Five minutes after her mother had left the house, Chloe was still lying on the bed looking through her photographs.
It was something she never got tired of doing. Some of the photos made her smile while others made her want to cry. As usual she flicked to her favourites, including the one that showed her taking her first paddle in the sea, and the one where she was sitting on her father’s shoulders and pulling at his hair. She touched his face with her finger and a ball of sadness grew in her chest. Despite what he had done she still missed him. A part of her wished she had never found out the truth. At least the memories of her years in Spain would not have been so bittersweet.
As always it was like a trip down memory lane, each picture a precious moment from her previous life as Alice Miller.
She now knew that her father gave her that name when she was two years old. He changed his own name as well from Matthew to James so that when he ran away with her nobody would ever be able to find them.
She didn’t discover the truth until just over a month ago. That was when everything changed and she learned that she wasn’t – and never had been – the person she thought she was.
She had always believed what her dad had told her – that her biological mother had died of cancer shortly after her second birthday. But it was a lie that carried on for ten years. And now she had to live with that. To put the past behind her and move on. A new name. A new mum. A new home.
It was proving difficult, though, and there’d been times when she had wanted to run away from everything. From the pain, the memories, the lingering grief, the pressure to adapt to this new life.
There were so many questions, so much that she didn’t know about her past, so much that scared her about the future.
For one thing she didn’t want to have to go to a new school in a few weeks, but she didn’t have any choice. She wanted to go back to the school in Shoreditch where she’d spent the past three years. Most of her friends were there, including Rhona, Charlotte and Sue. But her mum had told her it was on the other side of London so it would take too long to get there and back every day.
It wasn’t her mum’s fault. She knew that. Her mum only wanted what was best for her and she couldn’t blame her for what had happened. Her dad should never have done what he did. It was wrong and cruel, and she wished that he was still alive so that she could tell him so.
His face stared up at her now from the album and she felt the swell of tears in her eyes. It was one of the many photos taken during those seven years they lived in Spain. He was standing in front of the bar he ran, squinting against the bright Spanish sunshine. Chloe knew it would have been Sophie who took the picture – she was always snapping shots on her phone and then had the best ones printed so that they could go into the album.
Chloe turned the page and there was Sophie, the woman who became her adoptive mother. Black hair; kind face; wide, familiar smile. This one was taken just over three years ago during the last day they all spent on the beach together. They’d had a picnic, swum in the sea, and played ball games.
It was a few days before Dad brought them to England, and just several weeks before he was killed.
Her mobile phone rang, jarring her out of her reverie. It came as no surprise to see that it was her mum. Who else could it be?
She wanted to check that Chloe was all right and to reassure her that Tom would soon be there.
‘I’m still fine,’ Chloe said off the back of an audible sigh. ‘You’ve only been gone about ten minutes.’
‘I know, but I’m almost where I need to be, and once I’m there it’ll be more difficult for me to ring you.’
‘There’s no need to worry. I was just about to go downstairs and make myself a cup of tea.’
‘Well I bought you a packet of your favourite chocolate biscuits. They’re in the jar.’
‘I know. I had some this morning.’
‘Of course you did. I forgot. Well enjoy your evening and please be nice to Tom. He really does think the world of you.’
Chloe wasn’t so sure about that. Tom seemed nice enough, but she sensed that he wished it was still just the pair of them. Him and her mum. Two grown-ups without any kids around to spoil their fun.
She had overheard them speaking in the kitchen just a week after she came to live here. Her mum was telling him that he wouldn’t be able to move in because she wanted her daughter to settle in first. He said he understood, but it had sounded to Chloe like he wasn’t too happy about it.
She returned her attention to the album. The last photo on the last page. It was one of her at the age of nine. She was standing in front of the marina in Puerto de Mazarron and she was eating an ice cream.
Minutes after it was taken, the man she now had nightmares about turned up. After that nothing was ever the same again.
Chloe put the album back on the bedside table because she didn’t want to upset herself if Tom was going to turn up at any minute.
She got off the bed, checked her reflection in the wardrobe mirror, and decided that she didn’t need to change her clothes. She was wearing faded dungarees over a tight, red sweater, one of the outfits that she was convinced made her look a couple of years older than she was.
The noises outside were getting louder, and it wasn’t just the sirens she could hear. There was shouting too now and it sounded close by.
She peered through the window. Her room was at the front of the house with a view of the road. She could see some of the neighbours huddled outside their homes talking amongst themselves – they all seemed to be looking up the street at something that Chloe couldn’t see.
She wondered if the vandals who had been causing all the trouble across London had turned up here. She hoped not. She’d seen them on the telly doing damage to shops and throwing things at the police who were trying to calm them down. It was truly frightening.
She gathered it was happening because a woman had been shot and this had made a lot of people very angry. But it didn’t justify what they were doing. That was what her mum had said and she agreed. Innocent people were bound to get hurt and that wasn’t fair.
She knew that she’d be safe so long as she stayed in the house. Even so she couldn’t help feeling a bit nervous. She swallowed down the butterflies that rose in her tummy. She’d learned from bitter experience that if bad men were determined to get at you then it was hard to stop them.
She consoled herself with the thought that she wouldn’t be alone much longer. Despite her reservations about Tom she knew he wouldn’t let any harm come to her. Her mum would never forgive him.
Downstairs in the kitchen she put the kettle on. It was the first time she’d had the house to herself and it felt really strange. It still didn’t feel like home and she wondered if it ever would.
When the kettle boiled, she poured the hot water over a tea bag and carried the mug into the living room. Her mum hadn’t switched the TV off and on the screen there was a car on fire and lots of hooded men standing around it cheering.
But Chloe was more interested in the glossy magazine she spotted lying on the coffee table. It was one she hadn’t seen before and she guessed it had been delivered with the shopping that morning.
There was a photo of her and her mum on the cover below a headline that read:
REUNITED AT LAST
THE FULL STORY BEHIND A MOTHER’S TEN-YEAR NIGHTMARE
Chloe picked up the magazine and sat on the sofa to read it. Soon she was oblivious to the sounds out of the street that were growing louder by the minute.