The Safest Place (27 page)

‘Just a minute,’ I said. The room was thick with steam. Quickly I climbed out of the bath and dried myself. I wiped the towel over the mirror to clear it, put on my bathrobe and
willed myself to look normal.

‘Mum,’ Ella whined.

I opened the door and she padded in straight past me, eyes squinting in the light. I closed the door for her on my way out and whispered, ‘Go straight back to bed, won’t
you?’

She didn’t reply.

I went back to my room and turned off the light. And I stood by my door, waiting till I heard Ella finish in the bathroom and go back to bed. It seemed she hadn’t noticed anything out of
the ordinary in her half-asleep state, thank God. But she could have done. So easily, she could have done.

I got back into bed, but I would not sleep. I could not sleep, with Max downstairs. I lay rigid, every cell in my body alert. What if he came back up? What would I do then? I stared through the
dark at my door. I strained my ears, listening.

And then the recriminations and the doubts came storming through my head. What had I done to make Max think I would want him to come to my room? Because I must have done something – a
15-year-old kid does not act without some kind of go-ahead, surely. Did I lead him on in some way? I couldn’t have done. I certainly never meant to. Yet I thought of how I tucked my toes
under his legs on the sofa earlier, of how I let him comfort me in the kitchen, and of how grateful I had been for that comfort. But surely he did not take that as encouragement? We were easy
together, that’s how it seemed to me. He was my son’s friend and my friend’s son. Part of the family, you could say. And a child. Is it really true that you cannot be at ease with
a child without them thinking they can do such a thing?

Repulsion rose inside me, acid in my throat. I clenched my fists under the duvet, driving my nails into my palms.

Should I have read the signs somehow? Were there any signs? I thought of him, always listening in on conversations between Melanie and me. I thought of his advice so maturely given: ‘You’ll be all right, Jane.’ Again I thought of him holding me in his arms downstairs, earlier, in the kitchen. Being, I thought, so very kind to me.

It never occurred to me that he might think it more than that.

But he’d come upstairs to see how I was, and he had thought he would be welcome. He’d thought there was a chance at least; in his arrogance he had thought it worth a shot. And
backing down does not come naturally to people like Max – oh no, people like Max and Melanie are always right, they always see things through.

Max was still there in the morning, and would be till Jake came to fetch him on his way back from Kelly’s. Melanie wasn’t coming for him, thank God; at least I
didn’t have to face her.

He was down in the kitchen with Sam. They were talking; I listened through the open crack of my bedroom door, trying to catch what they were saying.

‘You’ve got to line them up first then you take all three,’ Max was saying in his usual, know-it-all manner.

‘Yes, but you can do one at a time,’ said Sam.

‘No, no, mate. That’s where you’re wrong. You’ve got to have all three . . .’

He wouldn’t tell Sam what he had done, surely. He wouldn’t tell anyone, would he?

They were making breakfast. I could smell toast and I could hear both boys, opening and closing cupboard doors. I pictured Max’s hands on my plates and my cutlery, I saw him opening the
fridge and helping himself to butter and jam. His filthy fingers, touching everything. I didn’t want him sitting at my table, eating my food. I didn’t want him in my house, now or ever
again.

‘Mum?’ Ella called, bounding up the stairs. She’d gone down early to watch TV. Now she came into my room, still in her Pink Pig pyjamas, her hair all messy, her bright blue
eyes so shiny and keen. ‘Can I go to the stables later?’ she said. ‘Can I, as Daddy’s not coming today?’

I could not bear that she had been downstairs unprotected from him.

‘I don’t know Ella. I’ve got a headache. I can’t think now.’

‘Oh please,’ she said. ‘I hardly ever get to go on Sundays.’

‘I don’t know.’ I wanted to hear what Max and Sam were saying, and I couldn’t with Ella bleating in my ear. But I looked at her crestfallen face and I felt even more
wretched. ‘Look, I’ll see,’ I said. ‘But please, just go and get dressed now.’

I watched him leave from my window. I swear, I had counted every second till Jake finally arrived, screeching Melanie’s car to a stop outside our house, and slamming the
door as he got out. He swaggered to our front door, and Max, when Jake had knocked for him, swaggered out. I watched them with loathing, and I felt the wool brutally ripped from my eyes. How did I
ever think there was anything to be admired in that family? How did I ever mistake their arrogance for confidence; their indifference for laid-back charm?

I never wanted to see Max, or Melanie, or any of them again.

On Monday afternoon I sat parked up in my car just past the school in the rain, waiting for Sam and Ella. I’d got there early but still the only space was on the road
facing towards Melanie’s. I sat there with the engine running to try to stop the windows steaming up, and with the front and back wipers going full pelt. And I watched for my kids in the
rear-view mirror. I wanted them to be quick. I wanted to get them in the car and be gone.

Then Max came strolling through the gates in a crowd, five or six of them, all boys; his little pack with their ties undone, shoving at each other, taking up space so that other kids
instinctively got out of their way. Will was among the group, and Tommy, and coming up behind them a clutch of girls; I recognized some of them, too, including Lydia, the girl Sam liked. But there
was no sign of my Sam. I watched Max; I could not help myself. I felt the strange pull of loathing. I watched him getting closer to my car. I watched his face with its constant, semi-mocking sneer,
and the way he interacted with his peers; those leadership qualities I had so admired. Oh yes, he was a leader all right. He was the boss.

I knew he’d seen me; he’d have recognized my car, and I was right there in his path. I slunk down in my seat when he got nearer; until he’d gone past. But then he turned round,
and he smiled at me. A complete smile; that’s the only way I can describe it. No shame, no regret, just satisfaction at the way things were. Oh yes, everything was fine in Max’s
world.

What did he think, that I’d be OK with what had happened? That if I hadn’t wanted it then, I would, in retrospect, want it now? What’s a little force when a little force is all
that’s needed?

He took his time with that smile; for a moment, to my horror, he separated from the crowd. I can only think that he could not properly see me; that he could see, perhaps, the outline of me, the
positioning of my face, but not the expression on it. Not my eyes.

Again and again I asked myself how I did not see it coming, somehow; and, worse still, how did I not stop him? I went over and over it, tormenting myself. There was no escape,
especially at night. I could not shut it out of my head. I could not sleep, had not slept since it happened. I lay in my bed at night, tense, alert to every sound; so many threats in the silence.
The clunk of a radiator cooling; the creaking of settling wood. Outside the far cry of some night animal; closer, the scratching below my window of . . . what? A squirrel; a rat? A fox perhaps,
prowling.

How did I not hear Max’s tread on the stairs that night when I could hear it now, again and again? When every single noise now sounded like him; even the wind in the trees was a
warning.

We were so alone out here, Sam, Ella and me.

Melanie called me on my mobile but I didn’t answer. I didn’t answer the home phone either when it rang, in case it was her. I hid myself away at home with no one
but myself for company, and nothing to do but go over and over in my head what had happened. I replayed it constantly; Max’s hand on my chest, holding me down; the smell of his body. The
utter violation of it sickened me. I could not squash the memory; I could not dampen it down.

I made endless excuses to my children about why we could not see Melanie and her kids; we had viewers coming round to see the house, I had a headache, Ella was going down with a sore throat.
Feeble excuses; they would not work forever.

Of course Sam and Ella still saw Max and Abbie every day at school. It killed me to think of them being around Max, of having anything to do with him. But what could I do about it? I could not
keep them away from him. If I did so I would have to tell them why.

On Thursday evening when she was eating her pasta Ella said, ‘I’m going round Abbie’s after school tomorrow. I haven’t been round there at all, all week. She said I could
stay over.’

‘You can’t stay over,’ I said, too quickly.

And she said, ‘Why not?’

I looked at her, at her eyes so determined and, it seemed to me, so suspicious too. ‘You’ve got riding on Saturday morning,’ I said.

‘So?’

‘So you need to be here.’

‘No I don’t. You could pick me up on Saturday morning and take me to the stables from there.’

‘Ella,’ I said, ‘I am not your chauffeur.’

‘You’ve done it before,’ she said.

‘And I don’t want to do it again.’

She glared at me, the colour hot in her cheeks. ‘Abbie’s right,’ she said, throwing down her fork. ‘Abbie said her mum said you’ve gone all stuck up and don’t
want to know her now we’re moving back to
Lon
don.’

And she slammed back her chair and flounced out of the room.

Sam, who was still eating, looked up now. ‘Are we moving back to London?’ he said.

‘No,’ I said.

‘Then why did she say that?’

‘I don’t know. And I don’t know where we’re moving to.’

He carried on slowly eating, and frowning, and I sat there, feeling myself trapped in this web of my own stupid making.

‘Is Max coming round here on Friday?’ he said after a while, because remember it was always up to me to arrange these things, to invite Sam’s friends round. It was always me
that invited Max.

‘Probably not,’ I said, the words so bitter in my mouth.

Reluctantly, I suggested that he go round Max’s after school with Ella, just for a few hours. I suggested it, only so that Ella wouldn’t be there on her own. I could not bear the
thought of her being near Max, yet nor could I think of a believable reason to stop her going round there. How could I keep her away from Abbie?

‘I’ll pick you both up later,’ I said, though God knew how I would. God knew how I would walk in to Melanie’s house, and chat, and act as if everything was normal.

On Friday evening, when my children were both round at Melanie’s, I sat out here in my house miles from anywhere, unable to think properly, unable to do anything but
stare out of the window at the dark. I could not even have a drink because I had to drive later to pick up Sam and Ella. I counted the hours, literally; I sat at the kitchen table and watched the
clock and counted the hours.

I hated the thought of Sam and Ella being in that house with Max, and I hated myself for letting them go there. It was wrong of me, stupid of me, but what else could I do?

And God help me, but I deserve an Oscar, I deserve every award going for the performance I put on collecting my kids from Melanie’s. I drove over there in the dark steeling myself.

Melanie answered the door to me, so cool towards me, so clearly pissed off with my remoteness this last week.

‘Hi,’ I said.

I could barely bring myself to look at her. Any affection I’d ever felt for her was dead in the ground. I could see only her failings as a parent, magnifying my own.

But I walked into that room, and I stood there, my weight on one leg, my arms casually folded in front of my waist, car keys dangling. The smile that I’d slapped on my face dug in at the
corners, as if pins were holding it. Sam and Ella weren’t ready, they never were. They were upstairs with Abbie and Max; I could hear them all, their feet hammering on the floor above, the
clashing racket of separate CDs.

Normally Melanie would invite me in for a drink. But this time, she said, ‘You been busy?’

‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘You know . . .’

‘Oh I know,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Takes a lot of time up, moving.’ She turned to the stairs. ‘Kids!’ she yelled over the din of the music.

We stood there, waiting for a response.

‘Kids!’ she yelled again, louder. ‘Turn that off, won’t you? Jane’s here.’

Max came down first, with Sam following after. I could not look at Max, but I could feel him watching me, the smirk on his face turning sullen.

‘Ella!’ I called up the stairs. ‘Ella, we need to go.’

He was looking at me. He didn’t stop looking at me.

‘So have you sold your house yet?’ Melanie said.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not yet.’

‘Mm,’ she said.

‘Ella!’ I called again. Without looking at Melanie I said, ‘Thank you for having them.’

‘You’re welcome,’ she said, so polite, so off.

I was shaking when I got back in the car. I drove too fast, gripping that steering wheel so hard I had bruises on my fingers the next day. I never wanted to see any of them
again, but how could I avoid them, when my kids were friends with Melanie’s kids? When I had worked so hard for it to be that way? How could I disentangle us now?

Sam and Ella were both in the back of the car, both tired, both quiet, busy with their own thoughts. I looked at them in the mirror; I looked at Sam. What had he and Max talked about? Boys never
talked about anything, did they? Just Xbox, games, football.

They wouldn’t talk about me, surely?

Would Max hint at what he’d done, though? Would he say . . .
what
? Your mum’s fit? Your mum’s . . . I could not imagine it. I slammed my foot down to hard on the
accelerator and in the back Ella lurched in her seat.

‘Mu-um,’ she complained.

And I said, ‘Sorry.’

What had happened was bad enough, but it would be far, far worse if Max should ever tell anyone. Because how would I live with it then? How would I carry on? I looked at them again, at Sam and
Ella; my children. And they were just children; innocent, oblivious. I loved them so much that it hurt my heart. They could never know about Max and me, never. The thought of it appalled me.