by Camilla Way
He controlled everything I did. I’d dress the way he wanted me to, barely speaking in case I said the wrong thing. By the end of that summer I was in too deep to claw my way out. It had become normal, to sleep with his friends if he told me to, to think, instantly, that it was my fault when he hit me, humiliated me, used me.
The night I met Heather at the old dairy, I’d been lower than I’d ever been. Earlier that day we’d got drunk at the flat and he had lost his temper, punching me hard between the shoulder blades before kicking me out of his flat. Heather had made it seem so simple. She had it all planned out. She was going to take the money from her uni fund and the two of us would run away together. We would go to London, start a new life, away from Fremton, away from Connor. We would be happy. She had seemed so full of hope and certainty when I had been so broken and desperate that for a moment I had believed her: the tiny part of me that knew Connor was destroying me, knew he would only get worse and worse, had glimpsed a way out.
And when I left Heather that night I had carried it with me, that hope. She was right: I had to get away from him. The fact that she believed in me, would do this for me, had been a jolt out of the helplessness I’d felt for so long. I went home and resolved to do what she said. I stayed away from the flat for two days. I didn’t drink, I didn’t take drugs, I didn’t call him. And I felt better, I really did. I felt stronger and even more convinced that leaving Fremton with Heather was the right thing to do.
On the third day I got up and got dressed and around noon I left my house to go to the phone box to call her, to tell her that I was ready. I remember so clearly how calm I’d felt, aware of a faint hint of freshness in the air as though that long stifling summer was finally about to end. And then, at the end of my road, I had turned the corner to find Connor’s car waiting for me.
Here, on the roof, Heather says, ‘I trusted you. I loved you.’
I want to put my hands over my ears, to block out her voice and the memories. But in her arms is Maya, and beyond them is a seventy-foot drop, so I swallow hard and force myself to nod. ‘I know,’ I say.
I used to think Connor was telepathic. It was as if the moment I reached the end of my rope, began to pull away, he always somehow knew. And then it would start, the contrition, the promises, the affection and love I’d been craving. That night he begged me to get in his car and he told me how sorry he was, how much he missed me, how he’d kill himself if he lost me. He cried and talked about how fucked up he was, how no one had ever loved him before, and I fell for it, the way I always had. I really believed I could save him. If I could show him just how much I loved him, if I could only stop annoying him, we would be happy. We sat in the car and talked and talked and by the time he drove me back to his flat it was as if the last few days had never happened. Heather, her plans, my resolve all disappeared.
Most of that first night is a blur. I was so happy. The flat was full of people as usual but Connor looked at me as if I was the only person there. In the early hours I curled up on his lap and felt the first woozy rushes of the E I’d just taken. He had his eyes closed, his fingers tapping to the music playing on the stereo, and I’d looked into his face and could hardly believe how beautiful he was. ‘I never would have gone with her, you know,’ I murmured. ‘I’d never have left you.’
He opened his eyes. ‘What?’
‘Heather,’ I said dreamily, laying my head against his chest, breathing in his scent. The colours and sounds of the room had begun to bend and warp, my arms were weightless, every limp slow movement they made followed by a trail of light. ‘Got all the money from her uni fund, hadn’t she, so we could run away together.’ Someone handed me a joint and I took a long draw, saying sleepily, ‘Supposed to call her, tell her where to meet me.’ I kissed his lips. ‘Silly Heather. Why would I want to do that, why would I ever leave you?’
I must have taken myself off to Connor’s room at some point and slept for several hours because when I woke up it was long after midday. I stumbled into the lounge and found that most of the people from the night before had cleared off, just a few comatose stragglers remaining. By contrast Connor was full of energy, pacing around the flat on his mobile, talking quickly, his eyes bright and intense. ‘Yeah, mate, yeah. Come round. Niall’s coming, and all that lot. Be a laugh.’ I wondered if he’d even slept yet.
It was impossible not to get caught up in his good mood and when he passed me the bottle of vodka I’d taken it, not caring that I hadn’t eaten anything or drank anything that wasn’t alcoholic for twenty-four hours. I didn’t even care that the friends he’d invited over were the ones I didn’t like much; the older, rougher ones who brought with them the harder drugs. We started doing lines of coke and smoking something that made my head roar and my heart ricochet around my body. But I was happy. I was with Connor and nothing else mattered.
‘We should fuck her up.’ We were half lying on the sofa together, watching someone called Jonno cut out lines of white powder.
‘What? Who?’
He passed me the vodka. ‘Heather. We should fuck her up. Fucking busy bitch. Need to teach her a lesson.’
‘Yeah,’ I said, not paying much attention, thinking he’d lose interest soon.
But he didn’t. He kept on about it. ‘Who the fuck does she think she is? Trying to come between us all the time. Trying to split us up. Go on, you should phone her. Say you’ll meet her.’
‘No, baby,’ I said, ‘let’s leave it. Just stay here and have a laugh.’
But he kept on and on. And the more wasted I got, and the more he talked me into it, the more I got caught up in his plan. Because he was right, wasn’t he? Heather was always trying to split us up. Why would she do that when he made me so happy? As I listened to him, an anger of my own began to rise inside me. I’d actually nearly done what she said! I’d nearly left Connor behind and gone with her! I grabbed hold of that anger, let it grow until it had silenced the faint, small voice that whispered something very different. It was a laugh, that was all, a joke. We’d mess with her head, Connor said, teach her a lesson. I didn’t want this new happiness between us to end. I didn’t want to do anything to stop him loving me.
So I went along with it. I called her from Connor’s phone, while him and the others listened in silence, the music turned off.
Through Tyner’s Cross we hurtled, into the town, past the marketplace and the pubs and the empty shops. Then on to the open roads, nothing but fields on either side of us, going faster and faster, hedgerows and road signs and other cars blurred flashes as we passed. I leaned out of the window and screamed and laughed into the wind. We all felt it, I could tell, like we were flying, like we were on top of the world and in this car, between the six of us, it was pure speed and energy and excitement. I wished we could go faster and faster, I didn’t care if we crashed, I didn’t care about anything but the inside of that car, hurtling through the empty winding roads, nothing on either side of us but fields.
We got there before her. The others waiting in the trees beyond the clearing, the quarry darkening beneath the sinking sun, the kids on the other side packing up and driving off, the rumble of car engines and shouts of goodbye carrying across the water to where we stood. And then there she was, her face lit with happiness to see that I had come. I saw the bag under her arm, knew that it was full of money, her plan for us to run away together shining in her eyes. Her joy lasting for only a moment as she looked beyond me, and realized what I’d done.
It happened so fast. She turned, tried to run, but they were all too quick for her, moving in a pack. I couldn’t stop laughing suddenly, a panicky hysteria surging up and spewing out of me. She tried to break free but we had her surrounded and every time she tried to get past us someone would push her back into the centre. A crazy, frenzied game of British Bulldog. We were getting nearer and nearer to the edge of the water. I remember her grim desperation, our shouts and jeers, how I laughed and laughed.
I don’t know which one of us shoved her in.
She fell backwards in slow motion, limbs splayed as she went down, down into the water. As we waited for her head to break up through the surface I looked at Connor, at his face, alight with something I’d not seen before and I felt the drugs and the vodka and the adrenalin charging through my veins and I told myself it would be OK, that it wasn’t that bad, just another crazy, drug-fucked night that would be over in the morning, all over in the morning and we’d get up and go on again like yesterday and all the days before that. It was a laugh, that was all, it was just a big joke.
She pulled herself out, water rolling off her sodden clothes, panting cries of shock. I thought that it was over, that we had played our trick and taught our lesson and we’d be on our way. But he hadn’t finished with her, Connor; he hadn’t finished with her at all. When he moved towards her, she tried to run again but the others, they followed him, did as he said, her screams of NO NO NO NO NO lost beneath their jeers. And as they egged each other on I stood there, watching, as Connor started to undo his flies, as he shouted at the others to hold her down, her screams now the sound of every and all terror. I watched him, Connor, my Connor, my love, and I did nothing. And then I turned and I ran.
Here on the roof Heather doesn’t speak for a long time, and when she does the wind nearly carries her voice away. ‘You did nothing, Edie. You watched what he did to me and you did nothing. I saw you. I saw in your face that, even then, it wasn’t me you were thinking about, it was only him and you.’ She watches me impassively for a few moments. ‘I was going to have a baby,’ she says.
I close my eyes. ‘Oh, no. Oh God, Heather, no.’
‘I don’t even know which one of them was the father. When they were finished with me, when they’d all had their turn, they drove off.’
I nod.
‘I didn’t have it,’ she goes on. ‘They wouldn’t let me, my parents. They made me get rid of it. She came back to us, my mum. Moved back in.’ She looks at me. ‘Isn’t that funny? In a way, what happened brought them back together. They wanted to deal with me, my baby, together.’
‘Did you tell them?’ I whisper.
She shakes her head. ‘They weren’t interested in why I was pregnant … only that I was.’
In the following silence, far above the world that presses on regardless, I remember Jennifer saying in the café, ‘We were only doing what we thought was best for her.’ I think of the intervening years between Heather leaving Fremton and the night she ended up outside my flat. I think of her at sixteen, having an abortion, dropping out of school, leaving home alone. But I force myself to push the thoughts away. I look at my daughter in Heather’s arms and know I have to focus on Maya – I have to do everything I can to keep her safe. I need to keep Heather talking. ‘Why did you come looking for me, that first time?’ I ask her.
Her reply is almost lost in the wind. ‘I wanted to die. I had tried and tried for so many years to get over what happened, but in the end I couldn’t. It just got too hard. I took so many pills, so many, I wanted it to be over.’
‘Yes,’ I say softly, and I think about what Jennifer had told me about visiting her in hospital. ‘But why did you come to me?’
‘Because of my mother.’
I shake my head. ‘Jennifer? I don’t understand.’
She frowns and shifts Maya’s weight in her arms, unconsciously leaning a fraction closer to the edge, causing a silent scream of terror to rise up in my throat. ‘She came to see me at the hospital and she said … she said …’ Her voice is a stricken whisper. ‘She said she knew I’d murdered Lydia.’
‘Oh, Heather …’
‘She said she’d always known it. That she’d kept it secret all these years, but ever since Lydia died, she’d known I’d done it deliberately. That I’d pushed her in.’ Her face crumples in pain as she remembers. ‘But I would never have hurt her! I loved her more than anything. I didn’t push Lydia, Edie. I wouldn’t!’
I remember the things Jennifer had said about her daughter, the monster she’d painted, and as I look at Heather now, I know that she’s telling the truth. ‘I know, Heather,’ I whisper. ‘Oh, Heather, I know you didn’t hurt her.’
Her eyes search my face. ‘I would never hurt anyone. All I ever wanted was for people to like me. Sometimes I’d get upset … I’d get upset and suddenly I wouldn’t know what I was doing, I’d get in a state and lose control, but it was never … I would never hurt anyone on purpose! And Lydia fell, there was nothing I could do! She just fell!’
My eyes fill with tears. ‘I know, Heather, I know that, I do.’
‘You were the first person who liked me, who didn’t treat me like a freak. You were everything to me.’
Maya squirms in her arms and I let out a cry of fear, but Heather doesn’t seem to hear me as she goes on.
‘My mum said that everything bad that had happened to me since Lydia died was because of what I’d done. That God was punishing me.’
‘Heather—’
‘And I thought, could it be true? Is that why they did it? You, Connor and the others? Because God wanted to punish me? Do you think that’s true, Edie? Do you?’ She searches my face, her expression as confused as a child’s.
Mutely, I shake my head.
‘Then why did you do it, Edie?’ Her eyes meet mine, her words cold and deliberate suddenly. ‘You brought me to them. You tricked me. And then you watched it happen, and you ran.’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know!’ Panic grips me as she shifts Maya in her arms. ‘Heather, please!’ I cry, ‘I don’t know.’
She stares at me silently and after a while her expression changes, as though she sees something, understands something for the first time, and I feel as though she can see right inside me, to the truth of me. ‘It was because you’re cruel, Edie. Because you have no goodness, no heart. It wasn’t my fault at all, was it?’
‘Please, Heather, whatever I’ve done, I’m begging you, please don’t hurt Maya.’
She looks lost in thought, and then she gazes down at my daughter. ‘Hurt her? I love her. I love her so much. I missed her. I just wanted to see her again.’
‘You can,’ I say quickly, eagerly. ‘You can see her whenever you want. But come away from the edge. I’m frightened. You’re frightening me. Give her back to me.’
‘To you?’ She shakes her head. ‘No. I don’t want you to have her. What has she done to deserve that?’ Her eyes are full of tenderness as she murmurs to Maya, ‘It’s too bad, isn’t it, my darling, it’s too hard.’ She turns to look down at the gardens far below and says, ‘I’ve tried and I’ve tried but it’s just too hard.’
Cold horror washes through me. She’s going to jump, I realize. She’s going to jump with Maya in her arms. I need to stop her. I need to stop her from jumping. Thinking fast, I say in a rush, ‘You’re right, Heather. You’re right.’
She hesitates. ‘What?’
‘I am cruel. I don’t deserve Maya, I’m no good for her. You,’ I tell her, nodding madly, ‘you should have her, not me.’
‘Me?’ She looks at me with incomprehension. But when the meaning of my words sinks in, something changes in her eyes. She looks down at Maya. ‘Me?’
‘Yes, you have her. You look after her. You’re right. She’d be better with you. Better without me.’ My words are garbled, desperate.
I see the possibility dawning on her face, a new future she’d never considered before, and for a second something like joy flickers in her eyes. And then she looks at me sharply. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Don’t jump, Heather! Please, please don’t jump!’ I beg.
She looks away and says with utter hopelessness, ‘Why not? I am so tired of it all. All I wanted was for you to love me, Edie, to be my friend. I tried to get over it, what happened. For years and years I tried. But it got harder and harder.’ She gazes down at Maya before continuing very quietly, ‘They found me. At the hostel, they found me unconscious and took me to hospital and then my mum came and she said what she said.’ She
looks at me. ‘When I found you again, and looked after Maya, it was the first good thing I’d had. And now that’s over too.’
Maya begins to cry and struggle in her arms, reaching out for me. My heart lurches, fear grips me. ‘It doesn’t have to be,’ I say quickly.
Then, as Heather watches, very slowly I inch forward until I’m at the edge too. I look down at the ground far below. If I jump, Heather won’t. It is the only way I can think of to ensure she doesn’t do it. And as I look into my daughter’s face I know that I would die rather than take that risk, that if Heather did jump, and took my daughter with her, I wouldn’t want to live anyway.
And isn’t Heather right, after all? Isn’t it true that I don’t deserve her? That it would be better for Maya without me? If I died it would be the end of it; all the guilt would be over.
I take a step forward, the tips of my shoes peeping over the edge. I look at Maya, and I can hardly see her for my tears. Silently I say goodbye to her. I take a breath. And then, somebody calls my name. I turn, and through the open window I see Monica standing in my kitchen.
Heather gazes at Monica as though emerging from a dream. She looks down at Maya, screaming now in her arms, then at me standing on the edge of the roof, and seems utterly confused, as though she has no idea what has happened, what has led us to this. I stare mutely, pleadingly at Monica, and very slowly she crawls through the window until she is out on the roof with us. She speaks very gently. ‘Heather,’ she says. ‘Give Maya to me.’
At first it seems as though Heather hasn’t heard her. Monica takes a step nearer, her arms outstretched. ‘Give her to me, Heather,’ she says more firmly, ‘there’s a good girl.’
