Keep Her Safe Read online

  A man’s voice says, “Ma’am, may I give you a towel, a robe and slippers?”

  “Oh, thank you.” I wait while he lays it all out neatly on my chair. Though I’d give him full marks for effort, I don’t like his arrangement and will move it all once he’s gone.

  “And may I put up the parasol for you, or would you rather be in the sun?”

  “No, thanks. I mean, yes, please—the parasol up would be great. Thanks.”

  His work done, he tells me to have “a super-great day.” As he strolls away, I mutter under my breath, “Don’t tell me what kind of day to have.”

  Maybe I should have picked a resort in a different country, where everyone’s a bit grumpier—somewhere cold and underprivileged.

  As promised, there’s a button on the side of my lounge chair with a picture on it of a waiter holding a tray. Much as I’d like a drink, I can’t face pressing it. I’ve had enough conversations for today. I spot a cold-water-and-ice machine on the other side of the pool, with a stack of plastic cups next to it. That’s one problem solved. What’s the other machine, the white one the size of a large suitcase with a nozzle on the side? It turns out to be a sun cream dispenser—which reminds me that I forgot to buy any in the shop.

  I’ve never seen that before: SPF 30 on tap. Then again, I normally go on holiday to rural Wales or Scotland, to hotels that offer to lend you Wellington boots and umbrellas. I rub more cream into my skin than I would normally. The Arizona sun seems a bit more serious than anything I’ve encountered before.

  On my way back to my chair with a glass of water, I prepare to look away in order to avoid eye contact with the mother and daughter. I feel better when I see that they’re as committed as I am to mutual nonacknowledgment. Both are immersed in their books. The mother’s is called Jane Doe January. The daughter is reading The Waves by Virginia Woolf. Older than she looks, definitely; either that or she’s unusually highbrow for her age. If Jess were here, she’d be reading something by or about a Kardashian.

  I sit down, open the iPad and wonder how to email Patrick when the only email account I have is the one he and I share. If we need to contact each other when we’re apart, we always text.

  Is there any reason why I shouldn’t be able to send an email to and from the same account? Probably not.

  Deciding what I want to say to Patrick is harder than I thought it would be. I love you. I’m sorry. I’m angry. I miss you. I feel as if something I’ve always believed in has turned out to be a shoddy forgery.

  I’m definitely not putting that in my email.

  “Dear Patrick,” I begin.

  My phone is out of action at the moment (long story), so if you’ve sent me texts since I left, I haven’t seen them. I don’t know if, by now, you’ve worked out why I felt I had to escape for a bit. I don’t know if you’re angry or hurt or confused. All three, probably. Anyway, I’m truly sorry for whatever problems I’ve caused for you, Jess and Olly. I hope you know that I didn’t do this on a whim, and that I wouldn’t have done it if I’d felt I had a choice.

  I’m missing you all like crazy, and looking forward to seeing you again. When I get back, I hope we can talk about everything and sort things out. Please, for now, can you just email me and let me know that you and the kids are okay and coping, and that all is fine at home?

  Lots of love, C xxx

  P.S. I’m writing to the kids separately, but you can show them this, too, if you want.

  I read what I’ve written. It strikes the right tone, I think. Calm, considerate . . .

  Too considerate. It mentions Patrick’s hurt and anger, but not mine.

  Because you’re leading by example. Your email acknowledges his pain. Now let’s see if his reply acknowledges yours.

  I can’t decide if that’s a pathetic excuse. I’m not a representative of the Good Behavior Exam Board. Why should Patrick take any notice of my feelings when I pretend not to notice them myself?

  I go back to the message and, after “All three, probably” I add, “I know that I’m angry and hurt—very—but I’m not at all confused. I know what I want, and I know what I’m going to do.”

  No, that sounds too combative. I change it to “I know I want this baby.”

  I press Send and see that I guessed right: a Hotmail address can send messages to itself, no problem at all. Great. That’s that done.

  Next, Jess and Olly. They both have email accounts, but they never look at them. All their online communication with their friends happens in other places—Snapchat, Instagram. I know nothing about Snapchat, but I have an Instagram account. I set it up because the kids wanted me to see their photos. Olly’s are mostly of his Xbox, computer equipment and skateboards. Each time Patrick buys him a new monitor or headset, he posts a picture of it and it gets “liked” by all the boys in his class at school, at least four of whom are in Olly’s gaming gang, or whatever it’s called (“It’s not called that, Mum,” Jess would say. “You’re such a dinosaur.”).

  I know Olly’s friends as Fraser, Richard, Louis and Barney, but for gaming purposes they’re Illusion Fire, Illusion Sleepwalk, Illusion Stack and Illusion Shadow. Olly is Illusion Blaze.

  Jess loves taking odd-angled photos of street scenes and buildings. “All my friends just post selfies of their ridiculous pouty faces,” she told me, shaking her head in disgust. “They look like fish that have been frozen with a stun gun.”

  Unlike Olly, who likes his friends in an uncomplicated way, Jess has strong views about hers that aren’t always complimentary. Petra is wet and boring. Hazel’s a snide cow but always disguises her cruel comments as humor, though no one notices this apart from Jess; she calls Jess fat all the time as a joke, even though Jess is skinny, and Hazel is fat, but Jess is kind enough never to point this out. Esther pretends to have life-threatening food allergies, but that’s a lie, and her parents hate each other so much, they can’t be in the same county.

  When I see Jess with these girls they always seem to be having the best time ever—hugging each other, giggling, listing the flaws of the smelly, sexist boys with bad breath who read books about elves, and the other girls who aren’t in their group—their terrible taste in Netflix dramas, their badly behaved dogs, their gold-digger mothers. I haven’t heard any dissent or bitching within Jess’s little gang, only complete agreement on every topic, as if the four of them have one mind.

  I once presented this to Jess as evidence that she might like her friends more than she claims to. She rolled her eyes and said, “Mum. I have no choice about who I spend time with. I’m stuck at school all day long with these randoms. I have to fit in, or I’d have no social life.”

  All Jess’s Instagram photos without exception have been “liked” by Hazel, Petra and Esther. I’m sure she has reciprocated. I’ve been forbidden from “liking” anything posted by either of my children. Jess tried to be reasonable when she imposed this restriction: “We’d like your photos, Mum, if you ever posted any. But for us it’d be embarrassing to have you liking our stuff. All our friends would see it.”

  My stomach turns over when I see that neither Jess nor Olly has posted anything at all on Instagram since I left for Arizona. Why not? Are they too upset?

  A panicky feeling starts to well up inside me. I take deep breaths to drive it away.

  “Sod it,” I mutter as I decide to break the rule and “like” Jess’s most recently posted picture—a bay window behind iron railings. I add a comment: “Love you very much, darling. See you on Tuesday 24 Oct. I’m fine. There’s nothing to worry about. All my love, Mum xxxxx.” On Olly’s Instagram, I do the same: “like” the picture he’s posted of a box with EL GATO written on it, and add a message that’s nearly identical to the one I sent Jess.

  I hear a boy’s voice yell “Marco!” Looking up, I see that it came from the pool. A girl yells “Polo!” apparently in response. They’re part of a group of five or six who are circling each other in the water. Soon others have joined in and are shouting, too.

/>   “Marco!”

  “Polo!”

  “Marco!”

  “Polo!”

  The loudest shouter by far is a girl of about ten with the thickest braids I’ve ever seen sticking out from the side of her head—bright blue bobbles at the top and bottom on both sides, creating a strange braid-sausage effect.

  I hear the girl who’s trying to read Virginia Woolf say to her mother, “Can we move to the spa pool? I can’t listen to this. It’s torture. Why are people such morons? Mother! Are you listening to me?”

  No reply. Then a distracted “No, I’m not moving.”

  “Marco!”

  “Polo!”

  It must be a game of some kind—though, watching the aimless circling and giggling that’s going on in the pool, it’s hard to fathom what the rules might be.

  “Marco!”

  “Why can’t we move?”

  “Polo!”

  “You don’t think the spa pool will have morons?” the mother replies eventually. “Why not? Morons are everywhere.”

  “The spa pool doesn’t allow children under sixteen.”

  “So the morons will be older there, is all.”

  “They’re less likely to scream ‘Marco Polo!’ all day long.”

  “This pool has better views and a cocktail bar. The spa’s all rainwater and fresh-air smoothies. I hate that shit. Don’t worry, I have an idea. I need a cocktail first, then I’ll deal with those people.”

  “Oh, you’ll deal with them?” The daughter laughs. “Right. Can’t wait to see that. You think you’re such a badass, and you’re so not.”

  “You’ll see,” her mother says with quiet confidence.

  If this woman found herself unexpectedly pregnant and wanted to keep the baby, I bet she’d obliterate all opposition within seconds.

  I wait, expecting to hear her getting up off her lounge chair and clacking off in her high-heeled sandals in search of a cocktail. Then I realize: she’ll simply have pressed a button. Sure enough, a few seconds later I hear footsteps and a man asking what he can bring her. She orders a Swallowtail Showboat, whatever that is. Her daughter orders Earl Grey tea with lemon.

  “Marco!”

  “Polo!”

  “Marco!”

  “Polo!”

  “So what’s your plan?” asks the girl. “Drowning them? Like, why aren’t they at school?”

  “Why aren’t you?”

  “That’s easy: because I have a mother who cares more about her vacation than my education.”

  “I’m going to need your help,” says Badass Mom.

  “With what? With them? No. No way.”

  “Pick a random name.”

  “What?”

  “Go on. Someone from that book you’re reading.”

  “Ugh, Mother, seriously. Quit it. Let’s just move to the spa pool when you’ve had your drink.”

  “Okay, I’ll pick: Harvey Specter.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The guy in Suits. We get in the pool, get right up close to those bastards. Then I yell ‘Harvey’ at the top of my lungs, and you yell ‘Specter!’ Then we do it again, and again. I guarantee we won’t hear another peep out of the Marco Polos.”

  I hear movement: footsteps, and a scratching sound, like fingernails on material. Is the daughter about to walk away in disgust? Or is it the waiter arriving with Badass Mom’s cocktail? I can’t turn and look without risking being drawn into something.

  “Suits? That is so lame. I don’t know how you can watch that brain-rot shit. Every single episode, someone says, ‘Just do your goddamn job and win the goddamn case,’ while the elevator doors slide shut in front of them.”

  “I can do it on my own if you’re too shy—yell ‘Harvey’ and ‘Specter.’”

  Suddenly I hear a different voice, much closer, say, “It was her. Nobody believes me. Never do, never will. But it was her.”

  Oh no. Please, no.

  “It was Melody. Sure as I’m born.”

  I turn. Mrs. McNair has taken a lounge chair that’s set a little back from mine and to the right. Quickly, I look away. Too late. “Hey, you!” she calls out.

  Pretend you’re invisible. Pretend she’s invisible.

  “Lady in front!”

  There’s no way out. I turn back to her with a fixed smile. “Yes?”

  “I don’t suppose you’d believe me, either. No, I shouldn’t tell you. There’s something wrong with you. What is it? What’s the matter?”

  “I’m fine,” I say, keeping my smile firmly in place. Actually, I’m suddenly much too hot, even in the shade.

  “No. You’re in bad shape. I can feel it. There’s no connection.” Mrs. McNair points at me, then to her chest, then back to me. “I can’t feel a connection to you at all. None.”

  Could that be because you’re a complete stranger?

  Don’t people say that you always think of the perfect comeback when it’s too late? Not me. I normally think of it in plenty of time to use it, and I always decide not to. I’m such a wimp—sadass, not badass.

  “I know what it is.” The old lady peers at me. “It’s your energy. It’s not right. You have a very hollow energy.”

  “Mrs. Icy Dead People’s picked her next hapless victim,” says Badass Mom to her daughter.

  Mrs. Icy What? My brain plays it back and I realize what she must have said. It’s her nickname for Mrs. McNair, evidently: Mrs. I-See-Dead-People, a reference to the Bruce Willis movie The Sixth Sense. Does that mean . . . ?

  Is Melody dead? That would explain why Mrs. McNair expressed surprise at seeing her running. Her cousin Isaac—who can’t walk, let alone run—is very likely dead, too.

  How long have all these people been at Swallowtail? Badass Mom seems to know all about Mrs. McNair and her peculiar ways.

  I’ve switched to the daughter’s side: with “Marco!” and “Polo!” still being shrieked at full volume, it’s way past time to relocate to the spa pool. I start to get up.

  “Wait,” says Mrs. McNair. “I know what you need. I have a friend in Oak Creek. Up Sedona way. She does soul retrieval. She can get you your soul back. It’s Native American, the technique she uses. Visualization. She’s the best. She’s the one you should go see. And give her a testimonial for her website when you’re done. You don’t have to. Only if you want to. But why wouldn’t you want to? What harm would it do?”

  She waves her hand dismissively as if she’s given up on me already. “People used to care. They gave back. No one gives back anymore. You try to help people . . .” She shakes her head. “It was her. Melody. It was dark, and I couldn’t see the top of her head, but it was her.”

  Without saying a word in response, I walk away as fast as I can. I hear Badass Mom say, “Damn. We lost our buffer. Crazy just got closer.”

  It’s only when I’m closing the gate to the pool area that I remember I’ve left the iPad Mini behind.

  Great. Just perfect. How could I be so stupid? Perhaps it has something to do with my hollow energy or lack of soul. That must be it.

  Shit, shit, shit. Where’s the Fetch-the-thing-I-forgot-and-spare-me-another-encounter-with-Mrs.-McNair button for me to press?

  I steel myself and walk back to where I was sitting. Mrs. McNair’s eyes are closed. She opens them as I approach, looks up at me with a smile and says, “Hello, dear!” as if this is the first time we’ve encountered one another.

  “It’s good-bye, actually,” I say as I pick up the iPad.

  Did I just—not hugely, but sort of, a little bit—stick up for myself for the first time in my life instead of running away?

  As well as, not instead of. Now I’m running away.

  For my sixth birthday, my parents gave me a photo of Emory. It was in a little heart-shaped gold frame. They said they thought I was finally old enough to see her and to have my own special picture of her. It was kind of a shock. Until then I’d only imagined her face, never seen it.

  In the photo, Emory was dead. I knew th
at without asking. She looked dead, and there’s no way anyone could have gotten a photo of her lying on flower-patterned material, or any sort of photo of her at all, while she was alive—apart from an ultrasound, I guess.

  I unwrapped my birthday present before I knew what it was. My mother and father were smiling and had tears in their eyes, so I thought it was going to be something truly great. When I saw what it was, I couldn’t speak. I wanted to scream and throw it across the room, but my parents were beaming at me, expecting me to be thrilled. “Isn’t your sister just so beautiful?” my mother asked me. “Yes,” I said. If I’d given any other answer, she wouldn’t have spoken a single word to me for at least two weeks.

  I allowed a few tears to leak out. I could get away with it, I figured, if I made my parents believe I was thinking what they were thinking. “She should be here now,” I said, quoting Mom’s most overused phrase. “Yes, she should,” my mother agreed, also crying. “Well, you have a photo of her now to put on your nightstand. That way you can see her beautiful face every day.”

  I thought I was going to faint. I didn’t want to sleep in the same room as a photo of a dead girl, even if she was my sister, but there was nothing I could do about it.

  It turned out that my parents had dozens of pictures of Emory. As soon as they’d given me my birthday present, there was a big change in household policy. It was as if they’d been holding back all those years, having judged that I was too young to see images of my dead sister, but now that they’d given me one as a gift there was no need to hide anything, so out they all came. My parents’ bedroom, our family room, dining room, den—all were suddenly full of photos of Emory in gold frames of different sizes. The flowery thing that Emory was lying on in my birthday present picture was in most of the others, but not all of them. There were a few where she was lying on some kind of shimmery silver material that looked as if it could have been a fancy bedspread.

  At the same time, some pictures of me appeared, propped up against books on shelves in the house, unframed—not dozens, but two or three. No photos of me had ever been put up on display before; hardly any had been taken. At the time, I believed my parents must have realized that I might feel left out if I saw my sister on every surface and me on none, and so tried to compensate me by displaying a few dog-eared snaps. I remember thinking, How can they imagine that this will make me feel better? Are they stupid? Do they think I haven’t noticed that there are thirty of Emory and only three of me? Do they think I can’t see that they’ve spent money on frames for hers and not for mine?