The Mountain in My Shoe

by Louise Beech

  We hope you will both be able to attend the prize-giving ceremony at Hull City Hall on 12th June, where Conor will be awarded £50 and a set of fine pencils. The local media would like to interview all winners afterwards, so please confirm if you are happy for Conor to take part.

  Yours sincerely,

  Peter Cloud

  (Chairman of Arts Council)

  9th June 2010

  Dear Peter Cloud,

  I’m writing to let you know that, sadly, Conor Jordan won’t be able to attend the prize-giving ceremony at Hull City Hall on Saturday as he will be at his brother George’s funeral. Conor was absolutely delighted to win this prize and it’s a great shame that, due to this family loss, he will miss out on the recognition. Thank you again for choosing his art. I don’t think any of the judges realise what this win did for his self-esteem.

  Best regards,

  Anne Williams

  *Newspaper article from 7th June 2010

  Delayed Ambulance Tragedy

  A social worker has called for an inquiry following the death of six-year-old George Jordan, claiming that an ambulance took too long to arrive. Barry Davies says George – who lived in a care home in Doncaster – suffered heart failure brought on by a severe asthma attack yesterday evening. By the time George arrived at the hospital it was too late to save him.

  Though the nearest ambulance station is just five miles away, the 999 crew took forty-five minutes to arrive. Ambulance bosses have said it was an unprecedentedly busy night, but have admitted that forty-five minutes is unacceptable and the target response time is twelve minutes.

  George regularly has asthma attacks and has been taken to the hospital numerous times in the past, where treatment has been successful. A carer at the home said, ‘This tragedy could have been prevented. They’re normally here in fifteen minutes. I’m utterly shocked. He was only six.’

  Doncaster Coroner, Sean Mackerel will adjourn an inquest awaiting further information. George’s birth mother did not wish to comment. The funeral will take place on Saturday. Any donations are to be given to Asthma UK.

  13th June 2010

  To Conor and Sam,

  I am sat and righting this and its the night after Georges funeral and Im feeling very down and bad about it all. Then I thought if I right it all down it will feel better cos they say it does. So I decided to right it for you and Sam instead cos you both have books and can both have them in it. Also I have to think what you two must be feel like. You didnt do nothing wrong but I have. If Id been a better mum and had you all propers he might not of died. I want you both to know I am really sorry. I keep saying this word and then not doing much better. But I have been seeing you and getting to no you and that is good. I hope we can carry on doing that. Kayleigh likes you both. She asks always where is my brothers? My mum had lots of us but she managed to keep us all. Me and my brothers and sisters don’t see each other now though but its cos we live all over and none of them really wants to have much to do with me. I understand this. Only my twin brother Andrew sees me. I would like him to see you too but it might not happen. One day when you grow up I might be able to tell you more stuff that I cant now. I am sad and sorry. Always am. I do love you both but maybe not how I should.

  Your Mum xxx

  Kate Sharpe

  School Counsellor

  1st July 2010

  Dear Mrs Anne Williams,

  I want to let you know that while we can recommend a child see a counsellor to talk with them, we cannot enforce such a thing. Headmaster Mr Grimshaw felt it would help Conor to have a few sessions following his recent bereavement, but though Conor came to me he did not engage. He did not appear to wish to talk about the death of his brother and said he had a proper home now and he could talk to the people he now has. This is to inform you that I see no need for any further sessions.

  Very best,

  Kate Sharpe

  48

  Bernadette

  Conor’s drawing of Bernadette comes away from the wall with a soft tearing of tape and floats to the floor, like a patterned parachute. Ruth and Bernadette watch it land by the bookshelf, face up, so that Bernadette’s pencilled eyes watch them from the gold carpet.

  Bernadette remembers once telling Conor about the Mona Lisa painting and how her eyes are said to follow you wherever you go. He then explained how it was all about perspective – spelling the word ever so slowly so she might understand better – and that if you draw eyes that look at you, they will, no matter where you go, because the light and shadow is fixed.

  ‘Did Richard draw that?’ asks Ruth, motioning to the sketch.

  ‘No.’ Bernadette wants to pick it up, can’t stand to see her shaded face so contented when she isn’t feeling that way, but she leaves it on the floor. She glares instead at Ruth’s over-painted face, at her pinked cheeks and enhanced eyes, and demands, ‘Do you expect me to believe that every Saturday my husband has been with you and that you’re a—’ She can’t say the word.

  ‘It’s the truth. I’m a prostitute.’ Ruth looks at her empty glass on the coffee table. ‘It’s a funny word, isn’t it? Kind of long and official. I prefer escort, though I don’t do much of that.’ She sighs. ‘What do I have to gain by lying about something like that? Look, you wanted me to come and tell you how I know Richard. I said I’d explain it all to you and I am. Is it better if he’s with me because it’s just some everyday affair?’

  ‘No – I…’

  ‘I don’t want your husband for myself. I don’t love him or anything, though I am…’

  ‘What?’ asks Bernadette.

  ‘Well, I do have some affection for him. That happens after time I suppose. When you get to know someone and you see them every week. He’s often kind to me. Has this gentleness, though I’m sure there’s a deeper reason for that.’ Ruth shrugs and pushes a strand of hair behind her ear.

  ‘How long?’ asks Bernadette.

  ‘With me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Ruth thinks. ‘Maybe three years.’

  ‘So you’re telling me that Richard…’ Bernadette picks up the drawing now and puts it face-down on top of the books. She turns back to Ruth. ‘You’re telling me he paid you to, you know, be with him?’

  Ruth nods. The flat is too quiet, like Andrew’s house earlier where no fridge or radiator hummed. Bernadette imagines the trees outside standing to attention, raptly awaiting Ruth’s story. Andrew’s house was a twin to Frances’ house. Frances. She is a prostitute too. Richard was with her eleven years ago; they made Conor. Ruth isn’t the first. It must be true.

  It’s too much.

  Bernadette runs from the lounge, not sure where she will go, and is surprised to find herself in their bedroom. She views the bed with repulsion. How many times in the past have they had sex on a Saturday night? Not often recently, but once upon a time Richard might, in his own chaste way, kiss her neck and suggest they retire early.

  She feels sick.

  Ruth is behind her, asking if she will be okay, saying sorry.

  ‘Don’t come in here.’ Bernadette ushers her out of the room and closes the door. ‘Isn’t it enough that you’ve had my husband God only knows where?’

  ‘I know it must be a shock,’ says Ruth. ‘But you wanted to know.’

  Bernadette goes to the kitchen and Ruth waits by the lounge door, as though nervous about entering other rooms she may be banned from. Ruth looks at the two packed bags by the door.

  Bernadette brings the whisky bottle into the lounge, feeling like a cliché, the wronged wife in a crime drama turning to drink after learning sordid secrets about her God-fearing husband. She pours the liquid into her glass anyway and gives some to Ruth, who sits back on the sofa and thanks her.

  ‘I thought prostitutes only worked nights.’ Alcohol makes Bernadette bold. She paces between Richard’s desk and the bookshelf, sipping her drink.

  ‘We work all hours,’ says Ruth. ‘It’s not like you imagine at all.’

  ‘B
ut how can you walk the streets in broad daylight?’

  Ruth swirls the brown liquid around the glass and her bracelets echo the tinkle of ice. ‘I don’t work on the streets – I work with other women from a house.’

  ‘You mean like a brothel? But they don’t have places like that around here.’

  ‘Of course they do.’ Ruth laughs, but not unkindly. She studies Bernadette and seems momentarily surprised by what she sees. ‘Some are called massage parlours and they have a website and that. But where I work, it’s just a woman’s home, Gina, and we all do it from there. She takes care of us. She’s been doing it years. I knew her before I even got into it. She was my mum’s neighbour.’

  ‘So you’re never on the streets?’ Bernadette feels it’s somehow better that Richard did not drive up and down alleys looking for a quickie in his car.

  ‘God, no. Too dangerous. I’ve never been a street prozzie.’

  ‘But how does someone…?’ The question dies.

  Bernadette thinks of Frances, the sad story of how her own father sold her to friends for a few pounds. If a parent treats you with such little value, places importance on what you can sexually give, wouldn’t that lead to a lifetime of believing it was all you were worth? She wonders if that vulnerable girl from Belfast looked to Richard for help all those years ago.

  But what did he look for? Why is she more curious about these women than her husband’s disloyalty?

  ‘How does a woman get into it?’ Ruth pauses. ‘Money usually. For a lot of girls it’s because some guy gets them hooked on drugs. Lots of them come from broken homes, foster care. They’re vulnerable to start with, sadly. I’m single with two kiddies and it means I get to be at home with them all day and then my neighbour babysits them in the evening and on Saturdays. The money’s so good I couldn’t do anything else now. Wouldn’t get the same working in Asda. My kids have the best shoes and all the modern gadgets.’

  ‘But don’t you…?

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t you ever feel, like, dirty? Used?’

  Ruth sips her drink. ‘Sometimes, of course. I can’t pick and choose who I see and most aren’t exactly what I’d choose for a date. Richard though…’ She glances cautiously at Bernadette. ‘He was different. Some of them are. They don’t want the same as the others, you know, a quick hand job or a blowie. They want a sort of relationship. I know it’s hard to believe. Richard … Look do you want me to go on? You’re leaving him anyway.’

  ‘I need to know. How did Richard find you?’

  With the creased drawing of Richard on the coffee table in front of her, Ruth tells Bernadette the story of her punter of three years. How he came to the house, upon the recommendation of a colleague, because he had heard about Ruth, the girl with red hair who was a good listener.

  He was kind of shy, though he had clearly been to other prostitutes before, and he insisted the arrangement had to be on a Saturday because his wife might suspect untoward things if he were to go out in the evening. He was always smartly dressed, in a suit and polished shoes, and always paid extra. Ruth and he would at first talk for hours, while he held her hand.

  Sex when it happened was simple, no kissing, no words, of course a condom. He showered afterwards, vigorously.

  ‘He often tries to persuade me to get out of the job,’ says Ruth. ‘For the sake of my children. He used to sometimes bring me application forms for other jobs, but he hasn’t in a while. Gets annoyed with me when I tell him I’d have to work twice as many hours to make half of what I make. Talks about his mum sometimes, how she raised him alone and didn’t have to turn to prostitution. He gets me to wash my make up off before we do it.’

  Bernadette believes this. Richard hates her in any sort of garish colour or lipstick. She is surprised he even sought Ruth out, with her glitzy jewellery and obvious hair dye. She is the kind of woman that he would point to in the street and say quietly, ‘She has no self-respect.’ Bernadette remembers sharply how in their early days Richard would sometimes touch her cheek and say that she had skin like an angel. Those are the things that have kept her with him: the tenderness that was as acute as his occasional cruelty.

  ‘So he always uses a condom?’ Bernadette asks the woman he has paid for sex.

  ‘God, always. I insist. We can’t not in this job.’

  ‘So how might a woman, you know, like you, get pregnant then?’

  Poor Conor – he’s not only in the care system but was born of a prostitute and a man who pulled Bernadette’s arm so hard it broke, simply because she disagreed with him. Bernadette recalls reading once that two geniuses are unlikely to make a genius and decides that two damaged people can perhaps only make something very special. Then she is angry that Richard, despite treating her so badly, is lucky enough to have fathered a child; one she loved first.

  ‘Condoms split,’ says Ruth. ‘Happened to me before. Even got pregnant once, but got rid of it. Wasn’t Richard’s – some other punter.’

  ‘Did he ever give you a different name? Andy, or Paul, perhaps?’

  ‘No, just Richard. Why?’

  Bernadette ignores the question. ‘So he only sees you on a Saturday?’ she asks instead. ‘What about weekdays, during work?’

  Ruth shakes her head, reaches for the bottle and pours more into her glass.

  ‘Is that normal?’ asks Bernadette.

  ‘There is no normal. Men who hide it from wives will come whenever best fits their lives. They love their wives, you know. They do. I know that might sound crazy. I think I often help marriages last and I think sometimes, on some level, these women know what their husbands do. They know they can’t change it so they ignore it. They’re grateful we give their men something they can’t.’

  ‘Wait until you have a husband,’ says Bernadette. ‘And see if you feel like that.’

  ‘Richard loves you,’ says Ruth. ‘You should stay with him.’

  Bernadette studies her crimson mouth. ‘He talks about me?’

  Ruth looks very young suddenly, like a schoolgirl wearing her mother’s make-up and high heels. ‘Says you’re the only one, with this mournful look on his face. I’d like some man to look like that when going on about me.’

  ‘Richard isn’t all he seems.’

  ‘No,’ murmurs Ruth. ‘I think he has a personality disorder.’

  ‘Who are you to say that?’ Bernadette is surprised she feels so defensive.

  ‘Really, I think he does.’ Ruth pauses. ‘He’s obsessive, that’s clear. I read this article in my mum’s psychology magazine. It was about this narcissist disorder thing. And I thought of Richard when I read it.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘People with this disorder thing have an extreme … what’s the word? Preoccupation, that’s it, with themselves and lack empathy for other people. They can be really obsessed with control or power and need constant attention. They’ll be kind if they need to but they don’t really feel it. A difficult childhood often makes things worse.’ Ruth looks a little sad. ‘But underneath they’re very insecure.’

  ‘You think you know Richard after seeing him once a week as a prostitute?’ Even though what Ruth is saying rings painfully true, Bernadette is annoyed that the woman seems to know him so well.

  ‘No, not at all. Look, it was only an article. But I know him a little. I know—’

  ‘What? What an earth do you know?’

  ‘Nothing. Sorry, I’ve no right.’

  Bernadette looks at the clock and can’t believe it’s half past four already. Usually by now she’s been sleeping for hours, with Richard breathing peacefully at her side and the sound of the foghorn ghostly on the water.

  ‘Why were you with him last Saturday when he fixed that computer?’ she asks. ‘Surely that’s not part of your job?’

  ‘No, that was a one-off. He said I should go with him because we had an hour left together. I wondered if he wanted to be seen for some reason.’ Ruth pauses. ‘So can I ask where he is now? You promised t
o tell me.’

  Bernadette puts her empty glass on the mantelpiece. ‘The last I know, he had jumped into the River Humber to save someone. They haven’t found him yet. I’m waiting for news.’

  ‘Fucking hell.’ Ruth knocks back the last of her drink. ‘Who was he saving?’

  Bernadette is too tired to tell the story again. Too tired to say it. Too tired to think of it all anymore. ‘No one you know,’ she sighs. ‘Look, I’m grateful for you coming here and being honest. I really have no issue with you at all. I hardly even care anymore what Richard has done. But now I have his phone and now I know who you are, I just want to be alone. Okay?’

  Ruth nods. ‘I understand.’ She pulls a card from her purse and put it on the table. ‘Here’s a number we use. Can you call me when you know Richard’s okay – please? Ask for Ruth Davey.’

  ‘He can tell you himself.’ Bernadette takes the card anyway. ‘I’m sure he’ll see you on Saturday.’

  Ruth stands, knocking the coffee table with her bag and then straightening it up again. ‘But he must have been in that water … how long?’

  Bernadette just wants Ruth to leave now.

  But as she follows her into the hall, she realises something. Something Ruth said. You should stay with him. And before that, You’re leaving him anyway.

  Bernadette takes hold of Ruth by the shoulder. ‘How did you know I’m leaving Richard?’

  Ruth shrinks away a little at Bernadette’s touch. ‘I…’ She frowns. ‘I didn’t … I don’t…’

  ‘You said it.’