No Safe Haven: A gripping, twisty tale of loyalty and survival, page 3
Jessica glanced at the clock, then she chased Reef up the stairs to the bathroom with much screaming and excitement from them both.
Harriet shook her head, and muttered something about hoping Jessica hadn’t spent too much money.
‘It seemed like she needed it,’ I said, ‘she obviously really enjoyed herself.’
‘She’s…’ Harriet paused. ‘She’s not that sensible with money,’ she said. ‘Or anything, really.’
‘Well, I can relate to that,’ I said, before I could stop myself.
Harriet pushed a stray strand of red hair away from her eyebrow as she looked at me. ‘Is it something to do with money? Is that why you’re running?’
My skin prickled. Why the hell had I said anything about it? Apart from anything else, Harriet would realise that if I had no money I didn’t have a chance of finding somewhere else to live, and would probably be keen to get rid of me before I managed to really get my feet under the table. I did have a little bit of money left, but it was hardly enough to keep me going for long, especially if pub lunches were a regular fixture for Harriet.
Upstairs there was a burst of laugher and splashing from the bathroom. ‘Jess is in a good mood,’ I said.
‘She gets like this,’ Harriet said, ‘she’s as excited about things as Reef when she gets going.’
‘I think it’s nice.’
Harriet drummed her fingers on the kitchen counter. ‘Poppy, please. You can trust me. At least tell me what happened between you and Liam when you moved to Habmouth.’
‘It’s ancient history.’
‘Then there’s no harm in digging it up,’ she said.
I considered her reasoning. Talking about what had happened all those years ago was painful, but she was right, it couldn’t harm me. The thing was, perhaps it wasn’t so ancient. After all, hadn’t what happened back then sowed the seeds for everything that came after? And in the past few years I’d certainly reaped what Liam had sown, in one poisonous harvest after another.
Habmouth
4
Weak sunlight spilled through the clouds, warming our chilly faces. The estuary was a dirty brown, the tide was out and birds had come to feast on the creatures in the mud. Dominic trotted along the path by my side, a three year old barrel of energy, cheeks rosy and eyes bright.
‘When’s Daddy coming back?’ he asked me.
I hated this question. Stuffing my hands deep inside my pockets I turned my face away from him, and an icy wind blew strands of hair across my eyes. When’s Daddy coming back? In some ways I was surprised Dominic even knew who Daddy was, since Liam spent so little time in the flat with us.
‘He’ll come back when he’s ready,’ I said. It was the best answer I could give. Four nights was the longest Liam had ever gone missing. Every night I expected to hear his key in the lock and for him to come stumbling in and pile into bed with me expecting a quick fumble in the dark. ‘Why can’t you just grow up?’ I screamed at him the last time he arrived back from his disappearing act. He said I was boring and no fun any more.
I turned and scooped Dominic up into my arms, where he squirmed and struggled until I put him down again. He was getting heavy now. His coat was too small. And his shoes.
Why didn’t Liam understand that I was lonely? Achingly, crushingly lonely. He could go out drinking after work with whoever he was friends with now, but I didn’t know anybody in Habmouth. I’d tried once or twice to go along to things with Dominic but the fact that all the other mums were at least ten years older than me left me feeling isolated and vaguely embarrassed, as if I had no right to be there. Not that anyone had ever been unkind, but the discomfort was too much, so me and Dominic kept mostly to ourselves since we moved. I could kick myself for being taken in by it all. I’d followed Liam here like an idiot when his uncle had given him a job on a building site – believing Liam when he was filled with energy and optimism – when he cast away my doubts by painting a glorious picture of how we would live and how happy we would be. ‘It won’t be like it is now,’ he told me as we sat squashed together in the cramped bedroom in his parent’s house, our eyes on Dominic’s cot in the corner of the room and his toys and clothes all over the floor. ‘I’ll be earning proper money and we’ll have our own space. And I’ll sort myself out, I promise.’
I kicked out at a scrubby tuft of grass. What use were his bloody promises? They didn’t put food on the table or new shoes on Dominic’s feet. Sometimes it was as though the only thing I could rely on in this place was the estuary; its rise and fall, its steady inevitability. Liam was about as trustworthy as a snake, our relationship built on foundations no more stable than the mud stretching out below us that would soon be buried below the tides. I couldn’t rely on him. I could only rely on myself.
…
That night, Liam did come home. Not until after I’d finished getting Dominic into bed though. God forbid Liam would be here to cook fish fingers, wipe grubby mouths, run baths or read stories. Our son was fast asleep by the time his dad burst in, with no apology and no explanation.
Although he was a couple of years older than me, Liam hadn’t managed to settle into looking like an adult yet. He was tall but still lanky, as if his limbs were in permanent protest against his body. Tonight his dark hair was greasy, eyes red-rimmed with lack of sleep. Had he washed a single time since he’d gone AWOL? I wouldn’t ask him where he’d been. He’d have crashed at friends’ houses, sofa-surfing even though he had a home, and a family. It hurt that it was us he was getting away from, but I’d hardened myself to that.
‘Is there any food?’ he asked me.
‘Go and look for yourself.’
He threw himself down on the sofa. ‘I’m knackered,’ he said.
A crazy urge to grab the lamp off the table beside him and smash it over his head nearly overwhelmed me. He was knackered? I had no doubt he was tired, but it was because he’d been partying for days. I was knackered from looking after a three year old by myself. His three year old.
‘Dominic is fine, by the way.’
‘Pops–’
‘I don’t like being called that.’
He put his head in his hands. ‘Why can’t you just give me a break?’ he said. ‘Whenever I’m here you go on and on at me–’
‘Maybe you should leave again, then!’ I screamed at him, as a red mist descended. ‘You’re no use to me! Just go away. Leave me alone. Leave me alone!’
I sank down to my knees against the wall, and eventually he got up from the sofa and came to kneel down beside me. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, kissing my hair. ‘I know how shit I am at this–’
‘You promised,’ I said. ‘You promised it would be different here.’
He tried to lift my chin with his hand, and I pressed it harder into my knees. ‘I love you,’ he whispered.
Gradually, I raised my head and let my eyes meet his. ‘I won’t disappear again,’ he said. ‘It was a pretty shit weekend, anyway. I just didn’t want to come home and have you disappointed with me.’
I gave him a shove. ‘That makes no sense,’ I said, my anger rising, but he grabbed me and kissed me. ‘I hate you,’ I told him when our lips parted.
‘I know,’ he said. But when he kissed me again, I kissed him back.
Cattleford
5
Jessica looked up from where she sat on the floral wool rug that covered the living room floor. Surrounded by rolls of wrapping paper and presents, her preparations for Reef’s birthday were in full swing. ‘I can’t imagine how it must have felt,’ she said. ‘Only being nineteen and living somewhere you don’t know with a small child and no help.’
I sighed. I’d decided I would speak to both of the sisters together once Reef was in bed, and they’d listened in silence as I began explaining what had happened between me and Liam, but what I’d said so far was the easy bit. There was a lot worse to come.
‘Liam’s parents visited occasionally, to give me a bit of support,’ I told them, ‘but it was always awkward. They felt bad for how Liam was behaving.’
‘He didn’t manage to grow up then?’ Harriet said, sipping her mug of tea.
‘No,’ I said quietly. I looked down at all the presents Jessica had bought for Reef. Far more than I had ever been able to afford for Dominic, but I suspected she’d gone a little overboard in her excitement. ‘Do you want me to help you wrap some of these?’ I asked her.
She nodded gratefully and I sat down on the floor beside her, pulling a big book about trains towards me. It was nice Jessica got so much joy from being with Reef, and he was a lovely little boy. Quite serious, but full of fun too and always ready for a cuddle with his mum or Auntie Harri.
Harriet watched me over the brim of her mug and I mulled over her comments about Liam’s lack of maturity. My own parents were always so strict and critical that meeting Liam and seeing the way he lived – how he did whatever he wanted whenever he wanted – the way he was so light-hearted about life, had drawn me to him with a force bordering on obsession. I was smitten with him, in love beyond all reason and all logic. I didn’t see a single one of his flaws, though with hindsight they must have been glaring. ‘He wasn’t ready to be a dad,’ I told her.
‘Well, he was only eighteen when Dominic was born,’ Jessica said.
‘And Poppy was only sixteen,’ Harriet shot back, her voice hot with emotion, ‘and no matter how young he was, he brought a child into the world and he should have taken responsibility for it.’
‘Didn’t your mum and dad help?’ Jessica asked.
I shook my head. From my parents’ point of view they probably would say they had been helping, but their constant interfering, criticism and barely concealed disappointment in me had felt like anything but. ‘Being around my parents wasn’t good for me or Dom. That’s why I moved in with Liam and his family before we left for Habmouth. I tried to have as little contact with my parents as possible after that. Then we stopped talking altogether.’
‘They always were unreasonable,’ Harriet said bluntly. ‘I don’t blame you Poppy.’
I sighed as I finished wrapping the first parcel and pulled a jigsaw towards me.
‘I always thought it was so romantic, how you and Liam ran away to start a new life together,’ Jessica said, and Harriet gave her a withering look. ‘What?’ Jessica said. ‘It was. Even if it didn’t work out.’
‘We didn’t run away. Everyone knew where we were going.’
‘Still,’ Jessica said thoughtfully.
‘How long were you together in Habmouth?’ Harriet asked me.
‘We stuck it out for eighteen months or so,’ I said. ‘Then one day he came home, and…’ my fingers fumbled with the wrapping paper. Liam’s face filled my mind – that disturbed light in his eyes – the way he’d laughed so strangely, spouting nonsense while I tried to persuade him to go. Dominic had woken up and wandered in, standing in the doorway unnoticed by us until the glass had shattered and he’d screamed. His sobs in the semi-darkness echoed in my mind, and I could still remember the fat tears rolling down his cheeks.
Harriet got up from her armchair and crouched by my side, her hand on my shoulder.
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I’m all right.’
‘What did he do?’
‘Well, he’d obviously taken something. He was being weird and he was scaring me. I told him to go away and to come back when he’d sobered up, but he wouldn’t leave. So we started arguing. Normally when we got mad at each other it didn’t get too crazy – we’d just shout for a few minutes and that would be the end of it. But that night he didn’t know when to stop. I was begging him to go. I told him to sleep it off at one of his friend’s houses and we could talk sensibly in the morning, but he picked up a glass and threw it at me. It hit the wall above my head, and the glass rained down on me. We hadn’t realised that Dominic had got up and was standing in the doorway watching the whole thing, and when he started to cry I couldn’t hold him to comfort him because I was covered in glass.’
Jessica had stopped wrapping and was watching me, her blue-grey eyes wide. ‘Does Dominic remember that?’
‘I don’t really know.’
‘Were you hurt?’ Harriet asked.
‘Not really. I had some small cuts but I was mostly just in shock. He’d never done anything like that before. And he was aiming at me – I was lucky the glass only hit the wall.’
‘Please tell me that you kicked him out after that,’ she said.
‘I didn’t need to. He chose to leave. He looked at me and Dominic, saw how upset we were and walked out.’
Managing to finish wrapping the jigsaw, I placed it on top of the pile of presents as Jessica started work on the final one. I stayed on the floor, stretching my legs out in front of me as I rested my back on the sofa. A fire was crackling away in the log burner, and I was filled with such a strong desire to stay here forever that it took my breath away.
‘Good riddance,’ Harriet said. ‘You deserve better than him.’
‘The thing was, for a long time I hoped he’d come back,’ I said. ‘I know that makes me sound weak, but Liam and I got together when I was only fifteen. He was my family – he’d always accepted me just the way I was. And when things were good with him, they could be so good. I was scared to be left completely on my own. I didn’t want to go crawling back to my parents, so I stayed in Habmouth and kept hoping Liam would come back, but one week went by, then two, then a month. I couldn’t stay in the flat without Liam’s money coming in. I was going to try to get a council flat but Liam’s parents said they would help me out with money for a little while. They wanted me to stay in the same place in case Liam decided to come home. He’d broken all contact with me, and them, but we thought he might try to find me again when he was ready. They paid a few months rent on the flat for me, and once Dominic started school I got a job and could pay my own way, just about. It was tough, but we got by. I just took life one day at a time.’
‘And then?’ Jessica said, tucking her long hair behind her ear as she fixed her eyes on me again.
I didn’t answer straight away. It felt wrong to gloss over all those years and so many struggles. I’d had to change job several times – somehow I had a knack for finding work that wasn’t stable or permanent. I was forced to leave the flat I’d shared with Liam when the rent went up, and I began a slog of moving around Habmouth – changing home, changing job – that went on for years. There were other relationships, but none lasted longer than a few months. Liam had cast too long a shadow for me to truly let anyone in. But I’d had Dominic, and that was everything. That made my life worthwhile. Eventually, once Dominic was older, I completed a bookkeeping course and found myself a new, stable job working in payroll. I’d thought everything would be okay then, that my life would finally settle down.
Both the sisters were watching me, waiting. One of the logs in the log burner made a loud pop that startled me out of my silence. ‘Then,’ I said heavily, ‘then Liam came back.’
Habmouth
6
‘What are you doing?’ I asked Dominic, finding him sat at his desk wielding a knife and a pair of kitchen tongs, performing some kind of operation on a cactus. He paused the how-to video he was watching and turned to me, brushing his slightly-too-long dark hair from his eyebrows. ‘I’m taking a cutting,’ he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
‘Are you sure that’s going to work?’ I asked sceptically. The cactus consisted of many small mounds, covered in yellow-brown spikes, and he was trying to remove an entire one of its lumps.
‘Yes,’ he said.
I sat down on the end of his bed, and he resumed the video. I watched him work in fascination, and once he’d removed the section he placed it on the window sill with the kitchen tongs.
‘Aren’t you going to put it in a pot?’
‘It needs to heal over first,’ he said, turning to me, and I smiled at the enthusiasm in his eyes. ‘Cactus cuttings are different to other plants,’ he continued. ‘You can have this one, if you want – it’ll be happy in your room.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I’d like that.’
He turned back to hunch over his cactus. When he was tending to his plants serenity came over him and it was a joy to watch. His window sill was crowded with pots of cacti and succulents, his room being on the sunny side of our flat, while the dark north-facing windows in our kitchen and bathroom were full of ferns and other shady plants.
‘So, about your birthday–’
‘I told you I don’t need anything big,’ he said.
‘You’re really happy just to have some friends round for pizza?’
‘And a pitcher plant.’
‘Yes, and the pitcher plant.’ I paused. ‘I’ll take you out somewhere as well, if you like? Just me and you.’
‘Okay,’ he said.
I got up, and on a whim I went over and put my arms around him. ‘I’m so proud of you,’ I told him, and although he tried to wriggle free – being a teenager he had to at least make a show of not wanting hugs from me – I could tell he didn’t mind really. ‘I’ll make dinner,’ I said, but as I got to the door Dominic took me aback by saying, ‘Mum, I think someone is watching me.’
‘What do you mean?’ I said, turning to look at him. His eyes were clouded now, his brow slightly furrowed.
‘There’s a man I’ve seen a few times. Twice round here, and once near school.’
Cold dread settled around my heart as my mind raced to a hundred awful possibilities. ‘Has he tried to talk to you?’
‘No.’
I sat back down on the bed, and looked at Dominic closely. ‘I’ll phone the school and tell them. And I’ll walk you to the bus stop in the morning. If we see him again, I’ll call the police.’
‘Mum!’ Dominic protested.
‘I’m not letting some weirdo–’
‘I don’t think he’s a weirdo,’ Dominic said. ‘I think it might be Dad.’
