by Camilla Way
‘Where the fuck have you been?’ I shout.
Her mouth falls open in shock as I pull my daughter from her. ‘Out for a walk,’ she stammers.
I glare back at her, too incensed to speak.
‘Why?’ she asks. ‘What … what’s the matter?’
‘You didn’t tell me you were taking her! I got out of the bath and she was just … gone. What the fuck is wrong with you?’
Her eyes fill with tears. ‘I didn’t think you’d mind. I’ve taken Maya out lots of times!’
‘But why didn’t you say something?’
Heather shakes her head and her voice is pleading, ‘I don’t know. I didn’t want to disturb you!’
Monica has tactfully closed her door and the two of us stand alone in the hall staring at each other. ‘I found my phone,’ I tell her, and watch as her eyes dart guiltily away. ‘I saw the texts you sent Uncle Geoff. What the hell were you playing at?’ I hear my voice rising in anger again. ‘Well?’
‘I was only looking after you! I didn’t want anyone to bother you. We don’t need anyone else, do we?’ Tentatively she reaches over and touches my arm and I flinch. She stares at me imploringly, ‘Hasn’t it been lovely, just the three of us? You and me and Maya, we’ve been so happy together.’
I back away from her. ‘Heather …’ I begin, but I have no idea what to say. The silence stretches until finally I shake my head in disgust and set off up the stairs, Heather trailing after me. Once we’re home I shut the kitchen door in her face and try to calm down. As my heart begins to return to normal I look down at my daughter and feel such an intense rush of love and relief it takes my breath away. ‘I will never let you out of my sight again,’ I promise her. Outside, dusk has begun to fall. I stand at the window looking out for a while, thinking about Heather.
Why had she come to London to find me? It didn’t make sense. After what had happened in Fremton, why would she even want to? To be constantly reminded of what happened back then. We had agreed never to speak about that night. It was our secret, long buried. I look down at my baby and realize that what happened today had changed everything. My life and the person I’d once been are not important any more, it’s only Maya that matters now. It’s time to draw a line under the past and move on. By the time I leave the kitchen I have convinced myself. My mind is made up.
I find Heather sitting on the sofa, still wearing her coat, staring at the TV’s blank screen. I put Maya in her cot and sit down next to her. The room has darkened, outside, angry clouds spit needles of rain at the windowpanes. I take a deep breath and begin. ‘Look, Heather,’ I say gently, ‘I think it’s time you moved out.’
She doesn’t reply at first, just continues to stare fixedly at the switched-off TV, and for a moment I wonder if she’s even heard me. ‘I’m so grateful to you for helping me look after Maya the way you did,’ I plough on. ‘But this place is so small, there’s just not enough room.’
At this Heather finally turns to look at me. Her eyes are dull. ‘You want me to leave?’ she asks, her voice flat.
‘Yes,’ I say firmly, determined not to back down. ‘Yes, I do. I’m sorry.’
In the same, expressionless tone she says, ‘I’m sorry about taking Maya. I’ll never do it again, I promise.’
My heart sinks. ‘It’s not that, Heather,’ I say. ‘I just think Maya and I need to try to get on with things by ourselves now.’
‘But how will you manage?’ she asks. ‘All by yourself, with no one to help?’
‘I need to try to do this alone,’ I tell her. ‘Besides, if I need help, there’s always Uncle Geoff, or Monica, she’s only downstairs.’
At this, a shadow passes across her face. She gets up and stands in front of me and she’s so close, so tall and broad, towering over me, that I lean away from her, a little afraid. ‘I can’t leave,’ she says, her eyes blank. ‘Don’t make me. I’ve nowhere else to go.’
‘What do you mean?’ I ask. ‘Can’t you go back to Birmingham? To your parents?’
She looks away. ‘I haven’t lived with my parents for years.’
I gape at her. ‘But you said—’
She goes to Maya’s cot and gazes down at my sleeping daughter. ‘I don’t have anything but you and Maya,’ she says. And before I can stop her she reaches down and picks her up, crushing her tightly against her chest. Maya gives a cry of alarm at being woken but Heather doesn’t seem to hear.
‘You can come and see her whenever you like!’ I promise desperately, wishing she’d put Maya down. ‘We could even come to Birmingham for a visit.’
When Maya begins to scream I jump to my feet. ‘Heather, please give her to me.’
But she doesn’t move or reply. And now she stares dully down at my screaming daughter. ‘Don’t make me go,’ she repeats.
I prise Maya from her and move away to the window and it’s only then that Heather looks at me again, her face entirely expressionless.
‘Heather,’ I say. ‘Why did you come looking for me?’
Her eyes drop, and after a long silence she whispers, ‘My mother …’
I shake my head in bewilderment, ‘What? What about your mother?’
‘She …’ Her face is desperate, but her voice stalls.
‘What, Heather? What do you mean?’
She continues to stare back at me, the same tortured expression in her eyes, and suddenly she opens her mouth and begins to wail, one high, awful, endless note so loud and surprising and eerie it makes my blood run cold. All at once she crosses the room towards me, her eyes bright with rage, her movements so fast and aggressive that instinctively I cower, crying out in fear and shielding Maya from her, my arm held up to fend off the attack I know is coming. But it never comes. Instead I hear the sound of smashing glass and look up to see that the thin Victorian pane of my window has completely shattered and Heather is staring down at her fist that’s dripping now with blood.
‘Heather!’ I shout. ‘Jesus Christ, Heather!’ Adrenalin surges through me. But her eyes are dull and confused as she looks from me to her hand, and, a moment later, she turns and runs from the flat. Stunned, I listen to her footsteps as they retreat down the stairs. After a minute or two I hear the front door slam far below and from my window see her emerge from the building and run away down the street, the rain pelting at her back. My breath comes in ragged gasps of shock. I should go after her, I tell myself: what will she do now, where will she go? But I don’t move. Instead I watch until she disappears from sight, and the relief is overwhelming.
PART THREE
Before
I walk home from the party half blinded by tears, retracing the dark, silent streets I’d walked so full of hope and excitement only a few hours before. What have I done? What on earth have I done? I remember Alice’s cry of pain as I’d wrenched her fingers from Edie’s present. It had been an accident, I tell myself desperately – just an awful, terrible accident! But then, against my will, memories of a day four years ago come rushing back to me; the day I broke my mother’s arm.
I had been about twelve when it happened. An argument about homework blowing up between Mum and me one night in our kitchen. ‘You’ll never get anywhere in life if you’re lazy,’ she had said. And the injustice of this, the sheer unfairness of it after all the studying I did night after night to make her and Dad happy, had suddenly been too much for me.
I’d stood up and screamed at her, the rage instant and uncontrollable, ‘I’m not lazy! I’m not!’ Over and over I had screamed it, ‘I’m not, I’m not, I’m not!’ And when I’d turned to run out of the room my mother had followed me. ‘Come back here, young lady,’ she’d said. ‘Come back here this instant!’ I was already as big as her by then. When she’d tried to follow me through the door I’d turned and with all my might pushed it back on her, slamming it over and over when I met resistance, too enraged to see that her arm was trapped inside it, making too much noise myself to hear her scream. It was only when my father came running down the stairs and
dragged me away that I returned to my senses and realized what I’d done.
Her arm was broken in two places. It hadn’t just been the cast she’d had to wear for weeks that served as a constant reminder of my guilt, the expression in my mother’s eyes whenever they met mine would forever confirm it. There was a sort of triumph there that seemed to say, I knew it.
After
The garden of the Hope and Anchor is busy tonight. Despite the late-October chill the crowded bar spits out a constant stream of people, come to huddle under patio heaters or sit beneath strings of brightly coloured lanterns, raising their voices above the music thudding from the outdoor speakers. I stand on the edge of a small circle of drinkers and sip my beer, not quite a part of their conversation, and watch James’s students celebrate their end-of-year show.
I don’t know, exactly, why I came tonight, except I’d wanted I suppose to do something to mark Heather’s leaving. Phoning James was something the old me would never have done but that solitary, fearful person left when Heather did, following her along the dark and rainy street three nights ago. And when I’d shut the door behind her I had made myself turn a lock on the past too, on Fremton and everything that had happened there. Later, I had sat with Maya in my arms and felt stronger and more determined than I had in years. The future – Maya’s future – was all that mattered now.
It had been Monica who had persuaded me to phone James last night. ‘So what if you don’t fancy him?’ she’d said as we’d sat together in her kitchen. ‘Go and have a few beers anyway. Might be a laugh. I’ll look after Maya for you.’
‘No,’ I’d said. ‘Thanks, but there’s no way I’m leaving Maya.’
But gradually, bit by bit, she’d persuaded me. ‘It’ll be absolutely fine, you’ll see.’ She’d smiled. ‘You’ve got nothing to worry about, I promise.’ And so, in the end, I’d agreed.
I spy James by the door, talking to an older man I recognize from the exhibition earlier. I watch as he throws his head back and laughs at something so loudly that people near him turn and smile too. At that moment a tall, blonde woman in her twenties appears by his side. They kiss on both cheeks and I notice how her hand lingers on his waist, and I find myself wondering about her, about who she is to him.
I’d been nervous as I’d arrived at the university earlier, following the signs and arrows to the exhibition hall, unsure about what I’d find there. But the place had been buzzing with people, their voices bouncing off the walls, sudden eruptions of laughter rising to the high ceiling like flocks of startled birds. I’d spotted James in the centre, surrounded by his students, and, unsure what else to do, had begun to make my way around alone.
At first I’d felt self-conscious, afraid that people would be able to tell I’ve not been to a gallery since school. I’d stood in front of each painting and worried about how long I should pause for, what sort of expression my face ought to wear, but within minutes I’d entirely forgotten myself. I know nothing about art, not really, and yet soon a series of landscapes had held me transfixed. They were of the Thames at Greenwich, the paint applied in thick, angry whorls, the colours in jarring, clashing greens and reds, the water bleeding into the shore and sky.
I’d looked at them for a long time and afterwards had moved around the rest of the exhibition entirely absorbed. Occasionally I’d paused and glanced around the hall, trying to match each set of images with its creator. I’d felt envious as I’d watched them all – their proud, happy faces as they’d celebrated with family and friends. How must it feel, I wondered, to have achieved something like this?
At last I’d stopped in front of a series of drawings of various deserted buildings: a dilapidated church, a house with its windows boarded up, a derelict pub. It was only after closer inspection that you noticed in each the ghostly trace of human presence. A featureless face at a window, a disappearing figure, a shadow of someone standing just out of view. I had been admiring them when James appeared.
‘You came!’ he’d said, and we’d looked at each other for an awkward moment or two, each of us wondering, I suppose, what my being there meant. ‘It’s good to see you,’ he’d said at last. ‘I’m really glad you came.’ And he’d smiled at me then the way men do who fancy you and are trying to work out what their chances are and I’d turned away and said too quickly, ‘I like these.’
‘Yeah, they’re pretty great, aren’t they?’ He’d come and looked at them with me. ‘Do you want to meet the artist?’ And before I could reply he’d shouted across the busy hall and waved over a very fat Welsh man with a booming voice and grinning face so at odds with the eerie, melancholic images I’d been looking at that at first I’d been too stunned to speak.
‘This is Tony,’ James had said and I’d shaken hands with the man and then his wife and after that the following hour had seemed to pass in a flash as more of James’s students drifted over to join us. I had become caught up in the celebratory atmosphere and the artists’ discussions of their work and while I’d stood there and listened and smiled and sipped my wine I’d watched him, James; noticed his enthusiasm and his warmth as he’d talked to his students, saw how liked he was in return. When people began to move towards the pub next door I’d let myself drift with them.
The crisp clear evening turns to rain and one by one we leave the pub garden and squeeze our way into the crowded bar instead. James finds me by the door saying goodbye to Tony and his wife. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he says when they’ve gone, raising his voice above the music and drunken laughter, ‘I’ve barely had a chance to talk to you since we got here.’ He looks at my coat. ‘You’re not leaving too?’
‘I should, really. Monica’s babysitting and I’d better get back.’
‘At least let me buy you another beer?’
I see now that he’s a little drunk, his dark eyes a shade bolder as they rest upon my face. And this time I don’t look away or make a hurried remark, instead I return his smile until someone pushes roughly past us and on impulse we clutch at each other to steady ourselves, then laugh. James pulls me to the end of the bar, away from the thudding speakers.
‘I had a good time tonight,’ I say, when he’s ordered us some drinks.
He laughs, ‘You sound surprised.’
‘It’s not the sort of thing I’d go to normally, but yeah, I enjoyed it. How about you? You must have felt proud of them, your students?’
He grins. ‘They did all right, didn’t they?’
‘Must be a nice job.’
‘It is, I love it.’ He takes a sip of beer. ‘But you’re an artist too, aren’t you? I remember the drawings you had in your flat. I thought they were very good.’
I look away, embarrassed. ‘Thanks. It’s … I don’t know, I did them a while ago. It’s not something I’m serious about or anything.’
‘Why not? You should keep it up, I thought they showed real promise.’
I remember how much I’d loved art at school before I’d moved to Fremton, how my teacher would let me stay behind after class and work away at something while she carried on with her marking. I recall the smells of the art department, how completely involved I’d be, caught up in the pleasure of being entirely focused on what I was doing, how ambitious I’d been for the future. I feel a flicker of sadness and I shrug, ‘Maybe. I – it’s just something I used to do in my spare time.’
‘What do you do? For work, I mean.’
‘Nothing right now, I had some savings and help from my uncle when Maya was born, but usually I’m a waitress. I suppose I’ll go back to that soon.’
He nods. ‘Do you like it?’ he asks.
I laugh. ‘God no, but it pays the bills.’
‘I guess that’s the great thing about painting, or whatever – a chance to escape all that, forget the everyday shit for a while.’
As he talks I take in little glances, the way he does of me; covert, quick appraisals. It’s the openness of his face that’s so attractive, I realize: how easily he smiles, the way his eyes flash lig
ht and dark as he talks, the obvious pleasure he takes from life. Like I used to be, I think, a very long time ago. I take another gulp of beer.
‘You can come to the studio if you like, some time,’ he says now. ‘Use our materials, if you ever fancy getting back into it.’ And then he asks, ‘Would you like another beer?’ and the air between us flexes and waits as his eyes hold mine.
I shake my head. ‘I should go. Better get back to Maya’, and I see the disappointment that flickers across his face.
As we say our goodbyes he gives me a brief hug and I breathe in the clean, lemon scent of his neck. We linger for a touch longer than necessary and I have to fight a sudden impulse to sink against him, because I sense that it would be OK to do that, that he would take my weight and wouldn’t mind. ‘I’d better go …’ I draw away.
‘Hey, Edie?’ he touches my arm. ‘How about a drink some time? Shall I give you a ring?’
And I find myself saying, ‘Yeah, OK. I’d like that.’
I walk home hugging myself, my arms wrapped around my body to keep the cold out, and something else in; something I haven’t felt for a long time. Police cars and buses and drunks and gangs of teenagers pass me in the damp orange-black night, the street lights casting a hazy glow upon the thin mist that hangs now in the air, and I turn down a narrower side street and think of the paintings I’d seen and the people I’d talked to, and the calm, steady warmth of James’s eyes as they’d looked back at me in the bright boom and clamour of the pub.
When I get home I find Maya asleep in her cot, Monica watching TV with the sound down low. We tiptoe into the kitchen. ‘How was she?’ I ask.
‘Yeah, good as gold. Drank her milk and out like a light.’ She smiles. ‘How about you? Did you have a good time?’
I take my coat off, avoiding the pale blue searchlight of her gaze, and say casually, ‘It was all right.’
