also scared of wetting the bed if I don’t go. I get up and creep over to my bedroom door, the pink carpet soft beneath my toes. I put my ear right up against the bare wood, to see if I can hear what they are saying.
“I told you we should have found a shop further out,” Maggie says.
“And I told you it wouldn’t have made no difference. What kind of men pull a stunt like that in front of a child anyway?” says John.
“Exactly the kind of men we’re dealing with. I asked you not to take Aimee, you put her in danger.”
“Well, I didn’t take Aimee, did I? How could I have? Aimee is dead.”
I hear something smash.
I’m not dead.
I climb back into the bed and hide under the duvet again. Seconds later my bedroom door opens and I hold my breath. In my head this makes me invisible.
Invisible, but not dead.
I hear someone walk closer to the bed and I hope that it is Maggie, not John. He comes into my room sometimes at night. I think he must be worried about me being too hot or something because he always takes the duvet off the bed. He does it slowly and quietly, as though he is trying not to wake me, so I pretend to still be asleep, even when I’m not. Sometimes I hear his Polaroid camera and wonder what he is taking pictures of in the dark. Sometimes I hear other things.
Somebody pulls the covers back, then gets in beside me. She puts her arm around my tummy and kisses my head; I know that it is Maggie because I can smell her perfume. She calls it “number five” and it smells nice, but I always wonder what the other numbers smell like. Maggie is squeezing me awful tight, so that it hurts a little bit, but I don’t say anything. She is crying, and the back of my neck is soon wet with her tears.
“Don’t you worry, Baby Girl. Nobody is ever going to hurt you, not while I’m alive.”
I think she says this to make me feel better, but it makes me feel worse. My first mummy died the day I was born. Maggie could die anytime and then I’d be all alone. She stops crying after a while and goes to sleep, but I don’t. I can’t. I know she is sleeping because small snoring sounds come out of her mouth and into my ears, playing a little tune with the tiny bells that are still ringing. I try to sleep too, but all I can think about is Maggie dying, those three bad men coming back to the shop, and nobody being here to save me.
Twenty-eight
London, 2017
“Don’t worry, this will save you.” Jack walks into my bedroom with two steaming mugs of what looks like coffee.
“What are you doing here?” I pull the duvet up around me.
“Well, that’s gratitude for you! I was just going to put you in a taxi last night, but I wasn’t sure you’d make it, and I was right. You puked on the journey home. Twice. And that was just the beginning. I thought you said you could drink? I stayed the night to make sure you didn’t choke on your own vomit. I think the words you are probably looking for right now are thank you.”
“Thank you,” I say after a little while, processing everything he has just said, unsure whether his words fit the gaps that the holes in my memory have left behind. I take the coffee, it’s too hot, but it’s strong and I gulp it down. I look at the pajamas I’m wearing, wondering how I got into them if I was as out of it as he’s suggesting. It’s as though he reads my mind.
“I helped get you out of your dress, mainly because you’d been sick all down the front of it just after you got out of the cab. I cleaned you up a bit and you got changed yourself. I didn’t see anything I hadn’t already seen on set, and I slept on the floor.”
I look at where he is pointing and see a pillow and a blanket on the carpet. My cheeks are so hot I’m certain my face must have turned purple with embarrassment. I can’t seem to find the right words to say, so I stick with the two that seem most appropriate given the circumstances.