‘I’ve read your notes about the last time he was released. What you claimed ’appened. What the medical professionals recommended for you.’
I close my eyes. I knew it would come to this. Then, they had believed me at first. They don’t believe me now. With my history, they won’t. It all feels so fruitless. My throat swells hot with frustration.
‘Look,’ George says firmly. I slip my hand into his. Grateful he, at least, is on my side. ‘Can you tell us where he’s living, put Leah’s mind at rest that he’s not in the area?’ His questions shatter the faith I had that at least my husband would believe me. I can tell by the way Carly has shifted nervously in her seat since we got here – avoiding eye contact – that I haven’t convinced her either.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t share that with you,’ we are told.
Carly has driven my car home, so she can pick hers up and collect Archie from nursery. George is taking me to work. I hadn’t wanted to go. The thought that he is out there – that he knows my address – makes my stomach spasm with nerves, but PC Godley’s voice echoes loudly in my mind: what the medical professionals recommended for you. I was nearly sectioned. If it wasn’t for George and Francesca fighting my corner, I probably would have been. It seemed awful enough at the time, but then I didn’t have as much to lose. I didn’t have Archie. If creating the illusion of a semblance of normality is what I need to do to keep my life together – my family together – then I will. But I did see him. I know I did.
Heart FM pelts out cheesy hits but I’m only half-listening until I hear a song so familiar my heart skips a beat.
‘5, 6, 7, 8,’ and it’s not just a reminder; it seems like a message from Marie. But what?
George pulls up outside my office and cuts the engine. The radio is off but the song carries on playing in my head.
‘I think it’s the right thing for you to be at work. To take your mind off everything.’
I don’t answer. In my mind I’m singing and dancing, one of the Sinclair Sisters when we were free. When we were happy.
George sighs before he gets out of the car. We walk into my office together.
‘Hi.’ Tash’s smile freezes and then slips when I don’t return it. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine.’ I try to kiss George goodbye but he turns his head so my lips connect to his cheek rather than his lips.
I head towards my desk, wondering what I’ll tell Tash, if anything – I know she’ll worry. She’s my closest friend, my only friend in the world. I was the youngest here until she joined us four days a week. At the Christmas party we had crossed the line between colleagues and friends after weeks of making small talk. We’d had watched – with mutual repulsion – as Barry from accounts sucked the face off Janet in sales.
‘There must be a huge increase in births in the autumn after all the drunken office hook-ups the winter before,’ Tash had shouted over Kylie Minogue wishing she was lucky. ‘I can’t think of anything worse than having something drooling at your tits.’ She shuddered.
‘Babies are—’
‘I wasn’t talking about a baby. I was talking about Barry.’
I’d laughed. It felt loud and unnatural, but good. It felt good.
‘I never want kids,’ Tash said unapologetically, not caring about being judged.
‘Me neither. Obviously I’ve Archie and he’s a complete joy but I couldn’t go through it again.’
‘Why not? Not that I blame you.’
It was refreshing to meet someone who didn’t want a family. The mums at Archie’s nursery were always obsessing over weaning and potty training and speculating on the perfect time to create a sibling. Tash… well, Tash just didn’t care. Whether it was the alcohol, or the sharing of confidences, I had found myself blurting out, ‘I worry too much that something will happen to him.’
‘I think all mums worry about that, don’t they? That’s why I’m never going to reproduce. I’m too selfish.’
‘They don’t worry as much as me. But that’s what being thrown into the back of a van and kidnapped does to you. It makes you paranoid.’ My voice had been breezy, high with vodka but my palms were sweating. I didn’t usually share but there was something about Tash I wanted to emulate. Her directness. Her fearlessness.
‘Yeah, don’t you just hate it when that happens at the end of a good night out? I reckon Janet’s heading that way with Barry. What does he drive?’ She’d cupped her hands around her mouth. ‘Run, Janet, run!’ Then turned to me, laughter dying on her lips as she studied my face. ‘Fuck. You’re not serious, are you? Kidnapped?’
I’d nodded. Took another swig of my drink. My eyes stung with tears. ‘I don’t know why I said that. I don’t usually tell anyone.’
‘Well… No… It’s not really a conversation opener.’
‘You really didn’t know?’ I had asked. Tash had shaken her head. ‘You can’t have grown up around here then. I’m the cautionary tale. The one parents wheel out to stop their kids breaking curfew. Running riot.’
‘No, I’m not from here. I moved because I wanted to leave home and couldn’t afford city rent. Anyway…’
I’d waited for her to say she was going to the loo, to the bar, to mingle – anything except stay here with me. But instead she’d asked, ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘No.’ I drank deeply once more. ‘I was eight.’
‘Fuck’ was all she said and that was refreshing. No false sympathy or platitudes. Just… fuck. It pretty much summed everything up.
‘But I can’t tell you anything else.’
‘Of course. You don’t have to.’ Tash had drained her glass and pulled a hip flask from her bag.
‘I was with my sisters. It was my fault, really. I hadn’t shut the garden gate properly and our dog ran out. We chased him and there were two men and…’ I inhaled deeply through my nose.
‘Van?’
‘Van.’
‘Fuck.’
‘So… I have… issues.’ Then the music changed to S Club 7. Opening up had made me feel lighter. Wanting to reach for the stars. ‘Dance?’ I’d asked her.
‘Yep.’ Tash had stood and smoothed down her impossibly short skirt. ‘Leah. What you’ve been through, it’s—’
‘Shitty?’
‘Shitty. But—’
‘Honestly, Tash. No more tonight.’ Even then I’d known there would be other times. That she would become somebody I could talk to. A friend.
‘Okay. But remember. However bad things have been – get – it could be worse.’ She’d jerked her head towards Barry flailing his arms in the centre of the dance floor; an octopus being electrocuted.
‘Yeah. At least I’m not Janet,’ I’d said.
Over the past three years I’ve seen Tash frequently out of work. She’s met both Marie and Carly.
‘They don’t have families of their own?’ she had asked beforehand.
‘No. It makes me really sad not be an aunt,’ I’d shared. ‘But I think the stress if Marie or Carly fell pregnant would drive me crazy. The thought of them going into hospital, putting themselves at risk. Not to mention the endless anxiety the thought of trying to protect another life would bring.’