“I know what you mean.”
“Yep.”
Why does the name Kim ring a bell? It sounds like the name of one of my mother’s old friends. It seems, strangely familiar.
“I have to go pick up my kids. I hate leaving them.”
“We all do,” Lilah says, and as I turn back to bid her farewell before I step out of the car, there’s a terrible sadness in her eyes. It’s palpable.
“Take care, Lilah. See you tomorrow?”
She clears her throat, hiding her eyes. “Yes, Jules. Take care. You did good today, kid. You’ll go far.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jules
There’s something wrong as I’m driving home. The nose of my bonnet is taking me onwards but I don’t feel like I’m getting anywhere fast. I’m trapped in an elastic bubble and my car is travelling, but I’m not. It’s like being out of body. I feel the unease of anxiety creep up my arms from my wrists to my shoulders, then it shudders down my spine. There is something so, so wrong about all that went on this morning.
Before I pull onto the bridge, my phone pings so I pull into a lay-by to look at my screen.
RONNIE: You out of there? Call me when you can.
I check I haven’t been followed or anything, and I haven’t, but I still push the child locks down on the car anyway to secure myself inside. I tell my phone, “Call Ronnie,” and it carries out my command.
“Jules, how did it all go?” he answers, anxious to hear my progress.
“It was… well, do you want the specifics, or would you rather not know how many fluid ounces of shit I’ve shovelled today?”
He breathes heavily, worried about my state of mind obviously. “Jules, I mean with Janice.”
“Yeah, she had drugs in her bag.” I pause and he doesn’t reply, but then I remember… “My colleague, Lilah, she knew about it. She even said William Barker knows about it.”
“Oh?” From the tone of Ronnie’s voice, I know he’s not shocked.
“You knew. You knew. You were sending me into the sodding lion’s den.”
“Jules, we have you under hard surveillance… if anything happens–”
“Don’t patronise me. Why didn’t you tell me it was William Barker running this thing? Hmm? I know, and shall I tell you why, hmm? Because you don’t see a person when you look at me, nor did you see a person when you sent Warrick to do the jobs he did.”
He clears his throat loudly, obviously to let me know he’s not interested in listening to me ranting on. “Jules, Rick would never have let you go in if I had told him. Besides, we only suspected he was running it… and now you’ve confirmed our suspicions, after just one morning’s work. Look how much progress we’ve made in just one morning. Obviously, you need to stick it out with Lilah and find out what else she knows.”
“She knows stuff, alright,” I cut in, speaking angrily, my mouth almost touching the receiver on my phone, “she knows and many of the other girls do too, but they turn a blind eye. They just need money, they want to work, and they don’t want to get caught up in it all.”
“What about Janice?” He tries to steer me back to the point of us talking. “What did she seem like today?”
“She thinks I’m sniffing around for info about my father and Miranda’s death. She thinks I’m dodgy, though. I can tell. She doesn’t trust me. She’s seen I’m serious about all this, given I cleaned up a load of shit today, but she knows… I just sense it… she knows I’m hunting the truth and she knows…”
Kim comes back into my mind and I remember she used to have black hair, the same as Mum’s. Ronnie keeps on talking to me down the phone but I’m not hearing much of it anymore. Instead I’m arrested by a residual memory, an image of my mother talking with Kim…
I’m being bounced on my mother’s knee. I feel tiny, really small, and a toy I got for my third birthday – a cabbage patch kid – seems really big as I hold it by its hair.
“I haven’t seen you in so long!” Mum exclaims.
“I know. Well, I was back in the area and heard you were still here, so I thought I would pop in.”
Dad comes through the door, tall and proud, intimidating. He doesn’t love me, not like Mummy does. Even my three year old self knows it.
“Hi Julian, how are things?” Kim asks in a bright voice.
“What’s she doing here?” Dad growls.
He goes upstairs to get out of his work clothes and my mother whispers to Kim, “Ignore him.”
“Is he not happy?”
“He’s highly strung. I don’t know why I stay with him… except I hope one day he might change.”
“Is he in trouble?” Kim stares right into my eyes, avoiding Mum’s. “That’s normally why a man can’t look into the eyes of the woman he loves.”
I feel my mother’s arms stiffen around me so I look up into her face. Her mood has changed instantly.
“It was nice to see you, Kim. I’d better get tea on otherwise he’ll be in a mood all night.”
Kim leaves and I’m placed in my cot upstairs while Mum cuddles Daddy better next door.
Back to the present, I hear Ronnie saying, “Jules, Jules, I hear you breathing! Did you just hear what I said?”
“You didn’t tell me Miranda was really dead?”
“What?” He coughs down the line. “No she’s not. I never said she was dead. I falsified it, remember?”
I can’t remember how I know she’s dead, I just know she is. All I know is, this man sounds as guilty as sin.
“I’m going home. Leave me alone to get on with this. I’ll find out what’s really going on. Don’t you worry.”
“Remember what I said, Jules, don’t trust Lilah…”
He hangs up and I have no idea what he means by that. What’s Lilah done wrong? Nothing, as far as I can tell. Did I miss him telling me something? Did he have something important to impart about Lilah and I just zoned out there while he was telling me? I haven’t got the energy to call him back and interrogate him. I’ve barely even got the energy to drive home. I’m so exhausted, my shoulders and neck feel really heavy, and a little nap in this lay-by seems attractive right now. However, Kitty is expecting me at noon and then I have to find some energy to look after my children until Warrick gets home tonight.
I pull out of the lay-by and climb the dual carriageway leading onto the suspension bridge, inclining me up to the stretch of road between the huge towers holding the structure in place. The bridge seems to loom above me so high, much higher than usual, and looking up at the sky, the most incredible vertigo hits me.
It’s dark. How did it get dark? When I look at the vehicle clock, it reads 17.31.
What is happening?
My car is getting blown about, and I have to hold the steering wheel tight to control the vehicle, because it feels like I might end up crashing into the Humber otherwise.
I’m almost near the end and it’s like there’s been an eclipse, although I never saw it on the news last night and nobody mentioned it at all today, not even Len.
“What the hell is happening?” I say to myself.
I’m driving along when the elastic band effect makes everything go in slow motion again, so I know the car is moving, but I’m not. It’s an out of body thing, and I don’t like it. I have no idea what is happening to me.
I’m between two dimensions, or something. I don’t know, but none of this feels right.
I’m almost off the bridge and thanking my lucky stars I’ve made it when I see Anna, walking up the pedestrian walkway on the other side of the road. She’s red-faced and dressed shabbily, in not much more than tracksuit and sneakers. It’s not freezing today but it’s not warm either and everything about this day still seems wrong. I pay the toll at one of the booths and almost forget to collect my change from the man.
There’s a stopping place just nearby and I swing my car in at the kerb, leaving it in a hurry to catch up with Anna.
“Anna! Anna!” I shout, chasing after her. Wh
en she sees it’s me, she begins running uphill.
I’m going as fast as my legs will carry me but I’m trapped again, in my bubble, moving but not going anywhere fast. Everything has slowed and all I can see ahead is Anna, running at a pelt, trying to evade me.
I’m running but my whole body feels heavy and I feel drained, and as though I’m dying, like my life force is being yanked right out of me the more I try to make sense of this ridiculous world.
“Anna!”
I’m not catching up with her and she’s going faster.
I try to keep running and gasp into my phone, “Call Rick.”
A few rings later, he answers, “Hi babes. You done? Why are you… what’s wrong?”
I puff and pant. “I’m on the bridge. Anna’s here. Right-hand side.” I struggle for breath. “I can’t keep up, she’s going that fast. Warrick… I think… I just feel… she doesn’t look right.”
“I’m leaving the office now. I’ll call the police. If you catch up with her, try to keep her talking until I get there, okay?”
“Okay, I’ll try.”
I trudge up the incline leading to the long, flat slope of the bridge and when I manage to overcome the brow of the incline, I spot her just ahead, standing against the bars separating the bridge pathway from the long drop below. She doesn’t look like she’s going to jump, but I just can’t be sure.
Some people told me that surviving the jump would be a miracle. Some told me jumping into the water would be equivalent to jumping into a sheet of concrete fifty feet beneath you. Ker-splatt. I try not to think about it.
“Anna, are you okay?”
“What are you chasing me for, you absolute loon? Go back home to your precious husband.”
She’s slurring which means she’s drunk, which is even worse. When you’re drunk, all your decision making abilities go out of the window. I guess that’s why some people like getting off their faces because then they can do what they like, without recrimination. Not until the next morning, anyway.
I remember what Warrick said and I try to keep her talking. He works in Beverley which means he can get straight on the Beverley to Hull road and hopefully avoid any traffic.
“He did love you, you know? I bet a part of him still does. Joe loves you, too.”
She smiles and I try to keep my distance, noticing it’s an angry, bitter smile hiding behind a drunken, sarcastic façade.
“You don’t have a clue, little girl. You don’t have a flaming clue. Go home and rot. Just get lost.”
“I’ll go, only if you come with me. I’ll drive you home. Or, I can drive you to ours and you can see Joe and my twins, if you like? You haven’t met them yet, have you?”
I’m just saying any old shit. I don’t know what else to do. I don’t want her within an inch of my kids, but anyway…
“Nice of you to tell me where my son had moved to, wasn’t it? Nice of you to invite me to your wedding, to tell me you’d had twins with him… so nice. You like keeping people in the loop, don’t you?”
She twists her head to me and I notice her little pixie cut is jagged, like she’s been hacking it at herself, like she can’t afford a hairdresser these days. Her skin is pale white and her lips and eyes don’t have much pigment to them. She’s dying of sadness.
“I’m sorry, but please come with me. Please. Think of Joe.”
“Ha!” She bursts into laughter and I notice by the side of us, cars are slowing and rubbernecks are trying to see what the drama is.
Can they see two wives of the same man? Can they? Or do they just see a woman in what looks like a nurse’s uniform trying to talk another woman down from the ledge?
I think about all the things Warrick has said to me over the years.
I love you.
It’s never been like this before.
Only you.
Only ever you.
Jules, you’re the one.
Jules, you rock my world.
Jules, my love, my sweetheart.
I start crying because she lost all that and if I lost it, I would be dying inside right now, too. Except for Anna, this is more than heartache and lost love, this is cruel, black depression, swallowing her whole. As I look up into the dark-purple skies, swirling with grey plumes of ashen smoke, I know how she feels.
She laughs manically, turns her head and says between rigid teeth, “I tried to slit my wrists but I’m not strong enough. Do you know how strong you have to be to actually do it? Hmm? This way’s better. Nobody will ever know. Okay?”
“I’ll know.”
She snarls, “You don’t count.”
“But there will be a body and someone will have to identify you. Someone will. Don’t make Rick do it. Worse, what if Joe had to identify you?”
“Shut up, Jules, and go home. You have no idea.”
“The bridge has security cameras. If you try to jump, they’ll launch a search, they may save you. You might even live. This is such a waste of time and energy. Let us help you get better, instead.” I don’t believe a word I’m saying, but I’m just trying to buy time.
“No. No.”
She puts one foot on the green railing and I panic, launching towards her. I grab her shoulders and forcefully pull her back, my arms around her torso. I should be stronger than her but for some reason, today I’m not. Today, she’s the one on a mission.
With iron fists, she peels my hands off her and shakes me away. She twists and turns on me, pointing at my face. “YOU! You took everything from me. Everything! Do you know what it’s like watching you all, knowing you’re all laughing about me.”
A tear slides down my cheek. “We don’t laugh about you, but I know what it’s like to feel laughed at.”
“I’m nothing, Jules, not anymore. The depths are where I belong.”
“Jules! Jules! Jules! Anna! Anna! STOP!” Rick’s voice carries towards us, on the wind, tickling my ear; his concern and his presence, instantaneously comforting.
It’s okay, now he’s here, everything will be okay. I briefly shut my eyes but when I do, I get shoved. I catch Anna’s eyes for a moment and she grunts, “Now he’ll know what it feels like.”
She pushes me and I begin to tip back over the railing as she forces me over, but Warrick’s by my side in the nick of time, his instincts having made him react quickly to what he can see happening. He grabs me tight to him, pulling me back to safety, to security in his arms.
“Anna,” he grounds out, angrier than I’ve ever heard him speak, like a dog that’s been barking all day and has gone hoarse. “What are you doing to my wife?”
“Either she or I must die!” she screams, and then she climbs up the railing, and jumps.
It happens.
She’s gone in a flash and I huddle in Rick’s arms, not wanting to see, not wanting to know. I don’t want to see it. I want to believe it didn’t happen. Please say it didn’t happen.
We hear the subtle splash and we know, she’s gone and done it.
We see a raft of police cars heading our way and the coastguard steaming down the river in their speedboat, ready to start searching for Anna, to pull her out and rescue her.
I’m crying into my husband’s chest and I feel guilty. I feel dead, too. If I had never come along, she would never have needed to die. It’s all my fault.
“They’ve got her,” Rick says in my ear, and I look up into his face, seeing he’s looking down over the railing to see what’s going on, “Good job I called them, eh?”
It would be a miracle to survive, I remember, the words somebody else’s, but I believe them.
We both watch as the lifesaving crew try to revive her onboard the boat but they’re working for half an hour to no avail. Eventually, they cover her face with a blanket.
Beside me, Rick turns blue. He stiffens, like my mum did the day Kim visited.
“I’m sorry, we tried, we really tried.”
“Not hard enough,” he growls, his entire body shaking, his eyes lost to a darkness o
f his own, a darkness he can reach for anytime because it’s where he spent so much time brooding.
“Rick?”
He stares at me, hollow, empty.
“DAD?” Joe shouts, running towards us.
Joe looks over the railing.
“I told you to stay in the car!” Warrick growls.
I look at Warrick and I see it. He brought Joe along as a last resort, his son the thing which would surely rescue or revive Anna. Joe sees the body on the boat, being taken to shore.
“NO!”
Warrick looks between me and Joe, his eyes dancing wildly, his despair taking over. It’s too much pain for him to handle. It’s all too, too much.
I feel it in my bones. I know what he will do, but I’m powerless.
Rick climbs the railing and he’s gone, too, within the blink of an eye.
Unable to live with himself.
My heart dies, the instant he’s dead.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jules
I’ve been asleep. In bed. I’ve no idea how I got back here. Reality hits me. He’s dead. I watched him jump. I watched him, unable to live on for me, or anyone else any longer. I watched him toss himself into eternity without me. He went, joining Anna in their murky, quagmire graves together, their lungs full of sewerage and seaweed. I sit up in bed, my bladder screaming for release. I’m so numb, I’ve switched off again, just like before.
I’m rubbing my eyes when I look down at my nightshirt, the red silk one. There’s still a stain on it, where I spilled my ice cream. Didn’t I put this in the wash? I can’t remember. Someone shifts in the bed beside me and it’s Warrick, just his normal self, wriggling around trying to steal my warmth all night long.
I look around the room. On the bedside, there’s my half-empty tub of ice cream, the very tub I spilled some from.
It was a dream. It was all a dream.
I stare at Warrick, my lovely, living husband. His chest is full of fur and right now, I want nothing more than to burrow and knit my hands in it, wear it as a coat or even, dine off it!
Beyond Angel Avenue Page 24