by Phil Earle
It was tight, too tight. I remembered getting through it a few years ago when I’d locked myself out after school, but that was different. I was half a metre shorter then and the window had been open, not grinning at me like now, with sharp glass teeth.
Breathing in, I twisted until eventually my stomach was through, leaving just the width of my hips to pass. With a final, furious wriggle and bend of the knee I was in. I crashed to the floor, body landing to one side of the toilet, my right arm sinking straight into the middle of the pan, submerged in stagnant water.
It was a shock, more so than the sliver of glass that punctured the palm of my left hand. It wasn’t until I’d dried my arm that I even realized I’d cut myself. It stung like buggery, in some ways worse than any of my self-inflicted cuts. At least I’d done them out of choice. Well, sort of.
I may have been inside, but it made no difference to the temperature. In fact, it felt damper inside than out. Darker too. I bundled along the corridor, knocking pans to the floor as I clattered against the kitchen wall. I swore at myself, annoyed. I’d walked around this house all my life, often in the dark, yet suddenly I had no clue where anything was. The lights had been disconnected, thanks no doubt to some do-gooder social worker, and all the radiators were refrigerator-cold too.
The walk had left me ravenous, so I rifled through the cupboards for food. It was slim pickings, but I was beyond caring, so a half-eaten packet of Ryvitas and a tin of black olives seemed heavenly at the time, even if the crispbreads were soft.
Chucking my bounty on the coffee table, I slumped on the sofa, legs pulled beneath me, and rolled a cigarette. I felt a twinge of guilt for a moment as I lit it, wondering if Dad might appear at the edge of the darkness, bollocking me for damaging my lungs.
It had taken a couple of hours to get here, but now I was inside I had no idea what to do or how long I should stay. Not that it mattered, being here beat being ritually humiliated by Naomi.
It was so cold in the room I got up and stamped around, refamiliarizing myself with the DVDs on the shelves, trying to remember the last time I’d actually concentrated on a film from start to finish. It was depressing to realize that it must have been months ago, when there was juice in the sockets.
That should’ve been my cue to call Bellfield and get someone to pick me up, but I couldn’t face the lecture about bunking off again, so I bundled a load of scrunched-up paper and kindling into the fireplace, setting it off with Dad’s Zippo. If I was going to stay and wallow in the dark, at least I could be warm doing it.
The fire cheered me up. It threw some light on to the walls, reminding me of the pictures hanging there. It was such a relief to be away from the shatterproof windows of the unit that I found myself slowly nodding off.
It was that blissful type of sleep you don’t ever want to end, so when it was interrupted by a key in the front door I was irritated beyond belief. I suppose I should’ve been scared rather than annoyed – after all, it was probably the police checking for squatters – but even when a flashlight slid across the wall and into my eyes, I wasn’t tempted to run. This was my house, even if I’d had to tumble into a toilet to force my way in.
‘Who’s that?’ I barked, eyes shielded from the light.
‘It’s me,’ sang a familiar voice. Ade’s. ‘You know, you really have to quit this running-off business. It costs me a fortune in petrol money.’
‘Then stop following me.’
‘You know I can’t do that. It would please Naomi too much.’
I felt my back stiffen at her name, paranoid for a second that she was lurking behind Ade, ready to finish me off.
‘Did it take you long to work out where I was?’
‘Well, I tried the cliffs first,’ she said, sitting beside me, ‘but it was so windy I guessed you weren’t angry enough to stay there long. Once I’d checked you hadn’t blown away, this was my second guess.’
I ground my cigarette into Dad’s ashtray, envisaging Naomi’s face beneath the glowing tip. ‘Perhaps the cliffs would’ve been a better choice, eh?’
She looked crestfallen. ‘Please don’t say that, Daisy. What Naomi and Patrick did back there was unforgivable, but it’s so important after everything you’ve achieved that you don’t let it get to you.’
‘Easier said than done, though, isn’t it? It’s not as if I’m any closer to getting out of Bellfield. It’s not like the thoughts have gone away or anything.’
‘Of course they haven’t. These things take time. But you must not forget the work you have done. Don’t forget the days recently when these crazy thoughts have not gripped as hard. Maybe …’ She paused. ‘Naomi and Patrick have done you a favour.’
‘A what?’ I yelled, pushing to my feet. ‘How do you work that out? Did you want them to find that bloody tape? Is that why you plugged me into it every day for the last month? To draw attention to me?’
‘Of course not. Why would I do that? What I am trying to say is that you have to take the positives out of situations and perhaps recognize that Naomi has helped you.’
‘How?’
‘Because she told me something about you that I did not know. I had no idea that you feel responsible for your mother’s death as well as your dad’s.’
I turned away from her, didn’t want her to see that it was true. Scared this would be the final straw that pushed her away.
‘Daisy, it is nothing for you to be ashamed of, whatever it is you’re feeling. We will work at it and beat it the same way. With the same determination you are already showing.’
I thought about rolling another fag, but there wasn’t a cigarette paper big enough to distract me from the enormity of what I was feeling. It had been with me so long, I couldn’t fathom what I believed and what I didn’t, where the truth ended and I began. Mum being dead was all I’d ever known and thanks to the hospital report it would always be linked with my birth. I mean, how do you explain that?
‘Why does everything have to be so difficult?’ I asked, rubbing the cut on my palm gingerly.
‘Difficult how?’
‘I don’t know, just difficult. All the films I watched with Dad, any of them that were any good, they were all tense, they all had these plots where the characters had to get over things or work things out. And nearly always they did. By the time the two hours was up they’d found the answer, had the secret to life sorted and stored away in their head. Either that or they’d shot someone and felt better that way instead.’
Ade chuckled, her laugh warming the room.
‘Hollywood has a lot to answer for.’
‘It bloody does. It makes me wonder why I put myself through it. Why I constantly want to watch film after film.’
‘Maybe you really believe that whatever answers you need are tucked away in a film somewhere. And maybe, Daisy, they are. Or maybe you already know the answers and you just need help to get them out of here.’ She tapped the top of my head, before pulling me into her embrace. It was an action that revealed just how exhausted I really was.
‘I don’t enjoy feeling like this, you know.’
‘I know. Nobody does.’
‘There are times when I look at Naomi and Paddy and think they get off on it, feeling like they do.’
‘I can guarantee you they don’t.’ She gripped me by the shoulders, breaking the embrace as she looked straight inside me. ‘Everyone has their ways of coping. Those two smother theirs in aggression. It may be something you could learn a little from.’ She grinned, enough for me to know that I should listen to her advice.
‘Really?’
‘The last thing I want is for you to copy anyone. Not me, not Paddy, Naomi or anyone. But ever since I met you, you have been apologizing. It would do you good for once to not say sorry. Just for once, maybe you could say, “You know, this isn’t my fault.”’
‘But what if I don’t believe it? What if things really are my fault? Wha
t if Mum dying really was down to me?’
I heard her groan, before she plodded over to the fire, tossing two large logs on to it.
‘Prove it to me,’ she said. ‘You have as long as it takes for the fire to burn down to convince me. So go on and do your worst.’
She tossed these words at me as she flopped on to the sofa, leaving me exposed, despite the near darkness in the room.
‘Well, go on, Daisy Houghton. I dare you.’
And so I began, waiting for the first apology to fall out of my mouth.
Chapter 43
The first charred log had fallen through the grate and I was no closer to explaining how I felt. I’d tiptoed around the truth, told her it was too difficult to explain, and so we’d sat quietly for half an hour, entranced by the flames. With every minute that passed I expected Ade to find another way of ordering my thoughts, but tonight there was nothing, just a soft humming from her lips.
The log slipping spurred me into life, though, reminding me that they were all that stood between me and the car journey back to my cell. If I was going to find some sense in what I was feeling, it had to be here and now, in a place that was familiar and comfortable.
‘Do you know how long it took for you to be born?’ I asked, not really knowing where I was going.
‘You mean my mother’s labour?’
I nodded.
‘I’m not sure. I was sleeping at the time. I know it wasn’t quick, as the nurse was late arriving.’
‘Mum was in labour for almost seventy-two hours with me. It took so long the hospital sent her home three times before they finally gave her a bed.’
‘That must have been frustrating for her.’
I pulled my legs into my chest, trying to push down a new wave of anxiety brewing there. ‘That’s just it. I don’t know, do I? It’s not as if I ever got a chance to speak to her about it. I grew up trying to beat stuff out of Dad.’
‘He never wanted to talk about things?’
‘It just wasn’t his way, you know. I think he thought he was protecting me …’
‘But you wanted to know, yes?’
‘Of course I did. I wanted to know everything there was to know about her. Sometimes it was like he forgot that I never met her.’
‘What did happen to her, Daisy? Because if you never met her, then I don’t understand how you did this terrible thing?’
I breathed deeply, not knowing how to go on. How would she react: would she laugh at me or decide she’d had enough?
‘You don’t need to be scared of telling me, Daisy. Remember who you’re speaking to, what I’ve done myself.’
I closed my eyes, took one last breath in and let the words come.
‘The nurses weren’t concerned when they sent mum home the first couple of times. Dad said it was normal for women having their first babies to have false alarms, but the final time he drove her there, he was convinced I was coming. They both were. The only person not convinced was me apparently.’
‘I don’t blame you. You were probably warm and well fed in there.’
My eyes never broke away from the fire as I went on. I didn’t dare look at Ade.
‘That was the problem, though. I didn’t want to come out, but Mum’s body needed me to be delivered. A few hours after they admitted her, she started getting really bad pains in her stomach.’
‘You mean contractions?’
‘No, she’d been having them for days. This was something different. Really sharp pains. Like someone was stabbing her.’
Ade stroked my hand as I spoke.
‘How do you even know all this, Daisy? I thought your dad refused to talk about what went on.’
‘I didn’t hear most of this from him. He closed up whenever I asked him. But I found some papers a few months ago, a report from the hospital that he’d never thrown away. I was looking for something that filled in the gaps, you know? A photo, or a diary … anything really. But I hadn’t expected something so official.’
‘And you read it?’ She sounded surprised.
‘Of course I did. Wouldn’t you? I’d spent years not knowing what had gone on. All I wanted to know was what had happened to my mum.’
‘So what did this report say?’
‘That the pains were down to me. That I’d started to show signs of distress as I moved lower, which pushed her blood pressure up. By the time my head started showing, she was in so much pain she was on the verge of passing out.’
‘Daisy, what you are describing is what happens in labour. It must be a real shock to anyone’s body to go through that.’
‘She tried to hold it together, but the doctors said I was in such a terrible position that it was no wonder she was struggling. They tried to manipulate me into a better shape, but every time they did I resisted, until they had no option but to try and get me out as quickly as they could.’
‘So were you born by Caesarean section?’
‘No. At first they tried with suction, but when they did it was too much for her. One minute she was there and the next her heart couldn’t cope.’
‘She had a heart attack?’
I nodded. ‘They worked on her at the same time as me, once they finally got me out. The cord was round my neck, but after warming me up I started crying. They shocked Mum time and time again. They massaged her heart and kissed her, but her body had given up. It just couldn’t cope with what I’d put it through.’
Silence rolled around the room until a damp part of the log crackled, spitting a spark on to the rug. I crushed it with my trainer.
Ade didn’t know what to say, so I filled the silence instead.
‘Do you know what gets to me most, though? The thing that hurt most as I grew up? That I don’t have a single picture of the two of us together. I’ve got nothing, nothing, that tells me how she felt about me. I mean, I know I love her despite never meeting her, but I don’t have a clue how she felt carrying me. Was she excited, nervous, proud? I mean, I don’t even know if I was an accident.’
‘And would that make a difference?’ Ade asked. ‘Would you feel less guilty if you knew? If you had some evidence of how she felt?’
I shrugged. ‘Dunno. Maybe. Maybe it wouldn’t make any difference. I’ve had this in my head for so long that it’s hard to make sense of any of it any more.’
Ade stood up and stretched her arms in front of her, cracking her knuckles as she threw a third log on to the fire.
‘I thought I only got two logs’ worth?’
‘You did. But there’s no way we’re going home yet. Not when you’ve done so well already.’
She prodded the fire tentatively before sitting back on the sofa, the reflection of the flames glinting in her eyes.
It was easier to speak after that. I’d told her things I hadn’t told anyone else and she was still there, listening. A bolt of lightning hadn’t struck her after my words. Everything was as it was.
So I went on. Told her how Dad had compensated for his inability to talk by leaving kids’ books in my room, stories about life without parents. It was the closest he could get to opening up about it.
‘It sounds like he was doing his best. Other people wouldn’t have made the efforts he made, even if they don’t feel enough to you now.’
‘I never blamed him for it. He was a brilliant dad, and it wasn’t as if he didn’t show me affection, cos he did. He just never got over losing her and I couldn’t help but think that deep down he blamed me for her dying.’
‘But why would he do that?’
‘Didn’t you listen to what I said? Her body couldn’t cope with what I put her through. If I hadn’t been so big, or in such an awkward position, then none of it would’ve happened. If it wasn’t for me, he might not have smoked so much, or needed to hide inside endless films.’
‘Daisy, you must distance yourself from this. Do you really think you’re at fault for be
ing born? All this talk of your position and size, it wasn’t your choice! But it was their choice to have you, and when you have children, then there is a health risk. What happened to your mum is tragic, a horrible accident, but to think it was your fault? No, Daisy, no. And you must say it to yourself time and time again, just as you did with the words on the cassette tape. Beat these thoughts down with logic. Think about them in other ways. Maybe Dad felt so sad because he felt responsible. Maybe he thought it was actually his fault.’
I shook off her suggestion dismissively, aggressively even.
‘How could it possibly be his fault? That’s ridiculous.’
She was on to me in a flash. ‘Yes, it is ridiculous. It makes no sense at all. In fact, it makes as little sense as your ideas. He had as little to do with it as you did. Nothing at all!’
‘But you didn’t see him, Ade. You didn’t have to sit and watch as he clammed up at the mention of her name. For the last few months it was like every time he looked at me, all he saw was Mum. And there was nothing I could do about it.’
‘And you think that’s why he crashed the car? Because he was so distracted by the way you looked?’
‘No, of course it wasn’t. He was in the car because of me. He was on the way to school.’
‘What, to collect you? Were you ill or something?’
I pulled at my hair, not knowing how or if I could do this, whether I could complete the shame of telling her what I’d done with Hobson as well.
‘Daisy? Don’t feel agitated. All I want to do is understand. If there’s something else, it’s important you tell me.’
‘What, so you can tell me it’s not my fault again? You know, it’s starting to feel a bit lame, all this. Some of what happened has to be down to me, doesn’t it? I can’t believe that all this has gone on and none of it is my fault!’
‘Then you’ll have to tell me, won’t you? Because unless you do you’ll never know, and instead you’ll always be questioning it, letting it eat you away long after you leave Bellfield.’
‘He was in the car because he found out about the self-harming. He saw the state of my arm and he lost the plot.’