I pray to a God I don’t believe in before trying my debit card in a cashpoint, and I laugh with relief when it spits out the maximum two hundred and fifty pounds. In all this, they hadn’t got around to closing my bank account down yet. I ditch the card, my handbag and Alison’s phone in a nearby bin and quickly go to Boots and buy battery-operated hair clippers, pink and blue spray hair dye, make-up and black nail varnish. I visit three charity shops in a row and buy the hippiest, grungiest clothes I can find, along with an army surplus jacket and some second-hand Doc Martens that just about fit. I pick up a load of big junk jewellery of crosses and skulls and some leather bracelets. Sweat is slick on my skin and my heart is racing but my mind is clear. I’ve learned a lot over the years. They’ll expect me to be mousy still. Maybe change my hair colour and put some glasses on, but no more. They’d be underestimating me. Be big and bold and hide in plain sight. Be someone new.
In Costa Coffee I go to the disabled toilet cubicle that has a mirror and sink and I work fast. When I’m done, even I don’t recognise myself. I look younger, which is a surprise. Thirty at most. Thick kohl rises at points around my eyes, dark and angry. My lips are slashes of deep purple and my nails are black. My hair is almost gone; a buzz cut at the sides with a short pink and blue strip down the middle that leads to a narrow ponytail. The trousers are slightly too big and they hang on my hips, accentuating the youthful look. I’ve lost weight and the strip of belly that shows when I move is flat and taut.
I keep the make-up, dye, clippers and nail varnish, but stuff my old clothes into the sanitary bin and wash away all evidence of shaved hair down the sink. As I leave I find I’m walking differently. My hips are thrust forward and my shoulders are back. This woman doesn’t take any shit. This woman does things her own way. She’s hard as nails. This woman is my shadow and I know it. This is the Charlotte who could have been.
An hour or so later and I’m at the small services at the edge of the motorway. It’s still light, but there’s an edge of grey to the sky. I cruise up and down the rows of lorries that fill the car park until I find an occupied one. A driver, reading his paper, sipping from a flask, Burger King wrappers on the dashboard. All so ordinary. I tap on the side, smile, and he winds his window down to lean out.
‘I don’t suppose you’re going anywhere near Calthorpe?’ I ask. ‘There or Ashminster?’ They’re both close enough to home. I can get a bus from either and be back in Elleston in less than an hour.
‘I’m going to Manchester,’ he says. ‘So yeah I’m passing that way, but I’m parked up for the night. Done my hours. Sorry, love, but I won’t be leaving until about four in the morning.’
He isn’t an unpleasant-looking man. There have been worse men. I don’t give myself time to think about what I’m doing but shrug and smile. ‘I can wait.’ No one will look for me in a parked-up lorry. I’ll be safe there.
He looks at me for a long moment. ‘What’s your name, love?’ His tone has changed. Almost nervous but also wily. He’s sensing an opportunity. The sort of situation he’s probably only read about in top-shelf magazines.
‘Lily,’ I say. It comes from nowhere and is at odds with my wild look but also kind of suits it for exactly that reason. Lily is a nice girl from a good family who rebelled and never went back. Her story is weaving together in my head as his eyes flicker up and down and I see his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows.
‘I’m Phil.’ He opens the cab door and pulls me in. I’m relieved to find he smells clean and so does the cab. No cigarette smoke. No stale booze. Only leather and deodorant. It could be worse. It could be much much worse.
‘I’ll have to have a kip.’ He nods back to where the rear seat is covered by a duvet. ‘Sooner I sleep, the sooner we leave.’ His eyes slide over me again. ‘I normally have a wank, if I’m honest, but …’ He half laughs, as if he’s making a joke, but his eyes are watery nervous.
‘I guess I should pay for the ride somehow,’ I say, knowing I sound like something from a cheap porn film but hoping it will make him come quicker. He’s overweight and middle-aged and I doubt he and his wife do it often. Even if he gets a second wind I can make him finish fast. I’m thinking like Charlotte. I have to be Charlotte Nevill now. My old self. I need all her anger. All her strength. Ava needs me and I won’t let her down.
I am Charlotte Nevill, I think, as I reach across to find his belt buckle under his gut. I’ve done worse. I can do this.
44
BEFORE
1989
It’s May half-term for Katie but that doesn’t mean anything to Charlotte. She barely goes to school any more and no one cares. None of the teachers want Charlotte Nevill in school. She breaks things. She swears. She hits the other kids. There’s no controlling her. She’s getting worse. The little ones are scared of her. Her anger is like a grinning wolf, gobbling up the bairns’ fears to kill her own. Big bad wolf. Little Red Riding Hood.
‘Charlotte? Are you listening?’ Katie twirls circles in the empty shithole of a room, sending dust up in a cloud around her ankles. ‘His skin was all grey and sort of baggy. Like he was empty. I could have stared at him all day.’
They’re in one of the condemned houses on Coombs Street, stripped of lead by grasping estate hands, and now forgotten until the bulldozers get round to demolishing it which doesn’t seem to be happening in any hurry as Mrs Copel next door keeps banging on about.
‘Grey,’ Katie says again, rubbing dust between her fingers. ‘Like this.’
Katie’s granddad died and she’s only been back from the funeral a couple of days and she can’t stop talking about it, which is good because it stops the words inside Charlotte’s own mouth spilling out.
‘Gross,’ she says, as Katie flops down beside her. They’re sitting on Charlotte’s jacket in case Katie gets dust on her dress, but their backs are pressed against the wall and Charlotte makes a note in her dull, fuzzy head to check Katie’s clothes before she goes home. She’d hate for Katie to get in trouble because that would mean she wouldn’t be able to see her and right now, Katie is all she has to stop her from snapping completely.
‘Yes, but wonderfully gross.’
Charlotte’s never seen a dead body but sort of wishes she had. She wishes she’d seen it with Katie. ‘Did he smell?’ This house smells, damp and rotting, even though it’s sunny and warm outside.
‘No, not bad anyway. A bit like chemicals maybe. Like a science lab at school.’
Charlotte has no idea what that smells like but she hmms in agreement.
‘Of course it’s all made Mummy worse.’ Katie lets out an exaggerated sigh. ‘Doctor Chambers has given her some pills for her nerves but they don’t seem to be doing anything much.’
Charlotte doesn’t want to think about pills and leans in closer to delicate, beautiful Katie who’s so strong inside, and drinks in her lyrical voice. ‘She’s obsessing about death. She thinks I don’t notice, because they all think I’m a bit simple, but it’s so obvious. Daddy says it’s grief, but I don’t see why she’s so sad. He was old, after all, and she’s got the seaside house now so it’s all rather good. She doesn’t see it that way, obviously. When we got home she polished the stairs of our house so hard – to distract herself Daddy said – that she slipped down them! She said she nearly broke her neck!’ She lets out a tinkling laugh with an edge of venom. Katie hates her ma. She hates her da too, but her ma the most.
‘Of course then she got sandpaper and rubbed the shine away, worrying I’d fall down them. As if I would. She’s making me take vitamin pills now. To keep me healthy. Honestly, Charlotte, she doesn’t let me breathe. Daddy tries his best to make her see reason but she controls him too. At least he gets to go to work. Thank God the pills make her sleepy and I can come out and see you.’ She smiles, so sweet and fresh, and Charlotte clings to her.
‘I put one in her coffee today,’ Katie says, impish. ‘And she’d already taken one. She won’t wake up for ages.’
‘Maybe she should go to sleep forever,’ Charlotte murmurs. Would that be so bad? To sleep forever?
‘Yes!’ Katie leaps to her feet. ‘Maybe she should! What would we do then? Would we run away?’