Why Don’t You Come for Me (38 page)

She imagined him now with Becky. That singular exhilaration of travelling fast downhill on a sledge. Happy, laughing, their whole lives ahead of them. Her life had never really been like that. It was true that there had been moments of exhilaration, but it seemed to her now that they had always been tempered by shadows. She remembered once holding Lauren up in front of a mirror. Lauren had been laughing and trying to touch the glass with her stubby fingers, but Jo had not let her get close enough to put smudges on it. As she watched their reflections looking back at her – mother and daughter together – from nowhere had come the thought that one day she would have to explain to Lauren about
her
mother and what she had done; after which Lauren, too, would have to bear the burden, wonder what it might mean for her own mother and for herself. Always that past which you could not escape from – and whenever you thought you had got away, someone sent a postcard, dropped a pebble in a pool, left a paperclip on the carpet, or a penny down the back of the settee. The only way you could escape your family history was by not knowing about it in the first place. She thought of Shelley’s father, digging away so eagerly, wanting to find it all out. Well, her advice to anyone would be: run away, run as fast as you can in the opposite direction and don’t look back.

She found that she was standing at the foot of the stairs. What should she do now? Clean your teeth and have a shower, suggested an inner rationale. Then have some breakfast. That’s what a normal person would do. Ah, but I’m not normal, said a second voice which sounded suspiciously like her mother.

Jo gripped the knob at the end of the banister, feeling the artificial greenery of the Christmas garland prickling against the back of her hand. She
would not
hear her mother’s voice, she told herself angrily. Her mother was dead.

That was it … Dead.

She ran into the office, threw herself down into the big leather chair and scrabbled the mouse to and fro on its mat, impatient for the computer to wake into life. It had been left on all night, the screen saver weaving never-ending patterns against its own version of the night sky, but now it sprang to life as if eager to do her bidding. She keyed in the website address from memory, logged into her account with the password she had acquired the day before, then typed in the search. Deaths – Ford – Rebecca. There were only three results for the relevant period, and the last one was ‘Rebecca Heidi Ford, born 13 Mar 1998, death registered Dec 1998.’

She logged out and almost ran into the kitchen. She pulled a knife out of the block so violently that all the other knives jumped and clattered, as if unnerved by this unaccustomed rough usage. She took the one with the six-inch blade, which she normally used for vegetables.

She pushed her feet into a pair of flat black ankle boots which were lying near the front door, then flung on her old gardening coat, which she did not bother to button. She strode down the drive and across the lane, entirely careless of slipping on the snow and ice. When she got to Gilda’s gate, she found the other woman in the act of kicking snow off her boots, alongside the open front door. Jo instinctively hid the knife behind her back like a guilty child.

Gilda had been clearing away the snow between her parked car and the road, so she was evidently planning to drive somewhere, either now or later. At the sound of Jo’s approach she looked up in surprise. ‘If you’ve come for Sean …’ she began.

‘No,’ said Jo. ‘I have come to see you.’

‘I really don’t think –’ Gilda began, but Jo walked forward so purposefully that Gilda broke off and darted into the house. Jo was too quick for her and got there before she had time to get the door even part way closed.

‘If you don’t leave’, said Gilda, retreating up the hall, ‘I am going to call the police.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so.’ Jo continued to advance, not bothering to close the door behind her, never taking her eyes off Gilda, who had backed into the sitting room, taking an elaborately large backward step over the roll of carpet, unable to look down for fear of taking her eyes off the knife, now clearly visible in Jo’s right hand.

‘Rebecca Heidi Ford died in December 1998,’ said Jo.

Gilda said nothing.

‘You were there, weren’t you? That day in Barleycombe. You saw me with my husband and my baby, you followed us and when I went into the shop, you took her. Out of spite and revenge and jealousy. And if that wasn’t enough, you tormented me all these years, sending those bloody postcards. You even came to live opposite me, so you could
see
what you were doing to me. You hated me so much that you wanted to destroy my life.’

Now that they had reached the living room, Gilda stood her ground, taking up a position alongside the armchair in which she had sat the day before, resting one hand on its back. ‘This isn’t going to do you any good,’ Gilda’s voice was remarkably calm. ‘If you harm me in any way, do you think for a moment that they will give Becky back to you?’

‘She’s not Becky. Her name is Lauren, and I am her mother. A DNA test will prove it.’

‘She answers to Becky. Has it occurred to you that she may not want to be with you? I am her mother, you see. She loves me – even though she knows I’m not her real mother. I’m the person who brought her up, cared for her when she was ill, taught her to read before she ever went to school. You’re just a stranger. An unstable woman who careers around the village, acting strangely and threatening other people with knives.’

‘She won’t love you when she finds out what you did.’

‘Love isn’t switched on and off like a tap. Becky loves me – she doesn’t even know you. You’re going to tell her that nothing she has ever believed about herself is true; that her birthday happened two months after she thinks it did; that her real father threw himself off a cliff; and that her maternal grandmother finished up in Broadmoor. And then you’re going to tell her that she’s got to live with the village loony and a stepfather who’s more concerned with what happened on a medieval battlefield than what’s going to happen next week. Do you think she’s going to fall into your arms in an ecstasy of delight?’

‘She’ll grow to love me, once she gets to know me.’

‘Look at yourself. You’re a wreck – see the way your hand is shaking? That knife is wobbling like a jelly. Why don’t you put it down, before you do yourself an injury?’ As Jo glanced down in spite of herself, Gilda asked, ‘Are you going to destroy that girl’s life by making her come and live with you?’

‘She’s my daughter. I love her.’

‘Love her? You don’t even know her! She’s just an idea to you – an obsession.’

‘That’s not true. You don’t know what it is to be a mother.’

‘I
have
been a mother – a good mother. What kind of a mother do you think you would ever have made?’ Gilda’s eyes abruptly focused on something beyond Jo’s right shoulder. ‘Becky!’ she shouted.

Even as Jo turned to register the empty doorway, Gilda was on her, flinging her whole weight against Jo’s left side so that she tumbled face down on to the sofa, with the knife trapped and useless beneath her. Gilda was by far the larger and heavier woman, and she used her weight to crushing effect, pinning Jo down and pushing her face into the cushions so that she could hardly breathe. When Jo managed to twist her face aside, Gilda grabbed the hood of the old gardening coat and forced it over Jo’s head, holding it over her mouth with one hand while she used the other to quest between Jo’s body and the upholstery, seeking the buried weapon. Although half suffocated, Jo mounted a frenzied defence, thrusting her free hand over her head and clawing blindly at her adversary, until Gilda was forced to let go of the hood in order to defend herself, grabbing Jo’s wrist and snapping it back so that the other woman screamed.

In spite of Gilda’s determined assault, the sheer unreality of what was happening and the knowledge that her wrist was probably broken, Jo was still thinking clearly. She knew what she needed to do – it was just a question of timing. When Gilda’s fist slammed into the back of her head, even in the midst of blinding pain, she guessed that Gilda would repeat the action and knew it represented an opportunity. As the second blow fell, she gave a loud moan and let her body go limp. Gilda’s momentary hesitation was enough: Jo pushed up with all her might, throwing her entire body backwards in a twisting movement which tumbled them both off the sofa.

Jo’s 180-degree turn had taken Gilda completely by surprise, but as they hit the floor with a crash that reverberated through the house, it was Gilda who managed to wrestle herself into a position of superiority with Jo still trapped underneath her, although Jo was now facing her assailant with her right hand freed. She stabbed the knife wildly in Gilda’s direction, but Gilda saw it coming and grabbed Jo’s wrist, forcing it away. Using one hand to keep Jo’s arm at bay, Gilda used the other to claw at her fingers, hoping to prize them from the handle.

With her left arm now useless, Jo focused everything she had on retaining her weapon. She tried holding the knife at full stretch above her head, but the other woman’s reach was longer. She flexed her legs, but it was impossible to gain much purchase against the carpet, which seemed to slide away from her like quicksand. She attempted to buck Gilda off, but nothing was working – and all the time Gilda’s full weight bore down on her ribs, pressing the breath out of her.

Gilda too had sustained damage. Jo had scratched and bitten her, and her right knee throbbed agonizingly where it had taken the brunt of the impact when they hit the floor. She had the greater bulk, but Jo was fitter – and had managed against all odds to keep hold of the knife, so that while Gilda laboured for breath and struggled to keep her adversary pinned down, she could not afford to lessen her grip on Jo’s wrist for a second – because a second was all it would take.

Jo’s attempts to unseat her assailant had gradually moved them across the floor. Inch by inch, they were getting nearer to the hearth, where Gilda knew that the poker was resting upright against the fireplace, but still well out of reach. Then she became aware of something else appearing at the very periphery of her vision: a dark shape at ground level, which she recognized as Timmy the stone cat. She dared not take her eye off the knife, but in spite of this she judged the distance perfectly: a lunge to her right, and within a single arc of movement she had grabbed Timmy from his usual place on the hearth and smashed him against the side of the other woman’s head.

The hand holding the knife drooped in her grasp, then relaxed until the handle slid out of Jo’s grip on to the carpet. Gilda instantly grabbed it. For some moments after gaining the knife she stayed where she was, alert for another trick, watching and waiting while her own breath came in ragged gasps – but Jo was not faking. Her eyes were closed, her body limp.

Gilda’s overriding emotion was one of relief. Like the drowning woman who has been swept away in the floods but unexpectedly fetches up in an isolated tree top, her immediate thoughts did not extend to how she was going to escape from her new predicament. As she sat astride her neighbour, dishevelled from recent combat and clutching a kitchen knife, she was abruptly reminded of the moment when, striding along the cliff path clutching someone else’s baby to her chest, she suddenly realized that she had gone too far to turn back.

She stood up slowly and looked around the room. Remarkably little had been disarranged. She was uncertain whether or not Jo was still alive, but shied away from close investigation. Blood had begun to appear in Jo’s hair, at the place where the stone cat had impacted with her head, but the thick hood of her coat had fortuitously fallen in such a way that, as it began to drip out of her hair, it found the coat rather than the carpet. She could not have Jo’s blood on her carpet. Somehow she had to get rid of the woman and quickly. No one must ever know that she had been here, and there was no time to waste because Becky might be back at any time, walking in on the scene, needing answers.

Still clutching the knife, she hurried into the hall, where she dragged on her coat and thrust her feet into outdoor shoes. She returned to the doorway of the sitting room, where she made a pig’s breakfast of tying the laces because she was trying to do it without looking down, watching all the time for any movement from the form on the floor. Her first thought was to put Jo in the boot of the car, but it was still full of logs she had bought a couple of days before. If she tried to unload them now the delay might prove fatal. She glanced at the figure on the floor again but it gave no sign.

Gilda hurried outside and got into the car. While the demister sprang into action, she manoeuvred the Volvo closer to the front door. With the engine left running, she opened the rear door nearest the house, then set about half lifting, half dragging Jo along the hall, out of the house and into the car, taking care to keep the hood of the coat between herself and the head wound. It did not appear to have bled very much, but she did not want to get blood on her hands or clothes. In fact, she wanted to touch Jo as little as possible, but at the car door she was forced to bend almost double as she manhandled her load on to the back seat, so that Jo’s coat hood brushed her face, making her recoil as if she had been stung.

It was difficult to get a proper purchase: tugging at the woman’s clothes merely disarranged them without shifting their contents. It was almost as if Jo herself was holding back, trying to extend the operation until someone walked past the gateway, looked in and saw them there. The best she could achieve was to prop Jo half inside, then go round to the offside door and drag her the rest of the way. She began to doubt her own strength. Her breath was coming in gasps, as if she had been running in a race, and Becky might appear at any moment, coming home to her – because she had won. Triumph gave her strength. She heaved the body across the seats and closed the door. Did Jo stir at that moment? Was it just coincidence, or imagination – or maybe the jolt of the door itself? Round the other side she found Jo’s feet were still dangling against the sill of the car. Gilda slammed the door against them. When it didn’t close first time, she slammed it again – harder.