Nearest Thing to Crazy (33 page)

‘How very odd. That can’t be right, you must have misunderstood. I mean you must have got that completely wrong, because I promise you she’s very much alive and kicking and in the rudest health. How strange, and what a dreadful thought.’ She shuddered. ‘Oh no, doesn’t bear thinking about. That’s really strange. Oh well,’ she glanced at her watch. ‘I’m sorry, Cassandra,’ – she never called me Cassandra – ‘but I promised I’d meet Ellie. I’m going to be late. Sorry. I’d love to stay and chat, really. Another time?’

‘Of course. Another time.’

We kissed and said goodbye. Another part of my life I had successfully fucked up.

So, yes. That fateful day. God, I can still remember walking through the front door and just standing there, unable to believe what I was seeing. I mean, you never ever forget something like that. Amelia had dropped me off so I was quite alone. I didn’t want to go further into the house at first, because I was afraid that whoever had done this might still be there. I wished I’d got Coco with me, but she was still at Sally’s, otherwise she’d have let me know straight away if there was a stranger in the house, wouldn’t she? But, honestly, you just wouldn’t believe the scene in front of me. Talk about devastation. It was . . . well I don’t know . . . words just seem inadequate. How do you describe that? It was just . . . horrible. I remember thinking who would do something like that? What kind of sick person would do this to another person?

I can’t remember what time it was when I spoke to Dan. It might have been while the police were there, I’m really not sure. He called me, actually, not the other way round. I’d been meaning to, but I’d had other things to think about. So at first I was pleased to get his call, but then he started saying all this weird stuff about the book I was writing, and things I was supposedly saying to Cass. Honestly, as I said to him, he wasn’t making any sense at all. I made him repeat what he’d said about the book because I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. And when he told me I was like, ‘You can’t be serious . . .’ I said – and I shouldn’t have been making light of the situation, it probably wasn’t remotely appropriate – but I said, ‘God, I wish I’d got that kind of imagination . . .’I think he said he’d call me later, talk to me later. I wasn’t sure, but I really had enough to deal with without that kind of rubbish, don’t you think?

CHAPTER

18

The floodlights tripped as Dan’s car came into the drive. Laura had originally planned to come back tomorrow afternoon, in time for the quiz, but Dan had said he would persuade her to come back tonight so that we’d have a chance to talk. It was going to be
the
single most important conversation of my life and I was feeling terrified.

I couldn’t see them from the kitchen, because the windows occupied the wall to the rear of the house, but I saw the pool of light spread across the hall carpet, so I peeked through the glazed front door panel. From the protection of the shadows I watched them get out of the car. Dan walked around to the boot to lift out Laura’s bag. She still used the rucksack that we’d bought her for her gap year. I’d suggested that she might like a suitcase instead, but she was adamant that a rucksack was much easier to cart around. Usually one of the first things she would do was empty half of it onto the utility room floor. Normally I would then go in, separate it out into two loads of colours and whites, and then I’d programme the machine and start the cycle. Before I went to bed I’d pull out the load, pop it into the drier, and put in the next load to wash, ready to do the same tomorrow morning. These were the normal, mumsy little things that I loved doing for her, even though I knew she was perfectly capable of doing it for herself. I’d felt for a long time like I was on borrowed time. Borrowed time. Time at school, gap year travelling, university life, getting a job – all things that would increase the distance between us, all flying-the-nest type things designed to get me used to the day when she would move all her stuff out for good. The day I dreaded, when Laura’s room would become a spare room, when Laura would morph from resident to guest. Now it seemed more likely she’d turn from resident to stranger.

As they walked across the driveway, Dan put his free arm around Laura’s shoulder and ruffled her hair playfully. How sweet they were together, father and daughter. Close. Look at how close.

Deep down I was afraid I’d already lost them both. I had done all I could to make them see how good I was. I’d taken trouble over preparing the supper. I’d washed my hair and carefully blow-dried it. I’d put make-up on and changed into tidy clothes. I wanted them to approve of me, to believe that I was special, to make them realize that they would miss me, that I was important to them.

Laura gave me a lovely hug and then immediately said, ‘Sorry, Mum. Dying for a pee, back in a sec,’ leaving Dan and me alone in the kitchen.

Dan put Laura’s bag down and set his briefcase and laptop next to it.
‘Have you said anything to her?’ I asked, keeping my voice low. He shook his head. ‘Something else has happened.’ He just stood there with a really cool, sort of anxious expression on his face. I noticed he didn’t remove his coat, and he was still holding the car keys, not placing them on the hook, as he usually did.

‘What?’

‘With Ellie,’ he said.

‘What about her?’ I said, warily.

‘Her house was trashed while she was away. The whole place vandalized . . . You hadn’t heard?’

‘No. Nobody’s told me . . .’ I stood rooted to the spot while my mind spun. ‘Oh my God.’

‘I called her, like I said I would. She was right in the middle of dealing with the police and everything. But she sounded in a dreadful state. Anyway I said I’d go round when I got home, to check she’s okay.’

‘No! You can’t. No, Dan. I don’t know what’s behind all this, but knowing her there’s some sort of trap, something devious going on. Don’t fall for it.’

He stood there wearing that same cold expression, just shaking his head. ‘Cass, I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours. I told her that you’d been round there, as she’d requested, to get that telephone number – just to say that the house was obviously okay when you left it – and you know what?’

I shook my head. I could almost guess what was coming.

‘She said she didn’t call you. That there was no key left outside. That whoever broke in had come through the back door, smashing the glass, maybe getting the key off the hook nearby. She said she hadn’t asked you to go into her house, Cassandra.’

Cassandra. I was being called Cassandra rather a lot, these days.

‘Jesus Christ!’ I sat down slowly. I wasn’t sure I was capable of taking in what he was saying, what it meant.

‘She’s setting me up.’

‘Is she?’

‘Of course! You can’t believe I did that . . .’

Laura was standing in the kitchen doorway. ‘Did what?’

I just put my hands up in the air in a gesture of surrender. But
Laura didn’t notice.

‘God, what about Ellie? Poor thing. Who would do something like that? Dad said she sounded really shaken. Hey, Mum. Do you think I should offer to go and stay with her, keep her company, help her clear up?’

I couldn’t answer. I just shrugged and turned towards the Aga to fiddle with a pan that didn’t require any attention. Next thing I knew Laura was speaking on her mobile.

‘Oh hi, Ellie, it’s me Laura . . . Listen, I was thinking, wondering if you’d like some company tonight . . . I could come and stay over if you wanted . . . You would? . . . No, it wouldn’t be a problem at all . . . I think Dad’s coming over now, so I’ll come with him.’

‘Is that all right, Mum?’

‘I need to talk to you, Laura. About something really important.’

‘Fine, Mum. We’ll talk tomorrow, promise. But right now I think
I should be with Ellie.’

I was just so tired, so exhausted by everything that I no longer had the will to argue. ‘Fine,’ was all I could manage.

While Laura fiddled about in her rucksack, getting out her washbag, clean pants, whatever, Dan just stood there watching me watching her.

‘Will you be long?’ I said to him.

‘I really don’t know,’ he said, and then they were gone. So that was that. Alone again, me and the clock, tick-tick-tick.

Forty-five minutes. More than half a bottle of white wine, and forty-five long, drawn-out, excruciatingly painful minutes. Dan finally came home, shrugged off his coat, walked through the kitchen without speaking, just a nod of his head. A few moments later he was back, standing in the doorway, a glass of whisky in one hand, a cigarette in the other.

‘You’re smoking,’ I said.

‘Yep. Cass, we need to talk.’

‘Do we?’

‘I can’t believe it, Cass. It’s just disgusting. Unbelievable. “Bitch” scrawled on the mirror over the fireplace. Her clothes thrown all over the floor and . . . God . . . it’s bloody horrible . . . whoever did it has even urinated on her underwear. She’s in a hell of a state.’

‘So the police have been?’

‘
Yeah, of course. They’ve been to take a statement and to check for fingerprints.’

Mine would be all over her desk. What else had I touched? I hadn’t been upstairs . . . Had I touched any of her personal things? I couldn’t think. Apart from what I’d seen in the book I was hazy about what I’d done. I remembered waking up on the carpet, not knowing where I was or how long I’d been there.

‘Cass . . . listen to me . . .’ his voice was gentle, soothing. ‘I think it might help if you saw someone, talked to someone. I think it might help us all, hmm? Will you? Will you do it for me, and for Laura?’

‘You can’t believe I did that. You really can’t.’

‘No, I can’t. But then I can’t think who else could have done it.’

‘She did it herself. That’s what she did. To make it look like I’d done it. She called me to make me go around there. To set me up. Why can’t you see? The book, everything she’s done . . . there’s a huge pattern here. She thinks if she drives me insane she’ll get you. I’ll be nicely out of the way. A lot safer than murder, and Laura’s a lot less likely to miss a mother who’s crazy than one who’s dead, or suicidal, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t know what to think,’ was all he said.

‘You think I’m going insane . . .’ I could feel the tears welling. A drop spilled out of my left eye and I quickly swept it away with my sleeve. ‘Just why are you so defensive about her? Why is it that you won’t hear anything bad about her?’

‘Because it’s all in your mind, Cassandra.’

‘And what if it isn’t in my mind, Dan? What if it’s real?’

‘But sweetheart, it isn’t. You’ve got to stop this. It’s all in your imagination.’

‘Like Rome was in my imagination?’

‘Yes, like Rome was in your imagination.’

But there was something about his face – a slight shadow, a darkening, just a flicker of something. He left the room, as though he needed to take time out, but he was soon back with a replenished glass.

‘It doesn’t really matter,’ I said. ‘What you did, what you’re doing. None of it really matters. The trouble is, Dan, it’s just all too easy for you, isn’t it?’

‘Meaning?’

‘It’s all too easy to blame me, to dredge up my anxieties, my insecurities. It’s all so convenient when anything gets in your way – when I get in your way – to accuse me of instability. You know how threatened that makes me feel, you know how to push my buttons and sometimes . . . well sometimes . . . I wonder if you’re using it as a weapon in order just to defend yourself, and your behaviour . . . like some bloody great dirty bomb.’

‘Well you would think that, wouldn’t you?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe I would think that because it’s true. But it seems to me that I’m never allowed to have thoughts that might be true.’

‘Like before? Like all those years ago, when you ended up in the fucking Abbey?’

‘Yeah. When I ended up in the loony bin, the
fucking
Abbey. My
nervous
fucking breakdown. I’m the one that’s insane, so it always has to be me that’s in the wrong. What the hell can I do? I just feel so powerless, Dan. I can’t fight against you, can I? I couldn’t fight against you then.’

‘Fight against me? Do you know what it was like for me – for
Laura and me, for us?’

‘Yes, I do, Dan. Because you’ve told me, many times. You’ve said how you had to take care of Laura, how you had to get your mother to take care of her. You’ve told me what it was like to find me . . . to go with me in the ambulance, to wait while they pumped my stomach . . . to have to go through all the thought processes, the questions, the embarrassment of having to face up to the fact that we were dysfunctional . . . maybe even face up to your responsibility, your part in what had happened to push me over the edge. But you’d never really admit that you’d done anything . . . you’d never really be honest, would you? About how you were trying to push me out of Laura’s life. How you were intent on getting her to bond with you so much more than me. About how, even then, you played on my insecurities in order to make you feel justified, and to make me look bad. I know you had an affair with some woman in Rome.’

‘No, Cass . . . you are so wrong –’