The Stranger In My Home: I thought she was my daughter. I was wrong.

by Parks, Adele

  ‘How much did you give her?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh, not so much. A little on Saturday night, just enough to send her to sleep. Then again on Sunday afternoon, and just before I set off back to Surrey this morning. I didn’t want her waking up alone and being scared.’

  ‘Thoughtful,’ I mutter sarcastically. He beams at me.

  ‘Don’t look so worried, Alison. There are no long-term effects. It just sends you to sleep. All the bad press comes from the despicable things that are done to a person when she or he is asleep.’

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘On the dark web. Have you heard of that?’ I shake my head. All I know of the dark web is gleaned from Sherlock. That’s always been enough for me. This isn’t my reality. My reality is school and lacrosse league tables, book clubs and charity coffee mornings. ‘I sometimes get myself a little pick-me-up from there, too.’

  ‘Antidepressants?’

  ‘Not quite.’ He grins. I wonder what the hell he has in his system. How long he’s been taking whatever he is taking and if these illegal drugs have anything to do with the fact he’s so delusional. I appraise the room. Disappointingly, the locked window is mock-Tudor, a lattice of metal stopping me smashing it and climbing out. The only door out of the room leads back into the kitchen. There’s no way out of this room. I haven’t seen a landline telephone. I suppose there might be one upstairs, but the chances are he’ll have unplugged any phones, hidden them. It feels hopeless. How long might he keep us here?

  I can feel Katherine shaking. Momentarily, I feel as though I am under water, disconnected and sinking, then one of her tears splashes on to my arm and I’m jolted back up to the surface. I think of the mother thrush sitting on the drainpipe, making sure the wave of water didn’t wash her babies away. I think of the father thrush, too.

  ‘I’m going for a pee. Bathroom is upstairs, but I’m going to do it in the sink in the kitchen.’ So we can’t do a dash for the back door.

  The minute he is out of the room I take Katherine’s face between my two hands and urgently hiss-whisper, ‘I left the car in an NCP with your dad’s number taped to the windscreen. His number is also written on the inside of Mozart’s collar. They’ll find us.’

  ‘That will only bring them to Brighton. How will they find us here?’ she whispers back hurriedly. Her face is streaked with tears and snot. She looks desperate, not reassured. ‘I think he stole my phone. Do you have yours?’ I shake my head sadly. She looks like she is about to howl.

  ‘We just have to sit tight.’ Back to this. I would act – I would – if I could see a way. ‘We are getting out of here, do you understand, Katherine? Everything is going to work out.’

  ‘How do you know?’ she whimpers.

  ‘Because I promise you, and I’ve promised your dad, and I never break a promise.’

  She stares at me with her enormous eyes that I love more than my own, and I see her think about this. I am a worrier, a fusspot, a bit of a brute when it comes to the completion of homework, thank-you letters and the consumption of vegetables. I am for ever regretting my past and worrying about her future. I have my faults. But I deliver. I am her mum and I don’t break promises.

  If I promise I’ll get us somewhere on time, I do. If I say I’ll be at the school gate, on the sidelines, in the audience, on the bleachers, that’s where she’ll find me. Tickets for the 2013 One Direction tour – yes, indeed. Lemon-drizzle cake for the school fair – no problem, even if I have to stay up until midnight. Maybe she’ll be remembering the other promises I kept, ones she wished I would break, like when I promised she could have her ears pierced at the age of fifteen but not a day before. Perhaps she’s remembering that, when she was going for the mutated-gene test, I would not promise it was going to be all right, even though she begged me to. That was outside of my control. This isn’t.

  ‘Oh, and by the way, you haven’t got a mutated gene.’ I kiss her forehead, pull away, beam at her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He made the whole thing up,’ I whisper, eyes on the door, terrified he’s going to walk in any moment.

  ‘Oh my God.’ I expect her to smile, kiss me, laugh with relief, but instead she repeats the words: ‘Oh my God. Oh my God.’ She makes a strange sort of spluttering sound. I notice that her breathing begins to race. It’s shallow; I can hear the air rattle and scrape in her chest, not finding a clear way in and out.

  ‘Katherine? Katherine, it’s OK, darling. Take a deep breath. This is good news.’ But she can’t take a deep breath; she’s hyperventilating. I think she’s having some sort of asthma attack, but she’s never suffered from asthma before. Could it be a heart attack? The Rohypnol he gave her! She’s sweating, and her lips are turning pale. I leap off the sofa and rush into the kitchen. Tom is walking towards me, pulling up his fly. He hastily grabs two glasses of orange juice he’s poured.

  ‘I’ve got you a drink.’

  I need to get to a phone to ring an ambulance. I need to get to the tap for some water. Not the orange juice. No, I don’t trust that. I am an enormous ball of rage and adrenalin. I can’t take any more. I made my daughter a promise. Not one more thing. I am here to save her. I can’t help. I am not going to fail. I am keeping that promise.

  I expand. My strength and determination multiply. The fury, panic, horror and desperation swell, too. All these things are hurtling around my body, pumping through my veins and gushing into my muscles and my organs. Especially my heart. I can hear elephants charge, orang-utans chatter, bears and wolves growl and howl. They are all behind me.

  It’s instinct. Not an accident. Although not deliberate.

  My arms are flailing, then they go rigid of their own accord. I punch Tom in the solar plexus. He drops the glasses and they smash to the floor, orange juice everywhere. He doubles up, in considerable pain. Now it’s him gasping for breath. It’s lightening. Not a decision exactly. Not a choice. I punch and kick, and punch him again. I’ve never struck a human being in my life, so I don’t know what I’m doing and some of the blows no doubt hurt me as much as they do him, but he’s surprised and the lucky hit to the solar plexus has given me an advantage. He backs away from me, winded, wheezing. I bring my knee up in his groin and he crumples. He shifts back behind the basement door. The steps are steep, made perilous with spilt juice; it is dark.

  Inevitably, he slips. I watch him fall. Bang, roll, bang, shuffle. Stop.

  I slam the door closed, grab a chair to prop under the handle. ‘Him, not me!’ I yell to Katherine, because she must have heard the fall and be terrified. No time to say more. I run to the back door. It’s locked, as I knew it would be. I pick up a second chair and smash it against the frosted glass at the top. One, two, three. The window shatters; shards fly in all directions. I close my eyes and put my arms across my face. The glass scatters across the kitchen, and then the smithereens settle. Opening my eyes to spots of blood on my arms, dripping on to the floor, I push my head and shoulders through the broken glass. I scream and scream, as loudly as I possibly can. I demand someone call an ambulance. I yell, over and over again, ‘Heeeelppp! Heeeelppp us! Please! Help us!’

  44

  It’s a bright spring evening, not warm exactly but dry and clear. This year, more than ever, I’m appreciating the promise of the season of birth, fresh starts and new beginnings. Annabel and I have spent the last three hours transforming the local community hall into something attractively festive. We step back and proudly survey our efforts. We’ve gone for the ‘more is more’ philosophy. The room is doused in helium balloons, fluttering streamers, personalised bunting and the sort of glittery nonsense that everyone, other than me, seems to be wild about – tiaras, blowouts, horns and pompoms. I congratulate myself on the fact that, throughout this party-planning process, I’ve never once used the words ‘tat’, ‘tack’ or ‘tasteless’; it really would be a shame to blot my copybook now.

  ‘I had my doubts about how lime green and shocking pink were going to work together,’ I
admit. ‘But it looks incredibly effective. Jolly.’

  ‘Both their favourite colours combined – there was no other way to go,’ says Annabel with a broad grin. She’s a woman who smiles a lot; it’s reassuring. She rubs her back. She’s enormous now, absolutely huge. I’m fearful that her skin is going to split. Callum keeps making jokes about the exploding belly in Alien. Annabel just laughs and says that her stomach muscles are shot because this is her fourth pregnancy and that he was the beginning of the end for her, he ought to be more sympathetic. She’s nine days overdue. Olivia is extremely keen for her to hang on a little longer.

  ‘I don’t want to share my birthday – at least, not with anyone else. It’s my and Katherine’s special day, and this new baby brother is not going to nab it.’ She makes it sound like a joke but I think we all know she’s more than half serious. Annabel is crossing her legs, fingers and toes, hoping her baby son doesn’t crash the party. We’ve tried hard to make this day wonderful for the girls. We were all so proud and excited when they approached us and suggested a joint birthday party.

  ‘We know most of each other’s friends now,’ said Katherine.

  ‘It’s going to get loads of Instagram coverage,’ pointed out Olivia.

  The planning process has been a spectacular exercise in negotiating, compromise and diplomacy. Not that Olivia and Katherine disagreed, the girls spoke as one throughout; the sides were split along the generational divide. We gave in on the colour theme, inclusion of a piñata and the cake flavour; we stood by our decision on the budget. Well, more or less. And as for the issue of chaperoning, we agreed that we’d be there, ‘just in case’, but that we’d stay in the small annexe kitchen, out of sight.

  ‘I think it looks pretty fabulous,’ smiles Annabel. She sits down heavily in a chair. She looks slightly sweaty and tired. ‘I must be mad to think about hosting fifty sixteen year olds when I’m forty-one weeks pregnant.’

  ‘Absolutely! Do you want a glass of water? Lime cordial? Mango smoothie?’

  ‘I want a glass of wine but, go on, then, I’ll settle for lime cordial.’

  Secretly, I’m still pleasantly surprised to find out that Olivia’s favourite colour is pink, albeit shocking pink – as she’s always at pains to clarify. I’d have thought she’d have left the colour behind, dismissed it as girly, infantile. Indeed, I’d have thought she’d have dismissed having a favourite colour at all as silly. However, her mother was right (of course she was): Olivia is much softer than she likes to pretend. I suppose when I first met her she had every right to milk the role of weary, disenfranchised teen; she was exactly that. She was absorbing a lot of her father’s grief and pain, keeping his secrets in a brave but misguided attempt to protect him, and she was wary and resentful of the new family that was being foisted upon her. Quite a lot for a kid to have on her plate, I think we can all agree. Now, I’ve had the total joy and benefit of seeing her at the very heart of a warm, functioning family. Now, I’ve had the privilege of getting to know her a little bit when she doesn’t have all that terrible stress and strain – she’s a wonder!

  She has a terrific sense of humour, very dry but never cruel. She laughs a lot, like her mother. It’s a wonderful, hearty laugh, infectious. Despite her trying to convince everyone otherwise, she has a great many talents and skills that make her interesting and prepared. Her art is amazing, as Tom always claimed, and as a matter of fact she’s pretty brilliant at English and history, too. She can ice skate, actually do that twizzling thing where you bend backwards, kick up your leg behind you and hold the edge of the blade; she just doesn’t much enjoy doing it. She, like me, is not a fan of the cold. ‘The ice rink is more Callum’s place,’ she once commented affably. She’s an excellent player of cards, she bakes lovely cupcakes, she can map-read and, quite impressively, she can fit thirty-two Maltesers into her mouth at one time, something that gave us all a great deal of hilarity one evening when Katherine and Jeff challenged her. Katherine only got to about seven before she thought she might be sick; Jeff had a decent crack at it: he got to nineteen. Mozart was keen to get in on the act but we only fed him one or two. We were all so happy to get him home, even Jeff, who is becoming less allergic to his fur now and can often be found reading his newspaper, Mozart contentedly lying at his feet.

  ‘Come on, Alison. Your turn,’ Olivia encouraged.

  ‘Oh no, I couldn’t.’

  ‘It’s fine. Just don’t let one land on your gag reflex, or else it’s all over.’

  ‘Desk-gate once more,’ laughed Jeff, an in-joke that flew over the girls’ heads. I managed eight but was never a serious contender for the title of champion.

  ‘You know Ed Sheeran holds the record, for fitting in fifty-one,’ said Olivia, laughing.

  ‘I did not know that,’ I replied.

  ‘He must have an enormous mouth,’ commented Jeff, opening and closing his own as wide as he possibly could, trying to imagine.

  ‘Have you ever wiggled an After Eight from your forehead to your mouth?’ Katherine asked Olivia.

  ‘No.’ She looked gleeful at the very thought.

  ‘It’s hilarious. Look, I’ll show you on YouTube.’

  ‘Better yet, I’ll nip to Tesco Express and see if I can pick up a box and we can do it for real.’ I said this, and I didn’t say that we’d all had enough sugar for one night, nor did I screech out that Olivia might choke, forcing thirty-one Maltesers into her mouth at once (and she really might!). Nor did I mention that it was getting late, because it was a Saturday and you only live once.

  You really do. Don’t we know it?

  The thing about coming close to true and absolute danger or grief is that life is never the same again. It can’t be, but we have to go on anyway. That’s what we do – humans, animals, the waves of the sea – we keep going. Our persistence is the only consistent thing about us. I’ve thought about this a lot in the past three months and the thing I’ve come to believe is that after you are slammed up against horror and disaster, it’s done. Just that. You can’t change it. So there are only two routes left available.

  You can decide to cower away, go home, lock your door and perpetually fear every shadow. You can incessantly look to the darkness, waiting for the next threat to emerge, remain convinced that life is strewn with hardships and disappointments and nothing more.

  Or.

  You can throw open your door, your heart. You can remind yourself, every day if necessary, that you got through. That everything passes. You can take comfort and strength from the fact that when it came to the wire you were not just a survivor but a warrior.

  I am a warrior. Katherine is a warrior. Olivia, Jeff, Annabel are all, in their different ways, warriors. The world is populated with ordinary people who have shown their strength and braveness by refusing to fear shadows.

  None of the medics could offer me a definitive reason as to why Katherine had a panic attack at the precise moment she did. The moment I told her she did not have the mutated gene. I thought I was delivering good news in order to sustain her. We’ve since half-heartedly joked, ‘Can you imagine what her reaction would have been if she had inherited the gene? Considering she had a panic attack, when she heard she hadn’t!’ But it’s a low-level joke, the sort that can only raise a reluctant grin. I suppose it was a shock too far, at that precise point in time. It may have been a reaction to the drugs she’d been fed. I don’t know. But I do know that her panic attack possibly saved our lives.

  The neighbour who Tom had described as a busybody heard my screams and came running. She did not walk on by. I describe her as a godsend. Later, she told Inspector Davis that her first impressions of the man in the holiday let had been that he was curt and unfriendly, suspicious. She’d been keeping her eye on the place, as it belongs to a friend of hers. I guess he simply ran out of reserves of his famous charm; I suppose everyone has their limits and it appears that he couldn’t muster one more boyish grin or make his eyes twinkle while he was drugging a child. The neighbour was
efficient and quick-thinking. She called an ambulance and then fetched the spare front-door key her friend had entrusted to her.

  ‘For precisely this sort of emergency,’ she explained. ‘Well, not precisely this sort. I mean, who would have thought?’

  She helped me pull Katherine to her feet and between us we managed to half carry, half drag my terrified daughter next door. There, we waited for the ambulance and police, Katherine breathing into a paper bag, both of us too shocked to cry.

  The tears did come. When we saw them move his body out of the basement, into the ambulance. Katherine had to go to hospital, but the medics, assessing that she was calming down and not at immediate risk, transported him first. Katherine sobbed when she saw him unmoving, bloody, battered. I think she was still frightened of him. Scared that he’d suddenly sit up and make a grab for her. My tears were ones of pity, grief, regret. I didn’t and don’t regret my own actions. I regret that any of it had to happen.

  Olivia quite often comes round to ours now and we have fun nights like the one with the Maltesers and After Eight challenges; we do more edifying things, too, if I can get everyone on board. Just before Christmas I managed to persuade Jeff and the girls to come to the National Portrait Gallery with me, my favourite London gallery, which Olivia loves too, what with her interest in art. Katherine visits Annabel and Rory’s regularly as well, where she gets to enjoy her siblings for hours at a time, then she comes home again, secretly relieved that she doesn’t have to share her bedroom or submit to playing hairdressers a moment longer with Amy: ‘I know she’s only young, but she tugs!’

  ‘My tip is always to offer to put her hair in a French plait,’ Olivia advises. ‘Never be the customer, always be the stylist.’

  My relationship with Annabel is muddled but wonderful, complex and yet simple. We created and carried one another’s babies and so we are for ever linked and indebted to one another. Yet most of our gratitude stems from the fact that we’ve made the most enormous leap: we’ve learnt to trust each other enough to let our birth babies go. We know they are cherished and that they are where they belong. That sounds so complicated and peculiar but it is how it is. Sometimes, life is just how it is. Not textbook prose. More existential poetry, with half-lines and irregular punctuation. I love Olivia but she’s Annabel’s child. Katherine is my daughter. It helped me feel better about Peter too. I understand now he’s somewhere being loved. I have to believe that.