Claire Allan - Forget Me Not

I felt my stomach tighten again. My legs weaken. I thought of Molly standing at the door of the crèche, some brightly coloured painting in her hand ready to be shoved in my direction with a smile. I thought of how we usually sang nursery rhymes all the way home in the car. How my evenings, which I’d considered so completely dull and ordinary, could never be so again.

I desperately needed to speak to Paul, but more than that, I ached to speak to Michael. Michael who could distract me from any pain, who could help me block the horrific reality of what had happened. Michael who was my guilty pleasure, and my darkest secret.

‘Mammy, why are you sad?’ Molly blinked at me, her bottom lip trembling as I undid her seat belt and lifted her from her car seat.

I’d been trying to act normal for her; clearly, I wasn’t doing a very good job.

But just how do you tell a three-year-old something so catastrophic has happened? She trusted me implicitly to protect her from all the bad in the world. This would prove to her that I wasn’t infallible. That bad things happened. Horrible things. And while it’s a lesson we all have to learn, I didn’t want to be the one to take the innocence from my baby girl.

‘I’m just a bit sleepy,’ I lied, kissing the top of her head. ‘You know how you get really grouchy when you need a nap? It’s a bit like that.’

She looked at me for a moment, her blue eyes staring out from under the mop of tight blonde curls surrounding her face. I swear she could see right through me – knew I was lying – but just chose not to challenge me. Not this time.

‘Okay, Mammy,’ she said. ‘Let’s go see Daddy and Beth.’ She took my hand in hers and pulled me towards the front door.

‘Daddy’s working in Belfast still,’ I told her, ‘but Beth should be home and I bet she’s ready for cuddles from her best girl in the world.’

Molly beamed at me, delighted to have her place as best girl in the world reinforced, and I let us into the house, calling upstairs to my older daughter that we were home. I really needed her to take Molly out from under my feet for a little, just until I called Paul and then, of course, Michael. I should have been seeing him that night, at the creative writing class I tutored, but I’d hardly be teaching that night. Not after what had happened. It would have been wrong. Everything felt wrong, even the most mundane tasks.

Beth appeared at the top of the stairs, still in her school uniform, but her hair was loose around her shoulders and she was wearing her fluffy slippers instead of school shoes.

‘You called?’ she asked, giving me the same inquisitive look her little sister had just moments before.

‘Beth, could you mind Molly for a bit? I need to make a few phone calls.’

‘Mum, what’s going on?’ she asked, walking down the stairs towards me. ‘Trisha Donnelly was on Snapchat telling everyone you’d just walked out of class today. What’s up? Is it Dad?’

She was twelve years older than her little sister, but she looked just as vulnerable as she walked down the stairs towards me.

‘Mammy says she needs a nap, ’cos she’s a sleepyhead,’ Molly said, throwing her padded jacket on the floor and grabbing her favourite teddy bear from the hall table.

Beth raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow. ‘Mum?’ she asked again.

‘It’s not Dad. Dad’s fine. I’m going to call him now, but please, Beth, could you just mind Molly for a little? Put on a DVD or something. Just make sure I get a little peace.’ I heard the wobble in my voice and inwardly crumbled.

‘You’re scaring me, Mum,’ Beth whispered as if Molly didn’t have the ears of a bat.

‘Darling, please, I’ll explain it all shortly. But don’t worry. Everything’s okay.’

I felt awful lying to her, but this wasn’t something you just blurted out. Truth being told, I didn’t know how to say it. How to find the words.

Reluctantly, she led her little sister into the living room and I climbed the stairs to our bedroom, where I sat on the edge of the bed and took my phone out. It was Paul’s number that I dialled first. It rang three times before he answered. On hearing his ‘hello’, I felt my composure slip.

‘Paul,’ I said, my voice breaking. ‘You need to come home. Something really awful has happened. I need you here.’

‘The girls?’ he asked.

‘They’re fine,’ I assured him. ‘It’s Clare. Paul, have you seen the news about the body found at Coney Road?’ I realised I’d started to shake.

‘Yes, I saw it … but, God, no, Rachel,’ Paul said, his voice low. ‘It’s not Clare? It can’t be.’

‘Police confirmed it this afternoon,’ I said, my voice breaking. ‘It was murder, a knife wound.’

I finally gave in to sobbing as I heard my husband try to soothe me down the line.

‘I’ll be home as soon as traffic allows,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe it, Rachel. This is awful.’

I couldn’t even speak to say goodbye, so I just ended the call and curled up into a ball on my bed, burying my head in my pillow so that my daughters wouldn’t hear my sobs. I didn’t want to alarm them. I wished there was someone here to hold me and soothe me as I cried.

I knew I should have wished for that person to be Paul, and in a way I did. But more than that, I wished it were Michael. I needed him. My body physically ached for the comfort he could give me. Knowing that I wouldn’t see him tonight was hard, when I just wanted him to hold me and tell me everything would be okay in the way only he could.

I tried to slow my breathing, to regain control of my emotions, and I dialled his number, saved in my phone as Michelle. Just in case, I’d thought, long before I realised just what I was getting myself into.

‘Hey, you,’ his voice, smooth, comforting, came down the line. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing you later. Can you get away for coffee afterwards?’

At this point normally we may have laughed at the word ‘coffee’, knowing that it was about more than coffee. We’d not slept together. Not yet. But it was, we’d both realised, only a matter of time before we couldn’t hold out any longer. Before I took the final step, which would brand me a cheat forever.

‘I won’t be there tonight,’ I told him. ‘I’ve texted them and asked for a substitute to be sent in.’

‘Does that mean you’ll be pretending to be there and we might just have more time together if I skip class, too?’

I so wanted to say yes. I so wanted to be led astray by him. I wanted to be distracted by him, taken away from the horror that had been unfolding all afternoon.

‘Michael,’ I said, loving even the sound of his name, ‘I wish it were that simple. My friend’s dead.’ I gulped back a sob, closed my eyes and tried not to picture how she may have been found. ‘That poor woman out on the Coney Road. It’s Clare.’

‘Oh, Rachel,’ he soothed. ‘I’m so, so sorry. I wish I could do something to be there for you. Is there any chance we could see each other even for five minutes?’

I shook my head, told him no. ‘Paul’s coming back from Belfast now. We’ve got to tell the girls yet. And the police want a statement, so I’ve got to go to the station, too. It’s all just a nightmare. I can’t even …’

‘It’s okay,’ he soothed, his deep soft voice washing over me. ‘You know I’m here for you whenever you need me. You do believe that, don’t you? You know how I feel about you, Rachel. I’ll do whatever you need me to do to help.’

‘I don’t know what’s going to happen – these next few days, I just don’t know …’

He sighed. ‘Don’t worry about the next few days. Just take it a day at a time, Rachel. An hour at a time if you need to. I’ll be here when you’re ready, whenever that may be. Even if it’s just for five minutes.’