The Guilty Mother

by Diane Jeffrey

  ‘You need help,’ she said, when I’d finished, without asking me what was wrong. ‘You can’t possibly cope with two teenagers and twin babies by yourself.’ She fished a packet of tissues out of her handbag and handed me one.

  ‘Bella helps me out when she’s home,’ I said. ‘And Michael …’

  What did Michael do exactly? An image came to me, then, unbidden – Michael raising his eyebrows disapprovingly. I couldn’t pinpoint an actual event to go with the image; he seemed to be giving me that look a lot lately. When he came home at a reasonable time and dinner wasn’t ready. Or when he came home late and the house was still untidy.

  Jenny didn’t push it. ‘Wasn’t your mum helping you out?’ she asked instead.

  ‘She was, but we had a row.’ I didn’t go into details. It was a petty argument, caused partly by my inability to take advice and partly by my mother giving criticism and instructions rather than suggestions and assistance. I needed to pick up the phone and call her, but I wished just for once that she would make the first move.

  ‘I’ll have a word with Irena when we get back to your place,’ Jenny said. ‘We’ll set up something permanent with her. Then we’ll make a doctor’s appointment for you. And from now on, you must have some time out for yourself. Some “me time”, as they say. Every day. To do some exercise, to have a haircut and a facial, or just to relax and breathe.’

  I stared at Jenny blankly. I could hardly find the energy to get out of bed, or the time to do basic household chores. On an exceptionally good day, I managed to get dressed and clean my teeth before Michael came home in the evening. How on earth was I going to get out and do some sport or get a makeover?

  Jenny answered my unspoken question. ‘You need a nanny. We’ll find you a nanny,’ she said.

  I wasn’t sure if this was a good idea or how Michael would feel about it. We could easily afford it, although Mike was tight with money – well, he called it “frugal” – but I had my maternity pay.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘You’re a brick.’ I welled up again, thinking I didn’t deserve her.

  ‘Of course you do,’ she said firmly, and I realised I’d voiced that thought. ‘You have to stop thinking like that. You’re not yourself at the moment, that’s all.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Well, you might have sailed through motherhood last time with Callum, but I found it a bit of a struggle with Sophia.’

  I knew that must be an understatement. Jenny wasn’t the sort of person to seek attention for herself and she wouldn’t have wanted me to feel sorry for her. I hugged her.

  In the end, Jenny didn’t find a nanny; she found an au pair. With hindsight, of course, it was a mistake letting Clémentine into our home. But we couldn’t have foreseen how she would change our lives. Especially mine.

  Chapter 3

  Jonathan

  April 2018

  Just as I’m undocking my laptop to leave the office for the day, my phone beeps with a text. It’s from Nina, my childminder. I read it, swearing under my breath.

  ‘What’s up?’ Kelly says, turning to face me.

  ‘I was supposed to go to see The Cherry Orchard this evening,’ I say absent-mindedly, my finger typing out a short reply on the keyboard of my phone, ‘but Nina has let me down.’

  I hit the arrow to send the text and look up to see the blank expression on Kelly’s face as she ponders this.

  ‘It’s a play,’ I add, ‘by Chekhov.’

  ‘I know,’ Kelly says. She doesn’t sound at all indignant, but I feel slightly guilty for underestimating her. ‘I haven’t seen that one,’ she continues, ‘but I’ve seen The Seagull and read Three Sisters. More of an Ibsen fan myself.’

  There’s an awkward pause and I don’t know how to fill it. I can’t stand Ibsen or Chekhov, personally. I’m not a keen theatregoer at all, except for the Christmas pantomime, but that doesn’t seem like the right thing to say.

  In the end, Kelly puts a stop to the pause, but adds to the awkwardness. ‘Is it for a review for The Mag?’ She doesn’t pause for me to answer. ‘I’ll go with you if you don’t want to go by yourself.’

  ‘What? Oh, no. Nina was supposed to look after my kids. She’s not my date.’

  Holly, my girlfriend, is my date. Holly is pretty and intelligent – she’s a pathologist – and I’ve been seeing her for about eighteen months now. My heart sinks at having to cancel my plans with her this evening, although part of me is thrilled at not having to sit through the play. But I still need to fake a review somehow.

  ‘Oh.’ Kelly actually sounds disappointed and I realise the play is probably more her bag than mine. ‘Well, I can babysit if you like,’ she says, ‘to thank you for your help earlier.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Kelly, but it’s part of my job description to oversee your work, and I couldn’t possibly accept your kind offer. I’ve got two tickets, though. It’s on at Bristol Old Vic. Is there someone you could go with?’ Her angelic face brightens up and she nods.

  ‘Yeah. My mum’s quite arty. I’m sure she’d love to go with me!’

  I open my desk drawer and pull out the envelope containing the tickets. ‘I’ll need some feedback I can use for my write-up,’ I say. Kelly nods again. ‘I’ll give you a hand with your feature on the homeless if you like.’

  On my way home, I call Holly to cancel.

  ‘Oh, never mind. That’s OK,’ she says, although I can tell from the sound of her voice that it’s not. ‘If you like, I could …’

  She doesn’t finish her sentence, but I can guess what she was about to say. Even though we’ve been dating for a year and a half, I still haven’t told anyone about her, least of all my boys. Holly is desperate to come round and meet them. It’s a topic she has been bringing up a lot lately and that I’ve been circumventing. I’m sure Holly thinks I’m commitment-phobic, but it’s not that. I think I’m doing a good job of moving on, and it’s what Mel would have wanted; it’s just that at the moment I’m happy with the way things are.

  ‘I’ll make it up to you, I promise.’

  As I make pizza and watch Paddington 2 with my sons that evening, I’ve all but forgotten about Melissa Slade. I can feel her crouching at the back of my mind, ready to jump out at me, but I’m doing a good job of shutting her out for the moment.

  But once I’ve turned off the TV and put the boys to bed, there’s no distraction and no buffer against my thoughts, and I can’t seem to get Melissa Slade out of my head.

  I can’t be bothered to boot up my laptop this evening, but on my phone I skim through some more of the online articles from the trial and her first appeal.

  Mel was obsessed with the case. She dreamt of having a baby girl – we were trying for another baby at the time – and she didn’t believe that this woman could have killed hers. But that was Mel. She was a good person and she only ever saw the good in other people. ‘Innocent until proven guilty, Jon,’ I remember her saying when we discussed Melissa Slade’s trial in the evenings when I got home from the courtroom.

  We didn’t discuss the appeal that followed in November 2014. Mel had died two months earlier.

  I feel a tear snake its way down my cheek. I wish Mel were here now. I’d like to ask her for advice. I don’t know what to do. What would you do, Mel? But as soon as the question enters my head, the answer comes to me.

  You can do this, Jon. The voice in my head is Mel’s. The voice of reason. It has nothing to do with us. Nothing to do with what happened to our family.

  ‘Innocent until proven guilty, huh?’ I say aloud. ‘But she was found guilty as charged.’

  Leaning back on the sofa, I doze off for a while, but it’s a fitful sleep. I wake up with a start and a crick in my neck. I get up and check on Noah and Alfie before making my way to bed.

  The following day, after covering Sports Day at the local school, I write a review from Kelly’s enthusiastic comments about the play and the programme, which she has brought with her to show me. She ha
s also taken a few photos with her smartphone and I choose one of the better ones. I add Kelly’s name to mine at the top of the article.

  At lunchtime, I honour my promise to Kelly. At first she’s confused when I buy three sandwiches, but she gives her trademark grin when she gets it. There seem to be roadworks all over the city at the moment, so instead of taking my car, we walk to Temple Way and then get on the bus for Cabot Circus. With my mouth full of BLT sub, I brief Kelly before we get off at the shopping centre.

  ‘You need originality. You wrote that the number of Bristol’s homeless is twice the national average, which is shocking, and you mention that a local charity has made shipping containers into homes to get people off the streets, which is fantastic, but this is old news. We need the faces behind the facts and figures. You have to add something new.’

  Kelly bobs her head vigorously then bites into her sandwich. When she’s not grinning, she’s nodding, I think unfairly.

  As we wander up and down the pedestrianised streets around the shopping centre, I start to think we should have come after work, in the evening. But then we see a woman sitting in the doorway of a shop, hugging her knees to her chest, her sleeping bag rolled up beside her. The shop has “clearance sale” stickers across its windows and has evidently now closed down.

  ‘There’s your angle,’ I say to Kelly, pointing.

  ‘What? Oh, I see. The irony. Someone sleeping rough in front of an empty building when the council promised to open up empty buildings to house them.’

  ‘No. That’s not what I meant. Although, that could work, too. I was thinking more—’

  ‘Bristol’s Homeless Women,’ Kelly finishes my sentence.

  ‘Exactly,’ I say. Handing Kelly a bacon sub and a ten-pound note, I tell her I’ll be waiting for her in Costa Coffee a few doors up the road. ‘Don’t forget to take her photo,’ I remind her.

  While I’m waiting for Kelly, I open the Notes app on my phone and type in the names of Melissa Slade’s family members.

  Michael Slade, her husband, father of the twin girls.

  Simon Goodman, her ex-husband, father of her son.

  What was the kid called again? I look up my article online. I haven’t mentioned his name, only his age. At the time of the court case, he was thirteen. I check out other online articles, but the boy’s name doesn’t appear to have been mentioned in the press. Melissa’s mother was mentioned in The Post, though. I add her name to my list.

  Ivy Moore.

  Next, I go onto a People Finder site. This one should help me locate some of Melissa’s family members as long as they’re on the electoral roll and haven’t opted out of this online directory. I don’t bother with Michael Slade for now – I already have an address for him from five years ago, but I can’t imagine that he would have stayed in that house after what happened in it. There must be thousands of Slades in and around Bristol, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he has moved away. Either way, he’ll be hard to track down.

  Simon Goodman throws up about twenty results. I frown. I’ll filter them a bit later when I can use a bigger screen. Ivy Moore is a hit, though. Only one result with that name in the area. On the electoral roll. Full address. Under “other occupants” there is a George Moore, presumably Melissa’s father. The age guide seems to fit. They’re in their sixties.

  I’ve just finished copying and pasting their address into the notes app of my phone when Kelly materialises in front of me. Getting up, I drain my coffee, grimacing because it has gone cold, and grab my jacket.

  ‘Any good?’

  Nodding, Kelly flashes me a wide smile. Her two body language tics are now in sync, I think.

  ‘Back to the office, then.’

  The address I’ve noted down for Melissa Slade’s parents is in Hanham, which isn’t far from Kingswood, where I live, so I decide to make a short detour on the way home. Hoping to avoid the traffic, I leave the office earlier than usual, punching the name of their road into my satnav at the first red light.

  As I pull up in front of Ivy and George Moore’s house, I notice there’s a car in the driveway. Looks like I’m in luck. Well, looks like they’re home at least. I know from my many years as a journalist that they may not be willing to talk to me. I take in the terrace house, wondering if Melissa grew up in it. Did she have any siblings? Did they go to school nearby? I make a mental note to ask her parents these questions. If they let me in.

  George Moore opens the door when I ring the bell. He has an instantly likeable face, bushy grey eyebrows cascading out above kind blue eyes. I know him to be in his sixties from the age guide on the online directory, but his hunched shoulders and sluggish movements make him appear a lot older. His hair – what’s left of it – is a slightly lighter shade of grey than his eyebrows.

  ‘Mr Moore? I’m Jonathan Hunt. I’m a journalist from The Redcliffe Gazette,’ I say, holding out my hand. He hesitates, but then he shakes it, which I take as an encouraging sign. ‘I wonder if we could have a chat about your daughter Melissa. I’ve been asked to write a piece about her appeal application and I’d like to give an accurate account.’

  ‘Usually my wife doesn’t …’

  ‘Is your wife here, Mr Moore?’ I ask gently, thinking that she is probably the decision-maker for this couple.

  ‘Er, no, but she’ll be back soon.’

  ‘Then maybe you and I could talk until she gets home.’ When he doesn’t react, I add, ‘Mr Moore, you have my word, I always endeavour to report objectively. I don’t write sensationalist articles. I don’t misquote or misrepresent. I’m only ever concerned with the truth.’

  To my surprise, he opens the door and leads me into the small living room. The television is on and The Beast seems to be making mincemeat out of the three contestants remaining in the final chase.

  The room is clean – it has been recently vacuumed judging from the hoover marks on the worn pink carpet – but it houses a lot of clutter. Every spare inch of dark wooden furniture has a magazine or a book on it; china ornaments jostle for space on the window ledges, and paintings by numbers and children’s felt art pictures hang on the walls.

  I admire the artwork. ‘My sons do a lot of craftwork,’ I say. ‘They like making model planes and cars. And the younger one, Alfie, loves drawing.’

  ‘My grandson, Callum, liked drawing when he was younger. And Lego and Meccano.’ Pointing at the pictures, he says, ‘Melissa did those when she was a little girl.’ His eyes lose some of their brightness when he mentions his daughter’s name, as if he’s overcome by the nostalgia of a time when his daughter was still an innocent child.

  I clear my throat. I don’t want to scare Melissa’s father by taking notes, and as I expected Melissa Slade’s parents to refuse to talk to me, I haven’t prepared any questions, so I start with the ones I asked myself earlier.

  Melissa is an only child, her dad informs me. The Moores moved into this house when Melissa was five. She attended local state schools. I try to commit this information to memory. I’ll need to make a Voice Memo as soon as I get out to the car before I forget it all. Mind like a sieve. Mr Moore relaxes as we talk, but I have to tread carefully. I sense he’s wary of me, so I need to keep building up his trust and avoid catching him off guard with tricky questions.

  ‘Would you like to see some photos?’ Mr Moore blurts out as I’m trying to think of a line of questioning to fast-forward from Melissa’s childhood to her having children of her own.

  ‘Yes, I would.’ I plaster a smile on my face. ‘Very much.’

  Mr Moore gets up and, to my dismay, reaches down five volumes of photo albums from a shelf on the bookcase. We move to the sofa and he comments on some of the photos as he turns over the pages of the first album. It starts with Melissa’s baby photos, some of which have lost at least one of their self-adhesive corners and become crooked. Mr Moore straightens them before he flips each page over. By the end of the album, there are pictures of her as a toddler.

  It’s a good half an ho
ur before we get to the fifth and final album, this one a photo book that Mr Moore tells me Melissa created online. We seem to have gone full circle as, like the first volume, it starts with photos of Mr and Mrs Moore with a baby. I realise that the photo albums have got me to where I need to go.

  ‘Is that Melissa’s son, Mr Moore?’

  ‘Yes. That’s Callum, our grandson.’

  ‘And that’s your wife holding him, is it?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  I wonder where Mrs Moore is and when she’s due home, but before I can ask, George turns another page and from the next photo Melissa Slade stares out at me through bewitching turquoise eyes. She has a heart-shaped face, long blond hair and a huge smile. I find myself transfixed. She’s sitting next to a man, who has his arm round her as she holds their baby son.

  ‘That’s Melissa with Simon and Callum,’ Mr Moore says, using his index finger to point on the photo at each of them in turn.

  Thinking that there may be some photos in this album of Melissa with her baby girls, I remember Claire’s words. I’m thinking never-before-seen baby photos. But I don’t like the idea of asking George for a photo to put in the newspaper. Even if I find one that shows Melissa as a loving mother, I’d feel as if I was invading this family’s privacy and abusing the trust George is showing me.

  ‘What was Melissa like?’ I ask. I realise I’ve used the past tense, but if George finds that odd, he doesn’t show it.

  ‘She was a bright child. A wayward teenager. She and my wife Ivy were always at loggerheads with one another. She was kind and funny.’ He smiles wistfully. ‘She was a good mother to Callum.’

  He pauses for a moment, and I mull over that last sentence, noting Mr Moore’s use of the past tense, too.

  ‘We – Ivy and I – don’t see as much of Callum as we’d like to. He’s all grown up now. I suppose he prefers to hang out with friends his own age. But when Melissa first …’