I Will Make You Pay

by Driscoll, Teresa

  ‘Warm clothes. Flask of coffee. Dolphins.’ He tilted his head. ‘Interested?’

  It was about 9.30 p.m. and exceptionally cold outside. I guessed now precisely what he meant; there was a famous dolphin-watching spot just a few miles away. I’d been there several times when I first took the job but had no luck. I wondered how he expected to spot anything in the dark. I imagined the wind and the cold versus my rich red glass of Shiraz.

  In my head I said: No. Definitely not. But I made the mistake of turning to look at him so that ‘Yes’ spilled out of my mouth. Later, huddled in two huge blankets stored in the boot of his car, we sat on a bench, and after half an hour miraculously saw three dolphins in the moonlight. You couldn’t make it up.

  I was lost.

  We didn’t sleep together that first night but we did the second. And the third. And the fourth. Two weeks later I moved into his cottage, which was set high on a hill with a magnificent view of the sea. It was reckless, entirely out of character for me and also just a little bit magnificent.

  As the light faded each evening, I would stand at the bedroom window, looking out for dolphins in the distance, and he would slip his arms around my waist and rest his chin on my shoulder. A quiet and entirely unexpected contentment.

  ‘But you hardly know him,’ Leanne protested on the phone when I broke the news that we were already living together. I sent her a picture on Messenger plus a clip of him playing his Steinway grand piano in his music room. Jeez, she replied. Does he have a twin?

  And so I fell under the spell of Alexander Sunningham with not a clue what lay ahead for me. We cooked together, laughed together and took long walks in thick coats and ridiculous woollen hats.

  I was on a trainee contract at the local paper on a modest salary and very soon felt the financial as well as the emotional benefits of sharing a home. Alex was a freelance piano teacher – tutoring pupils of all ages. One day a week, he went into the local primary school to teach on site and to accompany the pupils learning violin, saxophone and other orchestral instruments. He was also regularly booked to accompany pupils for their various exams. The rest of the time, he taught on his Steinway at home.

  He worked haphazard hours to tie in with his pupils, and I became used to arriving home from my shift to find a parent drinking coffee in our sitting room, while their child bashed away on the keys with Alex alongside in the music room next door.

  I had never lived with anyone before and was shocked how easily I adjusted to it, mostly because we let each other lead our own professional lives. The house, a beautiful red-brick terrace, had been left to Alex by his grandmother – along with the grand piano – so we were better off than most in the same stage of their relationship and careers.

  It meant we took trips. London. Edinburgh. Barcelona. Rome. And then eight months into our relationship, Alex took me on a surprise trip to Sorrento and proposed. And I surprised myself by saying yes.

  Are you sure this isn’t all a bit too fast? My sister Leanne, though she liked Alex by now, was still a tad wary. My mother, who was in good health back then, ahead of her lung disease diagnosis, was for her part surprisingly relaxed about our haste. She, after all, had been pregnant when she married my father and that had worked out just fine, she said.

  We planned to marry the following spring and, as I kept telling anyone who would listen, I didn’t feel rushed; I felt lucky. I was enjoying my new career and I had a fiancé who turned heads everywhere he went and who actually wrote songs for me. What was not to love about my life?

  Next came a small shift in routine which at first I hardly noticed. Alex asked if it would be OK for me to act, in effect, as the ‘chaperone’ for younger pupils whose parents were unable to stay for the lesson. This would be for occasional evening and weekend tuition. I remember him saying that it was wholly understandable for parents to want child-protection issues to be watertight, and he was also keen to guard his reputation.

  I remember asking him whether this would involve me staying in the music room for the duration of each lesson. Would I need to actually sit in there with a book or something? Alex said – and I had to share this very carefully with the police later – that it would be fine for me to be in the adjoining sitting room, which was the routine chosen by the parents who did stay for lessons. The door to the music room would be left open so this protected everyone.

  So that’s what happened. Occasionally a pupil would be dropped off alone and I would read or watch a film on my iPad, with a clear view into the music room. I trusted Alex completely and felt this was purely for his protection, not the child’s. I was actually worried that someone might make a false accusation if we weren’t careful, especially as some of the girl pupils clearly had crushes on him.

  It was probably two, maybe three months into this routine that something happened just once to unsettle me. It was the only thing I shared with police that I felt, with hindsight, I should have acted upon.

  One cold October morning, just ahead of Alex’s birthday, I walked into our sitting room after a shopping trip to find him pacing on his mobile, raking his fingers through his hair, clearly handling a difficult phone call. You are not to do that. Now, come on, we’ve talked about this. You have everything going for you. You have a bright future. You have so many people who care about you . . .

  Alex glanced up at me and signalled with his expression that he was in a fix. I tilted my head to ask if I could help. He shook his head and continued, in a gentle voice to reassure the caller.

  I moved into the kitchen, all the while listening to his end of the conversation. It alarmed me, as it sounded from Alex’s side as if his caller was desperate; maybe even suicidal. Alex was patient and kind and reassuring, urging the caller to speak to someone; to get professional help. To remember that there was everything to live for. Over and over he kept saying that everything was going to be all right. That the caller had to look forward, not back.

  The conversation lasted a long time and I found myself pacing the kitchen, feeling more and more unsettled. It was not only the worry that some young pupil was on the line with some kind of mental health crisis – clearly crossing the line – but that Alex was using a tone which was a bit odd. Sort of overly gentle. Borderline intimate.

  When the call finally finished, he came into the kitchen looking drained.

  ‘What the hell was all that, Alex?’

  ‘One of my teenage pupils having a crisis. A complete meltdown. I suspected she might be self-harming because of marks on her arms. They show when she plays. But I had no idea quite how bad things were at home. I made the mistake of asking about it. The conversation got out of hand.’

  I was stunned. Why the hell hadn’t he mentioned her to me before?

  ‘What pupil?’

  ‘You don’t know her. She’s fifteen. Comes Tuesday mornings.’

  ‘What. On her own?’

  ‘Yes. On her own.’

  ‘But I thought we had this chaperone rule. Parents or me.’

  ‘For the younger pupils – yes. And when the parents are worried. But she’s fifteen, Jenny. Practically grown-up. She doesn’t need a chaperone. To be frank, what she really needs is a friend. Her parents sound a complete nightmare.’

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  ‘Have you gone mad, Alex? It’s you that needs the chaperone if she’s fifteen. And unstable. Self-harming. We need to phone her parents right this minute. Or the Samaritans or something. We can’t just let this go.’

  ‘It’s all in hand now. She’s talking to her mum. Anyway, she’s not truly unstable. She’s just very unhappy.’

  ‘So is that why you sounded so intimate on the phone?’

  ‘I was not being intimate. I was being kind, Jenny.’ His tone was now changing; he looked at me as if I had no heart. ‘What would you rather I did? Tell her to piss off and kill herself?’

  I began pacing. My mind was in overdrive. I felt deeply unsettled, and yet Alex was now making me feel g
uilty.

  ‘So she’s suicidal? Threatening to hurt herself? Well, I’m right; we need to call her parents. Social services. Her doctor, even. There are protocols for this, surely?’

  ‘Of course. Yes. That’s absolutely what I planned at first. But as I said, her mum’s with her now. She saw her on the phone, crying. So she’s in adult care. She’s promised to speak properly to her mum. To get support.’

  ‘But what if she doesn’t? What if she made that up about talking to her mum? What if she hurts herself, Alex, and you’re the last person she spoke to?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure it was just a teenage girl being a bit melodramatic. I think she’s fine. As I said, her mum is with her now. I was just worried when she was on her own. To be honest, you’re the one being melodramatic now.’

  ‘Me? Melodramatic? Jeez, Alex . . .’

  We then had a full-blown barney. Our biggest and most unpleasant argument, in which he accused me of being heartless while I accused him of being naive and irresponsible. In the end, he agreed to phone the girl’s mother right back to make sure she was in the loop. I listened in to the call and at last felt just a little easier.

  Later I would have to share the full details of this episode and our row over it with the police. Unbeknown to me, the girl on the phone was the first fifteen-year-old that Alex had seduced and then dumped. Her mother, in reality, knew nothing of the girl’s trauma. She was at work the whole time and received no phone call from Alex. He must have pretended to ring her.

  But in my panic and rage at the time, I genuinely saw none of that. I saw Alex being supremely stupid. I worried that the girl might have a crush and that there was a real danger that Alex could come unstuck. That he would be in trouble for providing a shoulder for the girl and that she might wrongly accuse him of something. Or hurt herself.

  I told him in no uncertain terms that he was not to teach her anymore.

  He agreed immediately and promised to be more careful. Later, I would feel mortified by my own gullibility. But the whole episode was one tiny blip in this context where Alex seemed one hundred per cent solid, sensible, loyal and in love with me. I had no reason to suspect him of playing away, and never in my wildest dreams did I imagine he would do so with someone underage.

  Looking back and sharing the details of that row with the police, I felt ridiculous. But it was the only fluttering of a red flag in all of our time together. And somehow Alex managed to manipulate our argument so that, in the end, I felt like the one in the wrong for being heartless.

  The truth – though it sounds bonkers now – is that at the time I was worried about his reputation. I was furious because I was afraid the girl might become a problem, and that Alex was being too kind and naive for his own good.

  CHAPTER 21

  HIM – BEFORE

  It is the Wednesday after the scene with Stan at the Daisy Lawn Nursing Home. The school day seems to go on and on and on – but the thing is, he doesn’t mind this. He doesn’t want the day to end.

  He keeps staring out of the window at the clouds. In maths, during the afternoon, he finds that he is daydreaming for so long that his teacher becomes cross. He can hear her voice saying his name and he turns back to the room. Miss Henderley is asking him to answer a question but the problem is he did not hear the question. He’s still sitting up on a cloud wishing that his mum wasn’t dead – wishing that he had a normal mum and dad like Jim and Helena.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says. Everyone in the room is looking at him and the other pupils are laughing, saying that if he doesn’t know then nobody will know. He normally gets all the sums right first.

  ‘That’s enough,’ Miss Henderley says. ‘Try to pay attention, all of you. You need to listen.’

  When the final bell goes for end of school, his stomach feels bad and he dawdles in the cloakroom, putting on his coat ever so slowly. He thinks again of the clouds and wishes that he could fly. He doesn’t want to go home. He doesn’t want to have tea. He doesn’t want the Wednesday treat of fish fingers and beans and ice cream. He doesn’t want to get into his pyjamas nice and early. He wants to fly around the world. Zoom, zoom. Like the rockets on his duvet cover.

  He is one of the last to leave the cloakroom and he sees his gran across the playground in her blue mac and her pink scarf. On the days when she is on day shift and he stays in the after-school club, he likes the first sight of his gran. It makes him happy. But not on a Wednesday when she picks him up right after school and they have to hurry, hurry. It’s raining and so he puts up his hood. He likes it when the hood stops all the noise around him. He often uses it as an excuse. I can’t hear you.

  His gran takes his hand and asks if he had a good day.

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.’

  She squeezes his hand and gives up with the questions, leading him through the gate and down the path past the line of oak trees. He knows they’re oaks because they studied the different kinds of leaves in art last week. They had to collect leaves and dip them in paint and make pictures. He splashed them hard on the paper. Splash, splash, splash – squirting paint on Suzie, who was sitting next to him. The teacher told him not to use so much paint but he pretended not to hear then too.

  It doesn’t take very long to walk home from school and he wishes it were a lot further, like the journey to the home where Gran works.

  She says she’s trying very, very hard to find another job without night work but she’s really too old and not very good at many things. He says he thinks she’s brilliant at lots of things. She should be a dinner lady at his school but his gran says, ‘Life doesn’t work like that.’ They already have enough dinner ladies at his school.

  He sits at the table in the kitchen later, staring at his fish fingers and beans.

  ‘Can’t you stay home? Please stay home.’

  Her eyes get all weird again as if she might cry, and she sits down on the chair right next to him. ‘I know it’s hard, sweetheart, but I wouldn’t do this unless I absolutely had to. I’ve told you lots of times. I can’t afford the rent here and all the bills unless I do my job. And Stan will report me if I don’t do the night shift.’

  She pushes his hair back from his forehead. ‘Remember what I told you about when I was little on the farm and my dad had to go out lambing and leave me. I didn’t like it either. I didn’t have a mummy either, remember. She left us when I was very small. Just a baby. But it was always OK when my dad went out lambing. And we lived in the middle of nowhere. You’re safe here. So long as you follow the rules. It’s just sleeping.’

  He digs his knife into his fish finger and cuts it up into two pieces. Then four. Then eight.

  He thinks of his maths lessons and his teacher. She’s nice.

  ‘We could ask Miss Henderley to look after me on Wednesday nights. She’d do it.’ He has suggested this lots of times before and doesn’t understand why it’s not a good idea. Miss Henderley looks after loads of them all day long. How hard could it be to look after one boy one night?

  His gran suddenly looks very worried. ‘We’ve talked about this, lovely, and it’s way too dangerous to tell people, especially at school. Because they may tell social services I’m not managing. And they might take you away from me again. You don’t want that, do you?’

  He shakes his head. It’s true; he doesn’t want that again.

  ‘So you’ll be brave? Yes? Just until I can find another job? Now, eat up. Ice cream for pudding. Your favourite.’

  Two hours later and she is back in her blue mac and her pink scarf. He’s in his pyjamas even though it’s quite early. Six o’clock.

  She goes over the rules. No touching the cooker or any electrical things. No answering the door or the telephone. No matches or candles or anything to do with fire. He can watch telly until the small hand is on the eight, and then he must switch off the television and go to bed. Lights out in the sitting room and kitchen area but he can keep the little lamp on in his room.

  ‘Can we get walkie-
talkies?’ He’s looking right into her face.

  ‘I can’t afford things like that, love. And I don’t think walkie-talkies would work.’

  ‘In the army they work.’

  ‘We’re not in the army. You’ll be fine. If you stick to the rules, you’ll be fine. The only time you’re allowed to leave the flat is if there’s a fire. Then you get out and run. But there won’t be a fire if you’re a good boy and follow the rules, so you don’t need to worry about that. You’re safe in here with the door locked.’

  She looks at her watch. ‘Look, I’m sorry but I have to go. You’re a good boy. Gran’s little soldier. Remember, I’m not . . .’ She stops.

  She normally says that she’s not far away but he knows now that isn’t true. He remembers the bus ride and all the walking. He can feel tears in his eyes and she takes a deep breath. She kisses him on the forehead, squeezes him tight and then she is gone.

  He watches telly but it’s not good. Boring programmes. He drinks his juice and eats the biscuits his gran always leaves out for him. He can hear some kind of music in the flat below them and he likes that. It’s later, when all the noises stop, that he doesn’t like it.

  It’s a bit cold and so he puts on his dressing gown and climbs into his bed with his books. He can read some of the words but not all of them. It’s why he’s working so hard in school – so that he can read on Wednesdays when he’s on his own. Sometimes, when he reads a book, he sort of drifts off right into the pages and completely forgets where he is. That would be good now.

  He looks around his room and hopes there are no spiders. One Wednesday, there was a huge spider in the corner and so he had to go and take his duvet into the sitting room and lie on the sofa. He shut the door and put lots of cushions along the bottom so that the spider couldn’t get out of his bedroom. When his gran got home, she said, What the hell has been going on here?

  He stays in bed and curls up and tries to go to sleep but it gets quieter and quieter. He doesn’t like this bit – when it gets so very quiet. And he doesn’t like the dark. He never turns off the little lamp and he keeps his torch with him in case there is a power cut.