Page 50

CHAPTER 50

OLIVIA – D AY F OUR

I lie on the bed, trembling for a long time. The weird thing is my teeth are chattering as if I am cold. Shock? All I know is I’m too dazed to move, to make any kind of new escape plan. I’m petrified that if I push it again, he will take Chloe outside ...

Alongside me she keeps asking when Amelie will be back. Is she alright, Mummy? I lie and say that everything is going to be fine until at last she falls silent, her body clinging to mine. Not asleep, just numb.

I feel numb too and through the numbness, I think of Julia. How I wish I’d listened to her. Gone to London with her when she begged me. You need to get away, Liv. We both need to get away. If I had just been braver sooner and gone with Julia, none of this would have happened.

Julia and I both had very different problems with our fathers but she was always so much braver. Her father drank and when he was drunk, he pushed her and her mother around. Sometimes Julia would turn up at school with a bruise on her face. The tutor arranged a special meeting once and she lied. Said she had become clumsy and kept bumping into things. She’d read stuff online about a condition called dyspraxia and said her mum was so worried that she might have it, that her parents were taking her to the doctor about it. The school bought it. Julia used to pretend to trip up when teachers were watching. No more special meetings.

Julia started to plan to run away not long after I got pregnant. I’m going to London. I’ll get a job in a hotel. Live in if I can. You can come too.

Of course it was a ridiculous idea. Beyond ludicrous and typical Julia. How could I work with a small baby? Julia said we could get different shifts and take turns to look after the baby. Bonkers.

She started to research hospitality agencies and she started saving too. Stealing from her dad’s wallet when he passed out from the booze. She also got a job as a waitress at the local gastro pub. I was so envious. Money and freedom. Things I could only dream of.

As my pregnancy began to show, I was taken out of school and my father arranged a sabbatical from his teaching to home school me for a year. A nightmare. His religious rantings were getting worse and worse. It’s when the hand-washing ritual went nuclear, sometimes dozens of times a day. He said that I needed to cleanse myself; to ask God’s forgiveness for my mistake.

Julia was allowed to visit me at first but my father felt even more strongly that she was a bad influence. One evening, I caught him listening at the door to our whisperings and so we would play music to drown out our voices. That’s when Julia told me she’d had enough and was going to London very soon. She had it all planned out.

She reckoned the experience of working in the pub would make it easier to get a job in a hotel. She spoke to an agency, lying about her age, and they said they could get her a live-in position for a fee. I warned her that it sounded a bit dodgy to me. I’d read about the sex industry. People-trafficking. Girls ending up as virtual slaves, cooking and cleaning. Worse. But Julia said I was being hysterical. She was on cloud nine.

London. I’m going to London, Liv. I wish you’d come with me.

Because she was only fifteen, Julia said she’d use a false name. Buy a false ID online. She swore me to secrecy and offered to get me a false ID too but I knew it was madness. I needed medical support to have the baby. A roof over our heads. Much as I loved Julia, I knew she couldn’t take care of me. And I just didn’t have her bravery.

But what broke my heart is the fact that she went without saying a proper goodbye. There, one minute and then gone the next.

She just sent a text.

I’ve done it. Gone to London. Will B in touch.

But she never was.

I tried searching for her on social media but I didn’t have the new name she was using with her false ID. And my father got himself in a state. I think he was worried she would be in touch and I would follow her. He changed my phone. He said it was a better model but I knew why; it was so I had a new number. I had Julia’s number in my old phone and stupidly I didn’t write it down separately.

A part of me thought I should have been prepared for it. Hardened to it. The hurt of someone you really care about leaving. After my mother, I mean.

But it cut me deeply – Julia going to London. I tried to be pleased for her. And I lied to the police for her. Her mother reported her missing and she ended up on one of those sad posters. I told the police she might have gone to London but I didn’t tell them about the hotel job plan or the false ID.

The truth is I didn’t want them to find her and haul her back to be pushed around by her father. As the weeks and then months passed, I tried to think how much better it was for her to be away from her dad. But the selfish part of me missed her so badly. My Julia. My only confidante. My only real friend.

I keep my eyes closed, picturing Julia. All my regrets. I lie dazed on that bed with Chloe for quite a long time. And then something odd happens. I can hear the echo of Julia’s voice. You need to do something, Liv. Get away from him.

She said that to me so often in the past. But here on this bed with my body trembling and my teeth chattering, it’s as if she’s talking to me right now. Right here. In the caravan. And I realise suddenly that Julia – brave Julia – is right; was always right. I can’t just lie here in shock. Take it. Do nothing.

Slowly and carefully, I get up from the bed, whispering to Chloe to rest. My father has locked the main door. A wave of dread goes through me as I think again of the shots. Two shots. I have no idea how long he’ll stay outside but this is the first time I’ve had the run of the caravan. I push the bedroom door to and start rummaging around the kitchen. I try all the drawers again. No knives. Damn . He must have hidden them. But there are forks and so I grab two.

Next, I check the cupboards. Mostly empty but there’s a small frying pan. Heavy. Yes. I move quickly back to the bedroom to push the forks and the pan under the bed out of sight. Things I can use. Then I move back to try all the other kitchen cupboards. There’s nothing much that will help. I’m still searching when I hear footsteps outside.

Fear courses through me. He is so strong. I need to feign cooperation and work out how to surprise him. I dart back into the bedroom and lie down alongside Chloe again. I don’t like her breathing. It sounds different. Wrong. But I think of the forks and the heavy pan. And how I’m going to use them ...