My face was wind-whipped by the time I reached home, despite the scarf I’d tied around my face. I’d been aiming for a Lawrence of Arabia look, something to ward off the elements, but had failed miserably.
My cheeks and fingers, the only things left exposed, throbbed with cold, but I didn’t bother clapping my hands or retying the scarf. It was a bit late for that. I was entering into the completely numb phase, which seemed like a more bearable option.
I’d never walked so far before, had never had reason to. I hadn’t meant to today, but as I walked my mind refused to settle, so I kept on going, hoping the answers lay ahead of me. By the time I knew where I was, it was dark, I was hungry, and I was stood at the end of the path to my house, hands trembling on the gate.
‘Shit,’ I whispered, patting down my pockets. I’d been in such a rush to get away from Bellfield that I hadn’t thought to pick up my house keys. All that had mattered was scarpering before Ade caught up with me.
I kicked the gate, knowing the only way to get warm was to break in and I was hardly an expert. It was dark and cold enough for the street to be deserted, so I put my head to my chest and shuffled up the path, sneaking down the side of the house and into the back garden.
I knew none of the windows would be open – Ade had checked all that stuff last time we came. I also knew that Dad had fitted locks on the dining-room and kitchen windows, which left only the small one in the downstairs loo. Dad had never bothered to put a lock on it, so although it seemed an unlikely option I knew it was the only one open to me. I picked up a hefty stone from the rockery and stood before the glass.
Nerves were pricking now and I glanced around again, clocking the lights shining from the house behind ours. If I was going to do this, I was going to have to muffle the sound as the glass broke. Off came my scarf, which I wrapped clumsily around the rock. I’d seen it in Ocean’s Eleven or something and hoped it wasn’t another bit of Hollywood nonsense.
The window gave easily under the stone, but not quietly, and I cringed as the shards fell to the floor, shattering against the tiles. Knocking the remaining glass out as best I could, I hoisted myself up on the window ledge and squeezed my head and shoulders through.
It was tight, too tight. I remembered getting through it a few years ago when I’d locked myself out after school, but that was different. I was half a metre shorter then and the window had been open, not grinning at me like now, with sharp glass teeth.
Breathing in, I twisted until eventually my stomach was through, leaving just the width of my hips to pass. With a final, furious wriggle and bend of the knee I was in. I crashed to the floor, body landing to one side of the toilet, my right arm sinking straight into the middle of the pan, submerged in stagnant water.
It was a shock, more so than the sliver of glass that punctured the palm of my left hand. It wasn’t until I’d dried my arm that I even realized I’d cut myself. It stung like buggery, in some ways worse than any of my self-inflicted cuts. At least I’d done them out of choice. Well, sort of.
I may have been inside, but it made no difference to the temperature. In fact, it felt damper inside than out. Darker too. I bundled along the corridor, knocking pans to the floor as I clattered against the kitchen wall. I swore at myself, annoyed. I’d walked around this house all my life, often in the dark, yet suddenly I had no clue where anything was. The lights had been disconnected, thanks no doubt to some do-gooder social worker, and all the radiators were refrigerator-cold too.
The walk had left me ravenous, so I rifled through the cupboards for food. It was slim pickings, but I was beyond caring, so a half-eaten packet of Ryvitas and a tin of black olives seemed heavenly at the time, even if the crispbreads were soft.
Chucking my bounty on the coffee table, I slumped on the sofa, legs pulled beneath me, and rolled a cigarette. I felt a twinge of guilt for a moment as I lit it, wondering if Dad might appear at the edge of the darkness, bollocking me for damaging my lungs.
It had taken a couple of hours to get here, but now I was inside I had no idea what to do or how long I should stay. Not that it mattered, being here beat being ritually humiliated by Naomi.
It was so cold in the room I got up and stamped around, refamiliarizing myself with the DVDs on the shelves, trying to remember the last time I’d actually concentrated on a film from start to finish. It was depressing to realize that it must have been months ago, when there was juice in the sockets.
That should’ve been my cue to call Bellfield and get someone to pick me up, but I couldn’t face the lecture about bunking off again, so I bundled a load of scrunched-up paper and kindling into the fireplace, setting it off with Dad’s Zippo. If I was going to stay and wallow in the dark, at least I could be warm doing it.
The fire cheered me up. It threw some light on to the walls, reminding me of the pictures hanging there. It was such a relief to be away from the shatterproof windows of the unit that I found myself slowly nodding off.
It was that blissful type of sleep you don’t ever want to end, so when it was interrupted by a key in the front door I was irritated beyond belief. I suppose I should’ve been scared rather than annoyed – after all, it was probably the police checking for squatters – but even when a flashlight slid across the wall and into my eyes, I wasn’t tempted to run. This was my house, even if I’d had to tumble into a toilet to force my way in.
‘Who’s that?’ I barked, eyes shielded from the light.
‘It’s me,’ sang a familiar voice. Ade’s. ‘You know, you really have to quit this running-off business. It costs me a fortune in petrol money.’
‘Then stop following me.’
‘You know I can’t do that. It would please Naomi too much.’
I felt my back stiffen at her name, paranoid for a second that she was lurking behind Ade, ready to finish me off.
‘Did it take you long to work out where I was?’
‘Well, I tried the cliffs first,’ she said, sitting beside me, ‘but it was so windy I guessed you weren’t angry enough to stay there long. Once I’d checked you hadn’t blown away, this was my second guess.’
I ground my cigarette into Dad’s ashtray, envisaging Naomi’s face beneath the glowing tip. ‘Perhaps the cliffs would’ve been a better choice, eh?’
She looked crestfallen. ‘Please don’t say that, Daisy. What Naomi and Patrick did back there was unforgivable, but it’s so important after everything you’ve achieved that you don’t let it get to you.’
‘Easier said than done, though, isn’t it? It’s not as if I’m any closer to getting out of Bellfield. It’s not like the thoughts have gone away or anything.’
‘Of course they haven’t. These things take time. But you must not forget the work you have done. Don’t forget the days recently when these crazy thoughts have not gripped as hard. Maybe …’ She paused. ‘Naomi and Patrick have done you a favour.’
‘A what?’ I yelled, pushing to my feet. ‘How do you work that out? Did you want them to find that bloody tape? Is that why you plugged me into it every day for the last month? To draw attention to me?’
‘Of course not. Why would I do that? What I am trying to say is that you have to take the positives out of situations and perhaps recognize that Naomi has helped you.’
‘How?’
‘Because she told me something about you that I did not know. I had no idea that you feel responsible for your mother’s death as well as your dad’s.’
I turned away from her, didn’t want her to see that it was true. Scared this would be the final straw that pushed her away.
‘Daisy, it is nothing for you to be ashamed of, whatever it is you’re feeling. We will work at it and beat it the same way. With the same determination you are already showing.’
I thought about rolling another fag, but there wasn’t a cigarette paper big enough to distract me from the enormity of what I was feeling. It had been with me so long, I couldn’t fathom what I believed and what I didn’t, where the truth ended and I began. Mum being dead was all I’d ever known and thanks to the hospital report it would always be linked with my birth. I mean, how do you explain that?
‘Why does everything have to be so difficult?’ I asked, rubbing the cut on my palm gingerly.
‘Difficult how?’
‘I don’t know, just difficult. All the films I watched with Dad, any of them that were any good, they were all tense, they all had these plots where the characters had to get over things or work things out. And nearly always they did. By the time the two hours was up they’d found the answer, had the secret to life sorted and stored away in their head. Either that or they’d shot someone and felt better that way instead.’
Ade chuckled, her laugh warming the room.
‘Hollywood has a lot to answer for.’
‘It bloody does. It makes me wonder why I put myself through it. Why I constantly want to watch film after film.’
‘Maybe you really believe that whatever answers you need are tucked away in a film somewhere. And maybe, Daisy, they are. Or maybe you already know the answers and you just need help to get them out of here.’ She tapped the top of my head, before pulling me into her embrace. It was an action that revealed just how exhausted I really was.
‘I don’t enjoy feeling like this, you know.’
‘I know. Nobody does.’
‘There are times when I look at Naomi and Paddy and think they get off on it, feeling like they do.’
‘I can guarantee you they don’t.’ She gripped me by the shoulders, breaking the embrace as she looked straight inside me. ‘Everyone has their ways of coping. Those two smother theirs in aggression. It may be something you could learn a little from.’ She grinned, enough for me to know that I should listen to her advice.
‘Really?’
‘The last thing I want is for you to copy anyone. Not me, not Paddy, Naomi or anyone. But ever since I met you, you have been apologizing. It would do you good for once to not say sorry. Just for once, maybe you could say, “You know, this isn’t my fault.”’
‘But what if I don’t believe it? What if things really are my fault? What if Mum dying really was down to me?’
I heard her groan, before she plodded over to the fire, tossing two large logs on to it.
‘Prove it to me,’ she said. ‘You have as long as it takes for the fire to burn down to convince me. So go on and do your worst.’
She tossed these words at me as she flopped on to the sofa, leaving me exposed, despite the near darkness in the room.
‘Well, go on, Daisy Houghton. I dare you.’
And so I began, waiting for the first apology to fall out of my mouth.