Don't You Cry

by cass green

  The next time, Angel was quicker to react. She was just coming into the kitchen when she saw Quinn wrenching her mother’s arm up high behind her back, so she cried out. Angel threw herself at him like a little monkey and he had shaken her off so hard that she crashed into the kitchen cabinets and her ear went all buzzy. Her mother had spoken to her very quietly that night in her bed, about how they were all learning to get along with each other and that Angel must leave the grown-ups to decide things.

  He went away quite a lot, which made it more bearable, and during those times they would slip into something resembling what they had before. But it never lasted long.

  When he murdered the guinea pig, she thought that surely that would be the end of him in their lives. It seemed to Angel that something so huge, something so terrible, would warrant a response as explosive. She even attempted to call the police before Marianne intercepted and stopped her, holding her tightly and apologizing, saying she was the one to blame. She always did that. Said it was her fault.

  One night, Marianne came into her bedroom and woke her up. Her voice was all funny, like her jaw didn’t work properly, and she was using only one of her arms as she helped Angel stuff clothes into a bag. Lucas was too sleepy to understand that they needed to be silent and Marianne was forced to slap his legs to shock him into submission, which made her cry more than it did him. Angel had hated seeing that. Her mother said, ‘He’s right … I am a terrible, useless mother,’ and however much Angel tried to argue she just shook her head and wept silently.

  She doesn’t remember the long journey to Scotland much but that was when they had an extended stay with Grandad, who had been alone since Granny died the year before.

  Their mother was ‘sorting things out’ according to Grandad, whose face went all tight when they asked him where she was. They managed to be happy, during that time, in the way that children can. It seemed impossible that things could ever go back to how they were before, not this time.

  But then the terrible night came when Grandad had a heart attack, and everything changed again. They couldn’t stay there. Marianne arrived, looking hollow-eyed and pale, and told them they were going home but things would be ‘different’.

  It wasn’t long before they were told they would be going to boarding school.

  Angel was thirteen and Lucas was ten.

  It was during the Christmas holiday after their first, terrible terms that Marianne took her own life.

  33

  Nina

  I watch the young woman opposite. Her eyes have been cast downwards the whole time she has been speaking. With her crossed legs, foot hooked around the other ankle, and her hunched shoulders, she looks oddly twisted, as though she is literally trying to hold herself together. She seems as though she has told this story many times before; it is recounted in such a logical and clear way.

  ‘That’s terrible,’ I say and I mean it. I don’t know what else to say. I wanted to throw up when Angel told me about the guinea pig. God, what sort of monster would do a thing like that?

  My eyes burn with fatigue. It’s hard to focus and my mind is skittering about all over the place, bouncing between horror at what I have just heard, relief that I am no longer in danger, and uncertainty about what the hell I am supposed to do next.

  There is a small part of me, too, wondering whether this appalling story can possibly be true. I mean, does Angel seem like a reliable historian? Then again, everyone knows about violent men who appear charming on the outside. But can Nick Quinn, a well-known public figure for the last twenty years, really have kept this dark side hidden? Jimmy Savile, Harvey Weinstein and others got away with so much in plain sight, says a quiet voice in my ear.

  I sit forward and place my hands on the cool wood of the kitchen table.

  ‘Angel,’ I say gently. ‘I understand that you had a horrific childhood … one I can’t even begin to comprehend. But I still don’t understand what this has to do with the here and now. With what happened last night. Did Lucas murder that woman?’

  Angel looks at me, finally. Her eyes are luminous and moist. She reaches for a cigarette and, with shaking hands, lights it. I decide to let it go this time.

  When she speaks again, her voice is husky.

  ‘No, of course not. Please, let me just tell you the rest. It was Lucas, you see. He found Marianne, in the bath. Dead.’

  ‘Oh no.’ I cover my mouth with my hand. Angel begins to speak quickly, the words almost tumbling over each other.

  ‘I was out, seeing one of my friends from my old school,’ she says. ‘Lucas didn’t have any friends around there any more. And we didn’t like leaving her alone too long, then. It was like she was being eaten up from the inside with, I don’t know, cancer or something. Except it was her sense of who she was, that she was our mother, which was being eaten instead of her cells. She was always going on about failing us, about not being the mum we deserved.’ She pauses. ‘That’s what he did to her,’ she says with heat, mouth twisted. ‘Destroyed her and made her believe we would be better off with her gone.’

  I don’t say anything. I can’t think of anything that would feel remotely adequate right now.

  Angel swipes a hand under her noise, sniffing wetly.

  ‘Lucas has always blamed himself for it,’ she says, ‘which is obviously fucking nuts, but there you are.’

  ‘What happened after then?’ I say gently.

  Angel sucks hard on her cigarette. The smell nauseates me, but I say nothing. It won’t harm Zach if it is just one, surely? My mother smoked like a chimney around me and my brother when we were small and we seem to have turned out OK, depending on how you look at it.

  ‘We were packed off to school, with Quinn as our guardian,’ she says flatly. ‘We stayed away during holidays, or went to stay with his mother, who had a constant stick up her arse and hated the very sight of us.’ She gives a small, bitter laugh. ‘God, I hope that bitch is rotting in hell now, although she is probably one of these scaly old pterodactyl women who go on forever.’

  ‘Go on.’ I’m impatient to hear the rest.

  Angel looks at the half-smoked cigarette in her hand now, almost as though she is realizing it is there, and then she violently stubs it out on the plate she has been using as an ashtray.

  ‘Shit, I shouldn’t do that with him about. I forgot.’

  I gawp at her; she seems to veer between good and bad so easily. Saving my life one minute; threatening it the next.

  Or is it that she just tries to be good in a very bad way? She is an enigma.

  She continues. ‘And as soon as we were eighteen he stopped paying for school and that was it. We got out of his life and never looked back. At least,’ she pauses, ‘that’s what I thought we were doing. But then Nick Fuckface Quinn got married again and my little brother took it upon himself to look after her, after Alice.’ She makes quote marks with her fingers when she says, ‘look after her’.

  I feel the hair begin to prickle on the back of my neck. ‘Are you sure he didn’t … hurt her?’

  Angel does one of her looks. Swooping her eyes like a super-charged teenager. It simultaneously makes her look young and old again.

  ‘My brother wouldn’t hurt the teeniest bloody fly,’ she says. ‘Christ, he once rescued a frigging spider the size of your arse, even though I was screaming my head off about it.’

  A great rolling wave of exhaustion passes over me now. I rub my face with both hands.

  ‘Why in God’s name didn’t you say that before?’ But I know the answer really. They wanted to control me. It was easier to do that through the threat of violence. ‘OK,’ I say, ‘but I still don’t understand what happened last night.’

  Angel’s expression darkens now. She becomes shifty, her eyes downcast as she starts to twiddle with the silver ring on her thumb.

  ‘Well, I don’t exactly know because he’s being all secretive about it,’ she says. ‘But from what I can gather, our one-time stepfather is up to his old tricks
again and getting handy with his fists. Lucas found Alice hurt, really hurt, and he panicked. Acted on instinct or something. He promised her he’d look after the baby, I don’t fucking know. I told him it was insane to take that baby away. But he won’t listen.’

  I let out a long sigh and sit back in my seat.

  ‘But why not stay and help her?’ I ask. ‘Surely he could have done something?’

  ‘Well, maybe,’ says Angel, her mouth a tight line. ‘But if I know my brother at all, he would have tried everything he could for her. He’d have done anything to help Alice. Anything at all. You don’t know him like I do.’

  34

  Lucas

  Lucas had been about to come into the room when he heard the women talking. Had understood, with a sharp adrenaline spike, that everything had changed. Something had happened to the dynamic in this house.

  At first, he had wanted to rush in and find out what it was. But then he had heard Angel talking about the things she never talked about. Not with him anyway.

  He had listened at the door.

  ‘He’d have done anything to help Alice. Anything at all. You don’t know him like I do.’

  Hand over mouth, he gasps and feels his knees start to buckle.

  He has one person in the world. Just one. And if she knew what had happened, which she will, at some point she will, then he won’t have her either.

  It’s too much. The weight of this pain and guilt is too much to bear and Lucas wishes he could tear his own skin off. He cannot bear to be inside himself for a second longer and he takes off his shoes and socks so he can walk on silent feet to the front door. He has the key in his pocket and he opens the door before slipping out, stumbling from the house in a daze.

  The sun drills into his eyes like hot spears and the pain in his head sharpens but he welcomes it. Physical pain is a distraction from the thoughts flooding him with their poison.

  The traffic is thick now. He feels himself drawn towards it. He walks out of the gate and stares up at the bypass. He can’t seem to stop seeing it all in his mind. He will never be able to un-see it. Never be able to stop feeling it.

  Lucas is crying now, remembering the numbness that began to spread through him as he had gone to Zach, who was still crying. He had only been able to think one thing.

  I have to get him away.

  He wishes the numbness would come back.

  He can’t stand to be himself for a moment longer.

  Lucas begins to climb over the wooden fence separating the bank up to the bypass from the road. His bare feet are on fire with nettle stings but he doesn’t care.

  He just wants it to end.

  35

  Nina

  I still don’t know what to do.

  I wouldn’t trust Angel to mind my seat, let alone a child. I’ve seen her apparent lack of compassion for a helpless baby and been terrorized in my own home by her.

  And yet … I believe her.

  I do. I believe all of it.

  She has gone to the toilet, leaving me alone here. I could go right now. But I don’t move.

  ‘Nina!’ Her piercing shriek from upstairs jolts me in my seat and I get up, hurrying to the bottom of the stairs. She stands at the top, eyes wild and hair all falling around her face like a real-life Medusa. Angel is more terrified than I have seen her to date.

  ‘What is it?’ I say.

  ‘Lucas,’ she says, or rather shouts. ‘He’s gone! Where is he?’

  I let out a long breath.

  ‘Come on,’ I say, ‘let’s go look. I didn’t hear the car so he’s on foot.’

  Glancing at a sleeping Zach, I lay cushions along the floor next to him, for the unlikely possibility that he learns to roll several months early. I think he will be OK for just a few minutes.

  The front door is unlocked, and we hurry outside. Angel is breathing heavily next to me as we come out of the gate and look down Four Hays in both directions. No sign of him.

  And then the frantic sound of car horns makes me look up.

  ‘Lucas!’ I yell, ‘Get back from there! You’ll get yourself killed!’

  He is standing at the edge of the dual carriageway, looking every bit as if he is about to walk into the thundering traffic.

  All I can think of is Sam. What if it were my Sam standing there? His precious body that was about to be mashed into hot tarmac?

  It’s as if I am moving independently of any conscious thought now. I don’t make a decision to do this. But somehow, I am scrambling over the fence and climbing up the bank. I can feel Angel at my heels, but she doesn’t know how deep the ditch is under all the long grass and I hear a yelp as she staggers into it.

  Lucas seems to tense and is about to step in front of a lorry that is bearing down on us when I grab his sleeve and I yank with all my might.

  We tumble together down the bank, hitting the wooden fence. Nettles bite me and thistles claw at my bare legs and arms. Lucas lies trembling in a heap next to me and I find I’m saying, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK now,’ and reaching out to him.

  As we make our ungainly way back over the fence and onto the road, Angel starts to pound her fists on her brother’s chest, crying and shouting, ‘What were you doing, you stupid fucking fuckwit?’ before she pulls him into a fierce hug, body shaking with sobs.

  My legs are jelly-like from shock as we make our way back into the house. New nettle stings make themselves known, and I wince. I long to be in clean, cool sheets that I can pull over my head until all this goes away.

  Back inside the kitchen, I make tea and slop in generous shots of an old half bottle of whisky lurking at the back of a cupboard.

  Angel stares at her brother, who sits with his head bowed, looking utterly defeated, unable to meet her gaze.

  ‘Why, Lu?’ Angel says at last, her voice husky. ‘Don’t we always look out for each other? How could you do that crazy shit just now?’

  Lucas just shakes his head and says nothing. I put the cup next to him and say, ‘Drink!’ with such sharp authority that he lifts it to his mouth and takes some.

  When I put Angel’s cup down next to her, she surprises me by grasping my wrist. I meet her eyes and she mouths, ‘Thank you,’ her eyes wide and damp. I nod and go to check on the baby, who is sleeping soundly on the sofa. I decide to leave him there for now and move to the table to sit, groaning with weariness.

  We drink the tea in the awkward silence. I’ve never seen anyone in the state Lucas is in before. He looks broken. As though his skeleton won’t be firm enough for him to get to his feet.

  Angel is silent, staring down at her cup.

  ‘Hey,’ I say, ‘drink that. We can all calm down and decide what we’re going to do.’

  She blinks hard, twice. Her eyes gleam as she says, ‘We?’

  I sigh. ‘Let’s just go through the options, OK?’

  This situation has become so much more complicated.

  I take another sip of the nasty tea – I’ve always hated whisky – and try to calm my jangling mind.

  And then something happens that feels like ten thousand volts of electricity passing over my skin and under all our feet.

  ‘THIS IS THE POLICE. STAY WHERE YOU ARE AND STAY CALM. NOBODY IS GOING TO BE HURT.’

  We rise as one.

  ‘Oh shit, oh fuck, oh no,’ says Angel, standing so abruptly that she knocks the chair over and bursting into hysterical tears. Lucas is up and pacing around the room, hands buried in his black curls, his face grey-white.

  ‘We want everyone to be safe,’ says the amplified male voice. ‘This must come to an end now. But everyone is going to be OK if we all just listen to instructions and remain calm.’

  ‘It’s me they want, I’m going out there,’ says Lucas and starts to head towards the door but Angel screams, ‘No! Stop, stop!’ in the most desperate, agonized way.

  Later, I’ll learn that the police thought it was me screaming. That they believed I, or the baby, was in immediate danger and the only option was to batt
er the door down.

  But for now, there is no logic or thought.

  Just an explosion of sound.

  My front door smashing open.

  The air filling with the thunder of steel-toe-capped boots. Bulky black vests and so many bodies suddenly, after this night of it being just four.

  Voices shouting, ‘POLICE! STAY WHERE YOU ARE! STAY WHERE YOU ARE!’

  Angel’s plaintive screaming.

  Lucas crying out in pain as he is Tasered and falls, jerking to the stone floor.

  36

  Angel

  ‘You bastards!’

  Angel lunges towards the now-inert form of her brother but a chubby ginger policewoman is faster than her. Before she even gets the chance to breathe out, she is slammed over the kitchen table, her arms wrenched behind her back. Her shoulder blades scream with pain and she gasps in shock.

  ‘That fucking hurts!’ she yells, hating that she sounds whiny and weak; beaten down. Even though she knows she is.

  ‘You just calm down, alright?’ The yelling copper’s face is so close to Angel’s she feels hot breath on her cheek and smells coffee. Then the handcuffs click around her wrists, and the knowledge of what is happening makes her knees buckle. Someone is really putting handcuffs on her.

  She’s hauled, roughly, to her feet. Her knees knock together and she is suddenly so cold that her teeth clatter together. Her head spins before her eyes hungrily search for Lucas, who is making guttural sounds on the floor as though he is dying. She tries to pull towards him and is yanked violently back by the wrists.

  ‘Just stay where you are!’

  ‘Where’s the baby?’ barks a bald, muscly policeman to Nina, who is standing in the middle of the room with her hands over her mouth, her eyes stretched wide with horror. She doesn’t reply and the man says, ‘Nina!’ sharply, and she jumps visibly.