She speaks into the gloom, stilted quiet sentences which belie their weight, and although she’s oh so aware of him lying beside her, his body inadvertently tensing with her words, she doesn’t turn to look at him once, but spills her story out until it’s an added layer of darkness, an extra sheet across them both.
When she’s done, and it really doesn’t take long to tell, the truth rarely does, there is only silence. He sits up and reaches for the wine glass. She hears him swallow. Everything stops. She’s made a terrible mistake. She wishes she could cry. The silence is endless as it all whirrs about in his head. She looks up at him and wonders if this dark silhouette is the last she’ll ever see of him. Her legacy life suddenly seems to be an origami horse, like the ones Mr Burton makes with left-over paper. Beautifully constructed. So easily crushed.
‘I’m sorry, Jon,’ she whispers, and although her eyes are dry, her voice cracks. ‘I’m so sorry.’
But then he’s telling her it’s all right and that he loves her and he presses his naked skin to hers and they kiss. He loves her. He loves her.
In the weeks that come after, when she realised the sickness and tiredness and constant hunger weren’t anything to worry about and that their two was about to become three, she thinks she knows when their baby was made. In that special, open, honest night.
It was as if maybe, maybe, God had forgiven her.
32
NOW
AVA Finally, finally I got them all to go. To give us ‘some time to ourselves’. It wasn’t easy. They act like we’re kids no one trusts to be safe alone, but after being all sweetness and light for a while I got my way. Some time alone with Mum. One night without any of them around.
It was weird when they all left. This tiny flat suddenly felt so big. Alison put a load of contact numbers on the fridge, which looks so normal until you remember they’re not for cleaners or babysitters, but police and psychiatrists and probation officers. Still, my stomach fizzes with excitement and nerves. Not my life any more. Not after tonight. Even if he doesn’t show up – he will show up, of course he’ll show up – I’m not coming back. I’ve decided. Mum’s trying to be more normal but we haven’t talked about it. What she did that day. Alison says she never has. I think they’re hoping that maybe she’ll open up to me, but that won’t happen. I don’t want to know and I don’t want to hear her speaking with my mum’s voice. She’s not Mum any more, just some twisted freak from the newspapers.
Alison wasn’t her probation officer when I was born. That was some woman called Joanne. Alison came along when we moved areas when I was small. It’s a past life. Not mine. My life is in my future. Soon Mum will be a memory. History. She already is after all this. How can I try to love her or understand her, however much I might wonder about the years before I was born? She’s a stranger. She’s a lie. It’s easier to remember that now we look so different.
I didn’t want my hair cut but I gritted my teeth and let them do it and I actually think the bob suits me. They razor-cut it and it’s quite cool. Ange would fucking love it. I’m also a redhead now – not ginger but a deep auburn – and they gave me brown contacts. It’s weird how such small changes make me look like a new person. I’ve practised doing my make-up differently too. Bigger lines around my eyes. Confident colours. With slightly different clothes on I’ll look like a totally new person. Mum looked like she was going to cry when she saw me. She didn’t though. She’s not a crier – that’s what they say about her. She didn’t cry then. Not in court or anything.
I told her I liked my new look and then she was okay about it. She says sorry all the time for everything. I’m so sorry about this, Ava. As if it’s a dress ruined in the wash, not our whole lives down the drain.
They’ve changed her too. She’s blonde now. Not properly blonde or anything hot, but a kind of sandy run-of-the-mill colour. She looks younger, although that could be because she’s lost some weight. Alison and the police are less worried about how she looks. There are hardly any pictures of her for people to recognise her from. The papers aren’t allowed to print them, and now all her privacy and hating herself in photos and what would I do with Facebook anyway? comments are making sense.
We didn’t really talk at all on this night to ourselves I’d arranged. Alison left a supermarket version of a Chinese takeaway in the fridge and I heated it up and we ate it on our laps in front of the telly. I said I liked her hair and she started to apologise all over again. I said it didn’t matter and we’d get through it. She looked so relieved. How can she think it’s that easy? Like we can get back to how we were before? That life was a pack of lies anyway.
Yesterday, when I had started my campaign of niceness, she came into my room, picking at the edges of her fingers as she sat on my bed. She told me to write down any questions I had for her. It was Alison’s idea. Not questions about it – she can’t bring herself to say what she did – but about her life and our lives and anything else. She said she’ll answer them all as best she can. I told her I would, but I didn’t mean it. I don’t want to know any of it now. Okay, maybe I do want to know – tell me about my dad – but what good would it do? It doesn’t matter. Not any more.
We watched more TV and drank cups of tea as if this was some normal evening at home, and I quietly clock-watched, desperate for the time to pass, wondering if he was feeling the same.
Eventually Mum took her sleeping pill – I wonder how many pills they’ve got her on right now – and I made a big deal of yawning and saying I was tired, and I kissed her on the head before going to my room. It was the only freaky moment in all this. Something about the smell of her scalp made my stomach cramp, and for a second I wanted to climb on to her lap like I did when I was small. When she was my world. It was a funny, horrible feeling and I slammed the lid on it hard. I don’t know if she’s capable of loving me – if she could love, she’d never have done what she did – and I can’t understand why she even had me. These are the sorts of questions Alison wants me to write down. But fuck them. I’m not going to be here. She’s not part of my new life. He’s my world and he’ll be waiting. He has to be.
I lie in my bed in the dark, my clothes on under the duvet that’s pulled up under my chin. What will he think of my new look? I’ll have to change it again, anyway. The hair colour at least, because no doubt the police will look for me. But I’m sixteen. I’m not a child. They’ll think I’ve run away, and they’ll be right. I’m going to leave a note. It says, ‘Don’t come and look for me.’ It’s short but does the job and I didn’t want to mention him. It’s not his fault this is such a fucked-up situation.
Has Alison noticed the money missing from her wallet? I took thirty when she was in talking to Mum before she left, and I took a twenty from the psychiatrist yesterday. She hasn’t been back today so fuck knows whether she suspected.
Anyway, fifty should be enough if I can find a phone box for a cab or a bus still running. I’ve got to get to the country lane where we’re going to meet. Where no one will see us. It’s further away now, but still doable. We said four a.m. so I’ve got plenty of time. If he’s not there I’ll go to Ange’s or Jodie’s. But he will be there. He loves me. When we’re safely away, I’ll message my friends and tell them not to worry. I’ll have to deal with the other thing too, the thin blue line Jodie was going to help me sort out, but he’ll deal with that. I know he will. He’s been so understanding about Courtney, even though he got jealous. Will having an abortion make me feel more grown up? Will I seem more grown up to him? Maybe one day we’ll have children of our own but right now, I just want this thing out of me. Maybe it will go away all by itself. When I’m not feeling sick, I can almost pretend it’s not there.