The Good Mother

by A. L. Bird

  He tries to put his arm round me again, but I flinch, so he lowers his arm.

  I don’t know how long he stands there, just looking at me. Perhaps he is wondering if this would be a good moment to rape me. Perhaps it would. I could lie back and think of freedom. I look at him, then I have to look away again, quickly. Just in case he can tell what I’m thinking.

  I stop the head-shaking. Cara must be out by now, surely?

  So as soon as he is out of the door he’ll be back, won’t he? He’ll know then what I was up to.

  Unless Cara hasn’t escaped. And he has to punish her. Then I might hear nothing. Or her horrible screams.

  How will I know?

  I need to know.

  Every moment he is in here with me is a moment of not knowing whether Cara is free; whether I will soon be free too to be with her. I need him out now. I need to know how he’s going to react.

  Why aren’t they telling me? I’ve done my bit. Why won’t they tell me – is she OK?

  I smooth myself down and stand up.

  My legs shake a little bit. The Captor puts out his hand for support. I see him see his watch as he does so. His brow crinkles a little. I see the time: 10.55. So. Almost late for his meeting.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  I nod. ‘Just sometimes gets on top of me. All … this.’

  He closes his eyes. ‘One day you’ll understand, Susan.’

  He puts his hands on my shoulders. I wriggle to move them out of the way, but his grip is too strong. He kisses the top of my head.

  I’m almost comforted by that kiss. It feels soft and pleasant. So I jerk away. This man is not my friend.

  ‘I’ll be back soon,’ he says.

  But will you, my captor? Will you? Because will my daughter have escaped? Go outside, go outside now, and let events unfold.

  Chapter 26

  Silence.

  There is still silence.

  It is filling my head, my soul, this room. I can’t imagine there being any noise anywhere in the world, unless I make it.

  Nothing from the corridor.

  Nothing from next door.

  Why?

  Am I suddenly alone in the world?

  Has there been a sudden nuclear apocalypse, which somehow only this room has withstood?

  Has Cara escaped only to find our world no longer out there?

  I stand on the chair and look through the window over the now stale cupcake. I see trees blowing in the breeze. There’s still a world out there then. But there, it makes a sound. Wind in the branches. A whistling or a rustling maybe. But in here, silence.

  Think of all those Cara noises there used to be at home. Crying, early on – she refused to be comforted by that small sheep toy. Perhaps she knew it hadn’t been meant for her. And then when she was older, those flute scales wafting through the walls. I hum a little scale now. It falls flat.

  I climb down from the window again.

  Should I rattle the grate?

  Should I whisper, or even speak a hello?

  Has she done it? Has she got away?

  Where’s the baby, Susan? Why haven’t you brought home the baby?

  Perhaps in his hurry to get to his meeting, the Captor forgot about Cara being in the shower. Perhaps he just left my room, left the house and still hasn’t come back. So perhaps the drama will come on his return. Perhaps there’ll be swearing and stamping and storming. Perhaps he’ll drag me out of the room by my hair. Perhaps he’ll hit me. Perhaps he’ll finally rape me.

  Which would be wonderful. Because it would mean that my Cara was free.

  So I’ll give it a bit longer.

  How long do you give them? How long do you wait to see if they’ll breathe?

  Chapter 27

  Still just these four walls.

  These, four, silent, walls.

  White, or are they cream? Or even yellow?

  Magnolia. They’ll be magnolia.

  Perhaps if I put my back against them, they’ll expand.

  No.

  Chapter 28

  I’ve remade the bed. It didn’t take much, just unrumpling the duvet. I reread and refolded all the letters from Cara in my pillowcase. Paper makes a nice noise when you fold it. A noise, anyway.

  Why doesn’t time tick? Why should we be reliant on clocks?

  I smell the potpourri. It smells the same as it has every other day.

  What’s happened, Cara? Where are you?

  I don’t know if this was a good plan. I don’t know if it will work, being without you.

  Time, just passing.

  Nothing.

  Here I am.

  Still here. Sitting on the bed, hands folded. And unfolded. Folded again.

  Hello? I ask the room.

  Silence.

  I should—

  Bang!

  I jump up.

  There we have it! A noise! A noise, outside this room! A door, slamming, it must be.

  Now, now we have it. Now, I’ll know.

  Chapter 29

  The other side of the door

  He’s not in his car when I go outside.

  He’s on the doorstep.

  I know him from one glance. It’s hard to miss that bulk, and the authority that comes with heft. Leather jacket, too, a rough texture worn by age. The perfect poster boy for the world of murk in which he works.

  Once I’m over the initial shock, I quickly step outside and shut the front door behind me. He mustn’t see the pictures. No one must see them. They reveal too much; they almost scream, Lock me up and throw away the key.

  ‘We said we’d meet in the car,’ I rebuke him.

  He shrugs. A leisurely shrug, that says, Yeah, what you gonna do about it? so that his lips don’t have to form the words.

  ‘We’ll go there now, shall we?’ I ask.

  In reply, he leaves the porch and walks along to the living room window. He ducks his head as if to look in. Casually, but with threat.

  The blinds are down, of course. They’re always down. Before I know it, we’ll all be living in condensation-induced mould. And then the pictures will go mouldy too. I really ought to take them down. Like I took down the ones in the hall. Erase all traces of what’s gone before.

  ‘Shall we go to the car?’

  I don’t want him walking round the house. There’s that window, outside Suze’s room. Too high for him to see in, but if she sees him … Well, that could make things happen, couldn’t it? If she sees him walking round the outside of the house, inside the fence or out, she’s going to have a reaction. And she’s probably going to wave, and dance, and anything she thinks will get his attention. And because he suspects – I know, you see, that it’s not just about Cara for him; I know it’s about Suze too – he will look up. And he will see. And then we’ll be in game-over mode. I don’t know whose game. But someone’s.

  So I do a bold thing. I walk round to his right-hand side, putting myself between him and the house. And I gently take his elbow so that I can steer him away, towards his car.

  He looks at my hand.

  If he sees the blood, he doesn’t comment.

  ‘I don’t have a lot of time,’ I say.

  I put my hand behind my back.

  He raises an eyebrow. ‘No?’

  I think of the mess I left inside the house. The shower room, in particular. That will need sorting out. Before Suze can use it again. Before anyone can use it again. Those questions she was asking, you’d think Suze knew what was going to happen. What I was going to do.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  He does his nonchalant shrug again. We go to his car.

  But we don’t get in. Because there’s a girl in there.

  For a moment I think it’s her. I even look back at the house to check my sanity. Then I look at the girl again.

  Of course it’s not her.

  But that same uniform. And the face vaguely familiar. She’s staring at me with big frightened eyes. Ye
s, I know fear when I see it. Her seat belt is still done up. Like that would somehow offer her protection.

  ‘What’s with the girl?’ I ask him.

  ‘We’ve got a little arrangement. Helps me out. Doesn’t help you.’

  I don’t understand. I don’t think I want to understand. Is he being deliberately cruel, showing me this vision? But that can’t be all he wanted to see me for.

  And then we have it.

  ‘Why did you get her into the car with you?’ he asks me.

  Bam, the first question, collision force. No messing about, no warming up the engine first. Just straight to the accusations, the assumptions.

  I look down at the kerb. Now is not the time to acknowledge guilt. If ‘guilt’ is the right word for it. Because you can redeem anything, can’t you, by what you do later? By what I’m doing in that house.

  ‘With your record, you knew where it would lead.’

  I look up at him.

  He smirks. ‘Oh yes, I know all about your record. Did you think I wouldn’t? Do you think that when it comes to prosecuting the shit out of you, I wouldn’t know your past?’

  The world freezes, as it will do at times like this. My brain only thinks that it should be thinking. The rest of the world moves on though. It isn’t frozen.

  ‘Because I am going to prosecute you, make no mistake. I’ve got the connections. I’m going to put together a case, get all the evidence, and I’m going to take it to the right people, and they’re going to show you for what you are.’

  He doesn’t need to tell me what I am. Because we both know.

  ‘Unless, of course …’ he says.

  And here we go. Here’s the bartering. Here’s what he’s come here to ask me. To threaten me with.

  I listen, and then I very calmly walk away from the car.

  He calls after me. Tells me not to be stupid. That this won’t be the end of it.

  But I’m not being stupid. Because it’s not just the money that we disagree on. It’s Cara. He wants me to give him all that is Cara. That’s just not something I can do.

  So here I am back inside. And I need to sort out the shower room.

  Chapter 30

  There have been no great cries. No hysterics, no screaming, no weeping. On the other side of the door, that is.

  I press my ear against my side of the door. Footsteps. An internal door opening. The shower room? There’s a faint sound of running water. What’s going on? Did he install a lock? Just keep her in there while he was away? Or is she going in there now? Did I go to sleep again? Or is she dead in there? Is he washing away the traces? The traces of my daughter?

  I must know. I must know.

  I hammer on the door.

  No response. Maybe he can’t hear me over the sound of the water.

  I hammer again. ‘Hey!’ I cry. ‘Come and open up!’

  The water sound stops. Footsteps coming nearer. The key in the door.

  I look for the time on the Captor’s watch.

  But his watch is covered. He’s wearing rubber gloves. Those latex disposable ones, the type doctors and forensic teams use. And, of course, murderers, and rapists. When they need to leave a scene clean. Hide the evidence.

  Cara.

  But in his own home, why wear gloves? His DNA is everywhere. Cara’s DNA is everywhere. Why the gloves?

  I must get out into that corridor. Into that shower room. To see what’s happening.

  ‘I need to piss,’ I say.

  ‘Well, you’ll have to wait a bit. I’m busy right now.’

  ‘I really, really need to piss. I’ll have to piss all over the carpets otherwise.’

  He frowns and sweeps the glove over his brow. Bad move – DNA transference guaranteed.

  ‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Just let me—’

  ‘I can feel it leaking out now,’ I say.

  ‘All right, all right. Come on.’

  It has the easy petty familiarity of a domestic argument. But then he frogmarches me out of the room. The latex of the gloves rubs on my bare skin. I have a sudden longing for them to be off, just to feel skin-to-skin contact. But the longing goes – I must focus, look around me in the corridor.

  There’s nothing to say what has happened. Cara’s door is still shut. There’s no hint of wet footprints or discarded towels in the corridor. No blood, which is what I feared. In the bit of my mind I shut down there are handprints covered in blood adorning the walls. Cara’s blood, spilt. Here, there are just the same bland empty walls. Looking closely, I can see there were pictures there once – there are slightly lighter squares of wall here and there. They’ve all been taken down, if they were ever there. Vanished with just a teasing trace. Like Cara. Except now there is no trace at all.

  Finally. We are in the shower room.

  ‘Go on, then,’ says the Captor, gesturing at the toilet.

  As I squat over the toilet bowl, I survey the room. Nothing out of the ordinary. Not even any steam on the—oh wait, the mirror has gone. Significant? I don’t know. Everything else is in place. It just looks like a shower room.

  It’s when I get up to wash my hands that I see it. A single shard of glass, in the sink. And on the glass, there is blood.

  Chapter 31

  ‘What have you done with her? What have you DONE with her?’ I can’t hold back. The blood. The glass. My child?

  He takes my arms, pinions them. ‘Calm down,’ he tells me.

  ‘But what have you done? What have you done?’

  I wriggle and I wrestle and I twist, but he holds me. He keeps holding me. He’s destroyed my daughter and still he keeps holding me.

  ‘Where is she?’ I ask him. Maybe she is here still. Maybe he’s hidden her. Maybe she’s lying somewhere, bleeding out. ‘Where is she? Where is she? What have you done?’

  What have you done with my baby? Why can’t I see her?

  He’s just shaking his head at me.

  ‘I can see it! I can see her blood in the sink! You’ve murdered her, you child-murderer, you—’

  And then there’s a stinging in my face. He’s slapped me! The force of it sends me to the floor. It’s not like that warning slap he did before; it’s a proper slap.

  But I must know!

  ‘What have you done with her? What have you done with her?’

  He grabs me from the floor.

  ‘What? What are you doing?’

  ‘Back in your room.’ He is dragging me.

  ‘But you have to tell me! Please!’

  He’s not answering though. He’s just dragging. His jaw is set and his eyes are staring dead ahead. When we get to my room, he pretty much throws me in there, and slams the door shut behind him.

  I slam my hands against the door, claw it with my nails, as if I could whittle away the wood.

  ‘What have you done with my daughter?’

  I shout and I weep and I cry because what has he done? And why the silence? I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it.

  ‘I can’t bear it,’ I whisper. But no one can hear me.

  Chapter 32

  The other side of the door

  Nearly lost it there. Again. Shouldn’t have smacked her. But I could have done more, I could have … That would ruin everything though. Death is not the plan for her. Unless it has to be. What she was saying … There’s only so much provocation a man can take, isn’t there? Particularly when he’s been trying so hard for so long to care for everyone.

  And I shouldn’t have left the piece of glass in the sink. That’s what it comes down to. Stupid, stupid, stupid. But I thought I’d cleared everything away. I have now, of course. All gone. I did that as soon as I’d locked Suze back in. I felt like doing it all again, when I’d locked her up. Reprising the earlier shower room scene. And the blood.

  I deposit the black bin bag in the living room and sit on the sofa. I put my hands to my face and just sit. I didn’t know it would be this difficult. I just thought that if we were all under this roof, it would be easi
er. To do what I needed to do. To help. Because that’s all I’m trying to do. Help.

  Help me.

  A pitiful cry.

  I put it back in the box it came from. There’s no time for that. I need to get on.

  I look up from the sofa. All the photos, all over the walls. I must take them down. It’s not safe for them to be there any more. If he sees them, if he forces his way into the house, then he’ll have them. Maybe not for his prosecution. But he’ll have them. And with them he’ll want her. But he’s not getting them, any of it, either of my two girls. They’re mine, and I’m keeping them. What I’ve got of them. Because I know, at the moment, I haven’t got much of her.

  It’s not like I even need the photos anyway. I remember every moment. They’re stored, agonisingly close, in my mind. I remember when I first saw the two of them. Of course I do. You don’t forget a day like that, a day that changes three people’s lives fore ver. There’s another day I won’t forget, too, of course. Although I wish to God I could.

  I turn away from the photos. Like she turned away from me back then. But I knew we’d be together again, the three of us. I swore I would make it my life’s ambition, for as long as it took. The photos hold too much hope. If I look much longer, it will turn into bitterness. Towards Suze. Even the girl. Which is wrong. Of course it is. I know that. And dangerous. Look at what happened earlier. That was bad. I shouldn’t have done that. But, sometimes you just can’t help yourself, you know? The anger gets in the way. Then people suffer. Sometimes they deserve it. Sometimes they don’t. But I don’t deserve that treatment from Suze. That name-calling. I don’t. Do I?

  I remember when I first locked her in the room. The names she’d been calling me. She didn’t understand who I was. That I was her saviour. Or why I had to do what I’ve done. There was no other option, if we were to get to where we needed to be. We will still get there. I know we will. So I’m sorry I had to sedate her. I wish it had helped more. With her hostility. Or her comprehension. Oh my Suze. We’ll get you there. We’ll get us there. With or without Cara. You just mustn’t push me beyond my limits. I have some self-control. Clearly. Or I wouldn’t be taking all these baby steps. But I’m not an angel. We know that. He knows that. It’s just a question of what he’s going to do about it. And of what I’m going to do about him.