Someone to Watch Over Me (18 page)

‘So what's the deal then? Are you two back together?'

‘Stop pulling your sleeve! I'm not sure. He seems to want it. I don't know what I feel. It's all tied up with Charlie and I don't know if it's such a good idea that we try and go back.'

‘I'm not so sure either,' said Jen. ‘I had high hopes for Peter Fletcher. He's going to be gutted,' and ducked as Carrie threw a pincushion shaped like a mushroom at her.

The bell on the shop door rang but because Carrie was on the floor trying to retrieve the pincushion she didn't immediately see who had come in. By the time she had got to her feet, still half laughing at Jen, Molly and Max were at the counter. She froze at the sight of them. It seemed extraordinary that the subjects from the photo should be here in the flesh in front of her, like a memory come to life. For her part, the other woman looked at Carrie as if transfixed. For a moment, it seemed as if she was poised to run, and she made a panicked turn to go but stopped when Max spoke. He put his hands on the counter and leaned towards Carrie as if he wanted to get a better look.

‘You are Charlie's mum aren't you?' he asked.

‘Now hang on, who exactly are you?' asked Jen, who was looking between the two women in surprise.

‘Yes. I'm Charlie's mum,' said Carrie, looking at the boy.

‘I know you from the beach,' he said solemnly. ‘I'm Max, and this is my mum Molly.'

‘I don't think this lady wants to talk about this just now,' said Molly, sounding embarrassed. She wished she hadn't come into the shop. She hadn't had any idea that the woman with the lost child worked in
Trove.
She had only come in because she had heard that they sometimes took in pictures from artists and she had brought two of her watercolours to show.

Max put out his hand to Carrie and she found herself shaking it.

‘I'm really sorry,' said Molly. ‘I wouldn't have come in if I'd known.'

‘What do you mean?' asked Carrie, puzzled.

‘Well, because we were there on that day,' said Molly. ‘I wouldn't want to remind you of it.'

‘I expect you think of it all the time,' said Max. ‘You don't need us to come in for you to think about Charlie.'

‘Shhh Maxy!' said Molly, now flushed with mortification.

‘What
did
you come in for?' asked Carrie.

‘Oh, I won't bother you with it now …' said Molly. ‘I'll come another time.'

‘No, please. Tell me,' said Carrie.

With great reluctance, Molly took out two small canvases from the bag she was carrying, and laid them on the counter.

‘I'm a painter. I was just wondering if you might be interested in selling these.'

Carrie picked them up to look at them more closely. They were beautifully rendered landscapes. The first depicted a ruined red brick building covered with ivy with a broken chimney, the sky above it full of clouds marked with a pattern that looked like snake skin. The second was of a figure in a wide fenland field, a spade in his hand, a ribbon of black birds above him.

‘I used to do quite a lot, and I'm trying to get back into it,' said Molly. When the other woman didn't immediately reply, she said, ‘Don't worry if they are not quite your thing.'

‘Is this a real place?' asked Carrie, indicating the painting of the ruin.

‘Yes, I always try and paint from life. It's a strange building a few miles from where I live. We stumbled on it one day when we were walking.'

‘They are beautiful. I'd be happy to take them,' said Carrie. ‘There's quite a lot of demand for local landscapes.'

‘Oh great,' said Molly. ‘Let me give you my contact details. We can talk about prices and stuff later.' She put her card on the counter. There was another awkward pause.

‘I'm so sorry,' said Molly. ‘About what happened.'

‘No one knows what happened,' said Carrie.

‘No,' said Molly quickly, wishing that she could disappear and at the same time berating herself for her lack of courage and compassion. She knew better than most what it was like to feel isolated and there surely could be few things more isolating than suffering the sort of loss that made people wince away and avoid you.

‘I remember you on the beach. I remember feeling so bad for you …' Molly trailed off.

Carrie was in a state of shock. It was as if that day had come alive again. This little boy might have been the last person to see Charlie before he went. She wanted to touch him. To feel his skin. Charlie by proxy. She came round to the front of the counter and put her hand on Max's head. He looked up at her calmly.

‘Charlie is my friend,' said Max.

Feeling her heart flood at his childish use of the present tense, no one referred to Charlie as if he still existed, indeed many people seemed to prefer not to mention that he had existed at all, Carrie put her arms around him, looking over his head at Molly as if asking for permission and his mother smiled her assent.

‘It's good to see you, Max,' said Carrie and for one sweet moment, as she held him, it was as if Charlie was back.

It was late by the time Carrie got home and as she approached the house she could see that someone was waiting for her outside. The lights were dim on her side of the street and she couldn't at first make out who it was, then he raised his hand in greeting and she saw that it was Peter Fletcher.

‘Hello there!' said Peter. ‘I hope you don't mind being ambushed like this, but I was passing and knew this is pretty much the time you tend to get back.'

‘What if I'd gone out from work? You should have rung,' said Carrie, feeling slightly pissed off that she wouldn't now be able to get straight into the hot bath she had been planning. Despite the fact she had a lot of time for Peter, she wasn't fond of unexpected visitors, particularly on an evening when she was drained by the emotions brought up by Molly and Max coming into the shop. Damian was also preying on her mind. She was aware that she had been avoiding his phone calls.

‘Come in,' she said, locking her bike up to the down pipe by the front door. ‘It's a bit cold so I'll get the fire going.'

Peter put his coat and hat on the banister and she placed a firelighter behind the already set fire and lit it. Peter settled down on the sofa while she went into the kitchen to pour them both a glass of wine. Peter smiled gratefully at her as she handed him his glass.

‘It's so homely in here,' he said, looking around her little living room. ‘You've got so many beautiful things.'

‘Rather too many,' Carrie laughed. ‘I keep meaning to de-clutter, but when it comes to it, I can't quite bear to get rid of anything.'

‘Have you kept all of Charlie's things?' Peter asked.

She didn't really want to talk about Charlie just now. Sometimes she didn't find it comforting to talk about what had happened. Sometimes talking about it felt like she was just torturing herself. Then there were other days when all she wanted to do was to talk, when the words came out of her and she couldn't stop them and with the words came the pain that scooped her out and left her empty.

‘I've kept some special things. You know … his first shoes, some drawings, his favourite soft toy …' she said.

‘I've kept everything. I've not thrown anything away,' said Peter. ‘His room is exactly as he left it the day he died, down to the pyjamas on the floor. I can't bear to change anything. The only thing I've taken from his room is the moose thing he loved. I took that to the place … you know … the place where it happened.'

Carrie thought of the little cellophane shrines left by lampposts and road signs that punctuated almost every car journey. She had always thought them meagre monuments, a single shower leaching the colour from the cards and teddy bear ribbons, but she could understand the impulse to return to the place. She looked at Peter's desperate face and suddenly felt the burden of his grief too keenly. Carrie felt overwhelmed by it and she knew that she couldn't supply him with anything that he really needed. He needed to be loved and she couldn't do that. It was pure selfishness that prompted her suggestion.

‘Peter,' she said, ‘have you thought about getting some sort of help? You know … trying something different to see if it gives you comfort …' She would take Peter to see Simon Foster because it might just make him feel better, although she wasn't sure how she felt about seeing the medium again.

Eager to finish the painting that she had started before Christmas, Molly had given in to Max's entreaties to watch TV, and he was now contentedly stationed on the sofa, while she had set herself up by the window. She had moved the hall table to the best vantage point and, with paint and brushes spread around her, was trying to translate the colour of the vivid streaks currently breaking up the blue of the sky to her canvas. It was an odd shade, somewhere between khaki and lemon yellow and she wasn't sure she would ever be able to capture it. She thought about the day before and how awkward it had been at first in Carrie's shop, but how Max had somehow made it all alright. He had a calm beyond his years and seemed instinctively to know what to say and do. Losing a child is every parent's deepest fear and although she thought she could imagine a little of the horror, she knew that the true extent of the pain was mercifully beyond the reaches of her imagination. What Carrie must have been through put Molly's own worries into perspective.

As soon as she had discovered the parcel from Rupert she had rung the police, and despite the fact that it was Christmas Day, the same officer from the domestic violence unit who had come round the first time arrived within ten minutes, only this time he came with another police officer. They seemed to take her concern that Rupert was nearby seriously, suggesting that she should perhaps move in with a friend or relative for a while until they could locate him. Molly thought that she would ask Kate if they could move in there but she decided against it in the end. Kate's house only had two bedrooms, and although she was sure that Kate would be only too happy to accommodate them, Molly knew they would be inconveniencing the whole family, particularly since it would have involved disrupting their Christmas Day. Although breaking into the house to leave his son a gift was alarming behaviour, it didn't indicate that Rupert meant them any physical harm.

‘Mum, what does discrepancy mean?' Max asked now.

‘That's a hard word to explain,' said Molly, still mixing yellows and greens on her increasingly muddy palette. ‘It's sort of the difference between things but it is also about measuring the difference … What are you watching?'

‘It's a programme about chemical reactions,' said Max.

Molly suddenly felt a draught across the back of her legs, despite the warmth of the fire. That's what came of sitting still too long. The house was impossible to keep completely warm. It had the odd cosy corner, and you were OK if you were sitting right up against the fire, but sit near a window or a door for any length of time and the cold would creep in and around you. She was certain that she had locked the back door, but perhaps she hadn't. The recent wet weather had swollen the frame and it had become increasingly difficult to push it back into place. Just then her suspicion was confirmed when she heard the wind bang the door against the wall. ‘Mr Wind, at it again,' Molly said, putting down her brush and getting up. ‘I really must get that door looked at.'

It was only Molly's instinct to prevent Max coming in to the kitchen and seeing what she was seeing, that stopped the scream from coming out of her mouth. Hanging from a rope that extended from one side of the kitchen to the other were five or six dead rabbits. One had its ears hacked off, another, its feet, whilst a third had been disembowelled. The blood was dripping onto the tiled floor and had gathered in a pool at the far end of the room where the slight slope of the floor had taken it. There was a sweet, sickly smell in the air and in the cold kitchen she could feel the heat coming off the dead animals. Molly slammed the back door shut and put a chair against the handle. She came out of the kitchen, shutting the adjoining door behind her and prayed that the television programme about chemical reactions would keep Max glued to the screen for a while longer.

This time the police took a little longer to arrive, but they came with a photographer who recorded the grisly discovery before taking it down and disposing of it. While the clean-up operation was going on, Molly kept Max distracted in his room with stories and games, and although she thought he knew something had happened, he didn't ask her what it was. The police checked the garden and the shed and drove down the road to Parson's Bridge, but there was no sign of Rupert. Despite the strongest recommendation from the police that she and Max be moved to a place of safety, Molly found a stubborn streak that she thought Rupert had knocked out of her. She didn't see why she should have to leave her home and disrupt Max again. She had allowed herself to be beaten by Rupert, but she was damned if she was going to allow him to break her.

What she did agree with the police was that they would create a safe area in the house, a room Molly and Max could lock themselves into should Rupert come back and threaten them in any way. Within half a day a team had arrived, reinforced her dining room and kitchen doors and windows, and transformed the living room into a panic room with sealed-off windows, a barred door and a telephone that triggered an emergency police response. They talked her through what to do if Rupert turned up at the house behaving violently. They also helped her to explain to Max in words that were as reassuring as possible what he was to do if his daddy came to the house and scared them. Max listened intently to the instructions. He appeared calm, but Molly recognised his anxiety in the way he clenched his hands in his lap. After the police had gone, she discovered Max timing how long it took to get from his bedroom to the safe room and her heart broke. That night she sat with him on the sofa, holding him close until at last she felt his fists unclench and the little creases in his forehead smoothed finally into sleep.