by Jess Ryder
‘Who do you think will get landed with the washing and the cleaning and goodness knows what?’ she said the one time I broached the subject. ‘I’ve my own life to lead, don’t you know?’
I, however, have no life – it’s considered inappropriate for someone in my condition. After school, I come straight home to rest in my room and do my homework. I can’t say I miss wandering the streets by myself, but I miss the booze. Oh God, do I miss it. There are times when I feel so desperate for a drink I want to run into a supermarket, grab a bottle and pour it down my throat. I long for the dullness, the emptiness, the mental escape it gives me.
It turns out that Holly and Asha suspected I was pregnant all along but didn’t want to offend by asking in case I’d simply put on weight. They feel sorry for me, and a little pleased because they’re not in my predicament. Most of all, they’re excited because I’m growing a real live baby. I’m treated like an amazing toy. They love to touch my bump and listen for the heartbeat. When she makes a big movement and my stomach moves, they open their mouths in wonder, as if I’m performing a magic trick.
‘How does it feel?’ Holly keeps asking.
‘Peculiar,’ I admit. ‘I’ve seen her on the ultrasound but it still doesn’t seem like there’s an actual human being inside me.’
‘What are you going to call her?’ asks Asha.
‘I don’t want to give her a name,’ I say. ‘It’ll only make it worse when I have to say goodbye.’
Holly pats my arm sympathetically. In the past, we’ve often discussed how we’re going to name our children, making lists of our favourites as so many teenage girls do. But what’s the point of joining the dots and colouring in the spaces? There are no preparations being made in our house. No frantic knitting, no redecoration of the box room, no borrowing of baby equipment from friends and relatives.
‘When is she due?’ asks Asha. ‘Have they given you a date?’
‘The doctors aren’t sure. I think I’m about seven months gone but they say she’s too small for that. They’re a bit worried she’s not growing properly.’
Holly looks anxious. ‘Oh no! What can you do? Eat more?’
I shrug. ‘My blood pressure’s high too, don’t know why.’
‘Stress,’ announces Asha. ‘My mum has high blood pressure and she’s stressed out all the time.’
‘Yes, maybe. It is a difficult time.’ I lower my voice. ‘Mum and Dad are being horrible. I don’t think I can’t stand it much longer.’
‘We’ll look after you,’ says Holly. ‘Always. Won’t we, Asha?’ Asha nods, and we have a group hug – the four of us.
* * *
A few days later, I feel a dull pain in my lower back. I put it down to general pregnancy aches at first, and take the day off school. Dad goes into work and Mum pops out for a mid-morning coffee with a friend. I’m left alone in my room, lying on my bed with my feet up, my bump forming a nice book rest while I try to scribble an essay for English homework.
But the odd feeling continues. The ache comes and goes in waves. I feel a bit sick, and can’t face the thought of eating. I get up and rummage in my desk drawer for a pregnancy leaflet. Under ‘Signs of Labour’, it says that I may first feel pain or discomfort in my back rather than my stomach.
Is this what’s happening? Am I in labour? It’s too early, surely, even going by my disputed dates. I start to sweat. Should I call an ambulance? I don’t know what to do. I’m on my own with no way of contacting Mum. There’ll be a work phone number for Dad somewhere, though it’s only for emergencies. But this is an emergency, isn’t it? At least it might be.
I stretch out, hoping for relief. But this isn’t normal backache; the pains are definitely there, coming and going, gradually increasing in intensity.
I go downstairs and pick up the phone, fingers trembling as I contemplate dialling 999. But I can’t do it. What will Mum say if an ambulance turns up, siren blaring, lights flashing, and the neighbours come out of their houses to see what’s going on? She’ll be furious with me. If it’s a false alarm, I could be in trouble for calling them out unnecessarily. I’m just a silly kid; nobody’s going to take me seriously. It’s way too early. I haven’t even packed my hospital bag yet.
But something is happening, I know it. What if the pains get suddenly worse and I have the baby right here on the hallway carpet? I sink to my knees, heart thumping, hot with fear. Then I hear the key turn in the lock. The front door opens and Mum crosses the threshold, a small carrier bag of shopping hooked over her arm. She looks down at me curiously.
‘What are you doing, Erin? Praying for salvation?’ She lets out a wry laugh.
‘Please can we go to the hospital?’ I gasp. ‘I think the baby’s on its way.’
Chapter Twenty-Four
Erin
April 2020
In the week after Jade’s visit, our tight little unit fractured into separate pieces. Everyone kept to their own space. If there were conversations, they were held behind closed doors and didn’t include me. Most painful of all, Tom was sleeping in the guest room. I couldn’t settle knowing he was next door – only separated from me by a thin wall and yet so far away.
He was full of self-righteous anger; it emanated from him like heat. Every time we crossed paths, he either avoided my gaze completely or shot me looks of hatred. He refused to be in the same space, walking out as soon as I entered the room. Every morning he rose super early and went off to work without any breakfast. He came home late, insisting he’d already eaten and just wanted to go to bed. I suspected he was going to the pub after work, because he smelt of alcohol when he came in.
‘Please, let’s talk about it,’ I pleaded, but he wasn’t interested.
‘What’s the point?’ he replied. ‘I don’t know you. It’s like I’ve been married to a stranger all these years.’
‘But this is exactly why I didn’t tell you! I was frightened you’d react like this. If you weren’t so puritanical, so strait-laced—’
‘Oh, so it’s my fault, is it?’ he shouted. ‘My fault that you lied to me? I always wondered why you kept me at arm’s length when Oli was born. You knew the doctors would realise he wasn’t your first baby. I expect you told them not to tell me.’
I felt myself redden. I hadn’t asked the doctors or midwives to lie for me, but I had insisted on attending all the medical appointments by myself. Tom had wanted to be involved, so we’d gone to pre-natal classes together and I’d pretended I was a first-time mum. I’d felt like a first-time mum too, because the previous pregnancy had been so troubled and I’d never had the chance to care for Jade – never put her to the breast or changed her nappy. But I couldn’t try to explain that to Tom because he wouldn’t listen.
‘You’ve made a complete fool of me,’ he said. ‘I’ll never forgive you for that.’ He turned on his heel and headed for the guest bedroom, slamming the door behind him. I slid down against the wall, sobbing. I knew it was my fault, but he was being impossible.
Oliver and Chloe’s reactions were different to their father’s. There was less anger, but more confusion, more hurt. Chloe kept asking if her sister had replied to my email, and every time I told her she hadn’t, she looked at me despairingly, like I was the most hopeless mother in the world.
‘What if she’s taken an overdose or something?’ she said, more than once. ‘Maybe she hasn’t replied because she’s dead.’ The implication was clear – if she was, I’d as good as killed her myself. ‘We’ve got to find her, Mum. I can’t stop thinking about her. I need to know she’s okay.’
She was behaving like the older sister, not the younger. She was cross because I didn’t know Jade’s full name or where she lived and – most incomprehensible of all to a fourteen-year-old – I hadn’t taken a photo of her. I guessed she was using all her social media skills to track her down, but we had so little to go on. Even if she succeeded, though, I doubted Jade would be interested. She’d ignored my email; why would any other method of communication
work?
Chloe’s worry for her sister was touching and surprising, but Oliver’s reaction really troubled me. He seemed suddenly lost, like he no longer knew who he was or what his role in the family should be. His position as the firstborn child had been usurped by a grown-up stranger seven years older than him. It had completely knocked his confidence. When he looked at me, there was a sadness in his eyes, and a questioning. Now that I’d lied to him about such an important matter, how could he trust anything else I’d ever said? Maybe all these years I’d secretly loved my first baby the most. Maybe she was the only one I really cared about …
There was less than a month to go to the start of his exams, but he seemed to have abandoned his revision and spent most of the time playing loud, aggressive music in his room, or going out and disappearing for hours on end. One evening he turned up soaking wet and covered in mud, as if he’d been tramping through the woods.
‘Oli, please, talk to me,’ I said. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Like you care,’ he mumbled. He tried to climb the stairs to his bedroom, but I blocked his way.
‘Of course I care. I love you! I want you to do well. For God’s sake, don’t throw it all away, not now, not when you’re so close.’
‘I’ve decided,’ he said, looking down at his feet. ‘I don’t want to go to Cambridge.’
‘What? Don’t be silly, you don’t mean that.’ I tried to contain the rising panic in my voice. ‘It’s all you’ve talked about for years, ever since you did so brilliantly in your GCSEs.’
‘I’ve changed my mind. Chloe’s right, it’s full of stuck-up nerds.’
‘No it’s not. That’s just a cliché.’
‘I only applied to please you,’ he continued. ‘You always said you wanted to go but never had the chance.’
‘Yes, that’s right. But I don’t want you to go to Cambridge just to fulfil my dream.’
‘No?’ He stared at me challengingly. ‘I always wondered why you didn’t even go into sixth form. You said Granny and Grandad wouldn’t let you, but that never made sense to me. Now I realise. It was because of Jade, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes …’ I sighed. ‘I messed up my exams. Had to get away from home, leave school, get a job. The situation was unbearable. My relationship with my parents had completely broken down.’
He looked thoughtful. ‘And now the same thing’s happening with your own kids.’
‘Please don’t say that! Our relationship is good, it always has been. I’m really, really sorry I didn’t tell you about your sister, but it’s complicated … I had my reasons …’ I tried to put my hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged me off. ‘Look … this thing is between me and Dad. It doesn’t have to wreck your future.’
Oli didn’t reply. He pushed past me and trudged up the stairs. I sat down on the bottom step and put my head in my hands. This was exactly what I’d feared would happen, only worse. He wanted to punish me and he only had one weapon at his disposal: deliberately flunking his exams. How could I make him understand that ultimately, he would be the one who would suffer? It was too much to cope with. I’d ruined my own education, and now his was in jeopardy. What would Tom say when he found out? He was furious enough with me as it was – this could send him over the edge.
During this time, I was in constant touch with the Girls. They phoned me individually every day for the latest instalment of what felt like a tragic soap opera. Sometimes we had three-way chats on Skype. Like Chloe, Asha was anxious about Jade’s mental health. She urged me to send follow-up emails begging for forgiveness, or even just asking for a one-word response to the question: was she okay? I was resisting. I couldn’t see the point. Pestering Jade might even make it worse, I thought.
Holly had a different obsession. She was convinced that Jade knew who had impersonated her, and that she was protecting her for some reason. Either that, or she’d been bullied into giving this woman the details.
‘You should go to the police,’ she said. ‘Impersonation and blackmail are crimes.’
‘But Erin can’t prove anything,’ Asha chipped in. ‘She paid in cash. The money’s gone; she’ll never get it back.’
Holly wasn’t giving up. ‘How did she contact you, Erin?’ she pressed. ‘By phone, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, but the number was withheld.’
‘The police will get hold of it, no problem.’
‘I still think it’s a really bad idea,’ Asha persisted. ‘They’ll have to investigate Jade – we don’t know how involved she is; it could mean big trouble for her. And if she’s entirely innocent, how she’s going to feel about you then?’ That argument clinched it for me. As much as I wanted the blackmailer to be caught and punished, I didn’t want to make things worse for Jade. Chloe would never forgive me.
What interested me more now was how Jade – either false or real – had known where to find me. The only online platform where I had any kind of public profile was the Whitesteed Nursery website, and that was limited to a photo and a brief, non-revealing biog. Then there was my personal information – mobile number, email, home address – was all that available online too? I wasn’t as tech-savvy as my fourteen-year-old daughter, but I was convinced there’d been some human involvement. Help from someone with inside knowledge, who knew me personally …
It was late evening when the thought struck me like a bolt of lightning. I was hiding in my bedroom, feeling sorry for myself, churning everything over in my head. The company was the weak link in my armour. If Jade had contacted Whitesteed Nursery, she most likely would have spoken to Hilary …
I liked Hilary, but we weren’t best buddies. There was a coolness about her that no amount of charm could ever warm up. She was an excellent manager, but had a reputation at work for being negative. The Girls had both said they thought she was jealous of me, which I’d never really bought. Holly had even claimed she didn’t trust Hilary, but I’d dismissed that as being a typical OTT reaction. Now I was wondering if they could be right.
Grabbing my jacket and keys, I left the house and got in the car. I had to investigate tonight, while the office was shut. If Hilary was the culprit, there was bound to be evidence lurking in her email account. There might even be correspondence in her filing cabinet.
As I drove to the nursery, I started to reassemble recent events with her at their centre. The real Jade had contacted me using my work email, which Hilary could have given her. Hilary had nominated me for that silly Woman of the Year award and I’d received the text from the fake Jade that same evening. Had it been exquisitely timed to make me panic, forcing me to agree to meet her? It seemed too much of a coincidence. I doubted Hilary was behind the blackmail scam – that was going too far, surely. But the rest of it was starting to make a chilling kind of sense.
I swept into the driveway and parked in my space. In the darkness, the old Victorian building looked huge and forbidding. I unlocked the heavy front door and turned off the alarm. My footsteps echoed on the tiles as I walked through the hallway towards the offices at the back. Although there were signs of children everywhere – coat hooks low down on the wall, splodged paintings and wild scribbles, oversized letters and numbers in jolly colours – the atmosphere felt strangely bleak and unfriendly. I missed the sound of little voices: the funny chatter, the giggles, even the cries and temper tantrums.
Hilary’s office was next to mine, overlooking the playground. I used my master key to unlock the door. Sitting down at her desk, I switched on her computer. It took ages to crank up, reminding me of the need for some investment in our office equipment.
I cursed. In my haste to do my detective work, I’d forgotten that her email account would be password-protected. There was no list, as far as I knew, though it would have been a sensible idea so that we could access staff accounts in an emergency. And this was an emergency.
I stared at the screen, hoping inspiration might strike. I tried a few things. The name of Hilary’s dog, her zodiac sign, her favourite holiday destinat
ion. My ability to remember dates came into its own and I typed in her birthday in various formats, then her partner’s. Nothing worked. I sat there racking my brains. The more wrong passwords I came up with, the more certain I became that Hilary was the guilty party. I had this gut feeling I was on to something and was desperate to read her messages.
Come on, think, think. What’s really important to Hilary?
Then it hit me. Her marriage to Rebecca. They’d been an item for ages, but it was only recently that Hilary had been completely open about the relationship. The wedding had taken place on 17 February 2018. I typed the date into the box, but it was no good. I tried different combinations of figures and letters, and then – result! The icon spun round for a few seconds and I was suddenly in.
I started to feel guilty as I scrolled through her correspondence. There were only about twenty emails in her inbox, which didn’t surprise me, because Hilary was very efficient and dealt with issues as soon as they came in. Old emails would be electronically filed. I clicked on the search option and typed in Jade’s email address, then pressed enter. There were no results.
I sat back in Hilary’s chair, relieved that my friend and colleague hadn’t betrayed me. Nevertheless, I was still convinced that somebody had helped Jade. I just couldn’t think who it might be.
I was about to shut down the computer when a new message pinged into Hilary’s inbox. As I read the sender’s address, my heart missed a beat. It was from Tom. Why was he emailing her? As a shareholder in the company, he had a right to contact her, but the timing made me think this wasn’t to do with the business. I immediately felt suspicious and without another moment’s thought clicked open the message.
