Her ghosts follow her there too. There are three of them now because Tom Seagrave has joined them. She wants to tell him she’s sorry, but what does it matter any more? They are dead. She scrunches her face against the threatening tears and sits on a cold bench. The place is deserted but ten minutes later the lights flicker on in the platform café and the earliest shift workers begin to drift down the stairs, ghostly themselves with their sleepy faces and disinterested glances.
Has she ever really mattered to anyone? Not to Maggie, certainly. Maybe Vicky, for a while, but she’d had to turn herself inside out to be the person Vicky needed her to be. That wasn’t Katya. Katya hadn’t been good enough for Emily Parrish – according to her mother. Not good enough even to know her real name. When she found that out, the thing she felt most was stupid, as if everyone had been in on the joke except her. Why had everything gone wrong for her and right for Vicky? Her life could have been so different if Maggie had become her mother. Maggie would have protected her from Luke instead of letting him get into her head and opening her legs for him. Stupid, vain, selfish woman.
What will happen now? She feels a moment’s panic. Linda and Luke’s deaths were avoidable, but she can justify them. She was a child. But Tom Seagrave? Katya had wanted to kill him. She had been angry but she knew perfectly well what she was doing, she was even aware that the blade had pizza on it, had thought enough to wonder whether the fact that it was dirty would affect the outcome.
She hums to Josh and bounces him on her knee. He’s whingeing now, hungry for his breakfast, and people are beginning to look her way and wonder why he isn’t in a pram, why his mother looks so fraught. Why there is blood on her clothes and in her hair. It occurs to her that they might think she’s an asylum seeker or a homeless woman. She has that scent of defeat and hopelessness about her. A shaven-headed man in paint-spattered jeans and sweatshirt glances at a woman in nurse’s uniform and surreptitiously reaches for his mobile.
The first announcement of the morning crackles out from the speakers. Stand back from the platform: the approaching train is not scheduled to stop at this station.
A car door slams and heavy footsteps pound towards the station entrance. The newest arrivals turn to watch them, interested in the unfolding drama, understanding that they are here for the woman and child. She hears a distant blast, long and mournful, from the train as three policemen take the stairs at a run. She stands up without thinking, moves towards the edge of the platform and waits. The train is coming now, getting closer, moving so fast it will be with them in a matter of seconds. The nurse suddenly comes to life and steps forward as the train rushes into the station. The last word Katya ever hears is, ‘Don’t!’
44
Friday, 23 April 2010
SHE’S TAKEN HIM. How long have I been out? I crawl to the front door, pull myself up and open it. I stare up and down the street. Keep it together. The Boxers’ door opens and Magda comes out, shuts the door quietly behind her and sets off briskly up the road. I run down our steps, double over and fall on to the pavement like a drunk. I lift my arm and shout her name. She turns, sees me and runs back.
‘Can you stay?’ I gasp as she pulls me to my feet.
‘Are you hurt?’
Yes, I’m hurt. I think my wrist is broken and my head has taken more than one blow. Nothing is quite in focus so I must be concussed.
‘I’m fine. Tom isn’t though. He’s bad. He’s in the cellar with Emily. Please, Magda. Can you stay with them while I go after Amber? She’s taken Josh. She’s taken my baby.’
‘Do you want I go after her?’ She places her hand on my arm and starts to steer me towards the house but I brush her off.
‘No!’ I’m surprised I can inject that much force into my voice. ‘I can’t stay here waiting. Just go in and keep the door closed. The police should be here any minute.’ I don’t wait for her to try and stop me, I half run, half lurch up the street.
‘Vicky!’ Magda shouts after me. ‘Vicky, this is not sensible.’
I keep going, crying with pain and misery. I am not going to let my son down again. At one point I vomit outside the house of someone I know from school, but I force myself on. I can hear sirens coming closer and at the idea that help is on its way, my legs begin to let me down. I fall against a lamppost and cling to it, trying to work out where I am. The lights all have weird halos and the trees are like children’s paintings, black-green blobs on lollipop-stick trunks. I’m having trouble accessing my mental map of the area. I think Amber’s road is close by. She must have taken him there. She doesn’t have the pram, so what else would she have done?
A car screeches to a halt and someone jumps out of it and takes hold of me as my legs give way. I recognize Grayling even though his features are blurred.
‘Vicky,’ he says. ‘What are you doing out here?’
‘I’m trying to find Amber.’
I turn away from him and vomit again, then run, or do what ought to be running, but actually feels like a slow buckling of my muscles. He catches me and, with the help of another officer, gets me into the car where I sit shaking and speaking in tongues. I am incoherent even to myself. All I know is that Amber has Josh and I have to get to him. I try the handle but the locks are on and then we’re moving and Grayling is speaking urgently into his radio. Then he goes quiet and listens.
After a moment, he twists round in his seat. ‘One of my officers has Josh. He’s safe. We’ll get you seen to now.’
‘You’re going to have to prepare yourself, Vicky. He may not make it.’
‘He will,’ I blurt out. ‘He can’t die. Not now.’
Beside my hospital bed, Grayling is sympathetic but firm. ‘He’s lost a hell of a lot of blood. Your husband is in a critical condition. Do you understand what that means?’
I shake my head.
He speaks very gently but he doesn’t spare me. He knows there’s no point. ‘It means that there are complications and that death could be imminent. It’s what they say when they want to give loved ones time to prepare themselves.’
‘But he isn’t dead.’
‘No. He isn’t dead.’
Fairhaven Young Offenders’ Institute
July 1992
DEAR MAGGIE
This place is OK I suppose but I don’t want to be here. I get nightmares and sometimes I wake up and I’ve scratched myself so hard there’s blood on the sheets.
I thought you would come to see me. Maybe you tried but they didn’t let you. I’ve asked and asked but all they say is they can’t get hold of you. Please come. I’m being good and going to my classes and this psychiatrist comes in most days and talks to me. He’s called Doctor Adam Something. I can’t remember his second name. It’s foreign. I don’t need one but they say I have to and he’s all right. They keep saying it will help me to come to terms with what I’ve done and make the nightmares go away but they don’t believe me when I say what he did. If you come you can tell them because you were there.