The Ice Cream Girls (48 page)

‘Maybe I didn’t love him.’ I say to myself. ‘Maybe I didn’t love him.’ Which means it’s OK to hate him for what he did.

It’s OK to not feel sorry every second of every day that he isn’t here.

It’s OK to want to let him go.

It’s OK to decide to live in my present rather than be shackled to my past.

poppy

I finish up the final cigarette in the packet, and breathe.

In and out, in and out, in and out. Breathe.

I never got to see Marcus again. That hasn’t occurred to me until now. He was such an important part of my life, he
was
my life for nearly two years, and then suddenly he was gone. My last image of him was of him laying on the floor, the look of shock and agony on his face.

He might have survived if it wasn’t for Serena. He might have survived to continue to haunt me. Because now, looking back properly, I can see that he would never have let me go. He would have kept on and on until he had me back under his control or he had ruined everything about my life.

I did not want him dead; I did not want him gone like that. But was there another way? Did Serena think the same thing? Did she realise that he would never let her go, he would never leave her alone because nothing was over until he said so?

Is that why she did it?

During the trial, she said he used to say he’d kill her if she ever left. Did she see this as her only chance, her only way out, as a simple case of ‘me or him’ and he lost?

I do not know. I’ll probably never know, because this is almost it for me. This is my chance to leave prison for good. To shake off Marcus and the shockwaves he sent through my life to the lives of everyone I knew. When Marcus hit me, everyone got bruised. I have to stop living my life for him, about him, around him.

I have to find the way to move on. To stop being the naïve fifteen-year-old he met, to stop being the terrified eighteen-year-old who went to prison, to stop being the angry thirty-eight-year-old who came out into the world.

If I don’t, I’ll wear myself out; I’ll become tired of the world, just like Tina. I’ll start to believe that the only way out, the only way to free myself of the yoke of the past, is to do what she did.

‘You all right, babe?’ Alain asks as I slide back between the cool sheets, and wriggle towards him, ready to rob him of his heat.

‘Yup, I’m going to be,’ I say. ‘I need you to take me somewhere. I need to go and see some people.’

‘OK,’ he mumbles.

‘Thank you,’ I reply, hoping he knows I don’t just mean for the lift he is going to give me.

serena

‘I come bearing sketches and fabric swatches,’ Medina says the second I open the door. She holds up her large A3 sketchpad and her fabric book, just to prove it.

‘And I come bearing wine and cake and chocolate,’ Faye says, indicating to the overflowing wicker hamper she is cradling in her arms. ‘All of them samples of the items I’d like to contribute to your wedding, if you’ll let me.’

Without a word, I open the door wider to let them in and I lead the way to the kitchen and stand by the cooker, where I had been heading when the doorbell rang. Vee is at Zephie’s house and Con is at his friend Mattie’s house, and for the first time since I had them I am not obsessively worrying about what is happening to them without Evan or I there. I believe they can be safe away from us.

I have started to let
him
go. I have started to let fifteen-yearold Serena go, too. I am starting to let go of the past because, for the first time since I did not tell my parents a teacher had stroked my face, I am in control.

Evan is out doing something. Probably seeing Max and Teggie for a few afternoon drinks, but I didn’t ask. He does what he does when he does it. I’ve found it so much easier these days to not worry about it. He is, after all, scrupulously honest.

I wait for it. Wait and wait and wait. But it does not come. My conscience does not chime in to taunt and abuse me, to needle me and remind me how bad I am. Not completely gone, but fading. It is only a whisper at the most extreme of times. It will be a murmur soon, and hopefully then silent.

Faye dumps her hamper, which looks heavy and cumbersome, on the kitchen table and Medina dumps her stuff beside it, followed by her bag and mobile. Faye takes off her glasses and balances them on top of the chocolate in the basket. This must be serious if the glasses have come off.

‘So you two think you can buy me off with a wedding dress and wedding food?’ I ask my sisters.

I am not in that position I used to be for all those years. I am not indebted to them any more. Telling the truth does that. I do not have to accept their gifts without comment; I do not have to accept anything they offer me – good or negative – because they can’t intentionally or unintentionally ruin my life any more. And I do not feel as guilty any more for almost ruining their lives. I lied to them as a teenager, when I was naïve, young, scared and thinking I knew it all. They have lied to me all our adult lives. They have treated me like they have, not because of what I did to their lives but because they think I am the lowest of the low, a killer, a murderer. Which is bad enough. For neither of them to have ever said it . . . That is what I am most hurt about. They have just thought it and never challenged me on it. We are meant to be close, the three of us. We are not. Because they have lied to me over and over and over. They have resented me. They have feared me. They have branded me killer. And all in secret. Families, especially ones that went through what we did, are not meant to have those kinds of secrets.

‘We also come bearing apologies,’ Medina says.

‘Big, huge apologies,’ Faye adds.

‘What for? Aren’t I the criminal? What do you two have to apologise for?’

The two of them share the same shamed expression. ‘Evan called,’ Faye says.

‘He asked why we thought you were capable of ending someone’s life.’

‘And said he was more curious than anything, not demanding we change our minds. He was just asking.’

‘And when I thought about it, I realised that I didn’t think you were. I really didn’t,’ Medina explains.

It’s going to be one of
those
conversations. Where the two of them start and finish each other’s sentences and I get so confused that I might as well be talking to one person. In fact, if I close my eyes, with their similar voices, it could almost be like talking to one person. It’s incredible that after twenty-odd years of living apart, they can still do that.

‘Neither did I.’

In unison, they pull out a chair and sit down. I remain standing by the cooker, unwilling to join them, unwilling to pretend that this is anywhere near settled.

‘The thing is,’ Faye says, ‘you’re my little sister.
Our
little sister. And we’re meant to look after you.’

‘And we didn’t.’

‘I felt so guilty, not insisting on meeting him that time. Helping you to keep it secret from Mum and Dad.’

‘And there was me, giving you advice on make-up and how to get a boy to like you and, all the while, I was sending you off into the clutches of that pervert.’

‘We both felt responsible. He was beating you up and neither of us noticed.’

‘I was very good at hiding it,’ I stated. Because that’s what you do in those situations: you hide it.

‘That’s exactly it, Serena – you weren’t. You became so secretive, hiding things, when you’d never been like that. We should have noticed that you’d changed, that you weren’t being as open and relaxed as you usually were.’

‘But we didn’t.’

‘We just accepted all those excuses you had for how you got hurt.’

‘When I found out, I wanted to hurt him for what he’d done to you.’

‘Really hurt him. I mean,
really
hurt him.’

‘But I couldn’t. We couldn’t. And I suppose I started to believe that you’d have been justified if you did do it.’

‘It would make it all seem better somehow. That you didn’t just take all those beatings and let him get away with it.’

‘And it became part of my way of handling the situation. Believing you did it to defend yourself, to make it all stop, made me feel as if I had done something.’

‘And that I’d protected you when you needed me to.’

‘But we were angry with you as well – for making us feel like that. For making us genuinely think at any point that murder is the answer. When it isn’t.’

‘And we were angry with you for lying to us. For keeping things from us.’

‘One way to deal with that anger, and the guilt of feeling that anger towards you when you’d obviously been the victim, was to believe you’d done it.’

‘So, over the years, it became a reality. That you’d killed him. When, really, the crime we were punishing you for was lying to us. Because when Evan asked me that, my instinctive answer was “I don’t think she is”.’

‘Me too. We both know you could never kill someone on purpose. You could never murder someone.’

They pause, the one-person conversation staged by two people takes a hiatus, and they both stare at me. I stare at them.

‘You thought I was guilty all this time,’ I eventually say. ‘You and Mum and Dad. All this time.’

‘Not Mum,’ Medina says. ‘She’s always believed you were innocent. Always. She’s never had a moment’s doubt. She said she would understand why you’d be pushed to it but you never could.’

That eases the pain a little. Knowing that means I have not lost all my family because of
him
.

‘The hardest bit is knowing that all this time you’ve thought I was a liar,’ I tell them. ‘I thought you believed me and even if you hadn’t, if you’d said so, I could handle it. But you’ve resented me for all these years and I had no idea.’ The emotion rushes to my face, to my eyes, to every nerve ending in my body. I want to be strong and firm and indignant. I want to show them that I am capable of existing without their approval. ‘All these years, all the things you’ve both said, the arguments you’ve had with me and each other, it’s all because you thought I was . . . That’s what hurts. You hated me for lying but you did the exact same thing to me all these years. For longer.’

‘I never hated you,’ Medina says, almost knocking over her chair to come to me. Even though I stiffen in her hold, she throws her arms around me and squeezes, resting her head on my chest. ‘I never hated you.’

Faye is slower off the mark because, in general, she is more reserved. But she throws her arms around me and Medina, then rests her head on my shoulder. ‘I never hated you, either.’

‘Even if you had done it, we could never hate you.’

‘You’re our sister, we could never hate you.’

‘It was about us, how the situation made us feel. We weren’t really thinking about you.’

I wipe angrily at my tears. Some indignant, hurt woman I turned out to be. At my big moment, when I am called upon to make a damning speech about family loyalty and standing by each other and being honest at all costs, I turn to mush. I cry. ‘Tell me something,’ I ask. ‘Did you believe the stuff that was written about me? In the papers. Did you believe it? Even for a minute?’

‘No,’ they both say at the same time. They’re lying, of course. It was so persuasive, so pervasive,
I
started to believe it. I started to believe I was a vixen who seduced an innocent teacher and, together with my lover, tormented and toyed with him for weeks, months and years before we finally got together and tortured then killed him.

‘You’re lying to me again.’

‘No, we’re not,’ Faye says.

‘Sez, if we believed the stuff that was written, how could we then be so angry that you didn’t tell us you’d been abused by that man?’

‘Either we believed you were a cold-blooded killer or we believed you were his victim.’

‘It would be oxymoronious to believe both things.’

‘It would be
what
?!’ Faye and I ask together.

Mez throws her hands up in the air. ‘Don’t start on me. We’re meant to be sorting out our relationship, we’re not going on about my use of words.’

‘Or non-words,’ Faye says.

‘I said don’t start on me.’

She moves back towards me, bringing the warmth and soft, cushiony comfort of her body. ‘I’m sorry,’ Mez says.

‘I’m sorry as well,’ Fez says.

‘So am I,’ I said. ‘I wanted to tell you. I just couldn’t. First of all I couldn’t because I thought it would be OK, and then because I was scared. I knew if I talked about it,
he’d
come and get me. There were so many times I thought it would be OK. Those were the times when he was sweet to me, told me he loved me. And I thought I could make it OK if I did everything he wanted, exactly how he wanted it. And it never was. I’m sorry I kept it from you. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t say sorry,’ Medina says.

‘Never say sorry. Not for that. Not for being too scared to leave,’ Faye says.

‘None of us know what we’d do in that situation. Especially when you’re fifteen.’

‘None of us,’ Faye echoes.

I move my arms to encompass them, to hold them closer to me.

‘We’re going to be OK,’ one of us says. ‘We’re going to be OK.’

‘What’s all this?’ Evan asks of the items spread out on the table in front of me. Medina has left all her wedding-related paraphernalia and will return very soon to get on with it. She is planning on working through the night to get it done, especially now that Adrian is helping out more.

‘Wedding stuff.’

Evan comes over from the fridge, where he’s grabbed the milk and is downing the last of the carton. I decide to pretend I didn’t see him do that. He picks up a bottle of the wine that Faye left in her hamper. ‘Wine?’ He examines the label and his eyebrows shoot up and he gives a long, low whistle. ‘You know how much this stuff costs a bottle?’

‘No idea,’ I reply.