In Her Wake

by Amanda Jennings

  ‘Bella will die. The child I longed for all those years. You really think I’m not supposed to be a mother? Well, in the next few days or weeks she will die. When we were told there was nothing more they could do and we went to Lourdes, and I begged Her, mother to mother, for a miracle. I felt Her love. I felt it, Henry. And then the very next day I find this child? It’s no coincidence. It’s a miracle. This is why I’m here. I was supposed to find this child and I am supposed to save her.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘We won’t do this.’

  ‘So you’ll send me to prison? Because if you go to the police I will run with her. I won’t be here when you get back. I’ll disappear and you won’t see me again, and they’ll hunt for me. If I’m caught they will send me to prison. Is that what you want?’

  ‘What I want? Of course that isn’t what I want! But you’re talking about abduction, taking a child from her parents. Her mother. A mother who loves her like you love Bella.’

  ‘Her mother doesn’t deserve her. She is beaten and scared. Did you not listen? Do you want to send her back to that abuse and cruelty or do you want to do something good? I can save her, Henry. We can save her.’

  ‘This is insane,’ he breathed. ‘I can’t listen to this a moment longer. I’m going to the police. I have to.’ Henry Campbell turned and walked towards the door.

  ‘Do you love me, Henry?’

  He stopped in his tracks and faced her. He took in her honey-coloured hair tied messily up on her head, her sunken cheekbones hollowed out by misery, her eyes emptied of tears. He had loved her with a depth and passion that had made his heart race and his breathing shallow since the moment he saw her sitting across a crowded bar in her red silk dress. Though his parents didn’t take to her, thinking her somewhat hysterical and tarred with personality tics that made her company difficult, he hadn’t cared. The intense love at first sight had endured, through glorious courtship, an oftentimes turbulent marriage, and even – against the odds – the agony of watching their vibrant, beautiful daughter waste away to non-existence.

  He glanced at the little girl curled up in the bed. ‘Yes, I love you. More than you will ever understand.’

  ‘And you’d do anything for me?’

  He closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘But Elaine. This?’

  ‘If you take this child away from me I will kill myself. I will do it and it will be on your head.’

  ‘Elaine—’

  ‘I mean it; I’ll kill myself.’

  Her eyes blazed, the raised vein on her neck pulsed quickly, like an animal twitching beneath her translucent skin. She wasn’t lying. He knew she was telling him the truth, that she would kill herself, and then he would have a dead daughter and a dead wife. He would be left with nothing but searing grief. He collapsed onto his knees, broken by his own weakness.

  The next day Henry Campbell carried his daughter from the hospice. Her head rested against his shoulder. She was light in his arms. Such a tiny thing, so thin, nothing to her. She smelt of medicines and painkillers, of disinfectant and a hint of the lavender oil designed to mask it. Her breathing was steady but shallow, warm on his neck. He stroked her hair, soft silken curls, fine as strands of spider’s web; somewhere beneath them was the tumour that slowly claimed her.

  ‘There you go, my darling,’ he whispered, as he opened the car door and laid her gently on the back seat.

  He covered her with the heavy, warm blanket he had taken from the tiny cupboard in their hotel room. She didn’t need it; it was a hot and sticky night, but he didn’t like the thought of her uncovered.

  ‘I love you, Bella.’

  ‘Yes, Daddy,’ she murmured.

  Henry closed the car door and put his hand on his forehead. He looked up at the sky, black and studded with glinting stars, a million of them visible in the clear night.

  ‘Monsieur,’ came a voice behind him.

  Henry turned to face the nurse who was in charge of the night shift.

  ‘Attendez de parler au médecin. Do not take her. Doctor Albert, he will want to talk with you. Je vous en prie. Bella n’est pas en état de voyager.’

  Henry straightened his shoulders and spoke calmly to this kind woman who had helped care for Bella for the last few weeks.

  ‘Please don’t worry, Sylvie. It’s fine. We would like Bella at home with us. She will be well cared for. Don’t forget I am a doctor myself. Please. Don’t worry. Ne vous inquiétez pas. Merci. Merci beaucoup.’

  Then he turned away from her concern.

  He climbed into the car, ignoring her continuing protestations.

  Don’t you see? he wanted to say to the nurse. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter where she is or what else is happening. Nothing matters anymore because she is going to die.

  My daughter is going to die.

  SEVENTY-TWO

  My head spins. I feel lightheaded and close my eyes.

  And she is there. In bed. There are crisp white sheets and her blonde curls fan the pillow. The window is open and white curtains billow in the breeze like a pair of tethered ghosts. She has a plaster on her arm, a tiny dot of dried blood in its centre. Thin, her skin pale and tinged yellowed, she has dark circles around her eyes that look as if they are melting deep into her head.

  I creep closer. At first I think she might be dead, but then her eyes half open and she turns her head towards me. A weak smile brushes across her face.

  I gently put my hand in hers.

  ‘Hello.’ Her voice is almost inaudible. Breathless.

  ‘Hello.’ I hear my voice whisper.

  I climb onto the bed and lie beside her, curl my body into her hot, sweaty heat, and slip my fingers into hers. I will pretend she’s my sister because I miss her so much. I miss her to play with and to laugh with and I miss her to look after me. I miss her so much my heart aches.

  ‘I love you, Dory,’ I say softly. ‘I love you so much.’

  SEVENTY-THREE

  Henry Campbell – 16th August 1989

  They drove through the night so both children would sleep. It rained so heavily he could hardly see through the windscreen. They stopped only to throw the teddy bear and the child’s nightie into the sea, which heaved in the darkness like an ocean of oil. He picked his way through the wet darkness to the water’s edge and hurled the items as far as he could.

  Climbing back into the car he felt as if he’d been shot in the stomach, his blood draining from his body, leaving nothing but a useless husk. As he drove he listened to them. Bella’s snatched breaths coming as if each might be her last, as if her body was running out of battery. The other one muttering quietly to herself, almost under her breath. They had made a bed for her on the floor between the front and rear seats. Hidden her with coats. Elaine had a blanket at hand to cover her fully if the need arose.

  He had no idea what he was doing. All he knew was he loved his daughter and he loved his wife, and the thought of losing both of them was threat enough to drive his exhausted mind and body along in this madness. He was a criminal. A monster. This is what he had become. He had allowed Elaine to show him the scar on the girl’s little arm – deep and red, he suspected it was indeed a burn, perhaps from a cigarette but more likely a cigar – her dirty fingernails, her pallid skin. He listened as Elaine told him how the child had reached up to her, grabbed hold of her, held on, when she’d found her abandoned in a small copse of trees. Henry had gone himself to the campsite. He pretended to help in the search so he could get close to the parents, search for evidence to either support what Elaine insisted, that the parents weren’t fit to care for her, or dismiss it. And he’d seen him, her father, drunk and dishevelled, shouting and swearing, picking a fight with a journalist who asked him a simple and well-meaning question. His wife with fingerprint-bruising encircling her upper arms. Their other child cowering behind her mother’s legs, eyeing her father with wary caution. He found himself starting to inveigle the idea into his mind. He began to wonder if Elaine was right. Perhaps it was in the
child’s best interests to stay with them. He began to believe the fairy tale.

  For the duration of the journey he expected to see flashing lights in his rear view mirror. Before they passed through customs to board the ferry, they covered the child on the floor with the blanket.

  His heart hammered.

  Please find her, the voice in his head begged. Please let her stir or cry out. Let them find her.

  But the girl didn’t stir and Elaine bade the douane a cheery bonsoir, flashed him that smile of hers, flicked her hair and thanked him in creamy tones. Henry caught the man’s longing. He’d seen it before in so many men, but for the first time he felt no jealousy. That part of him was dead.

  When they pulled up outside their elegant house in the middle of a smart Bristol crescent, Elaine opened the back door of the car and scooped up the other child. She held her tightly and cooed softly in her ear.

  ‘My miracle,’ he heard her whisper. ‘My God-given miracle.’

  Bella sat in the back seat, propped up, a pillow against the window. She was sleeping, her face serene and peaceful. He didn’t want to wake her. A small part of him hoped she had passed away, so she could be free of it all, but then she stirred. She tried to smile at him, but her wan little body wouldn’t work for her. The effort was too great and he saw a wave of pain pass over her eyes.

  He made up the bed in the spare room. The other child was in Bella’s bed, in Bella’s pyjamas, being read Bella’s books by Bella’s mother.

  The next day they rang letting agents in towns across Oxfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Hampshire.

  ‘We need a house with immediate occupancy. Furnished if possible. A house with a large garden and preferably fenced with gates. My wife,’ he hesitated, ‘likes to feel secure.’

  They left Bristol, severing all ties with their old life, with their friends and with their family, and moved to The Old Vicarage before the week was out. Fraser didn’t understand. Henry told him he’d had enough of trying to make things run smoothly between his family and his wife.

  ‘But not seeing us again?’ Fraser had asked. Henry knew this was devastating his brother. He would have been devasted, too, if he wasn’t already past the point of utter devastation. ‘Don’t make that call now, Hen. It’s a stressful time for you. Have a break. Get some space to sort yourselves out. You need to process everything you’re dealing with. Maybe a few months. Then we’ll have lunch together. Somewhere neutral. We won’t step out of line. Mum is desperate to see Bella.’

  ‘No,’ Henry said, too strongly. ‘No, it always ends in a fight. I’m not putting up with it anymore. Elaine and I need to concentrate on our family. It’s too stressful to deal with your crap on top of everything else.’

  ‘What crap? It’s not our crap! It’s her—’

  ‘Enough, Fraser!’ Henry pinched the bridge of his nose and bit back his tears. ‘I just … we just can’t … see you again. Any of you.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Elaine is my wife and she comes first. Life is too short to try to make something work that will never work.’ He glanced at Elaine, who narrowed her eyes and nodded. ‘You had your chance with us. It’s done with.’

  The rectory in Oxfordshire was ideal. The elderly owner was in two minds about whether to sell. She had grown up in the house and it was dear to her heart. She was happy for them to start renting immediately, then discuss the purchase at a later date if they liked it enough and she decided she could part with it. They had savings, plus Elaine’s inheritance from her father’s death a few years earlier. Money, thankfully, wasn’t a concern, and a few weeks later they offered the lady a price well above the market rate and it was accepted without hesitation. The Old Vicarage was theirs.

  SEVENTY-FOUR

  I knock on the door of the house in Bristol, but there’s no answer. I peer in the front-room window, attempting to see through the cobwebs, dirt and grime that coat it. There’s no sign of him so I return to the door and knock again. When he still doesn’t come, I unlock the door and push it open, but I don’t go inside immediately.

  ‘Hello?’

  My voice echoes in the hallway. The house smells musty, the air thick with the putrid-sweet of unemptied bins and stale alcohol.

  ‘Hello?’ I call again.

  But nobody’s here. Mark Tremayne has gone. At first I assume he might just be out, but when I go into the kitchen the stench of rotting food hits me hard. I gag and lift the back of my hand to my nose to block the smell as best I can.

  There are no pigeons on the window ledge. Just feathers and droppings in piles. I shudder as I walk through the rooms, taking in my father’s wasted life. This was his penance. Living alone in this squalid filth with only his sins and pigeons for company.

  This time I brave the stairs. On a half-landing is a bathroom. More grot. More vile smells. I close the door on it and ascend the next set of stairs. The room I reach first has a sign on it that makes my stomach clench. A wooden plaque, painted pink, stained with age and dirt, the word Bella painted in curling green letters. I open the door. A stained mattress and a discoloured pillow with no pillowcase lie on the floor, which is stripped of any carpet, the bare floorboards ringed by strips of carpet-gripper. The walls have wallpaper on them, sky-blue and pink stripes, with coordinating rabbits skipping merrily around a border at waist height. There is more mess, food containers, rubbish, dirty clothes. Beer cans and empty bottles of drink. Ashtrays that overflow with cigarette ends. At the edge of the room, beneath the window, I notice mouse or rat droppings and my stomach heaves. I don’t bother to look in the other two rooms up there. The doors are open. There is nothing in them. Just emptiness.

  I walk back down the stairs and into the living room, if you can call it that. On the floor by the chair is a newspaper. On the front page is my picture and a headline. His battered radio has gone.

  I don’t know what I was expecting. I know he has gone, but it doesn’t make me happy or sad, angry or relieved. Instead I am numb. It suits me that he’s gone. I don’t want to trawl through all of this mess in the courts. I want to get on with my life. In Cornwall – with Dawn and our mother and my unborn child – I have a fresh beginning. It’s as if everything up until this moment has been a prelude to the main show. With him gone there is one less obstacle with which to contend.

  I have no idea what will become of Mark Tremayne. My father. As far as I know he has no money, no home, no possessions other than those foetid items he could carry, the old radio and perhaps a few clothes. I don’t want to think of him out there. I have no affection for the man, but the idea of him out on the streets with nobody to love and nowhere to call home is unsettling.

  I hope he finds somewhere warm to sleep, somewhere he can find help, maybe even salvation. I hope somewhere he finds peace.

  SEVENTY-FIVE

  ‘Are you sure I can’t make you a sandwich?’ Miss Young has been offering to feed me for over an hour. She scratches her left breast and readjusts herself.

  ‘It’s very kind of you, Miss Young, but—’

  ‘Do call me Suzie, dear.’

  ‘I’m really not that hungry.’

  ‘No wonder you didn’t tell me what was in his letter,’ she says. ‘What a shock that must have been?’

  ‘It was.’ I ignore the question in her voice and don’t expand further. ‘It really was so kind of you to take the cat.’

  ‘Bless him,’ she says. ‘He does have a tendency to wander home. I had to find a bit of wood to block up the cat flap to stop him getting back inside the house, and now he spends a lot of time sitting on the doorstep waiting for your—’ She stops herself and shifts awkwardly. ‘I mean, Mrs Campbell.’

  ‘Well, he’ll find it hard to get back to The Old Vicarage from Cornwall.’

  Her face contorts in horror.

  ‘Or you can keep him?’ I say quickly, resting my hand on her arm. ‘You know, if you’ve grown attached.’

  ‘I have rather.’

  I smile. I’m happy for her to have
him; I’m not sure I really wanted to take him back to Cornwall to slink about in my new life. I gesture towards Henry Campbell’s filing cabinet. ‘Would you mind if I got on with this, Miss Young. There’s an awful lot to get through.’ I bend down and press an orange sticker to a cardboard box so the rubbish clearance team know to skip it and the discarded papers it contains.

  It is a massive job, sorting through the Campbells’ effects. The solicitor asked if I was sure I wanted to sell the house. I hadn’t hesitated and being back here I have no doubt at all. The place makes me on edge and anxious. The brick walls seem higher than I remember, and even with the curtains and doors open, I feel totally hemmed in. There’s a malignancy about the place, a deep-rooted evilness. The house represents the Campbells, the place they’d kept me veiled from my family, yet at the same time, those happy childhood memories I have are glued to every brick and blade of grass. I hate it here and I want to get away as quickly as possible.

  I open Henry’s filing cabinet. There’s nothing much in the drawers, just his fountain pen and two bottles of ink – one blue, one black – a small box of paper clips and a blotter, receipts and miscellaneous papers. I check every sheet for anything that might offer information about Bella Campbell. When I happen across something handwritten I try not to think of his hopeless body and the slick of blood beneath. So far I’ve found nothing and I tip the contents of the drawers into orange-stickered boxes.

  Green stickers go on the furniture I am selling, his desk, the brass lamp, the leather armchair, anything that looks like it might have value. I avoid looking at the portrait of Elaine, as I stick an orange sticker on its corner. The chair and rug have already gone. Miss Young made sure anything with Henry’s blood on it was removed immediately, which was kind of her.

  I break to eat the ham sandwich I made this morning, and then the slice of fruitcake that Miss Young thrust on me. It is delicious. I sit on the overgrown lawn. It’s close, the air heavy, and the flies buzz around me. The grass is yellowed with thirst, and weeds and greenfly have overrun the roses.