Darling Girls, page 15
‘We can’t go on like this,’ Jessica agreed. Her eyes were closed, even as she ate.
Suzy was due to be collected by Scott at 9 am. The girls dared to hope that, without a baby to wake, Miss Fairchild wouldn’t barge into their room that night.
But just after midnight, they heard her footsteps thundering up the stairs.
‘Block the door!’ Norah cried.
Jessica assumed she was joking, but Norah leaped out of bed and began heaving the freestanding wardrobe towards the door.
‘Are you mad?’ Jessica said. ‘We can’t do that!’
But Norah looked so resolute, so determined, that first Alicia and then Jessica climbed out of bed to help her. One in, all in.
They got the wardrobe in position mere seconds before Miss Fairchild turned the doorhandle.
Jessica held her breath.
The handle twisted back and forth uselessly. Finally, their foster mother pounded on the door.
‘Girls! Open up right now!’ The handle twisted again, and this time the door opened a crack.
The sisters looked at each other.
‘Push against it,’ Norah instructed, and so the girls pressed their backs against the wardrobe until the door slammed shut again. Dear God, what were they doing? Miss Fairchild was easily provoked, even when they did nothing to aggravate her. They were going to pay dearly for this.
‘Open the door this second or heaven help you!’ she screeched as the three of them continued to press their weight against the wardrobe. Jessica started to worry that she might get an axe and break down the door.
The stand-off seemed to go on forever. Miss Fairchild banged and screamed and cursed until she was hoarse. She flung words at them Jessica had never heard her use before – terrible words that sounded frightening coming from her mouth.
When she didn’t let up, Norah shouted in exasperation, ‘Go away, you psycho bitch!’
To everyone’s surprise, the banging stopped. After all the commotion, the silence was even more worrying. Jessica could hear her heartbeat thudding in her ears.
Finally they heard her footsteps recede.
Half an hour later, when it seemed safe to assume that she wasn’t coming back, they stepped away from the door and lay on Norah’s bed, leaving the wardrobe blocking the door.
‘This can’t continue,’ Alicia said into the darkness.
‘Maybe it won’t,’ Jessica replied. ‘Maybe after tonight, she’ll get rid of us.’
‘She won’t,’ Alicia said with a mirthless laugh. ‘She needs us to look after the babies.’
The moonlight streamed in through the dormer window and Jessica noticed that Norah’s expression was sombre.
‘What if she does get rid of us?’ Norah said. ‘What if we’re split up?’
There was a tremor in Norah’s voice. Jessica stole a look at Alicia and saw that she’d registered it too.
‘Then I’ll track you down,’ Jessica said. ‘Both of you. I’ll climb in your window and we’ll pack a bag and steal away into the night.’
‘Jessica will pack the bags, of course,’ Alicia said.
Jessica forced a smile. ‘Naturally.’
‘You promise?’ Norah looked at her with an unusual amount of emotion. ‘You promise you’ll come for me?’
Jessica extended her pinkie. ‘Pinkie promise.’
There’d never been a promise that Jessica was more determined to keep.
Jessica barely slept. Judging by the way Norah and Alicia tossed and turned, they didn’t either. The uncertainty of what awaited them made it impossible.
They’d witnessed Miss Fairchild’s wrath when they’d said or done the wrong thing unwittingly – but this time they’d deliberately gone against her. Worse, they’d joined forces to do it. She’d probably been awake all night dreaming up new ways to make them suffer.
When the sun rose, they dressed in silence and waited until the last possible moment before they removed the wardrobe from in front of the door. Then they marched down the stairs in gloomy silence, like soldiers going to war.
Jessica expected to find Miss Fairchild sitting at the breakfast table, straight-backed and furious, but she wasn’t, though the table was already laid.
Norah sat. ‘Shall we eat?’
‘Where is she?’ Alicia asked.
Jessica checked the laundry and the bathroom. Miss Fairchild wasn’t in either. After that, the girls went from room to room, and then out into the garden. But there was no sign of her. It was as if Miss Fairchild had vanished into thin air.
25
JESSICA
It was nearly 9 pm. Norah had spent the majority of the evening at the bar, insisting on getting every round (with the help of Jessica’s credit card, of course). The bartender was not complaining. Jessica imagined it wasn’t every day that someone who looked like Norah showed up at the Port Agatha pub.
Alicia was filling the ‘babies’ in on their upbringing at Wild Meadows – being honest but not brutal in the retelling – and the girls were all leaning forward, elbows on the table, enraptured. Jessica was enraptured too . . . but not by Alicia. She was mesmerised by what was happening at the bar.
Norah was flirting.
Jessica wasn’t sure she’d seen Norah flirt with anyone before, but it was undeniable. She moved her body differently – shoulders back, hips all slide-y, head cocked. She giggled. Jessica practically felt the heat in her cheeks right along with her sister.
Had she ever flirted with Phil? She supposed she must have. But it had been a while. Perhaps she needed to start? She glanced at her phone. She’d had two text messages from Phil today. The first: Did you water the maidenhair fern? (Naturally she had.) The second: Thinking of you today. He’d sent a variation of the second message to Norah and Alicia too (Jessica knew because Norah had asked how to send back a GIF of someone trying to kill themselves.) Sweet, really.
She’d responded to the first message: Yep. As for the second, she still hadn’t responded. What could she say? She really wasn’t good at that sort of thing. At the same time, shouldn’t she try?
Lately, Jessica had been harbouring a secret fear that Phil was going to leave her. He’d have no trouble finding someone else. A younger, sportier woman who enjoyed things like canoeing and stand-up paddleboarding. After a day out with the young, sporty woman, Phil would post photos of them on social media and the sporty woman would comment ‘BEST day’ with three heart emojis. The worst part was that if it happened, Jessica would have no one to blame but herself.
She quickly thumbed in a response to his last message.
Thanks, Phil.
Three heart emojis. She pressed send as Norah returned from the bar and put down drinks no one had asked for. Then, just as Jessica was about to ask her about the barman, the pub door opened and Detective Patel walked in.
The chatter at the table stopped immediately.
Patel’s expression was grave. Her white shirt was rumpled and the sleeves were rolled up. Her severe ponytail was now not so severe. The change in appearance made Jessica anxious.
‘She doesn’t look happy,’ Bianca muttered.
Jessica’s heart rate kicked up a gear.
‘I thought I’d find you here,’ Patel said.
‘Why?’ Norah said.
‘Because there’s nowhere else open past five o’clock in this town.’ She gave them a tight-lipped smile. ‘And I saw the lights were on when I left the police station.’ She pointed across the road.
‘Do you want to join us?’ Bianca asked, but Patel shook her head. She hesitated a moment, clasping the back of the wooden chair in front of her as if steeling herself for something.
‘It’s good that you’re together. We received some information from the medical examiner tonight and I wanted to let you know before the media got wind of it.’
‘About the bones?’ Jessica asked.
‘Yes. There’s more analysis to be done – the forensic anthropologist is yet to determine the cause and time of death – but we do know that the body belonged to a female child. A young child. Possibly an infant.’
‘An infant?’ Zara said. ‘Like a foster child?’
‘What does this mean for the investigation?’ Bianca asked.
‘Do you have any suspects?’ Zara chimed in.
‘I bet it was one of the foster mother’s boyfriends,’ Rhiannon said. ‘It’s always the boyfriend.’
Jessica stole a glance at her sisters. Norah’s brow had settled into a deep frown. Alicia’s face was drained of colour, and she was gripping the greasy table in front of them as if it were a life raft.
‘But if someone killed a foster kid,’ Zara said, ‘why weren’t they reported missing? Foster kids have a paper trail, don’t they? A social worker? Surely a child can’t just disappear without anyone asking any questions?’
Normally this was where Alicia would jump in. She’d told Norah and Jessica of the sobering reality many times: foster children went missing with frightening regularity. That said, the children Alicia described were typically teens. It would be hard for an infant to go missing without anyone asking questions. Practically impossible.
‘We’re looking into all of this now we know that the bones were those of a child,’ Patel said. ‘I’m sorry – I know this is upsetting.’
Patel was looking at Alicia. When Jessica followed her gaze, her heart gave a tiny lurch. Alicia was crying.
Jessica went to Alicia’s side and kneeled beside her. She placed what she hoped was a comforting hand on her sister’s thigh.
‘It’s okay,’ Jessica said to her quietly. ‘You’re okay.’
Norah stood on Alicia’s other side, a hand on her shoulder.
Jessica felt the eyes of the detective and the other women on them, even though they could have no idea how momentous the occasion was. They didn’t know that Alicia hadn’t cried a single tear since Grammy died.
Then, just when Jessica thought things couldn’t get any more momentous, Miss Fairchild walked into the pub.
THE OFFICE OF DR WARREN, PSYCHIATRIST
Today when I arrive to see Dr Warren, he meets my eye and doesn’t make me wait at all. He seems excited. And I am excited that he is finally listening.
‘The moment John moved into Wild Meadows he became master of the house,’ I say to him. ‘It was so different from when my father was around. Even though my mother’s financial troubles had been rectified by selling off land, he was obsessed with money, scrimping and saving and watching every penny. Our meals became smaller, we stopped buying new clothes. John hid a tin of cash in a sack of rice, and occasionally he would get it out and count the contents. If he saw me watching, he said, “Don’t get any ideas, I know how much money is here to the cent.”
‘The other difference was the change in my mother. When my father was alive, she’d lie around in bed in the morning while my father got up and did the chores. Now my mother was up at dawn, cleaning the house from top to bottom. John was fastidious, pointing out even the smallest skerrick of dust or dirt. When she was done cleaning, Mum cooked breakfast for John, then she did all the dishes and put them away before wiping down the table and counters and mopping the floor. I would have been appalled even if I hadn’t been required to help. But John insisted that I pull my weight.
‘“But he’s not pulling his weight!” I cried when my mother gave me my new list of chores.
‘“He works.”
‘“So did Dad, and he didn’t expect you to run yourself ragged all day cleaning a perfectly clean house!”
‘I hadn’t noticed John standing in the doorway, so when he grabbed my ear, the surprise was nearly as shocking as the pain.
‘“You will not disrespect me,” John screamed. He pulled me close enough that I could smell his breath. “And you will not talk back to your mother.”
‘My feet barely touched the floor as he dragged me out of the room and into the kitchen. I didn’t know what to think when he reached for the bar of soap. I was perplexed until the moment he shoved it into my mouth so far I retched.
‘“This is what happens to people who talk back.” He clamped his hand over my mouth.
‘I had heard of this happening to other kids, but it was not at all how I imagined it. I’d thought that at worst there would be an irritating soapy taste. Instead, it was an assault. Every time I sucked in a breath I inhaled bubbles instead of air. I couldn’t cough. My body became drenched with panicked sweat. I thought my mother would tell him to stop, that she would be horrified. But other than an initial, “John . . .” she said nothing.
‘When he finally pulled his hand away, I ran to the sink and began rinsing my mouth.
‘“I trust we won’t hear any more backchat from you,” John said before storming from the room.
‘When he was gone, I thought my mother would apologise for what her husband had done. But she didn’t. And I realised that my mother was every bit as lost to me as my father.’
Dr Warren shakes his head, aghast.
‘John punished me often after that,’ I continue. ‘Usually when I failed to do my chores. He was militant about chores, and I was always falling short. Mind you, I don’t think it was possible to meet his standards. Even on days I’d double- or triple-checked, he’d always find fault.’
‘And then he’d wash your mouth out?’ Dr Warren asks, slightly breathless.
‘No. That was reserved for talking back. He had different punishments for cleaning infractions. One time, when he decided I’d failed to clean the kitchen floors adequately, he grabbed me by the ear and dragged me to the doorway under the stairs, opened it, pushed me inside and latched it shut. I contemplated screaming, but I decided it was better to remain quiet as I waited for what came next. Stupidly, I hadn’t given up hope that my mother would save me. Needless to say, that didn’t happen.’
‘What did happen?’
I may be imagining it, but it looks like Dr Warren’s pupils are dilated.
‘Nothing. I kept waiting for someone to open the door, but no one did. They left me there. When I was finally let out, I’d been in the basement for twenty-four hours.’
‘No,’ Dr Warren exclaims.
I nod. ‘I was lying on the floor, weak with hunger and thirst, my face dirty from licking the floor to wet my lips. In the stream of light that flooded in from upstairs, I saw John descending the stairs, followed by my mother. John came to a stop by my feet.
‘“Have you learned your lesson?” he asked.
‘When I didn’t respond, he kicked my foot. It wasn’t especially hard, but this time my mother dropped to her knees by my side. “Give her a minute,” she begged.
‘“I have . . . learned,” I managed to croak.
‘“Will you be respectful from now on?”
‘“Yes.”
‘“Whose house is this?”’
‘My gaze darted to my mother.
‘“Don’t look at her,” John bellowed. “Look at me. Whose house is it?”
‘“Yours.”
‘“Whose rules must you follow?”
‘“Yours.”
‘At this, he nodded. It took me a moment to realise he was waiting for me to stand. I hauled myself to my feet, but was so weak I nearly fell down again. My mother reached for me then stopped short, glancing at John as if this might not be allowed. Apparently it wasn’t.
‘John led the way up the stairs. As he did, I looked at my mother. Later, I consoled myself with the fact that at least my mother was too ashamed to meet my eye.’
‘So you blamed your mother for that?’ Dr Warren asks. ‘Even though John was the one who threw you in the basement?’
He is watching me avidly.
‘Yes.’
He cocks his bald, shiny head. ‘Doesn’t seem fair.’
‘No,’ I say, matching his smile. ‘But then no one ever said motherhood was fair, Dr Warren.’
26
JESSICA
Miss Fairchild was attired in her finest designer country-dweller clothes – jeans, checked shirt, riding boots, a soft cream jumper tied around her shoulders. Her hair was bobbed, and leaning more towards silver than blonde, but otherwise she looked the same, which was impressive given that she must have been close to sixty. From the doorway she gave them a polite, uncomfortable wave. She looked hesitant, as if she wasn’t sure whether to approach, as if she didn’t know exactly what she was doing. Finally she nodded, as if to herself.
As she walked towards them, Jessica found herself pushing her hair back over her shoulders and standing up straight, even as her heart began to beat so loudly she felt like the whole pub could hear it.
‘Hello,’ Miss Fairchild said. ‘I thought I might bump into you three this week.’
Up close, her face had that slightly airbrushed look of middle-aged women who had conservative levels of botox coupled with the odd cosmetic peel. Clearly, Miss Fairchild had the money to do that sort of thing since selling Wild Meadows.
‘How are you, Jessica?’ Miss Fairchild asked, when no one spoke. ‘You look great.’
Jessica sensed the other women watching the pair of them with interest. Miss Fairchild, Jessica could tell, was aware of her audience. She reached out and touched Jessica’s arm. ‘Jessica?’
Jessica’s head swam; she felt like she might faint.
‘How do you think she’s doing?’ Norah said. ‘A child’s bones have been found under the house where we grew up, in case you hadn’t heard.’
Miss Fairchild’s gaze moved to Norah. ‘I know. It’s terrible what they’ve discovered. I’m going to assist the police investigation in any way I can.’
Norah’s hands were clenched and her face was flushed. Jessica felt uneasy watching her. You could practically see the blood pulsing under her skin.
‘What are you doing here?’ Alicia asked, stepping forward and slightly in front of Norah. Jessica moved to the other side of her.
‘It’s a small town,’ Miss Fairchild said, somewhat defensively. ‘I was driving past the pub and I saw it was still open. I don’t need to tell you that there are not a lot of places to go around here, so I thought this is where I’d find you.’ Miss Fairchild smiled, as if this were a happy reunion, as if they were old friends.
