Sticks and Stones

by Jo Jakeman

  Rachel and Naomi were eyeing each other up warily, while Mother reached out a hand to me and snatched it back again before she could make contact. She opened her mouth and then shut it, before unfamiliar words came out. Her eyes darted from me to the closed door behind which Alistair sat, watching television. Bill was making hot chocolate with the ease of a man at home in his surroundings. Squirty cream from a can. I shook my head when he offered marshmallows, but he put them on anyway and said, ‘You need feeding up, love.’

  Now wasn’t the time to question Mother about their relationship, but I liked seeing how comfortable they were in each other’s company.

  ‘Spain?’ Mother said, picking up on our earlier conversation, now that Alistair was out of earshot.

  ‘You’ve seen what he’s capable of. It’s the only way to stop Phillip getting his hands on Alistair. Rachel offered to take him away. The Easter holidays are about to start, so no one’s going to ask any questions. I could book a resort, but it would be better if they could stay with Aunty Margaret. Please, Mother, go with them. You said yourself you were considering going there to recuperate.’

  What I didn’t say was that it had the added bonus of getting everyone I cared about out of the country, to somewhere I knew Phillip couldn’t follow. I wouldn’t put it past him to take out his anger on any, or all, of them.

  ‘Of course. But I don’t see why you aren’t coming as well. If everything is as bad as you say it is … And what’s to stop him coming out to Spain?’

  ‘He won’t expect me to let Alistair far from my side,’ I said. ‘He’ll be looking for Alistair wherever I am. And besides, Naomi has Phillip’s passport.’

  Naomi had been planning to leave Phillip for months, but seeing as he had stopped her working, she hadn’t the means. The women’s refuge had advised that it would be easier for her if she could take a passport and birth certificate with her when she fled. She’d taken Phillip’s too, so that he wouldn’t find his and realise what she’d done. This way, she hoped, he’d think they’d put them somewhere ‘safe’.

  ‘How bad was it?’ I asked Naomi. ‘I mean, living with Phillip?’

  ‘I dunno. Not too bad, I suppose. There’s always someone who’s got it worse, i’nt there? I thought about tellin’ someone, or going to the police or whatever, but I never thought they’d believe me. I’ve been in trouble with the police before. You know, small stuff. Forgery, fraud … Got a suspended sentence.’

  ‘Does Phillip know?’

  ‘Course he does. It was something else he could use to control me. And then, failing that, he’d use his fists. I mean, he never left bruises or did owt in front of anyone who could back me up. Besides, it’s only painful for as long as it hurts, right? I’d just think: this time next week it won’t hurt any more. It was the stuff he said, you know? The threats … and, I suppose, after a while, he had me believing that it were my fault. And you start to wonder, don’t you? Whether you could have done summat to stop it. And where could I have gone anyway?’

  I wish I could have told Naomi that I would have helped, but I couldn’t lie to her. I’d misjudged her, and would not have been the first person to come to her aid.

  ‘He didn’t hit me,’ I said. ‘He pushed me down the stairs and, you know, did that stuff with pressure points. There was one incident when he slammed me into a wall and I ended up with a black eye, but he never left a mark after that. The knuckle behind the ear was one of his favourite ways to subdue. He liked to bring his work home. But mostly it was the things Phillip said, and how he treated me, that hurt the worst. I guess I had it easier than you.’

  ‘If you believe that, you’re dumber than you look,’ she said.

  I’d told Naomi that she should leave now, while she could, and was relieved when she refused to leave me to face Phillip on my own. After seeing with her own eyes that Alistair was safe, she drove to get Alistair’s passport for me.

  Rachel hitched herself up onto the kitchen side, and Mother didn’t even roll her eyes.

  ‘How did you know that text wasn’t from me?’ I asked her.

  ‘Two things. First, it would take more than a tummy bug for you to put Alistair in Phillip’s care. He’d be safer in a lion enclosure. In fact, even if the text had been from you, I’d assume you’d lost your mental faculties and I’d have staged an intervention anyway. But the thing that sealed it for me …’ She turned to Bill and took the proffered hot chocolate. ‘Thanks, Bill. It was the fact that you used text-speak. A number 2 instead of the word to? And the letter u instead of the word? That’s when I knew you’d been abducted by aliens.’

  I leaned over and kissed her cheek.

  ‘You’re a wonderful woman, Rachel Scott.’

  ‘I’ve often thought so. When I got to your mum’s I checked my messages and, as well as the one from you, Clive from next door had called and said people had been looking for me all day, and a mad woman had crashed into his car and driven off. I reckoned that was you and suggested to your mum that we went somewhere else, just in case Phillip was on his way.’

  ‘May I have a word, Imogen?’ Mother asked.

  I took my hot chocolate and followed Mother into the conservatory.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Should I be worried?’

  ‘No, you’re completely safe.’

  ‘Not about me. You! I don’t like the idea of leaving you behind.’

  I nodded. ‘He’s coming for Alistair,’ I said. ‘And he’s going to make me pay. But all I care about right now is getting you and Alistair to safety. Once you’re out of the country, I’ll have nothing to lose.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake,’ she sighed, her exasperation shining through. ‘What good will it do Alistair if you’re hurt – or worse?’

  ‘I don’t plan on being hurt. I’ll get Phillip away from Alistair, but I won’t run from him. But if … if anything does happen to me …’

  ‘Nonsense, I won’t have you talking like this!’ snapped Mother.

  ‘If anything does happen to me, you’ll take care of him, won’t you?’

  Instead of facing a future without Alistair, I was contemplating the fact that Alistair might be facing a future without me.

  ‘Come with us, Imogen.’ Her voice was softer now. ‘I was there, remember. I saw the way he treated you. You forget I was on the side-lines, watching, throughout your entire marriage.’

  ‘I don’t remember you offering any help at the time,’ I said without bitterness.

  ‘What could I possibly have said? You’ve never listened to me. I warned Phillip off on more than one occasion, but he told me to keep my nose out. Said that he would tell you things that I didn’t want you to know.’

  ‘Like what?’

  Mother brushed invisible fibres off her sleeve.

  ‘Do we have to do this now?’ she said with a sour look on her face.

  ‘I can’t think of a better time. I need to know everything that Phillip could use against me.’

  ‘Imogen, it’s complicated.’

  ‘So simplify it.’

  Mother walked to the window and folded her arms. It was gloomy outside and the lamp was on in the corner. I could see her face reflected in the glass.

  ‘It’s your father.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘I drove him to it.’

  She waited for me to speak and, when I didn’t, she took a deep breath before continuing.

  ‘We’d had problems when you were little – the place we were before. There was a girl who went missing. It was a huge misunderstanding. She lived five doors up the road from us, and your father offered her a lift home. It wasn’t like he forced her in the car or snatched her off the street or anything, but to hear the news on the radio, well, it was like he was a pervert.’

  ‘What happened?’ I asked. It was the first I’d heard about this and I was fearful of how the story might end.

  ‘He took her to the park. It was nothing, really. Her aunt was meant to pick her up, but she was r
unning late. When the girl wasn’t where she said she’d be, well, the aunt panicked and called the police. Some of the children described the car they saw her getting into. They said it was a brown Cortina like your father’s.

  ‘The police found them at the park, eating ice cream. The girl said he’d tried to kiss her, which was absolute rubbish. He only received a caution, but people called him names and we had a brick through the front window. Well, after that we had no choice but to move. Your father lost his job. I lost friends. They said they didn’t believe a word of what the papers said, but they wondered. How could they not? I did, and I was his wife. What kind of person takes a young girl they hardly know to the park? He was never the cleverest, your father.

  ‘You were small at the time. Four years old. We thought it was better to start again, so we moved from Kent to Derbyshire.’

  Another day, in another life, I would have been shocked at the news. But on the day my ex had attacked me and tried to abduct our son … I only felt numb. It had the feel of a story about it. A tale being told that had all the right elements of a page-turner, but nothing to do with me. I pictured my dad, smiling, affectionate, and I couldn’t believe that anyone would have considered him capable of such a thing. I was about to say so to Mother, to brush it away as irrelevant, but she was biting her lips and her eyes looked pained.

  ‘There’s more, isn’t there?’ I asked.

  ‘The day that he died, he was messing around with you and those girls from across the road. I got so mad with him. I told him that I would not have a repeat of what had happened in Kent. He was as angry as I was. He saw it as betrayal, and I suppose it was. He was a fragile man. I knew I’d hurt him, by bringing it up again. I was worried that the rumours would follow us, and I suppose I was worried that maybe … that maybe – well, you know, that there was some truth to it. I thought he should be careful about how it looked to the neighbours. I told him he wasn’t welcome in my bed that night. I thought he’d sleep on the settee, but instead he went to the garage and …’

  She stopped speaking and put two fingers to her lips to stop them from quivering. We both knew what happened next.

  ‘The last words I’d said to him,’ she whispered, ‘they were so unkind.’

  I went to her and held out my arms. She hesitated for a moment and then sank into them. I was taller than Mother was and rested my cheek on the top of her head. She felt small and brittle, like the memory of my father. It seemed absurd that people could accuse him of any wrongdoing, but then I had always idolised him. He’d been perfect, in my eyes.

  ‘Don’t torment yourself,’ I said. ‘It takes more than one argument for someone to take their own life. You can’t blame yourself for what happened.’

  ‘To this day I don’t know whether it was because of that argument, or because there was some truth in my accusations. Or perhaps it had nothing to do with any of it. I just wish we’d talked.’

  When I became old enough to think of such things, I’d come to the conclusion that my father committed suicide because of depression, at a time when men didn’t talk about their emotions. Nothing Mother had told me changed any of that.

  She shuddered against my chest as if she was crying, but she made no sound.

  ‘What’s this got to do with Phillip? Did he know?’ I asked gently.

  She laughed bitterly. ‘Of course he knew. He did background checks on you before he proposed. I saw how he was controlling you. I always said he was no good for you. I tried to warn him off, but he said I should keep my nose out and that it wouldn’t take much to reopen old cases of abuse and join the dots to your father.’

  ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘And broken your heart? You adored Phillip, but you idolised your father. He was the one who left us, but I was the one you despised. He never did anything wrong – I wouldn’t have that man sullying his memory. It was all you had left.’

  ‘But there was no evidence, surely? Otherwise they’d have arrested him.’

  ‘Of course not. But that husband of yours made it sound like all he needed to do was place your father in certain places at certain times and, well, he wouldn’t be around to deny it, would he?’

  She stood back, her moment of weakness over, and wiped under her eyes. I sat down on the arm of the chair. Phillip had known about the accusations against my father and yet he hadn’t mentioned a thing. I would have thought it would have been the perfect information for him to attack me with. He must have been waiting for a special occasion. Either that, or the information was more important as a way to control Mother than as a stick to beat me with.

  She looked at a picture on the wall. It was a watercolour of the Lake District. She went to it and straightened it, although, to my eye, it was straight enough.

  ‘Mother?’

  ‘Can we stop talking about this, please?’

  ‘Get your bag,’ I said. ‘The sooner we get to the airport, the better. And then, once I know you’re safe, I’m going to come back and deal with Phillip. He won’t get away with this.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  10 days before the funeral

  Naomi met us in the departure hall, carrying a small bag of clothes for Alistair and his passport. There’d been no sign of Phillip at our house and, as far as she could tell, she hadn’t been followed. Ruby said she’d call if he turned up.

  We swerved around shorts-wearing holidaymakers dragging suitcases and looking vacantly at the departures board. Alistair and I hadn’t been on holiday since Phillip left. I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be with him to see his eyes light up when the aeroplane took to the skies, or to hold his hand as he ran across the beach. But then I remembered that this wasn’t a normal holiday.

  I was wearing a mixture of Mother and Bill’s clothes, so that attention wouldn’t be drawn to my bloodied clothing. I’d wiped my face and tied my hair back, and tentatively applied powder to my bruises. Naomi had changed her ripped top, but she had her long red hair over her face, so that the worst of her injuries were hidden from view.

  Rachel said she was looking forward to re-equipping her wardrobe. She acted as if it was a wonderful adventure, but her scared eyes gave her away. Her passport was always in her bag, ready for last-minute getaways and romantic weekends. A mad dash out of the country to flee from a friend’s unstable ex wasn’t quite in the same league.

  Naomi hung back, looking over her shoulder for any sign of Phillip. I held Alistair’s hand tightly.

  ‘Isn’t this exciting? I said.

  Mustn’t cry. Mustn’t cry. Mustn’t cry.

  ‘Mummy? You said I was going to holiday club with Jacob.’

  If he could see through my false smile, he didn’t show it.

  ‘I know, sweetie, but then Rachel suggested that you all go on a special holiday to Aunty Margaret’s. She’s got her own swimming pool.’

  This seemed to please him and I hauled him onto my hip. He was getting heavy and I didn’t know how much longer I was going to be able to lift him.

  There was a slight delay at the barriers as Mother had difficulty working out how to scan her boarding pass. I made the most of the gifted seconds and told Alistair how much I loved him. He wriggled out of my grasp and Rachel squeezed my hand.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I’ll look after him. You look after you.’

  I kept my voice low so that Alistair wouldn’t hear. ‘Rach, I’m scared.’

  ‘Then come with us. I’ll pay for your flight.’ Her words were urgent and eager, but I shook my head.

  I hugged her. ‘You’re a good friend. Thank you. But I have to do this now or he’ll always be a threat.’

  And then Mother was through the barrier and it was Alistair’s turn. I gave him the briefest of kisses on his head, the tightest of hugs and then he was beyond the barrier where I couldn’t touch him. And neither could Phillip.

  They vanished round the corner and I stood there for a moment longer, expecting – hoping even – that Alistair would dash back to
me; refuse to go without me. But he didn’t, and Naomi and I were jostled to one side by a steady stream of travellers.

  ‘What now?’ Naomi asked.

  ‘We go home and wait for Phillip to come to us.’

  We didn’t want to alert him to the fact that Alistair was out of the country. As long as he was still looking for him, Phillip wouldn’t look far from where I was. For my plan to work, he had to believe that we were still in the cellar and had to be arrogant enough to return to the house. And if there was one thing Phillip wasn’t short of, it was arrogance.

  He was a danger to us and, if he could get to him, to Alistair. He wasn’t going to skulk away quietly with his tail between his legs. We could all go back to living our lives as usual, but we would be looking over our shoulder. And I couldn’t be with Alistair again until Phillip was no longer a problem.

  ‘But what if he’s already there? Waiting for us?’ she asked.

  ‘We’d have heard from Ruby if he’d turned up. Besides, he’ll still be searching for Rachel and Alistair. He won’t want to come back empty-handed until he knows he has no other choice.’

  And by that time, we’d be ready for him.

  I was desperate to shower the stench of Phillip off me. I ran the water as hot as it would go and scrubbed at my body. I could have spent hours in there, but I didn’t have time for such a luxury.

  Ruby and Naomi took turns in the bathroom. We made sure there was always one of us at the bedroom window, keeping watch. The sun was slipping away, but the street lights hadn’t come on yet. There were already shadows for Phillip to hide in.

  While Ruby was in the bathroom, Naomi stood at my shoulder.

  ‘I didn’t tell her what I was doing,’ she said.

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘When I came back for the passport, I didn’t tell Ruby. I just said I was picking up some clothes for Alistair. Said he’d stay with Rachel for a bit longer.’

  Without taking my eyes off the rose-gold street I said, ‘You don’t trust her.’

  ‘Don’t trust anyone, duck. The way I see it, she’s the weak link. She’ll blab as soon as he raises his voice. The less she knows, the better.’