The Night She Disappeared bonus chapter!
I stare at my face in the weird metal mirror above the stainless steel handbasin. I’m used to seeing my face in metal now. I probably wouldn’t recognise myself in glass anymore. My hair has grown long. It is pale brown and straggly and I wear it in plaits every day to stop it knotting together but I haven’t cut it short because there’s still a bit of the washed-out lime green on the ends that was on it when I was taken into custody. They are the same ends I had when you and I were together. The same ends you once touched.
I had a tan when I first got here; a month on a boat, nothing to do but sunbathe, but now I'm back to my usual shade of Philadelphia. I’m allowed cosmetics, but I don't bother. My friend Brooke lent me some of her mascara, but I can barely remember how to use it. It keeps clumping together.
I give up on the makeup and rub off what I can with a damp tissue. I look at my face again. I look older. It’s been nearly two years since I last saw you, but I think I have aged about five years in that time. You’ll probably be a bit shocked. I’ll see it in your eyes. It’ll look like a cloud as it passes. But that’s OK. You don't spend two years in prison without it showing on your face, on your body, in your smile.
No doubt you will have changed too. I will have to prepare myself for that. In my head I have two pictures of you; the first is the way you looked that night at the Christmas disco, in that cute top with the hearts on it, looking up at me with your eyeliner wings from inside my fake fur. The second is harder to think of, but I make myself think of it often, I jam it into my head and force myself to look at it. I think of you being lifted from the boat we’d imprisoned you on, looking like a tiny toy dangling in the air in the arms of the soldier who rescued you. You’d lost all the colour that made you Tallulah, like a faded photograph. And you looked at me with hate. I might have imagined that, but I don't think I did. I called out that I loved you and you stared down at me with dead, empty eyes and I knew that you would never want to see me again. I knew it was finished.
But now you want to see me. I don't know why you want to see me, but you do.
In the metal mirror, my metal face with the black-smudged eyes looks terrified.
I’m led through the familiar lefts and rights of the route to the visitors’ lounge. I have many visitors. I have my father, who comes once a month; having his entire family in prison has really put the kibosh on his gallivanting ways. He does all three of us; me, my brother, my mother, in one dizzying, whistle stop tour. My brother is coming out soon. He got two years for aiding and abetting a kidnapping. I got six years for manslaughter but was acquitted of the kidnap charges because of my mother drugging me and lying to me. My mother got ten years. She tried to sell the jurors the idea that she'd acted out of love. Which she did, of course. Nobody’s saying my mother is a psychopath. If she didn't love me, she wouldn't have done the things she'd done to keep me out of jail. But we both know, Tallulah, we know that the longer it went on, the more she was addicted to the control. We know she lost the plot. We know she was going to kill you. We know that. And by the end, she'd forgotten why she'd started doing it in the first place.
I also have visits from Roo and Jayden and Rocky. But not from Mimi. Mimi hates me. It’s fair enough.
Liam came to see me once. The less said about that the better. One day maybe I’ll tell you the truth about Liam, about what he did and how he set me up. But not now. I’m living with it for now because frankly, I think I deserve every single shitty thing that’s happened to me and it’s a bit late now for playing the blame game. If there’s any justice in this world, Liam Bailey will get his punishment one day. But I'm not going to be the one to mete it out. For now it was enough for me to notice that he's already started to lose his hair, and he's only twenty three.
The warden unlocks the last of the doors before the one that takes me to the room where I will see you. She has thick black hair tied back into a bun. Her name is Shelli. I don't mind her. She likes dogs and we watch dog videos together on her phone.
I pull in my breath. I pull in my stomach muscles. I clench and unclench my hands.
The door unlocks and Shelli ushers me through it. And you are there. There.
You look at me and I see the thing I was expecting to see; the flash of disgust, or horror, or disappointment – whatever. The bad thing.
‘Hi.’
You speak first. Already I know that you’re different. Completely different.
‘Hi.’
Your hair has streaks in it, coppery and exciting. You’re wearing black dungarees and yellow converse and hoop earrings. You look like a trendy young mum, like you should be pushing a Bugaboo around a park in Stoke Newington. You look like an adult.
‘You look amazing,’ I say, hoping I don't sound creepy.
‘Yeah,’ you wave your hand across yourself. ‘Well, not really, but thank you.’
I pull out a seat and then we sit face to face across a wooden table. I can see now that you are wearing makeup; eyeliner wings and blush-coloured lip balm and mascara. I don't know how to feel about the fact that you've made yourself look pretty for me. What does it mean? Maybe you wear this makeup every day now, along with your hoop earring and your adorable dungarees. Or maybe you put it on for me.
‘How are you doing?’ you ask me.
I make a strange noise; a kind of collision of all the many sounds and words I could currently use to describe how I'm doing. Then I exhale and say, ‘you know. Just …’ I can't get any further. The question is too, too huge. ‘You?’ I ask in reply.
‘Good,’ you say. ‘I’m good. I’m starting a new job next week.’
‘Social care?’
‘No. Actually. No. I sort of changed my mind about that. I’m going to be a teaching assistant at the school I went to when I was little.’
Yes, I think, yes, of course you are. Look at you. That’s exactly what you’re going to be.
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘I bet the children will love you.’
You shrug. ‘It’s good,’ you say. ‘It fits in well around Noah.’
I nod. ‘How is he? How is Noah?’
‘He’s great. He’s beautiful. You know.’
I nod again. ‘And how’s Toby?’
I see your face soften then; Toby is neutral.
‘He’s great. Really great. He and Noah are like best friends. They’re virtually brothers. It’s a gift having him. We love him.’ You run the tip of your thumb over your nails, looking for hangnails, then look up at me. ‘What will you do?’ you ask. ‘When you get out of here? Will you want him back?’
‘Well,’ I say. ‘I’m not sure. I might not be able to. Dad wants me to go and live in Dubai with him.’
‘And? Will you?’
‘I suppose. Just until I’ve worked stuff out.’
Then there is a silence and I know it is the silence that comes directly before the reason for you being here today. I close my eyes and then open them again. You’re staring at me, but you still don't say anything.
‘I’m really sorry,’ I say. ‘About Zach. That I did that. That I took him out of Noah’s life. I mean, really, really sorry. He was a dick, but he didn't deserve that. I feel sick. Every day. I hate myself.’
You don't respond. The silence pulls out. It feels like we’ve run out of things to talk about, but I don’t want you to go.
I put my hand out to touch yours, but you snatch it away from me. ‘I’m a better person,’ you say. ‘What happened. It’s made me a better person. I'm not scared anymore. I’m not scared of anything. And I used to be scared of everything. I just wanted you to know that. That whatever happened, I’m better. And I want you to know that I know you saved my life and I know you loved me and that I forgive you. But that I am moving on with my life now, that I have a relationship and friends of my own, that I have a job and a life and plans and dreams and that you will never be a part of them. None of it. And that I never, ever want to see you or hear from you ever again. Not ever.’
I pull my hand back towards myself and lean backwards into my chair.
‘That’s OK,’ I say quietly. ‘I understand.’
‘Good,’ you say.
And then you stand, and you turn and you leave.
As I watch you go, my eyes catch on the copper strands in your hair that I would love to twirl between my fingertips, run across my cupid’s bow.
The room still smells of some new perfume you were wearing. I breathe it in deeply trying to trap it inside me.
Back in my cell, Brooke is waiting for me. She pulls me to her, roughly, and sniffs behind my ear as if she's trying to catch the smell of you on me. Then she wraps her arms around her and buries her face in my neck. The smell of her hair overrides the smell of you that I was holding onto, and I stop breathing for a second.
‘Did you do it?’ she asks. ‘Did you tell her about me?’
‘Yeah. I did it. It’s over.’
‘What did she say?’
‘She said she understood.’
‘Good girl,’ says Brooke. ‘Good girl.’
I stare at the wall behind Brooke’s shoulder and blink away the tears, before she can see them.
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