Just What Kind of Mother Are You?

by Paula Daly

  Joanne kneels down and puts her fingers to his neck. ‘Weak pulse, we need to get this off.’ The remaining shirtsleeve is continuing to cut into his throat. It too has been pulled taut with the weight of him. Joanne tries to slip her fingers underneath, but she can manage only one.

  ‘Jesus!’ says McAleese. ‘We’re going to lose the cunt. Joanne, breathe some air into him.’

  She fires a look at McAleese, hesitates, then does as she’s asked. There’s no time to get the resuscitation shield. All the while, McAleese is cutting at the shirt with the blade of his Swiss Army knife.

  Joanne feels sick to her stomach as she holds Peterson’s nose and covers his lips over with hers. He tastes of coffee. Sweet. The images from the memory card his wife brought in are coming thick and fast.

  Breathe in. Blow out. Naked girls’ bodies. Breathe in. Blow out.

  Christ, she could stick her fingers to the back of his eye sockets and drag out his fucking brain rather than do this.

  Breathe in. Blow out.

  Breathe in.

  McAleese has cut through the cotton and tells Joanne to stop. Says Peterson’s colour is returning.

  ‘Let’s see if the fucker can breathe,’ McAleese says, and they watch as his chest begins to rise.

  Seconds later, his eyelids flicker.

  McAleese shoots Joanne a look to keep on her guard lest this wacko goes for her.

  McAleese says, ‘Thought we’d lost you for a second there, Peterson.’

  Mervyn’s eyes open wide. He’s disorientated. Perhaps he thinks this is heaven, Joanne thinks fleetingly.

  ‘Can’t let you go popping off like that when you’ve raped three little girls, now, can we?’ McAleese says.

  Mervyn looks at them, confused. ‘Three?’ he asks.

  41

  I’M STANDING ON the doorstep of a picture-postcard cottage on the outskirts of Grasmere village, thinking about puppies. Why do so many people choose a puppy rather than an adult dog? Why, when they are so ill-equipped to deal with them?

  I’ve rung the doorbell, but the front curtains are drawn. There’s no movement from inside. The Doberman must be round the back. If it was in there I’d have heard it barking by now.

  Puppies are hard work. They crap, they chew, they cost money. The adult dogs we rehome come neutered, vaccinated and chipped. That’s around a hundred and sixty quid saved right there. But everyone wants a puppy. Because how do you know you’re not taking on someone else’s problem dog?

  They fail to realize that it is they who will be producing another problem dog.

  I glance around me while I wait. The cottage is one in a run of four. They are nicely set; far enough back from the road. It’s a good spot. Clematis is growing around each door, brown and ugly right now but I imagine it looks lovely in the summer. There’s no activity at the other cottages save for an electrician’s Transit parked in front of the house next door. Each has that tidy soullessness of a holiday home.

  I ring again and a figure appears behind the frosted glass. The door swings open and, instinctively, I take a step back, because the sight before me is rather alarming. It’s around 1.15 p.m. and the woman I’m looking at is wearing a dressing gown. Her yellow hair is everywhere, and she has lipstick smeared across her cheek, almost all the way to her left ear. I’d put her at mid-forties. Attractive, but haggard.

  ‘I’ve come to collect the dog. The Doberman?’

  ‘Come in.’

  There’s no hallway; we’re straight into the living room. ‘Have you been burgled?’ I ask, because there is stuff strewn everywhere.

  ‘What?’ she says, giving the room a brief scan. ‘Oh, no … I’ve just not had time to tidy up.’

  There’s an ashtray piled high with fag ends on the floor next to the sofa. Grey stains on the carpet nearby, where she’s kicked it over a few times. The coffee table is covered with discarded clothes, mugs, paper documents, wine bottles, DVDs, underwear.

  Loose Women is on the TV, but it’s been muted. I think she may have been asleep on the sofa when I knocked, because there’s a duvet hanging half on, half off.

  ‘Sorry about the mess,’ she says, shifting some clothes off the other sofa so I can sit down. ‘I’ve had a bit of a bad week.’

  ‘Is the dog outside?’

  ‘In the shed.’

  ‘I’ll need some details before I can take him … her?’

  ‘Him. Diesel,’ she replies.

  ‘Is he your dog to give away?’ I ask.

  ‘No he’s my husband’s … shortly to be ex-husband.’

  I give her a weak smile.

  ‘I’ll need your husband’s consent, then,’ I say, and she drops her head back against the sofa as if it’s going to be a problem.

  I decide to fill out what I can for now and worry about that part later. She tells me her name is Mel Frain. Her husband’s name is Dominic.

  ‘Has the dog been neutered?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How old is he?’

  ‘Eighteen months. He was good at first, then he got to tearing up the house, so recently we’ve had to keep him out there.’ She motions with her hand towards the back of the house.

  ‘Any health problems?’

  ‘No. Listen,’ she says standing up, her dressing gown gaping open, ‘I need a drink, you want one?’

  ‘Tea, please.’

  ‘I meant a proper drink. I’m having wine.’

  ‘Bit early for me.’

  ‘Okay. Well, excuse me, will you, while I get myself one.’

  She goes out, I hear the fridge opening and she returns with a supersized bottle of Pinot Grigio and two glasses with lipstick marks around the rims, fingerprints on the stems.

  ‘Brought you a glass in case you change your mind. I’ve got no tea.’ She bends forwards to pour. Distracted, I see she has a pair of fake boobs that are strangely buoyant even though she’s without a bra, and I wonder if she’s one of those poor women who unwittingly got the industrial-grade silicon implants. She’ll probably need to have them whipped out after Christmas.

  Mel Frain takes a huge gulp of wine, sighs and sits back. ‘Sorry about that. I’m finding it hard to get through the day at the moment.’

  I nod, not really wanting the adultery story that’s clearly heading my way.

  ‘I came home last week,’ she says without emotion. ‘Found my husband in bed … with my dad.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ I say. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Threw up.’

  ‘Understandable.’

  She nods.

  ‘So where are they now?’ I ask.

  ‘Fucked off to Sitges on the Costa Dorada for Christmas.’

  ‘What about your mum?’

  ‘She’s pretending it’s not happened.’

  I blow out my breath in a whistle.

  ‘Sorry I can’t keep the dog,’ she says, ‘but I work all day. And he needs walking, and I haven’t got the energy – the state of things as they are.’

  ‘We’ll find him a good home,’ I reply, thinking there’s no use in trying to contact her husband to authorize Diesel’s removal. ‘Okay,’ I say, handing her the form. ‘Just sign at the bottom there and I’ll go and meet him.’

  We get Diesel into the cage in the back of my car. His nails could do with a trim but other than that he’s in good health. Handsome-looking dog with a lovely shiny coat. I’ve got high hopes.

  As I’m shutting the boot, the electrician’s van in front pulls away and I see another car is now parked further along outside the other cottage next door. I turn to Mel Frain. She’s crying a little after saying goodbye to Diesel.

  ‘See that car?’ I say. ‘Have you seen it here before?’

  ‘Comes and goes,’ she replies. ‘It’s a holiday home. I think that’s the owner’s car.’

  ‘When did you last see it?’

  ‘Couple o’ days ago, maybe.’

  There’s that itch again, the one at the back of my brain. Difference is, now I can rea
ch it.

  I look at the registration.

  Kate’s car.

  42

  I’M NOT SURE HOW long I’ve been standing here for. It can only be minutes, but it feels longer. Mel Frain has disappeared inside to get back to her wine, and the rear windows of my car are beginning to steam up from Diesel’s panting breath. I open the driver’s door, put the key in the ignition and lower the back windows down an inch. Dogs die in hot cars is what I must be thinking.

  But my eyes are on that house. The end one in the line of four.

  Why is Kate’s car here? She’s only just got out of hospital.

  I walk over and stand outside the front door. It’s an odd feeling. Like the calm before the storm. I could turn around now and not face this. I could get in the car, drive back to the shelter and pretend like I never saw. And maybe the person I used to be would do exactly that. Because she avoided confrontation, she didn’t challenge authority.

  I go to knock but, at the last second, I stop. Instead I move a couple of steps to my right and peer in through the window. I see Kate and Lucinda on the floor with a big cardboard box. They’re unpacking decorations for the Christmas tree. For a moment I think that Kate and Guy must have a Christmas booking – people don’t like arriving with the place not looking festive.

  And then relief floods through me, almost knocking me sideways. Lucinda is here. Alive. I stifle a sob as I watch her. She’s safe. Thank God she’s safe.

  Then my eyes move to Kate and my blood runs cold.

  I move away from the window and back to the door. Silently, I try the handle.

  It’s locked.

  My breath’s coming out in raggedy gasps. I try to calm myself but, as I rummage through my memory of the last four days, the anger’s building. I feel like the fool I’ve been taken for, and I now know I have to stop thinking and do something.

  I walk around the side of the house and try the back gate. It’s open. Gently, and without sound, I push against it.

  I’m in the garden. It’s been paved for easy maintenance with the odd pot here and there. In the corner is a barbecue covered up for the winter, and a picnic bench painted in a stupid duckegg colour that’s classic Kate. It’s her trademark. She’d paint everything in that colour if she could.

  The back door is a split stable door. It’s unlocked, so I slowly go in and look around the kitchen, stunned. There’s a freshly bought baguette out on the worktop. Kate must have picked it up from the bakery on her way over here. The smell of the bread fills the room. It’s their lunch, to be eaten when they’ve finished the Christmas tree, and I can just picture them, mother and daughter – best friends, as Kate always told me they were – eating happily.

  I hear voices. I can’t make out the actual words, but the tone is light, happy, normal. The hatred I’m feeling now is almost paralysing.

  Next to the baguette is a bread knife. I pick it up. It feels light in my hand. It’s cheap. The type you’d buy from Poundstretcher or B&M Bargains because you begrudge spending on an expensive item if it’s not going to be for you. I waggle it around in the air. For a moment I’m the mad woman. The woman who’s come to take revenge.

  I close my eyes for a second, steadying myself, then I hear movement from behind the door to the front room. Stepping forward, I open it fast.

  Kate is on the other side. She doesn’t speak when she sees me, just stares.

  She’s no longer the haunted vision of the past few days. Now, she seems healthy, robust, and I wonder how that’s even possible: how could you fake that kind of grief?

  Her eyes move to the knife at my side and she blinks rapidly.

  Lucinda is still unaware. She’s got her back to us and is threading baubles on the branches of the tree, chatting to her mother. Her movements are slower than they ought to be though, her speech dragging somewhat.

  She’s dressed in a hoodie and pink sweatpants. Her neatly bobbed hair swings forwards as she bends.

  Kate speaks without turning around to her daughter. She doesn’t want to take her eyes off the knife. ‘Lucinda, sit down on the sofa, sweetpea.’

  Lucinda turns and gapes when she sees me standing in the doorway.

  I glare at her.

  ‘Did your mother tell you it was me they blamed for your disappearance?’

  Lucinda doesn’t answer, looks to her mum for guidance.

  ‘Did she?’ I demand.

  Lucinda nods. Her face registers fear, but her eyes are glassy; she’s not quite with it.

  Kate tries to take a step towards me, but I raise the knife. ‘Don’t,’ I warn her, and she retreats.

  I’m shaking. I know I’m shaking, but this is what I have to do. I’ve been seized by the certainty that if I don’t stop this woman, she’ll go on to destroy others. I hold the knife out in front of me, brandishing it like a machete.

  ‘Lisa,’ Kate says, ‘what are you doing?’

  And I laugh.

  ‘Why me?’ I ask her. ‘Why did you think you could do it to me?’

  She stays silent. Still staring at the knife.

  ‘Answer me!’

  ‘Because I knew you would blame yourself. I knew you would blame yourself and I—’ She stops, smiles lightly in my direction.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Anyone else would have fought it,’ she explains. ‘They would have picked holes in it, but I knew you wouldn’t. I knew you’d blame yourself without question … and you were always so pushed for time, you could never really attend to things the way you needed to.’

  I look past her to Lucinda, who’s rolling the hem of her hoodie between her fingers. ‘You know your mother is fucking deranged, don’t you?’

  ‘Lisa!’ Kate admonishes sternly. ‘Language, please.’

  ‘You know she’s mad?’

  Lucinda won’t look at me.

  ‘Who the fuck kidnaps their own kid?’ I shout at them both.

  Kate spreads her hands wide. ‘Someone who’s desperate to save her marriage,’ she replies earnestly.

  ‘And you went along with this?’ I snap at Lucinda. ‘You just went along with it?’

  ‘I thought it would make Daddy come home.’

  ‘From where?’

  ‘Daddy has another family,’ Lucinda says. ‘It makes us all so sad. We thought that if we could make him see, then he would stop.’

  ‘What family?’ I ask, thrown. ‘What other family?’

  Neither of them answers so I turn back to Kate. ‘This is fucking child abuse. Look at what you’ve done to her. She thinks this is normal. She thinks this is—’

  ‘She wants her daddy back – what’s so wrong with that?’

  ‘What’s wrong is that they’ll put you away for this, so she won’t have a mother or a father. And why’s she speaking like that? All slurry? Have you drugged her or something?’

  ‘Lisa, calm down. I can see you’re angry. I understand that, I would be angry in your shoes. But we really didn’t have a choice. We tried to get him to stay with us, and he wouldn’t.’

  I can’t take in what she’s saying. I can’t believe she’s actually done this on purpose.

  ‘How could you?’ I say, confounded. ‘How could you stand there crying when I begged for your forgiveness, knowing what you were doing to me?’

  She shrugs as if to say there was no other option. She did what she had to do.

  ‘But we were friends,’ I say to her, and she turns away.

  I think about how broken Sally became over this, blaming herself for Lucinda’s disappearance.

  I think about how guilt-ridden both of us were at what transpired from our mistake. A mistake we never actually made. Both of us feeling like failures – me as a mother, Sally as a friend.

  Suddenly I can see myself clearly. I see how easy it must have been for Kate to pin this on me. Because she’s right. Of course I wouldn’t question it. Of course it would be all my fault. The woman who spreads herself too thinly, the woman who doesn’t feel good enough, who acts less than
. She will always be an easy target.

  I look at Kate now and I’m embittered that I allowed this to happen to my family. Then a thought occurs: ‘How were you going to bring her back home?’ I ask. ‘There are two police forces out looking for Lucinda. What were you going to do, smuggle her back in and pretend that it never happened?’

  ‘Lisa, why don’t you put the knife down so we can talk properly?’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  Lucinda speaks up from the sofa. ‘I was going to say I’d run away.’

  ‘To where?’

  ‘Here,’ says Kate. ‘Lucinda knows this house. She comes along with me and Guy when we’re checking the properties. She could hop on a bus outside school and get here unnoticed – if she knew where the keys were kept. Which she does. On the hooks in Guy’s office. We have over ten empty properties at the moment; because of the time of year, Guy wouldn’t notice if one set of keys wasn’t where it should be.’

  ‘Would probably have his mind on other things,’ I say sarcastically, ‘what with his daughter missing, and his wife—’ I don’t finish the sentence.

  Studying Kate’s face, I say, ‘What about the overdose? Why would you do that? What mother would leave her children alone … regardless of whether she has a marriage or not—’

  ‘I knew you’d find me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I knew you’d find me,’ she repeats, and my mouth drops open.

  ‘How?’

  ‘You sent me a text,’ she says simply. ‘You sent a text saying you were on your way over. And I thought it’s either now or never … I didn’t take as many pills as you thought. It wasn’t as risky as they made it out to be—’

  ‘You did that to get Guy back?’

  I’m dumbfounded as she nods her head as if to say It’s what anyone would have done, Lisa. Really, it is.

  ‘You’re insane.’

  ‘We all have secrets, Lisa.’

  I swallow.

  ‘Every one of us is hiding something we don’t want the world to know about. Remember? We all want everyone to think our family’s perfect, that we got it right. Well, I did get it right. I did everything right. And it still went wrong. And I’m sorry, Lisa, but I just wasn’t willing to accept that. I fought for my family. I did what I needed to do.’