Late afternoon on Wednesday, Shelley was trying to leave her flat to go to Aunt Elsie’s house. But she couldn’t get out. Her checking had become worse. She knew it was due to increased anxiety. The more paranoid directors on the board were spinning ‘what ifs’ in her head.
“What if you get caught?”
“What if you go to prison?”
“What if he hurts you?”
“What if he rapes another girl?” she shouted, hoping it would stop them. That was all that mattered. However much fear they instilled in her, there was no going back. She couldn’t live with the guilt of more girls being raped, knowing that she could have stopped it. Didn’t they know that about her? They were her board. They were in her head.
They didn’t stop. And with their constant scaremongering, the fives were constantly interrupted. She had to keep starting over and over and over again. It had been like this ever since last week. Every time she’d tried to leave the flat, it had taken nearly half an hour. It couldn’t go on. The situation was untenable; clients often expected her to arrive within thirty to sixty minutes of making a booking.
Unable to quieten the board, she gave up the checking and smoked a cigarette. Still jittery, she took out her foil and had a small chase. She told herself it didn’t really count. After all, she didn’t shoot it.
The board sedated, she was able to complete the checks. Within five minutes, she was in her 350SL, revving the engine.
***
When she arrived at Aunt Elsie’s, she was relieved to smell only the old house mustiness and not her aunt’s cooking. She couldn’t eat so close to using gear. She’d be sick. Aunt Elsie called from the kitchen and Shelley sauntered down the hall to the back of the house.
Her aunt hugged her then held her back by her shoulders. “You look exhausted. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing, I’m fine.” Shelley pulled her hair slightly over her face.
“Did you get that allergy test done?”
“I’ve been too busy with work... I’ll get round to it soon.”
“They’re working you too hard. I can tell.”
Shelley scratched her nose. “They’re not. They’ve been very good to me, really.”
Aunt Elsie made tea and they sat on their usual white stools at the white, plastic table in the kitchen. Elsie, as always, sat facing the back door and Shelley, facing the hall. From her chair, she could see the picture frames that stood on the hall table. Although she couldn’t see the pictures, she knew each one from memory. The pictures were of happier times: baby pictures of her and William, a school picture of William when he was about ten, a school picture of Shelley taken around the same time, putting her at seven or eight, and a picture of them both with their mother before she became ill. That last picture, taken in Brighton in the summer of 1983, was from the last holiday they’d had with just the three of them. Until that year, Rita had taken her and William to Brighton every summer. Neither she nor her mother had been back since, but William had, once.
Shelley gulped her tea and apologised to her aunt for the short visit. On her way to the front door, she stopped at the hall table. It was the missing pictures she noticed. There was no record from that last holiday until she was fifteen years old and William was seventeen. As if those years in between had never existed. Of course, they had. They all wanted to forget them. But how could she erase them when she’d endured them? However much she tried, those years wouldn’t stop replaying in her head. That’s what caused the rage, the despair, and the excruciating pain that fed on her soul.
At the front door, Elsie put her hands on Shelley’s shoulders. “You’re a wonderful daughter. If I’d had a child I’d want her to be just like you.”
Shelley hugged her aunt. She needed the hug and she needed to hide the tears of guilt she felt forming in her eyes. She was not a wonderful daughter.
***
In her car, the salty tears trickled into her mouth as she sang to Steely Dan - Fire in the Hole. Smoking a cigarette had worked to stop the sobbing, but the tears still leaked.
To fill the expanding hole inside her, she needed heroin, but she couldn’t have a hit, not yet. She still had to go to her mother’s flat, and go shopping. After what she’d found out from Tara last Thursday, she’d arrived at her mother’s on the Friday without the groceries.
She swerved into the supermarket car park and pulled into a space. Repositioning the rear view mirror downwards, she inspected the damage. Her eyes were black, and grey tracks marked her cheeks.
She took a tissue from the supply usually used to press on the entry point of a needle and wet it with the water kept in the car for cooking up a hit. As she cleaned her face, she reconsidered making up a shot. She decided against it. She’d save the little she had left for when she got home. Then she could call Jay to ensure she didn’t run out completely.
***
At the top of Hammers Lane, Shelley tussled with the grocery bags weighing her down. She’d bought more than usual. She needed to make sure her mother had extra supplies. The rapist could be entrapped within days of her meeting with Angel. The meeting was on Sunday.
Looking above the hedge, she saw her mother’s curtains were closed, and there didn’t appear to be any light peeping through the gaps. At eight-thirty in the evening, Rita may have gone to bed early or perhaps not been up at all.
She lifted the gold knocker and tapped it down hard on the plate. Her mother didn’t come. Not wanting to disturb the neighbours at night by shouting, she used her own key. She tumbled over something in the downstairs hall. Steadying herself, she felt in the dark for the light switch.
Under the bright hundred-watt bulb, she saw mountains of files and loose papers stacked up in the tiny hall. One by one, she swung the bags of shopping from outside the front door onto the only floor space available – the stairs.
“Mum, it’s me,” she called. There was no reply.
Bending like a branch in a gale, she made her way up the stairs, resisting the heavy bags pulling her back down. After she’d dumped the bags in the kitchen, she trudged through to her mother’s bedroom.
In the darkness, her mother lay in the bed. As Shelley got closer, she saw her mother’s eyes were open. With both her hands, she was holding a picture of William pressed to her heart.
Shelley stroked her mother’s hair away from her forehead. “Mum, I’m going to turn on the light now, okay?”
Her mother didn’t respond. Apart from her breathing, rapid and shallow, she didn’t make a sound.
Shelley switched on the bedside light and sat on the edge of the bed. She wrapped her hands over her mother’s hands holding the picture of William. Her head fell, and silently, she cried.