Don't Say a Word

by A. L. Bird

  ‘Slink down in your seats when we get in, OK, guys?’ I tell Josh and Mum.

  They don’t say anything.

  ‘OK, guys?’ I say more forcefully.

  ‘OK,’ they say. Good. Finally they are getting it.

  It’s starting to rain, so I turn the windscreen wipers on. It doesn’t clear the water. Oh, right – I’m crying. Whoops. I turn wipers off again. The rain keeps going.

  I try to breathe. I remember Mick trying to breathe. I remember Josh first breathing when he was born. So alone.

  ‘Mum!’ Josh shouts. I jerk. There’s a loud beeping. I look at the road. I don’t remember having looked at it for a little while.

  ‘You need to look at the road, Chloe,’ Mum says. ‘It’s our exit next.’

  ‘Fine.’ I nod. ‘Sorry.’

  Crashing the car isn’t going to help anyone. I need to keep my wits about me, my adrenaline up – the running instinct. Like when I was Chloe. Get that thrill of escape. Again, again, again. I don’t feel thrilled. I just feel tired.

  Our turning. Here we are.

  ‘OK, slink down, people,’ I say, perhaps brightly, perhaps not.

  I drive slowly and carefully to the furthest part of the car park I can find. We are next to a Volvo. A child peers out at me from a car seat. Fuck.

  We’ll just have to do our best. I killed Mick. Fuck. I killed someone. Mum did too. We both did. Teamwork. We have to get away. I’ll climb out the passenger side. The child-seat baby won’t see us then.

  ‘Shall we go and get some tea, love?’ Mum asks.

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Mum! Just sit there, OK. Sit there and be taking off your jumper. We’ve got to get rid of it somehow. Bury it, or something.’

  I clamber over to the passenger side of the car. I get Dan’s razor out of the glove compartment. As I hold it – shit, with my bare hands, hold it with your sleeve! – I see in my mind the rest of Dan’s beautifully crafted shaving kit. His beautifully crafted chin. The rain starts up again inside the car. I open the door to clear my head and the weather. Then I crouch down so that I can rub the knife under the car. Where’s the blood? Maybe on the rear tyres? No! Where is it? It must be somewhere.

  Ah! Mum’s jumper.

  ‘Mum, pass me your jumper!’

  Josh passes it to me.

  ‘Thanks.’

  I run the blade of the razor over Mum’s jumper. Rub, rub, rub – fuck!

  Ow, shit. I’ve cut my finger. I’ve only gone and cut myself and my now my blood is on the razor and so it’s tainted and we’re all going to prison and I’m never never going to see Joshy again.

  I rock back onto my heels and I cry and it’s not rain, it’s my tears and my tears and my tears because I can’t, I can’t, I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep running. It’s not fair! Why, why am I in this position again? I didn’t do anything. All I tried to do, all I ever tried to do is protect my boy. That’s all.

  And Josh is out of the car, and he’s kneeling beside me and rubbing my shoulders.

  ‘It’s fine, Mum. It’s fine. It’s OK. All you need is a good lawyer.’

  And that starts me crying again, because he doesn’t get it. My naïve, beautiful, sweet little boy. He doesn’t get that for people like us – people like me – justice doesn’t work. I’m Chloe now, not Jen. She’s caught up with me like I feared she would and she is going to take our lives away.

  ‘Here’s Gran with the tea,’ Josh says.

  The tears stop.

  ‘What? How has Mum got tea? Has she fucking been into the service station?’

  Mum doesn’t answer. She just hands me the cup.

  I don’t want to take it. We have to keep running.

  ‘Why don’t you sit in the car and drink it?’ Mum asks. ‘You’ll get cold out here.’

  ‘There isn’t time!’ I tell her. ‘We’ve got to make the phone call, about the car, make the tip-off.’ But I know it’s nonsense. It wouldn’t work. Even if I could bring myself to do it to Dan.

  ‘You’ve time to drink a cup of tea,’ she tells me.

  She and Josh haul me up. Josh opens the back door and bundles me in. He gets in the other side. Mum gets in the drivers’ side.

  ‘I’ve got the keys,’ I tell her, still clutching Mum’s jumper and the razor to me. ‘You can’t go anywhere.’

  She nods. ‘I know.’

  I sip the tea. It’s warm and hot and soothing. I close my eyes. Just for a moment. I open them again. Woo-ah. Drifted off. Mustn’t let that happen. I take another sip of the tea. My eyes are so heavy – the tears haven’t helped. They’ve weighed my lids down. I allow them to close. A couple of minutes will be fine. We’ll rest here for a couple of minutes. I’ll sort out Mum’s jumper. It will be fine. We’ll get a coach to Dover. We’ll escape. I’ve run away before. I can do it again. It will be fine. It will be fine.

  ***

  Chloe and Jen walk hand in hand towards a big flat pond.

  When they get to the edge, they stand and look at the reflection.

  ‘We’re like twins,’ says Chloe.

  ‘No!’ says Jen, letting go of Chloe’s hands. ‘We’re different. I’ll never be like you!’

  ‘But you are me!’ says Chloe.

  And she begins to run, round and round the lake.

  ‘Wait!’ says Jen. She tries to run to catch Chloe, but Chloe is too fast. So she thinks she’ll swim across the lake, cut her off. But she can’t. There’s a Perspex barrier blocking her access. She should have seen it before. And what’s that? Beyond the barrier there’s a little boy. Her little boy. He’s swimming away from her. Joshy! Joshy! Joshy! She shouts, but there’s no sound. And now he’s not swimming, he’s flailing and struggling, and dipping below the water. ‘He’s drowning! Save him!’

  A man from the opposite side of the lake jumps in. It looks like Dan. ‘Help him! Help him!’ But now she can see, it’s not Dan, it’s Mick. Mick has his hands round Josh’s throat. And he’s strangling, strangling, strangling. And at the same time, he’s somehow stabbing me so hard, I’m bleeding, I’m bleeding, I’m bleeding!’

  ***

  ‘She’s bleeding!’

  A voice shouts out from my dream.

  It’s a man so it must be Mick. My eyes flick open. But it can’t be Mick so I shut them again. Wait! As my lids drop down, I see the blood. It must be Mick’s blood, but it’s coming from my hands.

  ‘Jen, you’re bleeding!’

  ‘I’m Chloe,’ I mumble.

  But the voice is insistent.

  So I look up.

  I must be asleep again, dreaming. My desires intermingling with warped memories to create some parallel existence that can’t be mine.

  Because according to my eyes, standing by the car window is Dan.

  Chapter 42

  There he is. Dan. Crouching in front of me.

  Dan. Lovely Dan. So real. I just want to reach out and hug him.

  But my brain is still heavy from sleep. I don’t remember if I am still framing him or not. I think I decided not, didn’t I?

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I ask him.

  Dan holds out his hands to me. I take them. ‘Josh told me you needed a good lawyer,’ Dan says. ‘But first, you need a good hospital.’

  ‘I’m not pleading diminished responsibility!’ I shout, pulling away from him.

  ‘For your hands,’ says Dan gently. ‘You need a hospital for your hands.’

  I look at them. Oh yes, my hands. Covered with blood.

  ‘It will rinse off,’ I say. ‘Nothing serious.’

  ‘I’ll be the judge of that. What were you doing with my razor, anyway?’

  It’s my turn to shrug. ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘You’ve been through a lot, Jen,’ he tells me.

  ‘My name is Chloe,’ I say.

  ‘OK. Chloe.’ He looks at me. I look at him.

  Then I lean onto him. I feel my body relax with r
elief. Dan is here. I love that he is here. I love that he is Dan. I love him?

  Yes. I really think I do.

  I bury myself a little deeper into him.

  ‘You don’t have to apologize,’ he says. His voice is gentle, caressing.

  I wasn’t going to say sorry, so I don’t. But I don’t know what he thinks I should be sorry for. He doesn’t know all of it – he knows I ran from his flat. And took his car. Maybe that’s enough. He doesn’t know I was planning to frame him, shop him to the police. It sounds crazy now. It was crazy.

  ‘Why did you come?’ I ask him. ‘I’m so glad you did, but why?’

  ‘I told you,’ he says. ‘Because Josh said you needed a good lawyer.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Really. Why?’

  He puts one hand under my chin. ‘I told you. We try to cling to happiness.’

  I shake my head. ‘You don’t know me.’

  ‘I know enough,’ he says.

  Maybe he does. Enough, not too much. Not that I would let him be the scapegoat for us. Not that I took so seriously his advice: put yourself first. But enough to love me too. Like he said he did, before I left. My insides warm at the thought.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ I ask him.

  He sighs. It’s a deep sigh. ‘We need to sort out this mess, finally. Josh and your mum told me there’s a bit to clear up in Doncaster. That you ran over Mick in my car.’

  Is there a hint, there, in the ‘my car’ that he knows? What I was planning to do?

  If there is, ignore it.

  ‘I’m not admitting anything,’ I tell him.

  ‘OK, that’s fine for now, but we’re going to need to talk about it. When we see the police.’

  I pull my hands firmly out of his grasp, leaving him only with smears of my blood.

  ‘I’m not seeing the police!’ I shout.

  ‘It’s a little late,’ Dan whispers, and nods over his shoulder.

  There are two cars, sirens flashing.

  ‘What! How are they are here already?’

  ‘Guilt settles on you, and once it does, it’s hard to shake off. It’s best to talk to the police now. Things have gone a little bit too far.’

  ‘But what about the hospital?’ I ask.

  ‘They can take you there too,’ he says.

  ‘What about Josh?’

  I look at my son, sitting on the grass verge with my mum. He looks up at me and smiles cautiously. I think he thinks I’m angry with him for bringing Dan here. I might be. I haven’t worked it out yet.

  A policeman advances towards me. He’s holding handcuffs.

  ‘I don’t think we need those, officer,’ Dan says. He brushes something out of his eye. Maybe some rain.

  He straightens up and mutters something to the police officer.

  ‘What? What’s going on?’ I ask.

  ‘Nothing, Chloe, darling – it’ll be fine. Come on, let’s go with them.’

  ‘If you’re sure?’ I ask him. It goes against everything I would do. But he’s the defence lawyer. He knows this stuff. I guess it’s time to stop running. Let him advise me. Keep me out of jail, and Josh safe.

  ‘OK. Come on, Josh, Mum; we’re going now.’

  I climb out of Dan’s car, and wait for Josh and Mum to come over. For the first time since Dan arrived, I clock Sarah, my witness protection officer, loitering in the car park. She nods at me. Surprised, but pleased they are finally taking their responsibility seriously, I give her a little wave.

  Then I walk towards the police car. The officer opens the back door for me and I climb in.

  The ignition starts.

  ‘Wait!’ I shout, because Josh and Mum and Dan are still outside. They need to be with me.

  The two officers in the front exchange looks.

  Dan knocks on the window. The officer rolls down one of the front windows.

  I can just about make out Dan’s words; his voice is so quiet.

  ‘Something you ought to know, Chloe. Mick’s sister who died from the drug overdose. Emma. She was my girlfriend. The ex. So I would have been Mick’s brother-in-law. I’m so sorry, Chloe. The past wins. Families have to stick together, you know?’

  His eyes are wet. But he taps the roof of the police car and it drives away.

  Away from Josh.

  I twist round as much as I can.

  I see Josh’s face start to crumple then he starts to run after the car. Dan holds him back.

  ‘No!’ I shout. ‘No!’

  But the officers don’t listen. Onwards the car goes. Dan knew all along. Dan preyed on me. Dan was the one pulling the strings. For all those protestations of love, Dan is the one who has torn Josh away from me.

  I open my mouth but my capacity for words has gone. No sound comes out, just a silent scream.

  And then the rain starts again, heavier than ever before.

  Epilogue

  I take Josh’s hands in mine.

  Him on one side of the table, me on the other.

  I see his hands all soft and beautiful.

  He must see my hands all scarred.

  And wrists too, following a particularly stormy evening.

  The friendship bracelet I’d treasured, cut through.

  I turn my hands to face palms downwards.

  ‘It’s not long, Mum,’ he tells me.

  I nod because it’s the right thing to do.

  Six years, in the scheme of things, is not a long time. He is right. Diminished responsibility did, after all, work. I get to be a manslaughterer, not a murderer, thanks to my lawyers. Dan wasn’t one of them. Obviously. And the witness protection team helped too. Explained what I’d been running from. Even when they knew I’d been using them. Decent, in the end, Sarah.

  But six years away from my Josh seems like the longest sentence in the world.

  His eyes go all wide and teary.

  Mine long overflowed.

  ‘It will be OK, Mum,’ he says. ‘Gran says hi.’

  Oh, my mother. How you have failed and saved me. Casting me out, welcoming me in, turning me in, saving the life of me and my son, then condemning me (again) by misplaced trust in a man. I still remember the way she wept at trial. ‘We thought Dan would look after her. We wouldn’t have sent him the message otherwise. We would have done as she said.’

  She says ‘we’. Really it was Josh. He was the one who thought to summon Dan. And so I will forgive her. For protecting my Josh from fully grasping what he’s done. Sending Dan an SOS text rather than the edited audio clip.

  Dan, who so carefully and lovingly insinuated his way into my life. Dan, with his misplaced sense of loyalty to a potential brother-in-law who’d long lost his potential and only used him. Dan, who perhaps never stopped grieving for the one he lost, his schoolyard sweetheart turned fun-time pill-popper turned corpse. His words, when showing me his flat – ‘it’s all because of my ex.’ His website profile heralding the unnamed local comp that formed him. Those undropped ‘t’s in Luton, his knowledge of Balby.

  I should have joined the links. But maybe those links were weakening when we were together. He could have chosen me, over everything, he said; that last conversation we had before I made the fateful pilgrimage back to Chloe still plays in my head. Had I not run over the man he was trying to help, had things not gone that far, he might have chosen our future over that past. I just went one step too far.

  By the trial, he’d hardened up into Mick’s man again. We learnt how close he and Mick had become when Emma died. How Emma’s mum (Mick’s mum) had helped pay for his law exams, to help him move on. He’d moved away from Donnie to Luton, tried to get on with his life. Then I arrived. He saw a black and white image of myself and Josh peering out of a local paper, a picture taken of a far-right protest being held in Bury Park with us caught in the background (we weren’t meant to be there, we’d lost our way). Recognized me from sketches made at Mick’s trial, not fooled by the dyed and cropped blonde hair. Told Mick,
who put him in touch with Tim. Put in place the master plan.

  I wonder if he now feels avenged, or like he’s finally paid his debt to Emma’s family. Even though I had nothing to do with his ex-girlfriend’s death and nothing to do with drugs. Only something to do with his long-dead girlfriend’s brother. Enough for him to fall in with Tim. Enough to think he was pulling the strings.

  But he’s a marionette himself. I would have betrayed him, had he not betrayed me. Maybe. Although not with the level of detail and effort he went to – they all went to. Every day I remember a fresh conversation, am amazed by the different levels and the strange nuances of conflicting loyalties there must have been to him all the time, that I was oblivious to. And so much, it turns out, that he was oblivious to. There were mind games Louise and Tim manufactured by themselves – the Lego packages, the notes under the door. And he tried to make himself oblivious to the story of the scars written all over my body.

  I think back, now, to the concern he had when he traced his fingers over those scars. He knew, if he really asked himself, that it was Mick. That’s when he could have chosen me; his innate repulsion over a man who hurts women could have forged a stronger bond. Imagine the internal moral conflict. The fight between loyalty to the past and love for the present. His bid to play a father figure to Josh, when we were together, felt genuine. But however much Star Wars he played him, if you betray a child’s mother, that’s the end game. For his career, too – he and Tim have both been struck off. Thus Mick’s family gave Dan a career then also ended it. What little they have for their toils.

  And what do I have? I have Josh, of course. I caress his hands as he talks, overfast, nervous, about his new school. Thankfully, to their credit, social services realized Mum is safe to look after children, now the dads are gone. And she looks after him well, so I hear. They have a cosy little home in Doncaster (the same one, just with all the ghosts laid to rest). Josh cycles to the local school with the other kids. Like he should have done for years.

  They say parenting is about sacrifice, right? With Mick dead and his life avenged, me in prison, Joshy – Josh – can roam free. With me locked up here, he’s escaped from the prison of my paranoia. And with Mick avenged and gone, he is finally safe, can have some sort of normal life. My mum cooks his tea while they chat, and then they sit down over his homework. He’s cared for, not in care, thank God, which would have broken me.