I slip the brand-new red shoes onto my feet and take another look in the mirror. Something about them delivers a sense of comfort I can’t explain, then I think of Ben again. He knew how much I loved shoes and bought me a designer pair every birthday and Christmas we were together; something I could afford, but could never justify spending on myself. He would always choose a pair that I had secretly wanted, he knew me so well. It was kind and thoughtful, and he delighted in watching me unwrap them. Every marriage is different, and no marriage is perfect. It wasn’t all bad between us.
I snap back to the present, see the enormous line of people snaking behind the tills, and again feel the eyes of others on me, like a weight on my chest making it difficult to breathe. I take one last look at my reflection, then swallow my fear down inside me like a pill. I decide to do something I’ve never done before, and walk out of the shop without paying, leaving my trainers and that version of me behind. If I’m about to be accused of murder, a little shoplifting can’t hurt me too much. I’m terrified of the police and what the future has in store for me, but that woman I just saw staring back at me in the mirror, she’s not afraid of anything or anyone.
All I have to do is remember to be her from now on.
Thirty-nine
Essex, 1988
“You just have to remember who you are,” says Maggie.
She holds my hand tight the whole time the police are in the shop, as if she is scared of letting me go. I was worried that maybe everything was my fault because I opened the back door when I knew I wasn’t supposed to, but I only wanted to help the man find his dog. I didn’t know that he didn’t really have one.
Maggie wears her kind face the whole time the police are here, even if it does look a little bit broken. She said before they arrived that we all had to act a little bit, and that it was very important for me to learn my lines. She made me say them over and over in my best English accent.
I had three to learn:
1. The bad man tricked me to open the door.
2. The bad man had a gun (not a knife) and pointed it at me.
3. Dad (John) gave him the money, but the bad man still wouldn’t let me go, so they got in a fight and the gun went off.
I’m not allowed to say anything else at all. I have to say I can’t remember, even though I can. I must not talk about Michael, the man who says he is my uncle; I don’t know why they think I would. I must not say that the gun was Maggie’s, or that she was the one who shot the bad man. John said it was important to “stick to the script” because of Maggie’s record. I don’t know which one he means, she has lots; she likes listening to music.
The police have been here for hours. The lady who asks me questions says that I’m a “very brave girl” and gives me a lollipop, but I don’t want it. I don’t feel brave, I feel scared. Maggie’s kind face seems to follow them out the back door, no matter how much I wish that it wouldn’t. I don’t know what time it is when they leave, but it’s dark outside, and I know it is late. I wonder if we’ll still have dinner, and I wonder if it will be something with chips. But then I remember that we don’t have a Deep Fat Fryer anymore, not after what happened to Cheeks. Maggie threw it away.
She picks me up, carrying me through the shop, with my legs wrapped around her waist and my arms wrapped around her neck. She smells of her number five perfume and it makes me feel safe. The screens in the shop are still on, but the volume has been turned right down, so that silent horses are racing and jumping over fences like secrets. Looking over Maggie’s shoulder, I can see that there is litter all over the shop floor, but she doesn’t tell me to sweep up tonight; instead she carries me all the way upstairs to the flat, through the kitchen, into the green bathroom, and puts me down in the bath.
“Take your clothes off,” she says, so I do.
I always do what I’m told now.
Maggie disappears for a moment, then comes back holding a box of Flash powder, which is what I pour in the mop bucket before cleaning the floors each night. “Sit down,” she says. Her face looks strange. It’s twisted a little the wrong way, and looking at it makes my knees feel wobbly. She puts the plug in the bath, then turns on the hot tap and waits. The water is cold on my feet at first, but by the time it reaches my ankles, the water is warm. A bit too warm.
“Can I put in some cold please?”
“No.”
“The water is hot.”
“Good.” She pours some of the powder onto a wet flannel, before pouring the rest into the bath until the whole box is empty. The water is burning my skin and I try to stand up, but she pushes me down. “Close your eyes.” She starts to scrub at the skin on my face awful hard; it feels like the powder is scraping my cheeks right off. I scream, but Maggie doesn’t seem to hear me, she just keeps scrubbing and the water keeps burning. “You have blood on your hands, you need to get clean.” She scratches away at my arms, my legs, my back. The water is so hot, and the flannel hurts so much, that I’m screaming more than I have ever screamed before. The noise coming out of my mouth doesn’t even sound like me. I hear John banging on the bathroom door, but Maggie has locked it so that he can’t come in.
When she puts me to bed, all of me hurts.
She doesn’t kiss it better, or kiss me good-night.
My skin is red and my throat is sore from screaming, but I am quiet now.
I am alone in the dark, but inside my ears I keep hearing the last thing that Maggie said, as though she is whispering it, over and over. She has locked me in my room and taken the bulbs out of the light in the ceiling and the lamp next to the bed, even though she knows I get scared. I am hungry and thirsty, but there is nothing to eat or drink. I close my eyes and I put my hands over my ears, but I can still hear her words:
That man is dead because you didn’t do as you were told. I didn’t kill him, you did.
She says I killed him, so it must be true, Maggie doesn’t tell lies.
I killed my mummy and now I’ve killed the bad man.
I keep doing bad things without meaning to.
I cry because I think I must be a very bad person, and I cry because I think Maggie doesn’t love me anymore, and that makes me feel sadder than anything else in the whole world.
Forty
London, 2017
The wrap party is being held at a private club in the heart of London. Even as a child I hated parties. I never had anyone to talk to and I didn’t fit in. I’ve never known who to be when I’m supposed to be me. I don’t want to go tonight, but my agent says I should and, given everything that is currently going on, it seems wise to do as I am told. He doesn’t seem to understand that social gatherings, with people looking at me all night, fill me with the most horrific and inexplicable fear.
Perhaps I’m just scared of what they might see.
I think about the version of me I need to be tonight, then flick a switch and turn her on, hoping she’ll stay with me for as long as I need her to. She doesn’t always.
I pass a McDonald’s and remember that I haven’t eaten. I double back and order a Happy Meal, hoping it might work in more ways than one. I choose the same things I used to as a child thirty years ago: chicken nuggets and french fries to take away. I don’t get far. I don’t even open the box. I see a homeless girl lying in a doorway on a folded-up piece of cardboard and I stop. I know that could have been me. She looks cold and hungry, so I give her my coat and my Happy Meal, then carry on towards the tube station.