After the Fall

by Norman, Charity

  ‘That’s not the Sacha we all love.’ Jean shook his head in distress. ‘Boyfriend trouble, I wonder?’

  ‘I’d better go and talk to her,’ said Kit, but he didn’t.

  Our neighbour was a man of impeccable tact, and he knew an approaching storm when he saw one. ‘I must be off,’ he insisted, beetling towards the door. Outside, he laid a hand on my arm. ‘Don’t worry. She will come down in half an hour and pretend nothing has happened. My sons were crazy too, at this age. Forever exploding like fireworks. It’s a growing-up thing.’

  ‘But he hit her, Jean!’

  ‘And you think I never laid a finger on my boys?’ He hopped into his truck. ‘Parents aren’t saints, Martha. If they were, their children would never be conceived.’

  Once Jean had gone, I stormed back into the kitchen. ‘What were you thinking?’ I hissed. ‘You could be prosecuted!’

  ‘She’s back on that crap.’ Kit was leaning against the dresser. ‘It’s all starting again. It’s all starting again! Can I not be forgiven if it seems too much?’

  I stood by the door, feeling the sky fall in. ‘She can’t be, though. She’s got no money and she’s not allowed out at night.’

  He threw both arms up and behind his head, as though convulsed by a bolt of pain. ‘Oh, come on! We’ve both had our heads shoved in the sand.’

  ‘I just don’t see how she’d get hold of any.’

  ‘Noticed the odd bit of Wedgwood disappearing? Ever seen her silver bracelet again? Bianka hasn’t been here for a while, has she? Not since . . . ooh, since we went skiing.’

  ‘Anita needs her.’

  ‘No phone calls, nothing. That girl’s been ejected from Sacha’s life, same as last time. We’ve seen the signs—oh yes, we have—but we’ve done fuck all about it because we hoped to God this wasn’t starting again.’

  He was right, of course. I sank into a chair. ‘We’ve messed up.’

  ‘No! She’s messed up!’ Kit was energised, striding around the table. A vein stood out on his neck.

  ‘It’s a disease.’ I was arguing with myself as much as with him. ‘It’s not her fault.’

  ‘Don’t give me that crap, Martha. She’s had choices all along the line. Ten years, I’ve treated that girl as my own daughter. I’ve doted on her, cared for her. Ten years, for Christ’s sake! And how does she repay me?’

  I knew what he meant. I was tempted to storm upstairs and scream at Sacha, and the truth was I’d felt like clouting her myself, just before. But I was stung by the intensity of his rage, and perhaps by the reminder that she was my daughter, not his.

  ‘So you’re happy to be her father while she’s charming and delightful and you belt seven bells out of her when the going gets tough? Marvellous. What a bloody hero.’

  His fist crashed onto the dresser. Plates fell, rolling and shattering on the quarry tiles. ‘Fuck’s sake, Martha! I didn’t belt any bells out of her, though God knows I should’ve done. I slapped her because I’m only human, okay? The girl’s a sad, depraved junkie who fouls everything around her.’

  I lost my temper completely then. I suppose I was overwrought. ‘Ha! Says Mr Sobriety McNamara, who had to be collected from the copshop like a dog from the pound.’

  He stepped closer, his jaw thrust forward. ‘Shut up.’

  ‘Is that a threat?’ I slid out of my chair, warily moving away from him. ‘We came out here because of you, Kit. It’s time you accepted that. Ironic, really—we ran from one addiction and straight into the arms of another!’

  I regretted these words almost instantly; but the damage was done. We were a furious pair, facing one another like fighting dogs across the kitchen table. For the first time ever, Kit seemed ugly. I saw the face of a spoiled child: pinched, livid, self-absorbed. Muffin didn’t like the loud voices. She crawled out of her basket and limped across to droop uncertainly beside me.

  ‘I’m not going to stand by while you hit my daughter,’ I said coldly. ‘If you ever touch her again, I will leave you.’

  ‘And I’m not going to stand by while she destroys Finn and Charlie’s childhood. I’m not—they’re not—’ He broke off, gasping, and with a jolt I realised that he was battling tears. In all the years I’d known him, even in the months of darkness and self-doubt, I’d never seen Kit cry.

  Love surged through me. Shocked, hushing him, I put my arms around him. He bent to press his face onto my shoulder, and I felt his fight for breath.

  ‘This is never going to end,’ he whispered.

  I stroked his hair. ‘Just a setback. We can cope.’

  ‘I don’t know if we can.’

  Charlie wandered in, wearing nothing but a pair of underpants on his head. He seemed unsurprised to find his parents draped around one another. He pottered out, then came back again a minute later.

  ‘Seen my Game Boy? Bloody thing’s gone AWOL again.’

  *

  Later, when the boys were asleep and Kit had taken refuge in the studio, I called Bianka. I didn’t know where else to turn.

  ‘Sacha!’ She sounded relieved. I suppose our number had flashed up on her phone.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Martha here.’

  ‘Sorry. I hoped . . .’ Instantly, concern. ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘No. No, it’s not all right. I think you know that, don’t you?’

  Her voice was faint. ‘I’ve picked up my phone about fifty times, but I couldn’t . . . I didn’t know how to tell you.’

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘I love her.’

  I smiled, despite everything. ‘I know you do. And I also know she’s back on the meth.’

  A long pause. ‘It’s worse than that.’

  Worse? How could it be worse?

  ‘She isn’t just using it, Martha. She’s in trouble. Real trouble.’

  ‘What do you mean, not just using it? For God’s sake, what else can she do with the stuff?’

  ‘You cut off her money supply,’ said Bianka. ‘Of course you did. Well, they didn’t mind, they gave her credit . . . that’s one of their tricks. They got her trapped, and then they turned the thumbscrews. She never had enough cash. She needed more and more, and she owed more and more, and these guys are freaky, I mean really freaky. She was petrified. So she had to get a . . . um, a job.’

  A job?

  And we’re not talking a paper round here, said Mum.

  ‘Is she . . . she isn’t a . . .?’ I coughed. I couldn’t say it. The words Sacha and prostitute should never be uttered in the same sentence.

  ‘She’s a courier.’

  ‘A what?’

  The story came crashing down the line. It was as though poor Bianka had been carrying an immensely heavy load and was dumping it on my doorstep. ‘Picks it up from the cook and delivers it to the dealers. She’s perfect because she’s in her school uniform, looks clean and white and respectable so the police aren’t going to glance twice, are they? She actually carries it in her flute case. I mean, how innocent does that look? She does her runs at lunchtime when there are lots of Year Twelves out and about. She transports it and they pay her in . . . they give her enough for her own use and then she—’ The words disintegrated into incoherence.

  I stared at a calendar hanging on the wall: two emerald taniwha with swirling tails. The world had turned upside down and inside out. I despised the courier, the dealer, the cook, everyone involved in supplying those monstrous crystals to my beautiful girl. I loathed them. They were vermin, hiding under hoods and behind gang insignia. They were creatures with no self-respect, no future, scrabbling for rotting scraps on their filthy heap. I agreed entirely with Jean Colbert: put down poison, lay traps. They had to be eradicated.

  Not Sacha.

  Bianka’s words were tangling. ‘It doesn’t matter what I do or say, she won’t listen, just nuts off at me. I told her to go ahead and screw up her life—but I didn’t mean it!’

  Not Sacha. Sacha was a goddess in a white dress, weaving magic with her flute; a beloved
sister who splashed her brothers in the river. She was a chatterbox with a high forehead and apple cheeks who never stopped smiling, and loved hot chocolate and marshmallows. When a bee stung her, I put on special cream. On my wedding day I told her I loved her most in the world, and she said she loved me more.

  No, not Sacha. She wasn’t vermin.

  ‘Rival gangs,’ Bianka ran on breathlessly, ‘do anything to shut each other down. You don’t mess with them . . . She told me someone attacked her car when she was doing a delivery. It was a warning. The deeper you get into this, the freakier the people.’

  ‘Doing a delivery? No, no. She was grocery shopping. She can’t have been . . . I mean, that was weeks ago.’

  ‘She started using again the day after you got back from skiing.’

  I saw Sacha on the mountainside, gazing at the pristine cone of Ngauruhoe. I’m lucky: I’ve been given a second chance, and there’s no way I’m going to throw that chance away.

  ‘That isn’t possible.’

  ‘Yes.’ Bianka sounded heartbroken. ‘Coming home brought everything back. She got hit by this craving and it was driving her crazy, she was afraid she was going to kill herself if it didn’t stop. So she sent a text from your phone. Someone drove out and left the stuff under your letterbox. She took the dog for a walk and collected it. She thought she could handle it, she’d just have a little bit to perk her up and everything would be okay.’

  The ground was opening. There was nowhere safe.

  Bianka was still talking. ‘Look—I’m sorry, but you’ve got to know—she sells it, too.’

  ‘Sells it? You mean she’s a dealer?’

  ‘Well, sort of. She breaks it up and sells it to her mates.’

  My legs were shaking. I pulled out a chair and fell onto it.

  ‘Please take her away, Martha,’ begged Bianka. ‘She’s screwing up her life, big time. Take her back to England while you still can.’

  I couldn’t move, after that call. I sat irresolute and stunned as the wind rose outside. So far, every decision I’d made had ended in disaster. I jumped in terror as a violent gust tore the lid off our dustbin, rolling it across the yard.

  Pick up that phone and call the police! wailed Mum.

  ‘Shut up, shut up. I’m trying to think.’

  For heaven’s sake, blow the whistle! This is too big for you now.

  Dazedly, I lifted the phone. Once I’d shopped Sacha to the authorities, I could let go. They would take it irrevocably out of my hands. No more choices. Listening to the dial tone, I mouthed my first words: Hello, good evening, hi, um, I’m calling to betray my daughter. Perhaps they’d send a posse and arrest her tonight. She’d be so frightened, and what would I tell the boys? There would be police interviews and court appearances. She’d be a criminal, her life in tatters; and all because I’d made this call.

  I dropped the receiver. I couldn’t do that to her, to all of us. Surely we could sort this out behind closed doors? First, Kit must be told that his stepdaughter was a criminal, tied up with maniacs who attacked cars. I forced my steps across the sitting room and stood in front of the studio door. The handle shifted under my palm.

  That’s right, urged Mum. Put him in the picture.

  But he’d never forgive her. Anyway, I reasoned, why burden the man with such terrifying knowledge on the eve of realising his dream? In a few hours he was off to Dublin for an exhibition that could change all our lives. If he knew what I knew, he might even cancel his trip.

  I lifted my hand off the door handle, and crept away. I had another, perhaps even more difficult, conversation ahead of me.

  Sacha was pacing in her room, half-dressed, her cheeks leached of blood. ‘I’m sorry,’ she sobbed. ‘I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry. I love you, I love Kit, I love the twins.’ Her contrition seemed absolutely genuine, but the change in her was bewildering. It was as though there were several Sachas, all living within the same body. She took hold of my face and turned it towards her. ‘They’re out there.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Can’t you hear them whispering?’

  I listened. Yes . . . there was something. The possum was dancing on the tin roof, scrabble scrabble of little feet; or perhaps it was a family of rats gnawing on the rafters.

  ‘They’re coming.’ Sacha’s eyes were wild and staring. ‘I’ve seen them, hiding behind the trees.’

  ‘But who’s coming?’

  ‘I wish I was dead.’

  Five minutes later she was limp, her eyelids thin as gauze. I covered her up and made her warm, because she was my special girl. My lost girl. When I kissed her, my own tears ran onto her face.

  I lay in the dark, rigid as a board, listening to the wind trying to tear off our roof. Kit came up at midnight. He moved quietly around the room, and I heard his suitcase being zipped before he slid in beside me. To my intense relief, he was sober.

  ‘I know you’re awake,’ he said softly.

  ‘Wish I wasn’t.’ I turned over to face him, but I didn’t move closer and neither did he. We lay two feet apart. Sacha’s addiction was a physical presence, malevolent and ugly. It had lodged between us.

  ‘She’s paranoid,’ I said. ‘Thinks there are people prowling around outside.’

  ‘People prowling . . .? Hang on.’ Kit swung out of bed and strode to the balcony door, peering into the night. ‘Maybe there are, though. Some of her burglar mates, d’you think?’

  ‘She says she hears voices, people whispering. It’s a bit like . . .’

  He was still at the window. ‘Spit it out.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know. Schizophrenia or something.’

  ‘God help us.’ Kit rolled back under the covers. ‘Should we take her to hospital?’

  ‘I don’t think we can, without blowing the whistle. How are we going to explain the state she’s in? Anyway, if she starts babbling on about hearing voices she could end up in the psychiatric unit! No way.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake.’ His frustration was rising again. ‘Stupid, stupid girl! Why is she doing this to us? Is she punishing us for something? Is this all about emigrating, or not knowing her father?’

  ‘I don’t know why she’s relapsed. People do. Look at smokers.’

  ‘Nicotine isn’t quite in the same league.’ Kit was silent for a minute. ‘Look, I think I should cancel the trip.’

  ‘Cancel the—?’ I moved across to him, resting my forearms on his chest. ‘After all your work? Don’t you dare! In the world outside our troubled family, there is an art festival waiting for a collection of Kit McNamaras.’

  His arms wound around me. He was alert; I sensed the watchfulness in his body, the rapid breathing. ‘If she’s using again, those lowlifes may come back. You’re going to be alone here with the kids. What if someone breaks in at night?’

  ‘She’s not going to use any more,’ I said confidently.

  The deeper you get into this, the freakier the people.

  Five hours later, Kit’s alarm sounded. The storm had blown itself out, leaving frozen stillness. I don’t think either of us had slept.

  We huddled close together under the walnut tree, our breath misting. Kit had the engine running to defrost the windows. He turned my face up to his. ‘If you hear anyone out here, get the children into the car and leave. Okay? No heroic stuff.’

  ‘Okay. I promise.’ I wondered how he’d react if he knew why Sacha’s car had been trashed.

  He looked strained. ‘Keep your phone and car keys by the bed at night. Call the horse whisperer before you call the police—I’ll bet he’s a useful man with a shotgun.’

  ‘You’ve an overactive imagination,’ I said, letting my mouth brush the coarse skin of his cheek. He smelled of soap. I desperately, madly didn’t want him to go. ‘You are about to be the toast of Dublin. Your paintings will be festooned with Sold stickers. And when our famous—and disgustingly rich—artist comes home, we’ll put up all the flags and bunting. We’ll be happy as five pigs in clover.’

&nbs
p; He ducked into the car. I stood in the icy dark, feeling bereft and trying to look upbeat. Suddenly he was beside me again, slamming the door behind him, squeezing me to his chest as though he’d never let go. ‘I love you,’ he muttered fiercely. ‘You’re my life, Martha. You know that, don’t you? My whole life.’

  Soon I stood alone on the drive, watching with cold misgiving as a set of tail-lights faded into the pearly pre-dawn.

  Thirty-three

  It was the worst crash yet. Sacha shivered in bed, sleeping and whimpering. As the days passed she became stronger physically, but she seemed to be living in a nightmare of her own. She’d get up at night and walk around the house, shying wide-eyed at shadows, but be comatose the next day. I contacted the school and collected work, though she never touched it. On the third day I persuaded her to have a shower. She could hardly sit still long enough for me to dry her hair. She ducked and twisted, tearing at her face and arms.

  ‘Stop that,’ I begged. ‘Look, you’ve scratched a great hole.’

  ‘They’re crawling,’ she raved, eyes flickering. Before I could stop her, she’d grabbed a pair of tweezers from the dressing-table and was trying to dig something non-existent from the back of her hand. ‘Gotta get’em out.’

  The insurance money arrived, and I invested in a pile of DVDs to entertain the boys. I also sent them to play with friends when I could, determined to steer them out of Sacha’s path. ‘She’s got a yucky snotty cold,’ I told them. ‘You don’t want to catch it.’

  So they drew pictures of Bleater Brown, and made them into get-well cards which I propped up on her bedside table. In a display of pure adoration, Finn showed up at her door with his greatest ever treasure— excluding Buccaneer Bob—held behind his back. ‘It’s for Sacha to play with,’ he announced, holding out his Game Boy. ‘Pretty good when you’re stuck in bed. But tell her to keep it under her pillow, because the polty guy got Charlie’s.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The polty guy. The guy who keeps sneaking in and taking things. He took Charlie’s Game Boy. I heard you and Dad talking about the polty guy. If he comes into our room again I’m going to do a karate kick, ha!’—Finn demonstrated his skill, throwing his foot in the direction of an imaginary groin—‘right on his meat and two veg. That’ll send him packing.’