‘We let her down if she couldn’t tell us.’
There’s something about the way he regards me that makes me question whether he believes I was the one who truly let her down, not him. I’m the mother. I’m the one who should double up as the ‘friend’ for ‘girl troubles’. This was my domain and she didn’t tell me.
‘We failed her.’
He’s right: I failed her.
My personality disorder can make social clues tricky to decipher, but after almost eighteen years of living with Charles, I have a good read on his subtle put-downs. His long, hard stare tells me everything I need to know.
Then, with a sudden change of heart, he reaches across the table to take my hand. Perhaps the expression on my face revealed my thoughts and he felt guilty. ‘But we won’t fail her again. We have one last chance to do right by her. And we will.’
* * *
On the day Grace died, I was annoyed that she was late home from school. Whenever she was meeting a friend, I almost always got a text message – Getting food with Alicia. Back by eleven! – followed by a long line of smiley faces. On the day she died, I didn’t get any texts. I phoned her friends and she wasn’t with them. I called Charles and he said she’d probably gone into the village for a hot chocolate. Or maybe she’d lost her phone.
It wasn’t until she didn’t come home that night that fear set in. It was the first time I’d felt real fear since I was six years old and I’d smashed my mum’s favourite china doll. She’d loved that thing more than me. When she found out, she didn’t speak to me for a week – and she didn’t make me any food either. I lived on toast and butter because the toaster was all I could use.
None of that – not the fear that kept me awake the night she didn’t come home, or the week-long silence at my mother’s house – compared to the fear Grace must’ve felt when she was in the dirt at the bottom of the quarry. I stand above it now, staring down into the void, trying to experience what she must have felt. Putting myself in another person’s shoes is never easy for me, but when I close my eyes I can picture my fingers deep in the crevices of the rocky wall, trying to pull myself up out of the hole I’d fallen into. My throat aches from screaming. My white-blonde hair sticks to my forehead.
I walk away from the Suicide Spot with the stench of rot lingering in my nostrils. The rain-drenched earth is slippery as I return to the Land Rover. I push my damp hair away from my eyes as I speed away, chills running through my arms and legs, a dull ache in my abdomen.
The Suicide Spot. A man threw himself over the edge some months ago. He was there a week. Alone. Dead. Body frozen from the cold weather. Even if Grace was suicidal, why would she choose a place like that, knowing that she might not be found right away? Why would she want us to see her battered, bruised body? Why did she leave us with nothing except for that unemotional note? With parts of it scribbled out rather than written again to at least make it neat.
I’m shaking my head as I drive back to the road. What I’m supposed to be doing is going to the florist to choose the flowers for the service while Charles calls his aunt, his one remaining living relative. What I’m actually about to do is pay a visit to another person who may or may not have hurt my daughter, because the longer I leave it, the easier it is to bury the truth.
None of Grace’s friends have called the house, only their parents. That makes a lot of sense. Dealing with grieving parents is an adult’s job. But it means that I haven’t spoken to any of the people who saw Grace most often – her friends who sat next to her in class, went to the library with her and ate lunch with her at the canteen. It’s the students in Lady Margaret’s sixth form I should be talking to, and the first teenager I’m going to see is Ethan Hancock, Grace’s boyfriend.
I take the road back down to Ash Dale village, chasing the Wye, stopping for the midday cattle movement between the upper and lower fields of the Buckland Farm. David, the owner, leaves his farmhand to it and comes over to the car, leaning on the door when I wind the window open.
‘How are you holding up?’ he asks.
‘I’m up, I suppose,’ I reply.
‘She was a lovely girl. Carol always said how nice she was. If you need anything, pop on over. Carol will have food and a cuppa if you want one.’ He tips his flat cap and goes on his way.
The word is spreading around the village. David slaps one of the dairy cows on its backside, the border collie nipping at his heels, and my foot hovers over the accelerator, desperate to get away from them all. I wind the window back up, block out the scent of cow dung and lean back against the headrest.
That’s what they’ll all say to me, words that don’t mean a thing. Lovely. Nice. Bright. Smashing. Wonderful. Christ, that’s how Grace will be remembered. How long will it take them to forget her?
The last of the cows shits out a long spray of brown liquid as it waddles through the five-bar gate to the next field, making its slow way down to the milking barn. David and his farmhand speed off in the Land Rover, the collie running alongside the cows, barking joyfully.
Further into the village, I pass the church and notice flowers placed on the entrance steps. Are those for Grace? No one has placed flowers at the quarry. If she had died in a car accident, there would be supermarket bouquets taped to lamp posts, but this is a ‘suicide’. Maybe no one wants to sully themselves by heading to the spot where a girl threw herself over the edge. Maybe they’re praying for her unfortunate soul at the church instead.
Because I’ve never been to Ethan Hancock’s home before, I need to keep one eye on the satnav as I make my way through Ash Dale and out towards Bakewell. His house is five minutes outside of the village on a road called Ivy Lane. I never quite know what to expect when driving around this part of the countryside: sometimes the roads are wide, busy and taken over by tourists towing their caravans; other times they are narrow dirt tracks leading between farm estates. This one is somewhere in-between, on a flat stretch outside the village containing identical semi-detached properties with neat front gardens.
I pull up next to number fifteen. This house is where Grace spent many an evening or Saturday with another family, and yet this is the first time I’ve been here. As far as I know, Grace and Ethan had been seeing each other for around three months. I have spoken to Ethan’s mother, Louise, on the phone, but I’d never noticed her at the school gates when Grace was younger. This will be our first face-to-face conversation.
The house is very regular, with a rose bush in the front and a Vauxhall on the drive. The first time I saw Ethan, I figured that Grace could do better, and the sight of this house isn’t convincing me otherwise. I press the doorbell and wait. Am I about to meet the boy who could’ve been my son-in-law? If Grace hadn’t died, would she and Ethan have married to raise their baby together? As I stand and wait, that familiar anger builds up again. What will he be like, the boy who impregnated my daughter? The boy who possibly killed her, too.
Eight
When the door opens, the woman behind it greets me with an expression of pure horror. ‘Mrs Cavanaugh. I didn’t… I mean… I was devastated to hear about Grace.’ She blinks at me, her pale face in shock.
‘I’m intruding, aren’t I?’ It’s clear that Ethan’s mother wasn’t prepared for dealing with a grieving parent today. ‘It’s Louise, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I mean, yes, it’s Louise, but you aren’t intruding at all. Come in.’
I’ve never seen a picture of Louise before, but it doesn’t surprise me that she recognises my face. Even before Grace didn’t come home from school she would have seen pictures of us at some point. Charles and I feature on the display boards at the school as donors, as well as appearing in the pages of magazines like Tatler when we organise charity functions in Ash Dale and London. I should probably recognise Louise from those days of collecting Grace at the school gates, before she started catching the bus or meeting friends to walk home, but the truth is she’s not noticeable to me. She has one of those mousy,
small-featured faces that all blend in with each other.
She leads me through a very beige hallway to an even more beige lounge. A sign on the wall tells me to ‘Live, Laugh, Love’. I desperately want to give Louise the name of my interior designer. But that would be inappropriate and mean. That’s not the kind of behaviour I would set as an example for my daughter.
‘Tea?’
Louise catches me as I’m lowering my head and sighing, in contemplation of the choices I made when Grace was alive. Do I still need to live by example? Has that ended now? Do I stop trying to be a better person?
‘Tea would be lovely.’
Louise’s eyes have widened a little. She sees a broken woman before her and she doesn’t know how to act. I’m not sure I blame her for that; I know I wouldn’t want someone like me turning up on the doorstep.
‘I won’t be a moment,’ she says, brightening her smile to cover up the awkwardness. ‘Make yourself at home.’
The deep cushions of the sofa are perfect for making myself at home. While cupboard doors open and a kettle boils, the fat family cat wanders in and sits itself down on a very hairy armchair. Both cats and teenagers claim their own spots in the family home, which makes me consider moving Grace’s chair to another room when I get home. The thought of sitting in our family room staring at an empty chair makes my breath catch in my throat.
‘Would you like milk?’ Louise bustles into the room with a tray. ‘Oh, I see you’ve met Marmaduke. That’s his chair – he always sits there.’
‘Milk is good, thank you.’
She spills a drop as she pours, mumbling to herself as she cleans it up. I take the mug and place it on a coaster on the coffee table.
‘I was just distraught to hear about Grace,’ she says at last. There’s a wobble in her voice, a catch of emotion. ‘She spent some time here with Ethan over the last few months. She was a lovely girl and I, well, all of us, can’t believe it. Ethan has been very quiet; he’s obviously very upset about it all. I think they were… close.’
She knew they were boyfriend and girlfriend then. And yet she’s reluctant to say the words; I wonder why that is. Does she suspect that her son had something to do with Grace’s death? Louise’s eyes flit from mine to the black rectangle of the TV, to the window, to Marmaduke and back to me. This is not unusual and doesn’t faze me in the slightest. Maintaining eye contact is very easy for me, but it can be uncomfortable for others. I’ve read that this is typical of someone with antisocial personality disorder. It’s the way I take the measure of a person, figure them out – how strong or weak a person is, how easy they are to manipulate.
Louise seems nervous and uncomfortable. Her home indicates that she’s very regular, not someone who strikes me as a deep thinker. But she’s a mum and she has a son to protect, which makes her dangerous.
‘Did you get our card?’ Louise asks. ‘Ethan picked it himself. He wanted one with flowers on it because he said she liked flowers.’
‘Grace loved nature,’ I say. ‘Is Ethan home? In fact, it’s flowers that I’d like to talk about. I’m arranging Grace’s funeral and I’d like to chat to some of the people closest to Grace…’ I clear my throat, glancing down at my tea. Then I lift my chin up and look her squarely in the eye. ‘Us parents never quite know our kids, do we? I mean, do you even know Ethan’s favourite band right now?’
Louise rolls her eyes. ‘It changes every week.’ She sips her tea and allows herself the tiniest of chuckles. She’s beginning to relax, which is what I want.
‘Grace was the same. I can’t believe she’s gone. I keep expecting her to walk in through the door and throw her bag down on the table like she always did.’ I shake my head.
Louise puts down her tea, frowns and pulls a few tissues from a box by the fireplace. ‘I’m sorry.’ She dabs at her eyes. ‘She was such a beautiful girl. You must be heartbroken.’
* * *
I recognise some of the posters on Ethan’s wall because they’re the same bands the kids at my school hero-worshipped when I was a teenager. The circle of idolisation has found a new audience with the next generation of young people who think they’re outsiders, when in fact they’re going through the exact same awkward phase as thousands of kids have already been through. Alongside a black-and-white still of Rage Against the Machine in concert is an artistic shot of Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day, and alongside Billie is a large poster of a cannabis leaf. Che Guevara watches me from above Ethan’s bedside table.
Below all the posters, Ethan is sitting on his desk chair, one leg tucked underneath the other, his free leg swinging back and forth. His eyes are cast down, which results in me having to stare at the top of his head as I perch on the edge of his single bed. His hair is stiff with gel. The room is stuffy and the lingering scent of dirty underwear fills my nostrils, but at least here I can talk to him alone, which is what I wanted. Louise allowed me this because I asked her for it. Who can refuse a grieving mother?
‘How are you holding up?’ I ask, taking it slowly. Inside, I’m raging, bulging with questions that demand answers. Did this spotty idiot make a baby with my daughter? Did they argue about the pregnancy? Did he push her into the quarry because she wanted to keep the baby?
He sniffs, pokes at his jeans, doesn’t meet my gaze. ‘I’m okay. Just miss her, I guess.’
‘I do too.’
The screensaver on his computer is a colourful photograph of Snoop Dogg smoking a spliff. I’m curious to know whether Louise thinks these are all ironic statements. More likely she’s lost control over her wayward son. When I was a teenager, no one would have cared if I was hanging out with a stoner. In fact, you could chuck a pebble into a classroom at my comprehensive school and it would inevitably land next to a kid who was using some form of illegal substance. But I can’t believe I became the parent who didn’t notice that her strait-laced daughter was involved with someone who may be going down the wrong path.
My gaze travels across the room, searching for signs of Grace. Did she give him that snow globe of New York City? Or maybe the poo-emoji keychain? I can imagine Grace finding that amusing. Where else is my daughter? Was she in the bed I’m sitting on? The one that hasn’t been made?
When my skin grows hot with anger, I try to keep my thoughts calm, in the way that my therapist has taught me. Emotions don’t tend to be a problem for me, but I do sometimes find other people frustrating. My therapist, Angela, has helped me deal with those everyday frustrations, but what she hasn’t prepared me for, however, is what it’s like to lose a child.
‘Can you help me, Ethan?’
I let the question hang in the air until he raises his head to look at me. Do I imagine some insolence in the way he lifts his eyebrows?
Finally, as he meets my eyes, I smile. ‘I’m planning Grace’s funeral, but it’s tougher than I ever could’ve imagined. The Grace I knew loved daisies and tulips, but parents don’t always get to know their teenagers as well as they’d like to. You spent a lot of time with her, and your mum mentioned that you knew she liked flowers. What kind of flowers do you think I should get?’
Ethan picks at a loose thread on his hoody while I try to ascertain whether there are tears in his eyes. ‘Tulips. Yellow ones.’
For some reason his answer hits me harder than I expect. Maybe he knew my daughter after all, because I would have ordered yellow tulips for her too. My eyes sting and I clear my throat, forcing myself to concentrate. ‘What about music?’
Ethan brushes away a tear and stares out of the window. ‘Taylor Swift, “Love Story”.’
Again, I’m surprised. That’s the song I would have chosen for her myself. Maybe, after finding out that Grace was pregnant, I’d convinced myself that she was some other person, a secret person that had been hidden away from me. But it’s possible I was completely wrong.
‘Thanks, Ethan. I really appreciate it. Would you like to speak at the funeral?’
He shakes his head. ‘I can’t. Sorry.’
The anger hits me again. She was your girlfriend, I think.
‘Did you spend much time with Grace before she died? Did you see her at school that day?’
‘I saw her,’ he says. ‘We hung out at lunch a bit.’
‘Did she seem upset?’
He pulls the thread a little harder. ‘She’d fallen out with her squad.’
‘Her squad?’
‘The mean girls. Alicia and them lot.’
I nod. The girls from the YouTube video. ‘Did they fall out a lot?’
‘I guess so,’ he says. I can tell he’s beginning to speculate why I’m asking him all these questions.
‘I never thought Grace would hurt herself,’ I say. ‘Charles and I had no idea she was depressed. What about you, Ethan? Did you see it?’
‘No,’ he says, his voice rising slightly. ‘No, of course not.’
‘Because you would have helped.’
He nods. ‘Yeah.’ And then he looks away.
‘What is it?’ I prod.
He’s gone back to not meeting my eyes, directing his gaze away from me out of the window, back to the desk, back to the window again. ‘We had a stupid fight. I wish we hadn’t. It was those stupid girls, they were being bitches to her. I guess I didn’t say the right thing or whatever. She doesn’t… she… she gets so irrational sometimes.’ He pauses, aware of his mistake. ‘Got.’
‘Irrational?’ I ask.
He just shrugs. The clock on his wall, adorned with the Derby County football badge, ticks away the seconds, and for a few heartbeats I’m taken back to the stale room at my mother’s house. I clear my throat and pull myself together.
Only Daughter: An gripping and emotional psychological thriller with a jaw-dropping twist Page 5