Forbidden (29 page)

The bars covering the glass show signs of rust and don’t look that strong. So long as they don’t break before I actualy reach the window, this could work.

Six hundred and twenty-three counts since the last steps were heard outside my cel door. Once I am ready, I’l have ten minutes or so to pul this off. I’ve read about people managing to do this before

– it doesn’t just happen on cop shows. It is possible. It has to be.

After finaly working my way round the entire edge of the plastic sheet, I give it a smal tug and feel it shift under me, no longer attached to the mattress beneath. Positioning it in front of me, I use my teeth to make the first tear and begin to rip, bit by bit. By my rough calculations, three strips of sheet tied together should be just about long enough. The material is tough and my hands are aching, but I can’t risk just yanking at the sheet for fear of the sound of tearing being overheard. My nails are torn, my fingertips a bleeding mess by the time the material is separated into three equal pieces. But now al I have to do is wait for the guard to pass.

The footsteps begin to approach, and suddenly I am shaking. Shaking so hard I can hardly think. I can’t go through with it. I’m too much of a coward, too damn scared. My plan is ridiculous – I am going to get caught, I am going to fail. The bars look too loose. What if they break before I reach the window?

The footsteps begin to recede and I immediately start tying the strips together. The knots have to be tight, realy tight – enough to take my ful weight. Sweat pours off me, running into my eyes, blurring my vision. I have to hurry, hurry, hurry, but my hands won’t stop shaking. My body screams at me to stop, back down. My mind forces me to keep going. I have never been this afraid. I miss. I keep missing. Despite the weight of the plastic material and the heavy knotted loop at the end, I cannot get it to catch on one of the spikes. I made the loop too smal. I overestimated my ability to hit a target while panicking with unsteady hands. Finaly, in mad desperation, I hurl it right up to the ceiling and, to my astonishment, the loop comes down to catch on a single outer spike, the knotted strips of sheet hanging down against the wal like a thick rope. I stare at it for a moment in total shock: it’s there, waiting to be climbed, my path to freedom. Heart pounding, I reach up to grasp the material as high as I can. Puling myself up with my arms, I raise my legs, draw up my knees, cross my ankles to trap the material between my feet and begin to climb.

Reaching the top takes far longer than I’d anticipated. My palms are sweaty, my fingers weak from al the unpicking and tearing, and unlike school climbing ropes, the strips of sheet have almost no grip. As soon as I reach the top, I hook my arms round the bars, my feet scrabbling for a foothold against the bumpy, chipped wal. The toe of my shoe finds a smal protrusion, and thanks to the grip of my trainers, I am able to cling on. Now for the moment of truth. Have the bars been loosened by my climb? Wil a final, violent downward pul cause them to break away from the wal?

I haven’t time to inspect the rust around the fastenings now. Like a rock climber on a cliff’s edge, I cling to the bars with my hands and to the wal with my feet, every muscle in my body straining against the pul of gravity. If they catch me now, it’s al over. But stil I hesitate. Wil the bars break? Will they break? For one brief moment I feel the golden light of the dying sun touch my face through the dirty window. Beyond it lies freedom. Shut up in this airless box, I am able to catch a glimpse of the outdoors, the wind shaking the green trees in the distance. The thick glass is like an invisible wal, sealing me off from everything that is real and alive and necessary. At what point do you give up –

decide enough is enough? There is only one answer realy. Never.

The time has come: if I fail, they wil hear me and either keep me under surveilance or transfer me to a more secure cel, so I’m acutely aware that this is my one and only chance. A terrified sob threatens to escape me. I’m losing it – someone wil hear. But I don’t want to do this. I’m so afraid. So very afraid.

With my left arm stil hooked over the bars, taking almost the ful weight of my body – metal cutting into flesh, digging into bone – I release one hand to reach for the sheet hanging down below me. And then I realize this is it. The guard wil be back down the corridor any minute now. I have no excuses any more. It’s time for me to set us al free. Despite the terror, the blinding white terror, I slip a second loop over my head. Tighten the noose. A harsh sob breaks the stil air. And then I let go. Wila’s big blue eyes, Wila’s dimpled-cheeked smile. Tiffin’s shaggy blond mane, Tiffin’s cheeky grin. Kit’s yels of excitement, Kit’s glow of pride. Maya’s face, Maya’s kisses, Maya’s love. Maya, Maya, Maya . . .

I stare at myself in the mirror on my bedroom wal. I can see myself clearly, but it’s as if I’m not actualy there. The reflection thrown back at me is that of another, an impersonator, a stranger. One who looks like me, yet appears so normal, so solid, so alive. My hair is neatly fastened back, but my face looks alarmingly familiar, my eyes are the same – wide, blue. My expression is impassive – calm, colected, almost serene. I look so shockingly ordinary, so devastatingly normal. Only my ashen skin, the deep shadows beneath my eyes, betray the sleepless nights, the hours and hours of darkness spent staring up at a familiar ceiling, my bed a cold tomb in which I now lie alone. The tranquilizers have long been binned, the threat of hospitalization dropped now that I’m managing to eat and drink again, now that I’ve regained my voice, found a way of making my muscles contract then relax in order to be able to move, stand, function. Things are almost back to normal: Mum has stopped trying to force-feed me, Dave has stopped covering for her to the authorities, and both have drifted back across town together after restoring some kind of order in the house and putting on a convincing show for Social Services. I have returned to the familiar role of care-provider, except that nothing is familiar to me any more, least of al myself.

A basic routine has resumed: getting up, showering, dressing, shopping, cooking, cleaning the house, trying to keep Tiffin and Wila and even Kit as busy as possible. They cling to me like limpets –

most nights al four of us end up together in what used to be our mother’s bed. Even Kit has regressed to a frightened child, although his valiant efforts to help and support me make my heart ache. As we huddle together beneath the duvet in the big double bed, sometimes they want to talk; mostly they want to cry and I comfort them as best I can, even though I know nothing can ever be enough, no words can ever make up for what happened, for what I put them through. During the day there is so much to do: speak to their teachers about returning to school, go to our sessions with the counselor, check in with the social worker, make sure they are clean, fed and healthy . . . I am forced to keep a checklist, remind myself what I’m supposed to be doing at each point during the day – when to get up, when to have meals, when to start bedtime . . . I have to break down each chore into little steps, otherwise I find myself standing in the middle of the kitchen with a saucepan in one hand, completely overwhelmed, lost, with no idea why I’m standing there or what I’m supposed to do next. I start sentences I cannot finish, ask Kit to do me a favour and then forget what it was. He tries to help me, tries to take over and do everything, but then I worry that he is doing too much, that he too wil have some sort of breakdown, and so I beg him to stop. But at the same time I realize he needs to keep busy and feel he is helping and that I need him to. Since the day it happened, the day the news came, every minute has been agony in its simplest, strongest form, like forcing my hand into a furnace and counting down the seconds knowing they wil never end, wondering how I can possibly endure another one, and then another after that, astonished that despite the torture I keep breathing, I keep moving, even though I know by doing so the pain wil never go away. But I kept my hand in life’s furnace for a single reason only – the children. I covered for our mother, I lied for our mother, I even told the children exactly what to say before Social Services arrived – but that was when I stil had the arrogance, the ridiculous, shameful arrogance to believe that they would stil be better off with me than taken away and placed in care. Now I know different. Even though I have slowly reestablished some sort of routine, some semblance of calm, I have turned into a robot and can barely look after myself, let alone three traumatized children. They deserve a proper home with a proper family who wil keep them together and be able to counsel and support them. They deserve to start afresh – embark on a new life where the people who care for them folow society’s norms, where loved ones don’t leave, or fal apart, or die. They deserve so much better. No doubt they always have.

I do honestly believe al this now. It took me a few days to convince myself fuly, but eventualy I realized that I had no choice: there was actualy no decision to make, no option but to accept the facts. I do not have the strength to continue like this, I cannot go on another day: the only way to cope with such crushing guilt is to convince myself that, for their own sakes, the children wil be better off elsewhere. I wil not alow myself to think that I too am abandoning them. My reflection hasn’t changed. I’m not sure how long I’ve been standing here, but I’m aware that some time has passed because I am starting to feel very cold again. This is a familiar sign that I have ground to a halt, come to the end of the current step and forgotten how to make the transition to the next. But maybe this time my delay is deliberate. The next step wil be the hardest of al. The dress I bought for the occasion is actualy quite pretty without being too formal. The navy jacket makes it look suitably smart. Blue because it is Lochan’s favourite colour. Was Lochan’s favourite colour. I bite my lip and blood wels up on the surface. Crying is apparently good for the children – someone told me that, I don’t remember who – but I’ve learned that for me, as with everything I do now, there is no point to it. Nothing can relieve the pain. Not crying, laughing, screaming, begging. Nothing can change the past. Nothing can bring him back. The dead remain dead. Lochan would have laughed at my clothes. He never saw me so poshly dressed. He would have joked I looked like a city banker. But then he would have stopped laughing and told me that actualy I looked beautiful. He would have chuckled at the sight of Kit in such a smart suit, suddenly seeming so much older than his thirteen years. He would have teased us for buying Tiffin a suit too, but would have liked the brightly coloured footbal tie, Tiffin’s own personal touch. He would have struggled to laugh at Wila’s choice of outfit though. I think the sight of her in her treasured violet ‘princess dress’

that we got her for Christmas would have brought him close to tears.

It has taken so long – nearly a month because of the autopsy, the inquest and al the rest – but finaly the time has come. Our mother decided not to attend, so it wil just be the four of us in the pretty church up on Milwood Hil – its cool, shady interior empty, echoey and quiet. Just the four of us and the coffin. Reverend Dawes wil think Lochan Whitely had no friends, but he’l be wrong – he had me, he had al of us . . . He wil think Lochan wasn’t loved, but he was, more deeply than most people are in a lifetime . . .

After the short service we wil return home and comfort each other. After a while I wil go upstairs and write the letters – one to each of them, explaining why, teling them how much I love them, that I’m so, so very sorry. Reassuring them that they wil be wel looked after by another family, trying to convince them, as I did myself, that they wil be much better off without me, much better off starting over. Then the rest wil be easy, selfish but easy – it has been carefuly planned for over a week now. Obviously I can’t possibly remain in the house for the children to find, so I wil go to my refuge in Ashmoore Park, the place I caled Paradise, which I once shared with Lochan. Except this time I shal not return.

The kitchen knife I’ve been keeping beneath the stack of papers in my desk drawer wil be hidden beneath my coat. I wil lie down on the damp grass, stare up at the star-studded sky and then raise the knife. I know exactly what to do so that it wil be over quickly, so quickly – the same way I hope it was for Lochan. Lochie. The boy I once loved. The boy I stil love. The boy I wil continue to love, even when my part in this world is over too. He sacrificed his life to spare me a prison sentence. He thought I could look after the children. He thought I was the strong one – strong enough to go on without him. He thought he knew me. But he was wrong.

Wila bursts into the room, making me start. Kit has brushed her long, golden hair, wiped her face and hands clean after breakfast. Her baby face is stil so sweet and trusting, it pains me to look at her. I wonder whether, when she is my age, she wil stil look like me. I hope someone wil show her a picture. I hope someone wil let her know how much she was loved – by Lochan, by me – even though she won’t be able to remember it for herself. Out of the three of them, she is the most likely to make a ful recovery, the most likely to forget, and I hope she does. Perhaps, if they alow her to keep at least one photo, some part of it wil jog her memory. Perhaps she wil remember a game we used to play or the funny voices I used to do for the different characters in her books at bedtime. She hesitates in the doorway, unsure whether to advance or retreat, clearly desperate to tel me something but afraid to do so.

‘What is it, my darling? You look so beautiful in your dress. Are you ready to go?’

She stares at me, unblinking, as if trying to gauge my reaction, then slowly shakes her head, her big eyes filing with tears.

I kneel down and hold out my arms and she launches herself into them, her smal hands pressed against her eyes.

‘I d-don’t want to – I don’t want to go! I don’t! I don’t want to go say goodbye to Lochie!’

I pul her close, her smal body sobbing softly against mine, and kiss her wet cheek, stroke her hair, rock her back and forth against me.

‘I know you don’t, Wila. I don’t want to either. None of us do. But we need to, we need to say goodbye. It doesn’t mean we can’t visit his grave in the churchyard, it doesn’t mean we can’t stil think about him and talk about him whenever we want.’

‘But I don’t want to go, Maya!’ she cries, her sobbing voice almost pleading. ‘I’m not going to say goodbye, I don’t want him to go! I don’t, I don’t, I don’t!’ She starts to struggle against me, trying to pul away, desperate to escape the ordeal, the finality of it al. I wrap my arms tightly around her and attempt to hold her stil. ‘Wila, listen to me, listen to me. Lochie wants you to come and say goodbye to him. He realy wants that a lot. He loves you so much

– you know that. You’re his favourite little girl in the whole world. He knows you’re very sad and very angry right now, but he realy hopes one day you won’t feel so bad any more.’

Her struggles become more half-hearted, her body weakening as her tears increase.

‘W-what else does he want?’

Franticaly I try to come up with something. For you to someday find a way to forgive him. For you to forget the pain he caused you even if it means you have to forget him. For you to go on to live a life of unimaginable joy . . .

‘Wel – he always loved your drawings, remember? I’m sure he’d realy like it if you made him something. Maybe a card with a special picture. You could write a message inside if you want to – or otherwise just your name. We’l cover it in special transparent plastic, so that even if it rains, it won’t get wet. And then you could take it to him when you go and visit his grave.’

‘But if he’s asleep for ever and ever, how wil he even know it’s there? How wil he even see it?’

Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes. ‘I don’t know, Wila. I honestly don’t know. But he might

– he might see it, he might know. So, just in case he does—’

‘O-OK.’ She draws back slightly, her face stil pink and tear-stained, but with a tiny glimmer of hope in her eyes. ‘I think he wil see it, Maya,’ she tels me, as if begging me to agree. ‘I think he wil. Don’t you?’

I nod slowly, biting down hard. ‘I think he wil too.’

Wila gives a smal gulp and a sniff, but I can tel her mind is already on the work of art she is going to create. She leaves my arms and moves off towards the door but then, as if suddenly remembering something, turns back.

‘So what about you then?’

I feel myself tense. ‘What d’you mean?’

‘What about you?’ she repeats. ‘What are you going to give him?’

‘Oh – maybe some flowers or something. I’m not artistic like you. I don’t think he’d want one of my drawings.’

Wila gives me a long look. ‘I don’t think Lochie would want you to give him flowers. I think he’d want you to do something special-er.’

Turning away from her abruptly, I walk over to the window and peer up at the cloudless sky, pretending to check for rain. ‘Tel you what – why don’t you go and start making the card? I’l be down in a minute and then we can al set off together. And remember, on the way home we’re going to have cakes at—’

‘That’s not fair!’ Wila shouts suddenly. ‘Lochie loves you! He wants you to do something for him too!’

She runs out of the room and I hear the familiar sound of her feet thudding down the stairs. Anxiously I folow her to the end of the corridor, but when I hear her ask Kit to help her find the felttips, I relax. I return to my room. Back to the mirror I can’t seem to leave. If I keep looking at myself, I can persuade myself I’m stil here, at least for today. I have to be here today, for the children, for Lochie. I have to turn off the mechanical switch just for these next few hours. I have to let myself feel, just for now, just for the funeral. But now that my mind is thawing, coming back to life, the pain begins to rise again, and Wila’s words won’t leave me alone. Why did she get so angry? Does she somehow sense that I’ve given up? Does she think that because Lochie’s gone, I no longer care what he might have wanted from us, for us?

I suddenly grip the sides of the mirror for support. I am on dangerous ground – this is a train of thought I cannot afford to folow. Wila loved Lochan as much as I did, yet she is not hiding behind an anaesthetic; she is hurting as much as I am, yet she is finding ways to cope, even though she’s only five. Right now she isn’t thinking about herself and her own grief, but about Lochie, about what she can do for him. The least I can do is ask myself the same question: if Lochie could see me now, what would he be asking for?

But of course I know the answer already. I’ve known the answer al along. Which is why I’ve carefuly avoided thinking about it until now . . . I watch the eyes of the girl in the mirror fil with tears. No, Lochie, I tel him desperately. No! Please, please. You can’t ask me for that, you can’t. I can’t do it, not without you. It’s too hard. It’s too hard. It’s too painful! I loved you too much!