The Nowhere Girl: A completely gripping and emotional page turner
Page 13
The anxiety and depression came rushing back and things that had once been simple became impossible. How do you do the laundry so the clothes don’t trade their colours? How do you ask the butcher for the piece of meat you want? How do you pay an electricity bill or speak to the bank about needing time to pay the mortgage? Adam was going to sort out life insurance, he really was. But it was too late. Time skips along and the future seems far away.
She dragged herself through mud every day, trying to make things work, but it was too hard.
Only sleep was easy, only that.
People checked up on them for a week or two, but then everyone had lives to get back to. She thought about calling her parents but seven years of silence separated them. It seemed too great a distance.
And then he started popping round: ‘Just because Adam was a mate and I can see you’re struggling.’
And she was struggling. Her existence was horrible and barren with only the never-ending demands of a small child for company.
She just didn’t realise how truly awful things could get.
She hadn’t gone looking for him. She hadn’t gone looking for anyone. He was a friend of Adam’s, he’d said. He saw her at the funeral, told her he was so sorry for her and her poor daughter. Margaret had thanked him and then he had blended into the crowd at the wake.
She hadn’t expected him to turn up on her doorstep bearing gifts, offering help, bringing the horrible truth of what she deserved, what she really deserved from her life now that Adam, the man who had always been too good for her, was gone.
She wipes at stray tears. ‘Oh, Adam… I miss you,’ she whispers. Then she closes her eyes again.
He turns over and throws a heavy arm across her body, trapping her. He smells but she’s sure she smells as well. She thinks about that first night, the night she let him in, accepted his presence in her home. Her heart races, her mind twirls and she tortures herself with her mistakes.
She hadn’t expected to see him ever again but then one night he turned up on the doorstep, clutching a giant meal of fish and chips. Little Alice had come into the room to wake her although, in truth, the scent had already alerted her to something different. She hadn’t been eating much. She hadn’t been doing much of anything except drifting through the hours, half asleep, waiting for every painful day to be over.
Alice had opened the bedroom door and sidled up to the bed. ‘There’s a man here, Mum.’
‘What man? What are you talking about?’ The tangy vinegar smell and the salt in the air was making her salivate, but she knew there was no food in the house. There hadn’t been for days.
‘Vernon, he gave me a lift to school today and he’s brought fish and chips for dinner. He was Dad’s friend.’
A good mother, a normal mother, a mother worth anything would have seen that as a problem. The Margaret before Adam’s death would have leapt out of bed and chased the man away. But Margaret after Adam’s death was roiling in pain as soon as she opened her eyes. Margaret after Adam’s death couldn’t defend and protect her child, couldn’t even protect herself. Inside Margaret had long disappeared by then, failing to warn her of the signs.
It was the smell of the fish that got her up, and then once she was dressed and sitting at the table, he poured her a vodka and soda, and for the first time in months, she felt something other than the agonising pain at losing her beloved husband.
There was no attraction, at least not on her side. His blue eyes were too small and his gut hung over his belt, but she invited him back again after that. She liked that he always brought a bottle of vodka, loved the floating, disembodied feeling she got after a few shots. She invited him back again and again, chasing that feeling.
Alice had watched him, suspicious and aloof, every time he came round. She seemed to know that he was a bad idea.
When the money in her account dried up, Margaret knew she needed a job or welfare. She needed something to keep her and her child fed, to keep the vodka coming in. The mortgage was two months behind and the electricity bills were smothered in red. The phone rang with debt collectors. It had only been four months since Adam died but Vernon was round every day by then, a constant presence in the house so filled with grief.
‘I’ll sort the mortgage and the bills, don’t worry. Adam would have done it for my woman. I know he would. You just rest and recover. You’ve had a terrible shock,’ he would say.
She’d resisted letting him inside her until then, kept him satisfied with groping on the couch and blowjobs when her daughter was asleep, but she understood she was making a deal. She hadn’t planned on falling in love ever again anyway – her heart wasn’t capable – and he was nice to Alice.
He took care of them. He let her lie in bed all day, just needing her at night, and even though it was too soon for her after Adam’s soft kisses and gentle touch, at least she didn’t have to do much.
Every night she vowed to do better the next morning, to get up and find a job and start running her own life so she didn’t need him anymore, but when she opened her eyes to the spring sunshine, the black slobbering dog of depression that had been chained away for years broke free and attacked her, time and time again. ‘Who would hire you?’ it growled. ‘You’re a stupid girl with no education. The only thing you’ve ever done is deliver newspapers and have a baby and you’re a crap mother as well. You’ve got nothing to offer the world. Close your eyes and let someone else run your life; you’re incapable of doing it yourself, loser. What kind of a woman sleeps with someone so soon after her husband has died? What kind of a mother can’t get herself out of bed to do the washing? It’s been months, why can’t you get yourself together? You’re useless. You never deserved Adam. You’re lucky to even have Vernon or you and Alice would be out on the street. You’re a waste of space.’
She never ran out of terrible things to say to herself. She never ran out of those words.
‘How about I move in with you two, take care of everything so you don’t have to?’ he suggested one night as they sat on the couch staring at the television. Margaret hadn’t really been watching. She had been thinking about the way he smelled, a little like manure because of the smoking. Adam had used a spicy aftershave with a hint of sweetness, a smell that Margaret could still find in the bottle hidden in her side table. One sniff and he was next to her again, telling her about the new house he was wiring, planting gentle kisses on her lips that she never got enough of.
‘Um,’ she said because she didn’t want him to move in. In truth, she didn’t want him anywhere near her.
‘Think about it, Margaret. You’re still not yourself, and the kid and I get along all right. You can take all the time you need, you know, just to recover. I don’t ask for much, do I?’
She shook her head because he didn’t even need her to talk to him. Not because he understood her difficulty at finding the right words, not because he was able to finish her sentences for her, but because she suspected that he didn’t really care what she thought.
‘How about we give it a go and then if it’s not working out, we can part?’
‘Okay,’ she said when the words no and I don’t want that and please go reverberated in her head. She was so hideously weak.
Alice didn’t like finding him in the kitchen in the morning. She was too young to truly understand but even she knew that her dad could not be replaced by Vernon.
‘I’ll take you to school from now on,’ he told Alice, ‘give your mum a chance to rest.’
And Margaret had been truly grateful for that. That and the endless bottles of vodka he brought home, so they could drink together and laugh about nothing.
He was an electrician, like Adam had been, but he wasn’t at all like Adam. Not even close.
Sixteen
Now
Alice
* * *
There is no one at the front desk of the Green Gate Home. But I can hear someone shouting and I assume that staff are trying to calm whoever it is down.
I pull off my coat, hot in the overheated space after the fresh air outside. I make my way down the corridor, and as the shouting gets louder, I realise, with a panic, that it’s coming from my mother’s room. I quicken my pace. The door is open and Anika is standing at the computer, tapping frantically at the keys as another young nurse, Isla, holds onto my mother’s arms. She keeps trying to hit Anika, her face red with fury.
‘You leave that alone!’ she’s shouting. ‘I know what you did. I know what you did.’
The words hold me frozen at the entrance to the room, my heart racing inhumanly fast. I feel sick. ‘Alice,’ says Anika, turning and seeing me. ‘I don’t know… The computer, it must be broken, can you help? Can you find the aquarium video?’
I step forward into the room and Anika moves off to try and help Isla hold my mother. I tap quickly at the keys, realising that the computer has somehow disconnected itself from the internet again. As I reconnect it, a Gmail account pops up and then quickly disappears. I shake my head. My mother doesn’t have an email account. ‘I know what you did,’ she yells, sending a shiver right through me, and then she starts to cry. It’s a terrible sound, more a wail than a cry, a howl that rips from her body. I find the video and have to click on it twice before it begins because my hands are shaking so much.
Finally, the soothing music plays and the screen is filled with a turtle swimming lazily through deep blue water as a shoal of clownfish swim past.
‘See, Margaret,’ says Isla, her voice deep and strong, ‘see, there they are, look at the fish.’
My mother turns her head, instantly transfixed by the screen. Her body sags and her face goes blank as Anika and Isla lower her carefully back into her chair.
‘What happened?’ I ask as she stares at the screen.
‘I don’t know,’ says Anika.
‘I brought in her lunch and she told me that Vernon had been to visit with Lilly.’
I swallow quickly. ‘Why would she say that?’
‘She says he’s visiting all the time,’ replies Anika. ‘Sometimes she introduces him to me. I play along because it makes her happy. Today I nodded and said, “That’s nice,” and she said, “You don’t believe me, do you?” I thought the question meant she was lucid so I said, “Well, you know you haven’t had any visitors today, Margaret.” And she started shouting, saying that I had made Vernon leave and that I had taken Lilly. Then she told me Lilly was dead because of what I did. Do you have any idea what she’s talking about?’
I shake my head. I feel what I can only describe as little electric shocks through my whole body.
‘Who’s Lilly, Alice, do you know?’
‘I… She’s…’ The words won’t come out. I try so hard not to think her name. I slump onto the bed, my legs jelly, unable to hold me up.
‘She was my sister,’ I say finally.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know,’ replies Anika.
‘I’ll just be at the front,’ Isla whispers and she leaves the room after giving my shoulder a quick squeeze. The kind gesture makes me want to weep.
I have no idea why this is happening. First the emails and then the message from the woman about my blog. It’s been so many years since anyone has spoken Lilly’s name out loud, so many years that sometimes I can almost forget that I had a little sister, that there was someone I loved more than anything in the world. ‘She died when she was very young,’ I tell Anika. ‘Mum hasn’t spoken about her for years and years. I assumed she had forgotten about her. She died in a car accident.’
I realise it’s the first time I have said the words aloud to anyone but myself. I wrote them to Molly Khan and now I have said them aloud and it feels like I am right back there, like I am sitting in front of the television, looking at the horrifying result of the choice I made. My past has its claws dug into me and it won’t let go.
I have mourned her every day for over thirty years. Little Lilly. My darling little Lilly. My tongue darts in and out of the space, in and out of the space. Your fault, your fault.
Alice made a mistake. Alice is to blame. Alice should be punished.
‘I don’t think it’s possible to forget about the children we have,’ says Anika, dragging me back into the room and forcing me to look at my transfixed mother.
She is absorbed by the fish and the music, her mouth open slightly, a trail of drool running down her chin.
‘You don’t know what kind of mother she was,’ I say in a quiet voice, and then I get up and leave. I need to be outside, away from the smell and the stale heated air. I feel Anika’s silent judgement burn into my back. I can’t do this today. I can’t think about this anymore. I wish there was a pill you could take to erase your childhood. I wish there was a pill for erasing your guilt.
In the car, I take a quick look at my phone. I feel exhausted, drained and weary beyond belief. My heart hammers in my chest as I see there is another email. I click on it, fingers trembling.
I know what you did. You thought you got away with it but I know what you did.
I throw my phone on the passenger seat, the trembling taking over my whole body. I need to tell Jack, maybe bring in the police. The message on my blog must be connected to these emails.
It’s all bringing back the past. I hate having to think about him, about what my mother was like and about Lilly. I hate thinking about what I did. All I can remember is the alcoholic, negligent shell my mother became. The fact that she managed to produce lovely Lilly with her big brown eyes and gorgeous smile amazed me. She never understood what was going on in her home and I never wanted her to be able to. The older she got the more she would have seen and heard and the more damaged she would have become. But she was my sister and I adored her. The tears that are always just below the surface appear as I mourn my little sister. The child who never really had a chance.
Alice’s fault. Alice’s fault. All Alice’s fault.
The memories bring only pain and here I am, sitting in my car, and the past is back to torture me.
Someone knows what I did.
I think about the day I finally left home when I was sixteen. I left on the day of my sixteenth birthday. I thought I could leave it behind me finally, that I could just put everything that had happened somewhere in a metaphorical box in my mind, lock it up and hide the key.
When I was twelve, Vernon helped my mother to get the single mother’s pension. He was working less and less by then, preferring to join my mother in her drinking when he wasn’t at the pub.
‘May as well earn your keep,’ he told me as he blew a foul plume of cigarette smoke towards me. He had grown fatter with each passing year, and his enormous gut hung over his belt. He suffered from eczema, which made his skin pink and shiny. Even on the coldest day his grotesque body was covered in sweat. He had trouble moving quickly, but no trouble swinging his fists and using his body to hold me down.
He liked to stand in my way if he saw me, forcing me to try and move around him, giving him a chance to grab my breasts. ‘I’m going to tell,’ I shouted once or twice.
‘Who are you going to tell, Alice? Cause if you tell on me, I can tell on you, can’t I?’
The blood in my veins ran on hatred for him. I wished him dead every day but he just kept going.
When I was fifteen, he disappeared. Usually it was just for a few days but this time he didn’t come back. Not for months.
The vodka ran out quickly.
‘Will you get some money from the bank for me and get me some more?’ my mother pleaded with me.
‘No,’ I said, every day. ‘No, no, no.’
She lay in the bathroom, suffering through withdrawal, her skin white with a layer of sheen, her body unable to hold down any food. I wanted to feel sorry for her but instead I just felt distant.
‘I’m dying here,’ she said. ‘Do you want me to die?’
‘I have school,’ I replied. I was cruel, so cruel, but I had been broken. I had been abused, neglected and hurt, and I needed to shut myself down so I could get through every day without thinking about killing myself.
I did bring her water as she lay on the bathroom floor, and when she stopped throwing up, I brought her some thin tinned soup. She stopped asking for the vodka after a week. ‘Thank you, love,’ she said when I helped her into the shower. ‘You’re a good girl.’
She was pale and so horribly thin that the bones of her wrists seemed only moments away from poking right through her skin. ‘I think I’ll be okay now,’ she said to me finally. ‘I won’t need it anymore,’ and regardless of how I had hardened my heart, of how I cautioned myself not to believe her, I still couldn’t help the hope that filled me.
‘I’ll get stronger and then you and I can leave and find somewhere else to live. I’ll get a job and I’ll make more money and I’ll give you everything you want.’
‘I just want you, Mum,’ I said. And Lilly, I wanted Lilly, but she was long gone by then. Lilly was a memory of big brown eyes and a dimpled smile and she was a memory of a mistake I had made. A mistake that cost her her life. I couldn’t have Lilly but maybe I could have my mother. I would take what I could get. A sober, awake mother seemed too much to hope for but I couldn’t help myself. Abused children never really grow out of wanting, needing the love and affection of a parent.
At school, I had made a friend. My first real friend. Judy was quiet and shy and sat in the library with me at lunch. Her mother overpacked her lunch, and Judy was happy to share if I had nothing to eat, which was most days.