by Louise Beech
My beloved Tom. I’m not doing it for thanks, though. I’m doing this because I love you. I’m doing this so that the police leave you alone. And you too, Mum. So they know they questioned the wrong person … the wrong people. I hope you’re listening, Tom. You’re the one I’m speaking to really.
Just you.
But if you have fallen asleep again, I’m recording this, so you’ll hear it somewhere when you wake up. This is me shaving my head so you can see the skull underneath. The rest of the listeners won’t have a clue what I’m talking about. But you know. Your head was the first part of you that I saw naked. And your head is what I love most. That wonderful brain. The way you think. The things you say. Really, that’s where the heart is, isn’t it? Our emotions are up there, not in our chest, like some cliché.
There goes the phone again.
I’m not going to answer, so you may as well stop. I suppose it could be someone else. Maybe Miles. You know who you are, Miles. I called you The Man Who Knows when you rang me, but you’re not. Not really. By the time it’s light you’ll be able to take your pictures to the police. You’ll get all the recognition you deserve. I hope that’s what you want?
So, this is it.
What am I doing, you must all be wondering? Why lock myself in here and take over the airwaves? Have I got something interesting to say?
I have.
I’m going to tell you about Vicky.
Well, I’m going to try…
That’s how I know her now. Vicky. I know she liked that name rather than Victoria. But I didn’t know it back then. I’m talking about Victoria Valbon, of course. There can’t be a single listener out there who doesn’t know that name. Though I know a lot of you call her The Girl in the Alley. I get that. Everyone likes a good hashtag. She’s been trending on Twitter for weeks thanks to that name. That and #BabyKiller. If you don’t believe me, go and look. You’ll see people for what they really are there. Some of you tweeted lovely things and wished her family well. Some of you were just hoping to help catch who did it. Others … well, those people are worse than…
Worse than the killer in a way.
Because she’s a real person. I mean, she was a real person. We all forget that when someone becomes a headline. Victoria Valbon was a girl, the same age as I am, a girl who was getting ready to be a mum. I’m sorry, you’ll have to excuse me a moment. This is very … difficult. I’m sorry.
Give me a minute.
So, yes, Vicky was an everyday, local girl. She was a nobody until … until that night. She was about to be a single mum, but she still lived at home. She had a doula because her baby’s father wasn’t in the picture anymore. She wanted him to be. She wanted Tom. Her ex. Yes, that’s my Tom. We share Toms, Vicky and me.
This much is all true.
But what’s the rest of the story?
Where do I start?
I’ll start when she turned up here. At this radio station. Back then I had no idea who she was. No one did. She was still nobody. I’d just finished my show and when I opened the door to leave, she was waiting there. I’ve had drunks loitering out there a few times, but you don’t expect to see a heavily pregnant girl at one-fifteen in the morning. She was tiny apart from her swollen stomach. That was my first thought; she was petite and pretty with soft golden hair. Had on this big coat as though to hide her pregnancy from the world.
I asked if she was okay, thinking she’d gone into labour or something, and needed a lift to the hospital.
She said she was fine, it wasn’t anything like that.
Then she said she was here to see me.
Obviously, I was taken aback. I probably said something about not knowing who she was.
She asked if she could come inside and talk to me; she said that she’d waited until my show was done to see me. Then she told me she was called Victoria. I understand why she gave me her full name. I wasn’t someone she liked. I wasn’t someone she thought she’d become friends with. That wasn’t what she had come for.
I told her we couldn’t go inside as Maeve Lynch was in there doing her show, and anyway, I wanted to get home. I’m always tired after work.
She said I could drive her home, and we could talk. She didn’t ask; she told me. Her voice was sweet, but determined. I looked at her and said – quite bluntly to be honest – that I didn’t have my car, I rarely drove here. I like the half-hour walk. It’s my only exercise. She looked aghast. Asked if I wasn’t worried, walking home alone at this time of night? I laughed and said no. I’m not. Never have been. What the hell would I be scared of?
She asked if she could walk with me.
I shrugged and said that she’d have to keep up.
And off we went.
That’s when she told me we had something in common. I think she wanted me to ask what, but I didn’t. I suppose I played the game I often play with my boyfriend Tom. He’ll vouch for this. When I’m most interested in something is when I’m the least likely to ask about it. It’s like a dance we do. One where we both want to lead. Victoria didn’t know about the dance. She told me that my Tom used to be her Tom.
I stopped in my tracks then.
She stopped too, just a step after me.
But still I didn’t ask anything. Still I danced, you could say.
She said that my Tom had been her fiancé. She held out her slender fingers and showed me the ring. I can’t recall exactly what it was like. It was hard to see in the darkness. I suppose I didn’t want to see, if I’m honest.
I told her she could be lying.
So she described Tom. Brought him to life for both of us, so vividly that he could have been standing next to us. I hated that she could do that. I thought, He’s mine, don’t think that you conjuring him up so easily changes that. And then she patted her tummy and said he was this baby’s father.
No, I said.
It just came out of my mouth. No, no, no.
Yes, she said.
I started walking again, and she followed, just a little behind me. She must have been hot, I guess – it was a mild September night – because I think it was then that she took off her coat and carried it. I could be wrong. It’s hard to know what order it all happened. But I demanded to know why she felt the need to tell me about Tom. She said that she thought it only fair because she intended to get him back. To give him the chance to be a dad. To tell him they should be a family.
No, I said again.
I told her that, if he’d wanted to be with her, he’d have stayed with her. She said he might not even know about the baby as she’d found out she was pregnant after they split and had never told him. And now it was time he had the full facts.
I’m not a callous person. I know better than most about not having a father. I only found out tonight who mine is. I’m not sharing that with you, though. That’s another story. That’s private. But that night, I was the same as Victoria’s baby. In that moment, we both had absent dads. She only wanted what was right for her child. I could see that while at the same time wanting to…
I told her she couldn’t have Tom.
Said he belonged to me now.
Victoria said that might be true, but she was going to find out for herself. She was going to visit him the next day and let him see her in all her glory. Pregnant with his child. Then see who he decided to be with. She said he was an honourable man. He’d want to do the right thing.
I laughed then. Spat the word “honourable” back at her. Said it wasn’t my first choice of word for him. Not after the things we’d done together. The sex games we’d played. I said, no, you won’t be going to see him tomorrow.
Try and stop me, she said.
We had reached the alley then. You all know which alley. Even I, who am not afraid, usually avoid this quick way home. There’s something eerie about the poorly lit passage. Since I was small, I’ve always felt like
something bad once happened there. Or now I think of it … did I just foresee that something bad would happen there
?
Maybe.
Anyway, Victoria set off down the alley. Perhaps indignation made her brave. I followed her. My determination made me brave too. Halfway along, she stopped and said that I could leave her alone now. She had said her piece and she was going home.
I grabbed her. Not roughly. Enough to startle her. And I told her she was not going to see Tom.
She pulled free and pushed me away. I pushed her. Then…
Jesus, I can’t say it. I can’t. I can’t.
I must…
What was it?
It was the star perfume bottle.
That’s what it was. Victoria smashed it. She didn’t mean to – it was because we were tussling. I said Tom would never take her back, and she said he would and pulled on my bag, like a child. My perfume bottle is always in the pocket. Anyone will tell you that – Tom, my mum. I take it wherever I go. Took it everywhere as a child. When we got back together. Remember, Mum?
And Victoria ruined it.
When she wrenched my bag from my shoulder, some of my things fell out. I watched the star perfume fall, as though in slow motion. Like I knew. Knew it would hit the path and smash. I screamed out as it did. My whole world imploded in that moment. The sweet smell filled the air. The scent of my childhood washed over me.
But I was not clean.
And all I felt was rage.
Rage that I’d buried when my mum deserted me.
Rage that I’d felt when these girls at school threatened to pour away the perfume.
Rage, rage, rage.
Victoria looked nervous then. She backed up into the tangle of bramble bush, pushing some thorns away from her cheek.
I picked up what was left of the bottle – the base was intact, but its broken edge was like a row of jagged and dangerous teeth. The star stopper was totally destroyed; that was my favourite part. I miss it so much now. You have no idea. I’m so … sad. I’d had it since I was a child. It was my mum’s, you see, and before that, it was my father’s. It was the only thing I owned that had belonged to him. But I didn’t know that then. The whole time I had it, I never knew it had been his. I only knew that Victoria had destroyed my childhood treasure, and that she was not going to take the only other thing I loved.
Listen, Tom, I know you will want to protect me. But don’t. Don’t. Let this be it. Let me tell them. Love me. Forgive me. But let this be it.
The phone. Shit. Again.
I can’t answer. Stop ringing, whoever you are, for God’s sake. And whoever’s banging on the door, fuck off. You’re wasting your time. I’m not coming out until I’m done.
Have I even started?
You want to know, don’t you? What happened? Maybe I don’t remember it all. Maybe I blacked out, saw red as they say. Maybe I can’t tell you after all. Bet you’d be pissed off, wouldn’t you?
But no…
It was this…
Victoria said she just wanted to go home.
I said she wasn’t going to get Tom.
She said he would be the one to decide that.
Did I think he would choose her? I did. In that horrible moment I doubted his loyalty. I was afraid that he would see her, with her golden hair and her green eyes, heavy with his child, and he’d fall for her all over again.
No, I’ll decide, I told her.
She told me I was fucking crazy.
Maybe I was. Maybe I am.
I held up the broken bottle. I think it glinted in the streetlamp, though I could be wrong. I could have imagined that. I could have imagined a lot.
She tried to grab it, and that’s when I did it.
I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t. I don’t know my own strength sometimes. And it was all so fast. A blur. I can’t even say how.
Just the rage.
Just a swipe of my hand.
Then her eyes like saucers. And her hands at her throat. And the blood. God, the blood. Spilling over them. Between them.
I gasped. Stepped back.
I’d done what I had threatened to do to my childhood bullies long ago.
I think I wondered how it had happened.
Who had done it?
Me, I realised.
Me.
I wanted to help her, but I was scared. Scared to touch her, to be involved. But I was. I had done this.
It was quick. It really was. Victoria was gurgling and gasping and coughing. But not for long, I don’t think. Maybe minutes. And the blood. Yes, that. God, the blood. I’ve never seen so much. It was gushing from her neck. Horrible. Such a mess. Yes, a mess.
She slumped a bit, and kept grabbing her tummy, and I thought, Oh, the baby.
I wanted to undo it. To save that baby. To save her. I did. God, I did. But I panicked. I stepped back, didn’t want to touch her, or all that blood. She fell onto her knees, I think. Stopped gasping. Her hand was on her belly the whole time.
And then she was still.
I might have waited for minutes, I don’t know. I didn’t want to just leave Victoria, all vulnerable like that. Or her poor baby. I cried for that baby. I did. But I couldn’t stay there.
I put the coat over her.
Over them.
Then I left the alley with the broken perfume bottle in my pocket, and no star stopper.
God, I feel sick.
Oh, God … I hope you can … I don’t know… I hope you can understand. Mum, you should understand more than anyone. You should. Tom … Oh, Tom … it was all for you. That is no excuse at all, but it is the reason. Please don’t try and make this better for me. Don’t. I know you will try to, but don’t. Let me take the punishment I must. Let me take the storm I deserve.
God.
I don’t quite know what to do now. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing, and someone is trying to break down the door.
Shit. What have I done? What have I done?
I think I should leave. Yes. I’m going off air now. I’m going to … I don’t know. This really is my final show now. These are my last words to you. I’ve been playing your lives for five years. Tonight, it was mine.
So … I guess this is goodbye.
I’m going to have to face the music now.’
40
STELLA
THEN
The last night I slept on Sandra’s thin bed with the purple-and-pink crocheted blanket atop, I was afraid. I would never have admitted it to anyone; I could barely admit it to myself. But now, when I look back at that girl curled up on her bed with a perfume bottle next to her – its star stopper glinting in the weak light of the bedside lamp – I know that she was terrified.
I was leaving home the following morning. I was nineteen and about to begin my training with Stephen Sainty at WLCR. I’d beaten sixteen other girls in the interview, and still couldn’t believe it. They had been vivacious creatures with overly styled hair and crisp suits. I’d worn my favourite jeans and pink shirt and tripped up over the step on the way in, dropping the pages of my CV all over the floor. I’d tried to scoop them up while ignoring rows of judgemental eyes appraising my windswept locks.
‘You have that certain something,’ Sandra had insisted when I excitedly told her about my success. ‘The French call it je ne sais quoi.’ She studied me intently. ‘Stella, you do. Your mother was a beauty, and though you don’t look much like her, you’ve got that … that life to you. I can’t lie and tell you you’re pretty. But you are different.’
She hadn’t mentioned my mum in a long time, and we both instantly realised this; we both changed the subject.
‘When do you—’ she said at the same time as I said, ‘I don’t know when—’
Sandra then insisted I didn’t need to leave home yet; just because I’d got the dream job didn’t mean I had to go anywhere. She had turned her nose up at the studio flat I’d decided to move into, alone. She had viewed it with me a week earlier, sniffing at the damp air with disdain and running her fingers over the dusty surfaces.
‘I want to leave home,’ I’d
insisted. ‘I’m ready to do things alone.’
But I wondered if she could see through my brave façade.
How easy it would have been to stay with Sandra. To continue letting her feed me and fuss over me. To sleep in the safety of her back room, sheltered from the real world, depending on her to run my life, pay the bills and remind me when I had to do anything. But I no longer wanted easy. I was restless for more, even if it was going to be difficult.
On my last night there, I hardly slept at all.
I heard Sandra make her Horlicks and take it up to bed. I eventually heard her gentle snoring. I got up and opened my window. It was early April and the cool air kissed my skin, raising goose bumps. How many times over the years had I stood there at midnight, letting the frost freeze my feelings and wondering what it would be like if I climbed over the ledge and let go? Wondering whether I would fall and smash into pieces on the ground below or would somehow fly, float up to the stars that I had reached out to touch so often?
Now I sat on the ledge, a hand on either side of the window frame, my back to the outside world. I tested how far back I dared lean. I was surprised at myself. Then I let go with my right hand. How easy it would have been to let go with the left.
But I was excited about my new job and my new flat, even if it was tiny and stank of garlic.
I had one of my curious gut feelings then.
It hit me so hard I had to grab onto the window frame again, with both hands.
It left me gasping for air.
Not yet, it said. Don’t let go yet. You have so much coming. There are things coming that you don’t want to miss. Your life is only just starting. You don’t know everything there is to know yet. Just take the star perfume with you wherever you go…
I went back to my bed. By the time the sun’s rays were lazily climbing the walls, I had already packed the few things I owned into four boxes. Some of Sandra’s friends had donated an old sofa and an armchair, and she had been buying me pots and pans and tea towels, so I had enough to make do for now.
Sandra had made a pot of tea and was sitting at the kitchen table waiting for me. She looked like she had been crying. I was the fairy-tale child left by a wicked mother. She had kept me like Rapunzel in a tower, protected from the world. She had done more for me than any blood parent could, and I would never forget it.
