The Dead Ex(43)

On the escalator going up on the other side.

A tall man. Slightly hooked nose. Rugby build. Well-cut grey overcoat.

‘DAVID!’

People are turning round. Staring as I scream his name.

He looks straight ahead. He hasn’t heard me. Or else he doesn’t want to.

My fear of falling is now replaced by the fear of losing him all over again.

I run down the escalator, fear forgotten, my bag bumping against my hip. Down to the bottom. Up the adjoining escalator. Run. Don’t look down. I emerge at the top, panting. The policewoman is still talking to the worker at the gate.

He’s nowhere in sight.

I want to fall to the ground. Sob with relief that my husband (for he’ll always be that) is alive. And I want to weep with anguish that I can’t put my arms around him and tell him that I don’t really wish he was dead. I’d only said that in anger. I’ll tell him how much I miss him and that I understand he made a mistake with Tanya. Of course I will take him back. All he has to do is get to know the E word as I have done. It would be so much easier if there were two of us to fight it.

‘Excuse me.’

My heart stops as I hear his deep voice.

‘I’m having problems with my Oyster. I’ve added twenty pounds, but it’s not showing.’

It’s the tall man with the slightly hooked nose. The rugby build. The grey overcoat. He’s come up to the TfL worker.

I can see him more clearly now.

It isn’t David.





20



Scarlet


She was lucky. If the window had been higher and there hadn’t been long, soft grass below, it could have been much worse. Lucky, too, that it was her left arm that was broken. It meant she could still use a pen when she started school the next day.

She’d like school. The whole class was excited about seeing her. It was only just down the lane. We’ll walk with you on your first day and after that you’ll probably want to come back with one of your new friends. Then you can write a letter about it to your mum.

That’s what they told her. Not all at once but in bits. Scarlet listened to Dee but tried to block out Robert’s voice. It wasn’t easy. It sounded deep, just like Mr Walters’. The very thought made her shiver and feel sick, even though Robert’s hands were lean and brown instead of white and flabby.

‘Why do you think she still won’t talk?’ she’d heard them say when they returned from the hospital. It had been dark by then. Scarlet was meant to be in bed but she’d moved to the floor again. Still she couldn’t sleep. Everything creaked. The boards below the carpet when she turned over to get comfortable. The ceiling too, as though someone was walking around above. Scared, she crept out of the room and sat on the staircase near the lion and the apple, listening to the voices floating out of the kitchen.

‘Traumatized, poor kid. Imagine if you’d been through all that with your mother. It took me years to get it out of my system – if indeed I have. You’re lucky, Robert. You and your golden childhood.’

Dee sounded cross.

‘I know, love. I’m sorry. But I want to make it right for her.’

‘She’s frightened of you.’

‘Really?’

‘I can tell from her eyes. Yet she’s all right with me and the social worker. If you ask me, a man has upset her. Maybe she’s even been …’

‘Don’t you think you’re jumping to conclusions, love?’

‘NO.’ There was the sound of something heavy. A fist on the table? ‘You don’t understand.’

Dee was crying now. Scarlet almost felt like running down and putting her arms around her like she used to with Mum when she cried. But then she’d be discovered.

‘It’s all right. You’re safe now. I’ll never let anyone hurt you again.’

That was Robert’s voice. Something stirred inside Scarlet. Not just fear in case he couldn’t be trusted, like Mr Walters, but jealousy too. Dee had someone to look after her. She and Mum – they didn’t have anyone.

Quietly, Scarlet tiptoed back and lay on the floor, putting the pillow with its little blue-and-yellow dots over her ears to block out the creaks around her. Just as she finally drifted off, Dee was knocking on the door and gently telling her that it was time to get up.

This was a school?

Scarlet looked with amazement at the pretty red house at the end of the lane. It had grass around it instead of concrete as well as swings like a proper park. Then a horrible thought hit her. Supposing they made her play the game and the police took her again?

‘It’s a very small church primary,’ said Dee, placing a hand on her shoulder. ‘So they’ll make you feel at home. I know it will seem strange to begin with, but you’ll be all right. I promise.’

She spoke in the same voice that Mum used when she didn’t really mean something but was just trying to make her feel better.

‘Scarlet still isn’t talking,’ she heard Dee tell the teacher. ‘We don’t want to force her. She’ll do it in her own time.’

Would she? It was so much easier to stay silent. That way she wouldn’t have to tell anyone what happened when Mr Walters had opened the bedroom door.

Everyone looked at her when the teacher showed her where to sit. Instead of a shared table, she had a desk all of her own with a lift-up lid. The girl next to her had a picture of a pony on the inside of hers. It was black with a floppy fringe. Once, Mum had told her there was a horse in the field next to her house when she was growing up in Whales. How cool was that! Carefully, Scarlet took her own precious photograph out of her pocket and stuck it to the lid with bits of Blu-tack that were already there.