Don't Turn Around

by Amanda Brooke

  Ruth nods, though it might have been a tremor.

  ‘He … he used Meg’s scarves on her. That’s where the bruising around her neck came from. That’s why she always sounded like she had a sore throat,’ I explain.

  I pause to check Ruth’s reaction, hoping I’ve said enough for her to understand because I don’t think I can say more. Her expression is frozen as she stares through me to the past but then her hand flies to her mouth as she releases a wail and turns away.

  I wait until her shoulders stop shaking before I ask, ‘Are you OK, Ruth?’

  ‘Does Geoff know?’ she asks, keeping her back to me.

  ‘Yes.’

  She takes a moment to gather herself and when she turns, her makeup is smudged but her eyes are sharp and clear. ‘So it’s down to you and me to rattle Lewis’s cage one last time,’ she says. ‘I presume that’s why you’ve told me? You have a plan?’

  ‘I’d like one last go at disrupting his life, yes.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I think we should pay Iona another visit. She deserves to know who she’s dating.’

  ‘I’m not sure, Jen. We don’t know how Lewis will react and I don’t want to put Ellie, or you, in more danger.’

  ‘What can be worse for Ellie than leaving her to whatever fate Lewis has planned?’ I reply, skimming over any repercussions I might face. ‘Lewis isn’t going to send her away if he thinks we’ve stopped looking for her, so let’s give him reason to think we haven’t. It might be the best chance she has.’

  ‘Iona could report us to the police.’

  ‘Lewis won’t press charges, we both know that.’

  I can see Ruth weighing up the options, and the flicker of fire that appears in her eyes leaves my skin tingling. For the first time in months, it appears that Ruth and I are moving in the same direction, but to be sure, I ask, ‘Will you help me?’

  ‘One last time,’ she says. ‘And then we take back our lives.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  Ruth steps around the breakfast bar and, touching my arm, leads me towards the dresser. I assume she wants help collecting up some side plates but she reaches for her laptop. ‘I left this out to show you the videos Geoff took of the twins. Do you mind if we watch a clip? After what you’ve just told me, I need something to clear my mind.’

  ‘I’d love to,’ I reply, standing close to Ruth as she starts up the media player. She taps the mousepad with her long fingernail one too many times and the last video she’d been watching begins to play.

  The image is grainy and overexposed, making it difficult to work out what it is I’m looking at, but the sound of music and excited squeals quickly transport me back to happier times. I hear Meg’s laughter.

  Ruth goes to close the recording but hesitates as the camera pans across the darkened garden and a younger, less troubled Ruth steps forward.

  ‘Megan, come back here!’ she yells. ‘I know you’ve taken a bottle.’

  Shadows scatter, but one comes forward. Sixteen-year-old me is harbouring a bottle of champagne and a guilty look.

  ‘Sorry, Auntie Ruth,’ I tell her, offering up the stolen goods.

  ‘I was only going to give you these,’ Ruth replies, handing over plastic cups. ‘Happy New Year, Jen.’

  I beam a smile at my aunt and uncle. ‘It’s OK, Meg!’ I call out to my missing cousin. ‘We’re not in trouble.’

  ‘How many of you are hiding out there?’ Geoff asks from behind the camera. ‘Do you need any more?’

  As I recall, there were at least six of us who had been hopping from one New Year’s Eve party to the next, and it was past midnight by the time we’d sneaked into Meg’s house and grabbed the booze. We thought we hadn’t been spotted.

  Meg stumbled out of the gloom and held up a second bottle. ‘No, we’re all sorted,’ she says, peering over a pair of thick-rimmed glasses that were too big for her. She doesn’t smile and she doesn’t wish her parents a happy new year as she takes the plastic cups. ‘Come on, Jen.’

  Ruth pauses the video before Meg has a chance to return to the shadows. ‘Do you think she knew what lay ahead?’ she asks as we both scrutinise Meg’s guarded expression.

  ‘I don’t honestly know,’ I reply. ‘She was always racing ahead, it was hard to tell when she stopped running to get somewhere and started running away.’

  ‘I’ve looked through this entire sequence but there’s no sign of Lewis.’

  ‘He wasn’t there,’ I say. ‘Meg had invited him to come out with us but he was playing it cool. He let her dangle for a few weeks until he was ready to reel her in.’

  ‘But the glasses she’s wearing. They were his.’

  I peer at the screen. ‘No, they look like Charlie’s, or at least the ones he carried around in his pocket. Meg was always teasing him about them, saying they looked better on her, which was probably true.’

  ‘But Lewis wore glasses,’ Ruth insists.

  ‘Not ones like that,’ I reply. ‘Charlie was forever losing his, so his mum only let him have the cheap and nasty ones.’

  I offer Ruth a smile but she doesn’t take her eyes from the screen. ‘My daughter’s still a stranger to me,’ she whispers before snapping the laptop shut and straightening up, the recording of her granddaughters forgotten. ‘If only she’d told me what was happening to her.’

  ‘She was conditioned not to,’ I remind her. ‘Lewis made her believe she was safe as long as she didn’t speak out. It’s the same with Ellie.’

  ‘If we’re going to claim her as the success Geoff wants her to be, we have to make sure she’s safe,’ Ruth says. ‘I don’t think my conscience could take another failure so soon after the last.’

  ‘Gemma was not a failure – we got her away from Ryan and he’s going to be put away for a very long time.’

  ‘Yes, but at best, it’s been a questionable success.’

  ‘Is there any news?’ I ask, having avoided asking so far this evening. I hadn’t wanted to hear anything that might weaken my resolve, but perhaps I do need a reminder of how dangerous these men can be.

  ‘The doctors have started withdrawing sedation and Gemma seems to be responding well,’ Ruth says, as she returns to the kitchen counter where she left the cheesecake. ‘I’ve promised Annabelle I’ll visit them tomorrow evening when her ex-husband isn’t there. Unlike him, she still thinks that I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘You do,’ I insist. ‘That’s why I wanted your help.’

  Ruth manages a smile but it doesn’t reach her eyes. She hasn’t completely cleared her mind of the thoughts I’ve put in there. ‘Come on, let’s get back to the others,’ she says. ‘I’m going to have to sweeten Geoff up before I tell him his retreat from the enemy might not go as smoothly as planned.’

  33

  Ruth

  After waving Jen and Charlie off in their taxi, I return to the dining room to find that Geoff hasn’t moved from the table. He’s rolling a tumbler of whiskey between his palms and doesn’t look up as I begin clearing away the last of the dishes and empty wine bottles.

  ‘Jen seems happier,’ he says to the amber liquid sloshing around his glass. ‘Whatever you said to her in the kitchen must have worked.’

  Wine glasses clink as I pick up the last two. ‘I can’t say talking to her has made me happier,’ I admit. I keep thinking about what that man did to my daughter, and what he’s doing to Ellie. ‘How did you do it, Geoff?’

  Finally, my husband looks up. ‘Do what, my love?’

  ‘How did you hunt down Lewis and not squeeze every last breath from him?’

  If Geoff has worked out that Jen’s told me the intimate details of what Lewis did to Meg, he doesn’t let on. ‘Because the man’s half my age and a body builder,’ he says. When I don’t react, he adds, ‘This move is for the best, my love, and it must go ahead. Oscar is keen but now that the due diligence process has started, we’re both incurring significant costs. If you get cold feet, he won’t come back a second time.’


  ‘He won’t have to. I haven’t changed my mind, not about retiring.’

  ‘And you’ll keep away from Lewis?’

  Geoff is on the other side of the table but I can feel the pressure of his hand on my back again. It’s been the same all week. The whole drama over the house valuation last Wednesday had been a ruse to get me away from the helpline. I wasn’t needed at home. The estate agent was done within an hour and Geoff still had time to slope off to meet Oscar. ‘What’s the worst he can do?’

  ‘Mire us in scandal if he does press charges? Ruin our future with our granddaughters?’ he suggests. ‘I don’t care one jot about him, Ruth. I care about you. Let me take you away from this. Please.’

  I circle the table to stand behind my husband. My arms are full so I settle for kissing the top of his head. ‘On the condition that we walk away, Geoff. We don’t run,’ I whisper.

  ‘I do love you.’

  ‘And I love you too,’ I reply. I feel taller as I head for the door. ‘But you have to let me do what I have to do. I promise, it won’t be public but I am going to make sure those closest to Lewis Rimmer see him for what he is.’

  ‘Ruth, don’t rush into something you’ll regret.’

  I shake my head. ‘It’s been ten years, Geoff. This is hardly rushing.’

  ‘You won’t win.’

  ‘No, but neither will he. I’m doing this for Megan,’ I say, and the mention of our daughter’s name silences him. ‘I’m going to bed soon. Are you coming?’

  ‘In a while.’

  After stacking the dishwasher, I make my way upstairs. I pause on the landing and hear the clink of a glass as Geoff pours himself another whiskey with unsteady hands. Despite my reluctance to pack up and leave, I am looking forward to a better life and a new health regime for the two of us. There will be no more liquid lunches, only picnics followed by a long walk along the River Avon, or a sandwich in the grounds of one of the many National Trust properties I’d love to explore. We can take the girls to the Butterfly Farm, or we might be a bit more adventurous and go to Alton Towers. We’ve been searching for peace in all the wrong places. It can’t be found in the bottom of a whiskey glass or at the end of a helpline telephone. It’s in our granddaughters’ giggles and squeals that will deafen the silence coming from Meg’s room as I reach the top of the stairs.

  Pausing in front of her door, I wrap my hand around the handle. I take a deep breath as if I’m about to storm in and yell at her for littering the floor with dirty clothes, or burning her duvet cover with her hair straighteners … or because I’d just found a foreign object down the side of my bed that didn’t belong there.

  ‘What are these?’ I’d demanded as I squinted through a cloud of dust motes floating in the dimly lit room. It was the middle of August and the midday sun had heated my daughter’s room to noxious levels.

  ‘Megan, will you answer me!’ I yelled at the unmoving mound of white cotton sheets. I couldn’t see her head but from the arm dangling over the side of the bed, I surmised she was lying on her stomach.

  My outburst had been acknowledged with a grunt but no movement, so I made a grab for the sheet and yanked it off her. I hadn’t considered that she might be naked beneath. She was, and I’d quickly squeezed my eyes shut, but not before catching sight of the marks on her arms. I wasn’t sure what I’d been looking at or what they meant. From an early age, my daughter’s irrepressible energy had always got her into scrapes. It never entered my mind that the scratches were self-inflicted.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Meg screamed, snatching the sheet back.

  I gave her a moment to adjust herself and when I peeled my eyes open, she had the sheet tucked under her chin.

  ‘What?’ she asked again, her voice croaky but her eyes blazing.

  ‘These!’ I hissed as I dangled a pair of spectacles from my hand. They were dark framed and thick-rimmed. ‘What were they doing in my bedroom?’

  ‘They’re mine,’ she replied, kneeling up to snatch them back.

  I let her take them because I certainly didn’t want them. ‘No, they’re not.’

  No longer screaming at each other, our fiery rage was reduced to simmering frustration on my part and loathing on my daughter’s. I hadn’t been looking for an argument that morning. She’d been broken the day before after getting her A Level results, and I’d been waiting patiently for her to get up so we could talk about it. That’s why I’d been busying myself with the housework.

  ‘I’ve taken the day off so we can go through clearing and get you into another university,’ I told her.

  ‘Did you not see my grades?’ she asked. ‘I failed everything.’

  ‘In that case, we need to get over to the school and arrange for you to retake your last year, or we could find you a place at another college. Once you have a new plan in place, you’ll feel better about things,’ I promised.

  ‘I do have a plan.’

  ‘Which is?’

  In the sullen silence that followed, I scrolled through possible answers in my head, but all I had to go on was a pair of glasses. I presumed it meant Lewis would continue to be a disruptive presence in our lives now that Meg’s plans to move cities had been thwarted. I didn’t know then that the glasses belonged to Charlie, and I still don’t know what that means.

  Did Meg cheat on Lewis with her cousin’s boyfriend? Did Lewis find out? Was that why Meg’s despair continued to spiral downwards during those last ten days of her life? It’s possible, but I can’t imagine Lewis keeping that secret from Jen all this time when he could use it to hurt her. The more I know about my daughter, the less I understand.

  When I enter Meg’s bedroom, there are no shouts of objection. The timbered floor is clear of clutter and Meg’s single bed has become two princess beds, like a cell dividing, or an embryo. I want to believe that I’m here to remind myself of the lives I’m moving towards but as I stand in front of the bookshelves, I ignore the finger-paintings my granddaughters made during their last visit, and reach up on tiptoe to take something from the top shelf.

  The box is sage green and there are hand-painted daisy chains on the lid that form the letters of my daughter’s name. It had taken days to make the memory box and months to select the most precious keepsakes. Geoff is under strict instructions that if ever there’s a fire, this is the one thing I want saving.

  I kneel down on the floor and open the box. My fingers trail across the different textures of my treasure trove; the roughness of the heart-shaped pot that’s now the only remnant of my pottery classes; the scratch of the glittery star Meg made in primary school; the smoothness of her baby-sized hospital wristband; the crinkle of plastic covering the tumbler I found on her bedside table that still has her lip marks; the coldness of a silk scarf.

  This was the first scarf Meg owned, although technically it was mine. A friend had given it to me for my birthday and six-year-old Meg had fallen in love with the peacock colours. She kept stealing it from my room, and it became a game until eventually I gave in and said she could keep it. I’d found it discarded and forgotten at the back of a drawer, but I’d been grateful that it played no part in her final act. Meg had used the others in her collection to make a noose.

  I recoil from the touch of silk and begin flicking through a pile of envelopes in varying colours and shapes. Some contain the official documents recording the span of Meg’s life, from birth to death. There are a collection of greetings cards covered in a child’s innocent scrawl, a stack of glowing school reports and even the A Level results that broke her heart, but I pick up the envelope containing the note that broke mine.

  I unfold the sheet of yellow lined paper carefully, as if I can wish the missing half of the note into existence. I trail a finger over the neatly torn edge. This is why my daughter continues to remain a mystery to me.

  34

  Ruth

  When our third and final estate agent arrived for an early morning tour of the house on Sunday, the smell of stale whiskey lingered in our b
edroom despite the open windows. It had been a close call hauling Geoff out of bed in time, and I’d like to think it was the hangover fogging his brain that made him suggest to the agent that we set the asking price lower for a quick sale, but I suspect it had more to do with wanting me out of Liverpool as quickly as possible. I sent him off to the golf course with a warning that he’d better not offer Oscar our business at a cut-down price too.

  I have a dull headache and I’m swallowing back two paracetamol when the doorbell rings. The chimes make my head throb and I’m inclined to ignore the intrusion but the caller is persistent and rings again.

  When I open the door, I’m surprised to find Eve on my doorstep. My sister-in-law is older than Geoff and four inches shorter but she has the same hazel eyes as her brother, although none of his laughter lines. ‘I’m not disturbing you, am I?’ she asks.

  ‘No, not at all. Although, if you’re after Geoff, he’s at the club,’ I say, hopefully.

  ‘I’d be surprised if he wasn’t,’ Eve replies as she steps inside. ‘I was just passing.’

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘No, I’m fine for now,’ she says, heading for the sitting room.

  My sister-in-law has never voiced her disapproval of the way I remodelled the house but she will avoid the kitchen at all costs. She perches herself on one of the armchairs in a way that suggests she won’t be staying long, although that might be wishful thinking on my part. I take a seat on the sofa opposite.

  ‘So how is everyone, Eve? Other than Jen, I haven’t seen the girls for ages.’

  ‘Whereas I barely see Jennifer at all,’ Eve says. ‘I phoned her this morning to invite her over for Sunday lunch. She always seems to find an excuse and today it was because of a hangover. Did you all have a good night?’

  ‘It wasn’t anything special,’ I reply carefully. I’d accepted a long time ago that Eve and I were never going to be best friends like our girls, but we’ve remained civil with each other despite the odd petty disagreement. If Eve is spoiling for an argument, she’s picked the wrong day.