by Tammy Cohen
The heart of Muswell Hill is a roundabout at the highest point from which the major roads in the area radiate out. There are two main shopping arteries. The more upmarket of those leads down to a church at the bottom and a cinema, from where it bends right. Along there are bookshops and some quaint half-shops selling cheese and jewellery and the like. The locals like to believe they live in a village, rather than a suburb of London, and this is the road that helps sustain the delusion. It was here I ended up, lurking outside a shop I’d always loved that sold stuffed animals in glass cases and other period curiosities.
I was eyeing up a wooden case with jewel-coloured butterflies pinned out in rows and wondering how ethically wrong it was to want it in my living room when I became aware of Dotty making the high-pitched whining noise she does when she’s agitated about something.
Looking around, I noticed a figure standing alone further along the street. My heart thudded to a stop as I recognized my elder daughter.
Rosie was outside a shop, gazing into the window. I was too far away to see her face but I could see she looked thin. Anxiety pinched me. Rosie had flirted with anorexia while she was a teenager, though thankfully it had never got serious enough to require treatment. Wasn’t she eating at university? She’d had her hair highlighted blonde the year before, and the roots were growing through in her natural brown, against which her skin looked unnaturally pale. Might she be ill? I was sure Phil told me her reading week was last week. Why hadn’t she gone back to university?
But oh, good God, she was lovely.
Rosie was delicate-boned and slight, but with such force of will that people were always surprised to find out how small she actually was. From the very beginning she’d never taken anything on faith. Always questioning, challenging. She was one of those rare people who properly held your gaze, not afraid to keep on looking until she’d worked out whatever it was she was unsure of. She had always had a hugely developed sense of what was fair and what wasn’t, but the downside was she could be ridiculously cut and dried about things, unbothered by mitigating factors or context.
She was loving, but exacting. And, as I’d found out to my cost, she was agonizingly slow to forgive.
All the childhood and adolescent versions of Rosie spooled through my mind as I stood in that Muswell Hill street and gazed at my daughter. The young girl with the blonde plaits who’d been incensed that her teacher hadn’t made her star pupil of the week again, even though she’d been far more helpful and better behaved than Owen, the latest recipient of that accolade. Not understanding until we’d explained it to her carefully that it was only right for everyone to get a chance. And then taking up ‘fairness’ like a crusade.
Her courage in overcoming her fear of water, her little face terrified but determined over the top of her pink arm bands. Her loyalty to her friends. The way she’d stand behind me in her pyjamas as I sat on the sofa at the end of a long day and massage my shoulders with her small, soft hands. How, as a teenager, she’d mounted such an impressively forensic case against her eleven o’clock curfew that we’d ended up agreeing to extend it, despite our own better judgement.
My heart was a water balloon, swollen with love.
All this time, Dotty’s whining had been getting increasingly frantic. When Rosie lived at home she’d been the only one who let the dog sleep on her bed, putting up with her nocturnal changes of position and her endless fidgeting. Now Dotty had smelled her and was straining at her lead to get to her.
Desperate, Dotty let out a high-pitched yelp of desire.
Immediately, Rosie looked over. Our eyes met.
I broke into a smile. I couldn’t help it. I was so happy to see her.
Rosie at first seemed frozen with surprise, but then she too smiled and opened her mouth as if she was about to say something.
As I took a step towards her the shop door opened next to Rosie and a woman stepped out. Blonde hair twisted up, expensive pale pink coat, suede boots with a heel. Joy. How could I have forgotten that her florist shop was along this stretch?
I stopped. Uncertain. Watching as my husband’s girlfriend linked her arm through my daughter’s and, not seeing me standing there all those yards away, steered her off in the opposite direction.
Rosie, silent and uncharacteristically submissive, threw me one last look over her shoulder but allowed herself to be led.
I remained motionless, every nerve and sinew and atom in my body straining to follow my estranged daughter, even while my head warned me to turn away. Poor Dotty pulled and pulled on her lead as the figures of Rosie and Joy became smaller and then disappeared altogether.
I knelt down to comfort my distraught dog, burying my face in her wiry fur so that passers-by wouldn’t notice that my cheeks were wet with tears. A rush of heat came out of nowhere. Suddenly, my thin denim jacket, which earlier had seemed so flimsy against the cool March breeze, was like a thick, suffocating blanket and I tore it off, the long-sleeved T-shirt I had on underneath sticking to my skin with sweat.
Back home, I went straight up to my room, threw myself on my bed and let the sobs rip from me until my throat was stripped raw.
That afternoon I prepared a lasagne from scratch, roasting the vegetables, whisking the béchamel to a smooth, silky paste.
‘Wow, what’s this in aid of?’ asked Em when she came through the door, her face lit up. Sometimes I forgot how easy it was to make my daughter happy – the smell of her favourite dinner cooking when she came home from school.
‘You, of course,’ I told her, putting down the cheese grater to give her a big, tight hug.
‘All right, all right, no need to squash me.’
Em dumped her bags next to the kitchen table and sat down in front of the cup of tea I’d made her. She looked tired.
‘Are you sure you’re okay, sweetheart?’
She glanced up, frowning.
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘And you’re not still thinking about what happened? Because if you are, you can always talk to me. That’s what I’m here for.’
‘Mum, I’ve told you, I’m fine. I’m just stressing about exams, that’s all. Please stop worrying about me.’
The lasagne was lovely, and then Emma told me a funny story about something that happened at school and I laughed probably more than the story merited.
‘It’s not that funny,’ Emma said. But I could tell she was pleased by my reaction.
I hadn’t always been home at dinnertimes when my children were growing up, hadn’t always been on hand to hear the small details of their day. I regretted that now, all those tiny threads in the fabric of their lives that I’d missed out on.
‘I saw Rosie today,’ I said, head bent over my plate.
I sensed Emma go very still. She and her sister were very close, staying in regular contact whenever they were apart, but Em didn’t talk to me about it and I didn’t push her. I never wanted her to feel pulled in two directions, or that she had to vet what she said to me.
‘I don’t think she saw me,’ I lied. ‘And then Joy turned up.’
I emphasized the word ‘Joy’, as if it weren’t really her name. I couldn’t help it.
Emma put down her fork.
‘She’s all right, you know, Mum. Joy, I mean. She’s nice, actually. We play board games.’
‘Oh, well, board games.’
I said it sneeringly, even though when the girls were younger I used to fantasize about us being the kind of family that played board games. When I saw Em’s face I regretted my childishness.
‘Sorry, darling. I’m glad she’s nice.’
But after Em had gone up to her room and I was clearing up I started thinking again about Rosie and how she’d looked, and whether she’d been about to say something to me, and an ache started low in the pit of my stomach. I flopped down on the sofa in the living room. The television was full of reality shows and food programmes, so I began scrolling through Netflix. I clicked on the first film that had a good rating
, just to escape from my own head for a while. It starred Robert Redford and Jane Fonda as elderly neighbours, both desperate for human connection, and I watched for a while, wondering if Hollywood stars ever got lonely.
I was waiting to feel tired enough to go upstairs. Like most insomniacs, I dreaded the prospect of getting into bed only to feel suddenly, horribly alert, the worries and anxieties of the day like a relentless clock ticking loudly in my head.
I fetched my laptop from the kitchen table and sat back down on the sofa. I’d check in briefly to Facebook, just to see what my friends were up to.
But as I scrolled down my home page, I felt as if I were play-acting, going through the motions of being interested in Mari’s search for chiropractor recommendations or someone else’s photos of their weekend in Northumberland.
Finally, I gave in. I’d look on Stephens’s DJ page. Just to see what was going on. That wasn’t hurting anyone. Maybe he’d have photographs of last Thursday night.
Even the thought of it, that young woman’s stricken face in the toilets, made my stomach lurch.
I could see right away there weren’t any photographs. Nothing to show our paths had crossed. Nothing to indicate he’d been inconvenienced in any way.
I looked again at his picture – blades of cheekbone pushing through smooth, tight skin, the cocky jut of his jaw. My gaze snagged on that chunky silver signet ring on the hand that had hooked itself around my daughter’s neck and my stomach twisted.
Scanning down the page, I noticed that my comment, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID, had been deleted. I shouldn’t have been surprised, and yet I bristled with outrage. Why should he be allowed to erase the things he didn’t like, while my sixteen-year-old daughter had to relive what he’d done to her again and again?
I wanted to keep up the pressure on him, to make sure he couldn’t forget that there was someone out there who knew who he was and what he was capable of. The conversation I’d had with Frances was still fresh in my mind. I wasn’t about to move house again – couldn’t afford to even if I wanted to – but maybe, just maybe, if I made things difficult enough for him, he might decide he was better off somewhere else.
After logging out of Facebook I signed back in under my new fake account and reposted my comment.
Almost immediately, there came a reply. From him. Who r u?
Adrenaline shot, caffeine-strong, through my veins. He was there. If I stepped through my screen, I could step out through his and be face to face with the man who’d hurt Em. My breath quickened and I even put my hand to my screen, as if I expected to encounter that mocking smile, those blade-sharp cheekbones.
Almost immediately, he came back again. Whoever u r, this is harassment. Think of this as a warning. U need to stop.
Or what? I wrote. My fingers felt charged with electricity.
Or u will regret it.
For a moment I stared at the words, exultant. A threat. In writing. Quickly, I googled ‘how to screenshot’ but before I had a chance to follow the instructions, the whole exchange disappeared.
A post appeared on the page, from a woman I didn’t recognize who’d clearly witnessed the whole thing – U ok, J? – and the reply, almost instantaneous: Yeh, some nuttaz around.
Helpless with rage, I typed in, YOU SHOULD BE LOCKED UP.
The woman who’d commented before shot back with a sarcastic 6 years too late, hun. U need to try harder.
Again, the whole exchange was deleted almost before the last letter appeared, but now glee had replaced the anger. He’d been in prison. That woman, whoever she was, had just confirmed it. I remembered what Detective Byrne had said about our suspect having a criminal record. Any lingering doubts I might have had about Stephens being the man who attacked Em were instantly snuffed out.
Adrenaline meant I stayed up for another hour before going to bed and miraculously falling asleep. But I woke up a couple of hours later, my head thick, the sheets sticking to the backs of my legs. Restless and hot and unable to get back to sleep, I went over what had happened that evening, feeling frustrated all over again at how easily he’d erased me, my accusations disappearing before my eyes.
Then I thought about my phone charging by the side of the bed.
I picked it up and saw it was 2.38 a.m. He wasn’t going to be policing his FB notifications in the middle of a Tuesday night.
I navigated to his DJ page, feeling a thrill of power at the thought of having free access to his page while he slept on unaware.
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID, I wrote again.
Then, when that stayed exactly where it was, I typed, JAMES LAURENCE STEPHENS IS A SEX ATTACKER.
Propped up on my elbow, I watched my screen to see if anything would happen. When the messages remained untouched, I clicked off my phone, flushed with triumph. So what if the messages were gone tomorrow morning? Who knows who might have seen them by the time he next checked?
Unusually for me, I fell back to sleep after that, but when I woke up in the morning it was with a clammy sense of having done something wrong. My head throbbed with the hangover from my broken night as I trawled back through the events of the previous day. The encounter with Rosie came back to me and I fought back a wave of panic until I’d reassured myself I hadn’t done anything to upset her.
Then I thought about the exchange with Stephens. How he’d kept deleting me. Then how I’d sent him those messages from my phone in the middle of the night when he was safely asleep.
Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no.
I snatched up my phone from the floor, nausea rising from some point deep inside me.
I called up Stephens’s DJ page, my eyes scanning wildly through, looking for my comments of last night, but they had disappeared.
A red number one had appeared on my notifications and I clicked with a dense feeling of dread.
Even before it came up, I knew.
On my phone, I was still logged in as the real me. Not the fake account I’d been messaging from downstairs.
J-Lo Stephens posted in Tessa Hopwood, read the top line in my notifications.
I clicked on the link and a high-pitched alarm went off in my head as I read his message, sent first thing that morning.
I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.
Mum asked me about you today.
She never says your name but I know it’s you she’s talking about.
We were standing in the kitchen. I was making tea and she was sitting at the table behind me. She prefers to have serious conversations without eye contact. We aren’t a soul-baring sort of family. She asked me how I was ‘in myself’. Then she said how brave I was and how well I was dealing with everything. Then she said, ‘Have you put it behind you now?’
And I knew she really meant you. Have I put you behind me.
I smiled and said something encouraging because I knew that’s what she needed to hear, but inside I was screaming at her not to talk any more.
And now all day the dark cloud of you has been hanging over my head.
Only Henry calmed me down.
On the way home from school he took my hand and my thoughts were so full of him there was no space for you.
14
There’s a pub at Alexandra Palace with outside tables from where you can see over the whole of north London, past the Post Office Tower to the west, and all the way to Canary Wharf to the east. Today, though, a thick, low-lying layer of cloud was obscuring all beyond a radius of two or three miles, making the air feel clammy and padded.
In any case, Frances and I weren’t much in the mood for admiring the view.
‘How much could he have seen from your Facebook page? I mean, presumably, you had your privacy settings up high,’ said Frances, bending down to pet Dotty, who couldn’t understand why we’d choose to be sitting in this gravel courtyard when there were grassy slopes to be run down and balls to be chased.
‘Yes, of course! Well, maybe not as high as I’d thought.’
I’d been horrified when I’d gone up to my privacy settin
gs and realized that, while my posts were protected, anyone could access my friends list or, worse still, my biographical details.
He now knew my birthday was in October.
He knew I was a journalist.
He knew I had two daughters.
And he knew who they were.
Oh, Emma.
I hadn’t intended to tell any of this to Frances. After what had happened at the Peckham club I had assumed Emma’s rescuer would give me a wide berth. And the last thing I wanted was to give her even more reason to think me dangerously out of control. But then she’d called, to see how I was. And as it was only a few hours after I’d seen Stephens’s comment on Facebook, I couldn’t stop myself telling her what had happened.
What I’d done.
I half expected, maybe even hoped for, some kind of rebuke from Frances. It was what I deserved. Instead, probably hearing the note of desperation in my voice, she told me she had that afternoon off work and asked if it would help to meet, and I found myself nodding, even though I was on the end of a phone and she couldn’t see me, because I couldn’t trust myself to speak.
So here we were. Sitting at one of the wooden picnic tables outside the pub, while joggers and dog walkers and the occasional high-vis-jacketed member of the Palace grounds staff passed to and fro in front of us. Frances was well wrapped up, although the thick cloud meant it wasn’t really cold but kind of damp and muggy. She had an emerald-green mohair scarf around her neck, and her long thick hair was tucked into the folds of the scarf in that cute, casual way some women manage.
‘Have you warned Emma and your older daughter to change their privacy settings to high?’
Fear gripped me by the throat.
‘You think he’ll go after them?’
‘It’s as well to be cautious, that’s all. Listen, Tessa, don’t you think you ought to tell the police what’s going on?’
I’d guessed she was going to say that, but still I cringed at the thought of it. Having to explain to Detective Byrne, with his tired, bloodshot eyes, how I’d stalked James Stephens. The confrontation with his pregnant girlfriend in the toilets. How I’d put my girls in danger.