by K. L. Slater
I reach for the garment. I sniff the mark, touch it lightly with my fingertip and see that it is a smear of pale pink lipstick. It looks like he’s up to his old tricks again.
I’m not stupid; of course I’ve known there has been no emotional bond between me and Henry for a long time now.
If I’m honest, we drifted apart years ago. It started slowly, almost too slowly to notice, but then I found we were speeding away from being a couple towards becoming separate people again. It’s just something we’ve both got used to.
The difference, I suppose, lies in needs. I no longer feel the need for a sexual connection. Hugs and emotional closeness are what matter to me, and I can get those from my son and grandchildren. At least that’s where I used to get them, before Amber appeared on the scene.
Henry is out of the house a lot at his various meetings and social gatherings, and it’s never occurred to me to question that. I simply assumed these places were where he satisfied his own friendship needs, but it seems I’ve been looking the other way for far too long.
I have never stopped even for a moment to consider if Henry is telling me the truth about where he is going when he steps out of the front door.
Yet as I look at the lipstick mark, the long-standing simmering resentment towards my husband that I’ve held inside for so long turns into a searing heat that burns like acid in my stomach.
It’s a total surprise to me that my feelings for him run so deep.
I honestly thought I no longer cared at all.
I leave the piles of clothes, including the offending shirt, on the bathroom floor and go back downstairs.
I take Noah a tray through. I feel gratified to see he has regained a splash of colour in his cheeks.
‘I’m not hungry,’ he croaks when he is properly awake and sees the mashed banana and the slice of toast I’ve prepared. At the hospital, the doctors suggested some light foods to try him on when he felt up to eating again.
‘Just a mouthful,’ I urge him, but he presses his lips together and looks away.
I’m not going to force him; he’s only just feeling a tiny bit better after his worrying relapse yesterday.
‘Is Amber kind when she looks after you?’ I say tentatively, knowing that really, it’s out of order to quiz Noah.
He shrugs but doesn’t answer me.
‘I bet she does fun things with you two boys, doesn’t she?’
‘She likes Josh more than me,’ he says in a small voice.
‘Oh, I’m sure she doesn’t.’ I smile at him. ‘What makes you think that, sweetheart?’
‘She reads with him and he never gets into trouble like I do.’
‘Trouble?’
‘She tells me off and sometimes she sends me upstairs to my room.’
Something pulls tight inside me.
‘Have you told Daddy about this?’
Noah shakes his head.
‘Well maybe you should have a chat with him. Just you and Daddy. What do you think?’
‘But he’s always with Amber,’ Noah whispers, his eyes dark. ‘He’s never on his own any more.’
I squeeze his hand and pull the fleecy blanket up to his chin.
‘You rest a little now,’ I say soothingly. ‘Perhaps you might have a bite to eat when you wake up again.’
I can’t think of anything else to say to comfort my grandson.
My scalp is crawling and I feel like screaming.
By late afternoon, Henry is skulking around the house and trying to cheer Noah up with his silly jokes.
I realise the lipstick mark on Henry’s T-shirt has completely slipped my mind amid all the drama of Noah’s illness. The whole hospital-recovery thing has swallowed me up, just like it did when David was small.
The fact that I’m right in the middle of it all, keeping it together for Ben’s sake … for the boys’ sake … that takes importance over everything else.
Everyone needs someone to trust, which gets me thinking about Fiona again, and my unresolved visit to her flat.
‘Would you mind just holding the fort here while I pop out?’ I say to Henry. ‘I could do with some milk and bread, just bits we’re out of.’
‘Hmm?’ He looks briefly at me before his eyes drift back to the TV. ‘Yes, that’s fine.’
I collect my handbag from the kitchen and grab my car keys. ‘Won’t be long,’ I call from the doorway.
He doesn’t answer and I’m reminded of how ignorantly he behaved when Fiona visited the house.
I was on the brink of ringing the police about the awful bruising I saw on Fiona’s upper arms and back when her robe slipped from her shoulders.
Angry purple and blue contusions, bunched like exploding storm clouds all over her pale skin. Who is abusing her? Are the kids safe? I shake my head, saddened that in the midst of my own family drama, I’ve forgotten this young woman’s plight so easily.
67
Judi
I park up outside the flats and discover the lifts are still out of order.
I puff and pant up to the eighth floor and listen at Fiona’s door. I can hear the television and the voices of children but no screaming and shouting like before, thank goodness. I knock.
‘Who is it?’ a muffled voice calls from within.
‘It’s Judi, from the surgery,’ I call back.
I hear a bolt slide back and the key turns in the door.
‘Why are you here again?’
She looks awful. Thinner than ever, with heavy dark circles under her eyes. Her blonde hair looks darker, scraped back and greasy, but she’s dressed in leggings and a long-sleeved T-shirt so thankfully I can’t see the dreadful marks that I know mar her body.
‘I just came to see how you are,’ I say.
She laughs and holds her arms out from her sides. ‘So look. This is how I am.’ She steps back to let me into the flat. ‘As you can see, I’m pretty shit.’
‘And I really did want to say sorry about how my husband treated you.’
She looks at me for a long moment and then says simply, ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
I step inside on to a square of floorboards far too tiny to refer to as a hallway. She leads me into a small, cool room where I can immediately smell damp. It is filled with noise from the television, and clutter; piles of stuff – mainly clothes as far as I can see – lean against the walls. An illuminated bare light bulb hangs from the ceiling and the matted carpet sticks to the soles of my shoes.
‘It’s a mess.’ She sweeps her arm unapologetically around the room. ‘We basically live in here; it’s warmer than the other rooms. Sometimes we all sleep in here too.’
Hank sits on a ripped fleecy blanket on the floor. I’m seized by a compulsion to whisk him away, out of this hole.
When he spots me, he grins and bounces on his bottom.
‘Someone’s pleased to see you,’ Fiona says, looking forlornly at her son and turning down the volume on the TV. ‘He doesn’t know what’s happening.’
‘Hello, little man.’ I smile and move towards him. ‘Can I?’ I ask before picking him up.
‘Feel free. You usually do.’ Fiona sits down and picks up a magazine, seeming already to have lost interest in my visit, but I can tell she’s not reading it, just flicking through the pages.
I talk to Hank, sing him a nursery rhyme, tweak his cold, ruddy cheeks. His nappy smells and feels full but he blossoms like a flower with my attention; he smiles, laughs, squeals. It’s wonderful to see.
‘Fiona,’ I say, and she looks up from her magazine. ‘Who’s hurting you?’
She shakes her head, lets out a bitter laugh and stares at the small bare window that’s dripping with condensation.
‘Is this person hurting the children, too?’
‘No way!’ She closes the magazine and glares at me. ‘I’d never let anyone hurt my kids.’
‘You need medical attention.’ There’s nothing her GP can do about bruising, but I dread to think what might be hurting her insi
de where no one can see. Not that I can own up to knowing she’s already sought advice for internal injuries.
‘I’m going down the surgery in the morning.’
I think about how Maura’s jaw will drop when she reads Fiona’s notes afterwards, and I’m glad I won’t be there to witness it.
‘I nearly rang the police,’ I confess. ‘When I saw your injuries.’
‘Well you’ve no right; it’s got sod-all to do with you,’ she snaps, her face colouring. ‘Stop trying to interfere in my life, will you? You’ll wish you hadn’t, trust me.’
Was that a threat? I ignore it.
‘The police would help you. Protect you.’
She looks at me, shaking her head slowly. ‘What planet are you on? You’re so far removed from real life you can’t see what’s happening even when it’s right under your nose, you silly cow. If I go to the police, they’ll laugh in my face.’
‘I don’t understand.’ I sigh, tired of her casual insults. ‘Nobody is going to laugh if you report what’s happened to you, that you were attacked.’
‘Nobody attacked me, you daft bitch. I let someone do this to me. For money. Understand?’
I look at her, not understanding at all.
‘There’s a whole different world out there that you’ve never seen. You don’t even know it exists.’
‘What world are you talking about?’
‘The world where men pay you for sex. Get it now?’ She stuffs her tongue under her lower lip to emphasise my stupidity.
There’s only one way to get those kinds of injuries. The dirty cow. Maura’s words bounce back at me.
‘That’s silenced you, hasn’t it?’ She gives a mirthless laugh. ‘Don’t look so shocked. You’d be amazed what people will pay for. The kind of people who pay for it, too. That would definitely surprise you.’
‘Where do you …’ I struggle to find polite words. ‘I mean, do you bring them here?’
‘What do you take me for?’ Her face darkens. ‘I’d never let my kids see stuff like that. I’d never bring men back here.’ She gets up and stalks out of the room.
This is intense stuff and I’m way out of my comfort zone when it comes to giving advice on such matters.
My phone beeps in my bag. I reach around Hank and pick it up. It’s a text from Ben.
I’m at yours. Noah woke up asking for apple juice. Could you pick him some up pls? x
I smile. This is a sign that Noah is feeling better; he loves his apple juice.
‘I think you ought to go,’ Fiona says flatly from the doorway. ‘This isn’t your world, Mrs Jukes.’
‘Judi,’ I correct her, wriggling my little finger free of Hank’s sticky fist. I stand up and place him back down on his blanket, then turn to face Fiona. ‘You’re right. This is not a world I understand, but that’s not to say I can’t fix it, make things better for you.’
‘Eh?’
‘How much do they pay you, these men?’ I look at her and she shakes her head slowly, as if I’ve spoken in a foreign language.
I widen my eyes in anticipation of her reply, but she stays quiet.
‘It’s a simple enough question, Fiona. How much do they pay you to hurt you? For sex?’
‘I’m not having this conversation,’ she says.
‘Why not? It’s a simple enough question. Is it twenty, fifty—’
‘Twenty quid for full sex, ten for a blow job,’ she says. ‘Satisfied now?’
These were the sums that would buy the body of this young mother of three. The amount that someone, somewhere had deemed to be a fair price.
‘I’ll pay you,’ I say quietly. ‘I’ll give you what you need so you don’t have to do this any more.’
‘Have you lost your mind?’
‘No,’ I say, looking over at little Hank. ‘But you might have, if you’re thinking of turning my offer down.’
‘Why?’ She whispers the word and her eyes glitter. ‘Why would you do that for us?’
‘Because I can make a difference,’ I say, taking out a wad of twenty-pound notes that I drew out using the debit card I’d found by Henry’s side of the bed. I hold them out to her. ‘If you let me, I’ll help you all I can.’
‘Judi, I think you’re the one who needs to get some help,’ she says. ‘You need to look at what’s happening closer to home.’
‘What?’
‘Your husband. He’s one of those men you’re talking about. Not with me, thank God, but I saw him once, with my friend … That’s why he looked so shocked and angry at your house. That’s why he wanted me out of the way.’
Henry’s face … his fury … the awful things he said about Fiona. The lipstick mark on his T-shirt.
I walk over and pick up Hank again, hold him to me, feel his comforting warmth, his neediness.
‘I still want to help you,’ I say. ‘I’ll give you money, anything you need.’
Fiona walks over and takes Hank from my arms.
‘I know you mean well, Judi,’ she says with a sad smile. ‘But my baby, he isn’t for sale.’
68
Judi
I open my eyes and Maura is there. I try to raise my head from the softness behind it but it feels like a lead ball sitting on my shoulders.
‘It’s OK, you’re at home,’ she soothes. ‘You took some sedatives; you’ve been asleep for a few hours. Henry was worried.’
I vaguely remember being back home, screaming at Henry that I knew what he’d been up to, throwing things at him that smashed against the wall. And then, upstairs, I reached to the back of the drawer for the tablets that Dr Fern prescribed.
My mouth feels as if it’s grown a layer of fur on the inside.
Then the terrible reality drifts into my mind from the midst of a numbing fog. Noah ill, Fiona rejecting my help … Henry sleeping with prostitutes.
A tear traces down my cheek and clings to my jaw before falling.
‘Everything’s going to be OK, Judi,’ Maura says gently. ‘Henry is staying away for a few days and you’re going to Ben’s house. To be with him and the boys.’
‘Thank you,’ I whisper. ‘And Amber?’ Her face is imprinted on my mind like a hateful tattoo.
‘No one’s heard from her,’ Maura says grimly. ‘Looks like she’s off the scene, for now.’
It’s like music to my ears.
69
Judi
The next day, Ben drops me back at the house to collect a few things before I go to stay with him for the weekend.
I’m in the kitchen, packing up a few bits of the boys’ favourite food to take, when I hear a noise in the hallway. I move to the kitchen door and stagger back a step when I see Amber standing there.
‘What are you doing here? How did you get in?’
She holds a key up and wiggles it. ‘I’ve had it for ages.’
I walk backwards into the kitchen and she strides towards me, stopping in the doorway.
‘They let me off, you know. Did you hear?’
I say nothing.
‘Not enough evidence, you see. Despite your best efforts; your lies and the glucose you planted in my handbag.’
I turn away from her and begin loading Tupperware boxes into a carrier bag.
‘You won,’ she says.
‘What?’
‘You won, Judi. We hate each other. I wanted to do you in and you wanted to do me in. And I suppose, in a way, we’ve both lost the game, but you win really because I’m leaving Nottingham today.’
My heart leaps inside but I stay poker-faced.
‘You can have Ben and you can have your precious boys – on one condition.’
I look at her.
‘Tell me why. Just this one time, let’s leave the crap behind and speak honestly.’
I shrug. It’s like a dare; I feel strangely amused by it. But I remain cautious.
‘Look!’ She turns out the pockets of her coat. ‘I’m not recording it or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. And I admit, I didn’
t really want Ben, Noah and Josh. I did it because I wanted to hurt you. But we’ll come to that later.’
She shows me her phone and lays it on the side so I can see the screen isn’t activated.
‘You were the one who skewed Noah’s test results, right?’
I look at her and swallow.
‘I know it was you. What I don’t know is why. Why did you do it when it could have harmed him?’
I tune her voice out and I’m back there for a moment. All those years, melting away like ice.
It started by accident, the first time, when David was just a baby. I was used to being ignored by my husband and feeling so tired I could faint, but then when David fell ill, suddenly I was treated with respect and with love by Henry.
So long ago. All that love and concern in his eyes.
The hospital staff couldn’t do enough for me. Nobody likes to see a mother suffering along with her child; there is something in us as human beings that reaches out and tries to make it better.
‘You look drugged up,’ Amber snaps. ‘Out of it.’
I ignore her.
They operated on David and found the cause of his food reflux. From that point, he began to get better immediately. He kept his food down and began to thrive, and as he improved, the good feeling towards me changed. People stopped trying; Henry began staying out late again.
‘I know it was you, Judi. Just tell me. Why did you do it? Make your own grandson ill like that?’
I found out that my little finger, pushed to the back of David’s throat, brought his feed up beautifully again, just the same as before he’d had the op. I became very practised at the manoeuvre – I told myself I wasn’t really hurting him; he didn’t even cry. Just in and out and up the milk would come. A doctor or nurse turning their back for a second or two was enough for me to have it happen virtually right in front of them.
It felt as if I was back in the sunshine for a while. Everyone fussing and worrying over David and me. All sorts of tests had to be done, we stayed over in hospital, and still they could find nothing.
