The Lies We Told(47)

Her bedroom door remained firmly closed. I would stand outside it and listen sometimes while she played her computer games, the sounds of simulated death and destruction seeping between the cracks, before I’d creep away and leave her to it, turning up the television or closing the kitchen door. I told myself that at least she was safe, and happy, in her own way.

It was less than a year later when everything changed. I don’t know how long she’d been sneaking out at night before I realized what she was up to. It was three in the morning and I was in the kitchen getting a glass of water when she came creeping in through the front door. I screamed, seeing her so suddenly, so shockingly, in the dark hallway. ‘Hannah,’ I said, once my heart had calmed, ‘what the hell are you doing? Where have you been?’

She shrugged. ‘Nowhere.’

I stepped towards her, wincing at the pungent smell of cigarette smoke. ‘Where have you been?’ I demanded. ‘Who have you been with?’

As I spoke, Doug appeared at the top of the stairs, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. ‘What’s going on?’

Hannah shrugged, a sly smile on her face. ‘Nothing. Just went out. What’s wrong with that?’

‘You’re only fourteen!’ I said. She took her coat off and threw it over the banister, stumbling as she did so. It was then that I realized she was drunk. We stared after her with open-mouthed astonishment as she climbed the stairs, pushing past her father as she did so. A moment later we heard her bedroom door slam shut, and Doug and I stood staring back at each other in dismay.

No matter how much Doug and I threatened, begged and cajoled over the following weeks, Hannah continued to make her midnight escapes. We tried everything: took away her allowance, put extra locks on the door, we even hid her shoes – but nothing worked. She must have been getting money from somewhere, because she continued to come back smelling of alcohol and I often found boxes of cigarettes in her coat.

‘You’re too young to be doing this, to be out by yourself at night,’ I pleaded when she returned close to dawn one morning. I had long since stopped being able to sleep, my anxiety and worry for her keeping me awake while I waited for her to return.

She smirked. ‘I’m not by myself.’

‘Then who are you with?’

She shrugged. ‘Friends.’

‘What friends?’

‘No one you know.’

‘There are bad people around,’ I told her. ‘Bad men who take advantage of young girls like you. Don’t you understand that, Hannah? Don’t you realize it’s not safe?’

‘So what? I’m having fun.’ And then she’d sneer and add, ‘You can’t stop me. You know you can’t.’

She was right, of course. She knew that the secret she held over us ensured we would never try to force the issue. We were too afraid of what she’d do, and she understood that only too well.

Gradually, the scruffy, shapeless T-shirts and tracksuit bottoms disappeared to be replaced with miniskirts and tight, low-cut tops; she would often go out with her face plastered inexpertly in make-up. It terrified me. Sometimes the police would bring her back, drunk or high. There they’d stand in our living room, describing how they’d found her at a squat party they’d searched for drugs, or hitching home alone at night, or getting stoned at bus stops with God knows who.

She loved that, the police involvement. Absolutely loved it. She’d watch us with her kohl-lined eyes, a smirk on her face while the police officers sat in our living room reminding us that she was a minor, that it was our responsibility to ensure she didn’t come to harm. She knew how terrified we were of them, that she could blow open our secret there and then with just a few choice words. And I would think of my sleeping boy upstairs beneath his Star Wars duvet and grit my teeth and say, ‘Yes, officer, we’re sorry. It won’t happen again.’

I grew used to the hostile looks from my neighbours, who no doubt thought it was all our fault, that if she were their child, they would have done things differently. No doubt they would have, but they didn’t have to deal with someone like Hannah, someone utterly devoid of conscience or love for us, someone who wouldn’t think twice about exposing us if we tried to force her hand.

Eventually, filled with a burning shame and dismay, I took to leaving packets of condoms in her underwear drawer when I knew she was out. She caught me only once. I turned to find her watching me from her bedroom door, the expression on her face one of amused enjoyment at my discomfort.

We thought of moving away, but what would have been the point? The situation would have stayed the same wherever we went. And we liked our village. We both worked in the area – I had found a job at the medical centre in the next town, resuming the nursing job I’d had before Hannah came along, and I loved it there, situated far away enough for no one to know me, or Hannah. Besides, we’d had to leave our home, fleeing my childhood village once before. I couldn’t face doing it again.

There were many, many nights that Doug and I spent driving around the nearest towns looking for her. Toby wrapped in his duvet, sleeping in the back. They were dark and desperate times; I was convinced we’d eventually find her left for dead in the street. I was permanently terrified for her, I lost almost two stone, the knot of fear that seemed constantly to lie in the pit of my stomach preventing me from eating. But though those months were unbearable, she always stopped short of going too far, staying just enough out of trouble to ensure that the police and social services never followed through with their many threats to remove her from our care. She was smart enough to know that, if that happened, the freedom her hold over us afforded her would be curtailed. And besides, she had bigger fish to fry, as we were soon to find out.