by Camilla Way
‘You will tell the police that Jack did this. Won’t you, Vivienne?’ her mother said, her grip on her shoulders intensifying until Viv nodded.
‘Jack did it. Jack killed her,’ she whispered.
‘Good. Good girl.’
And somehow, in the time it had taken for her to run to the wardrobe, to hide, it had become fact: Jack did it. It had to be Jack. It was his name she repeated over and over when the police found her, because the alternative, the truth, was too horrible to bear.
Vivienne stands in her kitchen, considering her mother in silence. Her brightly coloured dress is drenched, her hennaed hair falling in soggy rats’ tails to her shoulders, her face haggard under the kitchen light. Where once she had been so impressive – someone to be admired, worshipped, feared – Viv is struck by how diminished she looks. She remembers how Stella had reinvented herself when they moved to the commune, how it was there that she’d begun to surround herself with the weak and the needy, people who would fawn over her, rely on her, feed the furnace of her ever-burning ego, bolster her image as brave survivor, a shining beacon to the poor battered women she ‘helped’.
When the woman from the courts had been sent to listen to Viv’s evidence, Stella had sat beside her, squeezing her hand tighter and tighter if she ever stumbled over her version of events. Later, when well-meaning professionals suggested therapy to help her recover from her ordeal, Stella had been firm: only she could help her daughter through her trauma, they were so close, after all, so tightly bound by their loss. Her message was clear: Vivienne should never talk about her problems with strangers, to do so would be a betrayal.
And Stella’s insistence that only she could help mend her surviving daughter had been vindicated when Vivienne’s first attempt at adult independence in her twenties had gone so disastrously wrong. Just one year away from Stella’s guidance, and she’d suffered a complete mental breakdown. Boyfriends, too, were swiftly discouraged and disliked – especially if they showed the potential to undermine her control.
But now Vivienne looks at her mother, her hair wet, the hour late, something cornered in her expression, and she sees that Stella knows it’s over. The spell has been broken.
The silence stretches, the rain pounds and finally Stella speaks. ‘It was her own fault. The little slut deserved it.’
Cleo stands beneath the yellow beam of a street lamp, oblivious to the rain. The road is empty of cars and a high brick wall runs the length of it, the builder’s yard on her right. She starts to run blindly in the direction she is facing. One road turns into another and then another, each one as unfamiliar as the last. She appears to be in the middle of some kind of industrial estate, amidst miles of empty lots or warehouses. On she runs with increasing panic until she comes to a road sign: Whitehaven Road, SE18. She’s in south-east London! The relief and hope that this discovery brings gives her a new burst of energy.
She looks around, desperate for signs of human life but there are no bus stops, no shops, no houses; no one to help her. Then, just as she’s about to start running again, she hears the sound of an engine. For one horrifying instant she thinks it’s him, prowling the streets in search of her, and she waits, her heart in her mouth, knowing that she has no hope of outrunning him, that she has nowhere to hide.
But from around the corner comes a small red car. Without thinking, she runs into the road, frantically waving her arms, and it comes to an abrupt stop in front of her, windscreen wipers battling against the rain. The driver leans over and winds the window down. It’s a woman of around her grandmother’s age, staring back at her in alarm.
‘You have to help me,’ Cleo shouts through the noise of the rain.
‘What are you doing here by yourself?’ the woman asks. ‘It’s very late. Are you all right?’
‘Please. Please help me,’ Cleo pants. ‘I need to get home. I need to go to Albert Road in Peckham Rye. Will you drive me there?’
When she begins to cry, something changes in the woman’s expression and she nods. ‘Yes, yes … OK. Get in.’
Once in the passenger seat, Cleo feels the woman’s startled gaze on her and quickly she stuffs her bandaged hand into her pocket. Oh God, why are they just sitting here? ‘I’m in a hurry, I need to get home. Please … I’m sorry, but please start driving.’
The woman does as she asks, though maddeningly slowly. As they inch along, Cleo takes in the stranger’s tortoise-shell glasses and woollen navy scarf, her dangly earrings in the shape of cats, trying to focus on the comforting ordinariness of these details.
‘How old are you?’ the woman asks. ‘Are you … have you been hurt? Do you need to see a doctor? The police?’
‘No. No. Please, I just want to get home to my mum. Please.’
‘Yes, I’d rather like a word with your mother myself,’ she mutters, putting her foot to the pedal at last. ‘Peckham’s not too far from here, though you’ll have to direct me from the Rye.’ She looks across at her, shaking her head. ‘I do think I should take you to the police. If someone has hurt you, then they need to be—’
‘Please,’ Cleo says desperately, ‘I just need to see my mum.’ Something occurs to her and she asks eagerly, ‘Do you have a phone I can use?’
The stranger shakes her head. ‘I have one, but it’s out of power I’m afraid.’
Cleo nods. ‘Please,’ she whispers. ‘Please take me home.’
Viv sinks on to a chair. ‘How did you make Morris lie for you?’ she asks.
When her mother doesn’t reply she looks up to see Stella gazing out at the dark and rainy garden. ‘Well it wasn’t difficult, darling,’ she says. ‘Let’s face it, he wasn’t exactly Brain of Britain material.’
Viv shakes her head in disgust. ‘What did you do?’
‘I told him that everyone would think he’d killed Ruby because he was there that day. Silly fool had only called round to catch a glimpse of your sister. His dad hadn’t sent him there at all, he knew nothing about the chops. I told Morris his lie would mean he’d be blamed for the murder if he didn’t do exactly as I said and say he’d passed Jack in the lane that day.’
‘My God,’ Vivienne shouted. ‘He committed suicide with the guilt of it. He was a good person and you ruined his life.’
When her mother makes no reply, she asks, ‘And what about Declan Fairbanks? What did he have to do with it? How did you make him lie too?’
Stella turns to look at her then. ‘Oh, him … it was all his fault to begin with. We women are all victims really, aren’t we, darling? It’s always a man who drives us to our absolute limit, let’s face it.’ She sniffs. ‘You should be proud of me for what I’ve had to overcome in my life. No, it would never have happened without him.’
And suddenly Vivienne understands. ‘You and he were …’ A memory returns to her, of getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, shrinking back into the darkness of her room when she saw Declan slipping from her mother’s bedroom, shoes in hand. Was that what she’d half remembered the other day?
‘Well, yes, darling,’ Stella says. ‘For nearly a year, in fact. He told me he was going to leave his dreadful little wife for me, the lying shit. In fact—’
But she is unable to continue, because right at that moment, a few feet from where they’re sitting, a figure looms behind the frosted glass of the garden door. ‘Jesus!’ Vivienne shouts, jumping to her feet. Something hard hits the glass and when it shatters Stella screams and Vivienne cries, ‘Mum, mind out!’ But then, with a loud bang and a crack of splintered wood, the door flies open, missing Stella by millimetres.
And it makes no sense, it makes no sense at all for this man, whom she thought she knew, who had seemed so harmless and ordinary, to be breaking into her house and looking at her with such violent loathing. ‘Ted?’ she says. ‘What are—’ but then she sees it. He’s about five stone heavier, is almost entirely bald, his eyes are brown rather than the cold blue she remembers, but … ‘Jack,’ she whispers. ‘You’re Jack.’ Thou
ghts race through her brain. Ted kidnapped Cleo? She confusedly thinks back to the dinner party. How had he managed to drug her? And then a sudden image comes to her of Ted pouring drinks for everyone when he first arrived.
‘Where is she?’ he asks. ‘Where’s your cunt of a daughter?’ He takes a step towards her. The soft Welsh accent is pure Essex now.
‘What do you mean?’ she asks, and her heart lifts with sudden hope. Had Cleo got away from him? Is she safe?
In one quick movement Jack crosses the room and grabs hold of her, manoeuvring her so he has her by the throat, a knife pulled from his pocket. She feels the blade against her skin and whimpers in terror.
‘Who killed Ruby?’ he says. ‘I want you to fucking say it.’
Viv’s eyes lock on to Stella’s. Almost imperceptibly, Stella shakes her head. The familiar feeling of compliance comes over Vivienne, the compulsion to do as she’s told, to please her mother no matter what. Her mouth dries. ‘I …’
Jack tightens his grip. ‘Tell me. You were there that day. You know what happened, so fucking tell me. And don’t give me any bullshit about Morris. That retard didn’t have the nous or the balls to hurt a fly. And if it was him, my brothers would have gotten it out of him. So who was it?’
She looks at her mother, her panicked thoughts racing. If she tells Jack the truth, he will kill Stella, of that she’s certain.
‘All them years I spent in prison,’ he says, his mouth so close that his voice rasps in her ear, ‘fucking wasted because of you. My family gave up on me, you know that?’
Viv shakes her head, but the movement causes the pressure on her windpipe to intensify and she feels a burning pain.
‘A lot happens in thirty years. People change their minds. My brothers went straight, didn’t they? Pillars of the fucking community. Started filling our mum’s head with all kinds of shit. Said that as I done my cellmate, I must be guilty of Ruby too. In the end, she believed them. Didn’t want no more to do with me. Stopped writing, stopped visiting.’
Vivienne tries to speak, feels the words die in her throat.
‘Couldn’t even go to her funeral, you know that?’ Jack goes on. ‘Told I weren’t welcome. My mum died this year thinking I killed my own kid! She died thinking that of me, hating me, and it’s all your fucking fault!’
Viv tries again to form words. ‘Jack,’ she manages, ‘Jack, listen to me …’
‘Shut the fuck up!’ he roars. ‘It’s time you listened to me.’ She can feel the damp heat of his body next to hers, smell the sweat rising from him, the stale odour of his breath. ‘My whole life, ruined. No family, nothing. All I could think about after my mum died was that she went believing your lies about me. It was because of you that I never got to say goodbye to her. That’s when I started having a look at what you’ve been up to, how your life’s been going since mine went down the shitter. Turns out it’s been going pretty fucking nicely, hasn’t it?’
His grip on her has started to slide, his hands sweaty on her neck, but he presses the knife closer. Viv feels the tip of the blade pierce her skin, feels blood begin to trickle down her neck. She looks at her mother, but Stella meets her gaze and says nothing.
‘So who was it? You tell me. I know you know, because for you to make up that shit about me you must have had a pretty good fucking reason. You knew I wasn’t there that day. You were protecting someone. Who was it?’
Viv’s heart pounds. If she doesn’t give Jack an answer, he will kill her, she’s certain of it. She can feel his manic energy, sense his desperation. There’s no way out of this situation for him and he has nothing to lose by killing her. And if he does, her daughter will be alone. Worse than that: Cleo will only have Stella to turn to. That thought, of Cleo in the world without her protection, jolts her into a decision. ‘OK,’ she says, her voice a squeak, ‘OK.’
Jack loosens his grip a fraction and Viv raises her arm and points at her mother. ‘It was her,’ she says. ‘She killed Ruby. She killed her daughter and then she made me lie for her.’
For the first time in her life she sees real fear in her mother’s eyes. ‘No!’ Stella says, backing away. ‘She’s lying.’
But Jack’s staring at her, something altering in his eyes. ‘You did it? You killed her?’ He lets go of Vivienne and moves towards Stella. ‘You let me spend thirty years inside when it was you all along?’
‘It wasn’t my fault,’ Stella cries. ‘Ruby drove me to it! You don’t understand! She—’
But in one sudden movement Jack slams her roughly against the wall. ‘She was pregnant with my kid, you evil fucking bitch. You killed my son!’
‘For God’s sake, that baby wasn’t yours!’ Stella shouts.
The world stops. And then Jack, in a voice so quiet it’s barely audible says, ‘What the fuck are you on about?’
Stella’s eyes are bright with excitement, her skin flushed a deep red. ‘You stupid, stupid man,’ she says. ‘Of course it wasn’t yours.’
And it’s then that the last pieces fall into place for Viv. ‘The baby was Declan’s, wasn’t it?’ she says. ‘Ruby was pregnant with Declan’s child.’ The revulsion and confusion that had plagued her hadn’t been about Declan’s affair with Stella. It all comes back to her in a rush of images. A summer’s afternoon, walking home from school with a friend’s mother. Ruby, fourteen at the time, was supposed to be there when she got in, but it was only when the front door had closed behind her that she’d noticed the cottage’s unusual stillness. ‘Ruby?’ she’d called. ‘I’m home. Where are you?’ When there’d been no response she’d climbed the stairs and pushed open her sister’s bedroom door. That’s when she’d seen them together, in Ruby’s single bed.
‘Oh God,’ she says. ‘Oh God.’
But Stella’s talking quickly, her voice shrill and pleading. ‘Declan and I were happy. He was going to leave his wife for me. Then he started pulling away, losing interest, and I found out why. Ruby stole him from me, she took the only happiness I had!’
‘She was a child!’ Vivienne shouts at her. ‘Fourteen! You should have been protecting her.’ She puts a hand to her mouth, fresh grief coursing through her. ‘My God, he was in his fifties. Oh, Ruby. She would have done anything to escape you, even if it meant getting involved with him!’
Jack, his face blank with shock, looks from one woman to the other. ‘That old cunt who testified against me? It was his kid all along and you still framed me?’
‘Oh please,’ Stella cuts in. ‘Don’t come the innocent with me! You hit her plenty of times, the whole village knew it. And what about that man you nearly killed in prison? You’re hardly blameless.’ She turns to Viv, her tone plaintive now. ‘Besides, I had to stay out of prison to look after you, Vivienne, darling. What would have become of you without me? I’ve sacrificed everything for you.’
And Viv sees that she truly believes it. Sees the martyrdom, the narcissism in her eyes, how the years of casting herself in the role of saint and survivor have allowed her to convince herself so completely of her innocence that it had been easy to fool everyone else. Vivienne is about to reply when Jack grabs Stella and shoves her against the wall so hard that her head hits it with a loud thud.
‘You lying bitch!’ he shouts. ‘Thirty years. Thirty fucking years I was in for. My mum died believing I killed my own kid!’
‘Jack, please,’ Vivienne says, taking a step towards him. ‘Please don’t do this. We’ll put it right. We’ll tell the police you didn’t do it, we’ll …’ But she’s silenced by the look he shoots her.
‘Fuck that. It’s too late. She’s dead. My mum’s dead, everyone I cared about turned their back on me.’ He looks at Stella, ‘And it’s all your fault.’ Vivienne watches in silent horror as he raises the knife high. But it’s not her scream that stops Jack’s hand as it begins its plunge towards Stella’s chest. It’s the appearance of Cleo in the doorway, soaking wet, her left hand bound in bandages, an expression of horrified disbelief on her face as she takes in the scene
before her.
‘Gran!’ she shouts. She runs at Jack. ‘No! You leave her alone! You let her go!’
Viv is paralysed for an instant, relief and love coursing through her. And when Jack turns to her daughter with a cry of rage, the knife in his fist still held aloft, she acts instinctively, her mind blank of all thought. Opening a drawer, she grabs the largest knife she sees and runs at him. ‘Stay away from my daughter!’ she shouts. ‘You stay away from her!’ and she plunges the blade into his back.
He staggers forward, Cleo moving swiftly out of his way, and then, like a tree, he falls. The three of them stare down at him, the smell of blood dank and metallic in their nostrils, the red pool creeping across the floor. Silence fills the room.
‘Is he dead?’ Stella whispers at last.
‘I don’t know.’ Vivienne staggers in a daze to the worktop where her phone lies. ‘Ambulance,’ she says. ‘And police.’ When she’s finished the call, she holds out her arms for her daughter and Cleo runs to them.
They wait for the sound of sirens. ‘What will we do?’ Vivienne asks, her teeth chattering with shock. ‘What will we tell them?’
And when Stella speaks she looks her daughter calmly in the eyes. ‘We will tell them that this is the man who murdered Ruby,’ she says.
EIGHT MONTHS LATER
20
Vivienne eases her car into the flow of traffic and flicks theء radio on, smiling over at Cleo as music fills the air. ‘You OK, love?’ she asks.
Her daughter rolls her eyes. ‘You’ve got to stop asking me that all the time.’ And then she smiles. ‘I’m fine, Mum, honestly.’