Chapter Twenty-Two
Bailey blinked as her mind struggled to absorb that information. But Karen was still going, her voice unusually high and tight, her gaze focused on the carpet.
“His name was Henry. He was the caretaker at my school. There was a group of girls that used to pick on me, but when Henry saw them, he’d always run them off. He... he was my hero, back then.
“So when I was sixteen, we ran off to Gretna Green. My dad was absolutely furious. He never spoke to me again. And Henry, he got in all sorts of trouble with the school—they sacked him. So we moved away. That’s when the problems started.”
Bailey’s fingers pulled at the bedsheets, tightening around the fabric as she prepared for the next part of Karen’s history. She knew enough of monstrous men to see where this was going.
“I lost touch with all my friends from school, of course. Henry struggled to get another job. He started to believe that I was a bad luck charm, that I was ruining his life. He said I’d bewitched him and forced him to disgrace himself and now he was stuck with me. He—he would beat me and beg me to let him go. I thought that he was right. I thought I must be tying him to me somehow, forcing him to hurt me, and I just wasn’t clever enough to stop it.” Karen’s voice had gone from frenetic to wooden, utterly dead. She relayed the terrible history with no emotion whatsoever, as if she had left her body and the words emitting from her mouth were simply a robotic recording.
The two women were sitting side by side, but Karen might as well have been a distant star. She was alone, apart, lifetimes away, as she continued. “When I fell pregnant, I thought that it would help. And it did, for a little while—until Monroe came out a girl. He hadn’t wanted that. It was my fault, of course—it always was. Another useless witch, he said, just like me. He was happier when Cash came along, but eventually, he went back to his old ways. I tried to hide it from the children, but I know that I failed. They were with me every second of the day. Makeup and a smile never worked on them.
“I thought about leaving—I thought about it all the time, but I had nowhere to go. I wrote to my parents, and my mother wrote back to say... to say that Dad was dead.” Karen’s voice cracked as she held back a sob. “And I wasn’t welcome. She didn’t want any of my trouble. I thought about going to the police, but I thought... what will that achieve? Henry might get a slap on the wrist. A social worker would come and they’d put my kids on some bloody list. Next thing you know, I’m an unfit mother and they’re in care.” She gave a shrill, humourless laugh and muttered, “Over my dead body.”
Karen was panting now, her face twisted with pain, but she soldiered on—as though she couldn’t pause, couldn’t take even a second, or she might never continue. “So I waited. I was biding my time, doing my best to shield the kids—but it didn’t work. As Cash got older... God, you see the size of him. He was taller than me by the time he was nine. And he started to fight back. Trying to protect me, though I told him not to. Henry laughed it off at first; knocked him aside, hit him a time or two, to put him in his place. But Cash just got bigger and angrier. When he was twelve, he came into my room and found me crying. I tried to hide my face from him, but he pulled my hands away, and he saw what Henry had done, and I thought he would explode. He went running down the stairs and he dragged Henry out of his chair and threw him to the floor. And that was the day Henry began to see his son as a threat.
“They fought. Cash lost. He was beaten bloody. Monroe was hysterical, I was hysterical. Henry was smug. He told me I’d spoilt the boy, but it would all end now. And the look on his face when he said that—he was excited.” Karen’s voice caught, but after a ragged pause she continued. “He went out to the pub, and I knew he would come home drunk. I had to act fast. I’d been saving up, stealing from Henry—he hated giving me money, and I had none of my own, but Monroe is clever with numbers. She always knew what to do. We’d take a little from the shopping budget here and there, and he’d never even notice.
“We had eighty-three pounds and fifty-two pence. We kept it in a silver purse Monroe had, a child’s thing. And we ran. Cash was a mess; two of his teeth were knocked out. His right hand was so swollen and bloody he could barely move it. We hurried down the street in the dark, and he kept whispering—Mum, what if I can’t draw anymore?” She let out a choked little laugh. “That boy.” And despite herself, despite her horror, Bailey felt herself smiling tearily at the thought of a young Cash in dire circumstances, worrying about his art.
“We took the bus across five counties,” Karen said. “It wasn’t like today; there were no mobile phones or internet apps. We didn’t know where to go. We wound up in some dingy little city and it took us two days to find a shelter. One of those feminist places. It was lovely.” A dreamy smile took over her face. But then, just as quickly, it faded. “And it was less than two months before he found us. Henry.”
Fuck. There was more? Hearing this was like listening in on a horror story. Knowing that it had actually happened, that it wasn’t simply a story? Bailey thought her heart would break.
“The woman who managed the shelter—tough as old boots, she was. She held him off at the door. I remember her voice now. She told him, ‘Fuck off, pal. You ain’t coming in here.’ And he blustered and swore but she just laughed in his face. I-I couldn’t believe it. He threatened her, and she said... she said, ‘My doorway is a line. You cross it, and you’ll find my boot up your backside.’ And he... he left! He just left!
“But we couldn’t stay. There were other women in the shelter, other children, and I knew he would come back. The manager gave me some money before I went, out of her own pocket, bless her. That money saved us more than once. There’s a lot of kindness in this world, you know, hiding beneath the evil.”
Bailey wanted, more than anything, to hold Karen’s hand. To remind her that they were living in the present, that she was safe now. But then Bailey realised: she had no idea if Karen was safe. She had no idea how this story ended.
“We kept moving, never settling at first. He chased us. We had nowhere to go, no-one to help us—it was so awful. I can’t even tell you. A lot of that time seems like a story I heard, a nightmare that someone else experienced. But Monroe has no GCSEs and Cash has precious few. When I remember that, I remember everything. And I remember that it’s my fault.” A sob tore through her, shaking her body. Bailey bit her lip and finally gave in to the urge to offer comfort. Without a word, she put her arm around Karen’s narrow shoulders. And though the older woman said nothing, didn’t even look at Bailey—she didn't reject the touch, either.
“Whenever Henry found us, he said it was my fault that he couldn’t let go. Sometimes I thought I should give in. So many times I almost did. But the kids wouldn’t let me. They were my strength. They shouldn’t have had to be, but they were.” Karen paused to wipe a tear from her cheek, but another took its place. They streamed down her face, coming faster than ever, and the sight horrified Bailey more than anything she’d heard so far. Because it meant that somehow, something worse was coming.
“The last time Henry found us, we were doing well. It had been four years since we’d left, and a couple of years since we’d last seen him; I actually let myself hope that he’d given up. I’d gotten a job and we had a little flat. Cash was at school again, and Monroe was working part-time at the supermarket. And it was… it was good. It was perfect.
“But then he came. I was at work, and so was Monroe—only Cash was at home.” Karen sobbed, the sound raw and anguished. She buried her face in her hands and Bailey rubbed soothing circles over her shaking back.
After a moment, Karen regained control. She wiped the tears from her face, taking off her glasses and letting them hang from their little chain around her neck. “Cash never told me what happened. I had to read it in the police report. Henry broke in and he… He tried to kill Cash. With a knife! He stabbed my boy! The woman next door heard the commotion and called the police. They were both arrested. I had to tell the police everything. I knew from experience, they don’t listen to women like me. But I had to make them listen.
“Well, I needn’t have worried. You see, Henry’d left us alone for so long because he found someone else. A young girl—her name was Summer. I suppose he thought she’d be easy to control, like me. He miscalculated. A few weeks before he found us, he’d lost his temper and beaten her bloody over some small thing—I don’t know. She was talking to the postman, I think, and Henry said she was making a fool of herself. Embarrassing him. So they argued, and he beat her, and she went straight to the police and showed them everything.” Karen gave a little smile, and Bailey understood. The smile was for Summer. For the girl who’d done what Karen couldn’t.
“Henry resisted arrest and disappeared—I suppose that’s when he came after us. So the police listened. They questioned Cash and they interviewed Monroe and me. Henry was charged with all sorts—domestic violence, grievous bodily harm, assault with intent to resist arrest, perverting the course of justice, breaking and entering, attempted murder.” She reeled off the charges from memory, her words taking on a clipped precision. “They gave him a life sentence; twenty-five years before parole. I near-fainted when they found him guilty.”
At the knowledge that, on this rare occasion, justice had prevailed, Bailey felt a bit faint herself. So many stories like Karen’s were never ending—or worse. And the scars of this family’s experience would always be there.
But at least, God willing, there’d be no more.
“I don’t tell you this for—for sympathy. Not at all. It sounds so dramatic when you tell the story all at once!” Karen laughed softly. “But when you live it, it’s very slow. And fear becomes mundane. You grow immune. It’s like waking up early for work; at first it’s a struggle, but eventually you find yourself up with the sunrise on a Sunday. You become accustomed.
“The thing is, Cash was always very sensitive. He never became accustomed. He never got numb like me. He had counselling, both my kids did—I made sure. But I realised, over the years, that he was pushing people away; avoiding anything close to love. Rejecting affection. I nearly expired on the spot when he said he was bringing you home. He is twenty-nine years old and he has never introduced me to a woman. Not ever.” Bailey shifted uncomfortably against the mattress. The past month flashed through her mind in fractured pieces, like a puzzle that was starting to come together. And the final image… It just might break her heart.
“When he feels things—anything—too strongly, Cash will push that thing away. Even his career; when he first became successful, he almost sabotaged everything. It was as though he felt he didn’t deserve it, or that he was doomed to ruin it somehow.” Karen nibbled at her lip nervously. “Do you understand what I’m saying, Bailey?”
“I… I think I do.” Bailey let the horrors she’d just heard sink into her mind. Her first instinct was to reject them utterly, to listen with a shallow ear, to let the words wash over her like an advertisement on the radio. Her brain begged to travel elsewhere, railed against the harsh realities forced onto it in the last fifteen minutes.
But she could not allow that. Karen had just spilled her own blood across the carpet; basic respect demanded that Bailey truly bear witness. Her mother had always said that one thing everyone could do to ease another’s pain was to acknowledge it. Bailey put her hand over Karen’s and let their eyes meet, brown capturing blue. “I do understand,” she said. “And I thank you. And I’m sorry.”
“Well… alright then.” Karen patted Bailey’s hand in turn. Then she stood up and tugged at her own apron strings, as though her hands needed something to do. After one last look around the room, she walked towards the door.
“Karen,” Bailey said. “I don’t… I don’t suppose you know where Cash has gone?”
With a small, hopeful smile, Karen turned back. “Probably. He often goes to the old church, past the woods. Helps him think. If you wait a little while, he should be back soon. He’s never gone for long.”
“Okay,” Bailey said. “Thanks.”
She waited just long enough for Karen to bustle off downstairs. And then she got up and pulled her hat and scarf out of her bag.
Waiting had never been her thing.