by cass green
How sad is that?
The conditions were that she report to the police station twice a week. Stay away from anyone involved in the ‘events’, including her brother.
Angel looks at Leon and tries to give him an approximation of a smile. It’s the best she can manage and she’s not sure it doesn’t look more like a grimace.
‘What do you want to do, babe?’ he says. So far, he hasn’t asked her about what had happened. Maybe he’s waiting for her to tell him. Well, he can wait.
He has pushed his sunglasses onto his head, like a girl. Angel looks away quickly and faces the front. The weather has turned cooler, finally, and the sky is grey. People come and go into the squat red-brick square of the police station.
What the fuck does he think she wants to do? She’s been in a cell for the night. Does he think she wants to go for a picnic? Go dancing?
‘I just want to go … home,’ she says. He doesn’t quite manage to hide the little crinkle of satisfaction at the corner of his mouth. Home.
So much for getting away.
Angel sighs again and leans her head back against the high head rest. It might be a stupid gangster car, but it’s very comfortable. She hurts all over.
Her body felt like a bag of right angles last night on that thin mattress. It was impossible to get any sleep, especially after she had been told by that ginger bitch that Lucas had given a no comment interview. It was like he had given up. Angel had shouted her head off that she had to see him but no one was interested.
She couldn’t understand it. How could she let Quinn get away with what he had done? Again?
For a moment, Angel feels a quiver of something sour inside. Her brother is so weak. He’s always been the one who crumples into a ball and lets the blows rain down on him. Why can’t he just fight back for once, like she does? Why?
‘Ange … baby, do you want me to stop the car?’
Leon’s voice floats into her ears and she turns to him, distracted.
He leans over, eyes on the road still, and gently touches her cheek. His fingers are so gentle that she closes her eyes and sighs. Maybe she can lose herself in his body once she has had a shower. Try to blot it all out. It is only when she feels the wetness spreading down her jawline and into the crease by her ear that she realizes her face is wet with tears.
40
Nina
I’ve been staring into a cupboard for several moments with absolutely no idea what I’m doing here. Then it comes back to me. Carmen’s coming over.
I reach for the bag of Portuguese custard tarts and then find a plate. I’ve already eaten one of them, and I know Carmen will probably decline hers, because she is always watching her weight. I’ll finish them off later, alone. They can be pudding. Or maybe dinner, I don’t care.
In the five days since what I think of as That Night, it isn’t just mealtimes that feel back to front.
The first time I went into town afterwards, it felt like being in one of those strange dreams, the ones where you are completely naked in a public place. I was convinced everyone was staring at me; that they knew what had happened. I felt like I was having a heart attack when a woman said, ‘Excuse me?’ in the Post Office. My heart banged wildly in my chest and I was breathing heavily when I turned to her with a wary face. She said, ‘Can I just get my buggy through?’ and I realized I was standing in her way.
The police told me that as a vital witness in a case like this the press wouldn’t be allowed to contact me. I’m grateful there was no photo of my house on the news. The Quinn house was shown, with white-suited CSI people coming in and out. It was chilling, and brought home with even more force what I had been caught up in.
I’m so confused about it all.
When I made my statement to the police, I tried to tell them about the stuff Angel told me. But they very gently kept asking me – telling me, really – to ‘stick to what happened’ and to leave the rest of it to them.
There was practical stuff to deal with. They organized the repair of my battered front door and suggested I stay with a friend for a day or so. I thought about calling Carmen, or a couple of good friends from work, but somehow I couldn’t bear the thought of all the questions. So, I checked myself into a Premier Inn for twenty-four hours, which added to the surreal nature of all this. I feel untethered; floating in the darkness like an astronaut.
Even the house looks different now. It’s no longer my home, and Sam’s only home. It’s the place I was held hostage.
Normal life feels like something that I once had, but has gone forever.
Mealtimes may happen at three in the morning or not at all.
As for sleep …
I keep waking up from vivid nightmares that revolve around blue, wrinkled babies and various rodent-like animals. Last night I dreamed that Sam had stamped on a mutant mouse as big as his hand and said, ‘I hate spiders.’ Try as I might, I couldn’t make him understand that he hadn’t squashed an insect, even though he had hair and gore on his Converse shoe. Horrible, horrible. I woke gasping for breath and slick with sweat.
I find myself wandering into rooms and forgetting why I am there. I wonder if I have Post Traumatic Shock Syndrome and obsessively Google the symptoms in the middle of the night.
I can’t stop thinking about little Zach. Wondering who is looking after him. Nick Quinn? What if everything Angel told me is true? Is Zach even safe with his father? I find myself remembering the precise weight of his warm, dense body in my arms. The dark eyes that seemed to understand everything and nothing all at once.
Until yesterday only Ian – well, and I suppose Laura too – know what happened here. I was adamant that Sam was not to know of it until a much later date. Ian had panicked and got into such a flap I hadn’t known whether to be happy that he cared so much, or pissed off because he had no right to care any more.
But I’d managed to persuade him that there was no need to come home, which was the important thing. I told him I was going to visit my old friend Sal in Devon for a few days. I’d half meant it too. It’s weird though. I don’t like being here, but I don’t want to be anywhere else either.
But I couldn’t carry on with this strange half life I’ve been living the past five days. I need to do normal things again. So I screwed my courage to the sticking place and phoned Carmen, who had left three messages now.
When I told her what had happened, she cried, making me feel guilty. She thought this was why I hadn’t been in touch, when actually, it was forcing me to break my strop with her. If Angel and Lucas hadn’t burst into my home, I may well have not talked to Carmen for the whole summer.
Frankly, though, I could do with a friend right now. Carmen, with her no-nonsense Yorkshire attitude, is the most straightforward person I know, and I need that. I think I’m turning a bit strange.
The doorbell trills and I get up, wiping sweaty hands on my jeans. It’s only Carmen, for goodness’ sake. No reason to be nervous.
She doesn’t say anything at first, merely envelops me in a J’adore-scented hug. She has to bend down, being so much taller than me. She’s like my opposite, physically. Tall, with blonde straight hair. Always immaculate, spending time and effort on manicures and pedicures every month. I’m what you might call more DIY about these things, with a tendency to drop food down my clothes.
‘I’m alright, Carm,’ I say in a strangulated voice and peel myself away. I force a bright smile because she is looking at me with such a stricken expression it’s sort of annoying. ‘Come on,’ I say, ‘let’s have some coffee.’
‘Oh, sod coffee,’ says Carmen and I see she is brandishing a bottle of Prosecco. ‘I think we both need a proper drink.’
Three-quarters of an hour later, the bottle is almost empty. Carmen, who is driving, has only had one glass. I feel stone-cold sober, but I suppose the rest of it must have gone into me.
I try to tell the story in the order it happened, but already, the details are starting to be muddied in my mind.
&n
bsp; ‘God,’ says Carmen when I finish, blowing out so that her carefully blow-dried fringe puffs up and falls again. ‘I hope they throw the book at the pair of bastards.’
I can feel my brow pinching and my mouth turning down. I don’t know why I react like this. It’s just it feels as though Carmen has failed to absorb half the story. Like the police. But what can I do? I can only presume they will do their job. If Quinn really was guilty, they’d get him, wouldn’t they?
‘What do you think about all the abuse stuff?’ I say, leaning closer over the table. ‘And the idea that it was Nick Quinn who killed Alice?’
Carmen regards me for a moment. ‘Neen,’ she says carefully, ‘these people barged into your home. They held you at gunpoint and, before you say anything, it makes no difference that it was a fake.’ She pauses. ‘People never want to believe that their loved ones can commit terrible crimes, do they? And this … Angel,’ her lip curls a little when she says the name, ‘sounds like she would do anything for her brother. She isn’t going to want to believe he is a murderer, is she?’
It’s very hard to deny this. But I can’t seem to feel it. It’s the cold logic of someone who wasn’t there. I picture Lucas sliding down the cabinet onto the floor, liquid with grief. The way he looked at Zach. The story about finding his dead mother in the bath.
‘Yeah, but it just sounded …’ I hesitate.
‘Sounded what?’ says Carmen carefully.
‘Sounded real,’ I say in a small voice. ‘Like the truth … Oh, I don’t know.’
‘Well, I expect the police are very used to people like that,’ says Carmen. ‘Good liars.’ She seems to be thinking for a moment, frowning, then she clicks her fingers. ‘Got it. Been trying to remember the name all day. Remember the Menendez brothers?’ Her eyes are shiny now, indecent with triumph.
‘No,’ I say warily, wondering where this is going.
‘Killer siblings,’ says Carmen with satisfaction. ‘Murdered their parents then went on a spending spree.’
My hands start to shake so I gather up our glasses and move away from the table. I’m aware that Carmen is staring at me as I wash them at the sink.
‘What’s wrong?’ she says now, voice dripping with a concern that feels like nails on a blackboard to my senses. ‘Have I said something?’
I don’t know how to explain it.
I turn and force a smile. ‘No, not at all,’ I say. ‘I’m just not sleeping all that brilliantly. I’m sorry … I’m not very good company right now.’
Carmen gets up from the table and comes over to the sink. ‘Look, Nina, why don’t you come and stay with me until the guys get back?’
I feel like I have just stepped on a live cable.
‘The guys?’ I say, in much the same way I might use words like ‘vomit’ or ‘diarrhoea’.
A blush smears across Carmen’s cheeks, darkening her subtle tan. ‘I meant … I just meant Sam, and, and … his dad, even though obviously, Ian will be …’
She seems to finish on a gulp, as though trying to bite the sentence off at the end.
Heat builds in my chest. It feels good, like a cleansing burst of steam inside.
‘Only,’ I say quickly and a bit too loud, ‘I know that you are all good chums, aren’t you?’
Carmen flinches visibly, then her expression settles into something harder. ‘Nina, look,’ she says, ‘we’re not going to go back over that again, are we? We all have to get on, don’t we? I mean, Laura is part of Sam’s life now and she really isn’t so bad when you get to know her.’
I stare at my friend, my supposed friend, and the beseeching yet defiant expressions struggling for dominance on her face. Carmen takes off the large, ever-present, sunglasses balanced on her head and puts them on the table, very much as if trying to find something to do with her hands.
‘Maybe she is so bad,’ I say. I know I’m raising my voice but can’t stop it now. ‘Maybe,’ I say, ‘she is actually a bit of a bitch.’
God, that felt good.
One of Carmen’s hands flies to her mouth, as though she is the one who has said the unkind, disgraceful thing and she wants to shove it back inside where it belongs.
I, Nina, who hardly ever swear, who has worked so very hard at saying positive things about Laura in front of Sam, have shocked her deeply. I feel an infusion of pleasurable righteousness spread through me, liquid and sweet. I could get used to this. Saying what I think.
Carmen looks away, as though I am a tiny bit disgusting. Well, good. I’m disgusted with her, Carmen, and her disloyal ways. I’m sick of the lot of them. I only wish Sam were here. I don’t need anyone else.
As suddenly as it came, the fight drains out of me. I pick up the tea towel for something to do and sort of flap it at the table, pointlessly. Maybe I’m drunk after all. I have the start of a headache beginning to pulse behind one eye. Oh dear. Carmen’s eyes are swimming.
‘Carm, I’m sorry, love,’ I say at last. ‘I just need to get back into the swing of things. I need some sleep. I’m not meaning to be difficult.’ I pause. I can’t do this. ‘In fact, I think I’m going to go for a lie-down. Do you mind?’
Carmen blinks rapidly and begins to rise awkwardly from the seat. I feel a queasy rush of guilt.
‘I’m just worried about you, that’s all,’ she says thickly as she fusses with her handbag, head lowered to hide her flushed face.
I force myself to cross the kitchen and give my friend a hug. Carmen responds by putting her arms around me and giving me a heartfelt squeeze. It seems to go on forever.
‘Look,’ she says, pulling away at last and regarding me. ‘I think you’ve had a horrible, traumatic experience and it is going to take time to get over it.’ Her voice wobbles and then she continues. ‘I’ll get out of your hair now. But please know I am here for you. Call me any time, day or night, OK? Promise?’
I nod and endure having my curls pushed gently back from my face.
‘I promise.’
We walk to the front door together. Carmen says, ‘I’ll check in with you tomorrow, OK?’ and I nod, suddenly desperate for her to go. I feel a bit pissed, the Prosecco hitting me belatedly. I’m so tired.
She’s only trying to help. But how can she possibly understand? How anyone who wasn’t there? Carmen just feels like the wrong fit today, that’s all.
‘I do love you, Carm,’ I say and she hugs me again, a bit gratefully, and I feel even guiltier.
After she has gone, I walk slowly back into the kitchen. I’ve been forcing myself to spend time in here, determined that the room won’t have been spoiled by That Night.
Nonetheless, my brain keeps pulling cruel tricks on me, so that I’ll suddenly picture Lucas jerking in agony on the tiled floor, or the little frog-shaped body of Zach, lying on the table, his chest rising and falling at speed. I glance at the tea towel on the table now and see Angel rubbing her bird’s nest hair, eyes glittering with something I couldn’t identify then. I thought it was madness; malice perhaps. But now I think she was terrified and trying to pretend she was in control.
It’s as though I can’t seem to leave it all alone, even though it has finished. Which makes absolutely no sense.
The gentle tap at the back door makes me jump and, for a minute, I’m back to the strange, almost dreamlike moment when I was woken from my uneasy sleep.
Then I notice Carmen’s oversized sunglasses lying on the table.
I grab them and hurry over to answer the door.
Opening it, I start to say, ‘Knew you wouldn’t get far without th—’ but the words are stolen from me.
The sunglasses fall from my hand.
41
Angel
The door hasn’t been slammed in her face within three seconds so Angel reckons she is already winning.
It could still go either way, though.
Nina looks as though someone has just punched her in the stomach. Her eyes are wide, her mouth hanging slightly open. She is very pale.
Angel can
see straight away that the other woman has lost weight. Her curly hair is making a bid for freedom from a red scrunchie and there are violet shadows under her eyes. If she looked ‘beaten down’ before, now she looks … haunted. The truth is, Angel feels a squeeze of regret when she thinks about saying that ‘beaten down’ thing. She did it partly to wound because she felt criticized about her own choices. In fact, she’d thought Nina could be gorgeous, with a bit of work.
But now, she does look awful.
Nina still says nothing.
Angel has always been able to tolerate awkward silences better than most so she simply waits, glad she thought to come to the back door and not the front where she might be seen from the road. She’s not a fool. She knows what she’s risking by doing this.
When Nina finally speaks, the words burst out in a rapid gunfire of outrage.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’
‘I just want to talk, that’s all,’ says Angel, raising a hand in supplication, palm up. Nina looks at it as if she has been presented with a dead fish.
‘Talk?’ she says, voice skidding hysterically at the end. ‘That’s exactly what we can’t do! I’m going to be the main witness in your trial! Haven’t you been told to stay away? This is illegal! Don’t you know this? Don’t you even know this from the telly?’
This last bit gives Angel the inappropriate urge to laugh, but it’s only because she is thrumming with stress right now. She could seriously fuck up her trial doing this, not to mention going to prison for breaching conditions of her bail. She knows, alright.
‘Just five minutes,’ she begs. ‘Please, Nina. I promise no one knows, or will know I’m here. I walked the whole way. Look?’ She twists her leg and lifts a foot half out of one of her dusty grey ballet pumps, revealing raw, red skin and a yellowish blister.
Nina hesitates and then her shoulders drop.
‘God’s sake,’ she says, pulling her by the arm into the room. Her hand feels hot against Angel’s skin.
Angel wants to sit down but Nina doesn’t offer, merely stands in the middle of the kitchen, arms folded and face closed. Angel is suddenly so tired and sad, and her feet hurt. She doesn’t know where to start. She can’t stop her brain from replaying those thundering boots coming into the room, and all the shouting. The sheer, electric terror of it all.
