The Woman Before Me (9 page)
That night I had a nightmare. I was wrapped in red winding silk, and it was so hot my skin burned. Mum was there, trying desperately to cool my blistering arms, a damp sponge on my neck. I felt her arms around me, the safety of her love, and cried, waking to find that the arms comforting me were Mrs Carron’s.
I pulled back in a fury, the shame and guilt of betraying my mother. She tried to soothe me. “It’s just a bad dream, Rose,” she said.
I pushed her away like she was on fire, like her embrace could kill me.
It’s not nice to admit it, Jason, but loyal people can also be violent; the same passion that makes a good partner also makes a jealous lover. And some of the things you need to know, some of my story, is ugly. It’s not my fault that Mum died or that Mrs Carron tried to replace her. Of course I hated her; even being in the same room as her would unsettle me, prick under my skin like an itch. I spent more time in my bedroom. I studied the woman who had taken Mum’s place, and tried to understand her power.
One Saturday morning, Mrs Carron was hiding. I’d looked all around the shop, even in the store cupboard, but she was nowhere to be found. We were playing hide-and-seek, though she didn’t know it. I counted just the same; 1 – 2 – 3 are you in the kitchen? 4 – 5 – 6 maybe in the shower, behind the curtain – whoosh! Not there! Come out come out wherever you are 7 – 8 – 9. I can hear you… alone, in the bedroom.
I propped a chair against my bedroom door to stop anyone coming in, peeled back the poster and looked through my spy hole.
She lay naked and awake, her hand stroking her thigh. I felt my cheeks burn, knowing I shouldn’t be watching, but unable to look away. She was sleepy, her eyes still closed, but her movements where like a waking cat that stretches and preens itself.
She was touching between her legs. Mum always told me that only bad girls touched themselves there. Her fingers grazed over her left breast, and I wondered what it must be like to touch such softness. At that moment I would have given anything to be held, to be safe. But the only person there was me.
I touched my neck, my breasts. I knew Mum would say it was naughty, but she was gone and Mrs Carron had taken her place. Dad had forgotten Mum because Mrs Carron had made him forget. I hated her and loved her at the same time. She was my mother; she had replaced my mother. Her power drew me in; I sensed she knew something precious, something that I could learn. I lifted up my skirt. Even if it hurt, I wanted to know how it felt. I pushed my hand between my legs, into my knickers, feeling the soft tangle of new hair. An embarrassment in the PE changing rooms, a shame I hadn’t accepted, in that instant became something else.
I couldn’t see Mrs Carron’s hand, but her body rocked over her fist, half her face crushed in the pillow. My fingers probed lower, but it was awkward with my eye to the peephole, so I grabbed the chair from the door to stand on. It was now much easier to copy what Mrs Carron was doing. I was surprised to feel that I was wet. Then, in an instant, I knew how to move. My body followed its own rhythm. Together we seemed to dance, swaying to the same music.
And then – Oh shit, no! – the unsecured door crashed open. Peter stood, mouth gaping, taking me in, standing on the chair, skirt hitched, hand low, with my eye to a hole in the wall.
“You sicko,” he murmured, slowly. Then, louder, “Dad! Dad – come here, quick!”
But Mrs Carron, startled by the shouting, arrived first, belting her dressing gown as she appeared in the doorway. I saw her face, and she saw mine. She stared me, standing on the chair by the wall, at the hole in the wall. She knew I had been watching her. She wasn’t angry. She was terrified. Fear in her eyes like an electric shock. She was frozen, unable to look away as I straightened my clothing and stepped down from the chair. When I walked towards her she flinched back, like I’d burned her.
Dad arrived, breathless from bounding up the stairs, and before anyone else could speak Mrs Carron pulled at his arm, her voice low and urgent.
“Get her out of here. If she doesn’t leave, I will.”
Black Book Entry
I heard her coughing in the street and looked out in time to see Auntie Rita’s bulky frame struggle through the shop entrance. The bell above the door trilled, and I could hear Dad, downstairs in the shop, making a weak attempt to welcome her.
In my bedroom I pulled my clothes and belongings from drawers and shelves, shoving what I could into a black plastic bag. I took the nest from where I kept it, hidden carefully in my knicker drawer, and wrapped it in tissues so it wouldn’t get damaged. Peter stood in the doorway, watching with a gormless look on his face. He hadn’t spoken to me since he discovered me watching Mrs Carron.
Downstairs, Dad put his hand on my arm briefly, mumbled something about how I was a young woman now, and Rita would see me right. He never knew what to say to me, particularly since Mum’s death, and what had happened that morning had confirmed his view that I would be better off living at Rita’s.
Rita’s house was two train journeys away from Lowestoft. She lived in Felixstowe, alone, apart from her budgie Bill, in a battered end terrace within earshot of the North Sea. At night you could hear the music and loud shouts and laughter from the amusement arcade. She didn’t treat me like a child. She never asked me where I was going or what time I’d be back, and she sent me for chips or fags when other kids my age would be in bed. She didn’t like to cook and most nights she’d say, “Shall we have a saveloy for tea? Run to the corner, there’s a pet.” The stalls by the pier sold all the types of food I loved: sausages, pasties and chips, fish, kebabs. The men who ran them all got to know me, would look at my thin blouse and throw in another helping for luck.
Rita spent most of the day in a saggy armchair, muttering that there was nothing good on the box, or leafing through a gossipy magazine. She ate and smoked in that chair. It fitted around her just right. I would curl up on the other chair, newsprint on my fingers as I licked the grease from the chips. Unlike Dad, Rita thought it was alright to eat in front of the TV and we would follow all the soaps in silence, the only sound being the crinkle of paper or Rita’s occasional coughing fit.
On account of her back, which she’d done-in cleaning other people’s floors, Rita was on sickness benefit, and didn’t go out much. But every Saturday a woman named Annie would call for her and they’d go to a ‘session’. Rita would put on her only good dress, which I remembered from Mum’s funeral, her face alight with a kind of glowing excitement. She’d sometimes come home a little sad and would go straight upstairs to bed, though the next morning she’d be her normal self. I liked Saturdays. It was the one evening I could be alone. I didn’t think much about Rita and Annie’s sessions, but I knew they were held at the local church hall, which made me think of Sunday school and jumble sales, so I didn’t think anything that happened there could interest me.
“It’s a séance,” Rita told me, “we get messages from people who have passed over.”
One Saturday I heard Rita coughing down the street and was surprised, as she wasn’t normally back for another hour. When she struggled through the door I could hear her wheezing as though she’d had a turn, but her eyes were wet and her face was pink.
“I’ve a message for you, girl.”
She could hardly get the words out, and I helped her to the chair. She put a hand to her chest, and tried to speak normally.
“She’s watching us, Rose. Right now. She’s pleased.”
A cold shiver ran down my back. There was only one ‘she’ in our lives.
“She says you’ve grown into a real bobby dazzler. She says I’m looking after you just as she wanted. She told me to tell you she loves you.”
I bit my lip so hard I tasted blood.
“Don’t cry, poppet. She’s happier where she is. Life is hard for some people, and living was such a burden to her. She’s not in pain anymore.”
Rita passed me a hanky that had been balled up her sleeve.
She was silent for a while, but I sensed she had more to say. “She wants you to come with us, Rose. Next week. Your Mum wants to talk to you.”
All that week I thought of the coming Saturday, dreading and longing for it. The only thing I knew about the occult was from Gypsy Margo’s brightly painted stand at the end of the pier where she told fortunes. But when we arrived at the church hall there was nothing bright or sparkly about it, and no crystal ball either. Just a room full of old ladies, chatting to each other over cups of tea. The medium, Maureen, didn’t look special at all, and I started to think that she couldn’t have any powers. She just looked like somebody’s nan. But then she stood in the centre of the stage and put her fingertips to her temples, swaying slightly in her dowdy cotton dress. The whole room fell silent.
“Is there anyone here with a cat in the spirit world called Suki?” Maureen said, like a teacher asking a class of pupils if anyone knew the correct answer.
Rita’s hand shot up. “Here!”
Maureen came down from the stage and stood in front of Rita. “Suki’s a beautiful cat, isn’t she? Black?”
“That’s right.” Rita beamed with pleasure.
“She was much loved, wasn’t she?”
“Oh yes,” Rita dabbed her eye.
“But she says she’s been replaced?”
Rita shifted in her seat. “I’ve got a budgie, now.”
“There’s someone with Suki. She wants to speak to the girl next to you.”
I felt Maureen’s eyes weighing me up and shivered.
“Hello, love. I’ve got someone here who knows you. She says she misses you very much.” I blinked away warm tears. “She says she knows it’s been hard for you, but she’s watching over you. Making sure you’re okay.” Suddenly her hands grasped her throat, “I’ve got a pain! Why have I got a pain in my neck?”
Rita looked sideways at me, but didn’t speak. My voice was so calm it surprised me. “Suicide,” I said. “She took a ton of tablets after she found my Dad fucking another woman.”
Maureen blinked. A ripple of suppressed chatter ran through the rows and I flew out of the hall as if the devil himself was at my heels.
Black Book Entry
You’re visiting today, Jason.
You don’t come often, just once a month, so it’s rare enough for me to feel excited. That’s the wrong word. Apprehensive is better.
I know you find it hard to see me in here, but you never miss a visit. I’d like to ask you why that is and if you feel guilty, after all, but I’m afraid to.
When I was arrested and remanded into custody, I thought I’d have to cope alone. But you’ve proved me wrong; you came back to me. You’ve been more faithful than I would have thought possible.
You don’t try to make sense of what happened, you don’t analyse it. It would be too hard to do that, wouldn’t it? In court, when the prosecution tried to make a case for murder, you sat with your head bowed. Not once did you accuse me, not even with your eyes. When the foreman said I was not guilty of murder, you didn’t look surprised. You just nodded your head as if to say, ‘that’s right. She’s not a murderer.’
You never asked me about the night Luke died.
It’s so hard for me to think about. Never being able to hold him again, to smell the sweet scent of baby talc in the folds of his skin. And yet I’m expected to talk about him to a stranger. I must, if I’m to be set free. Cate Austin will want me to say that I’m sorry, to ‘take responsibility’ as these professionals put it, admit that I was deranged.
Is it true? Was I sick? Am I cured? And if I’m cured, how has that happened? From being caged like Rita’s poor budgie for almost four years with no treatment, no therapy except 15 minutes with the psychologist when I arrived at each new prison.
In my cell I have my memories. I have my nest, so small and perfect, which I hold in my hands, thinking of my mother. At night, lying on the three-quarter bed, army issue, I sift through what I remember like treasure and find the pearl. My boy. At night, in the dark, he’s mine again. I can hear him breathing next to me. I can feel him suckling milk from my breast. I nurture him, keep him alive, until daylight breaks through the bars. Noone grieves more than me.
In the room used for family visits I sit in my own clothes but with a red tabard over my dress to show I’m a prisoner. As if there could be any doubt. I fit in here, but you are the odd one out with your curly golden-red hair. Like a visitor from across the seas, a strange warrior, you shine in this grey building. The newer prisoners, seeing you for the first time, look over. They’re asking themselves how I’ve managed to get a man like you when I’m so plain. You’re tanned from working as a brickie, building a new shopping mall in Ipswich. May sunshine has turned your arms brown. Your hair is shorter now than it has been, but it still springs from behind your ears, catching the sunlight coming in between the bars.
You take my hand. Yours is warm. “How are you, Rose?”
How do you cope, I wonder. I thought you would leave me, but now I think you’ll stay with me no matter what. There’s something strong binding us together.
“I’m fine. What about you?”
“Good.”
We sit in silence for a while before you think of something to say. I like to hear about the squabbles on site, the problems the foreman is having with the workers from Poland. Then it’s my turn to speak. “I’ve met the probation officer who’ll write my parole report.”
“Oh?”
“I’ve only met her once, so far. I’m her first case since she got posted here. She’ll want to meet you.”
“What’s it got to do with me?”
I stroke your hand, soothe you. “That home visit is important, Jason. It has to go well or I won’t get parole.”
“What’s she like?” You sound nervous.
“Younger than me, pretty. But she’s guarded – a tough nut to crack.”
You look around, see Natalie Reynolds sat at the next table. She says hi and you smile back. At the other table Susan Thomas is having a visit from her Mum, and she’s brought Susan’s daughter. I watch for a second as the little girl climbs into her mother’s lap and touches her bruised face. “Did you fall off your bike, Mummy?”
