Let Me Lie(98)

Years ago, when I was walking back from a friend’s house, someone tried to pull me into a car. I fought like an animal. I fought so hard I made him swear.

‘You fucking bitch,’ he said, before he drove off.

I didn’t even have to think about it. I just fought.

Why aren’t I fighting now?

She jerks the barrel of the gun towards the corner of the car park. Once. Twice.

I move.

It isn’t just the gun. It’s because of who she is, because of how I’m programmed to be with her. Like a best friend who suddenly turns on you, or a lover who throws an unexpected punch, I can’t reconcile what’s happening now with the person I thought I knew. It is easier to fight a stranger. It is easier to hate a stranger than your own flesh and blood.

From outside I hear a noise like a distant machine gun, drumming on the sky. Fireworks. It’s still an hour till midnight – someone’s celebrating early. The car park is deserted; all the residents either out for the night, or settled at home.

The lift opens onto a carpeted landing. Mark’s flat is at the end of the corridor and as we walk past his immediate neighbour, there are raucous screams. Chart music blares from inside the apartment. If the door is on the latch – for people to come and go from the party – I could open the door and be inside in a second. Safety in numbers.

I’m not aware that I’ve checked my pace, that my entire body is gearing up for this final attempt to save my life – to save Ella’s life – but I must have done because there’s a hard jab against my spine and I don’t need to be told that she’s holding the gun to my back.

I keep walking.

Mark’s apartment is a far cry from the way I remember it. The leather sofa is scratched and torn – the stuffing exploding from a rip on one arm – and there are cigarette burns all over the wooden floor. The kitchen has been cleared of the garbage left by the previous tenants, but the smell has been slower to leave. It catches the back of my throat.

There are two armchairs facing the sofa. Both are filthy. One is covered in what could be paint. The soft woollen throws Mark used to keep folded over the back of each one are scrunched into a heap on the other.

We stand in the centre of the room. I wait for her to give me an instruction, to say something – anything – but she just stands there.

She doesn’t know what to do.

She doesn’t have a clue what she’s going to do with us, now she has us here. Somehow, I find that more frightening than knowing this is all part of a grand plan. Anything could happen.

She could do anything.

‘Give me the baby.’ The gun is in both hands now, clasped together in a parody of prayer.

I shake my head. ‘No.’ I hold Ella so tight she lets out a cry. ‘You’re not having her.’

‘Give her to me!’ She’s hysterical. I want to think someone will hear her, knock on the door and ask if everything’s okay, but next-door’s party is throbbing through the walls, and I think even if I screamed no one would come.

‘Put her on the chair, then get over to the other side of the room.’

If she shoots me, Ella will have no one to save her from this situation. I have to stay alive.

Slowly, I move towards one of the armchairs and lower Ella onto the pile of soft throws. She blinks at me and I make myself smile, even though it hurts so much to let her go.

‘Now move.’ Another jerk of the gun.

I comply, never taking my eyes off Ella as my mother picks her up and cradles her against her chest. She makes shushing noises, bounces up and down on the balls of her feet. She could be any devoted grandmother, were it not for the gun dangling from one hand.

‘You killed Dad.’ I still can’t believe it.

She looks at me as though she’d forgotten I was there. She walks from one side of the room to the other – back and forth, back and forth – but whether it’s to soothe Ella or herself it isn’t clear. ‘It was an accident. He … he fell. Against the kitchen counter.’

I cover my mouth with my hands, stifle the cry that builds at the thought of Dad lying on the kitchen floor. ‘Was he … was he drunk?’

It changes nothing, but I’m searching for reasons, trying to understand how my baby and I came to be imprisoned in this flat.

‘Drunk?’ Mum looks momentarily confused, then she turns away and I can’t see her face. When she speaks, she’s trying not to cry. ‘No, he wasn’t drunk. I was.’ She turns back around. ‘I’ve changed, Anna. I’m not the person I was back then. That person died – just like you all thought she had. I had a chance to start again; not to make the mistakes I made before. Not to hurt anyone.’

‘This is what you call not hurting anyone?’

‘This was a mistake.’

An accident. A mistake. My head is spinning with the lies she’s told, and if this is the truth, then I’m not sure I want to hear it.

‘Let us go.’

‘I can’t do that.’

‘You can, Mum. You said yourself: this has all been a big mistake. Give me Ella, put down the gun, and let us go. I don’t care what you do after that – just let us go.’

‘They’ll put me in prison.’

I don’t answer.

‘It was an accident! I lashed out, lost my temper. I didn’t mean to hit him. He slipped and …’ Tears trace the outline of her face and drop onto her jumper. She looks wretched, and despite myself – despite everything she’s done – I feel myself weakening. I believe her when she says it was never meant to be like this. Who would want this to happen?