Page 96 of Darling Girls

‘She hit the wall,’ Jessica pointed out, closing the door to their cottage. But she didn’t care. At the moment, she found it hard to care about anything. She sat on the arm of the sofa, wrapping her arms around herself, where Miss Fairchild’s arms had just been. She could still feel the warmth of her skin. Stillsmellher.

Alicia looked at Meera. ‘What happens if she claims Norah assaulted her?’

‘The only witness is Jessica, so she can say what she wants.’

Meera’s face was completely straight. Alicia smiled. Norah gave her a high five.

‘The other incident is trickier,’ Meera continued. ‘A report has been filed. But we can talk about that later.’

‘Jess,’ Alicia said, ‘about what Miss Fairchild said out there, I meant what I said: Norah and I could never blame you for telling Miss Fairchild we were going to report her. Never ever.’

Jessica looked at Norah, whose expression was far less forgiving.

‘She groomed you to please her, ever since you were a little girl,’ Alicia continued more loudly, as if to make up for Norah. ‘You think we would blame you for that?’

‘You may not blame me, but I blame myself.’ Jessica’s eyes filled. ‘I blamed myself even when I thought we’d imagined Amy. But now . . .’ Her voice cracked and she stopped, took a breath. ‘If hers is the body under the house, it’s my fault.’

‘No,’ Alicia said, shaking her head. ‘No.’

Jessica was nodding. ‘It is. I never intended to tell her. When I went back into the house, I was just going to get my bag. But then I saw Miss Fairchild sitting with Amy, singing to her.’ She wiped away a tear with her fist. ‘I was jealous. I knew how to ingratiate myself with Miss Fairchild. And so I did what I always did: I told her what we were planning to do. I’d done it all my life. All those times you wondered how she knew stuff – it was me.’ Now she was sobbing. ‘I didn’t expect her to kill Amy. She didn’t have a lot of time, but she probably had enough. And all because I was jealous of a toddler.’

Everyone was quiet. After a moment, Norah opened her mouth to speak.

‘Don’t . . .’ Jessica held up her hands like stop signs. ‘Please don’t say anything. I’m not ready. I think we should all go to bed now. We can talk in the morning.’

She felt like a zombie – like she was sleepwalking – as she closed her bedroom door. Oddly untethered, she seemed to be feeling everything and nothing at once. It reminded her of having a local anaesthetic for stitches, how you could feel the doctor tugging your skin but you couldn’t feel the pain. But with it went the knowledge that once the injection wore off, the pain would hit. Jessica didn’t know if she would be able to withstand it.

She sat on the bed. She needed sleep. Deep, dreamless sleep. On her bedside table sat her just-in-case vial of Valium and a bottle of water. She didn’t pause to think; she just tipped two pills into her hand, popped them into her mouth, and washed them down with water. She was about to lie back down when she changed her mind and reached for the pills again. Tipped out a few more. And a few more after that. A swill of water and the job was done. Finally. Sleep was coming.

THE OFFICE OF DR WARREN, PSYCHIATRIST

The next time I see Dr Warren, he is asking questions before I even sit down.

‘So you were in the basement,’ he says. ‘What was the plan for when the baby came?’

‘That’s what I wanted to know. My mother didn’t seem to have any idea.

‘“I’ll ask John,” she said when I asked, which was her answer to everything. Sometimes I wondered what the hell she was thinking about. I’d started to notice bruises on her, more and more each time. On her arms mostly, and occasionally her face. Once, she had a ring of bruises around the base of her throat. So it was possible that she was thinking about that. She was so entirely under John’s thumb . . . which meant I was too.

‘“Don’t lock the door,” I’d beg every time she left.

‘“I’m sorry,” she always said, before latching it shut.

‘When I pressed her, she told me the plan was to say the baby was hers. It felt weak to me. Mum seemed too old to have a baby – though she was in her mid-forties, so I supposed it was possible.

‘“But what’s going to happen when I go into labour?” I demanded. “Who will take me to the hospital?”

‘When she finally responded, I wished I’d never asked.

‘“You’ll give birth here,” she told me. “I’ve been doing some reading about home birth. It’s how most women give birth in India and Africa. It’s going to be fine.”

‘“Will you listen to yourself?” I cried. “What would Dad say if he knew you had locked me in a dungeon and were planning to deliver my child in secret? What if I go into labour and you don’t know because I’m down here? The baby could die.Icould die!”

‘She looked me right in the eye, and for a second I thought I might have reached her. But then she turned and walked up the stairs.

‘The door was closed. Latched. And the last piece of my sanity smashed into a million pieces.’

Dr Warren just sits there, shaking his head. ‘This wasn’t in your file.’