I’ve been in Dad’s attic for the last two hours. Aching knees on the hard boards. Blackened fingertips; dry, dusty throat. In the single-bulb gloom, my bent shadow looms large on the sloping wall as I survey the scattered contents of an old box marked Baby clothes: over-washed towelling onesies, misshapen little bootees; stiff stained bibs still smelling of mashed banana. My baby clothes. I hold a pink knitted jumper against my chest and sigh. What the hell am I supposed to do with all these things? I don’t even know if I want kids, and now that it’s over with Eliot…
Don’t start thinking about all that. Just finish the job.
I grab an armful of items and am about to dump them back in the box when I spot something lurking at the bottom – a hard, black, rectangular shape. An old videotape by the look of it, almost a museum piece these days. I peer in to read the label – Meredith, July 1990. I’ve never seen that looping, egotistical handwriting before, but I instantly know whose it is. Has to be hers. I pull back my hand, afraid to touch.
The tape sits there, my name staring up at me. It looks like a bomb, waiting to explode. Smart move, I think, hiding it in a box so innocently labelled, knowing it wouldn’t be removed until Dad left the house. Or died. She’d have known he wasn’t the type to climb into the loft on a wet Sunday afternoon and have a good old sort-out. Judging by the number of skips we’ve filled during the last few weeks, I’m starting to wonder whether he’s a hoarder. Except hoarders are usually people who are depressed or have psychological disorders. Dad’s not like that. He’s not the mad one.
Go on, pick it up. It’s got your name on it.
The black box feels charged, plugged into my fingers, the current shooting up my arm. I want to play it, right this moment, but there’s no VHS machine; I took it to the dump yesterday. Only a DVD player downstairs, so I’ll have to wait till I can get it converted. I pass the tape back and forth between my hands, hoping by some magic to reveal its secrets. What’s on it? I wonder. Badly filmed images of myself as a toddler, feeding the ducks, playing in the sandpit, reciting nursery rhymes, dancing around naked after a bath? What if there are pictures of her on it – dressed up for a party, jumping the waves, the three of us smiling on the beach? Mummy, Daddy and Meredith. Happy days…
I look at the label again and count on my fingers – July 1990: I was four and a half then. It was a few months before Becca (I no longer refer to her as Mother, Mummy, Mum) disappeared from my life. The last time I saw her was in the hospital. So often I’ve tried to reconstruct that day in my head, but the memory is like an old blanket, frayed at the edges and full of holes. Buildings, objects, other people are easy; it’s Becca herself that’s never in shot.
It always starts with the journey there. A long ride out of the city, the bus starting full and gradually emptying until Dad and I are the only ones left on the top deck. We get off at a stop on a wide busy road – red flip-up seats in the shelter, crushed diamonds sparkling in the kerb. Cars are whizzing past, neither wanting nor needing to stop, everyone on their way to somewhere else. Daddy takes my hand, leading me down a side turning, more of a country lane, really; tall hedges on either side, crumbling tarmac, no pavements. When there’s a gap in the green leaves, all I can see are flat mustardy fields. My arm aches as I hold it aloft. He’s so tall I have to crane my neck upwards to see his face. Tired little legs. I ask for a piggyback but he promises me we’re nearly there. But Nearly There is nowhere to be seen.
We arrive, eventually, I never remember exactly how. The hospital looks like one of my Lego constructions: shiny white bricks, flat red roof, blue front door. A solid mass of too-bright grass in front like somebody has painted it on, and inside, a large entrance hall with slippery grey tiles covered in black skid marks. We get into the lift and Daddy lets me press the number 3 button. When we come out, I see the staircase has nets strung across the bottom of each floor, like at the circus. I put my chin over the banister and point excitedly, but Daddy scoops me up in his arms and carries me down a long corridor. We pass a room with rows of people watching television in their pyjamas, and an old woman is using the toilet with the door wide open. Daddy tells me not to stare, rushing me past as he looks for the right ward, clutching me even more tightly as he walks in. I press my nose into his scratchy checked shirt – hairs on his chest where the birds build their nest.
There are lots of little rooms inside the big one, like my Wendy house in the garden – orange walls, a bed, a cupboard, a chair. On one side, plastic windows scored with nail scratches. No vases of flowers, no Get Well Soon cards. No pictures on the wall. A lady is sitting in the corner of Mummy’s little den, knitting in fluffy white wool, knitting without ever looking down at the clicking needles, not speaking, just staring at Mummy, watching her all the time with unblinking eyes. I watch the woman doing the watching. How can she knit so fast without looking? Why does she never stop looking at Mummy?
That’s where the memory always falls apart, with the woman on suicide watch. Why can I see the stupid knitter, but never my own mother? Maybe something terrible happened after that, something I’ve blocked out. All I know is Dad never took me to the hospital again. That was twenty-five years ago. I have no idea where Becca is now, even if she’s still alive.
I feel a sudden urge to be in the daylight, fresh air, the here and now. I stand up, nearly banging my head on a cross-beam, and tuck the tape into the belt of my jeans. Walking over to the hatch, I step onto the ladder and lower myself to the soft, carpeted landing.
‘Dad? Where are you?’ No reply. I scurry downstairs. A cold draught is coming from the kitchen; he’s left the back door open by the look of it. ‘Dad?’
He’s at the bottom of the garden, burning dead leaves. Sweet and sour smoke rises into the air, wizened berries and crackling holly. What’s he doing, lighting a bonfire now? Only four days to go until he moves out, and he’s nowhere near ready.
‘I thought you were supposed to be packing the books.’ I walk towards him and he lifts his head, looking at me over his glasses.
‘I got bored.’ He smiles apologetically. ‘What have you got there?’
I hold the tape up for him to see. ‘It was in with my baby clothes. Got my name on it. July 1990. Mean anything to you?’
He stops suddenly, throwing his poking stick on the ground. ‘Jesus Christ… It’s been there all these years?’ He flings off his gardening gloves and holds out a hand. ‘Give it to me… Now, please.’ I frown – it’s as if I’m six years old and he’s caught me nicking biscuits out of the tin. Only it feels worse than that, like I’ve done something really bad.
‘It’s just a home movie or something. You okay, Dad? What’s wrong?’
‘I mean it, give it to me.’ I step back, hovering just out of reach, tightening my hold on the tape. Something tells me that if I hand it over, he’s going to throw it straight onto the fire. I can’t let him do that. It’s my tape. ‘Please, Meri, it’s for your own good. I know what’s on it and you don’t want to see it.’
‘It can’t be that bad, surely? For God’s sake, Dad, you’re freaking me out. What is it?’
His face has turned pink; even his bald patch is colouring up. Breathing hard and fast, tiny bubbles of sweat popping up on his forehead. He’s gone from everyday neutral to super-angry in seconds. Scaring the shit out of me. Please don’t let him have another heart attack.
‘Dad, try to calm down. You know you’re not supposed to get in a—’
He lunges at me. ‘Give me the sodding tape!’ He swats frantically as I dance it high above my head, but this is no game. Both my hands grip the case as he grabs my arm roughly and pulls it down, twisting it into the nook of his curved body.
‘Dad! Stop! You’re hurting me!’ But he carries on wrestling, trying to jerk the tape from my grasp, digging at my fingers until I can fight him off no longer and the tape springs out, falling to the ground. If he gets to it first, he’ll put it on the fire. I can’t let him – I just can’t. He moves towards it and I give him a massive shove. There’s a look of hurt surprise on his face as he staggers back several paces, falling comically into the flower bed.
I pick up the tape, shaking off the loose dead grass and shoving it back down the front of my jeans. My body is trembling with the shock of what’s just happened. I struck my own father; I pushed him to the ground. I’ve never, never fought with him like that. He was in hospital only three months ago. What was I thinking?
‘Sorry, I’m really sorry… I didn’t mean… Are you okay?’ He nods, but his gaze is glassy, as if he’s staring at a stranger. I take several slow steps backwards, my eyes still fixed on him.
‘It’s something to do with Becca, isn’t it? This is her handwriting, she made the video. It’s of me and her, right…? Well?’ No answer. He just sits there in the flower bed, breathing hard. ‘It’s up to me, isn’t it, if I want to watch it?’
‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ He turns sideways onto his knees and heaves himself up, groaning as his bones click.
‘I’m grown up, Dad. You can’t protect me from everything.’
‘No, I never could.’ He walks slowly back to his bonfire, defeated.
I want to run into his arms and be his little girl again. I want to say, I’m sorry, I love you. Whatever this thing is, we’ll deal with it; it won’t make any difference to us, I promise it’ll be all right. But I can’t risk it, I have to stay at a safe distance. If I drop my guard, he could still snatch the tape and commit it to the flames.
He picks up his heavy gloves and puts them back on, then finds the stick and pokes listlessly at the fire. ‘Watch it, if you must.’ He looks up at me. ‘Just don’t believe a word you say.’
I’m a surprisingly beautiful child. Long blonde hair that shines in the sunlight, almost white at the wispy tips. My limbs are rosy chubbiness; I’m barely in control of them as I dance around like a clumsy fairy, laughing at whoever’s holding the video camera. Four years old – pink cheeks, pale lemon cotton skirt and a white T-shirt. I’m a bag of marshmallows, all soft and chewy. The kind of child a grown-up would like to eat.
We’re in the back garden of a house I don’t remember. It’s a gorgeous sunny day, warm enough to have the paddling pool out. As the camera follows me, a ring of blue plastic comes fleetingly into frame. Barefoot, I twirl about on the spot and slip on a muddy patch where I’ve been splashing.
‘Look what I can do, Mummy!’
I press pause, freezing the image. As I suspected, it’s Becca that’s filming. I want to see her. Her face, her hairstyle, the shape of her body. Is she fat or thin? What is she wearing? Go on, show yourself. My heart starts to race as I press play again.
In the background, the flower beds are soft-focusing in purple, red and golden yellow. The height of summer. The camera is fixed on its subject, jerking left to right as I dance, or up and down as I collapse on the ground with seeming exhaustion only to bob up again like a cork. There’s a furtive urgency about the way she’s following me, trying to get whatever it is we’re doing done with.
‘Meri! Come and sit down.’
Her voice is like a glass bell that’s about to shatter. I’ve heard those ringing tones in my dreams many, many times. She sounds like me when I’m stressed, or rather, I sound like her, and I’m not sure I like it.
‘It’s time to tell your story.’
I’ve got hold of the garden hose, making it writhe across the grass. ‘Ssss… Sssss… Sssssss.’ A trickle of cold water runs out, making me jump aside with a short cry.
‘We’re going to tell everyone what really happened. Remember? You promised.’ Her voice rises by a couple of notes. ‘Mummy really needs your help. If we don’t tell the truth, the bad man will come and take us away.’
‘Look, Mummy, a snake!’
‘Please, Meri, please. I need your help. Leave that alone and sit down here.’ The camera shakes, then settles as Becca puts it down on the garden table. A thin white arm reaches forward, a beckoning hand, two long fingers weighed down by heavy silver rings. Then the rest of her walks into frame, a gathered skirt in blue and green paisley, a white sleeveless blouse, strands of light brown hair escaping from the loose bun at the nape of her neck. She grabs my chubby little hand and guides me onto a white plastic chair that looks as if it’s been placed deliberately for this moment, spotlit by the afternoon sun.
My eyes are fixed on the screen; I’m finding it hard to breathe. Turn around, I whisper, please turn around. And then, as if she has heard me calling to her across the chasm of the years, she does.
There she is. My mother. I pause the image for a few seconds. Blue eyes, full pink lips and a few freckles scattered over a short blunt nose. She’s much thinner than me, almost anorexic-looking, but there’s no mistaking we’re mother and daughter. I trace my own adult features with a wondering finger. Some part of my brain must recognise this face, as it recognised the voice, but it feels like I’m seeing her for the first time. Becca points at the camera and tells me to look at it when she’s talking.
‘Tell them who you were before you were Meri,’ she prompts. I tuck and untuck my legs and examine a black scuff on the arm of the chair. ‘You were someone else, isn’t that right? Tell them who you were.’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Yes you do, you do. You told me all about it. You told me you were Cara.’ I scrunch up my face. ‘Go on. Say it. You were Cara Travers. Nobody believes me, so you’ve got to tell them. I need you to say it, Meri – say it!’
The sun pops behind a cloud for a moment and suddenly everything looks cold, almost sinister. There’s the distant sound of an ice-cream van approaching – a tinkling version of ‘Greensleeves’ that makes me look up, full of expectation.
‘Can I have a lolly?’
‘No! First we’ve got to tell them about Cara and who did the horrible thing to you… Come on, tell them what happened.’
The ice-cream music has stopped, and even at that age I know this means the van has parked outside the house, its noisy engine humming. Other, luckier children are probably lining up, clutching their fifty-pence pieces, elbowing each other to the front, peering over the edge of the counter.
‘Can I have stawbelly?’ I jump off the chair and go to my sandals.
‘Not until you’ve told everyone the truth. They think I lied, you see, but I didn’t. It was the bad man, making me all confused; he made me say the wrong thing. Only you know what really happened. You’ve got to tell them…’
‘I want a lolly.’
‘You’ve got to tell them! Now!’ Becca runs back into frame and picks me up. I kick out against her, but she carries me back to the chair and sits. I stiffen and arch my back in protest, but she grips me hard around the waist, pushing my body down, pinning me into her lap. I wriggle and squirm, my little face growing red with effort and fury, but she tightens her hold, forcing me to face the camera.
‘Let me go! Let me go!’
‘We’ve got to do this first, before Daddy comes home. This is our secret, remember? Daddy mustn’t know. We’re going to tell our story and then it will all stop and Mummy will be safe. You want Mummy to be safe, don’t you?’
‘Want a lolly,’ I whimper, tiring of the struggle.
‘The bad man knows. If you don’t help Mummy, he’ll come and get me. He’ll come and get you too, and we don’t want that, do we?’ I shake my head, my bottom lip starting to tremble. ‘That’s why we have to tell them about Cara. You have to tell them who killed you. Remember?’
‘Like this.’ I make a stabbing motion with my fist. Up and down, up and down.
‘Yes, that’s right, but who? Who did it to you?’ I stop stabbing and stare back at my mother, my small right arm suspended in the air. ‘It was Jay, wasn’t it?’ Becca whispers. ‘Tell them it was Christopher Jay.’
I nod, slowly. ‘Yes. Cwister Jay.’ ‘Greensleeves’ starts up again, loud at first, then fades into silence. My clear blue eyes widen with alarm and I start to cry. ‘The ice-cream man’s gone! You said I could have a lolly!’ I wrench myself free of her grasp and jump down, running towards the camera. I sweep it off the table and send it crashing onto the ground.
The screen goes black.
I slam down the lid of the laptop and jump off my bed. The DVD spins and slows to a stop – I want to stamp on it and break it into pieces, but I know it won’t help. I’ve watched it now, seen Becca in that strange, feverish state, holding me down, making me cry, forcing me to say horrible, crazy things. The image of my tiny self, stabbing the air with an imaginary knife, is lodged in my brain forever. No matter how many times I press delete, I’ll never get rid of it.
It’s already dark outside. My reflection hovers uneasily in the bedroom window – adult-sized features, weary eyes smudged with the remains of the day’s make-up, hair lank with London dirt. I’m worried about the little girl in the video, even though she’s tucked away safely inside me, an inner layer of being, like the centre of an onion. I feel I should be doing something – calling Social Services or taking her to a psychiatrist. It’s as if her life is still being played out in a parallel universe and she’s in sudden danger, reaching out to me through time and space to rescue her from harm.
I rest my forehead on the cool glass, but it doesn’t soothe me. My insides are all churned up with emotion, anger for me and pity for Becca. Sadness for Dad because he tried, as ever, to protect me and I refused to listen. Thought I knew better. I was so determined to have my own way, I pushed him to the ground, just a few weeks after he’d had a heart attack. God knows what made me do it. Will he ever forgive me?
I pick up my phone and call his number again. It rings out for several seconds and I imagine him staring at his screen, deciding whether to accept or reject me. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve tried calling him these past few days – he hasn’t picked up once, or replied to any of my texts. The voicemail kicks in and I hesitate, not knowing what to say.
‘Dad? It’s me. Please, please call me… I’m sorry… Really, really sorry. Please, let’s talk.’
The air in the room feels contaminated. I open the window and look down into the back garden – dishevelled flower beds and overgrown trees, last year’s dead leaves rotting on the cracked paving stones of the patio. I hate this house. It’s dark and damp and I live with two girls I hardly know. When Eliot and I split up, neither of us could afford the flat on our own, so we had to move out. I was in a panic and not in a good place emotionally. I should have moved back home with Dad until I got myself sorted out, but that felt like too much of a defeat. I wanted to be strong, deciding it would be better to live with new people and make a fresh start. But Lizzie is hardly ever here, and I don’t really get on with Fay. I can hear her playing music in her room, but I can’t go and talk to her – not about something as personal as this. Can’t confide in any of my girlfriends either. They don’t know about my mad mother. When the subject of parents comes up, I always say she walked out when I was very young and leave it there. That’s all I knew for years anyway – it’s a half-lie I’m comfortable with telling.
When I was little, I lived very happily with just one parent and rarely thought about my mother. But when puberty struck, I started to miss her, despite the fact that I had so few memories of her and didn’t even know what she looked like. I needed help with agonising period pains and hair sprouting in embarrassing places; I needed someone to explain all these mixed-up emotions I was feeling. In short, I needed a woman in my life. But my mother wasn’t around and nobody seemed to know where I could find her. Sometimes I blamed myself for her absence. At other times, I was angry with her for never once getting in touch – not so much as a birthday card or a phone call at Christmas. The feeling of rejection was so painful it was as if she’d only just walked out of the door. Dad refused to talk about what had happened, so I concluded she must have run off with another man. My feelings became even more complicated then; I wanted to find her, but I hated her too. For hurting Dad. I had so many questions going round and round in my head, but another two years passed before I plucked up the courage to ask them.
It was the summer holidays, about eleven o’clock at night, and Dad and I were still in the garden, sitting at a table bathed in candlelight. It must have been a heatwave. Dad was wearing a T-shirt and baggy shorts, flip-flops on his feet, a bottle of beer in his hand. He was a heavy smoker back then, and was showing off his ability to blow rings into the star-filled sky. I was drinking Pepsi, secretly laced with shots of Bacardi that I’d stolen from the drinks cabinet. I’d stuffed my tall tumbler with ice cubes, just like I’d seen in the adverts, and the glass was so slippery I could hardly hold it.
We’d been sitting there since dinner, talking about this and that – how my GCSEs were going, what I might study at university, whether he should apply for an internal promotion or look for a new job elsewhere, how I’d feel about moving house… It was one of our first proper ‘grown-up’ conversations and I remember feeling pleased that I’d stayed at home for the evening instead of going out with my friends.
I don’t know how the subject of Becca came up. Maybe it was the unusual weather, or the secret alcohol running through my veins, but there was a relaxed atmosphere between us I had never experienced with Dad before. We’d reached a natural pause in our conversation and were sitting in easy silence, listening to the night sounds, watching the candle flames flicker in the darkness. Without warning, the words just drifted into my mouth.
‘Can we talk about Becca?’
He didn’t reply immediately, just took another swig of his beer and gently set the bottle down on the table. ‘What is it you want to know?’
‘Everything. What happened. Why she left us.’
‘She was schizophrenic,’ he said. ‘Not her fault, but it nearly destroyed all of us.’
I’d vaguely heard of schizophrenia, but I thought it was something to do with having a split personality, like Jekyll and Hyde. Dad explained that it was more of a destroyed personality than a split one. He told me the illness had come on very gradually and taken several years to diagnose. It had probably started when Becca was a teenager, but her family hadn’t realised at the time – they just thought she was moody and difficult. Her parents chucked her out and they were estranged. Dad said his relationship with Becca had always been volatile, but he’d thought that was just her personality.
‘If only I’d known…’ he muttered, blowing smoke rings into the sky as if he were setting the memories free.
I let the ice in my glass melt, not daring to drink in case I broke the spell. Dad had never opened up to me before like this and I didn’t want it to stop.
He carried on, speaking without looking at me, as if pretending I wasn’t really there.
‘We met during teacher training and hit it off immediately, moved in together after a few weeks and got married the following summer. She wasn’t the easiest person to live with – we had a few rows, but we had a lot of fun too. Life with Becca was never boring and I liked that. To begin with, anyway… After she qualified, she got a job in a primary school but instantly hated it. Things started to get a bit weird. She became convinced her colleagues were plotting against her, trying to get her sacked.’
‘And were they?’
‘No, it was all in her head. She was unreliable, didn’t turn up for work, or walked out in the middle of lessons. Sometimes she said really odd things to the kids and upset them. There were complaints. She went off on long-term sick leave with stress. Spent all day lying in bed, stayed awake all night. She’d wander the streets in her nightdress and come home at dawn, her feet covered in mud.’
‘Didn’t she have counselling?’ I asked. I’d started to become aware of such things at school. If you had emotional problems, you were supposed to ask for help.
‘We tried, but after a couple of sessions she refused to go. The doctor put her on antidepressants, but the drugs weren’t right – they seemed to make it worse. At that stage, nobody mentioned the possibility of schizophrenia.’ Dad paused to take another drink. His hand was trembling slightly as it held the bottle, and I remember thinking that he was recalling something specific – something too horrible or painful to express.
‘We had a very difficult year,’ he said finally, ‘but then she became pregnant with you and things seemed to improve for a while.’ He chose his next words carefully. ‘She wanted you very much, but, when you were born, she found it hard to cope. The doctors said it was postnatal depression and it would pass eventually, but…’
‘They were wrong.’
‘Things went rapidly downhill. She was on her own with you all day and she felt very isolated. She wasn’t looking after you properly. Sometimes I’d get home from work and find her asleep on the sofa with you crying in your . . .
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