A. L. Bird - Don’t Say a Word

Would we feel life had moved on from having a newborn?

I allow my mind to drift back to the man from whence the newborn came. And to her. The evenings spent together. We weren’t alone then. And we weren’t drinking red wine then.

But that wasn’t romance. I can see that now. I can see the fucked-up twisty captivity of it. Wanting a father figure. Wanting stability (ha!). Wanting a house where the only rule is: You don’t touch what’s not yours.

She was his, the other girl. I never was. I need to remember that. But it doesn’t mean I’m safe from her. She’ll come looking, from time to time. A return to chaos. A return to life on the run. Should I check the phone again? Not my regular phone. The other phone. The one I keep under the bed. Probably. Just in case there’s anything on there, about Chloe.

I pull myself up off the sofa, pad into my bedroom, take the phone out of the shoebox. The old, clunky Nokia. Switch it on, half hoping it will beep, half hoping it won’t.

BEEP BEEP.

New message.

It’s from her. Shit.

‘ONE DAY I’M GOING TO FIND YOU.’

I clamp a hand over my mouth, so I won’t cry out. Sent last night – 11.54 p.m. A late-night spear shooting through the dark. When will she give up? When will she let us be?

I know the answer.

Never.

I could reply. I could put an end to it now. Say she’ll never find me unless I go to her first. Which isn’t going to happen. Can’t happen. Because think of Josh. It wouldn’t be safe.

And besides, she might be able to do something clever, like track my location, if I reply. Who knows – desperate times and all that.

No. Just put the phone back in its box. Close the lid on all thoughts of Chloe. You have to be strong. Ignore her. Stop trembling, put away those tears.

Shit. This is why I both should and shouldn’t spend the night on the sofa. Josh needs to be safe but I need somewhere else to put my brain. I should call Daniel tomorrow. Try and get a life. Everything is fine. Everything is safe. I pull myself up, ditch my supper things in the kitchen area. I go and run myself a bath. That’s what this girl needs. A long, hot, soak, to scrub everything away. Maybe one day I’ll feel truly safe. Truly clean.

***

Chloe. Sitting on a sofa. Her hair a wild loose mane, frizzing out to the side of her head. Eyes bright and wide and dark, made darker by the liquid eye liner surrounding them. Knees hugged up to her chest. I’m sitting next to her. On the other side of her, my knees bunched up too, touching almost like mirror images of each other. My hair tied back, not wild at all. We’re holding hands.

‘We’ve got to do it; you know that,’ says Chloe.

‘How? No one will believe us.’

‘They will. We’ll make them. We’ll be safe then. As long as we never ever tell anyone. They won’t know who to blame then, will they?’

I pretend to shake her hand, like I’m making a pact. Except I find I’m not shaking her hand at all. I’m shaking Josh’s hand. He’s there, in a nappy (except he’s as old as he is now), sitting in between us. Chloe gradually fades away, disintegrates into the light.

‘Wait, Chloe! What will I do without you?’

She doesn’t answer. She pretends to be gone. But she’s not gone. I can feel her. I know she is still there, watching.

***

I wake up in cold water, shivering. What the …? Christ, I didn’t know life malaise had spread to day-to-day tiredness. My fingers are shrivelled, my hair is wet, and the flat has a too-quiet feel. I clamber out of the bath and, shivering, grab my bathrobe from the back of the door. Push the recurrent Chloe nightmares to the back of my mind (‘it will take a long time for your subconscious to move on’ I was told).

What’s happened while I was sleeping? Hugging myself, I pad along the dark corridor to Josh’s room, and put my head round the door. There he is, sleeping sweetly. Of course, what else?

I’ve left his curtains open, though. Silly. I must have been so engrossed in him that I forgot the more basic maternal requirements. Still Disney print – Mickey and Minnie Mouse are separated by glass (you get what you’re given; we haven’t replaced them yet, now I’m earning). I’m about to reunite them when I see the car outside. My car. But with the inside light on.

Odd. Why would I have done that?

Maybe when I was hunting round for my bag earlier?

Do I need to go down and turn it off?

I look down at my bare, soggy feet.

Surely not.

But if I don’t, the battery will be flat, we’ll need to call the AA, Josh will be late for important playground business deals again … Urgh. Bloody adulting.

I pull the curtains shut and Josh stirs slightly. At least these days I don’t need to ‘shh’ him to sleep and rub his back, like when he was little. Tiny. In that first place. Jesus, what were they thinking, placing us there …? And maybe the back-rubbing was more for me than for him. Clutching him, facing the door, ready to dodge a bullet at any moment. ‘It will all be OK, Jen.’ All very well for you, love. You’re not the one who’s done this to yourself – to you and your newborn. Had this done to you, rather. We were the victims.

Josh is really stirring now and I don’t want him to think I’m watching him in his sleep (again) so I pad out of the room. I slip on some jeans, a sweater, and some trainers, find the key and pull the door gently shut. Even now, even when he’s a big boy, I worry about leaving him in the flat alone. That’s why I put the rubbish out in the mornings when we’re together.

There was that case, once, about a woman who popped round to her neighbour’s house while her kids were playing inside. While she was out there was a freak gas explosion. The kids died. How do you live with that? At least if she’d been in the house, they’d all be dead together. If all you’ve got are your kids, what do you do if they’re gone?

Outside, I open the car and flick off the light. As I’m doing so, I see the slip of paper on the windscreen that I’d noticed earlier when I was rushing to pick up Joshua. Shutting the car door, I pick up the bit of paper and read what it says.

I inhale sharply.

Because on it is written: ‘WE KNOW YOUR SECRET.’

What? The paper shakes in my hands. Shit. First the text message. Now this. We need to move again. I should go up and grab Josh now, put him in the car. Flee.

Then I turn the paper over.

‘… Even if you don’t. We’ll find the secrets in your family tree and share them. Look www.secretancestor.com today!’

Oh for fuck’s sake. Jen, it’s fine. It’s an ad. ‘We know your secret’ is a marketing slogan. You’re safe. Josh is safe. For once and for all, get over yourself.

I stuff the paper in my pocket and let myself back into the block of flats.

‘Go to bed and get a life,’ I mumble to myself as I climb the stairs.

I almost don’t notice the package on the doormat.

Chapter 7

‘I don’t live here, I don’t live here!’

‘You do. You have to stay!’

‘I don’t want to be friends with you. I have other friends, back in the other home.’

‘No you don’t. I know. No friends, no friends, no friends.’

The chanting, from everywhere. No friends, no friends, no friends.

Then the spitting, then the kicking. The hair-dragging. The head held out of the window, the ground too far but also too close below.

No friends, no friends, no friends.

‘Stop it! Stop it! Let me go!’

‘You’re sure? You want us to let you go?’

Her voice. The ringleader. Her, who I’d seen at another home, once before. Back again to torture me.

‘What’s going on? Chloe, what’s happening?’

A loud voice, an adult voice.