The Mother's Mistake: A totally gripping psychological thriller

by Ruth Heald

  I pull away.

  * * *

  I get a taxi over to Emma’s. She’s waiting for me outside her flat, shivering in a short skirt and thin coat, umbrella held up against the rain. As she scoots into the car, I notice how her necklace and earrings perfectly match her shoes and bag.

  ‘You look gorgeous,’ I say.

  ‘You too. I love the dress.’

  I touch the shiny material of my dress and realise it’s risen up, small creases forming over my stomach. I tug at it self-consciously, pulling it down.

  We jump out of the taxi at the station and buy our tickets from the machine. We chat as we cross the bridge to the platform. The train pulls in as we’re on our way down the stairs.

  ‘Come on,’ Emma says. It will be ages till the next one.’ She takes the steps two at a time, her heels click-clacking as she runs, her bag bouncing up and down on her shoulder. I stumble behind her, trying to keep pace, my ankle still not quite recovered from when I fell in the loft.

  Emma gets to the bottom of the steps as the train doors start beeping, about to shut. She slips inside, holding her skinny arm between the doors so they stay open for me. They almost close on her, but she pushes them further apart so there is a small gap that I can squeeze through. We both laugh, breathless, ignoring the other passengers and their feigned indifference.

  We weave through the carriage to two seats together at the other end and sink down into them. The bright lights overhead highlight the imperfections on the faces around us. Shadowed eyes, concealed spots, smeared mascara, dandruff. There are two groups on the train tonight. Tired commuters with headphones and sunken eyes. And the twenty-somethings on their way into London for the evening, make-up still fresh, eyes not yet glazed.

  Emma pulls a vodka bottle out of a Sainsbury’s bag, with a smile.

  ‘I thought we could pre-load.’

  I raise my eyebrows.

  ‘Seriously?’ I laugh but there’s nothing I want more than to take the alcohol from her and feel the burn in my throat.

  ‘Drinks in the pub are expensive. And I want to have a big night… don’t you? I need to let my hair down.’

  ‘I do too.’ I try not to think about the promise I made Matt earlier.

  ‘Yeah, you do. After everything that’s happened.’

  Emma opens the bottle and takes a swig. The suited man across from us looks up from his newspaper.

  ‘Pass it here then.’ I grasp the cold bottle between my hands, lift the neck to my mouth and take a gulp. The spirit stings as I swallow, but it feels great.

  ‘We’re free,’ Emma says. ‘Is Matt staying the night?’

  ‘Yes. On the sofa bed.’

  ‘So both of us have zero parental responsibility. Tonight we’re not mothers. We’re people.’

  I smile. Emma is right. Without Olivia I can be myself.

  She takes another swig and passes it to me.

  ‘Cheers to that,’ I say, as I lift the bottle.

  * * *

  The music pulses through my body; I can feel the vibrations in my bones. My heart beats faster as I let the beat overcome me. I close my eyes and absorb the sound, lifting one hand high in the air, the other clasping my beer. I throw my head back, feeling my hair sway from side to side against my neck.

  Emma dances opposite me, weaving in and out, towards me then away again. I know this song. It’s one of my favourites. I shout out the chorus to Emma and she sings it back.

  I’m on air. Free. Free of Matt and all his lies. Free of my screaming baby. I’m not a mum tonight. I’m myself. The woman I want to be. I grab Emma’s hand and swing her round, feeling elated. My arm knocks into someone. Cold skin. Before I know it I knock into someone else. I feel my heels slip on the floor and I stumble to the left and laugh. My wrist is wet. I must have spilt my drink. I laugh again. I am drunk. I am free.

  I’m going to feel rubbish in the morning, but I don’t care. This evening, this moment, belongs to me. Dizzy and sweaty and out of control.

  I look at my watch. The hands are blurry and I try to focus. It’s dark in here and I pull it closer to my face, holding it up to the strobe lights. It’s half past eleven. I should really text Matt and let him know I’ll be home later than planned. There aren’t many trains after midnight, but there is a bus. I unzip my bag and ferret around for my phone. I feel the cold plastic. There it is. I hold it close to my face to enter the passcode. It doesn’t work. Fat fingers. I try again, stabbing at the digits. Still doesn’t work. I try one more time before I give up, chucking my phone back into my bag. Why do I even care about Matt? He wasn’t thinking about me when he was cosying up with Sarah.

  I look up and realise I’m on my own. Where’s Emma? A tap on my shoulder and I turn my head. My vision blurs, the strobe lights dance crazily and I think I might lose my balance. Emma! Emma’s lips move, but all I can hear is the beat of the music. My head hurts with the effort of trying to lip read.

  Emma leans in closer, and shouts in my ear, spittle landing on my cheek. ‘Do you want another drink?’

  I still have a beer bottle in my hand. I tip it up and hold it to my mouth. The last few drops slip down my throat.

  ‘Yes!’ I shout back.

  She turns and heads away from me as the DJ changes the song.

  The first few beats trigger a memory of university. It was my all-time favourite song when I was eighteen. I shout out the lyrics to whoever is around me. I feel arms wrap around my waist from behind and a man grinding against me. I turn my head slightly to see his face. His beard grazes my neck, as he leans down as if to kiss me. I turn my head around and move to the music, then wriggle free and away from him.

  The room is spinning. Or am I spinning? Maybe both. I giggle. Who cares?

  Another man appears and starts dancing opposite me, copying my movements. They are caving in on me. I’m vulnerable. Drunk. His face is a blur. Two of him. Then three. I need to slow down.

  I need the toilet. I’m going to be sick.

  Where are the toilets? I stumble across the dance floor, unable to keep my footing in my heels. No one moves to let me pass and I knock into people and push others aside. The bodies are getting closer and closer together, crammed into the space, moving as one in time to the music. I keep going, as the crowd gets denser. The dance floor goes on forever. I thought the toilets were this way, but now I’m not so sure. I bump into something hard and reach out to touch my head where I banged it. I’ve walked into my own reflection in the mirror that runs the length of the wall. I stare at myself. My eyes are bloodshot and I lift my hand to my smudged mascara. The reflection follows. It’s really me. I look a mess. My pretty silver dress has a long wet patch working its way from my stomach down my leg. Behind me the dance floor convulses.

  I need to find the toilets. I look round and see the neon sign on the other side of the room. I start heading back the way I came. Where does the dance floor end? The DJ plays a bigger beat and the clubbers become a mass of moving limbs, bouncing into each other as they move left, right, up, down. Gaps between bodies open and then close again. I need to get out. To get to the toilet. People spin around in all directions. Sweaty limbs brush against me and the heat and the noise is too much. I walk as straight as I can, stumbling as I bounce off one body after another.

  I push harder. I need to get out. I knock into someone and pause to watch his beer bottle lift out of his hand and tumble down, beer fountaining over his trousers and white trainers. His angry face glares, his lips move aggressively. I can’t hear him above the music. I look away. Where’s the exit? The music’s so loud. Where am I going anyway? Don’t I like this song? Should I dance?

  The toilet. I need the toilet.

  I keep going, not sure if I’m going the right way, or just walking round in circles. Students in jeans and T-shirts swig from beer bottles as they watch two girls kiss. Haven’t I seen them before? Yes. This is the wrong way. I turn and head the other way. I barge through the centre of a hen party, dancing haphazardly
around their bags. The hen has a sash round her, and horns. Her dress is stained. Her mother dances beside her swigging from a bottle of Prosecco. My foot catches something. A bag strap.

  I’m flying through the air. And then landing. A soft body breaks my fall and hands claw at me before the girl falls over into the person next to her and clubbers fall like dominoes. I laugh from my viewpoint on the floor.

  Sudden pain. My foot. My bad ankle is twisted at an improbable angle. It should hurt more than it does. I laugh to myself. I’m lucky.

  A girl is limping towards me. She’s shouting, but there’s no way anyone could hear her above the music. It’s the bridesmaid from the hen party. She retrieves her handbag from the floor beside me and glares, her face close to mine.

  ‘Bitch,’ she spits in my face.

  There’s too much going on. Too many people. Too much noise. Too much everything.

  I try to stand up but my legs crumple beneath me. I put my hand on the sticky floor and push myself up. I wobble and nearly go over again. Why did I wear these heels?

  Emma appears beside me with a bottle of wine.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asks.

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ I say, swaying.

  ‘Drink up, it will make you feel better.’

  She hands me the bottle and the weight of it makes me stumble off balance. Wine spills over my arm and dress. I lift my arm to my mouth and lick off the alcohol. Emma holds my elbow to steady me, takes the bottle from me and swigs it, wine dripping into her cleavage. I reach out my hand to take it back. Emma puts the neck of the bottle to my lips and tips it up. The alcohol cascades into my mouth faster than I can swallow, and spills over my dress. I laugh, not caring.

  I haven’t gone. I couldn’t in the end. The shelter wasn’t the right place for us.

  I’m still planning to leave. But I want to take time to find the right place to go to. I’m thinking of a B&B in Scotland, far away from my life here. It will just take me a bit of time to arrange.

  I phone the helpline. I want to say goodbye. I want to tell her that my daughter and I are going to be OK. I’ve got it all figured out. And I want to thank her.

  ‘Hello?’ I can hear the surprise in her voice. I guess she thought that once we’d left I wouldn’t need to ring.

  ‘It’s me.’

  ‘Are you at the shelter?’

  ‘No. I—’

  ‘Why not? You need to leave. It’s not safe.’ I hear the alarm in her voice and remember that she does care about me.

  ‘I’m fine. Don’t worry. I’m still going to leave. I just need a bit of time to find somewhere. Not a shelter. Somewhere a bit nicer.’

  ‘You can’t do that. You need to leave now.’

  ‘Honestly, we’ll be fine.’

  ‘Listen to me. You need to leave this evening. You’re not safe any more. Not now you’ve been through his study. Not now you know what he’s done. If he finds out, you’ll be in trouble. And who knows what he’ll do to you then.’

  I feel a familiar fear rise in me. What if she’s right? What if he really hurts me? What if he hurts my daughter?

  ‘I haven’t found somewhere to go yet.’ The excuse sounds feeble. I was supposed to leave two days ago. I’d promised her.

  ‘You have to go to the shelter. Tonight. If you want to go to a B&B after, I’m sure they’ll help you. But you need to get yourself and your daughter out of that house as soon as possible.’

  Perhaps she’s right. It can’t be that bad at the shelter. I must protect my daughter. ‘OK,’ I say. ‘I’ll leave tonight.’

  I hear her sigh of relief. ‘Do you promise?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK. Well leave as soon as you can. Before your husband gets home. Don’t stay a moment longer.’

  ‘I will do.’

  ‘You’re doing the right thing.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘Without you, I don’t think I could do this.’ I feel an overwhelming surge of gratitude towards her. She’s helped me escape.

  I hear a gulp on the other end of the line and I realise I’ve upset her.

  ‘Can I still call you if I need to?’ I ask. I don’t want to lose our friendship. I’ve come to rely on her. She means so much to me now.

  ‘You can always ring,’ she says. ‘Any time.’

  Thirty

  My cheek is cold. I shiver, reaching out to pull the covers over me, but my hand meets colder air. I adjust my position, turning my head.

  I moan. Everything hurts. Every limb.

  My cheek feels like it’s rubbing against sandpaper. I wince as I try to move my head. It feels bruised and heavy.

  I should open my eyes, but I don’t want to. I can feel the light beating on the backs of my eyelids and I don’t want to face it. It must be morning. Why is the light so bright? Where’s Olivia?

  It’s cold. So cold. I just want to go back to sleep.

  I try to turn over again and my elbow hits something hard.

  I open my eyes slowly.

  I’m outside, lying on stone steps. I must still be dreaming. Maybe if I let myself doze off, then I’ll wake up again back in my own bed.

  I lie still. Cold stone against my cheek. My limbs hugging myself, in the foetal position, my muscles stiff. I touch my cheek. Wetness. Blood? Tears? Have I been crying?

  I can smell sour milk. My breasts are heavy. I’ve leaked over my dress and the step and now the two are stuck together. I pull at the edges of my dress gently until it comes away, taking some of the dust with it.

  What’s happened? Where am I?

  Painfully, I ease myself into a sitting position. My ankle throbs and I can see it’s swollen. I’m in a huge stone doorway. In front of me a short driveway leads to a road. I shiver. I’m not wearing my coat. I look around and see it behind me, wedged against the wall. I must have used it as a pillow.

  My vision is fuzzy. The daylight is too bright.

  I stand, leaning on the stone wall for support. I’m so thirsty. My knees buckle. I press my hands against the wall to pull myself back up and straighten my dress. It has a long dark stain running down the front. When I run my hands over the back, they come off covered in dirt. What’s happened to me?

  My coat is filthy, but I shake it and shrug it on. It’s freezing cold. I need a bath. I need to get home.

  Where am I? Where’s Olivia?

  I stumble down the steps, turn around and look behind me. A church. I’ve slept in a church doorway.

  I was out with Emma. I was enjoying myself. I cringe as I remember the feel of the alcohol cascading down my throat. Then what?

  Nothing. Darkness.

  I blacked out. Just like the old days.

  I’m a mother now. I can’t behave like this.

  I don’t want to think about it now. I just need to get home to Olivia and Matt.

  My handbag is back at the top of the steps, in the corner of the church doorway. I wince as I put weight on my ankle to climb the steps. Then I reach down and undo my shoes. It’s freezing but it’s easier to walk in my tights than in heels with my bad ankle.

  I unzip my handbag. Purse, phone, door keys, make-up. Everything’s here.

  I check inside my purse. All my bankcards are there, plus a twenty pound note. I haven’t been mugged. I’ve done this to myself.

  I look at my watch. The face is scratched from sleeping on the steps. The hands say eight o’clock. That can’t be right.

  I pull my phone out of my bag. Dead.

  I have no idea where I am.

  I walk unsteadily down the driveway, shoes in my hand, bag over my shoulder. I run my other hand over my hair. It’s one enormous tangle. My tights are torn.

  I should call a taxi but I have no phone battery left.

  I get to the road and look both ways. Houses seem to go on for miles. I choose left and start walking. My feet tear through my tights and collect dirt and tiny stones from the pavement. I can hardly feel my toes, they’re so numb.

  I have to get home. I
pass a man and ask him for directions to the nearest station or bus stop. I’m too ashamed to ask him where I am.

  He looks me up and down before he reluctantly tells me to turn right at the end of the road.

  I see the red and blue sign of the underground in the distance. I’m still in London. I haven’t even made it back to Oxford.

  Suited commuters are streaming into the station, confirmation that it’s morning. I’ve been apart from Olivia for a whole night. My breasts ache, full of milk. I feel horribly guilty.

  I peer at the sign on the station. Leyton. East London.

  I go inside the cab office next to the station.

  ‘How much to Paddington?’ I ask. I can’t face the Tube during rush hour. But I can get the train from Paddington. It should be quieter going out of London.

  ‘Sixty,’ the woman behind the desk says. ‘And it will be an hour’s wait. All our drivers are out.’

  I can’t wait. I need to get home now. I’ll have to take the Tube.

  In the cramped carriage, a woman in a trouser suit eyes my ripped tights and short dress warily. An older woman to my right shuffles away from me, placing her hand over the top of her handbag. A young man sniffs and then coughs. The alcohol is sweating out of me. A wave of shame washes over me.

  I think of Olivia. I think of how angry Matt will be. How I’ve proved his mother right. How I’ve let myself down. I feel the tears welling up and I let them tumble down my face.

  I cling to the handrail as the train lurches out of the platform. If I was freezing before, now I feel hot and sweaty and sick. Each jerk brings a fresh wave of nausea. I want to get off, rest for a bit, but I know I need to get home to Olivia. I feel vomit rise in my throat and I swallow it back down. I look at the red line snaking across the Tube map above me. I try to count the stops, but the mental effort exhausts me and makes me feel more sick. I close my eyes and try not to think. Instead I focus on the patches of light floating around on the backs of my eyelids. They are all sorts of colours. Red, yellow, blue.

  Focus. Focus on the blackness of your eyelids. Focus on trying not to vomit. Focus on staying upright. Focus on not collapsing. Focus on not crying.