Tightrope

by Marnie Riches

  The phone was picked up after a seemingly endless period of ringing, ringing, ringing out.

  ‘Hello?’ Doc on the other end, sounding nervous.

  ‘It’s me. Bev.’

  The pitch of his voice went up by an octave. ‘You’re calling me on my parents’ landline at this time of night? Are you tapped in the head?’

  ‘Yes. We both are. That’s why we’re in therapy, chuck. Now listen . . .’ Bev spoke in almost a whisper. ‘I need you to find the film Jerry mentioned. It could be on the Dark Net.’

  ‘I told you,’ he said. ‘I’m not doing any dodgy Dark Net shit while I’m here. The last thing I want to do is jeopardise the safety of my folks. And if you think—’

  ‘Fine!’ This wasn’t going the way Bev had hoped. ‘I’m only talking about the murder of a fifteen-year-old girl here. But that doesn’t matter. Forget we might be able to put a rapist of trafficked girls and a possible killer behind bars instead of in government bleeding office. Fine. Leave it, Doc. I realise you’ve fulfilled the task I paid you for in Lego that cost me every bean I had. Fine. But I thought we made a pact to keep digging. Have a good evening pulling on your pecker. Careful of your balls . . . Oh, wait. You haven’t got any! Silly me!’

  Boom. Bev could feel her anger supplanting her fear. It was a welcome sensation. Sleep was ebbing away from her.

  ‘Why are you being a dick?’ Doc asked. ‘I should put the phone down on you right now, but . . .’

  ‘But what? You haven’t got the spine?’ She knew her words would sting. She didn’t care.

  ‘I’m your friend, Bev. I’m worried about you. You need to get some critical distance from this job – and it is just a job. We both need to take a step back. This is some dangerous shit we’ve got ourselves involved with. Even I’m not that desperate for money.’

  ‘Because you’re still hiding behind your mummy’s skirt, Doc.’

  ‘OK. You’re using me as a whipping boy because you’re frustrated. I get it. But I’m not playing. Go to your sex club, Bev. I’m putting the phone down.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. Right? I’m just upset. I’m scared. But don’t cut me off. Listen, if you’re not going to help, tell me how to access the Dark Net. I’ll do it. I’ll look for the film.’

  An hour later, Bev clicked on a link that took her down the rabbit hole.

  CHAPTER 29

  Boo

  ‘I’ve called the ambulance,’ Holy Jo said, rubbing Boo’s hand. ‘They won’t be long. Keep breathing.’

  Boo nodded. She tried to answer but her sentiments were swept away on another gust of pure pain. Clenching her bedclothes in her sweaty fists, she dug her buttocks into the hard mattress, praying for the contraction to be over. Three minutes apart, finally, after twenty-four hours of ineffectual agony. Her bag was packed ; her papers ready. The maternity ward had told her over the phone not to bother coming in until the contractions were closer together and that time had finally come. Boo was convinced that her waters were going to break suddenly and that the baby would shoot out here, in her dismal student room. Why did the bed have to be so bloody uncomfortable? How had she ended up in halls in her second year, still living next to the woefully unadventurous Holy Jo? She should have been sharing a cool student house, instead of being holed up with a load of freshers ; stuck with Holy Jo as her birth partner. Where the hell was Mitch, the infernal selfish jerk?

  ‘You’re holding your breath, sweets! Remember to breathe,’ Holy Jo said, like she was some kind of goddamned expert. ‘In through the nose. Out through the mouth.’ She demonstrated by making wafting motions with her slender hands. ‘In and out. Breathe.’

  Torn apart by the contraction, Boo angled her head so she could see her neighbour. Lithe. Skinny. Beautiful. Not the size of a house, about to shit out a bowling ball. She grabbed Holy Jo’s hand as the pain became more intense. ‘You fucking breathe.’

  ‘Now, now. Don’t be silly, sweets. I’m trying to help you.’

  Boo glanced down at her neighbour’s fingers, encased in her own iron fist – turning white as the flow of blood ceased. The stoic sod hadn’t said a word.

  ‘The meek shall inherit the earth,’ Boo managed as the contraction started to ease off, releasing her from her grip.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Holy Jo rubbed her palms, smiling benignly.

  ‘You. You didn’t complain even though I’d cut your circulation off. Jesus, man. If I hurt you, say so! I don’t know what I’m doing when the pain comes. Don’t be a doormat.’

  Holy Jo’s lips parted in a beatified smile, revealing a string of pearly whites, polished to a shine, perhaps by angels. ‘I’m not the one about to give birth at nineteen, Boo. And where’s your doting boyfriend, exactly?’

  ‘He’s . . .’

  ‘So, who’s the doormat?’ That smile was still there but Holy Jo’s words cut like a cat o’nine tails in an act of told-you-so flagellation.

  In the delivery suite, midwives bustled about her, monitoring her blood pressure and heartbeat ; handing her a mask, connected by tubing to a giant canister full of gas and air. If nothing else, Boo felt certain this was an excellent opportunity – perhaps, the last for a long while – to get high. She lay on the bed and inhaled deeply. Kept inhaling long after the midwives had told her the gas and air was only meant to be used at the peak of a contraction. Twenty minutes in and she wouldn’t be torn from the mask. She was utterly blasted.

  An apparition of her own mother manifested itself like the Ghost of Christmas Future in the corner of the room, drinking vodka from the bottle and daubing paint over the door to the en-suite toilet.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Boo imagined that she asked.

  ‘The writing’s on the wall for you, girl,’ her mother said. ‘See?’ In red, the brush strokes assembled themselves into words :

  SHALLOW END. DEEP END.

  ‘What does it mean?’ Boo asked.

  The hallucination of Sozzled Sylvia – appearing so very real that Boo fancied she could reach out and slap the old bag – treated her to an unpleasant, patronising grin. ‘You’ve got shitty genetic inheritance, Boo Boo. You and the baby are forever paddling in the shallow end of the gene pool.’

  In her peripheral vision, Boo caught sight of her beloved dad. Still alive with good colour in his cheeks. He was wearing only an operating gown. The glint of metal drew her attention from his kindly stubbled face southwards – he was clutching a scalpel.

  ‘Dad, no!’ Boo cried, reaching out to stay his hand as he started to draw the blade across his wrists.

  She turned back to her mother, horrified as her dad’s blood sprayed on the door, covering the daubed words.

  ‘Deep end,’ her mother said, gasping as she swallowed a gulp of neat vodka. ‘You’re drawn to trouble, Boo. Drama finds you. You’ll always end up in the deep end. Careful you don’t drown.’

  ‘Push!’ A stern female voice permeated through the narcotic haze. ‘Push now or this baby’s not going to make it.’

  Boo felt strong hands lifting the mask from her face and prising it from her as she tried to snatch it back with grabby fingers.

  Suddenly, her drunken mother was gone. The nightmarish red mess of the painted words and spattered blood were nowhere to be seen. With regret, she realised her dad too had vanished like defeated poltergeist.

  ‘Come on, Boo! The head’s about to crown. Push!’ Holy Jo had joined in with the midwives’ cheerleading and words of encouragement.

  Aware of an overwhelming urge to bear down, Boo concentrated her rapidly clearing mind on this one task – to give birth. The tension in the room was punctured finally by the mewling of her newborn child.

  The midwife turned to her, cradling the tiny bundle of goo and gore, the purple-grey umbilical cord hanging below like a parachute ripcord. ‘Congratulations! It’s a healthy girl.’

  As her daughter nestled at her breast for the first time, skin on skin, Boo was neither aware of Holy Jo nor the midwive
s nor Mitch, who had just entered the delivery suite. She had eyes only for her baby and she had never felt such love for anyone in her life.

  ‘So you give her to us as soon as you’ve got the registration documents and then we take her home with us. Are we agreed? Colin?’ Mitch’s mother was peering into the back seat of the old man’s Rover at her son, failing to look at Boo as though she had merely acted as a surrogate in the production of their baby.

  ‘Listen, Mrs Mitchell,’ Boo began, trying to articulate the maelstrom of conflicting emotions that had kept her awake for the past week. ‘I know what we said when I was pregnant, but—’

  ‘You signed an agreement,’ the old bag said, the furrows around her mouth deepening.

  ‘It was a bit of paper you knocked up on the computer.’

  ‘It’s legally binding. Me and Gerald are the baby’s legal guardians until you two finish your studies and get married. That’s that. There’s nothing you can do about it.’ There was that piranha grin Boo had seen, time and again, in the course of the last few days. ‘And besides, we’re her family, and you’ve got no support at home.’

  Fleetingly, Boo thought about her mother, increasingly drinking more than she ate. The doctors had warned her that her liver was enlarged and her kidneys were at risk of packing up entirely, but of course, the stubborn cow wasn’t listening. Sylvia thought she was invincible since Dad had gone. And she had zero interest in the baby. No surprise there.

  At her side, Mitch absently glanced at his daughter and immediately looked away. ‘Mum’s right, Boo. The baby’s a Mitchell. There’s nothing we can do for her that Mum and Dad can’t.’

  Her stomach was churning ; her stitches stinging as though she were being jabbed with hot needles – some kind of karmic retribution for being weak enough to hand her infant child over to strangers. Boo wanted to unstrap the baby carrier at the traffic lights and make a run for it. How far would she be able to waddle before they had her arrested?

  ‘Forget it,’ Mitch said, as if reading her mind. ‘One day, we’ll both be in a position to be good parents to her. But right now? We’re nineteen, Boo Boo. Think it through. We’ve got nothing to offer.’

  ‘We’ve got love,’ Boo said, barely able to push her words past the guilty grief lodged in her throat.

  ‘Here we go!’ Gerald said, pulling up outside the registry office. ‘Out you get. We’ll go for a nice pub lunch when you’re done. Celebrate.’

  Celebrate? Celebrate my painful nipples and my broken heart while you coo over stealing my baby and I struggle to lactate, you fucking cradle-snatching bastards. ‘Nice. Bring the change bag, Mitch.’

  ‘Can I see your ID please?’

  The registrar was a sour-faced man in his thirties, Boo assessed. Far older in his dress and hairstyle, though. Should she tell him her baby was about to be stolen against her will by her boyfriend’s parents? Would he even

  care?

  They showed their passports and the registrar entered the details on a computer.

  ‘What’s the baby’s name?’ he asked.

  ‘Hope,’ Boo said. ‘She’s called Hope.’

  Staring quizzically down at the passports, the registrar peered at the tiny pink bundle in the car seat and then at Mitch. ‘Colin?’

  Mitch laughed. ‘Only my folks call me Colin. Please . . . I prefer my middle name. Rob. Or Mitch. My mates call me Mitch.’

  The registrar raised an eyebrow and shook his head dismissively. ‘You’re not married, Mr Mitchell. Is little Hope taking your surname? Hope Mitchell?’ He turned to Boo. ‘Or Hope Saunders? Do you want her to have your family name, Beverley?’

  Boo nodded. Her guilt at having consented to give away this precious life she’d created, however temporarily, manifested itself merely as throbbing pain in her tender breasts. Unable to articulate anger at being sidelined by a disinterested babyfather and his bullying parents, as though her value in this little family equation amounted to precisely zero. No matter what she had said months ago to Mary and Gerald in a crisis of confidence, she’d changed her mind, now. The bond between her and her baby was everything. Her studies meant nothing. Mitch meant nothing. What her father would have wanted for her mattered not a jot now that he was dead. But Boo was outnumbered and outmanoeuvred ; rendered little more than a child herself by having her voice stolen from her. There was nobody coming to save her day. She was on her own. ‘Yes. Hope Saunders,’ she said in a small, rebellious voice.

  ‘No! Mitchell,’ Mitch said, pointing insistently at his passport. ‘She’s a Mitchell.’

  Hours later, when her daughter had been wrenched from her bosom and she had been divested of all the baby paraphernalia that reminded her that she was a new mother with purpose in her life, Boo sat on Holy Jo’s bed and wept.

  ‘I’m the worst person in the world,’ she said, stumbling over her confession as hiccoughs took a hold of her. ‘I g-gave my baby away. That makes me the scum of the e-earth.’ In her mind’s eye, she could see Hope’s downy pink cheeks and the miniature feathers that were her eyebrows – a perfect picture of repose when she slept. That tiny rosebud mouth. A face no bigger than Boo’s palm which already showed the full spectrum of human emotion whenever she grimaced or yawned or cried. ‘I won’t see her first smile. I won’t be there for her when she wakes up in the night, hungry. I won’t wean her onto solids. I won’t see her crawling for the first time. Jesus! What have I done?’

  Holy Jo moved from her desk chair to the bed, draping a slender arm around Boo’s shoulder. She rubbed her upper arm gently. ‘Stop punishing yourself, will you? You’ve just had a baby. Your hormones are all over the place. You’re nineteen, Boo.’

  ‘I’m not a little kid. Loads of nineteen-year-olds manage to mother their own children. Face it. I’m weak.’

  Clasping her even closer, stroking the side of her head, Holy Jo had an encouraging answer even for that. ‘I wouldn’t have the strength to get through what you’re going through! I don’t know that I’d make any better decisions. And maybe Mitch’s folks are brilliant parents and will give Hope the best start. It’s not for long. You’ll get to see her regularly, won’t you?’

  Boo studied her neighbour’s blemish-free complexion, gleaming blonde hair and sylph-like body. Religion and clean-living suited her. She looked down at her own giant breasts and ran her fingers over her chin – skin that was rebelling against four years of drugs and heavy drinking followed by the stress of an unplanned pregnancy, bereavement and a flake of a boyfriend. Maybe it was time to change her bad habits. Yet, the urge to get high and forget, or to go out and fuck a stranger in a bid to feel wanted, was strong. ‘I’ll try to see her every other weekend. It’s just cash that’s the problem.’ She slid free of Holy Jo’s embrace.

  ‘Can’t your mum help?’

  She pictured the last time she’d seen the old lady when she’d rolled up at the hospital, stinking like a smashed bottle of vodka, sitting in silence but for the odd desultory outburst of criticism or stinging ridicule. ‘Sylvia doesn’t give a shit. She told me not to come running to her when I’m out of nappies. You’d think bringing a baby into the world would be a cause for celebration but—’

  ‘Boo! It’s me.’ Mitch’s voice resounded along the corridor on the other side of the door. He was knocking with some urgency.

  Turning to Holy Jo, she grabbed her arm. Barely able to assemble her half-formed thoughts into a coherent sentence. Her desperation tumbled from her mouth all at once. ‘Don’t let him know I’m here,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t face him right now. He’s a suffocating, unpredictable nightmare, and I don’t want him around me or the baby. Please. I want to get my Hope back but I don’t know how. You’re doing law. You’ve got money. Please. Please! Will you help me? Say you will. Say you’ll help.’ The sorrow caught in the back of her throat as a desperate gasp.

  When no response came from inside Boo’s room, Mitch moved onto Holy Jo’s door. He hammered on it like a bailiff. ‘Sophie. Is Boo there? Come on. Open
up! I know she’s in there.’

  Boo shook her head fervently. Mouthing, ‘Don’t let him in.’

  Holy Jo patted her hand. ‘Leave it to your Aunty Soph.’ She winked. Ushered Boo to the wardrobe and shut her inside.

  Squashed in among the fragrant-smelling designer clothes of a rich girl, for those fleeting moments, Boo imagined she was just like Hope had been inside her belly– cocooned in a safe place with somebody else to fend for her. She could hear the conversation taking place.

  ‘Listen, Robert.’

  ‘It’s Mitch.’

  ‘Is it? Well, I’m not pandering to your ego. You think you’re Mr Too Cool For School but really, Robert, you’re nothing more than a junkie and a bully.’

  ‘Cheeky bitch! Hey. What are you doing? Are you filming me?’

  ‘Yes. Deal with it. I don’t have to put up with your nonsense. Now, I’ve no idea where Beverley is, but if she is in her room and just not answering, I suggest you leave her be. I know what you’ve done. I know what you’ve pressured her into and I’m not scared of you.’

  Boo chewed the inside of her cheek frantically as she pictured the clash unfolding. She prayed that Holy Jo had Jesus on her side at that moment. Mitch was unpredictable at the best of times and was so cunning in his ability to spin a situation that he always ended up the moral champion, with his opponent defeated and apologetic at his feet.

  ‘Get that fucking camera out of my face or I’m gonna—’

  ‘What, exactly? What are you going to do?’

  ‘I’ll report you to McIntyre.’

  ‘Me? Ha! That’s a joke. I’m not the one who drives their neighbours potty with anti-social behaviour all hours of the night. You do realise the drugs you take are illegal, don’t you?’

  ‘Maybe I’ll plant some in your room when you’re out.’

  ‘You wouldn’t!’

  Boo couldn’t idly stand by, listening to her boyfriend threaten her neighbour, while she hid in the safety of her wardrobe behind protective layers of cashmere and silk.