Chapter 42
FORTY-TWO
ANNA
I squirmed uncomfortably in the narrow economy-class train seat. The only available spot had been by the window at a table, the other three seats at which were occupied by a harassed-looking woman and her two pre-school children.
I had spent a sleepless night in a cheap hotel near the station, with no change of clothes or even a toothbrush. The news from Orla that Lulu had turned up safely had flooded me with relief, but done little to alleviate my anger – at my daughter, but most of all at myself.
‘Sorry,’ the mum mouthed at me across the table as her smaller child decided that now was the time to test the volume at which he was capable of screeching.
‘It gets easier,’ I said, as kindly as I could.
Except that, of course, was the biggest load of bollocks ever. I was returning home to deal with the fallout of my own child’s actions: my sixteen-year-old daughter, who I’d trusted, or at least prayed, had learned her lesson.
Clearly, I’d been wrong. Wrong on more levels than I could count.
Wrong to think it would be okay to leave the kids alone.
Wrong to believe Lulu when she said she would be having an early dinner with Laurel and would make sure she and Barney were safely in bed by ten.
Wrong to put my own desire to uncover Gray’s past above my duties as a mother.
I turned away from the little girl on my right, who was scooping yoghurt out of its pot with her fingers, and gazed out of the window.
I couldn’t be sure whether the train had passed over the border from Wales to England, but I guessed not – I could still see gently undulating fields, grey stone buildings and, of course, sheep.
I willed the landscape to pass more quickly outside the windows, willed the time to pass – because there was no way I could turn it back.
No way I could undo the decision I’d made to leave them alone, even knowing that Lulu’s behaviour was erratic, that her grief over the loss of her father was making her act in ways she wouldn’t normally.
‘Mummy, I need a wee.’ The piercing voice of the child next to me interrupted my thoughts.
Ten minutes before, it had been her brother who’d needed one, and the mum had had to fight her way through the crowds of people standing in the aisle to the toilet with both her kids, facing a barrage of scowls and tuts.
‘You can leave your little boy here,’ I offered with a smile. ‘I’ll make sure he doesn’t get up to any mischief.’
She looked at me. Her hair was escaping from its ponytail and there was yoghurt on her jumper. Her kids’ toys, books and snack wrappers were scattered all over the table, and I could see she was nearing the end of her tether.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That’s very kind, but I’ll keep them both with me.’
I felt a stab of guilt. That woman was a better mother than I was – keeping her children close to her, looking after them, protecting them from harm. Of course Lulu shouldn’t have gone off on her own – but I should have been there, been with them, being their mother.
By the time I eventually made it back to Damask Square it was mid morning and my guilt hadn’t subsided.
It gnawed at me, taking turns with surges of panic at what might have happened to Lulu in my absence.
I let myself into the house, calling out that I was home, but there was no answer from the kids; only Augustus came padding up the stairs to meet me.
‘Barney? Lulu?’ I called out anxiously.
‘I’m in the kitchen.’ Barney’s voice drifted up, along with the smell of burned toast.
When I went downstairs, I found him there, surrounded by an empty can of tuna, an open packet of bread and smears of mayonnaise. He gave me a brief recap of the previous night’s events, saying that he didn’t know where Lulu had been then, but she was in her bedroom now.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll talk to her. Barney – I’m sorry.’
I pulled him into my arms and held him tight. His head came almost up to my chin – my big boy, but still a child. A child I should have protected, and hadn’t.
He looked at me in surprise. ‘That’s okay.’
‘I love you, you know.’
‘Love you, Mum,’ he said around a mouthful of tuna melt.
Lulu’s bedroom door was closed. I tapped and then, when there was no reply, opened it. She was lying face down on her bed and she was crying.
All my anger evaporating, I hurried over and sat down next to her.
‘Hi, darling.’
The only response was a fresh outpouring of sobs.
‘What happened last night?’ I asked. ‘You can tell me.’
She cried a bit more and I waited, stroking her hair, feeling sorrow and guilt twisting my insides like a vice. At last she turned over and I took a tissue from next to the bed and wiped her eyes.
‘I went to see Callum,’ she said, almost wearily.
Cold fear gripped me. ‘Right. Who’s Callum?’
‘He’s a boy – a guy. I met him when I was in the park roller-skating with Aisha.’
‘Does he go to your school?’
She shook her head. ‘He’s got a job.’
A job? How old is this Callum? But I didn’t ask that. ‘Go on.’
‘I was with him that other – last time. When you grounded me I couldn’t see him but we texted and… stuff. And we were texting yesterday evening.’
I was appalled. I could guess what form that texting had taken. How dare he do that to my daughter? And what had Lulu been thinking? I’d warned her about things like that – about sending photos from her phone. But I’d left her alone – this was on me.
‘He asked me to go meet him,’ she went on. ‘He was, like, begging. He said he missed me so much. So I went, instead of going to meet Laurel.’
‘And what happened?’
She put her hands over her face and turned away from me. ‘I went to his place. And I – we had sex. Then he brought me home in his car.’
His place? God. My little girl, alone with a man old enough to have a job and a car. Anything could have happened. Anything did happen.
‘And now’ – she burst into a fresh storm of tears – ‘this morning, I went to message him and he’s blocked me on everything. He’s ghosted me, Mum.’