My Girl (2 page)

THREE

Paige walked from the GP surgery to the therapist’s office in Maidstone town centre. She felt sick from the taste of him, and wondered if people could tell that she’d just given her doctor a blow job for extra drugs. Could they see the shame in her eyes? Could they smell him on her breath?

She needed a drink. She made a beeline for the pub opposite the therapist’s office. It was dark and depressing inside. Old men sat in booths with pints of local ale. The carpet belonged to the 1970s and the windows were dirty and smeared.

‘Large Pinot Grigio,’ she said to the barman, without meeting his eye.

She needed to rid the taste of the doctor from her mouth. He had lasted longer this time. Usually it was over in five minutes or so. Today, she had worked on him until her jaw ached. She thought of Dr Abdullah’s climax hitting the roof of her mouth, the sour taste, the warmth, the shame.

She took the glass of wine from the barman’s hand before the glass could even touch the bar.

Imagine what Chloe would think.

She shook the thought from her head.

I wouldn’t need the pills so badly if she hadn’t been killed, would I?

She sat at the bar in silence, sipping the wine quickly as though someone was about to take it from her.

To her left, a man sat hunched over his pint. The whites of his eyes were a rotten yellow, and the wrinkles on his face were so deep that they looked as though they had been cut with a razor. He didn’t look up when the door opened – he wasn’t expecting company. He was there for the alcohol and nothing more. They were the same.

 The man looked up and caught her staring. A smirk turned the corners of his mouth. A tooth was missing from his grin.

Paige looked down at her glass, which trembled in her hand. Embarrassment flared through her and her cheeks felt hot. She longed for him to look away, to forget her. She sensed him coming towards her and willed herself to stop shaking.

‘Paige.’

She snapped around to the sound of her name. Her father was standing in the doorway of the pub.

‘How’d I know to find you in here? I’ve been waiting outside for ten minutes. Come on.’

She had never been so happy to see her father. The man backed away as she downed her drink and headed for the door.

‘You didn’t have to come,’ she said as she left the pub and walked to the opposite side of the road with him.

‘I did. I need to know you’re serious, Paige. That you’re going to go to get the help you need.’

Her father was short, overweight, and walked with a limp, putting all of the weight on his better hip. He smelt of cigars and port.

‘I feel like a child,’ she said, as they entered the building and stood before the lift.

‘You’re
my
child. Always will be.’

They waited for the lift to travel to the ground floor.

Both of them had been widowed, but Paige’s mother hadn’t died by her own hand – cancer had eaten away at her from the inside a long time ago.

‘Who was that man?’ he asked.

‘Doesn’t matter.’

The doors opened and they entered the lift. Her father pressed the button for the third floor. Paige’s chest tightened as the doors closed and she watched her last chance of escape vanish.

‘So Robin Higgins is the therapist,’ he said. ‘Came highly recommended by a friend.’

The smell of port stalked his breath.

‘You ever thought of therapy, Dad?’

‘No one’s perfect. I’m beyond help. You still have time to turn your life around.’

‘Don’t see the point.’

‘Just try for me, all right?’

She nodded. The doors opened on the third floor.

The reception desk was on the right, the waiting room in front, and a long corridor trailed off from the left.

As her dad went to the reception desk, Paige sat down in the waiting area. There were two other people waiting to be seen. She couldn’t help but wonder what their problems were.

 
I bet they aren’t as screwed up as I am.

Her father sat down next to her, took the folded newspaper from under his arm and began to read.

Despite the wine, she could still taste the doctor. She couldn’t help but wonder what her father would think of her if he knew what she had been doing before she met him. He would never be able to look her in the eye again.

‘Is this expensive? I don’t want you spending loads of money on me.’

‘Nothing I can’t handle. I want to do this for you.’

They waited in silence. Paige wondered if she could get away with popping a pill in her mouth without her father noticing.

One of the men in the waiting area was dressed in an expensive-looking suit. Paige wondered how it felt to have a job like his. Did he feel pride? Did his life have more value because of it? Her unemployment always filled her with shame. It wasn’t that she couldn’t get a job – she just never managed to keep one for very long.

An attractive man emerged from the hallway and whispered something to the receptionist over the desk, before walking towards the waiting area.

‘Paige Dawson?’

She snapped her head towards her father.
A man?

‘She’s here,’ her dad said. He turned to look at her. ‘Be good. I’ll be right here.’

Instantly shaking, she stood and walked off with the man.

Robin. I thought it was a woman. I don’t want a man. I don’t want this.

‘Great to meet you,’ he said through a smile as they walked down the hall. ‘My office is just down here.’

He opened a door with his name on it, that unisex name that she already hated for tricking her, and held the door open for her to enter.

The room was spacious and light, yet comforting from the warm coloured fabrics on the chairs and the cushions. Paige didn’t like the comforting colours; it felt like a trap:
you’re safe in here. Now tell me all of your dirty secrets.

‘I need to use the bathroom,’ she said.

‘No problem. The toilets are at the end of the hall. I’ll put the kettle on. Tea or coffee?’

‘Coffee. Black, no sugar.’

Robin nodded and headed down the hallway. Paige went in the opposite direction for the bathroom. Beside the toilet door was a fire exit. She looked down the hall and watched Robin as he walked in the opposite direction and out of sight. The door to the fire exit slammed against the wall as she ran down the stairs.

FOUR

Paige woke up in the police cell with a pounding headache.

It was a small cell, with a bed built into the wall and a blue plastic mattress. The laces had been removed from her shoes, along with her belt and her wedding ring. She got up, aching all over, and walked barefoot on the cold floor to the silver toilet in the corner of the cell. A security camera moved when she moved.

What the hell did I do?

When she drank, she often suffered from blackouts – dark, taunting gaps in her memory – but this was the first time she had woken up in a police cell.

You went back to the pub. You walked home. You drank some more.

Slowly, she began to remember.

She looked down at herself and saw that she was covered in dry mud, which came off in thick flakes. She remembered hearing the gravel hitting the bottom of the car as she raced towards Ryan’s gravestone. She had barely been able to see where she was going through the tears in her eyes. She remembered lurching forward with the impact of the crash and seeing the world outside the windscreen jolt upwards, before being thrown back into her seat as the car mounted the headstone. The next thing she remembered was lying on Chloe’s grave next to Ryan’s – with the car engine still running, lights still on, wheels still spinning – sobbing into the grass and mud. She had woken again to see a police officer checking her pulse. He had been out of breath, talking on his radio, checking Paige over for injuries. She couldn’t remember anymore.

Paige promised herself never to drink again, but in the same moment she wondered how long it would be until she was at home, pouring herself another glass.

A polystyrene plate sat on the floor in front of the door offering a cold, stale sandwich that she had refused to eat the night before. She had drunk the tea they offered: it had burned her tongue. Just as she was considering eating the sandwich, the hatch on the door opened.

A police officer peered inside the cell, stared at her, and then closed the hatch again before opening the door.

‘You’ve been granted bail. Your lift is here, too.’

When asked for a next of kin the night before, she had given them Ryan’s details, until she remembered he was dead. She gave them Maxim’s name and phone number instead. Now that she remembered, she considered asking to stay in the cell so she didn’t have to face Maxim. But the promise of a drink was greater than her dread of her brother, so she slipped her feet into her shoes and followed the officer.
The walk to the reception desk was humiliating. Her shoes were loose without laces, so she had to drag her feet along the floor like a child waiting to grow into her new shoes. She almost tripped and had to grab the arm of the officer, who flinched at her touch.

The police officer led her to the reception desk and stood at her side. The custody officer behind the desk didn’t smile back at her.

‘Do you remember much of last night?’ she asked.

Paige shook her head. The custody officer looked familiar. Then she remembered: they had gone to school together. Samantha – that was her name. Samantha had a career, a ring on her finger, probably a few kids. They couldn’t have turned out more different. Paige couldn’t look Samantha in the eye. The embarrassment was just too great.

‘You’ve been charged with reckless driving under section 2 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, driving under the influence of alcohol under section 4 of Road Traffic Act 1988, criminal damage and vandalism of private property under section 1 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971, and drunk and disorderly behaviour under the Criminal Justice Act 1967.’

Paige had to remind herself to breathe. She must have looked clueless, because Samantha sighed.

‘You drove through the gates of the cemetery, knocked down a wall, and destroyed a gravestone.’

Not just any gravestone,
Paige thought.
Ryan’s.

‘You’ve been granted bail. You will need to attend the court hearing on the twenty-third of November. Failure to attend may see a warrant being issued for your arrest and further charges being brought against you. Do you understand?’

Paige nodded furiously.

‘I recommend you consult with a solicitor soon. Everything you need to know about financial aid and finding a solicitor is in this pack.’

Samantha pushed a pile of papers towards her. Paige stared at it for a few seconds, overwhelmed. She signed loads of forms without reading them. Her hands were shaking so badly that her signature was nothing but a scribble. The whole time, she could feel her brother’s stare burning into her back. Samantha kept talking. Paige nodded along as she put the laces back into her shoes. She took her belongings out of the plastic bags they had been stored in overnight and pulled the pile of papers close to her chest.

‘Who else were you with?’ Samantha asked.

‘Pardon?’

‘The other car. Were you being chased?’

‘What other car?’

Paige looked at the officer, bewildered. The officer stared back at her.

‘There was another car in the graveyard.’

‘Who was driving it?’

‘We don’t know.’

‘Well I don’t, either.’

Paige heard her brother sigh behind her and the sound of his foot tapping impatiently on the hard floor. Samantha noticed it too.

‘Call us if you remember anything.’

Paige nodded.

Keeping her head down, she walked over to Maxim. Her cheeks felt hot.

Maxim’s black hair was turning grey, and his skin looked loose and tired. The clerical collar made him look even older.

‘I’ll pay you back for the bail money.’

‘You think I’m angry about that?’

‘I’ve learnt my lesson.’

‘You’ve said that so many times before.’

‘Well, I mean it this time.’

‘Come on.’

They left the station, and Paige immediately lit a cigarette and took a deep drag.

Maxim looked tired. She wondered what time they had called him. His eyelids were puffy.

‘You need to get it together, Paige.’

She was too ashamed to speak.

‘Your husband died. So did your daughter. It’s awful. But that doesn’t mean you can drive around drunk and cause havoc.’

‘I know. I’m sorry.’

‘
Do
you know? You’ve been pulling stunts like this for ten years. It’s time to snap out of it. You’re going to end up killing yourself.’

A flash of her husband dead in the bath invaded her mind. Blood. So much blood.

‘Can you just take me home?’

‘Why did you do that? Destroy Ryan’s grave?’

She smoked her cigarette, revealing nothing.

He left me on my own. He didn’t even say goodbye.

‘I’ve been so patient with you, Paige, but now I think you need some tough love.
Let. It. Go.
You can’t change the past. You can’t bring them back. But you can make a life for yourself: get a job, make friends, be happy. Chloe wouldn’t want you to live like this.’

She took one last drag on her cigarette before dropping it to the ground and killing it with the stamp of her foot.

‘You can tell me what to do with my life when you find your only child’s body parts in a river. You get to judge me when
your
partner kills himself where only you will find him. You can give me tough love when you have even the
slightest
idea of what I’m going through.’

‘I can’t sleep at night because I’m so worried about you. I wake up in the middle of the night wondering if you’re safe or dead somewhere. I have my own problems, thanks to you. Maybe you should have some more consideration for the people that are still here, who love you and need you to be safe.’

‘I never asked you to worry about me. I don’t want your pity or your criticism. I want to be left alone.’

‘So you can eventually kill yourself?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Well that’s what you’re going to end up doing, whether you mean to or not. Or you’ll end up in prison. Wake up, Paige. You’re a mess.’

‘Your life isn’t so damn perfect. At least I know who I am.’

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

‘You haven’t had a girlfriend in your entire life. Just come out, Maxim. Stop hiding behind that dog collar.’

‘I’m not gay.’

‘Well pull your finger out and get a girlfriend. All you do is read the damn Bible and piss me off.’

‘Maybe I could settle down and be happy if I wasn’t so worried about you all the time. Maybe you can do us both a favour by sorting your life out.’

‘Don’t blame your sorry life on me.’

‘And what about Dad? If you carry on the way you are, he’ll have another heart attack.’

That hit her hard, like a blow to the chest. She didn’t speak for a moment.

‘Paige, I’m sorry…’

‘I just want to go home. Please, just take me home.’

***

Maxim took the long route home, down the country lanes, which gave both of them time to calm down. As the car pulled up outside the house, the two of them were silent.

Paige looked at the house, wedged between the neighbouring houses along the terraced street, and reminded herself that it was just
her
home now, not
theirs.
She wouldn’t hear Chloe’s music drifting down the stairs, or walk in to the smell of Ryan’s cooking. Nothing awaited her but silence and memories of the dead.

‘I’ll pay you back,’ she said, opening the passenger door. ‘Thanks for coming to get me.’

Before Maxim could reply, she shut the car door and searched for her keys in her bag.

‘I made you some dinners,’ he called out.

She turned around to see her brother shutting the car door and clutching numerous plastic containers.

‘I made them yesterday. Just throw them in the freezer and heat them up when you’re hungry.’

A grateful smile crept onto her face.

‘Thank you,’ she said as she took them from him.

‘You’re looking thin in the face, so heat one up the second you get in.’

‘I will.’

‘You can always stay with me,’ he said.

‘I need to do this on my own. I can’t have people looking after me forever.’

He nodded and headed back to the car.

‘You’ll make someone very happy one day, Maxim. Don’t leave it until it’s too late.’

He smiled and sat behind the steering wheel.

She put the key into the lock and went inside.

The house reeked of stale smoke and misery, but the living room was spotless. The kitchen was gleaming, and fresh laundry was ironed and folded neatly in the washing basket. There was a sticky note from Greta on the fridge.

Try not to let it get so bad again, Paige.

Paige screwed up the note and threw it in the bin.

She sat down at the breakfast table with a fork and ate one of Maxim’s meals, cold. After half a portion, she put the dish in the fridge and poured herself a large wine. It looked as though she had stocked up on Pinot before she went driving around town and crashing into headstones. She popped six pills into her palm and swallowed them down in one go.

Paige went back into the living room with her glass and considered sleeping on the sofa again. Ryan’s scent still lingered on the bed sheets. His unfinished book was still on the bedside table, his reading glasses resting on top. His clothes still hung on his side of the wardrobe.

She headed upstairs and caught a glimpse of the bath she had found him in. Blood was running down the bath panel and creeping between the tiles on the floor.

It’s not real. It’s all in your mind.

She snatched her eyes away and stopped outside Chloe’s door. She found herself turning the handle and stepped inside.

The smell of her filled Paige’s nostrils and warmed her heart. She quickly closed the door behind her, to stop the scent from escaping. The bed was still made. The curtains were open. Photos were stuck all over the walls like a collage: friends, family, a poster of some hunky actor that Paige could never name. Paige sat on the bed and drained her glass. It hurt remembering Chloe, being surrounded by her. Ten years had passed since Chloe had been taken from her – snatched from the roadside as she walked home from school – but to Paige, it felt like yesterday.

‘Who killed you, Chloe?’ she said into the room. ‘What happened to you?’

Tears stung at her eyes. She inhaled her daughter’s sweet scent until she sobbed.

‘I miss you every minute of every day. I feel like a part of me died with you. I want to move on, to try and be happy, but I can’t. I can’t be happy without you.’

She lay down on the bed, clutched her daughter’s pillow to her chest, and cried herself to sleep.