Becky

by Darren Galsworthy

  Ziggy had originally joined the investigation as a detective, and she switched to a liaison role when Russ stepped down. We knew that she was arriving with a deep knowledge of the case, but she explained to us that her hands were tied in terms of giving us information. She told us that in order to protect the investigation, some details needed to be kept confidential. I understood that she was doing her best to make sure the trial wasn’t jeopardised, but it was frustrating for us not to know exactly how and why Becky had lost her life. It made me feel very anxious about the forthcoming trial, as we had no idea what we were going to find out. We were in limbo, and would continue to be for several more months.

  We knew that Nathan had admitted to killing Becky. He hadn’t entered a plea in court, but he had told the police that he was responsible for her death. The big question was why.

  After he was charged with murder back on 4 March, Anjie had asked if she could see him. She wanted him to look her in the eye and explain why he had done such a despicable thing. Nathan was always honest with his mum, or at least he found it difficult to lie to her, so she thought she could get an explanation out of him – but his solicitor refused to let her see him. Neither of us could think of anything that would give him the motivation to do something so horrific and life-shattering.

  We didn’t have much contact with Nathan and Shauna’s child after their arrests. It broke our hearts all over again, but it was difficult to see the little one, for various reasons. The time that we could spend together we cherished. Seeing our grandchild reminded us of a time when everything was normal – when we were a family who loved each other, cared for one another. Before our family had been completely torn to shreds.

  The morning after the funeral, I opened my eyes and instantly felt an immense sense of emptiness wash over me. There was nothing immediate to arrange or to keep myself busy with, so for about five days, I just stayed indoors with Anjie. I told my family and friends that we needed some time alone, and we refused to answer the front door. Of course, they all respected that and didn’t try to push us, but everyone said that if we needed them, they would be there. Strangers still kept leaving flowers and teddies at our gate, which was lovely, but I didn’t even have the energy to go outside and collect them. I felt wiped out, a completely battered man. After two months of being in the media spotlight, I just wanted to hide away.

  During that period, Anjie spent a lot of time in front of the television, watching her soaps and trying to forget about reality. Meanwhile, I battled my demons and hit the bottle almost every single night, sinking vodka after vodka and drinking myself into a stupor. It seemed to be the only way to numb the pain and blot out the bitter reality.

  Eventually, we decided that enough was enough. We couldn’t go on living like that, holed up inside the house. We planned to go away for a few days, just the two of us. We thought it would be good to escape from the press and to leave Bristol for a bit, and we started looking for somewhere to escape to.

  ‘What about Butlin’s?’ I suggested. ‘It was always Becky’s favourite place to go when she was younger. We have so many happy memories there. It might be good for us to revisit them.’

  Anjie nodded in reply, and we booked a last-minute four-day break. When we set off the next day on the journey to Minehead, it felt good just to be driving out of our street. I hoped that taking a holiday in a place that Becky loved would be therapeutic for us, and I looked forward to seeing our old haunts. Instead, it soon proved to be just the opposite.

  When we pulled up in the car park, I looked at the entrance to the resort and felt grief slam me hard in the chest. It was almost as if Becky was there with us. Everywhere I looked, I could see memories of her, things I had done with her, quality time we had spent together as a family. We had been on loads of family holidays to Butlin’s, and every time Becky had been beside herself with excitement on the drive down. I could picture her splashing around in the pool, larking about in the play area with a huge smile on her face, and shrieking with delight on the funfair rides. It was always a happy time for all of us. Now I felt guilty for being there without her. It wasn’t right.

  I tried to shrug off the sadness as we checked in and made our way to our apartment. It was nice, the weather was dry and sunny, the place was as welcoming as ever, but I couldn’t shift my mood. After a few hours, we decided to grab a bite to eat, and then, following our meal, we went for a few drinks. Once the alcohol started to kick in, that’s when everything started to unravel.

  ‘She should be with us,’ I blurted out as we sat in a beer garden under the last of the April sunshine.

  ‘I know,’ Anjie said, reaching across the table for my hand, but I snatched it away from her. She looked surprised.

  ‘This is all due to your bastard son,’ I said, seething, looking her straight in the eye. When she blinked back at me, her eyes were filling with tears.

  ‘Darren …’ she began, but I shook my head, a fire burning in my throat as I tried not to cry.

  ‘If it wasn’t for him, Becky would still be here. She would be on holiday with us right now,’ I spat.

  ‘I know. But Darren, please stop. He’s my son. I can’t help still loving him for that reason alone,’ she said, sobbing.

  I shot her an incredulous look. ‘That boy – or should I say monster – you still love, says he killed my girl,’ I said, snarling. ‘How can you say you still love him after what he’s done to us? I wish your son was dead, not my Becky.’

  Anjie broke down in tears then, and I instantly felt terrible for the way I had behaved. I looked at the drink in my hand and slowly put it down on the table.

  ‘Come on, let’s get out of here,’ I said, and I got up to leave. I shakily pushed Anjie back to our apartment, and as soon as we got through the door I knelt down in front of her.

  ‘I’m so very sorry, my love,’ I croaked, tears freely rolling down my face now. ‘I didn’t mean to take it out on you. I’m disgusted with myself. I’m so sorry for saying those things. I’m just finding it all so difficult, Anj. I think I’m losing my mind. It doesn’t get any easier, ever. I just miss her so much.’

  Anjie put her arms around me and hugged me tightly.

  ‘She should be here with us, Dar. I know that,’ she replied softly. ‘I miss her too.’

  We spent that night as we would spend hundreds more – holding each other and trying to make sense of our obliterated lives.

  When we came home from our break, I felt even more exhausted than before. I knew just moping around the house wasn’t going to get me anywhere, so I decided to start putting Becky’s bedroom back together.

  The police had left it in a bit of a mess after their thorough search, so at first it was quite upsetting being in there. I knew that Becky would have hated it being in that state – she was one of the few teenagers I knew who actually kept her bedroom tidy – so I spent days tidying it up and putting things back where they belonged. I could clearly remember her showing me a sketch of the way she wanted her bedroom to look. She had thought through every last detail, and I decided to redecorate and keep it as true to her design as I possibly could. I went out and bought a new bedspread in fuchsia pink, as per her sketch, and I put up a stencil on the wall that read ‘The best thing about memories is making them’. She had chosen that before her death, but I had never got around to putting it up for her.

  I know it sounds silly, but as I cleaned and redecorated her room, I started talking to Becky.

  ‘I’m going to put this just here, Bex,’ I whispered. ‘If you don’t like it, let me know – give me a kick. I won’t mind.’ I was disappointed when nothing happened, but I could imagine her laughing at me from the other side.

  Once I’d started, talking to Becky proved cathartic for me. Whenever I struggled to sleep, I’d go and sit on her bed. I’d tell her all about my day, and how I was feeling.

  ‘Bex, I’m missing you loads,’ I confessed one night, in a whisper so I didn’t wake Anj. ‘Sometimes I’m not sur
e if I can face the next day, or the days after that, but I’m looking after Anjie – don’t worry. And your room is taking shape. You’ll love it when it’s all done. It’s going to look lovely.

  ‘Your granddad, your brother Danny, your uncles and auntie miss you very much. They have been a great support to your dad. I hope you’re out there somewhere, my beautiful girl. I’ve got to go to bed now. Will you help me to sleep? I love you, Becky.’

  The new things I bought for her room went perfectly with her own possessions, like the full-length glittery mirror we had made together years before. We had lots of gifts and tributes from the people of Bristol, ranging from beautiful bibles with the pages cut out to form the word ‘Becky’ to touching memorial plaques and candles, so I decided to put several of those in there for her. I also framed all the notes and ‘rest in peace’ messages we’d received and put them in her room for safekeeping. I found her boxing gloves and placed them on a shelf. I hoped that somehow Becky could see her room and know how loved she was, and how her death had touched everyone.

  After I arranged her bedroom exactly as she had wanted it to be, it felt quite serene. I would go in there whenever I wanted to feel calm and reflect on things. When Sarah stayed over, she slept in Becky’s room, and she claimed that it was so peaceful in there she always got a good night’s sleep. However, Marley, Becky’s cat, will not go into the room any more. He sleeps on the landing outside. He’s grown so big that he scares every dog in the area, and he’s killed three foxes so it’s not that he’s scared of anything, but it’s as if he knows about the horrific events that unfolded in there.

  At the end of April, I decided to go back to work full-time. The bills were mounting up and, with me as the only earner, they weren’t going to get paid unless I starting making some money. I thought that if I adopted a tunnel-vision approach and just tried to focus on work, it would help me get over the devastating two months we’d endured. My employers were more than happy to welcome me back, but they told me to let them know if I needed any extra support. I felt very lucky to have such understanding bosses.

  However, I soon learned that getting up every day and going to work was a lot harder than it used to be. During the day I tried my best to bottle everything up, but as soon as I returned home in the evenings, emotions would erupt out of me like lava from a volcano. Something simple, like seeing a programme on TV that Becky had liked, or hearing a song that reminded me of her, would trigger a memory, and suddenly I would break down. My reactions ranged from dissolving into fits of uncontrollable sobbing through to throwing objects across the room in anger. Some days, I was reduced to lying on the bed in the foetal position, clutching the pain in my chest and crying for hours. My heart hurt so much that I thought it might stop beating. Sometimes I wished it would just stop, as I could see no end to the pain I was feeling. Every day, I wondered if I was losing my mind. I had never felt so out of control in my whole life. My emotions were in charge and I was powerless against them.

  Eventually, I started snapping at people at work. The human resources manager, Jo, called me to her office, but instead of giving me the warning I’d expected, she offered something entirely different.

  ‘Everyone can understand why you’re a bit volatile at the moment,’ she started. I nodded awkwardly, and then she asked, ‘Would you like to try contacting Becky? To try to get some closure?’

  I looked at her, confused about what she meant.

  She smiled. ‘I go to a spiritualist church and, if you like, I could come to your house and we can try to get in touch with Becky,’ she explained.

  I’ll admit to being sceptical at first, but I was so desperate for some kind of comfort, no matter how slight, that I agreed to give it a try.

  ‘Are you free tonight?’ I asked.

  Jo came over to the house that evening, and I invited Lee and his wife, Joanne, to join us, as they were interested in that sort of thing. I was a bag of nerves. I wasn’t sure if it would work but, if it did, I had a million questions to ask. My biggest fear was Becky being mad at me for not protecting her that day, so I wanted to ask about that.

  We sat in a circle in the living room, and Jo asked us to empty our minds and close our eyes. After she said a prayer of safety, we opened our eyes and Jo began to speak.

  ‘Becky is in a healing circle,’ she said softly. ‘When a spirit is taken suddenly, it gets damaged. Her spirit is being healed by others. She’s with someone called Charlie.’

  Anjie’s eyes bulged out of her head in shock. ‘Charlie is my grandfather,’ she exclaimed, clearly surprised.

  ‘She’s also with a lady called May,’ Jo announced, and then it was my turn to be surprised. May was my grandmother, the woman who had been so special to me when I was a child.

  ‘She can’t make a lot of contact, I’m afraid, but she wants me to do something.’ Jo was about to have a knee operation, so she used a walking stick to help her struggle to her feet then limp over to Anjie, and she put both her arms around her neck affectionately, just as Becky used to do.

  Anjie burst into huge sobs, and I grasped her hand tightly. Jo then turned to me and punched me hard in the arm.

  ‘I’m sorry, Darren,’ she said, chuckling, ‘but apparently you’ll know what that means.’

  I was stunned! It was a clear reference to the boxing sessions Becky and I used to do together. At the end of every session she’d always tell me that she was getting stronger, and she’d try to punch me in the arm to prove it.

  ‘It’s going to take a while before she’ll be able to contact you again,’ Jo told me. ‘I’ve been told that she has a bell in the house somewhere and you’ll hear it ring when she wants to get in touch. When that happens, call me and I’ll come straight over.’

  I was stumped. Becky didn’t have a bell. I would have known if she did, mainly because she would probably have rung it jokingly to order me about.

  A few hours later, I was putting some things in her room when I opened a drawer and gasped. Inside, there was a little purple bell with a handle. She must have bought it on one of our seaside holidays years ago. I put it on our living-room shelf, and for months afterwards I would stare at it, willing it to ring.

  That night, I slept soundly for the first time in months. I know some people may scoff at the idea of speaking to those on the other side, but what Jo did for us that night gave Anjie and me some much-needed comfort during a period of acute despair.

  June soon arrived, and with it came Becky’s seventeenth birthday. I woke up on Wednesday, 3 June, with a heavy heart. We didn’t do anything special that day, but I took some time to think about Becky’s previous birthdays and remember how much she had enjoyed celebrating them with us.

  ‘Happy birthday, Bex,’ I said softly as I walked past her room.

  She would have had so much to celebrate that year. She was becoming a young woman, starting to come out of her shell and live life independently of her family. She would have taken her GCSE exams by then, and she would have had her whole future to look forward to. I tried hard to be positive and not to dwell on how her flame had been cruelly snuffed out, but it was particularly hard that day.

  Later, I went to visit her grave and leave some flowers for her. Other members of my family had done the same thing. It was a short but sweet visit to the cemetery. I didn’t really like going there, to be honest. It felt wrong that she was there and not at home with us.

  While Anjie and I were having a cuddle on the sofa that evening, we raised a glass to her and spoke about the good times we had shared together. I was sure that’s what Becky would have wanted us to do.

  We had already organised a birthday party for Becky the following Saturday. A few weeks before her death, we had booked the St George Labour Club for the event, and we were planning on it being a surprise for her. We decided to have it anyway, even though our guest of honour was missing. I thought it would be nice to have a celebratory bash with her friends and family, instead of locking ourselves in the house and
feeling depressed about the fact that she wasn’t with us.

  I bought Becky’s favourite chocolate cake, covered in Maltesers and chocolate stars, and invited about a hundred people. We laid on a buffet and organised a disco. All of Becky’s friends – Adam, Courtney, Teela and Luke – came wearing something of hers. After I had sorted out her room, I told her friends that they could each take something to remember her by. Adam took a half-chewed cross necklace that had, quite frankly, seen better days, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him without it. Courtney picked a T-shirt that everyone at school had signed, and Luke and Teela both took small pieces of jewellery.

  All the family came, and a few supporters, including two women called Joanne and Michelle, whose help had been very important to us. It was a fantastic evening, as we toasted Becky and shared fond memories of her. It wasn’t a sad occasion – in fact, the laughter was deafening.

  ‘Good party,’ Danny commented as we looked around the room at these people who loved Becky, all of them with big smiles on their faces.

  ‘Becky would have absolutely loved it, Dar,’ said Sarah, as she chased after one of her six kids. ‘You’ve done a great job.’

  Her words meant a lot to me, because I was thinking the same thing. If Becky was there she would have been delighted to see how many people came to her party, and I know she would have had a great time. We kept any mention of the party out of the press, because we wanted something just for us, and it was perfect.