As I talk, her fingers curl tighter and tighter around her bag. I imagine she is pretending the bag is my neck and that she is squeezing the life out of me. I’ve heard murder gets easier after the first time.
It’s her turn to lean forwards in her seat.
‘You stay away from my family,’ Serena says, even more convincingly menacing than I was. She has more to protect after all; that’s what mothers do, apparently, they do anything to protect their young. ‘You stay away from me, you stay away from my family. I did nothing wrong. So, leave me alone.’
I have her. Threatening her does no good, threatening her family – even with the emotional danger of finding out Serena’s true identity – is the way to get to her, to start to pile on the pressure until she does the decent thing, the honest thing.
‘Sorry, no can do. I want my life back, I want to be someone respectable again, and I need you to come clean to do that.’
‘Go to hell,’ she says and stands, hooking her bag on her shoulder. ‘Just go to hell.’
‘Been there, done that,’ I say. ‘Can’t wait for you to try it out, too.’
She says nothing as she turns away.
‘We should do this again sometime,’ I call to her retreating form, waving my mobile phone at her. ‘It was such fun.’ I don’t care that everyone in the place is watching me. I just need to get through to Serena that I’m not going anywhere. Not until she has done the right thing. ‘I’ll call you really soon.’ The door slams shut behind her.
A feeling bubbles up inside me. This isn’t me. This isn’t what I’m like, I think, as the feeling spreads throughout my body. I don’t like being like this, I don’t like threatening people, even her.
‘Is there any other way?’ Marcus asks me. I glance up and he is sitting in Serena’s seat, his elbows resting on the table, his face cupped in his hands. He used to be so kissable when he sat like that. I could never imagine his face twisted in murderous rage, ready to punch me in the back of the head, kick me in the ribs, knee me in the stomach, when he looked like that.
No, I reply to him in my head. There isn’t any other way.
serena
Conrad and I are having a kind of Mexican stand-off at the supermarket checkout.
He is staring at me, while the things he wants – wine gums, marshmallows, full-fat oven chips and sweet popcorn – wait at the bottom of our trolley to hear their fate, to find out if they are coming home with us or if they are being returned to the shelves. I am holding the note that says he can buy whatever he wants and staring down at my son.
One of us has to give in.
The note is from Evan, of course. A doctor’s note. You are to allow Conrad Gillmare – it says – to buy anything he wishes as they are for me, Dr Evan Gillmare. This note is valid for 28 days from the date at the top of the page. He rather helpfully adds a list of the items he might require, allowing Conrad to use his own judgement. That’s actually how he motivated himself to help teach Conrad to read – so that he could get him to do his dirty work.
He only does it because he knows I let Con get away with pretty much anything he wants. He’s my little baby, after all. It used to be Verity he sent to do his dirty work: to get his favourites made for dinner, to get his favourite T-shirt and jeans ironed so he could go out, but when she started to asking for kickbacks – often payment in cash in advance – he moved on to using Conrad. The first time he’d done the note business, I’d asked him if he was serious. ‘People have to pay to get a note from their doctor, you know,’ he replied. ‘Of course I’m serious.’
‘People also have to pay to get divorced from their partners when they’re being silly,’ I told him.
‘Well, it’s a good job I don’t want to divorce you, then, isn’t it? I couldn’t afford a doctor’s note and a lawyer. Now, come on, Sez, you know a local doctor can’t be seen to be buying junk food.’
‘But it’s all right for the doctor’s wife?’
‘Oh yeah. That way, if I keel over, they’ll blame you instead of me.’
I’d balled up one of his notes and threw it at his head, knowing it’d miss because he’d duck.
Today’s note has the usual list of required items at the bottom and from it Conrad has chosen four items instead of the three as per the rules I imposed upon the whole ‘note’ system.
Conrad, eight years old and a fiend like his father, is not happy because his big soulful eyes and pet lip haven’t worked and I have told him to put one item back. He looks away from me, at the trolley, trying to decide the fate of his and his dad’s favourite junk food. I am being a little mean, but if I do not stand firm the pair of them will continue to run rings around me. It’s what they do.
‘But Mummy,’ Conrad says, bringing out the big guns with ‘Mummy’, ‘I don’t know what to choose.’ I can almost hear him subliminally transmitting into my brain, I’m only eight, please don’t make me choose.
‘I know, sweetheart,’ I say sympathetically, ‘none of us like to choose.’
He turns his big eyes on me again, looking up at me through his long eyelashes. ‘Please don’t make me choose,’ he actually says. I remember when he was about ten months old he used to flirt with every woman we saw on the street, on the bus, on the train. He would turn his big eyes on them, then would smile and look away, then look back to see if they were watching him. Which they were, of course. He was a good looking baby, and the pitch-black eyelashes around his eyes would make his already large brown eyes stand out even more. Even then he knew the effect he had on people, especially me.
I’d had to steel myself against it. Like right now, when I actually want to give in.
‘I’m not making you choose, sweetie,’ I say.
His face brightens. ‘You’re not?’ he asks.
‘No, your dad is. He’s the one who gave you the list. If he’d just given you three things to buy, you wouldn’t be in the situation.’ I hand him my mobile. ‘Maybe you should call him and make him choose.’
Reluctantly, Con takes the phone and I smile to myself as I start to load the conveyer belt with the week’s shopping. Evan would have told him to get four things because I’d probably let it slide. In a few weeks, it would be five things, then six, etc., etc. I want my husband, like my daughter, to know that I was on to them. I wasn’t born yesterday.
Verity is waiting for us in the car. For the first time in ages she showed an interest in shopping with us but, when we pulled up in the car park, she decided to sit in the car listening to her music with her feet up on the dashboard. Chewing gum, no doubt. She’d said I could leave my bag behind if I wanted. ‘I’ll look after your bag’ was teenage speak for: ‘So I can use your mobile, then erase all the recently dialled and texted numbers, as well as the received ones’. I don’t have an itemised bill, either, so I’d never know who she was calling.
‘I’ll take my mobile and purse, then,’ I’d said to her and she wasn’t quick enough to hide the disappointment that pirouetted across her face.
I am pretending that this morning did not happen. I did not sit down opposite Poppy Carlisle in a café and listen to her accuse me of killing him. I did not hear her ask me to confess. Confess? She is on another planet. What do I have to confess to apart from extreme stupidity? And for allowing that stupidity to ruin my family’s life?
As I left the café, I kept wishing that I had already told Evan, then this would not be an issue. She could not use that against me, to get me to keep meeting her. She could not set about destroying my life by being around all the time like she was with him.
I want to tell Evan. I have to tell Evan. I’m scared to tell Evan. He might think like the rest of my family – he might think, despite what I say, that I did it.
While I wait for my turn to pay, and for Conrad to finish on the phone to his father, I glance across to the next checkout. Ange. I whip my eyes away, hoping she doesn’t see me.
Ever since I saw her black eye that morning she has avoided me as much as possible
and often pretended not to see me. I haven’t exactly gone out of my way to make contact, either.
I casually look around the whole of the shop, before briefly casting my gaze her way. I do not want to make eye contact, but I do want to see how close she is to being served and if we’re likely to run into each other in the car park or even at the end of the checkouts. Because that would mean talking to her. And that . . . my stomach tingles at the thought of that.
Ange is who I was until Poppy killed him.
I sneak another glance at her from the corner of my eye. The first fresh bruise is a bracelet of purple, blue and black around her left wrist, visible where the thick cotton of her sleeve rides up. The next – a thumbprint seared into her flesh by an angry hand – is below her left jaw, on her neck, where the waves of her blonde hair fall away. The third is on the crest of her cheek, faint and almost transparent under a near-perfect make-up job. The other bruises, old and new, are hidden beneath her clothes. Because he knows what he is doing. He knows how and where to do it so that no one else can see. So that she can play her part and cover it up with her clothes, with her make-up, with her strong faith in his ability to change and to never do it again.
I know those other bruises are there because I have X-ray vision. It comes from knowing that, once, my body had a constellation of bruises just like that. From knowing that no matter how many layers you wear, how clever you are with make-up, they’re still there. They’re still there and once they heal, they’ll come back. They’ll find a way back on to your skin, into your muscles, because faith in someone’s ability to change just isn’t enough protection to stop it happening again. Faith, on its own, is never enough.
‘Dad says it’s a shame because we could all have shared the chips,’ Conrad’s voice jolts me back to him, back to this life.
He hands me my phone and shoots me another look, just in case.
‘You know, it’s funny, because he often says that but, for some reason, those chips only seem to get eaten when Verity and I aren’t around,’ I say.
‘But that’s because you two always go out at chip time,’ Conrad says, reminding me again that he really is his father’s son. His big brown eyes are staring forlornly at the four remaining items languishing at the bottom of the trolley.
‘Or maybe it’s only ever chips o’clock when Verity and I aren’t around,’ I say.
I grab the wine gums, the marshmallows, the popcorn and finally the oven chips and throw them on to the conveyer. Evan is a good man. He would never hurt me. He once got very drunk – Max and Teggie’s fault – and called me from Barcelona where they’d gone to watch football. ‘You three are my whole life,’ he slurred. ‘If any of you hurt, I hurt. I’ve just finished telling the lads how much I love you all.’ He’d immediately thrown up very loudly on his favourite Adidas trainers, but I never forgot the sincerity in his words – that even when he was very drunk and away with his friends, all he wanted to do was talk to me.
He deserves a treat now and then. He deserves to ‘get one over’ on me every now and again. Especially as it’s only a little junk food. Especially as that clock is ticking ever louder now that Poppy is back in my life. Especially as I need to find a way to tell him.
‘Especially as you’ve been getting one over on him since the second you met him, eh, Serena?’ says my conscience. I do what is best for all concerned and ignore it.
October, 1987
‘I got you this,’ he said, holding out a wide, flat velvet jewellery box. He’d bobbed down beside me as I was reading for my A’Level homework at his house.
‘Thank you,’ I said automatically, knowing I had to show my gratitude straight away or . . .
He gave a little laugh. ‘You haven’t seen it yet, you might not even like it.’
‘I’m sure I will,’ I said.
I opened the lid, braced myself to put on a happy face, no matter what I found inside. Where a watch or a bracelet would normally rest, lay a white, star-shaped flower with five petals. It had long stamens that were topped with red. It was a pretty little flower, but I did not understand what it meant, why he had given it to me. Panic spiralled inside: I didn’t know what to say.
‘It’s a Stonecrop,’ he said, before I could think of how to hide my ignorance and not ignite his temper. ‘It grows in warm rocky areas. It took me ages to find one. In the language of flowers, it’s the symbol of tranquillity. And your name means the same thing. I wanted you to have it.’
‘It’s lovely,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’
‘I thought we could press it between the pages of a book so you could keep it for ever.’
‘Yeah, yeah, that’d be great,’ I said.
He reached out towards my face and I flinched, closed my eyes as I waited for it – I hadn’t sounded grateful enough and now he was going to make me pay. I was grateful. I loved it. It was a thought-filled present, but I hadn’t been grateful enough. ‘I love it,’ I said desperately. ‘I really love it.’
His hand stroked gently on my cheek. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I – I haven’t been very good to you lately, I’m sorry.’ I said nothing, I did not want to say anything that could be used against me later.
‘I’m going to try really hard, you know, Serena? I’m going to try not to get so angry about little things. I’ve hurt you, and I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I won’t let it happen again. I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you. I’ve never given up anything for anyone – not even Marlene – before, let alone a job I loved, but when it came down to the choice between you and the job, the job lost.
‘I could find a job any time, but you, you’re it. You’re the one for me. I could never find another you. I don’t want to lose you. I really mean it. OK?’
I nodded.
‘You know, whenever Marlene shows up here, shouting and ranting at me, I’m always tempted to tell her that I want nothing to do with her because I have you. Someone as beautiful as you.’
I nodded again.
‘It’ll never happen again. I promise you.’
I nodded. ‘OK.’
He leant in to kiss me and I kissed him back. He had said everything I needed to hear. Everything that told me he was going to change and everything would be all right between us. He had reconfirmed for me that I was the most important person in his life and he would change for me, he wouldn’t hurt me any more, and I could trust him again.
He was telling me that he was the man I fell in love with, the man of my dreams.
We both knew I had heard it all before.
Princess Verity thinks that, if she closes her eyes and turns her music up loud, she won’t have to help load up the boot. I sometimes wonder if she remembers who her parents are, what we are like. Verity and Con have a list of chores they have to complete every night, as well as their homework. They watch minimal TV – if any – during the week, and they have an hour every Sunday to tidy their rooms. Helping out, being part of the clockwork that is our family, is not optional.
Con is keen to get started in loading up – he loves that part. I suspect it’s to do with feeling a bit like his dad, scrabbling around in the boot – the area he’s only ever allowed to go near when there is shopping to be loaded or unloaded. I tell him to wait a second and go over to the front passenger window, tap on the glass. Verity keeps her eyes closed and her music loud, her head bobbing in time to the music. Like I hadn’t tried that ploy with the radio when I was her age. Like I didn’t get busted for it every time till Mum just took away my radio.
I open the door and she almost spills out because she has been half-leaning on it. I reach out, my fingers brushing her ears as I pluck the earpiece from her left ear. ‘Your other mother might do all the work, but not this one,’ I tell her. Knowing she has been caught out, she reluctantly pulls the other white earpiece from her ear, stops the music and tucks the player away in her bag. She climbs out of the front seat and I’m taken back again at how tall she is. She’s almost as tall as me. I’m sure I didn’t
reach her height until I was about fifteen.
We start to work at putting the green cloth bags into the boot and just as I pull my upper half out from having rearranged them to make them all fit together snugly and securely, I see Angie coming to a stop beside the huge Land Rover that is parked beside us. My car is dwarfed by hers.
‘Oh, hi,’ she says.
‘Hi,’ I reply, awkwardly.
‘Doing the shop?’ she asks.
‘Yeah, you?’ I reply.
‘Yeah,’ she replies.
‘Yeah,’ I say, because I don’t know what else to say. I don’t know how to extract myself from this. For once, the kids are both silent as they stare at her. It’s usually them who save me in such situations. They’ll do something that will call me away from the person I need rescuing from. But, for some reason, they are suddenly The Angelic Twins.
‘Look,’ Ange says, ‘I wanted to apologise about never arranging that coffee properly. Life, you know?’
‘Oh, that’s OK,’ I say. ‘We’ve had a lot on, too.’
‘Are you feeling better now, Mrs Ryan’s Mum?’ Conrad asks.
Her eyes widen a fraction and she swings her gaze to the eight-year-old glued to my side. ‘I haven’t been sick,’ she says, a little confused.
‘What are you talking about, Conrad?’ I ask, looking down at him. ‘Where did you hear that?’
‘Luc told me. He said his mum told his dad that Ryan’s mum had another one of her accidents and this time she’d had to go to hospital because her husband couldn’t keep his fists to himself.’ I curl my toes into my shoes with embarrassment. I wish he’d run that piece of information past me, so I could tell him that he shouldn’t really ask people about it. Especially not the people involved.