by Ali Land
‘All right, dickheads,’ Morgan says.
‘Shut up, you little shit,’ replies one of the boys, a cap on his head, a gold stud in his right ear.
Morgan jumps on the roundabout, takes the can from his hand, gulps, burps afterwards, which makes them laugh. The other boy, inflamed spots on his neck, yellow heads on some of them, says, ‘Who’s this?’
‘That’s Milly, she’s from opposite my bit.’
‘Not bad,’ he says. ‘Come and sit next to me, make friends.’
‘I’m all right,’ I reply, taking a seat on the bench to the side of them.
‘Too good for us, are you?’
I smile, try not to look fazed.
‘You going to give me a beer or what?’ Morgan asks.
‘What do I get in return?’ the boy with the cap replies.
‘The pleasure of my dazzling company, of course.’ Morgan stands up, takes a theatrical bow.
Cap boy is called Dean, his friend calls him that as he says, ‘I bet I know what you’d really like.’
‘Tell me about it,’ he replies.
They light cigarettes, offer me one.
‘No thank you.’
‘Proper uptight, aren’t you?’
Dean pulls Morgan towards him, starts to tickle her. She resists at first, then after he whispers something into her ear, she says, bet you I would, and walks off with him. Disappears into a small wooden play hut, painted in primary colours, names and graffiti scratched into the top. I try to steady the dread building in my stomach. Dirty and bad, the things happening to her. I want to go over to the hut, help her, but sometimes trying to help, doing something good, can end up meaning you do something bad.
Dean’s friend moves to sit next to me, his fingernails ragged. Chewed. He positions his arm behind me, running along the back of the bench, touches my shoulder with his hand.
Touches me.
I try to ignore the movement I hear from the hut, bodies shifting into position. Morgan, my friend, on her knees or her back. The boy’s face leans into my neck, the sounds from the hut replaced with the sound of his saliva as he moves a piece of gum around his mouth. I shiver, should stand up, can’t feel my legs. Stuck.
‘Are you cold? I’ll warm you up.’
The smell of alcohol, the cigarette in his hand, the closeness of his face to mine takes me there.
To you.
A shadow, a canopy woven out of twisted love and lust, suffocated me in my bed every night. You.
He stubs out his cigarette on the wood of the bench between us. Flicks it on to the ground, a graveyard of butts. Bent into strange positions, necks broken, bodies folded.
He rests his hand on my thigh, moves it a little, further and further up. The word ‘no’ lodges in my throat, won’t launch. Can’t say it, doesn’t work anyway. No meant yes, meant you always got what you wanted. Took it anyway. When his lips touch my neck they don’t feel like they belong to him, they feel like someone else’s. I never wanted to be touched like that. I never wanted you to touch me like that.
‘Get off, get the fuck off me,’ I say, and jump up.
‘Jesus, what’s your fucking problem?’
I walk over to the hut, hammer on the roof, each step I take punctuated with images of being back in our house, in your room.
‘Morgan. Morgan. Let’s go, I want to go now.’
The boy in the hut calls me a freak. A cock block. A bitch. The sound of a zip going up.
‘Chill out, I’ll be there in a minute,’ Morgan replies.
I hurry up the slope away from them, towards the parked cars, a black cat underneath. Eyes closed, peaceful. Lucky if it walks in front of me. It doesn’t. I’m angry, angry with Morgan. Nobody made her, she went into the hut smiling, still is as she walks towards me now. A can of beer in one hand, takes a mouthful, gargles, then spits it out. Dirty.
‘Why were you freaking out?’
‘I want to go home.’
‘Fucking hell, as if you’ve never done anything like that.’
I don’t reply, I don’t know how to explain.
‘Can I come home with you? You could sneak me in on the balcony.’
Yes, is what I should say. She needs looking after, out of harm’s way. She needs to behave better. I could help her do that.
‘So, can I?’
‘Yes.’
You coach me as we walk back to the house, ideas on how to teach Morgan, how to ‘help’ her be clean, but what you’re saying frightens me, it doesn’t feel good to hear. I don’t want to do that to her, she’s all I’ve got, she’s my only friend. I need her. And that’s why I do it, when she kneels down by a row of parked cars to tie her shoelace, I look. Usually I wouldn’t, usually I don’t want to be reminded, but this time I stare in the car window. Your face, the spit of mine, stares back. ACCEPT WHO YOU ARE, ANNIE. ‘I don’t want to,’ I reply.
‘Who are you talking to?’ Morgan asks as she stands up.
I shake my head, she smiles and calls me nuts, says, don’t worry about what happened in the park, they’re dickheads anyway. And I realize, you can say what you want to the lawyers about me, you already have, I’m sure, but Morgan is mine. I get to decide. I tell her I’ve changed my mind, too risky to sneak her in with Saskia around. She’s annoyed, says she’ll have to go home now and be hassled by her little brother and sister. Thanks a lot, Mil, she says, before she walks off.
I want to tell her, she’s welcome. But she wouldn’t understand.
17
The questions are straightforward when Mike asks me them. He’s a psychologist, programmed to support and hold me up, not like defence lawyers though.
He reads them out. What exactly did you see through the peephole on the night Daniel Carrington died? How long did you stand at the peephole for? Are you sure that’s what you saw your mother doing? You’re absolutely sure? What happened after that?
Please tell the court again. And again.
When we finish he tells me I did really well. He places the page of questions down and says he’s sorry I’m having to go through this. That it must feel very exposing, the idea of answering questions in front of a jury and a judge. Yes, it is, I tell him, it’s scary not knowing what might happen on the day. What might be said. But I’ll be okay, I think that going to court, facing you, is my way of helping the children you hurt. My way of taking responsibility. He talks about survivor’s guilt and how it can make a person feel more culpable than they are. Sometimes I think you feel like that, that the deaths of the children were your fault. Am I right, he asks? I’m not sure, I reply, sometimes, yes. You did nothing wrong, he says, and if your mother says anything to the contrary, it’s her attempt to continue abusing you.
A neat explanation, a ribbon in a bow.
We talk about the time you drove us to Manchester during the school holidays. You were careful, so careful, to spread what you did over great distances. The underground network of desperate women who were sufficiently reassured by you to hand over a child. Groomed from afar for years. The camouflage again was me, a daughter of your own. We could have gone on and on like that but then you took Daniel, someone I knew. Too close to home.
‘What would you say now to your younger self that would have comforted you then?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You have to try. What would you have liked to hear?’
That I was different from you.
‘That one day it would stop.’
‘You made it stop, you were very brave to go to the police.’
‘I waited too long, too many bad things had happened already.’
‘If you could’ve been heard earlier, what would you have said?’
‘Help me. Leave me alone.’
‘How could you have been helped if you wanted to be left alone?’
‘I don’t know, it’s just how I feel.’
‘Frightened, I think. What about if you’d said, “Help me, take me somewhere safe”?’
I count th
e books on the shelves. Numbers help. Then I begin to cry, hide my face with the cushion. Mike sits quietly, lets me cry, then says, ‘You do deserve that, Milly, you deserve to be safe and to have a new life.’
I remove the cushion. His face is so open, looks at me. He wants to make it better for me, I can tell, but he doesn’t get it.
‘You don’t get it, Mike. You think you know me but you don’t.’
‘I think I’m getting to know you, I think I know you better than most people. Wouldn’t you agree?’
If that was true, he’d know what to say. He’d know that the best way to help me is to say I can stay. That he’ll look after me. But I’m too scared to ask him. I know once the trial’s finished I’ll have to leave. Start over. And there’s nothing I can do about it.
‘Can we stop, Mike? It’s been over an hour. I’m tired, I want to go to bed.’
He senses shutdown, knows to take his foot off the gas for tonight.
‘Okay, let me grab your night-time meds.’
I stash the pills with the others, open up my laptop to see if there’s anything about you in the news. You’ve been placed into solitary confinement, no details other than an attempted attack by a fellow prisoner following the announcement your trial has been moved forward. Protecting you matters, I imagine, the public pressure to keep you alive.
Make you pay.
18
Dirt on my hands, a towel in the sink. Mike should have left me where he found me late last night after our session. The dark of the cellar.
Phoebe’s on the landing when I come out of my room, balanced on the edge of the banister, head in her phone, one foot on the carpet. Perfectly painted toenails, in pink. She looks up as I pass, says, what was all the noise about last night, you woke me up. I reply with the first thing that comes into my head.
‘I had a stomach ache, Mike brought me some tablets.’
‘Yeah, well, next time, keep it down.’
I continue past her, down one flight of stairs, turn and ask.
‘How are your lines for the play coming along?’
She gives me the finger, mouths fuck you. She knows Mike and Saskia are around, could easily hear.
‘Let me know if I can help,’ I reply, smiling.
She pushes off the banister, storms into her room, kicking the door shut behind her.
Saskia’s at the kitchen table nursing a large mug, fingers thin, clasped round it, pronounced veins running up her knuckles to her wrists. She greets me with good morning, a faraway look in her eyes, more of a pleasantry than a genuine attempt at conversation.
‘Eggs?’ Mike offers, a wooden spoon in one hand.
He wears an apron with James Bond on the front, ‘licence to grill’ written underneath. He sees me looking, laughs a little, tries to mask his concern. The inadequacy he must be feeling. Even after our session, I’m still fucked up.
‘Saskia bought it for my birthday last summer, didn’t you, Sas?’
‘What’s that?’
‘The apron.’
‘Yes, darling, I think so.’
I look at Mike as he turns back to the stove top. Tall. His body, strong and fit, his hair sandy, streaked with grey. The weight of us all on his broad shoulders, though I’ve never heard him complain once.
‘Here you go,’ he says. ‘Scrambled eggs.’
I thank him and sit down next to Saskia.
‘Aren’t you having any?’ I ask.
‘No, no, I like to eat later.’
Or not at all. Mike goes into the hallway, stands on the first step, shouts to Phoebe. He has to shout twice for her to come out of her room and reply.
‘I’ll be down in a minute.’
He joins us at the table, dig in, he says, go on. He asks me if I have any idea what I’d like to do for half-term.
‘I don’t mind, I’m happy to stay here. I know you’re both busy.’
‘I think June was right the other day, we should take some time out. There’s a nice spot in the country we’ve been to before, the trees will be beautiful this time of year.’
‘Well, this is cosy, isn’t it?’ Phoebe says as she walks in.
‘Morning, grab some eggs, join us.’
‘What was going on last night? You woke me up.’
‘I already told Phoebe about the stomach ache I had, how you brought me some pills.’
Mike hesitates, it’s not in his nature to lie but he’ll rationalize it in his head. Protective. A necessity.
‘I didn’t hear a thing,’ Saskia says.
Nobody looks surprised.
‘Yeah, well, it took me ages to get back to sleep.’
‘Sorry, Phoebs,’ soothes Mike. ‘Anyway, we were just discussing half-term, it’s a shame you can’t come with us.’
‘Tramping about in a wood in the middle of nowhere, no thanks. I’d much rather go to Cornwall with my friends, thank you very much.’
Devon’s near Cornwall. It used to be home.
‘Lots of woods there too, you know,’ Saskia says.
It’s not a bad attempt, verging on funny, but Phoebe doesn’t think so, turns her back, fills a glass with water from the tap. I see Mike’s hand move off the table, rest on Saskia’s thigh. A captain of a shaky ship, he is. Mutiny possible. Likely.
‘You need to eat something, Phoebs.’
‘Nah, not hungry, I’m on a diet.’
‘Not first thing in the morning you aren’t, you need breakfast.’
‘Why? I don’t see Mummy dearest having any.’
‘She’s not spending the whole day at school or captaining a hockey team, is she?’
Phoebe mumbles into the lip of the glass, no, she’s not doing anything as per usual.
‘At least grab a cereal bar from the cupboard then, eat it at break.’
‘Fine,’ she says. ‘Whatever.’
Phoebe and me leave together, no choice, Mike and Saskia wave us off. We split company the next house down. I watch her long lean body as she crosses the road, walks with confidence, a world away from what’s on the inside. A couple of weeks ago I went down to the laundry to get a clean towel, heard voices. Sevita doing the ironing, Phoebe cross-legged on the floor doing homework. Sevita looked up as I walked in, smiled, hello, Miss Milly. Phoebe’s face said it all, angry. Jealous. Didn’t want me to be there, didn’t want to share. What she can’t get from Saskia, she finds elsewhere, needs it.
Passing the tower blocks reminds me that I forgot to tell Mike and Saskia I’ll be late home from school. I send them both a text letting them know I’m helping with props for the play, should be back by six or seven. A lie, a little one, the colour white. I’m looking forward to seeing Morgan again. I looked after her at the weekend, I sent her home. I haven’t been able to shake the idea of telling her about you, not all of it, but enough so I’d be able to talk about it if I wanted to. June wouldn’t approve. I was given a new identity so I would feel protected. Invisible. Nobody would know who I am. London’s a huge city, she said, you’ll be just another face in the crowd. What’s most important, she said, is you never tell anybody who you are, or anything about your mum. Do you understand how important that is? Yes was my answer, still is, but I never realized how lonely it would be.
The day drags. German, then music. Maths and art. MK’s not my teacher. I think about her spending time with other girls, talking. Laughing with them. I sent her another email yesterday asking if I could come and see her but she hasn’t replied.
Biology, the last lesson of the day. Dissection. The heart of a pig. Human the same, almost. Ventricles. The atrium, the mighty vena cava. I know a lot about a person’s insides.
Glorious in their redness, fifteen hearts laid out on the bench as we arrive, one for each girl. Prof West, a little bit blind, a little bit old, tells us to follow the instructions on the white board at the front of the class.
Knives at the ready.
Slice we do, a cut here, a snip there. A struggle for some, easier for me. I’m the first one fin
ished. I stare at the heart, now in pieces, spread out in a silver tray. Two bloody scalpels and a pair of tweezers to blame. I listen to the comments around me. Gross. Eww, I hate biology, can’t wait to give it up next year. Help me with mine. No way, I can hardly do my own. Bleugh.
I put my hand up. It takes a minute or two for Prof West’s bald head to look up, survey the class.
‘I’m finished, sir.’
‘Wash your hands then, and write up your observations.’
After I’ve finished at the sink I walk back to my bench, turn to a new page in my exercise book, start to write, but then I hear them. Clondine and Izzy giggling, the row in front of me looking over their shoulders at me. They turn away when I look. I start writing again. Then it happens.
A heart on my face.
Bounces off my left cheek, lands on my breast, drops to the floor. My lab coat already removed. I touch my hand to my face. Sticky. Blood on my fingers. Izzy films me, Clondine keeps watch though Prof’s no threat. I turn away from them. My shirt’s stained, a bleed from the heart belongs to the pig, could easily be mine.
‘Time to tidy up,’ says Prof West.
‘I’m not finished, sir,’ comes a voice from the front.
‘Time waits for no man or woman, Elsie, you should have worked faster.’
I’d move if I could, yet I can’t feel my legs. Can’t. Feel. I’ll always be a freak to them. I know Prof’s coming this way, I can hear his shoes. Brown leather brogues, polishes them daily I bet. He stops in front of me.
‘For heaven’s sake, child, what have you been up to? You said you were finished and now you’ve got blood all over your shirt and your face. Get cleaned up and for goodness’ sake pick that heart up off the floor.’
I hear the snorts of stifled laughter as Prof West continues on past.
Zoe, a girl on the same bench as me, a witness but silent, bends down, uses a paper towel to pick up the heart, hands me another for my face. Took the time to wet it for me. She points to where I need to wipe.
I nod, thank her, wishing I was young enough for someone to do it for me. Clondine and Izzy flash sarcastic smiles at me as we file out of the lab. The corridors are busy but space is made for me as I approach. Is that blood on her shirt? I think so, yuck. I use the science-block toilets to change into the jeans and hoodie I hid in my bag earlier this morning. No uniforms on the estate, especially not one from this school. My phone rings. I kneel down and retrieve it from my rucksack. It’s Morgan checking I’m still coming, and when I notice a familiar make-up bag abandoned on the floor of the next-door cubicle, I tell her I’ll be there in about twenty minutes, there’s something I have to do first.
