Chapter 39
THIRTY-NINE
Behind the house, beyond the patio, a small yard was mostly laid to lawn bordered by shallow flower beds. Ben was on the patio outside the back door, picking the largest stones out of the gravel that bordered the grey stone slabs and straightening them into a line. The morning was warm and fresh sunshine bathed him in an ethereal light. He was content.
At the other end of the garden, the atmosphere was decidedly less calm. With a hand wrapped around an oversized mug, Mollie’s face had darkened. ‘I’m not going back.’
The metal garden chair Erica was perched on – part of the bistro set she’d bought about five years ago – was cold and hard, but at least it meant that she and Mollie were both facing back towards the house rather than staring at each other in some kind of stand-off. ‘Tell me what’s worrying you.’
Mollie twisted towards her. ‘Half the kids at school might’ve seen that picture. They’ve all seen my naked body. How can I face them?’
It was undeniably awful. Erica could remember the inner turmoil of going to school with an unsuccessful new haircut when she was around Mollie’s age. For her classmates to have seen her vulnerable naked body was unthinkable. How was she going to help her daughter come back from this?
The back door opened and Andrew emerged with two cups in his hand. One of them was Benjamin’s bright-green beaker.
He was really making an effort to compromise. When they’d lived together, he’d argued that they should be forcing Benjamin to drink from different cups. ‘You’re pandering to him, Erica. I know he doesn’t like it, but we need to teach him that it’s okay to drink from a different cup, for goodness’ sake. How is he going to get on in the real world?’
That had always been his mantra. This idea that they had to force their little square peg into the round hole that the world expected him to fill. She’d seen things very differently. Tried to create a world – even if it was a safe little square – where he could be who he wanted to be. Was there a middle ground?
She tried again with Mollie. ‘Do you think you need a few more days at home until it dies down? Or even a week? Maybe we could ask if you could go in just for mornings to start with?’
Mollie slammed her mug down onto the small round table and it rocked on its spindly legs. ‘You don’t understand. I’m not going back to school not ever ever ever.’
She ran from the table in tears and back, Erica assumed, to her bedroom.
She closed her eyes for a moment. This was totally new territory. Mollie had always been the most gentle and amenable of children. In fact, she’d often joked that Mollie was her gift to make up for the extra help that Ben needed. Had all this anger and upset just been hidden beneath the surface for years? And what kind of mother was she that she hadn’t noticed?
She opened her eyes to find Andrew sitting beside her, holding out a cup of coffee. ‘That didn’t go too well, then?’
The warmth of the cup was a comfort. ‘Nope. I get it. It must be terrifying for her to have to face up to everybody. She made a mistake. It happened. But the trouble is that that mistake will be there forever.’
Andrew nodded. ‘I know. It was different when we were her age. If we did something stupid, there was no lasting evidence.’
There was no getting away from that. It didn’t matter that the school had given a stern warning to every student about the consequences – legal consequences – of having inappropriate images on their phones; now that the photograph was out there, there was no possible way of clawing it back. ‘It’s going to follow her around, isn’t it? She’s always going to be that girl. Even when she applies for a job or college or meets new people.’
Andrew’s mouth was a straight line of anger. ‘It makes me want to hunt down those…’
She held up a hand to stop him. ‘I know. I feel the same.’
They sat for a few more moments in the quiet. From the upstairs window – Mollie’s bedroom – the plaintive wail of her saxophone curled out into the open air. Melancholic yet beautiful, it reached its fingers into Erica’s heart. Her daughter was in pain. What could she do to soothe it?
The idea she’d mentioned to Celeste was still taking shape in her mind. ‘What if she took control of the narrative?’
He frowned. ‘What do you mean?’
‘At the moment, everything is outside of her control. This is being done to her. Those…blackmailers have taken something from her. But what if she is given the chance to have control again?’
‘You’re speaking in riddles. What do you mean? What do you think we should do?’
The strains of the saxophone were practically weeping. ‘I don’t think we should do anything. I think it’s something Mollie needs to do.’
‘Are you crazy? That is not going to happen.’
Mollie’s bedroom had changed a great deal in the last couple of years. Gone were the teddy bears and floral bedspread. In their place, discarded clothes fought for floor space with hairbrushes and make-up bags spilling their contents. Erica perched on the end of her bed. ‘Just let me explain what I’m thinking.’
Clutching a cushion to her stomach, Mollie shook her head. ‘I know what you’re thinking. You just told me. You want me to go on the local news and talk about the fact that my whole school has seen a naked picture of me. Is it not bad enough already? You want more people to know about it?’
Put like that, it did seem a little off. ‘It might be too much, I get that. It was more that I want you to have control of this situation. They’ve tried to frighten you and hurt you. I thought that, maybe, if you had the opportunity to stand up and tell them that you haven’t been beaten by it, you might feel a little better?’
Mollie’s face looked very similar to Andrew’s ten minutes ago when she’d suggested this to him. ‘Wouldn’t it make everyone just go and look for the photograph?’
Andrew’s colleagues at the sexploitation task force had assured him that the original site had been taken down and arrests had been made. Of course, that didn’t guarantee that someone connected with the blackmailing gang didn’t still have a copy of Mollie’s picture. And, of course, plenty of other people had taken screenshots of it. ‘Because of your age, they wouldn’t use your real name and your voice would be changed and face blurred out. Only the people that you tell will know that it’s you.’
‘Then what would be the point of that?’
It had made sense when she’d thought about it last night in bed. Or had she just been clutching at straws? Trying to think of anything to distract Mollie from how terrible she must feel. A desperate desire to make this better for her. ‘If you think it’s stupid. It’s fine. Let’s forget it. I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel worse.’
Mollie laughed. It almost sounded genuine. ‘I’m not sure I can feel any worse, Mum. I know you’re trying to help me.’
That precious face looked up at her. How long did she have before Mollie was out in the world, finding her own way, facing challenges that Erica hadn’t even thought of? It’d been difficult to be a thirteen-year-old girl when she was one herself – teetering on the line between girlhood and womanhood, wanting freedom yet scared to cut her ties – how much harder was it to parent one? Everything she said and did would sculpt the way Mollie would face the world.
Honesty was the only way. ‘I’m so sorry that I didn’t give you what you needed, Mol. I think I just saw you as having everything under control. You’ve always been such an independent little girl. Once, when you were about five or six, we were out shopping and you were determined that you didn’t want to hold my hand. At one point, you were getting too close to the road and I told you to take my hand because the cars weren’t going to stop for you and do you know what you did?’
Mollie did know, because she’d enjoyed this story plenty of times. A smile tickled the edges of her mouth. ‘I held up my hand to stop the cars?’
With a laugh, Erica nodded. ‘You held up your hand like a traffic cop and the car coming towards us literally stopped in the road and let you cross.’
Thank goodness it had been a one-way street. It had been very difficult to explain to Mollie afterwards that this wouldn’t happen every time.
Though she started to laugh at the story, Mollie’s face quickly crumpled. ‘I wish I could hold my hand up now and stop all of this. Stop myself from sending that stupid photograph.’
Pulling her close, Erica wanted to fold Mollie inside herself, carry her next to her heart as she had as a baby with a sling wrapped around her chest. She pressed her lips to the top of Mollie’s head, breathed in the familiar scent of her coconut shampoo. ‘I wish I could take this away from you, sweetheart. I really do.’
Once she’d released her, Mollie grabbed a tissue from the box on her dressing table and blew her nose. ‘You know, maybe the TV idea isn’t so terrible. I mean, how would it work?’
She’d already asked Celeste to run the idea past her friend, who’d said that this was a very topical subject right now. It’d made Erica shudder to think of all the other young people who’d been targeted in this way. For many of them – she knew from her late-night googling on the subject – it’d led to even greater tragedy. ‘I don’t really know how they’d approach it. I’m pretty sure that they’ll do whatever you’re most comfortable with.’
From the pile of make-up and sponges beside the tissue box, Mollie slid out a small green tin of Vaseline without its lid, wiped a finger across its surface and then on to her lips, her eyes scanning the posters on her wall. ‘Would I get to meet anyone famous?’
Erica stifled a smile. This was the first glimmer of her daughter coming back to herself. ‘I don’t know. It’s only regional TV so maybe not. Although you never know. A local celeb maybe?’
Mollie pulled herself up to sitting, her eyes on Erica now, an eyebrow raised. ‘And would I need a new outfit? Something expensive?’
This time Erica didn’t hide her smile. ‘Definitely. Really expensive.’
Mollie’s smile was tentative. And tempered by the tears that filled her eyes. ‘This is all so horrible, Mum. Is anyone going to ever forget it?’
‘Yes. They will. Because, you know what, all of your friends are going to make mistakes. With boys, with girls, with jobs, with nights out gone wrong. And you will make more mistakes, too. Hundreds of them. Thousands. That’s how we learn, Mollie. By getting it wrong. I’ve got a lot of things wrong. With you and your brother.’
Mollie’s face clouded over. ‘I’m sorry, Mum. All that stuff I said.’
‘No. Don’t be sorry. You were right. I messed up. I should’ve been there for you.’
‘But I know it’s difficult. He does need more looking after.’
‘He needs different looking after. But I’m working on it. I’m working on how to make sure we all get what we need.’
‘And you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You need to get what you need, too. Not just me and Ben. You should have some time for you, too.’
Her kindness made Erica’s eyes sting. How was her daughter wiser than her? She brought Mollie’s hand up to her mouth and kissed it. ‘And time for me, too.’
‘And you can get some new clothes for the TV show. Make Dad sit up and look.’
What was behind Mollie’s smile this time? Did she know about her and Andrew’s marriage problems? What else had she overheard eavesdropping on Andrew’s telephone conversation about the fire?
Their marriage was going to take a lot more fixing than a new dress and a pair of shoes. But she smiled nonetheless. ‘Great idea. A new set of clothes for each of us. I’ll call Celeste and see if she can set it up with the news show.’