Saving Daisy

by Phil Earle

  Chapter 40

  The Walkman became my constant companion. No one knew what I was listening to. That prospect was unbearable, as was the potential for them clocking the Walkman itself. It was hidden inside a cord bag that Ade had given me. In fact, I’d hidden it in a carrier inside the bag, not that I was paranoid or anything.

  I didn’t keep anything else in there. Tobacco and lighter lived in my shirt pocket, as I didn’t want to give anyone an excuse to go rooting around and find what I was hiding. If I was to follow Ade’s plan, then it had to be done with the utmost secrecy. Even when I had the tape of my voice playing through my buds, I did it at a volume that the others couldn’t clock. I could see it was confusing them, see Naomi straining to hear what I was listening to. They must have known it wasn’t music, as there was no bass leaking out. Mind you, they thought so little of me it wouldn’t have been a surprise to them to find I walked round listening to the shipping forecast.

  I played the tape a lot, more than the twice daily Ade had suggested. Becoming the Bellfield leper had focused my mind, made me think about what Ade had said when I arrived, about the day I walked out, the potential for a family beyond what I’d lost.

  I can’t lie: the thought of foster parents still petrified me, made me play out images of a wicked stepfamily who’d punish me in the way I deserved. But the Walkman had given me the bravery to confide in Ade about everything, and if she found my fears ridiculous, then she didn’t show it.

  ‘Every time you find these thoughts invading your head, I want you to challenge them, to face them full on and say, “Where is the evidence that I am responsible for what happened? Where is the evidence that any new family will do anything but love me?”’

  I stared at her. It was a look she was starting to recognize.

  ‘You are making that face again!’ She smiled. ‘Remember the trust. What I’m asking you to do is simple. Every time the thought comes, you simply ask it how you caused the crash. Did you pull the steering wheel while he was driving? Did you stamp on a pedal by mistake? The answer to all these questions will be no, and as with the tape, if you tell your brain this often enough, eventually it will tire of the thoughts and dismiss them as soon as they arrive.’

  ‘Is this what you did too?’

  ‘Absolutely. It takes time and commitment, but it will work.’

  I must have sagged at the mention of time, as she saw my disappointment.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s just … all these things you’re giving me to do. I believe in them, I do. At least I want to …’

  All I could think about were the things I hadn’t told her, about Mum and Mr Hobson, the other problems I’d created. Did these things change what she was asking me to do? I didn’t know and was too scared to ask, or tell her about them.

  ‘… but why does everything have to be so complicated? Why does everything have to take time?’

  ‘Believe me, I wish there was a wand I could wave, or a pill that would make it all go away. But it doesn’t work like that. You can self-medicate, hide inside a bottle of spirits, but that won’t take the problems away, it will only mask them until the bottle is empty. Alcohol isn’t powerful, your mind is. These strategies I’m giving you, these are the only things you need to beat these thoughts. Once you understand what you are doing, once you truly believe that you are in control, then these thoughts –’ she paused, looking at me more deeply than ever before – ‘won’t be yours any more. You have my word.’

  So started Groundhog Day. An endless round of lessons, Walkman sessions and, whenever the weather allowed, walks along the cliff tops. In fact, as autumn rolled in, Ade made it clear that falling temperatures and falling rain weren’t going to stop us from our daily outing, and on the whole I didn’t complain.

  Maybe it was the training she was putting my brain through, or the absence of vodka wrecking my defences, but whatever the reason I felt like I was winning. All right, there were times when the anxiety would bite harder than others, hours when I had to fight dirtier than usual to stave off the fear, but these times were getting shorter, less sustained.

  Ade was delighted. She took great pleasure in getting me to grade the day’s fear levels out of ten, beaming when the number was lower than the day before, supportive when I was overwhelmed and struggling. There didn’t seem to be anything that her smile couldn’t cure. I swear there were days in October when it parted the clouds.

  The routine of the walks was working too, something about the rhythm that we found in our strides that focused our minds. Although I knew why we were walking, that eventually I’d tell her more about the inside of my head, it didn’t bother me in the same way it had before. I was easier in her company, not so paranoid. I believed that if something did fall out of my mouth, then she’d probably heard or felt it before.

  And man had she lived. In the days when she’d been at her worst, addled with guilt and cut to pieces, she’d trusted all the wrong people, people who’d got her higher instead of talking her down. And she’d stayed with these people for so long, lived with them in squats for such prolonged periods of time, that I found it almost impossible to believe she’d found her way back.

  This alone gave me a new sense of belief, although I felt guilty about it. She’d hit rock bottom and stayed there for years. It was only a few months since Dad died and she was giving me the skills she’d waited so long for. It was up to me now to not mess up the chance she’d given me.

  I suppose it was this feeling that led me to share a little more, to let her in on why I cut myself, to explain that I didn’t do it out of guilt like her, that it was simply my last line of defence against the panic attacks.

  This didn’t shock her of course. It pleased her. Gave her ‘another piece of the jigsaw’, told her that we simply had to identify what was bringing the fear on. If we could identify that, then we were halfway there.

  The prospect of turning another corner pleased and distracted me. In the hours when I wasn’t plugged into Walkman torture, or questioning every dumb thought that flashed into my head, I was on my own, trying to work out a way of telling her the other stuff, the stuff she hadn’t given me the tools to cure.

  I was so distracted, it was like the others didn’t exist. Even Susie and Jimmy, who still spoke to me, became peripheral. As for the other two, I’d become used to avoiding their snide comments and, bit by bit, they seemed to be ignoring me too. It was almost blissful, like the earlier kickings had never happened.

  Which is why, when the next one came, it hurt like hell.

  Chapter 41

  Community meetings had become routine. I understood what they were meant to achieve, but to be honest they didn’t really affect me.

  All right, I’d had a few rockets in the early weeks for sneaky drinking, and after me and Naomi did our runner, but recently? Nothing. And as a result I’d started going in with my guard down, which was my big mistake.

  It was the Friday before half-term when I took my seat on the settee next to Ade and glanced over at Naomi, expecting to see her usual look of irritation. She’d had a right face on her lately about the amount of time Ade had been spending with me, but had aimed it at Ade and Bex rather than at me.

  But today there was no such look. Instead she perched on the arm of the settee, next to Paddy as always, a look of satisfaction on her face. It wasn’t a mood I associated with her, and that should have made me wary. Instead I settled back, ready to drift through the next forty-five minutes.

  We started in the normal way, with pleas for people to tidy up the kitchen after using it, and Bex berating Paddy and Naomi for not attending lessons, nothing that raised the temperature. Not until Bex asked if there was anything anyone wanted to share. Usually this meant a succession of shrugs and a few minutes of awkward silence, so I focused on the floor, identifying everyone in the circle by the shoes on their feet.

  It was only when a
cassette landed by my trainer that my focus was broken.

  I knew what was on the tape as soon as I saw it. My voice, my horrible truth.

  I didn’t know what to do. Was it better to leap up and grab it, or ignore it, hoping it wasn’t what I thought it was? But to be honest I knew it had to be mine. Why would anyone else have something that belonged in the 1980s?

  Glancing up, I saw a look of bemusement on everyone’s faces. Well, everyone but Ade, whose cheeks seemed to be flushing like mine.

  ‘Naomi?’ Bex asked. ‘Was it you who threw that?’

  Naomi looked smug, yet was working hard to appear serious. ‘Yep.’

  ‘Er, what are you doing with a tape? I mean, where did you get it?’

  ‘I found it,’ she crowed. ‘On the girls’ corridor. Glad I did too.’

  My face burned at her lie. There was no way she found it in the hallway. It had been hanging around my neck not two hours before, and there was no way I would have been that careless over something I was so ashamed of. I’d taken to hiding it, the Walkman and all, in the very bottom of my wardrobe, under a pile of washing. I didn’t think anyone would be desperate enough to root through that to find it. But as I looked at Naomi and she held my gaze, eyes narrowing momentarily, I knew I was wrong and that I was in for a proper hiding.

  ‘I thought it was weird to find a tape. I mean, I didn’t really know what it was till I found this on the landing as well.’ She brandished the Walkman from behind the cushion, her face scrunched in mock confusion.

  If I wasn’t bricking it so much I would’ve been on top of her, beating the lie out of her, but of course I did nothing, except to swear repeatedly in my head.

  ‘To be honest, I nearly binned it,’ she went on, loving every minute, ‘but then I reckoned it might have meant something to someone, what with it being so old and that, so I took it to Paddy to see if he knew who it belonged to.’

  My heart crashed through another level, knowing if Patrick was involved the pain was about to intensify.

  ‘I’d never seen it either, but reckoned we could work it out if we listened to the tape. We thought if we heard what was on it we’d know straight away who it belonged to.’

  He’d got to his feet while talking and shuffled clumsily over to the tape. He picked it up and wandered round inside the circle, brandishing it like a detective with a piece of evidence. I knew where this was going, understood the humiliation that was heading towards me, and in that moment something snapped. I launched myself at Patrick, my hands grappling for the cassette.

  He wasn’t the quickest of movers, and I managed to latch on to the tape, my other hand grappling round his shoulder. He spun in surprise but I clung grimly on, ripping the cassette from his hand before slumping to the floor.

  All hell broke loose. Within seconds Naomi was on top of me, yanking my hair. She obviously thought I was going to trash the tape before they could expose me, and with my scalp shrieking in pain I was distracted enough for Patrick to prise the tape from my hand, bending my fingers back in the process.

  There was a flurry of bodies above me and a commotion as the carers pulled them both to opposite ends of the room, but unusually there was no resistance from either of them. They simply lifted their arms in mock surprise, telling them to calm down, that all they wanted was the tape.

  ‘What’s going on, Bex?’ Naomi cried. ‘Why didn’t anyone tell us who we were living with?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she answered, ‘but I won’t have violence in this meeting, do you hear me?’

  ‘Violence?’ Naomi asked, incredulous. ‘If you want to talk about violence, let’s talk about what we heard on the tape. We can’t believe that you’d put the rest of us at risk like this.’

  Bex shook her head, clearly confused. ‘Naomi, what on earth are you going on about?’

  ‘Her,’ she said, pointing at me. ‘Myra bloody Hindley over there. I mean, I know we’ve all got previous, but we never expected to be living with a bloody killer!’

  It was a tumbleweed moment. A clichéd scene from a crappy film when every head in the room turns and focuses on you in slow motion.

  A look of satisfaction oozed across Naomi’s face as she snapped everyone back to normal speed.

  ‘So when were you going to tell us, then? When were you going to let us in on the magic? Didn’t you reckon we had a right to know who we were living with? Jesus, this place is sick. Sick!’

  Bex looked ready to explode but Ade got in first.

  ‘Naomi, you have stepped over the line. You’ve no right to attack anyone like this. If you really had concerns, you should have shared them with us outside the meeting, in private. Not humiliate Daisy in front of the whole community.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, that’s right. She’s your little project, isn’t she? What is it, Ade, never worked with a serial killer before, eh? Reckoned it would look good on your CV? Well, it explains why you’ve kicked me to the kerb, doesn’t it? I can’t compare with that psycho, can I?’

  Ade was on her feet, fires burning in her eyes. ‘I don’t know what you heard on that tape, what conclusions you’ve drawn from it, but you have no right to –’

  ‘To what?’ Naomi screamed. ‘No right to be concerned about living with someone who killed their parents? I don’t know what it’s like where you’re from, Ade, but here we tend to take those sorts of things seriously.’

  The mention of home seemed to wind Ade, enough to give Bex the space to jump in.

  ‘You can quit with that sort of talk, you hear me? There’s no place for that here. None of us want to hear it.’

  ‘Then what do you want to hear? Ever since I’ve got here you’ve given us the big one about sharing, about how we can help each other, how it can sort things out for us. Well, forgive me, but how does that work if we can’t talk about something as important as this? How could you keep this from us?’

  ‘We haven’t kept anything from you,’ Bex implored. ‘No one has a clue what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I’m talking about what we heard on the tape. What Daisy was saying into it. Not just once either. Over and over again. We had to turn it off in the end cos it was freaking us out.’

  ‘It would have freaked you out too if you’d heard it,’ piped up Patrick. ‘I mean, who brags about killing their folks?’

  ‘This is a right load of shit,’ shouted Jimmy suddenly. It was so rare for him to engage in anything that the force of his words jolted me. ‘You two have had it in for her for weeks. I ain’t buying it. It’s all bollocks.’

  This delighted Naomi all the more and she leaned forward, pointing at me. ‘Why don’t you ask her, then, Jim? Ask her if it’s true. See what she says.’

  She paused, head cocked mockingly. ‘Well, go on, Daisy. Deny it. Go on. Do it. DO IT!’

  I couldn’t say anything. My tongue had stuck to the roof of my mouth and, even if I managed to prise it down, what could I say? It was my voice on the tape, my thoughts, even if there was less force in them than the day they were recorded.

  ‘That’s enough!’ cried Bex, releasing me from the silence. ‘Naomi, I want you and Paddy in my office now. The rest of you can have some free time. We’re finishing early.’

  Naomi and Patrick looked at each other and smiled. It must have taken some effort for them not to high-five each other. Instead they walked towards the door, pausing by me as they went.

  ‘See how difficult life is if you keep stuff from us?’ Naomi spat. ‘Don’t do it again, eh? Otherwise things really will get tough.’

  They left quite a scene in their wake. There was Susie close to tears, Jimmy confused and arguing with Eric, and me, shell-shocked, wondering where on earth I went from here.

  Chapter 42

  My face was wind-whipped by the time I reached home, despite the scarf I’d tied around my face. I’d been aiming for a Lawrence of Arabia look, something to ward off the elem
ents, but had failed miserably.

  My cheeks and fingers, the only things left exposed, throbbed with cold, but I didn’t bother clapping my hands or retying the scarf. It was a bit late for that. I was entering into the completely numb phase, which seemed like a more bearable option.

  I’d never walked so far before, had never had reason to. I hadn’t meant to today, but as I walked my mind refused to settle, so I kept on going, hoping the answers lay ahead of me. By the time I knew where I was, it was dark, I was hungry, and I was stood at the end of the path to my house, hands trembling on the gate.

  ‘Shit,’ I whispered, patting down my pockets. I’d been in such a rush to get away from Bellfield that I hadn’t thought to pick up my house keys. All that had mattered was scarpering before Ade caught up with me.

  I kicked the gate, knowing the only way to get warm was to break in and I was hardly an expert. It was dark and cold enough for the street to be deserted, so I put my head to my chest and shuffled up the path, sneaking down the side of the house and into the back garden.

  I knew none of the windows would be open – Ade had checked all that stuff last time we came. I also knew that Dad had fitted locks on the dining-room and kitchen windows, which left only the small one in the downstairs loo. Dad had never bothered to put a lock on it, so although it seemed an unlikely option I knew it was the only one open to me. I picked up a hefty stone from the rockery and stood before the glass.

  Nerves were pricking now and I glanced around again, clocking the lights shining from the house behind ours. If I was going to do this, I was going to have to muffle the sound as the glass broke. Off came my scarf, which I wrapped clumsily around the rock. I’d seen it in Ocean’s Eleven or something and hoped it wasn’t another bit of Hollywood nonsense.

  The window gave easily under the stone, but not quietly, and I cringed as the shards fell to the floor, shattering against the tiles. Knocking the remaining glass out as best I could, I hoisted myself up on the window ledge and squeezed my head and shoulders through.