Don't You Cry Read online

  But he welcomes the terror, the biting cold and the pains in his face and ribs. These sensations are too powerful to allow contemplation to creep in. He almost wants to keep moving forever but the tiredness is getting to him now. For a second he pictures himself taking two steps to the right and stopping it all, but he knows he can’t do it. And it’s not just about him, is it?

  Not far now. But what will happen when he gets there? Lucas stops for a moment, breathing hard.

  This whole thing is a terrible idea.

  But it’s the only one he has right now so he stumbles onwards.

  5

  Nina

  Sam. It’s the only thought in my head as I run from the room, punishment for my earlier, wicked wish.

  I wrench open the front door so fast I almost fall over and am too stunned to react when the cold, wet figure pushes past me.

  ‘Sorry, sorry. I need to come in.’

  I rummage in my brain but somehow can’t locate the necessary words as I take in the bedraggled woman standing there, dripping onto the wooden floor of my hallway.

  It’s the waitress from earlier. Angel?

  She’s wearing a thin raincoat over a short turquoise dress made from towelling-like material. Her long pale legs – knees reddened and scuffed looking – disappear into battered grey ankle boots. She’s holding a massive leather handbag – the sort that is like a sack with handles at the top – and a bulging rucksack, which she lowers with a grateful little ‘Oof’ sound.

  ‘Why are you here?’ I say. It’s the only thing to say, I realize.

  But Angel is off, stalking down the hallway with long strides. She disappears into the kitchen so fast I almost have to run to catch up.

  When I get to the kitchen, I see she has picked up a damp tea towel and is now rubbing her face and hair vigorously with it. Pausing to give it a smell, she grimaces. This finally switches me from numbness and shock to the correct response – outrage.

  ‘That’s a tea towel!’ I say. ‘Why are you here? What do you want?’

  Angel regards me; thick, dark eyebrows raised as though this question is wholly unexpected. She throws the towel onto the table and chafes her arms.

  ‘You said you wished you could do something to thank me?’ she says. ‘After the whole …’ she makes an almost comical choking gesture, hand at her throat, eyes boggling.

  I can only stare back at her. It seems like the sort of thing Sam did when he was in single digits. I find I’m colouring in shame all over again, despite the bizarreness of this situation.

  ‘But I didn’t mean … this!’ I manage to squawk. ‘I meant …’ I fumble for words. ‘I don’t know what I meant. How did you know where I live?’

  Angel hesitates and I realize.

  ‘Oh.’ I’d told her the address myself, earlier, when she ordered the taxi.

  Angel moves smoothly to the kettle on the side and starts filling it with water as though this is the most natural thing in the world. My head is still muzzy with wine and sleep. The right, obvious way to handle this is just out of reach.

  I must take control of the situation. Right now.

  ‘Look, Angel.’ I try to keep my voice steady. ‘It’s two o’clock in the morning. I don’t know you. You can’t just walk into my house and start making tea. Do you understand?’

  Angel is suddenly very still. Her face is without expression as she looks back at me. But although she isn’t moving, a strange energy seems to crackle around her. I have the uncomfortable thought that she is somehow coiled. Waiting. Belatedly, I experience a real sense of unease.

  She points a long, pale forefinger at me, its nail bitten. When she speaks again, her voice is low and quiet.

  ‘I saved your life. You said so. You said you wished you could thank me.’

  ‘Yes, but …’ I manage a short bark of laughter at the absurdity of this logic. ‘I didn’t expect you to turn up at my house in the middle of the night!’

  ‘I know. But … fuck it.’ Her shoulders round.

  My maternal instincts must kick in because I suddenly feel aware of how pathetic she looks. She is shivering all over, soaked from the rain I can hear flinging itself at the windows.

  ‘Look,’ I say, ‘are you in trouble? Should I call the police?’

  ‘No,’ she says, eyes widening. ‘Not the police. Please.’ She swallows. ‘I just need help.’

  I let out a long, slow breath as I remember the bracelet of bruises I thought I saw earlier. Her arms are now covered by the tattered sleeves of the raincoat, sleeves scrunched over her hands like makeshift gloves. What if Angel is running away from someone who has been hitting her? I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I chucked her out into the night and then something bad happened.

  ‘OK,’ I say, resignedly. ‘Wait here a minute and let me get you some dry things. Help yourself to tea, as you already … well, help yourself.’

  I hurry out of the room but, in the hallway, I grab my mobile from my handbag under the hall table, and stuff my purse at the back of the drawer in the table. There’s something about her that feels … off. Not least the way she has come barging into my house like we are old friends. But didn’t she save my life? Don’t I owe her something if she is in trouble?

  Ian would be furious. He would have kicked Angel straight out the front door again. But Ian isn’t here, is he? And there’s no Sam at any potential risk. It’s just me. I used to be a kind person, who gave money to homeless people before Ian got into my head with his talk of how I was ‘only helping them to an early grave’. I’m always saying I ought to do some voluntary work now I have all these weekends with hours tumbleweeding through them. This can be a start. I will let this obviously vulnerable young woman get dry, give her some tea and send her on her way. It’s the least I can do after what happened earlier, however strange the circumstances.

  When I come back into the kitchen, Angel is sitting at the table.

  There’s a coffee cup from earlier there, plus some newspapers. Sam’s school bag, not yet stowed away since the end of term, takes up the chair at the end. Angel stares down at her phone, a deep groove between her eyebrows that makes her look older. In the café, I thought she was early twenties but now I think maybe she is older, twenty-six or twenty-seven.

  I hand her a bath towel and some dry clothes, warm from the airing cupboard. It was hard to decide what to give her, especially in a hurry. But after a quick search through piles of clothes that would never fit, I opted for a soft stretchy dress that’s a bit tight on me, one of my hoodies and some thick woollen socks. Angel accepts the pile of clothes with a short nod of thanks.

  ‘I’m so much shorter and fatter than you,’ I say. ‘But I hope this will do?’

  Angel stares down at the clothes for a moment and then begins to undress on the spot, shucking off the dress in one fluid movement. I look away quickly, but can’t help noticing that she wears no bra. Her small breasts have large, chocolate-brown nipples that are stark against her pale ribcage. She pulls on the dress, which is more like a baggy top on her long frame, then the hoodie. Removing thin, bony feet from the boots, she hops on one foot at a time as she puts on the socks.

  I can only wait politely, not knowing where I should place my gaze.

  ‘Thanks,’ says Angel and dumps her wet things on the kitchen table. She pulls her hair from the collar of the hoodie and rubs it with the towel. ‘Do you have a dryer you can stick those in?’

  ‘Um, no. Sorry, I don’t.’ I fold my arms in an attempt to appear more assertive but evidently this doesn’t work. I’m aware that I’m doing that thing – that Carmen picks me up on so often. Saying sorry for something that doesn’t require an apology.

  ‘Hang them up for me then,’ says Angel. ‘Just to get the worst of the wet out.’

  I hesitate. How long is she thinking of staying?

  I somehow find myself scooping up the clothes anyway and taking them to the short corridor that runs along the side of the house. We use it as a cloakroom
and utility room in one and it is filled with boots and trainers, raincoats and household stuff. I hang up her stuff on a clothes horse and hurry back into the kitchen.

  Angel is sitting again, now furiously tapping at her phone screen, face scrunched in concentration.

  ‘Are you telling someone you’re here?’ I ask. ‘Is someone coming to collect you?’

  Angel holds up a hand to silence me and I now feel a thrill of anger pulse through me. I’m suddenly very tired. This is all too strange. I just want this young woman out of my house now. There is something decidedly off about her, even if she is running away from someone bad. The feeling of unease creeps back. Maybe this was a mistake.

  ‘Look, Angel,’ I say. ‘I need to know what you want from me. You’re going to have to—’

  Angel gives a sort of rev of frustration in her throat and looks up, her eyes now dark and intense.

  ‘Shut the fuck up, will you?’ she says. ‘I can’t hear myself think.’ She dips her gaze back to her phone.

  I buzz with outrage at this. I can almost see sparks.

  ‘Look, just because you helped me in the restaurant earlier, that does not mean you have any right to come to my house! I’m sorry, you’re going to have to go.’ I draw a steadying breath for my next salvo and remove my phone from my back pocket. ‘Or I’m going to have to call the police.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake!’ The volume of her sudden shout stuns me like a slap to the face.

  Giving me a dark look, she bends down and rummages in her rucksack. Thank God. She’s going to gather her things and leave.

  What happens next is such a shock, my brain can’t seem to accept what I am seeing.

  Angel is pointing a gun at me.

  ‘I’m going to need you to give me that fucking phone,’ she says.

  6

  Nina

  Terror is a solid bolus in my throat. I throw the phone across the table and then lift my hands up, slowly, palms up in placation.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I manage to squeeze out. ‘What is it you want?’

  Angel continues to stare down at the mobile, ignoring me. She places the gun in the pocket on the front of the dress. I spend approximately one second contemplating whether I could wrestle it off her, but swiftly conclude that this would be pointless and ridiculous. This woman is taller than me, younger by at least fifteen years, and – crucially – clearly a bit unhinged.

  ‘We just want some space,’ says Angel when I had already given up on a reply.

  We?

  Then her expression softens slightly. ‘Look, you seem like a nice woman,’ she says. ‘I’m not coming here to bring you a load of grief. But you said you wanted to help me and that’s what I need right now. Help. From someone with no connection to us. Do you understand me?’

  No, I don’t understand any of this. I can feel my knees knocking together and shivers running up and down my arms. I have to clench my jaw to stop my teeth from chattering with the shock.

  Think.

  ‘The thing is,’ I say after a moment’s silence, ‘my husband is asleep upstairs. He was very tired after … working late. He’ll wake up soon.’ Shit. I’m a terrible liar. But I force myself to meet Angel’s gaze evenly. ‘He won’t be happy about this.’

  Angel half smiles, almost sympathetically.

  ‘I know there’s no one else here,’ she says.

  ‘How?’ Anger rises, hotly, inside. ‘How can you possibly know that?’

  Angel gestures towards the kitchen surfaces. ‘One plate, one cup. Ready meals in the recycling bin. I think you have a kid, judging by all the …’ she waves her hand at the fridge, where various school letters and pieces of art work are pinned with magnets, ‘… but the kid isn’t here. Or the father. Are you divorced?’ She pauses. ‘Was that your new bloke?’ She says this last bit with genuine curiosity, as though we are two women having a chat.

  ‘None of your business,’ I reply. I pull out the chair and sit down again. ‘And no,’ I add, despite myself. ‘He was … no one.’

  Angel makes a face. ‘Good,’ she says. ‘Because he was a tosser.’

  A laugh almost slips out before I remind myself that this strange, probably unstable, young woman invading my house has threatened me with a gun. Having one aimed at me in my own kitchen doesn’t feel quite real. Yet it still manages to be horribly frightening.

  ‘Look,’ I say, going for calm and trustworthy. ‘What do you want from me? Do you want money? Is that it?’

  Angel looks up from her phone, where her thumbs have been a blur of motion, and stares at me. She has extraordinary hazel eyes that are almost golden. Quite cat-like. But it is impossible to read what she’s thinking; her expression is as flat as a pool of still water again. She seems to slip in and out of this state. As though other conversations are buzzing in her head at the same time and she has to tune in to hear me.

  ‘Yeah,’ she says, ‘I think so. And a car.’

  I let out an exasperated sound.

  ‘My car is in the garage,’ I say. ‘And I’ve got about a tenner in my purse.’

  ‘Oh fuck, really?’ Angel’s dismay is palpable. ‘That’s a pisser about the car.’

  She drags a hand through the bird’s nest of her hair and then an old-fashioned bell ringtone comes from her mobile. She snatches it up and holds it to her ear. Getting to her feet, she says, ‘I’m coming.’

  Hope spasms in my chest as I hurry after her down the hallway. Maybe someone is here to pick her up. I can just shove her outside and lock the door.

  But before I have time to do anything, Angel is pulling another stranger, a man, through the front door and into my home.

  7

  Nina

  He is slightly built, shorter than Angel, with wet, black curls plastered to his face and dark eyes sunk in shadowed sockets. He’s enveloped in a long tweed coat that’s reminiscent of the sort me and my friends bought from charity shops in the eighties. He smells of wet dog, with another, staler smell underneath it. The coat seems to hang on his frame oddly, as though he is fat and thin all at the same time. He bulges around the middle, but his thin neck and narrow, white wrists protrude. It’s like a tall child wearing a grown-up’s clothes.

  Angel touches his cheek, tenderly, and he visibly shivers.

  ‘Come on through,’ she says in a practical sort of tone. ‘You look freezing.’ She bolts the door then lifts the keys from the bowl on the hall table before locking the door and pocketing them.

  I don’t even know where to start with this.

  Angel almost drags the man by the sleeve down the hall towards the kitchen. I find myself following, mutely, torn between trying to escape and the dangers of leaving these two strangers here.

  In the kitchen, Angel mutters something to the man, who is trembling so violently now that he looks as though he might collapse. He listens with his eyes closed as though receiving instruction. They stand over by the sink. I hover by the doorway, trying to work out what I can do.

  I catch him say, ‘The blood. There was all this blood,’ which makes my stomach clamp like a clamshell, but then Angel shushes him and I don’t catch the rest.

  ‘Who are you?’ I say finally, in my boldest voice. ‘What do you want?’

  The boy – man – I should say, drops his head, avoiding my gaze. Angel turns to me and I almost take a step back at the ferocity in her expression.

  ‘This is Lucas. He’s my little brother and he needs a bloody minute.’

  Little brother.

  Lucas looks only a few years younger than Angel, maybe early twenties. His face is much finer-boned than his sister’s, his shoulders hunched and narrow. He’s slightly built but looks like he has a wiry strength. His eyes are what frighten me the most though; they’re wide and staring as though he is watching something playing out in his mind and doesn’t like what he sees.

  Lucas murmurs something then and that’s when I become aware of another sound, coming from somewhere about his person. It’s a sort
of creaky puttering noise; familiar but so out of context I can’t place it. I move a few steps closer, drawn to its source, and that’s when I see what is causing that odd bulge in the coat.

  ‘Oh Jesus!’ I cry out.

  Tufty, reddish hair pokes up from a head the size of a grapefruit.

  The baby stretches its neck backwards, revealing a scrunched face. It’s so small; surely only a few weeks old; possibly new-born. The little twist of a mouth puckers and forms a square and the unhappy creaks turn into an ear-splitting wail.

  All instinct, I cross the room and reach for it, hands outstretched.

  ‘Get back!’ Lucas yells and flails his arms and I stumble back. Lucas’s eyes are wide and a little unfocused. Is he on something? He lifts his hands up and says, in a strangled voice, ‘Just give me space! Don’t crowd me. I just need space, that’s all!’

  ‘Get away from him,’ shouts Angel. ‘Can’t you see what a state he’s in?’

  She has the gun in her hand again now and is waving it around wildly, horribly close to the baby’s tiny head. Barely breathing, I peel my gaze back to Lucas and the shrieking bundle in his coat.

  He wipes his face with a hand that’s battered and cut, the knuckles raw. I can see what looks like dried blood on his fingers and the backs of his hands. His nails are rimed black. When he places a filthy hand on the baby’s tiny head, I experience an internal mushroom cloud of pure horror.

  The blood. The gun. The baby squirming visibly at the opening in his coat. Any combination of these things is wrong.

  ‘Lu babe,’ says Angel over the wailing. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ I shout then. ‘Don’t you care more about that baby?’

  ‘The kid looks fine to me,’ says Angel sharply.

  ‘Oh, you know that, do you?’ I say. ‘Because I don’t think that’s a given right now.’