Nearest Thing to Crazy (36 page)

I put my hands on her shoulders. ‘Laura, no. You don’t understand. There’s
another
novel. I’ve seen it. I’ve read it. It’s about . . . oh God . . . it’s about
us
! It’s about you, and me and Dad, and
her.
I’m telling you, I’ve read the bloody thing.’

Laura had gone as white as a sheet. She pushed my hands away. ‘Mum, please, you’re frightening me.’ Her mouth was open and she was looking at me in complete shock and confusion. ‘Mum, I don’t understand. I don’t know what you’re talking about. How can you have read it? Did she show it to you? Did she tell you she was writing about us?’

‘No. No. I can’t explain at the moment. I can’t tell you. But I promise you, Laura, on mine and your lives, that I am not making this up. There is something really crazy going on here. She’s trying to convince everyone that I’m mad, that I’ve been doing all these crazy things, and I haven’t. It’s her. She’s the one that’s crazy, but nobody can see it.’

‘Oh Mum!’ Tears were dribbling down her cheeks. ‘Mum, you’re really scaring me. Dad said . . . Dad said last night . . .’ now she was sobbing, struggling to get the words out. ‘Dad said that he was worried about you, that he thought you might be losing it. Oh please, Mum, don’t behave like this. I’m really frightened. It’s scary. Stop it, Mum.’

‘Laura, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry and I don’t want to frighten you. Come here . . .’ I reached out for her, grabbed her and pulled her to me and squeezed her tightly. ‘I love you, Laura. I love you so much. You know I’d never do anything to hurt you. I wouldn’t let anything or anybody hurt you.’

‘But Mum . . . Ellie . . . what you said . . . none of it makes any sense. And I’m worried, so worried about you. Tell me, Mum, tell me the truth. You didn’t do this to Ellie’s house, did you? It wasn’t you that broke in?’

‘Well of course it wasn’t me. But that’s what she wants everyone to think.’

Laura was shaking her head. ‘Then why were your glasses here, upstairs, in her bedroom?’

‘I’ve never been in her bedroom. I have no idea. What do you mean?’

‘Last night. When we were clearing up the mess in her room, I saw your glasses, or a pair that were identical to yours, sitting on her dressing table. I picked them up, said they looked like yours. And she said . . . she said . . . she didn’t know where they’d come from. You said you were looking for them last night, you said to Dad had he seen them. Don’t you remember?’

I shook my head. ‘No, I don’t remember that.’

‘And why would they be here, upstairs in her bedroom?’

‘Because she put them there! Just like she planned it so that my fingerprints would be here. She asked me to come to her house, while she was in London. She called me, said she needed a telephone number, and told me where the key was. Now she’s denying that she ever did that. So you see my fingerprints will be here. That’s why she did it, to set me up. And her novel was here on her desk, like she meant for me to read it.’

I sank down onto the chair arm and hugged my arms across my stomach. Laura knelt down beside me and took hold of my hand. She started to stroke the back of it, as if she was tending to an invalid, which I suppose she believed she was.

‘Ellie wouldn’t do such a thing, Mum. I know she wouldn’t. You’ve really got her all wrong. You see, she’s worried too, concerned. And I know she wants to help you. She knows how difficult it is for you . . . for
all
of us.’

‘Do you really believe that I could do this, that I could slash her tyres?’

‘I don’t know, Mum. I just don’t know. I guess if you’re sick . . .’

I took hold of her hand and clutched it between both of mine. ‘The only thing I really, really care about is that you don’t believe her. It doesn’t matter about the others. It doesn’t really matter what happens to me, but I want you to believe in me. Look at me, Laura. Just look at me.’

She met my gaze with her lovely, straightforward, clear greeney-blue eyes. ‘I am not mad. There is nothing wrong with my mind. I am not imagining things, and I am not lying to you.’

‘But Mum, it wouldn’t be the first time you’d lied to me, would it?’ she said.

‘Oh, Laura. I am so sorry. So very sorry.’ I collapsed against her and my daughter held me as I sobbed, her lips against my ear: ‘Ssssh, Mum . . . it’s okay . . . ssssh . . .’ And then, through my tears, I saw Dan and Ellie framed in the doorway. Dan walked towards me, bent down and took hold of my arm while Ellie prised Laura away from me. I stood up, supported by Dan. ‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘It’s okay, Cass, everything’s going to be all right. Come on. Let’s go home.’

She didn’t want to go without Laura. And for Laura you can imagine it was really difficult. She was upset and scared. I mean, it can’t be easy, can it, finding out your mother is mad? Realizing that your own mother could be responsible for all that stuff – trashing my house, the car tyres. Inventing the book I’d supposedly written. God, what was going on in that woman’s mind? I have to admire her. Really, the skill and ingenuity – and imagination to carry it all off. I still don’t know why she chose to have it in for me. Maybe she really did believe that Dan and I were having an affair. Paranoid. Really paranoid. So, anyway, there was Dan in the doorway, gripping Cass’s arm. He was being so kind to her. ‘Come on . . .’ he was saying. ‘Come on . . . it’s okay, everything’s going to be all right.’ She was looking at me, staring at me. My God, that look in her eye still makes me shiver. Like evil. Really evil. If she could have killed me with a look I wouldn’t be sitting here now, talking to you. Oh no. I would have died right there on the spot. I had never believed it was possible to see so much hate so clearly in someone’s eyes. But it was there. I know this might sound strange, but I found myself thinking I could use that, in one of my stories. That look. The mind goes to funny places, doesn’t it? But you’d know that better than anyone.

I just said to Laura, ‘Laura, do you think it might be best if you stayed here with me, while your father sorts everything out?’

Laura was crying. Cass was screaming, ‘No . . . no . . . Laura . . . please . . . you mustn’t stay with her. She’s evil. It’s not safe for you. Please . . .’ Such nonsense. And so upsetting. We were all holding our breaths in those moments, I think. All wondering what Laura would do. Then she sat down on the sofa. ‘Is it okay? If I stay here for a bit, is that okay with you, Ellie?’

‘Of course it is, honey,’I said. And then I sat down beside her and put my arm around her. Then Cass let out this ungodly scream. It was so chilling. Like an animal, like something that you might hear in the dead of night. It makes your blood run cold, really it does. We sat there together, both of us silent, listening as Dan’s car drove off. I saw that Laura was still crying. I didn’t know what to say to her, it was really difficult. All I could think of was, ‘I’m sorry, so sorry, it’s just awful for you. To see your mother like that, to know that she’s unstable, I just can’t imagine how that must feel.’ She looked at me and I think I saw her lips tighten, like the glimmer of a faint smile at the corner of her mouth, so I felt I must be saying the right thing. I think, as I said before, it was obvious to me that she wasn’t that close to her mother – thinking back to those times when she didn’t call her, how she met her father for lunch and hardly ever her mother. I could understand Laura feeling like that, because Cass hadn’t really been very much of a mother to her, had she? I was tempted to say that she’d be better off without her, but I thought it was maybe too early to say what I really thought. ‘She’ll be in good hands,’ I said. ‘You mustn’t worry. You can stay with me for as long as you like. In fact, Laura,’ I said to her, ‘you must treat this as your home. I want you to know that I will take care of you, whatever happens to your mother.’ You see how considerate I was being to her? I mean, what more could she have asked for? If I’d been her, I would have thought that life didn’t seem so bleak after all. I mean, really, what did she have to worry about? With me there, with her . . . for her? ‘So stop crying, now, hey. After all, you don’t want to be all puffy-eyed for the quiz tonight, do you?’

‘Quiz? I don’t really think . . .’

‘Nonsense. It’ll do you good,’ I said. ‘Just what you need to take your mind off everything.’

‘I’m not sure,’ she said. And then she told me about the book, about what Cass had told her. The book that Dan had mentioned to me. I just shrugged and said, ‘Like I told your father, I don’t know what she was talking about. You’ve seen my book, read it. You know what I’ve been writing about.’

‘I know,’ she said. And then she said something like she’d never really thought that her mother had that much of an imagination, and how sure she’d seemed about it, like she was really convinced it existed.

‘I know . . . I know . . .’ I told her. ‘The unstable mind can play some really funny tricks, and it just goes to show, doesn’t it? That we never really know people as well as we think we do . . .’

She just sat there nodding, and I felt I’d reassured her, put her mind at rest, you know. Well . . . at least I hoped I had.

CHAPTER

20

I climbed into Dan’s car. The leather seats were ice cold against my back, far colder than the air outside. I shivered, and the shivering wouldn’t stop. It started in my arms, then progressed to my shoulders, my chin, up into my head. My upper torso was almost convulsing with shock waves. I crossed my arms in front of me and squeezed my body back into the seat. Within minutes we were home. ‘I never got the chance to speak to Laura . . . to tell her . . .’

‘It doesn’t matter, Cass. Not now.’ Dan was opening his car door. He put one leg out. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s go inside.’

I just sat there, feeling like I was unable to move, like someone had pumped lead into my limbs. ‘But she has to know that I know she knows. She needs to know about Ellie.’

‘Come on, Cass. Later. Let’s just go in, please. There’s things we need to do, things we need to discuss. Please . . .’

I unhooked my seatbelt and pushed the heavy car door open and then almost fell out. My knees felt like they were going to buckle, as if the puppet master, the person holding my strings, had finally let go. I put my hand on the car roof to steady myself and took a few deep breaths to ease the crushing sensation across my ribs. ‘I don’t feel right, Dan. I just feel so weak.’

He came around to my side of the car and put his arm out to steady me. ‘It’s okay. Come on. That’s it.’ His voice soothed me and I relaxed against him and allowed myself to be helped through the little gate and down the leaf-strewn path leading to our front door. It looked different, somehow. It felt different, this homecoming, like it had some kind of temporary feel about it. I didn’t sense I was coming back to a safe haven. That feeling you get after an exhausting day away and all you want to do is fall in through your own front door, put the kettle on, settle down in peace. No, this was new. As if I was in some kind of transition place – not my safe home anymore – and the man at my side wasn’t my safe Dan anymore. There was me, and then there was
them
, and Dan was one of them. Me, Cassandra – just me, by myself, alone. I knew I wouldn’t have much say or control over what happened next.

‘But what about Ellie, the stuff she wrote about being Laura’s egg donor? How could I have made that up, Dan? Seriously, do you think I would? And why, why would I do that? None of it makes any sense. You must see that. At least try . . . please . . . Jesus, Dan, I’m begging
. . .’

‘Enough, Cass. I don’t know . . . I can’t explain it. You . . . I . . . we both need help here. Sweetheart, if I don’t call a doctor, call in some medical help, don’t you see, I’d be failing in my duty? You know,’ he paused, reading the lack of understanding on my face, ‘my duty to you, as your husband.’

‘It doesn’t make sense. I mean . . . my mother. She admitted telling Laura, Dan. And Ellie went to see her, I know she did.’

‘Enough, Cassandra. You’ve got to stop this torture . . . I’m going to call the doctor. Why don’t you go and lie down and I’ll bring you a cup of tea?’ His face softened. ‘It’ll be okay. I promise it’ll all be okay.’