‘… Is sixteen,’ she finishes. ‘I keep telling you – you’ve got to give her space. Now sort yourself out while I have a wee. Let’s go.’
It’s past eleven when I crawl into bed. I feel better than I have all week. The pub was good, old-fashioned and cosy and no one paid us any attention at all, which reminded me how this whole business with Ava and the river is only important for the bubble of our social circles, such as they are. No one else cares, they’re all getting on with their own complicated lives. We bitched about Julia, she quizzed me about what Ava was going to do over the summer and in sixth form and then we talked about Simon – who texted while we were out, asking for another dinner, and she made me answer yes. It was a good escape but as soon as I relaxed I felt shattered and couldn’t stop yawning. Relief and release. The sheer exhaustion that comes from having been wound tight for days and the comedown from living in fight-or-flight mode. I’m out of practice.
I haven’t said goodnight to Ava, my tiredness too much to face any more confrontation. I’m clinging desperately to this wispy ribbon of calm. If I can get to sleep before the anxiety creeps back I’ve got a chance of a good night’s rest and everything will seem better in the morning. Rest does that. Sunshine does that. I’ll let Marilyn take the lead on Julia. And like she says, we won’t make any real accusations until we have proof. Evidence. I don’t want to think about evidence. It leads me back to worry.
Even though it’s warm I leave the window closed and pull my duvet and knees right up to my chin. I make myself small. I close my eyes and take deep breaths. I imagine myself as the last person in the world. It makes me feel safe. The last person. Only me. Alone. I drift.
‘Mum?’
I’m dead to the world and when Ava shakes my shoulder and I startle awake, I’m not sure where I am, or when I am, and I leap out of my bed as if my life depends on it. I squint in the bright light. Is that daylight? No, my curtains are drawn. She’s turned the light on. Blue-white creeps through the edges of the fabric though, so it is morning.
‘It’s crazy, Mum.’ She’s all energy and excitement, still in her shorts and T-shirt from bed. I can’t catch up, but my heart is racing. No No No, it drums against my ribs. Please no.
‘I mean, it’s just crazy.’ She’s almost at the window and I want to pull her back, pull her under the covers and hide us both there. She laughs. ‘Who’d have thought all these people would be interested in what I did? It’s not that big a deal. But look, Mum, look!’ She pulls back the curtains. ‘See?’
I hear them through the double glazing. The shouting. The clicking of bulbs. The chatter of the hyenas. I don’t move.
Ava’s face is full of sparkle and light as she turns to me. ‘Look.’
I don’t move. I’m frozen. Downstairs the doorbell goes. Hard. Long. The phone starts ringing. Noise. All the noise is filling me up, choking me like quicksand. My breath comes in pants.
‘Mum?’ Ava frowns. She’s on the other side of the universe from me. ‘You okay?’
‘Come away from the window.’ A harsh rasp. Not me at all.
‘What’s the matter?’ She comes closer. I want to hold her. I want to tell her how much I love her. I don’t though. I can’t. Not now. Instead, I simply tell her the truth. I hear the calls outside.
‘They’re not here for you.’ I swallow hard as the world darkens and the noise drowns me and I surrender myself to it. All of it.
‘Charlotte! Charlotte! How long have you lived here, Charlotte? Is Ava your only child?’
My world crumbles as if it had never existed.
‘They’re not here for you,’ I repeat. ‘They’re here for me.’
PART TWO
25
AFTER
Life Licence Conditions for release of Charlotte Nevill 1998:
1. She shall place herself under the supervision of whichever supervising officer is nominated for this purpose from time to time.
2. She shall on release report to the supervising officer so nominated, and shall keep in touch with that officer in accordance with that officer’s instructions.
3. She shall, if her supervising officer so requires, receive visits from that officer where the licence holder is living.
4. She shall reside initially under whatever conditions are laid down by the General Manager, and thereafter as directed by her supervising officer.
5. She shall undertake work, including voluntary work, only where approved by her supervising officer and shall inform that officer of any change in or loss of such employment.
6. She shall not travel outside the United Kingdom without the prior permission of her supervising officer.
7. She shall be well behaved and not do anything which could undermine the purposes of supervision on licence which are to protect the public, by ensuring that their safety would not be placed at risk, and to secure her successful rehabilitation into the community.
8. She shall remain under the clinical supervision of Dr [ ] or any other forensic psychiatrist who may subsequently be appointed to provide such supervision.
9. She shall not enter the Metropolitan County of South Yorkshire without the prior written consent of her supervising officer.
10. She shall not contact or attempt to associate with [ ].
11. She shall not reside or remain overnight in the same household as any child under the age of 16 years, without prior written permission of her supervising officer.
12. She shall not have unsupervised contact or engage in any work or other organised activity, with children under the age of 12 years, without the prior written permission of her supervising officer.
26
LISA
It all has to come out somehow.
It is worse than I could have imagined. It is worse than last time. It is terrible and I deserve it. Nothing for me will ever be as bad as my own guilt, my own dreams, my own need for punishment. I deserve this pain, and I can cope in my own way. I absorb it. I earned it. Not Ava though. Not my baby. She doesn’t deserve this. Her world has crumbled too and she has only ever been good.
I have never thought of Ava as having my blood. It’s been the joy of her, that she’s so different to me, to Charlotte. She liked school, from day one. So proud in her little uniform. She’s focused. An achiever. She was never any trouble, not really. A bundle of goodness from her first giggle. She was sweet, always ready with a smile, her bad moods only light breezes not dark thunderstorms. She was like Daniel.
Now, in this rage, now that she knows, she is all mine and it breaks my heart all over again.
At first there was too much happening to talk, we were stunned zombies as Alison and the others swept in moving us like mannequins – What’s going on, Mum, why are they calling you Charlotte, who’s Charlotte – bundling us out in separate cars, blankets over our heads, our lives evaporating in the darkness, and then, finally arriving at this small damp flat which reminds me of the first one, the past all jagged edges cutting into me from all angles.
I stand still as she screams at me. I wish I could cry. They’ve told her what I did. How can I explain it to Ava when I can’t explain it to myself? I think of my fairy tale, my shed cells, my new me, and I almost laugh hysterically. The dirt. The guilt. Charlotte can never be shed. She’s there, always, under the layers I’ve housed myself in.
‘You disgust me!’ Ava is crying, but these tears are something feral and wild, her face blotchy red and her hair, still bed-scruffy, like brambles around her beautiful head. ‘How can you say you love me? How can you love anyone? You disgust me! You make me disgust me! Why didn’t you abort me?’
I take a small step forward into the gale of her fury. I want to hold her. I want her to punch me. I want to do something, anything, to try to make this easier for her.