The Push

by Claire McGowan

  She heard a faint buzz, which must be his phone. His hand crept to his pocket but didn’t take it out. ‘Well, I mean, not much to tell. I made a mistake, that’s all.’ He had stolen a small amount of cash from a patient’s coat when it was left in the ambulance. Twenty quid, that was all.

  ‘You needed money.’

  ‘Doesn’t everyone?’

  Alison said, ‘Rahul, do you have a gambling problem? Because we noticed you liked a lot of online poker sites, that sort of thing.’

  He frowned. ‘Gambling’s not allowed in Islam.’

  ‘Well, yes, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.’ Diana gave Alison a look – she had to tread lightly.

  He thought about it for a long time. ‘Look, I just got into difficulties with debt. Student loans and that. I was stupid and young. I dealt with it, put it behind me. And I saw nothing at the barbecue.’

  ‘You have no idea at all what happened that day? You’ve got a medical background – do you really think someone could just slip and fall like that?’

  His phone buzzed again, she saw his energy shift towards it, itching to pick it up. Typical phone addiction, or something in particular making him nervous? ‘Of course they could. I see it all the time. People drink, they act stupid, they fall from high buildings, I have to come and scrape them off the ground.’

  ‘You think she was drunk, then.’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. That’s usually the case. There was a lot of booze at the party – hardly anything for Aisha and me to drink. And the balcony had just been cleaned, apparently. She could have slipped.’

  ‘You gave first aid at the scene?’ Alison imagined how that would have been, having seen the bloody mess of the body. He had tried to help all the same. He couldn’t be a bad person, not deep down. Could he?

  ‘Tried to. I could see it was hopeless. You fall that far on to rocks, there’s nothing to do for you.’

  ‘Alright. Thank you for your time, Rahul.’

  They got up to leave, and he took his phone out, but then called them back. ‘Will you tell Aisha about it – the conviction?’ He frowned.

  ‘Not unless it becomes relevant.’ A secret, then. Alison understood secrets. Secrets were what made people do very bad things. And she knew for a fact that Nina da Souza had not been drunk that day. In fact, she had drunk nothing at all; there had hardly been time.

  Jax – four weeks earlier

  It all happened because of Monica. It was break time in the second-to-last group session, and we were standing round the tea urn, except I wasn’t standing of course. I had irritably refused the wheelchair this week, but still had to sit down as much as I could, walking only the few steps from the car. Luckily my incapacitation gave me a great excuse not to bake; this week it had been Cathy, something chewy she claimed was ‘hydrolase-free’. I didn’t even know what that was and was too tired to ask. All of a sudden Monica said, ‘You won’t believe the email I got from the nursery today. All children must show proof of vaccination before admittance!’

  Hazel was dunking a biscuit in herbal tea, which must have been disgusting. ‘Fair enough. There was a measles outbreak near us last year, a kiddie nearly died.’

  Monica just blinked, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘The nerve of them! What business of theirs is it if we don’t vaccinate?’

  A small silence fell. I saw Nina look over from where she sat outside the circle, checking her notes. Her hair shifted around her face, a ripple of light. Anita was the one who spoke. ‘You aren’t going to vaccinate, Monica?’

  ‘I don’t intend to, no. All these stories – you can’t be too careful. After all, who does it benefit? Big Pharma, that’s who.’ She tapped her head in a worldly-wise gesture. I could not have been more surprised if she’d taken out a tinfoil hat and put it on. But then, it made perfect sense. Monica was a wealthy white woman with little to do all day except get outraged online. Of course she was an anti-vaxxer. Oh God. I moved away slightly, already trying to shield my unborn child from such lunacy.

  ‘That’s insane,’ said Hazel clearly. ‘Kiddies used to die all the time from measles, rubella. Roald Dahl, his little girl did.’

  Monica waved a hand. ‘Eons ago. Hardly happens at all now.’

  ‘Because they’ve been vaccinated,’ I said, though not as firmly as Hazel.

  Monica frowned. ‘Ed, you agree with me, don’t you? Vaccinations haven’t been proven safe?’ Ed looked up briefly from his phone, shrugged.

  Jeremy said, ‘Actually, multiple studies have proven there’s no link between autism and vaccines. It was based on junk science from one discredited doctor.’

  Monica gave him a look as if she’d expected better. ‘Well, I must say, I didn’t think I’d be attacked, just for having opinions. Aren’t I free to manage my own baby’s health?’

  Hazel crunched her biscuit. ‘That’s the thing, it’s not just your baby. There’s such a thing as herd immunity – if it drops too low, everyone’s kids are at risk, not just the crazy anti-vaxxers.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  Cathy said, tentatively, ‘Actually I do have some concerns about what’s in them, heavy metals and so on . . .’

  ‘What?’ Hazel just stared at her. ‘You don’t mean that. Of course we’re having him done.’

  ‘I . . .’ Cathy raised her jaw. ‘I’d rather discuss it, is all. I don’t trust doctors. They don’t always listen. And my cousin’s little one, he was never the same after his MMR.’

  ‘Autism?’ mouthed Monica.

  ‘Something like that, yeah.’

  ‘See? We just don’t know what we’re putting in them.’ Monica looked round at us all, seeking an ally. Aaron’s head was dipped, his eyes clouded. He was too young to have opinions about vaccines. Unless it was the band, The Vaccines. She lit on Aisha, who had not yet spoken – Rahul, like Ed, was on his phone. ‘Aisha. You must agree. Don’t you have something in your culture that means you can’t get it? I don’t know, what are they made from? I’m sure I was reading that pigs are involved. I mean think of that! Putting pigs into our children!’

  ‘What the hell do you think pork is?’ muttered Jeremy.

  Aisha said nothing for a long moment, during which I found I was holding my breath. She said, ‘My cousin got rubella when she was pregnant, in Pakistan. Her baby can’t see or hear. So. Mine will be getting whatever’s on offer, thanks very much.’

  Monica blinked several times, then said, ‘Well! I see we’re not even allowed to have opinions now.’ She flounced back to the circle, but not before seeking one last-ditch attempt at support. ‘Nina. You must agree that parental choice comes first?’

  Nina paused for a moment. Then she said, ‘I believe the health of the child comes first, Monica. To be a good mother – a fit mother – I think you have to feel the same.’

  Monica chuntered. ‘Oh. And what qualifications do you have to say this, Nina?’

  Oh dear. I would have run from the room if I’d been able to move. So much tension. Nina just glared at her. ‘As much as you, Monica, plus years working as a doula.’

  ‘But you’re not a mother, are you? If you don’t have your own . . .’

  Nina stood up suddenly. It was just a small gesture, but there was something so threatening about it I actually gasped. Even Monica took a step back.

  At this point, Cathy bravely chipped in. I don’t know why. Perhaps she was annoyed at how Hazel had crushed her, or perhaps she really believed it. ‘Actually, I think she’s right, Nina. We can’t blindly trust doctors over our own instincts as mothers.’

  Nina gave a short bark of a laugh. ‘Oh, Cathy. You think all mothers are good?’

  ‘Well . . .’

  ‘You, for example. Are you going to do everything right for this child? Be a hundred per cent honest with it, about everything?’

  ‘I . . .’ Cathy licked her lips, confused and suddenly afraid. ‘What do you . . . ?’

  The moment stretched. Nina closed her eyes for a second. When she spoke ag
ain her tone had softened. ‘These are emotive issues. I think we should start back. We’re running late as it is.’ Just like that, it was smoothed over. Except it wasn’t forgotten. Monica would not easily forgive that little moment of humiliation. Towards the end of the class, she struck back. First, I saw her go up to Aisha, press something into her hand. Rahul was standing off to the side, on his phone as always. ‘Only if you feel it’s appropriate, of course! I mean there’d be alcohol. Don’t feel obliged.’ I was listening in, half wondering what it was, an invite to something? Would I get one? I simultaneously hated Monica and could not bear to be left out by her.

  Aisha blinked at the small piece of card. Of course Monica had printed up invitations for a casual party. She was that sort of person. ‘Um, no, we’re fine with that, but . . . this is right after the babies are due.’

  ‘Of course! Best time for it.’

  ‘But . . .’ I knew what Aisha was thinking. Wasn’t that tempting fate? We didn’t know they’d all arrive safely – look at poor Kelly.

  ‘And dear, it would be nice if Rahul wasn’t on his phone the whole time. I know what it’s like, Ed’s just as bad! Almost makes you wonder what they’re hiding!’ Monica’s jovial stage whisper carried across the room, and I felt my face burn with reflected embarrassment as people looked up, pretended they hadn’t heard. Aisha bit her pretty lip, put the invite into her bag.

  Monica turned away, her eyes scanning the room for her next victim. ‘Hazel, Cathy. This is for you.’ Another invite.

  ‘Thanks, Monica. We’d love to,’ said Cathy quickly. She had a slight case of Monica-worship.

  Nina had been packing up the items we’d used in class (immortal baby, knitted vagina, etc.). Now she said, without looking up, ‘Will you bring the baby’s father, Cathy?’

  There was a short confused silence. Hazel said, ‘We aren’t in touch with the donor, Nina, I did say that.’

  ‘No? I must have got the wrong end of the stick.’

  Cathy laughed nervously, the invite held tight in her hand. ‘The baby might not be here by then, of course. We don’t know for sure.’

  Nina said, ‘Oh, I think yours will be here quite soon, Cathy.’

  Another silence. Only broken by Monica raising her voice. ‘Oh, Anita, don’t go without one!’ She caught Anita and Jeremy heading to the door. ‘Please, you’ll be as welcome as anyone, even though it won’t be quite . . . the same.’

  Anita flushed and took her invite. ‘Oh . . . thank you.’

  Monica then turned on her FitFlop and stared at me. Oh God. What little jibe had she stored up for me? She really was first class at this; she could give my mother lessons. ‘Jax.’

  I stood up and began to shuffle to the door without waiting for Aaron’s arm. ‘Thanks, we’ll have to see if everything goes to plan of course, if I feel alright.’ I held out my hand for the invite, but Monica didn’t give it to me. Instead she leaned in. I could smell her strong perfume.

  ‘Do try and come, Jax. It’ll be good for Aaron. He’s a young man, you know, he needs a bit of excitement in his life.’ And she turned her head slowly, looking over to where Aaron and Nina stood. Talking about something, taxes maybe, though would taxes make you smile so much? Nina with her toned limbs and tanned skin. For a second I could have punched Monica.

  I said nothing. Just held out my hand, and she gave me the invite, with a sweet smile. I was almost blind with rage. ‘Aaron,’ I snapped. ‘I need to go, I’ve been out long enough. I shouldn’t be standing.’

  ‘Oh . . . OK, babe.’ To Nina he said, ‘See you later, then.’

  Outside, I gulped in breaths of grey London air. ‘What were you talking to Nina about?’

  ‘Nothing. Just this and that.’ This and that. What the hell did that mean? I looked down, and saw that Monica’s invite was already crumpled and stained from the sweat of my hand. I looked back and saw Nina and Monica in the doorway. Ed had gone a few steps ahead to start the car. They had both been odd today, little jibes, strange comments. What did Nina mean about Cathy’s baby coming soon? And she knew the donor wasn’t on the scene, we all knew that. And Monica – clearly she’d been riled that we’d stood up to her on the issue of vaccinations, but how did she know exactly what buttons to press to cause pain? Aisha’s religion, Anita’s adoption, my age-gap relationship. It was a terrible skill to have. As I watched, Nina leaned in and said something to Monica, pressed a hand to her bump, and Monica reared back, red-faced, and almost stumbled away to the car. Good. I hoped Nina had told her off for her behaviour.

  It would be wrong of me to blame Monica for everything, I know that. But I wondered afterwards if those little seeds she planted that day – doubt, and resentment, and shame – I wondered just how much they contributed to everything that happened next.

  Alison

  Places like the halfway house had a certain smell that nothing could shift. It was a decade and more past the smoking ban, but the ghost of old cigarettes seemed to rise from the tiled floor as they entered. An institutional smell, of indifference and despair. She’d reminded herself about the case on the way over, although it stuck in the mind, especially when you worked in child protection. Mark Jarvis had been rich, super-rich. The kind with not just a second home but a third and fourth too, a wife who didn’t work and got her hair done twice a week, suits from a personal tailor. This shabby building was the last place you’d have expected him to end up. But that was before he’d been caught with a massive trove of child-abuse material (she didn’t like to use the word pornography) on his hard drive. And he wasn’t the only one. The police had been able to trace a network of paedophiles across the country, swapping and sharing material, and eventually to prove Jarvis had been not just watching, but doing. All thanks to Jax Culville, then twenty-three years old, having the courage to speak out about what she’d seen on his laptop one night at his flat. Mark Jarvis had gone to prison, but not before his wife, Claudia, who was pregnant, had gone into an early labour and lost the baby. Someone like Mark Jarvis might have a grudge against Jax Culville alright. Though she’d no idea how any of this might have led to Nina da Souza being pushed to her death.

  Alison sighed as Diana spoke to the receptionist, a young man in a cardigan and earbuds. She longed to yank them from his ears, tell him that he didn’t have to be connected every second of the day. That in fact this was making him disconnected. ‘I’ll get him, if you wait over there,’ he said, as if exhausted by the act of speech. Alison and Diana took a seat on hard plastic chairs, looking at a peeling noticeboard of flyers about drink, drugs, curfews, benefits. What a place for a City banker to end up. He’d done a lot for charity too, which was how he’d met Jax. A helpful smokescreen for his interest in children, it turned out. It was all gone now, his houses sold to pay legal fees. Alison hoped the wife had walked away with something, at least.

  ‘How was it?’ said Diana, tapping her foot on the ground. ‘CEOP.’

  ‘Oh. Grim.’

  ‘You have to look at the images, right? To prosecute?’

  ‘Yes. It’s kind of ironic that we’re sending people down for looking at them, but we have to look at them ourselves to know what they did. People don’t last there long.’

  ‘When you meet men like him – it must be hard.’

  ‘Men like him? Sad fact is, they don’t get rehabilitated. We’re just waiting for him to do it again. So now he’s out, they’ll be watching. For him to get careless, to feel safe. Give him a year and I’d say he’ll be back on it.’ Alison did not want to relive those days working in child protection, the parade of images she’d wanted to believe were fake, but had known were real. Real children, somewhere in this country. A tide of it that rose every day, despite their best efforts. Every night she’d wanted to scrub her eyeballs clean with bleach, and she’d watched her colleagues turn from bantering, larky young officers to quiet, watchful wrecks. The relationship she’d been in then had ended because she couldn’t resist going through his computer, because what if? No
ne of these men’s wives had known they were with paedophiles either. Or had they? Mark Jarvis’s wife had said she didn’t, but she was pilloried for it all the same, forced to give up her own life, move away, disappear.

  The receptionist was coming back, and following him was a stocky middle-aged man, dressed in a grey T-shirt, with close-cropped hair. It was him. Alison saw a flash of some of the images she’d hoped to forget, and her stomach swooped with nausea. ‘He’s not aged well,’ muttered Diana, and Alison was glad to have her there, to work with a woman, with someone who got it. She stood up.

  The first thing that was clear about Mark Jarvis was that he was not remorseful at all. A life sentence with a minimum of fifteen years had done nothing to rehabilitate him. When she mentioned the name Jax Culville, he sighed deeply, throwing himself back in the plastic chair. ‘What makes you think I’d want to talk about her? She ruined my life.’

  ‘You don’t feel you did that yourself, with all the child abuse?’ Alison felt Diana’s gaze flick to her but couldn’t help herself.

  He sighed again. ‘I looked at stuff, yes. It was a fair cop as you’d say, no doubt. I’ve done my time for that.’

  Alison had never said it’s a fair cop in her life. ‘So how was it Ms Culville’s fault?’

  He had aged from the glamorous silver fox she remembered in the dock. Baggy clothes hid a paunch, and his skin was grey and unhealthy, his fingers nicotine yellow. Prison had done its work on his body, if not his spirit. ‘You really think she did it out of concern for the children? Wise up. It was a classic case of a woman scorned – she thought because I was nice to her I wanted to get her into bed. When I made clear I was a married man, with a pregnant wife, she went snooping on my computer and caused an almighty shitstorm.’

  ‘You were the chair of a children’s charity.’

  ‘So? I never touched any of those kids. Isn’t it better this way – I just looked, I didn’t do it myself.’ He really seemed to believe this. ‘I mean, the pictures already existed. I didn’t take them.’