The Widow(42)

So I write “Dearest Bella. Happy birthday. I hope you are home soon” and some kisses. I address it to her, Miss Bella Elliott. I don’t know the number of her house, but I expect the postman will know. The mother says she gets dozens of letters every day. She said on Woman’s Hour that some of them are nasty letters from “mad” people, telling her she deserved to lose Bella. One of those must be mine.

I wrote at the beginning, when I was so angry with her for leaving Bella on her own when I couldn’t even have a baby. I wanted her to know how wrong she’d been. I didn’t sign that one either.

I put a stamp on the birthday card, all bumpy with the badge inside, and walked home the postbox way.

On the day, April 28, Dawn was on breakfast television with a little cake with three candles. She was wearing the birthday badge I sent with her “Find Bella” badge. She thanked everyone for the lovely cards and presents and said she wasn’t unwrapping them until Bella comes home. The woman doing the interview got all choked up.

I unwrapped the present I bought for her—a baby doll with golden hair and a white-and-pink dress—and put her on my bed.

I could do it because Glen wasn’t here. He’d gone out for a drive. He wouldn’t be back for ages, and until then I could spend time with Bella.

I have photos of her from the papers and nice color ones from magazines. I decided not to put her in the scrapbooks because she’s real and special and I hope to meet her one day. When she comes home.

I plan it. How we’ll meet in a park and she’ll know it’s me and come running over, laughing and nearly tripping over, she’s running so fast. Her little arms will wrap around my legs and I’ll bend down and pick her up and swing her around.

It’s my favorite daydream, but it’s beginning to take over my day. Sometimes I find myself sitting at the kitchen table and the clock shows I’ve been there for more than an hour and I don’t remember the time passing. Sometimes I find I’m crying, but I don’t know why, exactly. I went to the doctor to talk to him. I didn’t mention Bella, but he knew all about Glen’s “circumstances,” as he put it, and I came away with a new prescription.

“You need some peace of mind, Mrs. Taylor,” he said, tearing it off his pad. “Have you thought about taking a break from what’s happening?” He meant well, but there is no break to be taken. I can’t stop the thoughts by catching a plane somewhere. I don’t control them—or anything, anymore. I’m a passenger, not the driver, I wanted to tell him. Anyway, the pills should let me carry on being Jeanie when I need to be.

Bella’s mum is on the telly all the time. She’s being interviewed on every talk show, spewing out the same old stuff about “her angel” and how she cries herself to sleep every night. She never misses an opportunity. I wonder if she’s getting paid.

I raise the question on a radio phone-in late at night. Chris from Catford comes straight on the line to back me up. “What kind of mother is she?” he screeches. I’m glad other people see through her.

Since “retiring,” as Glen calls it, I spend my days watching daytime telly, doing word searches in puzzle books, and taking part in radio phone-ins. Funny, I used to think that the radio was for brainy people—all that talking. But I started to put the local commercial stations on for company and I got pulled in. There is a sort of gang of people who phone in—the same voices week in, week out. The old bloke who wants all immigrants thrown out, the woman who can’t say her Rs who thinks politicians should be put in pwison, the young lad who blames women for the rise in sex crime. They start out angry and their voices get higher and louder as they work themselves up. It doesn’t matter what the subject is, they can be outraged, and I got addicted to it.

I finally picked up the phone one day when they were discussing whether pedophiles could be cured. I said my name was Joy and told the presenter that pedophiles should be strung up. It went down well because there were loads of calls agreeing. And that was it. I was one of them. I changed my name every week or so. Ann, Kerry, Sue, Joy, Jenny, Liz. It was brilliant being someone else, even for ninety seconds, and having someone listen to you without knowing who you’re married to and judging you.

I found I had lots of opinions. I could be Mrs. Angry or a “bleeding heart liberal,” as Glen puts it. I could be anyone I wanted.

And it stopped me being lonely. Of course, Lisa had disappeared with the rest of my life. At first she kept calling round and inviting me in. She wanted to know all about it and was so sweet to me. She said she didn’t believe a word of it. But the kids didn’t come around anymore. There was always an excuse: Kane had a cold; Daisy was practicing her ballet for an exam; Lisa’s sister was coming to stay. Then she nailed the gate shut. Just one nail, high up.

“I was worried about break-ins,” she said. “You understand, Jeanie?” And I tried to.





TWENTY-THREE


The Detective

MONDAY, JUNE 18, 2007


Over the weekend, Dan Fry and Fleur Jones had picked the name Jodie Smith. Jodie because they thought it had a childlike ring to it and Smith for anonymity. Jodie was a twenty-seven-year-old woman from Manchester, a junior secretary in a large office who’d been abused as a child by her father and who got a sexual thrill from dressing up as a child for sex.