The Unmaking of Ellie Rook

by Sandra Ireland

  ‘How are you doing, Shel?’

  ‘Oh, holding the line. That’s all we can do. Keep our nerve.’

  I reach for his hand again, and we stay like that for a moment, standing together in the gloom of the caravan.

  ‘It isn’t my money.’

  Shelby is wearing that closed look, the one he adopts when he doesn’t want to answer awkward questions. My head is starting to hurt from thinking about it all, and I let out a huge sigh.

  ‘Look, I’d better go. It’s been quite a day, with one thing and another. I’m knackered.’

  ‘Before you go . . .’ Shelby holds out his arms and I find myself in his embrace. The surprises keep on coming. He has never done this, and now it’s like he doesn’t want to let me go. I bury my face in the softness of his shirt. For the briefest of moments, I feel safe, like nothing can touch me, but he prises me away and holds me at arm’s length.

  ‘Promise me you’ll leave – as soon as you’re able, my love. Don’t be like your mother. She wasted all that energy on a situation that couldn’t be altered. There’s been too much time wasted.’

  He looks like he wants to say more, but even though the words are hovering close to the surface, he clamps his lips shut.

  ‘I promise.’ I’m suddenly scared. Things are changing in unexpected ways. I lay my hand on Shelby’s shoulder. It’s thin and frail beneath his soft plaid shirt. Too much time wasted.

  I go upstairs to the bathroom and lock myself in. Running the shower until the water steams, I climb into the cubicle. It’s the smallest space in the house, the equivalent of curling up in a corner and drawing a blanket over my head. I’m finally paying attention to my memories, my flashbacks, my mother’s veiled hints – all the danger signs that I’d chosen to ignore for so long. We’ve been living in denial – Mum, River, Shelby, me. Complicit. But I can’t afford to push my father too far. He knows I’m onto him, and I need to get out of here in one piece.

  The shower is stocked with cheap toiletries. He would never let my mother splash the cash on good quality brands. He’d give her just enough money to buy cheap shit, and then he’d check the receipts. I never knew that until my last visit, when I opened a drawer and found a treasure trove of birthday presents I’d sent her: Miss Dior perfume, Lush body butter – high-end cosmetics I’d really wanted to keep for myself. I suppose on some level I’d been compensating for all the nice things my father should have lavished on her but never did. We’d had a row about the stuff in the drawer – life is too short to keep things for best, I’d argued. But it wasn’t that, she’d said. He’d think she’d bought fancy stuff and lied to him. I’d told her not to be so silly. It was easy for me to jet off, leaving her to cajole and appease him. Why hadn’t I listened more to the space between her words? She had no escape; she had to live with him, always following the path of least resistance.

  I choose a budget shower gel that smells of lime, and I soap my body. The sensation reminds me of Piotr, the way my skin must have felt to his touch, the way he made me lose myself for a little while. I gave myself up to what happened in his bed, a makeshift, ill-timed coming together of bodies, but my mind stayed out of it, alert but unmoved. The thought makes me sad. I longed to be moved by Piotr. In another time, perhaps. In another place. He fascinates me, a bright flame against the grey North Sea, but sex shouldn’t have been part of the equation. No baggage, no strings, no regret – he makes me long for my backpacker life. He is foreignness and freedom. A reminder. Maybe we’re all gypsies deep down, happier without roots.

  But I do have roots. Sooner or later I’m going to have to deal with what’s been going on here. Panic begins to gnaw at my insides. I’d fooled myself into thinking this was a visit – under tragic circumstances, obviously, but still just a visit. Instead, I’ve walked into a hornet’s nest.

  I no longer smell of the sea, or of Piotr. I’m washed clean. A part of me doesn’t want to let him go so easily. I want to cling on to the dark space we generated between us, filled with soft words, caresses, kindness. A creeping dread has taken hold inside me like a stubborn stain.

  Wrapping myself in the biggest towel I can find, I perch, beturbaned and shivering, on the edge of the bath. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. A drip of water slides down my cheek like a tear.

  That night, I sleep very badly and wake up in the middle of another car cemetery dream. I think I hear the noise of an engine in the yard, and I suddenly remember the box that Offshore Dave keeps, filled with stuff that he’s salvaged from cars about to be crushed: spectacles and scarves, cuddly toys and tins of travel sweets. As a child, the wrecked cars that came into the yard scared the shit out of me; they seemed wounded, vulnerable. Imagine leaving home, full of purpose and in high spirits, and hours later you’re a mangled wreck being towed up the drive. I never thought of the people that were mangled and broken – it was always the cars. Once Dave found a severed thumb and chased me round the yard with it, until Julie hit him with a broom handle. I was about eight. No wonder my dreams are always full of phantom vehicles.

  The border between dreaming and waking is hazy, and when I wake up for a second time, it’s morning.

  28

  Fourteen Days After

  I wander through the empty house with a new wariness in my step. I haven’t heard my father in the bathroom and he’s not sitting at the table with his porridge. The kettle is stone cold. After yesterday’s confrontation, it seems safest to avoid him. The sensation of being choked comes back to me on a wave of panic, and I ease my fingers under the neckline of my top. As I set about making my breakfast, I try to think of other things, to recapture the feeling of safety I felt in Shelby’s embrace. Maybe together we can begin to make things right. I could get him to have a word with River, man to man.

  As the kettle grumbles to the boil, I wander over to the window. It’s still half dark out there, and it’s wet. On the window pane, a fine cobweb of raindrops sparkles in the yard lights. I’m just wondering what’s tripped the motion sensor when I hear the low growling of a dog. I realise Dave’s van is already parked up in the yard, much earlier than usual. If I press my nose to the glass, I can just make out his elbow and the bushy tail of one of the German shepherds.

  Prickling with unease, I let myself softly out the back door. Dave has the dogs tightly leashed and they start up a frantic barking as soon as they see me. They bear no resemblance to the fluffy pups I once held in my arms. My father is out there too, standing over by the fence, staring at the ground. Something is different, and I struggle for a moment to work out what it is.

  The last fragments of that safe feeling dissolve like a dream. Shelby’s caravan is gone. My father is standing on a dry, discoloured, caravan-shaped vacancy.

  ‘What the fuck is he playing at? What the fuck? Did you know about this?’ Dad’s glaring at me, and I can only shake my head. How could he leave without a word? My throat begins to knot with tears. This feels like the last straw.

  Dad is predictably furious, but there’s something else: Shelby has abandoned his beaten-up Land Rover Defender and taken off with my father’s gleaming white Range Rover. River emerges from the house behind me. He’s hunched against the rain, in pyjama bottoms, his arms folded across his bare torso. A sprinkling of chest hair reminds me of the man he is becoming. Like the dogs, no longer cute and cuddly, but another male force to be reckoned with.

  ‘Shelby’s gone,’ I say, unnecessarily. Dad is barking the same question at my brother, and River’s saying no, he doesn’t know anything either.

  ‘Why would he take your wheels?’

  Dad is circling on the spot in disbelief. I think we’re all waiting for the explosion.

  ‘I was only speaking to him yesterday evening,’ I put in quickly. ‘He never said a word.’

  ‘How bloody dare he? Without even a nod?’ Dad stops his pivoting and crosses the yard so swiftly that I jump when his face juts into mine. Water is dripping off his eyelashes, his beard. His blue eyes lance t
hrough me and leave me shivering. ‘I bet you know something about this.’

  ‘No, I don’t. I swear it.’ My hand flutters around my neck, and my stomach clamps in on itself. ‘It’s a total shock to me too.’

  Why hadn’t Shelby said something? All that talk about wasted time – what was he trying to tell me? Leaving Dad and River and Dave to discuss the theft of the Range Rover, I withdraw quietly back into the kitchen. Of course he took Dad’s car. He knew it would be the only vehicle that wasn’t fitted with a tracking device. Shelby doesn’t want to be found.

  An idea is beginning to form. A possibility. I go to the fridge and haul open the freezer compartment, urgent fingers digging out the margarine tub marked ‘Lentil soup’. The lid is loose; the cash is missing. The door bangs and the men troop in.

  ‘Make some tea and bacon rolls, Ellie. There’s a good girl.’

  I hear work boots stomping over the tiles and chairs being scraped back, but I don’t respond. My eyes are fixed on the empty plastic box. It isn’t my money.

  ‘Ellie, did you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, Dad.’ I shove the box back into the fridge and swing the door shut. River catches my eye.

  ‘All these years! All these fucking years – rent free!’ Dad bangs his fists on the table and the dogs growl. ‘I’m a spanner-man down and a vehicle short, and not so much as a by your leave!’

  Dave shakes his head. ‘A-fucking-palling. He needs to be taught a lesson, boss.’

  ‘Damn fucking right he does.’

  I put the kettle on, take out the big black frying pan. ‘I’ll just see if your paper’s been delivered, Dad.’

  I make a face at River and he catches on quick, meeting me in the hall. We huddle together out of earshot of the closed kitchen door.

  ‘This isn’t good,’ River whispers. ‘Shelby’s fucked. What was he thinking, taking the Range Rover?’

  I explain about the tracking devices in a rushed whisper, watching the door like it’s a snake about to strike. River stares at me in disbelief.

  ‘Rocky? You’re kidding.’

  I pull him closer to the front door, away from the kitchen. ‘It’s true. Dad forced Piotr to fix devices to all the vehicles. He can track everyone just by checking his phone. When I was parked up at the beach yesterday, he knew exactly where I was, and for how long.’ My hand strays once again to my throat. ‘River, he guessed I was with Piotr yesterday. He tried to choke me and he . . . he threatened me.’

  ‘What? He’s upset, because of Mum. He doesn’t mean anything by it.’

  ‘Don’t do that!’ I want to shake him. ‘Don’t make excuses for him. He tried to fucking throttle me!’

  ‘Shh! He’ll hear.’ River looks uncertain. He’s torn between what he thinks he knows and the ugly truth. I press home my point.

  ‘He’s a fucking control freak. Remember Mum stopped using her mobile? Cloned.’

  ‘Cloned?’

  I open my mouth to tell him more, but the ding-dong of the front doorbell makes us both leap. I unlock the front door a crack, wearing my not today scowl, but it’s Sharon, with Liam lurking behind her. He’s hunched in a thin jacket, shoulders dark with rain. She’s wielding a green umbrella and obviously on a mission.

  ‘Ellie! I thought I’d pop by just to see. I saw your dad leaving in the middle of the night and wondered if they’d found her, your mum?’ I open my mouth to say it wasn’t Dad driving the Range Rover, but she rattles on. ‘I was up all night. I made a shepherd’s pie and I thought the mince smelled a bit funny, and I was right. It gave me the runs. I reckon that’s what did it. Couldn’t get off the toilet. I was just opening the bathroom window, and I leaned out to get a bit of air and I saw the white car stopped on the drive and your dad opening the gate. Well, I just went and shouted at Liam. “Wake up! They must have had a call. From the police.”’

  ‘I was asleep,’ Liam grunts. ‘I told her you’d let us know if there’s any news.’

  He looks like he’d rather be anywhere else than standing on our doorstep in the rain. I haven’t replied to any of his texts since the day we went down to the beach, and it looks like he’s in the huff. Sharon hasn’t mentioned the caravan – from her bathroom window, in the dark, the chances are she only caught a glimpse of a shadowy figure opening the gate and assumed it was my father. I don’t want to start a discussion about Shelby, but the kitchen door bursts open and Dad appears.

  ‘Sharon!’ He shakes her warmly by the hand, causing her to juggle with the brolly and nearly poke Liam in the eye with one of the spokes. ‘Thanks for coming over. Your support means such a lot. On this occasion it was a false alarm.’

  ‘Oh.’ She looks unreasonably disappointed.

  Dad begins to close the door. ‘Thanks again. We’ll let you know.’

  ‘Ellie, I’ll call you.’ Liam raises his voice, but the door slams, and the last thing I see is Sharon’s disappointed face and rain bouncing off the umbrella.

  ‘Right, you two. We need to go. Forget the damn breakfast, Ellie. River, go and get dressed. We have things to do.’

  River takes the stairs two at a time, and I follow Dad into the kitchen. The back door is standing open, and I can see Dave loading the dogs into the van. My father is scrolling on his phone. Surely he can’t be tracking his own vehicle? I experience a little prod of alarm. Where are you, Shelby? Stay safe. When I place a mug of tea in front of Dad, he looks up briefly.

  ‘You are not to leave the house, understand? And you can give me your phone. I don’t want anyone tipping him off.’

  ‘Shelby doesn’t have a mobile.’

  ‘So? You two have always been as thick as thieves. I’m sure you’ll come up with a way to get a message to him. Phone.’ I slide it out of my back pocket and slam it down so hard on the table it almost cracks. He shoots me a look. ‘I don’t trust you. You’ve always been a sneaky bitch, keepings things from me. You take after your mother.’

  ‘If I took after my mother I’d have fucking drowned myself too!’

  His hand flies out without warning. The sting of his slap radiates through me and I stagger back. I grab a chair, nursing my cheek, but when I look up, he’s taking my phone over to the sink. I hear a plop.

  ‘No!’

  I hurl myself after him to find my mobile sinking to the bottom of the full washing-up bowl. He’s chuckling to himself as he leaves.

  ‘River, get in the back.’

  ‘No, River, don’t go!’

  I cling to his arm, and although he shakes me off, he makes no move forward. I know this River – the pale, shy little boy peeping out of the man’s body. I grip his arm again. Don’t do it, my eyes plead with him.

  ‘Get in the fuckin’ van.’ Dad isn’t prepared to mess about. Offshore Dave is holding the door open with a mocking smile. I hear him say, ‘Want a leg up, milady?’ as River climbs into the front, and I’m suddenly more afraid for him than I’ve ever been in my life. I need to get him out of here – away from this place, this life. He needs to find himself, like I attempted to do. I almost managed it, but the scrappie has put a spanner in the works. I’m no longer Ellie Rook; I’m the ghost of Imelda, waiting for Lawler Rook to return from whatever nefarious, macho business he’s been conducting. Waiting for River to turn into the same sort of man.

  As the van pulls away in a haze of burning oil, I drag my feet back into the kitchen. I find a bag of rice in the cupboard and pop the waterlogged phone into it, and then I wander around the kitchen, wiping surfaces and generally trying to occupy myself. My stomach is churning so much I feel like I’m going to throw up. My gaze travels over the sink, the cooker, the plastic washing basket piled with blue boiler suits, towels, boxer shorts. The table with its crumbs and plates that no one else will bother to clean.

  A white mist is rising up to meet me. I pick up Dad’s ‘World’s Greatest Boss’ mug and drop it. The resulting crash is so satisfying I turn to the dresser and Grandma Rook’s precious wedding china. The plates sit bolt upright like Edwardian
ladies in pink flowered silk. I take them off, one at a time, and smash them to the floor. One for Mum, one for River, one for Shelby, one for me: all the people who have been kept prisoner in this house, bound by his ways and his rules. Crockery tumbles from the shelves with a noise that makes my heart shrink, but I cannot stop. I find his pathetic little pot of mustard in the cupboard. I unscrew the top and put my fingers in and calmly smear it all over the blue boiler suits. That’s for all those years of keeping him clean, Mum. All those years of not revealing the dirty secret of abuse to the world.

  I’m giggling like a little kid, but there’s a fine line between laughter and tears. My hysteria turns into big ugly sobs. I stand in the middle of the kitchen and take a last look at my handiwork, but the scene is a blur. Grabbing Mum’s car keys, I leave, slamming the door behind me.

  29

  I scramble into the car without any clear idea of where I’m going, but it no longer matters. He’ll know where I am. Sweat creeps up my spine; my back is hot and sticky against the driver’s seat. Mum’s little koala dances a jig beneath the mirror as I swing erratically onto the drive. The Fiesta bounces over the ruts, front wheels spinning on mud as I nose out onto the road.

  Liam is in his front garden, testing the hinges on the gate, toing and froing it, giving it a test jiggle. I wonder if he’s waiting for me, and when he glances up there’s a shadow of disappointment on his face. There is no escape. I slow to a crawl and open the window.

  ‘Remember that end-of-term party when I crashed into this gate on Danny Findlater’s new moped? It’s never been the same since.’

  He’s trying to draw me in with his nostalgia game, but I no longer want to play. My memories are not rose-tinted and I’m sick of pretending. I glare at the gate.

  ‘No longer fit for purpose,’ I mutter.

  He gives me a surly look. ‘Must try and get it fixed.’ He closes the gate with a click. ‘Where are you off to?’

  I shrug. ‘No idea. I just need to get away for a bit.’