‘Don’t,’ Charlie says, his hand trembling as he wipes away a fat tear slipping down my cheek.
‘He’s a monster, Charlie.’
‘I know, but he’s a monster I’d rather you kept away from.’
‘If he’s still in Newcastle, he won’t see the report and, with any luck, no one will bother to tell him.’
Charlie holds my gaze a second too long. I want him to pull me close again so I can ignore the shadow that passed over his face, but he doesn’t move. I fall back against the kitchen counter. ‘What is it?’
Mirroring my movements, Charlie leans against the kitchen island, pushing his hands deep into his pockets. ‘He’s back in Liverpool, Jen. He has been for a few months.’
‘And you didn’t think to tell me?’ It’s not quite a screech but it’s close.
‘I didn’t think— I hoped I wouldn’t need to. It’s not like he kept in touch with any of our friends.’
I clench my jaw and make a concerted effort to match Charlie’s supplicant tone. ‘I was hoping he’d be in prison by now, or killed in a gang war like that cousin of his.’
Lewis was a magnet when it came to trouble. The only reason he had appeared in our lives was to escape the mess he’d left somewhere else. He was fifteen when his cousin was stabbed to death near their home in Huyton and Lewis’s mum hadn’t wanted her only child to suffer the same fate. She had packed up and moved with her son to South Liverpool, cutting off all ties with the family who accepted violence as the norm. When I heard their story, I was full of admiration, and despite what’s happened since, I do have respect for what his mum had wanted to achieve. I’ve spoken to many women who have walked away from abusive relationships with nothing except the determination to find a better life for their children, and although Lewis’s mum fled under different circumstances, she had given her son the best chance possible. Lewis was the one who squandered it.
Charlie sighs. ‘He’s back because his mum’s ill. I think it’s cancer or something. I don’t know much.’
‘You know a lot more than I’d expect considering he doesn’t keep in touch with anyone we know. Have you actually seen him?’
He flinches. ‘He’s the last person I’d want to see, Jen. I don’t want him in our lives any more than you do. It was Jay and Meathead who bumped into him, and no, they weren’t stupid enough to suggest a school reunion. They hooked up on Facebook, that’s all.’
‘And you say they’re not stupid?’ I’m managing to hold back my anger but it’s not easy. I take deep breaths as I process the news. My skin crawls at the idea that Lewis is nearer than we thought, and if Charlie’s idiot friends can bump into him then how long before I do, or God forbid, Ruth or Geoff? ‘Is he back in that flat over the off-licence on Allerton Road?’
‘No, it was the first thing I asked. His mum moved to Bootle and he’s living there with her. I don’t know where exactly,’ he answers before I can ask.
I’m relieved that Lewis is living north of the city but it’s still too close. ‘What else have they found out?’
‘Nothing really,’ Charlie tries, only to squirm under my gaze. ‘He’s a personal trainer.’
‘Successful?’
Charlie shrugs. ‘No idea. He works freelance at a hotel.’
It’s like pulling teeth. ‘Which one?’
‘I don’t know, Jen. Honestly, I haven’t taken that much notice. Does it matter?’
I push past Charlie and cross the living room towards the window. Across the sprawling city, lights are flickering on as the summer’s day draws to a close. My eyes travel the route I take to work along the Strand to Mann Island and I’m struck by how many hotels I can see. ‘What if it’s one of those? What if I walk past him every day?’
Charlie keeps his hands in his pockets as he approaches. He’s heard the tremble in my voice and when he realises it’s my entire body shaking, he pulls me back into his arms. ‘He’s not interested in us, Jen. If I thought he was a threat, I would have done something about it,’ he tells me.
It’s a nice thought but what Charlie gains in height, Lewis always made up for in muscle, and if he’s working as a personal trainer, I imagine he’s more than a match for my would-be hero. ‘The only reason you don’t think he’s a threat is because that’s what Lewis wants you to believe. He’s bad news, Charlie. He always was. Why can’t you see that?’
‘I do,’ he says, kissing the top of my head. ‘But none of us are teenagers any more. What happened with Meg changed us and I bet it changed Lewis too. He’ll have enough on his plate looking after his mum. It’s time for us all to get on with our lives.’
‘Unless you’re Meg,’ I remind him.
As I close my eyes, I replay the snatches of video included in this evening’s news report; Meg blowing out candles on her tenth birthday, playing football on the beach with me and Sean, taking centre stage in a school play. But then my thoughts turn to Ruth, her voice breaking as she told the reporter how Meg’s death was a slow and painful process that began when Lewis invaded our lives.
‘It’s not fair. He can’t come back here and expect us all to forget what he did,’ I say, only to realise that Ruth has made sure he knows that we haven’t. ‘It’s not over. It was stupid to believe it ever was.’
3
Ruth
The build up to Meg’s tenth anniversary has followed a familiar pattern of emotions: the growing sense of impending doom; the tension during the day itself as I relive Meg’s last hours and imagine her torment; the brief respite that I allow myself when I go to bed having survived another year without her; waking up this morning to begin the countdown to what should be Meg’s twenty-eighth birthday on Sunday.
When Geoff decided to go into work today, leaving me home alone, I felt nothing but relief. Yesterday had exhausted us both and the only reason we managed to get through the anniversary without a cross word was that we didn’t talk that much at all. I’m all talked out.
Luckily, the TV report was the last in a series of interviews I’ve given in recent weeks – my last desperate attempt to get people to take notice of our work before Geoff has his way and we wind up the foundation. I knew it wouldn’t be easy. The press had grown weary of the retelling of the version of Meg’s life that satisfied the coroner but has never satisfied me.
Don’t get me wrong, I accept that Meg had suicidal thoughts but on that last morning, I thought she’d turned a corner. She said she had plans. I never thought … Something else had to have happened. The note we were left with didn’t explain it. She had written just twenty-two words, twenty-three including her name, and I can recall each one by heart.
I’m doing this because of you.
I don’t expect anyone to understand why I chose this way. Bury my shame with me.
Megan x
It’s not enough. My Meg had more to say and it was about Lewis. In her final texts to him, she demanded that he answer her messages and, when that failed, she asked him not to hate her. He would have known she was about to expose him and despite an alibi that placed him in the gym all afternoon, he was there. Witnesses can be bought, or threatened. They can also be silenced and that was what he did to Meg when he tore the note in two.
I’ve been quiet for too long, and I could tell Geoff wasn’t happy with me as we wrapped up the interview. He’d been skulking in the background and I thought I was prepared for the argument, but after thirty-two years of marriage, I still can’t predict my husband’s reactions. It had never crossed my mind that it wasn’t what I said about Lewis that had upset him as much as the fact that I had shared our home videos of Meg.
After she died, Geoff had spent an age collating and digitising every image and recording he could find of her. The painstaking task had occupied his mind for a while, bringing light relief to our darkened world, and when it was complete he’d presumed we would sit down and watch them together, but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to see our beautiful girl shine, only to watch her light dim before my eyes
, or face the finality of the blank screen when the recordings came to an abrupt end.
Tipping back my head, I stretch my spine and listen to a low whine coming from the floor above. I’m sitting alone at the breakfast bar in the cavernous kitchen I designed myself. We had the house remodelled the year after losing Meg, extending out to the side by knocking down the garage with its indelible memories, repositioning the kitchen, and adding a fifth bedroom upstairs. Not that we needed another bedroom. Sean had decided to stay in Stratford after completing his degree and our nest had been well and truly emptied. Geoff wasn’t the only one who needed to find a way to stay connected to our daughter, and while he has his library of videos, I have my kitchen.
Resting my hands on the cold granite counter, I stare up at the ceiling until my focus adjusts to the middle distance. I don’t generally tell visitors this is where Meg died. I expect most would think it ghoulish but after ten years, her death no longer holds the power to shock me. I’m aware of her absence constantly and there’s something comforting about being this close to the spot where my daughter’s soul left her body.
It’s one of the few aspects of my grief that I don’t share during my campaigning, that and how I chat to Meg whenever I’m home alone. Lately, I’ve been telling her my worries about the future and how Geoff’s plans are diverging from my own. I promise her I won’t forsake her memory and give up on the helpline because the two are inextricably linked. I know there are national charities that have the resources to do our job and more, which is why the demand for our services has been in decline, but I can’t let it fail.
‘God, Meg, I hope this relaunch works,’ I whisper.
As always, the returning silence is deafening. The high-pitched whine I’d heard earlier has stopped too, replaced by light footsteps moving about upstairs. The palm of my hand is ice cold as I place it over my fluttering heart. For the briefest moment, I let myself imagine it’s Meg. How I’d love to hear her giggling, or the creak of the bed as she and Jen use it as a trampoline until I have to yell at them to stop.
My breath catches in my throat. I wish I’d never shouted at her. If I had my time again, I wouldn’t worry about them breaking the bed, I’d run up and join them. But it’s not Meg’s footsteps I hear and no amount of wishful thinking will make it so.
Hiring a cleaner was a spur of the moment decision. Jen had been telling me how well Charlie’s business was doing and how he might be expanding from domestic to commercial services. I suspect she was sounding me out about taking on our office cleaning but we have years to run on the current contract and it was at home where help was needed.
Geoff and I are at the office five days a week and we often bring work home at the weekend. What free time we have is usually spent wining and dining potential clients or, in Geoff’s case, meeting them on the golf course. Hiring help made sense but I never expected to be sitting here imagining that it’s Meg upstairs. It’s no good, I can’t bear it any longer, I simply can’t.
My heart is thumping and I’m about to shout up to Helena and ask her to leave when I hear the growl of Geoff’s Audi pulling onto the drive. I check the time. It’s not yet four but for once I’m glad to have him home. I’m filling the kettle when he appears at the doorway and hesitates. Whereas I can spend hours in the kitchen, tucked away in the quiet corner I created with an overstuffed sofa and well-stocked bookcase, Geoff finds no comfort in this room and steels himself before stepping across the threshold.
I often wonder why he didn’t raise an objection when I drafted the new plans. We had agreed we didn’t want the garage left as a mausoleum, and moving out of the last home we shared with Meg was never an option, but he could have offered an alternative suggestion. He didn’t because my husband is generally happy to go along with whatever I want – or at least he was.
‘Did you let everyone have an early finish?’ I ask.
‘Everyone except Jen. She insisted on hanging around till whoever’s on the helpline arrives.’
‘It’ll be Alison tonight,’ I tell him.
The helpline is open from five until eight on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings. It used to be open five days but we had to cut back when the calls dwindled and it became increasingly difficult to expect what had been a merry band of volunteers to give up their evenings when there were so few calls, or occasionally none at all. There are only five of us now, including me and Jen.
‘I was thinking,’ Geoff says as he sidesteps the breakfast bar to join me. ‘It’s not too late to take Sean up on his offer. We could be in Stratford in a couple of hours.’
I suppress a sigh. ‘But we’ve already told them no and they’ll have made alternative plans.’
‘We could book into a hotel,’ he replies as he takes a whiskey bottle from the cupboard. ‘It’s all very well seeing the twins on FaceTime but that’s no way to get to know their Nanna and Gramps properly.’
My shoulders sag. We’ve had this conversation before. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to see our little babies, but I have to be here for Meg’s birthday.’
Geoff’s head hangs down for a moment. ‘It was just an idea.’
I watch as he pours two fingers of whiskey into a glass. We grieve in our own ways. ‘We’ll do it another weekend,’ I promise.
There’s a thump above our heads as Geoff reaches for his glass. He pauses as a brief look of pain crosses his face.
‘I think we should let Helena go,’ I say, drawing his attention back to me. ‘I don’t like having someone else in the house.’
Geoff needs no further explanation but still he hesitates. ‘You might feel differently in a few days,’ he says. ‘You know how this time of year affects you.’
He makes it sound as if it’s only me who’s aware of the melancholy haze that descends during the last week of August but I know he feels it too. That’s why he reacted as he did to the videos being shown. That’s why his heart skipped a beat when he heard someone moving about upstairs. Just once, I wish he’d remember we’re not in this alone.
‘Putting it off won’t make any difference. I’ll speak to her today,’ I say.
‘If you’re sure,’ he replies before savouring the first mouthful of amber liquid.
‘Have I missed anything at work?’ I ask as I race to make our coffees before he can finish his drink and refill his glass.
‘Nothing much. The city planners are being difficult over the Whitespace project but I’ve asked the team to mull over possible solutions for next week.’
The Whitespace project is a major inner city redevelopment and one of the biggest schemes we’ve ever worked on. ‘I saw the emails this morning,’ I tell him. ‘Oh God, that reminds me, there was one from Selina asking if we’d sponsor a whole table for her fundraiser.’
‘Yeah, I had that one too.’
Selina Raymond is a force to be reckoned with despite her advancing years. Our paths had crossed a few years ago after her lodger had moved out of her large Victorian house and she decided to convert her home into a refuge. She had heard about the helpline, which was going strong back then, and when she discovered it had been set up by two architects, it didn’t take long for her to convince Geoff and me to design the refuge at cost, and now she’s looking to expand.
‘She’s going to struggle for the extra funding this year,’ I continue.
‘As are we all,’ Geoff replies, swirling the dregs in his glass as he speaks.
The black hole in the foundation’s budget is another argument Geoff has used for closing the helpline. In the early years, when Meg’s loss was raw, it had been relatively easy to pull on our clients’ heartstrings, but donations have dried up of late. I’m hoping our recent publicity will make all the difference.
‘Things will get better,’ I promise.
‘They already have for Selina,’ he replies brightly. ‘I made some phone calls and our clients didn’t need much persuading. They’re aware of how much these projects mean to us and our Whitespace partners have been pa
rticularly generous. I’ve already confirmed our table.’
‘You’ve done what?’
‘I thought you’d be pleased, my love. Surely we owe her after all the times she’s offered refuge to our callers.’
‘I’m not disputing it’s a good cause, but if we’re asking for donations, it should be for the foundation.’
‘And that can still happen, but for now, I’d rather see the money being put to better use.’
‘Better use?’ I ask as Geoff drains his glass. ‘What we do should take priority. Or –’ my eyes narrow, ‘– have you already made up your mind that the relaunch is going to fail? Is that what you want?’
‘I want what you want, my love,’ he says, looking hurt by the suggestion. ‘Haven’t I always supported you? The helpline is Megan’s legacy, I know that, but one TV interview isn’t going to be enough to turn around our fortunes, no matter how controversial you tried to make it.’
My jaw twitches. ‘Lewis deserves to be named, and I hope someone has told him what I said. I hope he looks it up online.’
Geoff puts his tumbler down with a loud crack. ‘So he can see the videos of Megan?’ he asks, his face twisting. ‘That’s precisely why I didn’t want you sharing her with the world, Ruth. She’s my daughter and I don’t want him looking at her.’
His eyes are glistening but Geoff won’t cry. He never has, and as much as I appreciate the times he’s needed to be strong for both of us, right now it would be nice to know that the pain that never leaves me has stayed with him too.
‘Sorry,’ I try but Geoff shakes his head.
‘What’s done is done,’ he says. ‘But I do think you need to look at our situation objectively. It’s going to take more than the cost of a table at Selina’s fundraiser to keep the foundation afloat and, as a trustee, I believe a managed closure should remain on the table.’ Geoff gives me an imploring look he hopes will sway me. ‘Come on, my love. How old do the twins have to be before we’ve missed out on them growing up? I’m sixty, and you’re not that far behind. We should sell the business, move closer to Sean. This is the point in our lives when we should be winding down.’
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