by A J McDine
I drank the tea and ate six biscuits, and still there was no sign of Eloise. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and called her, but it went straight to voicemail.
‘Hello Eloise, it’s Rose. Just checking you’re all right, only I’m home and you’re not here.’ Christ, that sounded creepy. I cleared my throat and tried to sound jovial. ‘Anyway, I thought I’d make a start on supper and wondered what you fancied. Perhaps you can call me when you get a chance?’
As I tossed the phone onto the sofa, a thought popped into my head. Would she have left without telling me? I dragged myself upstairs, pausing on the landing. Her door was shut, but there was nothing unusual about that. She always left it closed, no doubt a legacy from a childhood spent in care. Would she have left her door open if I’d agreed to take her in when Juliet died? Was the door a metaphor for her heart? And if so, had I damaged her beyond repair when I’d told that silly social services woman I didn’t have the bandwidth to take her in?
I’d pretended I was too busy, but the real reason I’d turned Eloise away was because I thought I was incapable of love. I had loved once, of course, and look where that got me.
But I’d been wrong. I knew that now.
‘Eloise?’ I called, knocking softly on the door. ‘El?’
There was no answer, so I turned the handle and pushed the door open, taking in the unmade bed, her holdall in the corner and her clothes draped over the chair. She was like her mother in more ways than she knew.
I was about to leave when I saw the corner of an envelope poking out from a zipped side pocket on the holdall. Something about the loopy handwriting scrawled across it stopped me in my tracks. Without thinking, I crossed the room, unzipped the pocket and pulled it out to see if I was right.
I was. It was Juliet’s handwriting. An envelope, addressed to Eloise and dated the eighth of June 2011, two weeks before Juliet died.
My head swam alarmingly, and I perched on the edge of the bed until the dizziness passed. I knew I shouldn’t read it, but I was greedy for an insight into their relationship, to step into Juliet’s shoes even if just for a moment so I could learn how to navigate this strange new landscape I found myself in, so I could learn how to be a mother and right the wrongs of the past. I pulled the letter out before I could talk myself out of it.
June 2011
* * *
My darling, darling Eloise,
* * *
If you are reading this letter, it means that I am no longer here, and for that I apologise with all my heart. I tried so hard, baby girl, you have to believe how much I tried, but I just couldn’t do it on my own any more.
If you are reading this letter, you are also celebrating your twenty-first birthday. Many happy returns, my darling. I hope life has been kind to you and you have turned into the beautiful, bright, brave girl you were destined to be.
It’s Friday evening and you are sitting at the kitchen table finishing your English homework as I write. It is what artists call the golden hour, and a shaft of sunlight is playing on your hair, turning it flaxen. The tip of your tongue is poking out of your mouth and your forehead is creased like a frown as you concentrate. You look so achingly like your father that sometimes I can’t bear to look at you at all, because it hurts too much.
I know you will have questions, and I will do my best to answer them. But I hope you understand that there are some questions I have no answer for, only suspicions. I have drawn my own conclusions but be warned - my standard of proof has been a balance of probabilities rather than the rigid “beyond reasonable doubt” of a criminal court. You must make up your own mind.
I will put myself in your shoes for a moment. Your beloved pair of Heelys, in fact! Do you remember the day we bought them? We caught the bus into Kensington and you free-wheeled home again in your new shoes, proud as punch. That was a happy day. There were so many happy days.
But I mustn’t get sidetracked. I have too much to tell you. And I want to begin with your father. I knew he was The One the moment I met him. Some people thought he was cocky and feckless, but that’s not how I saw him. I admired his confidence. It was something I recognised in myself. He had a beautiful soul beneath that Jack the Lad persona. He had an eye for a pretty face, yet he was insanely jealous if another man looked at me. He was physically strong, yet his asthma made him weak. He was a paradox, and I loved that about him.
You already know that your father died from an asthma attack when I was pregnant with you. What I never told you is that it wasn’t his first serious attack. The first happened when we were still at university. Your godmother, Rose, saved his life.
Do you remember Rose? She lives in Kent, in a funny little house in the middle of the woods.
Rose was training to become a doctor when we were at university. She knew exactly what to do when your father was struggling to breathe.
He always carried an inhaler with him after that. Always. Until the day he died.
By a strange quirk of fate, Rose was with him that day, too. I never told you that, did I? She did everything in her power to save him – or, at least that’s what she told us. And I believed her, because I had no reason not to.
But in my darkest moments after his death, my doubts multiplied like cancerous cells. I couldn’t stop wondering what had sparked his asthma attack and why Rose, with all her medical knowledge, couldn’t save him. Most of all I wondered why his inhaler was never found.
I never asked her. Perhaps I didn’t want to know the truth. But the truth found me in the end.
We were staying at Rose’s house for her father’s funeral. I’d only gone out of a sense of duty. You were asleep upstairs and Rose and I were sitting by the fire in her fusty front room, drinking her father’s whisky, and it had given me heartburn. When I went looking for some anti-acids, I found an inhaler. Not any inhaler. It was your father’s, hidden in a drawer by her bed. I knew it was his because of the expiry date. Rose had taken it. There was no other explanation. Which meant she stood by and watched him die.
If it hadn’t been for Rose, you’d have grown up with a father. A mother, too, because I’m sorry, El, but I just can’t carry on without him. My heart has been shattered into a million tiny pieces, and it can never be put back together.
If you are reading this letter, it is because I have exercised my right to exit this world.
Whether or not I am of sound mind is for others to decide. All I know is that my life, even with you in it, my sweet girl, is not worth living.
As I plan my end, you are just at your beginning, and I hope with what is left of my shattered heart that you are happy. Know that I will be happy, too, once I am reunited with your father. My darling Danny.
Reading this letter back, I fear I may have posed more questions than I have answered. I am sorry for that. And I am sorry I didn’t have the strength to seek justice for your dad.
I am giving you this information. What you do with it is entirely up to you.
* * *
Always and forever,
* * *
Mum xx
Chapter Forty-Five
SEPTEMBER 2007
* * *
I stared in horror at the blue plastic inhaler in Juliet’s hand, wondering how the hell I was going to dig myself out of this hole.
When I’d shoved the inhaler in my drawer for safekeeping, I’d intended to throw it away as soon as things had settled down. But as the months turned into years and the memories of that day faded, I’d forgotten all about it. Until now.
I took a deep breath. ‘It was my father’s.’
‘Don’t lie to me.’ Juliet came down the stairs and I shrank against the wall. ‘The expiry date’s the same year Danny died. It’s his, isn’t it?’
‘I -’
‘You told the police you couldn’t find it. You were lying, weren’t you?’ She brandished the inhaler in my face. ‘You… you killed him!’
I ran a tongue over my lips. ‘I didn’t. He had an asthma attack.’
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‘Semantics. You let him die. You could have saved him. You knew what to do. For Christ’s sake, you even found his inhaler, didn’t you?’ She stared at me with repulsion. ‘You sat beside him and watched him die. Why, Rose, why?’
‘Because he treated you like a piece of meat,’ I said, unable to stop myself.
‘He loved me! He wanted kids, marriage, the lot. You said so!’
‘I was lying. I said it to make you feel better. He didn’t come back for you. He came back because his visa ran out. As far as he was concerned, you were a bit of fun. He had no intention of sticking around.’
‘You don’t know that!’
‘Juliet,’ I said, reaching towards her. She recoiled from my touch and her face contorted with anger.
‘Get your hands off me!’
‘He wasn’t good enough for you.’ And he tried to rape me. But the words died on my lips. What was the point? She wouldn’t believe me.
Juliet turned and headed back up the stairs, still shaking her head. Halfway up, she stopped. Turned around. ‘You had no right. No fucking right.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I cried.
But she was already clomping across the landing to the spare bedroom.
I hovered by the front door as Juliet crashed and banged about upstairs. A few minutes later, she appeared, her case in one hand and her phone in the other.
‘You’re not going?’ I said, my hand fluttering to my throat.
‘I can’t stay under the same roof as you a minute longer. You’re poisonous.’ She threw the suitcase on the floor. ‘I’ve called a taxi.’
‘You’ve missed the last train.’
She shrugged. ‘So, we’ll sleep at the station.’ She turned on her heels and marched back upstairs. This time I heard her rousing Eloise, and moments later the child appeared at the top of the stairs dressed in leggings and a hooded top, her bewildered face sleep-creased and her hair dishevelled.
‘Would you like a snack to take with you?’ I asked, scuttling into the kitchen. Finding some clingfilm-wrapped sandwiches left over from the wake, I darted back and offered them to Juliet. For a moment, I thought she was going to bat them out of my hand and onto the floor, but then she snatched them and handed them to Eloise before barging past me and tugging at the front door.
‘Wait outside,’ she instructed her daughter. Eloise’s eyes widened, but she did as she was told. Juliet fetched her handbag from the kitchen and picked up her case.
‘I never, ever want to see or speak to you again,’ she said, her voice quivering with rage. ‘Understood?’
‘But -’
‘No buts. I want you out of my life.’
‘Juliet,’ I said urgently, as she disappeared into the darkness. ‘You’re not going to report me to the police, are you?’
She paused, one hand on the jamb. Her expression, illuminated by the security light, was impossible to read. ‘I don’t know yet,’ she said finally. She cocked her head as the sound of a car filtered through the trees. The taxi slowed and turned into the driveway, the tyres loud as they crunched on the gravel. I fought the urge to flag the driver down, to tell him it was a mistake, that we had no need for him because Juliet wasn’t going anywhere. Instead, I stayed where I was, watching her warily.
‘Telling the police won’t bring Danny back,’ I pleaded.
She narrowed her eyes. ‘You need to pay for what you’ve done.’
‘I’ve said I’m sorry.’
‘You think you can erase everything with an apology?’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘You’re sicker than I thought.’
The taxi pulled up outside the house and the driver wound down the passenger window. ‘Taxi for Mrs Cavendish?’ he said.
Juliet nodded, opened the back door and bundled first Eloise and then the case onto the back seat. While Eloise was occupied fixing her seatbelt, Juliet turned back to me, her face so close to mine I could smell the whisky on her breath. ‘I’m not sure I need to tell the police,’ she whispered. ‘Because I have a feeling you’ll pay one way or another. You reap what you sow, Rose. There’ll come a day when you’ll have reason to regret what you did, you mark my words.’
With that, she climbed into the taxi and slammed the door in my face.
My legs buckled, and I crumpled to the ground, my head in my hands, as the thrum of the engine faded away.
In the weeks that followed, I waited for a knock at the door. A solemn-faced detective on the doorstep. A polite but firm, ‘Good afternoon, Miss Barton. We wondered if you would accompany us to the station?’ A hand pushing my head down and propelling me into the back of a police car. The same detective reading my rights. A brightly lit interview room with polystyrene cups of tea and a barrage of questions. A charge. Not murder, that would never stick, but manslaughter. Crown court, a bewigged judge glaring at me from over half-moon glasses. Twelve good men and women in the jury box. A verdict. ‘We find the defendant guilty, m’lud’. A prison sentence. Jarring headlines, public humiliation. Time inside. Butch women with an eye for fresh meat. ‘Whatever you do, don’t drop the soap, Rose.’
My arrest and subsequent incarceration seemed as inevitable as the thaw that followed snow, yet no one knocked on the door, no one stood on the doorstep with a police radio in their hands inviting me back to the nick. Months passed, and I realised Juliet couldn’t have told the police I’d lied about Danny’s inhaler. Was she protecting me, or Eloise? I couldn’t ask her, because she never spoke to me again. And did it matter who she was protecting? What mattered was that she spared me.
The conversations I had with her in the days before she jumped from the cliffs at Dover were in my head, figments of my imagination. Admittedly, they were based on information I gleaned from her inquest, but I invented details to fill in the gaps.
Eloise’s call was real enough. She must have remembered I was her godmother and found my number among her mother’s personal effects. Did she recall the fateful trip to Kent for my father’s funeral? Did she understand what had happened?
Is that why she was here?
Chapter Forty-Six
The letter slipped from my trembling fingers and fluttered to the floor. A feeling of dread gripped my heart and squeezed it so tightly I struggled to breathe. Eloise knew I’d been with her father when he died. She knew her mother had found his inhaler here, in this house. Juliet hadn’t said outright that I’d killed Danny, but you didn’t need to be Einstein to join the dots. And Juliet had all but admitted she planned to end her life because she couldn’t live without him. She had told her daughter it was my fault she’d lost both her parents.
My fault.
A sound downstairs made me jump, and I grabbed Juliet’s letter, folded it and was about to slip it back into the side pocket of the holdall when I saw the tip of a second envelope. I cocked my head, listening, but the house was quiet again. It must have been Dinah’s cat flap banging in the wind. Grabbing the envelope, I pulled out the folded sheet of paper inside.
The letter was typed and dated six weeks ago. I glanced at the address in the top left-hand corner. Kent Social Services.
Dear Ms Cavendish,
* * *
Regarding your recent subject access request under the General Data Protection Regulations 2018 for copies of your social care records between 01/01/2008 and 31/12/2010…
My blood ran cold. Eloise had made an application to see her records. Records that would reveal I had refused to take her in after Juliet died. Records that would show she had spent her childhood in care because I was “too busy”.
My eyes glazing with tears, I continued reading. Words leapt out at me. No named guardian… a preference to live with her godmother… Ms Barton felt she didn’t have the bandwidth… not in Eloise’s best interests… gave her a chance to change her mind… family court hearing… care order…
‘What are you doing?’ said a cold voice.
Eloise stood in the doorway, her lips pressed together and her arms folded across her chest.
I forced myself to smile. ‘I was about to change your bed linen.’
We both gazed at the letters in my hand.
‘Don’t lie to me, Rose.’
‘They’d fallen out of your bag. I was putting them back.’
She was across the room in a flash and plucked them from my hands.
‘So, you know why I’m here.’
‘Because you wanted the truth?’
She gave a bark of laughter. Empathy wasn’t one of my strong suits, but even I could feel the hostility coming off her in waves.
‘I’ve known the truth since my twenty-first birthday. I was summoned to a solicitor’s office and handed a letter from my mum.’ She watched me carefully, then nodded to herself. ‘Yes, I found out you murdered my parents the day I turned twenty-one.’
‘I didn’t murder them,’ I said, my voice hoarse. ‘No one could have saved Danny. And I hadn’t seen your mum for three years when she died. How can you blame me for that?’
‘Because you’re lying,’ Eloise said. She leaned over me, her face inches from mine. ‘In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if you triggered his asthma attack on purpose.’
‘I didn’t, I promise,’ I stuttered.
‘But you could have saved him.’
‘He tried to rape me.’
Her eyes blazed. ‘How dare you say that about my dad, you evil bitch!’
I wrapped my arms around my head and waited for the blows to fall, but when they didn’t, I sneaked a look at Eloise. She’d moved to the window and was staring out at the woods.
‘What do you want from me?’ I whispered.
‘You stood beside me at my mother’s graveside and you told me social services wouldn’t let me live with you. But it was a lie, wasn’t it? You couldn’t be bothered to have me.’
