I don’t do any of those things. My pride is as important as Jack Downey’s pride, my needs just as important as his. I will not bow or scrape before him. Instead, I push back my shoulders and give him a wide smile, cocking my head to one side sympathetically. ‘So perhaps we can come to some kind of agreement so that this thing stays between the two of us and Elizabeth doesn’t get to hear of it.’ I stare down at my nails, assessing them carefully as I speak again. ‘Or the school. We wouldn’t want the school getting wind of the fact there are drugs stashed in this house, would we? I should imagine poor Elizabeth would fall into a swoon if social services or, God forbid, the police should hear of this terrible misdemeanour. Imagine the scandal, all those wagging tongues…’
I don’t need to say any more. My threats appear to have hit the spot. He will come back with some weak defence, no doubt, or a get-out clause making me look like the perpetrator but I’m prepared for that as well. I’ve thought this thing through.
‘And what if I were to tell the police that it was you who brought the drugs into the house and stashed them? What then?’ he says through gritted teeth.
‘And what if I were to show that receipt to your dear wife? What then?’
I delve into my pocket and retrieve my phone, scrolling through until I find the image that I need and hold it out for him to see. ‘I made sure to take a photograph of the offending article. I also wore gloves so the only fingerprints on the packet of drugs are yours. Now what was it you were saying about speaking to the police regarding me and your secret stash?’
21LAUREN
The atmosphere in the house is electric. Dad is acting as if he is the cat who got the cream, his movements through the house fluid and supple, yet at the same time electric and fiery, like somebody who is both relaxed and keyed up at the same time. It’s as if something momentous is about to happen. Something unforgettable.
I have no idea whether or not Alice stayed the night after I stopped at Jessie’s house. Dad meeting her is like him being given a new lease of life. I hope she did, not that I ever want to think of my dad in that way, you know, him sleeping with somebody. Still, I do know that she’s restored some equilibrium into his existence, given him something to look forward to. Maybe she did stay over which would explain his mood. He’s probably charged with excitement and adrenaline, his body bouncing all over the place. I try to not think about it. He’s my dad after all. We have boundaries and we definitely don’t have in-depth discussions about sex. Him having to deal with my tampons in his bathroom cabinet is enough.
I think I perhaps feel the same way about meeting Josh at the weekend. I’m nervous but also eager. My stomach somersaults every time I think of him. He isn’t conventionally handsome but there’s something about him that makes me light up, like a meeting of minds. I make him laugh, apparently. And I’m clever. It gave me a warm glow to hear him say that. He also said I’m really pretty which made me feel good. It may come to something; it may not. Only time will tell. We all need a little normality after what we have been through. I want to get on with my life, make Dad proud of me. I owe it to him. I owe it to myself.
I wonder if that’s how it was when Dad met Sophia, if there was a time when they got along and she didn’t feel the need to spread her legs for another man. My face burns at the thought, fury pulsing beneath my skin. How could she? Her actions tore our family apart. I hated her for it. Still do. Dad thinks I idolised her. I didn’t. Perhaps when I was younger, I looked up to her, thought of her as glamorous and somebody I could become one day but that all changed when I realised what sort of a person she was. I’ve never told Dad about my feelings towards her. He’s happy to continue with his belief that Mum and I had the perfect mother/daughter relationship. He was too wrapped up in his own misery and confusion to see the truth.
Dad’s working from home today. This is both a blessing and a curse. I’m back early from college and I can hear him speaking to customers on the phone. I feel as if I have to keep the noise level to a minimum and am never quite sure when the right time is to interject if I want to speak to him. Yet at the same time, it’s good to have him here, to see him happy and relaxed, almost back to his old self. I knew he’d get there in the end. Losing Mum was always going to be a blip in his life. Theirs wasn’t exactly the happiest of marriages. It was a car crash for many years before she died. I keep quiet about that aspect of my life to my friends. It’s not a good look, slagging off the dead but it’s true. The day before Mum died, Dad gave her an ultimatum – Kennedy or him. Neither of them knew that I was in the house while they were arguing. I had snuck in and was lying on my bed, listening to their raised voices. Mum had said she had broken it off with him but Dad didn’t believe her. That’s where she was going the night she was murdered – to meet Phillip Kennedy. I’m sure of it.
I open my wardrobe and lean inside, pulling out the bag that I keep stashed at the back. Inside is every photo I had of Sophia. I should throw them out. There’s nothing to be gained from keeping them. I peer inside and all those old emotions come rushing back – the fear, the all-consuming dread that something terrible, something final was going to happen to our little family. And in the end, it did.
The bag is filled with shreds of the pictures I tore apart, ripping and screwing them up, gouging at her face until there was nothing left of her. Dad thinks I keep them in here to treasure them and keep them safe. If only he knew. Their wedding photographs are ruined too. He hasn’t asked for them and I haven’t offered. Photos of us as a family on picnics, at the park, visiting the zoo – all in pieces.
Next to this bag is the one where I store the clippings of my hair, the strands I tore at, cut and pulled out when things got to be too much. I lift it out and stare inside, a small pain screeching across my scalp as the memories come blazing back into my mind: the raised voices, the accusations, the screaming matches. They drove me to it, to cause myself some pain in the hope it would detract from the festering wound that was my home life. Nobody noticed my bald patches, the coin-sized areas of shiny scalp. I styled my hair to cover them up, backcombing and fluffing, strategically placing certain strands to cover up my weakness. Mum and Dad were too bogged down in their own issues to notice me anyway. I was on the periphery of their lives, just another person who co-existed in this house with them. I could have done whatever I liked and nobody would have noticed. Which is what I did in the end.
I swallow and place both bags back, stuffing them deep in the darkest corner of the cupboard, out of sight. One day, I’ll dispose of them, but not at the moment. I need them here to remind me of how it used to be, to remind me of how bad it was and how in the end, it all worked out for the best.
It’s exhausting keeping secrets. Every single day is an ordeal. But not for much longer. I have things to look forward to. I’ve got Josh and now Dad has Alice. She’s going to change things around here. I can just feel it, like a welcome tension in my gut, not the throbbing, sickening tautness that has been sitting at the base of my belly for so long, I thought it would never leave me. This is a welcome sensation, something that ignites a spark inside of me. A spark that got extinguished when Mum and Dad’s marriage began to fall apart. It’s beginning to burn bright again and I have Alice to thank for that. I just hope she sticks around and injects some warmth back into our lives. God knows we deserve it. Or at least, Dad does. I’m not sure what I deserve.
22ALICE
He made it so easy for me, it was almost painful. Almost but not completely. Like taking candy from a small child. I slip my hand in my pocket and finger the notes, enjoying the sensation of the smooth, plastic-like texture that is rolled into a thick tight wad, gangster style.
Five hundred pounds and that’s just for starters. I told him that if he tried to sack me, I would produce the receipt and message it to his wife. I will get the remainder of the cash later in the week and then I will hand over his stash. Or so he thinks. A lot can happen in a week. I may just decide to up my demands. It all depends on how he treats me between now and then, how many windows he and his precious wife make me clean, how much laundry they expect me to do.
The sun is warm against my skin as I head towards the school to pick up the children. It almost killed him, letting me collect them but as he said, he is a busy and important man and has too much work on to find the time to collect them himself.
I cross the road and wait alongside the small collection of parents and childminders and nannies, wondering if any of them work in circumstances similar to mine or do they breeze through their day, doing very little to earn their money? Few of them look frazzled or stressed. I’m guessing they all have relatively easy lives, their existences limited to keeping a loose eye on children and putting the odd toy back in its rightful place.
There is tug on my arm and turn to see a woman in her thirties staring at me, a quizzical expression on her face. ‘Sorry, I’m sure I know you from somewhere.’ She smiles and I feel her intense gaze as she scrutinises me, assessing me closely, her eyes roving over my features, setting them to memory.
‘No, sorry,’ I say quickly, turning away. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Did you used to go to St Peter’s School?’
I shake my head. The name means nothing to me. A pulse of annoyance and fear beats in my neck. ‘Nope, sorry.’
She lets out a disgruntled squeak and continues observing me. As much as I try to remain cool and calm, my face heats up under her analytical gaze. I want her to go away, to leave me in peace. I visualise myself pushing her backwards, hearing the bash of her skull as it meets the pavement.
‘I work in York Crown Court as an usher. Maybe I’ve seen you there?’
My fingers are trembling ever so slightly as I run them through my hair. I lower my hand and stare at my ragged nails then shake my head once more and push my glasses up my nose. ‘No, definitely not. I’ve never ever been in the place. Sorry again.’
She shrugs and at last, turns away defeated. But not quite. ‘Sorry, I didn’t quite catch your name.’
‘Alice,’ I reply, my smile saccharine sweet, my voice soft and cloying. ‘Alice Godwin.’
This seems to appease her, her eyes no longer narrowed with curiosity. No more attempting to probe into my innermost thoughts. She shrugs and moves away from me, mingling back into the waiting bodies. I continue to watch her. She glances my way and catches my eye, a sharp, unforgiving look that tells me she knows I’m lying, before she disappears altogether and gets swallowed up by the mass of parents and carers.
A crowd of youngsters spill out of the gates in a noisy throng. I spot Fionn as he rushes towards me, then Yasmin as she saunters up behind him, her head down before she looks my way and flashes me what appears to be a genuine smile. It’s fear and an attempt to be cordial after our encounter this morning, I do realise that, but it’s better than her usual surly manner and superior attitude. Those traits piss me off and I had just about had enough of them.
We walk back, Fionn chatting about the football match and his art lesson, and Yasmin making small talk about her love of tennis and how Miss Jackson is the best teacher ever. She seems enraptured by her. I visualise Miss Jackson with her fresh complexion and effervescent manner and wish her dead. I don’t even know her but hearing her name spoken over and over in such a gushing manner sickens me. All of these people with easy lives, no troubles, no worries, just a flowing, carefree existence, they infuriate me more than I can ever say.
Fionn runs ahead, leaving me and Yasmin on our own. I wonder what she thinks of me – whether she hates me with a passion, whether fear of my capabilities will force her to respect me. I don’t particularly care either way. Yasmin is a spoilt, sulky child and I am her nanny. That is as far as our relationship goes. She doesn’t have to like me, nor me her. I wash her clothes, clean her room, escort her to and from school. I am her servant, paid to be at her beck and call. My jaw aches as I clench my teeth together, a tic taking hold under my eye.
Before we get to the house, I stop and grab her wrist, gripping it tightly as I hiss in her ear. ‘Don’t forget our little promise now, will you? I know your every move, madam, so let’s make sure you say nothing to anybody, okay?’ She nods furiously, tears glistening, her skin bloated and blotchy. ‘Good. Now stop crying and grow the fuck up.’
She is good, I’ll give her that. Practically a professional. By the time we reach the house, her mood has changed dramatically. She enters the hallway a bubbly, young girl, full of laughter and excitement at being home.
They head to their rooms and I slip off into the kitchen thinking about the woman at the school gates and her recognition of me. Every time I glance in a mirror, I see a different person to the woman I was a year ago. Different hair, glasses, weight loss. I have a completely different look. I am no longer me. Unless she has an uncanny knack of remembering every single person she comes into contact with, it is impossible for her to have placed me as that distraught woman who sat in court that day, hearing the grisly details of her husband’s sordid little secrets. I have altered so much, there are days when I barely recognise myself. That woman outside the school gates is no more than a gutter gossip, one of the nosy rabble of carers who stand there every day, looking for somebody to shoot down with their vicious tongues and wicked minds.
‘You can take yourself off home now, Alice.’ Jack is standing over me as I lean down in the cupboard to retrieve two tumblers which I fill with milk and place on the kitchen table for Fionn and Yasmin.
I stand opposite him, refusing to break eye contact. ‘Are you sure? I don’t mind staying and looking after the children until Elizabeth comes back home.’ My hands are on my hips, my legs slightly apart. I’m enjoying this. I can see that he is both nervous and furious, a tension of opposites swirling about in his mind – the way his jaw twitches, his terse expression, his clenched fists – they all show me how conflicted he is about this situation. He wants me out of the way. I wouldn’t be surprised if he offered me more holiday time with full pay. The less he sees of me, the better. But that’s not going to happen. I want to get under his skin, to needle him and have him watching his back, constantly looking over his shoulder, fearful that I’m about to spill out his secrets to his darling wife. I have the power to rupture his world, to bring it all crashing down around him. For all of his influence and his ostentatiousness, Jack Downey is no more than a gaudy little man who is driven by his greed and let down by his many vices. He will do exactly as I want until such time as I tire of my little game and then I will be out of here, and once I am gone, I will not give this place or this family another thought.
‘Of course. You get yourself away. We can manage here.’ His last sentence is laced with menace.
