‘She drives me to it!’ I yelled, louder than her screaming, right into his face, beyond caring, losing the last shred of my composure, letting ten years of frustration out in five terrible words.
His expression hardened as he moved past me. ‘Excuse me. Helen, sorry, can I have a look? Let’s see your head, darling,’ he said gently, clicking on her lamp. Her yelping subsided as he inspected her skull through her hair. ‘There’s a bit of a bump,’ he said.
I had to get out. I had to leave them. There was too much feeling pressing to get out. My own screams for help were imprisoned in my body. I thought I would go mad. There was nowhere for it to go. How it could ever be discharged? Who was I? I was a danger to myself, I was a danger to Rosie.
I ran around the house, collecting my handbag, shoving on my shoes, finding my car-keys, and outside, into the damp night air, into the car, locking myself in; my key jerked around the ignition, my hands trembled so violently I couldn’t get it into the slot.
There was a loud rap on the window and I jumped out of my skin, dropping the keys into the foot-well.
‘Open the door,’ my mother shouted, knocking repeatedly.
I unlocked the passenger door, which she opened and held on to, preventing me from moving the car.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I don’t know, I just need to get away,’ I cried, scrabbling at my feet to find the key. ‘Can you shut the door?’
‘Look, I know it’s tough right now but you can’t run away.’
I found the key and fired up the engine. ‘You don’t know bloody anything, Mum! Close the door!’
‘I think I do know a few things after bringing up you and Jackie on my own, thank you very much.’
I clutched at the steering wheel with both hands as though I was careering over a cliff, and screeched, ‘Oh yes, sorry, it was so much bloody harder for you! How could I possibly forget how hard it was for you and how bloody brilliantly you coped? I’m so sorry that I am such a pathetic disappointment.’
My mother stood stock-still, and glared at me. ‘Self-pity doesn’t suit you.’
‘Yes. Silly me. I must maintain a cool fucking head at all times, just like you. But how could I possibly compete with the Master of Self-control?’
Tight-lipped, she replied, ‘This is not about me. This is about you and Rosie.’
‘You don’t know anything about me and Rosie.’
‘I know you’re both Campbell women and Campbell women don’t give up on each other.’
‘Right, yes, the Campbell woman,’ I sniped, tasting the acid of my sarcasm on my tongue. ‘That’s the thing – I’ve been meaning to tell you for, what, how long now?’ I paused, with my finger to my lip facetiously, my heartbeat thundering in my ears. ‘Um, ten years now, that she isn’t a Campbell at all. She’s a Doubek. Her real mother is Kaarina Doubek, from the Czech Republic, height, 5’9", shoe size 6, with a love of bike riding and piano playing.’
My mother spluttered, as though blood flooded her throat, and she instantly slammed the car door, shutting me away, shutting away what I had just told her. For a split second we stared at each other through the window, locked in mutual disbelief and horror. Her hands were clasped around her middle, her milky blue eyes unblinking, shrinking even further back into her head, stunned by my revelation. I revved the engine, opened the electric gates of my home with my natty little clicker and backed out at a speed almost careless enough to clip the gates. As I three-point-turned on the roundabout, I glimpsed my mother standing there on the drive in her dressing gown. But I rejected her vulnerability, just as she had rejected mine. If she was such a fearless, spirited Campbell woman, she could cope with Rosie. I was done.
Chapter Forty-Five
TOP SECRET
* * *
DEAR GEMMA,
* * *
WHO IS CATREENA DOOBECK? WHY IS SHE MY MOTHER?
* * *
I HATE HER AND I HATE YOU. I HOPE YOU NEVER COME BACK.
* * *
ROSIE
Chapter Forty-Six
I was driving off, free. A lightness gathered in my chest. As I got to the end of the road, with the choice to turn left or right, I didn’t know which to take.
A car beeped behind me. I made a knee-jerk decision and swerved left, almost colliding with an oncoming car. I began driving down the B road out of town, towards a village whose pub had an open fire and good wine. I couldn’t go in there alone. I might bump into someone I knew: a mother from New Hall Prep who would tell the other mothers that I was a child-abusing wino, and a pregnant one at that.
Headlights flashed past me, disorientating me. I clung to the wheel, with my body bent forward, trying to be especially careful. The idea of hitting a cyclist or a pedestrian was even more of a worry than usual, as though there might be a better time than tonight to run someone over.
I thought of Rosie’s head clunking into the wall, and worried about concussion. Had it been hard enough? I didn’t think so, I didn’t remember so. Her scream suggested otherwise, but I knew how piercing her scream could sound when she didn’t get the shoes she wanted. I thought of Noah, fast asleep, and then worried he would wake up and need me. I knew my mother would comfort him, in her no-nonsense way, and I knew Peter would make him laugh so that he forgot why he was sad.
There was a garage coming up. I indicated and pulled in. The lights in the shop were bright and welcoming. It was pitiful that I was grateful for them.
Having wandered down the sweets aisle, picking out a large packet of chewy mints, I made my way over to the counter to pay, and then spotted the locked cigarette cupboard.
‘Could I please have a packet of Marlboro Lights?’ I asked boldly. My cheeks flushed. It had been over ten years since I had bought a packet of cigarettes and I felt as though I was asking for a bag of crack-cocaine.
‘We only have Marlboro Menthol,’ the young woman said, unfazed.
‘That’s fine, and a lighter please.’ I wondered if she could tell I was pregnant.
As I waited for my bankcard to go through, I noticed a special-offer gift box of a mini bottle of Baileys and chocolates to go with it. It was the perfect size for one. I wanted to buy it but I couldn’t face the humiliation of asking for it. Instead, I nipped to the back of the shop and I chose a bottle of cheap Merlot with a screw cap so that I wouldn’t have to buy a corkscrew.
Back on the dark windy roads again, I picked my brains for ideas of where to pull over. The lay-bys were too dark, some with lone cars sitting there. Or an anonymous residential street in town, until I remembered that there was no such thing as anonymity in a small town. On every single road, I knew at least one someone, or one someone’s friend. I longed for London and considered driving up there. The less radical idea was a pub car park. If I spotted anyone, I could jump in quickly and drive away.
The Swann Inn was the closest. I pulled into the corner of the car park, right at the back. Hidden behind the bonnet of the car, I sat on the waterproof rug that I kept in the boot, took a swig from the bottle of wine and lit my first cigarette in ten years. It was bliss. I groaned in pleasure. And apologised to my unborn baby. One wouldn’t hurt.
The dizziness reminded me of my first ever cigarette when I was thirteen years old in a fast-food restaurant with my best friend. I remembered how naughty and reckless I had felt, just as I felt now, and I was sad that my adulthood had been completely devoid of such fatalism. Everything had become about ‘doing the right thing’, about controlling the outcome.
With each drag, the anger dissolved, as though it had been bolstering me, helping me cope. As it slipped away, I felt small and weak and unworthy. I wanted to hold Rosie in my arms, feel her warm softness, to kiss her better, to feel her love, her forgiveness. In spite of Rosie’s behaviour, what an idiot I had been to stomp into her bedroom like that. Unknowingly, I had been a walking pressure cooker: one little tap and all the heat had come out at once.