She heard the toilet flush and turned. He was there, behind her.
‘Ready for pizza, then?’ he said, still with that strange strained expression on his face and the lying voice.
Angela looked at the floor and nodded, not wanting to look at him and see what she feared in his eyes: Mr Dean and all the things her mother had told him.
‘Yeah, I’m hungry,’ Angela said, skipping in the hall, trying to make herself seem happy. She wanted him to see her happy. She wanted him to be happy. She didn’t want him to think about Mr Dean or her getting expelled or anything bad.
His smile was quick but cautious.
She paused at the top of the stairs as his expression changed: the worried face that meant he was going to say something important.
‘Angel …’
Her hand was on the banister and he closed his palm over hers.
‘I just wanted to say that your mum told me about what happened at school.’
She felt a sick feeling pressing upwards into her throat, reminding her of the time when she swallowed all the pills.
‘I want you to know that …’
His breathing was funny. It sounded the way it did when he was on his Versa Climber, sweat darkening his T-shirt.
‘Well, it wasn’t easy for me to hear. Those things. I’m supposed to protect you. I know you might not want to talk to me about it, but I’m here anyway, if you want to talk … and don’t worry, this … man … this actor, he’s been caught and he’s going to be punished.’
Angela looked at her arm. The pen scratches had reddened so that Mr Dean’s initials were clear on her skin. She pulled her sleeves right down over her hands.
‘I love you.’ His eyes were shining and his lips were pressing together hard.
Angela nodded, not sure what to say. She really wanted to eat the pizza now, but was held in his gaze.
‘Love you too,’ she said finally, and then his grey eyes released her.
‘You did the right thing to report it. I’m going to talk to the team that are dealing with it – make sure it’s handled right.’
There was a pain in her throat that was so tight she wondered if she would be able to get words out. She had meant to ask him if he would drive back to her mum’s and get her iPad, but instead she just said, ‘Shall we have the pizza now, while it’s still warm?’
Angela swallowed. She felt sick – the sensation increased by the sweet smell of dough spreading through the flat. Perspiration broke at her hairline.
‘I won’t let anyone lay a hand on you.’ Her father ran his hand through her hair. ‘All right?’
Angela smiled and let her head fall to his chest. Her father pressed her close. She dug her nails into her palm.
13
Donna
As Stephen’s old Rover pulled away from the kerb, Donna opened the fridge and poured herself a large glass of Pinot Grigio. She sat in the chair in front of the television, not watching it but almost looking through it. She drank quickly, trying to process everything that had happened. It felt as if it was the first time she had been alone since Angela tried to commit suicide and confessed to being molested, and now they had had another fight. She drank deeply, remonstrating with herself as she tried to block out the argument from earlier.
‘If you want, I could stay home this weekend.’ Angela was slumped on the couch, feet akimbo before her and a bowl of crisps between her thighs.
Donna took a breath, about to reply, and then bit her lip. Stephen wouldn’t like the change in routine and would blame Donna, particularly since she had delayed telling him about the assault. ‘Your dad might be a bit upset. I know he wants to see you.’
Angela was sullen suddenly, sliding one crisp after another into her mouth, sitting so low on the couch that she had a double chin. ‘I just want to stay home with you and watch crap TV,’ she said, tugging on the cuffs of her sweater. ‘We could get a takeaway.’ Her eyes were furtive and hopeful. ‘Please?’
Donna smiled at her. It had been a hard week for her at school. The newspapers had reported the assault, and although no one had printed her name, still the kids knew or else had narrowed it down to Angela, because she was being kept in at playtimes and lunchtimes. The Sexual Assault Referral Centre, who had conducted the examination, had offered Angela counselling, but she had so far refused.
‘Well, you’d need to text your dad and explain.’ She picked up some magazines that were lying on the floor and then one of Angela’s crisps that had crushed on the carpet. ‘You’ll need to be sure and tell him it was your idea and not mine.’
‘I did a new drawing last night. You could help me paint it?’ Angela sucked her lower lip as she watched her mother’s face.
‘I don’t like all that mess downstairs.’
‘We could do it in my room.’
‘I dunno, love. I’m tired.’
‘Why are you cross?’
Donna looked at her daughter. She wasn’t cross but she did want her to go to her father’s. She needed time to herself, to think, to drink – just one night without the threat of an argument or name-calling. The assault had happened to Angela, but Donna had felt it in her bones. She needed time alone to recover.
‘I’m not. I just think you need to consider his feelings.’
Her brows lowered; blue eyes darkening.
‘You don’t want me to stay.’
She kicked the floor with her heel and Donna pushed back her shoulders, preparing for a fight. ‘Of course I want you to stay.’
Heart thumping in expectation of another row, Donna turned to Angela and saw her eyes shine with tears.
‘Why do you take everything so personally? I just said that you need to call your dad and explain.’
‘Fine.’ Angela got up, spilling the crisps from the couch, and thumped upstairs.
As Donna knelt to pick up the crisps from the carpet, Angela returned and shouted from the living-room door. ‘I don’t want to stay here with you, either. My dad’s better than you are.’
‘Fine,’ Donna said from her knees, stung. Anger suddenly reached up from her stomach and into her throat. ‘I can’t wait to see the back of you,’ she shouted at the wall, feeling a vein throb at her temple.
Moments later, tipping the crisps into the kitchen bin, Donna heard the bedroom door slam. She put one hand over her face.
Donna refilled her glass and this time set the bottle on the coffee table. She had needed this time alone. She didn’t know how to talk to her daughter, how to show she cared, how to help her through this. It was hard to give what she had never received.
A little girl, she kept telling herself. So young, but Donna found it hard to relate to her daughter in that way. Intellectually, of course, she knew that Angela was still a child – it was only a year since she’d got her first period. But whenever she looked at Angela, whenever she spoke to her, she didn’t see a child on the cusp of puberty – she saw a disappointing version of herself, a lump of white clay that Donna just wished would mould itself into something better.
It had only been a few years since she had had the most precious little girl. Memories of good times hurt more because her daughter was now so unrecognisable from that gentle, good-natured child she had once been.
Angela was just four and they were hand in hand in Crystal Palace Park, going to see the dinosaurs. They sat in the grass picking daisies, which Angela piled onto her mother’s knee. Donna split each stem with her thumbnail and then threaded them into a chain and tied it around Angela’s neck.
She beamed – dimples in cheeks that were soft as the skin of mushrooms. Then hand in hand they went looking for the dinosaurs. Angela had a book about them and could name most of them. But just around the corner a Tyrannosaurus Rex appeared between the trees. It loomed before them, life-sized, all scales and sharp teeth.
Angela screamed and Donna had to pick her up and hold her.
‘It’s all right. It’s a model, see? It’s not real.’
‘It’s
a monster. I don’t like it.’ She was on the verge of tears.
‘We’ll go, then. Don’t be scared.’
Donna carried her out of the park, the little hands tight around her neck. ‘Don’t worry, darling. Mummy wouldn’t let anything happen to you. You’re safe with me.’
She sat staring over the rim of her glass at the patio doors, which were becoming reflective as darkness fell on the back yard and the glow from the lamps shone brighter. Nearly thirteen and yet Donna had been unable to keep her safe. She remembered the taxi ride home from the Sexual Assault Referral Centre, after Angela had been subjected to what they called an intimate examination.
Intimate.
It was such a strange word, gentle but cold. It reminded Donna of an insect walking on her bare skin. It made her think about things she tried to forget.
Donna had held Angela’s hand throughout. The examination had seemed an assault in itself, but Angela was silent, her eyes dark and flat, spreading her legs and turning her head to the side. Angela’s pale hand limp in hers, Donna had felt empty, as if the sterility of the environment had swabbed away all of the normal, mothering responses.
Donna picked up her phone and opened up her browser. Nicholas Dean’s Wikipedia page was already open because she had looked him up more than once in the past few days. The photograph had been taken a few years ago. He was a handsome man, smiling, all straight teeth and floppy blond hair and bright eyes. He was wearing a tuxedo and there was a hand on his arm, although the person the hand belonged to had been cropped out of the picture. He looked like one of those good-looking busy people you saw in central London – walking too fast in the crowd, looking at their watches, takeaway coffee in their hands. Donna stared at the photograph as her glass tilted in her hand. Paedophiles really did look like everyone else. There was no way to tell from the outside.
Donna stared at Nick’s broad, white smile. She wondered what he got out of it. He looked so shiny and pretty. What could he want with Angela? How could he desire that sullen, chubby, immature little girl? It was sick, but not in the way people thought. Everyone thought it was about sex, a perversion. Donna knew that it was not about sex at all, but about dominance.
A thought shifted over her. She wasn’t sure if her hand shook or if she was just distracted, but the wine slipped from her lips and rolled down her chin. She caught it with the back of her hand.
She had been older than Angela, but still naive. Sixteen, but didn’t even know that she had been raped until she told the doctor her story, years later. All this time, she had never told anyone else. These things happened. She had been a waitress and he was the chef. He shouted and swore at everyone and Donna had been terrified of him. Even now she was sure that it was her fear that had attracted him to her, rather than her body. He had smelled her fear, like a dog.
Donna finished her cigarette and drained her glass, a morose heaviness settling on her. She shook her head twice, as if to shake the memory from her mind.
Her arms goose-pimpled as she remembered him holding her by the throat in the chill of the refrigerated larder. She hadn’t screamed or even called out, although the door was ajar and someone might have heard her. She had frozen there and let it happen, cold and inert like all the other produce on the shelves. She had worked for three hours afterwards – finished her shift.
Donna flicked through the TV channels, finding nothing that would distract her from her thoughts. She muted the TV again and picked up her phone. She pressed the home button so that Nicholas Dean’s Wikipedia page illuminated once again. Dean had two children, a boy and a girl.
He was beautiful.
He looked like a pop star.
The bastard.
She gulped her wine and poured another glass, feeling the buzz now, the gentle tingle in her brain. She let her head fall back against the armchair.
How had her life turned into this? How had she let it happen? It wasn’t just the loss of Stephen. She wasn’t sure she could cope with Angela on her own. She had friends who were single parents but they had good relationships with their daughters – they went on holiday together.
What had happened to them – the Furness family?
Suddenly everything had gone dark. It hadn’t always been so.
She didn’t normally smoke inside, but there was nobody home and she was just drunk enough not to care. Donna lit a cigarette and exhaled towards the ceiling, reeling in the pleasure of it, remembering better times.
Angela burst out of nursery and presented her latest effort. Donna bent to inspect it, hardly looking at it. ‘Very nice.’ She took Angela’s hand and started for the door. They had to catch the number fifty-nine bus and were running late.
Outside drizzle had started. It was December and although it was only five o’clock, the sky was dark. Donna pulled Angela along the pavement, into the rain, walking so fast that Angela was running at her side. Donna kept the painting pressed onto her coat and the back of the paper became wet with the rain.
When they reached their bus stop, drenched, Donna realised that they had five minutes to spare. She bent and kissed Angela’s forehead. Her daughter had a little pageboy cut that was now plastered against her head so that she looked like a porcelain doll.
A car splashed past. Donna lifted the painting that she had been holding.
‘Mummy,’ said Angela, pointing, ‘you’ve got a heart on you.’
The red tissue-paper dye had soaked into the fabric of her pale grey coat, leaving a perfect love-heart stain.
Donna smiled, past caring, and held the artwork up as they huddled in the shelter. It was a giant heart rimmed by red tissue-paper flowers, and filled in by Angela’s bright red handprints. At the top, it read, Mummy I love you, in black Sharpie teacher writing.
‘That’s my hand,’ said Angela, reaching up to press her palm against one of the prints.
‘I see that. So many of them. It’s like a big flower.’
‘No, no,’ a frown suddenly underneath her wet hair, eyes insistent with impatience, ‘it’s not a flower. It’s my big heart and all the hands are me giving you a cuddle.’
Donna bent and picked her up. She was heavy, four already and not long till she’d be in school. ‘You’re my precious girl,’ she whispered, kissing her cheek.
She set her down. ‘Look, that’s our bus. Take my hand.’
Donna lit another cigarette and then let it hang, dangling her hand over the edge of the chair. That little girl had been amazing, the love of her life. Where was she now? She turned her head and let her eye settle on the school portraits on the mantelpiece. Six portraits cute as a button and then last year’s picture – Angela swollen to a brute, her tie askew and the not-quite-smile.
Donna took another sip of her wine, wondering if she hated Angela because she was on the cusp of womanhood. Did she dislike her daughter because she was becoming more like her?
Thinking would drive her crazy. Donna swallowed a burp and turned up the sound on the TV.
She missed Stephen, but had missed him before he left. He hadn’t been unfaithful, but he had gradually stopped sleeping with her. When she asked him about it directly, he had been offhand, cold.
‘I just don’t fancy you anymore,’ he had said. ‘I think I still love you, but if I’m honest, I don’t fancy you at all.’
No one needs the whole truth.
Donna took a long drag on her cigarette. She looked back on the woman who had heard those words with pity and shame.
They were in the bedroom. On the dresser was the picture of Stephen’s dead mother, all pearls and set hair, smiling like a dog baring its teeth.
Donna was just out of the bathroom. She threw off her dressing gown, letting it hang from her shoulders. In the mirror she saw the reflection of the tattoo on her left shoulder: MUM in red letters below an eagle spreading its wings.
He was reading a book about international terrorism and didn’t even look up as she turned awkwardly, trying to get his attention.
‘You still reading?’ she tried, biting her lip.
He glanced at her, but it was as if he didn’t see her. Or if he did see the lingerie peeking from the top of her dressing gown, he didn’t wish to acknowledge it.
‘I’m about done,’ he said, putting his book onto the dressing table.
She switched off the light before shrugging her dressing gown to the floor. She had bought new underwear – a lace body and knickers – yet still she only had the courage to show him in the dark. Her thighs wobbled too much and she thought she would feel better under the covers.
In the dark, under the weight of the duvet she reached for him, but he turned his back. She held onto his side for a moment, the skin of his abdomen and her fingers sticking together with warmth. Finally she peeled her hand from his body and turned her back on him, too.
On her side, in her new underwear, a hand under her cheek, she cried silently – tears leaving her right eye, rolling over the bridge of her nose and then splashing into her left.
She opened her eyes in the darkness. It felt like years since he had touched her unasked. Her body kept a diary of all the hurtful words he had said to her.
Her thighs were: I don’t want to make love to you because of the cellulite. Her abdomen: jelly belly – you never lost the baby weight, and Angela’s nearly ten. Her unpainted toenails and grey roots reproached her: you don’t make an effort. Her crotch: a bit of a forest, and then her legs: like a hedgehog – trying to give me a rash?
Her breasts remembered: sagging just a teeny bit; her womb recalled: you want another baby, but you’re too fat now to get pregnant. Her stomach kept the score from their rows, when she opted for peace at any price. Antacids in the bedside table drawer.
Lying on her side, the warmth of his body radiating onto the small of her back, she felt her body as a blank canvas that he had scrawled over again and again. It was her body, but she felt his marks, permanent as the tattoo on her shoulder.
Little Liar Page 10
