by Clare Boyd
‘I’m off to have a bath.’
My heart sped as I slowly climbed the stairs.
I crept into her room. And there was her diary lying on her bed, available and ominous.
As soon as I held it, light in my hands, I remembered that it was locked with a code. I typed in as many birthdays and number combinations as I could think of. It refused to open. I could hear Noah’s voice getting louder as he approached the stairs, and then Rosie’s. Just one more guess. And another. Their feet were on the stairs. I dropped the diary and nipped out of the room.
* * *
Peter was my only safe haven. When he came home that night, late, after the children were in bed, I craved some time alone with him, away from my mother. I missed our suppers together, just the two of us, where we indulged in an analysis of the days we’d had, where I felt we put the world to rights, where he calmed me with his gentle spirit. Now, if we wanted to talk about anything intimate, we had to snatch conversations when my mother was out of the room, when she was fetching something or talking to a friend on her mobile.
‘I think they prefer Mum to me,’ I laughed, chucking some red peppers into the pan.
‘Don’t be silly.’
He stood behind me and rather half-heartedly slipped his arms around my waist, pecking me on the neck. As much I wanted to enjoy his affection, and respond accordingly, I couldn’t. I felt my shoulders rise. Getting the message, he let go and poured a large wine glass of red, right up to the brim.
‘I wish Rosie had opened up to you yesterday,’ I said cautiously.
Peter had been subdued on the day he had taken Rosie out of school for the medical examination. He had not been allowed into the consultant’s room with her. I had been desperate for details from him.
‘I told you, it didn’t feel right to ask her,’ he said defensively.
‘I know, so you said.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It wasn’t meant to mean anything.’
He slammed the fridge door closed. ‘You know when she came out of that consultant’s room, her little hands were freezing cold. She’d been standing half-naked in front of a strange doctor who must’ve asked her weird questions and made her feel bloody awful, and so, to be frank, the only thing she needed was a hug and a hot chocolate.’
‘Sorry.’
I backed off. Deep down, we knew everything was too precarious for an all-out row.
‘When I spoke to Philippa...’ I began.
He interrupted, ‘You spoke to Philippa Letwin? Why didn’t you say?’
‘I’m saying now.’
‘What did she say?’
‘Nothing much. She said we might have to go to some kind of safeguarding meeting with the police and Miranda Slater.’
‘Really, when?’
‘Not sure. But she warned me that if we put any pressure on Rosie it could majorly backfire.’
‘That’s what I was trying to tell you.’
‘I know. That’s why I told you what she said. I was agreeing with you.’
‘Oh, right, okay. Sorry.’
‘Sorry too,’ I said, abandoning the stir fry and turning to him. We both chuckled – it wasn’t the first time we had bickered over an issue that we both agreed on – and then we hugged. My cheek rested on his shoulder.
Peter pulled away enough to look down at my bump. ‘When’s your next scan?’
I counted up five months from September on my fingers. ‘January.’
‘But everything feels okay in there?’
‘Very. I never forget he’s there, but I haven’t been giving him as much thought as I should.’
‘I’m not surprised with everything that’s going on.’
‘Apparently, third babies are universally neglected.’
‘Poor bugger doesn’t stand a chance.’ Peter grinned, kissing me on the lips.
When my mother came in, we pulled apart physically, but all through supper his hug stayed with me. We were both on the same side. I guessed he was as terrified of talking to Rosie as I was. Neither of us knew how to handle her, and maybe we never had.
* * *
I knocked on the spare room door.
‘Hello?’ my mother said from behind it.
‘Mum? Can I come in?’
‘Come in, of course, darling.’
She was propped up in bed reading a tatty paperback.
‘Everything okay?’
‘Not really.’
She placed her novel down on the eiderdown, and patted a spot next to her.
I lay down with my feet crossed at the ankles. My head sank back into the down pillows and I wished I could drift away on them into the clouds.
Tiny forget-me-nots dotted the walls. Flowery wallpaper was unfashionable, but I had chosen it because the pattern had reminded me of the curtains I had in my bedroom when I was growing up, which my mother had let me choose. If the baby turned out to be a girl, maybe I would keep this wallpaper after all, I thought. I enjoyed thinking ahead, to the baby coming home, as though I could skip the bad bit in between.
‘She’s asleep finally,’ I sighed heavily.
‘You know, I catch her writing her diary when I go up to bed.’
‘I am so sick of telling her off about that. I keep telling her she has loads of time before lights out to write in it.’ I was too tired to be cross about another of Rosie’s infractions.
‘She settles down after I’ve been in.’
‘I wish I could read it.’
‘I’ve tried to.’
‘Mum! You haven’t!’
Mum looked shamefaced. ‘That bloody code. But look at this.’ She brought Rosie’s school literacy exercise book out of her side table.
‘Why have you got this?’
‘I wanted to have a read of her compositions.’ She leafed through to the last page. ‘Here, this is the one she wrote this afternoon.’
I took the exercise book and deciphered Rosie’s scrawling handwriting.
* * *
MY FABLE by Rosie Bradley
The Deer in the Snow-globe.
Once there was a little girl called Serena who had a wonderful collection of pretty snow-globes that she kept by her bed. She stared at them when she went to sleep. Her favourite snow-globe was really pretty. It had snowy mountains inside. The little girl with plaits was skidding down the mountains on her sled and there was a tiny, cute deer with white spots on his back. Serena would dream about turning into the little girl on the sled because in real life she really enjoyed whizzing down on sleds with the snow spitting in her face. It was the best in the world. One night, the snow-globe suddenly lit-up and shone brightly into Serena’s sparkly blue eyes. Amazingly, the tiny deer began to talk! He said, ‘Hello Serena. I’m called Brambles. If you tell your mummy a lie, I’ll let you ride on the sled down these mountains.’ He was a very naughty deer but Serena really wanted to go on the sled. The next day, Serena told her mummy that she had cleaned her teeth but she really had not cleaned her teeth. She even wet the toothbrush to pretend. Her mother believed her! At night, Serena stared at the pretty snow-globe. Then Brambles said, ‘Hello Serena. You can go on the sled now.’ Then Brambles tapped his hoof twice and Serena was suddenly inside the snow-globe. The snow was not cold. It was soft. She went on the sled hundreds of times until she was really tired. ‘Can I go home now?’ Serena said. ‘No, you can’t ever go home,’ Brambles said. ‘But why?’ Serena said. ‘You lied so now you have to live here for the rest of your life,’ Brambles said.
Serena banged on the inside of the globe. She was trapped forever. She could see her humungous, cosy bed from the tiny mountain. She cried a lot because she was really sad and missed her mummy. She wished she had never told her mummy a lie.
The End.
Goosebumps had run across my skin as I had read it. It had transported me into her sweet, innocent mind.
‘No wonder she didn’t want me to read it.’
‘But she wanted me to rea
d it.’ My mother put her hand on her chest melodramatically.
‘Do you think it’s a cry for help?’
‘I think it’s an opening for me to talk to her.’
‘Yes,’ I said, rereading the end. ‘It’s a bit like a confession.’
‘A rather charming one, don’t you think?’
‘A little derivative...’ I replied, churlishly, unable to admit to the delight I had felt while reading it. The image of the cell walls shot up around me again, the doubt on the faces of DC Miles in the interview room came back to me in glorious, puppet-like horror. I was not quite ready to eulogise about Rosie’s talents with my mother yet.
‘You can’t say that. You’re supposed to be hopelessly biased,’ Mum chided, snatching the textbook. She placed her glasses on to read it. ‘Some of my students don’t have as much imagination.’
‘Anyway, let’s hope it provides a good segue.’
‘I’ll try tomorrow over homework. I’ll send Noah off somewhere.’
‘Peter went into the station to give his statement yesterday.’
‘Yes, he told me.’
‘They even called Vics the other day.’
She smoothed her hands across the velvet eiderdown. ‘I’m sure Vics had a glowing report for them.’
I imagined how easily the police created doubt, even in my own mind about my own actions.
‘They’ll be talking to the school at some point too.’
‘The whole thing is simply ghastly,’ she cried, ripping off her glasses and slamming the textbook closed, as if the school’s involvement was the final straw. ‘I’m at the gates with those women and I’m telling you, they get hysterical about a missing sock after PE, just imagine, imagine, what they’ll be like if they get wind of this, and if it does get out, if it hasn’t already, mind, you know who’ll be affected most?’
‘Rosie.’
‘She needs to understand how serious this could become.’
‘Don’t go in heavy-handed with her tomorrow, Mum.’
She shook her head and looked to the ceiling. ‘No, no, I won’t, don’t worry.’
‘It’ll be counterproductive,’ I insisted.
‘I’ll be the model of diplomacy.’
I bit my lip, knowing that diplomacy and my mother were not best friends.
She picked up her book and reached over and kissed my cheek. ‘You can sleep here if you like but I will be reading for a while so I’ll be keeping the light on.’
I dragged my weary body off her bed and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Night, Mum. Thanks.’
‘And tell that madam to put that diary away.’
‘I’m sure she’s asleep now. It’s almost eleven.’
Before brushing my teeth and washing my face for bed, I stopped to listen at Rosie’s bedroom door. I could tell from a rustle of her duvet and a self-conscious cough that she was awake.
I stormed into her room and ripped back the duvet, suddenly livid.
‘Right, enough is enough. It’s time to put that away. And if I catch you with it after lights out again, I’ll confiscate it.’
I was sick of her bad behaviour, I was sick of being messed around. Peter and I had been pussyfooting around her like a pair of timid mice. Mum was right. It was time she faced the reality of what she’d done.
‘No,’ Rosie cried, closing it and lying on top of it.
‘Give it to me, now.’
‘No. It’s mine.’
‘I’m telling you, give it to me, NOW.’
‘I’ll tell Granny Helen that you’re shouting at me again.’
‘Granny Helen thinks you should go to sleep!’ I bellowed, furious at the suggestion that she and my mother had complained about me behind my back.
‘La, la, la, la!’ she sang.
‘I won’t tell you again, Rosie. Give it to me.’
‘LA, LA, LA, LA!’ she sang, putting her hands over her ears.
‘I WON’T TELL YOU AGAIN.’ The rage was uncontrollable, it had taken over me. I was at its mercy, cowering in the background as it tunnelled through me. I lunged at her, and pushed her body away from her diary, trying to roll her over. I was going to get that diary if it was the last thing I did. Rosie pushed me away, slapping at the top of my head, screaming at me wildly. And then she bit my arm. I yelped and shoved her off the diary, and she threw her arms in the air and span dramatically over towards the wall, which the back of her skull thudded against.
Her scream was ear-splitting. My hands shook in shock, my blood coursed with terror.
My mother was at my side, ‘What the hell is going on in here?’ Her face was contorted as she bent down to Rosie. ‘Are you okay, darling?’ Rosie crawled into her grandmother’s arms.
‘Mummy pushed me! It hurts so much!’ she wailed, cradling the back of her head with one arm, clutching her locked-again diary in the other, crying in distress.
Peter appeared behind me. I wasn’t sure how long he had been there or what he had witnessed in that half-lit room.
He murmured, ‘What did you do?’
‘She drives me to it!’ I yelled, louder than her screaming, right into his face, beyond caring, losing the last shred of my composure, letting ten years of frustration out in five terrible words.
His expression hardened as he moved past me. ‘Excuse me. Helen, sorry, can I have a look? Let’s see your head, darling,’ he said gently, clicking on her lamp. Her yelping subsided as he inspected her skull through her hair. ‘There’s a bit of a bump,’ he said.
I had to get out. I had to leave them. There was too much feeling pressing to get out. My own screams for help were imprisoned in my body. I thought I would go mad. There was nowhere for it to go. How it could ever be discharged? Who was I? I was a danger to myself, I was a danger to Rosie.
I ran around the house, collecting my handbag, shoving on my shoes, finding my car-keys, and outside, into the damp night air, into the car, locking myself in; my key jerked around the ignition, my hands trembled so violently I couldn’t get it into the slot.
There was a loud rap on the window and I jumped out of my skin, dropping the keys into the foot-well.
‘Open the door,’ my mother shouted, knocking repeatedly.
I unlocked the passenger door, which she opened and held on to, preventing me from moving the car.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I don’t know, I just need to get away,’ I cried, scrabbling at my feet to find the key. ‘Can you shut the door?’
‘Look, I know it’s tough right now but you can’t run away.’
I found the key and fired up the engine. ‘You don’t know bloody anything, Mum! Close the door!’
‘I think I do know a few things after bringing up you and Jackie on my own, thank you very much.’
I clutched at the steering wheel with both hands as though I was careering over a cliff, and screeched, ‘Oh yes, sorry, it was so much bloody harder for you! How could I possibly forget how hard it was for you and how bloody brilliantly you coped? I’m so sorry that I am such a pathetic disappointment.’
My mother stood stock-still, and glared at me. ‘Self-pity doesn’t suit you.’
‘Yes. Silly me. I must maintain a cool fucking head at all times, just like you. But how could I possibly compete with the Master of Self-control?’
Tight-lipped, she replied, ‘This is not about me. This is about you and Rosie.’
‘You don’t know anything about me and Rosie.’
‘I know you’re both Campbell women and Campbell women don’t give up on each other.’
‘Right, yes, the Campbell woman,’ I sniped, tasting the acid of my sarcasm on my tongue. ‘That’s the thing – I’ve been meaning to tell you for, what, how long now?’ I paused, with my finger to my lip facetiously, my heartbeat thundering in my ears. ‘Um, ten years now, that she isn’t a Campbell at all. She’s a Doubek. Her real mother is Kaarina Doubek, from the Czech Republic, height, 5’9", shoe size 6, with a love of bike riding and piano playing.’
My mother spluttered, as though blood flooded her throat, and she instantly slammed the car door, shutting me away, shutting away what I had just told her. For a split second we stared at each other through the window, locked in mutual disbelief and horror. Her hands were clasped around her middle, her milky blue eyes unblinking, shrinking even further back into her head, stunned by my revelation. I revved the engine, opened the electric gates of my home with my natty little clicker and backed out at a speed almost careless enough to clip the gates. As I three-point-turned on the roundabout, I glimpsed my mother standing there on the drive in her dressing gown. But I rejected her vulnerability, just as she had rejected mine. If she was such a fearless, spirited Campbell woman, she could cope with Rosie. I was done.
Chapter Forty-Five
TOP SECRET
* * *
DEAR GEMMA,
* * *
WHO IS CATREENA DOOBECK? WHY IS SHE MY MOTHER?
* * *
I HATE HER AND I HATE YOU. I HOPE YOU NEVER COME BACK.
* * *
ROSIE
Chapter Forty-Six
I was driving off, free. A lightness gathered in my chest. As I got to the end of the road, with the choice to turn left or right, I didn’t know which to take.
A car beeped behind me. I made a knee-jerk decision and swerved left, almost colliding with an oncoming car. I began driving down the B road out of town, towards a village whose pub had an open fire and good wine. I couldn’t go in there alone. I might bump into someone I knew: a mother from New Hall Prep who would tell the other mothers that I was a child-abusing wino, and a pregnant one at that.
Headlights flashed past me, disorientating me. I clung to the wheel, with my body bent forward, trying to be especially careful. The idea of hitting a cyclist or a pedestrian was even more of a worry than usual, as though there might be a better time than tonight to run someone over.
