But the thought of those wasted eleven years ignited a wild rage in her.
‘It was not your decision to make!’ she cried, banging her fist on the table. He jumped slightly, sobering for a split second, before sliding back.
‘That album...’ he stuttered. ‘That album... it broke my heart in two pieces.’
If it was too late, if Oliver, her son, had been too hurt by a second rebuff – which she wouldn’t blame him for – Mira would never be able to forgive Barry.
She clenched her jaw, pulling back her anger. Barry wasn’t strong enough for the weight of everything she was feeling, really feeling. She had lived for decades under a crust of pain, and now she was breaking through, to feel life’s sun warm her skin, and to feel the cruel burn of that heat. She wanted to drum the beat of her loss – every minute of every year of that loss – across the valley, over the hilltops, to rattle through window panes. Her chest had been prized open and her heart was a shiny, juddering mass of naked yearning and unsatisfied love. There was no way she could send her desires into the shadows again, no way she could pretend that they hadn’t existed.
‘I want to meet him,’ she stated tearfully.
‘I don’t know, love, I don’t know if that’s right, after all these years,’ Barry blubbed, wiping snot from his nose with his sleeve.
His pathetic snivelling was hard to stomach. She wanted to slap him. If he had been sober enough, she might have whacked him with all of her might, savouring the hot, satisfying sting in her palm. But it would be wasted on him in this state.
‘Go rot in hell,’ she spat, leaving him there whimpering in the dark.
Chapter Fifty-Five
I awoke with a start. There was a child screaming. The cries reverberated through my body, clearing out my head, taking precedence over every other thought or feeling that had plagued me for so many days.
I got out of bed, smelling the sourness of my pillows and pyjamas.
When I opened the window, there was an icy rush of wind, and I heard the piercing scream of a child calling out for his mother from one of the houses further along the terrace. This was the scream that had woken me up. It didn’t matter that the child did not belong to me, it mattered that it was a child screaming for his mummy. Only his mummy would do.
It was still dark, before six o’clock, but I stripped the bed and then showered.
As I stood under the flow of warm water, I picked at a curl of white paint on the wall, which revealed a hint of the pink paint underneath. I wanted to keep picking and picking until the distressing pink was revealed in its hideous glory.
I was tired of hiding everything away. I was Rosie’s mummy and she had been screaming for me for a long time.
I felt hungry. My system was free of the unidentifiable virus. It turned out that even despair and self-doubt could pass through my body like flu.
After wolfing down three pieces of toast, I scribbled a note of my sincerest thanks to John, for showing me the way. Then I scrubbed the filthy kitchen, tied up two bags of rubbish, and dropped the note into John’s letterbox. The urgency to get home was overwhelming.
On the train – which was trundling along in the opposite direction to the press of commuters – I sat in an almost empty carriage. There weren’t any other passengers jostling to distract or irritate me.
I turned my phone on, daring to read some of the emails from Lisa. The most recent of which was an internal group email informing us that an outside candidate from our rival firm had been offered the promotion Richard had promised me. I couldn’t have cared less. I shut my phone down. There was nothing important there.
The vacuum allowed me space and time to think, to feel. I contemplated the cowering wretchedness that I had succumbed to over the last few days. I had allowed the anger and fear to engulf me. I had let them take me and I had discovered that they would not kill me. I had let go of the tight reins on my life; the life that I had failed so miserably to whip into shape. The so-called strength of the Campbell woman had crumbled away. But miraculously, in its place, I discovered that truth and courage had been hiding in my heart all along.
With that, came acceptance that Rosie might never change her statement, that the CPS hearing would probably take place in four days’ time and that I had absolutely no control of the outcome. Whatever happened, I was going home to tell Rosie a real life fairy tale.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Help me, Mummy
Chapter Fifty-Seven
I walked into the kitchen where my mother sat reading the newspaper in her dressing gown. She looked about ten years older than she had a week ago.
There were two advent calendars propped up on the cookbooks behind her, with two little doors open. I had quite forgotten that Christmas came with December. This time last year I had a wreath on the door with red velvet ribbons, and a stack of Christmas cards to write.
When my mother saw me she jumped, and patted her heart. ‘You frightened the living daylights out of me.’
‘Sorry.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I live here, Mum.’
She closed the newspaper.
‘Peter’s gone to work already.’
‘Are the kids still asleep?’
‘I let Noah watch a bit of telly.’
‘Before school?’
‘Just to keep him quiet while Rosie sleeps.’
‘But they’ve got to be at school in half an hour.’
‘Rosie wasn’t feeling well last night.’
‘What was wrong with her?’
‘She said she was over-tired.’
We both smiled. ‘I’ve never heard her say that before.’
‘She even went to bed early.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘It’s probably okay to wake her now.’
‘I’ll just say hello to Noah first.’
But when I walked into the television room, he looked up at me blankly, his eyes circled grey. He stuck his thumb in his mouth and looked back at his cartoon.
I sat next to him and put my arm around him. ‘I’m home now, okay? I’m all better.’
And he lay his head down on my lap. When I realised he was asleep, I gently put the blanket over him and snuck out.
‘Rosie,’ I knocked. ‘Rosie?’ I went in.
Her duvet was flat. Her pillow puffed.
‘Rosie?’ I called out of her door. ‘Rosie?’
I checked all the rooms upstairs and then charged downstairs.
‘Mum, is she up already?’
‘I didn’t hear her get up.’
‘Her bed’s made.’
My mother’s eyes sank back into their sockets. ‘She never makes her bed.’
‘Exactly.’
‘She must be hiding.’
‘Rosie! If you’re hiding, please come out, darling!’
The panic was disorientating. Both of us maniacally flitted around the house, looking in all the rooms, once, twice, even under beds and in cupboards, and out in the garden, right down to the bottom, where her den was frosted and empty, the tin kettle lying muddy on its side. The blue bucket dangling.
Back in the house, I wanted to shake my mother. ‘Where the hell is she?’
‘Let’s be calm,’ my mother said, tightening the belt of her dressing gown. ‘Let’s be calm,’ she repeated, but her eyes were darting all over the room, as though Rosie might be perched somewhere unnatural.
‘Could Peter have taken her into school early?’ I was clutching at straws.
‘No, no. He left at six.’
I took out my phone, slippery in my sweaty hands. ‘Peter, it’s me.’
Silence.
‘Peter?’
‘I’m surprised you remembered my name.’
‘Forget all that crap for now. Rosie’s missing.’
‘What?’
‘She’s gone. It looks like her bed hasn’t been slept in.’
‘Call the police. I’m coming home.’
Before I called the police, I called Vics.
‘Darling, I haven’t seen her. Do you want me to come round?’
‘No, stay there in case she comes over.’
After reporting Rosie missing, I charged upstairs to look in her drawers, as the police had suggested, to see if any clothes had been taken. Then I remembered her diary.
It was under her pillow.
‘Mum!’ I called down from the banisters. ‘Come help me with this bloody passcode.’