The Good Mother (13 page)
Authors: A. L. Bird
I put my hand behind my back.
He raises an eyebrow. ‘No?’
I think of the mess I left inside the house. The shower room, in particular. That will need sorting out. Before Suze can use it again. Before anyone can use it again. Those questions she was asking, you’d think Suze knew what was going to happen. What I was going to do.
‘No,’ I say.
He does his nonchalant shrug again. We go to his car.
But we don’t get in. Because there’s a girl in there.
For a moment I think it’s her. I even look back at the house to check my sanity. Then I look at the girl again.
Of course it’s not her.
But that same uniform. And the face vaguely familiar. She’s staring at me with big frightened eyes. Yes, I know fear when I see it. Her seat belt is still done up. Like that would somehow offer her protection.
‘What’s with the girl?’ I ask him.
‘We’ve got a little arrangement. Helps me out. Doesn’t help you.’
I don’t understand. I don’t think I want to understand. Is he being deliberately cruel, showing me this vision? But that can’t be all he wanted to see me for.
And then we have it.
‘Why did you get her into the car with you?’ he asks me.
Bam, the first question, collision force. No messing about, no warming up the engine first. Just straight to the accusations, the assumptions.
I look down at the kerb. Now is not the time to acknowledge guilt. If ‘guilt’ is the right word for it. Because you can redeem anything, can’t you, by what you do later? By what I’m doing in that house.
‘With your record, you knew where it would lead.’
I look up at him.
He smirks. ‘Oh yes, I know all about your record. Did you think I wouldn’t? Do you think that when it comes to prosecuting the shit out of you, I wouldn’t know your past?’
The world freezes, as it will do at times like this. My brain only thinks that it should be thinking. The rest of the world moves on though. It isn’t frozen.
‘Because I am going to prosecute you, make no mistake. I’ve got the connections. I’m going to put together a case, get all the evidence, and I’m going to take it to the right people, and they’re going to show you for what you are.’
He doesn’t need to tell me what I am. Because we both know.
‘Unless, of course …’ he says.
And here we go. Here’s the bartering. Here’s what he’s come here to ask me. To threaten me with.
I listen, and then I very calmly walk away from the car.
He calls after me. Tells me not to be stupid. That this won’t be the end of it.
But I’m not being stupid. Because it’s not just the money that we disagree on. It’s Cara. He wants me to give him all that is Cara. That’s just not something I can do.
So here I am back inside. And I need to sort out the shower room.
There have been no great cries. No hysterics, no screaming, no weeping. On the other side of the door, that is.
I press my ear against my side of the door. Footsteps. An internal door opening. The shower room? There’s a faint sound of running water. What’s going on? Did he install a lock? Just keep her in there while he was away? Or is she going in there now? Did I go to sleep again? Or is she dead in there? Is he washing away the traces? The traces of my daughter?
I must know. I must know.
I hammer on the door.
No response. Maybe he can’t hear me over the sound of the water.
I hammer again. ‘Hey!’ I cry. ‘Come and open up!’
The water sound stops. Footsteps coming nearer. The key in the door.
I look for the time on the Captor’s watch.
But his watch is covered. He’s wearing rubber gloves. Those latex disposable ones, the type doctors and forensic teams use. And, of course, murderers, and rapists. When they need to leave a scene clean. Hide the evidence.
Cara.
But in his own home, why wear gloves? His DNA is everywhere. Cara’s DNA is everywhere. Why the gloves?
I must get out into that corridor. Into that shower room. To see what’s happening.
‘I need to piss,’ I say.
‘Well, you’ll have to wait a bit. I’m busy right now.’
‘I really, really need to piss. I’ll have to piss all over the carpets otherwise.’
He frowns and sweeps the glove over his brow. Bad move – DNA transference guaranteed.
‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Just let me—’
‘I can feel it leaking out now,’ I say.
‘All right, all right. Come on.’
It has the easy petty familiarity of a domestic argument. But then he frogmarches me out of the room. The latex of the gloves rubs on my bare skin. I have a sudden longing for them to be off, just to feel skin-to-skin contact. But the longing goes – I must focus, look around me in the corridor.
There’s nothing to say what has happened. Cara’s door is still shut. There’s no hint of wet footprints or discarded towels in the corridor. No blood, which is what I feared. In the bit of my mind I shut down there are handprints covered in blood adorning the walls. Cara’s blood, spilt. Here, there are just the same bland empty walls. Looking closely, I can see there were pictures there once – there are slightly lighter squares of wall here and there. They’ve all been taken down, if they were ever there. Vanished with just a teasing trace. Like Cara. Except now there is no trace at all.
Finally. We are in the shower room.
‘Go on, then,’ says the Captor, gesturing at the toilet.
As I squat over the toilet bowl, I survey the room. Nothing out of the ordinary. Not even any steam on the—oh wait, the mirror has gone. Significant? I don’t know. Everything else is in place. It just looks like a shower room.
It’s when I get up to wash my hands that I see it. A single shard of glass, in the sink. And on the glass, there is blood.
‘What have you done with her? What have you DONE with her?’ I can’t hold back. The blood. The glass. My child?
He takes my arms, pinions them. ‘Calm down,’ he tells me.
‘But what have you done? What have you done?’
I wriggle and I wrestle and I twist, but he holds me. He keeps holding me. He’s destroyed my daughter and still he keeps holding me.
‘Where is she?’ I ask him. Maybe she is here still. Maybe he’s hidden her. Maybe she’s lying somewhere, bleeding out. ‘Where is she? Where is she? What have you done?’
What have you done with my baby? Why can’t I see her?
He’s just shaking his head at me.
‘I can see it! I can see her blood in the sink! You’ve murdered her, you child-murderer, you—’
And then there’s a stinging in my face. He’s slapped me! The force of it sends me to the floor. It’s not like that warning slap he did before; it’s a proper slap.
But I must know!
‘What have you done with her? What have you done with her?’
He grabs me from the floor.
‘What? What are you doing?’
‘Back in your room.’ He is dragging me.
‘But you have to tell me! Please!’
He’s not answering though. He’s just dragging. His jaw is set and his eyes are staring dead ahead. When we get to my room, he pretty much throws me in there, and slams the door shut behind him.
I slam my hands against the door, claw it with my nails, as if I could whittle away the wood.
‘What have you done with my daughter?’
I shout and I weep and I cry because what has he done? And why the silence? I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it.
‘I can’t bear it,’ I whisper. But no one can hear me.
The other side of the door
Nearly lost it there. Again. Shouldn’t have smacked her. But I could have done more, I could have … That would ruin everything though. Death is not the plan for her. Unless it has to be. What she was saying … There’s only so much provocation a man can take, isn’t there? Particularly when he’s been trying so hard for so long to care for everyone.
And I shouldn’t have left the piece of glass in the sink. That’s what it comes down to. Stupid, stupid, stupid. But I thought I’d cleared everything away. I have now, of course. All gone. I did that as soon as I’d locked Suze back in. I felt like doing it all again, when I’d locked her up. Reprising the earlier shower room scene. And the blood.
I deposit the black bin bag in the living room and sit on the sofa. I put my hands to my face and just sit. I didn’t know it would be this difficult. I just thought that if we were all under this roof, it would be easier. To do what I needed to do. To help. Because that’s all I’m trying to do. Help.
Help me.
A pitiful cry.
I put it back in the box it came from. There’s no time for that. I need to get on.
I look up from the sofa. All the photos, all over the walls. I must take them down. It’s not safe for them to be there any more. If he sees them, if he forces his way into the house, then he’ll have them. Maybe not for his prosecution. But he’ll have them. And with them he’ll want her. But he’s not getting them, any of it, either of my two girls. They’re mine, and I’m keeping them. What I’ve got of them. Because I know, at the moment, I haven’t got much of her.
It’s not like I even need the photos anyway. I remember every moment. They’re stored, agonisingly close, in my mind. I remember when I first saw the two of them. Of course I do. You don’t forget a day like that, a day that changes three people’s lives fore ver. There’s another day I won’t forget, too, of course. Although I wish to God I could.
I turn away from the photos. Like she turned away from me back then. But I knew we’d be together again, the three of us. I swore I would make it my life’s ambition, for as long as it took. The photos hold too much hope. If I look much longer, it will turn into bitterness. Towards Suze. Even the girl. Which is wrong. Of course it is. I know that. And dangerous. Look at what happened earlier. That was bad. I shouldn’t have done that. But, sometimes you just can’t help yourself, you know? The anger gets in the way. Then people suffer. Sometimes they deserve it. Sometimes they don’t. But I don’t deserve that treatment from Suze. That name-calling. I don’t. Do I?
I remember when I first locked her in the room. The names she’d been calling me. She didn’t understand who I was. That I was her saviour. Or why I had to do what I’ve done. There was no other option, if we were to get to where we needed to be. We will still get there. I know we will. So I’m sorry I had to sedate her. I wish it had helped more. With her hostility. Or her comprehension. Oh my Suze. We’ll get you there. We’ll get us there. With or without Cara. You just mustn’t push me beyond my limits. I have some self-control. Clearly. Or I wouldn’t be taking all these baby steps. But I’m not an angel. We know that. He knows that. It’s just a question of what he’s going to do about it. And of what I’m going to do about him.
‘Alice, do you know the answer to the question? Alice? Alice? Alice?’
‘I don’t know the answers to your questions! Stop asking me your questions!’
‘Alice, how dare you talk to me like that!’
Suddenly, Mr Wilson’s face is in hers. She jerks back. She sees the eyes of the rest of the class on her. Hears their giggles. Feels her cheeks turn red.
‘Mr Wilson, I’m sorry, I thought …’
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you, Alice. I don’t care if you do know the answer. I don’t want to hear from you again until you’ve learnt some manners.’ Mr Wilson turns to the girl next to Alice. ‘Hettie, let’s have the answer, please!’
Hettie shoots a smug glance at Alice before answering Mr Wilson’s question.
The lesson continues. Not wanting to attract attention, Alice sits up straight and silent in her seat. But she cannot stop her hands going to her mouth so that she can bite her nails. Soon they will be as bitten as Cara’s were. Alice hasn’t been able to stop chewing her fingers since Mr Belvoir put her in his car and told her what he knew. Or rather suspected. And made her take him there. And see him. The other man. The villain.
Then it was her turn to ask questions. For a bit.
‘But what are you going to do? Are you going to tell the police? How can we stop him? And rescue her?’
He was working on it, he said. But he didn’t want to involve the police. Not yet. And she mustn’t either. She must just keep it between the two of them. He didn’t need to say ‘or else’. But she understood, now, didn’t she, why he needed her help? Why he needed her to answer his questions?
And then they started again. So many questions. More than the everything she’d already told him about Cara and her family. One line of questioning in particular.
While he’d bombarded her with questions, she hadn’t had time to think about what he’d told her. But afterwards, she had. She had thought and thought and thought. And she was still thinking about it now. How could anybody do something so wicked and terrible? What had Cara endured in that place, even before all this happened? Alice shivers and rubs her hands up and down her arms.
This is too much for me to know, she thinks. I just wanted to come to school and live my life. Mr Wilson, going on about his verbs and grammar. What do they matter? Why don’t any of these teachers teach about the world? About the horror and the cruelty and the sadness? Why even bother coming here? Why bother staying? How can I sit here when over the other side of town … She shivers again. Well, I won’t. I won’t sit here and just accept it. I’ll stand up, I’ll run, I’ll shout about it. I’ll tell everyone.
But, as Alice puts the balls of her feet more firmly on the floor, the bell rings for the end of the lesson. Chairs are scraped back, Mr Wilson shouts out the homework deadlines, and her classmates whirl out of the classroom. In a few moments, there is nothing left. Alice is all alone. With her thoughts. And her images. And her imaginings. About what is going on in that place.
Perhaps the blood belongs to him. Not my daughter.
Perhaps we haven’t botched the escape attempt.
Perhaps we can still save her.
Perhaps Paul is about to come charging in with the cavalry.
I hope so. I hope so, I hope so, I hope so. Because otherwise … no.