The Cry (6 page)

Mrs Wilson didn’t look happy in the witness box: her face bright red, forehead sweaty.

‘Did they seem happy to you?’ Amy Maddock asked.

‘Well . . . I don’t know.’

‘Anything unusual about them?’

‘No. I mean the baby was asleep and I didn’t want to wake him.’

‘Did you see the child?’

‘Yes. Well, he was wrapped in the blanket. His dad was holding him.’

‘What was
she
doing?’ The lawyer managed to load the
she
with so much negativity. A skill, that.

‘Nothing. Getting ready to get in the car.’

‘Did she seem like a loving partner to you?’

Matthew Marks: ‘Objection!’

Judge: ‘Sustained.’

‘Did she seem like a good mother to you?’

Matthew Marks: ‘Objection!’

Judge: ‘You can answer this question, Mrs Wilson.’

Why it was okay to ask this question and not the partner one, Joanna would never understand.

‘I remember she knew exactly how many days her baby had been in the world.’

‘Did she seem like a good mother?’

‘I have four children, do I seem like a good mother to you?’

Judge: ‘Answer the question please‚ Mrs Wilson.’

She straightened her back, face even redder now, forehead dripping. ‘I saw them for five minutes. He seemed hot and tired. She seemed hot. And tired. I have no idea what kind of mother she was.’

‘It’s not too late,’ Joanna said again as they drove out of town.

He didn’t answer her. Later he would say it was because she hadn’t asked him anything.

It took five minutes to get to the house, which was on the side of the swamp-like bay connecting Point Lonsdale with the historic seaside village of Queenscliff. A broken power line hissed and spluttered and arced at the side of the road. A single line of houses edged the bay. One of the houses belonged to Alistair’s best friend’s family. He’d been there on holidays as a student, and had emailed to ask about renting it. His best friend had replied the following day:

Joanna had booked the cottage on the beachfront instead.

Alistair got out of the car, knocked on the door to check no one was in, walked round the house to scour for signs of life and security cameras, then disappeared round the back.

Joanna sat, frozen, in her seat. Something had happened to her since they left the cottage. She had gone completely numb. She pinched her arm and couldn’t feel anything. She slapped her face and didn’t feel anything. She turned and looked in the back seat of the car – at the bundle of blue – and didn’t feel anything. She got out of the car, opened the back door, unbuckled the baby seat, removed the blanket-covered bundle from the plastic-covered car seat, held it, didn’t feel anything. When Alistair returned to the front garden and took the bundle from her, she felt nothing.

‘Sit down, put your head between your legs,’ he said. ‘You’re going to faint. The garden’s just like I remember. It’s pretty, Joanna. There’s a beautiful Lilly Pilly tree, you know, like the one you want to plant. Sit down, don’t move. Let me take care of it. You comfortable? Don’t come round the back, you hear me? Stay there.’

‘Let’s not do this. It’s not too late,’ she said, but her legs had muffled the words and Alistair was gone anyway.

A cry.

She lifted her head from between her legs. As far as she knew, she could have been in that position for hours. There it was again. She’d never heard anything so beautiful in all her life.

The sound was not a cry. It was a siren.

Joanna got out of the car and looked up at the smoky sky. A helicopter, in the distance. The siren was a fire engine in all probability. She was about to yell for Alistair when he ran towards her, jumped in the car and started the engine. ‘Get in! Quick!’

Alistair turned the radio on as they headed down the drive. ‘If you live in Lorne and you are seeing flames, do not attempt to leave your house. It is too late.’

He turned right out of the driveway, skidding onto the empty road towards Point Lonsdale. He’d washed his hands – there must have been a garden hose – but she could see dirt in his fingernails.

The radio droned . . . ‘If you live in Anglesea and you are seeing flames, do not leave your house . . .’

It was too late.

‘Only one more thing to do,’ Alistair said. He was looking after her. He always looked after her. She repeated his words in her head, over and over.
Only one more thing to do, only one more thing to do, only one more thing to do.

Silly Joanna. She almost believed it at the time.

The black sky was a different black. When it cracked and let loose, she realised this was because clouds had joined the smoke.

The cool change.

Alistair often romanticised about them. ‘Two to four days of crippling heat that make you want to move into the fridge on a permanent basis, and then the skies open and you dance in it!’ She loved it when he talked about home. His face moved so much more.

Huge drops of rain, like stones, began to fall on the windscreen. Sparse at first, then more and more. They could barely see the shop when they parked across the road from it.

They looked around – no people, no cars – then looked at each other.

Only one more thing to do.

‘Any questions?’ Alistair asked.

She shook her head.

‘You want to go over it again?’ he asked.

She shook her head.

‘You ready?’

She nodded.

‘Good girl. Stay calm and remember the plan.’ He kissed her on the forehead, got out of the car, and walked over the road and into the milk bar. She could see him taking baby wipes from the shelf as required by the script.

She counted her breaths all the way to 120, as required, then got out of the car and walked across the road and inside the small milk bar.

He hadn’t specified what she should buy, so she grabbed the first thing she spotted – a packet of Tampax – and put them on the counter.

The young shop assistant continued to thumb at his phone as he handed them the change, not looking up or replying when Alistair said thanks. He’d have to stop and take notice in a minute, Joanna thought, as Alistair held the door open for her to exit.

A vehicle drove past and splashed her legs.

But no, all clear, no one else in the street now.

They walked across the road together. Alistair opened the car door. Looked inside. Yelled something at Joanna. She didn’t respond. He yelled it again. That’s right, she was supposed to respond.

He yelled it a third time: ‘He’s gone!’

When she finally registered the words they were so welcome and wonderful that Joanna’s mind decided to play a trick on her. She wouldn’t have to remember what to remember and what to forget. She would believe it. It was a better truth. He was gone. Someone had taken him. She drank it down in a gulp.

‘He’s gone!’ Alistair yelled. ‘Gone!’

It entered her, filled her up, energised her. He was gone. Someone else had done a bad thing. Not her.

This
was the Incident.

She looked at the baby seat, which was empty: no Noah, no blue rug.

She screamed. Her baby didn’t exist any more. Someone had taken him. She yelled. ‘Where is he? Did you see anyone?’ Alistair didn’t hear because he was running to one end of the street, pretending to look for suspicious cars or people, yelling ‘Noah!’ then running across the road to do the same all over again.

Joanna raced back over to the milk bar, opened the door and said, ‘Someone’s stolen my baby!’ thus handing the incident over: Here, world, this is yours, not mine. Take it.

‘The court calls Joanna Lindsay to the stand.’

This was her moment. She stood and turned to look at the people gathered in the courtroom: the judge, the old lady from the plane, the woman who rented them the cottage in Point Lonsdale, the truck driver, the artist, the prissy female lawyer, the macho pretty-boy lawyer, the boy who worked at the milk bar, her best friend Kirsty, Alistair’s mother, the journalists, the misery-voyeurs, Alexandra. She straightened the red dress she had chosen to wear against all advice. It was too big for her. She was under eight stone – pre-Alistair she’d been a happy nine and three-quarters. It was the dress Joanna wore the first time she and Alistair made love.
Made love!
The first time they fucked. She should have guessed he was married at the time. Why else did they do it in the back seat of his bright look-at-me wank-fest of a soft-top? It was so small she had to go on top and do all the moving, with Alistair pinned there like some extra gear stick clunking from fourth to fifth, yes baby, baby, yes.

She’d been preparing for this for a long time. Mad people always say they’re not mad, so insisting on her sanity wouldn’t work. Instead Joanna would have to convince the judge by looking, sounding and smelling sane. Was the red dress a sane decision? Maybe not. Shit. But the grey trousers and cream blouse Kirsty brought in for her felt wrong, all wrong. She was not looking for sympathy.

She’d practised her sane face in front of the mirror. If she smiled she looked evil. When she cried she looked like she was faking it. If she thought about Noah she looked broken, about Alistair, crazy. The best face, to her surprise, was the one Alistair had taught her to do after Noah died. Blank – no fidgeting, no smiling. ‘Imagine someone will hurt me if you smile,’ he’d said.

Oh dear, she was going to smile.

She’d practised her voice for days: calm, clear, no weirdness in it. ‘My name is Joanna Lindsay,’ she’d said to her reflection again and again. Her voice was always shaky – the drugs probably. She didn’t even know what they were exactly, but there were a lot of them.

Before leaving for court, she sniffed under her arms. Did she smell sane?

Kirsty had arrived to prepare her for court mid-sniff. ‘Do I smell mad?’ Joanna had asked her friend, arm in air. Kirsty had taken a reluctant whiff. ‘No. You shouldn’t wear that dress. People will hate you.’

‘Good,’ Joanna had replied.

Joanna turned to the front of the court, and touched the small tear in the slit on the right of the dress from that first back-seat encounter. Yep, you could see it. And she was glad, because today she was going to break all the rules. She’d played her part long enough. Today was the second day of the court case, and she would make sure it would be the last. Today, everything would change.

‘Ms Lindsay, can you please make your way to the stand?’ The judge’s tone was kind because she believed she was dealing with a mad woman.

‘Of course,’ Joanna said. The artist began scratching away at her sketch pad again. Something new to draw. A murderous woman in a slutty dress. Joanna turned and felt a smile spread on her face. Oops, a big cheesy against-the-rules grin. She then looked at the judge and said: ‘I can do anything I set my mind to.’

I’m a mad bitch. I’m a mad alcoholic bitch. I’m a mad bad alcoholic bitch.

Let’s break it down. I’ll have to do that in court soon, break it down, so here goes. A solo role-play to pass the hours till they knock on the door and begin the process of trying to take my child, my life, away.

Are you mad, Mrs Robertson?

Alexandra
Donohue
is my name, and yes. Many times I have cried for more than two hours without stopping to wipe my nose. More than many times I’ve not been able to get out of bed. Once I wanted to take a holiday from my own head so much that I tweeted it: @alexa-d-donohue I want a holiday from my head!

And are you bad
,
Mrs Donohue?

My name is
Ms
Donohue, and definitely. I slapped my daughter twice when she was little. I don’t know when exactly but I know why and it’s because I’m bad and not because she was naughty. Also, I took Chloe away from her father for four years and I would have kept her away from him for ever if I could have, not all out of badness, but partly.

Let’s talk about alcohol.

I drink it. Mostly in the house alone. I usually wait till after 5 p.m. I never drink less than half but rarely more than three-quarters of a bottle. The idea of not having a glass of wine – as in, if you said ‘Alexandra, you are not allowed to have a glass of wine tonight’ – would make me quite anxious. And okay, yes, there’s the incident last month. Two glasses of red over lunch and the cops are random testing on Sydney Road and now it’s official that I’m a bad mother and a felon and a complete idiot.

And you’re a bitch?

Oh yes. Since I caught him with her especially, I’ve thought nothing but bitchy things. I’ve fantasised about hurting her, punching her in the face over and over till her lip splits and her nose bleeds and moves sideways. I’ve hoped that she won’t lose the baby weight, that her stretch marks are grotesque, her boobs empty sacks like most women’s are from feeding (but not mine!) and once, God forgive me, I prayed that their baby be born disabled, prayed that the child’s problems be proof of their sins and their penance. I’ve wanted her to go through what I went through but worse: believing him, being crushed by him.

Mostly, I’ve dreamed
him
dead.

Imagining is as far as it goes, but that doesn’t take away from the facts about my very serious flaws. Ask him, he’ll say the same. He’s good at facts.

Enough role-play. Chloe will wake at seven, she always does. It’s past midnight. I need to sleep. I allow myself to check my fake Facebook profile three times a day, which takes some discipline, let me tell you. I have one check left, so that’s what I’ll do before going to bed.

The screen opens on my real account and there’s a message from Phil, Alistair’s childhood pal, and best man at our wedding. Phil came to Scotland a couple of years before Alistair and I split. Alistair was working in London during most of his visit. I was in the middle of doing up the bedroom in our flat. Phil insisted on stripping the walls and painting it with me. ‘I’ve done Europe,’ he said, ‘but I’ve never done a feature wall.’

Alistair doesn’t realise this, but I got custody of Phil after the split. I rang him in floods of tears after I caught Alistair screwing that woman. ‘The arsehole,’ Phil said. ‘Self-obsessed dickhead. Leave him. Come home. I’ll look after you.’

I open Phil’s Facebook message.
Got a date for the hearing yet?
His profile pic makes me smile. He’s in a scruffy blue T-shirt. His curly dark blonde hair is a mess, and it’s impossible not to smile back at him.

Not yet. Nervous . . .
I reply.

I look at other recent posts – nothing interesting – and, bang, Phil’s back with a message already.
Dinner tomorrow?
I feel the butterfly in my tummy that I always feel with Phil, then I slap it away (as I always do) and type:
Got a PTA ladies night thing (help!). How about lunch?

Maybe one day I’ll say yes to dinner. Not yet, though. When I left Scotland, I promised myself I’d always,
always
, put Chloe first, and the last thing she’s needed is some other man in her life. Anyway, Phil doesn’t fancy me. We’ve been friends too long, we’re too comfortable. And I’m a complete disaster area.

Nothing else on my Facebook, so I log out and back in under the one I invented for stalking purposes: Greta Xavier, a teacher, lives in Dundee. Greta made friends with four of Joanna’s friends. None of them know my fictional or real self, but four years ago they all said yes to my friend request, and after that so did she, just after I left the country, and now I know her history and can track her movements. This in itself is evidence of madness, badness and bitchiness, and sometimes the posts I’ve read have sent me down past the three-quarters of a bottle mark to proper alcoholicness.

Joanna Lindsay changed her profile picture.

Joanna Lindsay changed her status to In a Relationship.

Alistair Robertson likes this.

I call it getting to know your enemy, keeping her close, waiting for Schadenfreude. She took my place and created a job vacancy. So I suppose she’s not an enemy, really, she’s me, only she doesn’t realise it yet. She will one day, poor soul, fucking slut.

From my research, it appears she was happy and normal before him. One of many things we have in common.

She’s an only child. If she has a father, she never talks about him. Her mother died six years ago last Easter and was loaded, by the sounds. Left her a five-bedroom house in Pollokshields, Glasgow, which she advertised to rent one week (seven days!) after I left Alistair.

Her best friend, Kirsty, is an events manager who lives in Highbury and looks good enough in a bikini to show her friends and her friends’ friends. They get together in London or Glasgow once a month and go on holiday somewhere warm every year together. She’s single. No kids. Her dad has bowel cancer and she’s very close to him. She has blonde hair which she curls for big nights out. Kirsty doesn’t use Facebook much and posts personal comments on Joanna’s wall.

Kirsty McNicol posted on Joanna Lindsay’s wall.

Babes! I’ve booked for next Sat. Get the bevy in!

Comment from Joanna Lindsay.

Yay! (You can send me private messages using the message button Kirst!)

When Joanna was seven she was very tomboyish and played football in an otherwise all-boys team.

She studied English Literature at Edinburgh University, did her teaching diploma in Manchester, taught English to fifth- and sixth-year students at Hutchesons’ Grammar in Glasgow, and commuted every day – from my flat in Edinburgh – till she took maternity leave. She goes running, enjoys gardening, likes bands I’ve never heard of, isn’t very funny on Facebook, gets an uncalled for number of ‘likes’ for her dull comments about books and gardening, in my honest opinion.

She’s twenty-nine, twelve years younger than me and Alistair.

I type in her name and wait for the page to appear, anger and fear swelling as it always does, me wondering why I do this to myself, why I don’t just let it go, but I can’t stop, I can’t, I don’t know who I’d be without the fear and the anger, I’d probably just
poof!
disappear, and there she is.

There
they
are. The profile picture, changed eight weeks ago. Man and Woman sit arm in arm on the red sofa I bought at Harvey Nichols in the living room I painted Pale Parisian Blue, smiling a smile which must be fake because the baby on her lap is crying and I know it’s not possible to smile when your baby is crying. I wonder why they didn’t wait and get one when his mouth wasn’t wide open screaming. I wonder what happened to the floral cushions I bought to match the sofa.

Then I see the post on the wall, just an hour ago.

My first thought is plane crash and I’m surprised that I don’t break out in a smile but go hot with panic instead. Maybe I don’t want him dead.

Or the fires, I think, opening Google search and typing in their names. Maybe they were caught in it, in the car. My heart bangs. I’m afraid for them. I’m sick for Chloe.

A brief one-liner is all over the news already:
Baby Noah Robertson, 9 weeks old, is reported to have disappeared from his parents’ car outside a milk bar in Point Lonsdale.
I can’t find any other details, so I search ‘Point Lonsdale’ and ‘Lonnie’ on Twitter, my breathing fast and shallow as I make sense of the conversations.

What kind of person would leave a baby alone in a car? Almost immediately a terrible thought strikes me. They’ll suspect me. I try to calm my breathing but all I’m doing is breathing even faster and making myself aware of it. They’ll say he was going to take my baby, so I took his. I look at the front door. The police will come here first, probably even before they knock on the doors of the local paedophiles. I check it’s locked. I look out the window for headlights, listen for sirens. None yet.

Chloe. I should make arrangements. Warn her.

I should not have a drink.

I pour myself a glass of red wine and gulp it down. I know it’ll cost a fortune, but I dial my lawyer’s number anyway. She takes a while to answer then does so groggily. I tell her what I’ve read, wait as she types and reads the same, then recount my movements that evening. Collected Chloe from school at 3.15 p.m. Took her swimming. Came home. Had takeaway Roti Channai, watched TV, kissed her goodnight. Yes, I was with her all night, from 3.30 onwards, except when I ducked out to get the Roti Channai. Yes, I often nip out. I’m a single mother. She’s fourteen. I ring Mum. She and Dad will be here in just over an hour.

I hope the police will take longer.

I open Chloe’s bedroom door. She’s clutching the small brown bear Alistair gave her for her sixth birthday. I sneak in at least once a night to watch my troubled near-woman sleeping like a little girl. It’s incongruous and delicious, that she’s hugging a teddy, just strings now, from eight years of being cried on and clung to. She’s mad at her father for making little or no effort to see her, but she blames Joanna, not him. She misses her father. Like most children in this situation, she dreams that one day Joanna will disappear, and that her family will be a family again. I’ve lost count of the number of times she’s asked me if I could at least try to get him back. ‘That’s not going to happen,’ I say each time, suppressing the urge to tell her what I really think of him. It’s hard, almost impossible sometimes, but she’ll be a happier person if she loves and admires her dad. What if he takes her now? If Mum and Dad don’t make it here from Diamond Creek before the police, they might just give her to him when they take me in. Even if he’s shocked and grief-stricken, he’s still the next of kin after me, so it’s a possibility. I can’t let that happen. I go back to the kitchen and pour another wine, drink it, then go and sit on the edge of Chloe’s bed.

I stroke her fringe. I’ve worked out ways not to see him in her. Her dark lashes come from her grandmother, not from him. I always liked his mum and I’ve made sure Chloe’s had contact since we came home. They meet in town, mostly – Chloe always comes back with Darrell Lea Coconut Ice and oodles of shopping bags.

She’s frowning in her sleep. Another dream about her dad, she’ll tell me when she wakes. ‘He was eating dinner with me, nothing unusual, just sitting there eating,’ she’ll say, or something like that.

I whisper, ‘Chloe.’

‘Hmm?’ She turns onto her other side, bear and all.

‘Chlo. Wake up beautiful girl. I have to tell you something.’