is though,’ she says, and she looks amused now, she’s laughing at the way my breathing won’t slow down. ‘It’s all true. Dad was quite the family man, Corinne. So much so that he had two! I didn’t like being the daughter he ignored.’
I look behind her desperately. Should I call out?
Erin sees me looking, moves her foot slightly so that her boot is on my toes. My eyes water.
‘Time is up now, Corinne,’ she says, and the amusement is gone from her face. ‘You and Ashley have had your fun. How do you think it felt, watching you from the sidelines? Seeing you have the life I deserved?’ She presses her boot down harder on my foot. ‘It didn’t feel good.’
‘I . . . I’m sorry,’ I whisper, ‘I didn’t know, I didn’t—’
‘No,’ she says, ‘you never bothered to look. You took it all for granted, didn’t you, your perfect little life, your perfect father. You had it all.’
Her mouth twists. ‘But now you don’t, do you, Corinne? Now he’s in the ground, and there’s no one here to protect you.’
58
27 March 2017
The day of the anniversary
London
Corinne
Erin’s grip is vice-like on my arm.
‘Did you like the gifts, by the way? Had to pay your mum quite a lot for that doll house.’ She smiles at my shocked face. ‘Didn’t she tell you? She took the money for Dad’s things fairly easily, when it came to it. Don’t think she knew who was buying them. ’ She shakes her head. ‘I had to hire someone to do that because I knew it would look odd, a twenty-year-old buying antiques. Still, she needed the cash.’ There is a pause. Erin tilts her head to one side, an odd smile on her face. Her eyes are fixed on mine. I can’t look away.
‘She probably didn’t tell you about the debt, did she? Another secret of Dad’s. That’s what happens when your husband has pissed off the de Bonnier family.’ Erin laughs.
The ground feels unsteady beneath me, as though I might lose my balance. Her words cut into me like tiny knives.
‘Word gets around. The work dries up. By the time he died he’d lost us almost forty thousand pounds and the rumours were starting. You only have to look at Carlington to know he didn’t do the job he was supposed to do. Used the cheapest materials, never finished what he started because he knew he had Mum wrapped around his finger. Not such a great guy, after all, but no one saw through him.’ A look of disgust crosses Erin’s face.
‘She never would have done anything but lap up his lies so he took our money, cut corners on the property, put the rest straight into his bank account. He blackmailed my mother for years; kept her hanging with the idea that he might come back to us as long as she never went public about what he’d done to Carlington. That’s why she’d never sell the house until now, now that he’s dead. Not much chance of him coming back to us now, is there?’ She pauses. ‘Not that there ever really was.’
‘No,’ I say, ‘you’re making this up. You’re making all of it up!’
She just carries on, as though I haven’t spoken at all.
‘That was a lovely doll house, wasn’t it? Really beautiful.’ As she speaks, her eyes sparkle
, and suddenly I know why she looks so familiar, why I felt like I had seen her before when we first met. Her eyes remind me of Dad’s.
Time seems to slow down.
Suddenly, as I am staring at her it is as though something clicks in Erin’s brain, she sets her lips, shakes her head.
Her grip loosens slightly on my arm and I spot my chance; I yank myself away from her, use all my strength to push her to the side so that her body hits the wall of the platform, collides with the dirty white tiles. Then I am shoving through the people, my face wet with tears, desperately trying to reach the exit. I can hear her footsteps coming behind me but I don’t look back. I bang into the man in front of me and, before he can say anything I am past him, threading in and out of the people on the platform like a grass snake.
I turn around and I can’t see her. I keep moving, my arms stretched out before me, brushing aside mothers and fathers and families who clump together on the platform. A group of schoolchildren all wearing matching blue blazers make a huddle underneath the station clock, the black electric sign with the orange writing which says the next train is in one minute.
My breath is coming in pants and I scrabble for my phone, yank it from my handbag as I move, but I can’t call anyone because there’s no signal and so all I can do is keep going, my thoughts turning over and over, and all I can see in my mind’s eye is the watch, the big face of it telling me the truth, because why would she lie and then I twist my head and I see a flash of yellow and then I feel them, the hands on my shoulders, like angel wings, and I turn around and we are grappling, her arms are so strong, her palm hits my cheek and I’m clinging on to the end of her scarf like it is a life rope. As I pull, it tightens around her neck, bringing our faces right up close, pressing our skin together, her cold cheek icy against my own.
Her mouth is close to mine and I think she says something, something about her mother, and we’re too close to the edge and my boots are slipping and then shadowy figures are moving towards us. I can hear a baby crying and I think of my baby, my beautiful unborn child, and that is my last thought before there is a roaring noise and then there is nothing but the crowded platform and the face of a schoolchild, mouth set in a gaping ‘o’ of horror.
59
27 March 2017
The day of the anniversary
London
Dominic
He sees the blue lights before he hears the sound of the sirens. They’re rounding the corner to the cemetery when the ambulance roars past, the flashing lights engulf the car for a second and Mathilde lets out a horrified moan.
‘Dominic!’
He watches as though in slow motion as the ambulance stops outside Hampstead cemetery, as he had known it would. Two police cars block the iron gates. Without speaking, he screeches to a halt behind them. They are too late. It is everything he feared.
Mathilde is whimpering like a wounded animal in the back seat.
‘I think you should stay in the car, Mathilde,’ he tells her. He gets out, closes the door, forces himself to put one foot in front of the other, over and over until he’s by the gates. He cannot see inside.
A policeman steps forward, illuminated in the flashing blue lights. ‘Sir, I’m afraid the cemetery is closed temporarily, please don’t come any further.’
Dominic is about to lose his temper completely. Nobody has called him back, not one of these officers has spared a thought for him, driving at breakneck speed to get to his family. And now they’re telling him he can’t go inside?
‘My girlfriend’s inside!’ He roars the words at the officer, feeing a tidal wave of rage and grief welling up inside his chest. The policeman’s face falls; Dominic sees him putting the pieces together, sees him reach for his walkie-talkie but Dominic doesn’t care any more, he just needs to know.
Someone is coming. Dominic is going to throw up. The policeman puts out an arm to him and they both are forced to step back as three paramedics come out of the cemetery, carrying a figure on a stretcher between them. Dominic’s vision starts to blur.
‘White female, found on the floor, multiple head injuries,’ one of the paramedics is saying to a policeman, who is reporting the information into a clip on his shirt. ‘Serious blood loss, victim found unconscious but breathing.’ They are moving quickly, opening the doors of the ambulance. Dominic steps forward. The walkie-talkie crackles again. ‘Second victim, baby girl, head injuries, critical.’ The cemetery gates open again and more paramedics come out, carrying something small, something tiny. Dominic feels sick. It’s not possible.
The ambulance doors open and a flood of white light gushes out, illuminating the figure on the stretcher. Dominic’s heart gives a massive jolt. The blood is everywhere, but the familiar face is still recognisable. It is not Corinne. It is Ashley.
60
27 March 2017
The day of the anniversary
London
Ashley
There are shapes all around her, they shift and twist like a kaleidoscope as she tries to make them out. She doesn’t know where she is. Somebody who looks a bit like her mother is sitting on a fold-down chair with a man she doesn’t recognise, a man wearing white. Everything feels very loud, and they are moving too fast. There is a terrible pain in her head; when she tries to lift herself upwards somehow it doesn’t work, her body doesn’t do what it’s supposed to. Her baby. She needs her baby. The man in white reaches out to her, puts a hand on her arm.
‘Try to keep still, Mrs Thomas,’ he is saying, and she wonders how he knows her name. The figures around her are so fuzzy, fading in and out. Something is attached to her arm. She thinks they might be in a vehicle. The school bus? Are the children here? Maybe that man isn’t a stranger at all. Maybe it’s James. Where is James? She hopes he’s put the fish fingers on. Another thought keeps rising in her mind. Her baby. There is something wrong with her baby girl.
‘Ashley.’ A face looms before her. She tries to smile but there’s something wrong with her mouth, it tastes funny, metallic and strangely wet. The pain in her head is so bad, it feels like it’s getting worse. Why is her mother here? Her eyelids feel very heavy. She’s at home again, in their old house, and her parents are sitting on the sofa. They’ve got their arms around each other but there is something wrong, her Dad’s face is slipping and sliding, it’s melting onto the floor. She needs to clean it up, there’ll be a mess.
‘Can you hear me, Ashley?’ She wonders what she is supposed to say. Why are they going so fast? It is making her feel sick. Has she been sick already? Her brain feels like it is clouded in fog. She cannot remember what has happened. It’s something bad. She thinks it’s something bad.
The man wearing white says something to the man driving the vehicle and they seem to go a bit faster. Ashley closes her eyes again. It is too hard to keep them open. As she starts to lose consciousness, a face flashes into her mind. Blonde hair, piercing blue eyes. That face. It makes her feel frightened. It makes her feel like she is going to die.
61
27 March 2017
The day of the anniversary
London
Dominic
The police cannot find Corinne. Where the hell is she? He had tried explaining to the paramedics, but they kept saying that Ashley was alone with Holly in the cemetery, that there was no sign of Corinne at all.
‘No!’ he had shouted, ‘You don’t understand – you aren’t listening to me! This girl, the girl that did this – she’s still out there, she’s looking for my girlfriend. You’ve got to find her.’
Dominic had stared at Ashley, at the blood blooming from her head as the paramedics stretchered her into the ambulance, helped Mathilde into the vehicle with her. They moved with worrying speed, their actions quick, urgent. Holly is put into a separate ambulance, it leaves immediately, screeches down the road at breakneck speed.
‘You’d better come with us in the car,’ one of the policemen had told him, as he watched the ambulance doors slam, the blue lights p
ull away. Ashley’s hair was matted to her skull, the strands thick with blood. He thinks of James and the children. They must know Holly is missing. Has anyone called them yet?
He tells the police what he knows. The officer in the passenger seat starts radioing the local stations, passing out the alert as they follow the ambulance towards the Royal Free Hospital. Dominic feels helpless, he phones the flat over and over again, praying that Corinne will pick up. He has tried the gallery, the mobile, but the gallery phone rings out and her mobile goes straight to messages.
He can’t keep his thoughts straight. A tiny part of him is hoping against hope that Corinne is safe, that maybe she didn’t come to meet Ashley at all. He hates himself for being grateful that it is Ashley hooked up to the machines – he loves her too, she is like family – but Corinne is his life. He cannot believe the injuries on Ashley’s head. He thinks of Erin and feels sick.
The police car speeds through traffic lights, bounces slightly as they turn the corner of St John’s Road. Dominic shuts his eyes. Where is she? The radio in the front seat begins to crackle and a voice comes over it, speaking to the officer behind the wheel. Dominic sits forward in the back seat, every muscle in his body straining to hear. But there’s no need; the words come through startlingly clearly.
‘10-78, fatality at West Hampstead Tube station. Young woman under a train. They’re sending the crew out now.’
Dominic feels the floor of the car begin to shift. Cold fear clutches at his heart. He opens his mouth, but it’s already happening, the police car is braking, beginning to turn around.
62
26 March 2017
The day of the anniversary
London
Dominic
The train officer is directing everybody away, his outstretched hands fielding off the angry commuters. Pigeons scatter in the air like terrible shadows as the people are herded from the station, shunted out into the Hampstead streets. Barriers surround the station entrance; blue lights highlight the scene. Whispers catch Dominic as he dodges through the crowds, Did you see it, did you see what happened? It’s the driver I feel sorry for . . .
The Doll House Page 30