by Tamar Cohen
Josh, who was driving, swung around to look at her, then immediately turned his head back, shaking it from side to side as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. ‘We drive for an hour and a half so I can spend a day freezing in a graveyard and it’s still not enough for you.’
‘It wasn’t a day. It wasn’t even a couple of hours. Admit it, you just don’t like me coming here.’
Josh slapped his hand down loudly on the steering wheel. ‘All right, I admit it. I don’t like you coming here. I don’t think it’s healthy for you to spend hours talking to your dead mother. I think you need to move on, Hannah, and maybe start paying a bit more attention to the people around you who are still alive.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Me. Lily. You’re so wrapped up in yourself and your grief and bloody Sasha, you don’t care if your family is falling apart around you.’
Hannah turned to face him. ‘What do you mean, falling apart?’
‘Nothing.’
‘No, come on, you must have meant something.’
‘Forget it. We’re here now.’
‘Yes, here now,’ sang a little voice from the back seat. Hannah had completely forgotten Lily was even there. She shaped her features into a smile before turning around.
‘Come on, baby. Let’s go and see Auntie Gemma.’
Gemma’s flat was as chaotic as ever. Shoes, bags, clothes, books, ashtrays, all seemed to live in a permanent state of homelessness, migrating their way in piles and clusters around the three cramped rooms.
‘I miss Gem like crazy,’ Hannah’s ex-brother-in-law Sam had said the last time they saw each other, just before the divorce was finalized. ‘But I don’t miss her stuff everywhere, or her last-minute panics, or always being late because she’s left something essential behind.’
Hannah knew what he meant. It was tiring being around so much disorder. She was disorganized, but her sister took clutter to a whole new level. In the end, Sam was effectively saying, it had only been a matter of time before the mess in their lives became the mess of their lives.
‘How was Mum?’
Despite it being mid-afternoon, Gemma was wearing a pair of pyjama bottoms with an old grey T-shirt that looked as if it had shrunk in the wash. No bra, Hannah couldn’t help noticing. And Gemma was not a petite girl.
‘Oh, you know,’ said Hannah uselessly, horrified to find her eyes filling with hot tears.
Josh glanced at her sharply, then looked away. She could read the expression on his face as clearly as if he’d spoken. I knew it. I knew we shouldn’t have come.
‘What’s up?’ Gemma was lying on the sofa with Lily wrapped around her middle, so she couldn’t move, but she had missed neither the tears nor Josh’s reaction.
‘Nothing,’ said Hannah over-brightly. Gemma’s hair was scraped back with an old, rather grubby pink hairband, and the scar on her forehead that she usually kept hidden was exposed, curved and raised like a fossil under her skin. Hannah’s stomach turned and she quickly looked away. ‘I’m just over-emotional. It’s the hormones, I expect.’
She allowed a moment for the implications of what she’d just said to sink in.
‘Oh my God,’ said Gemma, eventually twigging. ‘You’re not?’
Hannah nodded.
Gemma exclaimed in surprise. Was it Hannah’s imagination or did Gemma sound a little flat when she sad ‘congratulations’?
‘You going to have a little baby brother, sweetpea?’ Gemma asked Lily, nuzzling her face into her hair.
‘Not brother, silly. Sister. But I’m the big girl so I’ll have to look after her.’
Gemma’s face remained buried in her niece’s hair, so Hannah couldn’t see her expression.
‘Actually, I’ve got a bit of a headache,’ Hannah said eventually. ‘Have you got any paracetamol?’
‘Next to the bed,’ said Gemma, waving towards a door that led directly off the living room.
Gemma’s bedroom was in as great a state of disarray as the rest of the flat. Hannah winced as she recognized her own slovenliness magnified in that of her sister. Was this what it was like for Josh, she wondered, sharing a home with her, this sinking feeling walking into a room where nothing was calm?
The bed looked like that Tracey Emin art exhibit – all rumpled sheets and overflowing ashtrays and old screwed-up tissues.
‘Gemma, when was the last time you changed this duvet cover? And what’s this gross stain? Eugh – it stinks!’
Hannah thrust the offending cover away from her. Her sister was a slob, no doubt about it. It was quite disgusting how she lived, and yet looking around at the chaos, a part of Hannah felt jealous of Gemma’s freedom to leave yesterday’s knickers on the floor, knowing that no one would notch it up against her in some unspoken war of attrition you didn’t even know you were taking part in until your transgressions were flung at you all at once during some late-night row.
There was no sign of the paracetamol on the crowded bedside table. Hannah nudged aside a teetering pile of books, sending them all crashing down on the wooden floor next to the bed. As she picked them up, she noticed a photograph tucked inside one of them – that giant tome Wolf Hall that, to her shame, Hannah had never managed to finish, having become confused about who was who and who was talking. The photograph was of Josh. She suddenly remembered Sasha’s remark about September seeing Gemma take a photo from her flat, which she’d instantly dismissed as troublemaking. She sat on the edge of the unmade bed with the picture in her hand, her mind blank, until there was a squeal from Lily, followed by the thud of something hitting the floor, and then Gemma appeared in the doorway.
‘Did you find them?’
Hannah didn’t look up, just carried on gazing down at the photo of Josh. It was one she’d always loved, slightly over-exposed so his skin was bleached and his smile seemed dazzlingly white as he squinted up into the sun. He was wearing the mustard-coloured jumper he’d owned when they first got together and she’d spent ten years persuading him out of. Funny how she missed it now she saw it again, like seeing a picture of an old friend she’d lost touch with.
‘What’s that?’
Gemma picked her way towards Hannah over the discarded clothes and books that littered the floorboards.
‘It’s a photo,’ said Hannah eventually. ‘Of Josh.’
Gemma, now standing next to her, glanced down at it as she pulled off the pink hairband and shook out her unruly curly hair – brown not red, to Hannah’s lifelong jealousy.
‘Oh, yes, I found that in my stuff the last time I came back from yours. I’ve been using it as a bookmark. You can have it back if you like, but don’t lose my page or I might have to kill you.’
Gemma sounded so casual, totally unperturbed. Immediately Hannah was wrong-footed. Could it have been an accident? Such things did happen. Particularly to her disorganized sister. One time she’d come back from the airport with someone else’s bag. Hannah remembered shrieking with laughter when Gemma opened the case and withdrew a pair of men’s boxers emblazoned with the slogan Lucky Pants.
She dropped the photo on to the creased sheet and put her head in her hands. Instantly Gemma was next to her, arms around her.
‘Hey, hey! What’s up, Hans? What’s going on?’
Hannah couldn’t look at her, knowing that if she did she’d be completely lost. Now that the hairband had gone, Gemma’s scar was covered up, but Hannah was as aware of it as if it was lit up in neon. So she stared at her hands instead, the bitten nails still bearing the flaky blue varnish from Lily’s last beauty session. Would she ever be the kind of woman who had properly shaped nails with pared-down cuticles and glossy, hard surfaces that shone like the inside of a shell?
‘Is it the pregnancy? Aren’t you happy about the new baby?’
‘Yes! . . . No! . . . Oh, I don’t know. Everything’s so weird.’
Gemma tightened her arms around her sister’s shoulders. ‘What’s weird? What’s going on, Hans?’
/>
Hannah tried to think how to explain it all. The wall that had come up between her and Josh, the situation with Dan and Sasha, and how despite all their good intentions they’d got caught up in the middle of it and sucked right down with them. And Lily? The bruises on her arm were now fading to green, but Hannah could still hear Nikki’s words in her head. Could there be a chance she didn’t know her own daughter as well as she thought she did? In which case, what kind of mother was she? And how could she even contemplate having another baby?
Her shoulders slumped under the weight of Gemma’s arm. ‘Oh God,’ she sobbed. ‘I miss Mum!’
For a moment, the two sisters sat side by side, holding each other without speaking, each lost in their own thoughts. Then Gemma spoke.
‘You know, I miss her too, but you mustn’t let your rose-tinted glasses make her something she wasn’t, you know. You mustn’t forget that she could be awful sometimes. Don’t you remember when—’
Her speech was cut short by a blast of birdsong. Hannah had forgotten she’d turned the volume on her phone up to high. She darted out of the bedroom to retrieve it from her bag, still on the floor where she’d dropped it.
‘Sasha,’ she announced, reading the screen.
‘Can’t that bloody woman ever leave you alone?’ Gemma had followed her out of the bedroom and was standing in the doorway.
‘You tell her,’ said Josh from his position on the sofa, watching cartoons with Lily curled up next to him.
Hannah made a face. ‘She wouldn’t be trying to get hold of me if it wasn’t for you,’ she said.
Then, of course, she had to fill Gemma in on what had been happening, and about Josh’s email being appropriated by Dan’s lawyer and used against Sasha.
‘She shakes all the time, and she’s convinced people are robbing her and trying to kill her. And I think—’
She hesitated, remembering that Lily was in the room. But her daughter was engrossed in the television, laughing at SpongeBob – a programme Hannah had never managed to understand.
‘You think what?’ Gemma was looking at her expectantly, so Hannah went on, keeping her voice low.
‘I think she’s self-harming. She has all these awful scratches on her arm. I haven’t seen them properly – she pulls her sleeve down when she sees me looking – but they look pretty bad.’
‘Sounds like Dan’s right then, Hans. However sorry you feel for Sasha, it doesn’t seem like she’s in any state to look after a child. More likely she needs help herself. You can’t let yourself get drawn into her shit.’
Hannah thought about those scratches, and Sasha’s tear-stained face on the floor of the nightclub toilets, and something tightened inside her painfully as if it was about to snap.
‘That’s just it though. I’m already drawn in.’
Not Lucie/Not Eloise, aged eighteen
Now that Mother is dead, Lucie is dead too. RIP Lucie! RIP Mother! And Eloise? Well, survival never was Eloise’s forte. RIP Eloise! That has meant drawing a line under some friendships. Juliette and her family, who were so kind. Lucie was the one who drew that line. They’d never met Lucie before. I don’t think they’ll want to meet her again. I’m feeling kind of bad about that.
I don’t think anyone was surprised when Mother died. As far as I know, her little book of sayings never taught her to say, ‘I’ll never make old bones,’ which is a shame. I think she’d have enjoyed that one. When she hanged herself, just eighteen months after Daddy died and six months after I left school to look after her, Valerie and Michel tried to make a fuss. They said she’d never have done anything so violent. I had a good laugh about that. About their definition of violent. But they’re wrong. She wanted to go, all right. Her number was up. She couldn’t do it on her own, of course. She couldn’t do much on her own by the end, but what else are daughters for?
And things will be different now. I feel lighter. I sense new beginnings. I’m looking for a new name. I think it might help to think of myself as a brand. Like a tin of beans or a washing powder. What’s the best name for Brand Me? Plus I’m loaded. Well, not loaded, but I’ve got some money. Money can’t buy you love, isn’t that right, Mother? But it can buy you a home. A place to call your own. And that’ll be a novelty enough!
25
Pat Hennessey couldn’t have looked less at ease. His wet brown eyes were wide and unblinking as he gazed around the crowded gastropub. Not for the first time that evening, Josh wished he’d chosen somewhere else. He’d only picked this place because he’d been here before with Hannah and Sasha and Dan and because, being in Archway, it was convenient for both him in Crouch End and Pat in Holloway, but he could tell Pat felt intimidated by the prices and the trendy staff – the barman with his waxed ’tache and pointed beard and sideburns – and the fact that the pork scratchings they had ordered were home cooked and came piled like entrails in a large bowl.
‘Will you gentlemen be eating?’ asked a waitress with dyed red hair which was long on one side and shaved on the other with a Maori-type tattoo etched into the scalp. ‘I can recommend the jellied pig’s head.’
Josh couldn’t look at his companion for fear of the horror he’d see on his face.
‘Sorry,’ he mumbled when the waitress had left, jamming her pencil behind her multi-pierced ear. ‘We should have gone somewhere else.’
‘No, no, this is grand. All the pubs around my way have great big TV screens everywhere and you can’t hear yourself think, so this is a real treat.’
‘But you won’t be trying the jellied pig’s head, I’m guessing.’
‘No, probably not.’
They sat for a few seconds in silence, squinting at the blackboard where the menu was chalked in curly letters.
‘Should have brought my specs,’ said Pat. ‘I keep forgetting that I’m now a person who wears glasses. I wonder how old I’ll have to be before I come to terms with it. What does that third one say, under the rabbit dish?’
‘Beer-battered cod with thick-cut skin-on potato wedges.’
Pat’s face relaxed. ‘Fish and chips,’ he said.
While they waited for their food, the headache that had been thrumming in Josh’s brain all day started to build. He knew it was stress, but knowing that didn’t help him deal with it any better. He turned over in his mind ways to broach the subject of Kelly Kavanagh and his suspension to Pat. He assumed that’s why Pat had called to suggest a drink, but now they were here, his erstwhile colleague seemed in no rush to get to the point. And the longer they went without talking about it, the more nervous Josh became. It wasn’t so much the elephant in the room as the great blue whale.
At last Pat pressed his lips together as if considering what he was about to say, and then opened his mouth. ‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Josh, about what’s happened to you.’
There. It was out. Josh felt some of the pressure that had been building up inside his head escape like a mini gas leak. Pffff.
‘It’s what we’re all afraid of, isn’t it? All of us men. There but for the grace of God and all that. How are you bearing up?’
Josh thought about telling Pat about the pressure in his head, and the way his heart occasionally raced for no reason, convincing him that he was about to go into cardiac arrest, or how he lay awake during the early hours of the morning, listening to Hannah’s rhythmic breathing and the second hand of the alarm clock softly ticking away, while panic burned through him like acid until it was all he could do not to cling on to her like a drowning man grabbing a piece of driftwood. He could tell him about the walks he took with Toby through the dark streets when lying in bed became too unbearable, his footsteps echoing on the deserted pavements, how whenever he saw another person going about their business in the dim light he was seized by a mad impulse to tell them who he was – a man accused of paedophilia, an abuser of innocence – just to watch their expression change. How it felt to be on the outside of life, when he’d always done everything he could to fit snugly in. He could tell him
how, more often than not, those walks led him to Sasha’s road, where he stood looking up at her house, his thoughts poisoned darts, each one aimed at her.
‘Oh, you know. It’s pretty shit really, as you might expect.’
Pat nodded, his Adam’s apple bobbing furiously in his throat. Josh noticed he was wearing exactly the same sort of clothes he wore to school – a checked shirt under a pale-blue crew-neck jumper, a pair of brown cords. It was as if Pat didn’t have a private side – he was ‘Sir’ in his personal life, just like at school.
‘How has Hannah taken it? It must be a big worry for her, especially with her being pregnant.’
Josh stared into his pint, concentrating on the surface where the bubbles popped. There was a dog on the floor by the next table, a little grey shaggy thing, lying on its side with a look of resignation. He always forgot there were places you could bring dogs, and had a momentary pang of remorse for Toby, cooped up in the flat.
‘I haven’t told her.’
Pat, who’d been making a chequerboard pattern out of square coasters, looked up then, his mouth open, eyes wide. Then he sucked the air in through his teeth in a long, loud inward breath. ‘Wow. I mean, I can see why you wouldn’t want to say anything, but Josh, it’s been nearly a week. You don’t want to be carrying this on your own. It’s too much.’
Josh pressed his lips together, enjoying the sharp pressure of teeth against flesh. ‘I keep meaning to tell her, but I lose my nerve. And then I convince myself that it won’t last long, this suspension. They’ll finish their investigation – which has to be cursory at best, I mean, what evidence do they have? – and then I’ll be back at work and Hannah need never know anything about it.’
Pat was still staring at him, stricken, so he added, ‘Maybe I’ll tell her later on, when everything isn’t so stressful.’
The red-haired waitress materialized by his side, balancing outsized white plates on her skinny, bird-like arms. He’d asked for his steak medium rare and it was bleeding watery pink across the expanse of white china. Revulsion heaved suddenly inside him, and he swallowed it back down.
