Part One
The Cause
Chapter One
Before
LAURA
Fears. We all have them. That creeping unease. An aversion to
something. For me it’s spiders. It stemmed from a nature documentary years before about the black weaver, a matriphagous
breed that switches on her babies’ cannibalistic instinct by
encouraging her spiderlings to devour her. Unable to tear myself
away, I had watched through splayed fingers as the mother
circled her lair, tapping and vibrating the web, stimulating her
young’s primal instinct until they attacked her in a frenzied
swarm. Hundreds of scuttling legs. Sinking fangs. The sound of
the adult being consumed after venom had dissolved her from
the inside out had stayed with me. What possessed a mother
to sacrifice herself like that? How could her children turn on
her? Of course that was long before I was a parent.
The instant I saw Tilly, tiny hands fisted, eyes squinting in
the unaccustomed light, I plunged headfirst into a love that was
absolute. A fierce desire as her mother to shield her from the
world however I could. And she needed shielding. I knew how
damaging it could be out there.
I had been damaged.
That morning though I had no idea how I was going to
shelter her from the contents of the letter. As I drove towards
school, I tightened my grip on the steering wheel as if it might
somehow stop the sense of everything spinning out of my
control. It didn’t.
What was I going to do?
I slotted my rusting Volvo between two shiny 4x4s. Hordes
of kids traipsed past the car, spines curved under the weight of
the books they carried, dragging their feet towards the black
wrought-iron gates. I rubbed my temples, trying to dispel the
pounding behind my eyes.
‘Do I have to go back to school, Mum?’
I heard the sadness in her voice. I heard it in my own as I
said, ‘It’s been six weeks, Tilly.’ As though that was long enough
to make everything right.
It wasn’t.
She wasn’t coping well. Neither was I but, for her, I pretended
we’d get through it. We’d be okay. Even if I didn’t know how.
‘We talked about this,’ I said, but not unkindly. ‘It was your
idea to come back on a Friday. Ease yourself into it. It’s one
day, Tilly.’
She tucked her unruly dark hair behind her ears as she looked
anxiously out of the window. Her face looked smaller, skin
ashen, black bags nestled beneath bloodshot eyes. She’d refused
the offer of counselling, spending so much of her time shut
away in her room that now, being outside was overwhelming.
‘You’ve already so much to catch up on but if you really
can’t face it I won’t make you. You can come and help me in
the shop instead. It’s time to try to re-join the world.’ I spoke slowly, deliberately, although each word was rough, grazing
my tongue. Our Family Liaison Officer had said it was best to
forge a routine, a semblance of normality, but was it? Sometimes
being a parent was torturous. Spinning in circles like a bird with
a broken wing. But Tilly was studying for A Levels. It was such
an important year. Besides, at school she’d be with Rhianon and,
although I knew the cousins were no longer inseparable, I hoped
that away from the family drama they could begin to heal.
God knows, we all needed to heal.
‘Fine.’
It was dizzying how quickly she pinballed between sadness
and anger, but I knew it was all part of the hard ball of grief
that ricocheted inside her.
She flung open the car door.
A lengthy sigh escaping the
mouth that no longer smiled.
‘Wait,’ I called, snatching her lunch from the backseat. ‘If
it becomes too much you can always ring me.’ She snatched
the Tupperware from my hands, her expression as hardened
as the plastic.
‘Try to have a good—’ The slam of the car door sliced my
sentence in two. ‘Day.’ A constriction in my throat prevented me
calling her back. What could I have said to make things right?
She stalked away without a backwards glance, swamped by her
black winter coat, which snapped at her ankles as she walked.
Weight had fallen off her. Again, I had found her half-eaten
breakfast dumped in the bin.
On top of the browning banana
skin, a smattering of Rice Krispies ground to dust where she
had crushed them with her spoon. She never could stand milk.
She stooped as she crossed the road without waiting for the
green man, the weight of both her rucksack and the world on her shoulders. I contemplated calling her back but I knew she
couldn’t hide away forever. If she rang me I could be back there
within fifteen minutes, no time at all, but I knew sometimes even
sixty seconds could feel like an eternity.
The desire to protect
her, in the way I hadn’t been protected at her age, to whisk her
away for a fresh start, was fierce and stabbing, but after that
morning’s post, it seemed more out of reach than ever.
Tilly merged with the throng of children crunching over
the autumn orange leaves that carpeted the pavement. I was
reminded of the times Gavan and I would tramp though the
forest searching for gleaming conkers, a wellington-booted
Tilly nestled between us, her small gloved hands in ours. The
smell of moss and earth. It was still so clear to me, the joy of it.
One, two, three, lift! We’d swing her back and forth as she
clung on like a baby monkey, her infectious giggles making
Gavan and I laugh. Even when she grew too tall, too heavy,
she’d raise her knees to her chest to prevent her feet dragging
on the floor, as if she couldn’t quite accept how big she’d grown.
I watched her as she stamped up the drab grey steps, finding
it hard to equate the carefree, smiling child of seemingly five
minutes ago with this solemn seventeen-year-old. She was a
young woman now, lost to me, almost.
The days of being able
to make everything in her world right again with a mug of hot
chocolate and a cuddle were long gone, and I longed to have
them back.
The Special Constable with the patchy beard and straggly
ponytail, who patrolled the secondary school at 8.45 and 3.15
every day with a ferocity that would put a lioness guarding cubs
to shame, half-ran towards me.
My rational self knew that he
was going to tell me off for parking in the wrong place, but still, my hands were shaking as I released the handbrake. Each time
I saw a police uniform it evoked such a physical response, sickness rising like a serpent. I zoomed off the yellow lines before
he reached the car, and it wasn’t until he disappeared from
sight in my rear-view mirror that my breathing began to slow.
I would always associate the police with bad news.
With endless, endless questions.
Sometimes it all blended into a swirling, solid mass. T
he
past. The present. Impossible to separate.
The fear has never really left me. Recurrently concealing
itself in the layer between skin and flesh, waiting patiently for
another trigger. The chance to attack.
I can’t remember.
And sometimes, consciously, I couldn’t remember. The lie
became my truth. The pressure in my head insufferable.
Then, shadowed by night, the bony fingers of the past would
drag me back and I would kick and scream before I’d wake.
Duvet crumpled on the floor. Pyjamas drenched in sweat. And
alone.
Always alone.
The scar on my forehead throbbed a reminder of my helplessness.
Thoughts of the letter filled my mind once more as I drove
towards work.
What was I going to do?
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