Sara's Child

by Susan Elle

  However, Logan’s business with the visitor has taken a long time. Long enough that Catherine has made her way back to the terrace and is sipping a glass of iced orange juice, freshly prepared for her by the inestimable Aida. With the French windows open, she can clearly hear Logan outlining a property refurbishment deal to someone. It doesn’t sound to Catherine like he is talking about doing up just any little building, not with the huge amounts of money she’s heard him mention. Mmm, I wonder if Logan can find us some new office premises at a reasonable price. If any prices can be called reasonable these days!

  Then she hears the visitor speak for the first time, his Welsh accented voice deep and distinctive. She stands reflexively, the glass slipping unnoticed from her hand. Walking backwards, she stumbles off the terrace on to the surrounding grass and freezes, completely immobile.

  That voice! This one’s a beauty; I can cut toes off in a blink, watch. No, no, Oh God, please no. See, now listen to those lovely screams – that’s what real pain sounds like, little girl. I can’t breathe...I can’t...

  She hasn’t even noticed their conversation conclude; hasn’t stopped hearing the sound of that voice...that voice...that voice, her mind repeats as her world rocks beneath her bare feet.

  “What the hell!” Logan rushes forward, takes hold of Catherine’s stone cold shoulders and gives them a gentle shake. “Catherine, what is it?”

  As she follows Logan’s glance down her body, Catherine realises that her bare legs and feet are now soaked in her own urine. “Oh my god!” She cries out on the verge of hysteria. Then a hand flies up to cover her mouth, her eyes going wide as that voice, that terrible voice, reverberates around in her confused thoughts. I’m sorry, mummy. I’m so sorry...

  Before Logan can stop her, Catherine dashes off into the house, up the stairs to her bedroom and locks the door safely behind her. She barely makes it to the bathroom in time, vomiting as if her insides will tear at the force of it. When it finally subsides, Catherine can only think of a shower. She can hear Logan hammering on the bedroom door demanding to be let in. Were it a less sturdy door it surely would have given way. But she can’t focus on Logan right now, can’t even comprehend how frantic he must be after finding her in such a state. Lifting her face into the warm spray of the shower, Catherine slowly lowers herself to the floor of the cubicle. She sobs a million tears, each one clearing away the mist that has hung over the buried memories of her mother.

  She was hiding in her mother’s bedroom under the bed. The noise of someone breaking into the house downstairs had terrified her. She had hoped and prayed that he would take whatever he wanted quickly then go before her mum came home; but Catherine’s prayers hadn’t been answered. She’d heard her mum calling for her, becoming increasingly impatient when she got no reply. Then there was a scuffle, her mother screamed but the sound was cut off suddenly and Catherine held her breath in fear. Then she heard heavy feet on the stairs and the bedroom door had opened; Catherine had clapped both hands over her mouth to stop any noise escaping then had to listen as the man dumped her mum’s body on the bed and began tying her to it.

  “I tried, mummy...” Catherine, hands clasped around her knees, rocks herself with the pain of remembering, “...I tried to warn you that he was there; but it wouldn’t come out. My voice just wouldn’t come out,” she sobs for her mother over and over. Then, finally, when the only water tumbling down her face is the spray from the shower, Catherine draws herself up, wraps a large towel about her and moves robotically to the wardrobe.

  Downstairs Henry is trying to calm Logan, telling him to give her some space and time. “She’s stronger than you give her credit for,” Henry states confidently. “Catherine has taken care of herself just fine up till now and you ought to just let her calm down, then we’ll see what’s what.”

  “I need to leave now,” Catherine states simply, quietly, standing at the foot of the stairs and taking them both by surprise. Both men turn in their seats to look at her, their heads whipping round in unison as if she has just yelled at them. “I can call a taxi,” she offers when neither of them moves, “I really don’t mind.”

  For the last couple of hours, Logan has been wearing a groove in his father’s hallway after trying to break the bedroom door down hadn’t worked. He was desperate to talk to her, wanting her to explain what the hell happened in the short time he’d left her alone. However, looking at Catherine, he can see that any explanations will have to wait. Her face is ghost-like, shut down, blank of all emotion.

  “Come and sit down for a minute, Catherine,” he invites, rising to his feet as she continues to stand at the foot of the stairs. “I’ll have to bring the car round first.” But Catherine doesn’t move, or blink. Logan makes his way slowly towards her, but knows instinctively that now is not the time to offer comfort or any physical contact. Instead, he gets the car, stows the few bags that Catherine has brought down with her in the boot, then says goodbye to his father, promising to ring him later that night.

  The drive back to Sheriton is not as enjoyable as the trip down had been. The tension in the air is heavy enough to cut with a knife, but Catherine just doesn’t know where to begin.

  As if she has said the words aloud, Logan asks her to tell him only what she can. “You don’t need to go into specifics,” he encourages, trying to make it as easy for her as possible.

  The fact that he is driving and has to concentrate on the narrow country lanes means he won’t so easily be able to turn to look at her; to see the horror of the nightmare on her face, and she takes some comfort in that.

  “I’m not sure that I can anyway,” she tells him, “I’ve tended to push it all to the back of my mind.” Catherine expects Logan to chime in with some words of encouragement or empty platitudes. She’s heard them all as she was growing up. “I was at home on my own,” she begins. “My mum was out doing the cleaning job I told you about. I was nine, almost ten, so it was no big deal. I’d watch the telly, or more likely read one of my many books.” She surprises herself by smiling and Logan hears it in her voice. “One of the reasons my mum took the extra work was to keep me supplied with endless books. I was hard work, you see.”

  Catherine falls silent recalling her mum’s futile attempts to occupy her. But she had grown bored quickly, had become sullen and cheeky or gone off on long walks round the neighbourhood. Anyway, she knows it hadn’t been easy for her mum; until she’d discovered books, that is. And not the usual junior novels like all the other kids read. No, hers had been expensive textbooks. As if life wasn’t difficult enough for mum.

  “Catherine...?” is all Logan needs to say.

  “I couldn’t get enough books,” she begins again. “No stories or novels,” she dismisses with a snort of disgust, “but real books; about how things work and why. I mean, at nine you not only want to know who invented the modern jumbo jet, or how its put together, but how it manages to stay up there in the clouds with all those people and luggage and other things that should make it too heavy even to leave the ground, let alone fly thousands of feet above it.” She is smiling again, he knows, and is glad for her to have those precious memories as well as the horrors that she still hasn’t spoken of. Is she stalling, he wonders.

  “My mum marvelled at the things I came out with – see what this does, mum – Or, look what that does, mum – and, look how this works, mum” So selfish. So completely self-absorbed. Catherine shakes her head in wonder at her mother’s patience. “So...you can see, how buying books that gave me all the information I seemed to crave became the easier option; and working evenings gave her a break from me anyway.” She needed it.

  “Yet Arthur Kingsley told me that you had never been to university,” Logan interjects. “Was he wrong...?”

  “No he wasn’t wrong.” Then she tells him about being called a freak at school. And about the bloody noses the other kids’ parents had regularly complained that their children were coming home with. “I was happiest on my own,” he hears her continu
e. “I didn’t need any of them. But my mum couldn’t understand it when the school complained about my behaviour and my inability to interact during lessons. I’d become the model child at home, you see. As for exams,” she flicks them off with a sharp wave of her hand, “I just refused to do them.” Refused to tow their bloody line. Fuckers!

  “But, why?” he asks, suddenly confused. “You could have done anything, gone to university and been anything you wanted to be.”

  “Yeah,” she scoffs, “if I’d just played the game the way they wanted it played. ‘We’re reading The Lord of the Rings just now, dear,”’ she mimics, doing her best impression of the redoubtable Miss Parish, her English teacher. “Then she confiscated the book I was reading and forced me to read the book she wanted me to read out loud in front of the whole class.” She actually crosses her arms over her chest in a move that brings a smile to Logan’s face. One that, the now angry, Catherine has noticed. “Oh I suppose you were Mr Popular,” she scoffs acidly. “Always the little gentleman; yes sir, no sir, three bags bloody full sir.” Jesus-H-Christ! A right Little Lord fucking Fauntleroy!

  Logan actually laughs out loud at that, and Catherine’s scowl deepens. “I was no saint, I assure you,” he tells her, still chuckling at her description of him. “But learning never did come easy to me, so I had to discipline myself to study hard and pay attention in class. Not all of us have blotting paper for brains,” he counters.

  “Were you always set on going to university then?” she asks. “Or did you get pushed along the way by your parents?”

  “You’ve met my father – does he seem like the pushy parent type to you?”

  Catherine thinks that over. No, Henry had not seemed like that at all. But then what did she know about fathers, she’d never had one. “I don’t have any experience in the father department,” she states matter of fact. “But I wouldn’t have said that Henry is pushy, not in an overbearing way anyway,” she clarifies.

  “But you think he could be in other ways...?” He is genuinely interested in her opinions, and is enjoying their frank exchange; though he knows he is facilitating her stalling tactics at the same time.

  “I think he’d have kicked your arse black and blue if you’d cheeked him the way I used to cheek my mum.” She turns to smile at him, but it falters and dies, leaving her looking sad. My mum ought to have given me the back of her hand. I never deserved her. So loving. So patient. So...

  “Is that what your mum did?” he probes gently. “Did your mother hurt you, Catherine? Is that what you’re remembering?”

  She tells him everything then. “My mum was the kindest person you could ever wish to meet, and she rarely laid a hand on me; though I deserved it sometimes.” Her lips tremble on the pitiful smile they try to form. “I was the child from hell,” she tells him frankly. “No matter what she tried to do with me – be it puzzles, or reading stories, or taking me out to the park – it was never enough to satisfy me. Although physical activities, like swimming and track running, did help as long as I drove myself hard enough to reach near exhaustion.” Even that had been a short-term solution.

  He glances over at her. “I think I remember reading something about that, though not strictly in the same context,” Logan tells her. “It had to do with children who had Attention Deficit Disorder and how to channel all that extra energy they seem to have into positive, rather than destructive activities.”

  Catherine nods in agreement. “I suppose there are valid comparisons to be made. After all, I did have an attention deficit, the fact that it was caused by mind numbing boredom didn’t change the outcome of it. I was still loud and angry, or subdued and shutdown, for most of the time. I could go from one extreme to the other in minutes; my poor mum didn’t know which way to turn.” Her voice has grown quieter, her memories harder to bear. “I loved her so much,” her lips tremble but she will not give in to the tears. Stiffening her resolve, she asks Logan, “How much do you already know about me – you did a background check, so you must at least have the basics?”

  “The 'basics' is about right,” he tells her. “I didn’t go further than your senior educational background really. That gave me your age and the fact that you transferred schools a few times. Any more than that is just hearsay; like Arthur and Robert, they both speak very highly of you.” He frowns over at Catherine, “I really did just do a surface run and only because I was curious, and wanted to get to know you.” Wanted. Yes, I’ll soon be in the past tense once I get through telling you what a nut job you’ve hooked up with!

  “That’s it?” She asks. “You didn’t look into my family background or my earlier education?” I don’t know why I’m even bothering to ask. If you had you’d have run a mile. Maybe you still will. Oh, Jesus!

  “No,” he reiterates softly. “What would I have found if I had?” Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Catherine brace herself and knows that whatever she is about to say is going to hurt her deeply.

  “You were thirty six a couple of months ago,” she states matter-of-fact. “That would have made you twenty when I was still nine going on ten.” Catherine doesn’t notice his heavy sigh at hearing that bit of revelatory math, she is too busy putting her remembered facts into some relevant order. “Do you remember hearing about the murder of a woman named Sara Colson? It was a deliberate home invasion; he came prepared so it was obviously premeditated.”

  Logan pales visibly. “Good lord! I didn’t put it together – she was your mother?” he gasps.

  Catherine nods; it will help that he already knows the gist of what happened. “The newspapers were pretty graphic in their reporting,” she states unemotionally, “so you must know that she was raped and tortured to death.” And I did nothing to stop him! Fucking coward!

  Logan cannot believe his own stupidity, it had been all anyone had talked about for months afterwards. His own father had become very protective of his mother, ferrying her to this place and that and always insisting on picking her up afterwards. “Yes,” he admits, a note of deep disgust in his voice, “it was sickening just to hear about; I couldn’t bring myself to actually read it.” Though, the ghouls who’d enjoyed reading every detail also enjoyed talking about it. This meant he hadn’t been able to escape the vile gossip.

  “Well...one thing you wouldn’t have read about is the fact that I was there, the whole time.” Sick bastard! Her face and tone become stony, totally detaching herself from her emotions.

  Logan’s hands tighten on the steering wheel; his head reeling with shock. He pulls the car over at the first opportunity and sits in stunned silence.

  When he eventually speaks, it is to ask a question more out of hope than to hear the answer. “You mean you were hiding somewhere in the house and he didn’t know?” Yes, that would make a much nicer, more sanitised tale.

  She doesn’t turn to look at him, already knowing what she’ll see if she does. “Yes...and no,” she replies cryptically. “I did hide, under my mother’s bed, but he found me. In fact, he dragged me out by my feet after he’d finished raping my mother on her bed.”

  “Oh god!” Is that disgust? I’m not surprised. His head falls forward to rest his forehead on the steering wheel. “Did he hurt you – I know he didn’t rape you – but did he hurt you?”

  Catherine finds the strength to look over at Logan and is actually shocked to see the depth of his pain on her behalf. Reaching out a hand, she prises his off the steering wheel and holds it in both of hers. “If you mean did he do to me what he did to my mother, no, he didn’t.”

  Logan looks over at her, and knows there is more to come. “You don’t have to tell me, Catherine. I don’t want to put you through any more pain.”

  She gives his large hand a squeeze, managing to offer him some small comfort. “The pain will be there whether I tell you or not; maybe it’ll even help to finally talk about it.” I’ve never been able to get the words out, and never wanted to tell the authorities, they hadn’t really cared about my mum!

&n
bsp; “But surely, you must have told the police, and no doubt the social workers, everything that happened?” Logan frowns quizzically.

  She shakes her head. “I didn’t speak a word to anyone for two years,” she explains. “And, as I’d attacked the social worker they brought in to look after me, they locked me up in a psychiatric unit – they thought the trauma of it all had sent me loopy,” she scoffs scathingly, remembering the psychiatrists discussing her like she wasn’t in the room, assuming she couldn’t hear just because she couldn’t speak. Fuckheads!

  “I’m so sorry, Catherine, I had no idea.” He is looking at her, and he can see that she is searching his face for any signs of pity. “You are, without doubt, one of the strongest, most resourceful women I have ever had the pleasure to meet. You astound me!”

  If only I could believe, you will still feel that way after you hear all of this.

  “I need to finish this, Logan,” she states quietly. “I have to get it over with while I have at least a modicum of control...” she squeezes the hand she is still holding, “...and you give me that.” For now, at least.

  He uses that hand to pull her towards him; putting his arms around her and wishing he could transfer all his strength to Catherine, knowing she is going to need it. “I don’t know about you,” he smiles, and drops a kiss on the top of her head, “but I really needed that.”

  Catherine smiles, and puts her hand on his cheek. “I don’t know how or why, but you’ve become my rock and yes I needed that too.” Very much.

  They sit back in their seats, still holding hands. “Ok,” she breathes. “So, now you know that my mum’s name was Sara and that she was murdered in the worst way imaginable.” After a couple of steadying breaths, she continues. “Now I’m going to tell you what the newspapers couldn’t. After he’d finished raping my mother he reached under the bed and grabbed my ankles, then hauled me out and threw me over his shoulder like a sack of spuds.” Her eyes go distant and Logan knows she is seeing it all again. “He probably didn’t care, but from that position I could see my mum – he’d used duct tape to bind her hands and feet, one to each corner of the bed and a piece across her mouth to keep her quiet. But it didn’t,” she recalls. “Even while I was hiding under the bed, too witless to do anything to help her, I heard her screams while he raped her; and I would hear them a lot more throughout that night.” I still hear them.