Matilda Wren (28 page)

She looked in the mirror at her sleeping son on the back seat. He didn’t deserve any of this. She had let Sean into his world, when she should have been protecting him. But how could she have known. The Sean Fergus she knew, the one she had been exposed to, wasn’t the person that had done such dreadful things, ruined so many lives.

The Sean that had held her in his arms, that made her feel safe and complete. The Sean that made her laugh and showed her the sensitive side of him he kept reserved only for her. That Sean was her world; had always been her world. That Sean, Rachel wasn’t so sure she could turn her back on.

Stopping the car outside James’ rented house she shuddered silently. She never thought she would be back here again. She had to admit to herself, she wasn’t looking forward to this; to all the questions and accusations. She didn’t really have time, to give the answers she knew he would want.

Gently shaking Adam awake, it slowly begun to dawn on her that she had made some pretty wrong decisions in the past ten years. Hindsight is a funny thing. But then so is fate, if you believe in that, Rachel reasoned with herself. If fate and destiny exists then her decisions made no impact.

This day was always predetermined. It was always going to happen because someone, or something, somewhere had already decided. From Rachel’s knowledge of fate and destiny, which was derived from films and soppy romance novels, believers subscribe to the idea of an event in one’s life that is preordained; inevitable and unavoidable.

Fate lays emphasis on the illogicality and inhospitable nature of events, whereas destiny focuses on the concept of an irreversible direction of those events. Fate and Destiny conclude ultimately in Doom. This is especially relevant to the final ending, always unhappy or terrible, all directed by fate and destiny.

She blocked that thought instantly. Had Maisy possessed free will? Rachel’s mind was working overtime. Her letter sounded like she had liberally made the decision in what she did. It was almost as if she was at peace with herself; or was it all inescapable and necessary?

Necessary for what though? Why had she met Sean, fallen for him? Why had Maisy told her what she did?

Rachel just couldn’t think straight anymore. It was all just too confusing. She had to get Adam settled and safe and then try to unpick the huge, wrangled knot her life had found itself.

Standing at the door, she hesitated to knock. Adam looked up at his mother, still a little dazed from being woken.

She smiled but he sensed her uncertainness. Grinning back at her, he knocked on the door himself. Was that fate; her seven year old son knocking on his father’s door? Was that his destiny or did he freely choose to do so.

Adam was a child. He did not understand any of what was running through her head. He was quite used to his mother behaving irrationally, if not quite so erratically, before now. He had always had Greg though, to explain it all too him. He didn’t know what to make of being taken out of his classroom and going on a very long car ride with his mum.

She had told him they were going on a little trip, that he was going to stay with her old friend for a few days and then she would be back to get him. Adam, being quite a laid back child, thought it was all quite exciting; especially when he discovered that Rachel had packed his favourite backpack.

He thought he was going on an adventure.

James had doubt his legs weren’t about to give way underneath him when he opened the front door. They felt as if they had turned into two pieces of string, dangling under his upper body.

“Hello James. Can I come in?”

He stepped aside the door to let her pass; all done automatically and unconsciously. Rachel walked into the house. The front door led into a small living room. There was a young woman curled up on the sofa reading a magazine.

She smiled at Rachel and Rachel returned the smile.

“I am sorry just to turn up, it’s just…” Pausing, she took a good look at James. She forgot how good looking his chiselled features were. He looked well. It surprised her to think that. She hadn’t ever really thought about him like that but right now, standing in his house, she was quite amazed at how he affected her.

“I need your help. We need your help.” Rachel indicated to James that she had someone with her.

James wasn’t sure whether he had noticed the boy at first or not. Now he couldn’t help but notice him. Adam smiled at the two adults, whose house they were in. James instantly found himself smiling back. Jane however did not. She was a little miffed at their visitors. She didn’t like the way her husband was looking at this woman. There was something between them that was for sure.

“Why don’t I take the boy and get him settled in the back room. There is a TV in there, I am sure we can find something for him to watch. Then maybe you can tell my husband and me what this is all about.”

Rachel took a mental note of the word ‘husband’ but allowed Jane to take the boys hand and he obediently followed her into the other room. Jane returned to where James and the woman were, just in time to hear him ask the question that shattered her world.

“Is he mine?”

Rachel just nodded. She didn’t know what else to say.

* * *

“Well well well…”

The man walked through the front door and stood behind Rachel. She turned towards the cockney voice. She didn’t recognise him. She didn’t see that Jane did either.

“Miss Marsden, Mr Porter and Miss Fitzgerald. All in the same room. That’s a sight I never thought I’d see. All just in time for the main man himself. You just couldn’t keep away from each other could you? All four of you, reunited at the end.”

“Do I know you?” Rachel searched the man’s face for some recollection of meeting him before. Finally, after a few seconds, the penny dropped. He had been at Maisy’s funeral. The man seemed to know all of them.

The soft moaning noise that was coming from Jane interrupted Rachel’s confusion, before it then added to it.

The woman looked terrified, not scared or frightened but petrified. James looked just as baffled. He tried to put his arm around his wife to comfort her and was shocked by the ferocity with which she shook him off.

She had a wild, defensive look on her face and he instinctively backed away. The moaning continued. It wasn’t loud or penetrating, it was an almost hum. As if she found doing this therapeutic.

The man stepped forward a few paces. Tilting his head, he looked at Jane.

“You stayed here… this whole time?

The humming stopped. Jane nodded slowly. Her fixed stare took a more defiant tone.

“I thought you would have gone, as soon as you got your ‘ead together love.”

He spun round to James.

“You and her? Well… that’s new.”

James looked at Jane, but she wasn’t seeing him. She was staring back at the front door. He and Rachel both followed her gaze.

Rachel knew, before her brain had registered it, that it was Sean. James however, was surprisingly quick on this particular turn of events. He ran his fingers through his hair and let out a deep blowing sigh.

“What the fuck is going on?” He said. “First you turn up with a kid I never knew about…” He pointed at Rachel.

Then he turned to Jane.

“Then you and them?” Gesturing towards Sean.

Jane couldn’t stop the vomit that projected out of her mouth. She was sick all over the living room floor. They all stood and watched her, as she composed herself; each waiting and anticipating the next moment. She looked around the room at them.

Kenny started to slowly clap his hands. “Can always count on you to make an entrance, eh boy! What happened to you staying in the car?”

Sean didn’t say anything. He was staring, an intent look boring into Jane. Not even Rachel could interrupt.

James watched his wife and the men who had abruptly and unexpectedly walked into his home; perplexed by the commotion unfolding. They all knew each other.

Somehow Jane knew Sean and the older guy; James had managed to work that much out, but how, why and where from he had no idea. Rachel had come to him for help; help for what? He needed some answers. Why they were all here and why his wife was acting so strangely.

She was staring just as intently at Sean, as he was at her.

James’ mind began to go into overdrive. Had Sean Fergus got their first again? Was he Jane’s first love too? What the hell was Rachel doing here?

Just when he thought his head was going to explode, from all the mental questions he was forming, Jane dropped Sean’s stare and turned to him.

“What do you want to know?” It was a helpless defeated response; the sadness in her eyes that had always been there seemed to burn through even more reverently than before.

None of them predicted what happened next. Sean, pulling a gun out from the back of his jeans, instantaneously leapt across the room, shoving it in Jane’s face.

“One more word.” His piercing blue eyes dilated in the low lighting of the flat. The threat hung in the air. Nobody said anything. Jane pushed the gun away from her. Her strength shocked Sean.

For a few seconds the gun had startled her, but after the initial shock, an immense anger took over. She no longer felt scared. The exhilaration of finally being released from the fear she had carried with her, impelled her to fight back. This time she wasn’t going to let him control her.

“Shouldn’t we explain how we know each other?” She was taunting him. He knew that. “Everybody here wants to know who’s who, so let’s start it all off shall we?”

He hadn’t prepared for this. The very fact she was standing in front of him was enough to send his mind spiralling. He was struggling to keep it together. She wasn’t shutting up. It was like she was goading him to let out the real him. To exhibit the monster to everyone in the room; the monster that Jane knew first hand lived inside him.

“It was tough you know… at first… to believe it was me that you raped.” She paused for effect; the slight shift in her eyes told him that. Let the information sink in.

“I tried to put it to the back of my mind. If I didn’t think about it, it couldn’t have happened. I was in denial.”

Sean aimed the gun at her once more, warning her not to go on. She had said enough. Rachel took a step forward.

He had a gun. Where did he get a gun? This all felt too unreal. Adam was only feet away.

“Rach, No!” James leapt in, interrupting her thinking and making her stop still.

Jane put her hands up as if to block them both. “Rachel?

You’re Rachel?” She stared at the woman in front of her and then turned her attention back at Sean. “And it all starts to make sense.”

He knew he had to make her stop; the crack of her jaw when the back of his hand struck it resounded around the substantial living room. The clump knocked her off her feet and she dropped to the floor.

Sean had the gun in James’ face before he could even respond. “Do not fucking move.”

Jane spat out a mouthful of blood and felt the side of her face. It felt swollen already and her cheek was throbbing like mad. She pushed herself up from the floor and forced herself to stand up. She wasn’t finished and she was determined to make him and everyone else listen.

“I would wake up, not knowing what to expect. I couldn’t talk to anyone. I was scared to go out, in case I saw you in the street. I couldn’t trust anyone after what you did.

I mean I had trusted you Sean, hadn’t I?”

She felt her mouth fill with more blood and she spat it out again.

“But you betrayed that trust so badly. I didn’t have any faith in my judgement any more. I still feel dirty and ashamed. I still blame myself for what had happened. But it wasn’t my fault. I was eighteen.”

Sean turned towards the man that had come in just before he had. “What the fuck is she doing here Ken?” He was wavering; the gun trembling from the shakes in his hand.

Kenny had seen this Sean before; the Sean that gets scared and panic stricken. It wasn’t often he ever let this side of him emerge. The last time was, ironically, when he had to call Kenny because of Ginnie. Here he was again, in nearly the same state as before, because of the same person as before.

She hardly looked any different. Her eyes were still the dark emerald green they had always been. They still had the orange speckles that made them sparkle. Her hair was still long and the deepest red. She was getting to him. He hadn’t expected to see her again; ever. He never asked Kenny where he had taken her, that night he had called him in a blind fear.

He didn’t know what he thought had happened; he just assumed Kenny had disposed of her. When he walked into James house not ten minutes ago, he was prepared to convince Rachel to come back with him. He had spent the last four hours rehearsing his side of the whole story.

Of course he was going to lie his way out of it and blame it all on Maisy. He had convinced himself it was the truth, so he thought it was going to be easy to persuade Rachel.

Now, Ginnie had opened her mouth and there was no going back from there.

She hadn’t finished her tirade yet though. Jane had plenty more to say.

“Four days you kept me locked in that flat.” She then beckoned to Kenny. “Even after he bought me here, the flashbacks were still there.”

James and Rachel hadn’t moved the whole time Jane was talking. No one dared to stop her. Not even Sean now.

She had a lot more to unleash on the psychopath that stood before her.

“The flashbacks were so intense. Sometimes I would scream or shake so violently. Had I reacted that way then?

Had I Sean? I would beg you to stop, plead for you not to hurt me, crying out in agony as you hurt me more. I sobbed while you took no notice of my cries of “no, please no more”

whilst you violated me.”

Jane was releasing memories which she had pushed deep into her subconscious because of the pain and fear she knew she would experience, when she eventually let them bubble back to the surface again.

“You’re a twisted fuck. That is the only way I can describe the fantasy that you relived over and over, whilst you raped me again and again. You actually believed I was her.”