They All Fall Down

by Tammy Cohen

  ‘Oh, and you’d know how the human psyche works, would you?’ Corinne was furious. ‘Even though you failed to spot that one of your patients here is someone you’ve treated before – and let down badly?’

  ‘Now you’ve completely lost me, Mrs Harris. Laura Whittaker was never my patient, and neither was her mother.’

  ‘No, but Catherine Pryor was.’

  Roberts was still standing by his desk, as if caught on the cusp of an exit he never quite managed to execute. His face betrayed a fleeting recognition, as if the name was familiar but too elusive to place.

  ‘I can’t discuss my patients with you, Mrs Harris.’

  ‘I’ll fill you in then. She was the twelve-year-old who confided in you about her abusive stepfather and who you chose not to believe, effectively sending her back into his care.’

  Now, finally, Roberts became angry, the skin on his cheeks darkening.

  ‘I imagine you are talking about a patient from Westbridge House. I don’t need to tell you I was not implicated in any wrongdoing there. Whatever fault there was was deemed to lie with the clinic’s director Professor Dunmore, who turned out to be quite a dangerous individual. I have to tell you, Mrs Harris, I do not appreciate the direction this meeting is going in. Your insinuations are beginning to border on the slanderous. I must ask you to leave and to put any issues you might have in writing, and I will do my best to address them – once the clinic’s legal adviser has checked them over.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere without my daughter. And nobody here seems to know where she is.’

  Danny sprang to his feet.

  ‘If that woman has her somewhere—’

  ‘She’s not with Laura. I’ve already checked.’

  ‘But what if she’s told her to do something to herself? Got into her subconscious. I don’t know how it works.’

  ‘I’ve told you,’ said Roberts, ‘that’s just not possible.’

  Danny made a sudden movement towards Roberts, and for a moment Corinne thought he was about to hit him, but instead he pushed past.

  ‘I’m going to look for her,’ he said, throwing open the door.

  ‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ Roberts repeated after Danny’s retreating back, his voice paper thin.

  Nothing wrong? Corinne thought as she hurried after her son-in-law. All this damage?

  Up ahead, she could see Danny striding towards the art room. She caught up with him just as he burst inside.

  ‘Where is she?’ he bellowed, advancing on Laura, who was in the far corner of the room, tightening Judith’s blindfold.

  ‘Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God.’ By the window, Frannie rocked on her chair, plucking at her hair. ‘Oh God, Oh God, Oh God.’

  There was a clicking sound to Corinne’s right. Justin Carter, switching on his microphone. ‘Laura, we know who you are,’ she called out. ‘We know who your mother was … and what Roberts did. We know how awful it must have been for you, but you know Hannah had nothing to do with that. We just need her to be safe.’

  Laura, still half bent behind Judith, seemed frozen into place, one hand still holding the end of the scarf she had tied around Judith’s eyes.

  Danny had crossed so he was just a couple of feet from Laura, with only Judith’s easel standing between them, like a splattered wooden shield.

  ‘Where is she? Where’s my wife?’

  ‘You’re intruding into our safe space.’ Odelle put down her brush and was standing by her workspace, her trembling fingers clutching on to the tray of her easel as if to stop her legs snapping under the weight of her upper half like two sticks of dried spaghetti.

  ‘We have a right to feel protected in our safe space. Isn’t that true, Laura?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Laura, recovering enough to step forward and fling an arm around Odelle’s shoulders. ‘I think Hannah’s mum and husband have misunderstood something, but it’s nothing for the rest of you to worry about.’

  Nina, who’d been hopping from foot to foot throughout the entire confrontation, let out a bark of laughter. ‘This is brilliant,’ she said. ‘This is effing brilliant.’

  Corinne felt like the room was moving under her feet, the walls coming towards her.

  ‘Corinne? What’s going on? Is Hannah in trouble?’ It was a measure of Corinne’s distracted state of mind that she hadn’t even noticed Stella standing off to the side, wearing her bright, blonde hair twisted up high on her head and secured with a red clip decorated with tiny, intricate fabric red roses.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Corinne said. ‘I think she might be. We need to find her.’

  Laura stepped forward to stand in front of Corinne, so close Corinne found herself leaning back, just to put space between them.

  ‘I have no idea where Hannah is,’ said the art therapist in her most honeyed tone. ‘As you can see, I’m in the middle of teaching a class. Like I told you, Hannah was here earlier and she seemed perfectly fine. I’m sure there’s no need to worry.’

  Laura’s head was cocked to one side so her smile appeared to slide down one side of her face. She took another step forwards and Corinne breathed in, shrinking back from the ruthless intensity of her.

  She was quite mad. Why had no one noticed?

  Corinne was conscious of a movement behind her right shoulder. She started when she realized Justin Carter, the documentary maker, was by her side, looking uncharacteristically flustered.

  ‘Not now,’ she snapped, turning on him. ‘Have you people no shame?’

  ‘Water,’ he said, nonsensically.

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ said Danny. ‘Now the fucking media are joining in. This place is a circus!’

  ‘What do you mean “water”?’ Desperation cracked in Corinne’s voice.

  ‘It’s what Drew told me. Only now I can’t find him to ask him to explain it to you.’

  ‘Well, you explain then.’

  ‘Apparently, she’ – he flicked his head in Laura’s direction – ‘said it to Hannah. In hypnosis. She said that if she was stressed she should head for deep water. That would be her safe place. Look, I know this sounds crazy, but Drew said that was Hannah’s trigger.’

  ‘What the fuck?’ The words exploded out of Danny, and Justin took a step backwards.

  ‘Apparently, she uses triggers to make them do things. Look, I didn’t really understand half of what he was saying. It was about half an hour ago and he was in a rush to go somewhere and he wasn’t making sense. It didn’t click until just this minute that there might be anything sinister about it.’

  Corinne was floundering. She didn’t understand.

  ‘Oh my God!’ The exclamation went up from the easel nearest to Laura’s office, behind which the new patient, whose name once again escaped Corinne, had been sitting in silence this whole time.

  ‘I saw her. Hannah. I saw her. Oh my God.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, why didn’t you say?’ Danny was across the room in a fraction of a second, his six-foot-two frame looming over the woman’s chair. She crossed her arms over her chest as if under attack, and Corinne rushed over to pull Danny aside.

  ‘Where did you see Hannah? Please, try to remember. You could really help us.’

  The woman seemed mollified and uncrossed her arms.

  ‘I saw her about half an hour ago when I was on my way here. She was heading down to the lake.’

  50

  Hannah

  It happens like a switch being thrown.

  One minute I am stumbling through the trees with my breath being torn from my throat and my heart thudding in my ears like the bass from the house music we used to listen to at university a lifetime ago, and then I emerge on to the lawn and the lake is there, stretching away from me, flat and still, like a watery blanket I could wrap myself up in and, instantly, I am calm.

  It’s the strangest thing. All the stress of the last few weeks and months; the nights I’d lie in bed unable to sleep while Steffie’s features painted themselves across my eyelids; the
mornings I’d look at Danny’s face on the pillow next to me and see a stranger lying there; those strange dreamlike months of the pregnancy-that-wasn’t where I floated around as if on a cloud, ignoring the tiny worm of anxiety that was steadily eating its way through my gut. The cold-sweat agony of ending up in here and having to face up to what I’d done, the lies I’d told, the lies I’d allowed myself to believe. Losing Sofia, then Charlie. Bish bosh. All of that drains from me as I gaze out across the expanse of water.

  In its place, I am filled with a warm rush of wellbeing. It is as if all my life – the good, the bad, the heartwarming and heartbreaking – has been leading up to this one point. And here, by this lake, is exactly where I am supposed to be.

  ‘Hannah!’

  Someone is calling my name from a distance, and I peer out across the lake and suddenly, incredibly, Charlie is there, her dark head bobbing about in the middle of the water.

  ‘Charlie?’

  She waves.

  ‘Come in. It’s gorgeous. Sofia is here.’

  I see now that there’s another head just behind Charlie’s, another hand waving.

  I take five steps forward until I am on the very edge of the bank, where it tips down steeply. If I look ahead, the water looks black but, straight down below me, I can see dark fingers of weeds under the surface, waving at me through the murk.

  ‘Hannah!’ Charlie calls again. ‘Stop being such a wuss and get in here.’

  I look across to the middle of the lake, where she is splashing about with Sofia in their little pool of sunshine, and smile, and it feels like the first time I have smiled in months. And I feel a warmth spreading through me as if the smile has unblocked something that has been blocked for a long time.

  ‘Coming,’ I say.

  And I jump.

  51

  Corinne

  Corinne hated running, but here she was, flying across the hallway and pushing through the huge front door, and not understanding why it wouldn’t open until Danny pressed the exit button to the right, and then they were outside and following the path around the side of the house past the dance studio to the back, where the lawn stretched away in front of them, the lake shimmering in the distance.

  Now she was again running, running. And Danny was behind her, even though he was so much younger and ought to be faster, but there was no time to think about what that meant.

  Please let her be safe. Please let her be safe.

  The words kept pace with her feet pounding the wet grass.

  Please let her be safe.

  And now they were halfway down and … Yes. Yes. Something was moving in the water. Far, far, out in the middle, where it was deepest. Oh God.

  She was too far out. Corinne could see that, even from here. The shape that was recognizably Hannah’s head, with Hannah’s streaming blonde hair, kept dipping under the surface. One minute there, the next gone, and Corinne, running, would not breathe until she saw it again. But the gaps between the reappearances were getting longer and longer and Corinne knew they would not reach her in time.

  She turned her head. ‘Run!’ she screamed at Danny. And he went pelting down the slippery grass, just as Hannah’s head slipped once more under the surface of the lake.

  ‘Look!’

  It was Stella shouting behind her, that husky voice unmistakeable, even now, when the effort of breathing was scraping her smoke-ravaged throat.

  ‘There’s someone there. To the left. See?’

  Corinne slowed to look where Stella was pointing and, sure enough, there was someone else there. Already in the water. Heading out towards the middle. Towards Hannah. Please hurry.

  In the middle of the lake, Hannah’s head once again sank slowly under the water, just as Danny reached the water’s edge and began taking off his shoes.

  Behind him, Corinne held her breath, waiting for Hannah to reappear, but the surface of the water had closed over her as if she’d never been there.

  ‘Hannah!’

  Her scream tore a ragged hole through the air.

  52

  Hannah

  ‘Hannah!’

  Charlie’s voice isn’t calm any longer. Instead, there is an urgency to it that jars. I close my eyes and try to return to the peace I felt just a few moments ago, that comforting sense of safety and wellbeing. But though I try to relax, I cannot find again that feeling of grace I had when I started swimming across the lake.

  ‘Hannah!’

  The shriek goes right through me like an electric charge, jolting me into life, and now I am scared, feeling myself being sucked under the water. I open my eyes and everything is black around me. Holding my breath, I try to propel myself upwards, but my foot is caught on something deep down there in the darkness. I start to flail around with my arms, panicking, fighting against the lake and the blackness.

  I struggle furiously, kicking out with my legs, trying to free my foot, but I cannot get loose. The pressure is building inside me from holding my breath.

  Is this really how it ends?

  I’m still fighting, but I can feel myself weakening. There’s a darkness on the perimeter of my thoughts that seems to be growing, pressing in on me.

  An image of Mum comes into my mind, curled up on her old squishy sofa with her feet tucked under her and a glass of wine in her hand, smiling at me, with our sweet old dog Madge by her side, and I send a silent message to her. I’m sorry. I love you.

  And now the pressure is becoming unbearable, causing a pain that mushrooms out from my chest until it fills every part of me, and I press my lips together, but the urge to breathe is too great to keep them pressed, and I can’t help it. I open my mouth.

  53

  Corinne

  Hannah had been under the water for too long. Though Danny was in the lake now, Corinne could already see he wouldn’t make it in time.

  All her attention was now fixed on the unknown person swimming out.

  Come on, Corinne urged. Please. Come on.

  Now that head too disappeared. But was that the exact place where Hannah had gone down? Corinne couldn’t be sure. An image came into her mind of her daughter floating in dark water and she made a sound like a cat crying that shocked even her.

  She was vaguely aware of others gathering beside her on the bank – the bright flash of Stella’s hair, Roberts looking, for once, flustered, his tie flapping over one shoulder, his hair damp and dishevelled, as if he had just rubbed it with a towel.

  The unknown rescuer’s head reappeared and Corinne held her breath, watching for a break in the water that meant Hannah was coming up too, but there was nothing. Then, once again, the head dipped beneath the water, leaving the surface smooth.

  Time stretched itself tight, the air pulsing with anticipation and dread.

  Please please please please please.

  Finally, a shape appeared. Corinne’s heart sank when she recognized the dark hair of the stranger who was trying to save her daughter but who had now started swimming back towards them, as if giving up.

  But no. Something else was in the water. A long, black shape being dragged behind the swimmer.

  And there was Danny, finally arriving on the scene, taking over and pulling the shape to the shore. And, yes, Corinne could see now. It was a person. Hannah. Her Hannah.

  Hope flared sharp inside her, replaced almost instantly by a gripping fear when she saw Hannah wasn’t moving.

  As the trio approached, Corinne’s attention was fixed on Danny and his cargo. When they were just feet away from the bank, she stretched out her hand as far as it could go, not caring if she toppled into the water.

  All around, the other onlookers were reaching out to help haul the unresponsive Hannah out of the water, and there was such frantic chaos that Corinne didn’t immediately notice the person clambering out of the lake after Danny and sinking on to the ground at her feet until she felt a hand on her leg, a familiar voice.

  ‘Mum? Is she OK? Is Hannah OK?’

  She looked down
at the slight, prone figure at her feet, dark hair plastered to her head, clothes dripping wet, shivering uncontrollably in the cold air.

  Hannah’s rescuer was Megan.

  54

  Hannah

  The sky is the colour of the dirty water Danny used to leave in the sink after he’d finished washing up but forgotten to take the plug out. I can still remember the irrational surge of anger every time I came into the kitchen and saw those few inches of greasy, filthy water. I’d taken it as a swipe at me, a kick in the teeth, two fingers up at my bourgeois houseproudness. Now it occurs to me it was just, as he said at the time, dirty water. Nothing more.

  I have allowed myself to be distracted by things that do not matter. I have allowed myself to be defined by what I do not have. I have lost sight of the beauty of this grey sky, of this damp air, of the faces of people gathered around me trying to keep me warm, of the sheer, vast, grubby, breathing, pulsing majesty of it all.

  I choose life.

  I choose my mother dancing around the kitchen to Beyoncé on a Saturday morning. I choose my sister raising her eyebrows in that arch ‘Really?’ expression that used to drive me mad. I choose my memories of Madge nudging her way under my duvet with her cold, wet nose, and of Danny, back in the days when we were invincible. I choose Becs and Stella and all the friends who raise me up and challenge me and tell me if I have spinach in my teeth or questionable taste in men and stop me falling.

  I choose this. I choose life.

  All of it.

  55

  Corinne

  After Corinne’s marriage ended, it was Sundays she minded most of all. As a child, Sunday had been the most boring day of the week, no television apart from sport and Songs of Praise, no shops open, just a yawning chasm of slowly ticking minutes. But when she and Duncan were together and the girls were young, Sunday became her favourite day. Duncan was no cook, but he prided himself on his roast and would spend the morning peeling and chopping while Corinne and Megan went to watch Hannah playing netball or football or whatever sport was flavour of the month at that time. Then the afternoon was family time, curled up together on the sofa watching a movie or playing a game, or testing whichever daughter was currently revising for an exam.