Page 38 of Watching You

Twelve Months Earlier

‘We remember Molly as a daughter, as a friend and as a gifted member of the art community. She left those who love her far too soon and will never fulfil her extraordinary potential. And yet we are grateful for her life and for the time she spent with us, every day a precious gift.’ The reverend put his hand out to hover vaguely over the urn that was situated next to a large photo of Mol at eighteen, running up a beach towards Beth who had immortalised her unconstrained grin and shining eyes with a camera.

Turnout to the service was poor. Beth hadn’t been expecting many people following the damage to Molly’s reputation, and she believed it was better that way.

Next there would be a reading, something suitably sombre with an edge of positivity.

Molly is in a better place. Molly’s pain is at an end.

Molly wouldn’t want anyone to mourn for long.

All the true but useless things people say at times like this.

Beth had organised the memorial service for public closure.

All the other arrangements had taken place with her alone to witness them.

The service was no help to her. Her daughter was gone.

She lived alone. There was no one to go home to and no one to start the next day with.

Molly’s bedroom was almost exactly as it had been the night the paramedics charged in, but different in all the ways that mattered.

Beth had cleared up the bottles of pills and stripped the bedding.

The photos of her and Molly had been moved from her daughter’s bedside table to somewhere they could still be appreciated.

Once a day she went in and sprayed Mol’s favourite perfume so she could pretend for a few blissful seconds at a time that the room wasn’t unoccupied, and that her daughter might come barrelling out at any moment, holding an armful of paint-spattered clothes, a paintbrush tucked behind her ear because she was so used to feeling it there that she could hardly bear to be without it.

As for Mol’s studio, Beth had given the landlord notice on the lease and begun the long, painful task of packing up the contents and sending everything to a new home. Molly had left detailed instructions for the completed canvases.

For two weeks, Beth had stayed at home, made arrangements and written articles for local papers about her daughter’s life and work.

Then, because she could no longer bear the silence and emptiness, she’d gone straight back to work to fill herself up with the all-consuming concentration demanded by scalpels, sutures and surgery.

People sent cards and flowers that only served to make Beth more furious.

Former friends, conspicuous in their absence from Mol’s life when it mattered, wanted to make themselves feel better after reading the announcement of her death.

Members of the art world who’d skittered away and taken shelter when Molly’s reputation had taken a battering were waxing lyrical about her talent and potential to anyone who stood still long enough to listen. It was sickening.

But the extremes of Beth’s hatred – the Mount Everest peak and Mariana Trench floor of her loathing – were reserved for a single man.

Karl Smith was no longer just some probably impotent, sexually frustrated, pathetic piece of shit who had decided that toying with her daughter’s life was what it took to get him off.

He lived inside her head in every free moment, breathed heavily in her ear as she jogged to pound her loss out on the streets, watched as she adjusted to cooking meals for one, and peered at her from the corner of her bedroom as she tried to fall asleep each night in a too-empty, too-lonely house.

The idea of him was literally consuming her, her body weight dropping every few days, as she exercised more than ever and ate less than ever.

Her daughter was not there for her to hug in the morning because of him.

She was not there to share a bowl of popcorn with in the evening because of him.

Mol could not be heard singing in the kitchen or the garden or the bathroom because of him.

Beth’s new life was brittle and unsteady, and while not all of it was hopelessly dark, she had lost enough that she hardly recognised herself in the mirror.

While she’d never in her life been violent or vengeful, never wished anyone harm or thought how best to ruin another’s life, bringing Karl Smith to justice was all she could think about. Justice, or a timely accident. Beth could only hope.