In The Dark

by Vikki Patis

  Has he done the right thing now? I cannot believe he would have shared that photo, or have asked Izzy to send it in the first place, but I can’t shake the feeling that there’s more to this situation, more revelations to come. And so, as soon as he left earlier, I called Evelyn.

  Her warm, West Indies accent came over the phone after three rings. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Evelyn,’ I said, swallowing, ‘it’s Liv.’

  ‘Liv,’ she said, her voice like honey. Despite everything, I have always liked Evelyn. The first time I met her, she struck me as a no-nonsense woman, firm but loving, and to her credit, she denounced her son as soon as he was arrested. But she couldn’t turn off her love for him, and if I’m being honest with myself, I can’t help but understand that. ‘Is everything all right? How’s our boy?’

  I smiled. Our boy. ‘He’s fine,’ I said automatically, then paused. ‘Actually, there’s a situation I wanted to talk to you about.’

  ‘I cannot believe it,’ she said when I finished telling her about the photo and the group chat. ‘Not Seb. He is such a sweet boy. He has always respected women.’

  ‘I know. He’s only been questioned about possibly sharing the photo, but he says he hasn’t.’

  ‘Is it because he is her boyfriend?’ she asked. ‘Someone close to her?’

  ‘Maybe. I’m just… I’m worried that there’s more to it, something related that he doesn’t want to tell me.’

  Evelyn was silent for a moment. ‘I have a suggestion,’ she said, and I held my breath, waiting, knowing what was coming. ‘I think he should see his dad.’

  It was the first time she had ever suggested it. Seb had mentioned it a few times over the years, but I’d always told him that he can make up his own mind when he’s old enough. But now he is old enough, I realise with a jolt. He’s sixteen, and can start to make his own decisions. But I just want to protect him, to shield him from the world for a little bit longer.

  ‘Seb reckons his dad has turned his life around,’ I told my friend Jackie over a rare pub lunch last year. ‘Found god.’

  She sighed, reaching out to pat my hand. ‘I suppose what you’ve got to ask yourself is whether you believe in the criminal justice system.’

  I stared at her, my mind working over the question. Did I believe in the criminal justice system? Did I believe in rehabilitation and second chances? I couldn’t answer her then, and I still can’t now. How can you ever make up for taking an innocent life?

  ‘I can take him,’ Evelyn continued. ‘It’s about time I faced my son.’ And I felt pity wash over me, a kind of deep sympathy for this woman who is the mother of a killer, who lost half her body weight during the build-up to the trial, and started covering her thinning hair with bright scarves. The woman who clutched my hands between hers, her eyes full of tears, and whispered an apology over and over again. The woman who has sent me money for Seb’s school trips and lunches over the years, who bought him new shoes for school and the smartphone I couldn’t afford. Seb lost both of his parents that day eleven years ago, and both of his grandmothers stepped in. Stepped up.

  And though I was relieved to be sharing another burden with this woman, relieved to have her on my side, I couldn’t give her the answer she wanted. Not yet. Not ever.

  I arrive ten minutes early for my shift at the petrol station, plastering a smile on my face as I head for Sean’s office. He lifts an eyebrow as I enter.

  ‘The wanderer returns,’ he says sardonically.

  Twat, I think. ‘Good morning,’ I say.

  ‘Are you back now?’

  I glance down at myself. ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’ I try to laugh, but it sounds forced even to my ears. ‘Thanks for being so understanding.’ The word is unpleasant in my mouth, the untruth leaving a bad taste.

  ‘All sorted then?’ I nod, and he waves a hand, dismissing me.

  Twat, I think again. Complete and utter twat.

  I’m refilling the drinks cabinet when a man enters the shop, car keys jingling in his hand. I move behind the counter and it isn’t until he says, ‘Number four, please,’ that I recognise him. I remember him picking Isabelle and Alicia up from nursery one day, dressed in paint-splashed jeans and a white T-shirt, wearing sandals no matter the time of year. He was an artist, I remember Caitlyn telling me once when she invited me in for a cup of tea while the children played in the garden. He’d had a big break, a famous exhibition that had brought in the critics and the money alike, allowing them to buy their beautiful house. And then he left, when Izzy was about four or five, and he hasn’t been back. Until now.

  Anthony glances at my name badge before his eyes find my face. ‘Liv,’ he says, smiling. ‘Seb’s nan. Nice to see you again.’

  I smile back, cautiously, surprised he remembers me. ‘Ready for you,’ I say, indicating the card machine. He taps his card against the side before slipping it back into his wallet. He waits for his receipt, the machine printing excruciatingly slowly.

  ‘How’s things?’ he asks. ‘How’s that boy of yours?’

  His question surprises me. ‘Fine, he’s fine. How’s Izzy?’ I feel my cheeks heat up as he stares at me. ‘I’m so sorry for what happened, really. It was awful. Seb is just so upset. We all are.’ I snap my mouth shut, cutting off the babble as confusion enters his eyes.

  ‘Why?’ Anthony asks, his smile faltering. ‘What’s wrong with her? What’s happened to Izzy?’

  23

  Izzy

  She does not know the man standing in front of her. There is something familiar about him, the way his short hair sticks up slightly at the back of his head, the small scar on the left side of his jaw, half-hidden by stubble. And yet she cannot place him, cannot give him a name, until he holds out his hand and says, ‘Izzy, it’s me, Anthony. Your dad.’ And the world tilts again.

  Her mother is coming up behind her, hands firmly clamped to Izzy’s shoulders, moving her aside, putting her body between her daughter and this man, this self-proclaimed father who has been a mystery for so many years. More than half her life, she thinks, has been spent without him, and she has forgotten him.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Caitlyn hisses. The man, who she cannot yet think of as Dad, holds up his hands as if he is warding off an attack.

  ‘I was in the area,’ he says, and Izzy recognises the faint smile on his lips, the tug upwards that reminds her of Alicia. But where am I? she thinks. Can I find myself in him?

  Caitlyn glances back at her, eyes wide, mouth slightly open, then looks back at Anthony. ‘You’d better come in.’ And then he is inside, wiping his feet on the mat, gazing around the hallway.

  ‘I like what you’ve done with the place,’ he says, and Caitlyn shoots him a look as if he has insulted her. Izzy follows them into the kitchen, these people who made her, who brought her into this world, and wonders if he, too, has seen it. The photo. It must be why he is here.

  Is this what she will think whenever she meets someone new or sees someone from her past? Have you seen it? Have you seen the photo of me? She fears this is her life now, the constant anxiety gnawing at her stomach.

  Caitlyn flicks on the kettle, taking three mugs down from the cupboard. ‘Still two sugars?’ she asks without turning round.

  ‘None for me,’ Anthony says, winking at Izzy. ‘Sweet enough.’

  A noise comes from her mother’s nose, like a snort cut short, and she does not turn until she has finished making the tea, clattering the spoon noisily against the cups. She places them down on the island where Izzy and her father sit opposite one another, then leans against the counter, her own tea clasped in her hands as if she cannot trust herself to keep her hands free.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asks again, her voice sharp. ‘Why have you come?’

  He takes a sip, then another, looking at Izzy over the edge of the mug, and she feels something shift inside her. A memory of his hands holding her ankles, how she felt as if she could touch the stars when she was on his shoulders. She shakes it
away, remembers instead that morning she woke up, late for school, and padded into her mother’s room to find her hidden beneath the duvet, the room musty and dark, an empty bottle lying on its side on the floor.

  ‘I’m here to see my girls,’ he says after a moment, and Izzy sees fury flash in Caitlyn’s eyes.

  ‘You haven’t seen your girls,’ she hisses the word, ‘in over twelve years. Why now?’

  Anthony sets his mug down on the counter and stares into it, as if the answer is floating on top of the tea. ‘Because it’s been twelve years,’ he says, solemn now. ‘I’ve missed them.’

  ‘You heard, didn’t you?’ Izzy says, and her parents look at her in surprise, as if they had forgotten she was there. ‘About the photo.’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Am I supposed to believe that you’ve turned up here out of the blue?’ Caitlyn sneers. ‘Now, of all times?’

  Anthony throws up his hands. ‘Why am I being attacked here? I’ve just come to see the girls. It’s been a long time.’

  ‘Too long,’ Caitlyn mutters, and Izzy is reminded of how her mother used to sound, not long after her father left and it was just the three of them, when there was no money for days out or ice creams, and no cuddles or stories at bedtime. When her mother was drinking, blurry eyed and cold. I should never have had you.

  She feels her eyes burn with tears and she stands, pushing the stool back so it scrapes along the tiles, something Michael always tells her off for, and walks out of the kitchen.

  She sits on the top step, listening to her parents – her parents, a term she hasn’t used in years – argue.

  ‘I have a right to know.’

  ‘You gave up your rights when you walked out on us.’

  ‘Alicia told me–’

  ‘Alicia? What? When did she–’

  ‘Tell me what’s happened. I want to help.’

  Her mother’s voice drops then, and Izzy knows she is telling him everything. About the photo, about the razor. Hot tears spill down her cheeks, shame burning through her like wildfire. How can she ever show her face anywhere again? How can she go back to school, or go into town, and face the people who have seen her half-naked? They have seen the scar on her left knee from falling off her bike, the plain black knickers a size too big. They have seen her vulnerable, and they have shared it, giggling as they send the photo on and on and on, forwarded and posted and devoured, until there is nothing left of her.

  Later, Caitlyn pushes open her bedroom door, a slice of lemon cheesecake on a plate held out like a peace offering. Izzy takes it but does not eat. She watches her mother’s face, noticing how the shadows fall across it, making her appear older. Ancient. Tired.

  ‘Your dad wants to help,’ she says, a hand on Izzy’s knee. ‘I told him what happened.’ She sighs then, her shoulders slumped, her body deflating like all the air has gone out of her. ‘He wants to talk to you.’ Izzy starts to shake her head, opens her mouth to say no, no, I don’t want to talk to him, not about this, but Caitlyn continues. ‘He said… He said you could live with him, if you wanted. In Plymouth. Move schools. It could… I don’t know. It could be a good thing. A fresh start.’

  Izzy blinks once, twice, trying to absorb this information. She could move away, start again, where nobody knows her and what she’s done. A way out.

  ‘When?’ she asks, and her mother closes her eyes as if in pain.

  24

  Caitlyn

  Two weeks pass. Two weeks since Anthony turned up again. Two weeks since I had a shouting match with Alicia, when I discovered she had been speaking to him in secret.

  ‘He’s my dad,’ she said, indignant at first, then increasingly angry. ‘He’s our dad. We have the right to know him.’

  ‘But why didn’t you tell me?’ My own anger had quickly turned to tears, hot and humiliating as they ran down my face. ‘Why did you have to go behind my back?’

  ‘Not everything is about you, Mum!’ she shouted. She has always had a quick temper. ‘Why do you always make things about you?’

  She turned then, running up to her bedroom and slamming the door. Fifteen minutes later she was down the stairs and out the front door, storming down the driveway towards her car, Izzy on her heels.

  ‘I can’t stay here anymore,’ she told her sister loud enough for me to hear. ‘She just drives me mad!’

  And then she was gone, Izzy suddenly looking five years old again as she watched Alicia’s car disappear down the road.

  Now I stand in the doorway to my daughter’s room, watching as she sorts her clothes into three piles: stay, take, charity. She will keep some of her clothes here, and I can’t help but picture her wardrobe half-empty, just like my heart.

  But it is the right thing to do, for her to move away, to have a fresh start. It is, it is, it is. I repeat the words in my mind, in time with my heartbeat. I have failed at being a mother, have failed to keep her safe, and now she must go, learn to be someone new in a new place. Learn how to be Isabelle – Izzy, I remind myself. Izzy, Izzy, Izzy.

  She packs slowly, methodically, thinking carefully about what she will need at her dad’s. She will come back every fortnight, travelling the five hours on the train from Plymouth, changing only at London Paddington and then getting the Tube to Hertford, where I will pick her up. I try to make myself look forward to those weekends as quality time with my daughter, but there is a rock forming in my stomach, the fear that she will hate coming back, that she will stay in Devon forever.

  She looks up at me then, her head tilted slightly to one side as if she can hear my thoughts. ‘I’m taking my Portal,’ she says, nodding towards the small rectangular screen. ‘We can video call all the time.’

  I nod, smile, but deep down I know that the video calls and texts will dry up within weeks. That she will be too busy with her new school and new friends to remember her mum. You should be glad about that, I scold myself. Alicia keeps in touch, when we haven’t fallen out that is, but it is minimal and sometimes days go past without hearing from her, and that should be what I want for Izzy too. And I do, but I am afraid that she will need me, that something will happen and I won’t be there to comfort her. And I am afraid that she won’t need me at all, that she will forget all about the almost sixteen years spent in this house, the majority of which were happy and full of love and laughter. That she will forget about me.

  I shake myself, turning away from my daughter packing up her life and going downstairs – thirteen steps, unlucky for some – where Michael sits on the sofa, his bare feet resting on the coffee table, the football blaring out of the TV. I grimace as I pass. In the kitchen, I open the fridge and stand there, feeling the cold air send goosebumps rippling across my skin. I take out a red cabbage and onion, find a carrot in the drawer, and dig out the jar of mayonnaise. I move the chicken breasts from the fridge to the chopping board and begin to dice them, throwing the cubes into a frying pan.

  ‘What’s cooking?’ Michael asks when he crosses the room to take another beer from the fridge.

  ‘Fajitas with coleslaw and salad,’ I say without looking at him, adding spice to the browned chicken. This is what I do, in the absence of a career and children who need me. I cook. I bake. I clean. I make iced coffees instead of going to Starbucks, make my own Yorkshire puddings on Sundays, even stuff seashell moulds with my own sodding toilet cleaner recipe. I have too much energy to do nothing, and not enough energy to do something full-time. At least here I can break when I need to, switch off when the brain fog is too heavy. I can’t imagine going back to an office now.

  The smell brings Izzy from her room, and I ignore the flicker I feel when I notice how calm she looks. Relieved.

  ‘Can I help?’ she asks, and I hand her the iceberg lettuce to rip into shreds while I slice peppers. We work in tandem, throwing the salad into the large bowl before Izzy starts setting the table. We often eat at the island, but I prefer the table in front of the bay window, with its stylish dove-grey chairs and runner that name
s all the different kinds of pasta. She gets cutlery from the drawer and sets out wine glasses for each of us. ‘This one?’ She lifts a bottle of wine from the fridge door, and I nod.

  ‘One glass, with lemonade,’ I say half-heartedly, knowing that her father will let her drink, knowing that she does it anyway. Knowing that I cannot stop her. I think of Anthony as I microwave the wraps, his smooth, tanned skin that screams south of France, the ring on his wedding finger. The way he spoke of her, Miranda, his new wife. His only wife, I remind myself. We were never married. And I remember the way he laughed at marriage and children and mortgages back when we were students, as if he were above such desires, as if it was pathetic to want those things. And now he has them, and I am not a part of any of it.

  ‘Do you want water, Mum?’ Isabelle – Izzy – asks, breaking into my reverie.

  ‘Hmm? Oh, yes please.’ I watch her take the filter jug from the fridge and fill three tall glasses with water. ‘Thank you, darling.’ I reach for her as she passes on her way to the table, pressing my lips against her hair. ‘For helping.’ She gives me a small smile, and it warms me like the sun on a spring day.

  ‘Michael,’ I call, placing the bowls of chicken and salad on the table. ‘Dinner.’ I realise with a flash of annoyance that he has not moved to help once, has only got up to get himself another beer – the third, judging by the empties lined up on the table – and he grunts as he turns off the TV. I may be losing one teenager, I think, but I still have one here.