by Tammy Cohen
Becs made a sucking-in-air-between-teeth noise at the sight of the furious red pen marks.
‘I’m getting the message this woman isn’t very popular in some quarters.’
Wordlessly, Corinne turned the photograph over. The word BITCH was shocking in this cool coffee shop, with the weak March sun slanting in through the window.
‘Do you know who she is?’ But she could see from Becs’ face the answer was no.
‘Never seen her before. And I’d recognize those eyes anywhere.’
Corinne remembered now how Hannah used to complain that Becs used humour as a defence mechanism to deflect any intensity of emotion. Probably why she’s never had a relationship that lasted longer than a year. Wasn’t there something about a narcissistic, controlling mother lurking in Becs’ past?
But then, didn’t mothers always get the blame?
‘Ah, well. I knew it was a long shot.’ Corinne could hear her own voice leaden in her ears.
‘I might be able to take a guess, though, but it would only be a guess.’
Becs looked uncomfortable, like she was talking out of turn.
‘The thing is, I don’t like to comment on other people’s relationships. It’s not something I’m exactly qualified to do.’
‘But?’
Corinne could feel impatience bubbling up inside her, coming out through her pores. So it took a while for her brain to catch up with what Becs had just said. Relationships? So this was to do with Danny? The possibility had crossed her mind, of course, but she’d quashed it instantly, mindful of the rift that had sprung up between Hannah and her sister when Megan had gone down that route.
It had been two or three months after they got back from Crete. Hannah and Danny had a huge row – Corinne had never found out why – and Hannah had thrown him out for a couple of weeks. But then she’d let him back, and Megan had made no secret of what a bad idea she thought it was. And that had been that. After Corinne saw the damage that had been done to her daughters’ relationship, she’d never dared probe into what was going on with Hannah and Danny. And if she’d had doubts, she’d kept them tightly enough wrapped to be able to pretend they weren’t there.
‘Hannah thought Danny had someone else, in Edinburgh,’ Becs admitted now.
‘Why? Why did she think that?’
Becs was looking uncomfortable, playing with her necklace so that the heavy chain links clunked clumsily together. She unwrapped another piece of gum and stuffed it into her mouth. The scent of cinnamon wafted across the table.
‘Corinne, I’m just speculating. I don’t know who the woman in that photograph is. All I know is that Hannah went through a phase of suspecting Danny had someone else.’
Becs took off her glasses and wiped them on the hem of her tunic. When she looked up at Corinne without them, her pale eyes looked naked and exposed.
Corinne knew how irrational Hannah had been when they were trying the IVF. All those drugs. All those injections. It wouldn’t surprise her if her daughter had accused her husband of all sorts of things that weren’t real. But when they’d decided to stop trying for a baby, she’d seemed so much more relaxed. Could she really have been covering up something as big as this?
‘It was little things, like he always seemed to have his phone turned off; and he came back from Edinburgh one time with a new shirt. She said he never would have bought himself new clothes – she usually bought his clothes for him; otherwise, he’d wear the same thing until it literally fell apart. Anyway, I know they rowed about it. Remember how she kicked him out that one time? But then she got pregnant and everything seemed back to normal …’
Corinne picked up the photo and turned it over and then over again, as if she might see something different. But no. Same girl. Same dimple. Same gouged-out eyes. Could her son-in-law really have been having an affair? Could he have chosen this woman with her skinny, bare legs over Hannah? The bolt of anger took her by surprise.
‘But surely she’d have told you if he’d admitted it? She’d have shown you this photograph?’
Becs shrugged unhappily. ‘Hannah shut herself off from us all a bit after she got pregnant.’ Her face fell. ‘What I mean is …’
All of a sudden, Becs screwed up her features and brought her fist down on the table. ‘Do you know, I still can’t believe she did it. I’ve been over it a hundred times, and I just don’t understand. I mean, how could she have …?’
Corinne hurriedly snatched up the photograph and stuffed it back into her bag, then she got to her feet, pushing her chair back so violently it fell backwards into a young woman with dyed silver hair.
‘I really should be getting back. Hannah will be expecting me to visit her.’
Becs blinked at her.
‘I didn’t mean …’
‘I know.’
Now Becs nodded and stood up, then insisted on giving Corinne another hug.
‘Please tell her I miss her,’ she said. ‘I miss the old Hannah.’
A voice inside Corinne that she couldn’t quite control whispered, ‘I miss her too.’
11
Hannah
Last night I dreamt of Emily. First she was sitting in her cot at home, the one I picked out with Danny on the Saturday after the twenty-week scan. He’d been reluctant to buy it so early. ‘There’s still plenty of time,’ he’d said. But I’d insisted.
In the dream, Emily was crying and looking out from between the bars, her dear little face screwed up. ‘I’m coming,’ I said, but even though I was running towards her, I wasn’t getting any closer. No matter how fast I ran, she was always the same distance away, looking at me reproachfully. Why don’t you come?
And then, suddenly, we were here in the clinic, and now Charlie was holding Emily and walking across the lawn towards the lake, and I was thinking, Oh, good, now she’s safe. But then I saw Charlie’s wrists were bleeding and there was a trail of blood on the grass where she’d walked and Emily’s white Babygro was becoming redder and redder. I wanted to make her stop, but I couldn’t move or speak, and Charlie’s parents were with me, getting ready to go out for dinner. You can never tell what’s going on in someone’s head.
I woke up just now, my heart racing and my face wet with tears.
I lie in bed, not wanting to get up. Joni comes in to find out why I haven’t appeared at breakfast.
‘Not being funny, but if you want to get out of here you’ve got to play the game. Know what I mean? You don’t show up to breakfast, that’s not going to look good for you. They’ll be thinking, Well, how’s she going to cope with going back to normal life when she can’t even get out of bed?’
I turn over and lie facing the wall until the creaking of the door and an audible huff that tails off down the corridor tells me Joni has left. Then Stella comes in and lies in her usual position across the foot of my bed. I know it’s her because Stella has a smell that’s all her own – a mixture of cigarette smoke and the coconut shampoo she uses.
‘What about Judith?’ she says after a while.
That’s what Stella does sometimes – throws out a random statement.
‘What about Judith?’
‘She has Munchausen’s, doesn’t she? Trying to make herself sick so she can be the centre of attention. Remember when she ate that wax crayon? What if she’s moved on from doing it to herself? What if she did something to Sofia, and then Charlie, because she thinks life should always be like Casualty? That could have happened.’
I turn around then. It isn’t like Stella to have thought something through so thoroughly, or to pass judgement. There’s something different about her these days, though I can’t pinpoint what.
‘Don’t be daft,’ I say, more sharply than I intend. ‘Sofia and Charlie are dead. That’s a whole lot different to nibbling a crayon to make yourself throw up.’
Stella shrugs. She’s wearing a soft, form-fitting, leopard-print jumper and her narrow shoulders move up and down like animal haunches.
‘Well, Odelle t
hinks she had something to do with it.’
‘Odelle is an idiot.’
Still, now she’s planted the idea in my mind I can’t get rid of it. A week on from Charlie’s death, and it’s still all I think about. That afternoon in art therapy I find myself staring at the back of Judith’s head. How would you know if someone was dangerous? In a place like this, where we’re all a bit dangerous, how could you tell if someone was a threat to the rest? Could you have done that? What are you capable of?
I look at Odelle and Frannie, and Nina, whose shoulders sag as if unable to bear the weight of her own head.
I can’t believe it. Not of any of them. But then look at me. Look what I was capable of.
Today Laura is making us draw with sticks of charcoal. My fingers are already black with the stuff. My drawing is mostly black too. I can’t shake off last night’s dream and everything is smudged with grief.
We’re supposed to be drawing Frannie, who is sitting in the centre of the room staring rigidly ahead. Every now and then she raises a hand towards her hair, then slams it back down again when she realizes what she’s doing. Her face is stiff with anxiety and I feel an answering ache of sympathy.
‘Don’t get hung up on the individual features,’ says Laura. ‘Concentrate on the lines – the curve of her cheek, the lovely shape of her neck.’
Laura runs her fingertip over Frannie’s throat to demonstrate and Frannie erupts into a furious pink blush.
‘Try to capture the essence of Frannie. The thing that makes her special. Is it the way she hunches her shoulders because she’s nervous, or her tiny, delicate hands?’
‘Or the bald patches on her head?’ mutters Judith.
Frannie doesn’t indicate that she’s heard, but I see tears beading in the corners of her eyes.
‘Be kind, ladies. Never forget how blessed we all are just to be here in this amazing world,’ says Laura, without looking at anyone in particular, and for a moment I think I can see tears in her eyes too, but then she’s chatting to Odelle about perspective and I guess I’m mistaken.
At six o’clock, we have Evening Group, and I have that familiar feeling like I’m swimming in oil and every direction I look is black. I felt like this a lot when I first came here, and it scares me to think that nine weeks have gone by and I’m going backwards rather than forwards. It’s a combination of last night’s dream, and Sandra Chadwick’s description of how Charlie had a lovely lunch and then went back to her hotel room and tried to gas herself in a plastic bag. I feel like I don’t know anything and everything I think I know is wrong.
Yet, though the encounter with Charlie’s parents has taken away the incentive to dig deeper into the meaning of her to-do list and that name William Kingsley, I still I can’t fully shake off my misgivings. There’s a stubborn part of me that remains convinced I’d have known if she’d been planning to kill herself, though I also hear her voice in my ear, gently mocking: It’s not all about you, you know, Hannah.
The film crew are with us in Group. Despite their assurances that we can vet the documentary footage before the final edit, their presence makes me nervous. They’re proof of the line that exists between us and the rest of the world. We’re oddities. Freaks. Specimens in jars.
Justin, the director, is all right, I suppose, even though his hairstyle, foppishly long and messily swept over to the side, is far too young for a man in his late thirties and he is doused in self-absorption like cheap cologne. But Drew, the cameraman, gives me the creeps. Always watching with those dark eyes, so close together they’re almost touching in his yellow, potato-ish face. Never saying anything, just staring or following you with his camera lens.
The day room is divided into two areas. At the back, nearest the window, is the oval table where we write our journals or go online during our WiFi sessions, while the area nearer the door contains a sofa and a smattering of low, cushioned chairs. When we have Group, we push the sofa back and bring the chairs into a circle, together with some of the white folding seats that are stacked against the far wall next to the shelving unit where we keep our books and pens in cubbyholes labelled with our names. This evening, Roberts is leading the session, and he has the look of someone with other places he’d rather be.
Judith has her hand up. She’s a large-framed, lumpy woman with long, wild hair and a habit of folding her arms right across her body as if giving herself a hug.
‘People are saying things,’ she says flatly.
Roberts stifles a sigh, then glances at the camera and rearranges his face into an expression of encouragement.
‘Such as?’
‘They’re saying I had something to do with Sofia and Charlie topping themselves. I didn’t, and it’s very hurtful.’
Judith’s voice quivers with outrage, yet she can’t help casting a look around to make sure everyone is watching her.
‘Why do you suppose they’re singling you out, Judith?’
‘Because of my history.’
She sounds quite proud, and I’m sure I see her eyes flick towards the camera, as if checking to see how her performance is going down.
‘Can you elaborate, Judith?’
‘Because of times in the past where I’ve done things to myself deliberately so they would have to give me treatment.’
‘Medical treatment, you mean?’
‘Yes. But I never did anything to anyone else. I wouldn’t.’
‘Would anyone else like to contribute here? Anyone heard these rumours, or been passing them on?’
Everyone looks at the floor, or up at the ceiling. From the corner of my eye, I see Frannie’s hand creep up to her hair and give a sharp tug. To my left, Nina slides further down in her seat, as if the effort of staying upright is too great.
Up until now, Dr Roberts has been sitting back in his chair with his left leg bent out to the side, ankle resting on his right thigh. Now, abruptly, he changes position, leaning forward over his steepled hands, taking a deep breath in.
‘Right. I’m glad you brought the subject up, Judith.’
Judith flushes with pleasure.
‘It gives me a chance to address this whole issue head on. Look, I know we’re all still grieving. We will be for a long time. And grieving people look for answers, even when, sometimes, there are none. We all wish we could rewind the clock. But the fact is, there’s nothing any of us could have done.’
He slowly scans the circle, his eyes lingering on each of us in turn. When it comes to me, the hairs on my arm rise up and I look away, straight into the camera, which Drew has moved around towards the front. The lens is trained on my face, as if it’s trying to drill a hole into me and suck my soul right out.
12
Corinne
Corinne didn’t know what she was doing here. By ‘here’, she didn’t mean in this particular pub. She’d been here several times before – it was one of those airy north London gastropubs with high ceilings and wooden floors and huge windows looking out on to the wide, leafy street, and a stack of brightly painted wooden high chairs in the corner. No, she didn’t know what she was doing here tonight. With a load of Hannah’s friends, celebrating Danny’s birthday.
Without her daughter.
The invitation had come about by accident. She’d arrived at the clinic to visit Hannah and found Danny there. ‘Isn’t it your birthday soon?’ she’d asked him, just for something to say. ‘You should celebrate.’ Which is when Danny admitted he’d already organized a drink in the pub in Chalk Farm. ‘Just low key.’ And here she was.
Danny sat at the head of the long rustic wooden table, looking relaxed and handsome and – she might as well say it – happy. Around him sat all Hannah and Danny’s friends and some of Danny’s colleagues from Duncan’s company, and the gay couple who lived downstairs. Plus a smattering of people Corinne had never seen before. But no sign of the woman in the photograph, thank God.
Corinne nursed her large Merlot and forced her features into a half-smile in order to look approachabl
e. ‘You’re Hannah’s mum, aren’t you?’ It was one of Hannah and Danny’s downstairs neighbours. Marco. She’d met him one night when Danny was away and she and Hannah had enlisted his help in putting up a set of flat-pack Ikea drawers.
‘I’ve been wanting to find out how Hannah is. We’ve been so worried about her.’
‘Couldn’t you just have asked Danny?’
She hadn’t meant to sound ungracious, but the question had taken her by surprise. Sitting here with her polite smile on, she hadn’t been prepared for intense conversation. Marco looked embarrassed. He was a short, squat man with bulging biceps that strained the fabric of his T-shirt. His closely shaved head might have made him look intimidating if it weren’t for his large, expressive brown eyes. Eyes which were now liquid with sympathy.
‘I have asked him, of course. But he’s made it clear he doesn’t want to talk about it. And the last thing we want to do is upset him. After everything else he’s been through.’
What about what Hannah is going through? She bit the words back and nodded.
‘Of course. You’re right. Hannah is doing fine. Really well.’
‘We felt so guilty afterwards. Thinking that we could have done more. There were all those signs we didn’t act on.’
‘Signs?’
Suddenly, the rest of the pub, with the loud conversations vying with the background music, faded away and all she could see was Marco. Looking at her.
‘Yes. I think I first noticed after the twenty-week scan. Danny had been away so he missed it and, when he came back, Hannah made him this really funky card where she’d cut out the scan picture and stuck it on the front, surrounded by kitsch neon flowers, with “meet our girl” printed on the bottom. Cheesy, but in a cute way. Danny was dead chuffed and insisted on showing it to me and Phil when we went up for a drink, but then they got into an argument about Hannah not wanting to send a scan picture to Danny’s parents. I guess it’s no secret they’ve never been close. She kept saying it was a private thing. And, after we’d gone, they had a huge row about it.’ He looked sheepish and added, by way of explanation: ‘The sound travels through the floorboards.