The Dare, page 13
Mum sighs. ‘I tried to speak to Sheena about it once and it didn’t go well. She went mad. Accused me of being a stuck-up busybody. Besides, she’d got close to the woman living next door to her by then. Our friendship was on its last legs.’
‘But, when Alice died, surely you could have—’
‘Could have what? Said how sorry we were, how devastated? We did. Of course we did. We sent a card. We sent flowers. We went to the funeral. What more could we have done?’
‘It’s just weird that you’ve never told me. I’m not a little girl any more, Mum.’
‘Oh, darling, I know you’re not.’ She releases another small, tight sigh. ‘In hindsight, we should have told you. But don’t you see, Lizzie? The longer you keep a secret from someone, the harder it is to tell them the truth.’
I swallow hard. I know that what she’s saying is true. I’ve never told Mum and Dad about my nightmares. I mean, they knew I had them, but not what they were about. I could hardly tell them that, could I? And who knows when or if I’d ever have told Ross about what happened to Alice if Catherine hadn’t materialized in our lives when she did? I’m going to have to tell Mum about that, too. If I’m expecting her to be open with me, I have to do the same.
‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ I say. ‘Catherine Dawson is a nurse at Ross’s surgery.’
There is a shocked silence.
‘You can’t be serious!’
‘I am. Imagine how I felt when she turned up at our housewarming party.’
‘But Lizzie, that was ages ago. Why are you only telling us this now?’
I’m about to say, ‘That’s a bit rich, coming from you,’ but I bite my tongue. The last thing I want us to do is fall out.
‘She’s different now, Mum.’
There’s a pause as she takes this in. ‘Lizzie, surely you can’t have forgotten how badly she behaved after Alice died?’
‘Of course I haven’t forgotten,’ I say. ‘But that was twelve years ago. She knows it was wrong of her and she’s apologized.’
‘Ross works with her, you say?’
‘Yes, she’s one of the practice nurses at Plumtree Lodge.’
‘I thought she was a secretary.’
‘She was. But then she trained as a nurse.’
‘I presume this means you’ve told Ross about Alice? I mean, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have. You are engaged, after all. It’s just that … we both kind of assumed that you hadn’t, that you wanted to draw a line under all that.’
‘I don’t think it’s particularly healthy to keep secrets from someone you love. Do you?’ The words are out before I can think better of them.
I hold my breath, scared I’ve gone too far.
‘Do you see her socially?’
‘We’ve met since the party, yes.’
‘I’m not sure about this, Lizzie. I really don’t think it’s a good idea to get mixed up with the Dawsons again.’
I can just picture the lines of concern etching Mum’s face, the way she’ll be tightening her mouth so that her chin looks all puckered.
‘Has she said anything about … her parents? Do they still live in the same house?’ Her voice is stretched with tension.
‘No. They moved to Devon.’
I hear her sigh again. It sounds like relief. ‘Listen,’ she says. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ll phone you later.’
‘Later’ turns out to be less than fifteen minutes.
‘Lizzie, I’ve been speaking to your dad.’
I guessed as much the second she hung up. It’s so unlike Mum to finish a call first. She must have been desperate to fill him in.
‘He’s very concerned at this … this growing friendship between you and Catherine. He thinks – we think – that you should rein back a little. Keep your distance.’
‘But you’ve always taught me to be forgiving. Isn’t that the Christian thing to do?’
It’s a cheap shot, I know it is, throwing her own homilies back in her face, but if it’s so important to her, and Dad, that I don’t get involved with the Dawsons again, then they need to be honest with me about why.
Suddenly, Dad’s on the phone and I realize I’ve been on loudspeaker all this time. I should have guessed.
‘Lizzie, your mum’s not feeling very well. This has been very upsetting for her. I want you to think about what it was like before we moved to Dovercourt. What a dreadful time you had. What a dreadful time we all had.’
I perch on the edge of the sofa. It’s like I’m a young girl again, listening to one of his lectures when I’d done something wrong.
‘I’m sure Catherine does feel sorry for her actions,’ he says. ‘And I realize it must be difficult, her working alongside Ross. But believe me, it’s never a good idea to revisit the past. We’re not saying don’t forgive her, of course we’re not. We’re just saying don’t get too close. Join some clubs. Go to an evening class. You’ll soon make new friends.’
Oh my God. It’s like history repeating itself. My parents advising me not to get too friendly with Alice. To widen my circle. What the hell is it they’re not telling me?
34
The phone conversation with my parents has left me numb. I feel as though a protective layer of skin has been stripped away, leaving me exposed and vulnerable. There’s definitely more to this than they’re letting on.
I sink down on to the sofa. It must have been a real wrench for them to sell their beloved home and start all over again somewhere else. Why didn’t they have meetings with the school and tackle the bullying head on? Or transfer me to another school? Why didn’t they make more of an effort to talk to Sheena and Mick about Catherine’s behaviour and the problems it was causing? It’s almost as if they were too scared to even approach them about it.
Unless they felt guilty. Guilt by association. With me. My chest tightens. Is it possible that my own parents think I might have been lying? Heat stains my cheeks at the thought.
I go into the messages on my phone and see the one Catherine sent after our meeting in the park the other week. Despite what I said about wanting to see her again, I’ve been purposely ignoring her message up till now. I’d made up my mind that enough was enough. I’d accepted her apology and cleared the air. Anything more was out of the question, no matter how nice she now seems.
But things are different now and Catherine’s the only person, apart from my parents, who might be able to help me get to the bottom of all this. I need answers. Answers that Mum and Dad, for whatever reason, aren’t giving me.
I send her a text. ‘Can we talk?’
She rings me straightaway.
‘Lizzie?’
‘Something’s come up,’ I say.
‘Is it that reporter again? You don’t have to talk to her, you know. It’s entirely your decision.’
‘This isn’t about the reporter. I’ve not heard from her again.’
‘So what is it?’ she says.
I hesitate. ‘It’s … well, it’s a bit delicate, actually. I think I’d rather talk face to face. When’s your next day off?’
‘Wednesday.’
My heart sinks. I’m impatient for answers now. Still, I don’t suppose a couple of days will make much difference.
‘I’ll be at Greenwich on Wednesday morning,’ she says. ‘Why don’t we meet somewhere for lunch or a late coffee?’
When Wednesday comes around, it’s grey and damp. So much for flaming June. Catherine and I are sitting on a leather sofa, sipping cappuccinos in the Waterstones café.
I clear my throat. ‘I saw my parents at the weekend.’
She widens her eyes. ‘How are they?’
‘They’re fine, but … look, can I ask you something?’ I watch her face closely for her reaction. ‘Do you know if our parents ever met? I mean, before Alice and I did.’
She puts her coffee down. ‘What makes you ask that?’ she says.
‘It was something I found. A card. From your mum to mine – well, from your parents to my parents, but it’s always the woman who writes the cards, isn’t it? She was congratulating my mum on her pregnancy. And she was pregnant, too, with Alice. She sounded so happy, so excited.’
Catherine nods, slowly. ‘Yes. Our mothers were best friends.’ Hearing her confirm it makes my head swim.
‘Were you ever going to tell me?’
She looks embarrassed. ‘Possibly. Probably. If we saw more of each other, which I hoped we would. I thought you might even know by now, to be honest.’
‘They must have stopped being friends at some point after the card was sent and before I was born,’ I say. ‘Because there’s no congratulations card from them for my birth. Only on the pregnancy itself, and they would have sent another card when I was born if they were still friends, wouldn’t they?’
‘That’s right,’ Catherine says. ‘They’d fallen out by then. And then, of course, your parents moved away.’
‘Moved away?’
‘Yes, to wherever it was you grew up. Beechwood Avenue, wasn’t it?’
‘Birchwood Avenue.’ Our eyes meet briefly. Catherine looks away first. I’m surprised she doesn’t remember. She stood outside my window in the middle of the night enough times after Alice died. But there’s no point dwelling on that. Not now.
‘So, did your mum and dad use to live near them in Bishop Street, then?’ I ask her.
‘Bishop Street? No, what makes you think that?’
‘Because that’s where my parents lived before they had me.’
Catherine looks puzzled. ‘No, they lived on the estate, in Riley Road. They were neighbours.’
Something inside me falls away. ‘My parents used to live in Riley Road? Are you sure?’
‘Yes. They lived a few houses down from us. I remember our mums sitting on the canvas swing chair in our garden, drinking tea. They used to know each other from school.’
I stare at her, open-mouthed. This can’t be true. Why would my parents lie about where they used to live? They wouldn’t, surely.
And yet they lied about not knowing the Dawsons.
‘But they’ve always told me that, before I was born, they lived in Bishop Street.’
Catherine smiles. ‘That’s a whole lot nicer than Riley Road, isn’t it? I can see why they might have wanted to edit things a little.’
‘But they’re not like that!’
As soon as the words are out, I realize how hollow they sound.
It all begins to fall into place. I used to think that uncomfortable feeling I had in the presence of Alice’s mum was because she was so depressed, but it must have been more than that. She didn’t like me because she didn’t like my mother. And then her daughter died and I was the one with her when it happened. No wonder we weren’t invited to Alice’s wake.
‘And she never told you what it was that made them fall out?’
Catherine screws up her face and looks into the middle distance. ‘I have a vague memory of hearing Mum talk about it once with the woman next door. Something about your mum being jealous, I think, but I can’t remember any of the details.’
I’m aware that I’m frowning. It’s the notion of my mother being jealous of Sheena Dawson. It doesn’t seem possible, and yet, how well do any of us really know our parents, the people they were before they had us? I think of my own jealousy and how it used to rage inside me. An unstoppable force. Things I try not to dwell on start pricking away at the back of my mind. Seeing Alice dance with Dave Farley after he’d humiliated me in front of everyone. The torrent of anger that erupted out of me as soon as the two of us were alone.
‘I was only nine,’ Catherine says. ‘To be honest, I didn’t take much notice of Mum’s friends. I was too busy playing with the other kids on the estate.’
Catherine’s face clouds over and she stares out of the window.
‘All that had to stop when Alice was born,’ she says. ‘I mean, I didn’t mind looking after her. Of course I didn’t. I loved having a baby sister, but well, Mum was so depressed, she could hardly look after herself, let alone a baby, and Dad was always so busy in the shop.’
‘So was it postnatal depression?’ I ask her.
Catherine shrugs. ‘That’s what they said at the time. It started off feeling like I was just helping Mum out while she wasn’t well, but she never seemed to get any better and so I kind of took Alice over completely. Did everything for her. Every hour I wasn’t at school I was playing with her, feeding her, changing her nappies. It was almost as if … almost as if she were mine.’
She takes a sip of her cappuccino and I can see that there are tears in her eyes.
‘She was a beautiful baby. I remember the way her tiny hands used to grip the bottle. And that blissed-out, drunk look on her face when she’d had her fill. Her milky burps when I rubbed her little back.’
I look away, my throat almost closing up. When I look back, Catherine is stirring another sugar into her cappuccino. There are tear tracks on her cheeks. The two of us sit in silence for a little while, each absorbed in our thoughts and memories.
‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘You were asking about your mum.’
‘Please don’t apologize. I shouldn’t have started quizzing you. As you say, you were only a child. I’d be hard pressed to remember much about my mum’s friends when I was that age.’
‘But I do want to apologize about my behaviour later on,’ she says.
I look down at my lap. ‘It’s okay. You already have.’
‘I know, but I want you to understand what it was like for me back then. After spending most of my childhood and teenage years looking after Mum and Alice and keeping everything ticking over while Dad was at work, I’d finally got a life of my own. Alice was about to start secondary school and Mum was almost back to her old self. I was going out to work as a secretary, enjoying a social life, making plans to leave home. Then you and Alice became friends and Mum got ill again. I’m not saying that was your fault, Lizzie, but in my head I associated the start of your friendship with Mum’s depression coming back. And then when Alice died … well, you can imagine …’
Her face lengthens in sorrow. I stare at my knees, the familiar undertow of guilt tugging my mind back to that fateful day.
‘It’s why I was so mean to you,’ she says.
My throat is too clogged with emotion to speak. To my shame, I’ve never once considered what it must have been like for Catherine, how much of her childhood and young adult years were eroded by the burden of caring for her mother and her sister.
‘It’s always troubled me how I treated you before. But now I feel like I’ve been given a second chance to put things right,’ she says. ‘After all, whatever happened between our mothers, once upon a time they were best friends. And you were best friends with Alice, so maybe … maybe there’s a chance that we could be friends, too.’
Her phone rings then and I’m glad of the distraction as she checks who it is and gestures ‘sorry’ at me while she takes the call. It’s all been getting a bit intense and I’m glad of the time to gather my thoughts.
‘Sorry about that,’ she says, when she finishes the brief conversation. ‘I wouldn’t normally have answered it, but it was June from the surgery and, since I’ve just asked her the most humongous favour, I could hardly ignore her.’
She gathers up her things and reaches for her jacket. ‘I’m going to have to go, I’m afraid. June’s kindly offered me her sofa to crash on so I said I’d pop round and discuss it with her.’
‘Where are you living now then?’
‘In a flat in Woolwich, but the lease ends at the end of the month and the landlord won’t extend it. He wants to renovate the house.’ She puts on her jacket. ‘About time, if you ask me. Tight bastard’ll probably turn the living room into another bedroom and hike the rent up as soon as he’s done.’
She drains her cup of coffee. ‘It’s fine, though. I’ve found a nice new place in Deptford. The only trouble is, the current tenant can’t move out until two weeks after I need to move in.’ She smiles. ‘So it looks like I’ll be sleeping with Madame Bovary and the Queen of Sheba.’
I give her a questioning look.
‘June’s Persian Blues,’ she explains, laughing. ‘I’m going to be picking cat hairs off me for weeks.’
‘Two weeks is a long time to have to sleep on a sofa,’ I say.
She grimaces. ‘It’s even longer if you’re allergic to cats.’ Then, when she sees my face she says, ‘I’ll be fine. As long I remember to pick up some antihistamines.’
I think of our spare room. Maybe I should offer it to her. After all, it’s only for two weeks, and it would prove to Ross that I’m making an effort, that I’m moving forwards and not holding on to grudges. And besides, I like her company. For some reason, Mum and Dad don’t want me to revisit the past. They don’t want me to get close to her, but they didn’t want me to get close to Alice either. And how can I trust them when they’ve been lying to me all my life? Maybe if I get to know Catherine better, I’ll find out why.
It was a dysfunctional relationship from the very start. I realize that now. As a child, I never questioned the psychology of it. Why would I? She was everything to me. My emotional crutch. My confidante. My saviour. So when I realized she needed me, too, of course I agreed to help her. How could I not? That’s how this whole thing started.
That woman had ruined everything. Turned her mother into a shadow. A wraith. If we could do something – anything – to make her suffer like poor Sheena was suffering, then that would right the wrong that had been done to her. Sheena would get well again and be happy, and then Catherine would be happy. Everything would revert to how it was.
At the time, it was exciting. A game of dare, but one that had motive and justification. I do believe we convinced ourselves that we were on some kind of moral crusade. Children can be so judgemental, can’t they?
I can still hear her cry as she toppled forwards, the dull thud of her body as it landed on the pavement. But I didn’t look back. I kept running and running and running till I made it to the park and could disappear into the clump of trees by the playground and catch my breath.
