I feel scared.
Darling
THURSDAY, 17 NOVEMBER
It was a rare treat to see the man I loved regain his bloom. I had at last told him about Malcolm Fletcher and, later still, about the knife held to my throat by his right-hand hardman Darren Hodson, described it all down to the stench of those bins. Far from shrinking in horror, Thomas had once more become expansive; his relief at feeling he now knew the woman he had married showed in his skin, his gait, his brightened eyes.
Moreover, he was making an extra effort with me.
‘We could go to the cinema, this weekend, if there’s something you fancy …’
‘Why don’t we think about going to that party after all, your friend … Carla?’
Then, as I moved into the kitchen, trying not to disturb him as he read, he looked up and gave me a look so unequivocal in its affection that I did not want to move another step. After a moment’s hesitation, he rose up, came over to where I stood and wrapped both arms around my shoulders. I leaned into him as if slowly shouldering open a heavy door, my jaws widened in a gasp although I did not dare breathe. This was the first time he had touched me in any meaningful sense since I had said the things I had said about him and Lola. And now I could not move, could not hope, could not take a breath, in case he thought any part of me might be moving away from him.
I need not have worried, he stepped back first.
But his kindness was a form of salvation. We would be OK.
A windfall of kindness, in fact, that morning. Stevie’s Wonders had emailed me with a link to their fundraising page to see the latest totals. When you clicked on their video the girls bounced around, boinging off the pavement like buxom black-pink-white marionettes.
Their marathon walk for my son had raised £8,426.82 in the end, quite staggering.
The kindness of strangers; it could be a blessing beyond belief. It simply burned bright when you were all out of matches. There’s nothing that can prepare you for that kind of kindness.
But it was my husband’s kindness that moved me most. When I went upstairs to grab my slippers from my room, I found that they – and my dressing gown, my hypo-allergenic pillow, my Shakespeare, everything – had been moved back into the master bedroom without a word.
Every few minutes, I thought about what to do for Lola. What would be the best thing for her, now? What could be done that might, in the end, make her happier? There was no clear answer; the ground had been laid. We passed each other in hallways or on the landing and her eyes shot me secret messages which I read as: ‘Tell me what to do’ and ‘Never tell Dad’.
Could I take Lola away somewhere with me, buy time to think?
When I had first fallen pregnant, I had considered upping sticks for Jamaica. I had once thought of our island as the answer to all my problems. Later, after my parents died, it became more symbol than country, never Home, but still a waiting sanctuary. I imagined it: an island of searing warmth, wet in a good way. An island of long, winding and interwoven experiences that wrapped itself around you, a bandage destination, good for cut fingers, vertigo, fevers, skin complaints.
But no, the present held us too much here.
In the minutes between thinking about the Lola question, I thought mostly of Jade. She could call at any moment, although she had not rung back since. With any spare seconds I thought of Stevie and then of Thomas.
I thought of them all, hard and in order until every thought muddled and merged so that it seemed they were all one and the same problem.
And then there was the bigger picture. We had received more Bright New Britain leaflets through our door, two that fortnight alone, and each time I went online to see what Malcolm Fletcher might be doing.
He was retiring at last, as it turned out, due to age and, the puff-piece implied, a massive stroke he’d suffered at the end of his long and distinguished career in local government. A volcano had finally erupted in his big moonhead. This man had fathered a local group that had become a key branch of a national movement, as well as two children, now grown: Scott and Abigail. But he was no longer bright or new and my Britain was all the better for it.
I copied the article, and kept it close.
On Saturday morning, there was a knock at the door. Loud.
‘Thomas!’
I had just got out of the shower. I could hear music coming from Lola’s room.
‘Thomas?’
I was hurrying to dry myself and pull on a clean dress so I could get the door. Rushing downstairs at last I pulled the door open.
‘Hello?’
I cast a look around the driveway. No one. The mist bathed everything in grey, I couldn’t see much. There was something else, though, something out there that had changed, that I was missing.
My car.
I grabbed the keys from the hall table and walked towards Mercy, stopped short. Stared. Long weaving marks ran from the bonnet to the boot. Scratched, keyed. Someone had been at her.
I walked closer; definitely keyed, on the side that I could see. The passenger side was hard up against the wall. Without stopping to think, I grabbed the driver’s handle – unlocked, why was it already unlocked? – and slid behind the wheel and turned the key. I would move nearer to the door, call Thomas and give her a proper looking over.
I drove over the gravel knowing that something was amiss; Mercy felt lumpen and my gut groaned. I got out, walked around it. Such ugly scratches.
‘Everything OK?’
Thomas had come to see what was going on.
‘She’s been keyed.’
‘Oh, hell no. Really?’
‘I know who did this …’
‘Let me just …’
He stalked around the car, prowling for clues.
‘They haven’t gone too deep … but, God, what’s wrong with people? Hold on …’
Now he walked up to the car, squatted down on his haunches.
‘Oh, Darling, they’ve done your tyre as well.’
He hoiked himself upright, did a more thorough inspection.
‘Three tyres. Three bloody tyres. Bastards.’
‘I can’t believe they had the nerve to come to our house.’
‘You know who did it?’
‘It’s those Bright New Britain people. Darren Hodson or someone, I know it.’
Thomas shook his head and we eyed the scarred metal beside us.
‘The police will sort this,’ he said.
‘Of course,’ I cleared my throat. ‘We do have to call them, I suppose.’
Thomas nodded, quite fast.
‘Yes, enough, come on,’ he said. ‘We’re getting this reported.’
We moved back inside. Thomas put an arm around me, again:
‘You know what? Leave it to me. This is awful enough for you. Go and relax while I sort out the police and insurance.’
‘Really, are you—’
‘Go.’
As I turned, a glimpse of white peeked at me from the windscreen.
‘Thomas, look.’
There was a thin strip of paper just visible under one wiper. I pulled it out, read it, passed it to Thomas.
It read:
SEE YOU SOON.
The police called to say they would be with us in a couple of hours.
It was time. I had to piece together what I suspected so that it did not play out in front of my husband as madness, paranoia, or – worse – step-parental spite. Lola might no longer hate me, but this had all come about through her.
I had to check that they were all still there, just clicks away, those bald glarers, those badtime boys. I played link-to-link on Facebook again, this time without hacking Lola’s account, and somewhere I must have taken a new, terrible turn. I closed my eyes against it.
Waah wrong? Why yuh rinch up yuh face, Darling?
I looked again. Some blog, from a link on the BNB site.
It was called ‘Shame’. Not so much a blog, in fact, as a populist rant, which made ugly jokes about
celebrities and political figures, particularly those of colour and/or a liberal mindset. It included a few shabby paragraphs slating them for their crimes against society and a huge parade of photos, a mish-mash of people, famous and otherwise, some captioned, others not, who appeared to have nothing in common except the ‘shame’ of not being white. There was no witty reportage about them: whoever had cobbled the site together left their members to provide most of the abuse in their comments; one gay black actor and a woman who had taken the government to court had over seventy comments between them dating back months. Go fuck yourself naggot and Back off our Brexit bitch. It was a whole underworld party for trolls. I scrolled down the endless page of photos, amazed at how many people they wanted to feel ashamed. Then I spotted a splash of yellow and went cold:
Darling White, 37, cocoslut
The first three comments:
Next time wash your hands after love
Me is one nasty minging bitch!!!!!
Kill urself
The horror was too great to absorb at once, but it came to me in pieces. Me. Yellow dress. Chocolate stains that looked like shit. Stevie’s birthday, the corner of his blue party hat bottom left. Lola’s photo … Lola.
Lola gave these people the photo of me at our family party, when I thought we were all at our happiest.
I scanned more comments that hung below my image. No. Not this, not these worst words and the psychotic hatred and the filth and the threats. Not this. I was plunged into shadow, that enormous hand above us was descending, the dream no dream at all. Of course, the police would know what to do and this could all stop here, today, but could she really have done this?
I knew though, before I had finished asking myself the question. Lola. Lola had not just been ‘going’ to the BNB ball. She had sold us down the river: that torrid river of blood ‘they’ had always wanted to spring into being. This was it then. We were coming to the very end.
‘So, Mrs Waite,’ the police officer said, ‘your husband said that you feel the damage to your car may be part of a wider—’
‘There’s a photo of me on a website. We have to stop them, we—’
‘It’s OK, Darling. Take it slowly.’ Thomas, with me on the sofa, touched my arm.
I told the police about all of it – the online photo, the note on the car, my history with Darren Hodson, the men who pushed in alleyways, the car again.
‘We have noticed a spike in these sorts of crimes in the last little bit. We can instruct the organisation to take down this image or face prosecution.’
‘Thank you, that would be a start,’ said Thomas.
I said, ‘It’s too late. Where else might that photo be now?’
‘We’ll be looking into that,’ he said, ‘which will take a little time. We’ll also hang on to this note. But I wouldn’t worry too much, Mrs Waite. If this person wanted to get to you so much, he would have hung around, ignored the car. They just want to scare you.’
‘They’re succeeding!’ said Thomas ‘We’ve been worried about my wife even leaving the house.’
‘Just take the usual precautions, Mrs Waite, and you too, sir. Keep your phone charged, tell each other when you’re going out. We’ll be checking the CCTV on the main road here, leave it with us. As for the photo online, you seem to think that came from a family source.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Unbelievably.’
PC Arnold looked at me. I looked at Thomas.
‘This photo was only on my step-daughter’s phone. She has shown interest in these … this “group” before.’
Thomas started up, ‘But as we’ve said, that doesn’t mean, I can’t imagine that—’
‘Where is your step-daughter now, Mrs Waite?’
‘Oh, she’s here,’ I said, an acidic note in my voice. ‘She’s upstairs. Probably online.’
‘Darling—’
‘Do you think we could have a word with your daughter, Mr Waite?’
A beat. ‘OK, sure. I think she’s out of the shower now.’
Lola came down. Hair damp, she had pulled on the dress she wore to our wedding. In the eyes of the young officer she would look beautiful. He smiled at her:
‘Miss Waite. We’ve been talking about the photo your parents found online on an offensive website—’
‘I know, they told me. I can’t believe it.’
‘Yes. Well, it seems possible that the image originally came from your phone. Do you have anything to say about that?’
‘Mm, I’ve been thinking about that. It’s really likely. I put the photo on Facebook.’ She looked straight at me, then back to him. ‘So any of my friends would have had access to it.’
‘Friends like Will?’ I butted in. ‘Or your other so-called friends?’
‘Who’s Will?’
‘Will Benton, goes to Dovington,’ I said. ‘I reckon that that smarmy git—’
‘Mrs Waite—’
‘Darling—’ said Thomas.
‘OK. Oh, I know it’s not her fault, exactly. She has been mixing with some of the BNB lot though, haven’t you, Lola? Getting in with the wrong crowd a bit?’
‘Darling!’ said Lola. ‘But you know I would never. We’ve talked …’
I couldn’t look at her; stared down at my feet.
‘That lot were never proper friends of mine,’ she said, her voice dull.
‘Are you both referring to the right-wing group, Bright New Britain?’
‘Yes,’ said Thomas. ‘That MP got in up north and they’ve been starting to flex their muscles around here more lately, but that doesn’t mean—’
‘Do you know any of their members?’ PC Arnold asked Lola.
‘No, not really,’ she said.
‘Yes, you do,’ I said. They all looked at me. ‘What about that Daz? You know Darren Hodson.’
‘Oh yes, there’s him,’ said Lola. ‘But he’s not a friend of mine, Will knows him.’
I couldn’t resist: ‘Like I said.’
Lola looked at me with something approaching disappointment, but I was too angry to care.
‘Can I go now?’ she said, her voice flat. ‘I’ve got an essay to do.’
‘Yes,’ said Thomas.
‘I think that’s all for now, Miss Waite.’
We watched her turn and go upstairs without another word.
Thomas sat forward:
‘She’s going through a tough enough time already. I don’t really want her to get tied up in all this.’
‘What if she already is?’ I asked.
We looked at each other.
The police officer coughed.
‘I see. Well, I think we’ve got enough to go on for now.’ He rose. ‘We’ll be in touch.’
There, as if it were finished and satisfactory, the rest of us all but forgotten, wiped clean from PC Arnold’s mind by the scent of Lola’s skin cream.
I rose and went straight to the dishwasher, clattered a few bowls into cupboards so that everyone knew to stay away. I managed to chip one, but just stacked it at the bottom, like a child’s secret.
Was I being unfair to Lola? Possibly. But fairness would not guarantee my safety, my son’s safety. I wanted to believe it was a thoughtless share by a teenage girl, the theft of my likeness by a stranger. But so much doubt had swirled around us, for so long. And who puts on peach to speak to the police, anyway?
Forgiven, forgotten? Either would have done for my husband, whose eyes now shone with naked relief every time I went within a foot of his daughter. The truth was that I had simply made an accommodation with myself whereby I would give Lola not my full trust, but my energy. No one else could help her. I was putting some serious effort into devising a workable plan for Lola and the time was coming when it should all pay off. Holed up in her en suite once again, all talk of stolen photos shelved – she had apologised twice more for putting me, smeared, on Facebook – we counted the days that had elapsed since Will day on our fingers together. I told her that she might be fewer than six weeks pregnant and that we
had time to do the right thing, that all she had to do was trust me.
Was there anything else she wanted to tell me?
I stood and wound up her forgotten blind, looking away, giving her time. Lola explained, twiddling hair, eyes down, in fits and starts that, as I had come to suspect after reading her two DONE LISTS, Will day had not actually been the first time but a second time, and that it had all started a while back at some festival.
‘Mungyjacks?’
‘Yes, Mungojaxx.’
‘I thought there was a whole group of you …’
‘We sneaked into this tent together. No one knew.’
I smiled. ‘Ah, the old tent-share ploy. Smooth.’
‘Not really.’ A scared peep up at me through her hair. ‘He nearly kicked it over!’
‘Ha! That’s what too much stolen vodka will do for you.’
A hollow laugh – an inevitable, guilty-as-charged echo of a laugh – and just there, that was it. The exposure of teenage transgression disguised as good humour, of course, but so much more: our one moment of flawless connection.
That it should come now. Still, I had to move on.
‘When was Mungojaxx again?’
‘Twenty-third of July.’
I looked up to the ceiling, as if the days were unspooling in my mind. But she talked into my counting, wispy stunted words, trying to make sense of it all:
‘You know, I’ve just found out he’s even told all the boys I was bad at it.’
‘Oh. Horrible.’
‘Yes. Can’t believe I made videos for him, as well as the Facetiming; I gave him actual proof. Someone said that he has even put a video of us online, but I can’t find it and now I’m—’
‘OK, stay calm. I have to think about this one. Maybe it’s not too late to … sort something out. Leave it with me.’
Just a courtesy call, Mrs Waite.
The police had not hung about, they took these matters very seriously. They had spoken to Darren Hodson about his possible connection to scratched cars, anonymous notes and breathed phone calls; about a historic assault on a fifteen-year-old girl. He had alibis for some, denials for others, blank outrage for the whole fucking-bang-out-of-order lot. A misunderstanding; an innocent, if sweary, man. A man free to walk the streets.
Darling Page 19