Cath Staincliffe - Letters To My Daughter's Killer

‘They were on the telly a long time ago. Lived on a planet with a soup dragon. They made a noise like this.’ I combine a hum and a whistle.

‘I want a Clanger,’ she says. ‘No – I want a sock cat. No – a kitten.’

‘A kitten, eh? What would it need?’

‘Some ears.’ She scoops up the last of her beans.

‘And whiskers?’

‘Yes, and paws.’

My sewing skills are basic. ‘Paws might be tricky. Let’s see…’

The sewing box yields enough black felt scraps to furnish two triangular ears and two round eyes, Florence chooses a brown leather button for a nose.

‘Look at Milky’s eyes,’ I say. Milky is sitting on the chair by the radiator. Florence kneels up in front of him and stares. Milky yawns, affecting disdain, but then his ears flatten and I can see he’s preparing for a rapid exit if she makes a lunge. ‘Yellow bits,’ she says.

‘What shape?’

She sketches something unreadable with her hands.

‘Great.’

I have some yellow cotton and use that to stitch a vertical line on the eyes. Plaited brown wool furnishes a tail. There’s nothing stiff enough for the whiskers, so we make do with more lengths of the wool, which hang down like a droopy moustache, but Florence seems happy.

‘She needs insides,’ Florence says. ‘She’s all flat.’

‘If we leave it empty, it can be a puppet,’ I say.

‘I don’t want a puppet,’ she scowls. ‘Not a puppet!’ Suddenly cross.

‘Okay.’

A couple of J Cloths, torn into strips, serve as stuffing. I sew the top of the sock shut, biting the thread to cut it. ‘There we go.’

Florence bounces the kitten along the table.

‘What will you call it?’

‘Kitten.’

‘Okay, highly original.’

‘No, Kit Kat,’ she says.

‘Right.’

‘No…’ She purses her mouth and furrows her brow as she thinks. ‘Matilda.’

Where’s this come from? Has she had the book? Seen the film? The little girl who is neglected and bullied at home and school but who finds secret powers and blossoms in the love and care of her teacher.

‘Yes,’ she says firmly, ‘Matilda.’

The door opens and I look up, expecting Lizzie, come to collect Florence. Tired from her journey but glad to be working, with stories from her day.

I have forgotten, which means I have to remember anew. A lance in my heart. Swallowing the cry in my mouth, I fight to smile at Jack.

Florence is in the living room with Kay, CBBC on the television. There is talk of the BBC moving to Manchester. Jack hopes it will happen; it might provide more work for him.

‘We should think about getting her back to school,’ I say.

‘I don’t think she’ll wear it,’ Jack says.

‘She’ll have to sooner or later, unless you plan to home-school her.’

He gives me a sceptical look.

‘A phased return,’ I say. ‘We can work something out with the staff. Who is it, Mrs Bradshaw?’

‘Yes.’

‘Even if we have to go and sit in with her for a month. You’ve no work lined up?’ I ask him.

‘No,’ he says, ‘I’ve not had an audition since I went up for The History Boys. I should speak to Veronica, tell her the situation.’

Veronica is his agent. ‘She’ll have heard,’ I say. ‘There’s time.’

‘I should get a phone,’ he says. Like Bert the teddy bear, Jack’s phone was in the house and is off limits for now.

I get a glimpse of all the practicalities Jack will have to face, rearranging work and childcare around Florence, sorting out the house: he will want to move, surely, find somewhere new, neutral, not tainted with Lizzie’s murder. And then all their financial affairs and all the connections of Lizzie’s. All the organizations and individuals she’s linked with. All the arrangements that will need cancelling.

‘Use mine whenever you need,’ I remind him. ‘And if I can help with anything, the school stuff, or looking after Florence when you go back to work, I can reduce my hours. Anything.’

We decide that Florence can go without a bath. I supervise her getting ready for bed and read her book, then she asks for Jack and he stays with her. Downstairs I nod off myself and come to with a start when he returns.

It is windy, a storm is forecast. In bed, I lie with the duvet tight around me and listen to the wind, to the bumping of the gate and the sudden rattle of something along the alley at the back when a stronger gust blows through.

It used to be one thing I relished, being warm and cosy inside while outside the wind prowled and roared. Reminders of ghost stories and adventure yarns. It was a dark and stormy night. That has changed.

I’m cold, chilled deep inside and I no longer feel safe.

Ruth

17 Brinks Avenue

Manchester

M19 6FX

I wake early. The storm is buffeting the house, heavy rain lashes against the window. Milky, unsettled, starts to wash himself, then freezes, cowering. He won’t even come on to my lap for a stroke.

Pain in my chest again. Perhaps I need to go back to the GP. I’m fearful that it’s something serious. No, ‘serious’ is the wrong word. Something physical, mechanical, a blockage or a clot, a leak or a tear. That my heart is broken, not just that I am heartbroken.

Florence and Jack come down together. She has woken him. Before, she used to be happy entertaining herself for a while, able to understand that Mummy and Daddy didn’t want to get up before seven, but now Jack says that as soon as she’s awake she rouses him.

Jack makes her cereal and goes to have a shower.

I consider whether to broach returning to school with her but decide it’s best to let Jack take the lead on that. The line between supporting and interfering is very hard to see in the circumstances. But she’s his daughter and he is the sole parent now, and I trust him to judge how best to handle things with her.

There’s a crashing sound from outside and Florence flinches. I feel myself wince in sympathy.

Peering out of the window, I can see that the planter I fixed up has come away from the wall. And the trellis further down is loose, moving with each fresh blast.

‘It’s just one of Nana’s pots,’ I tell her. ‘You want to see?’

Non-committal, she sits for a few seconds longer then comes over, and I lift her up and show her. ‘See, all the soil’s spilt.’

‘And the flowers,’ she says.

‘They were old anyway. Past their best.’ Verbena and lobelia from the summer.

‘You’re old.’

My mind does gymnastics trying to work out what hers is thinking. That I might just collapse too? If my world feels unsteady, how much more fragile must Florence’s be?

‘Not really,’ I say. ‘I’m not past my best. Fit as a fiddle, me. Fit as a flea.’

A ghost of a smile.

Jack makes some toast and I put the kettle on again.

Kay arrives, commenting about the weather and the disruption. There’s been an accident on the M60 with a lorry gone over. Trees have blocked roads and some of the rail networks have been closed where the overhead lines are down.

Almost immediately her phone goes and she leaves us to take the call in the living room.

I’m mixing a banana milkshake for Florence, whizzing the fruit with milk and a spoonful of honey, when there is a knocking at the front door, just audible above the liquidizer.

Florence has her hands pointedly over her ears.

‘Let Kay get it,’ I say to Jack when he moves to go.

We hear voices, male, more than one. Not Tony, I can tell his voice anywhere.

I pour the frothy yellow drink into a plastic cup.

‘Can I have a straw?’ Florence says.

‘The bits might clog it up,’ I say, ‘but you can try.’