Chapter 4
It’s Sunday, and judging by the light – or lack of it – it must be around seven thirty.
My eyes are gritty from not enough sleep.
My head is heavy, swathed in a throbbing, dull pain from staying up until four thirty to write lines.
Max has gone out – he was kind enough to wake me and let me know that he had reviewed my lines, was satisfied with the quality and was going for a run.
Some days, I don’t think I can do this anymore.
Some days, all I want to do is scream and throw things, and damn the consequences.
But then I remind myself. It’s almost over. I am days away from putting my plan in motion.
The plan goes like this: Now that Holly is sixteen, she could technically move out of home. She and I could move to a house far away from here. She’d go to a new school, I’d get a new job and we could lead normal lives.
Except Max wouldn’t let her. Why would Max want to stop his daughter from leaving, considering how much sick pleasure he gets from making her life a misery? Because with Max it’s all about control. She can only move out when he decides – not before.
I’ve looked into it, and I believe the only weapon Max could potentially have is to come after me. He could claim that she’s unsafe with me, that I have serious mental health issues and apply to the court to get her back, at least until she’s eighteen. Would he do that? Probably.
Just to hurt her – and me.
Alternatively, I could go to Social Services now and explain the situation. Holly can’t live here with her father because he’s a monster, he’s cruel, he tortures her emotionally and we live in constant fear. I could ask for help, apply for emergency accommodation.
Except that’s exactly what I told my sister she should do when she needed to get away from her abusive boyfriend, and nobody did a thing.
Also, Max is good at charming people. He’d worm his way out of it. Social Services would absolutely think I’m the one who needs my head examined, and Holly, too, probably.
So I need to get on the front foot. I need to get a lawyer so Holly and I can explain the situation. Somebody needs to know: Max hates his daughter so much that some days I fear for her life.
My sister died at the hands of a madman. I’m not letting that happen again.
‘But why would a father hate his daughter that much?’ they’d ask.
Apart from being a psychopath? Simple. He loved his first wife, Holly’s mother, Saskia. Worshipped her. And he hates his own daughter because he thinks it’s her fault Saskia died.
This is the story, as Max told it to me.
There was a car accident. Max was driving, Holly was sitting in the back and Saskia was in the front.
They were on their way back to London from their holiday house in Norfolk.
It was late and dark, and they were still on country roads.
Saskia was asleep. Holly reached between the front seats to grab a drink from the front cupholder, spilling some on Max, who lost control of the car and swerved into a tree.
Saskia wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, and she went straight through the windscreen. Holly was seven.
Now, far be it from me to speak ill of the dead, but shouldn’t Saskia have been wearing her seatbelt?
Shouldn’t Max have been more focused? But Max doesn’t see it that way.
He will tell anyone and everyone, even when Holly is in the room – especially when Holly is in the room – that it’s her fault Saskia died.
That’s it. She killed her mother. That’s how he puts it.
He’s never let her forget it. And that is why we’re leaving, and we’re not telling Max.
I’ve itemised and costed every step. I need two thousand pounds for a rental deposit plus the first month, three thousand for the lawyer’s retainer, another three thousand for living costs for two months and two thousand for emergencies.
That’s a total of ten thousand pounds – enough to carry us through until I get another job.
More would be better, but I don’t have time for more.
We’re moving to Hull. There are half a dozen jobs available right now for primary school teachers, and I have found a number of suitable houses.
I just need the money to get us there and get us settled.
That’s the part that’s taken the longest: coming up with the money. I don’t earn a lot, but Max goes away on business regularly and always leaves me cash – usually between one and two thousand pounds. I squirrel some of it away and hide it somewhere he won’t find it.
It started when I was the nanny. It made total sense then. ‘That should take care of your expenses,’ he’d say before walking out to a waiting taxi to the airport.
Back then, I would write down meticulously how much I spent on any given day and what I spent it on. I would carefully file receipts so I could take him through the expenses when he got back. But he never wanted to know.
‘I don’t need the details, Kate. Just let me know if you need more money next time.’
Hardly. He would leave me a thousand pounds for the week, and God knows Holly didn’t eat that much.
But that’s one thing – the only thing – I’ll say about Max, he doesn’t care about money, probably because he has lots of it.
Or maybe because he likes to show it off.
At any rate, a thousand pounds here and there is a drop in the ocean to him.
I’d assumed that once we were married, he would stop giving me cash.
We have a joint account for everyday expenses, and my meagre salary goes straight into it.
So I was surprised when, the first time he went away on a work trip, only a month after our wedding, he pulled out a bundle of notes from his wallet.
‘Will that be enough?’ he’d asked, handing me a thousand pounds.
‘Oh! Well, yes, certainly,’ I’d said, reaching for it.
I don’t know if it was the way I’d said it, but he frowned, then opened his wallet again and pulled out a few fifty-pound notes. ‘Here’s a bit more, just in case.’
I took it. I always take it.
As of today, I’ve saved a total of ￡9455. One week from now, Max is flying to Zurich. Once I have the money he is sure to give me, I will have reached my goal.
And while he’s away, I am taking Holly to Kingston upon Hull.
That’s the plan.
What could possibly go wrong?
‘Good morning, how was the party?’ I ask Holly when she walks into the kitchen. I’m standing at the stove making eggs for Max, who has gone upstairs to shower.
‘Great!’ She pours muesli into a bowl while launching into a story that I am too blurry-brained to follow, but it concerns loud music and dancing and girls named Olivia and Harper and Amy and boys named Josh and Alex and Marcus, and a birthday cake with sugar swans on top (really?). Oh, and Scarlett loved the voucher.
‘Dad said you went to bed early?’ she says after finally taking a breath.
There’s no point telling Holly that I was in the spare bedroom, doing my stupid lines. I heard her and Max come home around ten, and judging by the tone of their voices when they said goodnight, I knew everything was all right.
‘Yes, I was tired,’ I say. ‘I’m glad you had fun.’
‘I did. And Scarlett got a car for her birthday.’
I look up. ‘Did you just say that Scarlett got a car for her birthday?’
She nods. ‘They bought her a car.’
‘Really? A real one?’
‘Uh-huh. Scarlett’s mum says she deserves it, because she’s been a good girl.’
I sift through my brain for Scarlett’s mum’s name. Jessica. ‘She said that, huh?’
‘Yes.’
I could say more. The secondary school is next to the primary school, and I have had conversations with Holly’s teacher on occasion, and I’m pretty sure he said that Scarlett was annoyingly disruptive in class.
‘She got her licence,’ Holly says, scrolling through her phone.
‘Surely not. She’s only seventeen years old.’
‘Her provisional licence.’
‘Oh. Right.’
‘Wait. I’ll show you.’ She turns her screen to show me.
I squint at it. Scarlett in a red tutu, cowboy boots and a black top is standing in front of a silver Mini Cooper, arms wide, face beaming.
‘Jesus. That must have cost a bomb.’
‘I can’t wait to have a car,’ she mutters. ‘I can’t wait to drive.’
‘I’m sure you can’t,’ I reply. She’s going to take off out of here the moment she gets her driving licence. Although I doubt she’ll be given a Mini Cooper for her birthday.