by Maggie James
It’s all too much, on this crazy Saturday when he’s already had a surfeit of emotion piled on him. Now he has to deal with this small blonde child a mere couple of feet away, rubbing tiredness from her eyes. Don’t cry, please don’t cry, he begs her in his head. She does, though, fat tears oozing from beneath her fingers, a thin wail shredding the air. Her father yanks on her arm, his exasperation ready to burst. The wail swells into a shriek.
Mark’s catapulted far beyond his emotional limit. He wrenches at the fridge door, thrusting the four-pack of London Pride back on the shelf. Ms Sullen glances up, mildly alarmed, as Mark pushes out of the shop, past his blonde nemesis. His heart thudding, he leans against the window, forcing oxygen into his lungs. Shit. He needs the sanctuary of his flat. Now. Otherwise, the child might leave the shop at any minute and he’ll have to endure her tears again. Impossible to move, though, not with the pounding in his chest. He begins to count. One, two, buckle my shoe, onwards towards the safety of the higher numbers, his mind skating over the pictures brought to him by five, six, pick up sticks. Mark squeezes his eyes shut, willing the mantra to take effect.
Too late. The door jangles open as the man drags the child out of the shop. She’s in full crying mode now, broadcasting her anguish to the world, her father shushing her impatiently. Too much by far for Mark. He turns away and vomits up steak, chips and cheesecake, not caring if anyone sees him, the stream of half-digested food purging his crappy day from him. Even when his stomach signals it’s empty, he carries on heaving, desperate to spew out every last remnant of guilt.
Ashamed, he moves away from the stinking mess at his feet to sit on a nearby wall. The nausea slowly passes. Mark watches the rain pound into the pool of vomit. A sour taste of puke lingers in his mouth. His thin jacket’s already soaked through, his hair plastered against his skull, raindrops rafting down his cheeks. Mark doesn’t care. Once the spasms in his stomach cease, he makes his way back to his flat.
Inside, he’s safe again. Screw the beer; he’ll have to get by without an alcoholic crutch tonight. Into the washing machine with his soaked clothes; Mark grabs a towel from the bathroom and rubs hard at his head. Back in the kitchenette, fully dressed again, he pulls open the fridge, pouring himself a glass of filtered water. The coldness draining down his throat relaxes his tight shoulders, sweeping away the angst of before.
Shit. He needs to get his act together, and fast. No way can he carry on this way, allowing every blonde two-year-old to shellshock him out of control. Moreover, the kiss with Rachel torments him. In Mark’s mind, he’s betrayed Natalie. Strictly speaking, as she’s his ex, it’s not infidelity. Thing is, Mark’s a purist; all part of his obsessive nature. He’s been unsuccessful in detaching himself emotionally from Natalie. A failure that means kissing other women is off the agenda.
He still has strong emotions where she’s concerned, a yearning to pillow his head against her generous breasts once more. Discover how the soft, warm comfort they provide can obliterate the Morgan family from his mind. Taking with them Joanna Barker, Tony Jackson and, most of all, Adam Campbell. Natalie’s the one person who’s managed to breach his defences, even though she’s chosen to walk - no, run – away. Not that he blames her.
Mark wonders where she is, what she’s doing. Saturday evening; she’ll almost certainly be at her mother’s, probably watching television whilst demolishing a takeaway Chinese. Using food the way she always does, plugging a physical gap to disguise the emotional one underneath. Natalie’s insecure, a trait that’s usually a precursor of jealousy and one his ex-girlfriend possesses in truckloads. She’d never understand the whole crazy scenario with Rachel.
Does she miss him, though? Is she sorry she ended their relationship?
Mark’s self-loathing, always close to the surface of his mind, rebuffs his questions with a sharp no. He’s a convicted child killer. Natalie can’t possibly regret breaking up with him.
God, how he wishes he had a cold bottle of Black Sheep to wash away this shit. He’s jangled after the encounter with the kid, antsy, desperate for change in his life. An impulse seizes him; he’ll reach out to Natalie, bridge the gulf between them. Before he can think through what he’s doing, he’s pulled out his mobile. A hastily composed text. ‘Missing you. Been thinking about us. Hope you’re OK. Couldn’t tell you the truth. X.’
His fingers hesitate over the send option for a second, before he decides. What the hell. He’ll live dangerously for once. Just do it, Mark. His fingers dispatch the text. Even if she never wants anything to do with him again, at least he’s been straight with her. No lie in saying he’s missing her. And he’s sorry all right. About everything.
He waits a few minutes. No response from Natalie. Has she even read his text? Will she angrily delete it or is she composing a reply right now? He sighs. Where Natalie is concerned, it might go either way. All he knows is, he wants another chance with her.
Time to honour his promise to Rachel. No text message; he’ll use Facebook instead. With any luck, she’ll be offline. Less chance of connecting with her.
Mark goes into his bedroom and grabs his laptop. Once it’s switched on, he logs into his Facebook account, relieved to note Rachel doesn’t appear to be online. He’ll set up another lunch meeting for the following weekend, making sure he turns down any offers of coffee afterwards at her flat. If she asks, he’ll tell her he can’t make the fun run. Once lunch is over, he’ll make his excuses about getting back to Bristol, in order to exit her life for good. Best for everyone, Mark thinks. Especially her.
He taps out a quick message, intending to be off Facebook straight away, but Rachel comes online as he’s typing. Shit. Mark keeps their interaction as brief as possible. The result is an arrangement to meet at her flat again, same time a week tomorrow. A Sunday. Mark notes the eagerness with which she suggests this, along with the way she attempts to string out the conversation.
‘Wll cook sumthg 4 u. Show off my culinary skills,’ she types.
‘Remember I’m a meat and potatoes guy. No green stuff, please.’ A few more back and forth exchanges take place before Mark’s able to make his exit.
Shit. After he’s logged off Facebook, he remembers something. Seems he’s fallen for the whole vulnerability thing again with Rachel. Didn’t he promise himself not to go to her flat again? And now he’s arranged a home-cooked meal with her. More intimate by far than lunch at a pub. Not a wise move.
At the thought of food, his stomach growls, pronouncing its emptiness. His earlier nausea seems to have passed. Time for something to eat. He walks into the kitchenette, pulling from the fridge bread, butter, ham, tomatoes. From the cupboard, a chopping board, a knife for slicing. Mark’s fingers cut precise segments through a tomato, before he remembers Rachel. Her arms.
Mark tests the tip of the blade against his thumb. It bites in, sinking a dent into the flesh without piercing it; Mark’s not pressing hard enough. Even so, the knife’s edge hurts. He wonders what it must be like to draw a blade across one’s own arm, experience it slicing through the skin, watch the blood well up from the wound. Rachel’s silent scream, along with her claim not to feel any pain. Only the subsequent relief.
Her ruined arms flash before his mind again. Jeez. This woman’s locked her pain deep inside her for fourteen years, unseen by any psychiatrist or counsellor. Rachel Morgan probably won’t ever slay her demons without professional help. Hell, though, maybe she’s not the only one who needs a shrink. He kissed her, didn’t he? Plenty of people would judge such madness sufficient grounds to warrant him seeing a psychiatrist himself.
Easy enough to recommend for someone else. Impossible to do himself. Mark’s also been fucked by life, but he intends the psychologist at the detention unit to be his sole visit to Shrinkland. He’ll make do with the neatness and counting rituals, thanks all the same.
Their forthcoming lunch. Don’t fuck this up, Mark warns himself. Hasn’t Rachel Morgan been hurt enough already?
16
&
nbsp; CHOCOLATE AND WINE
Callie Richards passes a packet of McVitie’s to her daughter. ‘Want one?’
‘Thanks, Mum.’ Natalie takes a biscuit and bites into it. Chocolate chip, her favourite. She’s spending the evening at her mother’s house. Their Saturday nights together, along with Callie’s Sunday roasts, have been a ritual ever since Natalie, aged twenty-two at the time, left home. Natalie always visits her mother, never the other way around. Callie Richards has never once been to her daughter’s flat. For the simple reason she can’t.
The day her philandering husband walks out on her for good, Callie takes to her bed, pulling the duvet over her head. She remains there for the next month. Natalie, aged eleven, is forced to cook their meals, clean the bathroom and do the laundry, at the same time as struggling with hours of homework from Bristol Grammar School. Not to mention the unwelcome novelty of monthly cramps. Her mother eventually leaves her bed, but not the house. Callie Richards has never ventured outside since, the four walls of her home protecting her from the world’s dangers. Once her savings are gone, she survives financially – just - on state benefits and her ex-husband’s sporadic child support payments. Television’s her only source of entertainment. Callie devours every reality show, watches all the soaps, vicarious living through onscreen pap becoming her substitute for real life. Like Natalie, eating is both her comfort and her curse. Her life reduced to TV and junk food, Callie Richards has swollen to a dress size greater than her daughter’s age. Natalie, now twenty-five years old, hopes the trend won’t continue.
‘Of course, women like that are so vulnerable. Mind you, men are the real problem.’
‘What are you talking about, Mum?’ Natalie pulls her attention back to her mother. She glances at the TV. Crimewatch, one of Callie Richards’s favourites, a recording from the previous Thursday.
Callie jabs a finger towards the screen. A photo of a woman fills it. She wears her profession on her face. ‘Working girls, that’s who.’
Callie warms to her theme. ‘Men. They’re the ones responsible for women like that being on the streets in the first place. If they weren’t all so dick-driven, the world would be a better place. Poor girl. Some bastard’s murdered her.’
It’s a familiar tune, one Natalie’s heard often. Bruised by her ex-husband’s inability to keep his penis in his pants, Callie Richards herds all men into one category: arseholes. Divorce has grown her a pair of lady balls at last, her former passivity replaced by a fiery contempt for men. Her frequent tirades about the male sex have influenced Natalie to some degree over the years, even though she tries hard not to be affected by her mother’s issues. Men, Natalie has long ago decided, are what her mother really fears to encounter beyond the walls of her house.
‘Chop the murdering sod’s dick off, is what I say.’ Callie shakes her head. ‘Although I doubt they’ll ever catch whoever did it, not now. Trail’s getting colder by the minute. Look, Nat, here comes the re-enactment.’
On the TV, a woman walks along a dimly lit street. She’s dressed in the standard working girl attire; a skirt wrapped tightly around her thighs, high-heeled strappy sandals, a fake fur jacket. The footage is dark, grainy, typical CCTV quality. The screen switches to the presenter in the TV studio.
‘Kayleigh Thomas was last seen alive at 9.30pm in Deaver Street. Her body was discovered the next day by children on a nearby patch of waste ground. She had been badly beaten and suffered from multiple stab wounds. Police say…’
Natalie remembers now. A couple of weeks ago, Southampton, wasn’t it?
‘Never got whoever killed that other one a while back, did they?’ Callie reaches for the packet of biscuits. ‘Some other city, that was. Can’t remember where.’
An image, dark and unwanted, intrudes into Natalie’s brain. Hot breath against her ear, a heavy body pinning her down. Fingers inside her, making her bleed. The face of her attacker, unseen yet always in her mind.
She forces the memory away. Totally different, she rebukes herself. I lived. Those women didn’t.
Natalie’s phone vibrates into life. A text coming through.
Mark, is her first thought.
She’s right. Before she’s able to do the sensible thing and delete it, her fingers open the text.
‘Missing you. Been thinking about us. Hope you’re OK. Couldn’t tell you the truth. X.’
Oh…my…God, Natalie’s brain says. Her emotions surge back and forth as she tries to decide why he’s texted her. The dominant response in her head ends up being anger, in a replay of her self-righteous rage when she dumps him. Her fingers hit the delete icon.
Callie Richards’s eyes narrow as her daughter stuffs her mobile back in her handbag. ‘That the guy you’ve been dating? Mike, Mark, whatever his name is?’
‘We broke up.’ Natalie dreads what’s coming.
‘Another worthless bastard, then. Like all the others you’ve been out with. Been greasing his pole elsewhere, I expect.’ Satisfaction echoes in Callie Richards’s voice at having her theories about the male sex confirmed. ‘No idea why you bother. More trouble than they’re worth, the lot of them.’
Thing is, maybe Natalie prefers the idea of Mark being a love rat. Men cheating on their girlfriends are commonplace. Something she can admit to other people without it sounding weird. Not child murder, though. Impossible to reveal she’s been dating one of the nation’s most hated men.
Normally such tirades skate over her head, but Callie’s comments have caused the wounds inflicted by Mark to bleed afresh. Natalie needs solitude, time to reflect, away from her mother’s bitterness.
She stands up. ‘I need to get home, Mum. Bit tired. Could do with an early night.’
‘Don’t even think of texting the bastard back.’ Callie Richards wheezes as she struggles to her feet. ‘You’re well shot of him, mark my words.’
Back at her flat, Natalie plumps herself down in her overstuffed beanbag, snuggling into its corduroy depths. She pulls open a bag of cheese Doritos. Perfect with a salsa dip. She’s piled on even more kilos since the split with Mark, but she doesn’t care. Food’s her only comfort these days, now she’s lost contact with her mates from school. A mistake, engendered by the notion that her first proper boyfriend at the age of eighteen is all she’ll ever want or need. Wrong. Very. When Natalie, devastated by their split, needs a friend, she finds they’ve all moved on.
So she slouches in the beanbag, alone, scoffing the Doritos, Mark Slater on her mind. Wise to her mother’s prejudices, she’s never said much about him to Callie Richards. What can she say? How she’s met a guy, who’s good-looking, serious, hard-working, all the things she’s after, but who never quite gives her his all, who always keeps her at arm’s length? Callie won’t hold back with her condemnation if she does, which will only increase Natalie’s angst. As to that, she recognises where her issues stem from, of course. Her womanising father, who has proved himself a liar, a cheat and as shallow as a pond in the African sun. Her mistrust is coupled with a desire not to repeat her mother’s enabling behaviour.
Callie Richards’s voice sounds in her head. ‘Bastards, the lot of them. Can’t trust a single one.’
Stop, she tells herself. Don’t let yourself get as twisted as Mum is about Dad.
Ah, dysfunctional families. Are theirs what drew her and Mark together in the first place? The recognition that they’re both loners, not by choice but by circumstance? Two people with lives lacking in friends and family? She’s unsure whether Mark has any relatives at all. Father dead, no connection with his mother. As for Linda Curtis, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether he’s still in touch with her. Most likely he’s not.
The bag of Doritos is empty now. More carbohydrates are required; the bar of Dairy Milk nestling in her fridge is calling her. Along with toast. She hauls herself out of the beanbag, walking into the kitchen, taking two slices of bread from the freezer. Butter, jam, Marmite, knife, plate. A glass or two of wine won’t go amiss either. She pushes down on th
e toaster handle then opens a bottle of Pinot Grigio that’s been chilling in the fridge. She returns with the toast, chocolate and wine to the comfort of the beanbag.
The food soon disappears. Natalie’s bloated, more than a little nauseated, but she’s past caring. The Pinot Grigio soothes her, starting to unravel the mess in her head. Can she accept what Mark’s done, or at least find the courage to discuss it with him?
‘Missing you.’ His text has warmed her right the way through; Natalie now wishes she’d not deleted it. Too hasty by far. She wants to read it again, analysing each word for hidden nuances. Although she can pretty much remember the message. How he’s been thinking about the two of them. Hoping she’s OK. His regret about not being able to tell her the truth. Hardly surprising he didn’t, she supposes.
She tries not to read anything into the kiss at the end. A standard way to finish texts, nothing more. It means zilch.
What has prompted him to text her, though? Her rejection of him? Is he trying to deal with their break-up on his own terms, his words his way of saying goodbye? Mark’s final stab at closure before moving on with his life?
Perhaps there’s another explanation. Is the text the opening salvo in an attempt to win her back? To convince her he’s not a vicious child killer? That’s not how it was, Nat. The memory of his words wash over her, bringing with them the desire to believe him, to marry up the man she’s been dating with the reality of what Linda Curtis’s letter reveals. Does Mark want a chance to explain, make things right between them? Has she been too hasty, too quick to condemn?
That’s not how it was. The words bounce off the inside of her skull, teasing her, delivering hope. Thing is, if he’s telling the truth about being coerced by the other boy, doesn’t he deserve another chance? He’s served time in prison, been judged worthy of release by the system, is being monitored by the police. He holds down a steady job, keeps himself out of trouble. All signs pointing to him being repentant, rehabilitated, responsible, his crime folded neatly away in the past. Should Mark really be forever an outcast for a mistake he made so long ago? When only eleven years old?
