by Niki Mackay
Oh God, there he is. I glance at my watch, 12:30 p.m. I watch him walk out, glance at his own watch, cross the road. I’m sinking into my newspaper. For a moment, just a moment, I think he’s seen me. I almost ready myself and am about to lower the paper when I see him wave. Then a woman appears on the other side of the glass. His side not mine, and I watch her wave back and he walks over to her. They smile, linking arms, heading off. I’m up and out before I have time to think it through.
I follow at a distance. It’s busy enough for me to blend in. I hear her laugh, snippets of words, but nothing concrete. They go into the park. There are fewer people here, but I’m too absorbed to worry about it. They sit on a bench and I walk just inches behind them. Their hands are joined, resting on the back. There is a ring on his finger and a matching one on hers. I feel a sharp pain in my stomach and I must make a sound because she turns around. She looks at me, doubled over, then asks, ‘Are you okay?’
And I’m frozen stupidly to the spot and he’s looking at me over her shoulder and he looks as sick as I feel. Now she’s standing and I see what I had missed. A bump. A baby. He’s going to be a dad. They are a family. Oliver’s family. I’m turning and running. I can still hear her shouting after me but I can’t stop. I run so hard and so fast that my legs nearly buckle. The tears come then. I am on the side of a big field, near the Millennium Park. I remember when they planted it. I remember coming here with my dad, wandering to the playground over the field, him pushing me higher and higher on the swings, the wind in my hair. Years later Naomi and I used to come here to smoke cigarettes, weed, whatever we had. Hidden and furtive. She’d kiss boys and I’d wait, awkward. Trying to be nonchalant, until Oliver came along.
His wife. That woman is Oliver’s wife. I don’t know why I’m so surprised. Only my life has been on hold. For everyone else it’s carried on. Well or otherwise.
The sky has turned angry and grey. The heavens are going to open. I walk slowly back to my flat and when the storm comes the rainwater mingles with my tears. The first night I slept with Oliver it was during a storm like this. We were in my room, everyone was out and it felt like it had been raining for weeks. Maybe it had. It was painful and sweet and surprising. I knew then that I loved him but I guessed he didn’t feel the same. When I get out of the bath I have four missed calls. It’s him. I turn my phone off and climb into bed, listening to the rain hit my window and thinking that I’m still that stupid little girl all these years later.
23.
Madison Attallee
I can’t get hold of Kate. I’ve left a voicemail. I have found Oliver and it turns out he’s married. Living over in Chessington, not far from her. I’ll be going to see him, but I figure I should let her know first. I don’t think I’ll call him in advance. I have a bad feeling about him, the same feeling I had at the time.
I’m on my way to Sandcross. Martha refused Kate’s visit, but I won’t give her the same opportunity. I know she hasn’t spoken to her sister yet and that she’s in a bad way. Well, you don’t end up in the nut-ward on a good day, I should know. I’m enjoying smoking and driving. Courtney Love is screeching about Miss World and the sun’s almost out. I’m singing badly and flicking ash all over the place. Fuck it. There should be some upsides to not having to car-share with a kid any more.
I’m greeted at reception by an insanely happy Irish nurse who introduces herself as Denise. She grins at me as though we’re old friends and asks how I’ve been. I smile and say fine. The grin widens as though in genuine delight. I wonder if she’s been at the happy pills. I follow her down a long hall.
‘Martha’s in grand form herself today, so wouldn’t you be in luck.’ She continues to chatter inanely. Since she doesn’t pause for breath I assume no response is required on my part. I sneak looks into various rooms and glimpse ornate ceilings and calming plush sofas. Everything is very bright white. Not sterile though. It’s all warmed up by carefully hung paintings and colourful vases of flowers. I have to remind myself this is pretty much the same as the place Rob dumped me in, even if it is better dressed. A nuthouse is a nuthouse, after all.
My first thought is that Martha looks a lot like her sister, though she’s much thinner. She’s that kind of stick shape that lets you know she’s not okay. It’s a look I sported myself a few years ago. She looks up when Denise pats her hand and introduces me. I offer my own hand which she takes limply. Her whole demeanour is soft, sunken and slow. Her eyes are glassy, too shiny, from the meds. The lovely mongy meds.
‘Hello, Martha.’
‘Hello.’ She looks at me blankly.
Denise beams at bugger all. ‘Well, that’s grand. I’ll be off, though I’m just a beep away if you’ll be needing anything.’
‘I’m Madison Attallee. I’m doing some work for your sister Kate.’
‘Your name is unusual.’ The words come out in slow long syllables.
‘I don’t think I’ve met another Martha, to be fair.’
She smiles but it’s vacant. ‘It was my grandmother’s name.’
‘It’s nice.’
She shrugs. ‘Daddy’s mum. I never met her, sadly.’
‘My mum chose Madison after a place in America she always wanted to visit.’
‘Did she?’
‘Visit?’
She nods. ‘Yes.’
‘Nope, ’fraid not.’
‘That’s sad.’
I shrug, getting out my notebook and pen, resting them on my lap. ‘That’s life.’
She leans forward, reaching for a glass of water. I hear her sip, swallow; it all seems such an effort. She says, ‘I always thought travelling might be fun.’
‘Have you done much?’
‘Hardly. This is as far as I ever get, I’m afraid.’
I smile. ‘You’ve plenty of time yet.’
She doesn’t smile back, but looks at me as though I’m very, very stupid. ‘I’m not very well.’
‘You might get better.’
She shrugs, her stick-like shoulders rising and falling under a silk dressing gown. ‘Did Kate hire you?’
‘Yes.’
‘So she’s not in prison any more?’ She’s been told this on a few occasions.
‘No.’
She takes another slow sip of water and then rests the glass precariously on her knee. ‘How is she?’
‘She’s okay, I guess. I’m reinvestigating her case.’
Martha leans forward and slides the glass onto a coffee table. ‘Why?’
‘Because she thinks she’s innocent.’
‘Are you the police?’
‘No. I’m a private investigator.’
She blinks like one of those dolls that shuts its eyes slowly as you lean it back. The effect is unsettling. She says, ‘I’m glad someone’s helping her,’ though she doesn’t sound glad.
‘Why? Do you think she’s innocent?’
She shrugs. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You were at the party that night?’
‘Was I?’
‘Yes.’ I tell her, ‘You spoke to Annie.’
‘Annie Jakes?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did I?’
‘She says you did. Don’t you remember?’
She shrugs again. ‘It’s been a long time.’
‘It’s been a long time since you spoke to Kate as well.’
Her glassy eyes meet mine. ‘I’m not a very good sister, am I?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I asked to visit her.’ She turns wide eyes on me. They look damp but it could just be whatever chemical cosh they have her on. ‘Daddy and Marcus thought it would be a bad idea. Now it’s too late.’
‘Why?’
She shakes her head. ‘I’m not very well.’
Fuck. This girl hardly knows what’s going on right now. ‘Did Kate
have a lot of parties?’ I ask.
‘They weren’t Kate’s parties, they were Naomi’s. Naomi was a horrible girl.’ Her small pale face screws up crossly.
‘In what way?’
‘She was loud and could never keep to herself. She was jealous of Kate, you know.’ Her eyes narrow.
‘That’s not what Kate thinks.’
‘Kate was utterly besotted with her.’ She is studying me now, looking alert for the first time since I arrived. She says, ‘You were in the paper. It said you had some kind of a breakdown?’
‘I did, yes.’
‘I’m sorry.’ From one fucking nutter to another.
‘I’m sorry you’re here,’ I tell her.
‘You shouldn’t be, here is safe.’
‘Home isn’t?’
She shrugs.
‘Kate is keen to see you,’ I say.
She sighs. ‘Soon.’
‘Kate thought that you were away the night of the party.’
‘Yes, I was here.’
‘Well, Annie seems to think you were home that night. She saw you in the garden.’
She stares at me a second too long. ‘She must be mistaken.’ Her voice sounds clear now, definite, and I wonder how much of the confusion is an act. It must be a pretty good get-out clause. Nope. Too crazy. Leave me alone. Maybe I should try it.
‘She seemed pretty sure.’
Martha shrugs, looks out of the window and away from me. ‘She was probably drinking.’
‘Why? Were they all quite out of it?’
‘I don’t know. I’m sure I was here.’ Her face is screwed up in concentration.
‘When did you find out Kate had been arrested?’
‘I can’t remember – Daddy must have told me.’
‘Seems like the sort of thing you’d remember.’
She wipes a frail hand over her face. I can see all the veins. It’s the hand of a woman many years her senior. ‘I forget things.’
‘Like your sister being locked up for murder?’
She shakes her head as though trying to clear it and says, ‘Lots of things. Lots of things.’
‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘I have anorexia and depression.’
‘And memory loss?’
She reaches for the water, but changes her mind. I watch her eyes dart around the room, avoiding mine. I wonder if she has that fugue state that Dean was talking about. Perhaps he should come in and assess the crazy mare.
‘Was Oliver there that night?’ I ask her.
Her eyes dart around the room again. Everywhere but mine. ‘Probably, he was always at ours.’
‘What was he like?’
She’s busily looking out of the window again. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t know him well.’
I prompt her, ‘He was a friend of Naomi’s.’
‘Was he?’
‘You must have known that.’
She wipes that small shaky hand across her brow. ‘I feel tired.’
‘Kate and Naomi argued that night, do you remember that?’ I push.
She shakes her head. ‘Ask him, I don’t know. He’d know.’
‘Ask who? Oliver?’
‘No.’ She’s shaking her head quickly now, side to side. ‘No, no, no, no.’
‘Martha.’
She stops, stares at me, wide-eyed.
‘Ask who?’
‘Him, ask him.’ Her eyes are wide. Frightened. Her voice is high and loud.
‘But you were there?’
Her voice is quiet now, pleading, ‘I’m tired. I think I need to rest. This wasn’t a good idea. I’m not supposed to speak to anyone. You should have rung. They would have told you that.’ She’s pressing a call button hanging on a rope around her neck.
‘Why aren’t you supposed to speak to anyone?’
She shakes her head.
‘Are you not allowed to speak to Kate?’ I ask.
‘No, I can’t speak to Kate. She’s causing trouble. I’ll get in trouble too!’ She continues pressing the call button.
I press her. ‘Who, Martha? Who will be cross? Marcus? James?’ I throw names, looking for a reaction.
Her eyes close and stay shut.
‘Martha?’
‘This isn’t a good idea.’ Her voice is almost a whisper. She’s like a child.
Denise appears and Martha tells her, ‘I’m very tired now, I think I ought to sleep.’
Denise pats her hand. ‘Well, that’s fine, dear, you get yourself to bed, I’ll see your friend out.’
Denise eyeballs me until I stand. I put a card on Martha’s bedside table. ‘If you ever think of anything, Martha.’
She doesn’t look up at me or move.
Denise shuts the door behind us and ushers me along.
‘Is she always like that?’ I ask her.
‘Like what?’
‘Confused. She seemed perfectly lucid one minute and freaked out the next.’
She sighs and stops walking. ‘What was she confused about specifically?’
‘The night of Naomi Andrew’s murder, for one. She doesn’t seem to know where she is or where she’s been and she’s convinced someone’s going to be cross at her for talking to me.’
Denise says, ‘You’re not an old friend, are you?’
I pause and then tell her, ‘I’m trying to help her sister, which might in turn help her. I’m a private investigator.’
She glances at me and seems to make a decision. She shrugs, a sad look on her face. ‘She has good spells and bad spells. She’s an unfortunate case though, I’m afraid. Martha’s been boomeranging backwards and forwards for years. You can see for yourself she’s all skin and bone.’
‘Is that normal – to never get better?’
She sighs at that. ‘Sometimes. More usually with the schizophrenics and psychotics.’
‘Which she’s not?’
‘No, she has a diagnosis of anorexia.’
‘You don’t agree?’
Denise starts walking again; I follow. She says, ‘I’m not a doctor.’
‘But you don’t agree with her diagnosis?’
‘I think not eating is a stress thing with Martha. She’s not your average weight obsessive. Not that it’s really about weight, even for those girls.’
I say, ‘She’s been in and out of here for years – aren’t the doctors concerned about her lack of progress?’
‘The therapists here leave her alone, we’re more like a holding pen for when she becomes a danger to herself.’
That’s dreadful, I think, and ask Denise, ‘Isn’t it their job to make her better?’
She nods, lips pursed in a thin line. ‘You would think so.’
‘Look, like I said, I’m trying to help her sister. I get the impression you care about Martha, and helping one might help the other so if you’ve got anything to tell me that you think might help . . .’
She doesn’t speak for a minute, but continues to walk. Then she sighs, stops and says, ‘James stopped the treatment.’
‘Her dad?’
‘Yes.’ She nods.
‘When?’
‘After Kate got arrested. They brought Martha in the day after. James said she was very upset and he didn’t want her being bothered, just well fed, well looked after.’
Bloody hell. ‘And nobody questioned him?’
She tuts at that. ‘They did and he just paid more money, made a large donation. So we hold her.’
‘Are you sure about that timeline? That she was definitely brought in after Kate’s arrest?’
‘Oh, yes. We’d all been talking about it. It made the paper the day she was arrested, if you recall.’
‘Do you have records of when she arrived and how long she stayed?’ I as
k her.
‘Yes, I would have thought so.’
‘Can you check them for me?’
She shakes her head and I can see worry lines jumping up at the corner of her eyes. ‘I don’t think I should . . .’
‘Please.’
An official-looking man walks up alongside us. ‘Hello, Denise.’
‘Dr Tibbett.’
We walk along behind him in silence until we reach reception. I pause as if to shake Denise’s hand and slip her my card. I keep eye contact and say what a wonderful job she’s doing with Martha.
24.
Claudia Reynolds
Everyone is out – Marcus is at work, Bethany at nursery. I rush through my chores. Blood is pounding around my body. I can feel it in my veins and my ears, making my heart race so hard I’m surprised I don’t die. I have a purpose today and mixed in with the ratcheted anxiety there is also excitement. I scrub, hang washing, and hoover everything to within an inch of its life, then I marinade chicken, peel potatoes and shell peas. I am expert at these things. Perhaps one day I will have a job as a housekeeper.
Marcus keeps the key to his office in our bedroom. It’s in a shoebox at the back of his wardrobe. He thinks I don’t know but I watch everything. The house is my domain – I know every nook and cranny. Except the office. The office is a foreign land. His, not mine. He’d laughed when he was setting it up and I asked why. He’d said everyone needs a room of their own. So said Virginia Woolf, I responded, but he didn’t get the reference and he scowled at me for being a smart ass. But we’d giggled. Those were the days when he laughed things off. I even pouted and asked where my room was. ‘Darling, the whole house is your room,’ he’d said, and I felt like the luckiest girl alive. The whole house. Still beautiful now. More so than it once was and yet it holds me captive, a perfectly decorated prison. My golden cage.
I have the key. It swims and wriggles in my sweaty hand and I wipe it on my skirt. By the time I am standing outside the door I am unsure. He could come home, it’s happened before. Not often. He used to come back on his lunchbreak for sex. That stopped a few years ago, thank goodness. Everything is loud, my breath rasping in and out, and the pale blue door looks too bright. I have to do this. I force my hand to reach out and it slips before I can get a proper grip. I hear the handle click as it turns and feel like my lungs might explode, but once I am in my breathing evens. I feel better . . . victorious. Oh, I know I haven’t achieved anything. Not really, but I’m so used to being the perfectly trained obedient wife. I’m tempted to trash the place – to just go through smashing things up. The pictures of him on the walls, smug-faced at various events with clients. I want to rip his degree off the wall. Stamp on it, mourn for the loss of my own education. The things I might have been. But not now, now I need to look.