James immediately steps forward, picks his daughter up as though she is a doll. She looks tiny in his arms, Ashley sees how fragile her limbs are, how small her body is. She is only fifteen.
‘We found her on the street,’ the policeman says.
There is a silence. Ashley’s brain is full of white noise.
The policeman clears his throat. ‘Would you mind if we came in?’
Ashley suddenly comes to.
‘Of course,’ she says, ‘Of course you can come in.’ The shape of the words feels weird in her mouth.
She brings them both inside while James tends to Lucy. Her hands shake as she shuts the front door, leads them into the living room. She feels like she might throw up.
‘She was lying on the corner of Caledonian Road, all the way across town. Near the traffic lights. Mrs Thomas, do you know who your daughter was with this evening?’
Ashley shakes her head. ‘She went out,’ she says. Her voice sounds odd, unfamiliar, as though her ears are filled with water. ‘She told us she was going out and then she got into a car. I thought . . . I thought it was with friends.’
‘Well,’ the policeman says, ‘that’s as may be, Mrs Thomas, but if I were you I’d have a second look at who your daughter’s friends are. We had the medics come out to the scene already, before we brought her home – we would’ve called but it took us a while to find any ID on her. Anyway, they’ve checked her over, and it’s reasonably tame – a combination of cannabis and a huge amount of alcohol.’
He glances at the policewoman, who is sitting beside him on Ashley’s sofa.
‘You’re lucky she didn’t have to have her stomach pumped.’
James comes back into the room, puts his arms around Ashley. She hasn’t realised she is still trembling until he presses her quivering hand within both of his own.
He nods at the police, shakes the man’s hand. ‘Thank you for bringing her back, Officers.’
It feels like a movie; Ashley wants it to be over.
‘You found her on the street?’ James says. ‘Whoever she was with just left her there?’
The policeman nods. ‘You say you think she was with friends?’
James sighs, runs a hand through his hair. ‘I mean, I’m not sure – she definitely seemed like she wanted to go out, she knew the car was picking her up. It certainly wasn’t forced.’
The policewoman smiles sympathetically at Ashley. ‘Best thing to do is talk to her tomorrow, when she comes round,’ she says. ‘She will be all right, she’s just had far too much for one little girl. I can see you guys are concerned and you should be, but what’s probably happened is her friends panicked when she got too drunk and left her because they just didn’t know what else to do.’ She sighs.
‘You’d be surprised, I know it sounds harsh but it happens more often than you think, with very young teens. They’re hopelessly inexperienced and, like I say, they panic. The thing is to make sure your daughter is with people you trust – people who are going to look out for her. I’d make sure she chooses her friends more carefully in the future.’
‘But we don’t know who she was with!’ Ashley says. She feels terrible, like the worst mother in the world. Above them, Holly begins to cry.
The policewoman nods. ‘I appreciate that, but, as I say, best thing to do is talk to your daughter in the morning. Let her sleep it off. At the moment, there’s not really a lot we can do. But—’ she gets to her feet, as does her colleague ‘—if you have any more questions once you’ve spoken to her, feel free to give us a call.’ She hands Ashley her card. ‘We’d best be off. Talk to us if you need to, but most of all talk to your daughter.’ She smiles at Ashley. ‘Sounds like you’re needed upstairs.’
Ashley takes the card. It feels cold in her fingers.
Later, in bed that night, she turns her face to the wall, stares into the blackness. Her husband reaches out for her but she stiffens, moves away. Her mind is spinning.
James is losing his job. She is losing Lucy. Are they going to lose each other too? The darkness feels like it is closing in on her, she cannot stop picturing the moment James opened the door, the moment she saw the policeman. It is surely every parent’s worst nightmare.
She can hear James breathing next to her, knows he is not asleep. His breathing is too shallow, too light. Ashley imagines her daughter, dressed up in a bar, hanging on the arm of some boy. Slut. The word is horrible, poisonous. She doesn’t believe it. They haven’t brought Lucy up to be like that. She tries to think of the last time she really talked to her daughter, had a proper conversation that didn’t end in a rolling of the eyes or a snappy retort. Her mind comes up short, she draws a total blank.
Is she really such a terrible mother that her own daughter has become a stranger? Is this how it will be when Holly is older too? Ashley thinks of her baby’s big blue eyes, imagines them sharper, spiked with mascara, looking the other way. She feels tears prick her eyes, turns her face into the pillow. She hasn’t had a career, not like Corinne, not like her father with his passion and his creativity. It was always the thing she felt most insecure about – if she isn’t a good mother, what is she? She has always prided herself on being there for her children. She’d thought being a young mum to Lucy would mean she could understand her daughter, would keep them on the same wavelength. All she’d wanted was to be as good a parent as her own were to her. A tear rolls down her cheek. It is almost exactly a year since her dad died; the anniversary is on the twenty-sixth. Ashley thinks of him on the day Lucy was born, of the glisten in his eyes as she handed the baby to him, passed her over as she lay recovering in the hospital bed.
‘You’ll be a terrific mother, Ashley,’ he had said to her, and the pride in his eyes had stayed with her all night, that first sleepless night when she had held Lucy to her chest, her baby girl, her daughter. He had drawn Lucy to his chest, stroked the tiny wisps of hair on her head. ‘I wonder what you’ll grow up to be, little Lucy,’ he’d whispered, and Ashley had smiled sleepily. Her dad was so ambitious, so driven, and now his granddaughter would be the same.
What would her dad say if he could see her now? Ashley shudders, because actually she knows what he would say. He would be ashamed. In the next room, Holly begins to cry again. The sound stabs at Ashley’s heart like a knife. Not good enough. Ashley, you’re not good enough.
38
London
Dominic
He is worried about Corinne. The night of the scallops is just part of it. Lately, she has seemed more and more on edge, and it is beginning to prick at him, little jabs of fear. She’d been OK at the weekend but he worries about her on her own, how she is without him there. He’d thought they were having a nice night with the takeaway, but after the food arrived she seemed to go down, kept looking at the dresser, darting little glances at the photo of her dad. She is just so up and down. And how can she possibly take the congratulations gift as something more sinister? The whole thing just seems absurd.
He doesn’t want to upset her by suggesting again that she visit a psychiatrist, really he doesn’t, but he’s got to be honest, hasn’t he?
She seems like she’s losing the plot.
He knows she has always been a worrier. But this . . . this feels different. This feels like something else.
‘Morning, Dom.’
Erin is smiling at him, carrying a steaming mug of tea past his desk. ‘How’re you doing? Good weekend?’
He spins his chair around, is about to lie, spout off the usual ‘Good, thanks.’ Something stops him; her head is tilted to the side and she’s smiling at him, and suddenly he is overwhelmed with the urge to just be honest, to stop having to skirt around the truth. Sugarcoat everything.
‘It was . . .’ he hesitates. Why not tell her the truth? ‘Actually it was a bit fraught.’
‘Oh no,’ she says. ‘Sorry, Dom. Is there anything . . . well, what was wrong? I’m here, if you want someone to listen.’
‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘Thanks, that
’s really nice of you.’ He looks up, sees Andy watching them. Erin looks up, catches Andy’s eye hopefully. He doesn’t smile, lets his gaze wander over to the work experience girl, linger on her blonde hair. Dominic sees the blush spread over Erin’s cheeks. She dips her head quickly. He can sense her discomfort, feels a pang of sympathy. She deserves better than to be picked up and put down by bloody Andy.
‘If you want to pop out for a quick drink after work, that might be nice?’ he says to her, trying to distract her from Andy’s obvious loss of interest.
She hesitates.
‘We don’t have to,’ Dominic says. ‘Just thought it might be good to get out of the office for a bit. That’s all. You can fill me in on your court cases, how you’re getting on.’ He smiles at her. He doesn’t want her to feel that the whole paper is as bad as Andy, and she looks as though she could use a friend. To be fair, he could too – it would be nice to sit and have a quick beer somewhere, chat about something other than doll houses and graffitied headstones for a bit.
‘Sure,’ says Erin, looking relieved. ‘That’d be great. Thanks, Dom.’
He rings Corinne at lunchtime. She’s in the gallery, sounds quiet, a bit subdued.
‘Everything OK?’ he asks her.
‘Fine,’ she says. ‘Everything’s fine. You?’
‘Yep, good,’ he says. There’s a pause. Why does it feel as though there is a distance between them, a slight awkwardness?
‘Listen—’ he clears his throat ‘—I thought I’d pop out for a quick drink tonight, after work. If you don’t mind?’
‘Of course,’ she says. ‘No problem. You go.’
He is relieved. ‘You sure?’
‘Yes! It’s fine, Dom. I might go round and see Gilly. Come on, I’m OK. I don’t want you to worry about me. It makes me feel . . . it makes me feel ridiculous.’
He grins, tucks the phone under his chin. ‘You’re not ridiculous, Cor. I love you. I’ll see you back at home a bit later.’
‘OK,’ she says. ‘Have fun with Andy.’
There is a beat.
‘Thanks, I will,’ he says, and he hangs up the phone quickly, trying to pretend that he didn’t hear the tremor in her voice. He hasn’t lied, has he? He just hasn’t told her the whole truth.
39
London
Ashley
In the house the next day, things are quiet and strange. The policewoman’s card sits on the kitchen counter, out of place amongst the usual wash of dishes and crumbs. Ashley brings Lucy a bowl of yogurt with a honey L laced on top, as though she is a child again. She and James sit together on their daughter’s single bed, take it in turns to ask questions.
At first, Lucy will not answer. She turns her face away from them, pulls the duvet up to her chin. Ashley feels helpless. She glances at James. Time for a different tactic.
‘Lucy,’ she says. ‘Lucy, I need you to be honest with us. I’m going to be straight with you, now—’ She takes a deep breath. ‘I didn’t want to tell you this, Luce, but it looks like I’m going to have to. I’ve been getting reports about you from the schoolyard which, to be quite frank, are making my blood run cold, and you’re my daughter, and I need to know what’s been going on. I’m not trying to be the enemy, Luce, believe it or not.’
That catches her attention. Lucy pushes the duvet away from her head, sits up slightly in the bed.
‘What does that mean, “reports from the schoolyard”?’
‘Lucy.’
‘What do you mean?’ She glances between them, her face looks confused now, and a little bit frightened. ‘Mum? Dad?’
Ashley sighs. ‘The other day I was called to school to take Benji home because he kicked a little boy in the playground.’
Lucy swallows, rolls her eyes nervously. ‘So?’
‘So, the reason he did that was because this little boy had been going round telling people that his big sister is promiscuous. His fifteen-year-old sister.’
She doesn’t say anything.
Ashley puts her hand out and touches the side of her daughter’s face. She flinches, then her muscles relax suddenly and she starts to cry, hot, panicky tears that trickle onto the duvet.
Ashley puts an arm around her, James finds Lucy’s foot under the covers and gives it a squeeze.
‘All right, Luce, all right,’ he murmurs. ‘Now please, are you going to tell us what happened last night?’
Lucy looks at them. Mascara trails down her cheek.
‘I can’t . . . I can’t remember. I can’t remember what happened.’ She lets out a sob. ‘I can’t remember anything at all!’
Ashley and James look at each other. Gently, Ashley explains.
‘You were brought home by the police, Luce. They found you on the street, without your shoes. Alone. Your “friends” were nowhere to be seen.’
She pauses. Her daughter’s eyes are huge in her head; she can tell this is all new information to her, that she really cannot recall the night.
‘You’d been smoking,’ Ashley continues. ‘I don’t know if that’s something you’ve done before, Lucy, but I’m telling you now—’ she glances at James ‘—I’m telling you now that it’s going to stop. I won’t have cannabis in this house.
Lucy nods. Her face is very pale.
‘The police said you were lucky not to have had your stomach pumped,’ James says. ‘I want to make sure you understand what that means, Lucy – if you’d had any more alcohol you’d have been in the hospital, connected to a machine designed to empty your stomach. Clear enough?’
Ashley puts a hand on his arm. Lucy looks terrified already, there’s no point frightening her more. Her daughter is scared enough.
When they have finished telling her, Lucy begins to cry again. Ashley strokes the back of her hair, feeling it crispy from last night’s hairspray. She rocks Lucy gently, as though she is a five-year-old who has spilled Ribena from her Tommy Tippee. It is so nice holding her daughter close, it feels like it has been a long time.
James brings them both tea with two sugars, extra sweet the way Lucy likes it. Ashley has a moment of doubt – perhaps they should be angry with her – but her daughter looks so young, so very very young, that she cannot bear it, she just wants to find out what happened and make sure that nothing like it ever happens again.
She had been plagued by it all night. Visions of Lucy on the street like a broken doll, abandoned and alone. Prey for God knows who. At four in the morning, James had turned on their bedroom lamp.
‘I can’t sleep.’
‘Me neither.’
He’d paused, turned to face her, put a tentative hand out to touch her hair. ‘I’m so sorry, Ashley.’
She’d waited, let him speak.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t been better. I’m sorry I couldn’t stop Lucy from getting in the car. I’m sorry I’ve let you down with the money, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you from the start. I promise I will do from now on. I’ll keep you informed of everything that happens in the office. When Daniel makes a decision about me, whatever it is, I’ll tell you. I mean it. And if you want to go back to work, we’ll talk about that too. I’ll speak to Daniel. And we’ll go from there.’ He swallows. ‘Won’t we?’
Ashley looks into his grey eyes, the ones she has looked at for sixteen years, ever since he approached her at a too-hot party, complimented her tacky pink earrings and tight silver dress.
She’d pulled him towards her, held him as they lay together, as their children lay sleeping in the neighbouring rooms.
Ashley’s family is so important to her. She has to fight for it, and they have to fight together; she and James.
‘We have to get to the bottom of Lucy,’ she had told him. ‘We have to sort this out. I never want to go through a night like that again.’ She’d paused. ‘We’ll work things out,’ she said. ‘Both of us. I’m always here, James. As long as you’re honest with me.’
From 5 a.m. they’d slept, curled together like spoons. Two hours later, they’d gone
to wake their daughter.
‘Please, Lucy,’ Ashley says now. ‘Can you tell us who you were with, who you went out with? Dad saw you get in the car.’
Lucy sighs, her narrow shoulders shaking. There is a bowl by the side of her bed, she has vomited twice already.
‘I was . . . OK, look but you can’t get angry with me, OK, Mum? Dad? You promise you won’t shout?’
Ashley feels James tense beside her. She knows what he is thinking, knows he is imagining some spotty eighteen-year-old pawing Lucy, pushing his tongue down their daughter’s throat. She shudders, tries to keep a neutral expression.
‘Lucy, I’ve told you, neither of us are mad. We’re upset, and we’re worried. We need you to just be honest with us.’
‘I met this girl,’ Lucy says.
Ashley and James both pause. Ashley is holding her breath without noticing, she tries to exhale discreetly. She isn’t sure what her daughter is saying; neither is James, he suddenly looks awkward, is fiddling with the corner of the duvet.
‘Not . . . not like that,’ Lucy says. ‘I met this girl, she’s . . . I thought she was really cool. I don’t . . . I don’t know why— ’ She stops, closes her eyes. ‘I don’t know why she would have left me.’ It comes out in a whisper.
Ashley can feel tears prick her own eyelids, reaches forward to take her daughter’s hand.
‘Shh, shh,’ she says. ‘Who is this girl, how do you know her? Is it someone from the school?’
‘No,’ Lucy says. ‘No, she’s a bit older, she’s different. She likes me, she said, and we . . . I don’t know, we had fun. We went out together, she told me I was cool. She told me she’d get us into new places, the places everyone wants to go to, you know – The Garage, Salvador, Fabric. The clubs the girls at school can’t get into.’
‘Fabric?’ James says.
‘It’s a nightclub, Dad.’
‘So you went out with this girl? When?’ Ashley says.
Lucy nods. ‘Yeah, a few times over the last couple of months . . . I . . .I told you I was with Sophia. I’m sorry.’ She covers her eyes. Ashley sees that her nails are bitten to the quick, purple rags on the ends of her fingers. ‘She’s great, Mum . . . I mean, I thought she was. She’s really fun and pretty and looked out for me, you know, made sure I was OK. I don’t know why she left me like that.’ She looks as though she’s going to cry again. Ashley feels fury building up inside her, realises her hands are clenched into fists.
The Doll House Page 22
