And there it is, the plan he’s been alluding to ever since he first raised the possibility of closing the helpline. I knew it was coming and that’s why I didn’t only fight harder with the relaunch, I fought dirty. Meg’s foundation has never been as important to Geoff as it is to me. It was just another of my plans that he simply went along with while I worked tirelessly to rebuild our lives in a way that kept our daughter at the centre of us all. Now is not the time for objectivity. I can’t let go of her, not even for my two-year-old granddaughters.
My expression alone tells Geoff what I think of his idea, and when he turns away, his hand reaches instinctively for the bottle of whiskey.
‘Geoff, you’d hate giving up work …’ I start but my words trail off as I hear Helena making her way downstairs. I feel an ache in my heart, quickly followed by a flutter of nerves. ‘Can we talk later? I need to get this over and done with first.’
‘I’ll do it,’ he says as he refills his glass. Taking his drink with him, he heads to the door but looks back. ‘I know walking away isn’t something you want to consider, but retirement could give us fresh challenges. Is it such a terrible idea?’ Before I can answer, he shakes his head in defeat. ‘I know, my timing’s awful – the helpline – the relaunch. I should have worked out by now that you’re hard to stop once you’ve set your mind on something.’
‘Impossible is the word I’d use,’ I say with a wan smile.
‘Yes, I would too,’ he replies before leaving the kitchen and closing the door behind him so I don’t have to listen to the awkward conversation he’s about to have.
4
Ruth
After reliving the worst week of our lives, the world has tilted back on its axis and it’s time to begin a new year without Meg. The flowers have been placed on her grave, the candles lit in the church and when I awoke this morning, the feeling of dread that had plagued me for weeks had lifted. As I’d put on my linen suit and picked up my briefcase, I was ready to rejoin civilisation and tackle any problems life could throw at me because almost everything has a solution – only death takes away our options. Which makes me wonder how I should respond to this latest dilemma.
I prod the envelope Geoff had dropped back onto my desk after reading the contents. The cream paper is good quality, as you would expect from a solicitor’s office, but if it’s meant to intimidate, it doesn’t. It’s no more than paper and ink, I tell myself as I wait for Jen to step into the office.
‘Geoff said you wanted a word?’
‘You’d better sit down.’
Jen keeps her back straight as she slides into the visitor’s chair. She plays with her fringe which isn’t long enough to hide the furrows on her brow that deepen as her eyes dart from the envelope caught beneath my red lacquered fingernail, across my pristine silk blouse and up to my face. I try to give her a look of reassurance but I can’t quite pull it off.
‘Geoff looks awful,’ she says. ‘Is he OK?’
‘He’s gone in search of some paracetamol.’
Jen makes a move to stand. ‘I have some in my desk. Do you want me to get them?’
‘No, he needs some fresh air anyway. I’d told him not to come into work today but he has to learn his lesson. He can’t drink his way through an entire weekend without facing the consequences. That’s not why I asked you in.’ I pick up the envelope stamped with a large red confidential mark, and prise out a single sheet of paper between a finger and thumb. ‘This is why you’re here.’
I let Jen take the letter but I don’t give her time to read it. ‘It’s some trumped-up solicitor’s clerk representing a certain Lewis Steven Rimmer,’ I tell her, tasting bile as I speak his name. ‘I’ve checked out the firm and they deal mostly with conveyancing so I don’t think we have much to worry about. I presume it’s a friend of Lewis trying to scare us. He’s asking us to cease and desist disparaging his client or they’ll take us to court.’
The letter trembles in Jen’s hand as she scans the contents. ‘He wouldn’t dare.’
‘Of course he wouldn’t,’ I tell her, my voice strong. Lewis Rimmer has taken all he’s going to from my family, and I won’t as much as flinch from this latest attack. ‘To make a case, he would first need to crawl from beneath whatever rock he’s hiding under and admit that he recognised himself in the person I described in the interview.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘Carry on with more of the same,’ I say simply. The corners of my lips pull into a smile. ‘I like that we’ve made him uncomfortable. Don’t you?’
‘Of course, but he’s not going to stop at a solicitor’s letter if you upset him again,’ she replies as the letter slips from her grasp. We watch it float onto the desk and Jen gulps down her next breath. ‘Look, Ruth—’
‘This doesn’t change a thing, Jen,’ I tell her. ‘You’ve worked so hard on the relaunch and we’ve got people’s attention again. I don’t care that Lewis is one of them. This letter is another of his games, just like Meg’s note. He could have destroyed all of it but he left enough to make us question ourselves. He could have gone anywhere to escape the backlash but he went to Newcastle, deliberately choosing the university Meg had planned to go to escape him. After messing with her mind, he thought he could mess with ours too.’
Jen chews her lip. ‘Do you think it’s possible he’s changed? Charlie thinks there’s a chance and maybe this letter is Lewis’s way of saying if we leave him alone, he’ll leave us alone.’
‘It’s possible,’ I say, sounding no more convinced than Jen. ‘We both know there are some men who can learn to control their behaviour, but first they have to be willing to acknowledge the damage they’ve done. This isn’t a letter from someone who’s ready to confess his sins. Lewis is still pleading his innocence. He sees himself as the victim, not Meg. He hasn’t changed.’
‘What does Geoff think we should do?’
‘I don’t need to tell you that he hates Lewis as much as I do.’
‘But?’
Although the solicitor’s letter isn’t entirely unexpected, it’s visibly shaken Jen. I doubt she wants to hear what I have to say next, but it won’t come as any more of a surprise to her than it did to me. ‘Geoff mentioned retirement again at the weekend. He wants us to not only close the helpline but sell the business and move to Stratford so we can spend more time with Sean and the girls. It’s a happy picture he paints but I can’t do it.’
‘Is that why you went all out with the interview? You think this is our last chance to save the helpline?’
I swallow the lump in my throat. ‘If it hadn’t aired, I suspect we’d be having an entirely different conversation. I had to do something, Jen. I won’t let Meg go, not without a fight.’
Jen follows my gaze to the photo on the bookcase next to my desk. It was taken many summers ago on a beach in Cornwall and captures a treasured moment of completeness with all four members of the McCoy family. Sean has his arms around my neck while Meg was meant to be propped up on her dad’s knee but she’d decided to dive across the three of us just as the photo was taken. We’re all laughing at her, as was the girl behind the camera.
‘Do you want me to take another photo, Auntie Ruth?’ Jen had asked, eager to get things right.
My niece was only seven and it was her first holiday with us. She had refused to go away with her family to Spain that summer because there had been turbulence during the flight home the year before and she had become hysterical. The intention was to leave her behind with her grandmother, but I wouldn’t have trusted my mother-in-law, God rest her soul, to look after a goldfish, so I’d offered to take Jen with us. The two girls were thrilled, Sean less so.
Jen and I smile at the memories of that holiday and the ones that followed. There were times when it felt like we were a family of five, with Jen and Meg more like sisters. ‘I didn’t know how lucky we were back then,’ I whisper.
‘You can always make new memories with the twins,’ Jen offers.
My smile twists. ‘I know, but Geoff called it walking away. Why would I abandon Meg’s legacy when there are so many questions left unanswered? I have Lewis’s attention now. Maybe that’s not such a bad thing.’
Jen doesn’t answer straight away. I can only assume that the threat of legal action continues to play on her mind. ‘Whatever happens, we can’t give up on the helpline,’ she says at last. ‘I won’t walk away either.’
My smile reaches my eyes. ‘And that is the right answer, Jennifer. We might not get as many calls as we’d like but every one we do receive is important. Did you see Alison’s call sheets from Friday? Gemma phoned. Ryan’s been bombarding her with messages.’
Gemma is a very unhappy young woman, and although our main role is simply to listen, all our volunteers have been trained to help our callers recognise a partner’s manipulative behaviours. In the last month, we’ve been working with Gemma on some strategies to end her relationship as painlessly as possible.
She still lives at home with her mum and whenever I’ve taken one of her calls, it feels like a second chance to say the things I should have said to Meg, if only I’d known to recognise the signs of abuse for what they were. There’s even an inflection in Gemma’s voice – a slushiness to her ‘s’ sounds – that helps me imagine it is my daughter, and I’m determined to win this one.
‘She hasn’t replied to him, has she?’ Jen asks hopefully.
‘No. But she has read them. Ryan won’t let her go unless it’s on his terms. He’s from the same mould as someone else we know and if Lewis wasn’t up in Newcastle, I could believe it was him, simply going by a new name,’ I say. It’s one of my worst fears: that Lewis will do to another poor girl what he did to Meg.
‘You don’t really think it’s him, do you?’ Jen gasps, her face draining of colour.
I want to shrug it off but her shock twists my insides. ‘If I’m honest, I think the same about most callers but Lewis isn’t unique.’ I bite my lip. ‘We have to keep the helpline going, Jen, although right now that might have to be on a shoestring. Geoff has persuaded our lovely clients to donate to Selina’s fundraiser so we’ll have to hold off asking them to put their hands in their pockets again so soon.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Jen tells me earnestly. ‘I know how to drive a hard bargain. I’ve already had the flyers we need for Fresher’s Week printed for next to nothing.’
Next to nothing is about all we have, but Jen doesn’t need to know how bad it is yet. ‘I knew I could count on you.’
When Jen grips the armrests, I’m expecting her to stand but she doesn’t move. I think I can guess what she’s too polite to say. ‘Sorry, I’d completely forgotten to apologise about the fiasco with the cleaner. I hope Charlie doesn’t mind us letting her go?’
Jen bats away the apology with her hand, although the frown doesn’t leave her face. ‘He was worried there might be a problem with her, that’s all.’
I shake my head. ‘No, if there was a problem, it was with me,’ I assure her. ‘I could hear her moving about upstairs and I got it into my head that it was Meg.’ I try to laugh as I blink away unexpected tears. ‘Not that I ever heard my daughter vacuuming.’
‘No, it was always Meg creating the mess.’
‘Not the worst ones,’ I mutter as I make a point of picking up Lewis’s letter, screwing it into a ball and throwing it at the bin. When I miss, I refuse to view it as a bad omen.
5
Jen
The automatic lights that react to movement have switched themselves off in all but one section of the office above the helpline pods. I’ve been sitting here for over an hour but the only person I’ve spoken to since the helpline opened has been Charlie. It’s his turn to cook dinner and he wants me to pick up some sour cream on my way home. It’s chilli night.
With one ear trained on the silent phone, I look out of the window and watch the shadows lengthen. I always cover the Wednesday shift and it doesn’t bother me working alone. The office is secure enough, with electronic passes to control access to each floor, barriers on the ground level and security guards who replace the concierge staff on the front desk until the last person leaves. Tonight, that will be me when the helpline closes at eight, by which point the September sun will have set.
So if I’m not bothered, why does my stomach twist at the thought of leaving?
It’s the same reason I regret not telling Ruth about Lewis being back in Liverpool. We all need to be on our guard and I was going to warn her on Monday, but then she mentioned Geoff’s push for retirement. If he knew Lewis was back, he’d use it as another argument to ‘walk away’. Ruth’s made it clear she’s not going to do that, in which case, does she really need to be looking over her shoulder every time she steps out the door? It’s not like she’d bump into him on the way to work since she drives in with Geoff. My silence on the matter is saving her from unnecessary worry, I tell myself.
With a smile, I realise that was precisely what Charlie had been doing for me. I shouldn’t have been so angry with him. He knew how stressed I’d been over the relaunch.
My insides twist again. It’s the future of the helpline I should be worrying about. The spike in calls we were hoping for after last week’s publicity is yet to materialise – discounting all the put-down calls Gill had on Monday. As I wait in vain for the phone to ring and hope sinks, my thoughts return to Lewis.
At the moment, he knows more about me than I do about him and I need to redress that balance – to hell with Charlie’s mantra of live and let live. I turn from the window and retreat inside the cocoon of the helpline pod. It’s essentially one of two workstations that face each other with a privacy screen in the middle and two more on each side to prevent conversations from carrying. It’s not particularly effective at cancelling out noise when both pods are in use, but that hasn’t been a problem since we cut back to just one volunteer per shift.
Closing the call log on my screen, I open up Facebook and check to see if any of my friends list Lewis as one of theirs. There are only a handful of people I’ve remained in touch with who would have known him and I’m pleased, if not a little frustrated, that none have been gullible enough to reconnect with him, and that includes Charlie.
With no other choice, I set aside my dignity and send friend requests to Jay and Meathead. I haven’t seen either of them in years but, from their profile pictures, they don’t appear to have matured with age. I hope they don’t think I’m trying to hit on them but I’ll be more offended if they refuse my requests.
Next, I turn my attention to Google. My first search of Lewis Rimmer produces global results so I add Newcastle to the search bar, my body tensing as I press the enter key. The screen updates and halfway down the page a selection of photos appear. Most are close ups of men I don’t recognise and group photos too small to discern one face from another. The photo that raises my hackles is on the right-hand edge of the screen. I stab the cursor over Lewis’s face and a new page opens.
It’s an old student union press release heralding a twenty-year-old Lewis as their star rugby player, on track for a first class honours sports degree. In the post-match photo, his straw-blond hair is scraped back from his sweaty brow and his cheeks are ruddy. His steel-blue eyes are all the more piercing without the wire-rimmed glasses he used to wear. Unlike Charlie, Lewis made eyewear look seductive but I suppose contact lenses would be more practical for someone with such an active life.
I haven’t seen that face for ten years and I’m struck by how normal Lewis looks. It would be nice to think that remorse changed him for the better, but Ruth isn’t the only one who can imagine history repeating itself. More determined than ever, I return to my original search and change the city from Newcastle to Liverpool. There’s nothing new and that bothers me. If Lewis is freelancing as a personal trainer, why isn’t he advertising himself more prominently?
I’m wondering what he’s hiding when the phone rings, and I let out a yelp as if he’s caught me spying. The helpline d
oesn’t use caller display so I have no clue who is ringing and from where, which can be frustrating at times, but it’s a matter of trust. Ruth was very clear about how the helpline should operate and all volunteers are trained to listen and encourage, not to dictate how someone should live their life. We don’t record any information that the caller doesn’t want to give willingly.
As I pick up the phone, I hope it’s not going to be another put-down call. I want it to be someone who will make me work harder than ever to keep the helpline open, but there’s a part of me that would rather we weren’t needed. I wish there were more Charlies and fewer Lewises in the world.
‘You’re through to the Lean On Me helpline. How can I help?’
‘Jen, is that you?’ the girl says.
I recognise Gemma’s voice as quickly as she’s recognised mine. We’ve never met but during our previous calls, I’ve conjured an image of a young woman not dissimilar to Meg. Her gentle lisp is achingly familiar. ‘Hi, Gemma. How have you been?’ I ask as I bring the call log back up on screen.
Our information system isn’t particularly sophisticated but we do log every call; from the simple requests for information, the put-downs when the caller loses their nerve to speak, to the calls where we can and do make a difference in someone’s life. Some of those calls are straightforward, often young women in first relationships who want advice on how to dump boyfriends whose only crime is not meeting their expectations. And then there are the callers like Gemma, who are in toxic relationships but aren’t able to recognise or accept that they are being abused. Except we all thought Gemma had seen Ryan for what he was. When she broke up with him two weeks ago, I was hoping she wouldn’t need us any more.
Don't Turn Around Page 4
