Darling Girls, page 17
Until then, she was alone with her shame.
Jessica was no stranger to pain, but shame was its own specific brand of agony. Something about its assertion that all of your worst fears about yourself were true, its unrelenting focus on your negative qualities. Thankfully, Jessica had ways of dealing with shame. She tipped two of them out of a bottle and into her hand, and then, after a moment’s consideration, tipped out another two. Everything would be better after a good night’s sleep, she reminded herself. She swallowed the pills and waited for peace to descend.
30
NORAH
Norah stood outside the cottage watching the dogs bound across the grass, pissing on cars and digging up garden beds. She hadn’t heard back from Kevin since sending the photo – he hadn’t even double-tapped on it. She assumed this was a good thing; perhaps he was going to wait until he’d spoken to the cops and got the complaint dropped before replying? Still, she would have preferred it if he’d confirmed receipt.
‘Is Jessica still not ready?’ Alicia called. She was standing by the car, having already been to reception to check them out.
‘Nope,’ Norah replied.
Alicia looked perplexed. ‘Is she ill?’
‘That’s what I said!’
Jessica had slept through her alarm, which never happened. Usually, she and Alicia gave her hell for even setting an alarm, since her body clock was more reliable than anything Steve Jobs could create, but this morning, after listening to her alarm beeping for several minutes from the next room, Norah sent the dogs in to rouse her. Jessica had complained bitterly about Thong’s morning breath, but then a few seconds later she’d gone back to sleep.
‘Are you ill?’ Norah had demanded when she went in herself a few minutes later.
Jessica didn’t have a fever, or a cough, or a sore throat. She was just tired, she said. A reasonable excuse, and one Norah might have accepted from anyone else, but Jessica didn’t get tired. She was wound up too tight to get tired.
‘Sorry!’ Jessica said breathlessly, stumbling out of the cottage. She unlocked the car. ‘What did I miss?’
‘Us talking about you sleeping in,’ Norah said. ‘I feel like I’m in an alternative universe.’
Norah rounded up the dogs and then they all got into the car. As Jessica slipped into the driver’s seat, she threw her phone into the centre console. ‘You’re always telling me to chill out,’ she said, starting the car. ‘Now I do and you both freak out.’
‘We assumed you couldn’t chill,’ Norah explained. ‘Like a penguin can’t fly. I imagine you’d freak out too if penguins suddenly started flying.’
Jessica frowned, contemplating that as she turned out of the car park onto the highway. Norah was disappointed when Jessica’s phone started to ring. She’d been hoping for a compliment on her clever penguin analogy.
‘Leave it!’ Jessica cried, when Alicia reached for Jessica’s phone. Her voice was so loud and abrupt that even the dogs startled. Alicia raised her hands as if in surrender. ‘I can’t deal with work right now, okay?’ Jessica added. ‘I need coffee first.’
A few beats passed as they listened to the insistent ringtone. Norah and Alicia’s eyes met in the mirror.
‘Are you okay, Jess?’ Alicia asked when the phone was silent.
‘Of course I am. Why?’
‘You’re acting weird,’ Norah said.
‘In case you hadn’t noticed,’ she said, as her phone started to ring again, ‘the circumstances are pretty weird.’
She pressed a button to decline the call. Immediately it rang again. The moment it stopped, Jessica turned off the phone and put it into the glove box.
Norah and Alicia’s eyes met in the mirror again.
‘Shut up!’ Jessica said, even though neither of them had spoken.
As they pulled up in front of the police station, Norah received a message from Kevin.
Nice, but not exactly what I had in mind.
Norah stared at the message. What the actual fuck? She inhaled deeply and wrote:
What did you have in mind?
Three dots appeared immediately.
Norah clenched her teeth as she imagined his delighted weaselly smile, his revolting weaselly hard-on.
I was thinking video.
Perhaps it was the thought of the weaselly hard-on, but Norah gagged. Seriously? This guy, who didn’t even deserve her boob pic, wanted a video? Every instinct urged Norah to tell him to take his weaselly hard-on and go fuck himself. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t even tell her sisters what was happening. She felt like she was being squeezed. Like she was back in that space under the stairs where Miss Fairchild used to lock her.
What kind of video?
He was clearly prepared for this, because his long response appeared only seconds later. Norah considered herself to be sexually liberated. She understood fetishes and role-play and BDSM. Even so, reading the message, she gasped.
‘What is it?’ Alicia asked from the front seat.
‘Nothing. Just . . . a funny TikTok.’
Norah read the message again. Judging by what he was suggesting, he watched a lot of very intense porn. For the first time in a long time, she felt tears – angry tears – stinging her eyes.
She took a deep breath.
Have you spoken to the police about the assault? Told them I didn’t do it?
His reply was swift.
Not yet.
Motherfucker. How do I know you’ll do it after this?
Another swift reply.
You have my word.
His word? Norah wanted to reply and tell him exactly what she thought of his word. But what choice did she have other than to trust him?
They pulled into the car park of the police station. As they got out of the car, Norah noticed that Patel and Hando were crossing the street, holding takeaway coffees. Hando had spilled his and was wiping uselessly at a coffee stain on his white shirt.
‘Stupid lids,’ Hando said to them as they emerged from the car. ‘Don’t get coffee from that place. This is the second time it’s happened!’
Patel had also spilled her coffee, Norah noticed, but she didn’t mention it. She avoided looking at them as they made their way towards the doors of the station. Norah wondered what was eating her. She’d seemed fine last night when she’d escorted Miss Fairchild out of the pub. Perhaps, like Jessica, she was just tired.
Tucker, who must have been waiting in reception, opened the door as they approached and filed in with the dogs at their heels. For a moment, they stood in the foyer while Hando and Patel attempted to clean themselves up.
‘How is everyone this morning?’ Hando asked, grabbing some tissues from the front desk.
‘Tired,’ Jessica said.
Hando dabbed at his shirt with the tissues, nodding. ‘It’s always hard to sleep after hearing confronting news.’
‘I didn’t sleep well either,’ Patel said, accepting the box of tissues Hando held out to her. ‘I lay awake for ages. I just kept asking myself why you guys wouldn’t be honest with us.’
It was as if someone had entered the room carrying a machine gun. They all went silent. Movements became cautious and slow and wide-eyed.
‘What do you mean?’ Jessica said.
‘I mean,’ Patel said, ‘the fact that not one of you have mentioned her.’
In the silence, the dogs began circling uneasily, clearly noticing the change in energy. Norah shot a look at her sisters, who looked equally uncomfortable. ‘Mentioned who?’
Patel glanced from one of them to the other like a disappointed school principal. Finally she lifted her hands, then dropped them with a soft, disappointed exhale. ‘The fourth sister? The other girl living at Wild Meadows with you? The one we just learned about in this police report?’ Patel gestured to her laptop.
Silence. Alicia, Norah and Jessica exchanged a look.
The police were looking at them as if they were criminals. As if they’d been deceptive, or withheld something relevant, which they most certainly had not.
‘But why would we mention her?’ Norah asked.
Patel blinked dramatically. ‘Seriously?’
Norah blinked back, indignant. ‘If you’d done your job properly, you would have found this report days ago.’
‘And if you’d read the report,’ Alicia added, ‘you’d know exactly why we didn’t mention her.’
Patel exhaled. They had her there.
Finally Jessica stepped forward, her inner boss-lady turned up to high gear. ‘And if you have any other questions, you’ll have to speak to our lawyer.’
31
NORAH
BEFORE
It had seemed like such a promising day. They’d trooped downstairs to find that Miss Fairchild had vanished into thin air. It was like a miracle. Norah felt like Kevin from Home Alone. As they dressed for school, Norah was already fantasising about how life might be if it was just the three of them. She would take the master bedroom, she told her sisters. She was even prepared to go out and get a job.
Jessica, of course, was the one who warned her not to get too far ahead of herself. It was good advice, as it turned out, because by the time they got home from school that afternoon, not only was Miss Fairchild back, but there was someone with her.
‘Girls,’ Miss Fairchild called from the living room. ‘Can you come in here, please?’
In many ways, it was your classic déjà vu. In other ways, not so much. Because there were a few distinct differences from the other times. For one, instead of sitting in the armchair, Miss Fairchild sat cross-legged on the floor. For another, where the other babies had been a year old at most, this child was a fully-fledged toddler with masses of blonde hair and a mouth full of tiny white teeth.
‘There’s someone I want you to meet.’ Miss Fairchild beamed at them, showing no evidence of their unpleasant interaction the evening before. ‘This is Amy.’
They all stared at the child. Amy blinked back at them, looking as shocked and confused as they were. She held a worn-looking Barbie doll in one hand and with the other clutched a stuffed bear to her chest.
‘Amy is nearly two,’ Miss Fairchild said, her smile growing. ‘And here’s the best bit. Amy isn’t a respite baby. I’m adopting her!’
She said it with such delight it was hard to believe she was the same woman who’d been terrorising them for months. Who just last night had screamed obscenities at them while trying to force her way into their bedroom.
Alicia appeared as disturbed as Norah felt. ‘But . . . where are her parents?’
‘Her birth parents didn’t want her.’ Miss Fairchild made an expression of disgust. It was more familiar than the grotesque smile, at least. ‘Some people only want perfect children.’
Norah looked at Amy again, clasping her teddy. She didn’t have crossed eyes, or insect bites or obvious special needs. As far as babies went, she looked pretty perfect.
‘Amy was born with a slight defect,’ Miss Fairchild said, answering their unspoken question. ‘It’s ridiculous really; it’s not anything anyone would notice.’
She removed one of Amy’s socks and the girls leaned forward. The girl’s little foot was pink and plump: perfect apart from the tiny extra pinkie toe nestled against the others.
‘Her parents didn’t want her because she has an extra toe?’ Norah said.
‘Some people are so busy chasing perfection they don’t appreciate the wonders right in front of them,’ Miss Fairchild replied. ‘Can you imagine? Having a child this beautiful and not appreciating her?’ She shook her head and tutted. ‘Some people don’t deserve children, they really don’t.’
Miss Fairchild didn’t let Amy out of her sight. During the day, she carried her around in a wrap on her chest, and if she had any errands to run, she sent the girls out so she didn’t have to leave Amy for a single second. At night, Amy slept in her room, and Miss Fairchild got up to settle her if she woke.
‘I am the only one who’s allowed to care for her,’ she said, if she ever caught them interacting with Amy. ‘It’s important for bonding. So she knows I’m her mother.’
There was rarely a moment when Miss Fairchild wasn’t singing or bouncing Amy. Norah assumed that eventually she would tire of round-the-clock caring the way she had with the other babies, but weeks went by and Miss Fairchild remained devoted. It was wonderful as far as Norah and Alicia were concerned, because it meant she left them alone. It was as close to Norah’s fantasy of being Kevin from Home Alone as she could have realistically hoped for. But Jessica didn’t seem to share Norah and Alicia’s enthusiasm for the new Miss Fairchild.
‘I’m happy she’s taking such good care of Amy,’ she would say when her sisters asked if she was all right. ‘It makes life easier for us!’
But her smile didn’t reach her eyes. It reminded Norah that, unlike she and Alicia, who felt nothing but hatred for Miss Fairchild, Jessica’s feelings for their foster mother were more complicated.
A few times, Norah caught Jessica staring as Miss Fairchild played with Amy. The look on Jessica’s face worried her. There was something possessive about it. If Jessica noticed Norah watching her, she rolled her eyes and made a joke of it, which worried Norah more. Jessica had never been much of a joker.
‘Happy Birthday, Amy!’ Miss Fairchild cried, cracking a party-popper and cheering like a deranged lunatic.
Norah stood by the pool, wearing a party hat, eating a cold sausage roll and feeling significantly better about the fact that she’d never had a party of her own. Alicia, by the look of her, was equally appalled.
The party, it had to be said, was a fizzer. Amy appeared to agree. They’d played party games that Amy was too young for, opened gifts that she didn’t seem interested in. The only part that had been somewhat enjoyable was the piñata – enjoyable for Norah, because she’d been allowed to smash it with the broom until it broke into a million pieces.
Now they stood around wondering what to do next.
A few days earlier, when they’d come downstairs for breakfast, Miss Fairchild had been bent over the sewing machine surrounded by pink fabric.
‘What’s going on?’ Jessica asked.
‘It’s Amy’s birthday on Friday,’ Miss Fairchild said cheerily. ‘She’ll be two. We’re having a party.’
Norah, who was loath to show enthusiasm for anything Miss Fairchild did, couldn’t deny she’d felt a pulse of excitement. A party. Apart from the silent dance party Alicia had thrown her, it would be the first party she’d ever attended. Or at least the first one she remembered attending.
‘Will there be cake?’ she asked.
‘Of course!’ Miss Fairchild beamed. ‘Only the best for my darling girl.’
Despite Miss Fairchild’s efforts, though, Amy looked miserable. She often did, now that Norah thought about it. She wondered suddenly if the point of this party had been to lift the child’s spirits.
‘Why isn’t she having fun?’ Miss Fairchild said eventually, with a hint of irritation.
Several possible reasons sprang to mind for Norah – the most obvious being the proximity of Miss Fairchild and her maniacal party-popping. Beyond that, there was the fact that, bizarrely, a Barbie had been shoved into her birthday cake, and also that she’d been forced to wear a pink dress matching the one Miss Fairchild was wearing.
‘Maybe she’s bored?’ Norah suggested.
‘Bored?’ Miss Fairchild seemed perplexed by the idea. ‘Well . . . what shall we do?’
Norah shrugged. ‘Pony rides?’
She didn’t expect Miss Fairchild to agree, so she was shocked when their foster mother glanced down the hill towards the stable, then nodded at Norah.
Wow. She must be desperate, Norah thought.
It only took Norah a couple of minutes to steal down to the stables. Trying to get Bertha back up the hill took longer.
‘Ta-da!’ Norah announced breathlessly when she finally got the stubborn horse to the top.
Amy pointed a chubby finger at Bertha. ‘Horsey!’
Her expression was cautious, well short of a smile, but Miss Fairchild’s face lit up. She even shot Norah a grateful look.
For the next half-hour, Amy sat on Bertha’s back while Miss Fairchild led the pony in circles around the pool, and Norah, Alicia and Jessica demolished the sausage rolls. Amy was still perched on Bertha when Norah noticed the figure loping up the hill. He wore a baseball cap and had a funny way of walking, more of a shuffle really, his feet barely leaving the ground.
Dirk came to a stop several metres away and assessed the scene: Amy on Bertha, the party decorations.
‘Shit,’ Norah said.
Alicia and Jessica looked at her, and she gestured at Dirk. They both blanched.
Norah gave the stablehand a beseeching look.
He rolled his eyes. ‘Bring her back when you’re done,’ he said, and turned and walked back down the hill. Miss Fairchild was so busy with Amy that she missed the whole thing.
‘Look. She’s asleep.’
It was one of the rare moments they’d been left alone with Amy. A few minutes earlier, Amy had been still picking at her dinner when Miss Fairchild had taken advantage of the distraction to go upstairs and run the bath. They’d just finished dinner, and were doing the dishes when Jessica noticed that Amy had fallen asleep in her highchair.
‘Aw,’ Alicia said. ‘She is pretty adorable.’
‘I think she’s snoring,’ Norah said.
They watched her a moment, her body lolling forward, her little cheek squashed against the tray. They knew not to pick her up – Miss Fairchild could be so weird about that – but Jessica and Alicia edged forward to take a closer look.
They were inches away when Amy sat up, grinned, and said, ‘Boo!’
Jessica and Alicia screamed.
‘You little trickster!’ Jessica cried.
Amy squealed in delight, then immediately closed her eyes and lay down again. Even Norah could agree, albeit begrudgingly, that was pretty cute.
