My memories of my childhood are divided into a definite before and after. An invisible glass wall separating the people we were from the people we all became. Sometimes, in my dreams I’m pressing my face against that glass wall – the way Bruno pressed his nose against the patio doors, his breath fogging the glass – watching the versions of us who were happy and healthy and loved.
Mum would sit on the edge of my bed and brush my hair one hundred times before doing the same for Marie. She treated us exactly the same. I can’t quite remember whether Marie and I insisted our clothes, our shoes be identical, or whether our parents, delighted with having twins, tried to mould us both into the same person. We didn’t mind though, me and Marie were closer to each other than anyone else. Carly’s relationship with Mum was different. There were evenings when Dad was out and Marie and I were in bed when we’d creep downstairs to beg for a glass of water, another story, a cuddle, to find Mum and Carly nestled together on the sofa in front of the TV, fingers dipping chicken nuggets into thick ketchup.
Mum loved us all – of that I’ve no doubt – but she loved Dad the most of all. Her eyes shone whenever he walked into a room. They always kissed each other hello and goodbye and held hands when we strolled around the park with Bruno. Often I wonder what life would have been like if it wasn’t for that single, horrifying event that changed the shape of our future. Would we be one of those families who ate Sunday lunch together each week? My parents kneeling on the floor playing with grandchildren in the way they hadn’t always had time to play with us?
Would we be parts of a whole rather than fragmented pieces of something that will never again fit together?
In the days, the weeks, the months that followed our abduction, Mum and Dad veered between sadness and anger. Tears and rage. Once I’d wandered into the kitchen to find Mum sobbing, ‘I’m their mum. I should have protected them, I’ve let them down,’ while Dad hissed, ‘And you think I’ve let them down too? Just say it.’
They kept us cooped up. Not wanting us to even play in the garden alone. I’m not sure whether they were scared we’d be taken again or scared we’d be interrogated by one of the many reporters who still trailed after us wherever we went. Probably both.
My parents’ glittering life crumbled. Our childhood was unpicked in the tabloids. How had we been raised? Why had Carly been left alone to feed and take care of her two young sisters? How often did my parents go out? It was a carousel of blame and scrutiny and it makes me dizzy just thinking about it now. How would I feel if my relationship with Archie was dissected? The entire country seemed to blame my mum until she became a shell of the parent she had been. Old photos of her laughing would appear in the paper captioned, Face of loving mother? She began to leave us to our own devices – mine and Marie’s hair becoming matted and tangled, as though she didn’t trust herself to do things properly. That’s what I like to think, anyway, that it wasn’t that she didn’t care. She just didn’t know how to be a mum any more when she’d failed so spectacularly in the eyes of the world. She and Dad divorced. She began to drink. We’d find vodka bottles hidden everywhere. In the laundry basket. The freezer. The cupboard under the stairs. It’s probably where Marie gets it from.
When the publisher approached us before the ten-year anniversary we wanted to tell Mum face to face. Carly, Marie and I had sat on the threadbare sofa, the bars of the electric fire glowing bright, the coffee table devoid of tea and biscuits. She never made us feel welcome.
‘We’re going to write a book. Our story.’
‘Absolutely not,’ Mum had said.
‘They want our version, now that we’re adults,’ Marie was twitchy, picking at the skin around her fingers. We hadn’t realized then that she was drinking or how bad it was, anyway.
‘And what will you say?’ Mum stared at Marie until she looked away.
‘We won’t say anything bad about you,’ Carly said.
‘But that’s what they’ll want to know. Christ, there’s enough already out there about how you were neglected, left to fend for yourself, how you had the worst mother in the world.’
‘Nobody thinks that,’ I said.
‘Don’t they?’ She studied Marie again.
‘Look,’ Marie said. ‘Maybe most of the facts are out there but we’ve never talked about… the details, I suppose. The food we were given. How frightened we were.’
‘I thought Marie was going to die,’ I said.
Mum stood up. ‘It seems you’ve made your mind up so if you don’t mind, I’ve got things to do.’ She gestured to the door.
Marie filed out first, followed by Carly. I hesitated, Mum’s eyes were full of tears. ‘This isn’t a betrayal of you, Mum,’ I said quietly. ‘It’s about us and what we went through.’
She gave a single nod of her head. ‘You know if I could change the past – if I could go back to that day and be there, looking after you all – I would.’
‘We don’t blame you,’ I said.
She didn’t answer.
Although Carly and I weren’t keen on talking to the ghost writer, we’d already signed the deal and received the advance. We tried to keep our parents out of the book as much as we could but naturally there was much curiosity surrounding our family dynamics.
Around six months after the book came out Marie received a short note from our father after years of no contact, saying he thought the book was fair and thanking us for portraying Mum in a good light – it’s brought me much sadness that the stress drove us to divorce, he said and that stung. He didn’t even ask how we were. We didn’t reply. As far as I know, Mum has never read the book. When we received our first royalties I slipped a wad of notes in a blank brown envelope through her letterbox and I think my sisters likely did the same. Blood money, I suppose. Mum had always struggled financially and no matter what had happened in the past we still had a desire to help her. She never acknowledged the money.
It’s an odd relationship, mother and daughter. Although we rarely see her and she never makes an effort with us, I know that Marie still visits her sometimes and Carly rings her on her birthday and at Christmas. She’s never met Archie, or expressed any desire to, and that makes me incredibly sad. Despite the life I have forged for myself, the family of my own, there is some deep-rooted need for her love. For her approval. But she is the one who distanced herself from us. She made her choice as I have made mine.
Although my stomach skitters with nerves, I need to see her now. Ask her face to face if she knows where Marie is. She was so cagey on the phone.
The street stinks of blocked drains. Even with my gloves on I am reluctant to touch Mum’s gate, which is flaked with paint and rust. Her front garden is a mess. The scant flowers pushing their way through the choking tangle of weeds hang their heads in shame. A far cry from the days Mum had a gardener. As I think of our old garden my anxiety rises as I remember that day.
The excited barks of Bruno as Marie and I tossed the ball. Afterwards our beloved pet had been found roaming the streets but we didn’t take him back and often I wonder whether he found a new family. Whether he was happy.
I am still lost in memories when I hear Mum’s voice behind me.