It must be baby brain! People had told her that pregnancy could lead to irrational decisions, illogical choices, and Catherine had dismissed it as misogynist nonsense.
But now she saw that she’d been as stupid as a stupid blonde in a horror film who wouldn’t turn the stupid lights on.
She’d put herself at risk, and – even worse – she’d put their baby at risk.
How could she tell Adam that?
She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. He’d be furious – and justifiably so. Her utmost serenity would be over, and it would be all worry and guilt and heightened security while Adam wrapped her in cotton wool until she choked …
The panic rose in her.
9–9–
She stopped dialling again. Thought it through once more.
What could the police do? The burglar hadn’t taken anything. Hadn’t broken anything. She hadn’t even seen him. If she called the police she’d have to relive the whole thing – parade her stupidity for the whole world to see – for nothing. The police rarely caught burglars. Everybody knew that. The Gazette was full of crimes the police couldn’t solve. One burglar had been at large for so long they’d even given him a nickname: Goldilocks – because he slept in the beds and ate the food in the houses he broke into. And if the police couldn’t catch him, Catherine doubted they’d be working overtime to catch the man who’d knocked over her air freshener.
Calling the police would get her nothing but embarrassment. Embarrassment and hoo-hah.
That’s what her mother would call it. Hoo-hah. Fuss and nonsense.
Catherine tossed the phone aside and hugged her belly. ‘We don’t need hoo-hah, do we, Crimpelene?’
She sighed at her bad luck. She wasn’t even supposed to be here! She and Adam were supposed to be away for the weekend in Sidmouth, celebrating their anniversary. But rent was due and they were saving up so hard for the baby, and when the opportunity for overtime had come up, they’d cancelled.
Even so, it was adding insult to injury to be burgled and threatened, when she should have been waking up to breakfast in bed overlooking the sea.
She looked through the window now as if the view might surprise her with a miracle, but all she saw was Mr Kent’s house on the other side of the cul-de-sac, washed with a pink glow from the rising sun.
Although it wasn’t the ocean, the view made her feel better. The night had been bad. But the night was over, and the dawn painted her fear a new, less scary colour.
I could have killed you.
Yes, she thought, but you didn’t, did you?
That was the comforting truth.
The intruder hadn’t killed her. Even when she’d been wavering at the top of the stairs, fat and unbalanced, with a vase wobbling in her hand. Even when a gentle nudge would have sent her plummeting to the hallway … he still hadn’t killed her. Had done his best to avoid her, before escaping the way he’d come in.
In fact, she’d scared him out of the house!
Maybe he’d just wanted to scare her back …
Catherine blinked.
That felt plausible. The burglar, thwarted by her noisy bluster, had made his own spiteful gesture in return. Left the knife and the threat, knowing he’d stolen her security, if not her valuables.
It was logical.
Likely …
And that was how Catherine started to think of it. How she decided to think of it. Empty bravado. Signifying nothing. And if it was nothing, then nobody needed to know. Nothing had to change. It would be best for her and – more importantly – best for the baby.
Utmost serenity.
And so Catherine While didn’t call her husband to tell him of the burglary. And she also didn’t call the police.
Instead she covered the shimmering knife with a tissue and picked it up gingerly, holding it at arm’s length, as if it might go off in her hand.
Then she pushed it to the very back of her bra drawer, and burned the birthday card in the kitchen sink.
August 1998
MISSING EILEEN’S LAST CALL FOR HELP
Jack’s breath stopped in his throat with a soft click and the dangling orange phone on the twisted wire came back to him with all the sick terror of that moment.
Don’t touch it! …
The headline was above a weird story that ran down the page in short, ragged lines, like a poem – but Jack didn’t need to read the story to know what it meant.
His mother had called for help. She’d held that orange phone. She’d been right there … How long before they had arrived?
Ages?
Moments?
Jack’s heart twisted with regret. If only he’d gone after her sooner! If only he’d walked faster! If only he hadn’t played stupid ‘I Spy’, or had to carry Merry, or stopped under the apple tree! They would have caught up with her, and she wouldn’t have disappeared.
He was in charge! He could have saved her!
If only …
He took a deep, shaky breath.
Hello?
The word floated off the page at him and Jack could hear his mother say it as clearly as if she were standing at his shoulder.
Hello?
What’s your emergency?
Oh. Hello. My car’s broken down.
What’s your name please, Ma’am?
Mrs Eileen Bright.
OK, Mrs Bright, and where is the car now?
On the hard shoulder.
Is it parked safely off the carriageway?
Yes.
Are you alone?
My children are with me.
Are they still in the car?
Yes.
Can you get them out and move them to the other side of the crash barrier away from the traffic? I’ll wait for you.
Um, no. I can’t. They’re not here with me. The car’s back down the road. It was too dangerous to walk up the road with them all. Merry’s only a baby, you see? And I didn’t know how far it would be. But they’re safe.
Jack hitched in a shocked breath.
Safe? How could she say that? How could she say they were safe? They weren’t safe! She didn’t know how unsafe they’d been! How Joy’s flip-flops had hurt her, or how Merry had cried, or how his arms had almost fallen right off with the effort of carrying her. Or about the fox and the crows and the car that had nearly hit them!
Or how nobody had stopped. Nobody had got involved.
Anger lit a match in Jack’s belly. She didn’t care about them! How could she? She’d left them! Joy was abandoned. They all were!
A creak overhead and Jack held his breath at the ceiling, then read on fast …
OK, Mrs Bright, is the car to the north or the south of your location?
Umm, let’s see [laughs]. We were going to Exeter—
[Sound of a car pulling over]
Oh, somebody’s stopping to help now … Hi …
[Sound of muffled voices. Eileen Bright. Unidentified male.]
Mrs Bright?
[Silence]
Hello, Mrs Bright?
[Silence]
Mrs Bright. Are you there?
[Silence]
[Sound of car driving off]
Jack stared blankly at the last line.
Sound of car driving off.
He didn’t want the story to end like that. He even turned the page, in the dumb hope that it went on somewhere else but, of course, it didn’t.
Sound of car driving off.
With his mother inside it?
He didn’t know.
Apparently nobody knew.
But everybody knew that getting into a stranger’s car was a good way to get murdered …
There was a knock at the front door. He pushed the paper into the pile and scuttled back to the sofa.
Low voices in the hallway. It was Call-Me-Ralph, and with him was a jolly-looking young policewoman, who smiled at Jack and said her name was Pam, and asked if she could sit next to him on the sofa.
Jack didn’t want her to sit next to him, but she
did anyway, while Call-Me-Ralph followed his father into the kitchen with a higgledy-piggledy pile of papers under his arm. Folders and forms and photos, and a plastic evidence bag.
Jack felt a sudden rat-ball of fear and fury squeeze his throat in a tight, writhing lump. His cheeks blazed and his ears went all underwater.
In a horrible dream he got up, but Pam caught his wrist and held it hard enough so that he knew she wasn’t going to let go without a fight.
‘Let me go,’ he said, through gritted teeth. ‘Let me go.’
Then they both flinched as behind the kitchen door his father wailed like a butchered dog.
And Jack knew … he knew! And he hated them all for letting him guess what he didn’t want to know.
‘Let me go!’ he cried, and twisted and jerked his arm and broke Pam’s hold. He ran out of the room and drummed upstairs.
Joy was in her bedroom playing Snap with her doll. She looked up at him and said, ‘What’s all the shouting?’
He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t say. He just stood.
‘You want to play?’ she said.
Jack didn’t want to play. But he also didn’t have the words to tell her that their mother was dead.
Instead, he sat slowly down on the scratchy blue carpet and watched Joy fumble the cards back together, so that they could start at the beginning again.
2001
Catherine kept busy all day long.
She renewed the car insurance. She put in a half-load of washing and assuaged her eco-guilt by turning the temperature down to 30. She planned a menu. Janet and Rhod were coming over on Friday but she wasn’t going to push the boat out. They were level-two friends – inviteable but not investable. She’d worked with Jan at the estate agency, but Rhod was just part of a couples package that was likely to be upgraded at some point in the future. Catherine had only met him once. He did something dull in an office – even Jan wasn’t sure what.
Catherine thought she’d do risotto. It was easy, yet somehow people were always impressed. So she had to buy the right rice. And lamb’s lettuce and feta and butternut squash and pomegranate seeds. She’d get it all on Friday morning so it would be fresh.
Or maybe she’d practise first to avoid another dinner-party disaster like the one Adam always called the Great Pork Fiasco. Dinner on that occasion had been pulled pork. She’d got it a bit wrong and it was like shoelaces, but Adam had saved the night by making a joke of it so that nobody had felt obliged to clear their plate.
Adam never minded her kitchen misadventures. He would shrug and finish every bit and say, You’ll get it right next time. At Christmas he’d bought her a cookery book, with an Ann Summers gift voucher marking the page on pulled pork.
After that she’d got it right.
After that they’d got everything right …
Catherine patted her tummy and smiled and looked at the clock. It must be nearly lunchtime.
It was half past ten.
She called her mother.
‘Oh, hello!’ said Helen Pitt. ‘To what do I owe this honour?’
It was her default greeting – designed to provoke guilt in her daughter. But instead of her usual irritation, Catherine felt a sentimental little welling-up at the sound of her mother’s voice.
Delayed shock, she imagined. Silly, really.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s been a while.’
‘Months!’
It had been months. But her mother was an easy woman to avoid. She was impatient, self-absorbed and judgemental. She disapproved of Adam because he’d been in debt when they’d married, but had cut him no slack for working all the hours God sent to pay it off since then.
Once she’d told Catherine that she’d left her own husband because he moved his lips while reading.
‘Drove me absolutely crazy!’ she’d said with a melodramatic wave of her arm. ‘Irretrievable breakdown!’
Whether the reason was true or not, the breakdown had been irretrievable, and Catherine’s father had removed himself to a safe distance – Canada, in fact – before he could apparently feel confident of a bit of peace and quiet. So Catherine had grown up with only one parent – and often suspected that it may not have been the better one.
Almost unconsciously she touched her bump, reassuring the baby that it would always have two parents who loved it very much.
‘How are you, Mum?’
‘My hands are fat,’ her mother grumbled. She had arthritis, which meant that sometimes she experienced the agony of her diamond rings not fitting. She complained to the doctor about it constantly; she’d paid good money for those rings and somehow felt that the NHS simply didn’t want her wearing them – socialist cartel that it was.
Catherine made a sympathetic noise for the fat fingers and changed the subject.
‘How was Palma?’
‘All right,’ said her mother. ‘Although I don’t know why it has to be so hot there.’
Catherine ignored the discontent.
‘Weren’t you going somewhere?’ said Helen vaguely.
‘We were going to Sidmouth this weekend for our anniversary, but we had to cancel at the last minute. We’ll go after the baby’s born.’
‘Why did you have to cancel?’
‘Adam took a job up north.’
‘Hm,’ said Helen darkly. ‘Let’s hope that’s all he’s got up north.’
Bitch!
Catherine refused to rise to the bait.
Finally her mother asked, ‘How are you?’ Better late than never.
‘Good,’ said Catherine tightly.
‘When’s it due?’
She knew when it was due. Catherine had marked it on the calendar on her mother’s fridge.
‘Eight weeks now.’
‘You peeing all the time?’
‘All the time.’
‘Bloody awful, isn’t it?’
Catherine shrugged. ‘It won’t last for ever.’
She wondered whether she should tell her mother about the burglary. She was a woman, after all – and a mother, albeit a poor one – and it would alleviate the guilty burden of silence. At least her mother would never tell Adam—
‘I’m going shopping,’ said Helen suddenly. ‘Shall I bring you in a fish pie?’
‘No thanks, Mum, I’m not eating fish while I’m pregnant.’
Helen snorted. ‘You and your fads!’
‘It’s not a fad. I want the baby to be healthy, that’s all.’
‘Fish pies are healthy! There’s no fat in them, it’s all fish! And lovely puff pastry.’
Her mother thought pastry was a food group.
‘Thanks, but fish contains mercury.’
‘Really!’ Helen snorted. ‘You’d think nobody had ever had a baby before!’
‘Look, Mum, everyone’s different. I’ve never had a go at you for smoking while you were pregnant with me, have I?’
‘Why would you?’ said Helen breezily. ‘You were perfectly healthy.’
‘I weighed six pounds.’
‘That was normal in those days.’
‘Because everybody smoked!’
‘My God, Catherine, stop making a fuss! People have been having babies for thousands of years without all this hoo-hah about fish and cigarettes.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Catherine hung up, incandescent. And then, as quickly as it had flared, her anger fizzled out to nothing and she laughed instead.
The call had certainly taken her mind off the break-in! And even if she’d told her mother about it, she shouldn’t have expected any sympathy from her. After all, people had been getting murdered for thousands of years without all this hoo-hah about knives and death threats …
The next day, when Adam came home, Catherine didn’t tell him – for the very same reason.
Hoo-hah.
Jack found his mother.
He was on the hard shoulder and she was there too, in her white summer maternity dress, keeping pace with him on the opposite side of the barrier,
pressing through the long yellow grass in the blazing heat.
‘Come back over this side,’ he said.
I can’t, she said. I’m too fat.
So he stopped to help her, but he wasn’t allowed to touch her hand, he was only allowed to throw her a long ribbon striped in red and white, like a barber’s pole. He kept throwing it, and she kept missing it. He would have to go over and help her. He climbed the barrier, hissing through his teeth as the steel scorched his hands and his bare thighs.
But he was too late.
Always.
Even as he straddled the hot, sharp metal, his mother slipped and stumbled and slid a little way down the bank on her knees.
Mum!
She laughed up at him, pretending it was funny, but it wasn’t funny.
Then she slid some more, and grabbed two handfuls of brittle grass to stop herself. The grass broke. But she kept on grabbing it and grabbing it, and it kept on breaking and breaking, and she slid down the bank in tufty jerks with her fists full of bundles of dry yellow stalks until she disappeared into the scrub far below …
Jack woke with his heart beating so hard he could hear it.
It wasn’t real! He wasn’t there! He was here, safe in bed, and the pillow under his cheek smelled of childhood. Like gym ropes and sparklers, and Marmite sandwiches in warm Tupperware.
If he turned, he’d see last night’s underpants draped across the hairpin bend of his Scalextric track – the Monza edition. Ferrari v. Lamborghini. He always drove the Ferrari; Joy always got the Lambo. When she wasn’t around, he straightened and cleaned the brushes on the Ferrari so they made the best possible contact with the track.
He always won, and victory smelled like burning wire.
The sweat cooled on his forehead as his breathing evened out.
Soon Mum would call him for breakfast and he’d pretend not to hear.
Pretend he was still sleeping.
He closed his eyes. An extra few minutes before school …
Jack? Ja-a-a-ack!
Jack slowly opened his eyes and frowned at the Artex ceiling with its design of repeating fans.
There was no point. No matter how hard he tried, he could never pretend she was there.
Dreams died, but the nightmare of reality went on. Sometimes it was difficult for him to tell one from the other, as the past and its tattered variations haunted him whether awake or asleep. Sometimes Jack’s memories were so dark that he couldn’t make them out – and didn’t want to try.
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