Letters To My Daughter's Killer - [18]
Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.
CHAPTER TEN
Friday 18 September 2009
DI Ferguson was right, it does seem as though nothing is happening. Stasis. We go through the motions of eating and drinking; we wash, though I’m tempted not to bother. As though wearing my dirt on my skin and letting my hair grow greasy and tangled can serve as symbols of my distress and sorrow. It makes sense. I understand now those newscasts from other countries: the rending of clothes, the tearing of hair, the howls of grief. See how I hurt, I will hurt myself to show you.
But we are British. And there is Florence to think of. It would all be so different without her. I could indulge myself, not beholden to anyone. Rave and rage and lose control.
Jack signals to me and we move into the hall.
‘What do we do about school?’ he says quietly.
‘I don’t know. The routine…’ I begin thinking perhaps it would help Florence then I falter. I have no idea what is best. She is settling in well there, in reception, moving up from the school’s nursery class, and usually looks forward to going, but I can’t quite imagine a bereaved child returning to school so soon.
‘We can ask Kay,’ I say.
Kay’s advice is to see what Florence wants to do. If she wants to go in, Kay will speak to the school and explain the situation.
‘I’ll take her,’ Jack says, ‘if she wants to go. I usually take her.’
When Jack asks Florence about school, she says no, alarm in her voice.
‘Okay,’ Jack agrees, ‘you’ll go another day, maybe.’
‘No,’ she says again.
He glances at me, I shrug. What can we do?
Tony returns to work. Does that sound heartless? He tells me he is going mad with nothing to do, brooding at home. That he’ll be better occupied, his business won’t run itself, though they could get by on Denise’s income for a few weeks if they had to. There is no way I can face the thought of work, but I force myself to go out of the house once a day. I cannot hide for ever.
Returning the calls of people who have left messages is really difficult, and I give up trying.
‘You’ve not been able to have a funeral yet,’ Kay says. ‘Usually when someone dies you can focus on that, you’re run ragged making arrangements, everything’s leading to saying a very public goodbye. Without that it is hard to move on with grieving.’
She is right, we are rudderless. ‘People will understand and you can get in touch when you’re ready. Don’t sweat it.’
Kay has a few Americanisms that make me smile. She spent some time working over there on an exchange programme. In Chicago. She loved it.
‘You wouldn’t go back?’
‘No chance now, they’re not hiring.’
The tablets help in one regard: they make it easier for me to avoid dwelling on the scene at Lizzie’s house. It is there at the edge of my mind, a shadow hovering, but like a word that can’t be summoned, or a name forgotten, it stays just out of reach. Sometimes I wake suddenly, full of unease, sweating, and I wonder if I’ve been dreaming about Lizzie, visiting the scene in my slumber. Jack hasn’t taken any medication though I suggest he might. I hear him crying most nights, or pacing about.
We do everything we are asked. Jack talks to the police again.
Every day I ask Kay if they’ve had any witnesses come forward, if anyone saw anything, a stranger in the area. If they’ve found Broderick Litton.
‘Nothing yet, but it is very early on,’ she keeps saying.
My neighbours bring more food. We’ve already had to throw some out and I’ve no idea which dishes are whose.
Jack puts a lasagne in the oven.
‘Did the police say anything?’ I ask him.
He shakes his head, and then stills. ‘Only that they think she let him in.’
My heart quickens. Another morsel of fact. They are like shots of a drug. Dizzying, addictive. ‘Why do they think that?’ I sit down.
‘Because there wasn’t any damage to the door, no sign of him breaking in anywhere else.’
I absorb this. ‘She would never have let that man in. Litton. Not in a million years. Or anyone else, come to that.’
‘I know,’ Jack says. ‘I told them.’
‘He might have forced his way in as soon as she opened the door,’ I say.
We look at each other, Jack tightens his mouth and the dimple in his chin deepens.
Kay encourages me to talk about Lizzie. About her before all this. I’m not sure at first; it’s painful until I get lost in the stories. Gradually I see that it’s healthy to shift the focus away from Lizzie’s death to the rest of her life, all those twenty-nine years. To take her off the pedestal too: not some alabaster martyr, flawless and sublime, but a person who made mistakes and could be infuriating at times.
I tell Kay about the colic and the trials of teenage-hood, which I’m sure was normal enough but was a nightmare at the time. About how stubborn Lizzie could be even if she was in the wrong, and the raging rows she’d have particularly with Tony. And I explain how we came through all that. That the good times far outweighed the hard ones and I took such delight in her, her talents and her character and her generous spirit.
