by J. A. Baker
Suddenly she realises. She knows who it is, why she is here.
Sweat courses down Leah’s back. Perspiration glistens on her forehead. She keeps her head low, refusing to look at what she did.
She remembers that day vividly as if it were yesterday. Lucy is gone. Dead. She isn’t here. She can’t be. This is a dream, a sick hallucination. Her mind is punishing her, forcing her to take responsibility for something that was a terrible accident.
But it wasn’t an accident, was it? You’re lying. Always lying. That’s you all over. A pathetic little liar.
She lets out a yelp, covering her mouth with her hand, coughing to mask it. This has got to stop, this self-perpetuating cycle of blame and fear. Lucy is dead. Ellis is dead. Leah is here, living and breathing, they are not and there’s not a damn thing she can do about it. This is insane. She has got to stop torturing herself, delving into the past, trying to change things that cannot be changed.
Slowly, summoning up every bit of courage she has, she turns her head and looks at the little girl, holding her gaze, their eyes locked together for what feels like an age. It’s seconds, no more than that. Leah blinks then widens her eyes. The child has gone. Vanished. Only an open space where she should be.
There’s nobody there. There never was.
33
The woman behind the desk glances up from under her lashes. Every look, every subtle movement stokes up the furnace raging in Leah’s belly. The waiting around at the station for a train that obviously wasn’t coming became too much to bear.
Trying to make her herself invisible amongst the crowds of angry waiting passengers, she had headed out of the station and made her way towards a nearby guest house, a tall Victorian residence nestled between other properties. An innocuous-looking house, flanked on all sides by other houses. Anonymous. Private. No reason for anybody to suspect a violent criminal was staying there.
She spent the night tossing and turning, unable to settle, listening out for sirens or the crashing of feet as the police headed towards her door before barging in unannounced. As soon as dawn broke, she got up, got showered and sat around until a reasonable hour so as not to draw any unwanted glances from staff and other guests.
‘No breakfast?’ The receptionist taps away at her keyboard, her attention now focused on the screen. Leah lets out a trembling breath, her jaw quivering, her skin burning. She just wants to pay and leave. So much unnecessary fuss with receipts and breakfasts and questions about parking. Staying in one of those seedy hostels would have been easier. Less conspicuous. Fewer questions. Just slap her money on the counter and leave.
‘No breakfast. I’m eating at the conference. When I get there, that is.’ She makes a play of staring at her watch then looking back at the female who is now watching her carefully, her eyes dark and empty, her expression inscrutable.
‘Right. All done. This is your receipt. I hope you enjoyed your stay.’ A sheet of A4 paper is placed in front of her, the print a blur as she snatches it off the counter and folds it up into a neat square. She wants to run, to get out of this place but is aware that her every move is being watched and scrutinised. Remaining calm is imperative. Her name is Barbara Watson and she is a businesswoman on her way to a conference in the city centre. Her new identity bounced around her head all night; the name embedded deep in her brain by the time she came down to check out. She hoped that paying by cash would make things easier, more fluid, yet here she is, still hanging around. Still waiting.
‘Thank you.’ She begins to walk away, then as an afterthought, places a small tip on the counter pushing it towards the receptionist. Anything to salve her conscience. A tiny plaster over a gaping wound but better than nothing at all.
The station is busy as she buys her ticket and merges into the crowd of commuters, losing herself in the bustle and noise. She hears grumbling and is dismayed to see more delays listed on the electronic arrivals board. An hour to wait until her train arrives. An hour of waiting, watching, glancing over her shoulder for somebody to step in and arrest her. This is going to be the longest hour of her life.
By the time the train arrives, Leah is a coiled spring, her nerves frazzled, her back and head aching from the effort of trying look and act relaxed when the tension has almost broken her in half. Her spine is rigid with a steel rod running through it. Her eyes are sore from keeping watch for the police, for small dead children, for anybody who may wish her harm.
This train pulling up in the station with a skin-withering metallic screech is the nicest thing she has seen all week. She can’t seem to draw her eyes away from it as it stops at the platform with a convulsive squeak, the rubbery odour filling her lungs, the noise of the surging crowds reassuring as she pulls out her ticket from her pocket, stands up, and boards.
34
She is in Will’s office. She isn’t in his office. Where in God’s name is she? She can’t move, can’t breathe properly. Hands reach out to her, touching her, helping her, trying to free her. Trying to keep her alive. She is trapped, unable to do anything except weep. And the pain. Dear God, the eye-watering pain. It’s unbearable.
She sees a face. Will’s face. He is standing over her. Behind him is the picture, the hideous burst of colour that she loathes; strokes of red and orange, ferocious flames of bright yellow. It frightens her, makes her want to shrivel up in a tight little ball to escape from it. Except it isn’t a picture. It’s moving; pulsing and roaring close to her. She feels its heat, fears its brutality and tries to shrink away from it. The fire billows and swirls, creeping ever nearer, ready to swallow her, a big hot hungry mouth eager to take her away. She feels herself being moved. She resists, worried it’s the fire, its hot claws digging and pawing at her. It isn’t. She can feel them – sets of hands dragging, pulling, trying to get her away from the danger, away from the raging furnace. She wants to laugh with relief but can’t do anything. It’s too much effort. Too painful.
Will’s face looms over her. She can’t breathe. Something is stuck in her throat, lodged in her windpipe, a hard pebble stopping her from breathing. She tries to cough, feels nausea rising, blood curdling in her neck, thick and warm. A hiccup, a belch, and then it explodes out of her, a demon exiting her body. She stares up at Will, at his face. Those marks. Blood everywhere. Sticky splatters, brown and red, smeared over his visor. He doesn’t budge, stays still. No attempts to wipe it away, all his efforts concentrated on her.
‘Okay, Leah, do you remember me? I’m Will. I’m going to get you out of here. Just nod if you can hear me.’
She moves her head up and down, murmurs his name over and over. ‘Will, Will, Will.’
‘That’s right. Focus on your breathing and try to stay calm. We’re doing all we can to help you. As soon as we’re able, we’ll give you some medication to ease the pain.’
She feels his hand pressing on her wrist. She wants to tell him to keep hold, to stay by and not leave her alone. She’s frightened. Terrified. She’s dying. She knows it.
‘We thought we’d lost you earlier.’ He smiles at her, his eyes pools of darkness, his voice the sound of summer; bright, carefree, full of promise. ‘Stay with me, Leah. It won’t be long and we’ll have you out of here.’
‘Where am I?’
‘You’ve been in an accident. Try to lie still. There are more paramedics on their way to help.’
‘Am I going to die?’ She feels too exhausted to cry, but a lone tear rolls out of her eye and down her face, closely followed by another, then another. An accident. The train journey. The crash.
Jacob and Chloe.
Ellis and Lucy.
Her life, her terrible ruined life. The one she shredded into small pieces.
She tries to move but it’s impossible. Everywhere hurts. Agony. Beyond anything she has ever experienced.
‘Let’s just get you sorted, shall we?’ Will’s voice is soft. He is trying to sound reassuring. She doesn’t feel reassured. She doesn’t feel anything. Just pain and more pain.
Somebody else is close by. She can sense them, can hear their chatter. She wants to reach out, to beg them to get her out of here but no words will come. Will is still with her. Not in his office. There is no office. They are here, trapped in hell.
She hears things: the roar of machinery, more voices. Shouting. Orders being barked out.
Her body judders, her throat closes.
She focuses on a spot of darkness. It grows, expanding and filling her vision. It’s dark and yet at the same time it is light; soft and comforting. A welcoming sight in a murky pool of shadows. She wants to reach it, to climb inside that light and lose herself. She isn’t frightened anymore. She is – what is it that she feels? It suddenly dawns on her what this emotion is that she is experiencing, the sensation that is ballooning deep within her barely breathing body as her life slowly ebbs away – disappointment. That’s what it is. She is disappointed.
Her eyes blur, the pain lessens. She sighs, a thick gurgling sound that feels as if it is coming from elsewhere. She thinks about things. Things she wishes she hadn’t taken for granted. Not only her family. Other things as well. She wants to see the sky above her, not this distending orb of black. She longs to see the silvery moon with its iconic smiling face, as familiar to her as her own skin, or the burnt orange of the sun as it hangs lazily in the sky, its welcoming citrus glow reminding her of how good it feels to be alive. But it’s all too late. Her thoughts, her anxieties, her regrets… Everything is just too damn late…
But at least she knows now. She knows why she was on the train. She always knew. It was just her confused thoughts, jumping about in her brain, trying to make sense of everything. They lost their way, colliding inside her head, jumbled up like a nightmare; her worries, her memories, her many unspeakable sins, all bashing and falling about, all fighting for space, excavating and illuminating long hidden experiences she would sooner forget. She wants to say sorry, to tell Lucy and Ellis that she wronged them and to beg for their forgiveness. She wants to see her parents one last time, to hug her mum, to throw herself onto her dad’s large welcoming chest, to tell them over and over that it was never their fault, that it was her. It’s always been her.
She closes her eyes. Will’s voice fades into the distance, a faraway sound telling her to hang on, that he is here for her and that everything is going to be okay. She knows deep down, somewhere deep within her, that it definitely isn’t.
35
Darkness growing, light shrinking, becoming smaller and smaller and smaller, attenuating and disappearing.
A pinprick. Then nothing…
‘We’ve lost her!’ Will’s voice barking through the wreckage.
‘Shit!’
Movement close by. Somebody coming nearer, touching his shoulder. A moment of sadness, of sorrow. A wave of regret. No more than seconds then it’s time to move on. More lives to save, more people to evacuate.
A swish of fabric, feet shuffling, running. Then voices, authoritative, urgent.
‘Over here. I’ve got an elderly man. Possible hypovolaemia. Immediate assistance required.’
36
Leah
I’ve often wondered what it feels like to die. I’ve thought about it a lot, especially since we lost Lucy then Ellis. I lie in bed sometimes and think about what goes through a person’s head in those final few minutes. Do they know they’re dying? Do they make their peace with the world before taking that final juddering breath? Then when I think about it too much I have to switch off. It’s too frightening to consider. Did Ellis think about us, his family, before he jumped? Did he feel any pain? I hope not. I hope it was swift and if there is some sort of afterlife, I hope he’s happy there.
I also think about going to see my parents. Our last conversation wasn’t pleasant. It got out of hand. I suppose I was to blame for that little episode. I usually am. Being pleasant and sociable has always felt like one huge effort to me. I can do it when I need to, when it suits me, but it’s not who I really am. That’s something else I think about a lot – who I actually am.
What are my real mum and dad like? Are they a pair of losers or were they just going through a blip in their lives and I got caught up in the crossfire? Unless I make an effort to trace them, then I guess I’ll never really know. I’ve considered it – going to look for them. I know how to do it. I did some research after I left home but I’ve never gone through with it. I think it’s because I might find them and then when I see how they live, I’ll realise that the grass would never have been greener on the other side of the fence. I might find them living on some scruffy housing estate in a shitty little house and then my bubble will well and truly burst. I might see the real me in them and I don’t want that. At least this way, I still have an air of mystery about me.
I know their names. Karen and Mike Segrave. They sound perfectly ordinary to me and that’s exactly how I want them to stay. I’ve conjured up an image of them both in my head. Mike is a plumber, likes a drink in the pub after work, has a bit of a beer gut but was once a handsome lad with a twinkle in his eye. He tried drugs a couple of times just for kicks and it got out of control but he’s working hard on getting his life back on track. Karen works in the corner shop, spends her spare money on hair dye and fags and loves nights out at the local bingo hall with her mates. She likes to keep her house clean and tidy and her favourite programme is Coronation Street.
Meeting them might smash that image to smithereens. They may well be better than the picture I have in my head, but I know deep down that they will probably be a whole lot worse so I’ve never taken that step and contacted them. I don’t even know where they live and that’s how it’s going to stay.
I wonder if they think about me? Probably not. Their drug-addled brains are probably too focused on getting their next fix. They’ll be too far gone to ever give a shit about me. I’m in limbo, caught between two families. The nowhere child.
Except I’m not. I know that. I’m not stupid. Feckless – yes, thoughtless – definitely. I’ve got a family, a good kind family who care about me, but everything is in tatters and the problem is, it’s gone on for that long now that I don’t know how to get any of it back.
Part II
37
Chrissie
It took them a while to identify her. That’s what the police officer told Chrissie and Ralph. She had somebody else’s things, you see. Somebody else’s handbag and purse with their driving licence and bank cards and what not, so they thought at first that they had another person. But she still had some of her own things on her – a credit card that had expired and a couple of old photographs tucked away in the back of her own small wallet.
Chrissie hadn’t known whether to laugh or not when they told her this. Laughing wasn’t the appropriate response, she knew that, and she definitely wasn’t happy. She was devastated. Their daughter was dead; involved in a major train crash that was making national and international news, but it was just like Leah to cause a commotion. Their Leah, their daughter. Even in her final moments, their precious girl still had the propensity to send everyone into a frenzy trying to work out who she really is.
Was.
Chrissie swallows and places her fingers over her stinging eyes, pushing at them, pressing down to stem the tears that won’t stop flowing. They just keep coming and coming. There’s no relief from them, no respite from the hurt and the misery and the many, many regrets that whirl through her head like a tornado, smashing into her skull, giving her headaches that no painkillers can ease. Every day is a living nightmare. She rubs at her eyes and stretches her hand over the diary that was handed to her in the days after her daughter’s death. Leah’s diary. She hasn’t summoned up the courage to read it just yet.
Every day brings new trauma, new truths they would rather not hear. The bag was stolen apparently. Stolen. Their girl was a thief. Chrissi
e knew Leah was many things but hoped they had instilled enough goodness in their children, enough manners and morality, to stop them from becoming involved in wrongdoings but apparently not. Even though the train had derailed and was crushed and battered, the bag was close by when they found her.
At first, Chrissie and Ralph had refused to believe it but the police were insistent, and then they had identified her body.
Unlike Ellis, she was recognisable. Her skin was like porcelain, all pale and creamy. They wouldn’t move the sheet below her chin. Chrissie had wanted to hold her hand, to tell her daughter one last time just how loved she was, while stroking her beautiful face. She wanted to lean in to give her a final parting hug and one soft sweet kiss but was told it wasn’t possible. She had suffered terrible chest injuries they had said so couldn’t remove the white sheet that covered her body.
Chrissie had left the room at that point, unable to hear anything else. She just wanted to curl up and go to sleep for a hundred years, leave it all behind her. But that is impossible.
She has to get up every morning and relive it. Every single day is another painful blow, another reminder of what she has lost. How much she has lost. All of her children. All gone. She sometimes wonders what she did to deserve such a terrible fate but then reminds herself that lots of people suffer trauma like hers. There’s a group she can attend, for people who have been through similar things. Maybe at some point she will consider it but she’s not sure she’s ready for such public displays of raw emotion just yet.
Ralph won’t go. The garden is his sanctuary. He’s out there every day, snipping at flowers, deadheading roses, mowing a lawn that doesn’t need mowing, digging and tidying flowerbeds that don’t need tidying. That’s how he copes with it, but Chrissie needs something else. She doesn’t know what that something else is but is hoping that it will present itself to her soon enough.