by Lucy Dawson
I feel my cheeks flame with guilt as she nails it, instantly – and I know she sees.
‘Of course I asked him not to buy this place,’ she retorts, ‘but really, Eve, these days, do I look like the kind of woman who is prepared to beg?’
‘Does Timothy know Izzie was pregnant?’ I ask suddenly. ‘I don’t understand why she didn’t tell him rather than you? That doesn’t make sense. She was in love with him. They were seeing each other.’
‘Staying the night at your house on one occasion over that summer, to my knowledge, does not a couple make,’ she says crisply. ‘I told you, he’d left for university. He’d ended whatever “it” was with her. Isobel was very specific that she did not want him to know because it would disrupt his studies. She was worried he might drop out under some misguided sense of obligation to her.’ She shrugs. ‘I’ll admit, I was slightly suspicious myself. I wondered if perhaps it was Adam Owen’s child instead. In fact I had my friend perform a paternity test that Monday, while we were at her clinic, but the subsequent results took a little while to come back. I didn’t want to unnecessarily delay any action while we were waiting, so it seemed sensible to go to the clinic in Chester anyway, once it was clear she actually was pregnant.’
‘“Unnecessarily delay?”’ I seize on that. ‘You didn’t want to risk Izzie changing her mind and keeping the baby, you mean.’
‘In any case, there was a DNA match with a sample of Timothy’s hair.’ She smoothly ignores that. ‘So Izzie was telling the truth. Do you think that was easy for me – something I’ve found comfortable to keep from my son? But I gave her my word.’
I give a strange, half laugh of disbelief. Yes, Susannah. It would have been all too easy for you. My poor, poor Isobel. She could not have chosen a more dangerous confidante, but neither was she aware why. Yet again, this is all my fault.
As if reading my mind, Susannah says: ‘Men have affairs, Eve. It happens. Usually, men like Tony have them with very bright, aggressive young female barristers who they then set up in their London flat – and eventually marry. It’s not often someone like you, who looks like the wife at home.’
I try very hard not to say anything. I won’t give her the satisfaction.
‘Although, you know, ending it with him was the smartest thing you ever did.’ She considers. ‘I shouldn’t have interfered and asked you to step back – I should have let him tire of you on his own as you lost your looks, because he would have done. Instead, in his mind, it seems you’ve become the one that got away. Irritatingly.’
‘I didn’t do it for your sake,’ I blurt, truthfully but unnecessarily, knowing it will hurt her. ‘I ended it for Isobel, because I knew it would be too painful for her to have to be around Timothy all the time if Antony and I became a proper couple, so don’t beat yourself up that your “request” had anything to do with it at all. It didn’t. You were irrelevant. You were not my friend. I gave you no thought.’
That bit is actually not true. The evening she came to Fox Cottage and begged me to sever contact with her husband and end our affair, I cried after she left. I was so ashamed of what I’d done and the hurt Antony and I had caused. I remember it very clearly. I can see him now, lying in my bed on the nights he secretly crept to Fox Cottage under the cover of darkness when Susannah was away and Isobel was asleep. I’d wake in the morning to find him gone.
Can that ever really be love? I know I thought it was at the time.
‘Well, delightful though this catch-up has been,’ Susannah cuts through my thoughts, ‘I really did just want the opportunity to say that I don’t want anyone to misinterpret Timothy’s return for anything it isn’t. He has a very happy relationship with Claire; he’s keen to undertake a large renovation project. That’s all this is.’
‘I don’t want my child anywhere near yours either.’
‘Well then,’ she says smoothly. ‘You see? We have that in common too.’ She holds out a hand.
‘I’m not going to shake on it!’ I look at her in disbelief. ‘I’m not making a plan with you, or agreeing to anything behind anyone’s back. All I’m prepared to do is exactly what I’ve done all her life: protect my daughter from harm.’
‘I mean I want the key,’ she says softly. ‘You don’t live here any more. Get out.’
I just about manage to keep my head held up high. ‘I have some last few bits in the kitchen to gather up. Then I’ll leave.’ I roll up my sleeves.
Susannah stares at the bruises on my wrists and her mouth falls open. They are fairly spectacular colours: deep purple with yellow patches bleeding into black. Stick that in your ‘there’s nothing wrong with Isobel and you imagine it all’ pipe and smoke it. I let her look and then I roll them back down.
‘I’ll just get them now,’ I say quietly, and she nods, finally, mercifully, lost for words.
Nine
Eve
Propelled by anger, guilt and grief for what Izzie has suffered, once I arrive at the new house and have put away some shopping – breakfast bits for the morning to see us through – I am a whirlwind, channelling my fury into organising Isobel’s new bedroom as soon as the removal men have placed the big items in the room for me. I am determined to have everything looking as nice as possible for her. I don’t just make the bed: the rug goes down, her curtains go up, I open the doll’s house to restack the furniture that toppled in transit. The vast assortment of cuddly toys return to sitting on the shelves that I stack with her books; her chest of drawers goes over by the far wall so I can plug in her lamp. It’s a bit squashed next to the built-in wardrobe, but it just about works. By the time I’m finished, it is almost a complete replica layout of her old room. It’s what swung buying this house for me. I knew I’d never find something else which had a top floor like this: a self-contained space accessed by one flight of stairs with a door at the top that can be safely shut, but that leads into the light, comparatively large space in the eaves – complete with two skylights and an en-suite shower. I will do whatever it takes to make sure she is happy here.
Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy. The bitch. I sit back on my heels and look around me at the finished room. How bloody dare Susannah Vaughan! As if she has the slightest understanding of the complexities of Izzie’s very real needs. To suggest that I want Izzie’s vulnerability and dependence on me to continue – that I cause it?
I am devastated by what she has said, in fact. Every single day, I watch my daughter’s last chances to have a normal life and a family of her own slip further away and it breaks my heart. She is now thirty-four and living no different a life than she was ten years ago. She can’t cope with more than a part-time/menial job, she dresses like a child, she has no friends, she becomes anxious in crowded spaces, she’s hopeless with the money that I provide her with, she likes colouring and collects snow globes. She needs me.
I am certain that Paul Jones triggered serious mental health issues that day before Christmas: post-traumatic stress, OCD, depression, bipolar, borderline personality disorder… just some of the suggestions made by various doctors, psychiatrists and counsellors over the years. Pretty much a different diagnosis each time we see someone new, in fact, but only my worst nightmare is constant: the thought of something happening to me and Izzie being left to cope, bewildered and alone.
And Susannah thinks I want this to continue? Yes, sometimes Izzie plays up her ‘weaknesses’. She’s faked blackouts in the past when she’s been stressed and occasionally when she’s had her night terrors. I don’t see how she can possibly not remember them the following morning – they are so violent, it’s as if she truly is wrestling the devil himself – but there are no physiological explanations for any of these symptoms.
I was worried recently after a particularly upsetting night that she might have a brain tumour; she was writhing around the bed, eyes wide open and shouting as if she was in physical pain. They did scan her brain for me – eventually – but they found nothing. The new, much kinder GP Izzie was transferred to after
I made the complaint about the way the previous one spoke to us, suggested it might be that Isobel constructs these ‘symptoms’ because she simply doesn’t feel worthy of attention otherwise. While, sadly, I think there is a grain of truth in that, it’s very different from saying the problems are something Isobel can control, as Susannah suggests. Isobel needs tolerance and understanding – not being told to pull herself together. If only treating mental illness were that easy.
And in any case, the utter hypocrisy of Susannah saying all of that to me after what she put Izzie through – because she didn’t think her ‘mentally equipped’ for motherhood? She encouraged Izzie to undergo an invasive procedure, just to confirm it was Timothy’s baby, then have an abortion? What kind of woman does that? She is a monster. She has hurt my child.
I am shaking with anger as I fix a lock to the outside of Izzie’s new bedroom door. All of my old feelings towards the Vaughans have come alive again and are writhing around within my stomach like snakes. While I find I hate Susannah all over again, this time it’s with an entirely fresh ferocity.
I give the screws one last vicious twist, and realise it’s almost six o’clock. Where are Adam and Izzie? I finish up and take the tools downstairs, temporarily shoving the box in the cupboard under the stairs until I can think of somewhere better for it. I need to try and focus on the job in hand, and not on what Susannah has told me. I look around, exhausted. There are boxes everywhere. Perhaps once Isobel is asleep later I can unpack the kitchen at least. Which reminds me, I have no idea where I have packed the baby monitor. Unlike Fox Cottage, where I didn’t always switch it on, I won’t be able to hear a thing without it if she calls me when she’s at the top of this house. Luckily, I find it in one of the kitchen containers and plug it in on the side to charge up. I also unpack and wash three plates, glasses, cutlery and find the ketchup, ready for the fish and chips that Adam texted to say he would pick up on their way back through.
I’m just deciding that I probably have enough time to make my own bed, if I’m quick – and I must turn down the new heating, it’s subtropical in here, I’m not used to somewhere so heat efficient – when I hear the loud ring of my mobile phone on the table in the hall. I walk out quickly and see that it’s Adam calling. I don’t even get the chance to say my determined bright and cheerful ‘Hello!’ before his frightened voice asks: ‘Is she with you?’
It’s like a violin bow scratchily sliding down the strings. ‘What do you mean, is she with me? I thought she was with you.’
‘She was! I stopped to get the fish and chips. It was busy in there and she was tired, so I left her in the van… but it was all right, I could see her from where I was. They asked me what I wanted – I gave them the order and paid – then I looked back and she was gone!’
I instantly close my eyes and put my hand to my head as I try to contain the thoughts and not go blank with panic.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he gabbles. ‘I should have taken her in, but she was so relaxed, we’d had such a great day. I didn’t think it would be a problem.’
‘It’s OK,’ I say, trying to cut through the white noise of his apology. ‘She wouldn’t come here. She’ll have gone to Fox Cottage. Damn it!’ I cannot help exclaiming in frustration as I hear Susannah’s horrible we’re not going to have any scenes comment from earlier. ‘When did this happen?’
‘Literally just now. I’m so sorry, Eve.’
‘It’s OK,’ I say, although it isn’t. ‘She’ll be walking and she’ll go through the churchyard.’
‘Do you want me to go on foot after her?’ He sounds confused.
‘No, drive straight to the house. We must get there before she does.’
There is a reproachful silence on the end of the phone.
‘Yes, all right, I know!’ I explode. ‘You were right – I should have told her about Timothy sooner, but you know I wanted to wait until we’d got her out of that house. I was going to do it tonight. Let’s just go, shall we? I’ll meet you there.’
I hang up before he has the chance to say anything more, shove the phone into my back pocket and run out into the hall. Where are the keys to the new house? I glance around wildly, lifting up boxes and my bag before finding them dumped in the corner of the hall by the small cardboard box of pointless moving-in ‘essentials’ left by the developer. And where are the car keys?
Perhaps I should just run round there rather than waste more time looking for them? I dither in panic, lifting up a pile of coats, yanking open the drawer in the sideboard, rummaging through my handbag, but they are nowhere to be seen. I make a snap decision to go on foot and throw open the front door, stepping out into the now-icy February air.
I brace myself as the cold hits me and slam the door shut, before hurrying down the small drive. It would be quicker to cut across the field – but I’m not risking tripping on uneven earth in the dark. I’m better off on the pavement, and begin the five-minute walk from our development; the road tracing round in a large loop, before cutting back onto the main street, on which Fox Cottage sits.
I am panting heavily by the time I arrive at the front door, too old and unfit for this. I’m about to knock, when common sense prevails and I pause to quickly glance around the front of the house first for any sign of her. The streetlight opposite has always been pathetic; all I can see are shadows and dark corners. The Volvo I remember from Claire’s viewing is there, so they are in – but the garage door is also unlatched and slightly open, as if they had a go at parking within it earlier and gave up, because the entrance is so narrow. It wasn’t made for modern-day vehicles. I stride over and throw the metal door wide, letting in as much orange light as possible. The vast, unoiled hinges give their usual yawning groan of resistance, but I couldn’t care less about the noise.
‘Izzie?’ I stand in the doorway. ‘Darling, are you there? Please can you come out if you are? I can’t really see you.’ I peer into the dark, scanning the space carefully, but there are just three bikes, a scooter, a child’s easel, a large fridge and what seems to be a dresser stacked on the side. No Izzie, crouching down, knees hugged to her chest.
‘Can I help you?’ says a voice behind me, making me jump, and I swing round to see Timothy Vaughan standing about five paces away from me, looking frightened. Claire Waters stands on the doorstep, her arms folded over her chest.
‘Mrs Parkes?’ Timothy says in confusion, and we both blink as Claire flicks on the outside light, illuminating our faces properly. ‘It is you! Hello.’
He instinctively offers me his hand. That’s what private education buys. Manners regardless of circumstances. Bravo them. I stare at him. He hasn’t changed a bit. Just an older version of the charming teenage boy my daughter spent one perfect, enchanted summer with. The last time – pretty much the only time – she was truly happy.
It’s a curious thing when you can see exactly what your child finds attractive in another. History repeating itself. He has exactly Antony’s height, dark colouring and that direct and confident stare. His brown, slightly unruly hair is swept back and he’s deliberately left slight stubble on his jaw, I suspect, to prevent himself looking too boyish. Susannah’s striking eyes look back at me, only a deeper, warmer blue. He’s terribly pretty but I know it doesn’t explain the hold he has over Isobel. That’s down to an entire life being built on a ten-second moment where one child protected another and she bound her soul to his forever in return. The power of it astonishes me every single time.
‘Mrs Parkes? Did you forget something?’
‘Yes, my daughter, apparently.’ I give a strained, odd laugh and notice, out of the corner of my eye, Claire frown and tighten her arms at the cold. ‘What I mean to say is, Isobel has gone missing.’
‘Oh,’ he says, confused. ‘I see.’
‘I wonder if I might—’ I begin but the noise of Adam’s van suddenly pulling up on the forecourt alongside us drowns me out. Adam climbs out, and Timothy looks at him in astonishment.
‘God! Hi there! How
are you? Wow! It’s been a while.’
‘Welcome home,’ Adam says flatly. ‘Hello,’ he gives a small wave to Claire, ‘I’m Adam.’
‘Adam and I knew each other years ago,’ Timothy explains to her, over his shoulder. ‘Before I—’
‘Timothy,’ I say pointedly, ‘I’m sorry to interrupt, but I really do need to find Isobel. Do you think I might check in your garden, round the back?’
His eyebrows shoot up in surprise, but he’s too polite to refuse. ‘Yes, of course. Can I help at all? Do you need a torch? Claire, have we got a torch?’
‘Um.’ She appears just as thrown. I might have written her off as useless as him, but I shan’t make that mistake again. ‘In a box somewhere, but…’
‘Please don’t worry.’ I hold up a hand. ‘We can manage. She hasn’t – knocked on the door?’
Timothy shakes his head. ‘We haven’t heard a thing, but then we had the radio on while we unpacked in the kitchen. Our daughter isn’t here tonight, she’s with my parents, so the music was louder than usual.’ He looks at Claire. ‘You didn’t hear anything?’
‘I’m sorry to say I haven’t seen any sign of anyone.’ She looks at me oddly as she says that but I turn away. I simply don’t have time for her right now. After what she’s done and her duplicitous part in all of this, I won’t ever have time for her again.
‘We’ll just take a look around the back then if you don’t mind?’ I address Timothy, ignoring Claire completely. An old car passes by us, heading out of town and backfires suddenly as it reaches the corner. All three of us leap in the air at the bang and Adam instinctively steps closer to me, reaching a hand to my arm.
‘Anyway, please, carry on…’ Tim says faintly as the sound dies away, gesturing towards the white metal gate.
When I first moved to the country I was fascinated by how dark the nights were, but actually, the moon is so bright tonight that as Adam clanks the gate shut behind us, I can make out the outlines of the familiar trees and shrubs quite easily, until Adam switches the torch on his mobile and they all vanish again as my eyes readjust.