The Family Upstairs(81)

The house creaked and groaned around us. You were asleep. Lucy had set you down in the old cot in my parents’ dressing room. I had been awake for thirty-six hours by this point and the silence, the sound of Phin’s breathing, lulled me into an immediate and rapturous sleep.

When I awoke, two hours later, Lucy and Phin had gone, and you were still asleep in your cot.





63


Libby looks at Lucy, this woman surrounded by loving children whom she has brought all the way from France to England. She has even brought her dog. She clearly is not the sort of woman to leave behind people she loves. She says, ‘Why did you leave me?’

Lucy immediately starts to shake her head.

‘No,’ she says, ‘no. No. I didn’t leave you. I never left you. But Phin was so ill and you were so healthy and well. So I put you down in your cot, waited until you fell asleep, and I went back to Phin’s room. Henry was asleep and I managed to persuade Phin to stand up, finally. He was so heavy; I was so weak. I got him out of the house and we went to my father’s doctor’s house. Dr Broughton. I remembered being taken there when I was small, just around the corner. He had a bright red front door. I remembered. It was about midnight. He came to the door in a dressing gown. I told him who I was. Then I said’ – she laughs wryly at a memory – ‘I said, “I’ve got money! I can pay you!”

‘At first he looked angry. Then he looked at Phin, looked at him properly and said, “Oh my, oh my, oh my.” He went upstairs quickly, grumbling under his breath; then he came back down fully dressed in a shirt and trousers.

‘He took us into his surgery. All the lights were off. He turned them on, two rows of strip lights, all coming on at once. I had to shield my eyes. And he laid Phin on a bed and he checked all of his vitals and he asked me what the hell was going on. He said, “Where are your parents?” I had no idea what to say.

‘I said, “They’re gone.” And he looked at me sideways. As if to say, We’ll get to that later. Then he called someone. I heard him explaining the situation to them, lots of medical jargon. Half an hour later a young man appeared. He was Dr Broughton’s nurse. Between them they did about a dozen tests. The nurse went off into the middle of the night with a bag of things to take to a lab. I hadn’t slept for two days. I was seeing stars. Dr Broughton made me a cup of hot chocolate. It was … crazy as it sounds, it was the best hot chocolate of my life. And I sat on the sofa in his consulting rooms and I fell asleep.

‘When I woke up it was about five in the morning and the nurse was back from the lab. Phin was on a drip. But his eyes were open. Dr Broughton told me that Phin was suffering from severe malnutrition. He said that with plenty of fluids and some time to recover, he’d be fine.

‘I just nodded and said, “His father’s dead. I don’t know where his mother lives. We have a baby. I don’t know what to do.”

‘When I told him that we had a baby, his face fell. He said, “Good Lord. How old are you exactly?”

‘I said, “I’m fifteen.”

‘He gave me a strange look and said, “Where is this baby?”

‘I said, “She’s at the house. With my brother.”

‘“And your parents? Where have they gone?”

‘I said. “They’re dead.”

‘He sighed then. He said, “I had no idea. I’m very sorry.” And then he said, “Look. I don’t know what’s going on here and I don’t want to get involved in any of this. But you have brought this boy to my door and I have a duty of care towards him. So, let’s keep him here for a while. I have the room for him.”

‘And then I said I wanted to leave, to go back for you, but he said, “You look anaemic. I want to run some tests on you before I let you back out there. Give you something to eat.”

‘So he fed me, a bowl of cereal and a banana. He took some blood, checked my blood pressure, my teeth, my ears, like a horse at market.

‘He told me I was dehydrated and that I needed to spend some time under observation and on fluids’

Then Lucy looks up at Libby and says. ‘I’m so sorry, so, so sorry. But by the time he said I was OK to leave the house, it was all over. The police had been, social services had been, you were gone.’

Her eyes fill with tears.

‘I was too late.’





64




CHELSEA, 1994


I was the one who looked after you, Serenity. I stayed behind and gave you mashed-up bananas and soya milk and porridge and rice. I changed your nappies. I sang you to sleep. We spent many hours together, you and I. It was clear that Lucy and Phin weren’t coming back and the bodies in the kitchen would start to decompose if I stayed much longer. I suspected that someone might have gone to the authorities by now. I knew it was time for me to go. I added a few lines to the suicide note. ‘Our baby is called Serenity Lamb. She is ten months old. Please make sure she goes to nice people.’ I placed the pen I’d written the note with into my mother’s hand, removed it and then left it on the table next to the note. I fed you and put you in a fresh Babygro.

And then, as I was about to leave, I felt in the pocket of my jacket for Justin’s rabbit’s foot. I’d put it in there for luck, not that I believe in such things, and it had clearly brought me no luck at all since I’d taken it from Justin’s room. But I wanted the best for you, Serenity. You were the only truly pure thing in that house, the only good thing to come out of any of it. So I took the rabbit’s foot and I tucked it in with you.