Don't Say a Word

by A. L. Bird

  ‘I’ve never been there. I lived in Leeds, then here.’

  ‘Hey, I’m not saying you lived there. Unless, of course, you did.’

  Shit. I should just hang up. Cancel our date. I need to turn this round. Flirt it out. I put on my best sex vixen voice. Worthy of Chloe. Oh, how she used to talk … My skin tingles.

  ‘Are you calling me a liar, Daniel Farley?’

  He laughs. ‘No, of course I’m not. I’m just trying to get to know you, that’s all.’

  ‘Ah, well. There’s plenty to know that’s real, without you inventing a new past for me,’ I tell him.

  ‘I’m sure there is.’ Listen to the hunger in his voice. Boy, is he looking forward to Friday.

  ‘And on that note, counsel, I suggest we adjourn until tomorrow evening,’ I say. Then I hang up. Because how else do I draw a line under the fact that we never, ever, talk about me being in Balby.

  Chapter 13

  ‘Tim!’ He’s passing my desk so it’s my chance to grab him.

  ‘Jen?’ There’s a slight frostiness to his tone. An authoritarian edge. I am in charge, we are not equal, it says. Well, I’ve been there, and I’m bored of that.

  ‘I’ve been looking at the charge sheet and I spoke with Dan,’ I tell him.

  ‘The Rhea Stevens case this is, then?’ he asks me, his voice suddenly lower. Oh stop it. You know full well what I’m talking about.

  ‘Yes, Tim, it is. Anyway, Dan says he wrote you a letter to send to the CPS about the, frankly, embarrassing charge sheet. Have they still not come back to you? Do you want me to chase it up?’

  Tim looks at me for a moment. ‘Why don’t you come into my office?’ he says.

  I follow him along the corridor but really I wish I had a knife in my hand because I’d stab him in the back. Such a classic manoeuvre, the call into the office. Oh, I have authority, I have an office, let me demean you by calling you there. Oh, you’ve been a naughty girl again, have you? Let’s haul you into the office in front of everyone so they can see you’re in the shit. It was the same when I was a teenager and it’s the same now. Bunch of wankers, the lot of them.

  ‘So, what can I do for you, Tim?’ I ask him. I don’t know if I’ve hidden the sarcasm. I don’t know if I care.

  Tim gives a half-smile. OK, so maybe I didn’t hide it.

  ‘Sit down, Jen,’ he says (/orders).

  I choose to sit down.

  ‘Listen,’ he tells me. ‘I appreciate your enthusiasm on this case, now you’ve read into it. Admire it even. But we need to chat about a couple of things. Remember I told you this case was confidential?’

  I nod. He did say that. I don’t know why it is, but I guess that’s not my call.

  ‘OK, so you need not to be shouting about it across the office like that. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry.’ I’m a bit sorry, too, for the internal rant about being called into his office. Naturally, a place with walls is better for talking about a confidential matter than a place without them.

  ‘Right,’ he says. ‘Good. As I said, I really admire your enthusiasm. Your thirst for justice. It’s a really important quality for a lawyer.’

  I smile inwardly. It’s the first time anyone’s actually referred to me as a lawyer, or even a potential lawyer.

  He continues. ‘But you need to temper it with a bit of real-world cynicism. Street fighting, I guess. We can’t all rush around wide-eyed saying “Look, sir, what you do is appalling, not in the interests of justice at all.”’

  ‘But it’s true in this case.’

  ‘I know it’s true. But we can’t phone the CPS and say, “Your charge sheet sucks, you brutes – what are you doing about it?” There’s a way of doing things. We wrote to them. I’ve picked up the phone on more than one occasion. They’ll write back. If they don’t we tell the judge. It’s a game, there are rules, and until you learn them it’s better you let me deal with the inter-party communications, OK?’

  I shrug.

  ‘Jen, don’t just shrug. I’m investing a lot of time in you, because I think you have promise. But I’ve invested a whole career in the law. I know what I’m doing. Just provide assistance, watch the case unfold. And you can learn from that, and maybe have more of a handle on running the next one. OK?’

  ‘OK,’ I say. It’s like one of those really crummy fostering chats. You want to hate the new fake mum and dad who are laying down the law, but actually it’s all kind of reasonable so you start hating yourself more than them.

  ‘Listen, I tell you what,’ he says, ‘I’ll put in another chaser letter to the CPS, OK? It’s about time they replied.’

  I nod. ‘Good idea,’ I say.

  ‘And in particular, I’ll ask them about the Doncaster charge. That was particularly weak, don’t you think?’

  All I can do is nod. First Dan, now Tim, going on about Doncaster. Should I tell my minders?

  No. It’s fine. Tim’s a good guy. The reason Rhea was mixed up with stuff there, like I was, like Chloe was, is that there was stuff to be mixed up in. It doesn’t mean we were involved in the same circles. Or the same crime.

  Chapter 14

  Sitting on mine and Mick’s bed, wearing our matching uniform of skinny jeans and vest tops. Her plum-coloured lips whisper into my ear: ‘you’ll always be mine’.

  Then the lips move down my jaw. Finding my lips. Then, there we are. Lips touching. Mouths open. Tongues entwined; her tongue becomes my tongue. Round and round in circles we go.

  Slowly, her hand finds its way to the waistband of my jeans. Her long narrow fingers toy with it, easing themselves in so she is touching the flesh of my hip.

  But then Mick bursts in. The police burst in. I look down at my belly and I’m suddenly pregnant, so pregnant that I could have a whale inside me, not a child. And Chloe’s long thin fingers are not arousing any more. They’re cruel. Reaching into my vagina, pulling, pulling, pulling, trying to force the baby out of me. And the police and Mick are pressing down on my pregnant stomach, trying to squeeze him out.

  ‘No! No!’ I can feel it, the pain. I can sense the impending bloody ooze.

  And then Chloe is holding the umbilical cord. But it’s not joining me and Joshy; it’s joining me and Chloe. She starts kissing me again. And I don’t want to but I start kissing her back.

  ‘You’ll always want me,’ she whispers. Except her voice becomes Dan’s. And with a final yank, s/he pulls Joshy out from me and I bleed and I bleed and I bleed.

  ***

  I shudder awake.

  Jesus.

  Jesus.

  How much more fucked up is this going to get?

  How can I possibly still miss Chloe, after everything? And so deeply. So passionately.

  I roll over and flick on the bedside light. Perhaps that will make the monsters go away. Perhaps it will make it be like I’m an ordinary woman living in an ordinary flat with her ordinary son. Because that’s what we are. There’s just more paperwork. And less fear.

  Allegedly.

  Is this all because I have a date tomorrow? I look at the clock: 5 a.m. Oh, great. Tonight. I have a date, tonight. Brain – hear this: Chloe will not be there. Mick will not be there. Couldn’t you have let me sleep?

  How nice it would be if someone would make me a cup of tea right now and bring it to me in bed. How nice if the person I was sleeping next to would turn their light on too, rub their eyes, ask me if everything’s OK. How nice if I could tell them everything – OK or otherwise. That was Mick, from time to time. When he was making nice. But really, when he left the bed, it was respite.

  Chloe and I were a united team, back then. When he was away, there was fun to be had. Curling up under the duvet. Doing fingernails. Chilling out. Other things. And back then, living together in that house, he had us both. In a way. Who would he choose now: Jen or Chloe? Big difference: neither of us would lay ourselves open to that now. Now, we’d both want something else. A friend
.

  That person can’t be Josh. Fuck knows, he was the person I woke up next to for three years – it took me that long to let him sleep in his own bed, let alone his own room. Stuff all that guidance about not co-sleeping – I would have suffocated without him next to me, suffocated in fear. And there was no way I would let his airways be blocked. He was all I had.

  But he can’t be everything. Sure, I can be everything. I can be strong. I can be independent. I am woman. I don’t need to be like that though. I could share (some things). I could have company. I could have a companion. I could have sex.

  Sex. In this morning half-light, in my nightdress, still hazy from sleep, half turned-on from the dream-clinch with Chloe, it seems a possibility, even though it’s so unthinkably long ago that I slept with a man. I run my hands up and down my arms, imagining my hands are someone else’s. Dan’s. Would I want that? Not yet, not tonight, of course. But sometime?

  Or will I flinch? The involuntary tic away from him? I turn my attention to my inner thighs. Like, actually my inner thighs. I’m not talking in euphemisms. I want to see if the marks are still there, from when I didn’t flinch away soon enough.

  Yes, there they are. My little circular friends. We’ve aged together over the years, my cigarette burns and I. I gently stroke them. These, if nothing else, are a constant reminder of why. If I need more, I can run my hand down my nose and feel the slight detour from the straight line it’s meant to be (the punch was aimed at my jaw; I was lucky). Or for really conclusive proof, I can look at my tummy. If anyone asks, they’re Caesarean scars. Not that any doctor would perform a C-section with a broken bottle.

  Josh didn’t leave a scar when he came into the world. For him, there’s a little tattoo of his name and date of birth, just at the top of my hip. The one marking I have by choice. That will stay with me for ever; unfortunately the others will too.

  So yes, we have a story, my body and I, of why we’re here. Of why sex will be with the light off, if it happens at all. But what I would like, what I would so much like, is for someone to lie next to me and read that story. Instinctively. Without me having to tell it all, in all its bloody, absurd piteousness.

  And what they wouldn’t see, because I wouldn’t let anything like that happen, they won’t see my response to the story. They won’t see that Josh’s body is completely clean. They won’t see the pure, uninterrupted flesh. The lack of scars, of cigarette burns, of oddly broken bones. Maybe they’ll see the occasional scuff or cut from playground life. What they certainly won’t see is the punch that nearly ended him. That wound is just in my brain, thank God. And it’s why I got out.

  So, yes, prepare for a date: shave your legs, pluck your brows, choose an outfit.

  And put away the thoughts of what happened last time you ‘dated’ someone. Or what would happen if that someone caught up with you and your child.

  Chloe Brown, you will not be with us again.

  Will you?

  I haven’t checked the old mobile for a couple of days now. I should do it. Make sure we’re not about to be ambushed. I lean over the side of the bed and reach around for the shoebox. There’s the phone. Taking a deep breath, I turn it on. It doesn’t do anything for a moment. Then it starts ringing! Shit! But it’s just voicemail. I mute the ringer, then select listen to new messages.

  And there it is: her voice.

  Oh, God. The way she says the name. Chloe. It makes shivers run up and down my spine. The way she tells me she will never give up. My hands tremble. I drop the phone onto the bed. But she doesn’t stop talking. On and on she goes relentlessly from the duvet cover. Her words blur, distort, but I can make out the expletives, the rage, stored up for all these years.

  Finally the bleep comes. It’s over. I can delete the message. Except I don’t. I save it. Because you never know when you might need something like that. A shock to the senses. A reminder that while we’re closeted away here, outside the world keeps after us.

  Can she not just leave us alone? If she knew the damage she was causing, would she just stop?

  Stupid questions. Would I stop, if I were her? If I wanted to see face to face again the person who had given me so much grief? No.

  But here, I have to keep our own little world turning. I have to keep us moving forward, even if I feel like one of those hamsters we had in the children’s homes – running frantically inside a plastic ball, but never able to escape the globe surrounding them. Chloe let one out in the garden once. The foxes got it. I still remember the blood.

  So I have to turn away from the phone. From the fear. It’s just a little plastic box. It can’t get at me – no one can climb out of it. If I threw it out of the window now, it wouldn’t shatter, and reveal Chloe, and all the others. Even if I throw it though, the fear will still be there. As will the guilt. The guilt at what I’ve done to Chloe. The guilt when I listened to that message. The guilt that I left her behind, to pay the price for everything I’ve done.

  I turn look to my date outfit, hanging on the door of the wardrobe. It’s red, and it’s velvet, and it shows off my breasts in a subtle yet classy way. It is perfect, if that’s what you want. It’s whorish enough to hide how close I got to actually being one, and worldly enough that a past is implied without me having to confess to one. I’m coming home to change into it after work. No good Bill’s and Tim’s eyes being out on stalks all day.

  There’ll be date conversations about exes, and holidays and homesteads. Shit, I should have revised. I can’t sit there parroting the legacy over and over again. Maybe I can just be. Be myself. Not be facts, not history. Just be. In that moment. Jen Sutton, on a date. Admiring the restaurant, admiring the menu, admiring the company. Looking at my phone every half-second to check there hasn’t been a Josh emergency. Forgetting the other phone.

  I switch the light back off again. I let the bad mobile rest on the duvet with me. Perhaps I can just stay here. Pretend this is enough. Pretend I don’t care about that daydream of the guy bringing me the cup of tea. I’d have to do so much to get there. Risk so much. Better just to stay here and sleep. Or at least, shut my eyes and pretend.

  ***

  ‘Mum! Mum!’

  What? Shit! Help!

  ‘Mum, it’s nearly 8. We’re going to be late. Get up!’

  Josh is standing there holding out a piece of toast.

  ‘Here, eat this,’ he says. ‘I thought you were in the shower or something, not still sleeping.’

  I take the dry toast. It’s not quite tea, but it’s something.

  ‘Josh, I’m sorry, I must have slept through the alarm. Christ, you’re right, we’re going to be late.’

  I say the words, but I can’t quite convince myself it matters. So, he’ll be a little late for school. So, I’ll get to work at nine rather than five to. No biggie. But Josh is pulling the covers off me. I grab the foul-mouthed mobile and stash it under the pillows before Josh can spot it.

  ‘It’s a big day,’ he tells me. ‘The child minder’s coming, you have a date, I have Henry the Eighth versus Christopher Columbus.’

  The mind boggles.

  ‘You have to get up,’ he tells me.

  ‘OK, OK, I’m with you. I’ll shower later.’

  ‘Eurgh, Mum, that’s gross; you’ll stink all day. Shower now. Eat your toast in there.’

  ‘Fine, fine.’

  So I go into the bathroom, and I shut the door. I turn on the shower. Then I sit on the closed toilet seat and I eat the toast. I’m not washing my body clean for anyone this morning. There’ll be time later. This morning, it stays. All of it.

  ***

  Of course, by 4 p.m. that day, I’m kind of wishing I’d showered (indeed, I was wishing that at 9.10 a.m. when I sweatily rushed into the office). One day without a shower really is not a big deal – but that anxiety if you haven’t washed! How could I have forgotten that?

  I’m sure I don’t smell. I hope I don’t smell. I didn’t even use my spritz
this morning. Christ, this takes me back to where I don’t want to be. Why wouldn’t I shower after all those times of not being able to? All the shamefaced sneaking into public bathrooms to have a furtive wash. Nicking a bottle of perfume to disguise the feared smell. Moron. Never sacrifice those little luxuries you’ve fought for.

  ‘How was school?’ I ask Josh as he jumps into the back seat.

  ‘Christopher Columbus won,’ he says. I still don’t understand, but I get the sense I’m meant to.

  ‘What did he win?’ I ask.

  ‘Hah, hah, very funny, Mum,’ Josh replies.

  I will never know.

  I flick a look in the rear-view mirror. Josh is happily reading his book, a little Lego toy in one hand. It’s the spaceship he got from that monthly toy-mail order, I think.

  ‘It’s been good, hasn’t it, that monthly toy parcel?’ I say to him. I want to show him I’ve noticed. Before I abandon him to a stranger.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he asks, glancing up.

  I nod towards the spaceship.

  ‘The monthly toy pack subscription thing that spaceship came in. It’s a good service. A surprise each month.’

  ‘Oh, this wasn’t part of that,’ he says. ‘You don’t get Lego in those boxes.’

  I botch my gear change and the car shudders.

  ‘So where did it come from, then?’ I ask him. I remember back to the parcel I found outside our flat. An assumption, after the initial scare, that it was all safe. I feel myself heading back towards that scare.

  Josh shrugs. ‘Don’t know. It just turned up.’

  ‘Do you still have the envelope?’ It’s a ridiculous question, and as soon as it’s out of my mouth, I want to take it back.

  ‘No one keeps envelopes, Mum,’ Josh tells me. Which, of course, I know. I just wanted to see the postmark.

  ‘Was there a note or something inside it?’ I ask him.

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Weird,’ I say.

  ‘It’s a free toy, Mum, not a head in a basket.’

  I’m hoping that’s some kind of reference to Henry the Eighth. Otherwise I think I need him psychologically assessed.