Fear

by Nina Manning

  I smiled and shrugged, ‘Why not.’ I wasn’t averse to the odd ciggy these days, since Stella at work had dragged me back to the dark side.

  ‘I’m just going to go for a waz, the fags are in my coat pocket. Crack them open.’ Nancy jumped down from the stool and clicked off to the hallway and the toilet. I pushed myself away from the island and walked round to the chair her coat was slung over. I rooted around in the right-hand pocket and felt only a packet of chewing gum. I put my hand in the left pocket and sucked my breath in as my finger came into contact with something small and sharp. I pulled my finger out and there was a tiny dot of blood on the tip. My hand had already brushed against the cigarette packet so I lifted them out, placed them on the side and then went back in to find the offending object that had pricked me. I went in with my thumb and forefinger and felt the familiar shape of an earring. As I lifted it out and looked at it I clamped my left hand over my mouth as I stared at the piece of jewellery that was already so familiar to me. I had the other one to the matching pair in the box on my dressing table.

  I threw the earring back into the pocket, ripped open the packet of fags and found a lighter in a drawer. My head was awash with thoughts; if Nancy had one earring in her pocket then she was missing the other one. A million reasons were catapulting through my head. Could it have fallen by the edge of the bed weeks ago when Nancy and I were in my bedroom going through some of my old clothes for the charity shop, and maybe Damian had moved the bed and…

  ‘Oooh, you’re keen!’ Nancy came clicking back into the kitchen as I stood poised with a cigarette in one hand and a lighter in the other. She went to the back door and opened it and I walked round to shut the kitchen door so none of the smoke would go upstairs into the kids’ rooms.

  Nancy sat back in her chair and took a cigarette from the packet. I took a ramekin from the cupboard to use as an ashtray.

  All the while my inner monologue was screaming at her. ‘Why were you in my bedroom when I was away in Belgium, is this why you knew Mason had the dinner party at his house, is that why you don’t want me to talk about my separation. Are you fucking my husband?’

  ‘Gosh, it’s gone cold now, hasn’t it?’ Nancy put her arms around herself.

  ‘Yes. Makes you glad we’re not homeless,’ I said with a slight shake to my voice. I felt I couldn’t even look at Nancy. My mind jolted to thoughts of Todd, hoping he was safe and warm in the hostel.

  ‘Well, it was touch and go but we did alright, kid.’ Nancy took a long drag on the cigarette and blew a smoke ring. ‘The likes of Todd and co didn’t do so well, I know.’

  ‘I saw him today,’ I said bluntly.

  ‘I haven’t seen him for a while, last time I saw him he was parked up on a bench at the top of town with a load of winos,’ she giggled, and I narrowed my eyes at her.

  ‘No, I mean I really saw him, I met him at the park. I gave him some money for a hostel this week.’

  ‘God, Frankie, why? That guy was a total crackhead and nearly took you down with him. He doesn’t deserve any of your time.’

  ‘We were in love once, Nancy. And he came to me to reach out for help. Said he’s had enough of being on the streets.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know why you are so nice, but you are.’

  ‘You think I’m a pushover?’ I thought of the earring in her coat pocket.

  Nancy frowned and sucked on her cigarette.

  ‘No,’ she said as she blew the smoke out. ‘I just think, well some people are never going to come good. I mean, he was fit at the time, and you guys were cute, but he was doing all that heroin!’ Nancy wrinkled her nose and I eyed her suspiciously.

  Nancy was a girl I had known since I was eleven years old. We were drawn together because we were both growing our fringes out and sporting the biggest Alice bands our foreheads could accommodate. But there was no denying, as we sat downing red wine and smoking cigarettes as though we were still those pre-pubescent schoolgirls waiting for the boys to grow up and notice us, that something had shifted. I suddenly had doubts about my best friend, and I didn’t know how to deal with that.

  Nancy finished her cigarette, stubbed it out and started telling me about the pay increase she had been offered and the fact she was getting her nails done at a different salon this month because her usual girl was on holiday. As much as I usually relished these low level conversations where I let Nancy rant about the mundane aspects of her life, and I would nod along, just happy to be in her company, I couldn’t help but think that today suddenly all that was gone, that Nancy had been here in this house when I wasn’t and that I couldn’t and shouldn’t trust her.

  45

  Now

  I almost catapulted out of my bed as I heard the crash. There was a low moan from one of the children’s rooms, but I couldn’t make out which one. I ran to Maddox’s room first, but he was sound asleep. I then scuttled down the hallway to Pixie’s room. The hallway light was on and I could see immediately into her room. Her bed was a midi high rise with a built-in bookshelf and desk underneath. I remember the day we built it for her. I was pregnant with Maddox, yet I was so relaxed while Damian was the total opposite. His face was red and angry as he struggled with the instructions and keeping the Allen key in sight.

  I looked into Pixie’s room and what was left of her bed. I could see my daughter trying to sit upright, although the main frame of the bed had collapsed and had half slid off the side where the bookshelf was. I ran over to the bed and put my arms around Pixie who was sitting silently, still in shock and still half asleep. She automatically put her arms around my neck like she did when she was little, and wrapped her legs around my waist. I carried her away from the wreckage; my heart was thumping hard in my chest and my breathing was fast.

  ‘It’s ok, darling,’ I whispered into her neck.

  ‘Mummy,’ Pixie murmured. I took her to my room, laid her down and tucked her in on Damian’s side. With some light cascading in through a gap in the curtains and the hallway light I could see her expression, a look of confusion.

  ‘It’s okay, darling, you sleep in with Mummy tonight.’ I stroked her head until she closed her eyes again and drifted off. I walked back over to her bedroom and hit the main light switch and assessed the carnage from the doorway, rubbing the back of my neck in bewilderment. I walked over to the bed, with the memory of Damian’s angry face while trying to attach the pieces together and the sound of my laughter reverberating around the stark room that didn’t have enough furniture in it yet to absorb sound.

  I walked over to the bed that had slid down over the shelves. Pixie’s beautiful books had been pushed off and a couple of their spines had been crushed. I bent to pick one up and saw a large silver screw lying next to it. Getting down on my hands and knees I found three more screws. As I stood up I ran my hand across the frames, finding the points where Damian had drilled them in until they were so tight the only way they were coming out was by reversing the mechanism on the drill. As I felt my way up and along the frame, I discovered more screws missing and some that were half out of the wood, ready to fall at any moment. I took a step backwards with my arms wrapped around myself, trying to work it all out. My mind rushed through a handful of plausible explanations, but in the end all I could see was Damian’s angry face putting the screws in and then the same face as he removed them.

  The first thing I did in the morning was call a locksmith and book them to come out after work to fit new locks on all the doors. It looked as though it might rain so I took the car and arrived at my desk weary and worried. I was terrified something might happen to the children while they were at school today or that Damian might suddenly decide he was picking them up. I kept clock watching all day and found every task I did arduous.

  A few people were off with their annual head colds and I noticed Penelope’s desk lay empty all day. I didn’t ask after her, I relished the atmosphere without her. I went to lunch early to try to clear my head and my body automatically began walking to the sup
ermarket and the alleyway next to it. I looked in and saw a body hunched into a sleeping bag. A scruffily dressed man was standing next to him. He looked at me, his body swaying side to side.

  ‘Is that Todd?’ I asked, pointing at the body on the floor. He didn’t answer.

  ‘Is that Todd?’ I said louder, took his arms in my hands and almost shook him, but his eyes remained glazed over. I moved past him and into the alley. I bent down to the level of the hunched figure. The stench was so strong and pungent I had to cover my mouth and nose, finding some relief from the smell of the hand cream I had put on before I left the office.

  ‘Todd,’ I said through my hand.

  ‘Urrrgggh,’ came the voice. I pulled his head to one side and I could see he was barely conscious.

  ‘Fink ’e took too much,’ came a voice from behind me. It was the man with the dog called Blue, ‘I told ’im it was too much but ’e wouldn’t ’ave it.’

  ‘What did he take?’ I asked hurriedly.

  ‘Usual, some crack too. Injected, I fink.’

  ‘Oh God. Todd, stay here,’ I said. I realised Todd hadn’t used the money I gave him for the hostel. He had used it for drugs instead. I ran to the back of the Bliss offices where I had parked the car and drove it round to the road. I pulled up on the kerb.

  ‘Er, you can’t park there, young lady,’ came the voice of the supermarket security guard employed to keep out the drunks, ruffians and homeless.

  ‘Either help me or bugger off,’ I said as I went back into the alley and tried to lift Todd up. The security guard peered at us. I squatted on my heels, already panting. For a man who was probably severely malnourished, Todd weighed a tonne.

  ‘Are you helping or what?’ I said to the floating head of the security guard.

  He walked round and stood there with his hands in his pockets. ‘Well, if it means he isn’t going to be here any more.’ He bent down and lifted Todd over his shoulder.

  ‘You want him in here?’ he said when he reached the car. I raced in front of him and opened the back door. Maddox’s booster seat was there so I chucked it in the footwell and gestured to the back seat. ‘Just lay him there if you can.’

  The security guard threw him down with little care and I winced, but I knew Todd was out of it. I had seen him like that so many times before; it was strange to still be witnessing it all these years later.

  I raced round to the driver’s seat and accelerated down the road, out of the main town towards the hospital.

  I left my details with the doctor and asked them to call me as soon as he was stable, and made it back to work just as my hour was up.

  I slid into my desk and tried to remain calm, focus on my work, but by now it was an almost impossible task.

  I felt a presence next to my desk and looked up to see Stella, holding a pile of paperwork.

  She looked at me, taken back. ‘Good lunch break, was it?’

  ‘Yes, rushed,’ I said.

  ‘Thought so – you’ve got mud on your shirt.’ Stella pointed to my white blouse with the ruffle trim, which was now covered in a brown streak.

  ‘What were you doing? Mud wrestling?’ Stella snorted. I grabbed my scarf from the back of my chair and wrapped it round myself until it covered all of the ruffle.

  ‘Yeah, something like that.’

  ‘You coming to the pub at the end of the week? Freebie Friday!’ Stella looked wide-eyed at me like an excited child. I unexpectedly rolled my eyes which Stella clocked.

  ‘Take that as a no then?’ She placed the pile of paperwork down on my desk and I could feel the vibration as it landed with force.

  Two hours passed before I received a call from the hospital to say Todd was stable and would stay in tonight. I knew I couldn’t visit him and it would be at least tomorrow before he was discharged so I put those thoughts to one side for now and concentrated on getting the children picked up from school.

  I passed Mason’s office just before 4 p.m.. He was standing near the open doorway flicking through a folder.

  ‘I’m going now. Going to collect the kids.’

  He let out a sigh and edged a step closer to me; his left hand was turned over as though he was reaching out to me.

  I looked down at my feet. I knew how I felt about him, but it didn’t seem right. Not when I had so many other emotions running high. For a moment I considered telling Mason everything. Maybe if I did he could simply rescue me from it all.

  My instincts were telling me to throw myself into Mason’s arms, to bury myself into his neck and to allow him to do what I knew he had been imagining us doing together all this time. Every look and twinkle in his eye, his thoughts were etched all over his face. He couldn’t hide the passion he felt, and I had struggled as well. But now I was retreating from his outstretched hand that was offering me a lifeline. As soon as I placed my hand in his I knew all my problems would be gone. I would no longer need to worry about money, or who was trying to scare me, or what I was going to do with Todd, how I would help him. I knew Mason, with his years of life experience, his pragmatic approach to the world, his ever-growing love which was palpable and had become this force between us, would make my life so easy.

  This tension between us had been building since the day I sat in front of him all those weeks ago but my mind was needed elsewhere. Even though the temptation was there to just fall into his arms, I had to walk away.

  As I drove home I realised I hadn’t heard from Damian all day. He was due to see the kids tomorrow after school, but I would make sure that wasn’t happening now.

  I collected the kids from after school club, but I was wary of Damian showing up. I simply didn’t trust him any more.

  I piled the kids into the car just as it began to rain and we arrived home to find the locksmith already there, waiting outside in his van. I scooped the kids out of the car and went round to the driver’s side. He opened the door and stepped out.

  ‘Hi, thanks for coming at short notice.’

  ‘No problem.’ The locksmith was a short man in his late fifties with greying hair. He followed us into the house with his box of tools and placed them down at the front door.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Maddox said loudly.

  The locksmith raised his eyes to me as if to say. ‘You’d better answer this one.’

  ‘Silly Mummy broke the door so this nice man is going to fix it.’ I used my mother-ease voice to assure Maddox that everything was fine.

  ‘Oh, okay. I’m going to watch.’ Maddox sat down cross-legged next to the toolbox.

  I mouthed an exaggerated ‘sorry’ and offered to make him a coffee. I went through into the kitchen where Pixie was getting settled with her homework.

  ‘What is that man doing, Mummy?’

  ‘He is fixing the door,’ I said absently as I started to search through cupboards for something to make for dinner.

  ‘Did you break it?’

  ‘Yes, I did, honey.’

  ‘Like you broke my bed?’

  ‘That was an accident too. I will be sending it all back and getting a new one. I think it was probably faulty.’

  ‘I could have died, Mummy!’ Pixie said with terror in her voice.

  I breathed out unsteadily as the horrors of last night returned in a frightening vision in front of me.

  ‘Well, maybe not died, but I will certainly be speaking very sternly to whoever was responsible.’

  ‘Do you mean the man-yewell-facterers?’ Pixie said slowly and carefully as she took out various pens and pencils from her bag. I let out a sigh and went over to her and put my lips on her head.

  ‘Yes, the manufacturers.’ I stood there for a few moments, just breathing in her loveliness.

  ‘Shit, coffee!’ I broke away from Pixie.

  ‘Mummy, don’t swear!’

  ‘Sorry, darling,’ I said, opening the cupboard, then I screamed and stumbled backwards.

  ‘What, Mummy, what?’ Pixie was up and by my side. I put my hand over my mouth. There at the
front, next to a box of teabags, was a dead mouse.

  ‘Mummy, errghh!’ Pixie had both hands over her mouth.

  I could hear drilling coming from the front door so I knew Maddox wouldn’t hear the commotion.

  ‘I know, it’s disgusting.’ I moved forward and prodded it. I was surprised to find it wasn’t hard but still quite soft. I assessed the cupboard for holes, knowing that mice can squeeze through a hole the width of a biro but there was nothing, these units were still fairly new, installed when Maddox was a babe in arms.

  Shaking my head in bewilderment, I scooped the mouse up with a carrier bag and threw it in the bin outside. I made the coffee and took it through to the hallway. I placed it on the floor next to the locksmith’s box of tools.

  ‘Not long now, love, I’ll have this one finished in a mo and the other doors done in a jiffy.’

  I smiled weakly as Maddox stood and reached up to be held. I picked him up and tightened my grip around him.

  When the locksmith left me with a new set of keys I let out a small sigh of relief. But nothing made any sense yet. I knew Damian was frustrated and he was also angry at me for taking the job and throwing myself into it and therefore not paying any attention to us. But I couldn’t understand why he would want to try to hurt the kids. I also wondered if the dead mouse was also another prank to add to the devastation he had caused in Pixie’s room.

  I had taken the broken bed away and Pixie was sleeping on just a mattress, which she said was fun because it felt like camping, even though we had never been camping.

  That night, I checked on the children three times then I went around the house checking all windows. I stood at the kitchen window and shuddered at the thought of someone watching me.

  I headed upstairs, double-checking windows on the way up. I sat on my bed and wondered about the last time I had felt this way – the grief, the frustration. The guilt. But it occurred to me that it had been twenty years since I had felt this scared. I had written in my diaries and filled up so many of them, only to lock them away. Yet again, the thought of them sitting in the safe was becoming overwhelming, as though they were calling to me. I perched on the end of my bed and stared at the safe in the wardrobe.