The Perfect Girl

by Gilly MacMillan

  I want to lash out at Philip, to say something that will shame him, to ask him what is wrong with him, to tell him that he must have lost his mind and his daughter is his responsibility, not mine, but what stops me is that Chris is the father of Zoe’s sister.

  Whatever happens, Zoe is a child whose future we must consider, and Grace must be a part of that future, because she means the world to Zoe, and even emotionally retarded Philip Guerin would be able to recognise that if he’d seen them together before this day. Relationships with Chris, then, need to be managed. I know it’s what Maria would want.

  ‘It’s difficult for everybody,’ I say.

  I wonder how much Chris knows about Philip. I know that Maria told Chris that they had a spectacularly messy divorce, which is why there isn’t much contact between Zoe and her father. But that was before the concert. Chris might have more thoughts on that particular version of events now.

  Chris says, ‘I understand,’ but before we’re forced to continue like this Richard enters the room with the baby.

  ‘Could I give her to you for a bit, old man,’ he says to Chris, handing her over. ‘Just need to pop to the bathroom.’

  I hate that phrase when it comes from Richard. It can mean anything from the truth, that Richard’s bladder is full, to a euphemism for the bottle of something alcoholic being dragged out from the ‘hiding’ place under the bath and slugged back, at top speed, before a redundant flush of the loo tries to disguise the onset of the inevitable fumy breath and strained veins across his face.

  Chris takes Grace, who gives him a look of surprise as if to say, Fancy meeting you here.

  He sits her on the crook of his arm in an easy motion and they look at each other.

  ‘So like your mother,’ he says. He buries his face into her neck and she responds with a squeal of delight and wraps her arms around his head. Grace is good at hugging. They are intense, baby hugs, but all the better for it.

  ‘Thank God for you,’ Chris says to his daughter, with tears in his eyes, and I feel a bit of a lurch in my stomach, as I understand that Grace, who has my parents’ blood coursing through her veins, might live a life that’s very separate from our family now, and that thought is, if I’m honest, terrifying.

  Will Chris raise her and Lucas together in that big house? And where will Zoe be? Will Philip accept that he needs to raise his daughter, or will she be better off with us, or even with Chris, so she can be near her sister?

  ‘We have a lot to discuss,’ I say.

  ‘I know,’ says Chris.

  But neither of us can bear to start the conversation just then, and so we move away from each other, to the safety of different rooms. Philip stays sagged in his seat.

  SAM

  I can’t do up the strings of my hospital gown because they’ve got lost round the back of me somewhere. I’m humiliated by having to shuffle along holding it together to avoid everybody being able to see my underwear.

  The MRI scanner looks familiar to me from television but I’m not prepared for the noise once I’m inside it, or the discomfort of staying still for such a long period, my hands held above my head.

  Amidst the darkness of the machine and the thumping sounds that penetrate in spite of the headphones they’ve given me, I try to think about what Nick has told me and what it means for Tessa and Zoe.

  It means that unless somebody broke into the house, the chances are extremely high that somebody in Maria’s household murdered her, and the police will adjust their investigation accordingly. I think back to Tess’s arrival at my flat the night before, and her silence, and I wonder what it was she didn’t tell me.

  I think of Zoe in my office this morning and I hope to God that she was telling me the truth.

  I think of the magnetic waves that are passing through my body.

  I think of all the people in the waiting room and how almost all of them had family with them, or a friend, somebody to hold their hand, or at least to talk to. Self-pity creeps in and ratchets up the feelings of desperation and claustrophobia I’m experiencing.

  My relationship with Tessa is the best thing and worst thing about my life. I want nobody else, but while she stays with Richard I can’t have her.

  There is nothing I would like more, at this moment, than to know that she would be there when I emerge from this machine.

  It’s a terrible effort to keep still, but I tell myself I must because the very last thing I want is for this scan to have to be repeated.

  A voice comes through the headphones I’m wearing and tells me that they’re moving on to my spine now. The scan of my brain is complete.

  I wonder what the radiologist can see.

  ZOE

  The Family Liaison lady, who tells me to call her Stella, is everywhere I go. She has what she calls ‘just a little word’ with Richard, even though it’s more of a bursting fishing net of words if you ask me. She tells him that I was online on his computer and then says to him and to me, like twenty times, that it’s probably a good idea if I don’t go online at the moment because I might read something that wouldn’t be good for me to see.

  But I know that’s not just what she means. I know she’s watching me for signs to see if I’ve done something. And the thing is, I’m desperate to read the end of Lucas’s script.

  My dad’s in the kitchen and even though I’m still angry with him I figure he’s my best chance of reading the script because he still has his phone. He’s sitting in there on his own at Tess’s little kitchen table, which looks like it should be in a diner, with a cup of tea in front of him that he’s not drinking. He raises his eyes slowly and looks at me like he’s afraid that I’ll go off on one again.

  ‘Can I borrow your phone?’ I ask him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just for a minute.’

  He takes a deep breath, and I think he’s going to say ‘no’, but instead he says, ‘Zoe, I think it’s best if I stay in a hotel tonight, so it doesn’t put too much pressure on Tessa.’

  ‘Can I come with you?’ It would be good to get away from here, from the police, from Chris, and Richard, and all of the people. It would be good to be just me and Dad.

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. You should probably stay with the others.’

  ‘Why?’

  He can’t seem to answer that even though I’m standing right in front of him waiting for him to say something.

  ‘Why, Dad?’

  ‘Well…’ he says eventually, but I’m fit to burst by then because sometimes I feel like I can read his mind, and I know what he’s going to say, so I shout at him.

  ‘I didn’t do anything! Honestly, I swear it, what do you think I’m like?’

  ‘That’s not what I’m thinking; but there are other things to take into account if we’re talking about you coming back to Devon,’ and that sounds like he’s getting ready to tell me that he doesn’t want me, and it makes me feel as if some big heavy teeth have sunk into me.

  I try to blink back tears, and to focus only on what I want, which is his phone. I’ve already made a sore patch inside my mouth from the biting and I dig my molars into the soft, sore tissue there again and pull myself back into togetherness. Jason would be proud.

  ‘Can I borrow your phone, please?’ I ask him again. ‘I just want to look something up.’

  He hands his phone over to me, because he feels obliged now. Guilt is a good way to leverage people. Jason didn’t tell me that; nobody needed to tell me that. I learned it because my guilt about what I’ve done makes me bend the shape of myself to fit what other people want every day of my life.

  In the hallway I meet Stella, who reminds me of the sheepdog on the farm, always trying to round everybody up.

  ‘I’m just going to the loo,’ I say. I’ve slipped Dad’s phone under the waistband of my trousers, and my cardigan’s wrapped over it.

  I walk up the stairs, dragging my hand up the banister purposely slowly, so that she doesn’t think I’m rushing.

&n
bsp; I lock the bathroom door behind me and sit on the toilet.

  I can’t get on to Tessa’s WiFi on the phone because I don’t know the password for it and the phone doesn’t log in automatically like the computer did, but that’s OK because my dad is getting a 3G signal here so it takes no time to log into Mum’s email and access the script.

  The ending is so sad.

  ‘WHAT I KNOW’

  BY LUCAS KENNEDY

  ACT III

  INT. LUCAS’S BEDROOM. NIGHT.

  JULIA is sitting on LUCAS’s bed, reading him a bedtime story. She is very unwell.

  DYING JULIA (V.O.)

  At first, I lied to Lucas about my prognosis, because it was too painful to tell him the whole truth. I simply told him that I was unwell. But Lucas is a clever boy, and he very quickly worked out that it was worse than that.

  LUCAS

  Mum?

  JULIA

  Yes.

  LUCAS

  Are you going to die?

  JULIA

  Well, sometimes people who have this disease do die.

  LUCAS

  Can you get medicine to make you better?

  JULIA

  I have some medicine.

  LUCAS

  From the doctor?

  JULIA

  Yes, from the doctor.

  LUCAS

  And will it work?

  JULIA

  (struggling)

  No, my love, it probably won’t.

  They look at each other. JULIA is willing LUCAS to understand but wishing he doesn’t have to all at once.

  DYING JULIA (V.O.)

  He didn’t reply to me, but he never wanted to leave my side after that.

  INT. CHRIS’S OFFICE. NIGHT.

  CHRIS lies stretched out on his sofa, staring at the ceiling. We see from the clock on the wall and the darkness outside that it’s very late.

  DYING JULIA (V.O.)

  Chris took it hard too. But instead of sticking close to me, he withdrew. My illness repulsed him. He spent every hour possible out of the home.

  INT. HALLWAY OF THE KENNEDY HOUSE. DAY.

  The doorbell rings and LUCAS runs to answer it.

  DYING JULIA (V.O.)

  And this left us with a problem. Because, as a result of Chris’s behaviour, and in spite of the excellent nursing help that he organised, it was Lucas who inevitably became my main carer.

  LUCAS opens the door and a NURSE is there.

  LUCAS

  Hello, Annie.

  NURSE

  Hello, my friend! How’s she doing?

  LUCAS

  She’s a bit sad today. I think it hurts.

  NURSE

  OK, let’s see what we can do about that, shall we?

  Upstairs, LUCAS stands at JULIA’s bedroom door and watches as the NURSE greets her gently and begins to work around her.

  DYING JULIA (V.O.)

  And the fact that Lucas was seeing and doing things that he was too young for became unbearable to me. As was the fact that he was old enough to realise that Chris should have been there with us, caring for me too. So I decided that something had to change. I could think of only one thing to do, and it took all my strength to do it. It was time to be cruel to be kind.

  INT. THE KENNEDY FAMILY KITCHEN. MORNING.

  CHRIS is waiting in the doorway, holding a set of car keys and watching JULIA and LUCAS. JULIA is sitting down and LUCAS stands in front of her while she adjusts his uniform. JULIA’s arms and wrists look frail.

  DYING JULIA (V.O.)

  I forced him to leave me so that his life could be as normal as possible. It was the only way I could think to show him a way to go forward. He didn’t want to. He wanted to stay at home from school, to crawl into bed with me, spend every one of my last minutes with me, but I made him go to piano, to sports clubs, and to school.

  LUCAS

  (Tearful)

  I don’t want to go.

  JULIA

  You have to go.

  LUCAS

  Please.

  JULIA

  (snaps)

  Lucas, don’t argue with me!

  LUCAS is shocked and hurt by her tone of voice. He turns and follows his father out of the door wordlessly. The door shuts behind them and we see JULIA, alone in the room, utterly crushed.

  DYING JULIA (V.O.)

  And it broke my heart to do it. But I knew that if he was going to survive life with his father, he had to be strong, and so I had to force him away. And I knew, too, that things couldn’t carry on like this.

  INT. CHRIS AND JULIA’S BEDROOM. DAY.

  JULIA is in bed, looking even worse than before. The NURSE is in her room, unpacking medication.

  JULIA

  Could you do me a favour? Could you get me a pen and paper and something to rest on. You’ll find them in my desk drawer, downstairs.

  NURSE

  You going to draw me a picture?

  JULIA

  (smiles, though really she’s too tired for jokes)

  No. I want to write a letter. Could you get me an envelope too?

  NURSE

  Of course I will. Do you need a stamp?

  JULIA

  No.

  NURSE

  How’s Lucas?

  JULIA

  He went to school today. I didn’t think he would.

  NURSE

  That’s good. First time I’ve had to let myself in I think, so that’s what I was hoping. It’s not good for him to be here all the time.

  JULIA

  I know.

  NURSE

  He’ll be all right, you know.

  JULIA

  (we see her pain)

  I hope so, I really do.

  NURSE

  He’s a good boy, bless him.

  JULIA

  He is.

  INT. CHRIS AND JULIA’S BEDROOM. NIGHT.

  JULIA is propped up in bed, alone, and we see her finish writing something.

  DYING JULIA (V.O.)

  I wrote the letter. It was my ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ order.

  JULIA seals the letter in an envelope, carefully, and then laboriously places it in the top drawer of her bedside table, an action which costs her a large amount of effort. Inside the bedside table there’s a box, which she takes out. When she opens it, we see it contains a large number of pills.

  DYING JULIA (V.O.)

  And I counted the pills that I’d been hoarding, to make sure I had enough.

  Satisfied, she replaces the box in the drawer, beside the envelope, and turns out the light.

  EXT. A STREET NEAR CHRIS AND JULIA’S HOUSE. MORNING.

  LUCAS is walking to school. It’s a different day and he’s wearing a hat and coat. The camera follows him on his way.

  DYING JULIA (V.O.)

  After that, it was a matter of waiting for a school day.

  We see LUCAS sitting in a lesson at school, unable to concentrate. He stares at his book while the TEACHER drones on.

  DYING JULIA (V.O.)

  It was a harsh thing to do, I know, but I saw it as a way of releasing him from the last few weeks of my life, saving him from seeing me wracked with pain, and out of control of my body. I wanted our parting to be cleaner, tidier, and easier for him to bear.

  We see LUCAS in the school dining hall, picking through his lunch box, rejecting everything in there. He checks his phone, sends a text to JULIA, and waits for the reply.

  DYING JULIA (V.O.)

  But timing is everything, and Lucas texted me just after I’d taken the pills, and lain back in my bed, and placed the letter on my chest. And, when I didn’t answer, he sensed that something was wrong.

  LUCAS stares at his phone. Then he tries to call JULIA on her mobile, and on the landline. There’s no answer. LUCAS runs from the school dining hall, and out of the main school doors and starts to sprint home.