Dead Secret

by Ava McCarthy

  Then the door swept open and Samantha said,

  ‘Lily wants to see you.’

  26

  Jodie hovered on the threshold, taking in the everyday art-room clutter: wall-to–wall paintings and messy collages; chairs and easels strewn about.

  A young nurse sat by the window, thumbing her phone. Jodie’s gaze settled on the only occupied easel, and on the woman who was leaning out from behind it, watching her closely.

  Jodie shot Samantha a look, got a reassuring nod, then, slowly, made her way towards Lily.

  The woman regarded her with bright eyes. She was a curious mix of young and old: steel-grey hair done in schoolgirl plaits; frumpy housedress with ankle socks and Mary Janes. Her sagging skin put her unmistakably in her mid-fifties.

  Jodie held out her hand. ‘Lily?’

  The woman nodded, wiping her palms on a paint-stained cloth, stirring up the punchy smell of turps: pine trees and liquorice. They shook hands. Jodie scoured Lily’s features, searching for some likeness. Aware she was searching for herself. But Samantha was right, they looked nothing alike.

  Tentatively, Jodie said. ‘I’m Peter’s daughter.’

  Lily frowned, looking back to the doorway as though expecting someone else. ‘No, that can’t be right.’

  Jodie’s eyes flicked to Samantha, who was watching with interest. Then back to Lily.

  ‘My name is Jodie.’

  ‘No, that’s not right either.’ Lily seemed quite definite this time. ‘I don’t remember the name, but that’s not it. And no offence, but you’re way too old.’

  Lily picked up a brush and turned firmly back to her painting. Jodie blinked. As a long-awaited meeting with her own flesh and blood, the moment felt anti-climactic.

  Samantha chipped in. ‘Hey, Lily, you told me you didn’t even know her name.’

  ‘I couldn’t remember it, is what I said. Anyway, whatever. The name doesn’t matter. She’s too old.’

  ‘So she’s all grown up now. Come on, Lily, you’ve got time-warp issues, you know you do.’

  Lily rolled her eyes, like a surly adolescent. She flung Jodie a cynical look.

  ‘Arrested psychological development, is how Dr Bauer puts it.’ She indicated her plaits with the end of her brush. ‘I like braids and warm socks, and suddenly I’m a retard.’

  Jodie felt a smile tug at her mouth. The woman’s truculence was oddly appealing. Setting her parentage aside for the moment, Jodie gestured at the canvas.

  ‘Mind if I take a look?’

  Lily shrugged, then slid a coy glance at Novak, who’d been keeping a tactful distance over by the door. ‘Maybe Grizzly Adams there would like to see it too?’

  Novak hesitated, then started across the room, while Jodie edged around the easel to view Lily’s work.

  The bleak canvas made her catch her breath. Dark rectangles, expertly distorted, converged to depict the interior dimensions of a room. At its centre stood an open closet, bare except for a blanket and pillow on the floor. The shadows were skilful: gloomy purples, sombre browns. But the absence of light was oppressive. Jodie’s eyes lingered on the single window. It was bricked up.

  Mrs Blane’s words echoed through her.

  ‘Lord knows what he did to Lily, but I can guess … she tried to run away … he had the windows in her room permanently bricked over. Like a dungeon.’

  A shiver skittered down Jodie’s frame.

  Lily’s gaze was pinned to her face. She must have liked whatever she read there, for she nodded and smiled, then turned to Novak.

  ‘What do you think, Grizzly?’

  He looked taken aback. ‘Is that a real room?’

  ‘Sure it is. It’s where I slept as a child.’

  ‘In a closet?’

  Lily shrugged. ‘I was trying to feel safe. I told Peter he should do the same, but he said it didn’t help.’

  Jodie’s chest turned over at the reference to her father. And at the notion that as a child he might have felt afraid.

  Lily eyed her painting, reaching out with a brush to blend in a shadow. For the first time, Jodie noticed the skin on her arms. It was criss-crossed with scars and lacerations. Like Nate’s, only deeper.

  A faint beep sounded across the room. Samantha cursed, pulled out a pager. She got to her feet.

  ‘I’m needed elsewhere.’ She drilled Lily with a look, though when she spoke, her voice was kind. ‘Behave, okay? I won’t be long.’

  She hurried from the room, and when she’d gone, Lily turned mischievous eyes to Jodie.

  ‘Would you like to see more of my paintings?’

  With a sidelong glance at the nurse by the window, Lily set the painting of the closet on the floor. Then she reached into a bag slung on the back of her chair and extracted a rolled-up tube.

  ‘We’re meant to destroy them.’ She unravelled sheets of soft canvas, her fingers scrabbling to stop the edges springing back. ‘They make us pour all our bad memories into these paintings, then they tell us to rip them up. Can you believe that?’ She clipped the sheaf of canvases to her easel. ‘Cathartic and cleansing and all that jazz, but mine are works of art, you know?’

  She stood back and regarded the first painting.

  It depicted another stark interior, the proportions cleverly distended to give a fisheye view. A rusted old bed took centre stage this time. Soiled blankets lay dishevelled across it. Dark, foreshortened walls crushed the room inwards, and the low ceiling gave the sense of being buried alive.

  Jodie took a deep breath, fighting off an inexplicable tide of desolation. Beside her, Novak had gone still.

  Lily twirled one plait around her finger. ‘My father called it his special room.’ Her voice was matter-of-fact. ‘He used to take us there, one at a time. As soon as we’d turned eight years old. First me, then Peter.’ She faltered slightly. ‘Then later, my sister, Anna.’

  Jodie’s insides felt cold. She traded looks with Novak. His expression was bleak. She turned back to Lily.

  ‘What about your mother? Didn’t she try to stop him?’

  Lily gave a scornful laugh. ‘Not that I ever saw. Peter tried to stand up to him, but he was just a kid. My father used to beat him, kicked him on the ground till he bled, sometimes.’ Jodie flinched at the image. Lily went on. ‘Then as punishment, there’d be extra visits to the special room.’

  Jodie closed her eyes briefly. Couldn’t bring herself to look at the painting any more. Lily was still talking.

  ‘Dear old Dad dragged us to church every Sunday, made us sit up at the front like a normal family. My mother pretended as much as he did.’

  Jodie felt her jaw set. How could Celine have stood by and done nothing? How could a mother fail her children like that? A jeering voice started up inside her head: What about Abby? You failed her too, didn’t you?

  She caught her breath. Ethan had never abused Abby, she was certain of that. After all, she’d know the signs better than anyone. But if he had, she’d have stopped him. She’d have killed him sooner.

  You still failed to protect her.

  Jodie groped for a way to drown the voice out. ‘Did my— did Peter paint, too?’

  ‘No, he studied all the time.’ Lily reached up to unclip the painting from the easel, revealing another one underneath. ‘He worked hard at school, said that’d be his escape.’

  ‘And painting was yours?’

  Lily shrugged. ‘I just played dead. It was never really me in that room.’

  She stepped back, gesturing at the easel, sliding an arch look at Novak. Jodie glanced at the painting and felt herself recoil. Beside her, Novak inhaled sharply.

  Jodie made herself look. Same room, same bed. This time with a self-portrait of Lily sprawled naked on the sheets. Her aging flesh was pale and flabby, the grey plaits coming undone. Her legs were spread in a pornographic pose, her eyes dull and staring, mouth curled in an expression of self-disgust. Razor cuts scored every inch of her skin, like a body-suit of bleeding tattoos. Jodie narrowed her eyes.
Most of the gashes resolved themselves into words; the same words carved over and over: sick of me, sick of me, sick of me.

  Jodie dropped her gaze, couldn’t look any more. Even Lily appeared disconcerted this time. She’d shrunk down into her chair, her shoulders hunched over.

  ‘I tried to throw myself through a glass door once.’ Her voice wavered. ‘So that I’d look like how I feel on the inside, you know? Cut to ribbons. But the nurses stopped me, so I painted this instead.’

  Lily’s expression turned blank, her gaze locked inward. She folded her arms tightly, her fingers kneading and pinching at her own flesh. ‘Cutting makes the other pain weaker for a while. Drugs do that too. And sex.’ She attempted a lascivious look at Novak, but her heart wasn’t in it.

  She rocked to and fro, blinking rapidly. Jodie reached out to take the canvases down.

  ‘Maybe we’ve seen enough.’

  ‘Wait!’ Lily jerked to her feet, smacked Jodie’s hands away. ‘There’s still one more.’

  Lily whipped away the disturbing self-portrait, then gestured at a half-finished sketch underneath. It depicted a small boy, maybe nine or ten years old. Dark-haired, untidy. He was huddled on the floor, hugging his knees, his face buried in his arms. Desolation seeped from every line in his body: the cowering shoulders, the bowed head.

  Jodie swallowed hard. Lily stumbled back to her chair, started to rock.

  ‘Poor Peter,’ she whispered. ‘I couldn’t help him.’

  Jodie stared at the portrait of her father. Her chest ached. She thought of her grandfather, Elliot Rosen, and a sickening wave of revulsion swept through her. She’d finally come face to face with her own family, and she wished to Christ she hadn’t.

  She inhaled deeply through her nose. Fuck Elliot. He had nothing to do with her.

  She glanced at Lily, then back to the portrait. ‘So that’s why Peter ran away to Ireland. Because of your father.’

  Lily shook her head, kept on shaking it. Her breathing was rapid. ‘He didn’t run away. My mother sent him away. To protect him, she said. But he was seventeen by then, it was too late. And what about me? Why did she never try to protect me?’

  She plucked at her clothes, couldn’t seem to sit still. Then she leapt to her feet, snatched the painting off the easel, as though she couldn’t bear to look at it any more. In a frenzy, she rolled up the sheets of canvas, snapped an elastic band around them with a twang.

  ‘Here.’ She thrust the rolled-up tube at Jodie. ‘You take them.’

  ‘I can’t, they’re yours—’

  ‘Take them! Dr Bauer’s right, I shouldn’t look at these again, I shouldn’t look, I shouldn’t look … You need to go now.’

  Reluctantly, Jodie took the paintings. Lily huddled back in her chair, rocking and staring. Trapped in some black cave of her mind. Novak flicked an uncertain glance at Jodie, then stepped in closer.

  ‘Lily? Can we ask you a question before we go?’ He hesitated. ‘Does the name Ethan McCall mean anything to you?’

  When Lily didn’t respond, Novak added, ‘Or Joshua Brown?’

  Lily’s eyes had glazed over. It was hard to tell if she’d even heard. Novak reached into his pocket and drew out Ethan’s photo, holding it up so that Lily could see.

  ‘Has he ever been in to visit you?’

  She stared at the photo, but made no move to take it. Her expression was vacant. Catatonic. Jodie’s insides sank.

  Then Lily nodded.

  ‘Once,’ she whispered.

  Jodie went still. Then she touched Lily’s arm. ‘Where is he now? Did he say what his name was? Please, Lily, it’s important.’

  Lily shook her head, still rocking. ‘Some fake name. Said he didn’t want people here to know who he was.’

  ‘Was it Joshua Brown?’

  Lily ignored her. ‘He said he knows all about playing dead. He said he’s playing dead too.’

  Her gaze zoned back out, her lips curled in self-loathing as she seemed to trawl inward over some kind of vile terrain. Small mewling sounds escaped her throat. Jodie felt a flash of alarm, and shot a look at the nurse, flagged her attention. The woman set her phone down and got to her feet.

  Jodie turned back to Lily. She was clawing at her stomach, as though something grotesque was erupting inside it. Jodie knelt down beside her.

  ‘Lily? Can you hear me?’

  Lily’s hands scrabbled upwards, gouged at her own chest, at her throat, her mouth, until finally whatever torment was inside her spewed out in a strangled, harrowing scream.

  Hairs stood erect on the back of Jodie’s neck. The nurse took one look at Lily and slammed the alarm.

  27

  ‘You need to leave.’ Samantha’s heels snip-snapped along the corridor ahead of Jodie. ‘Now!’

  ‘Wait! What about Lily? Is she okay?’

  ‘Lily is never going to be okay.’

  Jodie’s step faltered. ‘Jesus, I’m sorry.’

  Novak cut in, trailing from behind. ‘What was that back there? What just happened?’

  Samantha halted, swung around to face them. ‘She had a flashback.’ Her close-set features were tight with fury. ‘And when I say flashback, I don’t mean some hazy memory. I mean a full-blown panic attack that wracks her with physical and mental anguish until she feels like she wants to die.’

  She glared at them both. Jodie broke eye contact, and Samantha went on, her voice low with suppressed emotion.

  ‘If we don’t get to her in time, she starts hurting herself. Self-mutilation, suicide attempts. She’s tried overdosing, wrist-slashing, slitting her own throat. She’s even tried to hang herself from the pipes of a state hospital. Some day, she’s going to succeed.’

  Jodie’s insides shrank. She thought of her own occasional flashbacks, recollections of episodes in the foster homes she’d rather forget. She bit down hard on her lip, then said,

  ‘Do the flashbacks ever stop?’

  ‘With counselling, maybe after a few years. When all the memories have come back. But that’s the problem with Lily. She keeps remembering more.’ Samantha cast a withering look at the canvases under Jodie’s arm. ‘Those paintings triggered it, she should never have kept them.’

  Novak held up Ethan’s photo. ‘We showed her this, too, she said he came to see her. Do you know him?’

  Samantha stared at him for a moment. Then she glanced at the photo. Stared at Jodie. Her gaze was flinty, full of reproach.

  ‘Why did you really come to see Lily?’

  Jodie scrambled for an answer. Couldn’t find one. Samantha turned on her heel and marched on down the corridor.

  ‘I don’t know who that is, I’ve never seen him.’

  Novak strode after her. ‘When can we talk to Lily again?’

  ‘You can’t. She’s been sedated, and after that she’ll need intensive therapy, a lot of care.’ She stopped to glare at them again. ‘She’s a survivor of child sex abuse and she’s severely traumatized. She probably will be for the rest of her life. As her brother would have been, if he’d lived.’

  ‘And her sister, Anna,’ Novak added.

  Samantha’s gaze flickered away. Jodie stared, and felt a sliver of something cold. She hesitated, then said in a low voice,

  ‘Anna wasn’t her sister, was she?’

  Samantha didn’t answer. Jodie made herself go on.

  ‘Anna was her daughter, wasn’t she? Elliot’s daughter.’ Jodie worked it out. According to Mrs Blane, Anna had been seven or eight years younger than Peter. ‘Lily must have had her when she was what, twelve? Thirteen?’

  Samantha didn’t contradict her.

  Novak half-turned away. ‘Jesus.’

  Jodie felt like her insides were caving in. Why the hell had she ever come here?

  Samantha was still silent. Then she blew out a long, defeated breath and slumped back against the nearest wall.

  ‘Christ. Look, this is all my fault, not yours. I screwed up, I should never have let you in.’ She closed her eyes, pinched the
bridge of her nose. ‘Shit.’

  She huffed out another breath, then jerked her head up.

  ‘I just get so impatient, you know? The treatments here are outdated. There are better ways. Better dialectical behaviour therapy, better cognitive analysis, more advanced psychoanalysis …’ She pulled herself up, shook her head. ‘Forget it, it doesn’t matter.’

  Jodie regarded her for a moment. ‘Will you get into trouble?’

  The girl shrugged. ‘It won’t be the first time. Probably won’t be the last, either. Unless they kick me out.’

  ‘Tell them we forced our way in, if it helps.’

  Samantha looked glum. ‘Nope. It won’t.’

  Jodie gave her a reassessing look. She was an odd mix: vocational passion alongside downright rudeness; intolerant of ordinary people, yet kind to those in her care. Maybe Jodie was wrong. Maybe she’d make an excellent counsellor.

  Jodie’s thoughts strayed back to Anna, to what Mrs Blane had told her.

  Sickly all her life, some lung disease.

  ‘I was told Anna died young,’ Jodie said.

  ‘When she was ten. Cystic fibrosis.’ Samantha looked weary, her truculence giving way in the face of her mea-culpa admission. ‘A result of her parents being first-degree relatives. Both were carriers of the gene. Another tragic side-effect of incest. It’s why nature usually guards against inbreeding.’

  Novak shook his head in disgust. ‘Well, nature spectacularly failed this time, didn’t it?’

  ‘The rules of nature don’t apply to the likes of Elliot Rosen.’

  Samantha pushed herself away from the wall, started slowly down the corridor.

  ‘For the rest of us, it’s different,’ she said. ‘We all have a natural tendency to mate with our own tribe, nothing wrong with that. A normal human desire to be with our own. But sometimes it can be overwhelming. Primordial, even.’

  Novak shot a wary glance at Jodie, looked braced for something else he’d rather not hear. Samantha went on.