by Sibel Hodge
I searched through the photos inside, wanting to find a picture of Katie as she really was, not as the grotesque images that had been haunting my sleep and piercing my wakefulness. And then there she was. Standing next to me on my fourteenth birthday as both of us blew out my candles. I knew her parents never made a fuss for her on her special day so I had always let her share mine. We were caught on camera mid-blow, goofy-looking expressions on our faces. The next one was from about a year later. Katie and I had been in our favourite park in Dorchester in the school summer holidays, hanging out, sunbathing, eyeing up the boys, making stupid plans for the future and sharing our dreams. We posed on the grass in skimpy tops and short skirts. She was pouting for the camera, her long hair falling down on one shoulder, her eyes half-closed in a sultry look.
There were more. Katie and I on holiday when my family took her with us to a caravan park in Devon one year, standing against the railing in front of the sea, arms wrapped around each other, my head resting on her shoulder. Katie at our school disco on our very last day at secondary school. Katie on the village green outside the pub with a cigarette in her hand.
I put the photos back, a heavy sinking feeling in my heart. For a long time we’d been so close, but when she vanished from my life I’d abandoned her when she needed me most and slowly erased her just like everybody else had, as if she was inconsequential. As if she was nothing.
I had to try to apologise to Rose again.
I knocked on Rose’s door a few times but the place looked the same as every other time I’d been there, neglected with the curtains closed. I was about to turn away and walk back up the road when the door opened and she stood there, pale and skeletal, her short hair flattened and stuck to her head.
‘You’ve got a bloody nerve coming round here,’ she rasped.
‘I just wanted to come and tell you how sorry I was. I . . . I know you probably don’t want anything to do with our family, but we didn’t have a clue. We didn’t know anything. I mean, we still don’t really know anything.’
‘I know!’ She swayed a little before leaning on the door frame for support. I could smell the alcohol permeating the air between us, thick and heavy. ‘Tom Tate killed her and that’s that. He’s a murderer. A monster!’
‘I’m so sorry. I . . . I don’t really know what to say. I feel terrible. She was my friend and I let her down.’
‘Don’t come here again. I don’t want to talk to you. Any of you. You think you’re so much better than me, don’t you, with your big house and your fancy cars? But your family’s a damn sight worse,’ she spat. ‘Don’t come round here again!’ As she closed the door, I stuck my foot in it and put my arm out, hand pushing against it. She glanced up, surprised.
‘Rose, what did Katie mean in her letter? When she said you know what you’ve done and that she hoped you’d rot in hell? What did she mean by that?’
‘What? You trying to put the blame on me now?’ She let out a deranged cackle. ‘Oh, that’s rich. That’s fucking rich.’ But there was something in her eyes that I recognised. Fear.
Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. Maybe I should’ve just left things rather than stirring up trouble. Rose was grieving, too, after all. But I couldn’t let it lie. I still needed to know the truth. Needed to know why it happened.
‘Was Jack abusing her? Did you know about it and not do anything? Is that what she meant? Or did Katie tell you and you didn’t believe her?’
‘Don’t you dare go round spouting accusations against us! Sullying Jack’s memory. Making up lies!’ She glared at me. ‘You don’t have a clue. You don’t have a bloody clue.’
‘So tell me. Why did she want to get away from here so badly? Why did she want to run away from all of us? What did you and Jack do to her?’
She tried to push the door closed but I was stronger, and I wanted an answer. No. Needed an answer.
‘We didn’t kill her! Your bastard father-in-law did.’
‘But if she hadn’t been running away that day maybe none of this would’ve happened. What did she mean in the letter? What happened to her?’
She scowled in return, her face turning a mottled red.
‘She just wanted to be loved. What’s wrong with that? You and Jack didn’t care about her, did you? All you cared about was the drink. You neglected her, let her fend for herself. You can’t deny that, can you?’
‘Don’t you dare try and pin this on me,’ she screeched. And with an almighty push using both hands, she shoved the door closed. I just managed to retrieve my foot before it got crushed in the process.
Well, that apology had gone swimmingly well.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The Tate family was cursed. It was as if Tom’s confession had unleashed something dark and destructive. Some foul black ripple effect that kept coming at us, leaving us spluttering and gasping for air, threatening to drown us all in it.
I stared at the computer screen in the nurses’ room, totally unprepared for what I was seeing. With everything going on I’d completely forgotten about her appointment. I scrolled backwards to the main menu and went into her records again, just to make sure I was looking at the right ones.
Yes, there it was.
The blood test results had come through earlier that morning.
Charlotte. Too many white blood cells. Not enough platelets. Not enough red blood cells. But the real kick was that there were blasts − immature cells that aren’t normally found in blood. It was highly suggestive of leukaemia. She’d need a sample of her bone marrow cells examined to make sure, but the blood test seemed pretty conclusive. It explained all her symptoms, too. The nosebleeds, fatigue, pale skin, loss of appetite, being unable to shake that virus. How had I missed it all? Taken individually, maybe they didn’t add up to much. Nadia had been adamant the nosebleed was an accident. And weren’t all teenagers stressed and run down during exam times? None of it had seemed that drastic on its own. But in context, it was glaringly obvious. And I’d missed it all. I’d been so busy worrying about everything surrounding Katie’s murder that I’d overlooked something so vital. I was a disgrace as a nurse, and an aunt.
Charlotte. Leukaemia.
I rested my forehead on the desk and closed my eyes, too shocked to even cry. My beautiful niece had leukaemia.
Was she going to die? Was this all some kind of family karma? Redemption? A life for a life?
How much more could we all take? It was cruel and unfair and . . . why? Just, why? What had Charlotte ever done to deserve this?
The only thing that helped me was doing something proactive, and that meant sorting out the immediate next steps for Charlotte with her GP, Doctor Palmer, who called Nadia to arrange for them all to come to the surgery later that afternoon.
As I waited for their appointment time, my mind was all over the place. I tried about six times before I managed to finally draw blood from Sam Caldwell’s vein, something unheard of for me. And I forgot to tell Jimmy Dawson to come back in two days to get the abscess on his back lanced if the cream I gave him didn’t draw it out. I had to call him later to let him know.
I hovered outside Doctor Palmer’s office while they were inside, wringing my hands, waiting for them after they’d been dealt the life-shattering blow.
Nadia had tears in her eyes as she led Charlotte back out with an arm protectively around her shoulder. Charlotte’s eyes were blank, her mouth hanging open, lips trembling. She was in shock. Lucas’s colour had faded to a sickly pallor, pinpricks of sweat on his forehead.
‘Come into my office.’ I took Charlotte’s hand and we all walked along the corridor. I sat her down in a chair and crouched in front of her, clasping her hands. ‘Do you want something to drink?’
Charlotte shook her head vaguely.
‘I’m so sorry, sweetheart.’
‘Doctor Palmer said the results are highly suggestive of leuka
emia,’ Nadia said. ‘But that doesn’t mean it’s certain, does it? It could be just a mix-up, couldn’t it?’ She shook her head violently.
Lucas took a deep breath, blinking rapidly up at the ceiling, trying to be strong and hold it together.
‘No, I don’t believe it.’ Nadia carried on with her denial. ‘The tests must be wrong.’
I gave her a pained smile, digging my nails into my palm hard to stop myself crying. ‘I’m sure Doctor Palmer explained that the blast cells shouldn’t be there. The oncologist will take some bone marrow samples to examine, but I’d say it was almost certain. I’m so, so sorry.’
Tears fell from Charlotte’s cheeks, dropping onto her dress.
‘There’s a high chance of remission.’ I rubbed her tears away as Nadia carried on shaking her head, unable to take it in. ‘That’s what you need to concentrate on, Charlotte.’
‘Doctor Palmer talked about chemo. Or possibly stem cell treatment,’ Lucas said, rubbing Charlotte’s back.
‘Yes, the oncologist will be able to give you more information at your appointment tomorrow, but I think you’ve caught this early and you’re going to respond well to treatment.’ I forced a bright, positive smile at Charlotte.
‘God, why didn’t I take her for a blood test sooner?’ Nadia muttered. ‘It’s all my fault. All my fault. I thought it was just a virus. That she was tired from all her exam revision. I thought—’
‘You can’t blame yourself,’ I said lamely, knowing that every parent in the same position would find a way to blame themselves for something like this. I was a nurse and even I hadn’t put her symptoms together sooner. I was equally to blame. ‘The paediatric oncologist in Dorchester has got a great reputation. It’s likely she’ll do the bone marrow aspiration and biopsy tomorrow at your consultation, to speed things up. Look, I think I should get out of your hair so you can have some private time alone to prepare for the appointment. Anna and Ethan and I should move back home.’
‘Anna really doesn’t want to go home. It’ll upset her,’ Nadia said.
I wanted to hug her. Even in the midst of her own crisis she was still thinking about others.
‘We can’t stay with you forever. And besides, you need to . . . you know, we’re not going to impose right now. I’ll phone Ethan and tell him to come back to ours when he’s finished his planning meeting. We were going to move back after the weekend, anyway. You just do what you need to do.’
We all walked back to their house together in silence, trying to make sense of something so awful, each of us lost in our own worrying thoughts.
I left them in the kitchen and went up the stairs to Charlotte’s room where Anna was still watching a DVD. She lay on her stomach on the carpet. At least she’d bothered to get dressed, which was an improvement. But the room smelled of unwashed kids and curry-flavoured crisps.
I bit back the tears, blinking fast, holding off the point when I couldn’t control them any longer. I managed to force a smile but it felt as if my face was about to crack. ‘Hi.’
She ignored me for a moment, engrossed in Norbit. I don’t know why; she’d watched it at least twenty times − could even recite the words.
‘Oh, hi,’ Anna finally said without looking at me.
‘Anna, I need to talk to you.’
‘Yeah, this will be finished in about half an hour. There’s a really funny bit coming up.’
‘No, I mean now.’
‘Huh?’ Her gaze didn’t stray my way.
‘NOW!’ I said.
That got her attention. ‘Oooh, you’re so snappy at the moment,’ she snapped. I might’ve found the irony of that funny in any other circumstances.
‘Anna, I don’t want any more arguments from you. Get the laptop and your bag of clothes and meet me downstairs.’
‘What? Where are we going?’
‘We’re going back home.’
She pushed herself up to a sitting position. ‘We can’t go back there. There’s a dead girl,’ she whined, her eyes imploring me.
I felt like a bad mother. A horrendous mother. And maybe I was. Maybe I was paying for every mistake I’d ever made. Maybe we all were. I wanted to hug her. Squeeze her tight. Squeeze Charlotte tight. Cradle them both in my arms, as I’d done when they were babies, and promise them that everything was going to be all right. That I was there to look after them. The whole family was. I had a duty to protect my daughter and Charlotte from harm. From evil things happening in their world. Rose had failed to do that with Katie; I couldn’t fail to do it with my miracle child and my niece. And yet here I was, powerless. Powerless to change the direction of their lives or the hands that they had been dealt. Powerless to take the fear and grief away from my daughter and the pain and disease away from Charlotte. I had to be strong − strong for everyone. Nadia and Lucas would need us now, too, more than ever. But all I wanted that second was to fall apart.
I took a deep breath. ‘Let’s go and take Poppy out for a walk on Chesil Beach and then we can talk about things, OK? You haven’t been out of the house for days. It will do you good to get some fresh air.’ I was expecting a drama, another tantrum like the ones she’d suddenly succumbed to since Tom’s death, but she just looked tired. Weary with it, as we all were. ‘I’ll buy you an ice cream,’ I said lamely, every mother’s best bribe.
‘And then are we coming back, though?’ Her lower lip trembled and she was about to burst into tears. ‘I want to come back.’
‘Come on. We’ll get that ice cream first.’
I left a message for Ethan to come home as soon as he could and drove Poppy and Anna to the beach.
Poppy barked excitedly as we pulled up in the car park, her head poking through the unwound window. I opened the door and she shot out just before I managed to undo her lead. She bounded towards the sea, barking at the waves.
‘I know you don’t want to go home at the moment, Anna, but Charlotte and Lucas and Nadia need their space.’ I put my arm around her as we walked along.
‘No, they don’t. We’re family. Me and Charlotte are like sisters.’ She shrugged me off.
‘Yes, I know that, darling, but . . .’ I glanced at a green piece of glass nestled in between the pebbles that had probably started off life as a bottle but been smoothed away by the sea to an odd shape, like a bone.
I shuddered, a vision of Katie’s bones lying under the garage flashing into my head, but pushed the image away.
‘We can stay with Nadia and Lucas until we sell the barn, then. They won’t mind,’ Anna said.
‘I have some bad news.’ I stopped, my hand resting on her shoulder. ‘It’s almost certain that Charlotte’s got leukaemia, sweetheart. I found out today. They need their space to deal with this. She’s going to have some pretty hard treatment and she’ll be feeling very ill with it, and probably very down. It’s going to be a terrible time for everybody.’
Anna’s eyes grew huge. ‘What do you mean, leukaemia? You mean, she’s going to die?’ Her cupid bow lips opened in a gasp.
I took her hand and we sat on the pebbles, looking out to sea while Poppy turned her attention to chasing after the seagulls, which took flight in a blur of white.
‘Hopefully not. She has a good chance of going into remission.’
‘So she’ll definitely live, then, won’t she, Mum?’
‘Unfortunately, no one can make those promises. It depends on how she responds to the treatment. It’s going to be a long, painful road.’
‘But you said she’d go into remission. That means she’ll survive.’
‘She could do, but she could also . . . die.’ I wanted to sugar-coat it but at the same time I wanted to be honest. I didn’t believe in lying. Anna was old enough to know the truth. And what I didn’t tell her she’d only google, anyway.
She burst into tears. ‘Everyone’s dying around me.’
‘Co
me on, now, Anna.’ I blinked back my own tears. ‘You need to be a strong girl for Charlotte. We all need to be strong for her.’
‘You’ll die soon, too. And Dad. And what if I’m left on my own?’ She wiped her snotty nose with the sleeve of her T-shirt.
‘We’re not going to die.’
‘How do you know? You don’t know anything. You said that the other day and now Charlotte could die!’
I wished I had the magic answer to make everything better, but last time I consulted the perfect parents’ handbook there must’ve been some pages missing. The truth was, I didn’t know what to say.
‘Well, if I do die, I’ll come back as your stepmum so I can still look after you.’
‘Oh, don’t be so stupid!’ She jumped up and stomped away from me.
Right. So obviously I shouldn’t have said that, then. Magic answer still sadly lacking. I leaped up and rushed after her. Poppy, thinking this was all good fun, ran along in between us, getting beneath my feet, almost tripping me up.
‘Come back here, Anna!’ I expected her to ignore me but she didn’t.
She stopped abruptly, as if she’d hit an invisible brick wall. By the time she turned around I’d caught up. Her eyes were downcast and teary. She ignored Poppy nuzzling into her hand for a stroke.
‘Sometimes in life we have to put other people first.’ I bent my knees a little so I was in her sightline. ‘We’re upset and scared about Charlotte, but we have to put that aside and be here for her right now. And Lucas and Nadia. And that means giving them space and moving back into our house. We’ll sell the barn when we can, but I need you to be a big, strong girl and help us out, OK?’
