The Edge of Sanity

by Sheryl Browne

  Yeah, so much for the faith bit. And they certainly didn’t have each other anymore. God giveth and God taketh away. Daniel kicked angrily at a discarded Coke can. What, he wondered? What terrible sin had he committed that he should be punished like this?

  And Jo? Why should someone who laughed in the face of adversity, a laugh that lifted his spirits so high, he felt he could fly, someone who cared so much, have to suffer so much? She had just existed since, that was all, the light in her eyes eclipsed by sadness. If only he hadn’t been so preoccupied. If only Kayla hadn’t been so bloody temperamental and taken her …

  No! That was pathetic! He was responsible for what happened on that Godforsaken day. And he hadn’t just broken Jo’s heart. He’d broken her spirit.

  His own heart broke a little more each day as he watched Jo fall apart.

  The people they’d been had simply disappeared. They’d just been going through the motions ever since, unable to communicate, barely exchanging glances. For Jo’s sake, he should have tried harder with the counselling, but what was the point? Keeping the wound open, probing around until it hurt so much, he wanted to scream? Wasn’t it bad enough that he heard Emma’s cries in his dreams? That he could see her around every corner. In the face of every little girl …?

  Daniel stopped abruptly. He had been so deep in thought he hadn’t noticed that he had reached his destination. He pulled up his collar, a shiver of apprehension snaking its way down his spine, and made his way through the part of the cemetery where once proud Victorian headstones subsided submissively to the elements.

  He walked purposefully on, past weathered stones and wingless cherubs, deliberately avoiding inscriptions. He didn’t need reminding how short life was. Skirting around the war memorial, turning right at the church, he picked his way through the black granite uniformity until he spotted the stone with Pooh Bear engraved on it. Emma would never go to bed without PB, tattered and torn though he was. The inscription read simply, Emma ~ 2007-2012. Sleep Safe Baby.

  The purchase of the headstone was one of the last things Jo and he had actually done together. They’d chosen it together. Gone to the stonemason’s together. Daniel had never been able to come here though, to view it in situ.

  Now here he was.

  Alone with his stolen child.

  It was a well-chosen plot, he thought obliquely, surrounded by trees, serenaded by birdsong. Overlooked by the church, he hadn’t quite realised.

  Daniel hesitated, and then reached out to tentatively trace the curve of the headstone. ‘Sorry, sweetheart,’ he whispered, swallowing back a tight lump in his throat.

  Dammit. He dragged an arm across his eyes, took a deep breath and another, and then prayed in earnest. Look after my baby, he begged silently. Keep her safe. Please keep her safe.

  Chapter Four

  Joanne struggled from the bus stop, praying the flimsy supermarket bags wouldn’t give way. Must remember to lock that damn thing, she admonished herself as she elbowed herself through the back door. Daniel would do his fruit, if he found it unlocked. But Daniel wasn’t here. She sighed, dumped the bags on the kitchen floor and headed for the kettle.

  Now for the putting away bit, preferably in some sort of order where she could find it. Shopping. Who’d do it? Dan would, she thought abstractedly. His fair share anyway. He didn’t seem to mind wandering around the supermarket. Jo hated it. And shopping for two didn’t seem any easier than shopping for three, in light of Kayla’s latest food faddish. Vegan, she had declared herself recently, ready to cut her throat rather than eat dead cow. So ruling out meat and dairy products, that left … vegetables.

  Lord, the time. Where had it gone? At this rate, it would be teatime before she had had lunch. With one eye on the clock, Jo shoved groceries in the cupboards and fridge haphazardly. Kayla was due at five, and Jo was going to sit her down and talk to her if it was the last thing she did.

  Daniel was due at seven. He’d be on time. You could set your clock by Daniel, always where he was supposed to be, when he was supposed to be, physically anyway.

  There, job done. The food was safely stowed, never to be found again. At least the freezer was well stocked. She had spent a fortune, but she was determined to have a few ready-meals in. Satisfied, she flicked through a cookery book in hopes of inspiration for tonight’s meal.

  Vegetable stew, wholesome, and presumably acceptable to a vegan, she decided, lighting on a reasonably quick and easy recipe. She ferreted back in the cupboard for tinned tomatoes, purée, carrots, courgettes, mushrooms. What else? Jo chewed on her lower lip. Oh, yes, onions.

  Well, that was dinner on—and she looked like the dog’s dinner. She glanced down at her tatty shirt and jeans. Did it matter? She supposed not. Daniel had always said she would look beautiful in a bin liner anyway.

  Liar. Jo’s mouth curved into a sad smile as she headed to the utility room to stuff carrier bags away, where her eyes fell on her sign-writing brushes. She fingered the soft sable of one of them, wishing things could go back to how they were. She painting the signage on the boats, alongside Daniel doing the heavier labour.

  She and Daniel, together.

  Jo sighed and reached for the jar of hand-cream she kept by the sink.

  Daniel liked her hands. He was always amazed at how soft they were on his back, given she spent more time than the average woman up to her elbows in oil and enamel paint. Jo had never minded that. Practical had always been her middle name. Daniel and she had worked so well together, as compatible as any partnership could be. She sighed again, heavily, and wondered why the drip, drip of the faulty utility tap suddenly sounded so loud.

  ****

  Kayla pushed her key into the lock, kicked the front door closed behind her, then slipped upstairs to check out her wardrobe before her mum started on the, “So how was your day?” conversation.

  Shitty actually, Kayla would like to reply, instead of shrugging and saying okay. It was too. She had the attention span of a gnat lately. And she was fed up of being singled out for it. Concentrate, Kayla, Mr Ward had said today. No, dear, on your maths, not your nails. Weedy little twerp.

  She had just about got changed when she heard Jo shouting up to her. Blimey, dinner already? Kayla checked her bedside clock. She’s a bit keen, isn’t she?

  ‘Inaminit. I’m doing my homework,’ she shouted, doing nothing of the sort. She was actually outlining her eyes with smudgey grey kohl. And she still had to find her missing dangly earring. It was there somewhere, in the black hole—as her dad hilariously referred to the space under her bed.

  Kayla dragged out three Pepsi Max bottles, and then groped through debris. No earring. Well, pants. Right, she decided, drastic measures were called for. She heaved the bed away from the wall, revealing a mouldy yoghurt pot, and a pizza box containing something so utterly disgusting, even she was hard-pushed to ignore it.

  Okay, so she hadn’t cleaned up lately. Why should she? Her mum never ventured in, anyway. Still, the mess under there was too gross. She made a mental note to tidy up … sometime … and headed for her parents’ room to rifle through Jo’s jewellery box. They weren’t exactly Miss Sixties, but her mum’s silver drop earrings would just have to do.

  ‘Kayla!’ Jo shouted again, over her iPod on speakers.

  Back in her room, Kayla slow-danced in front of the mirror, earrings poised. ‘Shit!’ She stopped abruptly as her mum rapped on the door, stuffed the earrings into the pocket of her backpack, shovelled the mess back under the bed, and then squeaked the door open an inch. ‘What?’

  Fingers stuffed in her ears, Jo mouthed, ‘Turn it down.’

  Kayla rolled her eyes and trailed across the room to hit the off button.

  Peering around the door, Jo tried not to notice the strewn-about clothes inside Kayla’s room. Fancy some food?’ she asked, as Kayla came back.

  ‘Nah.’ Kayla slipped out, pulling the door closed behind her. ‘I’ll grab a veggie-burger from Maccies after the pictures.’

 
‘Oh, come on,’ Jo tried to entice her. ‘You’ve got time for a quick bite, surely? It’s vegetable stew, homemade, and not a dead cow in sight.’

  Kayla shrugged indifferently. ‘Can’t. Promised Hannah I’d help her with her English Lit.’

  As if Kayla knew Romeo from Juliet. ‘Look, Kayla …’ Jo hesitated. ‘Your father is coming over in half an hour and he … That is, we—’

  ‘What do you mean, coming over?’ Kayla interjected, forcefully. ‘Last I heard, he lived here.’ Her expression was belligerent but the hurt was painfully obvious in her eyes.

  ‘Kayla, I …’ Jo trailed off, torn between wanting to hug her daughter and tell her off for her childishness. She’s fifteen, Jo, she reminded herself. She is a child, even if outward appearances deceive.

  She tried again. ‘I’d like you to be here, Kayla,’ she said, gently. ‘Please? Give Hannah a ring, will you?’

  Kayla folded her arms defensively, and glared at Jo from under her eyelashes.

  Which were caked in mascara, Jo noticed, but decided to let it go. She turned for the stairs, her shoulders heavy. ‘Dinner’s on the table,’ she offered. ‘Be nice if you could join me.’

  ****

  ‘Thanks.’ Jo smiled at Kayla five minutes later, the phone call to Hannah having been dutifully made, albeit reluctantly. Jo would be the villain in all of this, she supposed. So be it. Someone had to be.

  She wouldn’t run Daniel down to his daughter. She couldn’t, in all honesty. What had he done, after all, apart from hang a no-admittance sign on his emotions?

  Kayla dragged the chair back and plonked herself down. Face set in a sulk, she eyed the pot of stew disdainfully. ‘When’s he comin’?’ she asked, her eyes now fixed on her nails.

  ‘Soon,’ Jo replied, dishing up. Talking to Kayla, she realised, was going to be about as easy as wading through custard. How was she supposed to talk to the top of the girl’s obstinate head? ‘Stew’s okay, isn’t it?’ she asked hopefully, watching Kayla slosh the contents of her bowl around with her spoon.

  ‘S’got mushrooms in.’ Kayla screwed up her nose and pushed her bowl away. ‘Tastes like snails.’

  Jo placed her head in her hands, as Kayla scraped her chair back and headed back to the stairs. How could she have forgotten? It wasn’t that hard to remember, was it, that Kayla didn’t like mushrooms?

  ****

  Daniel hesitated at the front door. A cold shiver shook through him, despite the oppressive warmth of the evening. He turned to take a last look across the boatyard. Boats jostling on sun-dappled water greeted him, open fields as a backdrop. It was idyllic, this view, as if everything it encompassed shouldn’t have a care in the world.

  It was going to hurt, giving up all they’d worked for. It had been damned hard work too, but he had loved it, every backbreaking minute of it.

  Giving up Jo, though … That was going to hurt a hell of a lot more.

  He couldn’t have done it without her; they built up the business from scratch. Jo’s gentle, but persistent bullying had persuaded him to go for it. If his was the initial outlay, thanks to an inheritance from a relative he had had no clue even existed, Jo’s was the enthusiasm to get the thing off the ground. They’d taken a hell of a gamble, giving up their jobs to buy the yard with its dilapidated fleet of hire boats. Jo had supported him all the way, despite his old man’s insistence that he stay in his office job. More concerned for his own future than his son’s, Daniel was well aware of that.

  He thought Daniel owed him, as he was forced into early retirement because of Daniel’s supposedly unprovoked attack. He dragged a hand across his neck, recalling the one, and only time, he had lost his temper. Lost it completely, although unprovoked was a joke. Provocation born of years of fear was behind what had happened that day, what had forced Daniel to turn on the person who should have kept him safe as a child, to fight back.

  To fight back hard.

  And the drunken old bastard knew it.

  Daniel figured he had paid his dues up front and some. As far as he was concerned, his father should have been grateful he had had pity enough to call the ambulance. He hadn’t been proud of what he’d done. Not then. Not now. He’d sworn on his mother’s grave, he would never, ever, give in to destructive emotion again.

  Sworn also, once his father was out of the hospital and coping, he would wash his hands of him. The old man had his pension. It was enough to live on. And that’s what he’d have to do, Daniel had told him, before walking out of his life and into a new, wholesome life with a woman he’d only ever dared hope could love him.

  Daniel glanced across the yard to the spot where Jo had leapt excitedly into his arms when they had first viewed it. She had wrapped arms and legs about him, and almost sent them both sprawling into the water.

  She had left her job, rolled up her sleeves, and worked right alongside him to make their dream a reality. They’d sweated blood turning the business around, worked until they’d dropped into bed exhausted, bed being a berth on one of the boats, while the house was rewired and re-roofed. They’d almost been too tired to make love sometimes. Almost.

  Life had been good then. Better than he had ever imagined it could be. Side-by-side, brick-by-brick, boat-by-boat, they’d created something to be proud of. And they’d been blessed with two beautiful daughters.

  Then God saw fit to remind him how fragile life was.

  And he had tried. Tried so hard to hold on, hoping—all the while dying inside, crying inside—that they’d come through it. Not intact. They could never be whole again; a part of them was missing. But together, he had hoped …

  He’d been blind. Selfish and stupid and blind. What did a successful business amount to, measured against the life of his child? Jo had wanted to sell up straight away. He couldn’t bring himself to. It had happened less than a mile away, and he had stubbornly refused to let go, no regard for the pain he was putting Jo through.

  Dammit. He deserved all he got.

  Daniel hit the doorbell.

  Jo smiled as she opened the door. ‘On time,’ she said, ‘as expected.’

  Daniel offered her a tight smile back. His obsession with punctuality was one of the things Jo had brought up during the one counselling session he had managed to go to. Something about him being there physically, but not emotionally.

  ‘Hi,’ he said hesitantly and then, not sure what else to say, asked, ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine,’ Jo lied, obviously, and held the door wide. ‘Are you coming in?’

  Daniel took a deep breath and stepped inside, then turned to hover in the hallway while Jo closed the door. He felt like a stranger in his own home. Should he go on through? He glanced at Jo, uncertain, raked his hand through his hair, and stayed where he was.

  Jo looked him over. ‘You look terrible,’ she said, a worried little v in her brow. God, how Daniel wished he could take her in his arms, hold her, and make her worries go away.

  He forced a smile. ‘I’m okay. Just tired.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Jo shook her head as she headed for the kitchen.

  Daniel realised he had said the wrong thing.

  Again.

  ****

  Kayla had watched her dad walk dejectedly up the long gravel drive and then glance around the boatyard. He looked like death. God, couldn’t those two just bloody well grow up?

  She sat on the windowsill, blowing circles of smoke through the open window. So what did she do now? Go down and ask them outright what was going on? Get it over with. Or wait until her presence was requested?

  She stubbed her cigarette out on the brick wall below the window, slid off the sill and gave the room a liberal spray of Chloé. Her mum’s Chloé, she thought a bit guiltily. But then, she had bought it, hadn’t she, for Jo’s birthday. Waste of money that was, too. She didn’t even open it. Yeah, okay. It was only two weeks after … But she could have said thanks.

  Kayla checked her face in the mirror. She had limited the make-up to as much as she
thought was acceptable under scrutiny. She didn’t want to hang around any longer than necessary though. Once she had heard what they’d got to say, she was out of there, off to the nightclub with Hannah, hopefully to see Charlie. Those two could sift through the rubble on their own. They didn’t need her around.

  ****

  Slipping his arms into his shirt, Charlie tugged up the collar and checked himself out in the mirror. Yeah, that’d do. Looked the business in his club gear, Charlie did. Always dressed to impress—and the birds always were. That’s most likely what got DI Short’s goat up earlier, those two girls obviously giving him the eye. Miserable old git probably hadn’t had his leg over in decades, if ever.

  Far from annoyed at the copper’s feeble attempts at intimidation though, Charlie had been quite relieved. Short said it was a Stop and Search, picking on him, as per. Charlie had been a bit nervous, he had to admit. He thought Rachel might have been pissed off enough after the accident to go telling tales. The last thing Charlie needed was getting dragged into the station when he needed to be making some dosh, while Short tried every trick in the book to keep him there.

  He shouldn’t worry, though. Rachel was stuck on him, after all, wasn’t she? Probably hoping he would go around to her mum’s with a bunch of flowers, the silly bint.

  Good job he hadn’t been carrying anything other than a regular pack of fags, though. Wouldn’t put it past DI Short to drag him in if he got so much as a sniff of a spliff. As it was, the copper’s car door had been more dented than Charlie’s pride. Serve him right. Charlie didn’t take kindly to police intimidation.

  Giving himself an approving wink, he ran some wax through his hair, then smoothed his shirt over his torso and admired himself from both sides. He’d rather have worn the FCUK shirt, but there was no way he was getting that out of the bin after the tart had been in it. Still, this one was good. Slim cut, black with a fine white stripe, it showed off his physique.

  Charlie flexed his pecs. Disciplined, that’s what he had told Steve he was. Fifty sit-ups every morning, gym five nights a week, that’s what gets you muscles, like these, mate.