The Siren (25 page)

Kimberly waited to see whether the door would reopen. She still expected her mother to simmer down, grudgingly pass her a couple of Kleenex, and maybe say, ‘Go on, have your fucking
tissue’, but in a slightly softer tone.

The door remained shut.

There was no room for denial, finally, and with terrible clarity she realized that the maternal bond was so nonexistent that it didn’t run to a single tissue.

A tissue? Something you’d give a stranger without a second thought. Toilet paper would have done; a few squares of something that absolutely anyone could just take from a public toilet.
Free. Gratis.

Her distress had zero value. She had zero value.

And how thick was she? All those years of being told she wasn’t good enough, and she’d only just grasped the message.

From that moment she despised her young and stupid self.

First she kicked at the front door but when that held firm, she pushed her way through the side gate and attacked the rear. She found a brick and bashed the crap out of one patio door.

She ignored her mum’s screams of abuse.

Little bitch.

Fuck-up.

Stupid ugly cow.

None of it was new.

Instead she went in and took the clock, still counting out the seconds with that smug ‘glop, glop, glop’, and smashed it on the hearth.

The glass case cracked but it still ticked.

Her mother grabbed at Kimberly’s sleeve. She shook her away, seeing nothing but the clock. She kicked and stamped on the fucking thing until its mechanism was reduced to shards of broken
plastic.

Then she kicked it some more.

Her mother stood back, arms crossed, face set in a mask of sour disdain. Kimberly knew she never wanted to see her again.

It took her a long time to walk home to Anita, and by the time she arrived she understood that her childhood had been unfair and unkind. Although she knew how wrong her mother had been, she
never quite shook off the feeling that she wasn’t good enough, and began to fear what kind of parent she could ever be.

It didn’t matter whether it was genes or upbringing that counted; either way she knew she should never risk motherhood.

THIRTY-THREE

Jay Andrews had lost more than his life. He frequently thought he’d be better off dead, which made what he had left a minus life.

He didn’t even have the ability to scratch an itch or look around a room. However the nurses propped him dictated what he could see, which was why his bed was positioned to jut out from
the corner, rather than the conventional way with the bedhead against the wall. In theory no one could approach him without being seen, unless they chose a weird route, like sliding under the bed.
What might be lurking under the bed had bugged him for some time. Then there had been other days when not seeing the ceiling had disturbed him. A few times, in the early days, he’d been left
in a position where he couldn’t even see his own hands. He had feeling in his whole body but, without being able to make any movement, he’d started to torment himself with the idea that
they were just phantom sensations, that his arms and legs had gone.

He tried philosophy and meditation but had come to the conclusion that there was no hell like being locked away with only yourself for company.

No wonder they called it Monte Cristo Syndrome. Except, unlike the Count, Jay knew he’d never have the luxury of hearing his own voice, of speaking thoughtlessly or being chided for a tone
that was too flippant or sarcastic.

Eventually he accepted that he needed to trust what he couldn’t see.

Each time Kimberly left his bedside, he believed she would return.

From time to time she played him a video they’d once made on a trip to London. They’d spent the weekend in a cheap hotel on the Euston Road, and filmed each other on the upper deck
of an open-topped sight-seeing bus.

He didn’t have the heart to tell her that his recorded voice didn’t sound the way he remembered it. He guessed she knew. She knew many things without being told.

He shut his eyes. In his condition it represented the peak of activity.

She wasn’t the only one; he himself knew things without having to be told. He knew that Kimberly loved him, less than she loved Riley but more than she loved just about anybody else. He
knew she would help him die if he ever wanted it. He corrected himself:
if he ever asked her
. He frequently wished it, but was held back by the suspicion that he still had a purpose, and to
thwart that purpose would tip the order of things in a way that produced more repercussions than he could foresee.

He knew that Kimberly blamed herself.

But that wasn’t why she visited; their friendship was genuine, and he chose not to think of her with other men. In his more analytical moments he knew the pair of them had no conventional
future, and he hoped there would be someone else for her one day. But if he let his thoughts run too freely he’d find himself imagining the moment when she’d break the news to him. The
thought of it filled him with dread.

Fear was his constant enemy. When it flared, it sucked him into dark places, leaving him to roam in the maze of tunnels running through the coldest recesses of his mind. He would lie awake for
hours, pinioned by night terrors and loneliness. It would continue for several nights, or sometimes several weeks, a relentless 24/7 torture.

Somewhere in his brain lay an abyss he’d been close to, but not across. He guessed insanity lay on the other side. One day he thought he might tip into it, but that hadn’t happened
yet. That’s when he most wanted someone to slip into his room and drive something brutal through his failed body.

But he was starting to learn that the panic was eventually washed away by mental exhaustion, and that the sleep following such an episode of terror was as peaceful as any he’d ever
experienced.

When he woke from it, he often felt relaxed enough to conjure up clear and perfect memories. He chose the ones where he and Kimberly made love. Not a fantasy in any way, but a specific time and
place being replayed exactly. There were many to choose between, and he never blurred one into another.

Today they were lying in bed. Viva Cottage stood empty apart from them, but still they hid under the covers. Fresh sheets, line-dried and unsoftened, were pulled over their heads. They talked
and laughed in whispers. They had made love and were naked still.

He lay on his back and she on her side, her left leg lying across him and her inner thigh pressed soft and warm against his groin. Her skin was smooth and downy, lightly sprinkled with a few
pale freckles. He traced his fingertips over her breasts and on to her belly. She never moved, content for him to explore just because she was confident in him, never because she possessed any real
understanding of her own beauty.

Her mouth, close to his ear, whispered, ‘I want to do it again.’ Then her lips found his and she began to kiss him, teasing with her tongue, working harder than she needed to in
order to seduce him.

She never seemed to realize that each time they made love he marvelled at his own amazing luck. She took nothing for granted, never once understood the extent of her talent and inner strength,
and while he loved that about her it made him feel sorry for her too. And protective.

If he could have smiled, he would.

The memory vanished.

Jay fixed his gaze on a patch of sky in the top right corner of his window, and then forced himself to think about the baby.

That was something he never usually did. It seemed too much like poking a finger into a yellow flame; one second didn’t hurt, but a moment too long and it became really painful.

He hadn’t known how to react when she gave him the news. She was crying, which didn’t help. He’d said ‘shit’ several times, which hadn’t helped either. It had
made her cry even more, and then run.

She’d never done that to him before. They were soulmates: he was the one she’d run to, never from. He went looking for her later and apologized.

She’d said she wanted an abortion. Said she couldn’t have a baby, but wouldn’t tell him why.

She didn’t need to. He already knew.

It was all about her bloody mother.

She didn’t rush out to do it though and, as the weeks passed, he’d begun to hope she’d changed her mind; even then he had an aversion to playing with fate. In the tenth week of
her pregnancy, she left Viva Cottage one morning without a word. He later found her sitting at a child’s grave in Mill Road Cemetery, and sobbing because she’d miscarried.

They both then cried together, holding on to each other like the bond between them was back to being unbreakable. She told him she’d been terrified that she wouldn’t be able to love
a child. That had been her overriding fear until the moment her body had rejected the baby, and she’d finally understood how mistaken she’d been.

She wondered whether she’d pushed the baby away with such thoughts alone. She held on to the guilty thought and let Jay go too.

Then she ran and ran, all the way to Spain, blowing a hole the size of a cannonball right through the centre of his life.

Anita had helped him through it, and he hoped that he’d helped Anita, too. Of all the children she’d fostered, he knew that he and Kimberly were closest to being the son and daughter
she’d never had.

Occasionally Anita would update him either a passing ‘She called, she’s fine’ or ‘She seems different, I’m worried about her.’ Then, one Saturday morning, he
caught Anita gazing at him with an expression halfway between preoccupation and duty.

‘She sent me a letter.’

‘And?’

‘She’s with someone else now.’

He didn’t know how he was supposed to respond, so he just said, ‘Oh.’

‘I thought you should know.’

He nodded, trying to keep his feelings private. ‘Thanks.’ He had known it was over, so what did he expect? Except it had never been over for
him
. He’d continued just
about functioning, not really living, treading water all that time, and waiting for her to come back.

Anita watched him closely, and it was only then that he spotted the battered white envelope that refused to sit still in her hands.

‘What’s that?’ he asked.

‘There’s a photograph.’

‘Of Kimberly?’

‘Kimberly and Rachel, and some others.’

‘And you want me to look?’

‘I’ve had it a few days. There’s something about it that’s been bothering me.’

He stared at the envelope. ‘Is
he
in the picture?’ He knew it was cowardly, but wasn’t sure he could face seeing her with someone else.

‘No, it’s just a group of girls. His name’s Nick, by the way.’ Typical Anita; her life philosophy was face up to the truth, then get on with it.

Despite his apprehension, Jay reached for the envelope. The photo inside was a six-by-four snap taken in a bar. All seven girls were dressed to party: micro-minis and heels, midriff tops and
bare legs, skin that was uniformly brown and glowing in the heat. A couple of them were holding drinks; all were smiling at the camera.

Seven go wild.

‘They’re the staff,’ Anita added.

He then understood precisely why she’d needed to share this photo: to anyone else Kimberly would have just looked like one of the girls, but she’d never before been part of any
crowd. Her smile was dazzling, but they could both see it was fake.
Her eyes looked empty
. It could have been down to drink or drugs, but they both knew it was neither. This was the same
Kimberly that had first found her way to Anita’s door. Heading for oblivion, and content to self-destruct.

Jay handed the photo back to Anita. ‘Maybe this boyfriend, Nick, will be good for her.’ There was nothing Jay could do. She’d moved on.

That was when he had told Anita that he didn’t want to know anything else, and from then the months slipped by with eerie slowness. He had thought he was almost over it, until the day
Rachel phoned from Spain and told him that Nick had beaten Kimberly unconscious.

He had arrived to find her in Rachel’s apartment. Her face was swollen but they’d kissed, and then it was like all the months in-between were nothing. It had taken until then for her
to stop punishing herself about their baby. They’d made love, staying in bed for two full days, then she’d told him to go home.

‘I’m not going to run away from here,’ she declared. ‘I’m going to leave.’

She promised to follow in a few days.

There was nothing he remembered from that moment . . . until the realization hit him that Kimberly was back, but all the possibilities had gone.

He didn’t blame her, because it wasn’t her fault, but that didn’t mean he didn’t wish some things could be different.

Top of the list, Jay wished that he really was Riley’s father.

THIRTY-FOUR

Stefan Golinski had partial movement in his body and about the same in his brain. Neither would do what he wanted and, although he knew his arms should have had the strength to
break free, they only flapped and jerked at his command.

He knew he’d been drugged, of course. His brain wasn’t
that
incapacitated. He was well aware of the other signs, too, but he couldn’t work out what he’d been
given, or when.

He tried to think of something to take his mind off his current situation, and ended up thinking about Jay Andrews.

Was this what it felt like to be Jay?

Stefan could speak, though, and could also move. The last time the door had opened he’d tried both but to no effect. Perhaps Jay also thought he could still do both.

The pen is mightier than the sword. He’d never recognized the truth in that until the last day or so. He hadn’t known a single person that would have been able to take him in a
fight, yet here he was immobilized by someone smaller and weaker.

And he was fucked.

The ceiling was white but looked grey. In fact the whole room looked dull, especially around the edges of his vision . . . it made him wonder if the air was bad. Tough shit, there was nothing he
could do about that; he needed to breathe.