Chapter 19

I get home early, sweat-soaked despite the afternoon downpour, nauseous and exhausted. Tom finds me standing in the hallway, swaying, staring at my coat, as if I’m not sure what to do with it. He takes it from me. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I spoke to Diane.’ My mouth forms the words but they seem to come from a long way away. ‘I said we were thinking about moving. She said they’d be sorry to see me go.’ I rub my neck. I feel itchy all over. ‘She didn’t sound sorry. She asked if I was handing in my notice, so I told her I’d do it next week.’

‘Well done.’ Tom starts towards the kitchen. ‘Let me just feed Grace and we can talk.’

‘Let me do it.’ I follow him into the kitchen. ‘I should be able to pick up some freelancing work from them after the move.’

‘Even with the last few weeks?’ Tom doesn’t look at me as he speaks.

I stiffen. ‘I have a good track record, Tom. The last few weeks doesn’t wipe all that out.’ I slam Grace’s bowl on the table and she jumps. She looks at me with wide eyes and a tremulous smile.

I try to smile back but there’s something blocking it. A darkness around my edges. I can’t raise a smile for her.

Tom puts a spoonful of mango chicken in her bowl. ‘It’s her favourite,’ he says, as if I didn’t know. As if I was a complete stranger. ‘You shouldn’t have any trouble.’

I pick up her purple spoon. But she presses her lips together and won’t open her mouth. Instead she waves Dobbie at me.

I take Dobbie, put him out of reach and offer her the spoon again. She twists, trying to turn her back on me.

Tom is washing up at the sink. I can’t bear for him to turn around and see me failing. ‘Come on, Grace,’ I whisper.

She spits the chicken out when I manage to get some in her mouth. Then she wails and reaches for Tom.

Tom turns. ‘Do you want me to take over?’

‘No, Tom, I don’t want you to take over!’ When Grace opens her mouth to shout again, I slide in another spoonful of chicken but she kicks me from her highchair and spits it over my blouse.

‘Grace!’ I pick up a cloth to dab at my top and she grabs hold of the bowl and hurls it on the floor where it splatters orange sauce up the cupboards.

‘It’s all right. If she won’t eat it, she won’t eat it.’ Tom bends down with a tea towel but I dish up another portion, my movements jerky.

‘She’s eating it, Tom! If she doesn’t, she won’t sleep. Are you going to breastfeed her over and over again in the night? Are you?’ I slam the fresh bowl down in front of Grace, take a breath and another spoonful. I’m so tired and the idea of being up all night nauseates me even more.

Grace manages to slap the spoon away. Some of the casserole splats on my face and I leap to my feet. ‘Goddamn it, Grace! You are eating this!’

Tom looks up from the floor, alarmed. ‘Bridge?’

‘You’ve cooked it, she has to eat it. If she doesn’t, she won’t sleep.’

He jumps to his feet and tosses the tea towel in the sink. He’s missed spots. I’ll have to go over the whole thing again. I glare at him as he goes to Grace. ‘I’ll take her away. Maybe she’ll be hungry later.’

‘It’s her bedtime later. Stop interfering, Tom. If I’m going to be at home with her, she has to learn to do what I say!’

Tom stares. ‘She’s eight months old, Bridge.’

‘I don’t care!’ Rage rises like a chemistry experiment. Nothing there one second, foaming upwards in colourful, spewing, endless tentacles the next. Suddenly I’m shaking. I want to hurt him. Oh, God, I want to hurt her.

‘She has to eat her dinner, or she won’t sleep.’ I say it again, as if it’ll make a difference. As if she cares. ‘Eat your dinner, Grace!’ I grab her face, squeeze her cheeks until her mouth is forced wide and shove a loaded spoon into her mouth. She chokes and splutters. Tom yells and grabs my arm, pulling me backwards. I fight to escape from him, the rage is everywhere.

Grace makes a choking noise and suddenly there’s vomit all over her highchair, stinking of casserole and dripping from the tray onto the floor Tom has just cleaned. She looks at me and Tom in mute horror and then starts to scream, her face red and frightened.

‘Jesus, Bridge.’ Tom pushes me towards the sink and grabs our daughter, not caring that she’s covered in sick or that her chest is hitching, her breath coming in shallow gasps.

‘She’s going to throw up again,’ I whisper.

‘Leave us alone.’ Tom heads for the door. ‘I’m going to clean her up in the bath. We’ll talk about this when we’re done.’

They leave and rage bleeds out of me like I’ve been stabbed. I stare at the spoon I’m still holding in disbelief. What did I just do? I throw it into the sink, where it lands with a soft thud on top of the tea towel. In a trance, I get a fresh towel and start to mop up Grace’s vomit. It slides everywhere and I retch as the stink gets into my open mouth. I’m sobbing, my breath coming in great gulps. I’m the worst mum. The worst mum in the world.

I clean the vomit and get the Dettol spray. I spray it everywhere, then scrub as if I can clean away the evidence of what I just did to my little girl. I’m shaking so hard I can barely hold the cloth.

My phone beeps softly and I glance at the message: India’s just started throwing up! Hope Grace hasn’t picked it up too. Nightmare!

She was feeling sick; that’s why she didn’t want her tea. I might not have made her vomit but I tried to make my sick baby eat by yelling at her, force-feeding her … I slump on the floor in a corner of the room, pulling my legs up. I duck into my elbows. My fingers curl into my hair and I sob, violently.

Tom comes back into the kitchen. Grace isn’t with him.

‘I’m giving Grace a bottle tonight.’ He doesn’t come to me. He goes to the fridge and I hear it open and close. I don’t look up. I don’t argue with him. ‘This can’t go on, Bridge.’ His voice is expressionless. Hard. He microwaves the bottle. It pings. ‘I can’t go through this again.’

I wonder what it would feel like to take a kitchen knife into the bath, to cut the pain away. I am my father’s daughter after all.

‘I know.’ I keep my face pressed into my own skin. My voice is hoarse from crying.

‘You have to go back on the antidepressants.’

‘I know.’

He retreats from the kitchen. I hear his feet on the stairs, a door closes. I don’t move.

I wait until I’m sure he’s feeding Grace before I drag myself up. Then I creep up the stairs and into the bathroom. I stare at the face in the mirror. It belongs to a stranger, the features of a woman who would hurt her baby. My skin is blotchy and my hair is wild. I pull strands through my fingers and stare at them as if I’ve never seen them before. Whose face is this? Is it my great-grandma’s face, as Mum used to say? Is it Betsie Dobson’s face? Who am I?

I pick up the packet of Fluoxetine. If I take the pills, I’ll have nightmares. If I don’t, I might hurt Grace, or Tom, or myself. It isn’t a dilemma. I pop two from the blisters and put them in my mouth.

I hesitate outside Grace’s nursery door, listening to Tom’s soft murmuring. It sounds as if he’s telling her a story. Part of me wants to slink past but, instead, I steel myself and go inside. Tom frowns as the line of light slithers into the dim room with me. He’s sitting on the rocking chair. Grace is in her sleeping bag, holding tightly to both Frankie and Dobbie. She looks pitiful. My heart stops beating as she peers at me. What if she turns away or cries at the sight of me? I’m not sure I could take it.

Then she reaches up for me. All is forgiven, apparently.

I drop to my knees in front of her. ‘I’m so sorry, Grace. I won’t ever do it again.’ I stroke her hair and look up at Tom. ‘India’s sick apparently. She’s caught a bug.’

Tom sighs. ‘I was going to sleep in here tonight anyway.’

‘Okay … unless you want me to?’

Tom shakes his head. ‘Get some sleep, Bridget. I know you didn’t mean it but you can’t be on your own with her if you’re going to snap like that. I’ll have to stay at home.’

‘I’ve taken my pills.’

‘Good.’ There’s a heavy silence. ‘I’m going to keep feeding her tonight. I know you’d rather do it but you need to rest.’

I don’t argue. ‘You’re right.’ I put my head on his knee, watching Grace. ‘Has she been sick again?’

‘Twice.’ Tom gestures at the half-full bottle. ‘It’s going to a be a long night.’

Silently, I agree. For both of us. I wonder how quickly the girl will visit me after I close my eyes.

This time I’m in Sabden and the little girl is standing in front of the broken swing. She turns around and looks at me. The rose on her blazer is a Lancashire rose.

‘You’re not even trying to find me,’ she says sadly. ‘And look, it’s all ruined,’ Her voice is low and quiet with a northern burr. Blood drips from her fingers, splatting on the concrete path.

Then I’m standing beside her, both of us peering into the windows of the Dobson house. She steps towards the door, bends over and lifts a plant pot. There’s a key underneath. She uses it to open the door and I follow her inside. The house is in good repair. I look at the windows, they are dust-free, sparkling clean. The net curtains are freshly washed: white not yellow. There are voices from the kitchen, laughter: a man and a woman. A room is visible to my right: a living room not much bigger than the one in my flat. The sofa is green velvet with brown cushions. The carpet is brown. There is a coffee table piled with children’s books. I turn back to the girl. She is dripping blood on the clean floor. There are stairs ahead of us in a straight line from the front door. The kitchen is to the left. She stops outside the door and puts a finger to her lips. It leaves a smear of scarlet.

I want to ask her where she is and if she’s all right, but I can’t make a sound. She leans against the door, listening. After a moment she pushes the door open and walks in. Grant and Betsie Dobson are standing in front of the sink. They look young and healthy. Happy. Betsie is showing Grant a letter. ‘Look, it says she’s won a prize. For writing a poem. Have you ever written a poem, Grant? Have you ever even read one? She’s six!’

‘A bleedin’ genius.’ Grant takes the letter and winks at his wife. ‘She gets it from your side.’

They smile at one another. Then Betsie turns around. She looks past the little girl as if she can’t see her, instead she sees me. Her face falls. Then, suddenly, she’s gone.

The picture I’m looking at changes, as if it has shifted right into an ‘after’ version of this ‘before’. The kitchen is dilapidated, cupboard doors hang from their frames, dishes are piled by the sink, unwashed. The bin is overflowing with bottles, the windows thick with grease. Grant is standing by the sink, bluebottles buzzing around his face. Filthy clothes hang off him. He is drinking vodka straight from the bottle: the cheap stuff. The little girl takes my hand, tears slide down her cheeks.

She pulls me towards the kitchen door and I follow her out and up the stairs. I don’t want to, I have a horrible feeling that I know what we’ll find. I want to scream, not again, not again, but my feet are not under my control. There are two bedrooms up here, and a single bathroom with a toilet and bath. Not the bathroom.

I pull back and it seems to work; the little girl stops outside the first bedroom door. She opens it with her bleeding hand, leaving a bloody print on the tarnished handle. It’s a little girl’s room and it hasn’t been touched in two decades. Dust lies thick on a My Little Pony bedspread and a rug shaped like a flower. There is a poster of the Spice Girls peeling from the pink wall. The curtains are closed, the air musty and heavy. I struggle to breathe. There is a little desk in one corner, piled with more books. There are a few dolls on the floor. They look well-loved, secondhand maybe. There’s a doll in a battered pram and a shelf of Beanie Babies. The little girl looks at the door opposite. It’s the bathroom door.

No. I want to scream it. She shouldn’t see this. I shouldn’t see this. It’s not the kind of thing a child should see; and I should know. But I can make no sound as the little girl steals across the hall and opens the door.

So much blood. The bath is full of it. It looks as if Betsie changed her mind at the last moment and tried to crawl out, perhaps to go for help. She’s lying naked, half-in and half-out of the tub, her hair in a drying tangle, matted with more blood. The smashed vodka bottle is lying on the floor beside one curled hand. Bloody shards beside the other. I’d thought she’d done it with a razor blade, or a kitchen knife, but she’d downed the bottle and then smashed it, sliced her wrists with the broken glass. Her skin is open like a screaming mouth.

Perhaps she didn’t plan to die like this: an act of impulse born from despair, and no-one to hear her cries for help.

My heart pounds and I look away from the body. There’s a mirror right beside me. I stare into it and Betsie’s face stares back. The little girl wraps her arms around me from behind, holds me still, won’t let me leave.

‘Why can’t you find me?’ she rasps. Her voice is filled with tears. ‘Why can’t you find me?’

I bolt awake, heart pounding, jaw aching. I put my hand to my face. I haven’t been screaming; grinding my teeth perhaps. Why can’t I find her?

I look at my clock. It’s 5 a.m. I slip out of bed and stagger to the bathroom to splash water on my face. On my way back, I look in on Grace and Tom. He is lying on the floor beside her cot on our spare duvet, one arm thrown over his face, slack with exhaustion. By the door there’s a pile of laundry covered in puke. Frankie is on top of it. Grace must have thrown up again, more than once by the look of it. I inch into the room and bend over beside him. I give his shoulder a gentle shake and he comes awake with a snort.

‘Go to bed,’ I murmur. ‘I’ll take over here.’

He doesn’t argue. He is still mostly asleep. He rises, staggers to the door and vanishes into the hallway. Moments later I hear our bedroom door close and then the squeak of springs as he collapses. I lie down on the floor in his hollow of his warmth and stare at the ceiling.

Finally, listening to Grace’s laboured breathing, I fall back to sleep.