Strong? I was impossibly weak. I’d spent four years of my life with a monster of a man, being tortured by hate dressed up as love. I’d been humiliated, belittled, berated and cross-examined. I’d been judged, ignored, criticized and rejected. I’d cut myself off from my friends and my family, lost my job and been made to choose between my life’s dream and my love for James. And I hadn’t walked away. I tried, several times but I was weak. He always talked his way back into my life and into my heart. Strong wasn’t lying silently on a hospital bed as I aborted his child so I could be free. Strong would have been walking straight out of the World Headquarters club in Camden three years, two hundred and seventy days earlier when he laughingly called me a slut. Strong would have been refusing to ever see him again the night he refused to sleep in my bed because other men had been there first. Strong would have been reporting him to the police the night he raped me. Strong would have been stopping him from doing the same to another woman ever again.
I didn’t cry for the baby I aborted that day but I did every year afterwards, on the anniversary. I cried because it didn’t deserve to lose its life and I cried because I felt angry with James for forcing me into that situation. Mostly I felt guilty – if I hadn’t been so weak when I left him – if I’d had the tiniest bit of resolve left – maybe I could have taken him or her to Greece with me, somehow made it work as a TEFL teacher and a mother.
I thought I’d be punished for what I’d done. I thought I’d never conceive again but then Charlotte, our miracle baby, appeared a year into my marriage to Brian. I felt blessed, forgiven, like a new chapter of my life had opened up, that I was truly free. And then we tried to give her a sibling and I had four miscarriages in three years.
My miracle baby.
I put a hand to the door and push it open.
Charlotte is lying prostrate on the duvet-less bed, an oxygen mask covering her mouth, her chest polka-dotted with multicoloured electrodes. The heart monitor in the corner of the room bleep-bleep-bleeps, marking the passage of time like a medical metronome and I close my eyes.
‘Sue?’ There is a hand on my shoulder, heavy. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘Brian?’ I blink several times.
‘Sue?’ He’s looking at me and his brow is furrowed but I have no idea what he’s thinking. ‘Sue, are you okay?’
‘Alright, Mum?’ I twitch at the word ‘Mum’ but it’s not Charlotte speaking it. It’s Oli, sitting at her bedside. He’s got a pile of National Geographic magazines in his lap and my best hairdressing scissors in his hand. There are a stack of cuttings on Charlotte’s bedside table.
‘Mum?’ he says again.
I can’t remember the last time he called me that.
‘I …’ I look from him to Brian and back again. What are they doing here? It’s as though my world has switched from the hyper real, a living technicolour nightmare, to the monochrome of the mundane. Why are they sipping tea? Don’t they realize how much danger Charlotte is in? I look at Brian questioningly.
He smiles, his hand still on my shoulder. ‘Oli popped by to pick up his magazines and said he’d like to visit Charlotte before he went back to uni. We came in his car.’
‘You came in Oli’s car …’
‘Yes. Mine’s still at home. It won’t start, some kind of problem with the fuel pipe, I think. The sooner I get myself an electric car the better.’ He squeezes my shoulder. ‘We waited for you to come back from the beach so you could come with us but when you said you wanted to be alone I thought …’ he tails off. ‘I would have left a note but, somewhere between grabbing my jacket and leaving the house, I forgot.’
Oli laughs. ‘Not like you to be forgetful, Dad.’
I stare at the two of them. They’re laughing and smiling but lying on the passenger seat of my car are two blood-stained booties and a card threatening our daughter’s life.
‘You look a bit pale.’ Brian angles me into the empty chair on Charlotte’s left and crouches beside me.
No one says anything for several minutes until he inhales noisily through his nose. He’s steadying himself to say something big.
‘I found these.’ He plunges a hand into his trouser pocket then uncurls his fingers to reveal two small white pills. ‘I was having a bit of a tidy up. I thought you’d appreciate it after everything that has happened but,’ he looks at the treasures he has uncovered, ‘I was wondering if there was anything you wanted to tell me, Sue.’
‘Yes.’ I sit upright, suddenly, which makes him lurch back in surprise. ‘Charlotte’s in danger. James has found me. I’m not imagining it this time, Brian. I’ve got proof. It’s in my car. Blood-stained booties. He knows about the abortion and he’s trying to get his revenge through Charlotte. He blackmailed her, that’s why she’s in the coma, that’s what made her walk in front of the bus that Saturday afternoon. But it’s not enough for him to hurt her,’ I grip Brian’s wrist, ‘he wants her dead. He’s going to kill her.’
I stare at his face, waiting to see rage, violence or murder but I see nothing at all, save a quick glance towards Oli.
‘Brian?’ I tighten my grip on his wrist. ‘You do believe me, don’t you? Look at my hands they’re …’ But my hands aren’t bloodied in the slightest. ‘Clean. But only because I used the hand sanitiser when I came in. If we go down to my car I can show you the booties and the—,’ I try and stand but Brian pulls me back into the chair. ‘Brian please! Why are you looking at me like that?’
He looks at Oliver and nods again. Three seconds later he’s standing beside me too, a plastic cup in his hand.
‘Sue,’ Brian eases my fingers off his wrist. ‘I’d like you to take a couple of these tablets.’
‘No!’ I look imploringly at Oli who looks down at the ground. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me. I only went along to the doctors because I made a mistake about that teacher at the school but I’ve got proof this time. I haven’t made another mistake. Please! Let’s just go down to my car and I’ll show you.’
‘Sue.’ Brian presses the tablets to my mouth. They graze my bottom lip. ‘Take the tablets and then we’ll talk.’
‘No!’ I try and stand up but he puts a hand on my shoulder. The pressure is gentle but insistent. He’s not going to let me up.
‘Please, Mum.’ Oli takes a step towards me, holding out the plastic cup like it’s a sacred chalice. ‘Take a sip. It’ll help the tablets go down.’
‘Oliver, no.’
‘It’s just water.’