The first thing Corinne noticed when she went through the old box of family photographs was how happy they looked. When she thought back objectively to the early days of babies and toddlers, it seemed to her that she and Duncan were in a constant state of sleep-deprived shock, the girls perpetually in the midst of a tantrum or a fight. Yet the photos paint a different picture. Beaming, round baby faces and idyllic scenes – a rumpled, toy-strewn, Sunday-morning double bed with a blur of limbs and laughter, a beach with ice-cream mouths and plastic spades, a blow-up paddling pool in Duncan’s parents’ beautiful garden in Sussex.
There were no traces of the angst Corinne still remembered so well. The nights of Megan’s colic, when she paced up and down their tiny flat, watching the clock ticking down to the time Hannah would be waking up, full of energy and ready to start the day; the chickenpox weeks cooped up inside with two bored, fretful children, watching life go on as normal through a pane of glass.
The second thing Corinne noticed was how few photographs she was actually in. While there were endless pictures of the girls, and many of Duncan, either on his own or with one or both daughters draped over him, Corinne herself was largely absent, except as a camera-wielding shadow on the lawn or a blurry reflection in a mirror behind the others.
Where had she been all that time?
And why hadn’t Duncan picked up the camera more? She remembered being so swept away by love she’d wanted to capture him on film all the time. But clearly, he hadn’t felt the same. Looking through the piles of photographs, Corinne felt like a ghost in her own family.
She’d been obsessing about families and the ways they can mess a person up since her visit to the Garitsons in Tunbridge Wells the day before. The parents had been perfectly civil, but she couldn’t help remembering how they didn’t look at each other, and how Jacob Garitson had jumped when Corinne touched him. The strain of having a daughter as disturbed as Steffie must have affected them all.
Corinne was looking for a family photograph to take into the clinic as a present for Hannah. She’d found a lovely antique silver frame in a charity shop and wanted to give Hannah something that reminded her of a less complicated time, reminded her of who she was.
Finally, she settled on a photograph of Megan and Hannah aged around five and seven with their arms around each other, huddling under a towel on a blustery-looking beach. Cornwall, she suspected. Though she couldn’t be sure.
She wrapped the photo frame up in tissue paper but didn’t tape it. She’d learned her lesson after the last present had had to be ripped open by the clinic’s reception staff when she was searched going in. ‘We do it to everyone, just in case there’s anything they can use to harm themselves.’ Corinne had been outraged. ‘But Hannah isn’t suicidal.’ A look, that’s all. But it said everything. How do you know? You thought your daughter was six months pregnant. So what makes you an expert now?
Corinne was meeting Duncan in the clinic car park for a rare joint visit to Hannah. Dr Roberts had suggested that Hannah might feel more supported if the people closest to her formed a united front with no gaps through which she might fall. Duncan had pronounced this theory ‘bollocks’ when Corinne first mentioned it but, in the end, had agreed with remarkably little argument.
He was standing by his car when she arrived, frowning at his phone. As always, that jolt of surprise that this man, this near-stranger, should be the father of her children, her husband of nearly three decades. He’d had his hair cut short, the way she’d never liked. He looked older.
Before she’d even got out of her car Corinne could sense his impatience.
‘You’re late.’
‘Only five minutes.’
‘Seven. I left work early for this.’
This was what she didn’t miss. The inbuilt reproach in his voice when he spoke to her.
In reception, with bad grace Duncan surrendered his navy wool coat and leather satchel to be put away in the clinic’s cloakroom. Corinne found herself over-compensating for her ex-husband’s surliness by being too friendly, smiling as she gave the receptionist her fake-fur-lined parka and the enormous leather holdall she lugged everywhere, much to the amusement of her daughters. ‘Oh, just a minute!’ she said. She’d remembered the photo in its frame. The receptionist obligingly went back to retrieve it from her bag.
‘Some things never change,’ said Duncan, looking pointedly up at the clock.
Hannah was in the art room again. Corinne was glad she’d found an interest in here that was separate from the day-to-day business of the clinic, an escape from the endless analysing of feelings and behaviours, the why? why? why? that threaded itself through everything in this place.
‘Oh my God,’ Hannah said when she saw her parents walking in together. ‘Two-pronged attack. This must be serious.’
Laura was in the far corner of the room, helping a woman Corinne didn’t recognize make something out of a large mound of clay. ‘It’s supposed to be a bust of her own head,’ whispered Hannah. ‘But Katy is too scared to start it in case it goes wrong. She’s been there for an hour and a half.’
‘How are you, sweetie?’ Duncan laid his hand over his daughter’s, and Corinne had to look away.
‘Fine,’ the reply snapped out, and Corinne swung her attention back to Hannah.
‘Are you sure? You seem—’
‘I’m fine, Dad. Really. I just want to get out of here.’
‘I know you do, sweetheart. But you made a promise to Danny.’
What about his promises to her? Corinne felt like saying, but she bit back the words.
‘I just don’t feel safe here.’
‘Come on, sweetie. Here’s probably the safest place for you.’ Duncan had his Eminently Reasonable voice on, and it set Corinne’s teeth on edge.
‘Two women have died here, Dad.’
‘Yes, but they were ill, Hannah. They’d already tried to kill themselves before. That’s why they were in here.’
Duncan glanced over at Laura, and Corinne wondered if he was trying to impress the attractive art therapist with his air of calm authority.
‘I just keep thinking, Mum, about that name Charlie was googling on the day she died. William Kingsley. That’s what those initials WK stand for. It’s got to be relevant somehow. I’m sure of it.’
‘How are you getting on, Hannah? Hello, Hannah’s mum and dad!’
Laura had come over and now stood behind Hannah with a hand on her shoulder so she could look at Hannah’s latest artwork, a pastel picture of someone’s Nike trainer, which stood on a stool in front of her easel. Corinne couldn’t tear her eyes away from the other woman’s hand on her daughter’s shoulder, an unwelcome reminder that Hannah was becoming assimilated in here, forming bonds. Not just passing through.
‘Aren’t you cheating, though,’ asked Duncan, ‘taking out the laces so it’s easier to draw?’
‘Laces aren’t allowed in here, if you remember, Mr Lovell,’ said Laura.
‘Lovell is my actually my daughter’s married name,’ said Duncan sharply, and Corinne could tell he was embarrassed by his faux pas about the laces. ‘I’m Harris. As is my ex-wife here.’
Ex. It still hurt.
‘Your daughter has real talent,’ said Laura. ‘You should be very proud of her.’
‘Oh, we are,’ Duncan replied. Corinne saw him squeeze Hannah’s hand.
On the way back out to his car, however, Duncan was troubled. ‘Didn’t you think Hannah sounded a bit paranoid back there, rambling on about that random name? Remember when she first came in, Dr Roberts warned us to look out for signs of paranoia? Shit, Cor, I thought she was getting better.’
‘She is getting better. I’m sure of it.’
But driving out of the main gates, Corinne couldn’t stop thinking about the expression on Hannah’s face as she’d told them she didn’t feel safe.
There was no doubt her daughter was feeling genuinely threatened.
But what if the real threat was coming from inside her own head?