Lou
Saturday 21st April 2007
I’ve spent the last month trying to ready myself for this moment but nothing could have prepared me for the cloud of memories that descend as I catch sight of the Malvern Hills, curving like a dragon’s back, as I head down the A4440: buying penny sweets in white paper bags from Morley’s, laughing at the girls from the local boarding school in their brown ‘Batman’ cloaks, walking up to St Anne’s Well with Mum and Dad feeling like I was climbing a mountain, and stepping into The Martial Arts Club for the first time, feeling sick with nerves. An image of Mike, smiling and holding out a hand in welcome, flashes into my brain. I try to blot it out by focussing on the road as I speed past Malvern and along the A4103 towards Acton Green. It’s not a journey I’ve ever driven before – I passed my test in London – but the road is imprinted in my memory from all the times Dad ferried me to and from karate lessons. My phone bleeps on the passenger seat as I pass Dad’s favourite drinking haunt, The Dog and Duck. I snatch it up, hoping it’s a text from Ben, knowing it won’t be.
I haven’t seen or heard from him since that awful afternoon in Dover four weeks ago. He caught up with me after I fled, half a mile or so along the seafront.
‘Louise?’ He abandoned his car on a double yellow line and ran after me, grabbing my hand, forcing me to stop. ‘What’s wrong? What’s the matter?’
I shook my head, hating myself for what I was about to do.
‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘What just happened?’
When I told him that I didn’t think we should see each other again, the concerned expression on his face morphed into confusion. Why, he wanted to know. What had he done wrong?
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Nothing at all.’
He searched my face for an answer. ‘Then why?’
I couldn’t tell him. Not when I’ve spent the last eighteen years pretending that Mike Hughes doesn’t exist. Instead I mumbled something about things moving too quickly. I wasn’t ready for a relationship. We wanted different things.
I cried on the train back to London, turning my face to the window so the man sitting next to me couldn’t see my tears. Ben didn’t deserve what just happened. Neither did any of the men I’d dumped, run away from and lied to. If I didn’t face up to what happened to me when I was fourteen I was going to spend the rest of my life alone.
I glance at my phone. The text is from my best friend Alice, asking if I’ve got to Dad’s house safely. I drop the phone back on the seat and indicate left, taking the road towards Ledbury – and Mike’s house – instead of continuing on to Acton Green. I’ve never been to his house before. Why would I? He was a respectable member of the community, a karate teacher who raised money for charity through fun runs and tournaments. And besides, he lived with his wife Dee. Mike was very good at keeping our ‘affair’ secret. Our first kiss was in the changing rooms behind the dojo. I was fourteen and it was almost one year to the day after I first started karate, but we first fucked in—
Don’t use that word again.
Mike’s voice cuts through the memory.
Fucking is sex without emotion, Louise. That’s not something I do and it’s certainly not something we’re going to do. When we spend the night together for the first time it’s going to be because we love each other and we’ll express that by—
I turn the radio on and twist the knob round to the right. The sound explodes out of the speakers in a fury, making my eardrums pulse, but I don’t turn it back down. It’s a song I barely know but I sing along anyway, shouting nonsensical words as Mike’s voice creeps through the space between notes, demanding to be heard.
Mike might not have taken me to his house but I knew where he lived. I knew everything about him, or as much as a fourteen-year-old girl could without access to the internet, and I wrote it all down in my diary. I listened in to conversations between the parents and the other senseis. I casually quizzed the older students about him and, during the rare moments I was alone with Mike, I’d listen, enrapt, to anything he told me. This was way before we kissed for the first time. A long time before that.
As I turn right off New Mills Way – one street away from Mike’s house – my resolve vanishes and empty terror replaces it. What am I doing? My plan was to give myself a couple of weeks to sort out Dad’s house and start work before I tracked Mike down. I googled before I left, to check he hadn’t changed his name or gone underground. But no, he lives in the same house he lived in eighteen years ago and he’s got his own business – Hughes Removals and Deliveries – on the outskirts of Malvern. No karate club though, thank God.
I park up, then slump over the steering wheel as all the air leaves my body in one raggedy breath. I’ve got no idea what I’ll walk into when I knock on his door. Mike’s wife could answer. One of his children – if he has any. What do I say if that happens? Hello, I’m Louise, the girl your dad groomed. Is he in?
I don’t know why you’re blaming me for everything. You knew what you were getting yourself into.
Shut up, I tell the voice. I was fourteen. I had no idea.
If I did such a terrible thing why didn’t you testify at my trial?
Because I was terrified of what you might do if you weren’t convicted.
That’s a lie, isn’t it? You didn’t testify because you loved me.
No, that’s not true.
You were the one who said ‘I love you’ first. You said you wanted to marry me and have my children. Do you know why you can’t make a relationship work? Why you had to send Ben packing? Because you still love me.
‘No.’ I slam my fists against the steering wheel, pounding the horn to block out the soft murmur of Mike’s voice in the back of my skull. ‘I don’t. I don’t.’
Sweat prickles at my armpits as I push open the gate to Mike’s house and walk up the path. If his wife answers, I won’t recognise her. There are no photos of her on the internet and Mum made sure I didn’t get so much as a peek at the news or the front page of a newspaper after the trial. I didn’t have a mobile phone or home computer back in 1989 either.
But what if Dee Hughes recognises me? She never went to the dojo or to any of the matches but she must have tried to find out who I am. What if she screams in my face and tells me that I ruined her life? When I look at photos of fourteen-year-old me, I barely recognise myself. My face was soft and round, my hair dark and cut into a jaw-length bob with a thick heavy fringe. These days it’s lighter and longer, with pale tendrils that hang over sharp cheekbones and a tight jaw that I didn’t have eighteen years ago. But it’s not just my face that has changed. The softly curved body I despised so much as a teenager has gone. On a good day, I can look in the mirror and tell myself that I’m slender. On a bad day, my body looks wizened and androgynous, as though the years have eaten away at my femininity.
I knock three times on the front door. I’ve imagined this moment a thousand times. Sometimes Mike looks shocked to see me. Occasionally he starts to cry. Once I stabbed him before he could speak. I concentrate on the thick, glossy red paint and take a deep breath. If Mike peeks from behind a curtain, I want him to see me standing here confidently, not twitching and shifting. I want to get this over and done with now, before any more memories overwhelm me. I have to do it while I’m still feeling brave. We can talk on the doorstep or in the pub down the road. If he invites me in, I’ll say no. Even if he’s home alone. Particularly if he’s home alone.
That’s her, someone shouts as I step out of the French police station. Flashbulbs light up the dark sky as I’m sandwiched between four police officers and shepherded into a black car. That’s the girl who ran away with her karate teacher.
‘Hello?’
I am vaguely aware of a voice, a male baritone, shouting hello, but it doesn’t register. Nothing does.
I need to find out where Mike is. Did they bring him here too? Is he being interrogated behind one of these flat, beige doors?
‘Hello! You at the door of number fifty-nine!’
I turn slowly. There’s a man in his mid to late fifties, hanging out of the first-floor window of the house next to Mike’s. The upper half of his body is naked and his hair is slicked back, like he just stepped out of the shower. I try to erase the image of Mike’s face from my mind, to mentally shake myself forward in time, but the memory’s still holding me tightly, like the last vestiges of a dream. Or a nightmare.
‘Were you after Mike?’ the man asks.
Do I say yes or no? I have no idea who this person is.
‘I was, yes.’
‘Friend are you?’
I smile tightly. ‘Old friend.’
His eyes flick the length of my body and he smiles lasciviously. ‘Lucky Mike.’
I ignore him and head back down the path to my car.
‘He’s at work,’ the man shouts, making me pause as I touch a hand to the driver side door. ‘Greensleeves, the garden centre. He does their pick-ups on a Saturday.’ No mention of Mike’s wife, but I’m not about to ask.
‘Fancy going for a drink sometime?’ he adds as I get into my car. ‘Thank me properly?’
I consider shouting something abusive but I haven’t got time to explain why no sane woman would date a prick who slathers at women out of a window. It’s half past five. I need to find out where the garden centre is and get there before it closes. I need to find Mike. Now. Before the fear sets in again.
Chapter 4
Lou
I change out of my uniform in the car, wriggling out of my school skirt and pulling on my jeans. When I undo my seat belt so I can take off my shirt, Mike snaps at me.
‘What the fuck are you doing? We’re on the motorway for God’s sake.’
I quickly plug my seat belt back in but tears prick at my eyes as I struggle to pull on my jumper. It was supposed to be a romantic weekend away and he’s just snapped at me like I’m misbehaving in class.
‘I’m sorry.’ Mike rests a hand on my knee. ‘I didn’t mean to make you cry. I just don’t want anything to happen to you, Lou. You mean the world to me. You know that, don’t you?’
I nod, but I don’t squeeze his hand. It remains on my knee like a dead weight until he has to lift it up again to tap the indicator and change lanes.
I push open the doors to Greensleeves Garden Centre. As I step inside the woman behind the counter, dressed in a red polo shirt, shouts that they’ll be closing soon. I ignore her and speed through the shop, barely registering the shelves of bird food and ornaments and the displays of garden furniture and houseplants. The only other customer is a heavily pregnant woman pushing a trolley full of fertiliser and decorative fencing with bedding plants piled on the top.
I glance at my watch as I step through the large double doors next to the restaurant. 17.53. Seven minutes until they close. If Mike’s not out here, in the yard amongst the plants, shrubs and timber, I’ll head round the back, see if there’s some kind of loading bay. I don’t want to have to come here again or go back to his house. I want to get this over and done with now.
I walk along the length of the aisles, pausing to peer down each one as I pass. The place is deserted. I’ll just do one last loop of the yard and then head round the—
It’s the flash of blue amongst all the brown and green that makes me pause. I’m at the far end of the yard, standing beside a raised pallet full of shaped bushes and willow-like trees in decorative pots. There are six sheds and summer houses, standing in a row like sentries, directly to my left – no more than a couple of metres away. A grey-haired man wearing a blue T-shirt just ducked inside the summer house.
A sharp pain cuts across my chest, like cheese wire being pulled tight around my ribcage. It’s him. It’s Mike. I only caught a glimpse before the door closed behind him, but it was enough for me to take in the thick grey hair, the deep lines either side of his mouth and the pronounced limp as he walked. He must be forty-nine years old but he looks older. So much older than I remember, but I know it’s him. I’d stake my life on it.
I crouch down and peer from between two bushes. Unlike the two wooden sheds on either side of it, the summer house has white PVC double doors and two long windows. As Mike appears in one of the windows, someone else steps out of the shadows. As she reaches a hand to touch Mike’s face, he glances over his shoulder, back towards the yard. For one terrible second I think that he’s seen me, but he turns back to face the woman. He sweeps the hair from the side of her face, then, cradling the back of her head, leans in for a kiss.
They kiss for several seconds, then the woman pulls away and I catch a glimpse of her face. Bobbed brown hair with a thick fringe. A soft jawline. Full, plump cheeks. Jeans that cling to thick thighs. A red polo shirt pulled tight over large, weighty breasts. She’s not a woman at all. She’s a child, no more than thirteen or fourteen years old.
I don’t burst into the summer house and scream at Mike to get his hands off her. Nor do I run off in search of a staff member. Instead I turn and flee, flying through the aisles of trees and bushes, brushing past plants and dodging statues. I don’t stop running until I’m back in the safety of my car, then I smash my fists against the steering wheel until my skin is red and throbbing.
I have never hated myself more than I do right now.
I should have felt anger when I saw Mike kiss that girl. Or disgust. Instead I felt betrayed. He was kissing her the same way he kissed me: the smoothing away of the hair, the cradling of the back of the head, the teasing lip brush followed by a deeper, harder kiss as he pulled her into him.
I had to wait so very, very long for our first kiss. He pulled away so many times before our lips finally met, denying me, telling me that I was too young and it wouldn’t be right. His reticence only made me want him more. I’d lie in bed and relive every touch, every lingering look and every soft word. I’d run a finger over my mouth, then push two fingers against my lips, imagining the weight of his mouth on mine. Fourteen years old and I’d never been kissed. I never admitted it to anyone at school but teenagers can sniff out weakness and fear the same way pigs can sniff out truffles and, somehow, everyone knew. The bullying began when I was thirteen, just before Mum and Dad split up. I’ve got no idea why. One moment I was invisible, the next I was on the bullies’ radar. It was Dad that suggested the karate lessons. They’d give me an air of confidence, he said, even if I never used the moves. An air of confidence? That’s a joke.
I start as a dark green estate car pulls into the car park. It does a U-turn, then parks near the exit. The driver doesn’t get out but he does open a window and flick cigarette ash on the floor. As he does, the door to the garden centre bursts open and the girl I saw in the summer house runs down the path.
‘Chloe!’ the man in the green estate bellows, leaning out of the window.
The girl sprints across the car park. ‘Sorry, Dad, sorry,’ she calls as she rounds the car.
‘I’ve been waiting bloody ages. Get in.’
That’s a lie.
‘They needed me to work late,’ the girl says as she pulls at the car door. ‘I couldn’t just …’ The rest of her sentence is lost as she slides into the car and slams the door shut.
As the car inches forward, its right indicator blinking, I look back at the door to the garden centre. Do I wait for Mike to come out or go after the girl?
The green estate pulls out into the road and I start my engine.
Chapter 5
Chloe
Chloe endures her dad’s rant all the way home. She’s a stupid girl. She’s got no sense of responsibility. She’s selfish. She’s fat. Most thirteen-year-olds would be grateful to have an after-school job. He hopes she’s more punctual when her boss asks her to do something. Mike’s his friend but he didn’t have to help him find his stupid daughter an after-school job. If she gets the sack, it will reflect badly on both of them.
She tries to block him out by glancing out of the window and losing herself in the green blur of the hedgerow, but each time she turns her head her dad snaps at her to look at him when he’s talking to her.
I hate you, she thinks as she looks into his eyes. You’re a bully. You bully Mum and you bully me. The only person you don’t bully is your precious little mini-me Jamie. At seven years old he’s too young to realise that his dad’s an arsehole. He thinks his dad can do no wrong, not while he’s still impressed by tickets to see Wolves play, packs of football cards and father–son trips to McDonald’s. She’d like to think that when Jamie hits his teens, the scales will fall away from his eyes and he’ll understand that it’s not okay to talk to women like they’re shit. Then again, just yesterday, when she asked him to put his plate in the dishwasher after dinner, he said, ‘Why should I? Dad doesn’t.’
Chloe’s spent a lot of time trying to work out why her dad and Mike are friends. They couldn’t be more different. Her dad, Alan, is harsh and abrasive. Mike is gentle and kind. Her dad criticises her and makes her feel like shit. Mike tells her she’s beautiful and makes her feel like she could do anything she wanted to in life. She didn’t always feel so warmly towards Mike. She used to ignore him if he came round to their house for a BBQ or to have a few beers with her dad in the garden. Putting up with her dad was bad enough, why would she want to chat to one of his arsehole mates? And when her dad suggested she get a weekend and after-school job at the garden centre she was horrified. A garden centre? How boring was that. And anyway, she had homework to do after school. ‘It’s not like you’ll ever be an A-grade student,’ her dad had snapped, ‘even if you did homework for the rest of your life. Get retail experience now, while you can.’ It was her mum who finally talked her into taking the job. ‘It’ll get you out of the house,’ she said softly, ‘and you might make some new friends.’ Chloe wasn’t sure she wanted to be friends with people who worked in a garden centre, but the idea of avoiding her dad for sixteen hours a week did appeal. And earning some money of her own so she didn’t have to ask him.
When the car finally pulls up on their street, Chloe sits tight, waiting for her dad to tell her that she can get out, then she runs up the path and into the house.
‘Mum!’ she calls. ‘I’m back!’
She pops her head into the living room to find Jamie sitting on the rug in front of the TV, the PS4 remote welded to his hands.
‘Jamie, where’s Mum?’
‘Having a lie-down. She’s got a migraine. Again.’
She takes the stairs two at a time, then gently pushes at her parents’ bedroom door. The curtains are drawn and the room is dark but she can make out the shape of her mother lying curled up on her side on the bed. She’s fast asleep. Chloe reaches into her back pocket for her phone and checks the time. 6.17 p.m. She wonders if Mike will be home yet. Not that she knows where that is. When she asked him where he lived and if he had a family, he shook his head and said, ‘All you need to know is that my life is a lonely one. Tell me if I’m wrong, but I’ve got a feeling you can relate?’ She’d looked away then, unable to cope with the intensity of his gaze.
‘Chloe!’ her dad yells from downstairs. ‘If your mum’s not able to make the dinner you’ll have to do it.’
Chloe glances at her mum, her face slack, her shoulders relaxed and her breathing heavy and slow, then she makes her way back down the stairs.
Chapter 6
Lou
Any tension between me and Mike lifts the moment the ferry pulls away from the terminal and we’re free to get out of the car. He grabs my hand and half-leads, half-pulls me up the stairs to the deck.
‘Let’s find the arcade.’ He beams, dimples puncturing his stubbly cheeks. ‘If they’ve got those grabby games, I’ll try and win you a toy.’
We move from game to game – shooting, driving and dancing. Mike wins the shooting. I win the dancing. I win the driving too when I cheat and yank on his steering wheel, making him do a U-turn. He doesn’t care. He pulls me onto his lap, then without bothering to check if anyone is looking, he covers my face in kisses. When we’ve exhausted all the games, we drop shiny ten-pence pieces into the penny shove. We work as a team first, then race each other to see who can get the most coins in. As our winnings tumble over the edge, Mike wraps an arm around my waist and lifts me clean off my feet.
‘Let’s celebrate in style!’ he laughs. ‘The burgers are on me!’
He leads me to the restaurant and orders burgers, fries and milkshakes. I get Mike to dip his fries in his milkshake (‘disgusting’) and he challenges me to see who can take the biggest bite out of our buns. I’ve seen lots of different sides to Mike’s personality in the eighteen months since I’ve known him. I’ve seen him thoughtful, sensitive, kind and strict (but only at the club). But I’ve never seen him like this before. The playful side of him is amazing. It’s like we’re the same age.
It doesn’t last forever. The closer the ferry gets to Calais, the quieter Mike becomes and as the car pulls off the rank he snaps at me to ‘wait’ when I ask where we’re going. When the customs officers check our passports, his whole body tenses and he holds himself very still. He’s worried, but he shouldn’t be. As far as Mum and Dad are concerned, I’ve gone on a karate camping trip. As long as I’m back by Sunday night they’ll be fine.
‘My niece,’ Mike says as the uniformed man looks from him to me.
‘Oui,’ I say and flash him a smile. Mike twitches, ever so slightly, like he’s annoyed with me, but he keeps his eyes fixed on the man’s face.
‘Merci.’ He gives the passports back and waves his hand for us to move on.
I almost threw up when I pulled into the parking lot of Malvern Police Station but anger propelled me out of the car and into the building. God knows what the duty sergeant made of me as I flew up to the desk and demanded to speak to someone urgently. My heart’s still pounding and I babble rather than speak, my voice filling the small, beige room. DS Hope doesn’t say a word. Instead she listens intently, her eyes on me, her pen poised over the notepad on her lap.
‘It happened at Greensleeves Garden Centre near Powick,’ I say. ‘Just before closing. The man’s name is Michael Hughes. I don’t know the girl’s surname but her first name is Chloe. I heard her dad shout to her when he picked her up. I followed them home in my car. Her address is 29, Missingham Road. It’s just off the—’
DS Hope raises an eyebrow. ‘You followed the girl home?’
‘Of course. I was worried about her. I thought if I found out where she lived, then I could pass the information on to you.’
‘Why not ask another employee? You just told me you thought she worked there. That she was wearing the same red polo top as the woman on the tills.’
‘The woman on the tills wasn’t there when I left.’ My chest tightens as the lie leaves my mouth, but what else can I say?
DS Hope is looking at me like I’m unhinged. Did I do something weird? Would a normal person not have followed Chloe home?
‘What did you do after you followed her?’
‘I drove straight here.’
