Heart-Shaped Bruise (13 page)

‘How come she’s back?’ I asked Doctor Gilyard when she asked me how I was.

‘Valerie was readmitted this morning.’

‘Why? I thought she got a suspended sentence?’

‘She did.’

‘So how come she’s back? Her bloody chair’s still warm.’

Doctor Gilyard opened her notebook. ‘Why is it upsetting you, Emily?’

‘I’m not upset,’ I said, but it sounded much harder than I intended, like a door slamming shut. ‘I thought she was better, that’s why they let her go home.’

‘What do you mean by better?’

‘Better. You know,
better
. Un-mad. I thought you’d fixed her.’

‘Is that what you think I do, Emily, fix people?’

I couldn’t sit still. My skin was itching, my blood fizzing. ‘What do you do, then?’ I asked, pulling at the loose thread under my chair. ‘Why aren’t you trying to help her?’

‘I am, Emily.’

‘You’re not! She’s still here, staring at the television!’ I sat forward and pointed at the door to her office. ‘Do something. Give her something.’

Doctor Gilyard thought about it for a moment, then took off her glasses. ‘This is a prison, Emily, not a hospital.’

I felt it like a punch.

When I looked away, she carried on. ‘Do you need to be fixed, Emily?’

I got up and walked over to the window. It was raining so I couldn’t see anything. Not that there was much to see; just walls and fences topped with razor wire. But if you tilt your head, you can see the sky. Just a piece. A strip. It’s usually the only blue thing you can see but today it was grey. Everything was grey; the sky, the walls, the razor wire. Grey, grey, grey.

‘Naomi says Val’s mum died when she was little.’ I knew Doctor Gilyard wouldn’t respond, but I still felt a small sag of disappointment when she didn’t. ‘That was ages ago. Shouldn’t she be over it by now?’

‘Grief is tenacious, Emily.’

‘Naomi says she shoplifted something to get back in here.’ I traced the edge of the window frame with my finger. ‘Why
would anyone want to do that? Why would you want to come back here?’

‘Why do you think someone would want to do that, Emily?’

I stared at the rain for a moment or two, watching the fat drops chase one another down the other side of the window.

‘Her life must be pretty shit if she’d rather be here.’

Doctor Gilyard was quiet for a long time, then she said: ‘When people are here for a long time, Emily, they find it hard to adjust to living in the outside world again. They get home and realise that home isn’t what it was before they left, that home isn’t
where
it was before they left.’

My chest felt so tight then that I crossed my arms as though that would relieve it. It didn’t and the more I thought about Val, the more it hurt. She’s seventeen, her life is supposed to stretch out in front of her like a red carpet. It shouldn’t be a chair, here, surrounded by girls who don’t even realise she’s there. This can’t be it; there has to be somewhere else, some other place where she’s missed, where someone is waiting for her.

‘They say home isn’t where you live,’ I said, ‘but where you’re understood.’

I heard Doctor Gilyard shift in her chair, heard the scrape of her heel on the lino as she crossed her legs, and I held my breath.

‘Perhaps she needs to find somewhere she’ll be understood, Emily.’

I hate this. This is why I don’t tell Doctor Gilyard things. It’s three in the morning and I’m sitting in the bath writing this because I’m not allowed to have the light on in my room. I lied and told the nurse I couldn’t sleep because I had to write something for Doctor Gilyard – which is sort of true – so she said that I could sit here as long as I don’t lock the door.

I’m so tired that I can’t read my own handwriting. I’ll probably read this back tomorrow and it’ll be gibberish, but right now it makes perfect sense.

Today, in my session with Doctor Gilyard, after we talked about Val, she returned a book to me.

‘Where did you find this? I thought I’d lost it,’ I asked with a frown.

‘In the TV Room.’

‘I must have left it in there yesterday.’

‘Do you do that a lot?’

‘Do what?’ I asked, running a finger over the cover.

‘Lose things?’

I chuckled to myself. I lose something about once a week. Even here; I’ll put a mug of tea down somewhere or leave my shoes under a chair.

‘Uncle Alex says I’m scatty.’

‘Does it bother you? Losing things?’

‘I’m always losing stuff. It’s never bothered me, even when I was little.’

‘Why not?’

I thought about that time I left Henry Bear on the tube. His fur was worn away and the red ribbon around his neck was frayed, so Dad was bewildered when I sobbed and sobbed.

‘Don’t be silly, little one,’ he’d said, picking me up and kissing me between the eyebrows. ‘It’s just a teddy.’

The next day he came home with a bigger one.

‘It was no loss, I suppose,’ I told Doctor Gilyard with a shrug.

She nodded and wrote that down. ‘Do you think he was overcompensating?’

‘For what?’

‘For your mother? For what he did for a living?’

My stomach turned inside out and I looked away. ‘I’m not spoilt,’ I told her.

But I am. Whatever I asked for, I got. Especially when I went to St Jude’s; he wanted so much for me to fit in that he
made sure I had everything the other girls had. If Olivia got a new laptop, I got a better one. If she got a Mulberry satchel, I got one in every colour.

‘I didn’t say that you were spoilt, Emily.’

‘I’ve never thrown a tantrum in my life.’

‘You haven’t needed to.’

I turned to look at her again. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘It means that your father would have done
anything
to make you happy.’

I laughed at her, but I’ve been thinking about it all day. I can’t stop thinking about. That’s why I’m sitting here now, shivering in this stainless-steel bathtub. Dad didn’t care how he earned his money and he passed that on to me, didn’t he? I was raised with no concept of money, of the value of anything. Why else would I have a hundred quid in my purse and nick a nail varnish from Boots because I couldn’t be arsed to queue up and pay for it?

As I’m writing this, I’m thinking about a night in October when I couldn’t find my purse. I was more concerned about not having milk for a cup of tea when I got home as I stood in the petrol station, rooting through my bag. I thought it was because I was tired, but, thanks to Doctor Gilyard, now I’m not so sure.

‘It’s here,’ I told the bored-looking bloke behind the till as I tipped the contents of my bag on to the counter. My keys clattered hysterically and my tube of lip-gloss rolled towards him.
He caught it before it rolled off the counter. ‘I bought a round earlier so I must have it.’

He looked at me as if to say,
Okay, love
. I couldn’t blame him; I must have looked a right state in the harsh light of the petrol station with my tangled red hair and ruined make-up. I’d just been to a gig with Sid and Juliet so I was a sweaty mess. I could feel my T-shirt sticking to my back. He probably thought I was a drug addict.

Who else buys a pile of chocolate bars and a pint of milk at midnight?

‘I got it,’ I heard someone say.

I looked up as Mike handed the bloke his credit card. ‘That better not be your dinner, young lady,’ he added with mock disdain, nodding at all the chocolate.

I smiled sweetly. ‘I was studying so hard that I didn’t have time for dinner.’

‘You mean the crisps you had at the pub before the gig weren’t enough?’

I giggled and he shook his head with a tut.

‘Anything else?’ the bloke behind the counter asked flatly. The look he gave us said,
Please go away now
.

Mike nodded out the window towards his car. ‘Pump number four.’ Then he turned to me again. ‘What are you doing, hanging around petrol stations at midnight?’

‘I needed milk. And cigarettes.’ I fluttered my eyelashes at him.

He rolled his eyes. ‘And twenty Marlboro Lights, mate.’

When I grinned at Mike, I imagined saying something like that to Dad and couldn’t. He’d have an aneurysm.

‘So how were The Ruby Bullets?’ he asked as he took back his card.

I laughed. ‘What do you know about The Ruby Bullets?’

‘I’m still with it.’

‘People who’re with it don’t say they’re with it,’ I told him, as I put everything back in my bag and followed him out of the petrol station.

‘Nance’s been playing their album all week. They’re alright.’ He nudged me with his hip and I nudged him back with a girly giggle. ‘The riff from that song about the girl from Shoreditch totally rips off “I Fought the Law”, though.’

I gasped. ‘That’s what I said. But Nance thinks they’re
so original
.’

‘What do you know about The Clash?’

‘I’m with it.’

‘People who’re with it don’t say they’re with it, Ro.’

He nudged me with his hip but before I could nudge him back, I stopped to stare as a police car pulled on to the forecourt. My lungs seemed to seize up as I watched the officer get out. She stopped to nod at Mike and there was an endless moment where I was sure he was going to talk to her, but, mercifully, he just nodded back.

‘Come on. I’ll give you a lift,’ he said, but I shook my head. I never let anyone near my flat. As comfortable as I felt as Rose Glass, possessions don’t lie – what if the bedroom I was saying
was my mum’s didn’t look slept in, or someone noticed that there were no photos on the walls? Juliet asked all the time, but I always had an excuse; Mum had a migraine or there was no food in so we might as well go out to eat.

‘It’s alright. I only live down the road,’ I told Mike, but he ignored me and opened the passenger door to his car.

‘I’m not letting you walk down Upper Street by yourself at midnight.’

It wasn’t a discussion so I got in. As soon as I did, I inhaled the fake smell of vanilla and realised that I reeked of cigarettes and beer. It wasn’t pleasant; I smelt like a pub carpet. I wanted to take the freshener hanging from the rear-view mirror and rub it all over me.

‘Seat belt,’ he muttered, climbing in next to me.

I rolled my eyes. ‘Yes, Dad.’

‘Jesus,’ he groaned. ‘Don’t call me that!’

‘Do you miss it?’ I asked as I watched the police officer at the till, paying for a can of Red Bull. I don’t know why. I didn’t think. Looking back on it now, I must have enjoyed it, the thrill, the farce. If I told Doctor Gilyard, she’d ask me if I wanted to get caught.

‘Miss what? The police?’ Mike thought about it for a moment, then nodded.

‘So why’d you leave?’

‘After I got shot, Eve said she couldn’t do it any more.’

I turned to blink at him. ‘You were shot?’

‘Yeah. Didn’t you know?’

‘No! When?’

‘About three years ago. Here.’ He took my hand and put it under the neck of his jumper. The muscles in my arm tensed as my fingers brushed over his warm skin, but I didn’t pull my hand away. I should have, but I didn’t, I let him move my hand to his right shoulder.

‘Oh!’ I gasped, yanking my hand away as I felt a sudden pucker in his skin.

He laughed as I stared at him, my fingers still trembling.

‘Did it hurt?’

He nodded. ‘I was in hospital for
weeks
. But when I was discharged, I promised Eve I wouldn’t put her through that again.’ He smiled when he said it, but I remember it now, the trace of regret in his voice, just for a second.

‘So is that why you work with young offenders now?’

He nodded.

‘Do you enjoy it?’

‘Ask me again tomorrow,’ he sighed, starting the car.

As soon as he did, I heard the hum of a cello and my heart fluttered. ‘Bach.’

‘The Clash? Bach?’ He winked. ‘You’re a girl after my own heart, Rose Glass.’

I giggled as we pulled on to Upper Street. ‘Why are you listening to Bach?’

‘After the day I’ve had, I need a bit of Bach.’

‘Why? What happened?’

‘I’ve been at the police station most of today.’

For an awful moment, I thought I was going to throw up.
He knows
, a voice in my head began to scream.
He knows who you are. That’s why he insisted on giving you a lift, why he showed up from nowhere
. He didn’t, of course. But that happened a lot then; someone would say something, however benign, and I was sure they knew.

It was like this blade, swinging over my head. It had to fall eventually.

‘How come?’ I asked carefully.

‘One of the kids I’m working with got in a fight.’

My lungs finally relaxed. ‘Why?’

He was quiet for a moment too long as he stared out at the road. I’d never seen him look so sad and I suppose most people would have tried to console him, would have told him it’d be alright, but what did I know?

‘I dunno,’ he said, finally. ‘I mean, I get it. I get that this other kid was chatting shit, trying to wind him up, and he lost his temper, but I don’t
understand
it. I work with kids like that all the time, kids who’ve had horrible upbringings and don’t know up from down, let alone right from wrong, but,’ he stopped to shake his head, ‘I’ll never understand how you can stick a knife in someone. Never.’

Back then I didn’t, either.

I thought of Dad and turned to look out the window at the shuttered-up shops on Upper Street. I wanted to tell Mike to ask Juliet; she knew.

‘What’s going to happen to him? Will he go to prison?’

He shrugged. ‘He’s only fifteen and it’s his first offence. He’ll probably get a supervision order for wounding with intent.’

Like Juliet.

‘What about his parents?’ I asked when we stopped at the traffic lights.

‘He doesn’t know who his dad is and I’m trying to find his mum.’

‘Can you do that if you don’t work for the police any more?’ I asked, and I don’t know how I said it; I couldn’t breathe.

‘You can find almost anyone if you know where to look for them.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It isn’t like it used to be, Ro. The Internet has changed everything. Google is a powerful thing if you know what to do with it.’