Beneath the Skin Read online

  Realisation hits like a slap. His girls, his girls. Little Hannah and Rachel. Oh God, oh God. How will he tell them?

  Taking a step to the door, he speaks to the male officer. ‘My daughters. I need to go. I need to collect my girls. Can you take me?’

  ‘The girls are fine, mate. They’re with Sophie,’ Sami replies. His eyes are huge and tears spill on to his navy-blue suit. ‘I’ll take you home in a while but …’ He gestures to the doctor. ‘They think you should see the baby.’

  ‘What baby?’ Mike asks. ‘Olivia is dead.’

  ‘They saved the baby, for now. Very small. In an incubator. A boy.’

  Ah, that baby, Mike thinks.

  ‘You go. I’ll wait here and …’ Sami starts, his voice choked with emotion. He clears his throat, wipes his face and tries again. ‘I’ll wait here and look after Olivia until you come back. Go on, mate. She’ll be safe here with me, I promise.’

  ‘This way,’ the white-coated woman says, gesturing with her arm. ‘I’ll come with you. Show you the way.’

  Still frozen, Mike nods and he follows. A baby, my baby. Puts one foot in front of another and walks. Down a long corridor, past rooms and blank faces. A baby, my baby, he thinks. The one Olivia gave me; the boy that I wanted so much. But there’s a voice in his head. ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ it says.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Antonia sits at the bottom of the stairs still clutching her mobile. It’s dark. The limestone floor is unforgiving. She can hear the muffled cheerful radio chatter from behind the closed kitchen door. Like the chatter she had with Mike only a few hours previously, sealed in that room forever, like a phantom.

  She clutches her knees with her head down, trying to breathe slowly and deeply, the way she was taught by Barry when the panic attacks were constant.

  ‘What have I done? What have I done?’ beats with the thud of her heart.

  But her head replies, ‘It’s not your fault. Not this time.’

  There was hammering at the door at four o’clock. Antonia thought it was Mike as he’d only just left, but there was something urgent and insistent about the noise. She walked cautiously down the limestone stairs, a similar frenetic hammering at a door still crisp in her mind despite the passing years. She looked through the peep hole. It was Olivia, pregnant Olivia. Olivia, Mike’s wife.

  Olivia swept in with the cold. Then she turned towards Antonia, her hands on hips and her face livid. ‘What the hell was Mike doing here?’ she demanded. ‘I just saw him leave. What the fuck are you playing at?’

  Taken aback, she replied, ‘It was just a visit, he popped in to see if I was OK. Mike’s so thoughtful. I’m really grateful.’

  ‘Thoughtful, like fuck. In the middle of the day when he’s meant to be so bloody busy at work? You don’t take off your jacket and tie to be thoughtful,’ Olivia retorted. ‘You’re a fucking liar!’

  ‘You’re as good as the next man. Be proud. Turn the other cheek,’ Candy always said. Why should she explain about a blocked sink? In her own home too. So Antonia turned away.

  ‘I think you should leave, Olivia.’

  ‘I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s going on.’

  Olivia put her hand on Antonia’s shoulder and dragged her round. ‘Look at me. Tell me. Why was Mike here? What were you doing?’ Spit sprayed from her mouth. Her eyes looked electric.

  ‘There’s nothing to tell, Olivia. Please leave my house.’ Tense but calm; thinking of Candy’s words, taking the higher ground.

  But Olivia’s voice was insistent and shrill. ‘What sort of person are you anyway?’ Her mouth moved and bile spilled. It was as though she couldn’t stop. ‘Your husband kills himself so you decide to take mine.’ Olivia laughed, a deep laugh that seemed to belong to someone else. ‘We’re all wondering why. It’s what everyone wants to know. It must be her, they say. She’s weird. She must have driven him to it. Well, keep away from Mike. Leave us alone. I’m having his child in six weeks, for God’s sake.’

  That was the final straw. The hypocrisy of the woman.

  ‘His child?’ Antonia asked with icy calm. ‘Are you sure? Not Sami’s?’ Then slowly, digging in the knife. ‘I know about you and Sami. I saw you, I heard you at David’s wake.’

  Olivia’s face lost its colour. ‘No. No, Sami is—’

  ‘Infertile? The sperm count story was a lie. Sophie’s lie, to suit Sophie. Sami isn’t infertile. When the baby is born and Mike finds out, what then, Olivia? What sort of person does that make you?’

  Antonia lifts her head, breathes deeply and stares at her shaking hands.

  It’s not your fault, her mind repeats. They were only words. They were truthful words. Words can’t kill. It’s the deed which counts and her hands are clean.

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  It’s her mother’s hands Antonia dreams of, her mother’s hands pressed on to her father’s chest and then lifting them, dripping with blood, to her face.

  Sunday mornings were always bad at Chinue’s home in Northern Moor because Candy was absent. She was at church. At church before the morning Mass to dust, to carefully put out the prayer books, to lovingly arrange the flowers and then to attend the service with a proud smile. Afterwards she’d stay to scrub away the footprints of her fellows until the next service, happy to do it all again with joy. She’d pop home when she could, her eyes shining with fervour and purpose and fuss over Jimmy. ‘I was up at six to bake you a cake, love. Lunch is in the oven. Here’s your newspaper. I’ll make you a cuppa before I go. I won’t be long.’

  But this day was a Holy Day and not just any Holy Day, but Easter Sunday. There were Masses at church all morning and then again at night. Chinue had been to the early service, then she’d slipped in the house, lingering in her bedroom and browsing through old hair magazines borrowed from the salon, wishing she could have escaped to Sophie’s. But even if she had been invited, she would’ve said no. The Easter Bunny visited Sophie’s house, the boys hunted for chocolate eggs in the garden and ate them for breakfast and lunch. Then family visited, aunties, uncles and cousins. They ate roast turkey with all the trimmings for dinner and then played games. She’d have been in the way.

  Chinue turned over a page and studied a photograph of Twiggy’s bob from the sixties. If only, she thought, but her hair would curl, the blow-drying impossible.

  Her mind flitted to Sophie. She wondered if her brothers had found the Mini Eggs she’d left under their pillows, if they felt sick yet. The Farrells didn’t have family round, not even at Christmas. Jimmy had fallen out with his brother, over the drinking, probably. Auntie Thandi wasn’t welcome, not since she married.

  Chinue was hungry, her stomach rumbling. She knew there was Irish stew in the oven on a low heat. ‘Eat it when you want, love. It likes to be cooked,’ Mum had said at church. But she was reluctant to go downstairs. She didn’t know what sort of temper her dad would be in. She’d spent so much time out of the house since starting work at the hairdressers that she’d lost track of his moods. Sometimes he was fine, he went for walks with the dog and told a few jokes at tea. But his mood could change ‘on a sixpence’, as her mum put it. Something on the television or in the newspaper he’d found comical only yesterday would enrage him today. That’s when he’d reach for the Guinness.

  Hunger overwhelming, Chinue sighed and headed quietly down the stairs.

  ‘Wondered when you’d appear. Sacha needs a walk,’ her dad said as she entered the kitchen. He was sitting at the table with the newspaper. The ashtray was full but there was no sign of beer cans.

  ‘It’s raining,’ she replied.

  ‘The dog still needs a walk.’

  ‘Why don’t you take her?’

  Chinue had become braver since starting work. The pay wasn’t good but it was money. Money she was squirrelling away.

  ‘I would if I wasn’t in fucking pain. Just do as I tell you and don’t argue.’

  Chinue took the lead fro
m the hook on the door and slipped on her mum’s cagoule, nearly too small now. She’d pushed it with her dad as far as she could for today, but she was close, very close to walking out for ever.

  ‘I’m in fucking pain.’ That’s all her dad ever said. He took pills and crushed them in his rotten teeth but there was no pain as far as she could see, just excuses.

  Other people’s dads didn’t stay in the house all day smoking roll-ups and feeling sorry for themselves, ranting endlessly about politics or a football transfer or the price of beer. Other people’s dads didn’t start on the Guinness after breakfast and progress to whisky by tea-time. The rest of it too. It was the rest of it she didn’t want to think about. If she left, her mum would be on her own. With him.

  Chinue enjoyed walking once she was away from the housing estate and used to the cold and the rain. If anyone asked, she’d say she hated Sacha, the dog. But that wasn’t true. She was a good old girl, a sweet-natured dog. It wasn’t Sacha’s fault she was Jimmy’s. It wasn’t Sacha’s fault that Jimmy would scream at her mum when he was pissed, that he would raise his fist to his wife but not to a dog.

  The rain had relaxed into drizzle by the time she and Sacha arrived at the gardens. Wythenshawe Park always gave her a buzz, the haunted mansion at its centre drawing her in. She had picnics and pear cider there with Sophie. They’d stroll around the farm, coo at the small piglets, christen the ugly adult pigs with the names of old teachers, stare at the well-hung bull. Or go to the swings, hang out with lads, sometimes kicking a ball, sometimes snogging the bolder boys in bushes. She did sports there too, was part of a club. Chinue was good at athletics, sprinting and hurdles in particular.

  ‘Well, you don’t get the sporting gene from me, that’s for sure,’ her mum would laugh, clapping proudly when Chinue won yet another race by a head.

  But of course Jimmy never came to watch. ‘Not interested in sport,’ he’d say.

  ‘Come on Sacha,’ Chinue said on that Sunday, smoothing the damp fur from the dog’s eager eyes and removing the lead. ‘Never mind the drizzle. Let’s run!’

  ‘You were a long time. Your dinner’s cold,’ Jimmy stated when she returned from the park.

  Taking off the wet cagoule, Chinue glanced at the table. The stew was on a plate, its greasy yellow edges beginning to solidify.

  ‘Why didn’t you leave it in the oven? It looks disgusting.’

  ‘Don’t be so ungrateful. Mum put it there.’

  Chinue frowned. ‘Did she?’

  ‘She’s been and gone back. So, you’ll eat it.’

  Avoiding eye contact with her dad, she sat down. She could tell from the tone of his voice he was annoyed with her mum for being at church too much.

  ‘Where’ve you been all this time anyway? Slagging with some boy?’

  ‘No. Walking Sacha, obviously.’

  His voice was just a touch slurry at the other end of the table. No one else would have noticed. She didn’t need to look for the empty cans. She wondered how many were gone.

  ‘Eat your food.’

  Breathing deeply, she stared at the congealing food, the fury slowly rising from her feet to her chest. It looked disgusting. He’d left it out on purpose, just to pick a fight. He was so, so pathetic.

  ‘Eat your fucking food,’ her dad said, his voice deliberate and quiet.

  Pathetic, pathetic, you’re so pathetic, she thought, still staring at her plate.

  Her dad abruptly leaned forward. ‘What have you done with your hair?’ he asked, his sour breath smacking her face.

  Chinue touched her head and tensed. ‘Pathetic, pathetic,’ she chanted inside.

  ‘Nothing,’ she replied. ‘I was running; it was raining. It just curls a bit when it rains.’

  ‘Black hair. Fucking black hair. Are you black, then?’

  ‘No. I was running. It fell out of its bobble. That’s all.’

  But the fire was still rising inside her. Anger, hatred and loathing, bubbling up to her mouth. ‘Pathetic, pathetic’, still chanting. She lifted her head and stared.

  ‘You are so pathetic, Dad.’

  The words blistered out.

  ‘Just look at you sitting there. Spiteful, pathetic and drunk. Feeling sorry for yourself all the time. Drinking the money Mum brings home because poor you, you only get benefits. Look at you with your bad teeth and dribble. You stink, you disgust me. Change your clothes, brush your teeth, get a job. Get a life like everyone else has to.’

  There was silence for a moment. She could hear the tap dripping.

  ‘Have you finished?’ he asked, his voice steely and calm.

  He turned and opened the cutlery drawer behind him. The tap was still dripping. Then he slowly rotated back. His eyes were bloodshot. There were scissors in his hand.

  ‘You’ve had your say about me. Let’s look at you now, shall we?’

  Lurching before she could move away, he trapped her against the table with the weight of his body. Then he gathered her hair in his hand, dragging her off the chair and into the living room, her long mane still tight in his fist. Hauling her towards the mirror above the fireplace, he breathed heavily, grunting. Then he lifted the scissors and chopped, pulling and hacking, the blunt kitchen scissors tugging painfully at her roots. Furious and indiscriminate, he continued to cut, the long wads of wavy hair floating to the floor.

  When he’d finally finished, he held her chin to the mirror, forcing her to look, his leering sunken face touching hers. ‘See, you are black.’

  The anger erupted then, taking over the fear. Her teeth gritted and her hands clenched into tight balls. The desire to bite, to kick and to pummel for all those years screamed to break out. She pulled back her arm and with all the force she could muster she swung at his face. Her fist connected solidly with his mouth, but he was too quick for her second go. Grabbing both her wrists with one hand, he punched her hard in the stomach with the other.

  As she lay there, doubled up and struggling to breathe, the pain was unbearable. Yet she almost wanted to smile. The feel of her knuckles against his teeth had been worth it. But then Jimmy grasped her hand. ‘Come with me,’ he said.

  The lights were off, which was a little strange and Sacha wasn’t at the front door to greet Candy. It was late, but not that late, so Jimmy must have taken her for a walk. Which was a good thing, Candy thought. Jimmy rarely left the house when he was drunk. It would be nice to have five minutes to wind down, to catch her breath and to chat to Chinue, if she was up, before the demands began. Not that Candy minded. It was her lot.

  She’d had such a lovely day. The church was lit yellow with daffodils. She’d greeted the parishioners at the church door, handing them a prayer sheet and chatting. How she loved that feeling of being accepted, of belonging.

  Candy took off her shoes at the door and padded up the stairs towards her bedroom to search for her slippers. The door was closed, the house silent. Perhaps Jimmy was asleep after all. She turned the handle cautiously, ready for Sacha to run out and greet her but careful not to wake Jimmy.

  Sacha whined in the darkness and Candy turned her head towards the sound. Chinue was sitting on the floor next to the old gas fire, her arms around her knees and her head down. Slants of light from the ill-fitting curtains lit her in blocks. Shaking her head in confusion, Candy glanced at the bed. Jimmy was there, fast asleep; she could see the dark outline of his body.

  ‘Chinue? What are you doing in here?’ Then after her eyes became accustomed to the dark. ‘What’s happened to your hair?’

  Chinue lifted her head and silently held out her hand. Candy gazed for a moment. Her mind was sluggish, too sluggish, trying to catch up, trying to work out what she was being offered. But as her eyes finally focused, she saw they were scissors. They were the orange-handled scissors that belonged in the kitchen. The handles were moist and the metal gloopy.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Mum,’ Chinue whispered.

  Candy is quiet today. She’s back in the stifling lounge of The Ridings, now
decorated in red and gold tinsel for Christmas. Squashed in her chair, she’s staring at the television screen, but not, Antonia suspects, seeing anything. Not on the screen anyway.

  She lifts her mum’s puffy hand and gives it a squeeze, as ever remembering those hands on that night. It’s difficult to reconcile the two women. The slim Candy had stared, her mind now sharp and calculating. She stared at Jimmy’s body, white and naked, punctured and bloody, and she knew what to do.

  ‘Take off your clothes, love, and give them to me to put on. Trim your hair, make it neat. Then stand in the shower and scrub. Scrub every inch. Your face, your hair and your nails. Wipe down the shower then put on your pyjamas and go to bed until I call.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Put my clothes in the wash basket. I’ll leave them outside the door. Collect up your hair, every last bit and flush it away.’

  She gently pulled Chinue to her feet, holding both hands in hers, pointing upwards like a joint prayer. Then her eyes rested on her child’s. Deep, potent and strong.

  ‘This is my fault, not yours, Chinue. My fault. I should have been here. Remember that always, love. I did this. Me. We’ll never speak of it again.’

  There was a last smile of reassurance from her mum. ‘Everything will be fine. Go to bed until I call. You start from there, love. That’s the story you tell. Forever.’

  She did what her mum told her to do. She went to bed and closed her eyes, her head feeling light on the pillow without her long hair, but leaden with fear, confusion and dread. Almost asleep, she was woken by her mother’s screams and the howling of the dog.

  A bright voice shakes Antonia back to today. ‘Morning, Antonia!’

  Laura Jones looks fresh, her cheeks shiny, like a polished apple. ‘I believe you missed me the other Sunday. Did you want a word?’

  Antonia shakes her head. ‘It was only to say thanks for pointing me in the right direction about Jimmy. You know, to the library.’