Mindsight

The day, and the sleepless night before it, had drained me completely and I wasn’t even tempted to turn on the TV. Instead, I threw off my clothes, pulled the curtains to shut out the glow of fading sunlight and climbed into bed.

The pillow was smooth and cool but I was wide awake again, my mind racing. I turned on the bedside light and picked up the photo frame. Steve and my boys smiled at me. The eight-year-old Tommy in the picture was still more real to me than the awkward teenager I was trying to get to know. And Toby – the gap where he’d just lost a tooth making his grin cheekier than ever. My dear little boy would never be a teenager, never grow up, because of me and I could never look at his face without that agonised throb. ‘I’m sorry, Toby,’ I whispered.

My husband was standing behind the boys, smiling his wide, white smile. One hand was on Toby’s shoulder, the other pushing strands of fair hair away from his own face. Little Tommy leaned back against him. ‘Oh, Steve…’

I smoothed their dear faces with a fingertip, then pressed the photo to my chest. But it was only plastic and glass and it gave no comfort.

Chapter Seven (#ulink_9b624d27-10a7-572b-81c0-5172bfaf507f)

It must have been close to midnight when the phone rang. Still half asleep I grabbed it. ‘Alice?’ There was some noise in the background, but no one spoke and then the line went dead. I lay down, but couldn’t rest. What if Alice was calling from a hospital to tell me Tom was ill or hurt? I groped for my mobile and texted her.

Did you ring me? Is everything OK?

Her reply came through almost at once.

Didn’t ring, all’s well here. I’m in bed but call if you need to talk XXX.

I sent back:

Thanks I’m fine – goodnight XXX

I slept well for once and woke on Sunday knowing I’d dreamed of my family. They had been happy dreams: the kind of dreams I’d had in the early days after the accident – the cruellest ones of all. In the first waking moments you lie warm and comfortable, knowing everything is all right, everyone is alive and well. It takes a few minutes to remember that the happy dreams are the fantasy and it’s the nightmare that’s real.

The weather had taken a turn for the worse and as I lay listening to the rain I felt the loneliness twist inside me, worse even than it had been in the first days in prison when I was in too much shock to feel anything.

My mood today reminded me more of when I was a teenager. By the time I was fourteen I was barely speaking to Mum or Dad and no one at school seemed to like me. Emily was miles away and Alice was too young to confide in. I knew I was adopted, my Romanian birth mother hadn’t wanted me, and I was pretty sure my adoptive parents wished they had never taken me on either. I spent whole days lying in bed paralysed with misery. When I did get up I would wander the streets alone, walking myself into exhaustion.

It was on one of these tramps when I took shelter from a chill drizzle in a bus shelter. Although it was close to Beldon House, I couldn’t face going home to Mum’s silences and pursed lips. Out in the country like this, with no bus due for an hour or more, the last thing I expected was for anyone to join me, but the girl who did looked around my age and was so chatty it took only minutes to feel we were friends.

She offered me a drink. It was vodka, and I’d never had more than a sip or two of wine before, but although it tasted like sour fire and made me gasp and cough, I kept pace with her as we passed the bottle back and forth. Her name was Lizzie, and she had dyed yellow hair and eyelashes heavy with black mascara. Her nails were bitten to the quick, there were scars on her thin pale arms, and I thought she was the most glamorous creature I’d ever seen. She told me she had run away from three foster homes and now she was looking out for herself. She’d been staying with some friends in the village, but was having to move on. ‘They got fed up with me. People usually do,’ she said, with a throaty laugh. We swapped mobile numbers and when she got on the bus I longed to go with her.

I didn’t dare that time, but after the next row at home I met up with Lizzie in Tonbridge and stayed the night at the squat where she was living. I went home, very defiant, late next evening, opening the front door to be met by Dad in the hall. He looked so angry I was terrified but hid it with a toss of the head as I pushed past him, heading for the stairs.

He grabbed my arm, ‘Oh no you don’t, young lady. I want an explanation.’

He was a big man with a loud voice, but he had never raised his hand to me or to Alice. I could see, though, that he was tempted to hit me when I curled my lips and met his eyes.

‘What?’

He took an enormous breath. ‘I suppose you realise we had to call the police? You’ve made your mother ill and Alice hasn’t stopped crying. We thought you’d had an accident or been abducted.’

I pulled my arm away. ‘Well I’m back now, so you can all relax.’ Then I headed upstairs with a look I hoped was loaded with contempt.

I expected him to follow me, but he didn’t and he was at work when I got up next day. Mum was ill in bed and Alice was at school. No one seemed to care what I did. So I packed a rucksack and walked out. The first of many times.

It didn’t take long to lose touch with Lizzie, but by then I’d met Gaz. I kidded myself it was love and we headed for London. Gaz disappeared after a couple of weeks and I went home for a bit, but the pattern was set. Gradually, I was staying away for longer and longer, moving from squat to squat, sometimes sleeping in parks or even shop doorways. It’s amazing where you can sleep if you’re drunk or wasted enough.

I got picked up by the police and taken home a few times, but left again after a couple of days. My parents must have squared it somehow with school. Maybe they just carried on paying the fees and everyone agreed it was easier that way. I never went back to school.

The only thing I ever felt guilty about in those days was leaving Alice, and even now I felt a twinge when I recalled looking up one day, as I was shambling up the driveway, to see her little face at her bedroom window. Her mouth was moving and she was trying to push up the wooden sash so that I could hear her. But she couldn’t manage it and that image of her tearful face as she tried to call me back stayed with me until the downers I’d pinched from Mum’s room began to take the edge off everything.

The phone rang: Alice’s number. I took a swallow from the water beside my bed, but my voice must still have sounded croaky because Tom said, ‘You all right, Mum?’

‘I’m fine. I thought you were out all day today.’

‘I will be in an hour. Just wanted to speak to you before I went.’

I held the phone to my lips for a moment unable to speak. ‘Well, it’s lovely to hear your voice.’

‘I’m sorry about yesterday, Mum. Alice said you might have been upset. I thought I told her about the table tennis and everything, but I must have forgot.’

‘Don’t worry. I can’t expect you to rearrange your life to suit me. Now off you go and win that tournament and I’ll be over to see you tomorrow or Tuesday – OK?’

Alice came on then to ask about last night’s call. ‘It was nothing,’ I said. ‘Just a cold call, but it was so late I got worried.’

‘Do you want to come over for lunch?’

‘If you don’t mind, I won’t. I’m really tired. It was a bit of a day yesterday.’

She had to go then because Tom was there, asking if she knew where he’d put his table tennis bat and did he have any clean shorts. It was just as well because I couldn’t face talking about Matt’s visit until I’d thought about it myself.

I switched on the laptop, almost expecting an email from Emily, but my inbox stayed empty. I had her number in the notebook Alice had left for me, so I picked up the phone to call her, but somehow I couldn’t do it and phoned Lorna instead. There was no reply, but I left a message to tell her I wasn’t working on Friday and could come to her then.

After that I stood eating some toast and staring from the window at the rain, the grey clouds, and the empty sea. I knew I should clean the place and do some washing for next week, but instead I watched TV and tried to read.

Finally, I forced myself to put a few things in the washing machine and push the Hoover round the flat. At least it seemed to give me an appetite, but looking in the freezer I knew I couldn’t face more microwaved food. It was five o’clock and too late, on a Sunday, to go to a supermarket.

There was a convenience store not far away, but when I got outside the sun had come out and I found myself heading past the shop, following the smell of fish and chips to the corner of the High Street. When I saw the queue I stopped, ready to turn back to the flat and another frozen ready meal, but I took a breath and forced myself to stand behind the man on the end.

As the queue moved forward, and nobody paid me any attention, I felt myself begin to relax. And, when I asked for a pickled onion from the huge jar on the counter, I was even able to laugh with a woman behind me when she said, rather me than her, she couldn’t stand the things.

As I was pushing my way out I felt a tug on my arm. ‘Hi, babe. How’s it going?’

‘Oh hello, Nicola. Fine, yes, I’m fine.’

The slim, dark-haired man was obviously with her and I took a step back, although he didn’t look like the aggressive character I’d imagined buzzing on my door bell the other night.

Nicola’s hand remained on my arm and at the same time I felt something clutch my knee. The little girl, Molly, was standing, clinging to her mother’s leg and using mine for extra support. Her sticky smile said she wasn’t going to let go without a struggle.

‘She likes you, Clare. You’ll not get away now.’ Nicola turned to the man. ‘Kieran, this is Clare who I was telling you about.’

He smiled and held out his hand. ‘Hello, Clare, nice to meet you. I’m your upstairs neighbour.’ So it wasn’t the ex. Kieran’s hand was warm and dry and I tried to return his smile.

Molly was moving restlessly, giving high-pitched little screams, each one greeted by heavy sighs from the man serving the chips.

‘Clare, you wouldn’t be a darling and take her outside for a minute would you?’ Without waiting for my answer, Nicola peeled the little hand from her own leg and turned the child towards me. ‘Go on, darlin’, go with Clare.’

By now Molly had her hands raised to me, and I had no option but to push my packet of food under my arm and haul her up. She was warm and smelled of sweets, and when she put her arms around my neck and rested her little head on my shoulder something inside me began to ache.