by K. L. Slater
‘But he looks so scared,’ she says, pressing her face closer. ‘Is something worrying you, Archie?’
Archie glances away. He’s obviously feeling vulnerable.
‘He’ll be all right, won’t you, Archie?’ I look at Jenny. ‘He’ll have slipped playing footie after school or something.’
Jenny doesn’t look convinced and I realise I have to think of some way to change the conversation.
‘Anyway, there was something I wanted to ask you. What’s the name of that ex-boyfriend, the one who’s been watching you on the tram?’
I’m talking too fast and my question sounds random, out of context.
‘What a strange thing to ask!’ Her brow furrows. ‘Why do you want to know that?’
‘I just wondered, after you said yesterday that your current boyfriend had “sorted” it. I wondered what that meant exactly.’
My blunt intervention has worked. Jenny’s expression changes and now she looks like she’s definitely on the back foot.
‘Oh, I think it might have stopped.’ She releases her grip slowly and dabs at Archie’s nose, inspecting the tissue. ‘No more fresh blood.’
‘What do you say to Jenny for helping?’ I prompt Archie.
‘Thank you,’ he says grudgingly.
‘I’ll get back now,’ she says. ‘As you say, we can catch up another time.’
‘Hang on, Jenny.’ I hand Archie some fresh paper towel. ‘Just hold that to your nose, poppet, while I see Jenny out.’
We walk to the door together.
‘I didn’t mean to sound as if I’m prying,’ I say gently. ‘I know we’ve just met, but we seem to get on well and I’ve been a bit worried about you.’
‘Have you?’ She blinks. ‘Why’s that?’
‘I didn’t like to say, but for a while now I’ve heard a lot of banging upstairs… and shouting.’ She shuffles closer to the door. ‘And do you put your phone on the floor when you go to bed?’
Her mouth drops open. She must be wondering if I’ve got a camera trained on her up there.
‘The reason I ask is because often, in the middle of the night, there’s what sounds like a phone buzzing, constantly. Again and again, all through the early hours sometimes.’
‘You can hear that down here?’ She looks up at the ceiling.
‘Really clearly.’ I nod. ‘It must be something to do with the vibration against the floor. I can hear that clearer than anything else… apart from when it sounds like things are being thrown around. Obviously that can be quite loud.’
Two red spots appear on her cheeks.
‘I had no idea. I’m sorry. I…’
‘I didn’t mention it to complain. I just want to make sure you’re OK.’ I open the door and expect her to bolt out of the flat. But she doesn’t.
‘Sometimes Mark gets angry.’ She’s whispering, and I have to lean forward so I can hear. ‘He doesn’t believe me when I say I’m home, you see. So on the nights he isn’t here, he constantly rings at odd hours to try and catch me out.’
I close the door and turn to her. ‘You’d better come back through,’ I say.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
‘At first it was flattering, but now he scares me.’
‘Let’s go and sit in here,’ I say gently, and guide her into the living room. ‘Please, Jenny, sit down. I’ll just sort Archie out.’
A few minutes later, Archie is sitting in front of his Xbox with biscuits and pop, shameful auntie that I am after criticising Louise for doing the same thing.
‘When is she going?’ he growls. He’s so antisocial; no wonder he struggles to make friends at school.
‘Soon,’ I say, peering at his nose.
Thankfully, he looks OK for now. Apart from the smears of blood on his cheeks.
I sit on the sofa next to Jenny.
‘Does Mark hurt you?’ I ask.
‘No! He’s never touched me. Admittedly, he gets angry, throws stuff around, but he’s… he’s lovely underneath. I think I’ve got this way of pressing his buttons and he—’
‘Oh, please. Don’t tell me you’ve fallen for that one.’
‘But it must be me. He was so lovely when I met him, so caring. I make him angry because I keep going on about…’
‘Yes?’
‘About him leaving his wife.’
‘I see.’
‘Please don’t judge me,’ she begs. ‘I didn’t set out to have an affair with him, it just sort of happened. He’s a personal trainer at my gym, you see, and about ten years older than me. He just seemed so much more mature than the younger guys… Alice?’
‘Sorry, I’m listening. I’m just… thinking about what you’ve said.’
I feel sick. Martyn’s face flashes in my mind. The gym, his temper, the way he used to control my sister… and then I think about the note pushed through my door. He said he’d bide his time and make me pay.
I know I’m being illogical, but it feels like I’m stranded on quicksand.
‘He’s protective, you see, that’s what it is,’ Jenny continues. ‘He admits it and that’s why he went wild when I told him about James finding out where I lived.’
My breath catches in my throat when she says his name, even though I know it’s him.
‘You said Mark had “sorted” James. What did you mean by that?’
‘He just said I wouldn’t be having any more trouble from him, but not to ask him any questions about it.’ She hangs her head. ‘I haven’t been looking out of the window so I don’t even know if he’s still coming past.’
I want to tell her that he isn’t watching the flat from the tram any longer, and that I have his phone in my kitchen drawer, but I can’t say any of that without going through everything that’s happened.
‘I’m not allowed to talk about Mark to anyone. He… he wouldn’t even like it if he knew I’d come down here for a chat. He doesn’t like me having any friends, but I feel so lonely sometimes.’
I try and process this.
‘I know how bad it sounds,’ Jenny says sadly. ‘I know I must seem like a complete idiot to you, but things will get better soon. I just know it.’
‘I wouldn’t bank on it,’ I say. ‘He might not physically beat you, but he’s controlling you in lots of other ways. Stopping you going out, telling you who you can and can’t see, scaring you into silence and insisting you behave as he wants you too. Bet you have to run what you wear past him too, right?’
She looks at her hands.
Bullets fly as Archie pummels his controls and the screen splatters with digitised blood. My mind starts drifting.
Twenty years earlier
That day… the way Mum spun around like a ballerina so that the tasselled red dress flipped out and fluttered prettily around her slim pale legs.
‘That one, Mum!’ I called out in delight. ‘Wear that one tonight.’
Mum’s laughter tinkled like a silver bell.
‘Yes… definitely that one!’ Louise added, dancing around her. ‘You look so—’
The bedroom door flew open and we all fell quiet.
‘There’s an awful din coming from in here,’ Dad said, stepping into the room. ‘Can I join in the fun?’
Mum stopped spinning.
‘Paul… you’re home early,’ she said faintly.
‘Mum’s choosing the prettiest dress.’ I beamed at him.
‘I thought we’d agreed you’d wear the beige maxi dress, darling,’ Dad said evenly, loosening his tie.
‘Mum says beige is dull and boring,’ Louise grumbled. ‘But everyone knows that red is bright and exciting!’
‘Red is cheap and nasty,’ Dad said softly, walking closer. He stared at Mum for a moment. ‘Everyone knows that red means available.’
Mum had stopped smiling now and she began to slip the red dress from her shoulders.
‘She can wear the red dress this time, though, can’t she, Dad?’ Louise tried to appeal to him. ‘She looks so pretty in it!’
Dad didn’t answer. He stared at our mother as if he were in some kind of trance… like a horrid witch had put a spell on him.
‘Dad’s right,’ Mum said quietly. ‘I should never have got carried away, trying on all these different outfits. It was silly of me.’
‘So why not get your dresses out now, all of them?’ Dad said. ‘You can try on every single one and we’ll tell you which ones you ought to keep and which ones to bin.’
‘Oh no, I—’
‘Yes, Mum, it’ll be just like a fashion show!’ Louise exclaimed.
So that was what she did.
She tried on every single dress and Dad played the judge and we were the jury, but it was the judge who had the final say each time.
At the end of the afternoon, when Mum was exhausted, Dad had a big bag full of dresses that he took down to the bin, including lots of pretty ones that we loved but he and Mum didn’t.
‘So which one are you going to wear tonight?’ Louise scowled when Mum’s favourite red dress was added to the rubbish bag.
‘The lovely beige one, as Dad suggested.’ Mum smiled at us but her eyes shone with sadness and her voice sounded thin, like it did on the morning she told us Benjy Bunny had died. ‘Dad’s always right about these things.’
Present day
Jenny coughs.
I look up to find her watching me with a faint frown.
‘Sorry…’ I try to smile. ‘I got caught up in the past for a moment.’
I need to chill out a bit.
She nods. ‘I don’t want you to get the idea he doesn’t love me. It’s because he cares that—’
‘There’s a name for what he’s doing to you, Jenny. It’s called coercive control and I’ve seen two people I love caught up in it.’
‘Like I say, things will change soon.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
She glances at Archie and then smiles, a bloom lighting up her face.
‘Because I just found out I’m pregnant!’
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
When Jenny has left, and before I go back through to Archie in the lounge, I stand at the kitchen window, trying to get my thoughts in order.
Why am I so troubled about the fate of a man who didn’t even know I existed until I introduced myself to him in a coffee shop?
I’m making a big drama out of a throwaway comment that some thug – Jenny’s boyfriend, Mark – has ‘sorted’ him. He probably simply threatened him and James has stopped getting the tram, that’s all. Not my business.
But why was he visiting a criminal law solicitor in the city? Why did he look afraid in the coffee shop when he was being bombarded by phone calls?
I take James’s phone out of the drawer. There’s still some charge left on there, but it seems nobody has called or texted him since I turned it back on. He hasn’t rung the phone himself to try and trace it, and he hasn’t been back to the coffee shop to ask if anyone has handed it in.
Doesn’t tell me anything in itself, but put together, it just feels odd. It doesn’t sound like normal behaviour.
I can hear Archie shouting at the screen in the lounge, so I gauge I still have a few minutes. I click into the call log again and reach for a piece of paper. When I dial the answerphone, the robotic voice tells me there is one message waiting, dated two days ago. I shiver when I realise the time matches up exactly with when James and I were in the coffee shop. The phone kept ringing and he kept ignoring it, getting jumpier by the second.
I click play to listen to the message and a gruff, rasping voice fills my ear.
‘Last warning. Stay away from her or you’re a dead man.’
There’s a click as the call ends. No more messages.
‘Auntie Alice,’ Archie calls. ‘Is tea ready yet?’
My hands are shaking as I shove the phone back in the drawer. Maybe it was an empty threat; people say all sorts of things when they’re fired up. I really can’t think about this right now. I have to choose where to put my energies: a man I don’t even know, or my nephew, who needs me to look out for him.
I turn on the oven and slide a couple of slices of frozen pizza in there. Not the ideal choice for a growing boy, but I forgot Louise was bringing him over this evening so I didn’t think about tea. It just occurs to me she didn’t even say whether he’s staying over or whether she’ll pick him up later.
‘Tea’s on, Archie,’ I say as I walk into the lounge. ‘Can we pause the game, just for a minute?’
A request like that would have had him kicking off big style just a week ago. Now, it merits a little huff before he presses the pause button and lays down his controls.
‘How’s the nose?’ I say, peering at his face when he sits down next to me.
‘It’s OK.’
‘So, what happened last night? How come you hurt your head?’
He pulls down the corners of his mouth. ‘I wasn’t playing football like you told that lady. I don’t like her.’
‘No, I guessed you weren’t. But she doesn’t need to know that. Why don’t you like her?’
He doesn’t elaborate, so I try another approach.
‘Who was home when you hurt yourself?’
‘Mum and Dad were both there, but they were in the other room, arguing.’ His knee starts jiggling up and down.
I can hear my own breathing.
It feels like I’m prying, like I’m questioning my nephew in an underhand way that would make Louise hit the roof if she were here… But she’s not here, and this is important.
While Louise and Darren have obviously got their own relationship problems that they’re trying to sort out, someone needs to be looking out for Archie.
‘Do you know what they were arguing about, your mum and dad?’
‘I’m not sure,’ he says quickly.
I put my finger under his chin until he turns to look at me. ‘I’m your auntie, right?’
He grins. ‘I know that, silly!’
‘I know you know that.’ I nudge him playfully. ‘I also want you to know that your auntie will never get you into trouble. You can tell me anything, OK? You don’t have to get through stuff alone. That’s what I’m saying.’
He nods, but stays quiet.
‘Archie, how did you hurt your head?’
He sniffs.
I wait.
‘There was shouting and Mum got mad…’ He shakes his head as if he’s trying to stop the pictures from coming. ‘Dad tried to…’ He covers his ears with his hands and closes his eyes, and his voice becomes quiet. ‘Mum pushed me hard and I fell over.’ He touches his right temple.
‘And that’s when you hit your head?’
He nods. ‘On the side of the worktop. My nose was OK at first, but then it started to bleed.’
I part his hair gently in a few places but he doesn’t seem to be cut.
‘And then she told you not to mention it to your teacher this morning?’
He looks at the frozen television screen, his fingers fidgeting against each other. ‘She said they might try and take me away.’
I swallow down the rising fury clogging up my throat.
‘All right then. Well, have ten more minutes on your game and then I’ve recorded us a programme about the Egyptian pyramids to watch, if you fancy that?’
‘Cool!’ He beams.
I stand up to go and check on the pizza and he grabs my hand.
‘They were arguing about stuff and Mum said if he didn’t stop, she was going to leave him and take me with her.’
His features look drawn and pale.
‘And what did your dad say to that?’ I ask him softly.
‘Nothing.’ Archie looks away. ‘He just sat and cried.’
‘I’m sorry you had to witness that, Archie.’
I sit back down and hold him in my arms, but he doesn’t get upset, he just sits there stiffly as if he’s enduring my affection.
‘I can’t tell you any more,’ he whispers so faintly I almost miss it.
‘T
here’s more?’ I sit back, my hands on his shoulders, and look at him. He shakes his head.
‘That’s everything.’ He’s looking not at me but through me, lost in his own thoughts. ‘Apart from the secret. And I can’t tell anybody that.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
Three years earlier
I took a few tentative steps down the corridor towards Jim. His forehead patterned with a frown and his mouth was opening and closing, but all I could hear were my own tortured thoughts.
I have to do this. My career will never recover if I let them down. It’s just an hour… that’s all. Nothing is going to change in an hour.
I took a deep breath, threw my shoulders back and stopped biting down on my back teeth. Jim smiled faintly as relief flooded his face and the frown dissolved.
I can do this. I have to do this for myself and for Jack. I’ve worked so hard to get here.
But when the gap between us was no more than three or four feet, I stopped walking, and Mum’s face flashed into my mind.
Darren called to take her shopping and found her on the kitchen floor. They think it’s a heart attack.
For a moment, I saw her, prostrate and alone on the floor in her enormous dated kitchen with its free-standing cooker and the same scratched oak table we sat at as kids.
They’ve taken her to the Trent Cardiology Centre at the City Hospital. ‘I’m sorry, Jim.’ I coughed as the words caught in my throat. ‘I have to go.’
‘What? I knew it!’ Jim’s face flushed scarlet. ‘I could see there was something wrong, you standing here in the corridor like this.’
‘I’m sorry, Jim. It’s my mum… she’s… not well. I have to…’
He stepped closer to me and placed his hands on my upper arms.
‘Alice, please. Just stop and listen for a moment. Breathe, that’s it.’ He squeezed my arms lightly. ‘I’m sorry to hear your mum isn’t well, I really am. But this is your career, it’s about the rest of your life. Finn thinks a lot of you, and if you do a good job in there, your progression in the company is secured. I know you want this.’
Jim had spent hours talking me into believing I could do the job, that I was more than capable. He’d been brilliant and selfless with his time, and now, the guilt I felt about disappointing him entwined with my overwhelming guilt about choosing the job above Mum.
