Chapter Later that day #2
‘Oh right.’
‘I don’t know where you’re getting all these other statistics from but they’re all wrong. It’s a lovely area with a good school. You’ll be able to finish your exams, go to uni. The one the Thompsons live near has got a great football programme for girls …’
‘God, you’ve really researched this place, haven’t you? Hang on … why did you mention exams? You’re not going to make it to the end of A levels?’
Mum bit her lip as though she wasn’t supposed to tell me that. She didn’t say anything more.
I tried to swallow the lump of pain in my throat before she looked at me. She caught me before I let the sob out. ‘Oh, Dolly, don’t, please.’
‘Why can’t I stay here? I’m going to inherit it all anyway, aren’t I?’
‘Of course, but you’ll be on your own. And you’ve got no money coming in so how will you pay the bills? It’s all tied up in the house. How will you look after yourself, Ivy? You’re sixteen.’
‘I’ll be seventeen in December. I clean and feed myself, don’t I? I get myself to school and back, I use the washer dryer. I know not to play with matches after last time. I care for Maddox. He’s a bit like having a baby.’
‘No, he’s not, Dolly.’
‘All my teachers say I’m the brightest in my year … if only I could concentrate a bit more. And not get so angry.’
‘Legally, I can’t let you stay here on your own.
I know you’re more than capable but it’s against the law.
We need to sell the house and once that goes through, Heather has arranged a stipend until you’re eighteen.
But you’re going to need support as well and the Thompson-Pierces will give you that. ’
‘I don’t want to move again.’
‘This isn’t up for debate.’
I scurried over to kneel beside her armchair, and she threw her arms around my head as I hugged against her.
‘Ivy, please …’ She pushed her face into my mop of curls and breathed in. ‘I don’t know what else to do, Dolly.’
‘Please don’t make me go to Australia. Isn’t there anywhere else?’
‘No, sweetheart.’
I wanted to snap back at her, say something like, Yeah, well, you made damn sure of that, didn’t you?
Alienating me from all your friends just cos a few of them sold stories.
Moving me out to this godforsaken wilderness so I couldn’t make any friends.
But one look at her sunken eyes and her half-eaten grapefruit was enough to shut me down.
The bowl and spoon clattered beneath me – Maddox had hopped over to sniff at it.
‘Look, Mum,’ I giggled, nodding towards him as he tucked in, begging for a moment of laughter from her, like we used to have; something to make the pain line disappear for a moment, but she already had her head resting against her hand on the armrest. And the pain line was blacker than ever.
‘I want someone to look after you. Your grandmother’s stopped drinking now – she’s found a good man in … Harry? Gary? – and she’s held down a job for the past year.’ She kissed my head. ‘I’m glad we made up.’
‘What will happen to Maddox?’ I ask, picking him up and nuzzling his warm head against my neck.
‘Maybe you could give him to Chloe?’
‘She’s allergic. Couldn’t he come with me?’
‘I shouldn’t think so.’ She twiddled my ringlets. Normally I didn’t allow anyone to touch my hair but dying people were the exception. And Chloe.
‘What about my mice, and the crows? Who will feed them?’
‘Oh for God’s sake, stop putting obstacles in the way of everything!’ she snipped, pinching at her temples.
I set Maddox down on the rug, taking the grapefruit bowl out to the kitchen, wiping down the surface even though it didn’t need wiping and slinging my Coke can in the trash. I went back in to find her dozing off in the chair just as our quiz was ending.
‘I’m going up to my room. Do you need anything?’
She briefly looked up, popping two more paracetamol and chugging them down with water. ‘Just get me a shotgun.’
I didn’t know what to say to that, so I went upstairs, and did what I usually did – lay on my bed, scrolling my phone, waiting for Chloe to message.
She was out for the evening with her family, for some church social thing.
She had a mum, a dad, a brother and a sister, and no matter how irrational it was, I was still jealous whenever she’d spend time with anyone but me.
She didn’t message me anyway. This wasn’t unusual – her parents didn’t like their kids taking their phones whenever they went out for ‘quality time’.
That expression always makes me vomit. Her family were always quality timing. We’re going to the beach for some quality time. We’re going to the cinema to spend some quality time together. Funny how some people can call sitting in the dark for two hours quality fucking time, but hey-ho.
Or maybe I was just jealous. Because I didn’t have a family to spend quality time with. Because soon, I wouldn’t have a single person in the whole wide world.
There was one person – Her, but I wasn’t allowed to think about Her.
I’d promised Mum a long time ago that I’d never google Her, that I wouldn’t ask about Her, that I wouldn’t watch the documentaries or read the books about Her.
It was a pact we made when I first asked about Her, aged ten.
A girl at school had mentioned it. Isn’t your mum that serial killer?
All Claudia had said was that my birth mother had hated me, that she’d killed my dad when he tried to kidnap me, and that she gave me to Claudia after my birth. That was it.
Then about a year ago, me and Chlo looked her up at school one afternoon while we were making out in the library. We hadn’t got far because what my mum said would happen happened: I found out just how she’d killed my dad. And what she’d done to him after.
I puked up eggs Benedict on the zigzag carpet.
She was – is – a serial killer after all.
She has done very bad things. She’s not supposed to be celebrated like she still is in the press and online.
But she was alive. She is alive, in some prison.
And her blood coursed through my veins. Even if she was locked up forever, she was the only family I had.
I typed her into Google. Then quickly turned it off before the searches came up.
I put my phone on my nightstand and grabbed the golden ivy frame from my desk.
I stared at the grainy picture of my birth dad, AJ.
His smile was my smile. His eyes were my eyes.
My hair, the curls. We even had the same nose.
He was sitting on the sand at sunset in his board shorts and laughing heartily.
I ached to hear that laugh; to see if he had my thumbs, my sense of humour, to ask him if he liked musical theatre like Mum did or what his favourite books were.
Where would I have got my love of football and reading and animals from?
I clutched my little ashes bottle, holding it against the hot part of my cheek.
‘Please haunt me,’ I whispered. ‘Please come back.’
I don’t know why I cried for a man I’d never met, but I did, quite often.
It was like the part of me that’s made from him was crying – but the part of me that’s made from her thought crying was stupid.
I didn’t realise Mum had come into the room until I felt the bed dip and a hand rest on my shoulder.
‘Dolly?’
I turned over on the bed and cuddled into her and we sobbed together.
‘Please don’t say that thing again about shotguns,’ I sniffed. ‘I don’t like it when you talk like that.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t say silly things.’
‘I won’t.’ She squeezed me so tightly I could barely breathe.
‘Have you heard anything about Cabaret yet?’
‘They’re announcing the parts this week.’
She went silent. ‘We’ll have to see about picking up your driving lessons again soon, won’t we? So you can have a bit more independence …’
‘I don’t need any more driving lessons – I’ve had hundreds – I just need to book my test. And not threaten to drive into any more pedestrians.’ I lost the will to hold back the tears anymore. I hated when she did this. I squeezed her as tightly as she squeezed me.
‘I know you’re scared, baby. I’m scared too. But I’m not going to be here for much longer. I need to know you’re taken care of. And the Thompson-Pierces will look after you.’ She stroked my curls from my face and kissed my forehead; her lips lingering like they never wanted to leave it.
‘I know,’ I sobbed.
‘I can’t believe I won’t get to see you driving,’ she sobbed back.
‘You said you’d fight it, “tooth and nail” you said.’
‘I have done. I can’t take this pain anymore. I don’t have the energy.’
‘Fight it for me.’
‘Some things are too strong. I want you to go to Australia, all right? Will you do that for me?’
‘No.’
‘Don’t make difficulties, Ivy, please. This is hard enough. They’ll come over for my … funeral, they’ll sort out my effects and the house sale, and then … that’s where you’ll go.’ Her face was a mask of pain.
I stared down at the picture of my dad between us. ‘Are they like him?’
‘No. AJ was a one-off. But they’ll be kind to you at least. And they can tell you all about your dad.
Then, when you’re eighteen, you can do as you please.
And when you’re twenty-one, you’ll have the rest of your inheritance so you can get yourself properly set up.
I’ve asked Heather to open a high-yield account—’
‘—I’d rather die too, Mum. I don’t want to be on my own.’
‘Now don’t you start saying silly things.’
I thought she would shout at me for saying that, but she didn’t. All the shout had gone out of her. She just cuddled me in, and I eventually told her I would go. The words tasted like sour grapefruit on my tongue – eating away at my flesh as I said them. But I said them for her.
‘Okay, I’ll go to Brisbane. I’ll be all right. Don’t worry about me.’
‘You promise?’
‘Yeah.’
It seemed to put her mind at rest because the pain line between her eyes disappeared and the tension left her arms as they held me. ‘Good girl. You’re a good girl, Dolly. My beautiful Dolly Bird.’
‘Can we watch a movie later? Miracle on 34th Street?’
I didn’t need to say it. She knew she wouldn’t be here on Christmas Eve to watch it with me like normal while we pigged out on homemade gingerbread cookies in our matching M&S pyjamas. ‘Go down and preheat the oven.’
Just for a moment, as we were watching the film in the lounge and Santa was doing his signing thing for the little deaf girl, I imagined it was Christmas again.
That our tree that we picked together was all decked out in the bay window, and Maddox was sniffing around the presents, and we were making plans for next year and talking about a holiday or getting a puppy.
All the presents wrapped up containing all the things I could ever wish for.
I never wanted for anything, she saw to that.
Now the only thing I wanted was the only one I couldn’t have.
We cuddled up on the sofa and by the time the little girl had everything she wanted for Christmas – a mum, a dad and a baby brother – Mum was snoring softly beside me. I woke up in the same spot the next morning.
But Mum didn’t.
I pressed my hand to her face – it was freezing. ‘Mummy?’ I pushed her body off me and let her slump down on the sofa.
I stood there, staring at her chest, waiting for the breath. It didn’t come.
‘Mum? Wake up.’
But the line had vanished from the centre of her forehead. She looked happy. Peaceful. Serene. No more pain.
My voice echoed through the too-big house.
‘Mummy. Please … please wake up. I don’t want to be on my own.’