It was Beth who told me about Aunt Madeline. I think my aunt might be poorly because she couldn’t come to the funeral and she can’t write her own letters. A solicitor writes them for her and then Beth reads bits of them out. Sometimes her big eyes keep reading but her mouth stops speaking and I wonder what words she doesn’t want me to hear. I didn’t really know what it meant when she said that Aunt Madeline was my godmother. Her eyes looked away and explained to the floor that it normally meant someone who would look after you if your parents couldn’t any more. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to be looked after by anyone except Taylor’s mum. Then Beth said that Madeline loved me very much, but that she didn’t think she could take care of me. Beth carried on wearing her extra sad face, but I was feeling very relieved, until she said that I might have to live in a home for children until a foster place became available. When Grandad went to live in a home that wasn’t his, he died. I don’t want to die. I didn’t like my Aunt Madeline very much for not wanting to look after me then. She doesn’t care whether I live or die but I don’t know who she is, so my crossness grows inside my tummy instead of finding a way out and it hurts.
Beth left me alone in the room and told me to play with some toys. I didn’t want to, I’m not a child, but she said I should then left. I knew she was watching me through the mirror, I’ve seen the films where they do that, so I got up and walked over to the toy box. There was a doll inside, it looked expensive, not like the plastic stuff. I sat her on my lap and told her how sad I was about my mum and dad and how grateful I was that Taylor’s parents had been so kind to me. Then I said a little prayer; I even said ‘Amen’ at the end because I thought Beth would be the sort of person who would like that. She did. She came back in and said I could go, she even said I could take the doll with me, For being so brave. I decided I’d give it to Taylor. Tell her the doll was watching her, even when I wasn’t. I liked that idea a lot, it made me smile and that made Beth smile because she thought she had made me happy.
I’m not stupid, I knew what I had to do. I started crying in my room that night, just loud enough for Taylor’s mum to hear me. She opened the door without knocking, but I didn’t mind because it’s a different door in a different house and she is a different mum. She tucked me back into bed properly, the way Nana used to and then she sat with me and stroked my hair for a while. She was wearing a white robe and she had taken her make-up off, but she still looked beautiful and smelt of that pink shower gel she uses. When I grow up I want to be just like her. I told her I was scared of going to live with strangers and cried a bit more. She told me I mustn’t worry and kissed me on the forehead before leaving the room and turning out the light. I heard them talking for hours after that, not shouting like my mum and dad used to, just talking quietly in the same bedroom as each other, like a proper married couple. The next day I saw the fostering paperwork on the dining-room table, so things really have worked out for the best.
Now
Monday, 2nd January 2017
I’m still alive.
That’s the first thought to voice itself inside my head. I don’t know how, but I’m alive and I’m back, I’m just not sure where I’ve been. It takes a moment to decide whether or not I’m happy to be here and what this all means. Edward tried to kill me, I’m sure of that, but I’m still alive. I suppose it must be hard to kill something that’s already dead.
Given my strong dislike for hospitals, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time in this one. Paul and I came here when we were trying for a baby, it’s where my sister gave birth and where my grandmother died. She didn’t die of cancer, like Claire’s nana, she died of old age disguised as pneumonia when we were thirty. Her death took its time and a toll on our fragmented family. We were temporarily united by over-stretched grief and despair. But it flicked a switch on inside Claire that could not be turned off. The anger she had felt about her own Nana’s death as a child returned. The recalled rage she had suppressed for so long had grown over time. The hate still needed somewhere to go. Claire still needed someone to blame. That’s when she traced Madeline. Imagine our surprise when she discovered who her godmother really was and where she still lived. Destroying Madeline became Claire’s obsession, which in turn became mine. She became volatile again, mistrusting of everyone around her. The change in her mood increased the need for my routines, to be sure that everything was as safe as it could be when Claire was upset about something.
They call it OCD. It’s not a big deal, but it’s got worse as I’ve got older. I had to visit this very same hospital once a week when I was a teenager. I used to meet a short man who liked to talk too much and listen too little. He always wore the same shoes, grey leather with purple laces, I spent a lot of hours staring at them. After four months of weekly visits, he told me that I had obsessive thoughts and demonstrated compulsive activities, to process an inexplicable level of anxiety. I told him he had halitosis. I stopped seeing him not long after that. My parents gave up trying to make me better and instead focused all their attention on Claire, the pretty, grade-A replacement daughter they had saved, forgetting all about the faulty original that they couldn’t fix – me.
I try to pull myself from the past back to the present, not really wanting to be in either place. That’s when I hear her crying. It takes me a while to translate the tears and to pinpoint where and when I am.
‘I’m so sorry, Amber, for all of it,’ says Claire’s voice from somewhere in the distance. The words seem to repeat themselves on the surface while I float down below. The sound of her voice pulls me up from where I’ve been and it feels like I’ve woken up from a very deep sleep. Something is different. The light and the shade have shifted. It feels unsettling, like someone has rearranged the furniture in my mind without even asking.
‘You tried to tell me about him, didn’t you? But I didn’t listen. I’m so sorry,’ says Claire. She sounds closer now, as though I could reach out and touch her. It takes me a while to understand what she is saying, but the casting process finally settles on Edward for the role of ‘him’.
I drift away. The words are too much to process in one go.
The mention of Edward’s name seems to make the edges of the space I’m in darken. Something happened, something bad. Something worse than what I can remember. Whatever it was, Claire knows about it, so maybe I’ll be OK now. She’s always stopped people from hurting me in the past.
‘Is there any change?’ I hear Paul’s voice.
‘No, not yet. Have they got him?’ asks Claire.
‘No. They’ve been to his flat but he’s not there.’
I try to focus and sift their words through the reality filter I’ve been building inside my head, but it doesn’t always work. I wish I could wipe some of the sad and bad memories that start to surface, but it’s like I’ve been switched on and I can suddenly remember all of it. Even the parts I wish I couldn’t.
I remember Edward in my room.
I remember what he did to me.
I don’t understand how they know.
Then I remember that Paul said he had set up a camera in my room. He must have watched what happened. The idea of it makes me feel sick.
It still feels like I’m underwater, but the murky liquid is becoming clearer and I’m getting closer to the surface all the time. And then there’s more.
I can remember the night of the accident, I can remember it all.
I know what happened now – it wasn’t me driving on Christmas Day and it wasn’t an accident at all. I’ve been away. I don’t know how long for, but I’m back now and I remember everything.
Then
Christmas Day, 2016 – Early Evening
‘You OK?’ I ask as Paul flops down on the sofa, picking up the TV remote.
‘What? Yes, fine.’
‘Drink?’