by B P Walter
JESSICA MACLEOD: I can’t say, I don’t want to jinx it.
* * *
MICHAEL KELLEY: Just imagine.
* * *
JESSICA MACLEOD: No, Evan, really. I get superstitious. But… well, if I did… I’d imagine us living somewhere warm. Away from the grey English weather.
* * *
MICHAEL KELLEY: Where?
* * *
JESSICA MACLEOD: Somewhere where there are seashells – massive ones – just lying on the sand for anyone to pick up. But people don’t pick them up. Because they’re beautiful where they are already.
* * *
MICHAEL KELLEY: God. I think I’m in love with you.
* * *
JESSICA MACLEOD: Haha I’m talking nonsense about seashells.
* * *
MICHAEL KELLEY: No you’re not talking nonsense. You’re saying the best things. Best I’ve ever had anyone say to me.
* * *
JESSICA MACLEOD: So, where would you like to live? If you had the choice.
* * *
MICHAEL KELLEY: Anywhere. Anywhere where you are.
* * *
JESSICA MACLEOD: ♥
* * *
MICHAEL KELLEY: I mean it. Somewhere where nobody would find us. And we’d grow old together. And die together.
* * *
JESSICA MACLEOD: Woah. We’re getting deep.
* * *
MICHAEL KELLEY: I mean it.
* * *
JESSICA MACLEOD: I know. I do too.
My tears as I read these messages make my pillow damp. My eyes blurry. But I don’t move. I just carry on reading. Until, finally, when the rain outside is at its loudest, I fall asleep.
Chapter Forty-Three
The Mother
May. Three months after the attack.
I reach the pier. I haven’t been along it since I was a young girl, here on one of our fleeting visits to England. I seem to remember it burning down at least once, maybe twice, since then. The sign in front of the steps leading up to it tells me that it won’t officially open for another four hours. I ignore this, and press ahead, trying the doors that lead to the foyer and the little shops selling postcards. They’re locked. I’m suddenly filled with an overwhelming need to be out in the open. To be surrounded by something bigger than myself, bigger than my own awful thoughts. I go round the side of the small building and find some fire exit steps leading round the back. The gate swings open easily – perhaps it’s been damaged in the storm – and I follow the steps up until I’m making my way onto the main walkway of the pier itself, which runs alongside the tracks of the little train that shuttles visitors who don’t wish to walk from one end to the other.
The rush of being out on a stretch of wood in the middle of the water is so strong, it takes me by surprise. It’s like water is hitting me from every angle, the waves below me too low to send much spray upwards, but their noise and the rain make it feel like I’m being immersed by them – in danger of being pulled away by the current to… where? Down the Thames? Out to sea? To a better life?
I don’t know how long I stay there, along the pier, having walked about a third of its length and now pressed up against the side, sobbing quietly to myself. If only my phone were working, I think as I grip its hard, solid mass in my pocket. I could phone Alec. Tell him to come and get me. Away from the rain, the wind, the sea, away from that boy who murdered our daughter. Who ripped her from our lives and sent us spiralling off into the worst nightmare a parent could possibly experience.
I slump down against the pier wall and imagine being in my warm bed, back home in Kent. Alec bringing me a cup of tea. Jessica, rushing in to tell me I haven’t signed a form for school, or do I know where her netball kit has got to? It makes me smile.
Then something pulls me out of my little trance. Someone calling my name. At first, I think I’m imagining it. But it gets louder and louder, then eventually I hear footsteps. I feel footsteps, vibrating beneath me. A man is running towards me from the start of the pier. No. Not a man. A boy. Michael Kelley.
‘What the fuck?’ he shouts when he reaches me. He’s still in his hoodie and tracksuit and they’re completely soaked against his slim frame. ‘Why are you sitting here? You’ll… die of cold or something.’
It’s only now I realise I’m shivering.
‘Come on. We need to leave,’ he says, holding out his hand. I look at it – his youthful skin, smooth fingernails, one of them slightly jagged where he’s torn it or bitten it. Then I take his hand with my good arm and allow him to help me up.
‘How did you find me?’ I ask once I’ve got to my feet.
‘I saw you trying the entrance. Thought you’d come back to the street once you realised it was closed, but you disappeared round the back. Figured you’d found a way to get onto the pier.’
I don’t say anything. Just stare down at the soaked wooden floor and his waterlogged trainers.
‘Why did you start attacking me? Why did you hit me like that and scream like a madwoman? What have I done? What did I do to upset you?’
His baffled expression pulls at something inside me. It makes me want to hug him, comfort him, tell him everything is going to be all right. But it also makes me want to punch him, throttle him, make him suffer for not putting two and two together and realising what’s destroying me from the inside out. What he caused to happen.
‘You killed my daughter.’ I say the words as strongly as I can against the shrieking wind.
He looks completely thrown, his eyebrows disappearing into his wet, sandy-blond fringe that’s falling over his forehead.
‘What the fuck are you talking about? You told me your daughter died in a terrorist attack.’
‘She did.’
‘Then why are you saying I killed her?’
‘Because you did.’ I stare at him straight in the eyes as I say this, but I don’t see what I’ve yearned to see. That fear, that panic, that look of being found out, of everything falling apart. He just looks confused.
‘You think I’m some terrorist or something? You think I’ve got guns and all that shit you need to make bombs and go round killing people? You think I’m part of fucking ISIS and shoot people at train stations? Why would you say that?’
‘I’m saying you’re the reason why she was there. You’re the reason why Jessica was on that platform when those… those men arrived with their guns and started pouring bullets into husbands and wives and daughters and sons and… my little girl.’
His look of complete amazement doesn’t leave his face. ‘You’re mad. I’m sorry, but you’re really fucking insane.’
‘You were in love with her. Or so you said in your messages to her. You arranged to meet her on Stratford station and you didn’t turn up. And that’s why she died. She was waiting there for you. For hours. And you just didn’t bother to show up.’ And with that I hit him. Hard across the face, on the side where his scratch marks from earlier are still raw. It surprises him, I see it in his eyes. He lunges towards me, and for a second I’m not sure whether to steady myself or retaliate, but I abandon thought and just act: I hit him again, jolts of pain electrifying my body as my hand connects again with his face. As he’s knocked back again, I push him as hard as I can against his shoulders, sending him scrabbling away, trying to retain balance. But he falls. His legs come out from under him and he starts to collapse, almost in slow motion. And as his head drops down, it hits with a sickening thump against the metal bar of the pier wall. And then there’s nothing. Just him, lying very still on the ground in front of me, rain running in little streams across his face, his arms, down his back. He doesn’t move.
Whenever I’ve written a death scene for the screen, I’ve always described the shock the witness – or in some cases, perpetrator – feels when the terrible moment occurs. I know shock. I know pain. And maybe, for this reason, I feel the curtains closing around my mind. The part of my brain revolting against what I’ve done, screaming as loud as
it can, is being steadily silenced, almost by a self-induced anaesthetic. Moments ago, I would have thought killing Michael Kelley would have brought me peace – an inner calm I didn’t think I would know again. But I don’t feel calm. There’s nothing calm about what I’ve done. And the stillness I’m now feeling has a strange, unnatural quality, like morphine or a sleeping pill, as if to shield me from the true horror of what I’m seeing.
I don’t check his pulse. I don’t call an ambulance. I just feel in his pockets for his phone and pull it out. I think about throwing it over the side, but something stops me, and I pocket it instead. With one last look at the body, slumped and bleeding on the ground before me, I turn away from him and start to walk, slowly and carefully, back along the pier.
Chapter Forty-Four
The Mother
May. Three months after the attack.
The journey back to the hotel passes like a blur. I don’t hear the wind, or the rain. I don’t notice it stopping. I only realise the force of the storm has abated when I walk up the steps of the hotel and then collapse in the front lobby.
People rush round. Someone shouts to get help. Adamant that I don’t need an ambulance, I bat away their concern and struggle to my feet. ‘It’s my own fault,’ I say, ‘I went out for a walk before breakfast. Should have eaten something.’
It’s too early for the restaurant to be open, and the staff are still clamouring to call paramedics for me, but I’m very firm with them that it isn’t necessary. Just a plate of toast sent to my room would be enough, thank you. A lot of worried faces follow me to the lift.
In my room, I sit on my bed, not thinking, not properly comprehending what’s just happened. Then the toast arrives and I sit and eat it in one of the armchairs, enjoying its plump, expensive feel compared to the sofas in the house of the previous day. All of that feels like a lifetime ago now.
Then I put my phone on charge and strip off my clothes. Before I get into bed I find my medication from the hospital and swallow more pills than any doctor would advise. At last, I’m ready to get in amongst the covers of a proper big, comfortable bed and go to sleep for an eternity.
I wake at 2pm, quite naturally. Nobody has disturbed me. No hotel staff have called an ambulance for me against my will. No police have come to arrest me. Nothing has changed. I roll over and see my phone is now fully charged, with a buzzing stack of messages from Alec – both texts and missed calls. I ignore them all. I get up, ignoring my pain the best I can, and walk slowly to the shower. Once under its warm rush, I allow myself to cry. Big, gasping sobs, water coming in through my mouth and nose as I do, but I don’t care. I just allow the emotion to rush through me, filling every corner of my body. I’m not sure how long I’m in there, but eventually, after I can’t cry any longer, I raise my hand to shut off the water.
In the comfort of the hotel dressing gown, I sit on my bed and pick up my phone. Clearing all the notifications on the scuffed, slightly cracked screen, I navigate my way to the website of Skyscanner. In the ‘from’ column I select ‘London (UK)’ and in the ‘to’ column I select ‘Perth (AUS)’ and click the search icon. Up comes a list of options and I click ‘One way’. I select an Emirates airlines flight to Australia. Nineteen hours, including a stop-off at Dubai. I don’t think about what I’m doing. I just do it, as if on autopilot. It’s the only thing that feels natural. There’s nothing here for me now.
I set about making myself look normal and presentable. I wash my hair and dry it. I put on my make-up. Pick out a nice top and black trousers. Then I stand, looking at myself in the mirror. Before I leave, I pop a few more pills, do up my bag, then turn and look round the room. The enormous TV screen glints back at me. It’s all over, I think to myself. Then I close the door for good.
They order me a car at the desk to take me to the airport.
‘There is a very large television in my room,’ I say to the woman on the front desk.
‘Yes, I know, madam,’ she says. Polite, but there’s an edge to her voice. Apparently everyone knows about the TV. What a stir I seem to have caused during my visit.
‘Please keep it. It is a gift to the hotel.’
She looks like I’ve just threatened her with a gun. ‘Oh, erm, I’m not sure that’s possible… we require guests to take all personal—’
‘It is a gift,’ I repeat. ‘And if it’s really a problem, please have it shipped to my home address.’ I take a sheet of paper from the desk without asking and scribble the address of the house in Kent. ‘My husband will pay for courier costs, and any other charges I’ve incurred while staying here.’
She nods. ‘We already have his card on file.’
‘Excellent. Well, goodbye and thank you.’
I leave and wait outside for my car on the front porch. The rain has now stopped and the sky shows signs of clearing. Behind the clouds, I can see the first glimmer of sun come out. I’ve almost forgotten what that looks like.
In the taxi, I look through my bag at my reading material. It should keep me set-up on the flight. It’s been a while since I’ve done something as extensive as nineteen hours. No pressures on one to do anything else, like exercising or laundry or admin. Just hours and hours stretching ahead to be filled. And it makes me desperately sad that it’s come at a moment when I can’t possibly enjoy it. A time when being a prisoner to my own thoughts for hours feels like torture.
‘Are you all right, madam?’ The driver is looking at me in his mirror, concerned.
I wipe the tear from my eye and sniff. ‘Yes, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. Just… things.’
He nods understandingly, as if he knows about ‘things’, and doesn’t bother me again.
When I get to Heathrow, I go straight to security, thanking the heavens I’ve always kept my passport in the inside zip pocket of my small travel bag. I don’t have any luggage for the hold, just the carry-on.
Before heading for the first-class lounge, I purchase two more books. It’s unlikely I’ll run out on the flight, but airport book shopping seems like a holiday tradition. In the past I would have eagerly stacked up multiple enjoyably nasty crime novels. I doubt that will ever be possible now. I opt for a Jane Fallon, a Jill Mansell and, as a wild card, a re-issued paperback edition of Nigella Lawson’s How to Cook.
I spend the ninety-minute wait lost within the pages of the Nigella, finding her writing and calm, considered instructions soothing. I remember my battered old copy of this at home, along with a number of other cook books. I used to enjoy cooking, especially when Jessica was little. She used to sit and help me sift flour or stir sauces. Things my own mother never did with me. I think back to the home I’m travelling towards. I wonder how much has changed. Will it all be the same, or will it have turned into a slick, ultra-modern Americanised landscape? I think back to my life there as a teen. Difficult, uncomfortable, always punishing my parents for this or that, always aware of either their resentment or indifference towards me, depending on the day.
It takes an age to board the plane. First-class passengers are allowed to board first, but even after the economy crowd have settled down we end up waiting an age. An announcement is eventually made – something to do with the luggage doors – and we’re told to wait for further instructions.
I fish into my bag, keen to get back to Nigella, and my hand touches against something. Cool, hard glass. It’s Jessica’s iPhone. It’s got very low battery – only sixteen per cent – and I dim the screen and, without thinking too much about what I’m doing, touch the Facebook Messenger icon. I select the messages with the name at the top. Michael Kelley. I scroll back to the beginning. Then I begin to read.
Chapter Forty-Five
The Mother
May. Three months after the attack.
JESSICA MACLEOD: Hi
* * *
MICHAEL KELLEY: Hi
* * *
JESSICA MACLEOD: Funny to be talking on here. Better than on Circle. Less baggage. More free.
* * *
> MICHAEL KELLEY: Yeah
* * *
JESSICA MACLEOD: Don’t go all one-word-answers on me now.
* * *
MICHAEL KELLEY: Sorry
* * *
JESSICA MACLEOD: That was one word AGAIN!
* * *
MICHAEL KELLEY: Soz
* * *
JESSICA MACLEOD: Are you trying to wind me up?
* * *
MICHAEL KELLEY: Maybe
