I Know Who You Are(25)

“Do you know the best thing about Christmas?” Maggie asks.

I’d forgotten that she said it was Christmas today and don’t answer.

“Surprises!” She ties one of her bras around my head, like a blindfold. I don’t always like Maggie’s surprises. She pulls me up and leads me to the door in the flat I’ve never been through before. It’s locked and I’m afraid of what might be behind it. I hear her take out the giant set of keys, then she opens the door, and we shuffle inside. It’s dark, but I can feel soft carpet beneath my toes, just like in my bedroom. She takes the bra off my face, which I’m glad about, but I still can’t really see until she opens the heavy-looking curtains.

The room is beautiful, like the grotto in Dunnes Stores in Galway at Christmas. A pretty pattern of red and white flowers is all over the walls, and there is red carpet on the floor. I see a big red sofa, with lots of cushions, and the fireplace is a bit like the one at home. Paper chains are hanging down from the swirly white ceiling, and in the corner of the room there is a giant green tree, covered in tinsel, with a big silver star on top. Best of all, there are presents underneath, more presents than I’ve ever seen before.

“Well, go on then, see if there’s anything there for you,” says Maggie. Her yellow T-shirt with a smiley face comes down to her knees, but her teeth are chattering, which seems to make mine do the same. It’s as though the cold in the room is like the colds that make you cough and sneeze—something you can catch. She turns on a switch next to the fireplace, and I see that the fire is not real, only pretend with blue flames. Then she flicks another switch, and little colored lights appear all over the tree. It’s beautiful. But then the lights on the tree and the fire go off, and Maggie’s face turns from happy to cross awful fast.

“Damn it, John, this was meant to be perfect.” She looks behind me. I turn and see John in the doorway. I didn’t even know he was there, he always seems to be hiding in the shadows.

“Hold your horses.” He reaches inside the pocket of his jeans and disappears down the hall. It’s a silly thing to say because Maggie doesn’t have any horses to hold.

A thing called a meter lives inside the big cupboard at the top of the stairs. It’s where the ironing board and Hoover live, too, not that we ever use those. If we don’t put enough fifty-pence coins inside the meter’s mouth, the power goes off. It needs feeding all the time, the way I think a pet dragon might. John must have fed it, because the lights and the fire come back on.

Maggie is wearing her happy face again, just like the one on her T-shirt. “Well, go on.”

I walk a little closer to the tree, and when I bend down, I can see that all the presents have little name tags tied on with ribbon. I turn one over and it says AIMEE. I look at another and it says the same thing. But they are all covered in dust, as though they have been sitting under the tree for a very long time. I look around the room and see that everything else in here is covered in dust too.

“Aren’t you going to open something?” asks John, lighting a cigarette and sitting down on the sofa. “I don’t see nobody else called Aimee around here, do you?”

Just as he says it, I do see another little girl in the room, or at least a picture of her in a frame on the mantelpiece. She looks a bit like me, but older, with exactly the same length hair. Maggie sees me looking at it and lays the frame down flat.

“Open your presents,” she says, folding her arms.

I pick up the one nearest to me, getting dust on my fingers and pajamas. I open it slowly, peeling back each piece of Sellotape, trying not to tear the pretty paper. I see what looks like orange wool inside and pull it out. John takes a picture of me with his Polaroid camera; he likes doing that. He takes pictures of me everywhere all the time—in the shop, in my bedroom, in the bath. I don’t think the photos he takes of me in the bath or in bed at night can be very good; he never shows them to me or Maggie afterwards.

“It’s Rainbow Brite, your absolute favorite! Do you like her?” asks Maggie. I nod, not sure who Rainbow Brite is, but remembering her from the duvet and wallpaper in my bedroom. “Well, go on, open another.”

This time it is a red machine.

“It’s a brand-new Fisher-Price cassette player, so you can play all those Story Teller tapes you like so much. Just try not to break this one.”

I didn’t break anything.

“Now, what do you say before you open the next one?”

I think hard before answering. Maggie gets awful cross when I get things wrong. When I think I know the answer, I turn and look at her. “Thank you, Mum.”

I pick up another present, hoping I’m still allowed to open it.

She smiles at me. “You’re welcome, Baby Girl.”





Twenty-one


London, 2017

“Are you okay?” asks Jack.

No.

My husband is trying to frame me.

The only person who ever really knew me, who I thought loved me, is coming after me in a majorly messed-up way. I feel terrified and broken and so fucking angry all at once.

Jack knocked on my dressing room door less than a minute after the police left. I thought they had come back, so seeing him standing there instead brings nothing but relief.

“I’m fine,” I say, as he steps inside uninvited and I close the door behind him.