Cath Staincliffe - Letters To My Daughter's Killer

We went to Rusholme and stuffed ourselves full of curry. The food, the warm buzz of the restaurant, the change of scene worked on me like a tonic. My frustration, my unhappiness ebbed away and I determined to ignore the whisper of anxiety at being away from the baby. We even managed to talk about something other than Lizzie. Tony had been running the architectural salvage business on his own for two years after taking it over from his uncle. He was specializing in interior features: stained glass, wood balustrades, tiles and fire surrounds, cornices and dado rails. In the wholesale rush to convert and modernize, these were being ripped out of old villas and terraces. But some people still valued traditional items, and Tony’s business was steadily growing.

From the curry house we went to the pub. We hadn’t been out for a drink together since Lizzie was born. After a couple of halves of Guinness, I told him that I definitely wanted to go back to work after my six months’ leave, but part time if we could possibly manage it. And I also announced that I didn’t want to have any more children. ‘I know everyone says that at first,’ I told him, ‘but I really can’t do this again.’

‘It’s bound to be different,’ he said.

‘No,’ I said, ‘because it isn’t going to happen. I mean it.’ What I was saying was serious and he needed to realize it. ‘If you want more kids, you need to be honest with me, and not go along with it thinking I might change my mind. Because I won’t.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I wanted to be a dad, I wanted a child. We’ve got a child. That’s fine.’

I stared at him, into those blue-green eyes, and he met my gaze. He meant what he said.

Florence was so different from Lizzie. Polar opposites. As long as she was fed and clean and warm enough, she was happy. She cried if she needed something but not those raging, painful howls her mother had made, the sort that clawed inside your skull and scraped at your nerves.

‘When Lizzie met you,’ I say to Jack, ‘when you started going out. She was so… giddy.’

I remember her bursting to tell us: ‘The one who played Cassius, the one with the dark hair.’

Lizzie had been sign-language interpreting at the Royal Exchange. One of her first big jobs and she was petrified. We were worried at first; Jack was living with someone, but Lizzie insisted that he was an honourable man. He would tell his partner. Of course I fretted: if he could be fickle once… But Lizzie knew he was the great love of her life. She never doubted they’d be together.

And she was right. Jack left his girlfriend in London and moved to Manchester.

‘And your proposal!’ We laugh with delight and another wave of shame runs through me. Lizzie is dead. I ought never to laugh again.

The men catch my mood.

‘It’s all right,’ Tony says, his eyes on me.

‘She was embarrassed,’ Jack says after a pause.

‘But she loved it,’ I say. ‘The romance of it.’ Several months after their first meeting, Jack was playing in What the Butler Saw at the Birmingham Rep, and Lizzie was doing the signed performances.

At the end of the show, after the curtain call, Jack remained on stage, and the technician, who’d been primed, played a drum roll, alerting the audience, who were already on their feet ready to leave. Lizzie was sitting at the side of the stage, near the wings.

Jack had practised his message and began to sign to her. At first she did nothing, just went bright red. ‘I was too surprised,’ she told me. Jack repeated the signs: Lizzie, I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?

Blushing furiously, she stood up and translated to the audience.

A hush of expectation fell over the theatre, broken only by a couple of wolf whistles and someone yelling, ‘Say yes.’ And answering laughter. Then Lizzie in turn signed to Jack. Yes, I will. I love you. And said it aloud. The place erupted with applause and cheers and catcalls.

No one wants to break up our little circle, but eventually at almost two in the morning Tony calls a cab and Jack says good night.

Lizzie was heartbroken when we split up. Is it different for any children? Are there those who find relief in the separation, in the cessation of hostilities? Perhaps.

Lizzie was only fifteen when the mayhem of our troubles clashed with her own teenage trauma. Sometimes it felt like we were three adolescents competing as to who could slam the door hardest, stay silent longest, shout the loudest.

In my memory, that period lasted for years. In reality, it was no more than three or four months. We weren’t complete idiots, and even mired in our own pain, we could see how it was hurting Lizzie.

It was the greatest shock of my life.

Before this.

Tony stayed home from work one day. I was doing the late shift at the library and Lizzie had left for school.

‘Don’t you need to open up?’ I said. He had been working all hours, making the most of the lighter nights and a fresh wave of property development in the region.

‘I need to talk to you,’ he said, a peculiar shifty look on his face.

I had no idea.

We sat at the kitchen table. I swallowed. I couldn’t imagine what it was about; my mind alighted on possibilities: financial trouble, a health scare, another discussion about moving house (every few years we’d go through the rigmarole of considering a move, of looking for some wreck and doing it up and selling it on as another way to make some money. But we’d never finally bitten the bullet).

‘I’ve met someone else,’ he said.

I stared at him. Clutching at the possibility that I’d misheard, misunderstood. Waiting in case there was something more to come, a punchline, another phrase to set me straight and allow me to breathe again.

When I didn’t speak, he cleared his throat. ‘It’s serious,’ he said. His hands, big, brawny hands, clenched together, one nail tugging at a scab.

‘Who is it?’ I found my voice.

He blinked, his sea-green eyes glittering with something: shame, or embarrassment?

My throat was dry, I stood quickly, went and poured myself a glass of water, took a drink. Turned to him, repeating my question.

‘Her name’s Denise.’

I didn’t know any Denise.

‘Where did you meet her, who is she?’ My face felt odd, as though I couldn’t control my muscles, little tremors flickering through my cheeks, plucking at my lips.

‘At physio, she works there.’ Tony had hurt his shoulder lifting stuff at work. When it didn’t heal, I pestered him until he went to the GP, who referred him on.

I laughed, feeling sick.

‘She was looking for a fireplace.’

And got a lover into the bargain.

He exhaled slowly and pulled a face.

‘Look, if this is just some fling-’ I was ready to forgive, to forget, to retreat. Something was breaking inside me at the prospect that he might leave.

‘It’s not,’ he interrupted. ‘I can’t stop seeing her, I don’t want to stop.’

I turned to look out of the window. I couldn’t bear to witness it, what he was saying, the strength of his feeling. ‘You bastard,’ I said.

‘Ruth-’

‘Fuck off!’ I threw the glass across the room, relishing the sound as it smashed against the wall and water splashed on to the shelves and the floor. ‘Get out,’ I screeched at him.

He tried to speak, something about sorting things out and Lizzie, but I was incandescent.

That day I called in sick, and I was. Heartsick, wounded. Retreating to my bed, I wept and cursed, all but tore my hair out. What had happened? Obviously he didn’t love me as I still did him, but where had it gone? Nineteen years we’d been together. Nineteen.