‘I pushed it open and I called his name. No answer. No sounds, not a thing. I went into the hall, still calling his name, ready to run back out if I heard any signs of an intruder. Still nothing.’ The tears were flowing again. ‘I looked down and saw the footprints. Horrible bloody footprints, leading from the living room towards the front door.’ Her voice started rising. ‘I think I knew then what had happened and I had no idea how to bear it. I pushed open the living room door. And…oh, God…’
Daniel tightened his hold on her.
‘There was so much blood. Everywhere.’ The expression on her face hit him in the gut; she had a combination of devastation, heartbreak and searing loss written all over her. ‘He’d been hit with a hammer. Over and over. Murdered by a crack-head for a few pounds stolen from his wallet. I held him in my arms and I got covered in blood and it was so awful. I couldn’t believe what had happened. I thought the whole thing must be a horrible nightmare, and I’d wake up soon, and I’d have my husband back with me, the man who never did anyone any harm, who had always been so kind. But it wasn’t a nightmare, it was all too real. Eventually I dialled 999 and I could hardly tell them what had happened, I was shaking and crying so much.’
Shit. If he thought he’d been landed with a crap hand in life, then Fate had dealt one a great deal worse to Annie. Guilt stabbed at him when he remembered his whinges about being denied an art degree.
‘Sorry,’ she whispered against his shoulder.
‘Hey, nothing to be sorry for. Nobody should ever have to experience anything so awful.’
‘That’s life, Daniel. Shit happens, as they say, and it can happen to anyone. Turns out I ended up being the chosen one. Or rather, Andrew did.’ She managed a small smile. ‘I thank God, even though I don’t believe in God, for every day we spent together. Nothing can ever take them away from me.’
‘What did you do? Afterwards?’
‘I couldn’t cope. Not at all. Everything I’d ever loved had been ripped from me. I still had family, and friends, but I shut them all out. I didn’t want to live. Not without Andrew. He’d been such a huge part of me and the hole in my life was immense. I didn’t believe it would ever heal.’
‘You didn’t consider talking to someone else? Counselling, I mean?’
‘No. I didn’t think anyone, even people like the Samaritans, would grasp the pain I was going through. Talking wouldn’t bring Andrew back, either, and that was all I wanted. The doctor prescribed Prozac, but I didn’t collect the prescription. Chemicals wouldn’t replace my husband and nothing short of oblivion would have helped with the pain, so I ran away.’
‘Here, to London?’
‘Yes. I had to get away. Couldn’t stay living there. They meant well. Family and friends, you know. But I found their pity unbearable and the fact none of them had a clue what to say to me. What the hell do you say to a woman who finds her husband’s body in his own blood and so badly beaten she can’t even recognise him?’
Daniel had no idea either. Christ, this woman had gone through some shit, all right.
‘I didn’t think I wanted to live. I couldn’t picture a life without Andrew; living without what we had together didn’t seem worthwhile. I packed my bags and got in my car, and drove to London, and found this flat. For weeks, I didn’t go outside apart from buying groceries. I cried and I cursed and I thought over and over about how I could kill myself. There’s no great way to commit suicide; and I considered every method possible, believe me. I think taking a dive under a Tube train came out on top.’ She smiled faintly at Daniel.
‘You still think that way?’
‘No. Somehow, those thoughts faded; I thought about Andrew, and the kind of man he’d been, and what he would have wanted, and that would be for me to carry on somehow. I tell you, Daniel, I don’t have a clue how to be happy ever again. But I do know he wouldn’t want me to commit suicide. That’s what I’m trying to figure out now, how to go on. Whatever that might mean for me.’
‘No idea at all?’
‘Not the slightest. I took the job in the bar, because I realised I needed to get out and about, mix with other people, not stay cooped up in this flat twenty-four seven. It’s done me some good; I guess I feel a little more human these days. Even started turning to my old friends, books, for inspiration, as you can see.’ She picked up the Bertrand Russell, flicked through the pages affectionately. ‘But long term? No idea.’
‘But you’re not thinking about throwing yourself under a Tube train anymore?’
‘No. Those days are past. It’s the future I’m not so sure about.’ She smiled. ‘But I’ll work things out. I’ll find a way. Just as you will, with dealing with the loss of your girlfriend and your disappointment about art college. And whatever else lies underneath all that, the part you’ve not told me about.’
He rubbed his thumb over her cheek, and she stared up at him, eyes still wet with tears, and her suffering made her plain face utterly beautiful to him. He looked at her and she looked back; the shared grief of their tormented pasts rose up between them and he did what seemed the most natural thing in the world. He leaned in and kissed her, not a passionate kiss but one speaking of understanding and empathy. She didn’t push him away and he kissed her again, this time drawing her closer and sliding his tongue into her mouth.
They kissed for a long time and when she eventually pulled back, she was smiling and shaking her head.
‘I’ve not kissed anyone since Andrew. Wasn’t sure if I ever would again.’
‘It felt right.’
‘Yes. Yes, it did.’ She smiled again. ‘One of those strange things for which there’s no explanation. I think perhaps we need this, Daniel. Right here, right now, you and I can help one another, take comfort together. There must be something about you. Never talked to anyone here in London about Andrew before.’
‘I’ve not discussed Katie with anyone else either. Who the hell do you tell you’ve been sleeping with your aunt by mistake?’
‘That’s why we’re good for each other. We can spill out our darkest secrets. And maybe it will help.’
‘I think you might be right.’
Annie stood up and stretched out her hand towards him. ‘Bedroom's this way.’
He’d not thought anything sexual would be on the agenda, until he kissed her. But he had a strong need to take this woman to bed, to strengthen the connection between them, relate to her on some level besides conversation and sharing secrets. He wanted to make love with her and find a deeper solace in her body than he’d ever find in words alone. He’d submerge himself in the relief she offered, sinking down into the comfort of her, this woman who was totally different to any he’d bedded before; and perhaps the sex might end up being the most important he’d ever have.
He was grateful for the condom he always carried in his wallet. They undressed slowly. This was no frenzied moment of passion, but rather two wounded people seeking to heal their hurts with one another. They kissed in between taking off their clothes, Daniel’s hands moving over her skin and sliding into her panties. She felt warm and good in his arms and he pushed her down onto the bed, tearing open the condom packet and pulling out the contents.
They carried on kissing for a long time, Annie lying passively under him, not that he minded; this wasn’t about passion and never had been. He moved his fingers down to rub and stroke between her legs, savouring her wetness, the touch of her hands rolling the condom on him. Then he was inside her, his cock thrusting hard into the solace she offered; the bitterness and anger started to recede from his brain as her legs wrapped around him, drawing him further in, her feet pressing against his back. He kissed her and fucked her, kissed her and fucked her, and it was a magic formula that sent Katie Trebasco and Laura Bateman and his stepfather spinning away from him to the outer edges of the universe, and only he and Annie remained, their bodies moving in mutual consolation.
He didn’t think he ever wanted their comfort fuck to stop, but eventually the pleasure got intense, and he knew he was going to come and he slowed down to give her time to catch up. She gasped under him, her arms tightening around him and her heels drumming against his spine and then he was coming, white lights sparking behind his eyes, his breath ragged and uneven and sweat running down his face. He was dimly aware of Annie panting under him and gasping his name, before he collapsed on top of her, deeply grateful in every cell of his body for what she’d done for him.
Daniel felt his cock shrinking and sliding out of her, and thought about rolling off, getting rid of the condom; but he was too relaxed, too comfortable, to care. He kissed her hair. ‘You OK?’
‘You can’t tell?’ Her voice teased him. ‘Hell, I never thought we’d be doing that tonight. When I asked you back for coffee, I meant Kenco and nothing else.’
‘I know.’
‘Not sure why it ended up being you. Why tonight. No, that’s not true. I do know. We’re the walking wounded, you and me, and I think we realised that the first night we met.’
‘Yes.’
She laughed. ‘A comfort fuck’s as good as any other. We both needed this, Daniel. Thank you.’
31
FOOL’S PARADISE
I’ve lost track of how long I’ve been in here now. I’m still getting daily visits from the doctors who sit in front of me and ask me ridiculous questions. What was my childhood like, taking care of a mother who had drinking problems? How did I cope with the death of my grandmother? Why did I take Daniel from his parents? Do they really think they’ll ever be able to understand, if they’ve not been through the pain I’ve endured?
They’ve been digging into my life. Well, of course they have. It’ll be the police, seeing as they consider a crime has been committed. Perhaps the young officer who stared at me with such judgement in her eyes when I was first arrested. I can picture her now, all quiet efficiency, searching through my past in that small town a lifetime ago. I’ve never made any attempt to hide my name or how I lived before I came to London. She’ll have found it easy enough to trace me back to when I worked in Bristol, and then to my life in Hampshire.
Right now, as I sit here gazing out of the window, they’re combing through my past life, and they’ll have found the record of my baby’s birth and they’ll ask themselves the obvious question: what happened to her child?
And the only record of my beautiful baby’s death is the tree he lies under, my child’s only gravestone, back in the wood I sobbed my way through so long ago. They don’t know about that part, of course. I pray they never find the oak tree under which I buried my baby; I can’t bear the thought of his tiny body being disturbed. I hope beyond hope they won’t fire more questions at me about his death, although of course they will, and I tell myself I’ll blot them out when they come. I’ll retreat behind my wall of silence, and think about the happy times with my baby. Perhaps then the futile questioning will fade away.
They won’t find it hard to work out what happened. Why I ended up with one child no longer around and another woman’s son brought up as my own. They’ll piece parts of the puzzle together, and perhaps the judgement in the young policewoman’s eyes will turn to understanding.
Yes. The records will show the bare bones of my life. They won’t show the ugliness of cleaning up after my drunken mother, trying to prevent her choking on her own vomit. They won't explain how terrified my seventeen-year-old self became on finding out I was pregnant by a boy who didn’t give a toss about me. They won’t reveal the horror of being raped by somebody twice my size and strength. Or the misery of losing my beloved grandmother.
The records of my life won’t show how the gorgeous four-year-old from the café fused with the memory of my dead baby, so they ended up as one, and how that little boy became my own child in my mind. I had to take him, because a child should be with its mother and Daniel had been palmed off on a nanny who thought nothing of leaving him alone and vulnerable. They can go on labelling what I did a crime but that’s black and white thinking and sometimes life presents you with shades of grey instead.
The police won’t understand about the years I had with my beautiful Daniel, watching him grow into an awkward teenager and then a handsome man who had all the girls after him. About the contentment I found in my marriage to Ian, who loves me and has always been a good husband. He never had the closeness I wanted him to enjoy with Daniel, though. Daniel was another man’s child, after all, and perhaps Ian found that too hard to deal with, although I think he did his best. I never saw him hit Daniel or heard him raise his voice to him.
I can’t blame Ian totally for the distance between him and Daniel. My boy was never an affectionate child. I was always so disappointed when he stiffened and pushed me away when I tried to hug him, never letting me get close. The teenage years were hard; he spent hours in his room and sometimes he wouldn’t speak to me at all.
I think about my husband. He’s bewildered by all this. Ian’s always lived in a safe, predictable world, where he went to work five days a week, played golf and came home to a wife and a meal on the table and nothing ever changed.
Now he has to deal with having a kidnapper for a wife and coming home to an empty house and microwave meals.
But he’s a good man. He’s stuck by me. He comes every couple of days and sits with me and I can tell he hopes he’ll be the one who breaks my silence.