The Lies We Told(46)
Suddenly she was desperate to get out of there. It had been a mistake to come; his absence far more brutal here between these silent walls than it was at Mac’s. She realized it didn’t even feel like home, not any more: whoever had broken in had destroyed that sense of safety and sanctuary. Hurriedly she wiped her eyes and, snatching up an empty carrier bag, began to fill it with clothes. Leaving the flat, she closed the door behind her, using the light from her phone to make sure she’d double locked it.
As she stood standing in the hall’s blackness grappling with her keys, she thought she heard a sound from the floor above. She stood stock-still. What was that? ‘Hello?’ she called. Nothing. And then, the name unfamiliar on her lips, ‘Alison, is that you?’ Again, silence. ‘This isn’t funny,’ she shouted. ‘If that’s you, say something.’ Still nothing, yet she couldn’t shake the feeling there was someone there. Suddenly, it was as if the air was ripped in two by a deafening roar of music. Her heart lurched at the shock and involuntarily she screamed, before hurtling down the stairs, the music stopping as abruptly as it had begun the moment she reached the main door. She bolted out of the building, gasping for air in the cool, orange-lit darkness of the street. Across the square voices drifted over to her from the string of bars and restaurants. She turned, and, her heart still pounding, set off at a run towards the station.
17
Cambridgeshire, 1994
Those few brief years of peace ended not long after Hannah turned thirteen. She seemed, physically, to change overnight – or perhaps I hadn’t been looking, maybe I had grown used to letting my gaze flicker over my daughter, it being too painful to linger on her for too long. Whatever the case, I remember vividly the morning I looked up from my breakfast and noticed something I’d failed to see before.
‘What?’ she said, as she sullenly emptied some cereal into a bowl.
‘Nothing.’ But though I lowered my gaze I couldn’t help but watch her from the corner of my eye as she began to eat. Toby, seven by then, was halfway through his Cheerios, engrossed in a comic. Doug had already left for work, and Hannah was eating her breakfast as she stood by the window, having long ago refused to join us at the table.
Perhaps it was the too-small T-shirt she was wearing, or the angle in which she was standing, but for the first time I noticed the small breasts that had begun to bud on her chest, the waist that had become more defined, the thickening of her hips. My eyes travelled to her face. It was, as usual, half hidden behind a wild tangle of hair, but I saw now that it had begun to lose some of its childish plumpness, her features becoming more certain – the beauty she’d always had becoming more distinct.
I can’t quite put into words the emotion that filled me. But I guess, mainly, it was a kind of panic. As long as she was physically still a child I was able to fool myself that there was still time – for things to turn themselves around, for her to grow out of her difficulties, for me to become the sort of mother who knew how to deal with someone so clearly out of step with the world. The realization that she was growing into an adult triggered a sort of terror in me, because it meant that soon it would be too late for me to work out how to help her, to change the course on which her life was going. Perhaps I had a premonition of how badly things would end for us all. It terrified me: in that moment of clarity I was utterly terrified.
Nevertheless I took a deep breath and chose my words carefully. ‘Hannah, I was wondering if you would like to come shopping with me at the weekend?’
Her head shot up. ‘Can I get some new computer games?’
‘I thought we’d look for some bras for you, some toiletries … or new clothes, perhaps. We could even get your hair cut. What do you say?’ I heard the wheedling edge my voice always seemed to have when talking to her and cringed, but forced myself to continue smiling brightly.
Her glance fell downwards to her chest and I steeled myself for her embarrassment, but her expression when she next looked up was one of ambivalence. For a while she held my gaze, before she plonked her bowl back down on the work surface and muttered, ‘Don’t want any,’ before turning and walking away, the conversation clearly over as far as she was concerned.
Nevertheless in the following weeks I bought her a variety of bras in different sizes, hoping that some of them might fit. I bought her some shampoo, deodorant, some sanitary towels and tampons, some nice new clothes that I chose with painstaking care. I even bought her a book about puberty. It broke my heart, of course; every purchase driving home the fact that this should be so very different: an opportunity to guide her lovingly through this important life stage, a chance to bond amongst the rails of Topshop. I tried not to mind, had long ago told myself to let go of the fantasy relationship I’d always longed for, but it hurt all the same.
Days later I found the clothes and toiletries dumped, still in their packaging, in the bin. She never wore the bras I bought her; as her breasts grew bigger she let them flop around beneath her grubby T-shirts. She began to smell. Though she never talked about school I knew she had no friends, and could only imagine how she must have appeared to the other children: the smelly kid. The school weirdo. I felt so sorry for her, but my pity was useless. She didn’t want it. Really, it was self-pity, I suppose, and it’s amazing how even that turns to nothing after a while: even the hardest things become acceptable, just another part of life.