‘our local councillor has agreed to look into it, get the man evicted from that cave.’
‘Isn’t it owned by the Petersons?’ Haley asked.
‘Not any more. It was taken over by someone else years ago,’ Greg said.
‘No one can get hold of the new owner,’ Cynthia added. ‘But the councillor I know says he’s found a way of getting around it. He’ll have the man out within the week if we add some pressure as local parents.’
‘He’s not doing any harm though, is he?’ Donna said softly.
‘Of course he is, Donna!’ Cynthia exclaimed. ‘He’s dealing drugs from that cave.’
‘We don’t know that,’ I said, irritation ticking at the core of me. ‘The country’s in the middle of a recession, Cynthia. He might have just lost his job.’
‘But it’s obvious something’s going on,’ Cynthia’s husband Clive said, a man who held himself in that straight-backed way that suggested he wanted to let everyone know he was in charge. ‘All those kids hanging around.’
‘Kids,’ Greg said. ‘That’s the operative word here. I don’t think drugs is the real issue. The man clearly has a thing for young girls.’
Everyone nodded apart from me and Donna.
Donna frowned. ‘I don’t think that’s very fair.’
‘Speak up, love!’ Clive said, Cynthia laughing.
‘She said it isn’t fair!’ I said in a loud voice. ‘Can you hear yourselves?’
Mike put a warning hand on my leg but I shoved him away.
‘There’s no evidence of these allegations,’ I continued, feeling all the frustrations of the past few days building up inside. ‘Just rumours and speculation.’
‘Rumours should be enough when it comes to our children, Selma,’ Cynthia said, the lines around her mouth tight. ‘As a mum, you should—’
‘Oh yes, as a mum,’ I replied, taking another swig of gin. ‘I should be perfect in every single fucking way, shouldn’t I?’
Cynthia shut her mouth as Greg raised an eyebrow, everyone around the table going quiet. Only Donna smiled slightly.
‘Selma,’ Mike hissed, hand now painfully squeezing my knee.
I closed my eyes, felt something boiling and frothing within. Part of me wanted to contain it, but the other part wanted to let it explode and roar. Mike could sense it – I felt it in the firmness of his hand on my leg.
‘You do like defending the man, don’t you?’ Cynthia asked.
I opened my eyes, looking right into Cynthia’s cunning green ones.
‘And you like defending your husband, don’t you?’ I snapped back. ‘Despite the fact everyone knows he fucked the nanny?’
Everyone’s mouth dropped open, even Donna’s. Cynthia’s cheeks flushed and her husband’s face went white.
‘Jesus, Selma,’ Mike said.
I looked at them all, at all the shocked and wounded faces around the table. I knew I’d gone too far, but I realised I didn’t care. I didn’t care at all.
I stood up. ‘I need to get away from here.’
‘Yes, I think you do,’ Mike said, grabbing my arm and standing with me.
I pulled my arm away from him, glaring at him. ‘No, you stay.’
I peered at Becky who was playing with her friends at the back of the pub garden. Then I walked away, my heels grappling with the gravel in the car park, my mind full of a heady mixture of emotions: guilt, embarrassment, pride and exhilaration.
‘Fuck them all,’ I said to myself, forcing the guilt and embarrassment away. I quickened my step, heading towards the sea, chest feeling like it might explode. The sea roared around me, the darkening skies above regarding me as though to ask: ‘What next, Selma? What next?’
In response, I started running, my dark hair untangling from the high bun I’d ended up putting it into, streaming behind me. When I finally got to the sea, I grabbed onto the edge of one of the chalk stacks, leaning over and gasping for breath. Then I stumbled to the water’s edge, sinking to the ground, the smell of sand and seaweed clogging my nostrils.
‘I can’t,’ I said, grabbing onto handfuls of sand. ‘I can’t do this any more. I just can’t.’
I closed my eyes and saw the faces of all the people who’d made up my social world the past few years. And then I saw Mike … and Becky.
My beautiful Becky.
They were the walls with which I’d built my life lately.
They are my prison.
I imagined those walls falling one by one, a glimpse of light in the distance. Just some space, that was all I needed. A few days would give me a chance to catch my breath and get away from it all. It had worked another time, many years ago, when Becky was a newborn. Why wouldn’t it work now?
I let out a sob as I thought of Becky. No! What was I thinking? I couldn’t just run away, I had responsibilities …
Or could I?
‘I can’t,’ I whispered.
‘You can,’ a voice said.
I froze. Someone had spoken, a voice carried over on the breeze. I explored the darkness behind me then noticed a figure. Of course, I knew who it was before he stepped into the moonlight.
Idris.
Becky
Sussex, UK
1 June 2018
Becky has to sit down when she hears her mum’s voice at the end of the phone, grasping at the arm of the chair she’s in, trying to control her breathing.
Ten years.
It has been ten years since they last spoke. They’d had an argument over her mum’s reluctance to send money to help Mike after a walking accident in France. Not that they’d talked much before then anyway, just the occasional awkward dinner for some birthdays, the odd letter. Of course, the cheque had arrived the next day for her dad. But the words her mum had spoken as she’d tried to defend herself, the bitterness and hatred she’d directed at Mike, the lies, had been the final straw.
Until now.
Her
