The Good Mother

by A. L. Bird

  Could I?

  Or is that too many moving parts?

  What with Cara, then Suze – do I really want to add that to my list of misdeeds?

  Not that Cara and Suze are misdeeds. I can’t be held responsible. All I’ve ever done is try to help. He should know that. He should understand. Perhaps I haven’t been clear enough with him. Perhaps there’d be more clarity if I held a gun to his head.

  I could get one. A gun. The same part of the Net I had to go to for Suze’s special brew. In fact, maybe I should have got one before. As soon as I knew he knew where we’re hiding. He thinks he has a right to meddle with me. That the law is – broadly – on his side. That he’s smarter than me. So he has this bubble protecting him. Or thinks he does.

  Perhaps I need to burst that bubble. Forcibly. Because that’s what he’s trying to do to me, after all. Burst my bubble. Take everything away. And now he knows where we are, now that Alice person told him, there’s nothing stopping him, is there?

  And a gun. A gun would do that bursting. He’d back off, then, wouldn’t he? Take his malicious little threats and messages back where they came from. Call off the pet policeman or private detective or law books whatever it is that he’s got at his disposal.

  And if he doesn’t … well, I could pull the trigger. I could buy a silencer. Shoot him in the middle of the night. Bury him in the woods. It’s the right place, out there. Fitting, really, when you think about it. He might appreciate it, if he knew.

  It would complicate things, of course. And I’d have to do it right. Be slick. Forensic. Make sure I don’t leave a trace.

  Maybe this is all a fantasy. Maybe I’d never pull the trigger.

  But it would be handy, wouldn’t it? A gun in the house. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. That way, if what I’m trying with Suze doesn’t work … Well, it’s another route. Not my desired one. But it’s better than the alternative. Because I made a promise, didn’t I? A promise I intend to keep. Even if it means an end to all of us.

  Chapter 38

  I will not succumb. I will not succumb. Whatever this is, I will not succumb.

  Think thoughts. Paul. The kitchen. The white oak dresser. The rhododendron bush outside the kitchen window. Cara’s rosebud lips. Keep them safe in your mind. Whatever he’s given you, don’t go there. Don’t go to that dark unknown place.

  Resist. Think of the future. Cara passing her GCSEs. Cara giggling over one permitted glass of celebratory champagne. Her cheeks will flush slightly. She’ll rake one hand through her hair, parting it with her fingers, flipping it over the other side. Like it makes her look grown up. But really it will just show in a beautiful wannabe gesture her enthusiasm for life, continuance, happiness. Think how you’ll give her that, the happiness. She can still have it. Driving lessons, house parties, university, a wedding. Oh, she’ll look so beautiful in a wedding dress. No veil though. I will not have her behind a veil. Who could pull a cover over that glorious face? And perhaps she’ll have her own children. A beautiful gurgling little mini-Cara, so small, so precious, so we can once again watch her grow. For me, once again. Not for Paul, obviously.

  But even before that wonderful, wonderful future – which no Captor, whatever he’s made me drink, whatever he’s made her do, can take away from us – even before that there will be so much joy. Setting foot outside with Cara, even if we’re both soaked in Captor blood. Hugging Paul, my Paul. The three of us, together. We’ll cry beautiful tears of relief and joy that it’s through, it’s all over, we can carry on. Paul will take us home. I’ll sink into the soft grey cashmere throw on our beautiful double bed. Cara will collapse with happy exhaustion onto her own bed. Paul will join me on our bed and we’ll lie together side by side, staring upwards, knowing we are all safe. Paul will take us for a deliciously casual pub lunch the next day. We’ll briefly help the police with their inquiries, then Paul will say, ‘Surprise!’ And from his pocket, he’ll pull out tickets for a world tour. Everywhere we’ve ever wanted to go: Florida, Vietnam, the Seychelles. Think of those blue skies, the sandy beaches, the sounds of waves, of life. Of Cara laughing as she runs into the sea, turning her face back to us. Oh, how lean and gorgeous she’ll look in her swimsuit. Oh, how handsome Paul will look in his trunks. Imagine being able to run a hand through that matted chest hair, the firm but not formidable torso. To feel that Paul pink skin. To know he’s there, always. To know that after a swim in the sea, we can all three of us head back carefree to a café, have a cheeky beer while the salty water dries on our skin in the sun. Maybe Cara can even play her flute to the waves. Oh, I can see you there, Cara! I can see the blue and white halter straps of your swimsuit! I can see you, Paul, as you smirk and laugh beneath your shades!

  I can see all this. I can have all this.

  Don’t cry, don’t cry. Be strong. It’s out there – the world, your family. Keep planning, keep dreaming, don’t let this man bring you down. This man, with his bloodied bathrooms, his strange foods, his obvious lust. With his horrible awful temerity and cheek to bring us here. And why? Why? He wants me for sure. But why so coy? Why us? Who possibly has been lurking out there, so keen and eager to decimate our happy family existence, then, once he has us, so backwards with us? Just little flashes of desire here and there, danger lurking beneath. But then otherwise to keep us trapped here, like two pedigree goldfish, in our tanks, longing for air.

  I’ll kill him. I’ll not succumb. I’ll kill him, then I’ll find out who he is. I’ll turn this place over and over until I find out every last thing about this horrible sordid man who would take my Cara from me.

  Chapter 39

  The other side of the door

  I wish you could get bedroom doors with little grilles in them. That like a state jailor, I could just look through and check for progress. But instead I’ll have to go in. I’ll have to check.

  So I do. And, as I open the door, I immediately wish I hadn’t.

  Because when I go into Suze’s room, she is standing in the middle of it, crying. Wringing her hands together and crying. Her eyes are shut, but her lips are open. She’s mouthing something. A prayer? I don’t know. But whatever it is, it’s not pretty. It doesn’t end in a big hug for me.

  I start to retreat. She didn’t notice me come in. Maybe she won’t notice me leave. I take a step backwards. I misjudge it. My boot collides with the doorjamb. Thud.

  Suze’s eyes flash open.

  I see her see me.

  And I almost recoil.

  There is no warmth in her eyes. They are cold and blue. They remind me of those horror-film staring eyes plastic dolls have; eyelids flapping open to reveal a sinister empty stare. Cara had one of those dolls with her, I remember, years ago, the time I bumped into the two of them. I remember thinking that I would buy her something so much nicer, more comforting, if I had the chance.

  Suze glares at me. ‘I’m still awake,’ she says.

  ‘You’re not’, I want to scream. ‘You’re asleep. You’ve been sleepwalking, dreaming away, ever since I did what I had to do’. I want to shake her, slap her, make her see me and appreciate me with real eyes.

  But that’s not the plan.

  So instead I just say, ‘I can see that.’ I want to leave. I can’t stand the hate radiating towards me. But I should say something positive, something loving. Something that may, somewhere in her brain, move us forward. ‘Try to get some rest, though, hey, Suze?’

  As soon as the word is out of my mouth, I wish I could take it back.

  Chapter 40

  ‘Suze.’ It’s slightly drawled. He hasn’t called me that before, has he? Or maybe he has, and I somehow haven’t spotted it. Because there’s a familiarity to it. Not difficult to become confused in here. There’s an easiness to the way he says it, like he’s been trying it out to himself for years. Which I’d guess he has, as some masturbatory thrill before he turns out the light each night. But if that’s right, he must have known me somehow, right? To use my name like that? Otherw
ise, why pick me? Us?

  And that’s what I mean about the familiarity. It’s not just that it seems familiar to him. It seems familiar to me. I feel like I’ve heard my name said that way before. Before we came in here. That particular intonation. The lilt. Perhaps it’s just déjà vu. Perhaps the tiredness and anxiety are making me see memories where there are none.

  Or perhaps I do know him? Or have at least encountered him before?

  I think back over the men. Surely there haven’t been that many? Surely I’m not that much of a slut that I wouldn’t recognise a man I’d romanced, who’d romanced me, at such close quarters? OK, so I’m no saint – there were a couple of randomers in nightclubs, way back when. And I’m pretty sure they were as drunk as I was; they wouldn’t recognise me without their beer goggles, up in the realities of daylight. All the serious ones – Andy, Callum, Joe and, of course, Cara’s biological father, Craig – they wouldn’t have changed so much as to be unrecognisable. Would they? We’re not into James Bond super-villain territory here, of face transplants and plastic surgery to be able to pass undetected, surely?

  Then it must be someone more casual. Just a passing acquaintance. Some dad outside the school gates – no, come on, a dad couldn’t behave in this way, separating a woman from her child! Some husband of a client then? Or just a postman, a bank manager, a taxi driver? One of these myriad men we come up against every day. Did I randomly flirt with any of them, let them know my name? Did I go for a quick coffee with someone I’ve long forgotten, but who has remembered me ever since?

  Or perhaps Cara’s the link? Perhaps someone I know through her? Some chatty teaching assistant from when she was at primary school? One of those kids’ club coordinators? The boyfriend of a Brown Owl? God, you meet so many people over the course of forty-four years! And it just takes one nut-job to covet you and/or your daughter, and you’re done for.

  Perhaps Cara will have some thoughts? Perhaps if I tell her the Captor is becoming familiar to me, perhaps it will jog some memory in her. Her subconscious may start to work away and she’ll sit right up in bed one night – presuming she has a bed through there – and say, ‘Of course, it’s X!’

  It shouldn’t matter, of course. Because, whoever he is, I’m going to kill him. But it does make a difference, somehow, doesn’t it? If I’m killing someone I’ve known, spoken to, had some connection with, I’d like to be aware before I plunge in the dagger. Or, in this case, the piece of mug. There could be a conversation, Cara or I could reason with him. Find out how he ticks. Or perhaps he doesn’t deserve that. Perhaps all he deserves is our hate. Because if he had some prior connection, some claim to know us, he would have told us, wouldn’t he? Would have used it to try to snake me into bed. Unless he’s made himself known to Cara? Perhaps she knows him and wishes she didn’t? Perhaps he’s some secret internet assignation, a virtual fourteen-year-old boy turned real forty-year-old man.

  But then how the ‘Suze’? The familiarity? That earlier frisson (because why try to hide it from myself?)?

  Is this all just imagined in the name of cowardice? Is the reality I can’t bring myself to kill, so this is some imagined excuse, a way to avoid my duty?

  No. I can do it. I will write to Cara. Tell her about the mug. But I may as well ask for any thoughts. Just in case. In case it stops the niggling in my mind.

  Strictly, it’s her turn to write. But, as Mum, it’s always my turn, isn’t it? Maybe I’m one of those fussy helicopter mothers who – according to headlines – stops their offspring surviving in the real world. A ‘non-coper’, as the Sunday Times put it. But this is not just offspring; it is Cara. And for her to survive, for either of us to survive, at all in the real world, I need to get her back there. Out of here. With me.

  So. I pick up my half-pencil again.

  Darling Cara,

  I have good news. I’ve found a weapon. Or rather, the Captor found it for me. A mug. He brought it in, laced I assume with some foul chemical that is going to get me to do things with him.

  Does she really want to hear about that? No. I’m sure she doesn’t. But I can’t cross it out now. I can’t show her I’m hiding things from her. And I can’t waste paper by starting afresh. However soon I think we’re now going to be out of here, we may be in longer. I can’t not talk to Cara. So, it stays. Besides, I need to warn her.

  I hope you aren’t accepting any drinks from him.

  It makes it sound like he’s plying her with champagne. I don’t know, maybe he is. If it’s really her who’s his prey.

  I know something has already happened (and don’t worry, I won’t talk about it, but whatever it is, you don’t want it to happen again).

  Anyway, the weapon. A ceramic mug. I need to find a way to smash it quietly. Then, one day when he’s not expecting it, I will lure him far into the room and, hands around his neck, I will do the deed. I will stab him and we can be free.

  Do I need to tell her about my hands around his neck? That I itch to touch him, I don’t know why? I will leave out that I think I may kiss him first. I don’t know why these nasty little thoughts keep coming to me. The fact is, though, he doesn’t make me as physically sick as he used to. Here we go, then:

  Silly question, but you don’t see anything familiar about him do you? The Captor? No reason, really. Let’s just say I’m playing police officer. If – when, don’t worry, when – I kill him, I want to know I’m clear of some motive towards a previous acquaintance. That it’s just self-defence, a necessity to escape. You’d tell me, wouldn’t you, if you recognised him? Or even knew him. I won’t be angry. I could never be angry with you.

  Just tell me, then the way is clear. And so is our way out.

  All the love in the world,

  Mum xxx

  So there. Now she will either tell me or not. I push the letter through the grate.

  All I can do now is wait.

  I walk over to the bed and lie down. I can’t face staring at the same beige ceiling any more, so I shut my eyes. Paul and Cara fill my brain. Our house. Our car. Our life. Then the tears fill my eyes. What must I look like now? I haven’t seen myself since the mirror went. Perhaps I am unrecognisable. Perhaps Paul would walk in here with the police then turn round to them angrily and bark, ‘You told me this was my wife! This is not my wife – look at her!’ Because how faded I must be. How purple my eyelids. How bitten my lips. But maybe, when I see him, he’ll just kiss me. He’ll know it’s me. He’ll know that where it counts, I haven’t changed. I’m still me. If he just breaks away the layers that hold me captive here, we’ll have a fresh new life outside, the three of us.

  So away with the tears. Let the eyes rest. Let there be peace. Let me sleep.

  Lips, pressing mine. The man has no face, just lips. I know them. I’ve felt them before. I take my clothes off, all my clothes, because I want more than the lips. But no, suddenly, they’re horrible to me. And the lips are mine now – my own lips have gone. And I don’t want them on my face, so I tear at them, I tear at them. No! No! No! ‘But it’s OK,’ say the lips – they are in mid-air now, floating, a Cheshire cat of calm. ‘It’s OK, kiss me, kiss me. You know you want to.’ ‘But there’s something I have to do! It’s important!’ I tell the lips. ‘Kiss me, kiss me. It’s what you want to do,’ they say. ‘Who are you, mystery lips?’ I ask them. ‘Who are you? Who are you?’ ‘It doesn’t matter. Just kiss me, Suze, Suze, Suze.’ And we do, we kiss, we kiss, and we …

  My eyelids flutter open.

  Guilt.

  Horror.

  Bliss.

  Because in the dream, I know him. I know the Captor. I still don’t know who he is, objectively, but there’s this sense of knowledge in the dream, so that in the dream world I don’t even need to question who he is.

  And, because it is only a dream, it cannot hurt me. I will drift back there for a while. I can allow myself to enjoy it, can’t I? Even if it’s immoral for what has gone before and will come next. Let time stop, just for a moment. And who know
s. I might even learn something. The thing. The identity.

  Chapter 41

  Dear Mum,

  OK, I have a confession to make. Please don’t be mad. But I need to tell you.

  It’s not like I know the Captor. I get what you mean. There is something weirdly familiar about him. But I can’t help you with who he is. It’s the sort of face you always see around, so much that it becomes part of your daily life, but you can’t isolate it enough to identify it.

  So it’s as much a mystery to me as it is to you.

  But I have to confess something else. Something that may be relevant, if you’re playing the police person here. Where I was that afternoon.

  I was with a guy.

  I know I said this was meant to be a confession. But I don’t want to tell you who.

  You’ll be mad by the end of the story. And I don’t want you to go looking for him (if we get out of here). But he was safe. I met him online at first – he liked some pictures of my designs on Pinterest (you know that scrunchy gauze and silk skirt, the jade one – well, that). Don’t worry, he’s not some kind of forty-year-old loser (no offence on the age). Though he did bring his dad with him when we first met up. Just in case I was a forty-year-old loser, I guess! But he was cool. My age. I hung out with him a bit. And we started going out. I went over to his dad’s place a couple of times. Not to see Alice, like I said. Sorry. And that afternoon, we knew his dad would be out, so … Well, it was only English that afternoon. And I’ve read ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ like so many times – I know how the story goes. I figured I could survive one afternoon without discussing its themes. Again.

  So, yeah.