by Tess Stimson
My father loved me. He loved me long before I was old enough to understand this wasn’t the way most fathers loved their little girls. Our secret, he whispered in my ear, as he stroked me in places he wasn’t supposed to touch. We can’t tell anyone, not even Mummy, or they’ll spoil it. They’ll take you away from me, because they won’t understand how much I love you.
I don’t know how old I was when he raped me the first time. Seven, perhaps? Eight? So much of my childhood is a jumble of repressed images, it’s hard to recall. There was a big storm that night, I remember that much, the lightning illuminating my bedroom in horror movie snapshots. I woke up to my father in my bed, on top of me, crushing the breath out of me. I didn’t stop him, because I thought my daddy was perfect, so perhaps it was meant to hurt. He looked into my eyes with an expression I’d never seen before, and then he smiled. You’re such a grown-up girl, he said. I love you so much.
I never said a word to anyone, not once. Daddy would never hurt me, I told myself. He loves me. This must be my fault. Sometimes, I’d catch my mother’s eye at breakfast, and she’d look away, and pour herself another vodka.
Then a month before my eleventh birthday, I got my period. A week later, I came home one day from school, and my father had gone.
He left you behind.
Daddy would never—
He left you.
The ten-year-old child inside me covers her ears with her hands. Easier to believe he died than that he abandoned me. If he left me, he couldn’t have loved me. And as warped as it sounds, I have to believe he loved me for the horror to be bearable.
My mother lunges forward. For a brief moment, as she pushes her crazed face close to mine, her eyes wide with fear, I see the woman she was, the mother she could have been. ‘You have to stop him,’ she says fiercely. ‘Do what I was too weak to do. Stop him.’
There’s no point pretending anymore. I came to her for a reason, because she’s the only person to whom I can unburden my scarred soul. ‘If I go to the police, I ruin Bella’s life too,’ I say. ‘Exposing her to that kind of scrutiny. A court case. Who knows what that would do to her—’
‘Not the police. Stop him yourself.’
A sudden silence falls. I’ve seen her worst and she’s seen mine.
‘You know what has to be done, Carol,’ my mother says slyly. ‘You know what you have to do. You come here so I’d tell you. You’re stronger than I was.’ Her hands tremble as she clutches the arms of her chair, and there’s a tiny drool of spittle at the corner of her mouth. ‘You need to do what I couldn’t.’
It’s crossed my mind. Fleetingly, hypothetically. The thought dismissed as quickly as it occurred. Almost as quickly.
‘I can’t,’ I say sharply.
‘You can. You have it in you. You’ve got what it takes. There’s ice in your heart.’ She laughs mirthlessly. ‘I should know.’ She wheels her chair back and forth, back and forth on the linoleum, the rubber tyres squeaking, until I want to scream. ‘I heard about the cat,’ she adds, her eyes suddenly bright with glee. ‘Poisoned with antifreeze. Louise thinks you did it.’
I look away. ‘The cat was old.’
‘We had a cat,’ my mother says craftily. ‘Pissed on your new jacket, d’you remember? Couldn’t get the stink out. Washed it three times.’ Back and forth, back and forth. Squeak, squeak. ‘Found the cat in the yard a week later, stiff as a broom. Froth on its mouth. Looked like it’d been poisoned.’
‘We’re not talking about a cat,’ I say. ‘This is my husband. I can’t—’
‘It’s just us now,’ she hisses venomously. ‘No need to pretend in front of me. You could do it. Save the girl. And you could take him away from her for good.’
I stare at my mother. She is the portrait of my soul kept in the attic, growing ever more hideous and deformed with my sins, as my youthful skin stays soft and clear. I come here to face the raw truth of who I am, deep beneath the polished veneer. Here, I can admit to myself what I can’t anywhere else. Love him, hate him, hate him, love him. If I can’t have him, no one else can.
He doesn’t deserve to live. After what he’s done to Bella. After what he’s done to me.
I pick up my mother’s blanket, which has fallen on the floor, and tuck it neatly over her knees. I wheel her back to her favourite position beneath the window, locking the brakes into place, and lift the sash a couple of inches to let some fresh air into the stale room. The day my mother tried to kill herself, I got home from school earlier than I told the police. She must have only just kicked the chair away. I stood in the hall for a full minute, watching her struggle, jerking like a marionette. She wet herself as she scrabbled at the tie around her neck; I can still remember the sound of her urine splashing against the tile floor. I waited, and she watched me wait.
I bend and drop a soft kiss on her forehead. ‘I’m glad they cut you down,’ I say. ‘Death would’ve been too good for you.’
Two days before the party
Chapter 39
Louise
I pull up at the entrance to the Burgh Island Hotel car park, and root around in the centre console for the piece of paper on which I wrote down the security code for the metal gate. With a patient sigh, Bella locates it and hands it to me, and I lean out of the window to punch in the numbers. ‘Could you get our bags, while I wake Tolly?’ I ask, as the gate rolls open. ‘And try not to let them drag on the ground. It looks like it rained earlier.’
After parking the car, I get out and stretch my aching back as Bella opens the boot. It’s a four-hour journey from our house to the Devon coast, but there’s no direct train, so I had no option but to drive. I stare across the narrow stretch of water between the mainland and the island itself, inhaling a deep breath of cool, salty air. The sea glitters in the late afternoon sunshine, and gulls swoop and squawk above us. London and Whitefish seem a long way away. It feels good to escape from everything. I’m glad I came down a day earlier than everyone else; I need to hit the reset button and regroup before I’ll be fit company for a party.
As I’m getting my sleepy son out of his car seat, a man hails us from the other side of the car park in a thick Irish brogue. ‘You the Page party?’
‘Mr Connelly?’
‘Everyone calls me Ryan,’ the Irishman says, coming over and taking the bags from Bella. It’s the middle of summer, but he’s wearing wellingtons, corduroy trousers and a thick knitted bobble hat. ‘Tide’s in, so I’ll be taking you over on the sea tractor.’
Tolly’s eyes light up like pinwheels when he sees the sea tractor parked on the sand. It looks like something from a BBC period drama, with a metal staircase leading up to the covered platform resting atop huge tractor wheels. He yanks free from my restraining hand and bounds up the steps, leaning over the platform railing for a better view. ‘We’re driving through the water!’ he cries. ‘Mummy, Mummy! We’re driving through the sea! Will we go underwater?’ he adds, turning to Ryan, who’s taken the wheel in the centre of the sea tractor.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Bella sighs. ‘It’s not a submarine.’
I shoot her a reproachful glance, and she rolls her eyes, but puts her arm around her little brother and points out the hotel as Jack drives us across the sands. The water’s no more than a few feet deep, but at high tide like this, the island is completely cut off, and I can see dangerous currents at play beneath the surface.
The trip takes no more than five minutes, and Ryan helps us down the metal steps once we reach the island, leading the way up a steep path to the hotel. ‘That’s the Pilchard Inn,’ he says, pointing to a small pub hugging the coast by the tiny quay. ‘It’s haunted by Tom Crocker, the leader of a band of vicious pirates in the fourteenth century.’ He leans down to Tolly, whose eyes are now as wide as dinner plates. ‘Crocker and his men looted and plundered ships for years, till he got caught.’ He points to the top of the hill behind us, and drops his voice to a sepulchral whisper. ‘He was dragged kicking and screaming for his life to the highes
t point on the island, where he was hanged by his neck until he was declared dead. It is said’ – his eyes rest on each of our faces in turn – ‘that his restless ghost walks again on the anniversary of his death every year. Folks see him, standing in the door of the Pilchard Inn, waiting for his men to return.’
‘Oh, great,’ Bella mutters. ‘Tolly will be up all night now.’
‘You’re safe, young man.’ Ryan grins, straightening up and ruffling Tolly’s hair. ‘Old Tom’s anniversary’s not till August. He won’t be appearing while you’re here.’
I’m slightly relieved when Ryan leaves us in reception. He seems nice enough, but I don’t need him putting any more ideas in Tolly’s head. A porter takes our bags up to our rooms, and I turn to the kids. ‘I thought I might have a cup of tea before we do anything else,’ I say. ‘Either of you two fancy anything?’
‘Ice cream!’ Tolly shouts.
Bella smiles. ‘Ice cream works.’
She leads the way into the spectacular Art Deco Palm Court, with its high, domed glass ceiling, and we settle in some pale blue shell-shaped armchairs with a view of the water. The waiter comes over with a pair of menus, and I fight to suppress a grin. The man has long, winkle-picker shoes, a fuchsia-pink embroidered waistcoat, and a shiny bald pate encircled by thick grey ringlets reaching down to his shoulder blades. He looks like an extra from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
The waiter takes our order – high tea for me, and ice cream for the two children – and sidles away. ‘I’m guessing the staff here don’t get off-island much,’ Bella says dryly.
‘Ssssh,’ I reprove, trying not to laugh.
When they’ve finished their ice cream, we go for a long walk around the island, which is bigger than I remembered. A combination of the long journey and fresh sea air has tired us all out, and after a light dinner in the restaurant downstairs, I tuck Tolly up in the double bed he’ll be sharing with me, while Bella and I go outside onto the terrace to watch the sunset.
‘I can see why Gree wanted to have the party here,’ Bella says, leaning on the railing and gazing down at the sandbar we crossed earlier on the sea tractor, which is now revealed by the receding tide. ‘It must’ve been a cool place to go on honeymoon. It’s like the rest of the world doesn’t exist.’
‘Nice feeling, isn’t it?’
‘Did you speak to her?’ she asks, after a moment. ‘You know, about Dad and Caz?’
I squeeze her hand. ‘Don’t worry. I told her it’s OK with me if they come.’
Mum probably now thinks I’m falling in with her diabolical plan to wrest Andrew back, but the truth is, I’ve barely given him a second thought in the last few days. I feel as if I’ve just awoken from the grip of a feverish obsession. I can’t believe I let myself get sucked back into a soap-opera melodrama I thought I’d left behind years ago. The whole vendetta with Caz suddenly seems ridiculously petty.
Bella was right: Caz isn’t the enemy. She never has been. My cheeks burn every time I think about my mad dash to London with poor Bagpuss on the seat beside me. Of course Caz didn’t poison him! She may be many things, but she’s not a sociopath. He was just unlucky. He must have wandered further afield from our house than I thought and got access to antifreeze on one of the nearby farms. The nonsense with Caz made me paranoid. She didn’t behave well four years ago, having an affair with a married man, but I know better than anyone you can’t choose who you fall in love with. If anyone’s to blame, it’s Andrew. He’s the one who made solemn promises to me.
‘I’m just going to check on Tolly,’ I tell Bella now. ‘I’ll be right back.’
I let myself back into the bedroom, smiling when I see Tolly sprawled in the centre of the bed, arms and legs thrown wide like a giant letter X. I pull the covers over him, and he turns over without waking. At that moment, catching him in profile, I’m struck once again by his striking resemblance to his father. Tolly is the spitting image of him. They have exactly the same nose, mouth and chin.
I’ve never told Patrick that Tolly is his son. No one knows the truth, not even Andrew. He knows Tolly isn’t his biological child, of course, but he has no idea who is, and has always treated Tolly as his own. Perhaps one day, if the time is right, I’ll tell Patrick, but not until Tolly is old enough to understand.
Ironically, it was through Caz that Patrick and I met; a karmic closing of the circle, perhaps, that began when Chris Murdoch introduced Andrew to Caz. After I’d discovered Andrew’s secret phone and learned about his affair, I was desperate to know everything about the other woman in his life. Partly to discover something terrible about her, something damning, a weakness I could use to undermine her attempts to steal my husband; but also because I had a visceral, masochistic craving to know who she was, what she was like: everything from her shoe size to her favourite restaurant. It was like picking a scab; even though I knew it’d hurt, I couldn’t stop. So I tracked her to Whitefish, and then used my position at the Daily Post to cultivate Patrick as a contact, an unwitting informant. But our relationship soon became a great deal more personal than that.
The day I found myself standing outside his house, his mother waving to me through the window, was the day I realised I was in way too deep. Patrick asked me to reconsider after I broke it off, but when I wouldn’t, he took it on the chin. We ran into each other several times professionally over the next few years, and he was always warm and cordial, but never tried to push it any further. If he felt the same undercurrent of unfinished business between us that I did, he never gave any indication. He’s been the same throughout my brief stint working for Univest at Whitefish, though when I told him last week I was leaving, his regret seemed genuine. ‘I’m going to miss you,’ he said. ‘I’ve liked having you around.’
I should stay in touch with him, I think now, dropping a kiss on Tolly’s cheek and returning to the terrace, where Bella is sitting in one of the uncomfortable iron chairs, focused on her phone. If and when I decide to come clean about Tolly, it’ll make it so much easier if Patrick and I are friends.
Bella glances up as I come out. ‘Mum, can Taylor come to the party on Saturday?’
‘Won’t that be a bit boring for her?’ I ask in surprise.
‘Please, Mum.’
‘If she really wants to, I’m sure Gree won’t mind.’ A thought occurs to me. ‘Actually, Bella, why don’t you have her come down tomorrow, instead of Saturday? Auntie Min and Uncle Luke are bringing their boys in the morning, so you’ll be a bit outnumbered otherwise.’
‘What about Gree’s dinner tomorrow night? I thought that was just supposed to be family?’
‘I’m sure they can fit one more in.’
She nods, but she’s not as enthusiastic as I thought she’d be. It’s clear something else is on her mind. She puts her phone down on the small side table, tucking her hands into the long sleeves of her ubiquitous black T-shirt in the familiar way she has. Immediately I pay attention: that phone is rarely out of her hands, which means she’s nerving herself to tell me something. ‘Mum,’ she says, then stops and bites her lip.
I wait. For a moment, I think she’s changed her mind about whatever she was about to say, and then her words suddenly come out in a rush. ‘Mum, do you believe in abortion?’
I’m genuinely taken aback. Of all the questions I expected her to ask, this wasn’t even on my radar. My stomach plunges, and it takes all my effort not to let my shock show on my face. Dear God, please don’t tell me my sixteen-year-old daughter’s pregnant. ‘Why do you ask?’ I say, somehow keeping my tone even.
‘It’s for a debate we have to do for school,’ she mumbles, not meeting my eye. ‘We have to give the pros and cons. Do you think it’s, like, taking a life?’
‘This is a complicated subject,’ I hedge, my mind racing a mile a minute. How does this fit in with what she’s told me about Taylor? Does Bella like boys, too, after all? Is this the reason she said things with Taylor were complicated? ‘You know you can tell me anything, Bella,’ I
say steadily. ‘I’m here for you, no matter what—’
‘I’m not pregnant, Mum!’
I’d have noticed if my own daughter was pregnant, surely? But then I’ve been so obsessed with my feud with Caz, I’ve let it overshadow everything else. And, oh, God, Bella has been sick a lot recently. Those dark circles under her eyes, the weight loss – the same thing happened to me when I was expecting her, until the morning sickness abated. But I just can’t believe she wouldn’t have told me. I know we’ve had our problems, but she wouldn’t have kept this from me, surely?
‘All right,’ I say.
Bella knits her fingers together in her lap, her body taut as a bow. Clearly she needs more from me.
‘Is this why you borrowed the money?’ I push gently. ‘For a termination?’
‘Do you think they’re wrong?’
‘I don’t think abortion should be taken lightly, if that’s what you mean,’ I say carefully, aware I’m treading on eggshells. ‘But I think, in certain circumstances, it can be the right thing for both a mother and the child.’
A tear splashes on her hand, and a fist squeezes my heart. She’s just a child herself. I crouch down beside her. ‘Bella, darling, talk to me. I’m not going to judge. I just want to help you. I’m your mother, I love you, no matter what.’
‘Taylor thinks people who have abortions go to hell,’ she says miserably. ‘Her parents are Catholic, they’re really strict—’
‘No one’s going to hell!’ I exclaim angrily. ‘Bella, Catholics may be strict, but they believe in forgiveness, too. I can’t believe Taylor’s been telling you this nonsense. Of course you’re not going to hell!’
