Somewhere to Hide (The Estate, Book 1) (18 page)

Simon, my son.

The blue ink of the lettering had faded over time but the image was as sharp now as the day it was taken. It was her most treasured possession, a photograph of her baby provided by the hospital. Simon’s tiny hands were up by the side of his head. He had a bush of dark hair, her long fingers, and her stubby nose. Painfully, she recalled she hadn’t had time to notice anything else before he’d been whisked away.

Why hadn’t she told Rich about him? It had been her one stupid mistake and it haunted her now just as much as it had then.

Cathy’s tears wouldn’t stop this time. She cursed. Why had she made herself look at the photos? Hadn’t she cried enough over the past few days?

But really she knew why she had opened the tin. It was because, as she’d gone through Becky’s trauma with her, she’d been thinking that now was the right time to do something about making amends for her mistake.

She was going to look for Simon.

Liz awoke with a start. She sat up in bed, sweat glistening on her brow, half expecting to hear a baby cry. Chloe stirred by her side but didn’t wake.

It was one fifteen. She pulled back the duvet, crept out of the room and across the landing to the bathroom. There she sat on the edge of the bath and let her tears go.

Since Becky’s miscarriage, Liz had been having recurring nightmares of losing her own child. Her baby would have been eighteen weeks old now, as big as an orange. It would have had eyelashes, maybe even some hair. It may have been able to hear her singing in the shower. It would have been growing rapidly and she would have been growing with it. She rested her hand on her empty stomach. It had been too soon to know if it would have been a boy or a girl, but either would have done for her. She’d wanted another child so desperately.

She ran a hand through her hair, hating herself for even thinking it but secretly she was pleased that Becky had lost her baby. It would have been agony if she’d had to stay at Cathy’s and watch her grow, watch her give birth, see her walk around with a child that she didn’t want.

Liz ran the cold water tap and swilled her face. How selfish was she? She knew how much Becky would be hurting because she’d been there. She could still feel the longing to sense the baby move, to wish that it were still part of her. She’d tried talking about it to Becky but twice she’d been rebuffed. She couldn’t blame her for being angry. She had felt angry too, still did.

Flashbacks of a fist plunging into the soft flesh below her chest made her gasp and she began to cry again. Why had he done that to her? What had she done to deserve such treatment? Kevin should have loved her, protected her. He shouldn’t have killed their child.

She swilled her face again and then went back to her room. Chloe was still asleep, her arms above her head on the pillow. Liz got into bed, trying not to disturb her. She lay there, gazing at her child, feeling the pull to hold her, protect her from the outside world. At least there was one thing she could be grateful for. She had Chloe, she would always have Chloe. No one, not even Kevin, could take her away.

Early the next morning, Jess knocked softly on Becky’s bedroom door.

‘Do you fancy coming out today?’ she asked, standing on the threshold.

‘No.’

‘We could go shopping. Or do anything that you want to.’

‘No.’

‘How about coming downstairs for a cuppa before I start off on my exciting day of doing nothing?’ Jess tried again.

‘Please leave me alone,’ whispered Becky.

‘I’m only trying to help.’

‘I know, but you can’t. No one can.’

Jess took a step nearer. ‘But you’re young, Becks. You can have another baby when the time is right. I mean, let’s face it. Getting pregnant at sixteen isn’t exactly a blast. It sucks up your life forever. You need to live a little before tying yourself down with a kid. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to be…’

Becky squeezed her eyes tight and pulled the duvet over her head until Jess finally got the message.

Jess stormed downstairs to moan at Cathy. She found her in the kitchen with Liz. They were washing and drying dishes.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said to them.

‘About what?’ said Cathy.

‘About Becky. She won’t talk to me. She won’t come out of her room. I’ve even offered to take her shopping.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘But I can’t get through to her.’

‘She’s had a terrible loss. It’s not like breaking a leg or having a stomach ache.’

‘But she was too young to have a baby. I keep on telling her that.’

Liz reached a wet mug from the draining board. ‘It’s not a question of whether she wanted it,’ she couldn’t help saying. ‘It’s a question of losing something that was a part of you and now isn’t. You need to realise that.’

‘Says the voice of experience,’ mocked Jess. ‘Just because you’re older than me doesn’t mean that you know everything. You’ve never lost a baby, so how would you know?’

Cathy saw Liz get ready to defend her corner. ‘That’s enough, Jess,’ she interjected, not wanting another argument to start. She threw a tea towel at her. ‘You can help to dry the dishes while you’re sitting doing nothing.’

‘That’s so not fair. Why do I –’

The door opened and they all turned to see Becky standing in the doorway. Her skin was blotchy, her eyes barely visible due to the dark circles beneath them. She wore an over-sized, over-stretched T-shirt and slippers, a cropped cardigan pulled close as if trying to keep out the pain.

Cathy was the first to react. She ushered her into the room and sat her down at the table.

‘Would you like a warm drink?’ she asked. ‘Jess, put the kettle on and then be on your way.’

‘But –’ Jess complained.

‘I thought you were going shopping.’

‘Not on my own.’

Cathy raised her eyebrows.

‘Fine! I know when I’m not wanted.’

Ten minutes later, coffee and toast had been made. But Becky hadn’t touched either.

‘I…’ She looked up at Cathy through watery eyes. ‘I… can I talk to you?’

Liz saw this as her cue to make herself scarce. ‘I’d better get going. I need to –’

‘No, please! Will you stay?’

Liz sat down at the table with them, trying not to look too surprised. It took Becky a few moments to compose herself and then it all came tumbling out.

‘My baby was the only thing I had that was mine. I can’t rely on my dad. I’ll probably never see him again.’ She looked at them both. ‘I bet you’ve been wondering why he hasn’t come after me?’

Cathy nodded, unable to tell her that fathers hardly ever came after the girls that she looked after.

‘My mum died when I was seven and I went to live with my granny.’ Becky smiled. ‘I never knew my Pops but I loved my granny, she was the best. I saw my dad every Sunday. He always came around after he’d been to the pub and most of the time he’d fall asleep when he’d had his Sunday dinner. But I didn’t care. When she died, I had to go and live with him.’

‘How old were you then?’ asked Cathy.

‘Eleven. That’s when everything changed for me. It was like… like living with a stranger. I spent most of the time on my own. My dad would be either at work or at the pub. All of my friends from school lived too far away for me to visit so I used to be in my room a lot. Then Uncle James started coming around.’

Cathy froze as she feared what was coming next.

‘He used to make such a fuss of me at first. I remember him buying me lots of nice things – toys, comics, sweets. Then one night when they’d both come in from the pub, he came up to my room. I was asleep and he woke me up when he tried to get into bed with me. I thought he was drunk and I pushed him away but he kept trying to kiss me and run his hands all over my body. Then he grabbed my chin really hard and told me to shut up or else he’d tell my dad how naughty I was. That was the start of it all. It just got worse from there. I –’

‘You mean –’ Liz started, ‘you mean, he
touched
you.’

Becky laughed, a cackling sound that made Cathy inwardly cringe.

‘He did more than touch me,’ she said. ‘Whose baby do you think it was?’

‘I didn’t mean it to sound as if it wasn’t true.’ Liz sounded distraught.

Cathy gave Liz’s arm a reassuring squeeze as Becky continued.

‘The first time I thought I might be pregnant, I chucked myself down the stairs because I didn’t want to have his baby. I was only fourteen and he’d been coming in to my room once a month since that first time. I didn’t have anyone to talk to then either but I just knew.’

‘Didn’t your dad suspect anything?’ asked Cathy.

 Becky shook her head. ‘I hardly ever saw him, remember? So it was easy really. I stayed away from school while he was at work sometimes anyway, so I stayed off a little longer. But I hurt my arm when I fell and it was so painful that I went to the hospital. Before I had it X-rayed, I told one of the nurses about the things that were happening to my body. She asked me how old I was. I said I was sixteen. They did some tests and she told me that I wasn’t pregnant anymore. I never told anyone else.’

‘Oh, Becky.’ Tears streamed down Liz’s cheeks.

‘When I thought I was pregnant again, I knew I had to do something about it. So I got a knife.’

‘Dear God!’

‘I wasn’t going to hurt myself,’ Becky explained. ‘But I was going to make sure he never came near me again. On the night I left home, I stabbed my uncle in the leg and then I made a run for it. I thought I’d killed him.’ She shuddered. ‘That’s why I was so scared to come out of my room when I first got here. I thought the police would be looking for me. I swear he was dead when I left him. But he must have been so drunk that he passed out. I took off because I thought he’d stopped breathing. I couldn’t have killed him though, because it would have been on the news, wouldn’t it?’

‘Becky,’ said Cathy gently. ‘None of it was your fault.’

‘It was! Don’t you see? I could have stopped him doing it but I was a coward. I thought he’d tell my dad and then I’d have to go into a home because there was no one else to look after me. I didn’t want to go into care. Look what’s happened to Cheryl. She scares me: her mind is definitely twisted. So I stayed quiet. I did try once or twice to stop him but he made sure that I didn’t try again. He was too strong for me.’

Cathy grimaced. How could this still happen? There were supposed to be laws to protect the young innocents but every time she opened a newspaper, every time she switched on a radio or television, she’d hear about another victim. She wished she had enough money and a bigger house to help them all.

‘I meant what I said,’ she reiterated, knowing that she had to get the message across. ‘It wasn’t your fault. This was some pathetic, useless bastard of a man who used and abused a child for his own purposes.’

‘I – I should have stopped him.’

‘You were raped.’ Cathy reached across the table for her hand and gave it a squeeze. But Becky pulled it away.

‘No! I
let
him do those things. Don’t you see? I let him do it to me again and again and again. He said… he said it was all I was good for.’

‘Did you ever talk to your dad about it?’

Becky paused, her memory flicking back to the night she had left her family home. The night she saw her dad pretending to be asleep. She shook her head.

‘I didn’t think he’d believe me.’

She started to cry then, her sobs ringing around the kitchen, getting into the bones of both women. Cathy rushed around to her and it was in her arms that she finally gave in.

‘It was horrible. And every time I think of my baby, I think of what he did to me. That’s why I was punished. That’s why I lost my baby!’

‘It wasn’t your fault.’ Cathy held her close. ‘You had no control over things. You were taken advantage of, clear and simple.’

‘No… I…’ Becky’s words became inaudible.

‘It wasn’t your fault. And it will never happen to you again. Do you hear me? Never!’

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Eleven thirty that night, Cathy was curled up on the settee. The television was on in the background: she hadn’t watched it since switching it on an hour ago when Jess had come in. Rose had come to her rescue at eight thirty, arriving on the doorstep with a hug and a welcome bottle of wine. Becky had been in her room for most of the night. Cheryl wasn’t in yet though.

Even though she’d talked it through with Rose, Cathy was still disturbed by Becky’s revelations that morning. She’d thought she’d heard it all over the past three years but what Becky finally told her had been really shocking. How could her father condone what was happening? Her own uncle was abusing her while, it seemed to Cathy, reading between the lines, her father knew perfectly well what was going on. How could he let someone, his brother, violate his daughter? And from such an early age, and for so long. No wonder Becky had been hard to crack since she’d arrived. First her mum had died, then her granny. Since then, it didn’t seem like she’d had anyone to trust. Plus she also carried with her the fear that no one would believe her even if she did confide in someone.