by Adele Parks
‘I would argue that my husband almost murdering our child is grudge-worthy,’ I snipe, crossly.
‘Almost killing. The charge was never murder. He never intended to hurt Millie,’ replies Lucy. All matter of fact. ‘The charge was causing grievous bodily injury, wasn’t it?’
That’s all this is to her, a matter of fact. Causing grievous bodily injury by careless driving under the influence of drink. To me it is the most devastatingly complex emotional nightmare imaginable. We’re not on the same page but that’s not a surprise, we rarely are.
I lean my head against the window and wonder if I’m a good enough actress to feign sleep. I see that as the only way out of this conversation. I give it a go and I actually do fall asleep because the next thing I realise is I’m being jolted awake by Lucy closing her car door. I watch in the wing mirror as she fills up the car with more petrol. The car is quiet, all the girls are sleeping soundly now. The day’s exercise and the comfortable lull of the car have taken effect. I can hear their regular, deep breathing. Besides the fact I find myself travelling home with Lucy, and the blip when Millie opened those ballet tickets, this really has been a good day. I always make a point of noting the good days. It’s more than gratitude, it’s in the hope that I can somehow store them up. The good days are like bricks and I’m building a protective wall around us so that, when the hard days inevitably arrive, we’re shielded.
Lucy opens the car door and asks if I want anything from the garage shop. I shake my head automatically. I’m never keen to ask anything of anyone. I don’t like to be a nuisance and I don’t like to feel beholden, not even for a packet of wine gums. As she strides inside, men swivel their heads to get a better look. For real. I can see that the shop assistant beams when he claps eyes on her. I sigh. There’s an urban myth that the Queen thinks Britain smells of fresh paint because everyone decorates before she visits them. In a similar vein, I think Lucy must believe that all males walk around with permanent grins on their faces, rather than smirks or sneers. Hers is another world.
The sun is setting now, turning the sky a deep purple. It’s beautiful. I wind down my window and inhale the smell of early-summer promise. It won’t be long before barbecues are being heated up. Times flies in the busy summer term for me. I wonder how Simon feels about time. I don’t want to think about Simon. Usually I’m able to push him from my mind but it’s harder to do today.
Lucy gets back in the car and hands me a can of Red Bull Sugarfree. ‘You’re going to need it. If the other three girls are napping like these are, they’ll get a second wind when they arrive at yours. You’ll have to keep up.’
I’d like to say I never touch the stuff but in fact I resort to Red Bull Sugarfree so often that I think I’d describe it as my favourite tipple. I know it’s not good for me, but people do worse things to themselves than drink energy drinks. I mumble my thanks and open the can. The sticky, artificial scent that puts me in mind of sweets we ate in the 1980s and highlighter pens, pings to the back of my head and something flickers like a switch. Is it because Lucy was talking about Simon or because I’m at a service station drinking Red Bull like I was that night?
Suddenly, I see Millie bounce off the bonnet of the car. I see her sprawled on the pavement, the rain spreading her blood all over the road. I squeeze my eyes shut. Then I shake my head slightly, trying to loosen something else. Was that a memory? The bit about her bouncing off the car? I still have nightmares about that night. Of course I do. I often imagine her bouncing off the front of the car, flying upwards and then landing with a sickening crack. Broken. Damaged for ever more. When this happens, I wake up sweating and shaking. I realise that what I dream is not a memory, it’s what my imagination has pieced together after reading the police and doctors’ reports. But have I just experienced a real memory, rather than an imaging? I don’t know for sure, but it was different to how I normally imagine it. The angles seemed wrong, but the thud of her weight striking the car, the way her nightdress fluttered in the air, it seemed so real.
I feel a gush of unexpected emotions: terror, horror, and excitement. The thing is, although I think about what happened every day, it is my blessing and curse that I still can’t remember the incident in any level of detail. At first, the doctors thought that the effects of my concussion would wear off and things would come back to me. This hasn’t happened. I want to remember. I owe Millie that much. She endured it; the least I should do is remember it. Otherwise she was on her own because I’ve been told Simon can’t remember any of it either. I’m not surprised. Blackouts were very usual occurrences for him. I wish he could remember ploughing into our daughter. He deserves to have that pinned into his brain for ever.
This isn’t the first time I’ve remembered a shard of something. Sometimes, when I’m caught in the rain, I get a similar jolt. I remember the pavement digging into my knee, I feel my head ache. I hear shouting. Simon shouting and someone dragging me by the shoulders. Dragging me off Millie, I presume. They didn’t want me to touch her in case I caused any complications to her injuries, but all I wanted to do was hold her close. That’s a clear memory, wanting to hold her. I make myself think about that now. The feel of hands on my shoulders. I remember being pulled at, quite roughly. That’s new. It’s not much. It’s not important but it’s something.
I almost blurt out as much to Lucy. She’s not the ideal confidant, but beggars can’t be choosers – however, as I turn to her she says, ‘So, Connie mentioned that Simon is about to be released. How does that work? I thought he got six years, he’s served less than three.’
I’m deflated as the almost-memory flutters away. Frustratingly out of my grasp.
‘There’s this thing called on-licence. Technically, he’ll still be serving his sentence, but he can do it on the outside. There are conditions, naturally,’ I tell her.
‘What sort of conditions?’
‘He’ll have to visit a probation officer, his travel will be limited, any job he takes has to be approved.’ Although who would offer him a job, I wonder. ‘They might make him go to meetings.’ I add. ‘He’ll need a permanent, fixed address agreed beforehand.’ This is the tricky one.
‘Will he move in with you and Millie?’ Lucy asks.
‘I don’t know. We haven’t the money to pay for a separate rental. I thought we might have but when I checked our ISAs it turned out Simon had cashed them in long ago. I suppose he drank our savings away.’
Lucy nods, seemingly unsurprised that he drank away his daughter’s uni fund. Since his arrest, plenty has been said about Simon’s behaviour. My friends have been shocked and dismayed as I revealed the lows that he sunk to. No one could understand why he didn’t ask for bail, so he could be by Millie’s bedside when she was in hospital. He should have wanted to be there. Ashamed, penitent, whatever. We didn’t know if she was going to make it. He should have wanted to be by her side. She asked for him. I think it was this that crystallised most people’s decision not to bother visiting him in prison. His friends and ex-colleagues reasoned that if he didn’t care about his own daughter, why should they care about him? After being the focus of gossip, Simon became yesterday’s news and was forgotten. Barely spoken of. I see that tide is turning again as we approach his release date. Once again, my family will be shoved to the front of the stage, however much I resist it.
‘Do you talk on the phone?’ Lucy asks.
‘No.’
‘Do you write?’
‘No.’
‘Are you planning on getting divorced?’
I turn away from her, look out of the window and watch the hedgerow and other cars slide by. There’s no such thing as a free lunch and I’m certainly paying for this lift. ‘I don’t know,’ I admit.
Lucy nods. I don’t want to think about what will happen next. I have taken it a day at a time for years now and that has been enough. Just getting by has taken a Herculean effort, planning, projecting, preparing is beyond me. One foot in front of another, one step at a time, t
hat’s what’s worked for me. I know enough about the programme that addicts go on to recover, to appreciate that this is the way they tackle their issues. They don’t think, ‘I’ll never have another drink,’ because that would be too overwhelming, they’d be more likely to crack, to fail. Instead they think, ‘I won’t have a drink today,’ and they repeat that every day. The hope is that they won’t ever have a drink again. Every day I tell myself, ‘I won’t think about Simon today.’ Is it my hope never to think about him again?
‘He might not be granted a licenced release,’ I point out.
‘He didn’t send the birthday card and ballet tickets, did he?’ comments Lucy. I gasp. How could she possibly know that? ‘So, is Daryll Lainbridge back in the UK?’ she asks.
‘Daryll Lainbridge?’ I force my voice to go up at the end of his name, as though I’m asking a question, as though I can’t quite place whoever it is she’s talking about. It is a hopeless act.
‘He was in Boston, wasn’t he?’
‘New York,’ I correct.
Lucy glances at me. I keep my face as still as possible, she’s always had quite the skill in reading people. I don’t want her to read me. ‘Why do you think he sent those tickets to Millie?’
‘How do you know he did?’ I demand, fractious and startled.
‘I recognised his handwriting on the envelope. He has a distinctive, frankly pretentious, cursive handwriting. I remember his essays, at university. Plus, he’s sent Christmas cards and even the occasional postcard to me over the years. He always writes in green ink.’
‘Oh.’ I don’t know what to say. I suppose I should have guessed Daryll might have sent cards to Lucy, he was after all infatuated with her for an age. His handwriting is distinctive, and why must he use green ink?
‘They must have cost a bit, the tickets,’ she adds.
‘I suppose.’
‘Why do you think he sent them?’ she asks again. My cheeks redden. She’s like a dog with a bone.
‘People do send things to Millie, because of the accident,’ I explain.
‘Yes, they did, then. But it was ages ago.’
To Lucy the accident was ages ago. To me it was yesterday. It is ever present. I see Millie limp out of school after a long day, I see her chase the other kids, following them, no longer leaping ahead, I see her keep her eyes rigidly on the pavement as we pass her old dance school, desperate not to notice the other girls in tutus. The accident is present. Not that it was an accident. It was a crime. People call it an accident to minimise the whole rotten mess. I’m glad the judge and jury saw it for what it was. A crime that had to be punished. Although at the time of sentencing, people commented the judge must have been in a merciless mood. Six years, Millie’s entire lifetime at that point. Although, most likely, Simon would only serve half of it inside.
From the police report I know that the car was travelling at thirty-nine miles per hour at the point of impact, too fast to be taking a corner on a residential street. Far too fast. From the doctors’ reports I know Millie’s bones weren’t just broken, they were shattered. She was in hospital for nine weeks and had painful, strenuous physiotherapy for months after that. She was unlucky. Well, obviously, it is unlucky to have an alcoholic father who mows you over in the street, but she was also unlucky because there were complications with resetting the breaks and then she developed sepsis. A life-threatening condition. I stayed by her bedside throughout her slow recuperation, solely focused on her getting better. There were police interviews, Simon’s arrest and trial, press interest and scandal. I ignored it all. I let it all flow around me. Nothing mattered to me other than Millie’s recovery. I barely ate, slept or even spoke to anyone other than doctors for days. It was agreed that I was in shock. All I could see were the wires that attached her to heart monitors, the intravenous drips and oxygen tanks; it looked as though she was tied to the bed. A prisoner. It appeared that she shrank before my eyes, she looked so tiny and frail.
It was only once she was out of immediate danger, once they said she would live, that I was able to breathe again. Then I was able to notice the people around us. The doctors and nurses were gods to me. Any update or information that dropped from their lips, I licked up like a thirsty dog. They tried to find the time to be kind, to pat my shoulder, to dredge up a hopeful smile even after a fourteen-hour shift. They kept reminding me to breathe. ‘It could have been worse,’ they said. Which was true, I realised that, but it also could have been better. It should have been. Her father was responsible.
As the weeks passed and she was able to speak, smile, laugh, I was able to take in the detail of our surroundings in a more usual way. I began to appreciate that my friends and family had sat with me throughout the ordeal, nudging their schedules and crafting rotas so that I’d never be alone. They tried to tell me about Simon’s trial, his circumstances, but I closed them down. I didn’t want to know. I didn’t care. My world was inside the hospital walls. Specifically, the paediatric unit. Efforts are made to make the children’s ward as cheerful as possible. The cream walls were painted with murals of rainbows and forest animals. The limp nylon curtains that separate the beds had red spots on them, they were not just the insipid green things that hung between the beds of adult patients. There were cards, cuddly toys and chocolate treats on every bedside table. Even so, despite all this, there was the underlying stench of illness and on top of that, a layered hint of bleach. The children were carefully nursed and often spoilt, but everyone just wanted to go home.
‘So, what’s the story with you and Daryll Lainbridge then?’ Lucy asks, roughly pulling me back to the here and now.
‘Story?’
Lucy raises an eyebrow and asks, ‘Did you have an affair with him?’ The question is so out of the blue and yet so long expected that for a moment I don’t know how to react. It’s as though she’s slapped me. ‘Daisy, we’ve known each other since we were eighteen years old and besides that, I’m absolutely unshockable. I won’t judge you.’ I glare at her. Her face is serene, we could be talking about whether we ought to pick up a pint of milk, not whether I had an affair. Lucy smiles. Her smile is dazzling; a mix between Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz. ‘I’d be the last person to judge.’
I am stunned. I take a long, slow, deep breath in. My therapist, who I saw for some months after the incident, taught me the importance of breathing deeply to combat anger, fear, anxiety. ‘But in fact you are judging me, Lucy. You are judging me by your own, very low, despicable standards,’ I retort. Now it’s Lucy’s turn to look surprised. Colour floods up her face from her neck. If I wasn’t so flustered I’d get some satisfaction out of that. It takes a lot to rile Lucy. ‘I think he’s an arrogant prick if you want to know the truth.’
I sound defensive. I sound too heated. I should care about him less. I reach into my bag that’s at my feet and scramble about for the card and tickets. When I retrieve them, I rip them in half and then quarters. I open the window and throw the pieces out in to the night. The bits dance on the wind for a moment, then vanish. Normally I loathe people who litter but I just needed to get rid of the card. To obliterate it.
We continue the rest of the journey in silence. We’re both pleased when the girls wake up and start to chatter about their day at the beach. I notice Ellie has caught a little bit too much sun. I root out some after sun cream. I make quite a fuss. Obviously, I don’t like children scorching themselves when they are in my care but mostly I make a fuss to fill the space that Lucy’s accusation has created. When we finally arrive at my house I’m relieved to see that the lights are on, Connie has got home before us and let herself in with the key she keeps.
‘I won’t come in,’ says Lucy. ‘I better be getting back to Peter.’
‘Yes, I think you’d better,’ I reply firmly. I slam closed the car door and usher the girls into the house as quickly as I possibly can.
28
Chapter 28, Simon
Tuesday, 28th May 2019
In the beginning, Si
mon thought the group meetings were pointless.
He’d sat in an uncomfortable plastic chair, silent, staring. Well not sat, slouched. None of the prisoners ever sat up straight. They lolled, leaned, or huddled. Defeated, disgraced. There were no ring-fenced resources for helping addicts in prison, so the idea of a therapist coming to run the meetings was impossible. The busy prison chaplain, Billy, stood in. He didn’t wear his collar; he wanted to be approachable so he played down his association with God. He knew that it upset as many prisoners as it attracted. There were different denominations and faiths to consider, there were atheists and agnostics to include. Billy welcomed them all. To him, one lost soul was the same as the next.
Simon was told to go to the meetings and he’d done so because he thought it was compulsory, like making hairnets or showering when instructed. His response to attending meetings led by a person of the cloth was complex. He’d assumed the chaplain probably had a low IQ or was simply unbearably naïve. However, over time, Simon found that he grudgingly admired the chaplain, who had something most people didn’t. A sense of hope. Or resolve. Peace. Simon had never felt any of those things securely. Billy seemed to understand that men who drank, stuck needles in their arms, or gambled away their homes were all suffering from the same thing; they yearned, they were hungry, incomplete. They lacked something vital. It might simply have been self-discipline or self-esteem. It might have been a god. What did Simon know? The chaplain could at least provide them with a room, twice a week, to talk about the gap, the space, the lack.
Simon had been forced into going cold turkey in custody in the months he’d awaited his trial. It had been agony. A new level of pain that he hadn’t believed possible. Every muscle, bone and nerve in his body had screamed out in objection. He felt raw and threatened. The world was hostile. The clang of a door, the turn of a key in a lock, the shove of a shoulder, all intimidated him. He felt perpetually vulnerable; sick and shivering with terror and paranoia. His body folded in on itself. His mind too. It was all he could do to breathe. He concentrated on listening to that sound, the sound of his breathing and the throb of his heart thumping, better to concentrate on that rather than the sound of other men laughing. Were they laughing at him? Other men shouting. Were they coming for him?
