Cuckoo (aka Claire, Darling)

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Grosvenor, my legal-aid barrister, flicks a speck of lint from my blazer, her caramel-coloured eyes narrowing critically as she sweeps them over me. She frowns pensively. I’ve dressed as smartly as I can, in a discreet knee-length black dress, paired with the flat shoes she told me to wear so that I would look meek and small. I’ve pulled my hair into an unassuming low ponytail. Grosvenor is wearing a dress similar to mine but which I can tell is more expensive by the tailoring. It’s fashionable, which doesn’t surprise me. She must only be in her mid-to-late thirties. She has topped it with a blazer, mid-height block heels, and her trademark sleek straight hair. It falls to her shoulders like a protective sheet. Her makeup is very pared back, with a nude lip against her ghostly white skin, and she looks ready for business.

‘Right, today’s not going to be easy, okay?’ she tells me sternly, gripping both my shoulders. I nod back at her. I’m emotionally spent, utterly exhausted, yet my body feels coiled with tension. Now my fate is squarely in the hands of other people, ones I can’t control or persuade.

Everyone can be persuaded to do what we want eventually, darling, Mother would say, waggling her eyebrows knowingly. But I’m Claire, and I have never had the sway over others that she had.

‘They’re going to come for you, hard. But we know what they’re gonna say,’ Grosvenor tells me.

‘We do?’ I venture.

‘We do. And I have counter-arguments ready for all their probable lines of attack. So don’t get stressed, don’t get emotional, and don’t react, okay? That is really important. Whatever is said, do not react. The last thing we need is some journalist getting a photograph of you looking angry and plastering it all over the Daily Fail Online . We can discuss everything in private afterwards, okay?’

This rundown is making me even more nervous, and this time when I nod it’s shakier. I shouldn’t have looked at the social media folders yesterday– it’s set me on edge. I think if Grosvenor had been in the room she wouldn’t have let me, but she’d popped out to the toilet and I politely asked her young and nervous-looking junior counsel, who obliged me. These are folders Grosvenor keeps in her files tracking all social media posts on relevant people’s pages since The Accident. I’ve been living in this bizarre limbo for the last eight months, my only understanding of the outside world coming from her. But seeing the social media posts printed out on paper has given me the horrible wake-up call that I badly need. It had made me realise the severity of what happened, and the possible repercussions I’m facing. NOAH COORS 01.43 Will I ever feel okay again? 12 comments?56 likes NOAH COORS 13.35 Went to do food shop and they had Lilah’s favourite chocolates– the ones they only bring out at Easter. Bought them for her out of habit. Still missing her so much. 8 comments?48 likes NOAH COORS 04.12 Can’t sleep. Can’t switch my brain off. Wish I’d been home to save her. Wish I’d never gone on that run. 28 comments?32 likes NOAH COORS 08.19 Why??????? 2 comments?8 likes

I’d been starved of information about what had been going on with Noah since the terrible accident– desperate to know how all the people involved were doing. But his page made for painful reading. I felt a hollow sensation in my belly with every status I read– alongside a stab of pain at all the things I’d hoped he’d written but hadn’t. No words of endurance or acceptance. Not a mention of my name. It was clear from the print-outs of his mournful late-night posts that he basically just had a public breakdown over the loss of his perfect girlfriend, followed by an extended lapse of silence about anything or anybody else.

Grosvenor has my social media pages carefully paper-clipped together as well, of course. Both the Claire account and my dummy Emma account, though obviously both of these have been silent for the past eight months.

Lilah’s page, unlike Noah’s, was loud as a marching band. It had been filled with messages of love and grief every day since the news broke, pictures and old stories shared on her feed like it was a blooming scrapbook. FELICITY NEWARK 16.34 Remember this day last year? Was so funny. Can’t believe no more days like this to come. Miss you so much you gorgeous angel. Love you always xxxxxxxxx KEVIN MARKWELL 09.10 RIP xxxxxxxxxxxxx Miss u x MICHAELA ELLIS 17.08 Can’t stop thinking about you tonight. I miss you so much. Can’t believe we’ll never have another night out together again. You were too good for this world, Lilah. Love you. xx KIM LEE 19.12 Still thinking of you. I’m sorry I wasn’t there enough at the end. Hope you’re shining up there, angel girl xxxx

She didn’t have as many comments before she died. It’s as though people are using her Facebook page as a diary to share their own emotions and feelings of guilt. Guilt over not having seen her for so long, guilt for not picking up her last call, guilt about cancelling their last dinner meeting… all I see on her page is guilty people looking for a way to lessen their own heavy burdens.

But not me. With Grosvenor’s help, I’ve gone over what happened that awful day at 48 St Margaret’s Avenue countless times and am convinced that I am not guilty of anything other than giving way to my emotions. I should have stayed calm and cool. But I didn’t, I lost it, triggered by the idea of Noah having the baby he’d denied me with another woman. And it led to this terrible accidental death. And honestly, thank God that Noah called the police from his run, because they came right away. If they hadn’t, I would have had to pull myself together and try to deal with her injury myself, while sorting out an ambulance and all the rest. It’s as though Noah was there to lend a hand without even knowing he was doing so.

Grosvenor disagrees. ‘It should have been you who made the call. That would have helped our case immeasurably. It would have looked like you were doing everything in your power to get help,’ she said.

‘But I didn’t have time to get help, I barely had enough time to register she’d fallen,’ I argued.

‘It is what it is, we can’t circle around if-onlys. We have to work with the facts.’

I huffed in annoyance, exhausted by arguing with her. We’ve argued a lot, which gives me hope that we have a fighting chance at trial because Grosvenor is good at arguing. We argued about why I didn’t make the call for an ambulance when Lilah hit her head. We argued when I had to admit I had pushed her. I’d omitted to share that originally, too afraid, aware of just how guilty it made me look.

‘You don’t think you could have cut me some slack and told me this at the beginning? Now we need to go through this again from the start.’ Grosvenor’s voice dripped icy irritation.

‘Sorry,’ I mumbled, shuffling my feet under the table.

‘You honestly didn’t think we would find out eventually?’

I shrivelled in my seat. ‘She must bruise like a peach, I really didn’t push hard. It wasn’t meant to hurt her – I wanted to keep her away from me!’

‘Self-defence?’ Grosvenor asked.

‘I didn’t say that,’ I muttered. ‘I was angry about the baby. I couldn’t bear to look at her and wanted to get out of her perfect house – I didn’t push hard.’

‘It doesn’t matter how hard you pushed her, Claire. The fact of the matter is you pushed a woman, causing her to crack her head on a mantelpiece and die. If not for that push, she would still be here. You think the prosecution are going to wave this murder charge away and say, “No big deal, it wasn’t a hard push?”’

I began to cry.

‘I hope those are tears of regret,’ was all Grosvenor said with a sigh. For a moment, I thought she meant regret about lying to her. It took a minute before I realised she meant regret for pushing Lilah.

We’ve even argued about Mother. I still don’t understand why she is involved in any way in this case, why this is something I should examine with Grosvenor. She calls it a mitigating factor, but I’ve told her I don’t need stupid pitiful excuses about my rough childhood because I didn’t mean to kill Lilah.

Grosvenor disagrees. She really does like to cover all bases.

‘Did your mother ever hit you?’ she asked me one day.

I frowned. ‘Sometimes.’

‘Often?’

A shrug. ‘I can’t remember.’

‘Can you try?’

‘I don’t understand what Mother has to do with this case,’ I argued once more.

‘Please, Claire. Can you just do what I’m asking?’

‘Where is my necklace?’

I was sixteen, and Mother stood at my bedroom door, leaning against the frame with her arms crossed. She’d asked the question casually, in a tone that suggested she couldn’t care less, but I could see a glint of that hateful darkness behind her eyes and my heart sank at the realisation that yet another argument was in store.

‘What necklace?’ I dared ask.

‘You know what necklace.’ Her lips pursed.

I sucked in my cheeks, unsure what to do next, and my fingers twitched in anticipation of an attack. If I asked again, she’d get angrier. If I stayed quiet, she’d start to prod me. I licked my cracked lips.

‘The necklace that David bought me,’ she continued when I couldn’t decide what to do.

My brain started flitting through her roster of men, trying to recall which one was David and if I even knew about any necklace he’d given her.

‘It was gold, and had little butterflies dangling from it,’ she went on.

I looked to the ground. I’d never seen a butterfly necklace.

‘Why are you still sitting there? Help me search for it,’ she ordered.

‘In my room?’ I asked.

‘Yes. I’ve looked everywhere else and can’t find it, so it must be in your room.’

‘It’s not,’ I assured her. That was the wrong thing to say.

‘You stole it, didn’t you?’ She was seething, taking a step into my room. Instinctively, I shrank back, as though with that step she’d crossed an invisible barrier and now that she was in my personal space, I was more vulnerable than before.

‘I didn’t, Mother,’ I said, knowing it would do no good.

‘You’re a filthy little liar, I know you took it! It was so beautiful you nicked it!’ she yelled. Another step towards me.

‘Mother, I really don’t know which necklace you’re talking about,’ I pleaded.

‘ Liar!’ she shrieked. ‘It would never look right on your chubby little rugby-player neck. You were jealous of how it looked on me so you took it, didn’t you?’

I raised a hand self-consciously to my neck and mentally added it to my list of physical features to be embarrassed about. Maybe I should get some scarves , I thought to myself.

‘I did not take your necklace,’ I tried again. ‘Why would I when you would see it on me if I wore it?’ I reasoned.

There was no point– Mother couldn’t be reasoned with. Not when she was like this.

‘Well, then, you took it to hide away from me, to upset me. You were jealous that a man could like me enough to give me something so lovely and special, when you’ve never even had a boyfriend, let alone a gift from one! So you took it, and you hid it, didn’t you?’ she ranted on, growing more hysterical. Then she began flinging my things everywhere, rooting rapidly through my own pathetic costume jewellery collection before flinging the stand across the room and rifling through my desk drawers, sending things flying as I begged her to stop.

I ran and grabbed her arm at one point, in a moment of madness, trying to prevent her from turning all my desk drawers out onto the floor. She hissed like cat, spun around, and smacked me on the side of my face, with her fist closed. It was the first time she’d punched rather than slapped me.

I barely even registered the pain before she spun back around again and continued her search for the necklace.

Once my room had been turned upside down, with no sign of her precious necklace, she stalked out, wagging a warning finger at me. ‘When I find that necklace, Claire, darling, you’re in for it. Do you hear me, you thieving little cow?’

‘Yes, Mother.’

A week or so later, she found it. I don’t know where, but it was around her neck one morning at breakfast and she looked at me, smirking over her mug of coffee, as though daring me to make a comment. My bruises were a dirty yellow by then. I said, ‘Good morning, Mother,’ and sat down, keeping my eyes averted from those golden butterflies and wishing the chain would tighten around her long, slim throat.

Grosvenor wanted an answer. I couldn’t avoid it. If I closed my eyes tightly, I could see myself at several different stages of my life. Age six, crying in my bedroom, scribbling in a teddy-bear journal ‘I hate Mummy’, my right cheek hot and pink. Fast forward and I’m fifteen, staring into the mirror to study my swollen upper lip, holding an ice cube to it. ‘I remember her hitting me several times,’ I said eventually, with a frown. ‘I remember the moments that followed more clearly than the violence itself.’

Grosvenor nodded, her face betraying no emotion. She’s good at hiding them. Good at remaining distant from me while peeling apart my soul and forcing me to relive traumas and horrors that go far beyond the death of Lilah.

‘This is going to be a rough ride, Claire,’ she warned me.

I waited for darling to follow, but it never came.