“Did you have any links to Woolwich?” he continued. “People who knew you?”
“I wish I could say yes, Joe,” Angela replied. “But I have never been to Woolwich. All I can say is that I had a feeling when I read the story in the newspaper. A strong feeling that this was about Alice. I know it sounds a bit crazy, but there it is,” she said.
Kate groaned in her head. No connections, no leads. It didn’t sound likely that this was the baby in Howard Street.
But she didn’t want Angela to see her disappointment. She touched her arm again. “It doesn’t sound crazy at all,” she said.
TWENTY-FIVE
Emma
MONDAY, APRIL 2, 2012
It’s been two weeks and no one has come to my door. I spend a lot of time—far too much time—looking out of the window, watching for my accusers to arrive. The police, I suppose, but there are other possibilities. Funny, when I think about the police, I have an old-fashioned image of a bobby, striding up the path, an arrest warrant in his hand. Like they were then.
Sometimes I wish they would just come. Put me out of my misery. But no one has. I stand by the window and try to force myself to go back upstairs to work. My body won’t obey. I am rooted to this spot. My place of shame. Back to the beginning.
Paul is worried about me. I can see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice.
“When did you last see Dr. Gorgeous?” he asked me this morning. Our little joke. Dr. Gorgeous is Dr. Brenton—my wonderful GP—but giving him a funny nickname makes it easier to talk about my “condition.”
“Not for a while, I suppose,” I said. “Maybe I’ll make an appointment.”
“Good idea, Em. You’ve been so much better lately, but perhaps your pills need tweaking.”
That’s the way we talk about my anxiety. Like it’s a headache or something. Nothing to be ashamed of.
I’m not going to call the doctor’s practice. I’m not being difficult, but Dr. Gorgeous likes to talk about my feelings when I go to see him for a repeat prescription and I’m not up to that at the moment. Last time I had a Bad Day, he said he’d like me to see someone—“a specialist,” he said—but I told him I didn’t need to. I’m happy seeing him because I only have to sit chatting for the allotted eight minutes and he gives me a prescription.
A specialist would want to know about my relationships. About how I feel about Jude and my absent father.
I’d have to tell him I’d gone looking for my dad as a teenager—but I can’t say that. Because I can’t tell the whole story. One thing would lead to another and it would mean unpicking the web.
I try it out, just in case. I can hear myself saying: “It began with Will. Well, it began before that, but the arrival of Will started the unraveling.” But that is as far as I get before I am in the danger zone.
The day I decided to begin the search for my father, I’d had a row with Jude. Our life had been turned upside down by Will. Jude had become completely obsessed. He’d taken over her life. And, so, my life. We couldn’t do anything or go anywhere without asking Will what he thought or if he wanted to come, too.
There was a lot more singing in the bath, I remember, the smell of her Aqua Manda bath oil making the air thick outside the door. But I’d learned to ignore her calls to come in—peace offerings I was happy to reject. He was all she talked about, and I wondered how many of her clients were still in prison because of her ridiculous fixation.
I told Harry and she said Jude was acting like a groupie. I didn’t like it. Didn’t like her calling my mum that. It was all right if I said mean things, but not anyone else.
I didn’t tell Harry that I’d heard Jude telling our new flatmate—Barbara from her office—how she’d first slept with Will at a May Ball. Barbara said it sounded romantic, but I thought it sounded cheap. My mum was too old to be talking like that.
Jude was changing. She’d been so serious and focused on “the important things in life,” and I’d assumed I was included in that category.
She certainly had big plans for me—cabinet minister, surgeon, Nobel Prize winner were all bandied about in a jokey way, but I knew she expected a lot.
We had what Jude liked to call an adult relationship. That meant we talked about politics and new books and films she’d seen, and she told me about her legal cases and the terrible situations people were forced into by authoritarian states. We didn’t talk about pop stars or boys or sports. That was my other world. In my bedroom or the phone box. The kitchen was where I interacted with my mother.
? ? ?
But suddenly she wasn’t interested in me anymore. She was busy shaving her legs and searching for matching underwear in her chest of drawers, scrabbling through layers of faithful old pants and tired bras.
One night, she presented herself in the kitchen for inspection in a new dress while I was doing my homework.
“What do you think, Emma?” Jude had asked me.
“Aren’t you a bit old to be going out without a bra, Mum?” I’d said, using the forbidden M word. I hated her at that moment. She looked so beautiful and happy and it had nothing to do with me.
“The woman up the road—the one Will likes—never wears one and she looks awful,” I added.
“You little bitch,” Jude had snapped at me. She’d never used that word to me before. Never had to, I suppose. I was changing, too.
? ? ?
After Jude left, slamming the door behind her, I headed for the telephone box at the end of the road. It was almost eight o’clock and the box lurked in the dark pool between two streetlights. It was lit only by an ancient lightbulb that cast a nicotine yellow pall over the interior and stank of pee and joints. The concrete floor seemed permanently wet and stained in the corners as if the last user had just zipped up his jeans and left. But I loved that phone box.
It was my private space. There was a phone at home, on the wall in the hallway, but every conversation felt like a public event, with Jude listening and even joining in if she felt like it.
I lined up my coins on the metal shelf, picked up the receiver, and began dialing.
I asked Harry’s father if I could talk to her. I was always polite, using my most suitable-for-adults voice. He hated me disturbing her when she was doing her homework, but I would pretend it was about some schoolwork.
He used to say he didn’t know what we could have to talk about after being at school together all day. But he always gave in.
I’d hear the sound of Harry’s feet thundering downstairs and then her voice, high and cross. “Dad, stop listening to my calls. This is private.”
I told her about Jude calling me a bitch, and Harry was thrilled. She loved a bit of other people’s trouble.
“I’m sick of Jude and Will,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said, but I knew she had misgivings. The trouble was she was secretly—or sometimes not so secretly—in love with Will. She said he was sexy.
“Harry! He’s so old,” I said, outraged when she’d first told me. I didn’t tell her that the word “sexy” made my stomach go all watery. I was trying to hate Will for barging into our lives, but I still liked it when he winked or smiled at me. I couldn’t help it.
The pips crashed into my thoughts, signaling that another three minutes had passed, and I pushed the remaining ten-pence piece into the slot so we could discuss Harry’s social life. I just tagged along.
I remember she’d nicked a five-pound note from her dad’s trousers to buy a new top. Her theft was all in aid of impressing Malcolm Baker, her latest crush. He had apparently smiled at Harry on the bus and her heart was clearly set on slow dancing with him at the youth club disco.