by S. A. Harris
‘Come and play!’ Tom beckons me to join them.
‘I’ll make lunch first. You go and get the blanket and the plastic liner from the gardener’s shed, the grass is wet.’
The twins race off, shouting to one another, Riley at their heels. Richard Denning’s made a start with the rope-and-post fence. Mark’s right though, the twins don’t hang around the pond, I’m being paranoid as usual. I step back into the morning room. The wallpaper dried well, the pattern perfect at the corners. A beautiful bright room. I look at the ceiling. Perhaps decorate the spare room next, chase away the ridiculous notions for good.
I cross the hall towards the kitchen and catch my knee against the heap of oddments from the office stacked one side of the hall hearth. George Cooper left it here for me to sort though, mostly stuff from our London home. The smashed computer monitor, books and dirty old folders are likely to be good for the skip. I pick up a folder, Mark’s handwriting on the front – Bills/Receipts. I flip back the cover. Not the old paperwork I was expecting but pages printed off the internet. Old newspaper stories about Haverscroft.
I carry the folder into the kitchen and sit down on Mum’s sofa. Mark’s made notes of dates and events. I shuffle newspaper reports, nothing’s in any sort of order: Edward Havers’ cricket outing for Weldon, their youngest son, Andrew’s christening, and an earlier story, headlining for several weeks. The date at the top of these sheets shows when Mark printed the pages in the weeks before we moved here.
Riley barks and the twins’ laughter echoes from the garden. My heart races as I scan the pages. The woman in my sketch, the face in the dressing-table mirror, stares at me from an ancient copy of the East Anglian Daily Times. Helena Havers smiles at the camera, a family snap taken only weeks before she died, her arms about a young fair-haired boy and a scruffy white dog, the man accused of her murder beside them. The coroner’s comments about head trauma, that she was likely to have been conscious and aware of her injuries for the few minutes before she died, turn my stomach. Why had Mark never mentioned this?
A rattle, vibration, growing louder, coming from the hall. I jump to my feet, sheets of paper, the folder, shoot across the floor. For an instant I’m frozen to the spot as if my brain can’t take in what my ears are hearing. A bang, tinkling. I stare into the hall, my heart thudding against my ribcage. Glass shattering. Have the kids put a ball, a stone, through a window?
I run into the hall and cross into the morning room. The French windows stand open, a mess of fallen leaves and rose petals scatter the terrace. Something glitters amongst the petals. The roses finished before we moved in here, the blossoms long gone. The window to my left catches in the breeze and bumps my elbow. I stare at it as if I’ve never seen it before. But I know its every surface, hours spent prepping, sanding, painting. All of the glass, each and every pane, is smashed, barely a shard remains.
A scream pierces the silence, the barking howl of a dog. Low sun blazes, I raise my hand to shield my eyes and squint into the glare. Shafts of light wink off the wet grass. No sign of the twins.
‘Tom! Sophie!’
Sophie’s purple gilet lies on the grass beside a goal post, just beyond it something moves. Not quite a shadow, a dense darkness seeps into the bank of willow. The sky is cloudless, the garden glimmering in the early afternoon sunlight. Terror creeps through my flesh, raises the hairs on the back of my neck and arms.
Where are my children?
A second scream, the sound longer, louder and full of terror. Frantic, terrified, it goes on and on, filling the stagnant air. The garden is deserted, the scream, a child’s, high-pitched and filled with panic. Despite the distortion in its tone, the voice is unmistakable. I would know it anywhere, know it comes from my daughter.
‘Mummy! Mummy! Mummy!’
I’m shaking violently, the fear is paralysing. I have to get to her.
Glass crunches beneath my boots as I run across the terrace to the steps, sprint down them and onto wet springy grass. I race towards the willows. Nothing here but the languid sweep of foliage on a lawn smattered with fallen, rotting leaves and dappled shade from sunlight between bare branches. Michaelmas daisies crowd and bully russet-red dahlias. The football abandoned, caught in the planting at the front of the border. Hot, dry breath catches in my throat. The world slow-motions, every leaf and blade of grass harshly bright, the buzz of insects unnaturally loud.
I snatch willow branches aside and screw my eyes to peer into the gloom. Sophie kneels at the water’s edge, her back to me, still screaming, her voice rasping. On the ground beside her lies her acid-pink water gun. She leans forward, one hand stretched out into the weeds at the pond’s margin. Her other hand is braced against the ground. She doesn’t move.
“Sophie!’
Momentarily the barking stops as Riley sees me, runs to my feet, then back towards Sophie’s side, his green lead dragging behind him. The barking resumes, I follow the dog. Tom’s lurid-green water gun floats on the pond’s surface, drifting towards the mass of black water lilies on the far side. Sophie is hanging onto something. Something small and grimy. The muddy slime-covered thing is a hand. Tom’s hand.
My knees buckle and I land heavily beside Sophie.
‘I can’t hold him. Mummy, I can’t hold him!’
Sophie’s eyes never leave the water’s surface. Her cheeks are tracked where tears run through dirt. I grab Tom’s wrist and pull. His head tilts backwards, face turned up towards the sunlight. His eyes are staring balls of terror, his mouth open to the water washing across his features. We both pull, his face just clears the surface. Choking, filthy water spurts over my arms, face and neck. I have him but can’t pull him free. Something anchors my son so firmly that my efforts barely move him towards us at all. Tom is as heavy and immovable as a block of concrete. His face slides back beneath the bubbling surface.
‘Pull, Sophie, hard as you can.’
We heave with all of our strength, getting nowhere. All the while my son’s face, yellowed by the dirty water, stares back at me, his mouth open, lips moving frantically. His arm is slippery with mud and weed, I can’t get a good grip. I edge into the pond, my boots find water and sludge, nothing firm or solid. Mr Whittle’s words fill my ears: A natural pond, very deep I understand . . .
Tom isn’t coughing this time as his face breaks the surface for an instant.
‘He’s drowning, Mummy!’
‘Keep pulling, Sophie. If we keep pulling he must come free.’
We’re hardly moving Tom. Terror’s left his eyes. Vacant and unfocused, he’s no longer fighting. No longer with us.
My grip on my son’s arm slips. Tom’s face slides deeper into the churning filthy pond until all I see is blond hair swishing with the motion of the water.
‘No!’
If I jump in there’s no way out.
‘Hold on to him, Sophie.’
I let go of Tom’s wrist, grab the weed at the pond’s margin, slide into black silt and mud as close to my son’s body as I can manage. My feet find no purchase, nothing to take my weight. I gasp as water covers my face. Sophie screams, holds Tom’s hand. Blond hair washes like weed beneath the surface. I grab the bank, slithery mud squelches through my fingers, but I steady myself. Tom’s legs tangle mine as I hook under his armpits, haul him towards the surface.
‘Grab his coat, Sophie!’ Water spits from my mouth as I shout at my daughter. She has hold of his arm, his jacket as I push Tom upwards.
‘Pull, Sophie!’
I push my son’s back, grab his jeans belt, shove him up onto the bank. Sophie struggles, her heels digging into the soft ground. She drags Tom up and away from cloying black mud and weed.
‘Is he, okay?’ Sour water fills my mouth, my nose. I don’t hear Sophie’s words, just her voice, her high-pitched scream. My son’s dead. Too late. We are too late.
My boots are like lead weights, my
legs stiff, immovable in my tight jeans. I should’ve taken them off, my jacket too, before I went in. No time, though. I scrabble and claw at the bank, weed comes away in my hands. No way out.
Pain in one wrist, then the other, makes me gasp and choke. I look up into a sun-darkened face, bright green eyes. He pulls, the toes of my boots dig into soft mud, the top half of me clears the water’s surface. Sophie has one arm, Richard Denning the back of my coat. I lie gasping for breath on the bank.
We pull Tom a few feet from the pond edge before we let him go. He lies motionless, face half buried in willow debris. Sophie kneels beside her brother. Her skinny body shivers, her hands clenched over her mouth as though the screaming will escape again if she pulls them away. Tears run down her cheeks and through her filthy fingers.
‘Tom?’ Sophie’s voice cracks, is practically a whisper, it sounds unnaturally loud as the three of us bend our heads close to peer at her brother. I hear only our panting breath and Riley’s whining as he licks mud from between lifeless fingers. My son’s face looks unreal, someone I don’t know, just an ashen-coloured mask discarded by its owner.
‘Go call Doctor Langdon. He’ll be here long before an ambulance.’
Richard Denning’s voice is deep and steady, head lowered so I only see the top of his cap, fawn and grey weave. I can’t see his face at all. He turns Tom’s head sideways resting his cheek in the dead leaves and begins pummelling my son’s narrow back. Brown-green pond water spews out of Tom’s mouth and nose with each effort.
‘He won’t die, will he?’ Sophie asks as I push myself to my feet.
‘Stay with him, Sophie. I’ll run and get the doctor.’
Chapter 18
Wednesday, 27th October
‘It’s number eight you’re wanting?’
The man, the cab driver, stares at me huddled into my coat in the rear of the taxi. His gaze falls to my hands, the shredded mess of paper towel in my lap grabbed from the ladies’ toilet in A&E. I’m better now, the diazepam quietening it all down, the tension, in my shoulders, neck and jaw, melted away. He looks out through the front passenger window. Low cottages huddle close together along a street no more than a car’s width. A light has come on behind a front door, it opens, a woman in a dressing gown hurries towards us, the driver looks back at me expectantly.
The taxi door opens.
‘There you are, love. I’ve been that worried.’
I get out of the taxi, rummage through coat pockets, my jeans, find a note, some coins, pass them across to the outstretched palm, look into the man’s face. I’ve no idea how much I owe him, but it must be okay, he’s nodding, a farewell wave. Shirley has her arm about my shoulders guiding me. We head towards the brightly lit threshold.
‘Come into the kitchen. I’ve just made a brew. I couldn’t sleep a wink for worrying.’
Her voice is hushed, a hurried whisper as she pushes the front door closed, takes my elbow, tugs me along a short hall into a tiny, low-ceilinged kitchen. Her voice is soft and undulating, the words like a warm bath, wash over me. She pulls out a chair. I sit, watch her getting mugs, milk, sugar.
‘Where’s Sophie?’ I ask.
Shirley glances at me, continues to pour tea, one mug, then the next.
‘Asleep, upstairs. She’s alright.’
She puts a mug on the table in front of me. A pile of Sophie’s drawings are anchored beneath an iPad.
‘I’ve tried to keep her busy, poor little thing.’
‘Has she said anything, about what happened?’
‘Not much, but I didn’t like to press her. Something’s not right though.’ We stare across the table at one another. ‘I thought it might be better if she chats to you, when she’s ready. Your husband called. They had a chat and she was a bit better after that.’
‘You’ve spoken to Mark?’
‘Haven’t you, love?’
I shake my head, words gather in my brain, I try to slow them down, put them into order. Shirley’s hand is warm on mine. I take a breath.
‘I left messages, but I couldn’t get hold of him. My phone’s flat now.’
‘Well, he knows what’s happened. He spoke with Sophie and says he’ll be here.’ Shirley looks at the clock on the wall, a cockerel, its legs swing back and forth. ‘He should arrive later this morning.’
It’s 1:13am. I’ve lost track of time, it flowed by as I waited in A&E, a side ward, waited and waited for news.
‘George boarded up the French windows temporary for tonight. He’s back in the morning. He’ll re-glaze them for you then.’
Shirley looks towards the kitchen door, a stair-tread squeaks, feet pitter patter along the hall.
‘I’m not surprised she’s awake, poor little soul. She kept asking when you’d be back.’
The kitchen door is ajar, it moves a fraction, doesn’t open.
‘Sophie?’ I say, starting to stand. The door flies back, bangs the wall, my daughter hurls herself at me and onto my lap.
‘Where’s Tom?’
Her breath is hot on my cheek, her lips brush my ear, arms clamp around my neck.
‘He’s on the children’s ward for tonight so the doctors can keep an eye on him. They need to make sure his asthma’s okay.’
I hug Sophie, feel her shivering, a small skinny bag of bones. I bite my lip as my eyes sting.
‘I’m worried about him cos he’s not got Blue Duck.’ Sophie lets go of my neck and holds the sagging rag toy between us.
‘Don’t worry, he was sleeping when I came away. We’ll take him with us to the hospital when we pick Tom up.’
I smudge warm tears off her cheek with my thumb. ‘Mrs Cooper says you’ve been busy,’ I say, looking towards the drawings. Sophie grabs the iPad.
‘Shirley bought me a new game. Look! I’m on level three already! Tom will think it’s so cool.’
The screen lights, bright colours, an electronic tune starts up as Sophie’s brow creases in concentration. I look across the table, raise my eyebrows as Shirley smiles.
‘We made a bed for Mummy on the sofa, didn’t we, Sophie.’
Sophie glances at Shirley, nods and smiles, back to the screen.
‘I didn’t think you’d want to be heading over to Haverscroft at this time of night.’ Shirley looks over the top of Sophie’s head. ‘It’s a bit of a squeeze, but I’m glad of the company.’
‘I can’t thank you enough, Shirley.’ There’s a wavering in my voice, I pick up my mug, take a sip.
‘It wouldn’t have felt right with you and the children at the house on your own.’ She drinks her tea, her cheeks flushed, I’ve underestimated how distressed she is over all that’s happened.
‘Where’s Riley?’ I say.
Sophie wriggles off my lap, hands the iPad to Shirley.
‘His basket’s in here with Mrs Cooper’s cat.’ Sophie dashes off into the hall as she speaks.
‘I didn’t know you had a cat.’
Shirley’s laughing. ‘Come and meet Hercules,’ she says, getting to her feet.
Sophie kneels beside the hearth in Shirley’s sitting room fussing Riley. An enormous ginger tomcat is curled asleep next to the dog’s basket.
‘He passed away shortly after I lost Nick. I couldn’t bear to part with him so I had him stuffed.’
Shirley shakes out a duvet, plumps a pillow on the sofa. ‘There’s a throw here if you’re chilly, but I think you’ll be warm enough. There are some logs in the basket for the fire. Make yourself at home.’ She looks towards a low table beside an armchair, ‘Phone’s there if you need it, bathroom’s at the top of the stairs, first left.’
‘You need to be back in bed, Sophie,’ I say, aware that Shirley looks shattered.
‘Can I sleep with you?’
Shirley and I exchange a glance.
‘Just this once.’
&nb
sp; Sophie jumps on the sofa and I tuck the duvet around her.
‘Would you mind if I borrow your iPad, Shirley?’
She looks at me, one of her long stares, smiles and nods. ‘I’ll nip off to my bed. Sophie knows the password, don’t you, love.’
Sophie’s asleep already, her arm crocked about Riley’s neck when I carry a mug of coffee through to Shirley’s sitting room. I throw a couple of logs into the embers of the fire and get settled on the sofa with Sophie’s head in my lap. I send Mark an email.
Sorry I’ve missed you, mobile’s flat. We’re at Shirley’s tonight, picking Tom up tomorrow lunchtime. He’s on the children’s ward, he’s okay, just keeping him in to be sure. I’m on Shirley’s number if you need to contact me. If not, I’ll keep you posted tomorrow, see you around 7pm.
Kate x
Mark will blame me for Tom’s dunk in the pond. Maybe, in part, I am at fault. How long had I left them unsupervised, absorbed in Mark’s file? Five, ten minutes, certainly no longer. They’ve played out for an hour or more at weekends when we’ve been busy working on the house. But what was it I saw? Clouds scudding across a brittle blue sky, light and shade, shadows shifting across the garden? Or something different, something I won’t be able to convincingly explain to Mark, or a court, if it comes to that. I can’t be sure what Mark intends to do. If he decides to leave and make an application for the twins to be with him, I must be coherent.
I google solicitor’s firms, find Amy, a fellow trainee from years back, now a partner in a niche firm specialising in family law. I send an email, ask if she might spare me a few minutes’ advice. I trawl through websites, get the basics about the Children Act 1989, court orders, when and why they make them. As a lawyer, I see how the solicitor’s email builds Mark’s case, trashes my care of the children, my inability to focus on the day to day, my mental health, the children’s best interests. I’ve never spoken about it, not to Mark, the GP, not even the quiet and patient counsellor. It worried me, my inability to speak about her, to seek any help or advice. Now I’m relived it’s my secret.