Escaping The Shadows Anthology: Shenanigans'19 @ The West Midlands Book Signing.

by Maria Lazarou

  She managed to arrange it so I got my results by post, I think she wanted me to judge my own grades on their own merits, and not compare them against everyone else. The postman arrived just after ten in the morning I was so nervous I could barely stop my hands shaking to open the envelope. I passed the sheet of paper contained within to Emily, but she shook her head and told me to take a look first.

  I sat on the sofa, tears welling in my eyes, she put her arm around my shoulders as she sat down next to me and began to reassure me that it didn’t matter, I handed the paper to her and her condolences turn to celebration. I had got four GCSEs three C grade and one B. I know with your degree that that isn’t impressive to you but to a kid who three years earlier struggled to write a sentence, I couldn’t have been happier to get straight A’s.”

  “If I had been in your position, I don’t think I would have been strong enough to keep going. Those GCSEs are far more spectacular than any degree could ever be, they represent so much more than mine did, they represent resilience, survival, strength, and determination. Don’t ever compare yourself to anyone else and think you are less than them, no one knows how they would cope walking in another man’s shoes.”

  “At the time I was thrilled, they were happy tears. Then the question of what I was going to do with the rest of my life. I seriously had no idea, I wasn’t brilliant at anything, there was nothing that really held my interest, but I knew I wanted out of the classroom. Emily took me to a college open day, and I signed up to do an engineering apprenticeship. It would be done through college; they would find me a placement. I was terrified that my criminal past would hold me back, I had only had fines and cautions, but everything was going so well, I was just waiting for it all to come tumbling down.

  Over the summer I started counselling again, Emily felt it would be good for me and help me cope with the change from school to college, and then to a workplace. I had been back in therapy for three sessions when I returned home from running errands to find Emily and my social worker sat on the sofa. I panicked, were they going to move me? Did I have to leave Emily now I had left school? My seventeenth birthday was still six months away, was this it? I had heard of kids thrown out into the world after school finished.

  I think Emily sensed my concern because she motioned for me to sit beside her and told me it was all okay. When I was younger the social worker would be there every week checking up on me making sure Emily could cope, but it had been months since I had seen her, but when I realised what she was saying I could have jumped up and hugged her.

  Yes, I was reaching an age where social services stepped out and left me to get on with things but Emily wasn’t if it was what I wanted she wanted to formalise our relationship and adopt me. I don’t remember getting to my feet or hauling Emily up, I know I swung her off her feet as I swung her around and shout yes, yes, yes!

  When Emily persuaded me to put her down and sit again, the social worker explained the process, because I was a ward of court it would all be fairly simple, I needed to decide what I felt about changing my name but other than that it should be a case of going before the judge and signing the papers. I decided my new name would be Luke, as in Skywalker, the way I saw it we both had crap dads. As an adult, I know now, there was more to it, but as an excited teenager, I wasn’t listening. The second thing they wanted to talk to me about brought me back to earth with a bang. Emily felt it was time I looked at my file.

  I had asked to once or twice during the year I had done counselling previously, but the counsellor said it was not the right time. Now, they had talked it over and decided it would be better for me to learn the facts, rather than just whatever half-truths I would pick up through the internet. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, everything was good I didn’t want my past to taint it, to infect it like a germ and destroy the life I had now. But, part of me knew they were right, at some point someone was going to recognise me, put two and two together. It was time for me to discover my past.

  Chapter Ten

  They decided the way they would do it was to drip feed me the details before the counselling sessions, the idea was that I would hear the horrors in small bits, and then, have help coming to terms with it, but it didn’t work like that. I was too impatient, I worked out where Emily was keeping the file, then one night when she was in bed, I crept downstairs and retrieved the file. I sat on the floor in the living room with paper and photographs surrounding me, I saw and read things no child should ever read about themselves.

  The worst thing was the crime scene photograph of my mum from the night my dad had finally killed her, killed her because of what I had done, I started screaming and I couldn’t stop. Emily came flying down the stairs and held me tight against her as the memories flooded back, at some point, my voice gave out and I silently cried. Emily was talking to me, but I wasn’t hearing her, I felt numb, I didn’t deserve any of this I was worthless. I must have muttered it out loud because the shock of the slap Emily delivered to my face snapped me back to reality.

  She was crying, blaming herself, and I cried again, not for myself this time, but for this incredible lady who had believed in a monster, she let live under her roof.

  “You were not a monster. The fact you cared about others proved it, the fact you cared that she was hurting for you, a monster would not have cared.”

  “I didn’t start my apprenticeship after the summer, instead I was on psychiatric ward receiving treatment. Emily still wanted to adopt me, but I wouldn’t let her, I was in a dark place, but she would not let me go, she kept coming back every day for six months until I started coming to terms with what had happened. With the right help I worked through all the reports and as I started to heal Emily brought me something that had not been included in the file.

  When they were searching the house after the murder, they found some diaries hidden under a false bottom in the wardrobe, my mum had written them, the first couple were in proper diary form, then as my dad had become more controlling, there were notes and poems, random thoughts scrawled on the back of old envelopes, scraps of paper. The one thing that ran through it all was how much she loved me.

  Slowly I got better, I moved back to live with Emily, I took driving lessons and passed my test, got a job as a delivery driver, it suited me as it limited the interactions I needed to have with others. Then I had my love at first sight experience.

  Katie looked like the girl next door, she wasn’t what most people would class as a stunner, most people describe her as pretty, but when she smiled at me as I delivered a parcel to her desk, I fell totally. Of course, I didn’t believe for one minute that she would be interested in me, but I smiled back, got her to sign for the parcel and left.

  Over the next few weeks, I had an increasing number of parcels to deliver to her and that she had to sign for.”

  “She had the hots for you and was ordering stuff on purpose?”

  “I was so clueless that didn’t occur to me until the day that I looked at the slip she had signed and read what she had written. I sat there in my delivery van looking at a phone number and a message that said, ‘ask me out already I can’t keep ordering stationary’. I had the biggest smile on my face for the rest of the deliveries but, by the time I got home, I had talked myself out of calling her and was miserable.”

  “But you did call her? Tell me you called her?”

  “Yeah! I called her, then I screwed her life up as well, now I am here. And I am out of whisky.”

  He lifted the bottle to his lips and downed the last of the amber liquid. He needed to do this now. He was tired of talking, it hurt too much.

  “No! You don’t get to do that to me I told you the full story, you owe me that!”

  “I don’t see the point, I get what you are doing, hoping to make me see that things aren’t that bad but once you hear what I did, you will want to push me in. Why not just go home, you came, saw what you needed to and tried to save someone who couldn’t be saved.”
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br />   “We made a deal, I tell you my story, then you tell me yours. Maybe, you’re right. Maybe, once I hear your story, I will think you deserve to die, but don’t you think you owe me the right to make that call myself?”

  “Fine! You win! Emily talked me into calling her, we started dating, I spent the first three months terrified she would find out about my past and hate me. Then, Emily took matters into her own hands by inviting her around for dinner, I had no idea what she had planned but after we had finished eating, she poured us all another glass of wine and started telling Katie about my past. I was horrified, I expected her to jump up and run out of the room, but she sat there quietly taking it all in.

  After Emily had finished Katie asked me why I had not told her, she said she was hurt, that even though it was such a short time we had known each other, that I didn’t think enough of her to tell her. When she left that day, I did not expect her to call again, I refused to speak to Emily, but she just smiled at me and told me it was time I learnt that there were good people in the world.

  Katie was sat in the living room with Emily when I returned home from work the next day, she walked over to me and took my face in her hands, she made me promise, no lies, no omissions, whatever was going on in my head I had to talk to her, no more secrets.

  And for the next three years that is exactly what I did, When Katie got pregnant, she moved in with me and Emily, there was plenty of room and Emily was excited to become a grandma. She told me the house would be mine when she was gone anyway, so what was the point in me handing money to someone else. I was worried Katie would not be happy with the living arrangement, but she adored Emily as much as I do, she joked about having a live-in babysitter, and how handy it would be having someone to share the housework.

  Everything was perfect, Emily came to the scans with us, went to appointments with Katie when I was working. Katie’s mum lived abroad and only came back twice a year, I started to understand why Emily meant as much to her as she did to me. We were a family, when my son came into the world, Emily waiting outside the room to congratulate us.

  We called our son Samuel Joseph after Katie’s dad and Emily’s husband; we took him home and I learnt just how much it was possible to love someone.

  The thing was, the demons were never far from the surface because I could not get my head around, how you could love your child as much as I did, and as much as I thought my mum had loved me in her messed-up way, and still let all the bad things happen.

  I started working more, finding excuses to stay out a little longer, I wanted to keep my promise and talk to them, but I couldn’t find the words. For the next four months, I felt like I was drowning in my own body, there were times I could barely breathe, I struggled to hold it all together in front of them. They knew something was wrong, they would ask, and I would say I was just tired, I would push them away.”

  “You still haven’t told me anything I should hate you for. Your fears and confusion sound reasonable to me, and I get why you wouldn’t, or couldn’t, talk to them but you know there are others you can talk to.”

  “I still haven’t got to the worst part, a few days ago I got home from work, Emily was out, she had a doctor’s appointment, Katie was making dinner. Samuel was asleep in his travel cot in the living room, I sat down and started reading the paper. The next few minutes are a blur, one minute I was sat down, the next, I was on my feet shredding the paper screaming, Katie came running from the kitchen, she thought something was wrong with Samuel. It was my screaming that woke him, then the more he screamed the louder I got I was leaning into the cot screaming at him when Katie tried to push me out of the way.

  She was looking at me in sheer terror, I got in her face I screamed at her, then I pushed her over. I was trying to leave the room, I needed to get away and god help me, I put my hands on her and pushed her onto the sofa. Don’t you see I am just like him, I am just like my father, if I stay, I will hurt them, I don’t deserve them…”

  Chapter Eleven

  The tears were streaming down his face, falling from his cheeks down into the abyss below. He did not notice Dave move, it was only as the arms wrapped around him from behind and pulled him backwards, that he realised the other man had climbed back over the girder. He did not fight or protest, his strength seemed to drain from him with each tear.

  “What was in the newspaper?”

  “I don’t know, nothing.”

  “Think! You were reading the paper before you started screaming, what did you see? What are you shutting out? Come on, tell me, think the paper is in front of you, what can you see? Who is it?”

  “It was him! You happy now, it was that son of a bitch stood, smiling in the paper!”

  He was shouting now, trying to push Dave away, but the other man seemed to have superhuman strength. Dave held him, crushed to his chest, the angrier he got the stronger it seemed Dave got allowing him to hold onto him, to stop him flinging himself into the darkness below.

  “You promised me! You promised me when I finished the story you would let me end it! You lied, just let me go, let me protect them!”

  “But you haven’t finished yet, tell me what you saw in the newspaper. You have come this far, tell me the rest. You know there is more, tell me!”

  “There was a photograph of a group of men, working for some company, they had a cheque for a charity they had fundraised for, I didn’t read the story. It was the photo there stood at the back, a smirk rather than a smile on his face, was my dad.”

  “Are you sure it was him? You hadn’t seen him since you were a kid?”

  “No, I had seen him! As I learnt about my past, I looked things up, amazing what you get when you google a name. I had seen his face as a child and then as an adult the photos from all the newspapers, but there was one place I saw his face every day… in the mirror.

  You see I said before that I look like him but it's more than that, I am his double. But that wasn’t what shocked me, don’t you see?”

  “No, what was it?”

  “I didn’t know he was out! No one had told me! This man beat my mother to death with his bare hands and he was out of prison in less than twenty years. Stood there smirking into the camera as part of a company, as one of the good old boys who did good things and raised money for charity. He killed my mum, destroyed my life once and now he was back, back to do it again. If I don’t do this, he will come looking for me, and even if he doesn’t how long before I hurt my family, how long till I lash out? How long till I am the one terrifying my son? It has already begun!”

  His voice was getting louder and he became agitated trying to free himself from Dave’s grip, but Dave held him firm refusing to let him go, anchoring him to his life.

  “Listen to me, please, listen. Don’t you see the fact you are here tonight proves you are nothing like him, you put your family first, you didn’t want to hurt them. Yes, you pushed your girlfriend out of the way when she tried to lock you from leaving, but you didn’t hit her, you didn’t drag her by the hair. I bet, if I rang her now, she would tell me it wasn’t even really a push, more you knocked her over as you barged out. The fact you want them safe says you are nothing like him other than superficially.

  They need you. What if he does go looking for you, who is going to protect them then? Who will be there when he knocks on the door if you do this? You are stronger than he is, stronger than your past, stronger than you will ever realise. Yes, you freaked out, but that was a shock, it was the system failing you not letting you know. Give me your phone. I promise I won’t ring anyone; I won’t tell anyone where you are but if you are going to do this you need to face what you are doing.”

  Luke slipped his hand into his pocket and handed it to the older man, it took a few seconds to start up then the bleeping began, message after message, missed call after missed call. Dave pressed a button and the answerphone began to play messages, two women frantically begging, pleading, a baby crying in the background.

>   “Text them! Tell them they are better off without you! People spend a lifetime looking for somewhere to call home, you had the worst start anyone could imagine, but you made it, you found that life so many of us never do. Don’t let him win! Don’t let him destroy everything you have worked so hard to get and don’t let him destroy your son’s life. When things get tough, find someone to talk to, there are the therapists you already know they help, but there are numbers you can ring, groups you can go to, maybe even mates who will listen. Just find someone to talk to. Come on what do you say we get back on the right side of the barrier and find somewhere to get out of the cold, then you can make a call or two?”

  “Thank you.”

  The two men climbed back over the barrier, the night was still strangely quiet, but the cloud cover was beginning to clear and the moonlight breakthrough. They started walking towards the bank and the awakening city, they did not look at each other as they walked.

  “I need to be going, but you’ll be okay now, just promise me, however, bad things get you will find someone to talk to.”

  “I promise, maybe I should get your number and call you. I don’t know how I ever make this up to you, how do I ever repay you?”

  “When you have another kid if it’s a boy call him Dave if it’s a girl you could always go with Davina if you wanted.”

  “It’s a deal! There is just one thing you, you never finished telling me your story, you told me how you ended up here, but you never told me what happened. Did someone come along and talk to you like you did me? What happened? Who saved you?”

  “No one did, until now. Thank you!”