‘Of course.’
‘Ross…’ I returned the step I had just taken and reassured myself with the solid feel of his body, shivering though it was. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know what the implications are here. I suspect David could invoke the forces of law and order against me if he wanted to.’
‘You wereill, Libby,’ he said, forcefully. ‘You can’t be held responsible for what you did. You truly believed you and Tilly were in danger.’
‘Maybe. I need to hear it from him. I need to know how bad it was.’ I turned and Ross caught at my hand.
‘All right. I’ll come in with you. You might need backup,’ he said. I raised my eyebrows. ‘All right, it might be backup from quite awayback, but I’ll be there.’
We walked back into the cottage side by side and hand in hand.
21
Tilly hadn’t even noticed I’d been gone. She and Isobel were now lining up the diamond beads in size order – more or less. Tilly’s idea of bigger and smaller was somewhat random.
David and Mum were sitting sideways on their chairs, facing each other but not speaking. David looked tired, I noticed, and Mum was twisting her collar again. When they saw me come back, with Ross alongside, they exchanged a look and then David stood up.
‘I’m sorry, Libby,’ he said and it sounded genuine. ‘Truly. I just didn’t know what else to do. I wanted to see Tilly – she’s my daughter, and I was so worried about you both, and I realise that that is just what a possessive and coercive man would say, but it’s how I feel.’
‘How did you find me?’ I was pleased to hear that my voice wasn’t shaking and the words were even.
‘Your car broke down and you took it to a garage, remember?’ It sounded almost pleading, as though David was desperate for my agreement. ‘The mechanics noticed all the stuff and worked out you were living in the car. They didn’t think that was great, not with a baby, so they called social services, who found you a place in the hostel. The police informed me about the car – I’m still on the registration document,’ he added, apologetically. ‘So I knew where you were. I hired a local detective agency to scope out your movements and they found out that you come here regularly. After that, it was just a question of waiting for the call that you were here, and then…’ He opened both hands.
The cyclist. That cyclist who had always seemed to be riding through the woods. Who had stopped to make a phone call.
‘You were… You said terrible things?’ I phrased it as a question, no longer knowing whether what I remembered was true or one of those dream memories. Everything felt similarly tattered around the edges and hazed with cracks, I couldn’t be sure what had been real.
‘I wasn’t always the best partner.’ David looked at his feet. ‘If it hadn’t been for Tils we would have gone our separate ways, but I wanted to be in her life. Istillwant to be in her life, Libby. She’s my daughter.’
I looked over at Tilly, now counting randomly out loud. She’d spent the first year of her life living in a car. Running, always running, terrified of being found…
That memory startled me with its clarity and then the guilt flowed in along with everything I’d ever read about small children being brought up by mothers with poor mental health. What had I done to her? My thoughts of her in her ballerina bedroom with the circus wallpaper and her own pony had always been tinged with the smugness of knowing that all that would have come with control. The suspicion that David would have put conditions on everything for his daughter, that he would have hovered over everything she did to make sure it all met with his expectations. Just like he’d done with me – or, rather, like I hadthoughthe had done with me.
While really I had torn her away from a privileged childhood because of my own delusions. The guilt was like acid in my blood now.
‘Lib, darling.’ Mum got up now and stood uncertainly in front of me. She looked as though she wanted to hug me but didn’t quite dare. ‘I know this has all been a bit of a shock to you…’
‘Abit of a shock?’ I was incredulous. ‘Mum, I’ve spent the last two years thinking I was escaping from a madman, not wearing the wrong size of bra! What this is goes way beyond “a bit of a shock”.’
But I’d stopped feeling quite so paralysed now, as though reality was beginning to creep in around the edges. I’d beenill. And nobody had told me.
Her lip wobbled. Around my hand I felt Ross tighten his fingers. ‘We should have told you,’ she said, looking down at the floor now. ‘Right at the beginning, when you were first expecting, we should have told you.’
‘It might have been a good idea, yes.’ I still sounded sharp.
‘It wouldn’t have helped.’ David was now down on his knees near Tilly. Not quite playing with her, not quite helping her but close enough to watch her. ‘I saw you when it took hold, Libby. I couldn’t talk to you at all. You behaved as though you were terrified of me, and you’d snatch Tilly up out of her cot if I so much as came into the room. Whatever I said, you wouldn’t have believed me.’
The terror. The fear that I might fall asleep and wake up to an empty house. Or worse, that I might never wake up at all, and Tilly would be left alone. The feeling that David was watching me, stalking me, that I wouldn’t be safe as long as he could find me…
‘Do they know what causes it? The psychosis, I mean?’ I asked Mum.
She shook her head quickly. ‘Not really. It’s often linked to bipolar or schizophrenia, but those didn’t apply in my case, or yours either. But…’ Now she did touch me, a hand on my cheek. ‘I know what it was like. I mean, I don’t remember well, not now, but I remember the dreadful fear that I would harm you and then afterwards the guilt that I’d left you.’ She shook her head again. ‘I wouldn’t have had you go through that for the world,’ she finished, quietly.
My gaze went back to my own daughter, stretched out next to Isobel, dropping beads on to the floor now. David was watching her with an expression of amazed delight.
‘Tilly,’ I said and waited until she looked at me. ‘Tilly, this man is Daddy.’
I saw David’s smile. I was cringing at the tweeness of the statement, but, at two, Tilly wouldn’t have understood anything wordier or less basic.
