by C J Parsons
‘Yes,’ she said, then realised that wasn’t strictly true and gave herself a pinch. Because she must have known the truth, on some buried level. Otherwise she would have gone with him.
Tara must have been watching, because she said: ‘Why do you pinch yourself like that? I’ve seen you do it before. It looks . . . painful.’
Carrie tugged the sleeve of her jacket down to cover her wrist.
‘When I was a teenager, I was sent to a therapist who put elastic bands around his patients’ wrists for what he called “honesty conditioning”.’ She crumpled the sandwich wrapper into a ball and tossed it at the bin beside the bench. It ricocheted off the rim and went in. ‘He would snap it every time he caught me saying something that wasn’t completely true. Then he got me to wear it all day and snap it myself. I got rid of the therapist and the elastic band eventually, but . . .’ Her voice trailed off.
‘But the habit lives on.’
‘Yes.’
‘Aha! So the fact that you just pinched yourself means you weren’t surprised to see Josh walking down Radich Avenue!’
‘No, it means I overstated my view. Because part of me had clung to the belief that he was innocent. And even now, knowing what I do: that he abducted Sofia . . . I still can’t believe that he would have gone through with it . . . left her to die in that fire. Just so he could have me to himself.’ Her mind journeyed back over the relationship for the thousandth time, combing her memory for missed clues: signs that she had been living with a monster. But there was nothing. ‘His behaviour was always so . . . considerate.’
‘Well, he abducted your daughter and locked her in a shed. Then terrorised her by sneaking into her room in a mask, just so you’d feel threatened enough to let him stay with you.’ She took a swig of Evian, swiping a hand across her lips. ‘Seems pretty inconsiderate to me.’
‘We don’t know for certain that he was the intruder. That’s just DCI Campbell’s theory.’
Tara raised an eyebrow. ‘You have a better one?’
‘No. But I’m an architect, so not qualified to construct theories of criminal behaviour.’ Carrie watched the swings rise and fall, wondering who she was actually defending: Josh . . . or herself? Maybe it was time to admit the truth: that she had loved him . . . without ever knowing him at all. She drew in a deep breath, releasing it slowly. ‘But his internet searches do support the theory that he wanted Sofia out of the way.’
Tara’s mouth pulled to one side.
‘Oh, I don’t know. It could be a coincidence. Maybe he just happened to develop a sudden interest in mastering techniques for helping recently bereaved mothers overcome their grief.’
‘Do you think so? It seems an unlikely coincidence.’
Tara shook her head. ‘Sorry. That was a joke – and a bad one at that. I know humour’s not your thing.’
They sat in silence for a while as Carrie thought about how close she’d come to following Josh through the smoke, of bringing Sofia upstairs, into a flaming death trap. But in that last, critical moment, a voice somewhere deep inside her had spoken up, telling her to follow Tara. To trust her.
She looked at her friend’s profile, watching her swig water from the bottle. Tara must have sensed her gaze, because she turned and smiled.
‘Let’s talk about something else.’ She put the cap back on her bottle before stretching out her legs. ‘How did it go at the zoo?’
‘It was successful.’ Carrie felt a warm glow: pride, mixed with satisfaction. ‘I did what you suggested. I gave Simon fifteen minutes alone with her in the reptile house – just the two of them – while I waited outside. And it was fine. I was a bit anxious. But only a bit.’
‘Well done, you! That was very brave, and a big step. Simon must be so pleased.’
‘Yes.’ She thought of the tight hug he’d given her after emerging from the reptile house, the murmured ‘thank you’ as he’d kissed the top of her head. ‘He was.’
A small boy ran past holding a kite, which he flung towards the sky, only to have it plummet straight back down, hitting the ground in front of the bench. The boy stamped his foot. Carrie bent down to retrieve the fallen kite, handing it back to its owner. He stalked off, lower lip protruding.
When she turned back around, Tara was staring towards the swings, a fist pressed against her mouth, nose crinkled at the top.
‘Stop worrying,’ Carrie said, buttoning up her jacket, wishing they’d chosen a bench in the sunshine. Now that the heatwave had passed, autumn was nipping at the air. ‘Sofia’s used to dealing with people who express their emotions differently. It’s going well.’
‘It does seem to be.’ She sighed. ‘I guess my guard has been stuck in the “up” position for so long it’s hard to get it back down.’
‘I know how that feels.’ Carrie watched the swings rising and falling. It was amazing, the endless entertainment value children derived from simply moving up and down without actually going anywhere.
‘He’s better with girls.’ Tara placed the half-empty water bottle on the bench beside her. ‘I used to think that was because he missed having a sister.’ Her eyes lost focus as she stared across the playground. ‘Believe it or not, I actually tried to adopt a girl, right after my husband left. Not for me. Back then I found the idea of having another girl around incredibly painful. For Peter. I thought having a new sister would . . . fix him somehow. Undo the damage.’ She shook her head. ‘Crazy, right? But logic and I had parted company at that point so—’ Then her expression did a rapid switch, brows shooting up, mouth falling open, eyes widening.
‘Hey! You told me to stop worrying!’
‘Yes. Because everything is fine and I see no cause for concern.’
‘But don’t you see?’ She grabbed both of Carrie’s hands in hers, giving them a squeeze. ‘I didn’t tell you I was worried! You must have read my face!’
Carrie blinked down at the hands clasping hers as she digested this surprising claim. Worry wasn’t among the more obvious emotions she was sometimes able to catch. So how had she known? She spooled back her memory and discovered that Tara was right; she had recognised the complicated pattern her features made whenever she talked about her fears for her son’s future, or when she was worried he might be having one of his ‘turns’.
‘I did,’ Carrie said, with a warm rush of pleasure. ‘I did read you.’
She lifted the edges of her mouth to show that she was pleased, but Tara shook a finger back and forth in front of her face, frowning.
‘No, don’t do that. I know you feel things. You don’t have to prove it to me by copying other people’s expressions. You’re my friend.’ She looped her arms around Carrie’s shoulders, giving her a sideways hug. ‘That means I love you just the way you are.’
And as she sat beside Tara, watching the swings rise and fall, Carrie felt the slow pull of a genuine smile.
‘Once I bit a piece of someone’s ear off.’
‘Ew, that’s yuck!’ Sofia pulled a face as she leaned back all the way, heels pointing at the sky. She wanted to swing as high as Peter, even though he was a year older. ‘Which piece?’
He took one hand off the swing’s chain to point at the bottom of his ear.
‘This piece.’
‘That’s called the “lobe”,’ Sofia said in a teacher-voice. She knew lots of words. Grown-ups called that ‘good vocabulary’.
She threw her upper body forwards and curled her legs under the swing, then leaned back again, pumping hard, rising high enough to see the edge of the fishpond over the trees. Mummy was on her usual bench in front of the trees, chatting with Tara. It was good, seeing Mummy have chats.
‘What did the ear taste like?’
‘Salty.’
‘Super yuck!’
Peter pulled himself up by the chains, and put his feet on the seat, so he was swinging standing up. The sun
was behind him, beaming around his head like a blinding halo, going inside Sofia’s eyes and making them sting. They did that a lot since the fire. And another thing was: she ran out of breath faster because of all the smoke that went inside her lungs. But it was a lot better now than before.
‘Why did you bite someone’s lobe?’
For a while, there was only the creak of chains. Then Peter said: ‘A Year Four boy woke up my monster.’
‘How?’
‘He called me a weirdo. So the monster went crazy and made me attack him.’
Sofia thought about this as she rose and fell.
‘Do you think the monster will make you attack me?’
‘Nah. It goes away when you come.’
‘Maybe the monster’s scared of me.’
‘Maybe.’ Peter put his bum back on the seat and dragged the toes of his trainers against the ground until he stopped, waiting while Sofia did the same. They sat on the motionless swings, looking at each other. ‘Want to go up the rocket?’ he said. ‘We can race to the top.’
Sofia looked over at the red-and-blue bars, arching towards the metal star. It gave her a weird feeling, like the skin on her back suddenly got tighter. She shook her head.
‘No. You have to be six years old to go up there.’
‘So? The police won’t catch you. And, anyway, you’re turning six soon.’
Sofia shook her head again, more firmly, fingers clenching the chains,
‘I don’t want to.’
He pushed himself sideways, so that the edges of their seats bumped into each other. For a moment she was worried he might get cross and the monster would come out after all.
But then he said: ‘How about the zipwire?’
Her face lit. ‘Yessssss! I love the zipwire!’
And the two of them jumped off the swings and ran across the playground, their shadows chasing beside them, the sun warm on their backs.
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