The Woman on the Pier

by B P Walter

  He turns his head towards me. ‘What?’ he says, looking completely baffled, as if I’ve spoken to him in Chinese.

  ‘Why are you here? Do you just come in and attack random single mothers at any house that takes your fancy?’

  ‘What?’ he says again. ‘Who the fuck are you? The police?’

  Part of me is tempted to say yes, but I decide it’s probably unwise.

  ‘That bitch up there has stolen my fucking coke,’ he says, rubbing his side where one of Michael’s kicks landed. ‘And a whole bag of weed. I thought she could do with a reminder of what happens to cunts what steal.’ He crunches one of his knuckles and raises his chin in a kind of upwards nod.

  ‘She was unconscious and you attacked her.’

  He looks mock shocked. ‘What? No, no. She walked into her door when she was going to fetch my cash. That’s all.’ He grins now. A vile grin. One that makes his face look fox-like. Cruel.

  ‘Christ,’ I say, ‘I’m going to call the police. Michael, Evan, go back into your rooms.’ I’m going into mother-in-emergency mode now, a role I was good at, once. ‘You,’ I say, pointing to the man, ‘can either stay and wait for them, or leave. I don’t think we’d be able to stop you. Although by the looks of the swelling of your ankle, I don’t think you’ll get very far.’ I nod down to his bare foot, noticing he isn’t placing much weight on it. ‘It can’t be a break, or you’d be screaming, but I think it’s sprained.’

  ‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ he shouts again, but I ignore him and turn to the boys. ‘Go back upstairs, both of you, now. See if your mother’s OK. I don’t think he’s going to manage to climb the stairs in his condition, but if he does, stay in your rooms.’

  ‘I want my fucking gear,’ he shouts.

  ‘Too bad,’ I say. As the boys retreat upstairs, following my demands like well-behaved dogs, I go into the lounge and start rooting down the side of the sofa to find my phone. Amidst a sandpit of crumbs, fluff, old coppers and something that feels suspiciously like a used condom, I find my iPhone. As I predicted, its battery is dead. ‘Shit,’ I say to myself. I start chucking stuff – magazines, empty pizza boxes – off the table and the sides of the sofa, looking for a landline. I finally locate one in the kitchen, but the cord has been broken – apparently chewed by something, maybe a rodent, from the looks of this dump – and there’s no dialling tone. I feel like sitting down on the sofa and crying. Then I hear the front door slam. Seconds later, I hear someone on the stairs. It’s both brothers. They come and stand in the lounge, as if waiting for further instructions. ‘He’s just left,’ Michael says.

  ‘I guessed,’ I say. ‘We couldn’t have held him here. Not without tying him up.’ I let out a little laugh as I say this. I can’t believe I’m in a situation where I’d even contemplate saying that sentence.

  ‘I could have done that,’ Michael says.

  ‘Honestly, it wouldn’t have been a good move,’ I say. I rub my eyes and try to focus on the two boys in front of me. Both of them look back at me, like lost sheep looking for their shepherd, and it’s clear what I’ve become to them: I’m a mother. A functioning one, a responsible one, one that deals with disasters and tells the young members of the family what to do.

  ‘We need to phone the police,’ I say.

  They both look uncomfortable. Neither of them speaks.

  ‘That means I need to use one of your phones. Mine’s dead.’

  They now share a glance.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I say, growing exasperated.

  ‘I don’t think we should call them,’ Michael says.

  I stare at him. ‘What? A minute ago you were trying to kick that piece of shit to death and now you want him to get away scot-free with what he’s done.’

  More silence.

  ‘Can someone please explain!’ I half-shout. This is getting too much.

  ‘It’s like I said,’ Michael mutters, not meeting my eye. ‘We can’t call the police or an ambulance, because they’ll work out what she’s been taking. What she takes all the time. The weed, the coke. The pills. She has heroin here, too. All kinds of shit. Needles. She keeps them in her old make-up bag. And we’ll be split up and won’t be able to live here.’

  I see what he’s worried about now. ‘Right. I get you. But… well, I’m not sure if that would really happen.’

  ‘It will.’ Michael says this adamantly. ‘I know kids it’s happened to.’

  ‘But… you’re not exactly kids…’ I’m not sure what I’m saying, but I carry on. ‘Michael,’ I say, and go forward to rest a hand on his shoulder. ‘This man did something terrible. Coming into the house, smashing up her room, attacking her in her sleep. We need to make sure she’s OK or take her to A&E, then speak to the police. No matter what your mum has done or what drugs she was on, she’s still a victim here. She’s innocent.’

  The boys share another look. I get the feeling there’s something going on here. Some part of this strange saga with their mother I don’t know about.

  ‘She’s not innocent,’ Michael says quietly.

  ‘She is when it comes to this,’ I say, keeping my hand on him. ‘She was passed out. I presume he had a key and let himself in?’

  They both nod. ‘Lots of them have keys,’ Evan says, his voice small and croaky.

  ‘God,’ I say. ‘And you live like this? With random men just letting themselves into your house?’

  ‘Yes,’ Michael says, simply.

  I don’t really know where to go from here. ‘Well, maybe I could just report him anonymously…’

  Michael is looking like he’s going to cry again now. ‘Please, can we just… I dunno… just forget about this.’

  I shake my head. ‘I can’t… I can’t just pretend none of this ever happened.’ I try to brush my hair out of my face, but use my bad arm by mistake. Pain shoots down my shoulder. I wince and take a sharp intake of breath.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Michael asks. It’s him touching me now, his hand gently resting on my good arm. ‘Do you need anything?’

  ‘I need to go back to my hotel. I didn’t bring enough painkillers. I didn’t think I’d be staying the night.’

  ‘We’ve probably got some paracetamol,’ he says.

  I try to smile. ‘That’s sweet, but I don’t think it’s going to quite do the job. I need something of more industrial strength than that. Can you call me a taxi?’

  Michael nods.

  ‘This isn’t over though,’ I say, looking at them both. ‘This can’t carry on. I know I’m not your parent and I know you’re worried about some sort of ramifications from social services or the police or something. But even if there were any, I think they’d be better than what you’ve got going on here. Do you understand?’

  They both nod.

  ‘OK. I need a phone for the taxi. And, while we wait, we need to help your mum. She might be concussed. And we can put a dressing on that scratch,’ I reach out and turn Michael’s cheek to the side so I can look at the wound. ‘Human scratches can very easily become infected, just like animal ones. Do you have any disinfectant?’ A silly question, I realise. They just stare at me, blankly. ‘OK, don’t worry. We’ll manage.’

  All three of us journey upstairs. On the landing, Evan says he’s going to carry on clearing his mum up. He says the bleeding has stopped and he doesn’t think her nose is broken. I nod and offer a small smile, grateful for this at least, and Michael and I go into the bathroom.

  With nothing else to hand, I order him to stand in the shower and use the flow of the nozzle to direct warm water in a stream across his cheek. ‘It stings,’ he grunts, but I tell him it will be over soon.

  ‘Do you have plasters or bandages?’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Right, er, do you have anything freshly washed or clean, or something that you could hold to it? Even a clean T-shirt or something.’

  He looks slightly offended. ‘We have clean clothes, you know. We’re not tramps.’

  I apolo
gise, even though, judging by the rest of the house, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to presume laundry wasn’t high on the agenda here. I follow Michael to his bedroom – a lot tidier than the rest of the house – and sit down on the side of his bed. It squeaks slightly, and the corner I’m sitting on goes down a little, as if one of the springs in the mattress has lost its strength. I reach out and hold onto its corner, to stop myself toppling off.

  Déjà vu. It’s always been a strange feeling. But I’ve never experienced it like this. Usually, you know something hasn’t happened before – it’s just a sensation, an edge of familiarity that lingers and makes you think you’re experiencing a recurrence. This isn’t like that. This is astonishing. The world glides slowly in front of my eyes, rippling slowly, then quicker, shuffling the shapes of the room into something new and yet not new. Michael, me, on this bed, someone pushing me. Shouting at me. And before. In the street. Falling over. Him coming towards me in the hotel. Fish and chips. Southend. Leaving home. Piccadilly. All those people dead. And me and Alec. Crying over the news reports. And a face. A face on the fridge. A name. Facebook. Michael Kelley. Michael Kelley. Michael Kelley.

  Jessica.

  And I’m back. And I’m looking at him. And I know.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he says. He looks at me. I look at him. ‘I’ve remembered. I’ve remembered everything. And now I know who you are. You’re the reason Jessica is dead.’

  Chapter Forty-One

  The Mother

  May. Three months after the attack.

  The realisation is cataclysmic. And my reaction is extreme. I start screaming. Shrieking. Flailing. Hitting out at Michael, knocking him back towards his bed, leaving me spinning in the room, not properly registering the pain shooting through my damaged body.

  ‘What do you mean? Hey, get off! What the fuck? What are you doing?’ He’s looking terrified.

  I can’t answer his question. I can’t even look at him. I just need to leave.

  I claw my way out of the room, pushing against the door as if I’ve lost the proper use of my hands. I can hear Michael calling after me, getting up off the bed, following me. I hurry to get down the stairs and tear the front door open. A wall of rain and wind hits me, bringing me sharply into the present. How could I have forgotten? Forgotten what he did. What he did to my baby.

  ‘Please! Caroline! You’re fucking stupid to go out in this.’ The sound of him yelling against the roar of the wind follows me as I walk out of the wreck of a front porch and into the street.

  ‘Hold on, I’ll come with you!’ he yells. I don’t wait.

  I know this is all my fault. That I was foolish to come here. Foolish to leave Kent and come looking for the boy. But it doesn’t dilute the rage I feel towards him. And that’s why I need to get away from him. Because if I stay, I don’t know what I’ll do. I just know that it would be worse than hitting and screaming.

  At the bottom of the road, where I had the crash and my life could have ended, I stop to get my breath back up against some tall recycling bins outside a boarded-up off-licence.

  ‘Caroline!’ I can hear someone approaching, and I crouch down by the bins as the sound of trainers scraping against the pavement alerts me to Michael’s arrival. The wind is still loud, but I try to keep my breathing quiet, in case he senses it above the din. I see, between the green plastic sides of the bins, that the boy, now dressed in his hoodie and tracksuit, is looking left and right, deciding which way I might have gone. Eventually he decides to turn right, the more natural direction of my hotel, towards the seafront. I wait until I see him disappear down another street.

  I’m aware that if I’m going back to the hotel at all, I need to aim for the seafront, so I navigate around the more direct route Michael must have taken, keeping to small streets and alleyways, inching around puddles and areas of flooding. Some roads I can’t go down at all due to fallen trees, a hazard to cars and pedestrians alike. I don’t know how long it takes me. I could have been walking for years and I wouldn’t know. My body is numb. My mind, lit up by the rush of adrenalin that came with the return of my memories, is now threatening to close down and stop. I’m thirsty. I’m hungry. I’m in pain. And catastrophically tired.

  When I see the warm, welcoming lights of a Tesco Express at the end of a street I almost cry with joy. When I walk in, I try to stand straighter, look like I’m a completely ordinary person out for an early – very early – trip to buy groceries during one of the worst storms the South-East of England has ever seen. ‘Morning,’ I croak at the shop assistant unpacking copies of the Radio Times. I go straight to the aisle of cosmetics and medication and select a pack of paracetamol and one of ibuprofen and take them to the counter, along with a bottle of water and a ready-made sandwich. ‘That will be £3.65, please,’ says the middle-aged man behind the counter. I feel in my pockets for my purse and discover nothing there but my phone. I must have left it at the house. Maybe on the makeshift bed where I slept. It’s probably joined the gritty, fluff-filled forest of lost items down the sofa by now. And I don’t have anything else. No bag. No cash. In a desperate attempt, I try holding out my iPhone to use Apple Pay on the contactless card machine, but the screen stays resolutely dead. That’s when I burst into tears. Proper, loud tears.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say, ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve come out without my purse. I’ll have to leave it.’ I turn towards the stormy street outside and the rain splashing against the shop-front, the luminous Tesco sign reflected in the water-soaked pavement.

  ‘Are you OK, love?’ he says, kindly. Normally I would have rather objected to the ‘love’, but I don’t have the energy today.

  ‘Er… yes,’ I sniff, trying to stop the tears from falling.

  ‘Have you been out in that downpour?’ He nods to the outside. As we both look, a big cardboard box skates on one of its points across the road, as if pulled by invisible string. It’s like the world’s been turned upside down.

  ‘Never seen anything like this,’ he says. ‘Been carrying on for weeks. In some areas they’ve called the army in, apparently. Because of the floods. We’ve had trouble getting some of our deliveries in. No celery to speak of for days, now.’

  I’m not sure what to say, so I just nod, and then the man turns back to my purchases.

  ‘Are you in pain?’ he asks, prodding at the pack of ibuprofen.

  I nod again, the tears still spilling down my cheeks. ‘I was in a car accident.’

  ‘Christ,’ he says. ‘Do you need me to call you an ambulance?’

  ‘No, no,’ I wave my hand. ‘It happened the other week. I’ve just got some lasting pain.’ My hand subconsciously starts rubbing my shoulder and the shop assistant’s eyes fill with what looks like pity.

  ‘Oh love, I’m sorry. Here, you take these…’ Out of his pocket he brings out a fiver and puts it in the till, then pockets the change. ‘Not supposed to do this, but seeing as you’re out in this storm all alone.’ He hands me the tablets and I continue to cry as I take them.

  ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ he says. ‘I see your phone’s not working. Do you need to call anyone?’

  I shake my head. ‘No. I’m… I’m heading for the seafront. Someone’s picking me up from there.’

  He looks even more concerned. ‘It really won’t be nice down there at the moment. You’ll get the weather in all its fury. I can call you a taxi…’

  ‘No, it’s fine.’ I hold up my hand. ‘Really. I’ll be fine.’

  He nods, still looking worried, and I thank him again and walk out of the shop.

  Once outside, I immediately tear open both packs of tablets and take two of each, then one more of ibuprofen, ignoring the recommended dose. I then take large bites of the sandwich, the cheese and ham filling tasting wildly delicious; a symptom of how hungry I must be, even after the takeaway last night. Then, after washing it all down with some water, I set off again, walking downhill towards the sea.

  Chapter
Forty-Two

  The Boy

  I heard her. I heard what she said to Michael. And that’s when I worked out what’s happened. How she found us. And why she thought it was him.

  Now she’s gone, and Michael has rushed out to find her. I walk through the house as if in a half-dream, not sure where I’m going or what I’m looking for, a confusion and a sadness and a red-hot anger starting to roar within me. On the outside I don’t make a sound, but my hand trembles with rage as I push open the door to the bedroom upstairs. Mum’s bedroom. The side of her face red from where the man slapped her. The sheets all tangled. The junk all over the floor. I hate it all. ‘It’s your fault,’ I say out loud, tears starting to run down my face. ‘It’s all your fault.’ Then I leave the room before I start smashing things. Because it’s true. If she hadn’t got off her face and tumbled down the stairs that day I was supposed to be going to Stratford, I would have left the house on time to go to the train station. If I hadn’t helped her upstairs and then taken her to the bathroom so she could be sick, things would have been different. Then, when she came to, she started swearing at me, thinking I was making a fuss, trying to make her ‘feel bad for being a shit mum’. I stayed silent, which wound her up even more. So she started saying stuff about Dad. About how I must miss him – miss his visits to my room. She said she was always so jealous that he was more interested in visiting my bed than hers. Then it was my turn to be sick. And then I had to go and lie under the covers in my room and try to stop myself from shaking, screaming, turning the whole house to dust and ruins. Of course, by this point, Jessica must have been waiting on that platform for a long time. At some point, she would have started to hear gunshots. Or perhaps shrieks of panic first. But of course, I didn’t know about any of that until later on in the evening, and then what I’d done truly hit home.

  Now, all these months later, with everything so fucked up and broken, I go over to my laptop, click onto Michael’s Facebook account and look at all our chats. Jessica and me. Everything we’ve said to each other. On Facebook, at least. All the early stuff happened on Circle. And I can’t look at that. Not now. It’s too much. I take my laptop over to my bed and scroll to one of the happier conversations we had. One where we imagined our lives together.