by Lisa Jewell
We didn’t speak.
It felt strangely holy.
I kissed my mother’s cheek. She was very cold.
I kissed my father’s forehead.
And then I looked at David. There he lay, the man who, just as Phin had predicted months earlier, had broken my life. The man who’d destroyed us, beaten us, denied us food and freedom, taken our passports, impregnated my mother and my sister, tried to take our house. I had snuffed out his pathetic existence and I felt triumphant. But I also felt a terrible sense of disgust.
Look at you, I wanted to say, just look at you, what an absolute loser you turned out to be.
I wanted to stamp my foot into David’s face and grind it to a bloody pulp, but I resisted the urge and made my way back up to Birdie and David’s room.
We cleared out all the boxes. In one we found a stash of Birdie’s stupid drawstring bags that she’d made to take to Camden Market and we filled them with as much stuff as we could conceivably fit in them. We found nearly seven thousand pounds in cash and divided it four ways. We also found my mother’s jewellery and my father’s gold cufflinks and platinum collar bones and a whole box full of whiskey. We poured the whiskey down the sinks and put the empty bottles with the champagne bottle by the front door. We put the jewels in our bags. Then we broke the boxes down and left them in a pile.
Once the house was clear of anything that might cast doubt upon the idea of it being a cult, we quietly left the house, by the front door, and we made our way to the river. It was early morning by now. It must have been around 3 a.m. A few cars passed by, but no one slowed or seemed to notice us. We stood by the river, at the very spot where Phin and I had tussled all those years before, where I’d ended up under water seeing apparitions in the murk. I was calm enough to appreciate my first moments of freedom in two years. After tossing the empty bottles, the silk underwear, the bottles of perfume and evening gowns into the river, in bags weighted down with stones, we stood for a moment and I could hear us all breathing, the beauty and peace of the moment briefly overshadowing the horror of it all. The air coming off the steely black surface of the river was thick with diesel and life force. It smelled of all the things we’d missed since the moment David Thomsen had walked into our house, since the day he and his family had come to live upstairs.
‘Smell that,’ I said, turning to the girls. ‘Feel that. We did it. We really did it.’
Clemency was crying silently. She sniffed and wiped the tip of her nose against the heel of her hand. But I could tell that Lucy felt it too, the power of what we’d done.
If it wasn’t for you, Serenity, she would have been weaker. She would have been mourning for her mummy, sniffing into the heel of her hand like Clemency. But because she had you, she knew that there was more at stake here than our identities as beloved children of a mother and father. She had a brave, almost rebellious tilt to her chin. I felt proud of her.
‘We’re going to be OK,’ I said to her. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
She nodded and we stood for a minute or two until we saw the lights of a tug boat heading towards us and we dashed, fleet-footed, back across the road and towards the house.
And that was when it happened.
Clemency ran.
She was not wearing shoes. Only socks. She had large feet and the shoes belonging to my mother that Birdie had kept were far too small, David’s shoes far too big.
For a moment I watched her run. I let a beat or two of indecision and inaction pass, then I whispered loudly to Lucy: ‘Get back in the house, get back in the house.’ And I turned on my heel and I gave chase.
But I quickly realised that in doing so I was drawing attention to myself. A few souls wandered the streets: it was a Thursday night, young people were making their way home from night buses on the King’s Road. What explanation would I give for myself, in a black robe, chasing a young terrified girl, also in a black robe, with no shoes on her feet?
I stopped on the corner of Beaufort Street. My heart, which had not experienced the shock of running for a very long time, thumped under my ribs like a piston until I thought I was going to throw up. I collapsed in upon myself, heard my breath enter and leave my body like a strangled farm animal. I turned and headed slowly back to the house.
Lucy was waiting for me in the hallway. You sat on her lap, feeding from her breast. ‘Where is she?’ she said. ‘Where’s Clemency?’
‘Gone,’ I said. Still somewhat out of breath. ‘She’s gone …’
60
Libby stares at Clemency. ‘Where?’ she asks. ‘Where did you go?’
‘I went to the hospital. I followed the signs to the A & E department. I saw people looking at me. But you know, at that time of night, in an emergency department, no one really notices. It’s all just so mad, everyone drunk or off their heads. Everyone scared and preoccupied. I went to the desk and I said, “I think my brother’s dying. He needs medical help.”
‘The nurse looked at me. She said, “How old is your brother?”
‘I said, “He’s eighteen.”
‘She said, ‘And where are your parents?’ And I just sort of clammed up. I can’t really explain it. I tried to say some words, but they literally wouldn’t leave my mouth. I just had this image in my mind of my father, dead, laid out like a freakish holy man. And Birdie on the roof wrapped up like a mummy. I thought: How can I tell people to come to that house? What would they say? What would happen to the baby? What would happen to Henry? And I just turned then, and I walked away. I spent the night moving from chair to chair in the hospital. Every time someone gave me a strange look or seemed like they were about to say something to me, I’d move on.
‘The next morning I washed in the toilets and then I went straight to a shoe shop. I had a coat on; I’d tied my hair back. I was as inconspicuous as a child walking around in early April without shoes on could be. I had my bag full of money. I bought some shoes. I wandered around the city. Nobody looked at me. Nobody noticed me. I walked all the way to Paddington Station, just following street signs. Even though I’d been living in London for six years, I had no mental map of how it worked. But I managed to get there. And I bought a train ticket to Cornwall. Which was mad because I didn’t have a phone number for my mother. I didn’t have an address. I didn’t even know the name of her town. But I had memories, things she’d talked about when she came to visit us just after she moved here. The last time we’d seen her. She’d mentioned a restaurant on the beach where she would take us when we came to visit, that sold blue ice cream and slushies. She said there were a lot of surfers, that she watched them from the window of her flat. She mentioned an eccentric artist who lived next door whose garden was full of phallic sculptures made of colourful mosaic. She mentioned fish and chips on the corner of her street and missing the fast train to London and having to go through eighteen stations.
‘And so yes, I found my way to her. To Penreath, to her street, to her flat.’
Her eyes fill with tears at this memory and her fingers go back to the cigarette packet in front of her. She pulls out a fresh one; she lights it and inhales.
‘And she came to the door and she saw me there.’ Her voice cracks on every single word and she breathes in hard. ‘She saw me there and she just pulled me in, pulled me straight in and held me in her arms for, oh, for so long. And I could smell the stale booze on her and I knew she wasn’t perfect and I knew why she hadn’t come for us but I knew, I just knew that it was over. And that I was safe.
‘She took me in and she sat me on her sofa and her flat was, well, it was a mess, stuff everywhere. I wasn’t used to that by now; I was used to living with emptiness, with nothing.
‘She moved things from her sofa so I had somewhere to sit and she said, “Phin? Where is Phin?”
‘And then of course, I stopped. Because the truth was that I’d run away and I’d left him there, locked in his room. And if I explained why he was locked in his room then I’d have to explain everything else. And I l
ooked at her and she was so damaged and I was so damaged and I should have told her everything. But I just couldn’t do it. So I told her that the adults had killed themselves in a pact. That Henry, Lucy and Phin were still at the house with you. That the police were coming. That it would all be OK. And I know it sounds ridiculous. But remember: remember where I’d been, what I’d been through. My allegiances were so skewed. We children had had no one but each other for years. Lucy and I were inseparable, as close as real sisters … well, up until she got pregnant.’
‘Lucy?’ says Libby. ‘Lucy got pregnant?’
‘Yes,’ says Clemency. ‘I thought … Did you not know?’
Libby’s heart starts to race. ‘Know what?’
‘That Lucy was …’
But Libby already knows what she’s about to say. Her hand goes to her throat and she says. ‘Lucy was what?’
‘Well, she was your mother.’
Libby stares hard at the photo of the mouth cancer on Clemency’s cigarette packet, takes in every vile, disgusting detail, to try to block out the wave of sickness coming towards her. Her mother is not a beautiful socialite with Priscilla Presley hair. Her mother is a teenage girl.
‘Who was my father?’ she says after a moment
Clemency looks at her apologetically and says, ‘It was … my father.’
Libby nods. She’d been half expecting this.
‘How old was Lucy?’
Clemency’s chin drops into her chest. ‘She was fourteen. My father was in his forties.’
Libby blinks, slowly. ‘And was it …? Did he—?’
‘No,’ says Clemency. ‘No. Not according to Lucy. According to Lucy it was …’
‘Consensual?’
‘Yes.’
‘But she was so young. I mean, that’s still legally rape.’
‘Yes. But my father … he was very charismatic. He had a way, a way of making you feel special. Or a way of making you feel worthless. And it was always better to be one of the special ones. You know, I can see how it happened. I can see … But that’s not to say I didn’t hate it. I did hate it. I hated him for it. And I hated her.’
They fall silent for a moment. Libby lets the revelations of the last few minutes sink in. Her mother was a teenage girl. A teenage girl, now a middle-aged woman lost somewhere in the world. Her father was a dirty old man, a child abuser, an animal. And at this thought, Libby starts at the sound of a notification coming from her phone. It’s a WhatsApp message from a number she doesn’t recognise.
‘Sorry,’ she says to Clemency, picking up her phone. ‘Can I just?’
There’s a photo attached. The caption says, We’re waiting here for you! Come back!
Libby recognises the location of the photo. It’s the house in Cheyne Walk. And there, sitting on the floor, holding up her hands to the camera is a woman: slender, dark-haired, very tanned. She’s wearing a sleeveless vest and has some tattoos encircling her sinewy arms. To her left is a beautiful young boy, also tanned and dark-haired, and a gorgeous little girl with gold-tinged curls, olive skin and green, green eyes. On the floor by their feet is a little brown, black and white dog, panting in the heat.
And in the foreground of the photograph, holding the camera at arm’s length and beaming into the lens with very white teeth is the man who calls himself Phin. She turns the screen to face Clemency.
‘Is that …?’
‘Oh my God.’ Clemency brings a fingertip closer to the screen and points at the woman. ‘That’s her! That’s Lucy.’
Libby uses her fingertips on the screen to stretch out the woman’s face. Lucy looks like Martina, the woman she’d briefly thought was her mother. She has the dark skin and the glossy black hair, but hers is singed rusty brown at the tips. Her forehead is lightly lined. Her eyes are dark brown, like Martina’s. Like her son’s. She looks weathered; she looks tired. She looks absolutely beautiful.
They get to Cheyne Walk five hours later.
At the door, Libby feels for the house keys in the pocket of her handbag. She could just let herself in; it’s her house after all. And then she gulps as it hits her. It’s not her house. It’s not her house at all. The house was for Martina and Henry’s baby. A baby that was never born.
She puts the keys back into her bag and she calls the number attached to the WhatsApp message.
‘Hello?’
It’s a woman. Her voice is soft and melodic.
‘Is that … Lucy?’
‘Yes,’ says the woman. ‘Who’s this?’
‘This is … this is Serenity.’
61
Lucy puts the phone down and stares at Henry.
‘She’s here.’
They go to the front door together.
The dog starts to bark at the sound of people outside and Henry picks him up and tells him to shush.
Lucy’s heart races as her hand goes to the door handle. She touches her hair, smooths it down. She makes herself smile.
And there she is. The daughter that she had to leave behind. The daughter that she has killed to come back for.
Her daughter is average height, average build, nothing like the huge roly-poly baby she’d left behind in the Harrods cot. She has soft blond hair, but no curls. She has blue eyes, but not the pale aqua blue of the baby she’d had to abandon. She’s wearing cotton shorts, a short-sleeved blouse, pink canvas plimsolls. She’s clutching a grass-green handbag to her stomach. She’s wearing small gold sleepers with crystal drops hanging from them, just one in each ear lobe. She’s not wearing any make-up.
‘Serenity …?’
She nods. ‘Or Libby. For my day job.’ She laughs lightly.
Lucy laughs too. ‘Libby. Of course. You’re Libby. Come in. Come in.’
She has to resist the urge to put her arms around her. Instead she guides her into the hallway with just a hand against her shoulder.
Following behind Serenity is a big, handsome man with a beard. She introduces him as Miller Roe. She says, ‘He’s my friend.’
Lucy leads them all to the kitchen where her children sit waiting nervously.
‘Kids,’ she says, ‘this is Serenity. Or actually Libby. And Libby is …’
‘The baby?’ says Marco, his eyes wide.
‘Yes, Libby is the baby.’
‘Which baby, Mama?’ says Stella.
‘She’s the baby I had when I was very young. The baby I had to leave in London. The baby I never told anyone about, ever. She’s your big sister.’
Marco and Stella both sit with their jaws hanging open. Libby sort of waves at them. For a moment it is awkward. But then Marco says, ‘I knew it! I knew it all along! From the minute I saw it on your phone! I knew it would be your baby. I just knew it!’
He gets to his feet and runs across the kitchen and for a moment Lucy thinks he is running away, that he is angry with her for having a secret baby, but he runs towards Libby and throws his arms around her waist, squeezes her hard, and over the top of his head Lucy sees Libby’s eyes open with surprise but also with pleasure. She touches the top of his head and smiles at Lucy.
Then, of course, because Marco has done it, Stella follows suit and clings to Libby’s hips. And there, thinks Lucy, there they are. Her three babies. Together. At last. She stands with her hands clasped to her mouth and tears fall down her cheeks.
62
CHELSEA, 1994
I’m not completely heartless, Serenity, I promise.
Remember how I let you hold my finger the day you were born, how I looked at you and felt something bloom inside me? I still felt that, when you and I came face to face here two nights ago. You were still that baby to me; you still had that innocence about you, that total lack of guile.
But you had something else.
You had his blue eyes, his creamy skin, his long dark eyelashes.
You don’t look much like Lucy.
You don’t look anything like David Thomsen.
You look just like your dad.
And it�
�s ridiculous looking back on it that I couldn’t see it when it was right there under my nose. When your blond curls came through and your bright blue eyes and your full lips. How did David not see it? How did Birdie not see it? How did anyone not see it? I guess because it was impossible to believe. Impossible even to conceive.
That my sister was sleeping with David and Phin at the same time.
I didn’t find out until the day after Birdie’s birthday party.
Lucy and I had not decided what to do yet. Phin was thrashing about in his room, so I tied him to a radiator, to keep him safe. For his own good.
Lucy was appalled.
‘What are you doing?’ she cried.
‘He’s going to hurt himself,’ I said righteously. ‘It’s just until we decide what to do with him.’
She was holding you in her arms. You and she had not been apart for a moment since she’d taken you out of Birdie’s arms the night before.
‘We need to get him some help.’
‘Yes. We do. But we also need to remember that we’ve killed people and that we could go to prison.’
‘But it was an accident,’ she said. ‘None of us meant to kill anyone. The police would know that.’
‘No. They wouldn’t. We have no evidence of any abuse. Of anything that happened here. We only have our version of events.’
But then I stopped. I looked at Lucy and I looked at you and I thought: There it is. There’s the proof we need, if we did decide to ask for help, the evidence of the abuse is there. Right there.
I said, ‘Lucy. The baby. The baby is proof that you were abused. You’re fifteen. You were fourteen when the baby was born. They can do a DNA test. Prove that David was her father. You can say he raped you, over and over again, from when you were a young child. You can say that Birdie encouraged him. And then they stole your baby. I mean it’s virtually true anyway. And then I can say … I can say I found the grown-ups like that. I could leave a faked note, saying that they were so ashamed of what they’d done. Of how they’d treated us.’
