There are days when she thinks perhaps she has died, and this place she now inhabits is hell. There are days when she creeps about the house, timing her movements with theirs, occasionally managing to avoid them altogether. Her senses are dulled by the welcome medication, and she strains to listen out for the scrape of chairs on the dining room floor, the weary tread of bare feet on the carpeted stairwell, the clunk of the front door closing behind them. She longs to be alone in her sorrow, yet she never is. Even when the others leave the house, her home is surrounded by photographers, journalists – predators waiting to pounce, to strip the flesh from her scrawny bones. She knows she is growing scrawny; she sees it in those moments alone behind the bathroom door, when she lets her dressing gown slip to the tiles, to stare at her stranger’s nakedness in the reflection of the full-length mirror. There wasn’t much of her to start with; she’d always been so careful to keep a neat figure. And of course, it was torture after Daisy came along, because all she wanted to do was eat. The more Daisy fed off her, the greater Emily’s hunger raged, and the more she longed for all the worst things – sponge cake, biscuits, fatty chips and sauce. But she never gave in to those cravings, instead focusing her energies on tiresome fitness DVDs, pulling on her pristine trainers the moment Daisy went down for her twice-daily naps, sweating it out in the living room before recharging with a fresh smoothie from the Juice-A-Matic she’d invested in a month earlier. It was all in the planning, her return to pre-baby fitness, and the greatest compliment she could receive was, ‘Gosh, you’d never think you’d just had a baby.’ Now, as she sits on the edge of her bed remembering the gruelling nature of those days, she flushes as she realises remarks of that kind meant more to her than ‘what a beautiful baby’ or ‘isn’t she just perfect’.
‘There’s no excuse for letting yourself go,’ she says aloud now, and she drops her face into her hands. She releases a moan, a deep, guttural cry of disbelief at what she’s so quickly become, at the never-ending misery of her new life. Is this it now, is this her life? Will Daisy never return? Will they have to do that thing that others so callously suggest to the recently bereaved – will they have to move on? It’s only been a week, she reminds herself, as she runs ragged fingers through her lank hair. It’s only a week, and Daisy could be found at any minute. Right now, the police could be snatching her out of the grasp of her kidnapper, preparing to rush her back into the bosom of her family. But what if she’s not found? What if they do find her, but she’s – a shutter comes down, and Emily is on her feet, rushing into the bathroom to run the shower, to deny the worst thoughts that chase after her, snapping at her heels. Unthinkable thoughts. A strange contradiction, for surely you must think these thoughts in order to name them unthinkable. She stands beneath the shower, disappearing into the steam, digging her nails deep into her scalp and allowing the hot water to scald her pale skin pink.
When Jess first moved in, it was clear she was going to do everything she could to help, to be a useful member of the family. They hadn’t been home for more than an hour when she had said, ‘You go and have a shower, Ems. I’m happy playing with Daisy for a while, and if I need anything Chloe will show me – won’t you, Chloe?’
It’s strange, thinking back, how easily she accepted Jess’s help – so unlike herself, who was normally loath to reach out to others, for fear of displaying weakness. But she had been exhausted, and so grateful for those precious moments to herself, suddenly able to take a long shower instead of a rushed one with Daisy in the bathroom with her, babbling in her play cot like a ticking clock. She supposes she has come to take Jess’s help for granted now, but she knows she couldn’t have managed without her here over these past months. And Chloe – well, Chloe took to her so instantly, it was like a crush of sorts, and Aunt Jess could do no wrong in her eyes. She’s so cool. That was what Chloe had said to Emily on that first night, and she can’t help but admit that it hurt a little. Perhaps I would still be cool, she thought, if I hadn’t given the best years of my life to rearing you, Chloe, to being a good wife and mother – to having Daisy. Maybe if she too had spent the past two decades free of family responsibility or adult commitment – maybe in those circumstances even Emily would have had time to work on her cool rating. But we make our beds, don’t we? And let’s face it, hers has been a much more comfortable bed than Jess’s, cool or not. After everything, now that Mum and Dad were both gone, Emily was glad to be able to help Jess out. Poor, aimless Jess. She’d made so little of her life – no career, no family, no real place she could call home. What kind of sister wouldn’t want to help, wouldn’t want to open up her arms and welcome her in?
And James had liked her straight away, and Emily had been pleased, because Jess was a part of her, and she knows he felt happy that she had let him in a little more, shown him a part of herself that had previously remained hidden away.
When James returns from wherever it is he’s been, Emily is watching from the nursery window. It’s around four and already dark outside, and she stands in the unlit room, hidden behind the curtains, scrutinising his every movement, trying to decode the expression on his face, his gait as he glances over his shoulder in search of the press vultures. But the reporters have all gone for the day, too lazy to hang about after dark, when a well-earned pint or a family meal calls or a tastier tragedy comes knocking. The police have been on the phone again, asking about James’s whereabouts the night before last, because they suspect him of attacking Chloe’s boyfriend. Did she know anything about it, they’d asked? ‘No,’ she had replied, automatically adopting the tone of offended wife. ‘That’s a ridiculous idea – did Max say James did it?’ The liaison officers were quick to reassure her: no, she really mustn’t worry, Max hadn’t made any kind of allegation – he hadn’t got a good look at his assailant – but they had to ask, ‘under the circumstances’.
Of course it was James, she knows, and it strikes her, with a certain sense of fear, that he has that in him, this hitherto unseen rage. Through the fog of her exhaustion she recalls the demented way in which he paced the bedroom after DCI Jacobs had been round to interview Chloe about Max, all his fear and horror surrounding Daisy transferred to thoughts of Chloe in the blink of an eye. ‘I don’t care what she says, there’s no way she’s been staying over at that boy’s house without something more than hand-holding going on.’ He had waited for Emily’s response – standing at the foot of the bed, hands on his hips, with her lying back against the pillows, longing for sleep. He had wanted her to disagree with him, to say all the right things and soothe him as she used to. His stubble was now bordering on a beard, she’d observed. Perhaps he should just go with it and see how it suits him.
‘So what?’ she’d heard herself say, and she had known he would go crazy.
‘So WHAT?! So – she’s fifteen and he’s nineteen, for fuck’s sake, Emily! She’s a child and he’s a grown man! There’s no way Chloe would have lied like that without someone pressurising her into it.’
She’d laughed – she had actually laughed. If he only knew what young people were capable of, what lies they could tell, what secrets they could keep.
‘You haven’t got a clue about kids, have you, James? No idea what they can get up to when left to their own devices.’ She wouldn’t open her eyes again, felt protected from his wrath by not looking.
His voice, after a beat, came out softer. ‘So you do think they’ve been having sex, then?’
Emily had dragged her arm across her face. The overhead light was so bright, and all she’d wanted to do was disappear into the darkness of night-time. ‘Of course they’re having sex.’
She had heard the bedroom door slam shut behind him, and crawled beneath her duvet, muffling the raised voices of her husband and stepdaughter as their hearts broke in fury and regret in the room across the hall. Thank God DC Cherry isn’t staying in their spare room any more, she’d thought; thank God they were free of that scrutiny in the evenings at least.
Now, she hears the front door closing behind James as he returns home, the gentle chink of his keys on the hook, the dull sound of his unlaced shoes hitting the carpet, and she sprints back across the hall and slips beneath her bedcovers. She doesn’t want to see him. She doesn’t want to hear where he’s been, what he’s done, how he’s feeling. She just wants to slide into nothing, and she forces herself below the waves of darkness, holding herself down until sleep takes over. Only in the deeply medicated shade of nightfall can Emily shut out the worst of her thoughts: the fear, the anger, the guilt.