No Place to Hide

by Susan Lewis

  “Not that I know of. No one wants to live there.”

  Who would, now? Yet it was still difficult to think of that beautiful, special place with its quaint cottages and leafy park, the humpback bridge and trickling brook, the thriving village nearby, the countryside all around in an abandoned, overgrown state, and no longer able to provide happy memories for families who deserved them. Yet another consequence of Ben’s actions: people couldn’t get their money out of their properties. She and Matt were in the same boat, obviously, but Matt had earned very well over the years, and a large catering company from Bath hadn’t wasted any time in snapping up Portovino, absorbing it seamlessly into its own booming business, keeping Portovino’s clients and a lot of its stock, but losing the name.

  “So when did you get back from your mother’s?” she asked, needing to move her thoughts away from the vale.

  “This morning, and when I saw you’d rung I immediately cleared my diary and rang you back.”

  She smiled. “So you had a lot on today?”

  “Masses, but it can wait.”

  Knowing he was teasing, that like her he was struggling to fill his days, she said, “Are we going to talk more often now?”

  “I think we should, at least once a month.”

  Thrown, she said, “I was hoping it might be more often than that.”

  “It would be hard to build a new life if it were.”

  He could be right, but surely he wanted to be in touch as much as she did? “Are we talking about you or me building a new life?” she heard herself asking, more tersely than she’d intended.

  “Both of us. It’s not ideal like this, we recognize that…Apart from anything else, I need to know about Lula, what she’s doing, how she’s growing…Will you send some pictures?”

  “Of course.” She couldn’t, wouldn’t ask him to send pictures of Ben even if he could take them, which he probably couldn’t. She didn’t want them, not of how he was looking now with his crudely shaven head and brutal stubble, presuming he was still like that. Perhaps he was even more thuggish. Prison would do that to him, make him appear meaner, maybe even more sinister than he had in the press, when he’d looked like someone anyone would be terrified to meet in the dark.

  Considering his actions, they’d be right to feel terrified at any time of day.

  In a tone she didn’t care too much for, she said, “Are you interested to know what I’m doing too?”

  Without hesitation he said, “Always.”

  So what should she tell him? She tried to think, but her mind had gone blank. In the end, she said, “It’s very beautiful here right now. I can send some pictures of that too, if you like.”

  “Yes, please.”

  She didn’t understand why he wasn’t reacting to her snippiness, or why she was finding this so difficult. What was making her angry, or upset, or whatever it was she was feeling? She guessed it was a lot of things: the frustration of not being together, the surprise that he hadn’t called before now, that he seemed to be coping better than she was, although she had no idea if that were true. Perhaps it was her failure to ask about Ben that was making her edgy, guilty, annoyed with Matt when really it was her own cravenness she was finding intolerable.

  In the end, because she knew he was waiting, she braced herself and said, “Do you want to tell me about him?”

  Sounding relieved, though cautious, he said, “I guess that depends if you want to know.”

  She didn’t, and yet maybe she did, provided it was what she wanted to hear, such as remorse, cooperation with the authorities, a connection with humanity. “How was he when you last saw him?” she ventured.

  “About the same as the time before that. Cocky, surly, bored…”

  So he hadn’t changed. “Bored with you, or with where he is?”

  With a laugh he said, “Probably both. I keep asking him why he sends me a visiting order if it’s such a chore to see me, and he says he doesn’t want to deprive me of the highlight of my week.”

  She didn’t smile. Her son’s teasing was possibly even more grating than his arrogance.

  “He was surprised,” Matt continued, “and I think put out, when I told him this week that I wouldn’t be able to make the next visit.”

  “Why can’t you make it?”

  “I can. I just didn’t want him to think that my whole life revolves around him.”

  “Why not, when it does?”

  “Not entirely. I’m going to start writing again.”

  Her heart gave an unexpected lurch. Though she felt glad for him, obviously, for some reason thinking of him immersing himself in another world that didn’t include her, or Ben, or any part of their appallingly wrecked lives felt absurdly like a betrayal. Perhaps she was jealous. Wouldn’t she seize the same escape if it were open to her?

  “I thought it would be best to do it under a pseudonym,” he was saying, “but Hayley isn’t convinced.”

  “Oh? Why?” she asked stiffly.

  “She thinks a lot of people will want to read my next book in case it turns out to be based on what happened.”

  Justine felt herself turn hot. “Well, it’s good to think our son’s heinous crime is such a useful marketing opportunity,” she snapped.

  “I’m not using my name,” he told her darkly.

  “But you are going to write, presumably to keep Hayley happy?” How could she be making an issue of this when there were so many more important matters to discuss? Perhaps this one was just easier.

  “I’m doing it to stop myself going crazy,” he replied. “Whether it will be publishable in the end we’ll have to wait and see.”

  “Have you started?”

  “Not yet.”

  “And will it be about Ben?”

  “Good God, no. Why on earth do you think I’d do that?”

  She didn’t; she just felt so thrown by her own reactions, so detached from him and the life he was living, that she was scrambling around trying to find some sort of steady ground.

  “How is he really?” she made herself ask. “Does he…Does he ever talk about me?”

  “Not really. Sometimes he’ll ask if I’ve heard from you, but when I tell him I haven’t, he changes the subject.”

  Did it give him a sense of satisfaction to know that his parents weren’t in touch? Was it what he’d hoped for, to create a rift in their marriage that would punish them for crimes they’d never even committed? “Has he spoken to a psychiatrist yet?”

  “Not as far as I know, but he probably wouldn’t tell me if he had. To be honest, I’ve been worried about him lately. He puts on a big show of having everything sussed in there, no one messes with him, he’s got his mates’ backs and they’ve got his, and all that sort of crap, but I’m pretty sure a lot of it is front. I don’t mean that he can’t take care of himself—if you saw him you really wouldn’t want to mess with him—but underneath it all I think he’s struggling.”

  “You’d have to hope that anyone in his position would be,” she commented tartly.

  Passing over the remark, he said, “I’ve spoken to someone on the Safer Custody Team, and they promised to look into it, but I haven’t heard back yet.”

  “So is it possible that this struggle might mean he’s finally discovering some sort of conscience?”

  “I’d like to think so, but there are reports coming out all the time about the problem of depression in prisons, and I think he’s going that way.”

  It was hard to feel sorry for him, yet she couldn’t feel glad to hear it either.

  “And the suicide rates are high.”

  Suicide. The word dripped through her like ice. Was that what she wanted for him? How could any mother want that for her son?

  Not every mother had a son like hers.

  “Overcrowding is one of the biggest causes,” Matt was saying, “but there’s a fuss now about this new ruling to stop prisoners’ access to books. Actually, I considered lending my voice to the protest, but then I realized having
me involved probably wouldn’t do the campaign any good.”

  She understood what he meant. Who would give a damn about McQuillan’s Monster not having access to books?

  “Anyway, I hear it’s about to be resolved,” he added.

  “So does Ben read?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t think so.”

  Unable to stop herself, she said, “Nor does Abby…or Wes, or Chantal, or Connor, or Neil.”

  He fell silent.

  “Do you ever think about Abby, Matt?”

  “What kind of question’s that? Of course I think about her. All the time.”

  Close to tears, she said, “I miss her so much. I don’t know why, but it seems to be getting worse as time passes. I keep thinking of what she’d be doing now, how she’d have completed her world tour and be starting uni…She might even have a recording contract.”

  “Justine…”

  “Do you know what really breaks my heart? It’s that she was good enough to make it, but now she’ll never get to experience Glastonbury, or the O2, or Radio City…She’ll never be in love, or have children…”

  “Justine, don’t do this to yourself.”

  “Don’t you do it to yourself? Don’t you wonder what it would be like if we could go back, if none of it had happened?”

  “Of course, but it did happen, and nothing’s going to change that, so we have to try to move forward. It’s why you’re there, remember, and I’m here.”

  “Please tell me how you being there is moving forward. You’re stuck with him. You don’t have a life anymore because you can’t go out. You’ve lost all your friends, apart from Hayley…”

  “I told you I’m starting to write, that’s me moving on with my life, and do you really want me just to turn my back on him? I thought you couldn’t bear the idea of that.”

  “I can’t, but I can’t stand us living apart either. It doesn’t make any sense. We should be together.”

  “Do you want to come back here, is that what you’re saying? Remember, you left because there was no place in this country we could go where we wouldn’t be recognized.”

  “Of course I remember, I’m just saying that it’s still all about him, and Lula needs her daddy just as much as she needs me.”

  “Don’t you think I know that? It half kills me to think of her growing up without me. But we’ve had this conversation, many times, and this was the only solution we could come up with that we thought we could make work.”

  “Well, maybe we can’t.”

  “We haven’t given it enough time. It’s only been four months.”

  “Almost five, but who’s counting?”

  Sighing, he said, “OK, five, and not a single day has been easy, for either of us, and I don’t know if that’s going to change, but I do know that if we’re going to fight like this when we speak, then maybe we should go back to our original decision and not have any contact at all.”

  Stunned, she cried, “You don’t mean that.”

  His silence told her that maybe he did.

  “What about Lula? I thought you wanted to know all about her?”

  “Of course I do, but maybe knowing and not seeing, not being a part of it, is going to be too hard.”

  “This is crazy!” she shouted. “We’re married. We love each other and we’re parents to a little girl who needs us both. Why isn’t that coming first for you? Because it is for me.”

  “You know the answer to that, so why are you asking?”

  “Well, maybe he doesn’t count anymore. He certainly doesn’t deserve to.”

  “It was feeling neglected and abandoned that got him to where he is now.”

  “No! He’s there because he’s not like normal people, or none that we know. He grew up in a decent family, he had everything any child could wish for, and yet he doesn’t function the way we do. He doesn’t care about what he’s done or whose lives he’s destroyed. Other kids suffer from neglect, I mean serious neglect, they’re properly abandoned, even violently abused, and they don’t do what he did.”

  It was a while before Matt said, “OK, he’s not like everyone else, but he’s still my son. You can wash your hands of him if you like, but whatever anyone says, whatever he says, I am not giving up on him yet. Now, can we please change the subject so we don’t end this call still angry with each other?”

  Wishing she had his ability to step away from the heat of her feelings, to compartmentalize and bring forth something irrelevant or important for another reason, she said, “I can’t agree that we should go back to our original decision. I want to speak to you. We need to have contact.”

  “OK, well, let’s think it through some more and see how we feel in a week or two.”

  A week or two? “And in the meantime do you want me to email photographs, or will they be too hard to look at?”

  When he didn’t answer she felt wretched for deliberately trying to hurt him.

  “I’ll send them,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  “I should go to pick her up now.”

  “OK. Give her a big kiss from me.”

  “But don’t say it’s from you?”

  He didn’t respond.

  “I’m sorry,” she sighed. “It’s the strain of everything…It’ll be better the next time we talk.”

  “It will,” he promised.

  Trying to take comfort from that, she rang off and decided to distract herself in the few spare minutes she had left by checking her emails.

  As usual, there were a couple from Sallie Jo, both work-related; one from day care about a proposed field trip at the end of the month; another from Gymboree advising her that the clothes she’d ordered for Lula were about to be shipped; and, to her surprise, there was one from her mother.

  Scooping Daisy up for a cuddle, and feeling bad that she’d forgotten to ask Matt about Rosie, she opened the message and, seeing it wasn’t very long, she decided to read it straightaway.

  Hello dear, I thought I might have heard from you by now, as Rob tells me you’ve received the package I sent. Shall I assume you haven’t opened it yet? Perhaps you have and you don’t want to talk. It would be nice to hear from you one way or another.

  I think about you and Lula all the time. I wonder if you’ve forgiven me yet for not being more supportive before you left. I hope the letters in the package will go some way toward explaining that, but I will understand if you feel they don’t.

  With my love to you,

  Mum (Or should I be saying Mom these days? )

  Her mother ending a message with a smiley face was almost as startling as the email was intriguing. Letters, plural? She’d sent more than one?

  She sat quietly for a moment, smoothing Daisy, trying to work out how she felt, what she should do.

  In the end, she hit return and typed,

  Dear Mom (sort of getting used to it!),

  I’m sorry, I haven’t opened the package yet. Things took an unexpected turn here recently so I’ve been quite distracted. I’m presuming from everything—reactions here to Grandma’s name, your secrecy and now how anxious you seem—that I need to be in a good place when I find out what you’re hiding. To be honest there are times when I’m afraid I might never feel able to cope with anything bad again. So how bad is it?

  I guess the answer has to be very, or we wouldn’t be exchanging emails like this. Just tell me, is it something I really need to know? Will it change my life for the better, or worse? Will I be able to get over it?

  Love, Justine xxx

  She was about to hit send when she decided to add a smiley face of her own, even though it probably wasn’t appropriate. She just wanted her mother to know she was being friendly rather than challenging or overly defensive.

  Later that night she was playing with Lula in the bath when her cellphone rang.

  Suspecting it was Sallie Jo, while hoping it was Matt, she quickly dried her hands and padded through to the kitchen. To her surprise, she saw it was her mother and
for a moment she almost didn’t click on.

  “You asked how bad it is,” Camilla began with no preamble, “and I’m not going to lie to you, it isn’t good. However, I spent a long time thinking it over before I sent the package and I think you should read what your grandmother has to say. If you decide not to, all you have to do is send it back along with the keys.”

  Justine’s insides were starting to knot. There was a letter from her grandmother? There were keys?

  “To the lake house,” her mother explained. “In fact, if you want to keep them and go into the house without knowing your grandmother’s story, that’s fine. I don’t know what kind of condition it’ll be in after all these years, if it’s even safe…”

  “Why did you never tell me you still owned it?”

  “Because I couldn’t. If I were to keep my promise to your grandmother I still wouldn’t be telling you now, but I think, perhaps, it’s something you need to know. It might…Well, it might help you. Of course I can’t be sure about that, but I have a feeling, or at least I hope, it’ll be good for you to know how and why your grandmother’s life wasn’t, in some ways, so different from your own.”

  Justine flinched. “Please don’t tell me she had a son like Ben.”

  “No, he wasn’t anything like Ben, but she did have a son…I know I’ve never told you about him, but it was a part of my promise that I wouldn’t. It’s the way she dealt with him, the mistakes she made, that we all made…Well, I believe she’d do anything in her power to make sure you don’t do the same, and I think you’re in danger of it. So that’s why I’m breaking my word by sending the letter. If you decide to read it and you want to talk some more, you know where I am. I’d fly over to read it with you if I weren’t in the middle of a filming schedule.”

  Not sure whether she’d welcome that or not, Justine said, “Will it leave me in pieces? Because I’m really not up for that.”

  “The first thing to remember is that it’s an old story that happened more than thirty years ago. Times were different then, although, sadly, I’m not sure how very different…It’ll shock you in its way and it’ll also make you sad, but more than that, I hope it’ll make you realize that a parent is not always responsible for the way their child turns out.”