The Last Winter of Dani Lancing: A Novel (44 page)

“I don’t want your money—you can’t buy me. I’m not a whore.” Dani’s voice cuts through her—then she laughs, deep and throaty—it makes Audrey Cobhurn spasm.

“I had begged Lorraine to tell me where to find her so I could talk to her. I had to make her see what she was doing to me, to us—to his family. I went to see her—offered her money, anything to leave him alone.”

Patty can’t feel her arms or legs—totally numb.

“I couldn’t believe he’d want her—she was a kid, the same age as our Lorraine. I gave him everything, you know. He owed me—we were a team. Then this snot of a girl came in and threatened to ruin it, destroy it. I knew it wouldn’t last, he’d have realized he loved me, but then she tricked him. Dug her claws into him with the oldest trick in the book …”

Patty feels bile rise in her throat.

“She got pregnant.”

Patty’s hand drops to her stomach unbidden, some physical memory hardwired into her. In a rush she is back at Christmas with Dani. That final Christmas, with Dani so moody, so fractious. So plump. So pregnant.

“Oh, Christ.” How had she not seen it?

Audrey Cobhurn reaches out with her hand, lays it on Patty’s arm and grips her hard.

“I was at the end of my rope. I didn’t want her hurt …” Audrey Cobhurn breaks down, tears stream down her face. “My brother knew some men. I asked for them to frighten her, scare her off so we could get back to how it was, the three of us.”

“Oh my God …” Patty tries to pull away from her, but
Audrey holds on—Patty twists her body—but Audrey won’t let go. She needs Patty to listen; she needs her to know—to hear her confession.

“They went to see her, those men my brother got me, and they told her to leave us alone—leave Duncan alone. She wouldn’t listen, threatened to call the police and so they grabbed her. Things got out of hand.”

Monday, January 9, 1989

He checks the notes and signs the box to start his rounds. It is 2 p.m. He walks onto the ward and goes to the young woman’s bed. She has been there for two days. She has barely spoken in all that time, first name but no address. She has one question, which everyone has avoided answering.

The doctor dreads sitting down with her. Her bruises are healing well. She has three cracked ribs but they’ll soon knit and begin to mend. She has lost two teeth, but not at the front; so long as she doesn’t smile she looks fine. Smiles are probably not on the agenda for a while anyway. On the ward everyone else is at least fifty and most are sixty plus—that is the normal age for women to have hysterectomies. Of course he has, sometimes, dealt with younger women, those with ovarian cancer generally, never someone who has been kicked repeatedly and savagely in the stomach. It had been a matter of life and death when she’d been brought in, and while she may know that—understand the truth of it …

“Will I be able to have a child in the future?” she asks him the question.

He cannot say the words to her. All he can do is shake his head. He avoids her eyes and their hope for another answer.

“The pain …”

“Of course.”

He writes a note for extra medication. He can see how tight her jaw is, how she grits her teeth when it gets bad. He leaves quickly, writes that a counselor should see her tomorrow or the next day, then continues his rounds.

A nurse sits on her bed a short while later and washes her, helping her to move as the pain tramps around her, making her woozy and weak.

“Is there no one to come see ya, pet?”

“No. No one.” She wants Duncan, but she can’t tell him what has happened. It is all such a mess. She grits her teeth, more at the thought of telling him, than the pain flecking her abdomen.

“I’ll get ya some morphine, love.” And the angel rises and leaves.

Later, as evening draws in around her, she remembers how she felt when she had her abortion. How stupid she had been to let it happen, and with that bloody art student who was such a shit. How could she ever have been interested in him? Back then she had told herself that she wasn’t killing anything, she was just postponing the moment when she met her child and held it. That was what she told herself then. Now, she will never hold a child from her own womb. Life plays such awful tricks.

“Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy …” She is twenty-one. In Greenwich she knows her Mum and Dad will be worried—they have never missed seeing her on her birthday. Birth-day …

When the nurse returns she will call Duncan. She needs him.

Duncan sits in the dark. Waiting for Audrey. A bag lies by his feet, packed.

Finally, there is a scratch at the lock and the front door opens.

“Lorraine, why are you here, pet?” Audrey calls out as she arrives—knowing someone is in the house. “You’ll not guess where I’ve been,” she calls out excitedly, glad to have someone to share the gossip with. She’d been to a salon—exclusive. Had her hair done, her nails as well—feet and hands—plus a wax. Downstairs. It feels really odd. All part of her plan to get him excited in her again.

“Aud.”

She almost jumps out of her skin. She flicks on the light and sees him at the table. She knows it’s awful news. His skin is chalk, his eyes bloodshot and his cheeks are streaked with tears. But it is the bag that tells the story.

“I love you, Audrey, but … she needs me.”

There was no need to reveal her name. Duncan knows his affair is an open secret.

“No!” she moans.

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be. I owed it to you to tell you face to face. But I’m going.”

“You can’t, Dunc. We’re your family.”

“You will always have everything you need.”

“Lorraine …”

“She’s grown, Aud—she doesn’t need me and neither do you.”

“We do!” she is on his lap in a second, wrapping her arms around his neck. Trying to kiss him.

“Don’t, Audrey. Have some dignity.”

He pushes her off his lap and she lands on the floor.

“Do you want me to beg? Look, I’ll beg.” She is on her knees, shuffling forward, arms outstretched. “Please, Duncan. Don’t do this to me, to us.”

“I’m sorry, Audrey. Christ, I shouldn’t have come home.” He goes to walk around her but she grabs his leg.

“No, No. No!” she screams.

He tries to shake her off but she won’t budge. “Audrey, don’t. Christ, sweetheart, don’t make this worse.”

“It can’t be worse. You can’t leave.”

“She needs me.”

“I need you!” Audrey screams.

“She lost a baby. She lost my baby.” He is all tears now, they stream out of him, snot too. “Someone beat her to a pulp—almost killed her. They killed my baby.”

Audrey lets go, and slides to the floor. He walks around her.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

“He left,” Audrey Cobhurn continues as Patty tries to reel her mind back into her body.

“I lay there on the kitchen floor, shocked. I’d called my brother. He said it all went fine and she wouldn’t be troubling me again. He said nothing about the violence—I found that out later. They’d beaten her badly. She’d been lippy and they were the type of men who liked hitting woman and … I hadn’t told them she was pregnant.”

The cold bites at the two women.

“I lay there all night, praying, cursing … then, at dawn, the front door opened. He was back. He didn’t say a word. Just came in and unpacked his bag. Showered and went to bed. I didn’t know what to think, didn’t know what happened—but he stopped with us. I thought they must have had a fight, him and your daughter. Or he realized it was just the baby that had brought them together. We never talked about it and then a few weeks later we saw her photo in the papers. She was missing.”

Patty remembers how she and Jim had finally driven up to Durham. She had been so angry with Dani. Starting with that stupid Christmas visit—how the hell could she give up on her
education when she was so close to finishing? Then keeping quiet on her birthday, her twenty-first. She had seen how all this had hurt Jim. He kept asking Patty to get in touch with Dani, but she refused. Then they had a letter from the university, asking if Dani was deferring her final year or had dropped out. They had to speak to her. They called and called, but no reply. They decided to drive there.

When they arrived there was no one there. They let themselves in, they had a key, and waited. After a few hours the flatmate came back, very surprised to see them. She hadn’t seen Dani since before Christmas.

“I knew she’d gone home to tell you she didn’t want to do her final terms. I think she was going to defer them but … I thought she was with you. There’s a pile of post …”

Jim went through the stack of mail for any clue to where she might be. Nothing. Patty sat on the sofa. She already felt something awful had happened. That evening they went to the police and reported her missing.

Audrey continued. “Duncan was beside himself. He was out every night—I think he was searching for her. He didn’t talk to me, or Lorraine. Didn’t go to work—left his assistant to run the business. Almost ran it into the ground. Duncan was in the same house with me but wasn’t my husband anymore. I know that if he’d have found her, he would have left me. Just know it. I prayed she’d stay gone—forever. And then … then she was dead.”