You Against Me

Forty-four

Ellie sat on the sofa next to her mother. They’d been sitting there for so long that the room had fallen softly into darkness. Upstairs, Tom was in his bedroom packing. Dad was helping him. Ellie could hear the drag and tear of parcel tape as he sealed up boxes on the landing.

‘Dad’s never going to forgive me,’ she whispered.

Mum squeezed her hand. ‘Your father loves you.’

‘That’s different.’

‘It’s all we’ve got though. When it comes down to it, it’s all we have to hold on to.’

It felt like a belt tightening as Dad came down the stairs. Every muscle in Ellie’s body moved into tension as she watched him stack two new boxes on top of the others in the hall. It was like Tom was dead and they were clearing him out.

‘Is that his Xbox?’ Mum said. ‘Won’t Ben have things like that he can use?’

Dad snapped the lights on in the lounge and stood in the doorway, watching them blink into light. Surely he would stop being angry soon. Surely his fury would simply run out.

‘Ben’s at college all day,’ he said, ‘so Tom will be dependent on the parents’ hospitality. You want your son to feel uncomfortable, asking if he might please watch TV or perhaps borrow a console to help distract him from this nightmare?’

Mum didn’t answer and he shook his head at her as if that simply proved he was right. He strode off down the hallway to the downstairs bathroom. Ellie imagined him rooting through the cabinet in there, hunting down Tom’s shaving gear and deodorant, his favourite hair gel.

‘I suppose I should draw the curtains,’ Mum said. ‘It’s dark outside.’

But she didn’t move.

Dad came back in with Tom’s toilet bag in his hand. ‘How has this confession of yours helped anyone, Eleanor?’ he said. ‘How has it got any of us anywhere?’

‘It was the truth, Dad.’

‘The truth? Oh for God’s sake! I have never, repeat, never, seen your brother this way before. Is that what you wanted?’ He stabbed a finger at the ceiling. ‘He’s sitting up there on his bed, barely able to speak, let alone pack.’

‘Should I go up?’ Mum said.

‘You’re asking me?’

‘Yes, I am.’

‘You’re his bloody mother – shouldn’t you know?’

‘I’m asking you if he wants me up there. If he needs me, I’ll go.’

‘Very noble of you.’ He looked down at their hands clasped together. It seemed to infuriate him more. ‘You should’ve stopped her. You should’ve nailed her bloody feet to the floor.’

‘I couldn’t stop her.’

‘Couldn’t? She’s a child, isn’t she? Do you have no control over your children?’ He scowled at her, his mouth a taut line of disapproval. Then he spun off and out, thumping furiously back up the stairs.

‘Oh God,’ Mum said, and she hid her face in her hands.

Ellie didn’t know what to say, or what to do. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. It was all she could think of.

She’d done nothing but apologize since they got back from the police station. Mum had sat everyone down in the lounge and told Dad not to interrupt, told Tom she loved him, then informed them both of the new statement Ellie had signed and of her relationship with Mikey. The accusations had gone on for hours.

Dad was climbing up into the loft now. Ellie could hear the creak of the step ladder. Maybe he was getting the Meccano down, the Lego, Tom’s toy farm. All the plastic animals – the cows and horses and sheep, the rows of geese and ducks – would soon be lined up at the door.

‘He’s not on my side at all,’ she said.

‘He is. Of course he is.’

But he wasn’t. She was sullied. Other. No longer his little girl. He had a new blind look, as if he might see someone he couldn’t bear if he looked at her properly.

‘Anyway,’ Mum said, ‘it’s not about sides. I sat in that police station and listened to you and I wanted two things at the same time. I wanted you to stop talking, because I didn’t want to hear terrible things about Tom, and I wanted you to talk all night, because I could see how much it was hurting you to hold it inside.’

She moved over to the window, slid all the pot plants back on the ledge and drew the curtains. The familiar swish was comforting.

Dad broke the spell by coming down with Tom’s cricket bag and balancing it carefully on the hall table, even though the cricket season hadn’t started yet and it could safely have stayed in the loft. Mum sat back down next to Ellie as he crossed the lounge to the drinks cabinet. He took no notice of either of them, poured himself a generous measure of whisky and took one, two, three gulps, swooshing each round his mouth before swallowing. He walked over to the window, reopened the curtains and looked out into the dark as if he was waiting for something. The press? TV crews? He thought this was enormous, bigger than all of them. His daughter had crossed the enemy line. She was anti-Parker. No longer part of the team.

‘How many times did you meet the boy?’

This again. Ellie took a breath. ‘Not many.’

‘Where?’

‘I told you – different places. We went for walks mostly.’

He turned and narrowed his eyes at her. ‘Were you with him yesterday?’

She nodded. It had become imperative to tell the truth, as if any grain of goodness that was left in her life would slip away if she didn’t.

‘Where did you go? I don’t for one minute believe you were at the cinema.’

‘We went to the cottage.’

He blinked at her. ‘You broke in?’

‘The keys were under the pot.’

He took a step forward and glared down at Mum. ‘Did you know this?’

‘Ellie told me, yes.’

‘And you didn’t bother mentioning it?’

‘In the great schemes of things, it felt rather minor.’

‘Rather minor? Well, I’m telling you now, if that place gets ransacked or squatted it will feel rather major, I assure you!’ He slammed the empty tumbler on the coffee table and turned to Ellie. ‘What the hell were you doing there for so long?’

Mum squeezed her hand. This wasn’t the time to share the conversation they’d had in the café after the police station.

‘We cooked potatoes.’

‘In the grate? Christ, girl, you could have burned the place down!’

‘But she didn’t,’ Mum said, sitting forward, ‘and surely that’s the point? I don’t think her friend’s likely to ransack the place either.’

‘Her friend? What’s got into you?’

She shook her head at him sadly. ‘I could ask you the same question.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

She didn’t answer and he scooped up his tumbler and went back to the drinks cabinet. ‘You’ll be taken apart in court, you know that, Eleanor? That’s where this is going.’

‘Should you be drinking?’ Mum said. ‘You have to drive the car in a minute.’

He rejected her with a wave. ‘All the sordid details of your little romance will be laid out in court for everyone to see. I hope you’re ready for that. I hope you’ve thought very carefully about it.’

‘It wasn’t sordid.’

He stopped pacing. ‘What did you say?’

‘I said it wasn’t what you think.’

‘Oh, is that right? What was it then, a fairytale romance? Mills and Boon? My God, girl, your brother’s up there packing his bags and you sit here defending some school-girl crush!’

‘Stop talking to her like that!’ Mum stood up, fists clenched.

He stared at her, slack-jawed.

‘This is your daughter,’ she said. ‘Have you forgotten? Can you for a second consider the possibility that this isn’t easy for her either?’

He did consider it. Ellie saw it cross his face – something sad like a shadow. But then he dismissed it and the blind look took over again. ‘I’m trying to help,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to help them both, isn’t that obvious?’

Mum sighed. ‘Come with me. Come and help me get Tom’s suitcase. It’s in the loft and I need you to pass it down.’

Ellie leaned back on the sofa and listened to them go upstairs. She counted breaths. Every breath, every heartbeat, was one less until maybe things stopped hurting this much. She picked at her nails, inspected her fingers. Even her hands looked unfamiliar. She didn’t belong. She was the terrible stranger who’d destroyed everything warm and good.

She thought for a moment of the world outside the house. What would Mikey be doing? Was he even thinking about her? Maybe she should text him, just to let him know she was alive.

Her phone was in the bureau. Dad had dumped it there when he confiscated it yesterday. It was right at the front, not even hidden. She sat back down on the sofa with it. There were seventeen missed calls from Mikey, loads of voicemails, text upon text. It hurt to hear the desperation in his voice. It hurt that all the messages were from the night before and from earlier that morning. There was nothing new.

She wrote I miss you, then deleted it, put the phone in her pocket and shut her eyes.

When she opened them again, Dad stood in the doorway. He said, ‘Your mum thinks I’m being too harsh.’

He walked across and sat down next to her. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve and tried not to look at him, but he tilted her face to his.

‘I want to save you from being destroyed in court, that’s why I’m being tough.’

This is my father. I am his child. He loves me.

‘Tom’s only hope is to undermine your evidence, and given that you have no physical evidence, it comes down to your word against his. Do you understand?’

She nodded. The police had said the same thing. Though they’d also said, What you’re doing is very brave and Karyn McKenzie will be very grateful.

Dad said, ‘In order to give Tom his best chance, I have to get him a brilliant barrister. And if I get him a brilliant barrister, you’ll be torn apart. There’s a last opportunity here, Ellie, and that’s why I’m coming down hard on you. I want you to cast your mind back carefully over everything this Mikey boy said and did, and if there’s anything that might be construed as overly persuasive, I want you to tell me.’

‘Overly persuasive?’

Annoyance crossed his face. ‘Has he threatened you?’

‘No.’

‘Has he blackmailed you? Has he got pictures of you on his phone for instance, or taken something of yours that you want back?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure? Because if he has, we can get this whole thing turned right around. We can say he made you go to the police and told you what to say in order to protect his sister. We can say your original statement was true and this new one is false.’

She’d seen this look in her father’s eyes so many times – like he knew everything, could read minds, predict the future and was absolutely right in all respects. She swallowed hard and steeled herself against it.

‘He didn’t threaten me, Dad. He’s not blackmailing me and the new statement is true.’

He threw his hands up in despair. ‘Well, there’s nothing I can do for you then, is there? It’s going to be your word against your brother’s and I can tell you now, I won’t stand by and watch him rot in jail.’

‘What’s going on?’ Mum stood in the doorway.

Dad shot her a look of utter frustration. ‘Nothing. I’m going to get the car out of the garage.’

She moved to one side to let him pass, waited for the front door to shut, then plonked herself on the sofa with a sigh. ‘Am I a terrible mother?’

‘No, Mum.’

‘Tom might think so.’

‘He doesn’t.’

She smiled sadly. ‘Maybe I’m just a terrible wife then.’

Her temperature had changed. She was colder since going upstairs and Ellie could feel the difference between their hands.

‘Your father’s been very thorough,’ Mum said. ‘Even in here. I didn’t notice him packing those CDs away, did you?’

She nodded over at the spaces in the rack. There were gaps in the DVD collection too, rifts in the bookshelf, like teeth had been removed all over the lounge.

‘Tom won’t be away for long,’ Ellie whispered. ‘He’ll come back soon.’

‘Well, I hope Ben’s mother doesn’t think we’re crazy sending him there with so many things. I hope she realizes your father simply wants him to feel secure.’ Mum stroked Ellie’s hand absentmindedly. ‘There isn’t really an alternative, not if we want him to be nearby. He could stay in a hotel, I suppose, but what sort of life is that? He’d be lonely in a hotel, wouldn’t he?’

Over and over she stroked, in the same spot with her thumb. It was uncomfortable, as if she’d rasp down to the bone.

‘Anyway,’ Mum said, ‘he’s getting his last few things together up there, so I’ll make him some sandwiches in a minute and he can eat them in the car. I don’t want them saying we sent him away hungry.’

‘Mum?’

‘Perhaps I should pack him some snacks for later, some crisps and things. Then it would be like he was going on a sleepover.’ She smiled as if she didn’t really believe it. ‘I spoke to Ben’s mother on the phone – did I tell you? She was very reassuring. She’s a nice woman actually, I thought that when I met her at the party – we were chatting most of the night. Anyway, Dad’s going to give them money, so they won’t be out of pocket. It helps that they live out of town, I suppose, makes it less daunting for them. Your father thinks there may be media attention when the court case starts, and I’d hate them to feel awkward.’

‘Mum, are you OK?’

She took a breath in and held it, blinked several times. ‘You know, I can’t help thinking that if we’d stayed in London, this wouldn’t’ve happened.’

Ellie passed her a tissue and watched silently as she dabbed at her face.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to get upset.’ She leaned forward, gripping her stomach as if it hurt. ‘He seemed so vulnerable up there, packing his things away. I looked at him and I thought, How could he harm anyone? He’s just a boy.’ She stared at the carpet, at her feet, still in her gardening shoes from earlier. Scuffed old familiar garden shoes. ‘I still remember his first steps, his first words, all of it.’

Ellie passed her another tissue. ‘Here.’

‘He had such beautiful golden curls. You won’t remember of course, you weren’t born, but they were stunning.’ She wiped her face roughly with the tissue. ‘Oh God, I want to be stronger than this. I don’t want him to see me like this when he comes down.’ She turned to Ellie suddenly, as if seeing her for the first time. ‘I know you love him and I know you wouldn’t have done this if you didn’t have to, but he’s not a monster, Ellie. I don’t want anyone thinking that.’

‘I know.’

‘He’s just a scared little boy. He’s my scared little boy.’

Ellie nodded very slowly. ‘I don’t want anything bad to happen to him either.’

‘I know you don’t.’

‘Maybe I handled this all wrong, but what I said in the police station was true. It is what I saw, Mum, it truly is.’

She nodded, patted Ellie’s hand again. ‘Well, that’s all right then.’

Dad marched back in. ‘I’m going to start packing the car.’

‘You do that,’ Mum said, smiling through tears at him. ‘I’ll go and make some sandwiches.’

He frowned at her, but she went off to the kitchen before he could say anything, so he frowned at Ellie instead.

‘You should go to your room,’ he told her. ‘You shouldn’t be here when Tom comes down.’

‘Can’t I say goodbye?’

‘No, you’re a witness for the police. If your brother so much as speaks a word to you, you could twist it and say he tried to pressurize you. He’d have his bail revoked and be back in jail quicker than I could spit.’

‘I wouldn’t do that.’

‘Wouldn’t you? I don’t know what you’re capable of any more.’

She crept up the stairs, holding on tight to the banister. Across the landing, Tom’s door was shut. She went to the bathroom and rinsed her face, dried it at the mirror. It was the first time she’d seen herself for hours. She looked tired and older. She rubbed her face to check she was real. Yes, she was Ellie Parker, the girl who betrayed her family.

Maybe Dad was right and she was capable of anything.

She didn’t knock, simply opened Tom’s bedroom door and went in. He was sprawled on the bed, sorting through stuff in a shoebox; photos and bits of paper were scattered all over the duvet. There was a new darkness in his eyes, like something inside him had broken and spilled.

‘Shut the door,’ he said.

She stood with her back against it and watched him sift through photos. He glanced at several quickly, stopped at one and examined it thoroughly before passing it to her. ‘Remember this?’

It was the four of them in Austria on a skiing holiday. Ellie was about ten, wearing the whole outfit – salopettes, goggles, everything. Tom was next to her. Both of them had massive grins on their faces.

‘It was Christmas Eve,’ he said, ‘and the hotel was laying on a visit from Santa – sleigh ride, reindeer, the works. You remember?’

She nodded, passed it back. He put it on top of the suitcase, picked up a fresh handful from the box and shuffled through them.

‘I didn’t do it to hurt you,’ she said.

He passed her another photo. ‘You on a farm. That horse stood on your foot.’

It was winter again – different country, different year. She was twelve and the horse had broken three of her toes. She barely glanced at it, didn’t take it from him. She had to get through this; she was determined.

‘I had to say what really happened. I couldn’t hold it in any more.’

‘Evidently.’

‘Please say it’s OK.’

‘You want me to say I don’t mind?’ His voice was low, hardly more than a whisper. ‘How do you want me to answer?’

‘I want you to say you understand.’

He stood up, walked over to the window and opened the curtains an inch to look out. ‘You know Dad’s going to hire some top-quality barrister and make you look like a liar.’

‘He told me.’

‘I bet he did.’ He turned from the window and looked at her in such a soft and terrible way that she barely recognized him. ‘The barrister will ask you really personal stuff. He’ll want to know everything you did with Karyn’s brother and every word that passed between you. He’ll say her brother threatened you, and if you say he didn’t, the barrister will say he seduced you and you’re completely gullible. And if you say that’s not how it was either, then you’ll leave him no option but to make out you’re a slut and a liar.’

‘Dad said that too.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t want them to do that to you.’

‘Then don’t let them.’

‘There’s only one way to stop them though, isn’t there?’

She nodded.

He watched her steadily for a second, as if he was weighing it up. ‘I’m not brave enough.’

She went over and hugged him. He smelled of cigarettes and her arms reached all the way round. She closed her eyes and held him, and eventually he put his arms round her too.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

She held him closer. ‘It’s OK. Whatever you do, I’ll always love you.’

The rough brush of his skin on her cheek was shocking as he buried himself in her shoulder and a great sob welled up from deep inside him.

‘I’m scared,’ he said. ‘I’m really fucking scared!’

She held him closer as he cried, huge sobs racking through him, like a child. She was crying too now, to be with him like this. She stroked his back. They stood swaying together. Her brother, her beautiful crying brother.

The door opened. ‘What the hell’s going on?’

Tom pulled away, wiped his hands quickly over his face. ‘Nothing. We’re saying goodbye.’

Dad strode across the room. ‘What have you done to him? What did I tell you about coming in here?’ He gripped Tom’s shoulders and made him look at him. ‘You have to be stronger than this.’

Tom winced under his scrutiny. ‘I can’t do it to her, Dad.’

‘You can. You have to.’

He shook his head. ‘You said yourself, it’ll be terrible. You said they’ll break her apart.’

‘Nonsense, it won’t be like that at all.’

‘You said they’ll make her stand in front of everyone and ask her really personal questions.’

Dad grimaced, turned to Ellie and pointed at the door. ‘Go to your room, Eleanor.’

She didn’t move. Tom stood looking from one to the other, fresh tears sliding down his face. It was as if he’d been punctured, losing air and energy. ‘Really, Dad, I can’t do it. I shouldn’t’ve done any of it. It’s all my fault.’

‘So, you’re going to plead guilty, are you?’ Dad dragged him to the bed and made him sit down. ‘You’ll get three or four years in prison, you’ll be on the sex offenders register and come out as a convicted rapist. Is that what you want?’

‘No, but I don’t want this either.’

Dad got a hanky from his pocket and shoved it at him. ‘It’s a ridiculous step to plead guilty, when the conviction rate is so low. You have every chance of getting off.’

Tom listened so hard he forgot to breathe. He listened with every fibre, like he was falling from a mountain and Dad was yelling survival instructions.

‘This new statement means nothing,’ Dad went on, ‘not really, the police said as much. There’s no physical evidence, is there? No photos or videos, or texts, only her word against yours. The incentives for you to plead guilty are non-existent.’

He talked statistics and attrition rates and made everything seem so polarized – two foolish girls, one misunderstood boy. Tom made the occasional effort to struggle against it, but the simplicity of Dad’s argument was overwhelming. In court, the barrister would discredit both girls. Karyn wanted to sleep with Tom and regretted it later. Ellie was love-struck by Mikey and would do anything for him. Karyn got drunk and partied too hard. Ellie got seduced and betrayed her family.

There was a hush in the room when Dad finally ran out of words. Ellie noticed a change in herself too, as if her mind had been washed. She felt very cold and still inside.

‘Eleanor?’ Dad whispered into the silence. ‘I told you to leave.’

She nodded goodbye to Tom and he nodded back at her, like polite strangers bidding farewell in a hotel lobby. She closed the door very gently behind her.