Cross Her Heart(38)

He’s waiting for her to say more and her mouth moves guppy-like, opening and closing silently. There will be a baby, so why not tell now? Babies are what happen in the world when a girl and a boy fall in love, and it’s not as if they’ve always been careful. She should have made sure they were careful, but she found herself not bothering. She knows what that means. There’s been far too much analysis over the years for her not to see her motivations clearly. She wants a baby. It’s a thought that both excites and terrifies her. The idea of it is too fragile and precious to examine.

She opens her mouth again, still wondering how to begin. Once upon a time? Turn it into a dark fairy tale? Try and frame it all in something sugar-coated? It’s a stupid thought. However she tells it, it will be shocking. He may never speak to her again. He may strangle her right here in their bed as so many strangers have said they’d like to do.

She will tell him. But she won’t talk about the actual event. She’s never talked about that. She can’t talk about that. She did it, what more is there to say? As it is, she starts with her name. Delivers the punchline first. Her cells might all be new but there has not been so much time passed that her real name isn’t at the very least a familiar ringing bell in people’s heads. A bogeyman to scare small children with. Be home for tea or Charlotte Nevill will get you.

She speaks into the gloom, stilted quiet sentences which belie their weight, and although she’s oh so aware of him lying beside her, his body inadvertently tensing with her words, she doesn’t turn to look at him once, but spills her story out until it’s an added layer of darkness, an extra sheet across them both.

When she’s done, and it really doesn’t take long to tell, the truth rarely does, there is only silence. He sits up and reaches for the wine glass. She hears him swallow. Everything stops. She’s made a terrible mistake. She wishes she could cry. The silence is endless as it all whirrs about in his head. She looks up at him and wonders if this dark silhouette is the last she’ll ever see of him. Her legacy life suddenly seems to be an origami horse, like the ones Mr Burton makes with left-over paper. Beautifully constructed. So easily crushed.

‘I’m sorry, Jon,’ she whispers, and although her eyes are dry, her voice cracks. ‘I’m so sorry.’

But then he’s telling her it’s all right and that he loves her and he presses his naked skin to hers and they kiss. He loves her. He loves her.

In the weeks that come after, when she realised the sickness and tiredness and constant hunger weren’t anything to worry about and that their two was about to become three, she thinks she knows when their baby was made. In that special, open, honest night.

It was as if maybe, maybe, God had forgiven her.





32


NOW


AVA Finally, finally I got them all to go. To give us ‘some time to ourselves’. It wasn’t easy. They act like we’re kids no one trusts to be safe alone, but after being all sweetness and light for a while I got my way. Some time alone with Mum. One night without any of them around.

It was weird when they all left. This tiny flat suddenly felt so big. Alison put a load of contact numbers on the fridge, which looks so normal until you remember they’re not for cleaners or babysitters, but police and psychiatrists and probation officers. Still, my stomach fizzes with excitement and nerves. Not my life any more. Not after tonight. Even if he doesn’t show up – he will show up, of course he’ll show up – I’m not coming back. I’ve decided. Mum’s trying to be more normal but we haven’t talked about it. What she did that day. Alison says she never has. I think they’re hoping that maybe she’ll open up to me, but that won’t happen. I don’t want to know and I don’t want to hear her speaking with my mum’s voice. She’s not Mum any more, just some twisted freak from the newspapers.

Alison wasn’t her probation officer when I was born. That was some woman called Joanne. Alison came along when we moved areas when I was small. It’s a past life. Not mine. My life is in my future. Soon Mum will be a memory. History. She already is after all this. How can I try to love her or understand her, however much I might wonder about the years before I was born? She’s a stranger. She’s a lie. It’s easier to remember that now we look so different.

I didn’t want my hair cut but I gritted my teeth and let them do it and I actually think the bob suits me. They razor-cut it and it’s quite cool. Ange would fucking love it. I’m also a redhead now – not ginger but a deep auburn – and they gave me brown contacts. It’s weird how such small changes make me look like a new person. I’ve practised doing my make-up differently too. Bigger lines around my eyes. Confident colours. With slightly different clothes on I’ll look like a totally new person. Mum looked like she was going to cry when she saw me. She didn’t though. She’s not a crier – that’s what they say about her. She didn’t cry then. Not in court or anything.

I told her I liked my new look and then she was okay about it. She says sorry all the time for everything. I’m so sorry about this, Ava. As if it’s a dress ruined in the wash, not our whole lives down the drain.

They’ve changed her too. She’s blonde now. Not properly blonde or anything hot, but a kind of sandy run-of-the-mill colour. She looks younger, although that could be because she’s lost some weight. Alison and the police are less worried about how she looks. There are hardly any pictures of her for people to recognise her from. The papers aren’t allowed to print them, and now all her privacy and hating herself in photos and what would I do with Facebook anyway? comments are making sense.