Cuckoo (aka Claire, Darling)

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-One

We’ve broken for recess and I’m sitting with Grosvenor in silence in the little consultation room that has come to feel more familiar to me than my own flat, and I’m afraid. Afraid of this trial continuing. Clearly, I have been living with a man who wasn’t who I believed him to be at all. And it scares me that I could have been so easily fooled.

Mother always liked meek men. Quiet, obliging men who gave her the praise and attention she wanted. Men who could lavish gifts on her, or else admiration. She liked to dominate a room, to jerk the strings of all those around her like a master puppeteer. There was only one time when she didn’t pick a meek man. He is one of the few I remember. His name was Jack, and she met him at a routine doctor’s appointment. In fact, he was her doctor. He was charming, handsome, wore his sandy hair parted to the side and swept over like a movie star. Of course, she flirted with him immediately. She had gone in for a prescription and waltzed out with a date.

After that he took her out for dinner a few times. I would hear his convertible pull up outside the house late at night and hurry over to the window to check what state she was in when she left his car, so I could work out what mood she would be in over the next couple of days. They would kiss, and he would walk her all the way to the front door, and often she would be wielding a bouquet of flowers. She’d giggle girlishly, and this was a version of my mother that I was so unused to seeing that I would feel wrong-footed, unsure how to engage with her. I wondered if he, as a medical man, was somehow healing her, making her a better, newer version of herself.

Things moved very quickly. Within a few weeks he was basically living with us. Mother was over the moon, and I heard her bragging to friends on the phone about him, what a catch he was, how he spoilt her… oh, and did she mention? He was a doctor . He was nice to me as well. Not that she cared. But he would always smile at me, make an effort to engage me in conversation, and when she would direct his attention back to her, he would give me a knowing, apologetic smile before turning her way. It was as though in those short few weeks he had learned how to manoeuvre her– something that had taken me years. He knew not to rile her, not to show too much interest in me, while nevertheless being polite and kind enough that she praised him as the Perfect Man.

After a few more weeks, I began to envision a new life for myself. Jack would bring Mother the happiness I never could. She would be this shiny nice new version of herself, and I would have a father figure. Someone distant enough to keep her happy, but close enough to make me feel like I had a family unit. Someone to screen my future boyfriends and drive me places if I needed a lift. Someone to slip me a sly ten-pound note with a wink, just to treat myself with because now we were connected. I think Mother was envisioning the same thing. A life where she could give me even less attention because he would cover that part of parenting; a life where she’d move into a bigger suburban home and drive his convertible around; a life where he would come home from a long day of touching ailing bodies and fuck her in their bed.

It was a slow transition. He began looking at her phone when she wasn’t in the room. I caught him doing it twice and both times he winked at me, as though it was our little secret. He would throw out clothes of hers that he didn’t like and tell her she must have lost them when she went searching. He would manoeuvre her to go out less, which at the time I thought was his way of setting a good example, making her into a mother and partner before other things. In fact, he just wanted to spend time alone with her, with nobody else involved.

Then one night I heard him screaming at her, telling her that he was sick of the way she looked, of how men looked at her. For me, it had come out of nowhere. He called her a slag, and then he hit her. I heard her body hit the floor with a soft thud, and then she was screaming at him, bellowing at the top of her lungs. ‘Get out! Get the fuck out of my house! I never want to see you again, you fucking psychopath!’ she yelled. I’d never heard her scream so loudly and ferociously at anybody who wasn’t me.

‘How fucking dare you put your fucking hands on me? I’ll have your medical licence if you ever set foot near me or my daughter again!’ she continued, full of rage but with a tremor in her voice.

‘Good fucking riddance!’ he roared back, slamming the front door with such force that all the lightbulbs rattled. I had remained rooted to the spot in my bedroom. Mother did not come in to see me, nor did I check on her.

Jack tried to apologise. I knew it from the bouquets of flowers that kept turning up at the house and the way that Mother would let her phone ring out after a glance to see who was calling. But we never saw Jack again, and we never mentioned him either. It was as though we had wiped the slate clean. And the following week, when a friend asked her what had happened to the handsome doctor she was dating, Mother replied, ‘He fooled me entirely. But I shall never be fooled like that again.’

‘Look, I know that was hard on you. I’m sorry,’ Grosvenor tells me, putting a hand on my shoulder, and I look up to detect genuine feeling in her eyes. ‘Men are awful,’ she adds quietly.

‘I never had an inkling of any other women before I found out about Lilah. Even when I learned about her, I honestly never considered that there would be more of them . Does that make me stupid?’ I ask, my eyes starting to tear up.

‘No, it makes you a trusting woman who was taken advantage of. I’m sorry,’ she says again. ‘I have something that might cheer you up.’ She pulls out a letter and places it in front of me. ‘Arrived at my office yesterday addressed to you.’

For a moment, I think it’s from Noah, and my heart skips.

I look at my name, carefully printed on the envelope, and my heart sinks. This is not Noah’s handwriting. His strange spidery script is far away from this careful rounded lettering. I close my eyes for a moment to compose myself, allow myself to grieve the loss of that fantasy. Of course it’s not from Noah. I doubt he’s even allowed to write to me, with Lilah’s trial still ongoing. I rip the envelope open at the top and pull out the letter, my eyes scanning it quickly. Dear Claire, It will never not be strange to be writing to you in this situation, but I’m glad I can give you some comfort and support. I can’t begin to imagine what you’re going through. I hope you’re okay, and that they are treating you well. I’m trying to be positive, and not to worry about you in there all alone, but it’s hard. I imagine when I next see you for the trial, it will hopefully bring me some peace. I think about you every day. The media went quiet for a while but it’s busier since the trial began. You’ve been in the news often. They haven’t used the best photo of you, I’ll be honest… In fact, the media have been horrible about your whole situation. I think when you get out you should really avoid newspapers and sites. Definitely don’t google yourself! But you will get out, Claire. I know that’s not you, the person the media are making you out to be, and I’m happy to testify in court to say so. I know it was an accident. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. I should have checked in more often, made sure you were okay. Maybe if I had gone to see Lilah with you, this could have ended differently. But I check in with your lawyer’s junior often and she has kept me semi up-to-date and assures me that you are not guilty of murder– though I didn’t need a lawyer to tell me that! I suppose what I’m trying to say, Claire, however incoherently, is that I believe in you. I believe what you have said, I trust you, and I am here for you. I’ll be following the trial every day, and remember – whatever you need, whether it’s someone to listen while you cry and rage, or just to forget all of this and talk about the latest work gossip (Fiona from marketing snogged Brian from tech!!!), I am here for you, and I’m not going anywhere. I’m so sorry you are going through all of this. All my love, your friend, Sukhi x P.S. If you want anything, magazines etc., let me know and I’ll get it sent if you can tell me how. Or maybe call me? Or write to me, whatever you want. Or don’t. Whatever’s good for you.

My eyes have welled up and I hastily shove the letter back into its envelope so that I don’t cry all over it and smudge the writing. I sit in silence for a while, overcome with emotions that I struggle to identify, reminded of the stakes for Sukhi as she sat up there and defended me in a room ready to hate me and anybody on my side. Gratitude for all of her lovely thoughtful letters, and the reminder that there’s something waiting for me on the outside. Awe that someone I’ve known for a relatively short time is so trusting of me. Love that I didn’t know I had, for Sukhi and her kindness. These are all positive emotions, so I don’t know why I feel so mournful, so undeserving. I feel like this kindness is too much. The fact that someone would even sit down and take time out of their day to hand-write me all these letters, knowing I haven’t replied to most of them… it feels baffling. It feels as though it’s something that happens to other people. To the Lilahs of this world, not the Claires. The Claires don’t deserve kindness or love. But then again, I suppose the Lilahs of this world don’t deserve death.