The Bad Things (2 page)

Her hand froze on the light switch. She was tired, had been doing paperwork for much of the day, and all she wanted to do was sleep. Now Chris had brought up the one subject guaranteed to make her tense and therefore lie awake for ages.

She gritted her teeth and looked over at her husband, who was lying in the bed, head on the pillow, hands crossed over his chest, his breath even. Eyes closed. Eyes bloody well closed. He always did that, so preventing her from having a damn good argument with him. She noticed lines around his mouth that hadn’t been there before, and wanted to trace them with her fingers. Her irritation drained away. Chris loved her without any strings attached, and she loved him for that. He was calm, made her feel peaceful. She adored watching him work, how his hands, rough and calloused, fashioned the most beautiful objects out of wood. She loved him. But she had strings.

‘Chris,’ she said, propping herself up on her elbow, knowing it was going to have to be her making the first move, knowing that this time she had to give him some hope.

He opened one eye, reached out for her, pulled her down into his arms. ‘Honey, I know how you feel, but…’

No, he didn’t know how she felt, not really. He couldn’t know the way her mouth went dry and her heart beat hard and fast whenever she thought about becoming pregnant, giving birth, having to look after another person who would totally depend on her. The emotional attachment scared her; the knowledge that, at some point, the child would leave and tear her heart out. Or worse, something – anything – could happen to him or her that would not only tear her heart out but stamp on it and throw it away. She knew it could happen. She’d seen it before.

‘Can’t we just adopt?’ Even as she said the words, she knew she didn’t mean them, and she knew what his answer would be.

‘Surely we ought to find out first if there’s any reason why we can’t have our own?’ His voice was gentle, and she felt hot tears gather at the back of her throat.

‘Maybe it is all down to me. Maybe I’ll never be able to conceive. Maybe I’m too old.’ Or maybe she should just stop taking the pill.

‘No, you’re not. And if it doesn’t happen soon, there is so much we can do. I just think it’s a good idea to be checked.’

‘Aren’t we happy as we are?’ she asked, guilt heavy on her shoulders.

‘Yes.’

‘Aren’t I enough for you?’

‘Darling, it’s not about that.’

‘I know,’ she said into his neck. ‘I know.’

He had gone by the time she woke in the morning – he often went for an early morning run, summer or winter, when he needed to clear his head, to give himself some thinking time.

As soon as she could, Kate rang the doctor’s surgery.

Which was why she was now sitting on a plastic chair, flicking through a magazine without seeing any words, and wishing she was at the station, drinking filthy coffee out of a flimsy cup and enjoying the banter between colleagues.

The buzzer sounded and Kate saw her name on the electronic noticeboard. She got up, and the woman with the baby gave her an encouraging smile.

She was nervous because she knew she was going to have to say something to the doctor, but she hadn’t worked out what yet.

She knocked on the door and went in.

The young woman GP, the appropriately named Dr Bones, looked up from her screen and smiled. ‘Take a seat, Kate. What can I do for you today?’

Kate sat and blinked. What was she supposed to say?

‘Kate?’

She cleared her throat. ‘The thing is Doctor…’ She thought of Chris and his kind face, the hands that worked so hard for her, the fact that he didn’t ask anything of her, just this one thing. ‘My husband wants a baby.’ She stopped, feeling helpless.

‘And?’ Doctor Bones prompted her gently, her head cocked to one side.

‘And I’m not sure I can.’

The doctor nodded. ‘Okay. So you’re…what —?’ She looked at her computer screen, ‘Thirty-eight and on the pill. No reason why you shouldn’t get pregnant, you know. A lot of women are having children later these days—’

‘It’s not that,’ Kate said. ‘Sometimes I think that if you’re not meant to have children then you shouldn’t go down that route.’

Doctor Bones nodded. ‘That’s certainly a view.’ She was waiting, wrists resting on the edge of her desk, for Kate to give her more.

What else? ‘I think there is so much misery in this world that I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do.’

‘The right thing?’

Kate looked at the walls, avoiding the doctor’s eyes. Saw the brightly coloured children’s paintings stuck up with Blu Tack, the height charts, the posters about healthy eating, even a chart to test eyesight. She gazed around the surgery, at the box of children’s toys in the corner, a child’s chair, everything catering for children. She refused to let the tears reach further than the back of her eyes.

‘You know, getting pregnant just because I…we…want a baby. It seems a bit selfish, you know.’ She shrugged, aware of how useless she was sounding.

‘And what does your husband think?’

‘Chris? Oh, he’s desperate for them. I mean, he doesn’t put it like that, obviously, but I know that’s what he thinks.’

‘But you’re not sure?’

‘No.’ Her eyes began to fill with tears. For God’s sake. She blinked furiously.

‘Kate,’ the doctor started gently, ‘I’m not sure what I can do for you.’

‘I only came because Chris…’ She tailed off and stood up. ‘Sorry, I don’t know why I came really, I—’

‘Sit down, Kate.’

‘No. I’ve got to go back to work. Thank you for your time.’

Dr Bones looked at her computer screen. ‘You have a stressful job, Kate. Are you coping?’

‘Yes.’

‘Look, I’m going to give you some very mild antidepressants. You don’t have to take them, but they could help. And I’m going to put you on the waiting list for some counselling.’

Kate opened her mouth to object.

Doctor Bones held up her hand. ‘It’s just a waiting list. Have a think. It might be good to talk to someone other than your husband. An outsider. Okay? And I want to see you in a month.’

Kate could only nod.

Outside the doctor’s room she leaned against the wall and took deep breaths. The air was stifling. It had been a mistake to come here, but at least she’d done it and she would be able to tell Chris. And she would tell him that the doctor thought she was a bit down about things. It would buy her some time. Things would resolve themselves, wouldn’t they?

She hurried along the corridor and out into the waiting room. Luckily the woman and her baby weren’t there. She made her way to the swing doors at the back.

‘Ms Todd?’

Kate turned round. It was the pharmacist.

‘I’ll have your prescription ready in a minute, if you’d like to take a seat.’ The pharmacist smiled at her from through the hatch.

‘Right, thank you.’

Kate stared at the television still murmuring in the corner, sitting up when she saw the breaking news headline running across the bottom of the screen.

Jackie Wood wins High Court appeal.

She watched the pictures – Jackie Wood on the steps of the court, reporters waving microphones, cameras, people jostling one another, a self-satisfied man standing next to her, opening his mouth, talking, but Kate couldn’t hear what was said. She hardly needed to, the inference was clear. Jackie Wood, one of two people responsible for the deaths of two small children, had finally won her appeal.

‘Ms Todd? Your prescription is ready.’

Kate stood up automatically, walked over to the hatch, and took the paper bag handed to her by the pharmacist.

Then she went outside, got into her car, and rested her forehead on the steering wheel.

3

Sasha had always been the troublesome one. The needy one. The daughter their parents worried about. The one they spoke carefully to, treated with kid gloves. Alex had learned from a young age that Sasha had to be indulged. She was ten months younger than Alex, but when they were growing up Alex had often felt ten years older. ‘Look after your sister’ had been drummed in to her. The ‘poor me’ attitude Sasha cultivated had annoyed Alex all her life. Sasha was willowy, with fine blonde hair that curled attractively around her heart-shaped face. Whenever people saw the two of them together, they’d never believe they were sisters barely a year apart in age, because Alex was short with dark hair that was poker straight. She had also inherited her father’s sallow – if she was feeling kind towards herself she’d call it olive – complexion. Sasha was the beauty and Alex was not. Or Sasha had been the beauty. That was the thing. Nowadays, she was still thin, still had blonde hair and the heart-shaped face and the blue eyes, but her thinness was of the bag of bones variety, the blonde hair was unkempt, her glacial features sharp and her blue eyes empty. She also had to wear long sleeves to cover up the scars.

Sasha had never got over the loss of her twins. They were four years old when they went missing. One boy, one girl; the complete set, and both with her blonde hair and blue eyes. Harry was a typical boy: loved rough and tumble and was always grubby. Millie was much the same, but with that cute girlishness that made everyone want to hug her. She smiled all the time. They were adventurous children; curious, inquisitive, loving. It was Harry who turned up a few weeks later; Millie was never found.

Harry’s funeral was unbearable. The little white coffin balanced on the shoulder of Sasha’s husband, Jez, and all the mourners; each and every one of them thanking whatever God they worshipped it wasn’t happening to them. Alex had vowed to keep her own little boy safe. Unusually for that summer, the sky was grey and the drizzle didn’t stop. God’s tears, she heard someone say.

Alex wasn’t sure that either she or Sasha believed in God anymore.

Their parents were there; shocked and bewildered that something like this could be happening to them. The church looked beautiful; a medieval place of worship in the Suffolk countryside. St Mary Magdalene. Sasha and Jez had chosen to bury Harry in their parents’ parish because Sasha couldn’t bear to be in Sole Bay at the time. And she wanted somewhere quiet for him, somewhere the birds would sing and the sunlight would dapple through the trees and warm the earth beneath. So she chose the next door village, where their parents had moved to when she and Alex left home. Someone – the good ladies of the parish, Alex supposed – had decorated the church with roses and willow and honeysuckle that scented the air. Harry was buried in the little graveyard at the back and it was overwhelming to see the tiny mound of earth that was going to hide his coffin forever.

But at least they were able to bury Harry; not knowing Millie’s fate was unbearable.

And now Alex was on a mission to get to Sasha before she hurt herself again. Her sister had stayed in the house she had lived in with Jez and the twins. Couldn’t bear to leave it, she said. Alex thought it was unhealthy, but despite her attempts to get her sister to either move in with her or find somewhere that wasn’t jam-packed full of memories, Sasha refused. ‘What if Millie comes back?’ she said. ‘What if she came back and I wasn’t there?’ And Alex wanted to say to her that Millie was only four when she went missing so she wouldn’t even remember where to come back to, even if she was still alive. Naturally, she didn’t say any of that to her. No one could say anything like that to her. At least, though, Alex was in the town and could look out for her sister, and, on a good day, she could run there in eight minutes.

This was not a good day – lack of sleep and not much food – but adrenalin would add wings to her feet.

‘I have to go, Gus,’ she said, running to the door. ‘You finish your toast. There’s a new jar of peanut butter in the cupboard.’

‘But Mum – what’s up?’

‘I’ll tell you later.’ Alex felt breathless as she pulled on her coat and fumbled with the buttons. ‘I have to go and see Aunty Sasha. Okay?’

He shrugged. ‘Whatever.’

The radio carried on in the background.

The pavements were damp but thankfully not slippery. She ran, weaving through the people who blocked her way. Where was the family liaison officer? He’d said there wouldn’t be a decision this early. She’d have time to prepare Sasha for the possibility of Wood getting off. What had happened?

Two old women pulling shopping trolleys were chatting, taking up the whole pavement. Trolleys with loud red and green spots, the sort that tripped up the unwary pedestrian. She hated them. She had to leap into the road to get round them; a car hooting as it just missed her. Then a woman with one of those pushchairs that could be used to haul babies up mountain ranges suddenly stopped, almost making her fall. A crowd of school kids laughing, pushing each other, appeared in front of her. Inside her head she screamed at them, wanted to shove them out of the way. She barged through.

Not too far now.

She skittered around the corner into Sasha’s road.

She needed to stop, lean up against a wall and catch her breath, but didn’t dare.

She weaved passed two black wheelie bins, noticing that one of them was overflowing with rubbish – cartons, cereal packets, chicken bones – that littered the pavement. She crossed the road, passed the public toilets, to Sasha’s waist-high wrought iron gate. Alex wiggled the catch until it finally gave way, thinking she must get Jez to do something about that, then finally the five steps up the path to the front door.

She slipped her key into the lock, turned it, and pushed the door open all in one movement, almost falling into the hallway.

Sasha was in what passed for the sitting room; a room that had once been light and full of laughter, but with its faded blue and white striped wallpaper and cream carpet that had seen better days, was now oppressive. A two-bar electric fire in the fireplace pumped out a desultory amount of heat. There was a television in one corner, and a sofa pulled up in front of it. The curtains were half drawn and the place smelled fetid and unkempt: all a sure sign that Sasha was in one of her downward spirals. Some thirty pictures of the twins, in various stages of development, right up to the day they went missing, were arranged on every surface. One photograph had been taken in the clearing in the woods, the tartan blanket laid out, picnic basket ready to disgorge its lunch of dainty crustless ham sandwiches, slices of banana, apple, segments of tangerine. And the treat of lemonade to drink, with iced biscuits and little strawberry yoghurts to finish. A perfect day out. A few days later they were gone.