by B P Walter
I took the stairs quickly, my wet hair sending channels of water coursing down my neck and into the sides of the dressing gown. As I got near the lounge, I made out more words in what seemed to be a diatribe from Jessica.
‘You think you’re so cool? So fucking important? I’ve seen the way you act around the mums at school. And so have my friends. And I try to be all fine with it and make myself think it’s cool to have a dad that both my friends’ mums and my actual friends want to fuck, but I never thought you’d actually… actually…’
I stopped dead still in the middle of the lounge, but my presence had been noticed. Alec was facing my direction and I saw his eyes widen. Jessica noticed and turned around. I must have looked a bit strange standing there, my dressing gown wrapped around me, but I couldn’t move. I could barely utter a word.
‘What?’ Jessica yelled at me. ‘Are you here to tell me to calm down? That it’s all in my head?’
I managed to raise a hand, trying to get her to stop. ‘Darling, I’m not sure what you’ve heard or what… what this is about, but I think you should—’
‘Should what?’ she cut me off. ‘Should just shrug and move on? Get on with my schoolwork and stop worrying what my parents are up to?’
I saw her cheeks were becoming flushed, her lashes glistening with tears as she looked at me, and I struggled to keep eye contact with her. ‘I think you should stop shouting.’
She looked like she was going to do the opposite – start properly shrieking at me like she had been at her father mere seconds ago, but she took me by surprise. She raised both hands to her face and rubbed her eyes, as if she were exhausted and just wanted to go to bed. ‘God… I’m just so tired of…’
She didn’t finish the sentence, just dropped her arms and went to push past me. I took her arm and held on, trying to stop her, but she shook me off. She snapped at me to let her go, but I had to know: ‘What do you mean? Tired of what?’
‘Everyone,’ she said and then, almost imperceptibly as she left the room, ‘and their secrets.’ Her words jolted me. I followed her, calling up the stairs, asking her what she meant. What secrets? But she didn’t reply. Just slammed her door.
The next day, she left for Somerset. She was civil in the morning, offering me some coffee from the machine as I came into the kitchen, but she clearly had something on her mind. I helped her with her bag, kissed her goodbye as I dropped her at the station, telling her to text me once she was there. She rolled her eyes as she normally did and gave me a smile. But it wasn’t one of her bright, cheery smiles that told me she was off to conquer the world. It was slightly distant. Slightly sad. A complicated shadow of a smile from someone wise beyond her years. I almost asked her again then, asked her about what she meant by ‘secrets’. How much she knew about what her father was up to. How she found out. What triggered last night’s blow-up. But I didn’t. I just hugged her and waved her on her way. Then she was gone through the station doors, her bag on her arm, phone in her hand. And I never saw her again.
Chapter Nine
The Mother
May. Three months after the attack.
I drive home in a daze, my thoughts still reverberating around Jessica’s last day at home. The things she said. The look on Alec’s face as she shouted at him. I stop at a McDonalds on my way through Kent and sit in the corner with a box of chicken nuggets. A family sit nearby at one of the table booths, laughing and chatting. The children look about eleven or twelve. One girl and one boy. The mum is showing the girl something on her phone, to which the girl responds, ‘That’s an awful photo!’ The boy laughs at it, which seems to enrage the girl at first, but she ends up laughing too.
Maybe things would have been easier if Alec and I had managed to have another child. We haven’t mentioned it, since the disaster happened, but it’s there between us – an awareness of our loss, and the lack of focus that makes us feel as if we’re now drifting through time rather than actually doing anything to aid our grief.
I find myself fantasising about how different life could have been all the way home. If we’d had a younger sibling for Jessica. Another little girl, perhaps, or a boy. Would things be better or worse with another child in the house? Or is that selfish of me to wish such a thing, knowing full well the brutal murder of their sister would quite possibly scar them in a deep, visceral way for the rest of their life?
Alec’s on the sofa when I walk in, stretched out in his skinny jeans and a Nike T-shirt, a can of Coke Zero lying empty near his feet. It’s probably good I don’t have another teenager – I have one right here, I think to myself.
‘I fell asleep,’ he says, by way of a greeting.
‘So I see.’ I don’t hang around for a chat, but instead grab some water with ice and leave to go upstairs. ‘We’re still going to the party,’ I call back to him.
A couple of hours later, we’re in the car, on our way to Denise’s. Alec’s not pleased about it. He’s got a few choice phrases he’s been trotting out throughout our time getting changed, locking the house, getting into the car. ‘Too soon’ is his favourite. And ‘madness’ has also been said at least twice. If he doesn’t speak, he just shakes his head, as if marvelling privately to himself at someone’s – my – great folly.
As the car glides, almost silently, along the country lanes and back into the edges of suburbia, I become gradually aware of a mounting sense of panic inside me. Maybe he’s right. He’s pissing me off, but maybe there’s some truth in what he’s saying. Maybe it is too early. I spoke to Laini about my plan to come to the party in my recent session and she was fairly positive about the idea. ‘If you feel able to try it, do it. Listen to your mind, Caroline. You don’t need to go for long. Try it and see how you feel.’
So here I am, trying it. Seeing how I feel. Denise answers the door with a smile that very quickly disappears into a look of shock. If I were in a less anxious mood I’d find it comical. She clearly didn’t expect me to come. I sent her an email to say we were and she responded, claiming she and Craig were so glad we’d be there, but it’s obvious now she never really thought Alec and I would follow through and actually come. But here we are, clutching a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates, waiting to enter her home.
She recovers quickly. ‘Caroline, Alec! How lovely it is to see you.’ Quick kisses and hugs. I can almost feel her brain whirring. She doesn’t know whether to repeat how sorry she is. It was the first thing she said to me the last time I met her. I tried to go for a coffee with her and another friend a few weeks after Jessica’s death. It was a mistake. I cried in the loos for most of it, then left without properly saying goodbye. And because of that abrupt ending, she’s not quite sure if she’s expressed enough sorrow and understanding. She settles for a squeeze of my arm and proceeds to lead us into the house.
Denise’s home is almost offensively gorgeous. She’s never been poor, but ten years ago she divorced her second husband and ended up £2 million richer. Throw into that a surprisingly well-paid column for the Daily Mail, an agony-aunt position in a woman’s magazine, and the jolt of a new, younger, and extremely attractive husband, and the results are plain to see. She and her home seem to glow in unison.
‘It looks like a luxurious orphanage,’ Alec murmurs to me. ‘You know, like the one you’d get in The BFG or Annie, but done up for a millionaire.’
I smile in spite of myself and put my finger to my lips, hoping Denise hasn’t heard. She’s touchy about the subject of children, ever since her two kids decided it was more fun living at their father’s townhouse house in Islington rather than out in the suburbs of Kent. Howie, her son, comes back most weekends to play rugby, but I think Annabelle, still only about twelve, has barely visited. And Denise is quietly cut-up about it.
After the meet and greet, it’s obvious she’s a bit unsure what to do with us, so we come to rest by a table of drinks and food. She has professional caterers in, as I presumed she would, and she thanks us for the wine and chocolate – ‘So kind of you,
you shouldn’t have’ – and then there’s a terrible awkward silence. Alec shows no signs of coming to my, nor Denise’s, rescue and eventually I say, pathetically, ‘You’ve been blessed with good weather.’ My weird phrasing makes me sound like someone out of The Handmaid’s Tale. Automatically the three of us glance out to the far end of the living room, where a large lawn filled with huddles of people chatting and drinking can be seen. The evening light casts a warm golden glow over the whole thing and under any other circumstances my spirits would have been high. I love summer evenings. Especially early summer, when the heat is still new and people encourage it rather than moan about it, cherishing each ray, each baking-hot day as if it might be the last.
‘Yes, it’s such a nice evening,’ she replies, then turns back. The awkward smile is there again. ‘Kirsten is in the kitchen, if you want to speak to her,’ she says.
I know she means well, but I can’t help feeling a little offended. Is she really so desperate to group together all the ‘difficult’ guests so early on in the evening? Put them in a corner so they don’t frighten the others away?
‘So awful, isn’t it, what happened with her husband,’ Denise says in a hushed tone, then adds quickly, ‘Of course, not as awful as… I’m sorry, I just meant…’
‘I know what you meant, don’t worry,’ I nod and attempt a smile. I can feel Alec draw in a pointed breath and transfer his weight onto another leg. He’s right. This is painful.
‘I mean, nobody had a clue. To be honest, looking back, it doesn’t surprise me he was having an affair. Never trusted him, not really. He had shifty eyes, and I once witnessed him listening to a Hear’Say song in his car as he was parking outside Waitrose. Very odd behaviour.’
She finishes saying all this, then slips a little stick laden with cheese and olives into her mouth. I’m aware Alec has some strong opinions on the matter of Kirsten’s cheating violent husband, so I try to steer the conversation away and remark how lovely all the food looks, but Denise presses on. She’s clearly been a bit starved of gossip while I’ve been out of action. ‘I watched a news report about it only the other night. Well, it was actually about how that awful show’s viewing figures have tripled since one of their cast members – can you call them cast, if they’re not acting? – anyway, since one of their number was caught shagging a guy in a club and then tried to kill her boyfriend. I know she’s dropped out, but apparently their ratings are through the roof!’
I shake my head, ‘I don’t watch much TV. At least, not on the normal channels. Just Netflix, really.’
‘Oh really?’ Denise raises her eyebrows and looks both impressed and disconcerted, as if I’ve just revealed I can speak Japanese. ‘Well, I suppose that’s the way things are going, isn’t it? All on-demand these days. Apart from things like sport and the news.’
‘I don’t watch the news,’ I say, a little too quickly.
She looks instantly appalled. ‘Oh gosh, of course not. What a stupid thing to say.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I say for the second time. ‘Sorry, Denise, can I use your loo?’
The relief is immediately evident. ‘Of course you can, come this way.’ She marches off and I turn to Alec and pull a face. ‘Just get a drink or something. We won’t be staying long.’
I follow Denise’s departing figure, saying ‘Excuse me’ to the guests as I slide past, trying not to catch anyone’s eye in case I meet someone who recognises me. ‘Here we go,’ she says when I’ve caught up. I thank her and duck into the predictably beautiful bathroom. I don’t actually need the toilet, but I lock the door and settle down on the seat regardless, and pull out my phone. A familiar sense of unease is tugging at me inside. I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t have come. Alec was right. How could this have been anything other than utterly awful? I tap the home button of the iPhone to wake the screen up and then almost drop it in shock when my daughter’s face comes into view. She’s smiling at me. The beach in Florida. Me and Alec next to her, our faces slightly obscured by the clock dial at the top. It takes me a few seconds to work out what’s happened, the numbers distorted through the slightly cracked screen. This is Jessica’s phone. I must have picked it up instead of mine from the bedside table. The models are identical – both iPhone 8s – the large, plus-size version with a glossy back. It’s fully charged and even has a 4G signal. Neither Alec nor I have cancelled her phone contract. It’s tied up with ours as one big O2 package and all comes out of our joint account each month.
I go to the lock screen and tap in her birthday as a password, feeling a wave of triumph when it works first go. Faced with the array of apps, I’m now at a loss what to do. Eventually I tap on her photo album and a colourful collection of stills and videos unfurls. I scroll through a few, my heart beating hard each time her face appears. Then something hits me. The WhatsApp icon. Its green speechmark shape, glowing in front of me. I trawl the app, looking for clues from her friends as to why she might have been in Stratford on the day of the attack. And there’s the iMessenger app – the way Jessica and I usually communicated. But there’s one I haven’t thought of. Hurriedly, I swipe through the app screens until I get to the penultimate page. And there it is. The Facebook Messenger icon. I tap it immediately and her chats come up – a menu of faces. A lot of them are unread, their words still in bold next to their faces:
I know you can’t read this now, Jessica, but I just wanted to message and say how much you meant to me
A girl named Suzanne Randall had written. I never heard Jessica mention her. The same could be said for the endless people who’ve written publicly on her Facebook wall. I had to stop looking at it in the days after her death. It made me so angry to see people I was sure didn’t even know my daughter – who probably just sat in the same classroom with her or brushed past her in the corridor – write long essays explaining how devastated they were she was no longer part of their lives. Devastated? They didn’t even know the meaning of the word. They didn’t have a clue.
I’m about to close the app and put the phone away when one of the messages catches my eye.
I’ll always love you. I’ll never forgive myself. I’m sorry.
It’s from a boy. His face isn’t very clear in his profile picture, but I can tell he’s quite good looking. Olive-tanned skin, short hair. Michael Kelley is his name. I click on the message so I can see the full conversation, reading it in reverse order:
I’ll always love you. Always.
* * *
Jessica, please. This is honestly killing me.
* * *
Tell me you’re not hurt.
* * *
Please. I get that you’re probably mad. I’m really sorry. I can explain why I didn’t meet you. Please can you just tell me you got home safe. Please?
They’re dated the day of the Stratford terrorist attacks. The day she died. And then I get to the sent messages from her. Loads of them, with no reply from him between them.
I can’t believe you’d just leave me here and not tell me. I lied to my parents about coming here. Couldn’t you just tell me that you’re running late? Where are you?
* * *
OK… It’s nearly an hour since we were supposed to meet… Have I got the right place? At the chairs near the sandwich shop? Getting a bit worried now.
* * *
Is everything OK? Have you been held up?
* * *
Hi, I’ve been here for twenty mins now and haven’t heard from you. I presume you’re stuck on a train or something.
* * *
I’m here – have you arrived or you still travelling?
* * *
Just getting into Stratford now. Can’t wait to see you. We’ve been talking about this for so long. SO excited we’re finally doing it.
I think I’m going to be sick. I am going to be sick. I slide off the toilet seat and spin round just in time to throw up into the bowl. Someone knocks on the door. ‘Caroline? Are you OK?’ It’s Alec. He’s probably pissed off I’ve left
him for so long. I try to answer but another load of nausea hits me. Then the tears start. They’re running down my face and my breathing becomes tight.
That boy stood her up. She didn’t go to Somerset. She went to Stratford to meet a boy. And he abandoned her. He was the reason she was there. It’s his fault.
I have to tell someone. I have to tell the world. I have to find him. Make him see what he’s done. I have to tell Alec. I scrabble to the door and unlock it and he bursts in. ‘Christ, Caroline, what’s wrong?’ He shuts it quickly behind him when he sees the state I’m in.
‘He left her!’ I shriek, not caring about the noise. I don’t give a fuck about Denise or her party guests. I just want to scream, to hurt, to break something. I’m scrabbling around on the floor, my face a mixture of tears and vomit. ‘He arranged to meet her there and he fucking left her. He’s the reason she’s dead!’
‘What? Who?’ Alec says, trying to pull me to my feet.
‘A boy,’ I say emphatically, as if this is enough. ‘She went there on a date to meet a boy. She was only there because he said he would meet her there, and he stood her up.’ I crouch back down on the floor, my hand feeling along the cold tiles for the phone. I grasp it tightly, smearing the screen with a fleck of vomit, but I don’t care. I unlock it and click on the profile picture of Michael Kelley so his tanned, grinning, oh-so-fucking-happy face fills the screen. ‘Him!’ I spit. ‘This is the boy who killed our daughter.’
