by Amy Beashel
You’d think you’d have to look away when your stepdad sucker-punches your mum in her belly, that if you were going to watch it, it would at least be through your fingers. But like Mum in the waterfall of tea, I barely even blinked.
I played my part, waited for it to be over, for Daniel to make his promises and for my heart to stop threatening to burst through my jumper and smother Daniel in hate. Funny how people think love has sole possession of the heart. They’re wrong, you know. Hate lives there too. I feel the deep throb of it now as I tell Grace about the wet patch that wasn’t just Tetley that Mum left on the chair when she got up to go have the bath Daniel made such a show of running for her.
‘With bubbles,’ I say to Grace, ‘and a candle. But all I could smell was the piss. I’m not even sure she knew she’d done it. Weed herself, I mean.’ I picture Mum in the refuge this morning, summoning the guts to tell me about the abortion. ‘Imagine being that scared.’
‘Did you speak with her about it?’
‘No. None of it.’ I scramble at the buttons on my phone. ‘He’s dangerous, Grace. If he was that suspicious about Mum going out for lunch, imagine how he’ll be now. Two weeks of us missing. Two weeks of his rage.’ I turn off the location services on my phone. ‘He’ll have been looking for us. What if he’s managed to use Find My Friend?’ I check the settings. ‘He was always reading Mum’s emails and stuff – what if he had access to my phone as well as hers? He could have added himself as a friend, right?’ I breathe only when I see it’s Grace’s name alone in my friend list.
‘It’s OK, Iz.’ And my best friend’s body is a blanket as she wraps herself around me, pulling me into her and stroking my hair.
‘I’ve been so selfish. I knew what he was like, but I still —’
‘It was a mistake. You’ve changed it now – he can’t find you.’
But it’s not the phone I’m talking about. It’s the way I left things with Mum. The things I said. The judgements I made. The accusations I threw.
Far as I know, there’s no button to fix any of that.
FORTY-ONE
‘I can’t believe it,’ Grace says for, like, the tenth time in an hour. And the thing is, saying it out loud, all that abuse after abuse after abuse, neither can I. ‘He’s always so…so nice,’ she says finally. She stretches her leg across the bed, prods my thigh with her toe, checking I’m really here maybe, that what I’m saying is really true. ‘You know what I mean?’
And I do, yeah, because I remember the days before they were married when I wished Daniel was my stepdad, the days later when I was so happy he was, how they were all of the days in the beginning, some of the days in the middle, but none of the days in the end.
Because he wasn’t a stepdad by then – he was a monster.
Daniel Chambers. A dad. An actual real-life dad. And though the thought of it lurches my heart like vomit into my mouth, the only other option does too.
‘Mum’s pregnant.’ I try so hard to keep my opinion out of my voice.
‘Shiiiiiiiiiiit! She’s not keeping it though, is she?’ And it seems so easy, the way Grace puts it, like it’s some done deal, not even calling ‘it’ a baby, like getting rid of ‘it’ is the only way.
‘No.’ And, though it’s only two letters, Grace, with her sixth sense and all that, obviously picks up on something more than just the tiny word.
‘What? Izzy?’ she says, and there’s a judgement in her tone too, like, surely you can’t expect her to have ‘it’?
But I do. I know it’s all sorts of awful, but I do.
‘Seriously?’ And her face, it’s how I imagine it was when she was writing that email, a tattoo of disappointment in her frown. ‘You want her tied to that man for the rest of her life?’
‘She wouldn’t have to be.’ I jump in cos I’ve already thought this through. ‘I’d help her, Grace. Mum did it all on her own when I was born, but this time, she’d have me. I’d take care of the baby. And her.’
But where there was disappointment, there’s disbelief.
‘Did you actually hear everything you’ve just told me, Izzy? Everything Daniel’s done to your mum? How calculated he’s been? How vicious?’ I can’t even look to see what’s scrawled across her face now, but her voice is a big warning bell of a clue, as Grace pitches everything as a question, not because she doesn’t believe what I’ve told her but because she clearly can’t believe I don’t see it as a reason, a justification, for Mum’s decision. ‘I mean, bloody hell, Iz, are you actually saying you don’t believe in a woman’s right to choose?’
‘You sound like one of your feminist leaflets.’
‘And you sound like a nob. For fuck’s sake, Izzy, even in the most normal of circumstances, your mum shouldn’t have to have a baby if she doesn’t want to, but this! Are you seriously telling me you think she should have a child she doesn’t want, a child that belongs to a man who, from what you’ve said, has manipulated her, beaten her, made her leave everything she knows to live in a safe house because she thinks if she stays with him she might actually die? Is that what you really think, Izzy?’
And she’s off the bed, pacing the room, biting the skin around the edges of her fingernails, shaking her head like what I’ve said is on the same level of wicked as Daniel.
I wish I could put Mum’s secret back in its box, but it’s out there now, and though I’d rather not talk about it any more, Grace is eyeballing me for an answer.
‘She managed with me.’ It’s all I can come up with and Grace obviously isn’t having any of it, cos she stops still right in front of me, stares like she’s not budging until I have the guts to at least look her in the face.
But when I catch her gaze, she shifts from that wild outrage to a quiet kind of wisdom. ‘Yeah, the difference is, Iz, the only issue with your dad was that he was a teenager. Daniel’s a psychopath. It’s not the same.’
And I get it. I get that Mum loved my dad. That my dad loved my mum. That the love between them was normal, genuine. Not soaked with fear. I get all of that, honestly, I do, but Mum kept me a secret. She could do the same again. ‘Daniel wouldn’t have to know.’
‘I don’t even know if that’s legal, and even if it is, don’t you think he’d find out? Hunt your mum down? And then what would happen? To your mum? To the baby? To you? You’re not making any sense, Iz.’
And maybe I’m not, but it’s clear to me. ‘She’s my mum.’ It’s the only answer I have.
‘What does that even mean?’ The bed sinks as she sits down next to me, and even though it feels like conceding, I let myself dip into Grace’s shoulder.
‘Do you think she’s not keeping the baby because she’s learnt her lesson?’ It’s only Grace’s grip tightening around my middle that’ll stop my heart from tumbling if I dare to say what’s coming next out loud. ‘Do you think she wishes she hadn’t kept me? Is that why she’s having an abortion? Cos she doesn’t like being a mum?’ I look at nothing but the rug and the mark I made on it the time I spilt a can of Diet Coke when we were listening to Pink and dancing our mutually appreciated hearts out.
‘Izzy,’ Grace says, her voice sticking on the lump in her throat as she lifts my chin with her finger so I can’t look at the stain any more. ‘I’m one hundred percent certain your mum doesn’t regret having you. You’re fuckin’ perfect. Look at us,’ she says, dragging me to the mirror, ‘we both are.’
‘You think?’
‘I don’t think.’ Grace turns away from her reflection, holds my face in her hands. ‘I goddamn know.’
‘But maybe if Mum had said no to a baby the first time around, she’d never be in this mess.’
‘Who knows, Izzy. She might still have met Daniel. Or someone like him. We’ll never know. Thing is, she did have you. She wanted to have you. She chose to have you. And god, Izzy, the times when I’m at yours that she’s told me how proud she is!’
‘Really?’
‘Really.’
And I remember, then, when I was stil
l young enough to go to bed earlier than Mum did, how she’d come into my room at night long after she thought I was sleeping, kneel by my bed, pull my hair from my face and whisper how sorry she was for not being a better mummy, how I was the very best thing in her life.
‘Her decision is nothing to do with you,’ Grace says. ‘It’s because of Daniel.’
There are so many reasons why Grace Izzy Ashdown is my best friend and this, right here, right now, is one of them.
FORTY-TWO
‘Izzy?’ Even though Mum’s voice is over two hundred miles away, I can feel it on my skin, in my bones. ‘Has that boy been near you? Because if he has, I swear to god I’ll —’
‘It’s fine, Mum.’ I can’t talk about Jacob now. Not with her. Can’t bear the thought of her knowing about those photos. About what I did in that room on that bed with that boy. ‘I’m safe.’
‘When Grace called me I —’
‘Please,’ I say.
And Mum must recognise it, the shame I feel. ‘Izzy,’ she says again, all caught up in tears this time, riding along the ribbons of thank gods that tie our words together like an old-style telephone cable. Her thank god that I don’t hate her, her thank god that I’m OK.
‘We will talk about it,’ she tells me. ‘When you’re ready.’
I nod a kind of maybe that she can’t see, obviously, but seems to sense.
‘Just wait at Grace’s,’ she says, changing the subject. ‘I’m coming to get you.’ But there’s no way I’m letting her near this town, risking her being this close to Daniel.
‘It’s too dangerous.’ I mean because Daniel might hurt her, but there’s that other side of him that scares me just as much. That gentle, pleading, careful, pleasing side that knows just which words to pluck to make her knees a little weaker.
‘I’m coming,’ she says, like mother knows best. ‘It’s my job, Izzy. I’m s’posed to protect you.’
Protect? And it’s funny, right, how everything can seem so much better but then one word, even one with the very best of intentions, can flip it into reverse. It’s not like she doesn’t mean it. Cos her voice, her voice is a gazillion years of animal instinct – that maternal drive to keep her offspring safe. But what’s a gazillion years when all I wanted, all I needed, was the last six? Because if it’s her job, then what? Was she on some kind of sabbatical? Where was the protection then?
I try. I swear I try not to bite, but the animal instinct’s not just hers, right? And it comes, this anger, emptied of its heat so it’s more bitter, like some shame-on-you disappointment, which I know is the last thing my mum, my mum who’s been through Daniel’s hell, needs right now. But it comes. Quietly. Though she hears it anyway.
‘Protect me?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice is a Jenga tower.
‘Really?’ My doubt removes the bottom block.
‘Really,’ she says, and I can hear the topple in it. ‘I’m your mum. It’s what mums do.’
Six years. Of hands. Of mouths. Of hate. For Daniel. For Jacob. For me. So much of it for me.
It’s not that I’m mad – there’s too much lump in my throat for me to shout at her. ‘And the baby? You’re protecting that as well, are you?’
‘Izzy.’ Her voice is smothered by the fallen bricks, the obvious tears. ‘It’s not like that.’
And I could leave it. I know I could, and I should, but.
Six years.
‘What is it like then, Mum? Like Sinitta maybe? How you got rid of her too?’
‘That was different.’
‘How? She needed you to look after her. Like I did. Maybe I should just be grateful a daughter’s trickier to get rid of than a cat.’ I pause, wondering if I should, and then I do. ‘Or a baby, right? Cos it seems they’re easy to get rid of too.’
‘It is not easy,’ she says.
‘No? Seems to me it is. I heard you on the phone to the rescue place that time. “Lovely,” you said. Like you were ordering a fucking cake. She was my cat, Mum. My cat, who’d belonged to my dad, and you got rid of her. Just like that.’
‘I had to.’
‘You had to? What? Because she was sick?’
‘Because she was pregnant.’
‘What?’
‘Sinitta was pregnant.’
‘All the more reason to look after her then. I mean, seriously, Mum, what kind of monst—’
‘He said he’d drown them, Izzy.’
‘Huh?’
‘Daniel. He said he’d drown the kittens if we kept them. And then he’d drown Sinitta too.’
The silence is like Daniel with a bowl of water. Calm. Deadly.
‘That’s why I gave her away. I was protecting her. In my own way, Izzy, I promise I was protecting her.’
‘And what about me, Mum? What about protecting me?’
‘I’m trying,’ she says. And her voice is like a red sky at night, like maybe there are storm clouds but mostly what it’s made of is hope. ‘I’m not going back, Izzy. Ever. You might think the shaved head thing’s a gimmick, and maybe it was at the start, like it was a way of tricking myself into thinking differently. But it’s made me stronger. Freed me from all sorts of crap, made me see myself differently, and not just because I’m bald.’
I might not be ready to talk but I give her an ‘mmmm’, so she at least knows I’m here. Listening.
‘I’m sorry we stayed as long as we did. Really, really sorry. But although you know some of it, you don’t know it all. He took everything. Every inch of me. But I’m getting it back, I promise you. I am getting it back. And he will never hurt us again.’
‘OK.’ It’s one word. Just one word that doesn’t say enough but says all that I can say because maybe it is OK. Or it will be.
‘I’ll come for you in the morning,’ she says, this tone between us so far from normal but just far enough away from bad.
‘No.’
‘I’m not arguing about this, Izzy.’
‘Neither am I. I’m not the only one who needs protecting, Mum.’
‘There’s no other option.’
But I’m thinking maybe there is.
‘I know someone,’ I say, ignoring how sharply she intakes her breath, which doesn’t bode well, carrying on anyway because it has to be better than risking everything with her coming down here. ‘There’s this boy.’
Grace finally looks up at me from the book she’s been pretending to read this whole time, like, you didn’t mention a boy, and my shoulders and brows are like, when did I have the chance? And she’s all grin then, making small circles with her finger so I’ll wind up the call and spill.
‘I’ve been sculling with him. Rowing.’ This sends Grace full-on la-la because the Izzy she knows is totally couch potato. ‘In the mornings,’ I say to Mum, who isn’t yet saying no, which I take as a bonus and plough on. ‘He’s really nice.’
‘What’s his name?’ Like that makes a difference, I think, but whatever, cos Harry sounds super sensible and kind of posh, though Mum of all people should know anyone can be anything, no matter what they’re called.
‘Harry,’ I say, and I know she’s going to want a surname too, but we spent too much time kissing to bother with detail. So, yeah, probably not the best start to this new phase with my mum but, desperate times and all that, so I’m going to lie, only time’s ticking, but maybe my brain’s not. Ticking, I mean, because I keep talking and, without any proper thought, out it pops: ‘His name’s Harry, Mum. Harry like Styles.’ And Grace practically pees herself.
‘Harry like Styles?’
‘Yep.’
And the three of us collapse into giggles, which feels so much closer to normal I could cry.
‘So,’ Mum says, when we’re calmer and I can hold the phone to my ear without snorting, ‘you’re suggesting I let this Harry like Styles, a boy about whom I’ve previously heard nothing, drive all the way from Shrewsbury to Whitstable to pick you up and bring you back here?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m suggestin
g.’
Grace gives me this double thumbs up before turning away, wrapping her arms around her body so her hands are on her back, which she caresses like she’s in some kind of Love Island sex clinch. I kick her butt, like literally kick it, and almost fall over, less because of my lack of one-legged balance and more because of the heart-busting glee I’m feeling for being in her room, by her side, kicking her butt and being so absolutely ordinary.
‘I don’t know if I can allow this,’ Mum says. ‘With everything that’s happened, I just want you to be safe.’
‘Trust me,’ I say, and I don’t know why but she does.
‘OK.’
I bite down on my knuckles to stop the whoop in my chest from making a real-life noise.
‘I want to meet him first though. Tell this Harry like Styles to get to the bandstand in the quarry park for seven.’ Mum’s voice is a take it or leave it.
And I’ll take it, obviously, but I ask, ‘Are you serious?’
‘Yes, Izzy, I’m serious. If he doesn’t show, or if he does and I don’t trust him, I’m collecting you myself.’
‘OK, OK,’ I say, trying not to think of it as a test – of him, of her, of me. ‘At least you’ll be easy for him to spot, what with that big bald head of yours.’
Grace spits out her Coke, like, WTF?
I nod, like, yeah, my mum is seriously Vin Diesel these days.
‘Seven P.M., Izzy,’ Mum says, ‘or I’m leaving at half past.’
‘Harry will be there,’ I say, maybe sounding like I believe it, but honestly I have no idea if he will.
FORTY-THREE
‘So that’s what you were doing all those mornings by the river.’ Grace looks almost relieved. ‘I was worried you’d gone totally Shropshire and taken up fishing !’
‘What do you know about Shropshire? Or fishing? And even if I had, I reckon it’s your obsession, not fishing, that’s the issue here!’ My aim is perfect – the pillow hits her square in the face! ‘I mean, seriously, Grace, were you actually checking up on me at six A.M.?’
