by KL Slater
‘You’re doing a marvellous job there, Evie,’ Bryony praised her.
‘Mummy, Jo took some photos of me in the kitchen.’
‘Oh, you spoilsport.’ Jo grinned, carrying in a tray of drinks. ‘It was supposed to be a surprise, remember?’
I frowned, not sure what she meant.
‘We were going to surprise you with a screensaver of Evie on your computer for Monday.’ Jo rolled her eyes. ‘But now Evie’s gone and spilled the beans.’
‘Ooh, can I have an Evie screensaver?’ Bryony beamed.
I smiled and nudged Evie but she didn’t smile back.
I hoped one of her tantrums wasn’t looming. She didn’t appear to need a good reason lately.
41
Three Years Earlier
Toni
Sunday morning at ten, Mum called round to take Evie to the park as planned.
‘Do you want to come in for a cuppa?’ I asked her as she told Evie to get her coat from the front door step.
It wasn’t much of an invite, I admit.
‘No, I’ll get straight off, I think,’ she said, in the wounded tone she liked to use when I’d done something wrong but she didn’t want to discuss it.
‘What’s the matter?’ I said, unwilling to let it go. ‘I can’t say a thing lately without you getting the hump.’
She gave me a rueful smile and shook her head.
‘You know, Toni, I’d like to live in your world. Where nothing you ever do is wrong and you very conveniently forget about the needs of others.’
I didn’t have a clue what she was getting at.
‘Anyway, it’s not me I’m worried about.’ She scowled and discreetly tipped her head towards Evie.
‘She’s fine,’ I sighed. ‘Or she will be, if you’d stop trying to give her a complex.’
‘She’s retreating into a shell.’ Mum’s face darkened. ‘She’s nervy and uncharacteristically quiet, Toni. Surely you can see that?’
It felt like something had loosened inside of me, something that wanted to shut Mum up.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I snapped. ‘There’s nothing wrong with her. Lots of kids have a problem adjusting to a new school.’
‘I’m not just talking about school,’ Mum said quietly. ‘She’s not sleeping properly, she’s losing weight. Look at her.’
Evie shrugged on her light jacket and beamed up at me. ‘Bye, Mummy,’ she sang. ‘See you later.’
There didn’t look much wrong with her to me.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘We can talk about this later.’
But I had no intention of doing so.
I bent to kiss the top of Evie’s head. ‘See you soon, poppet. Have fun.’
Mum took her hand and I moved to close the door behind them.
‘You might want to clear that mess up while we’re out,’ she said, nodding towards the corner. I followed her line of sight but the chair was in the way of whatever she was looking at. ‘I’ll bring her back after she’s had her tea.’
And with that, they were gone.
I clicked the front door closed, leaned against the wall and closed my eyes. Peace at last. A few hours where I had no responsibilities, expectations or a paranoid mother to contend with. There were a thousand and one jobs that needed doing in the house but I pushed all thoughts of hard work out of my head.
First job was coffee. The next a long, hot bath with the book I’d been picking up and putting down for the last two weeks.
I walked into the kitchen and filled the kettle. A tap on the window made me look and my heart sank when I saw it was Sal from next door. I cursed my bad luck at being in full view in the kitchen. I would have happily hidden behind the door until she went away again.
‘Looks like I’m just in time,’ she said when I opened the door. She gave me a gappy grin and nodded to the kettle as she stepped inside without being asked. ‘Seeing as you never came round for that cuppa, I thought I’d do the honours instead.’
‘Oh right,’ I said tightly. ‘Thing is, Sal, Mum’s just taken Evie for a couple of hours and I’ve got loads of unpacking still left to do.’
‘I’ll help you,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I don’t mind, I’m at a loose end all day.’
She and both her sons were at a loose end every day, from what I could see.
‘Thanks but there’s no need,’ I said firmly, imagining the horror of being stuck with her for hours on end, with no escape. ‘But I can take ten minutes out for a chat.’
‘So,’ she said as I put two steaming mugs of coffee down on the table. ‘I hear you met our Col the other day?’
‘Yes,’ I said, imagining the names he’d probably called me. This was my chance to tell Sal the truth. ‘Did he tell you what happened?’
She took a noisy slurp of her coffee and nodded, grinning at me. ‘Gave you a fright, I hear.’
‘Actually, Sal, he really did.’ Something clawed at the inside of my throat. ‘I really thought Evie had gone. I didn’t know what the hell had happened to her.’
‘Yeah, but he said you’d left her on her own all morning, love.’
‘Rubbish!’ How dare she come round here, virtually accusing me of neglect. ‘I was upstairs, that’s all. I’ve still got loads to do up there and—’
‘Your little ’un told our Col you were still in bed, said she couldn’t wake you.’
The thought of her slimy son questioning my daughter made me feel sick to my stomach.
‘Well, she was mistaken.’ Her eyes flicked to my hands and I realised I was gripping the edge of the table like a vice. I wiggled my fingers to relax them. ‘I’d got a bit of a headache, that’s all. I was just having a lie down, I wasn’t asleep.’
‘Ahh, I see. Kids, what’re they like, eh? They tell you anything.’
The last thing I wanted was a confrontation but it was important to make my position crystal clear. This was my chance.
‘More to the point, Sal, Colin should never have encouraged Evie to come over to your side without checking with me first,’ I remarked. ‘That was really irresponsible of him. People could get the wrong idea.’
Her face darkened and the good-natured grin slipped.
‘What are you trying to say?’
I swallowed. ‘I’m just saying, a grown man taking a five-year-old girl without her mother’s permission might not look good to—’
She slammed her hand down flat on the table and I jumped up from my seat. She was reducing me to a bag of nerves in my own home.
‘Enough of that. You can just shut your mouth,’ she hissed. ‘Our Col has enough fucking trouble from the coppers without you starting to spread your vile lies.’
‘Sal, I’m not saying Colin was up to no good.’ I sat down again, pressing the air with my hands as I tried to placate her. ‘I’m just saying it doesn’t look very good. All he had to do was tell me—’
‘You were out of it, drugged up in bed.’
‘I told you, I was just having a lie down—’
‘You were out of it.’ Her eyes flashed in slight hesitation and then spite got the better of her. ‘I know that because our Col couldn’t wake you up.’
A cold chill crept up my back. A second or two of silence stretched between us as the meaning of her words dawned on me.
When I spoke, my voice was shaking. ‘Are you telling me he came into my bedroom?’ I stood up, placing my fingertips on the table to steady myself.
She pressed her lips together, smug and accomplished.
‘You’d better go,’ I said, with as much dignity as I could muster. ‘And you can tell your son, if he ever sets foot inside my house again, I’ll ring the police.’
She stood up and purposely let her mug drop to the floor, coffee and smashed shards spattering to the furthest corners of the room.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ I yelped, stepping back to protect my bare feet. The woman was a maniac.
‘Don’t even think of trying to cause trouble with the coppers, love.’ She wav
ed her phone at me with a menacing look. ‘Or someone might just have to show ’em why your kid was on her own for hours on end. It’s all on here. You should be thanking our Col. She could’ve run out onto that main road, or fell down the stairs.’
I opened my mouth in retort but found there were no words waiting to be spat out in reply.
There was absolutely nothing I could say to defend myself.
42
Three Years Earlier
Toni
I stood, silent and rooted to the spot, as Sal stormed out. The door crashed shut behind her so violently that I didn’t know how the glass remained intact. Fury at the thought of her creepy convict son intruding into my house had already morphed into acute embarrassment and shame. How long had he stayed in my bedroom? How many pictures or videos did he take of me in that state? What if he’d . . . I could hardly bear to think the words . . . touched me?
My head fell forward and I squeezed my eyes shut. I felt my fingernails push deep into my palms.
How could I have allowed this to happen?
He could have done anything to me or my daughter. How fucking dare he?
Why on earth hadn’t Evie mentioned anything about him coming into the house?
I opened my eyes and walked over to the window. Pulling down the blinds, I locked the back door and went into the sitting room. In there, I closed the curtains, leaving just enough of a gap to let a little bit of light in. Without thinking, I picked up my phone and called Tara. I needed to speak to someone; needed to offload before I exploded.
My heart sank when the call went straight to Tara’s voicemail. I should have just ended the call but before I could think better of it, a torrent of anguished words poured out of my mouth and down the line.
I ranted about Bryony at work, Evie at school and about Colin the creep from next door. I was just about to embark on Mum’s attitude when a disembodied voice announced the voicemail was now full. I hadn’t even had a chance to ask how Tara was feeling.
I tossed my phone aside, annoyed at my own neediness.
A strong urge to hide away in the dark and never come out washed over me.
I grabbed my handbag and before I could think better of it, swallowed two tablets with cold tea I found in a mug on the floor, praying they’d work quicker than usual.
I felt desperate for a few hours of blissful oblivion. I couldn’t face the thoughts and possibilities that were ricocheting around my head.
A man in the house with my daughter, while I was sleeping. While I was completely out of it.
Before sinking down onto the couch, I remembered Mum’s sharp comment about cleaning up the mess. I snapped on the light and peered into the corner by the chair. My hand flew to my mouth and I stood for a few moments, blinking hard and trying in vain to process the evidence in front of me.
Two months before he died, Andrew had bought me an exquisite crystal glass vase for our tenth wedding anniversary. He’d had it engraved with our names and the date of our big day and I treasured it as the last thing he gave to me.
Now it lay in pieces in the corner of the room, broken beyond any hope of repair.
Only yesterday, I had carefully peeled off copious amounts of bubble wrap, washed it gently by hand and set it down by the fireplace.
That, I could remember. But how it got broken was a complete mystery.
Yet when I looked down at the splintered shards of crystal, I found myself flinching.
I took a step back. Something wasn’t right.
I was beginning to realise that little pieces were missing, ripped here and there from my memory, like sticking plasters, leaving smooth gaps of time that remained a mystery.
My hands began to shake.
I rushed upstairs to the bathroom, hung over the loo and stuck my fingers down my throat.
Twenty seconds later, the contents of my stomach were at the bottom of the pan, hopefully along with the two sedatives I’d just taken. I prayed I’d caught them in time.
Following a quick shower, I put on my fluffy dressing gown and came back downstairs. I ran a glass of cold water from the kitchen tap and took it through to the living room, sitting down in the gloom and trying to get my thoughts straight.
I knew, without any doubt, that the smartest, most effective thing I could do for myself right this second was to flush the remaining tablets down the toilet.
I wanted to do it, I really did.
I could just take the damn things out of my handbag, walk upstairs and flush them down the loo. And then I could go to my bedroom, open the shoebox under my bed, take out the birth, marriage and death certificates and reach for the other two small brown bottles hidden under there, full of tablets. I could flush those away too.
But even as I walked through the steps in my mind, I knew I couldn’t do it. Not yet.
Those tablets were all I had. They were the only buffer between me and a very messy meltdown. Since Andrew’s death, they had served as a dam against a tsunami of pain and grief that had been waiting to crush me.
I picked up the glass of water and gulped it down in one.
I couldn’t face getting rid of my sole defence, not yet. It wasn’t that I wasn’t going to do it, I just had to give myself time to get used to the idea. Grow stronger.
After all, it would be totally counterproductive to get rid of the pills and then find myself unable to function.
It was true that, most of the time, I felt ashamed to call myself a mother. Yet, pitiful as I was, I still managed to fulfil some parental duties most days. And that was preferable to finding myself trapped in some institution, leaving my daughter to face life without me.
I had to keep the tablets for the time being, purely as a safety net. I realised I couldn’t manage without them, but continually sabotaged myself by using them.
I was trapped, caught in my own personally created hell.
43
Three Years Earlier
Toni
On Monday morning, Evie was quiet and a little withdrawn.
I helped her on with her coat in the hallway. ‘What’s wrong, poppet?’ I said, knowing full well it was her dislike of school that was behind it all.
She stared at the wall, saying nothing.
I hadn’t gone into great detail with her about Harriet Watson’s after-school club. I didn’t want to add to her stress by asking her to cope with yet more new things. Hopefully, she’d enjoy having some one-to-one time with an adult other than me or Mum; it would make her feel special.
Harriet had advised me not to press her to talk about school, so I quickly changed the subject.
‘How about we swing by McDonalds later?’ I said. ‘A fast-food tea. Whaddaya say, kiddo?’
She gave me a tiny smile but it was far from the jumping up and down and squealing that the offer of a McDonald’s meal on a school day would usually bring. I almost wished I hadn’t suggested it. It was an expense I could ill afford and which would get me little or no payoff, judging by her subdued response.
I ignored my headache and overcompensated for Evie’s silence by chatting too much on the way to school. When we arrived, I was relieved there was no refusal to go through the gates and no pulling away to go back home.
There seemed to be a new, quiet acceptance from my daughter that almost concerned me more than if she’d thrown one of her tantrums.
* * *
The effects of yesterday’s set-to with Sal were paired with a feeling of lethargy and sluggishness that made me think traces of the two tablets I’d tried to vomit up might have been absorbed, after all.
I made a coffee and lay down on the couch with my book, setting the alarm on my phone for two hours’ time, just in case I dropped off.
I opened the book and tried to pick it up where I last left it weeks ago. None of it made any sense, so I went back to the beginning.
My concentration span was short. I began reading about the main female character, who was a bit of a sap, to say the least. She suspected her fianc�
� was having an affair with her best friend, so she quickly embarked on an unsophisticated plot to kill them both.
If only life were that easy.
I closed the book and let it fall to the floor before closing my eyes.
‘Bryony’s in the back,’ Jo said in a low voice when I got to the office. ‘I was going to text you over the weekend but didn’t want to intrude. I couldn’t believe the change in her when you popped in with Evie.’
‘I hope her change of heart wasn’t just for show in front of Dale,’ I said wearily.
‘Just act normally,’ Jo advised. ‘Offer to make her a cup of tea or something.’
Jo was doing her best to help, but I didn’t see why I should brown-nose Bryony when, actually, I’d done nothing wrong. She was the one who had been swizzing her most loyal of customers. Of course, my brave indignation deserted me the moment she showed her face.
‘Could you call the Wiltons, please, Jo,’ Bryony said, handing Jo a piece of paper and showing no signs she’d even noticed me in the office. ‘I’ve written down some possible viewing times for the converted barn.’
She had on a black skirt, bright red jacket and impossibly high black stilettos. Her hair sat perfectly in a neat chignon.
I stood up and spoke to her back. ‘Hi, Bryony, I’m just going to make a hot drink, would you like one?’
She turned and her nose wrinkled slightly, as if she’d detected an unpleasant smell.
‘No, thanks,’ she said curtly. ‘Toni, I’d like you to go through some of the archived boxes of old property details this afternoon. They’re in the back office, in a bit of a mess. Everything needs filing in alphabetical order.’
Behind her, I saw Jo’s eyes widen. If I had to dream up the most mind-numbingly awful job I could give someone in an estate agency, then this was probably it.