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Ride with Madness starts here - I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for visiting. Feel free to leave comments.

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Chapter 23:d

In which Helen gets angry and frustrated

They call in at a pub on a country lane before joining the motorway.

As they approach the main doors, which are flung open against the heat of the early evening, there is obviously a regular clientele ready ensconced in the busy, brightly lit lounge. It reminds Helen vividly of the kind of scene she has imagined in a nineteenth century novel: the reasonably well-off letting down their hair at the end of a tiring day, the conviviality slipping out into the night air in waves of anecdote, narrative, guffaw and chuckle. Against such a backdrop, and despite her favourite sweet Martini in hand, Helen is once more overcome with doubt and questioning.

She is used to this; it is second nature to be with the social crowd and sit at Malcolm’s side, supporting and participating in a superficial capacity. But the yearning in her very innermost being for some more tangible expression of belongingness, some indication that she herself has some worth and is not interchangeable with any other woman Malcolm might find in that role on any particular occasion – this yearning is so bright and acute inside her that she simply cannot go on not knowing where she belongs, who she is, what she wants.

Malcolm would say that she should take hold of life as it comes past, even grab it violently as it appears in case someone else grabs it first, go where it leads and not stop to think about every little segment or detail of what she is getting. But she has suddenly become dissatisfied with mindless taking; she has the deepest wish to feel a sense of finally arriving – but where to arrive is the problem. If she grabs, she may make a wrong choice, and if she doesn’t grab she may miss for ever the bit of life she wanted.

Sipping silently at her drink while Malcolm closes his eyes for a few minutes against the sting of wafting smoke, she questions even Carla’s friendship. Can you try on bras together and not be friends? Can you be friends and keep secrets? Does Addison like her and was that only a moment’s frustration he expressed? He has touched her frequently, caressed her cheek, told her to visit him. Was his kindness over the weeks simply the ploy to gain a Follower or even a lifetime’s habit of offering care and sympathy with no real feeling behind it? A flush of warmth starts in her belly and rushes upward through her breast, overwhelms her neck and suffuses her face. How can she not know the answers? She was there, it happened to her. She felt it, saw it, heard it. What sort of an idiot is she? Is she not an adult?

Anger and frustration mix in a violent reaction. Hardly aware of her actions, she stands up, places her glass heavily on the table so that the contents jump out and spill on the polished surface in a jagged line. She is aware that several eyes are on her but cares nothing for their opinion. Her voice emerges too loudly from her throat.

‘I’m going. I can’t stand this oppressive heat any longer.’

Chapter 23:c

In which Helen views the house and feels the pain

The two acres of garden are quite different from what Helen had imagined over the last few weeks. The concept had intimated to her a sprawl of tended lawns and shrub beds with perhaps a rockery or kitchen garden nearer the house and some deep borders of annuals and perennials from which to gather flowers for vases.

The reality, viewed with leisure since the house is now empty and awaiting the exchange of contracts, is beyond her wildest dreams. Had reality been as she imagined it, she would have been satisfied. But nothing can prevent shock waves of astonishment and then pure excitement rolling through Helen again and again as she stands amazed at the sight which greets them from the gates.

‘Malcolm!’ she breathes. ‘Just look at that!’

And they do; for moments on end they simply stare at the expanse of traditional English woodland that opens before them behind the towering beech hedges surrounding the property. The house itself, narrow but tall, stands, detached and gabled, amid sprawling beech and pine, the tangles of bramble and fern encroaching nearly to the verandah, which protects three sides. Sunlit threads mingle in the undergrowth and light up the roofs and attic windows with a welcome that catches Helen’s breath.

‘We can… afford that?’ she asks.

‘It’s not that expensive,’ he admits. ‘No one wants the bother of travelling in from here. And it’s away from the out-of-town shopping too. But yes, it is worth having and I can afford it… You do like it?’ Malcolm sounds uncertain for the first time that Helen can recall.

‘The garden’s out of this world. Let’s look at the house,’ she suggests, moving at long last to break the trance-like immobility that has gripped them.

Walking up the gravel path to the front door is like wandering up to a fairy castle in a children’s make-believe world. ‘Where do the cars go?’ she asks.

‘Round the back. There’s a double garage. Thought you’d like to make a proper entrance from the front.’

‘You knew, didn’t you?’ she accuses. ‘You saw it when you came down last week.’

‘I saw it on the day of the interview, actually. And it still looks stunning today. But it is just a house after all. You don’t live in the garden.’

‘I shall,’ Helen vows.

And Carla? the voice in her head whispers. I thought you weren’t going to move when the time came?

‘Careful!’

Malcolm’s shout startles her and she jumps back just in time from a bramble sticking across her path. He is already unlocking the barred and studded door. Rather like the doors at Holy Wind, on a smaller scale – but that is an original and this is definitely reproduction, though rather fitting in such a woodland setting.

Inspecting the lower floor first, Helen keeps hearing the accusing voice and cannot any longer take such joy in the house. The three rooms look smaller than she had imagined, and then the upper floors seem ordinary. Even the attic does not hold the attraction she envisaged from outside: it is just another room when viewed from inside, apart from the dormers, which she admits are satisfying. There is nothing wrong, she tells herself firmly; just that the sun has gone behind a cloud momentarily.

And that you have a choice to make, the voice insists.

A choice between Carla and this house.

Between Carla and Malcolm.

Between being herself and free, and being what someone else wants her to be and therefore reduced again to a lifeless facsimile.

And which choice represents which? she asks herself endlessly as they descend to the ground floor together, Malcolm chatting away – rather unusually for him – and she forcing herself to answer.

They go out to view the back garden – if such is an appropriate epithet for the extent of woodland that confronts them – and agree that the privacy it affords is a bonus. There is enough proper garden behind the house, cleared of weeds but standing barren, for them to create a pleasant area to sit in.

‘Red brick,’ Malcolm moots, his do-it-yourself eyes growing distant as the vision grips him. ‘Red brick and a matching loggia.’

‘With wisteria rambling over it,’ Helen adds, ‘and a ledge for the drinks and glasses.’

Beyond this area, they can actually take walks in ‘their’ forest and perhaps even barbecue and eat in the tiny glades they stumble across. Wild and safe, something neither has dreamed of, they know from the look they share. Two acres of woodland to call their own.

‘Happy?’

Malcolm is waiting, expectant. Helen swallows hard and says, ‘Sort of.’ At his quizzical, partly disappointed expression, she hurries on, ‘But I do wish Carla were here to see it.  She’d love it.’

‘Hardly sensible to make the girl jealous,’ he says brutally. He is right. How could she even invite her down? It’s the same choice again, insinuating itself painfully on her consciousness. Either she stays up north with Carla or she moves on in life with Malcolm. There is no middle course of action.

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Chapter 23:b

In which we witness a marital unravelling

‘The good or the bad?’

Malcolm asks the question with his eyes straight ahead as they drive at nearly a hundred on a flyover near the shopping centre at Sheffield.

‘You’re speeding,’ she tells him, resigned to the inevitable, but obliged to point it out. ‘It’s not safe.’ She ignores his own question completely. He asks it so often.

‘I’m not, if you take into account the fact that there’s no other vehicle in sight.’

‘The law’s the law,’ she retorts.

‘That’s a cliché.’

He is obviously on form this morning. Helen knows she can either join him or sit in resentful silence. Since her emotional indifference has been dissipating over several weeks, she decides to throw her all in. Not in antagonism, more for the fun of it.

‘True. Clichés keep us from revealing our true selves; easy words to cover up the real person.’

He turns to her. ‘That’s pompous verbiage.’

‘It’s not. Genuine relationships are built on honest communication – which is what I did just now.’ She grins at him triumphantly, ignoring the secrets she and Carla have been keeping from each other – that is quite separate from this. She excels at word wars.

‘Telling me I’m speeding?’

‘Nope. Telling you it’s not safe… Let’s make that personal: you make me feel unsafe when you drive at a hundred and turn to look at me at the same time.’ She speaks each word distinctly.

‘Thanks for the confession. But I’ll drive.’ He is angry.

Helen suddenly regrets allowing this to get under way.

‘Sorry,’ she says, hating herself for saying it but knowing that a two-hour sulk would cause her greater distress. Things are never like this with Carla. Why can’t Malcolm be open and friendly instead of fighting his corner?

‘As I said,’ Malcolm continues, as if nothing had interrupted the original offer, ‘do you want to hear the bad or the good first?’

‘The bad.’ Helen knows her voice is flat.

‘I’m making arrangements to start the job on Monday. I’ll stay in a hotel until the house is available in two weeks.’

This is not the first time Helen has heard the idea. She had simply forgotten all about it in the past week, what with Rebecca coming, Steve’s threat, the discovery of Carla’s diaries, the party last weekend and then the mugging the other day. So much has been packed into what would normally have been a lazy sun-soaked ordinary week of summer that it seems an eternity since she heard Malcolm broach the idea. He must just have decided to go ahead with the plan. This, rather than the plan itself, causes violent anger to rise within her.

‘You’re just leaving me?’  She swings round to stare at him, provokes no reaction, and is immediately furious that he is heeding her earlier admonition to look straight ahead. ‘Without consulting me about what I think?’

‘I’ll come back at the weekend, and then the following one to organise the removal vans,’ he says equably. ‘It’s not the first time we’ve moved.’

She swivels forward again, seething, and watches the blue signs flash past in steady succession, the countdown to the next service area, the miles from London, the approaching merger of another motorway. Gradually the turmoil inside her subsides. She remembers that her first reaction the other day had been anger followed by purposeful serenity. Why waste more anger now? She will accept the deprivation as a gift – one that she in turn can bestow on Carla, and which inevitably will rebound to her advantage. Not least because she will be free of any intimacy with Malcolm for nights on end.

Resolutely, she stretches to the back seat for the bottle of lemonade and two patterned mugs. ‘What was the good thing?’

Can there be anything good where Malcolm is concerned? Her feelings for him are on a rollercoaster these days. She is not even sure that she tolerates him as she did. It is difficult to fit new wine into old skins – an image she now recognises as more suited to Addison’s armoury than hers. But still apposite: she is bursting out of the straitjacket she is honest enough to see they have both allowed to be constructed round them.

‘I’ve booked for us to go to Iceland in late September.’

Helen’s knuckles show white on the gold bottle cap. The only sound is a long spluttering fizz as the air starts its escape. Her eyes remain fixed on the foaming contents. Is there no end to his domination? She is taken with the wild idea of turning the bottle to face him and letting the contents stream into his self-satisfied expression. But she would quite like to arrive home in one piece.

A near-hysterical giggle escapes her. ‘You knew I wanted to go there, of course. Just the thing to freeze me back into the mould.’

‘Helen!’

She stops abruptly, tears starting to prick her eyelids. Her voice wavers as she continues a moment later: ‘I would so like to have browsed and chosen together. Did you not think of that?’

There is silence, except for the hum of the engine (which Helen had always thought of as comforting – until now when it seems more like the menace of a wasp about to unleash its sting in a flash of unbearable pain).

Then she sways heavily against Malcolm’s arm as he veers sharply to the left and pulls onto the slip road to the service station. He remains silent while he conspires to insert the car between two badly parked vans. Then his grim countenance softens.

‘Helen,’ he says, shifting position slightly to take her awkwardly in his arms across the two seats, ‘I just wanted to be certain we had time together before we fell totally into two separate worlds. We can have another holiday any time you want to pick one. But yes, I knew you wanted to go somewhere different and I just booked it because you were busy.’

His only answer is Helen’s sobbing, which feels to her the unloading of a lifetime of tension. She hopes he cannot see into her heart: with eyes tight shut and mind wide open she is aware of Carla’s arms around her, Carla’s endearments and Carla’s sympathetic understanding. And she is comforted.

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Chapter 23:a

In which Helen nips out for some information

Malcolm is busy, Helen can see. It is still early, however, and she has no further preparations to do before they set off for Wolverhampton, so she decides on a quick trip to the library.

‘That’s pushing it a bit fine?’ Malcolm queries, barely looking up from his laptop.

‘I won’t be long. The picnic is done, I’ll be back before you’re ready. Ten o’clock, we agreed, didn’t we?’

Malcolm’s grunt is presumably assent, if she needed it. But just lately she has become accustomed to doing whatever she wants, whilst still making her outward demeanour conciliatory and compliant. That stands in contrast to her lifelong habit of being accommodating and not doing what she wanted. In between had come that short flirt with outright rebellion: the turmoil it caused has been hard to live with, so much so that it did not feel at all like freedom. (Though the experiment has brought a release inside her of the pressure that had built up unbeknown.)

She sighs and picks up the car keys. Perhaps being a peacekeeper is part of her psyche. Keeping herself in check is second nature. Something rather less than overt antagonism sits more comfortably on her shoulders.

But she must not lose what she has gained. Despite chidings and warnings of intrusiveness, and her disillusion about the exact nature of friendship, her yearning towards Carla, towards the baby, even towards the Preacher, takes first place in her waking thoughts every day. They themselves are the reason she cannot heed Steve’s warnings and stay away: they are like a fire inviting her to their side, to warmth, to melting. For someone who has been in a frozen wilderness, there is no decision to make. She will hold on to Carla and Addison whatever the cost to herself or Malcolm, but she will be surreptitious and careful. Domineering is not a characteristic she finds attractive in others and she will avoid giving that impression again, but letting go of the couple is not an option now.

A flower, Addison had said. She resembled that poppy. And they had invited her to open up in the warmth of spring. It was a quick and suitable response in a heatwave, even if the intensity threatened to overwhelm her. So she must come and go, come and go, until she is wholly acclimatised and able to flourish in the higher temperatures she has met with.

Hence the trip south alongside Malcolm today – with the added bonus that some time away from Carla will make Carla fully realise her need of Helen: worry will add to Carla’s sense of desertion, since no explanation has been given in advance.

Helen feels a small sense of discomfort at the thought that this is her friend she is manoeuvring, and on the first day after Rebecca’s return home, but with something so important at stake she can’t take any chances. Her future is with Carla.

However, at this moment she is more concerned to find out who is sitting over the doorway at number fifty-six Newton Grove, looking benevolently down on the latest occupants, because the information will be of use to her. She needs to sweeten Addison again – the old lady has been poisoning his thoughts, that’s for certain. Her letter proved it had originated with her. Probably her Manx isolationist tendencies kicking in, though not without reason, as Helen has admitted to herself. But she must mount a counter-offensive whilst pretending to stay neutral. That should be well within her scope, and the figures over the lintel are her veiled weapon.

The carved and chiselled head had intrigued her. He could have been Prince Albert or any of a dozen famous fathers of the era (probably very late 1800s, she thinks) but, not recognising one of these people, she has decided to investigate in the local history section.

The search takes her longer than intended and the librarian joins in enthusiastically. But after much investigation, (totally unnecessary, she admits inwardly, because no one seems bothered who the figure was), they come up with details in an obscure pamphlet by the local archival society picturing the very man: Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. He of the think-tank behind the Factory Acts and Ragged schools. A Dorset landowner; a religious man, apparently. A fitting figure for the builder to have placed over the doorway of dwellings for the workers. She notes from a nearby paragraph that they were not all so pleased – the factory laws limited their earning ability considerably. Did Shaftesbury know about their discontent? Would he have objected to such fleshly honour anyway?

Glancing absently at the wall clock, Helen is suddenly aware of the passage of time and rushes home, concerned that Malcolm will be fretting.

He is indeed pacing the hall. He says ‘Come on,’ but she can tell he’s not particularly cross yet.

She reaches up to stroke his face. He looks surprised and gratified. Helen adds a kiss whilst covertly glancing at her watch, which has become visible on her arm: they must indeed get off as she wants to be back before the evening is too far gone. She has something to interest Addison, and a reason to seek him out at the house.

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Chapter 22:e

In which Carla momentarily contemplates her desire

Carla allows Helen to drop her home, and arranges for her to come back at eight. Helen has offered to mind Dinah while she is at the baptism run-through, and Carla has acquiesced with relief. It’s pointless trying to do without help for the sake of it.

She takes Dinah and the shopping in, through the little garden which is now swathed in late-afternoon house-shadows and affords a sombre contrast to the brightness of the sky they have been wandering under. It’s like being returned to the womb. A place of dependency and safety. Carla has mixed feelings, but it doesn’t depress her as it would have this morning.

Ignoring the baby for a moment, she unwraps and holds up to the light the glamorous creation that is now her lure. Addison will come to it. He has to learn that she is his wife, not a prostitute, not an angel, but a part of him now.

As she pictures herself in this sexy garment, not half dressed as in the cubicle but perfumed and powdered from a long relaxing bath, she finds she craves Addison’s touch through it, the feel of his strong hand on her nipples, the sensation of fingers slipping inside it to caress her bare flesh.

She sighs in newly awoken anticipation. The baby clinic advised six weeks, but four to five will have to do: the night of the baptisms will be the climax of a six-month abstinence.

If she survives. There are seven days to Steve’s deadline.

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Chapter 22:d

In which Helen is shocked by Carla

‘I presume Great Aunt Rebecca has left?’ Helen asks as they descend the escalator, one at each end of the pram. She has to strain her head upwards to see Carla.

‘You gathered that from yesterday?’

‘Sort of. But she wrote me a letter.’

They set the pram straight and check the shopping is still in place. They’ve added a few other items on their way through the store.

‘I didn’t know,’ says Carla. ‘What about?’

‘Just a few things she wanted to say before she went.’ Helen remains non-committal. She cannot bring herself to divulge the contents. On first reading the letter she had been angry, then denied it to herself, then finally seen that from the old lady’s point of view there was some truth in it. She does not wish Carla to know what Rebecca said simply because she may agree with it and then the opportunity to salvage their friendship will be lost.

‘I felt that somehow she could see straight through me,’ she tells Carla in a rush of honesty. ‘It made me want to tell her things.’

‘Such as?’

‘Nothing really. Just a feeling that I could.’

‘I still remember she didn’t send us presents,’ Carla says, thrusting open the store door and holding it while Helen manoeuvres the pram through. ‘Mingy Beck! Isn’t it odd how one thing sticks.’

Into Helen’s head pops the memory of the special present of the lightweight silver foil ball on the elastic string. A present to keep quiet about. Yes, it’s odd how something can stick. And what would Rebecca have said if she had told her about it?

Helen stops on the pavement. Yes, that’s exactly what she did want to tell her, but for the life of her she doesn’t know why.

And then she sees something. Someone. Watching their way from the far side of the crowded pedestrian precinct they have emerged into. There is only the tell-tale flop of hair and a cigarette – but Helen instinctively reacts. There is no time for proof.

‘Carla! This way.’ She swivels the pram with a jolt right through a hundred and eighty degrees and swiftly re-enters the shop, Ignoring the annoyed looks of people who were behind her. ‘Come on!’she urges over her shoulder.

Carla is perplexed but is following. Good. There is no time for explanation. She doesn’t wish to break the news to Carla about Stefan, Steve or whoever and his little tricks. They must disappear fast.

She grabs the girl’s arm. ‘Better this way. Nearer to the car.’

The North Street exit is across the shoe department, which is not busy enough for Helen’s liking at this moment. No matter – they’re probably not being followed, but she is driven by guilt and responsibility. Maybe overreacting a bit.

‘I’m on the bus, remember?’

‘Not now, you’re not. Too difficult in rush hour. I’ll take you.’

‘But––’

Helen pushes on and they leave the shop where there are fewer pedestrians and shoppers, but many more side alleyways where they can escape if need be. Helen never imagined she would end up in this position: acting lke a snivelling pickpocket desperate to get lost from view. She is fast wishing she was back in her old predictable existence. ‘Addison would never forgive me if anything happened to you,’ she explains, in a rush of inspiration. ‘He’d blame me, for sure.’

‘Don’t be daft. And slow down! I’m tired.’

‘Sorry.’ Helen is repentant. They are within yards of her parking bay.

‘Helen. I can look after myself.’ She takes the pram from Helen and buries her hand under the mattress. ‘Look!’

Carla doesn’t unwrap the article but Helen feels the shape and pressure of it as Carla pushes it gently at her palm. She stands stock still and stares at the girl, unable to bring herself to speak. Carla must know about Steve. And if so, is deliberately keeping it from Helen for some reason of her own, whilst Helen is deliberately suppressing information about Steve’s attack on herself. Is this what friendship is about? Covering up the terror and sharing the inconsequential? Is this what she dreamed about having and risked everything for?

A dangerous and damaging impulse, which might have untold effect on the pair of them, is fighting at the edge of her awareness, trying to enter consciousness and be expressed. With an enormous effort, Helen displaces it again, as the wrapped object is put once more under the sleeping baby and they walk the last few metres in silence.

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Chapter 22:c

In which Helen is embarrassed by lingerie

Helen’s reticence to discuss the bras, bodies and panties arrayed attractively on hangers all around them is not lost on Carla. She herself finds the display overwhelming, though for rather different reasons: they can see and breathe nothing but white, cream, black and fawn underwear, with the occasional red set thrown in for good measure. No yellow, green or purple ones to relieve the monotony. It’s almost claustrophobic.

And yet, while she herself is merely spoiled for choice, she can sense Helen’s discomfort with the rows of empty breasts, big and small, padded and supported, revealing and controlled, all-encompassing and barely there. The panties look less realistic in their emptiness.

She laughs to lighten the atmosphere. ‘Dire, isn’t it? All I want is one lacy set to turn Addison on.’

Helen’s response is guarded. ‘I hate these places. They either want to help you choose, and then look you up and down critically as they fit you, or they take no notice of you, like now, and you have to keep going in and out with your allotted three to try them on.’

‘Well you can stay dressed and just hold Dinah while I slip in and out of an exotic selection.’

‘I’m not coming into the cubicle.’ Helen sounds shocked. Her knuckles grip the pram handle proprietorially.

Carla is amused to catch Helen at her reluctant worst. ‘You’ll have to,’ she says. ‘I can’t come out here to show you each one. Friends help each other, remember?’

***

Helen finds the next hour difficult.

The fact of being in the cubicle has registered finally as the better option. She keeps remembering Steve’s warning to stay clear of Carla. Though he’s hardly likely to be in a lingerie department, she feels less flagrantly in defiance if they are all out of sight. It is possible to reconstrue the exercise as looking after Carla.

Looking at her is more of a problem. The more she sees Carla’s breasts clad in sheer or lace or loose items, the more she finds herself perturbed that this is all being done for Addison. She feels that she is helping Carla sell herself to someone else. As though she were dressing a child at her best to give her away for someone else to bring up. A tiny spark of jealously flicks at her innards, a desire that manifests itself as a need to take Carla in her arms, not to hide her nakedness but to feel it. She does not understand her emotions. She has barely realised she had any before she met Carla. And a portion of her brain is reminding her that this girl was a prostitute once and must be doing again what she surely did before, adorning herself in an alluring way. Why the sudden desire to please Addison? It doesn’t seem very like his kind of values. He may even misunderstand her.

Stuck in the corner, head jammed against the clothes hooks, holding a squirming Dinah, and trying to avoid gazing at Carla’s semi nakedness, Helen is not happy. And that reminds her she has not spoken to Addison yet about the diary entries.

‘It’s hot in here,’ she says.

Carla tries on something that Helen has never really seen close-up before: a stretchy, lace all-in-one with a front panel drawing the eyes very strongly to the crotch. It is black and clingy. Carla is taken with it, decides to buy it. Helen tries to imagine how it would feel if she wore it.

‘Do you want to try it on while we’re here?’

Carla’s words bring a flush to Helen’s face. ‘Course not. I’m older than you,’ she says.

‘You never know, Malcolm might like it,’ Carla teases, but the look Helen sees in her eyes softens the words and in small measure relieves her embarrassment.

They gather up the unwanted items, elbowing each other in the confines of the cubicle, and Helen seizes the opportunity to carry Dinah back out to her pram, parked by the changing room doors, and settle her. She avoids the querying glance of the sales assistant which she can see from the corner of her eye. Carla can deal with it.

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Chapter 22:b

In which Carla decides how to keep herself safe

Three hours to her afternoon meeting with Helen.

She locks and bolts the door, and pulls the curtains. The shade is welcome but her motive is privacy. She feels safer when casual passers-by who might peer in are unable to. But try as she will, she can’t shut out her loneliness in the wake of the old lady’s departure. The darkened room quickly turns her mood sombre.

Addison is out, busy with Pete and the young men after doing some visits. He may stop off for a bite to eat somewhere. She supposes she might pop over to the house to see how the lads are shaping up. ‘Very keen’ was how Addison had described them. For his sake, she wills the project to last beyond the first setbacks. They’re bound to come.

So, no Rebecca, no Addison. And only fear and danger to look forward to. Some kind of existence.

Dinah gurgles and suddenly Carla knows that she is courting misery, shutting herself in like this, allowing others to decide how she will live. She jumps up again and pulls back the curtains. She will not hide. Life has to be faced head on.

The room opens up round her, windows beckon to be flung wide, and she responds.

After several lungfuls of noontime air, she reaches behind the settee, pulls out a long-neglected cross-stitch project, and settles herself within sight of Dinah’s baby-seat, grinning cheerfully at her dribbling contentedness. They’ll relax to ClassicFM together.

She imagines Great Aunt Rebecca at the station, haranguing some poor luggage assistant, threatening him with dynamite, and generally sorting out the train services. Then she loses herself in Respighi’s Pines of Rome until Dinah shouts with hunger and drowns out the soldiers marching down the Appian Way.

She opens a tin of spam for her lunchtime sandwich, and her thoughts return relentlessly to a darker mood.

What is she thinking of? She has one week, one measly week before Steve’s deadline, and here she is hanging around with half-baked plans and no real hope of success, doing cross-stitch. She’s not a responsible person. She doesn’t deserve Dinah. She’s made a mess of everything all her life and if it’s all taken from her, well then, she will only have herself to blame.

Helen has been warned by Addison that she’s in the way, so she can’t rely on Helen always to be there for her, even if their trip this afternoon looks otherwise. In fact, Carla agrees that more independence is necessary. But more independence means more isolation.

Rebecca has done her week’s tour of duty – and reminded her graphically how useless the protection of an octogenarian is. Her company was like a comforting woollen car rug. But a car rug is no protection against violence.

Her little plan for making the marriage real is a distraction, nothing more; an immediate response to pressing need, which now seems pathetic. The reality is that it will solve only their own problems, not the imminent threat of Steve abducting Dinah forcibly. Legal rightness is of little use if the child’s been kidnapped. Steve wouldn’t wait around for a court to award her custody. Dinah would be dead before the papers were signed.

The slices of soft meat giving way to the cut of the knife seem like days falling away without protest. The inevitability of it reaches into her chest with a pain so deep and high that she sucks breath audibly.

She starts trembling. Dinah has set up a wailing, and the plaintiveness of her cry calls to Carla’s inner despair and accentuates it into unbearable agony. Her hands refuse to steady. She cuts jagged lines now. The baby’s needs should be seen to before her own lunch. But she has lost the ability to prioritise. Finish slicing or feed child. They’re both hungry. But Carla’s hunger is also for safety she’s never known, for someone to take care of her, and she’s oblivious in this moment to Dinah’s dependency. She carries on feverishly.

The knife nicks her finger end. And in an instant of pain the turmoil of indecision is released.

The knife!

She washes and dries it, gently probing the cutting edge of the blade with her thumb: two inches of steel weapon. She has other knives, but none as good as this, with its lifetime guarantee of razor-sharpness. She folds it carefully in kitchen paper. Just sufficient to disguise it. Dinah cries again.

‘Hush, darling, Mummy’s coming.’ She goes to the pram and lifts the corner of the mattress. Slipping the packet under, she makes sure that the sheet and bedding are replaced carefully. Then she puts her hands on the handlebar.

‘Now!’ she says.

In a flash, her hand is under the corner of the mattress and in possession of the blade. A grin of satisfaction, mingled with relief, spreads across her face. She replaces the packet in its hiding place. This feels more like her old resourceful self. She will not go to pieces, she will fight for what she wants.

She turns to the baby-rocker with outstretched arms and Dinah responds by stopping mid-wail and initiating sucking motions. Carla’s own hunger has abated. She’ll feed the baby first and only then then consider the implications of what she’s done.

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Chapter 22:a

In which Carla tries out Rebecca’s advice

Carla is adamant with Helen.

‘Not the car this time. I love the Superbus and all its noise. And anyway, you’d have to come out from town to fetch me.’

The voice at the other end of the phone is equally stubborn. ‘You can’t manage Dinah on your own.’

‘Well, it’s time I tried. Now, where shall we meet – or are you going to sulk?’ Carla’s tone is lighter but this is a risky move after yesterday’s episode. Nevertheless, the relationship must be sorted out as soon as possible. That way they’ll stay friends.

After much thought, she actually agrees with Rebecca’s advice: Carla must manage and Helen must let her. Of course sharing Dinah is fun, but relinquishing responsibility is suicide in the long term. She owes this to herself and to Helen.

There is a sudden outburst of laughter from Helen, causing Carla to hold the receiver away from her ear. ‘Of course not. I never sulk and I do want to go shopping with you. But take care getting on and off. And… take care, in fact.’

‘Will do.’ The warning is unnecessary. She’s had to calculate the danger Steve represents and weigh it against letting the situation with Helen continue. She’s trusting Steve to keep away for the two weeks but is acutely aware she has misplaced her trust before. It’s more a denial of the threat than a calculated trust.

‘What time shall we meet? It’s Tuesday, so I finish at three.’

Carla calculates quickly, names a time and then says, ‘I’ll let you go now or you’ll be late for work.’

She replaces the phone with a small smile, which changes to a broad grin as Great Aunt Rebecca applauds loudly.

‘See? Well done. It’s downhill from now on.’ Rebecca looks as if she has personally scored a success, and Carla inwardly acknowledges the old lady’s wisdom.

Since dinner last night she has pondered the details of everything she can remember since meeting Helen the day of Dinah’s arrival, had several mini conversations with Rebecca and squirmed at the admissions she had to make in the process. The old lady neither pitied nor condemned, just helped. The decision was that Helen would be welcomed as a friend but on Carla’s terms; and that she would devote herself to making the marriage with Addison work – both for her own sake and for his. But mostly, she acknowledges secretly, it is Dinah’s only hope. If only she could tell Rebecca what was happening. The weight of carrying it alone is affecting her sleep. But the whole conversation with Rebecca has been a denial of the real situation, whille still being helpful in itself.

Carla is aware that this is the first challenge she has approached logically and with consultation. Leaving home was an emotional, private protest; fleeing Steve was instinctive, based on fear and a desire for survival. Careful thought was hardly required in either.

Now, with such a plan in place she hopes to have the freedom she craves. A satisfied husband and a good secure friendship. Without a strategy, Rebecca had warned, arching her brows in significance, she would go down like a racing cyclist clipped on the bend. Carla decides that Great Aunt Rebecca is as clear-minded as her family always remembered her to be, both in her views and in her insistence that Carla take stock. And she has earned Carla’s gratitude and affection.

She plays with Dinah on the changing mat before replacing her nappy, feeling both sadness and hope, a mix of chastened child and released adult. She doesn’t focus on the chasm yawning between now and then. If she looks down she begins to lose the plot.

Great Aunt Rebecca reappears in the room with suitcase and bag.

‘You shouldn’t have––’ Carla begins.

‘Nonsense. Addison is out visiting the needy, and you’re no more strong enough to lift these than I am.’ Her eyes twinkle sharply and she pushes her wild hair back from her face. ‘I shall look forward to the breezes back in Injebreck. But I enjoyed my week here – bumps and all.’

Carla isn’t sure whether she’s referring to the mugging or the rough ride with Addison. Perhaps both. She seems unperturbed by it all, anyway.

The taxi arrives and Carla brushes away a tear. ‘Don’t mind me,’ she says, embracing Rebecca. ‘I enjoyed your company. Thanks for listening.’

Rebecca strokes her hair and pushes her away. ‘You’ll do,’ she says gruffly, her only response other than a brief wave as the driver collects her bags, shuts the car door firmly on her and roars out of the street.

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Chapter 21:e

In which Great-Aunt Rebecca hits the nail on the head

‘You need a strategy.’

Great Aunt Rebecca sounds as if they are in collusion over a mystery, about to depart to their separate strands of detection work, and must consult in haste before the enemy returns and they’re caught in the act. Carla’s not certain whether Addison or Helen is the enemy in Great Aunt Rebecca’s eyes. But as they jointly prepare some baked fish and jacket spuds in the micro contraption (as Rebecca calls it), the two women find an ease of conversation that bridges the difference in their ages.

‘Why?’ asks Carla, deciding to land the ball firmly back in Rebecca’s court. ‘Why do I need a strategy?’

‘Because you’ve got problems.’

Carla remains guarded. She neatly splits the fish and carefully removes each bone. She wonders what the great-aunt knows – or thinks she knows. ‘What do you mean?’ she asks obtusely.

‘I mean exactly what I say, young lady, and well you know it. You were never dense when you were young.’

Carla laughs suddenly and puts the knife down. ‘Okay. Addison is under a bit of strain right now. Nothing I can’t handle. And Dinah’s made me tired, of course. Don’t make mountains out of molehills, as my… as Mum used to say.’

The old lady stares right into her with astonishingly clear blue eyes, made larger in appearance by the fact that she has scrawmed back her flyaway hair into a band while she deals with scrubbing the potatoes. Carla refuses to avoid the gaze but realises within a few seconds that there is really nothing to be gained by deception. The old lady knows something – and Carla could do with a bit of advice.

‘Okay. You won’t take no for an answer – and I hate lying anyway. I am a bit worried about Addison. He’s not managing too well at the moment.’

‘I know. He’s volatile and defensive. But he has reasons, you know.’

‘I don’t know. Tell me.’

‘He probably feels pushed out by Helen.’

‘I gathered he had a problem with her this morning,’ Carla says, ‘but she’s done nothing wrong.’

‘Hasn’t she? Who helps most with Dinah? Her father or Helen?’

‘Addison isn’t her father,’ Carla says quietly, knowing it must be told one day, but not wanting to cause questions; aware that she sounds ungrateful for Addison’s total acceptance of the child as his.

‘He’s the only father she’s going to have,’ Rebecca states. ‘It’s who’s here that counts now.’

Who’s here. That’s the problem. They’re both here.

Carla is trembling. Rebecca doesn’t understand what she’s saying, how her words are perversely bringing Steve into the room, helping him sidle into the privacy of her family: she can almost feel him beside her, pulling Dinah from her arms…

Helen’s strength here is essential for support. She fervently hopes they are still friends. ‘Helen is not usurping anyone,’ she says firmly.

‘She is trying to live your life,’ the old lady persists. ‘Can’t you see it?’

Carla puts the prepared fish in the dish, adds the milk and pauses for a moment before replying. The touch pad needs her full attention while she works out timings.

Eventually she turns and says, ‘It’s the baby. Helen won’t be having a baby now, so she enjoys mine. I really don’t mind.’

Even as she says it, she remembers how Helen has made decisions for her, organised the housework and bought her an expensive present. She would rather she hadn’t but their friendship is what has brought Carla pleasure – someone to laugh and joke with and share stories. After so long in fear and isolation, it feels like a warm breeze in winter. The Followers are a collective presence – and they don’t need her. Helen does. And it makes the friendship more equal.

‘It’s done her good, too. She was totally frightened of Dinah at first. She even flinched when Addison went near her. She’s found some sort of life here.’

‘And what about her husband?’

Carla bites her lip as she dries the chopping board and stores it away. She’s not sure what’s going on with Malcolm. As she realised earlier, Helen rarely mentions him. Does he even know where Helen spends her days? Does he care? She must ask, if she gets an opportunity.

‘He’s busy tidying up ends at his job, I think.’ That much is bound to be true.

Great Aunt Rebecca awards her another penetrating stare. Carla almost wishes the eyes would start darting round again. It’s easier to bear.

After long seconds, Rebecca states firmly, ‘The spuds are ready to cook,’ and puts down the little knife. ‘Remains to be seen if this contraption can produce jacket potatoes in the proper manner.’

‘It says the skins won’t brown,’ Carla says. ‘They just go soft.’

‘Which is what you’re doing over these hangers-on.’

‘Hangers-on?’ Carla feels anger rise in her. That’s out of order.

‘Addison is dependent. He thinks it’s on God but it’s you he worships.’

‘That’s not true,’ Carla protests. ‘How can you possibly know?’

‘I’ve been around. I’ve seen. It’s in the eyes. Watch people’s eyes and you see their souls.’

‘Well then, you’ve seen how loving and kind and generous Addison is,’ Carla retorts.

‘I’ve seen more than that. I’ve seen his sincerity and his fear of failure. That’s why he depends on you. You’re his anchor.’

Carla shivers again. She cannot be someone else’s lifeline just now. She needs solutions, and soon. Time’s running out.

The pinger sounds and they inspect the fish together. It’s like a truce.

‘Looks all right,’ Rebecca pronounces. ‘Probably won’t taste the same…’

As they put the potatoes in, Carla says more calmly, ‘I’m doing my best. That’s why I’m getting baptised.’ She resolutely eschews the guilt that encroaches. It’s for the good of them all ultimately. ‘It’s what he needs.’

Great Aunt Rebecca stops in mid stride on her way out of the kitchenette. She turns round, eyebrows raised, her voice incredulous.

‘What that man needs is sex.’

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