What She Left

by Rosie Fiore

Through the open kitchen door, I could see my mum silhouetted. She had come tentatively into the room, and she was hovering, obviously trying to decide if she should intervene. What a mess.

  ‘Go and call a cab,’ I said to him coldly. ‘I’ll pack up the girls’ stuff. Take them home, and don’t come back here. Ever.’

  Miranda

  Our lives are disgusting. Everything about the way we live is disgusting. We used to be the best family in the school, and now we’re the family where people have screaming fights in the garden for everyone to hear, like in EastEnders, and my dad is always drunk and we live in squalor. People pity us and I can’t bear it. I hate my dad so much. I hate him. I want to go back in time to before Helen ran away. I want my life back.

  Lara kicked us out. She actually kicked us out on to the street in the middle of the night. After I came downstairs and heard the screaming, I ran back upstairs and hid in Frances’ bottom bunk. I prayed they’d leave me alone. But then Lara came upstairs. I thought she was coming to check I was all right, but she put on the hallway light and opened Frances’ door, then she picked up my bag and started packing my things into it. She did the same with Marguerite’s stuff. She was about to carry the bags downstairs, and she turned around and said, ‘I know you’re awake, Miranda. Your dad’s calling a taxi. Go downstairs and wait with him. I’ll bring Marguerite down.’ I could hear she was trying to be kind and gentle with me, but she was obviously furious.

  I crept out of the bed and carefully smoothed the duvet into place and straightened the pillow. I stood on tiptoe to look at Frances in the top bunk. She was lying still, with her eyes closed. But I think she was pretending to be asleep. No one could have slept through the racket the adults had made.

  Except Marguerite, it turned out. I went downstairs and stood in the hallway. Dad was in the living room, talking to the taxi company on the phone. Lara came downstairs carrying Marguerite in her arms like a baby. Marguerite’s head was lolling back and her eyes were tight shut. Lara went into the living room, and I saw her put Marguerite on the sofa, then she went into the kitchen and slammed the door behind her. I stood in the doorway and looked at my dad. He’d finished his phone call and was standing looking down at his phone. The weirdest thing was, he didn’t look upset. It looked like he and Lara had just broken up, but he looked absolutely fine – happy even.

  The taxi took forever to come, and when it pulled up outside, Dad carried me out (I was still barefoot) and put me on the back seat, then ran in to get first our bags and then Marguerite. It was a minicab, an ordinary car, and Dad didn’t even strap me in. He sat with Marguerite still asleep on his lap and gave the driver our address. Helen would never, ever have let us go in a car not strapped in, or not in car seats when we were little. It was like Dad didn’t care about us at all. When the car started, Marguerite woke up. I don’t know why, of all the things that had happened, that was what woke her, but she woke up then and started to cry. I didn’t blame her. Dad kept patting her back and saying, ‘Shhh, sweetie, it’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.’ And he was smiling. Smiling! I hate him.

  I think he actually has gone mad, because he spent the whole weekend cleaning the flat again. He went to the supermarket and hired one of those carpet-cleaning machines, and he tidied and scrubbed everything in sight. He kept checking his phone and looking out of the window into the street. I don’t know why. I saw what Lara was like. I’m 100 per cent certain she isn’t going to forgive him for whatever he’s done. He didn’t seem sad or upset though. In fact, the opposite. He had this mad, happy energy and he kept grabbing Marguerite and kissing her and hugging her. He tried it once or twice with me, but I pushed him away hard. He had our uniforms all clean and ironed by Sunday afternoon, which was a first, and he even polished our school shoes.

  He got us to school super-early on Monday morning, and that was a relief, because there was no chance of us bumping into Lara. Frances ignored me in class. Not rudely, she just pretended she couldn’t see me. She can be cold when she wants to. I remember when she wanted to be my friend, because everyone did, and I thought she was too boring. Now she thinks she’s too good for me. It kind of helped me to get through the day, because I stayed furious with her, and it meant I didn’t worry about Dad.

  He came to pick us up at after-school club super-early, and Marguerite was annoyed because she’d been playing with one of her lame little friends and she didn’t want to go, but he practically dragged us out of there and hurried us home. He ran up the stairs and flung the door open. The post was all on the floor, where it had been pushed through the letterbox, and he grabbed it and went through the letters like a mad man. He found the one he was looking for – a big fat white envelope that looked like it had lots of pages in it. He dropped all the others on the floor and went into his bedroom and shut the door, leaving Marguerite and me in the hallway, with the front door wide open. I shut the door and tidied away our bags and shoes and the rest of the post, and took Marguerite into the kitchen to give her some juice and a biscuit. We went into the living room, and I’d just turned on the TV when Dad came bursting out of the bedroom. He looked terrible. I thought – he’s sick. He’s going to have a heart attack.

  ‘Come on, girls!’ he shouted. ‘We have to go now. NOW!’

  He was so scary that Marguerite and I ran to the hallway and put on our shoes. I thought – he has to get to the hospital or he’s going to die. He rushed us out of the flat and down the stairs and bundled us into the car. As he pulled out of the parking place, he was dialling on his phone.

  ‘Daddy, you shouldn’t use your phone when you’re driving!’ said Marguerite, alarmed, but he ignored her. Whoever he phoned answered.

  ‘Mrs Goode?’ asked Dad. ‘Mrs Goode, it’s Sam Cooper, who used to live next door. Yes, I’m fine. Listen, Mrs Goode, I have an emergency. I can’t explain, but I need to ask you a huge favour. Can you look after my girls for a few hours? Please, Mrs Goode, I haven’t got anyone else to ask.’

  I don’t know what she said, but I assume it was yes, because Dad drove too fast down the road and then turned into our old road, the road where our house is. He pulled up, not even properly close to the pavement, and hurried me and Marguerite out of the back of the car. He dragged us up the path of the house next door to ours, where the old lady lives. She opened the door as he got there.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I don’t have time to explain, but this is life or death.’ And then he shoved us through the door. He didn’t even say goodbye.

  Mrs Goode put a hand on each of our shoulders, and we saw Dad go back towards the car, hesitate for a second and then run off down the road towards the station. And, surprise, surprise, Marguerite began to cry.

  Helen

  Luckily, Bruce Chertsey was the kind of person who had his work email on his phone and kept a constant eye on it, so when Helen sent him a message first thing on Saturday morning, he got back to her within the hour. They corresponded back and forth over the weekend, and she presented herself at the offices of QVA at nine on Monday morning. She waited anxiously in the reception area, and at a quarter past, Bruce strolled in, carrying two Caffè Nero takeaway cups and with his sunglasses nestled in the abundant curls on the top of his head. He gestured with his head for Helen to follow him, and went through to the boardroom. As she came into the room, he handed her one of the cups. ‘Cappuccino okay?’ he said by way of greeting. She nodded and they sat down.

  ‘We’re taking a gamble on you, that’s for sure,’ he said, without preamble.

  ‘I appreciate that, and I won’t let you down,’ said Helen.

  ‘And you’re available immediately?’

  ‘I am, but officially I’m on gardening leave from SSA. . .’

  There was a telephone on the conference table and Bruce pulled it towards himself, without taking his eyes off Helen. He picked it up, hit 0 and said, ‘Gaynor, get me Simon Stanley at SSA.’

  A few seconds later, the phone rang once and Bruce picked it up. ‘Sim
on,’ he said, with easy camaraderie, ‘how are you, you bald bastard?’ He listened for the reply, which Helen assumed included a few choice but friendly insults because Bruce had poached her from him. Then Bruce said, ‘Listen, you’ve put our lovely Helen on gardening leave, is that right?’

  Simon replied in the affirmative.

  ‘What if we pay you the equivalent of her notice pay right now, and you promise not to sue her for breach of contract? I need her for something, and I need her now. Nothing in your field, so it’s not a direct competition thing.’

  Simon, to his credit, did his best to haggle and negotiate, but Bruce’s bluff, charming manner hid a core of steel. Simon managed to argue for a slightly higher compensation payment, but in the end agreed to release Helen from her contract immediately. Bruce signed off with a few more posh-boy insults, and hung up.

  ‘Jaego’s in his office. He’s got the contract all drawn up. Sign now, and we’re good to go.’

  Helen nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t disappoint me, Helen. I’m going to need you to hit the ground running and make this thing work. I’ll make sure you have all the briefing notes you need, and we’ll set you up with a company credit card that you can take with you before you go.’

  They shook hands, and Helen went to see Jaego in his office next door. Forty-five minutes later, she stepped out on to the pavement. There was a light, cold breeze, which ruffled her hair and made her draw in a sharp breath. She had an enormous amount to achieve today, and very little time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Helen

  My darling Sam,

  Do you remember at our wedding, when you made your speech, you told the story of when you fell in love with me? You began to speak, with all the usual raucous ‘how the hell can we believe you’ chanting from Tim and your mates, but as you talked about meeting me on the stairs and how I smiled at you, everyone went quiet and then erupted in a collective ‘Awwww’. It was beautiful.

  It was my job on that day to sit beside you and look demure and mute, and blush when you complimented me, and laugh when you said ‘my wife and I’ for the first time, and I did all of that. Nobody, including you, has ever asked to hear the story of when I first fell in love with you. So I thought I would begin this letter by telling you.

  A few months after we started dating, I was offered a training course in Edinburgh. You probably don’t remember it, because it wasn’t a huge deal. Just a week in Edinburgh, staying in a hotel and doing intensive work on the new phenomenon that was social media. Except to me it was a huge deal, and not only because I’d only ever been to two cities in my life – Brisbane and London.

  You see, I was married before, and the relationship was. . . not good. His name was Lawrence. We got together when we were still at school, and he proposed at my graduation dinner. I thought he was the love of my life, and it wasn’t until I was much older that I realized I believed that because he had always told me it was true.

  He was always jealous and possessive; when I was sixteen, that was flattering and exciting, but as we got older, he became more obsessive. He wouldn’t let me do anything without him – he used to follow me around and phone me ten times a day when we were apart.

  Then, when I was at university, I was offered the chance to go away and do some work experience in Sydney. It was a great opportunity – they only gave it to the top students on the course, and it almost always led to improved prospects and a job after graduation, or at the very least a great addition to your CV. I was so excited. I had such ambitious plans for my career. I’d made a wish-list of all the things I wanted to do: work in Sydney, win an award, work in at least two other countries and then launch my own agency. It looked like my first step was there for the taking.

  But Lawrence couldn’t let it happen. I think he knew that if I went, I wouldn’t come back, or at least I would ultimately outgrow him and move away. So he bullied and begged and threatened me. He told me that the only reason I’d been offered it was because my lecturer wanted to sleep with me, that I wasn’t all that talented, that I’d fall apart if I went to stay nine hundred kilometres away from him. He browbeat me until I was exhausted, and in the end I didn’t fill in the application forms and the opportunity went away. And at that moment a door closed, and my world got a little bit darker.

  That may seem like a strange analogy, but let me explain. When I was a little girl, my mum and dad were the most positive and encouraging people in the world. They used to tell my sister Judy and me that we could do anything and be anything we wanted. My dad used to say, ‘Life is like a long, light corridor. When you’re born, all the doors are open, and there’s lots of light flooding the corridor, in all different colours. As you go down the corridor, if you’re not careful, things can happen that close the doors one by one. The corridor gets dark, and you have fewer and fewer doors that you can go through. Those doors are all doors of opportunity. So keep them all open, and if a chance comes to go through one, say yes. Go through it. You might choose to come straight back out again, but go.’

  Lawrence was a door shutter. He shut doors, locked them and then kept all the keys. He kept doing it until I was all alone, in a pitch-dark corridor. Then something terrible happened, and he went to jail, and I was granted the tiniest chink of light.

  I fled to London, and I came to live in Willesden Green and worked at Superhero Inc., where I met you.

  You probably don’t know this, but I was terrified, all the time. I did my best to work hard and be nice to everyone, but I was totally faking it. It was the first time I had lived way from home, and the first time I had left Brisbane, let alone Australia. I didn’t know what to do or how to act. So I fell back on being the ‘good girl’. My parents taught me obedience as a child, and I learned the lesson well. I learned to be biddable and helpful and nice, because then people would like me. I was always polite, well behaved, neatly dressed, with beautiful handwriting and nice manners. A girl who got all As and was praised for her excellent cross-country running times and her citizenship and her lovely sponge cake and her smooth hair.

  So I was good when I moved to London, and that helped me get by. People liked me and I did well at work, and my housemates enjoyed the fact that I cleaned and cooked nice meals for them all.

  I was back in a corridor of light – there were quite a lot of doors open that hadn’t been opened before – and I was beginning to move along it, tentatively but happily.

  And then along you came, and you made my heart ache, with your grief and your sweet little girls and your handsome, handsome face. I liked you so much, but I remember the exact moment I knew I loved you.

  Wow. . . I’ve written a great big loop, and I’m back to the point I was making at the beginning of this letter. The training course in Edinburgh. It was perfect for me – just the qualification I needed to take me a notch up the career ladder. But when the email from my manager, Sinead, landed in my inbox, my heart sank, and I felt a door slam and the light dim a little. How could I go? It fell in a week when we’d planned to go and see a play, and have dinner with your mum and dad for the first time. There was no way you’d let me go. I’d have to tell my manager I couldn’t do it, make an excuse and swallow the disappointment. I put off sending the email and made myself busy with another task.

  And then, an hour or so later, you came and perched on the edge of my desk and folded your arms.

  ‘I like shortbread,’ you said.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I like shortbread, but don’t buy me a tartan anything. So tacky.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sinead told me she’s sending you on the social media course. It sounds brilliant. Just don’t bring me a teddy bear in a kilt, okay? Although Marguerite might like one.’

  ‘But I can’t go. . .’ I stuttered. ‘Your mum and dad, and the tickets for the play. . .’

  ‘Don’t be crazy!’ You laughed. ‘We can go and see my mum and dad the following week, and I haven’t booked
yet for the play. It’s the most brilliant opportunity, and I’m so proud of you for getting this chance.’

  And you leaned forward and kissed me lightly on the lips, which was a shock, because we hadn’t told anyone at work that we were seeing each other yet. Then you winked at me, and winked at Emma Jane, who sat next to me (remember her, the one we used to call the Dementor?), and you went back to your desk.

  I sat there, dazed. Blinded by the light. And all of a sudden, I realized that there was another kind of relationship – the kind where the person you are with doesn’t close doors, they open them. They open them and push you through, or they take your hand and go through the doors with you. And I thought, Sam is that opener of doors. And I love him.

  And of course I didn’t just fall in love with you. I was already in love with Miranda and Marguerite. Miranda, with her straight back and serious air, at three, already such a perfectionist. I saw so much of myself in her. And Marguerite, who would toddle up to me and curl up in my arms like a soft little animal, utterly trusting. I’d had very little experience of children before – none of my own, and no nieces or nephews. Lawrence wouldn’t allow me to have friends, so I never got to know the children of friends either. I wasn’t maternal, by which I mean I had never wanted any of my own, but I fell in love with your daughters in a way I never believed possible.

  And so now I was in love with all three of you, and I wanted our lives together to be perfect. I know it’ll come as no surprise to you, Sam, but I’m a perfectionist. When I came into your lives, you were messy with grief, living with your parents and struggling to get by financially, and there were so many opportunities for me to help, to bring order to your lives.

  I could help financially first; with my income, we were able to get our own place. But then you got the promotion, and I lost my job. I was devastated. I wanted to look for another, but you managed to persuade me it was best for all of us if I stayed home as you’d be away so much. It wouldn’t have been my choice at all, but that was how the chips had fallen, so I made the best of it. I really did. I did my absolute best, looking after the girls.