Her Greatest Mistake by Sarah Simpson (32)

One week after my story…

I’m still in Jack’s room, alone.

Slowly, I push myself up, peeling back the very duvet I used to try and smother my asphyxiated mind. Still carrying his vulnerable scent. Plumping up his pillow, I gently remake his bed. It wasn’t meant to be this way; I intended we’d be free by now. But at the very last minute you stole that too, didn’t you? Now, I fear it’s all too late; for me it is, anyway. Three years ago, I thought I could finally change things. I was wrong.

There was something crucial I missed.

Someone other than you, and other than me, had already decided your fate. And, with that decision, all of our fates. How did I not see? Because I didn’t want to? So focused on how this story was to end, I missed what was happening beneath my nose. But to those who will invariably ask the questions as life stumbles on, the so judiciously rehearsed version of events, in my mind, will always be my truth. Truth will only ever be a perception, in a twinkling of time. You are dead. It happened a week ago.

Jack’s mobile still sits on his chest of drawers winking at me, goading me. I think back; Jack never would be parted from his mobile. Now, me and it are alone. Wishing I’d insisted on him showing me, my mind bursting with ‘if only’s. With the torturous knowledge I could have saved you, Jack, back then. I could have changed this outcome. I hate hindsight, the way it draws on punishing memory boxes. Judging and goading, each breath you take.

You took a bite, didn’t you? Couldn’t possibly just let go. Now, a lasting part of you eats at my flesh. My heart remains restricted by a clenched fist. Disquiet bounds and suffocates, as if I’m back in that car, peering into the dark obscurity. Except this time, we are on the cliff, for the last few breaths of your sick life. The widest self-satisfied smirk scrawled across your disgusting face, yet still a perfect picture of calm and control. Inwardly flying high. Reality thumping at my consciousness. There was nothing I could do. With the crushing weight of acceptance, I realised.

Someone was going to die.

As the fist tightens on my chest, I snatch up Jack’s phone. Why did I push away my concerns? My instincts warned me. I didn’t listen. I desperately wish I had. I grasp at the mobile and flick through the deathly texts, already aware of the content, but I need to see with my own eyes. I keep scrolling until I locate your stored number, saved under the name of HATE. I brace myself as I prepare to re-enter this last week of Jack’s world. If I had the energy, I’d be sick. The screen illuminates, as I read.

I delete the evidence and shut down the mobile, every muscle in my tired body tingling with regret. In trying to protect Jack from you, I left him exposed. What was I thinking? Why didn’t I tell the truth in the beginning? Whatever truth is: yours, mine, his, hers, theirs? All pointless. Subjective poppycock. Holding so much power.

I stare emptily out of Jack’s closed window as I allow myself to fall back to the night I assumed we would gain closure. One last time before I set it away in a box at the back of my mind. I place myself back to a week ago, in my mind’s eye. I had it all planned, was so sure of how I would rid us of you. It all fell apart with the missing rucksack. Why were you not at home, Jack?

I ran back down the stairs, frantically trying to locate my mobile. Jack was missing. As soon as I entered the kitchen, I saw the handwritten note on the table.

Trevellas Porth? He hadn’t mentioned it that morning? Please, God. Putting aside the dangerous conditions of night-time rock jumping. I’d already sent the text to you. Jack, what had you done? What had I done? A revolting thought hurtled through my mind as shivers crept one by one over my soul. I’d sent the text for you to meet me at Trevellas Porth. I’d flung Jack straight into your open arms.

I frantically called Jack’s mobile; each time it diverted immediately to voicemail. I tried Billy’s mobile and waited for what felt an eternity for it to connect, remembering his text to me, advising me his number would cease working that day. It was probably too late in the day to hope for it to connect. But a transient moment of relief rolled over me at the sound of his voice.

‘Eve? You okay?’ I heard.

‘Billy, where are you? Jack’s gone to Trevellas Porth and…’ Did I want to tell him this? I had to. Jack was in danger. ‘He’s there too. Gregg. They’re both heading for Trevellas Porth.’

‘What the…?’

‘Where are you?’ I asked.

‘The old bomb factory, Perranporth head.’ Billy’s intentions dawned on me at the sheepish tone of his voice. Nobody went to the bomb factory at that time of the day. Derelict and deserted. ‘Gregg’s supposed to be here, now. Meeting me. He’s late.’

‘Jack left me a note, said he’s gone rock jumping at Trevellas. Oh, Jesus, Billy, he’s on his own with Gregg!’

‘Eve, calm yourself a minute. Gregg’s supposed to be meeting me here. He thinks I have the flash-drive. Maybe you’re jumping to conclusions. Jack’s probably with one of his mates. Gregg’s coming here, I’ve made sure – he’d be scared not to…’

‘You don’t understand. I sent Gregg a text. He was supposed to be meeting me tonight with the flash-drive. At Trevellas, where Jack is. I’ve got to go; I need to find him.’

‘Eve. Wait. I’m on my way. Wait for me. Eve? Wait at yours.’

I didn’t wait. I didn’t answer. I chucked the phone down, before charging out into the back garden. When we moved in, Jack and I had planted a holly shrub together, to celebrate our new life; new beginnings. A mark of where we’d come from; but most importantly where we’d wanted to be. It had also been a personal marker for me. I hadn’t thought that Jack had seen. For underneath the woody shrub, a foot to the left, was a small metal trunk in which I had buried my weapons. The flash-drive and the gun.

I fell to my knees, and began to pull frenziedly at sodden craggy soil. It was only seconds before my worst fears were realized: the trunk had gone. Jack, oh, dear God, Jack! Where were you? What were you doing? What had you done? Slipping and sliding, scrambling back through the back door, as best I could on jellied legs; I grabbed my car keys and mobile. Storming through the house and out through the front door, hurtling down the cobbled path to my car.

I sped down to the seafront car park and leapt out. The winding path was just about visible but was fading away with the natural light. I dashed for it. The sea beneath me lashed rhythmically at the rocks as the tide drew in. My feet, feeling disconnected from my legs, urgent but unsteady as smaller rocks moved under my pressure. Pure dread surged me forward. The shadowy light was against me and I hit a rutted rock, obscured in shingle and plunged forward. Pain daggered my left wrist, shooting up to my elbow as it hit the ground to break my descent. My ankle twisted jammed behind the rock, to the sound of a rubbery crack. I needed to get to Jack. I could just about make out the cliff top. I was nearly there. I pushed myself up to my feet, brushing my bleeding gritted palms on my pale grey trousers.

I pressed on aware yet oblivious of the ascending coastal wind, eerie looming shadows cast by dense shrub high like heathers, following me. My heart pounded through my ears as I forgot to breathe. Still, surging forward, wrapping my pointless cotton jacket around me tightly as it attempted to escape. I was nearly there. I strained my eyes to the top and allowed them to follow the fall of the cliff. Nothing. Just a murky unnerving ocean, scattered with sinister daggered rocks. A total divergence from its exquisite daytime form. My legs burning with numbness as I made what I thought was my final perilous climb.

As I reached the plateau of the top, I mechanically ground to a halt to hold my breath. In front of me, just a few steps to the edge of the cliff top, stood a dark shadow. Jack. Facing away from me. Before him was another obscure shadow; merely a sigh from the edge. Facing down to murky waters. It was Billy. Thank God, it was Billy. I released my breath, allowing my hands to fall to my knees, and bent over. But wait – how did Billy get here so quickly? And what are they both staring at? Why is Billy standing so dangerously close to the edge?

‘Jack? Billy?’ I desperately called.

At the sound of my voice, the obscure shadow turned away from the ocean. Time slowed down, my breathing fast-tracked, my legs creeping without instruction closer to the shadows. In the muted light of the moon, you smiled. I was no longer in control; my head floated as my legs gave way. My body collided with the ground in slow motion. Struggling for air. Images whizzing through a hollow mind on a loaded carousel.

No! Screamed through my inner voice as I resisted the pressure to vomit. I gazed up, the former shadow of Billy evaporating. You. You stood, confidence powering your smile. Arrogance beaming from your eyes. The years rewound in front of me.

I screamed. ‘Leave my son alone, you sick bastard.’

You laughed.

Then, I saw it. What stood between you and Jack, the unmistakable solid silhouette. Held in perfect position. I scrambled. Grappling to stand on two quaking props. Any words jarring in my throat. Panic.

The echo of your laugh passed through me.

As the words, ‘Why did you have to be my dad?’ hit me.

You laughed, louder than ever.

Jack, my innocent boy, pulled the trigger.

Bang.

‘Jack. No!’ I bawled. ‘No, Jack. Please, no.’

Wasted, hopeless words bounced off the cliff and circled us.

It was too late.

I clambered across unsteady ground to reach and pull my son into my arms as he sobbed. The full weight of his body leaning on me. We gave way to the floor, holding tight. Years of undiluted pain passing between us. We remained immobile for some time, I wasn’t sure how long, but enough for the cold to creep over us, until we began to shiver. Over Jack’s head, I pondered as the moonlight glimmered on the surface of the water. It was over. But the relief I’d imagined had been replaced with something even more cumbersome. I’d observed my son morph into a killer. Slowly I stood, gently pulling Jack to his feet. I removed the gun still gripped in childlike hands and hurled it, breaking the speckled surface. I stretched up to kiss his tear-damp cheek, with the vision of the small boy trapped in the back of the car, that night. Frozen, and stunned as now. I hadn’t been able to free him then and now, I could never free him.

I squeezed his hands. ‘I had to do it, Mum. Couldn’t take any more. Couldn’t go back to how it was.’ I wiped a rolling tear from his face. ‘Didn’t want him to hurt you, again.’

‘It’s over, Jack,’ I soothed.

‘I brought him this.’ He held the flash-drive up to show me. ‘Thought it was what he wanted. Thought he’d leave us alone then. Leave you alone. But it wasn’t what he wanted, was it?’

I shook my head. ‘No. He wanted us. But not in the normal way; but to ruin our lives. Couldn’t abide the fact we’d moved on without him. Built new lives. You’re right, he would never have let us go.’

‘I didn’t mean to do it. Shoot him. I don’t think I did. But, when he laughed, I wanted him dead. More than anything, I wanted to kill him.’

I grasped the spark of hatred running through his gentle eyes. ‘Jack, listen to me. You’re not the bad one, he is. But no one will ever understand this. You must promise me; you will never, ever, tell anyone about this. Not anyone. Your friends. No one. This, like everything else, always has to be our secret. Do you hear me? Our secret. Forever.’

He nodded as a blub was released, a four-year-old child, looking to me for guidance.

‘But… what if someone finds him?’

‘No one will report him missing. He’s been off the radar for so long. People get lost to these seas, are never found again, even when they’re looked for. But, one last thing, for me. Call it my living and dying bequest.’

‘What?’ He sniffed.

‘If his body is ever found – it won’t be, but if it is – I want you to remember, I shot your father. Not you, Jack. I shot him. I killed him.’

‘But…’

‘No buts. I mean it, I pulled the trigger. I took the gun from your father’s drawer. I buried it in the garden. It was my weapon. I pulled the trigger.’ Ultimately, I did. I married you, I brought Jack into your world. I knew one day you would find us, hunt us down. I always understood, someone was going to die.

Together, we stumbled back along the broken path. Battered and bruised; shocked and frightened. As we turned the final twist towards the beach, I could just make out the dark shadow running towards us. Billy. The irony wasn’t missed – a life for a life; as I remembered, it was the exact spot where Gregg murdered Billy’s friend, Tom, all those years ago. Silently, I prayed. Take the revolting body, please, Tom; hide it well in the obscure depths of the ocean. Take the truth and guard it. Because sometimes the truth is dishonest.

Billy placed a supporting arm to join mine around Jack, looking to me for explanation. I simply shook my head.

Now, I gently place Jack’s deadly mobile back on his chest of drawers, peel back the undisturbed duvet protecting his bed, lie down and wrap it around me, inhaling his vulnerable scent, with my cotton-wool-stifled mind. Perhaps it’s better this way, numbness, guarding the doors to dark memory templates. If I’m honest, if it weren’t for Jack, I could let go now, slide away to a supposedly better place.

He’ll be home soon from football, life labouring on as it has to. Miffed that he left his mobile behind. He’ll smile his boyish beam, hair pushed back from slightly sweaty hands, and kiss my cheek with the smell of fresh new air. But behind his eyes, I will meet the pain, and in those out-of-context moments when perspective implodes I will, alone, see what you have done to him. Those blameless, innocent blue eyes, his informers to his soul, do not tell the truth.

They never have and, now, never can.

The unheard voice of a child.