After the Fall

by Norman, Charity

  ‘Did what?’

  ‘She gave me a spliff.’

  I was about to explode when I remembered two things: first, that I had promised not to shout; and second, that it was at precisely Sacha’s age that I first tried the same thing.

  ‘Didn’t do a lot for me though,’ continued Sacha. ‘Just made me feel shit. We met up with a crowd at that fireworks party—remember? Jani, some cousins and—dunno who. We were all on top of the woodpile. Bianka and these other guys were passing their spliff and having this weird conversation, laughing about the most random things.’ Sacha looked bewildered at the memory. ‘I didn’t see what was funny but they were just about wetting themselves. I was an outsider again. I just wanted to crawl away and hide in a hole. Which was when these people started talking to me.’

  ‘Who?’

  The shutters came down. ‘Just people.’

  ‘Jani?’

  ‘We went and sat in a car.’

  So. While I’d thought she was sipping fruit punch at a wholesome party in the country, my daughter was huddled in a shadowy car with complete strangers.

  ‘That was stupid,’ I said. ‘Anything could have happened.’

  ‘Anything did happen. There was this glass pipe. They were passing it around. I hadn’t a clue what it was, probably just some kind of cannabis, but they said I’d love it. I thought I’d give it a go. What did I have to lose? So I—’

  ‘I’ve warned you a zillion times,’ I moaned.

  ‘And where were you while I was sitting in that freakin’ car? You knew nothing about my life. You were too busy being everyone’s ray of sunshine. I thought, what the hell. And when the pipe came to me, I tried it.’ Incongruously, her mouth curled up into a glorious smile: the old Sacha smile, wide and brilliant. ‘My life turned to gold . . . like my head was full of fireworks and music. A brand-new world was just beginning. I could do anything I wanted. Anything.’

  ‘The elixir of happiness,’ I said quietly, and she nodded, twitching and blinking. Just talking about the stuff seemed to disturb her.

  ‘Oh, yes! Spot on. The elixir of happiness. Maybe it was all worth it, just for that moment. I don’t think most people ever in their lives get to feel such fantastic . . . what’s the word?’

  ‘Euphoria.’

  ‘Euphoria. It was a million times better than anything I’d ever felt before. Think of something that gives you a buzz . . . driving fast with the music on, or . . . I dunno, riding a horse. Anyway, imagine that and then times it by a million, all tinged with sunlight. I had so much energy and power . . . I was a fantastic dancer, I was beautiful and popular . . . I felt like a film star and a superhero all rolled into one.’

  She’d danced all night under the lanterns, on a farm by the Tukituki River. I’d been so happy for her. Now I saw a different scene: Sacha in a shadowy car, her lovely face wreathed in a noxious vapour, like the addict on the video; Sacha’s mind, clouded and distorted; and Sacha’s body . . . I couldn’t bear it.

  ‘Did you . . .’ I hesitated. ‘In the car. With this unnamed person. Or people. Did, um, anything else happen?’

  ‘D’you really want to know?’

  ‘In the old days, there were no secrets between us.’

  ‘Old days.’ She looked away. ‘I tried it again next time I was offered. And the next. And the next. It was wonderful! One time this guy picked up my mobile and put his number in my contacts. He said I only had to send a text and he’d fix me up with some. I didn’t have to wait for a party or whatever. I said, “That’s too much, I’ll never do that,” and he said, “Oh yes, you will.” And he was right, I did. He meets me outside school.’

  ‘I’d like to strangle him with piano wire,’ I said fiercely.

  ‘Why? He’s just like me.’

  ‘Of course he isn’t!’

  ‘You don’t get it.’ Words began pouring out of her again. ‘He needs the money, same as I do. It’s a bit like pyramid selling. He’s not Mr Big, he’s way down the pyramid. D’you see? You know, I thought I was in control of it for a while. I could stay up all night and do my homework. It made me so brainy, it was like a miracle. I could lose masses of weight, didn’t even want to eat, and get the body I’d always wanted—just freaking awesome! I could stay awake—and I mean wide awake. I was like . . . ping!’ She opened her eyes too wide. ‘Remember all those nights I said I was going to stay over at Tabby’s, or Bianka’s? Well, most of the time I never even saw them. Actually, I dumped Tabby ages ago. She’s so frigging perfect, she’d have told her parents.’

  I clutched at my forehead. ‘So where were you? This is awful, Sacha.’

  ‘Different places. Flats in town.’

  ‘But who were you with?’ Sacha in a dingy room, among the dregs of humanity. Sacha’s mouth around a glass tube.

  ‘Random people. Other users.’Cos they’re the only people I want to see,’cos nothing else matters. You wouldn’t believe how many people are doing it, you really wouldn’t. It’s not just drop-outs, it’s all sorts, all ages. At New Year . . . oh my God.’ Scratch, scratch. ‘We didn’t sleep the whole time, just kept having another little smoke, then another little smoke. Coming down was like . . . this dark place, like a torture chamber, like a dentist’s drill in your brain. I thought I was going to die. And I wanted to die, I really did.’

  ‘New Year.’ I thought back. ‘You stayed out two nights. I collected you from town, and you wouldn’t come into the supermarket with me?’

  ‘Wouldn’t? Couldn’t. If you’d put a gun to my head I’d have said “fire”.’

  Sacha shied as a log fell out of the flames and rolled across the hearth. I picked it up with a pair of tongs. A wispy spider shot out from under the bark, zigzagging, trying to escape its fiery hell.

  ‘Was it Jani, Sacha? Is he behind all this?’

  ‘Jani? Jani?’ She was angry and agitated at the flick of a switch. ‘I haven’t seen Jani since I stormed out of the cinema on New Year’s Eve.’

  ‘But . . . yes, you went to the Napier fireworks with him and Bianka.’

  ‘Never went near those frigging fireworks, never saw him or Bianka after I left the cinema. Jani hated the meth. He said I had to choose—him or it. I told him to run away and find himself a nice clean girl.’ She gave a contemptuous shrug. ‘Never seen him since.’

  ‘But his sister stood by you.’

  ‘Ah well, Bianka, that’s a different story. She even talked me into giving it up for a while. She absolutely begged me. I did pretty well, stayed clean for most of the summer holidays. Remember when we went for lunch at the Colberts’?’

  ‘Of course. Jean told us about Daniel.’

  ‘I hadn’t had any for three weeks, and I was thinking it wasn’t so hard to give up after all. When I heard about Daniel, I swore I’d never use again. Then school began, and all that work, and he was waiting by the gate—this guy—and I thought just one more go . . .’ Her speech was accelerating, a runaway train. ‘And bam! I started using by myself, I didn’t need company any more, you know what company means to me? All it means is I have to share and I don’t want to share because every little crystal is so precious. It’s funny. I’ll have a burn in the hut—the smoko hut, great name—I can do it in there because there’s no smell or anything, not really, remember the time I had to write an essay and a speech and . . . God knows what . . . and Kit helped me light the stove?’

  Yes, I remembered.

  ‘I was coming down that morning, felt like shit. But with a little help from my friend . . . no problem! I was buzzing all night, met you in the kitchen and we had a nice chat, I thought that was hilarious! The times I’ve come in and I’ll be having lunch with you all, and I’m totally fried but you don’t seem to get it, you’ve just got no idea.’

  The spider was running up and down the log. It wouldn’t climb onto my finger. I blew, hoping to dislodge it onto a piece of newspaper, but the poor creature shrank from my breath and disappeared back under the bark. Sap bubbled from the sawn end of
the log, and smoke was billowing into the room.

  ‘I bet most people never feel that great in their whole lives.’ Sacha’s voice was high-speed now. She peered intently at the back of her hand, then began to tug at a scab. ‘I mean, just like—pow! Superwoman!’

  ‘Most people don’t steal from their families, either.’ Giving up on my spider—which would surely be incinerated by now—I reluctantly tossed the log back onto the fire. Sparks shot up the chimney.

  ‘A while ago I started to get freaked,’ said Sacha. ‘I’m still freaked, oh my God I’m freaked. I never feel okay any more, just totally shit . . . I can’t get that great feeling back, no matter how much . . . I just need more and more.’

  ‘So how much did all this cost?’

  ‘Hundreds. Thousands. I used everything in my bank account. You started saving in there when I was a baby, didn’t you? Well, it’s all gone. I raided your and Kit’s wallets, I got hold of your plastic card and got cash out, I sold Kit’s camera, I filched that ginormous stack of pounds sterling you kept in a shoebox in the loft—you haven’t even noticed yet, have you? Five hundred pounds, I changed it for over a thousand dollars—stuff from the silver cupboard I thought you wouldn’t miss. I took your watch, your special watch that Grandpa gave you.’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  She mumbled to herself, picking, picking, tearing at that scab. ‘Nothing else matters, nothing else matters, it’s just like—whatever, whatever. I pawned my flute. I pawned, um,’ she swallowed, ‘Ivan’s locket. But I still needed more. I ended up owing money, I was really scared they’d do something to me, but the people up the pyramid said no problem, no problem at all, they were sure my family had a lot of nice things, I just had to tell them where and how and let them know when there was nobody in.’

  Suddenly, it was too much. I picked up our mugs and stumbled into the kitchen where I stood leaning on my hands against the table. My head was pounding. After a minute I heard her footstep behind me.

  I didn’t turn around. ‘Who broke into this house?’

  ‘Don’t ask, don’t ask! I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Oh yes, you can. I want names. I’m going to have them locked up. Somebody’s got to stand up to these bastards.’

  ‘You can’t! They’ll kill me.’ She sounded panicked. ‘They might hurt the twins, or set fire to the house. They’re totally psycho, Mum. They’re off their heads.’

  At the mention of Charlie and Finn, adrenaline raced through me. Life is cheap to those people.

  Sacha gasped and hurried to the kitchen door. I watched as she cupped her hands to the glass, peering out. ‘Did you hear an engine?’ she whispered. ‘Oh my God, there’s a car!’

  ‘It’s just Kit,’ I said, looking past her.

  ‘I think they’re after me,’ said Sacha.

  I tucked my only daughter up in bed. She’d bathed in the twins’ bubbles, and I washed her hair—something I hadn’t done for years. I made a hot water bottle and dabbed tea-tree oil on the ghastly sores she’d excavated in herself. She smelled clean and loved.

  At the weekend I got stung by a be. My Mum cuddled me and put speshal creem on from her hambag. It made me beta.

  ‘I hate it.’ Her eyes were flicking rapidly from side to side as though some enemy was about to leap out. ‘It gets into my head.’

  ‘We’ll beat it together,’ I said, rocking us both.

  ‘Help me!’ Scratch, scratch.

  ‘Shh.’

  ‘When I look in the mirror . . . Mum, I don’t know who I am.’

  I took a little while to tidy the mess in her room. The next time I looked at Sacha, she seemed comatose. Her skin was translucent, wet hair smeared across the pillow. My heart ached. She was just a little girl, really, and she was in such trouble.

  Just before we left England, she was soloist in the school concert. She stood on the stage with the orchestra around her, playing Telemann. She was wearing a borrowed white evening dress, her hair up, stray ringlets framing her face; a Greek maiden. Ivan’s locket glittered on her collarbone. The sound my daughter made that evening was too much for me. I thought I might burst. It was like watching a bird with the sun on its wings, weightlessly soaring and spinning in the blue, and knowing that your own clumsy feet will be mired to the ground forever. Lydia’s mother, sitting in the row behind me, leaned forward. ‘Bet you’re proud,’ she said.

  Proud, yes. Of course, proud; but jealous too. By what witchcraft could Sacha touch our souls? Love and loss poured from her flute and scattered itself in the air. Instead of the dutiful clapping that generally ended the concert, this audience were on their feet and so was the orchestra. The music teacher took Sacha’s hand and held up her arm. A first year presented her with flowers, which made her cry. So much success. So much adoration. And I the traitor who took her away.

  I was tiptoeing out when I heard a frightened whisper. ‘Are you leaving?’

  ‘I’ll be just in my room,’ I said. ‘I’ll listen out for you.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise.’

  I heard her crying, as I turned out the light.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ asked Kit. We were lying in the darkness, wide awake and bewildered.

  ‘She says she’s through with it.’

  ‘D’you believe her?’

  I thought carefully. ‘I do . . . yes, I do.’

  ‘I can’t get over the way she’s treated us.’ I could tell Kit’s teeth were gritted. ‘Stealing, and lying, and living a sick, grimy kind of double life. When I think about Sibella’s portrait . . . I don’t know, Martha. It’s hard to forgive.’

  I agreed with him. Hard to forgive. Impossible not to. ‘She’s terrified,’ I said. ‘Absolutely terrified. It’s got way, way out of her control. I think she’s secretly glad to have been busted. We need some really strict rules, though. I’ve confiscated her car keys and her phone. She’s got to come home every day—I hate to imagine the disgusting places she’s been staying.’

  ‘No money,’ said Kit. ‘We’ve somehow got to cut off her supply; change our PIN numbers and hide our wallets. If she’s got no money, she can’t buy the stuff.’

  I hesitated, then came out with it. ‘Tama thinks we should go home.’

  Kit seemed to stop breathing. He turned onto his back, staring up at the pale ceiling. ‘What’s his logic?’

  ‘Get her away from all the influences.’

  ‘We’re so happy here,’ said Kit, sadly.

  ‘Sacha isn’t.’

  ‘Something like this might have happened anyway, if we’d stayed in Bedfordshire. She was bound to run into boyfriend trouble and get a broken heart. She was bound to have bust-ups with her friends and her parents—it was all on the cards.’

  ‘But dabbling in drugs?’ I asked doubtfully.

  ‘There’s plenty of that back home. Maybe this particular stuff is less common, but there’s others. You think she’d never have tried anything at one of those nightclubs in Bedford?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘If we were still living in the most populated part of the dear old UK, she’d be offered little coloured pills sooner or later; or something to smoke, or something to snort. Emigrating was just a catalyst, wasn’t it? Take her away, and she might be shaken up all over again.’

  ‘We’d all be shaken up.’

  From next door, Finn shouted. His words were nonsensical, his tone urgent. We waited, ears pricked, but he must have settled into sleep again. ‘You don’t think we should go home, do you?’ asked Kit.

  Ah, there was a question. I thought for a long while.

  Home. Part of me longed for it. Back to Dad; back to Lou and Philip. Back to my old job, perhaps, or one very similar. Maybe Sacha would be safe there, whole and well again.

  Home. We had no home in England. We’d changed. We’d moved on, and we’d never be able to put things back as they were. The boys would be torn away from all the things they loved here; and Kit . . . well, Kit would probably slip back
into his darkness. I’d lose him.

  ‘It won’t be like we remember it,’ I said. ‘We’d be screwed financially, with the costs of moving here and back again. Sacha couldn’t go back to her old school, so it would mean yet another change for her. Nothing would be the same as it used to be. Not the house, not the school, not the lifestyle. Might do more harm than good.’ I moved closer, and rested my head against his shoulder. ‘No, I don’t think we can run from this one.’

  I felt Kit’s arm tighten around me. I felt drained, beyond tears.

  ‘I thought I knew her,’ I said.

  Thirty

  Dusk blankets the hospital. I’m just leaving the chapel when I encounter Kura.

  ‘Martha.’ She falls into step. ‘Mind if I walk along with you?’

  Of course I mind. ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘Have you heard from Finn’s father yet?’

  ‘Er, no.’

  ‘Nothing at all? That’s a pity. I have to tell you that I’ve liaised with the rest of the team. We’ve just had a multi-disciplinary meeting involving the police child-abuse team, medical staff and Child, Youth and Family.’

  My stride falters. ‘Oh. And?’

  ‘There are indicators.’

  ‘Indicators of what, for God’s sake?’

  She looks sideways at me. ‘Now. There’s a lot more ground to be covered. I’m not saying we’re sure anyone hurt Finn. But the accident raises concerns in itself.’

  ‘Children fall off things all the time.’

  ‘Yes, falls are extremely common—probably the single most common type of accident we see here. But not at midnight; not in these circumstances. We’ve got bruising on Finn’s arm, consistent with rough handling. We’ve got a historical fracture that was not presented to medical services. I’ve also spoken to Finn’s school principal, who tells me he can be a live wire.’

  ‘Mr Grant said that? Well. Finn is a live wire. I’m proud of it.’

  ‘Challenging, was the word he used.’

  ‘Okay, okay, challenging. Along with every other five-year-old in the universe. It doesn’t mean anyone would want to kill him.’ And Mr Grant is a two-faced beardie freak, I add silently.