Once I start, I can’t stop. It wasn’t Charlie who stole my daughter’s final words, it was Geoff. To the very end, she couldn’t bring herself to tell on him and that literally killed her.
‘She couldn’t hate me more than I hate myself,’ I sob.
Lewis puts an arm around me and pulls me to him. ‘She didn’t hate us.’
‘Oh, but she did. Read it.’
‘I have, Ruth,’ he says softly. ‘Look at it again.’
Through bleary eyes, I force myself to reread two paragraphs that have been separated for ten years.
I hate this person I’ve become and I hate the rest of you too. Mum, Sean, Jen, Lewis. I hate you all! You should be glad I’m gone. You’re better off without me.
I’m doing this because of you.
‘Meg hated that she cared about us so much,’ Lewis says. ‘She couldn’t tell on Geoff because she knew it would destroy her family. She loved you, Ruth. That’s the weapon Geoff used to keep his secret safe.’
‘Well, it’s not safe any more,’ I reply as the sound of an argument rises up from the sitting room directly below us. It’s Jen and Charlie, which means Charlie isn’t in the kitchen. Before I can question the wisdom of leaving Geoff alone, I hear a car door slam. I want to believe the police have arrived but I jump up the moment I hear an engine roar into life. ‘That’s Geoff’s car.’
Lewis is ahead of me as we race down the stairs. Helena is emerging from the sitting room and I follow her gaze to the front door, which is wide open. As a car screeches out of the drive and down the road, headlights briefly pick out the figures of Jen and Charlie running down the path.
‘You just let him walk out the front door!’ Lewis yells at Charlie when we catch up to them next to Charlie’s car.
‘He sneaked out the back,’ Charlie says, patting his jeans to find his keys. ‘I was gone no more than thirty seconds, that’s all. I thought he’d dozed off.’
I watch the taillights of Geoff’s Audi flicker briefly red before he turns left and out of sight. He’s heading for the junction with Aigburth Road, but then where?
‘You shouldn’t have left him!’ screams Jen, thumping Charlie’s chest with the heel of her palm.
Keys jangle in Charlie’s hand as he unlocks his car. ‘We can still catch him.’
‘I’ll stay with Helena,’ I say quickly as the others prepare for the chase. ‘But don’t come back without him.’
Lewis gives me a nod as he pulls open the passenger door, only to freeze. We all do. We’d been following the roar of the Audi’s engine as Geoff raced towards the nearby junction, too drunk to change up a gear. It’s impossible to tell if the squeal of brakes that stopped us in our tracks came from Geoff’s car, but I doubt it.
I don’t know if the ground actually shook as an earthshattering crash filled the night with sounds of grinding metal and breaking glass, but I began to sway as if it had. It seemed an age before I heard the wail of sirens.
Epilogue
Jen
When I wake up, the room I’ve come to think of as home again no longer looks alien to me. The new bedroom furniture Dad picked up from Ikea, which Mum filled with the clothes she’d collected from the apartment, are part of the fabric of my new life.
As I head downstairs, Dad appears from the narrow galley kitchen eating a bacon butty. He doesn’t say a word as he kisses the top of my head with warm buttery lips before heading out to work. I never appreciated his quiet presence growing up. He’s a good dad. I want to cry.
Mum ushers me into the living room and presses a mug of tea into my hand. ‘Did you sleep well, love?’ she asks brightly.
‘Yeah, fine.’
Her eyes narrow. ‘It will get easier and Hayley said she’ll call around later. Maybe you could go to the cinema or something, make the most of the weekend.’
‘Maybe,’ I say. Since that awful night three weeks ago, all my sisters have flocked around me as they had in the aftermath of Meg’s death, only this time I haven’t pushed them away. I’ve learnt to appreciate what I have.
When the doorbell rings, I assume it’s Hayley or one of the others but when Mum returns, Ruth’s face appears over her shoulder. Her gaunt features are reminiscent of my reflection in the bathroom mirror this morning. Her torn fingernails are yet to heal and it looks like there are new scars where she’s chewed away cuticle.
‘Shouldn’t you be on your way to Stratford by now?’
‘I’ll be heading down there soon,’ she says. ‘Did you get the text from Lewis?’
‘I haven’t checked my phone yet,’ I reply, glancing towards the mantelpiece. I’ve found it safest not to take my phone upstairs. Charlie keeps ringing or leaving messages and it’s exhausting ignoring him.
‘His mum died.’
Mum motions Ruth to an armchair. ‘Here, sit down and I’ll make you a cuppa,’ she says, heading back out the door before Ruth can object.
Ruth stares after Mum but, with one blink, her knitted brow relaxes and she settles into the chair.
‘Lewis must be heartbroken,’ I say, pulling my dressing gown across my chest. I have an urge to go to him, to support him in the way that he supported me and Ruth that night. But I know it’s not my place. ‘Is Iona with him?’
‘Yes, and I’ll take that as a good sign. I hope they get back together,’ Ruth says. ‘Lewis is going to need someone now that he’s lost such an important influence in his life. His mum was quite a formidable character by the sounds of it. I might have got to know her better if things had been different. I might have got to know Lewis too.’
‘There’s still time for that,’ I offer. ‘I hope you’ll be coming back to Liverpool to pay us all visits.’
‘I am only staying with Sean for a couple of weeks,’ she warns. ‘Although I’ll admit, I’m in no rush to get back to that poky little apartment.’
The apartment Ruth has rented is on a temporary lease. She returned to the house only to pack what she needed and arranged for the rest to go in storage until she decides what, if anything, to take with her on her next move.
‘You might not need it much longer if you find a nice little retirement cottage down there,’ I say.
‘That would be nice,’ Ruth replies, but with none of the excitement that house hunting should bring. ‘But there’s still a lot to sort out this end so I will be back.’
‘At least the house is sold,’ I say, having been as surprised as Ruth that it had been snapped up days after she put it on the market. The low asking price probably helped.
‘Yes, I had a call from my solicitor last night to say the vendors want to complete by Christmas. It’s a blessing I suppose. I doubt I’d be able to give it away after the inquest.’
An involuntary shudder runs down my spine. The funeral last week had been bad enough, but I’m dreading the inquest. It’s yet to be made public that Geoff McCoy’s greatest shame wasn’t to cause a fatal road traffic accident while drink-driving, although that is bad enough.
It was entirely good fortune that when Geoff ran a red light, the vehicle that ploughed into him was an articulated lorry and it’s driver escaped with relatively minor injuries. There was only one death, and it was the right one.
When the police eventually arrived on Ruth’s doorstep that night, there had been some initial confusion. They were there to inform Ruth of Geoff’s death, not take statements for a report of alleged abuse. We had all looked to Ruth and waited for her to decide if her husband’s dark secrets should be taken to the grave. ‘Not again,’ she had said.
‘We’re never going to know if Geoff caused the accident deliberately, are we?’ I ask. It’s what the media have been speculating but I try not to read the reports of a grief-stricken father racing to join his daughter in the afterlife.
‘No, but I can’t say I care. All I want is for that poor lorry driver to know his conscience is clear, and for the rest of the world to know that Geoff’s isn’t.’
‘Helena has surprised me,’ I say. ‘S
he didn’t have to give a statement to the police.’
‘I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had decided to say nothing, but it seems to have helped her, don’t you think? She can set her sights on the future without being afraid of the past.’
‘She’s been telling me she wants to be a nurse.’
‘Then we need to make sure that happens,’ Ruth says, but her smile fades as she stares off into space. ‘I still wonder if there are more Helenas out there. That night, every sick revelation felt like one punch after another, and I can’t shake the feeling that there’s more to come – one last ugly secret to be revealed.’
Ruth’s gaze drifts to the door just as Mum appears with her tea.
Mum’s steps are light as she slips into the room and passes the cup to Ruth. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she whispers, but before she can disappear again, Ruth stops her.
‘I’d rather you stayed, Eve,’ she says.
Hesitantly, Mum takes a seat next to me on the sofa and holds her body tense. She’s struggled with the news that her brother is an abuser and, for the first time in my life, she hadn’t offered opinions or judgements. She prefers listening to talking these days. ‘How are you, Ruth?’ she asks. ‘Jen says you’re changing the name of the business.’
‘Yes, it’s going to be Pace and Associates,’ Ruth says, her chin lifting. ‘I thought it was better reverting back to my maiden name under the circumstances. It’s been one of my easier decisions, and I’ve already notified Companies House.’
‘You’re not going to sell up then?’
‘It would have been neater, but the staff did an incredible job filling the breach when Geoff died, and I don’t think it will be a difficult transition for me to become a silent partner. My solicitor is drawing up the papers now so that a couple of our senior architects can take over the executive functions.’ She looks to me and smiles. ‘If some people have their way, I’ll be out of there and heading for Stratford by the new year.’
Mum takes my hand and pulls it onto her lap, squeezing tightly. ‘Jen won’t be there much longer either if her interview goes well.’
It’s the part-time admin post I’d applied for when I thought Oscar Armitage was going to be my new boss, and although circumstances have changed, my plans haven’t. ‘I’m going to spend the weekend preparing for it. I can’t believe how much I want this.’
‘And I’ve told her she doesn’t need to worry about the money side of things – she can forget about giving me any housekeeping,’ Mum adds. ‘She needs to invest in the future. There’s a counselling course starting in January and she’s going to enrol, aren’t you, love?’
‘Ruth knows,’ I say, sharing a look with my aunt. As always, Ruth is the first person I turn to whenever I need to talk through an important decision, although it’s a habit I’m going to have to break. The fact I’ve involved Mum at all in my plans is a step in the right direction.
‘I wouldn’t worry so much about the interview if I were you,’ Ruth says to me. ‘They’d be mad not to offer you the job.’
My eyes narrow. ‘Have you spoken to them?’
‘I don’t know what you’re suggesting. It will be a proper interview, but let’s just say I don’t think it will take long for them to deliberate.’
‘It’s good of you to still be looking out for her, with everything else that’s going on,’ Mum says.
‘Jen has helped me too. The last few weeks have been a constant cycle of chasing paperwork and making statements. I’ve hardly had a chance to catch my breath. It’s a small mercy that the foundation was already being wound up; not that we could have carried on, given the legacy Geoff has left us with.’
‘I hear that girl you helped, the one whose boyfriend ran her down, is out of hospital,’ Mum says.
‘Yes, she’s making amazing progress. The doctors have told her she’ll never run a marathon but it sounds like she’s taking that as a challenge.’
‘And how’s Sean doing? He did really well with the eulogy at Geoff’s funeral service, all things considered.’
‘It wasn’t easy for him, but I don’t think anyone was expecting us to sing Geoff’s praises. They don’t know the half of it,’ Ruth says. When she sighs, her body folds in on itself. ‘But in time, the truth will come out and it needs to be the whole truth.’ Pulling back her shoulders, Ruth pins Mum with her stare. ‘I need to understand who Geoff was, Eve, because I clearly didn’t know the man I married.’
I can feel the shudder running through Mum’s body. ‘I don’t recognise him either.’
‘But did you suspect something?’ Ruth asks, trying not to make it sound like the accusation it is. ‘Was that why you didn’t want Jen living with us?’
‘No,’ Mum answers quickly. ‘Do you think I would have let her go on holiday with you if I didn’t trust him?’
‘But you did stop the holidays when she was sixteen,’ Ruth persists. Her words are harsh but she softens the next with a sigh. ‘Did you have some doubt at the back of your mind, even if you couldn’t quite articulate what the problem was? Perhaps something happened in your childhood, to you or to Geoff? I need to know.’
When Mum drops her gaze, I’m the one to squeeze her hand this time. There is so much of the past that needs to be revisited. So many secrets. So many skewed views that need to be brought into focus. ‘It’s OK, Mum,’ I say.
‘If you want me to tell you that we suffered horribly in our childhood, then I’m afraid I can’t,’ she begins. ‘Yes, our mother was short on affection but Geoff wasn’t abused, and he didn’t abuse me, if that’s what you were suggesting. We were pretty close before I married, and in hindsight, maybe he was jealous in a way that a brother shouldn’t be, but I’m speculating. I honestly don’t know.’ Her jaw is set firm and her next words tremble with the anger we all feel. ‘All I can say is that nothing happened to Geoff that can excuse what he did to Meg. Abuse is abuse, and it’s unjustifiable.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Ruth says. ‘I had to ask.’
‘You did, but you’re asking the wrong question,’ Mum says, raising her head and looking Ruth straight in the eye. ‘You were right, there was more to why I stopped Jen moving in with you. The girls had been pestering me for weeks and by the time your anniversary party came around, they had almost worn me down, but … something happened that evening.’
I pull my hand from Mum’s grasp. ‘We know what happened that evening, Geoff told us.’
Mum smooths the creases of her dress where my hand had been. ‘I didn’t mean that. When you told me what Geoff had done at the party, love, I swear I didn’t see any of that, nor did I suspect,’ she says. ‘But … I did talk to Meg later on, presumably after it happened. She had a glass of champagne in one hand and her makeup was running. I thought she’d been minesweeping drinks and had made herself sick. I wasn’t impressed.’ Mum closes her eyes and shakes her head. ‘I couldn’t have imagined.’
‘None of us could,’ Ruth says, her words catching.
‘Meg was spoiling for an argument and had a go at me for not letting Jen move in. She asked if I thought she was a bad influence but before I could answer, she said she would be. Then she got angrier and asked me if I was afraid Jen would turn into a slut like her, that was the word she used,’ Mum says. She swallows hard. ‘She told me I’d be saying goodbye to innocent little Jen.’
There’s silence that no one knows how to fill. So far, I haven’t dwelt on the things my cousin did to hurt me because my hurt doesn’t compare to hers, but if Meg’s intention was to bring me to that house to take her place with Geoff, I don’t think I could bear it.
Mum puts her arm around my shoulder to pull me close. ‘She knew what she was doing, Jen, even if we didn’t. She wasn’t lashing out in one last drunken effort to convince me to change my mind. She was doing the exact opposite.’
‘She was protecting Jen,’ Ruth offers.
Before I can push it back, the memory of the last time I’d seen Meg rises to the surface. It was whe
n we’d had that horrible fight on her doorstep and I’d said I was glad I didn’t move in with her. ‘Not as much as I am,’ she’d replied. It was the last thing she said to me.
My heart swells with love for my beautiful, brave cousin who thought her silence would protect her family. ‘She was protecting us all,’ I say.
As we take a moment to gather our thoughts, I sip my tea but it’s gone cold. Mum offers to make a fresh brew and disappears into the kitchen.
‘I know you’re trying to fix everything before you think about retirement, Ruth,’ I say gently. ‘But you’ve done as much as you can.’
‘Have I?’
In the pause that follows, Ruth doesn’t mention the one aspect of our broken lives that neither of us has attempted to fix. Ruth chose not to inform the police of Charlie’s actions on the day Meg died, but that doesn’t mean she’s forgiven him, and the same goes for me. I’ll never be able to look at Charlie again without thinking of what he saw that day in the garage. Some things will remain forever broken.
Ruth
I sit at a small kitchen table waiting for the sun to rise on what is my first morning in my new home. I’m surrounded by packing boxes and Sean will be around later to help with the heavy lifting but, for now, all is quiet. Through a set of French doors, I watch the darkness retreating to reveal a hoar frost covering my ramshackle of a garden. I can’t wait to cut back the overgrowth to make room for the spring bulbs, the meadow flowers and the autumn fruits, all of which I intend to nurture once winter releases us from its grip. I have plans for every room in the house too. Sean had tried to persuade me to have some of the essential renovations completed before I moved in, but I was impatient. I’m ready for this, or I will be.
There’s still one last thing I have to do before I embrace my new life. I look down at the clean sheet of paper in front of me. The pen in my hand feels heavy with the weight of the words I’ve yet to write so I close my eyes and, as I do, I recall snatches of the dreams that stalk me in my waking hours.
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