by Tammy Cohen
I wake up panting, my muscles tensed with fear. For a moment I allow myself the delicious relief of knowing it was a dream, but then I realize it was a noise that woke me up. The noise of my bedroom door closing.
Someone is in the room.
I lie as if pinned to the pillow, unable to move or speak. The room is dark, but there’s a crack in the curtains which allows a narrow slit of light to fall into the room. While I watch, paralysed, a dark shape moves across the foot of my bed. As it passes through the slit of light, there’s a smell of coconut shampoo and a momentary glint of platinum-blonde hair.
38
Corinne
‘Don’t you ever get tired of waving that thing in people’s faces?’
Rudeness didn’t come naturally to Corinne, but she was so tired of seeing Justin and Drew hanging around with that intrusive camera and that rueful ‘Don’t you think it might help you to share?’ smile sewn on to Justin’s face.
‘Sorry, Mum,’ said Justin, which only infuriated her more. She was making her way out of the clinic after a spectacularly unsatisfying visit to Hannah. She ought to have let her know she was coming, but when her afternoon meeting had been cancelled, leaving her unexpectedly free, she had just got in the car and driven over unannounced. But Hannah had been morose and uncommunicative.
‘I’m tired,’ she’d said, when Corinne had probed about the tightness across her face and the deep, violet shadows under her eyes. ‘Stella had a nightmare and woke me up.’
Corinne had been concerned then.
‘She had no right to do that. And Hannah, she shouldn’t be coming into your room. We have no idea what her agenda is in coming here. Or who she is.’
‘She’s a damaged girl who was treated abominably. That’s who she is.’
It had taken a while for Corinne to get to the real root of Hannah’s foul temper: the outing with Danny the day before and the row they’d had. ‘I’ll deal with it, Mum. It’s my marriage. My issue.’
And then Hannah had cut the visit short anyway, saying she needed to finish her journal because later she was meeting Laura for relaxation therapy. By ‘relaxation therapy’, Corinne knew she really meant hypnosis.
‘Are you sure she should be doing that?’ Corinne asked. ‘I mean, is she properly qualified? She’s not doing it with the blessing of the management.’
‘Would that be the same management that dismissed child-abuse claims as fantasy?’
She had a point.
Climbing into her car, Corinne buckled up her seat belt and then sat unmoving behind the wheel, feeling as if someone had taken a straw and sucked all the energy out of her. Every time she thought Hannah was making progress something set her back again. Some days, Corinne despaired of life ever getting back to normal, as if normal were a physical place to which the bus no longer ran.
From inside the car, Corinne observed the door to the clinic swing open. Laura walked out of the building, calling a farewell to whoever was hidden inside. Today she had on a burnt-orange coat that reached midway to her knees and there was a half-smile on her fine-boned face.
She lifted her hand and clicked and a bright pink VW Beetle winked its indicator lights.
Where was she going? Corinne wondered. She didn’t have long if Hannah was going to see her in just over an hour. It occurred to Corinne she didn’t know anything about Laura Whittaker. She’d investigated Oliver Roberts but, about this woman who had got so close to her daughter, she knew nothing. And now Hannah was unburdening herself to her, even taking hypnosis.
The pink car made its way to the exit and, without any clear intention, Corinne started up her own engine and began to follow. She couldn’t do much for her daughter, but she could do this much.
The bubblegum-pink car was easy to keep tabs on. Corinne kept her distance as it made its way down the countrified roads surrounding The Meadows and then through increasingly suburban streets, before finally pulling up outside a modern low-rise block of flats in that red render favoured by developers of low-cost housing. Not that anything within spitting distance of London was low cost any more.
As Corinne watched Laura’s orange coat disappear through the UPVC front door, she couldn’t help wondering about the disconnect between the creative, cosmopolitan art therapist and this uninspiring block in a rundown suburban backwater.
Her curiosity piqued, and knowing that Laura was due to see Hannah back at the clinic in under an hour, Corinne decided to wait around for a while, perhaps find out something that would help put Laura into some sort of context. She was rewarded for her patience when Laura emerged just fifteen minutes later with a beatific smile on her face that Corinne found unnerving, and jumped back into her car.
Corinne switched on her engine, ready to follow, but then something caught her eye. At a first-floor window of the building from which Laura had just emerged, a woman was gazing out, her face a pale disc against the dimness of the room behind her.
Impulsively, Corinne switched off the engine and waited for Laura to drive off. Then she got out of her car and crossed the pavement to the red-rendered block, picking her way around a soiled mattress that had been dumped and was leaning up against the front wall of the house next door.
The front door of the flats was white and plasticky with a printed ‘NO FLYERS & NO COLD CALLERS’ notice taped above the letterbox and a grid of white plastic doorbells on the left, each accompanied by a handwritten name tag. On the first floor, where Corinne had just seen the woman’s face, there were two bells. 1a bore the name WHITTAKER in careful blue ballpoint capital letters.
Corinne hesitated. Glancing upwards, she was startled to find herself locking eyes with the woman at the first-floor window, who she could now see was elderly, with long brown hair and greying skin. Her head was tilted to one side. Corinne smiled, but the woman didn’t respond. Feeling self-conscious now and needing to justify her presence on the doorstep, she pressed the buzzer.
‘Yes?’
The voice that came over the intercom was young and thickly accented.
‘Hello? I’m here to see Mrs Whittaker.’
‘OK. You come.’
The door buzzed and Corinne pushed it open, finding herself in a narrow, dark hallway smelling of fried mince. Pressing the light switch, she made her way along the passageway to the stairs on the right, which were covered in squeaky, dark blue lino. On the first-floor landing, the strip lighting flickered, bathing the narrow space in an intermittent greeny light.
There were two doors on this floor, one of which had a ‘Welcome’ mat outside it. The other was ajar, and from inside came the sound of a television playing full blast.
‘Hello?’ Corinne called.
‘Yes. Yes. You come inside.’
Corinne made her way into a cramped hallway which sported a thick carpet that had once been peach coloured but was now faded and matted in places. In the room straight ahead she could see a pair of feet in outsized rabbit slippers resting on a leather footstool.
The feet were attached to a young, chubby woman dressed in grey sweatpants and a pink sweatshirt with the letters LOL spelled out in gold.
‘You wait. I turn down sound. Is Loose Women. Is very funny show.’ She cast Corinne a look of deep regret before pointing the remote at the television, plunging the room into a sudden and merciful silence.
‘I am Katya. You are sherpodist.’
Corinne couldn’t make out whether it was a statement or a question, and in any case had no clue what the woman was talking about.
‘Sherpodist?’
‘Sherpodist. You look at the feets.’
‘No, I’m not a chiropodist, I …’
But Katya had already crossed the room and was leading the way across the hallway and through a door on which a photograph of a young woman in 1970s clothing had been stuck on pink card surrounded by flowers.
‘Here Mrs Whittaker.’
The woman Corinne assumed to be Laura’s mother was sitting upright in an armchair facing the w
indow so Corinne could see only a side section of her face, though she could tell immediately it was the same person she’d seen from the street. But up close, it was obvious there was something very wrong with her. The way her head was angled to the side and one hand was curled up in her lap like a small pet, and the fact that she didn’t turn around when they came in.
‘You turn around now, OK? Your feets have visitor.’
Katya was heaving the armchair around so that its occupant was now facing into the room. Corinne’s stomach muscles clenched with shock when she found the old woman’s watery brown eyes fixed on her. There was a string of saliva trailing from the left-hand corner of her mouth that Katya did nothing to clear. Despite her lack of movement or response, there was an intensity about the old woman’s gaze that gave Corinne the uncomfortable sense that she was trying to communicate something.
Katya knelt down and started easing Mrs Whittaker’s right slipper off her swollen foot. Corinne found her voice.
‘No, stop. You’ve made a mistake. I’m not the chiropodist.’
Katya froze, the slipper halfway off the foot.
‘Well, who you are then?’
‘I just wanted to have a quick chat. I’m a friend of Laura’s.’
Mrs Whittaker made a moaning noise, and the hairs on Corinne’s arm stood to attention.
Katya stood up, a frown concertinaing her soft, moon-like face.
‘Why you not say?’
She wrestled the armchair back around so it was once again facing the other way with Mrs Whittaker all but hidden from view.
‘You come. This way.’
Katya flounced out of the room, the ears on her rabbit slippers quivering in outrage. Corinne cast one final glance towards the back of the armchair then turned to follow. As she crossed into the hallway, the old woman moaned again, a sound like a heart breaking.
By the time Corinne got back into the living room, Katya seemed mollified.
‘Is nice to meet friend of Laura. Is boring here by my own. Laura just here, in actual fact, but she don’t stay long.’
‘That’s why I came,’ Corinne said, improvising wildly. ‘To meet Laura and give her something. I’m sorry to have missed her. Have you been here long, Katya, looking after Mrs Whittaker?’
‘Ten month.’
Corinne noticed that Katya’s eyes had been drawn back to the muted television, where four women on tall stools were talking animatedly to each other across a table.
‘And does Laura come often?’
Katya briefly turned her attention back to Corinne.
‘Oh, yes. Laura visit her mother all the time. She like a saint. You know who she like? She like Davina.’
Corinne must have looked blank because Katya’s dull eyes widened.
‘Davina from Long Lost Family. You know how she always cry with people. Always feeling what they feel. This is how is Laura.’
After that burst of speech, Katya seemed to lose interest in Corinne. Her fingers reached for the remote and began stealthily increasing the volume on the television.
‘How long has she been like this? Laura’s mother?’
Corinne found herself almost shouting over the laughter of the studio audience.
Katya shrugged, without bothering to look up.
‘Is long time since she had stroke. Maybe twenty year.’
Twenty years. As she made her way back down the narrow stairs, Corinne tried to calculate how old Laura would have been when her mother became so catastrophically damaged. A child still, certainly. No wonder she’d thrown herself into a caring profession as an adult, trying to give to others the nurture she’d been robbed of herself.
Outside, she took a big gulp of fresh air. Crossing over to her car, she deliberately didn’t look up to the first floor, but still she felt the force of Mrs Whittaker’s fixed brown stare blazing into her back.
Once Corinne had had time to gather her thoughts, the visit to Laura’s mother left her cheered. At least here was one person she could be glad of being in Hannah’s corner. Now Corinne knew Laura’s personal tragedy she was better able to understand what lay behind the art therapist’s brimming eyes and willingness to go above and beyond her professional role to help the women in her charge – in the way she wasn’t able to help her own mother.
Pulling in to her own road forty minutes later, Corinne wasn’t surprised to find there wasn’t a parking space outside her cottage. Even though the council had long since brought in controlled parking, she lived near a railway station and her neighbours on both sides had two cars per household, so competition for spaces was keen. There was a time it used to infuriate her out of all proportion to the actual inconvenience caused, which was usually minimal. But these days she was more sanguine. Once you told yourself you weren’t actually entitled to park outside your house, things became easier.
There was a space down at the end of the road which Corinne, having a very small car, could just about squeeze into. She locked the door, feeling ridiculously uplifted, as if finding a place to park were an indicator of a change in fortune.
After a grey start, the sun had made an appearance for what seemed like the first time in days and Corinne noticed with a warm thrill of pleasure the green buds on the trees and bushes as she made her way from the car. Three doors down from her, a magnolia tree was already showing signs of flowering and Corinne stopped to admire it, drinking in the beauty of the blousy pink petals after the long barrenness of winter.
She came to her own cottage, which she’d bought in an emotionally charged rush after splitting up with Duncan but had, happily, grown to love. Pushing open the wooden gate, painted a defiant Mediterranean blue, she made her way down the path, with its uneven terracotta tiles, around which wildflowers grew during the summer months. Pausing on the doorstep, she rummaged in her silver leather tote bag for her keys.
Her head bent, she didn’t see the shadow coming up behind. Until it was all too late.
39
Laura
‘There’s something a bit off about Stella.’
‘Off? How do you mean, Laura?’
Annabel was wearing the green dress with the scoop neck that Laura liked so much. A childish part of her couldn’t help wishing she’d worn it with the gold earrings Laura had bought her for her birthday. The two would go so well together. But Annabel was funny about gifts. She’d practically had to force her to accept them. It was tricky to know where one stood with Annabel.
‘She’s so damaged, you know. They all are. But with Stella it goes so deep she’s like a stick of holiday rock – do you know what I mean? – where the writing goes all the way through?’
Annabel nods. Just the slightest of movements.
‘I’ve been seeing her a lot one-to-one. Little bits of light hypnosis. Just on the quiet. Informally. It helps her sleep.’
Annabel smiled. ‘You’re so kind, Laura. How lucky they are to have you.’
Annabel’s praise was hard to come by, and Laura found herself dangerously close to tears. What on earth was wrong with her at the moment? She was like a walking sac of saline, forever on the brink of springing a leak.
‘Have things settled down at all?’ Annabel asked. ‘After the two deaths?’
Laura shot a sharp, questioning glance at her, then wrinkled her nose.
‘Not really. Roberts is worried. One of the clinic’s patrons just resigned. He said it was because of time commitments but Roberts is convinced it’s because of Sofia and Charlie. New referrals are down and, obviously, the families of existing residents are nervous. I’ve had Hannah Lovell’s mother in to see me a few times.’
Annabel frowned. She was one of those women who can look striking one minute and quite plain the next. But Laura loved that about her, that she was always unashamedly herself.
‘No surnames, remember? You must be more careful, Laura. If anyone heard you talking about your clients out of the clinic you’d get into trouble, wouldn’t you?’
‘I only talk to
you, Annabel. But you’re right. I need to be more discreet.’
Laura held up her own hand with the fingers down and gave it a playful slap.
‘It brings up such complicated emotions. Talking to mothers who are so protective about their daughters, like Corinne H—, like Hannah’s mum. I can’t help thinking of everything I missed out on.’
‘That’s only natural, Laura. What things in particular do you think about?’
‘How it would be to have somebody fighting your corner. Instead of always feeling so alone.’
She wondered if Annabel would contradict her, remind her that she wasn’t alone, because she had her. Then she continued:
‘I keep remembering those three years in the foster home. Liz did her best. She was kind enough. But she wasn’t a mother. And we always knew her biological children came first. Then Gino, because she’d adopted him when he was still a baby. I remember when I had the lead part in the Christmas play at primary school. I was so proud. All the other kids had parents there for one or other performance, and loads of them came to both. I begged Liz to come, but it clashed with Gino’s Nativity one day and her oldest son playing in the school concert the next. He only played recorder or something. There was no one there to take pictures or record me making a tit out of myself or cheer when I came on. My form teacher came to both performances and presented me with a bunch of flowers at the end because she felt so sorry for me.’
‘That must have been tough. Do you feel that, maybe, you’re still trying to plug that gap, all these years later? Still seeking that validation?’
‘Isn’t everyone?’
Laura liked these kinds of conversations. Annabel always helped her question her own motivations and actions. She eased off her suede boots and settled back into the blue sofa, tucking her feet under in their brightly coloured socks, and waited for Annabel’s response.
