Never Go There Read online

  ‘He’ll find out eventually, these things have a way of coming out.’ Maggie shifted her weight, static building between the plastic chair and the back of her thin, cheap pyjamas. The collar stuck to the back of her neck, sweat prickling under her short, grey curls. Why was Emma so protective of James?

  Maggie had looked after him often enough as a child to know how charming he could be. He had an inquisitive nature, a sharp wit, a way of focusing his attention unwaveringly upon you, making you feel like you were the only person in the world who mattered. But Maggie knew, too, some of his other traits. His constant need for attention, his jealousy. Had Emma seen this side of him?

  ‘I’m not going to tell anyone about James. I won’t.’ Emma kept Maggie’s eye as she spoke and Maggie realised that the girl thought she was in love.

  ‘I won’t tell your dad if you don’t want me to,’ she said carefully, ‘but I can’t promise you he’ll not discover the truth.’

  Emma nodded and sniffed, her chin quivering as she tried her best not to cry. ‘Does James know?’ she asked, looking down at her belly. ‘Is he coming back from London?’

  Maggie thought of Lois at home, of her determination to protect her son and keep well out of it all. Would she have told James by now? And, if she had, would James bother coming at all or discard Emma like he had so many toys in his boyhood, desperately wanted when they were new, fresh, untouched, and discarded as soon as they were blemished? The football, no good once mud soaked its threading. The books discarded because of broken spines. He had been poor, practically penniless, yet the sudden ease with which he rejected, found fault, had never ceased to amaze Maggie.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Maggie said cautiously, not wanting to upset Emma further.

  ‘He can’t come to the hospital. If he does and Daddy finds out, he’ll kill James, Maggie, I know he will.’ Emma’s hands clutched the sheet so tightly that the veins bulged, the needle on the back of her left leaking blood and staining the white surgical tape red.

  Maggie shook her head, wanted to say don’t be silly, of course he wouldn’t, but she stopped herself. Emma looked frightened, even more so than Lois had done earlier that day.

  ‘Emma,’ Maggie said urgently, and leaned forward so her whisper could be heard, so she could reach out and hold Emma if needed. ‘Has Arthur ever—’

  Hurt you? Or Elaine?

  But her words went unsaid, a sound from outside robbing her of her chance.

  Heavy footsteps, a nurse saying, ‘Your daughter’s through here.’

  Emma tensed up, held her breath.

  The door behind Maggie swung open.

  ‘Emma!’ Arthur’s voice was soft, full of relief. ‘My girl,’ he said, then again, ‘my girl.’

  Maggie looked at him: his brow was creased with concern, eyes moist with tears, his mouth set in a warm, reassuring smile that, to her, looked forced and unnatural. On the bed, Emma shrank into herself.

  Arthur turned to the nurse.

  ‘I can’t thank you enough,’ he said, sincerity dripping from each word. ‘For all you’ve done, for saving her. My God …’ He stopped, ran his fingers through his hair, thick and flecked with grey.

  ‘It was a close call, but she pulled through. The important thing now is to see that she rests.’ The young nurse smiled. She was plump and blond-haired, dimples gracing her cheeks and a blush spreading up from her neck.

  Arthur touched her shoulder. ‘Thank you,’ he said again, and the nurse’s blush deepened. ‘And please thank your colleagues on my behalf, for saving my little girl.’

  Maggie watched him in awe, his face a picture of paternal concern. She had forgotten how charming he could be.

  It was as the nurse turned to leave that Maggie noticed Elaine, standing in the doorway behind Arthur, silent and unmoving.

  The nurse walked out and Arthur watched her go. Then he closed the door and turned round, motioning Elaine towards the bed.

  Elaine obeyed and sat down beside Emma, her gait careful and controlled. But when her eyes met Maggie’s, she could see the fear in them.

  Emma remained tense, her gaze fixed on her father.

  Maggie braced herself, looked across the bed at Elaine, who was gripping Emma’s other hand. She noticed, on Elaine’s exposed wrist, a deep purple bruise in the shape of a thumbprint.

  Arthur opened his mouth to speak, wiped his hand across his lips when he noticed Maggie.

  ‘You can go,’ he said to her, coolly. ‘Thank you for bringing her in.’ The charm he had used for the nurse, the sincerity, had long gone. He had nothing for Maggie but ice.

  Emma found Maggie’s hand and held it.

  Maggie didn’t move from her seat.

  ‘You’re welcome.’ Maggie looked at Arthur and kept her voice steady. ‘But I’ll stay, if it’s all the same to you. She’s my goddaughter, after all. I want to make sure she’s OK.’

  Arthur glowered and turned away, looked instead at Emma.

  ‘The father,’ he said. ‘Who was it?’

  No one answered.

  Arthur rubbed his hand over his face. Said again, more fiercely, ‘Who was it?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Daddy,’ Emma said, her voice so childlike, the words a desperate plea.

  ‘Who fucked my fourteen-year-old daughter?’ His fists clenched and unclenched as he spoke. ‘Tell me his name.’

  ‘Arthur, don’t.’ Elaine squared her shoulders but her hand, holding on tightly to Emma’s, was shaking. ‘Please don’t speak to our daughter like that.’

  The sweat on the back of Maggie’s neck turned cold, her pyjamas sticking to her skin. She tried to swallow but her mouth was too dry, the ache in her head returning with a vengeance. She could only imagine how Emma must be feeling.

  Arthur exhaled, a long, menacing breath, so loud and deliberate that Maggie could hear every clot of mucus rattle in his airway. ‘Don’t you dare—’

  ‘We can talk about the details when Emma’s better.’ Elaine kept her gaze downcast, as though not wanting to push things too far. Maggie saw from the way her chest had stopped moving that Emma was holding her breath.

  There were footsteps outside as someone walked past the room, reminding them they were not alone.

  Arthur relaxed his hands from their fists.

  Maggie inwardly sighed in relief, though the feeling was very shortlived.

  ‘What was she doing at the pub, anyway?’ Arthur turned his attention to Maggie, scanning her from head to toe, judging her unbrushed hair, unwashed skin, her pyjamas.

  Maggie tried to swallow again. ‘She wasn’t,’ she stumbled. ‘She was at Lois’s, next door. Lois called me over and I drove her here.’ Too late she remembered the fearful look on Lois’s face, her desire to keep her name out of it, and Maggie wished fervently she hadn’t said anything.

  ‘At Lois Lunglow’s?’ He looked back at his daughter, pale on the bed, scanned over her with the same look of disgust he’d used on Maggie. ‘What the hell were you doing with her, Emma?’

  Emma stared at her hands.

  ‘Why were you with that woman?’ Arthur’s seething anger was palpable, replacing the room’s summer warmth with a dread-filled chill. Then he paused, and Maggie could practically see the paternity puzzle falling to place in his mind as he realised that James also lived in that house. But he said nothing.

  Elaine looked from Emma to Arthur, and Maggie saw the indecision in her eyes, the desire to placate him oozing from her. But she kept silent, perhaps too frightened of saying the wrong thing, making it worse than it already was. Maggie looked again at the bruise on her wrist.

  When Emma still didn’t answer, Arthur turned away from them all. ‘I’m going to talk to the doctor,’ he snarled, and walked out.

  The warmth returned to the room as soon as Emma’s father left it.

  ‘Oh, Emma.’ Elaine wrapped her arms around her stepdaughter, bent her head to Emma’s head and kissed her crown, breathed her in.

  Emma unfroze, the fear melting into tear
s. Her face crumpled, eyes squeezed shut, sobs wracking her shoulders as Elaine kissed her.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ the girl said, sorrow, loss, shame leaching out of her with those words.

  Elaine hushed her. ‘Just rest,’ she said, stroking Emma’s hair away from her face. ‘Concentrate on getting better.’

  Maggie looked away.

  Thought of Lee, curled in a ball on his own hospital bed, Maggie trying to fight her way in but the orderlies stopping her. She remembered wanting to stroke Lee’s sweet, bruised face the way that Elaine was stroking Emma’s, had wanted to put her arms round her boy’s broken body and sob her regrets into his ear. She had been led away, taken to a room and strapped up to a drip until the alcohol had been flushed from her system, had been told she wouldn’t see her son until she was sober.

  But she never saw him again.

  Maggie felt the sting of tears behind her eyelids and sniffed back hard.

  As Elaine murmured inaudibly, soothingly to Emma the girl clung to her stepmother like an infant, her fingers clutching the fabric of Elaine’s cardigan, her face buried in her chest.

  Maggie stood up, sensing the two needed to be alone. ‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ she said, but neither Emma or Elaine looked up.

  She opened the door and walked through, her slippered feet sliding beneath her, reminding her of how inappropriate she looked in her pinstripe pyjamas; more like a patient than a visitor.

  ‘Is that her mum in with her now?’ asked a dark-haired nurse, the same woman who had wheeled Emma into the recovery room just an hour before. ‘Typical teenager; they hold it together until they see their mum and then they all fall apart, bless ’em.’

  Maggie smiled politely, moved on up the corridor.

  ‘Are you all right?’ said the nurse, her warm hand resting on Maggie’s arm, her large brown eyes searching Maggie’s face. ‘You look pale, come and sit down.’

  Maggie nodded, said ‘I’m fine, really.’ But realised that something felt wrong.

  What was it? An uncertainty, dread, in the pit of her stomach.

  She looked either way along the long corridor, searching for Arthur.

  ‘Excuse me?’ She called the nurse back, suddenly understanding why she felt so uneasy. ‘Emma’s father, do you know where he is?’

  The nurse smiled, and Maggie realised Arthur had most likely charmed her too.

  ‘He’s gone, said he had to go home, but that he’d be back in later. He’s a lovely chap, isn’t he? Emma’s clearly doted on; he wouldn’t leave till he had us all swear we’d watch over his little girl.’

  Maggie’s heartbeat was galloping. She knew that Arthur hadn’t gone back to the farm.

  She thought of the bruises on Elaine’s arm, of the fear on Emma’s face in the presence of her father.

  Arthur had gone to find the person responsible for Emma’s condition. And Maggie had inadvertently led him to guess who it was. He’d gone to find James.

  But James wasn’t there. It was Lois whom he’d find, home alone.

  Nuala

  Saturday, 18th November, 2017

  ‘You’re lying to me.’ Nuala turned the key in the ignition, not wanting to hear any more, her skin crawling from the tales Maggie was telling her, knowing that it couldn’t be true, that James would never have touched a girl so young. ‘And besides, you only have her word for it that it was his baby at all. Maybe he left because she pointed the finger, wrongly accused him to protect someone else. That’s why he never told me, because he was scared, because he couldn’t bear to relive the accusations and wanted to protect me from them, too.’

  The evening had drawn in whilst Maggie was talking, the air cold and close round the car, heavy with the smell of damp leaves. The rain had stopped but the wind remained, ripping through the long grass, beating at the car.

  ‘You haven’t let me finish, I haven’t told you the last of it yet. Maybe if you let me tell you, you’ll understand.’

  ‘They’re lies.’ Nuala’s fingers were slippery from chewing, the ends gnawed to a deep, shiny pink. The saliva, the blood, made it difficult to grip the key and she had to try three times before it turned and the car came to life. ‘He told me everything, nearly everything. He told me about his friends, schoolwork, his A Levels. He told me about summer holidays walking the hills, swimming in rivers, climbing rocks.’ And she remembered him sneering as she told him about hers, about the Caribbean cruises, the month-long sojourns to Greek islands, how it’s all right for some having a rich ma and pa, despite the fact that hers were both dead.

  ‘He never told me about Emma. He would have told me about her.’ How many times had he reassured her, promised her, that she was his only? That that was what made him love her so much, that she was his first, that he was hers, that they shared that special bond.

  ‘He never told you about Emma at all?’

  Nuala shook her head, her foot ready above the accelerator, eager to go, to leave this abandoned field, to leave Maggie’s lies, because they must be, must be, lies.

  Outside the moon found a gap in the clouds. In the moonlight, Maggie’s short curls shone like silver, Nuala’s skin brightened, lost the yellow tinge of malnutrition, the grass outside casting long, thin shadows on the car, lashing the bodywork like whips.

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s hard to hear, but it was all true. He did have a relationship with Emma,’ Maggie said. ‘And the baby was his.’

  Nuala’s cheeks burned, the hot embarrassment of her ignorance. She thought of James in the park, the first time she’d ever seen him. Sandy hair falling into his eyes, tears clinging to his lashes.

  ‘And I haven’t told you everything, there’s more …’ Maggie said, but her voice barely cut through, her words lost to the daydream.

  James, thin, dirty, tired. The most beautiful thing Nuala’d ever seen.

  ‘It wasn’t just Emma he left.’ Maggie’s voice grew urgent, Nuala’s refusal to hear her more obstinate.

  James, the look in his eyes so intense it had stopped Nuala in her tracks. The ends of his jeans were frayed, trainers worn through and thick with mud. No sleeping bag, no begging bowl, yet she knew he had nowhere to go.

  ‘He left his mother, too. He left Lois, even though he knew what happened to her, what Arthur did to her. And for all her spite, all her lies and all her vindictiveness both before and after the event, she didn’t deserve what happened. No one deserves to be treated like that …’ Maggie was trying to make Nuala look at her, was trying to tell her the rest of the story, but the words didn’t connect. Nuala refused to listen.

  She ignored Maggie, blocking out the lies, thinking of her husband, the man who looked after her even when she was such a disappointment, loved her even when she was an idiot, such an idiot, and did things wrong all the time.

  When they’d first met the look on James’ face had been like a mirror, his pain calling to her fresh, orphan’s grief.

  Nuala had answered his loneliness with her own desperate need to cling to someone, anyone, to not be alone.

  Maggie’s hands grabbed her shoulders, shook her. ‘Don’t you understand?’ She was shouting at her now, her breath tinged with gin, spit landing on Nuala’s sweater.

  Nuala pushed Maggie back, swatting her like a fly. ‘You don’t know the pain he was in! You don’t understand!’

  ‘You’re still protecting him after everything he did?’ And Maggie didn’t look angry any more, her face pale, save for the dark circles under her eyes. ‘Not just to Emma, but to Lois?’

  Nuala looked at Maggie, but away again when she saw the sad pity on her face. She wanted to see out of the window, wanted to see James hiding in the grass but the glass had steamed up and she couldn’t see out. She could only hear the wind, the grass lashing the car, the mournful towoo of an owl.

  ‘I’ve heard enough.’ She bit the side of her thumb, scraping the cuticle with her teeth. ‘I don’t want to hear any more.’

  It was lies, it must be lies.

  A distan
t bang, sharp and unfamiliar, rang out and Nuala jumped.

  ‘The noise,’ Maggie said. ‘It’s lampers, shooting rabbits. Wind like this is perfect for it, takes the hunters’ scent away.’ Another shot echoed. Nuala turned the heater to full, the sound masking the wind. The bottom of the windscreen was clear already. She could see a shape in the grass, could imagine his shins, knees, thighs curled up against the cold.

  Maggie turned the heater back down. ‘James turned everyone against each other. He twisted everything, and then ran away when he should have stayed and helped, abandoned the people he was supposed to love to save his own bloody skin!’ Her exhaustion showed in her voice, cracking and wavering as though relieved to have finally told the truth, relieved that Nuala now knew. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a paper bag, translucent with grease. She unwrapped the parcels, revealing pastry and an overwhelming smell of sausage meat. ‘Nuala,’ she said before taking her first bite, ‘why did you really come?’

  The mist clung to the windscreen, James only semi-formed outside. Nuala could see his hands, could make out the glint of his wedding ring. The letter burned hot in her back pocket, the envelope left in the room at the pub.

  ‘I came to tell Lois that he was dead,’ she said, and reached for the chain around her neck, feeling for the matching rings that hung from it, clutching them in her fist.

  ‘Why won’t you go back there?’ she had asked James in those heady early days when she still had the courage to say such things. ‘What are you afraid of?’ The violent look on his face had warned her not to ask.

  But Maggie’s lying, Nuala told herself, relaxing her vision so the world became an easy, safe blur. It’s all irrelevant, because she’s lying.

  ‘You could have told Lois over the phone,’ Maggie said, ‘could have written an email, found her online. Why come all this way, six months after the fact?’

  Nuala thought of the blood stain on the carpet at home, the buggy still unpacked in the hallway, the door that no one ever knocked at, the phone that never rang, the mobile that stayed silent, the Facebook page with a dwindling count of friends.