Give Me the Child

by Mel McGrath

  ‘So put me right.’

  ‘Off the record and no names, mine or any other.’ I was careful not to substantiate what he thought he knew about Joshua Barrons.

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘You mess with me this time, White, I’ll find a way to fuck you so hard you won’t be able to sit down for months. As you found out when you were rooting through the muck, I’m a product of the Pemberton. I might look harmless but I’m not.’

  White laughed but I noticed his leg twitch. ‘Just give me something I can use.’

  Where to begin? At the bottom of the pyramid of violence were the kids whose levels of cortisol had been raised by bad home situations, things they witnessed, and life on the streets. Most were stuck in permanent flight or fight mode. Trigger reactions. Others, the leaders, were tougher; their senses numbed by the daily bath in their own stress hormones. They were trying to feel something, anything. And in the midst of it all there would most likely be a sprinkling of kids whose amygdalae just didn’t work the way they should: fearless, reckless, unstable but often alarmingly charming, charismatic kids, who didn’t know how to give a shit about anything or anyone other than themselves. And sometimes not even that. They were the ones who were truly dangerous, the ones to watch.

  White sat back, making encouraging noises.

  ‘When you say dangerous, what you really mean is evil, isn’t it?’ he said, once I’d finished.

  I shook my head. ‘Evil is just a gap in the research.’

  Everyone but the cat was out when I got home. I fed him, pulled a bottle of Riesling from the fridge, grabbed a glass and went out into the garden with the mountain of post which had accumulated on the hall table while Tom and I had been dealing with bigger things. I was feeling shaky after the meeting with White. I didn’t trust him but, as Anja pointed out, what choice did I have? Next door’s builders had gone home for the day and there was a blackbird singing in the ideas tree. The chair on the far side of the garden table looked temptingly shady. I sat, poured myself a glass of Riesling and opened a bunch of what turned out to be marketing letters and junk mail before reaching an envelope stuffed with bank statements. I leafed through, scanning the numbers without focusing on any in particular until my eyes lighted on the words Invalid payee. What did that mean? Flipping over to the next page, I saw a debit from June of the same amount. Also for May. As I flicked back through the months my heart kept pace. Thud, thud, thud. Why had neither of us noticed a sum this large leaving the account? It looked like we’d fallen victim to identity theft. As I thumbed back to the June payment, my eyes flicked up to the account information at the top of page and stopped there. It took me a moment to decipher the figures.

  That explained it. The papers in front of me didn’t relate to our joint account but to Tom’s personal one. The envelope had been addressed to Tom and in my distracted state I’d opened it. We’d never been the kind of couple to share an email address or open each other’s mail. There was a joint account for household expenses, otherwise we held on to our individual accounts. At the time – as now – this seemed like the more modern, defining, twenty-first-century couple thing to do. Fighting over money being the most dismal of the domestic arts, we’d always avoided it. When Tom had told me that he’d saved a sum when he’d been working at Adrenalyze, then borrowed a bit from his father to fund more work on Labyrinth, I had no reason to disbelieve him. But the figures here didn’t fit. I paid the mortgage. We both paid into the joint account but the regular sums of money leaving Tom’s account were in addition to that payment. As I went back over the sheets it was as if I was thumbing a flipbook of my past which was shifting before my eyes. A deadening realisation hit me.

  On the fifteenth of every month, for at least six months, maybe longer, my husband had been making regular payments to Lilly Winter. The last of these had been returned marked ‘invalid payee’ because it had gone out the day before Lilly Winter died and only reached its destination after her account had been frozen.

  Tom must have lied to me when he said he knew nothing about Ruby Winter. The longer I thought about it the more it seemed to make sense. Hadn’t Tom himself told me that he was named on Ruby’s birth certificate? That was how the police had tracked him down. At the time some small part of me had registered this as odd but with everything going on, it had slipped my mind. It was suddenly very clear. Tom had known about Ruby Winter for a long time, perhaps all her life, and he’d been paying her mother for the girl’s upkeep and perhaps also to keep her quiet. No wonder my husband hadn’t wanted another child with me. He’d been too busy supporting someone else’s.

  I raced to Tom’s study. In all our years together, I’d never looked at Tom’s phone, gone through his drawers or worked my way through his browsing history, not so much because I trusted him, though I did, but because I’d never wanted to be that woman: the suspicious, jealous, snooping, controlling wife. But this was different. Now I had cause. His desktop responded to my password guesses by locking me out. He had a laptop too but it wasn’t anywhere visible. I went to the filing cabinet and found it oddly empty then flipped through a random selection of the books on his shelves in the event that he’d left letters or hard copies of emails between the pages. A boarding pass stub fluttered from a biography of Steve Jobs, a remnant of a trip to a gaming convention in LA, but that was it. Next, I searched through his desk drawers, and coming upon a small key that looked as if it might open a cupboard underneath the shelves, I went over and tried it out. My hunch was right. Inside was an accordion file containing tax returns and tucked among the file leaves was a letter outlining a loan Tom had taken out on the house back in January. Not a huge loan, but enough to fund his payments to Lilly Winter. The agreement had been signed by the two of us. Except, of course, it hadn’t. I had to take my hat off to Tom, though. He’d got my signature down pat. Must have taken a lot of practice.

  I ran my hand down to the back of the drawer, wondering what other horrors might be lurking there, and behind the file I discovered something else, something wholly unexpected. A bright blue plastic rectangle with a built-in grip matching Shelly’s description of her son’s missing iPad. Only Tom could realistically have put it there. The probability of one of the girls finding the key, locating the cupboard and stashing Charlie Frick’s iPad inside was vanishingly small. But why? And why had he lied about it? Was he trying to protect his daughter from being found out? What else was he lying about in order to keep Ruby Winter off the hook? I picked up the device and switched it on, but the battery was dead, so I took it to the kitchen and plugged it into my iPhone charger.

  At seven thirty, when neither Tom nor the girls had made an appearance, I texted Tom then speed-dialled Sally and left a message. I thought about calling Anja or Claire then decided against it and instead grabbed another bottle of Riesling. For a while I sat on the sofa with half an eye on news coverage of the latest stabbing and wondered why there was no one, apart from Sally, that I could confide in. It hadn’t always been like that. Back in the day my dance card was full.

  One time, after my recovery from psychosis, when Tom and Freya and I had finally settled into a family routine, I called Judy, my best friend from way back, and suggested a gang of us from the old days get together.

  ‘I hate to have to tell you this, Cat,’ Judy said, ‘but we already do.’ There was a pause. ‘After your episode, we just didn’t think it was appropriate to have you around our babies.’

  A few stood by me: Tricia, Sarah, gay Tim and straight Tim, Lyla, Sam. Then Kylie Drinkwater happened and Sam, Tricia and straight Tim stopped calling. And after months when I couldn’t bring myself to speak to anyone Sarah and Lyla fell away. Eventually, even gay Tim faded out. Hands up. It was no one’s fault but my own.

  There came the unmistakable clatter of my daughter’s laughter and, hastily rising from the sofa, I took my glass and the now empty bottle, went into the kitchen and hid Charlie Frick’s iPad under a pile of heat mats. Then I threw the empty bottle in th
e recycling and went out into the hallway and walked straight into Ruby Winter. For an instant the girl froze, before taking a sidestep and heading towards the stairs.

  Freya stood by the open front door.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ Freya said, moving forward into my opened arms and allowing herself to be squeezed. Then she pulled away and, in a disapproving tone, said, ‘Have you been drinking?’

  ‘A bit.’

  Tom appeared looking sweaty and a little breathless. He pulled the deadbolts and fixed the chain on the front door. By now Ruby had gone upstairs and Freya had disappeared into the kitchen, both far away enough not to be within earshot. With the Riesling swilling round in my belly, in as calm a voice as I could muster, I said, ‘I’ve seen your accounts.’

  Tom froze, his hand still on door. The theme tune from some cartoon started up from the living room. Tom’s gaze shifted across my shoulder as if he was weighing up the possibility of getting past me so he could escape into the sanctuary of his study.

  ‘What accounts?’

  I held the statements out to him. He took them, his mouth slack.

  ‘I’m guessing you forged my signature to get that loan on the house, on our house, to pay off your lover.’ Tom held up a staying hand but I was on a roll now and prepared to take this wherever it needed to go. ‘How long have you known about Ruby? You met her before she came here, didn’t you? Did you two go out on fun dad and daughter trips? Was that why she was so keen to come here? Oh, and by the way, if you cared as much about your daughter as you say you do when you’re depriving her of getting any therapy, maybe you can explain why you let her grow up in a pigsty with a drunk?’

  I could see Tom heating up. Any moment now, I thought, he’s going to start shouting and then he’s going to storm out. But, to my surprise, he didn’t. Instead, he gave a scornful shake of his head and said in a tone more sorrowful than angry, ‘What, you’d rather I hadn’t done the right thing and provided for my daughter?’

  ‘With our house?’

  Tom’s hands were clutching his head. ‘Christ, I made one mistake, one fucking mistake. What did you want me to do? Come clean and jeopardise our marriage, our life here, everything?’

  ‘How long?’

  A moaning sound escaped his lips. He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. A few years.’

  Our voices were raised above a whisper now. Tom held up his hands, hoping to lower the temperature, and moved closer. When he spoke his voice trembled and there was an ugly, pleading tone to it.

  ‘I didn’t lie to you, Cat. Ruby coming here, that was as much of a shock to me as it was to you. How could I have known she was going to get dumped on us? I thought she’d be sent to live with her grandmother.’ His eyes were huge and shining as if he was about to burst into tears. ‘I’m so close I can smell the money. The instant Labyrinth is launched you won’t have to worry about the house, I promise. We’ll buy a dozen houses.’

  I held my ground. ‘You should have told me.’

  Tom collected himself. His jaw ticked. He reached out a hand and tried to touch my face but I didn’t let him.

  ‘Caitlin, darling, I thought it might make you ill again. You have no idea what it’s like living with that pressure.’

  A kind of hollow sickness rose up from my belly. Tom was calm now. We were on familiar territory. The lies, the cheating, the loan on the house, this was all my fault. I was the nutjob, the maniac. It was me, Crazy Cat.

  Tom moved towards me. When he spoke his voice was soft and there was a hint of slyness in his tone. ‘You’ve been drinking! I can smell it. So that’s why you’re acting a bit mental. You’re on the bloody sauce.’

  His eyes cut to the kitchen door. I swung round and saw our daughter standing in the doorjamb, with her hands cupped over her mouth and an unbearable sheen of fear in her eyes. I rushed towards her, saying, ‘It’s OK, my love, everything’s all right,’ but she slipped past me and ran instead towards her father.

  ‘Why do you have to be so horrible to Dad? Why can’t you be normal?’

  There was nothing to be said to that. I knew I had been defeated and, as I turned, fighting back tears, there, on the stairs, like a buzzard keeping beady watch over dying remains, sat Ruby Winter.

  For the remainder of the evening each of us kept our own company; me in the living room, the girls in their bedrooms and Tom in his study. At ten or thereabouts, I heard my husband pad up to the bathroom then come back down and shut himself in his study again. I waited until he had settled, then crept along the hallway to Freya’s room. In the rumble of city light filtering in behind the curtains, I could just see the cascade of my daughter’s hair on the pillow. I went over to the window, reached up inside the curtains and let in a little air. In the bed Freya stirred.

  ‘Mum?’ Her voice was as drowsy as a drunken bee.

  ‘Yes, darling, it’s only me.’ I sat down at the end of the bed, felt for Freya’s feet and curled my hands around them over the sheet.

  ‘Are you still drunk?’

  ‘A little probably. I’m sorry.’ I felt ashamed and humbled by the knowledge that I’d brought this on myself. Ruby hadn’t turned Freya against me, I’d done it all on my own. In my wariness and suspicion of the newcomer, I’d managed to alienate everyone else.

  Freya turned on her side to face me and in the gloom I could just make out the shine in her eyes.

  ‘Will you and Dad make up?’

  ‘We’ll try, sweet pea,’ I said, though it felt like a false assurance. Right now it seemed Tom and I were beyond any kind of reconciliation.

  Back downstairs, I took a long drink of water and fell into a fitful sleep on the sofa. In the quiet blank light of predawn I woke, my tongue like a lizard. I went into the kitchen and pulled Charlie’s iPad from under the heat mats. While waiting for it to boot up I made a cup of chamomile tea and thought about the odd letter the girls had written. Sorry your birthday had an unhappy ending. I’d never believed Ruby’s explanation. The message seemed to have come out of the same morbid box of tricks as the defaced gravestone, the pinch bruises on Freya’s arm and the dead hamster.

  The iPad screen flared into life. A screen saver of Charlie’s face emerged from the blue light. His mouth with smeared with what looked like cake. Most likely the image had been taken on his birthday. Here and there the picture seemed blurred. I blinked and leaned in closer and saw the scratch marks. In a childish script someone had etched: I hope you die.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Two days passed in which none of us spoke about the row or the iPad or anything else much. The girls spent the Thursday and Friday evenings in their rooms or in the garden. I slept in our bedroom and Tom shacked up in his study. We didn’t even eat together. By the time I got back from work, Tom had already taken the girls out to Hoopoes or McDonald’s, leaving me to eat cheese on toast alone, reading my work papers. By Saturday morning, I figured if anything was to change then I would have to do the running. I waited till I heard Tom in the kitchen then made my way in to join him, but before I had a chance to say anything he brushed past me and headed back into the study. Not long afterwards Ruby appeared, looking even whiter and more ghostly than before, like some kind of daylight vampire. We’d barely spoken since the events of Wednesday evening.

  ‘I had a bit too much to drink the other day,’ I said.

  The girl shrugged before remarking, pointedly, ‘I’m used to it.’

  I decided this was best ignored. ‘I’m making bacon and eggs,’ I said.

  The bacon buckled as it hit the pan. I cracked in the eggs. Moments later, Ruby got up, went to the cupboard where the cereals were kept and took out the cornflakes. She poured herself a bowl, sprinkled on a great deal of sugar and began eating. She looked vulnerable and lost and for a fleeting moment I felt for her.

  I said, ‘I found Charlie’s iPad. Did you write something on it?’

  Ruby helped herself to more cereal. For a moment neither of us said anything, then Ruby put down her spoon and, taking a
sip of orange juice, in a neutral tone, said, ‘My mum was a lot like you: drunk and a bit mental.’

  I felt my hands grip the cooker then a stinging flare where my fingers had touched the pan. Wheeling round to face my stepdaughter, I said, ‘I know what you’re trying to do, Ruby, but you won’t succeed.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ There was a clatter then a cool spray of milk from the cornflake bowl Ruby had just thrown settled across my front and she was out of the door.

  I was at the cold tap holding my burnt fingers in the stream when Tom appeared, hands on hips and a brittle expression of concern which somehow didn’t ring true.

  ‘What’s going on? Ruby just told me you’d been incredibly rude to her.’

  I shook my hands free of water and relayed what I’d found on the iPad.

  ‘Does that give you licence to threaten my daughter?’

  I should have felt the noose tighten then, but it all seemed too far-fetched, too crazy.

  ‘Sit down,’ I said.

  Tom pulled out a chair and sprawled into it, his arm curled around the back rest in an attitude of blokeish confidence while I remained standing, clutching the worktop as if it were a life raft. I was vulnerable and I knew it but Tom had just drawn a line and, in order to protect my daughter, I was going to have to cross it.

  ‘I need you to listen to me. I deal in difficult, dangerous kids every single day and I’m telling you it is not safe for Ruby to be around Freya right now. Your daughter is hardly safe around herself. She’s morbid and obsessional. I’ve seen kids who’ve lost a parent change this way, sometimes overnight. It’s as if death has set up camp in her. Let me pull some strings, get her into a residential facility. One of the good ones. We’ll visit at weekends and Ruby will get a chance to work through some of her stuff away from Freya.’

  Tom was sitting perfectly upright now, shaking his head condescendingly.

  ‘How’s the view from up there on the moral high ground?’ I said. As soon as I said it I knew it was a bad move.