The Doll House

by Phoebe Morgan

  There is a cluster of police huddled around the top of the escalators; the metal barrier separates them from him, he can see their mouths moving but their words are indistinct. Dominic pushes through, faster and faster. No matter how quickly he moves, it feels as if everything is in slow motion, as though he got out of the police car hours ago rather than minutes, as though his whole life has been leading up to this moment, this terrible day. In his mind’s eye he sees Corinne, her eyes shining as she told him about the scan, her face a picture of happiness. That was only this morning. How can this be happening?

  He is at the front of the barriers; a man in a fluorescent jacket is speaking into a radio; as Dominic approaches, he steps to the left, moves to one side. The police officers guide Dominic forward, one of them puts a hand on his shoulder, but Dominic’s heart has stopped in his chest. Standing behind the man in the fluorescent jacket is a woman, clutching the ragged remains of a bright yellow scarf. She sees him at the same time as he sees her.

  63

  27 March 2017

  The day of the anniversary

  London

  Ashley

  She is drowning, she is deep below the surface. Shadowy shapes swim around her, they fade in and out. For a while she had struggled to breathe, had tried to get to the fresh air, but now she thinks she might give up. It is too tiring, she is finding it too hard. Is it really so bad to stay down here? She’s been trying so hard for so long.

  Someone is touching her, pushing something sharp into her arm. It hurts and she tries to cry out but nothing comes out of her mouth except bubbles. The darkness around her crowds closer and closer. Her dad would be cross with her for giving up. He told them never to give up, even when they were children he used to say that. But for some reason she doesn’t think she has to do what her dad says any more. She doesn’t believe him like she used to.

  She still feels like she is moving but things are smoother now, like she is gliding rather than bumping in a vehicle. A lot of people are talking but she has no idea what they’re saying. She isn’t sure whether she cares. Perhaps she’ll stop listening soon. It’s quieter down here in the dark. Ashley would so like a break from it all sometimes and now here is one. It would be nice to finally take it. Her head hurts a lot.

  64

  27 March 2017

  The day of the anniversary

  London

  Dominic

  Corinne is wrapped in a silver aluminium blanket, her face deathly white. The sleeve of her coat is ripped and a bruise is forming on her cheekbone, blossoming purple in the strange half-light of the emptying ticket hall. She is standing alone, holding the remains of the yellow scarf, the police to her side, staring straight at Dominic. Their eyes are connected like lightning across the room.

  The relief Dominic feels is visceral; it punches him in the chest and he feels his knees slip slightly, his feet lose their grip on the ground. For a moment the feeling is so strong that he can’t move, can only stand there while it washes over him. Then he is rushing forwards, he is yanking aside the barrier and he is holding her in his arms, both of them are crying, pressed against each other even though the police are all around them, and someone is shouting their names.

  Dominic can’t speak. All he can do is hold her, whisper into her hair.

  ‘Thank God,’ he says, over and over. ‘Thank God I’ve found you. Thank God you’re alive.’ He touches her face, and that’s when she begins to cry, the tears begin to pour from her eyes as though they will never stop. She’s saying something, he has to hold her shoulders and step back to make out the words.

  ‘She fell,’ she is saying, her voice wet with tears. ‘She fell. Erin is dead, Dominic. She fell onto the tracks.’

  65

  27 March 2017

  The day of the anniversary

  London

  Corinne

  She’s dead. The image replays, over and over in my head, while Dominic holds me, while I sob and shake against his chest. He is stroking my hair; I can feel his heartbeat thudding against my own.

  Her hands on my back. The scarf around her neck. The roar of the train, the sight of her falling, down onto the tracks, the millisecond where I saw her face, saw her scream before the train slammed into her, before her body disappeared in the screech of the brakes and the rush of red. So much red.

  I can’t stop picturing her face, the swing of her hair and her piercing blue eyes. My father’s eyes. Gone forever. The ambulance men are clustered all around me, trying to get me inside the van. I don’t want to go.

  ‘Corinne,’ Dominic is saying, he’s holding me tightly, in amongst the crowd and the faces and the horrible bright lights. A policeman is coming towards us. I am terrified someone will drag me back down there, back into the tunnel. Dom’s telling me something, his mouth is moving but I’m not listening, I can’t hear him, it’s like my mind has frozen and all I can hear is the roar of the train, the sound it made when it hit her.

  ‘Ashley,’ he is saying. ‘We need to go to Ashley.’ I finally focus on his words, and when I understand what he’s saying it jolts me back into my body, I can feel the cold of my hands in his and the chattering of my teeth, the sounds come back as though someone’s turned the volume back up.

  ‘We need to go to hospital,’ he says. ‘You have to get checked out, you’re in shock and you’ve got to think about the baby. Ashley is there.’ He pauses. ‘We need to go now.’ The paramedics step forward. This time I let them take me.

  *

  I grip my sister’s hand, feel her gold wedding ring cold on my skin. Her head is heavily bandaged and her eyes are closed. They’ve tidied her up but part of her hair has been cut away to make room for the stitches, thick black lines that lace her scalp. Holly is in the children’s ward, the emergency department. We aren’t allowed in.

  A nurse comes into the room, smiles uncertainly at us all, clustered around the bed. It’s a fake smile, it doesn’t meet her eyes.

  ‘How is she?’ I say urgently.

  The nurse checks the bandage on Ashley’s head, adjusts her pillow slightly so that her neck lolls to the side. I stiffen. My whole body is aching but I don’t care about myself any more. Ashley is so pale.

  ‘She’s lost a lot of blood,’ the nurse says. She cannot meet my eye. The door of the room opens and James comes in, joins me silently at the side of the bed. The only sound is the whirr of the monitors, the beeping of her heart.

  *

  There’s a lot of time to think in the hospital, although I try hard not to. I spend most of the first day having tests, sitting with my legs apart while they poke around inside me. The baby is healthy; despite the struggle on the platform, physically I am unharmed save the bruise on my cheek, the place where her hand collided with my bone. After the tests I go back to Ashley’s room, sit down on the plastic chair by the bed. That’s when my thoughts start to spiral.

  It’s as though I am holding a looking glass up to my childhood, magnifying all of it in horrible detail. Dad putting his arms around Mum, sitting opposite me at the chessboard, knocking my pawns over one by one. All of us on holiday, walking along the seafront in Cornwall, collecting cowrie shells on the beach. Dad at work, Ashley and I waiting for him to come home, throwing ourselves at him like miniature missiles when he walked through the door. His face in the hospital room, the people at the funeral. People who adored him, people who are toasting his name tonight. Were they there then, the others? Was she there in the crowds, her blonde hair unnoticed in the mass of mourners? None of us will ever know.

  Ashley is unconscious for almost two days. I don’t leave her side except to go to Holly, who is attached to machines, breathing with the help of a ventilator. The sight of the wires connecting to her tiny chest makes me cry, I bury my head in Dominic’s jumper, whisper prayers that I don’t think I believe.

  I know they’re keeping the press away; Ashley has a private room at the end of the corridor, away from the main ward. I imagine the journalists swarming ou
tside, the things they must be saying about her, about me. About our family.

  Dominic comes in and out, brings me food, says I need to keep eating for the baby. James is with me, most of the time, but the children stay away. He doesn’t want them to see her like this. Not unless the time comes when they have to. Both of us are praying that doesn’t happen. Our desperate thoughts fill the room like balloons.

  *

  It’s Tuesday morning, the grey dawn light is filtering through into the hospital room. We are finally allowed in to see Holly. Her blue eyes stare up at me and she reaches for my hand. I burst into tears. All her hair is gone, there is a scar across the back of her head where she hit the ground, and one of her little legs is strapped up from where it twisted beneath her. But she is going to be OK. They have run test after test, confirmed that the results from the doctor are conclusive: high levels of prescription drug in her body, built up slowly over a period of time, adding to the medicine given to her by the doctor. The specialist told us that the overdose Erin gave her was actually a good thing, it helped cushion her fall because her body was in a near-coma state at the time. I close my eyes as he tells us, imagining June and Erin forcing the liquids down Holly’s throat, wondering what lengths they went to to make her comply. No wonder she screamed at night. No wonder her body was floppy. Dominic takes my hand, squeezes it. The doctor gives us five minutes with Holly then ushers us out, back into where Ashley lies mute on the bed.

  The room smells of the lilies that Mum left here, the air is warm; they leave the heating on all night. I sit down. The relief of seeing Holly alive makes my body feel exhausted, my limbs ache with tiredness. Soon you’ll have a baby cousin, I think in my head, so you just better get well, Holly Thomas. There are too many people who love you and my baby is going to need a playmate. I can feel myself drifting off, clench my jaw to try to stay awake.

  I wake up with my head on Ashley’s bed. Someone is holding my hand. I raise my head. Her eyes are open.

  ‘Ashley!’

  The nurse bustles back in, and this time when I look at her the smile is real, it reaches all the way to her eyes and I sit up straight, allow myself the first flicker of hope.

  ‘She’s a fighter!’ the nurse says, and then I feel it, the soft pressure on my hand; Ashley is squeezing my fingers.

  ‘Oh my God,’ I say, and I start to cry, I lean forward and I weep with gratitude, because I am so lucky, I am so relieved that my sister is awake. The tears drip down onto my dirty wool dress, soak into the fabric.

  ‘You’re watering the baby,’ the nurse says, and I smile through my tears.

  Ashley is squeezing my fingers again. I lean forward. She’s saying something, the words coming out in a whisper. I try not to look at the swell of her head, the dark flowers underneath the bandages. The scars will take a while to heal.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I say softly. ‘You’re going to be OK.’

  ‘Holly,’ she says, ‘Holly.’

  I squeeze her hand ‘Holly’s OK, Ash. She’s in the ward next door. The doctors have told us she’s going to make it.’

  She closes her eyes. I start to panic again but then she opens them, and they are full of tears. I lean forward, lean my forehead against hers. Our hearts beat as one. When I sit back, she gives me a weak smile, and I sit there with her, hunched on the bed, my face close to hers, until James comes back in, brings me a drink. His face lights up when he sees Ashley and I smile as he hurries forwards, grips her other hand.

  ‘James,’ she says, the word coming out quietly, and at the sound of her voice he lets out a sob and bends down, puts his arms around her body as best he can.

  ‘Thank God,’ he is saying, his voice muffled against her chest. ‘Oh Ash, thank God.’

  I leave them then, I stand up quietly and let myself out of the little white room. Outside, the hospital corridor is silent and calm, and I stand there for a minute, outside the door, breathing in and out. My neck still hurts from where the scarf twisted around it but I can feel the muscles in my back beginning to unwind, to loosen themselves gradually. It feels as though they have been clenched for a very long time but I know I have to try now, I have to try to relax. I touch my stomach. My family are safe. It is over. I look up and down the corridor. It is deserted. I push down the voices in my head, knowing it is time for me to go.

  66

  One week later

  London

  Dominic

  Over the next week, they all have to give statements: Corinne, Ashley, Mathilde and James. Dominic spends two hours in the bare white room of Finsbury Park police station, talking to DI Janson, the younger officer who came to the flat the night they found Beatrice.

  ‘Did you know Erin de Bonnier’s history, sir?’

  ‘No,’ Dominic says, ‘I didn’t. She was my colleague. We were . . . we were friends for a while. But she never told me anything about her past.’ He looks away from them when he says that, down at the scuffed floor of the station. There are track marks on the linoleum, as though someone has dragged something across it. There is no point mentioning the night in the bar. What purpose will it serve now?

  ‘And her mother,’ the officer consults his notes. ‘June de Bonnier?’ He shakes his head. ‘We’ve got a search party out. The house is deserted. I doubt she’ll last long. The papers have really gone to town on this one. Lot of medication papers found in the house, seems she’d been on treatment for depression and psychiatric issues for years. Can’t say she’s much of a threat now, mind. Looks like her daughter had her fairly under control. S’pose you gotta feel sorry for her, really. Poor old biddy with a daughter like that. I’d almost class her as a victim.’ He raises his eyebrows. ‘Classic case of manipulation.’

  Dominic stares at the man’s ear; it is twisted, ugly. He feels a flash of anger at the officer’s unprofessional tone.

  The media are already all over the story; Corinne has refused to read any of it, avoided looking at the pictures, the screaming black headlines. The de Bonnier name is mud. All of the details have been reported: Erin’s mental health issues, Richard’s debt, the story behind June and Carlington House. Their kitchen knife is found halfway along the Jubilee Line, thrown by the force of the train that hit Erin. The only thing the police don’t find is the doll house, it is never recovered in the search of Erin’s flat. Perhaps she destroyed it.

  In the weeks that follow, Dominic stares at her desk sometimes, at the empty seat, the blank space where her computer used to be. The sight makes him shiver.

  67

  London

  Corinne

  The dreams are the worst. They go on for weeks. They can’t find June, she is nowhere, she is gone. The police are still looking, but they aren’t as worried as I am. She’s elderly, they say, she was under her daughter’s control. I’m not so sure. Almost every night Dominic wakes me, I find myself thrashing in his arms and he holds me close, repeats the same words to me over and over again.

  ‘You’re safe, Corinne. You’re safe. It’s over.’ But it’s not over. Every night, I lean silently into his chest and close my eyes, try to push away the image of her face, her bright yellow scarf, the shock in her eyes. The shock in my own. I put my hands on my stomach and I feel it grow, and I know that my baby is in there, and that she is safe, and that that is down to me. And only then can I sleep.

  Epilogue

  Four months later

  6 July 2017

  London

  Corinne

  It’s Dad’s birthday today. I’ve got a bunch of butter-bright roses ready to take to the grave, yellow was always his favourite. In spite of everything, I still want to go, even if no one else wants to come. I can’t explain it, apart from to say that he’s still my dad. Even though he lied, even though he stole money, even though he cheated. He’s my father. He was the only one I ever had.

  It’s hot, the first boiling day of summer, and the gallery is calm and quiet. I like this because it means I can keep very still, holding myself in po
sition, a china doll surrounded by paintings. I am humming quietly, potential baby names spinning in my head. Gilly is coming over tonight with her partner, we’re going to decide on a name once and for all. She’s been a real friend to me over the last few months, after everything. I’m glad she got her happy ending. We talked about it all, and when the press hammered on the door, when my morning sickness came, when the media attention made me hole up inside the flat she was there with endless cups of decaf and trashy magazines. She knows about Dad, of course, about what he did. I told her I bet she’s glad they didn’t use his firm, that they might’ve been even worse, but she’s too kind to agree, she just gave me a cuddle.

  ‘I’m not glad about anything, Corinne,’ she said. ‘I’m just so sorry this happened to your family.’

  Anyway, she and Graham are coming later, they’re bringing little Tommy, and we’re all having dinner. I’m thinking about what to make for them when the little bell of the gallery rings to announce a visitor. I look up, my fingers halfway through writing the curve of a pound sign. A woman walks in, slowly, carrying a handbag. She wanders over to the left of the gallery, gazing at the newly commissioned prints on the wall. Her back is towards me; I cannot see her face.

  ‘Let me know if you’d like any help,’ I call, conscious of Marjorie in the back room, and I go back to writing the price tags. I’m nervous about this afternoon. None of us have been back to the cemetery since it happened, but the doctor thinks it might help with the nightmares. Memory replacement, she called it. It’s a two-step process, apparently: confabulation and repression. C and R, she said, and I nodded like I’d told her the truth.