Forgive Me Not Read online

‘How are you supposed to manage without the shelters?’

  ‘I won’t lie, it’s not been easy. I camp outside this pet shop in the hope that someone will give the Duchess a square meal, but there aren’t many customers. I might have to move on – which would prove to be a popular decision with the locals.’

  Emma raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Oh, they haven’t been abusive. And one mum brings me a takeaway coffee every single morning on the school run. But the majority…’ He shrugged. ‘They’re just not used to it. You remember that sense of unspoken disapproval?’

  ‘You still won’t consider a hostel?’

  ‘You know that’s not an option for me,’ he said gruffly, jerking his head towards the dog. ‘I could never abandon her.’

  He studied the pavement and gently turned over a ladybird that was stuck on its back. Stig wasn’t an addict. He had talked about it once – the depression he’d suffered that made him walk out on his job as a geography teacher. He’d mumbled something about league tables and demanding parents.

  ‘I’ve always wondered why you’re called Stig,’ Emma said. ‘Is it after that bloke off Top Gear?’

  ‘Nah. Everyone thinks that. It’s from a book my grandad used to read me called Stig of the Dump. Stig lived in a den built from discarded rubbish. I can relate to that.’

  ‘You still haven’t contacted your mum and dad?’

  ‘I can’t. I was the first in my family to go to university. They’d be so disappointed. It’s kinder to just carry on letting them think I’m missing.’

  Emma knew that was an illness talking. Mad Hatter Holly firmly believed her family would be better off if she were dead.

  ‘So, have you returned home for good?’ he asked, polishing off the last mouthful of sandwich.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ she said, unable to face giving details.

  ‘Surely it’s going to take a while to repair any damage?’

  ‘Yes. Slowly, slowly, I guess. I’ve fantasised about some great reconciliation, but I realise now that I can’t rewrite history; I can’t erase all the hurt.’

  ‘No, you can’t. The past is done with. But the future is still a blank book. It might work out. Don’t assume the worst. You haven’t got a crystal ball.’

  ‘One of my therapists told me that. I didn’t appreciate it at first.’

  Stig bent his knees up and wrapped his arms around them. ‘There was this pupil I had once. Olly. Hard-working. Polite. I’d had a bad morning. Mock results were in. The head was disappointed with my class’s results.’ He nodded his head at a passer-by who had dropped a fifty-pence coin into his cup. ‘I took it out on Olly. Humiliated him by making him stand in the corner for making some wisecrack that was actually funny. I summoned him to my classroom at the end of the day. Apologised. But the damage had been done.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘It took several weeks, but eventually he made eye contact again and we moved forwards.’ He put down the sandwich box. ‘Exactly how long have you been back?’

  ‘I arrived yesterday.’

  ‘And how long was your drinking an issue before you ended up in the city?’

  ‘I get it – you’re saying that of course they aren’t going to see me as any different after a couple of days when I ruined their lives for years.’

  Give them time to get up to speed. Lou’s words echoed in her ears.

  ‘What have you got to lose by giving it another go? By giving it a few more days – or weeks?’

  That was what Old Len from AA always said. Just give it time.

  Promising to see him again whatever she decided, Emma headed up Broadgrass Hill, the air cooler as the sun disappeared for a moment. She could either collect her things and leave, or take the more difficult route. Actions and not words. Could that really be the way forward? She’d only been back one day, but already her mind kept returning to the farm and how she could help. She would love to do everything possible to return the place to its former glory. She could easily mend the tatty enclosures and shelters, and knew how to make the animals’ lives more interesting using some discarded guttering and wood. She used to be a dab hand with a brush and could soon smarten up the farmhouse’s peeling paintwork.

  One of the best things about recovery was realising she had skills and could use them to do good; that she could be useful; that she counted; that she could make a positive difference, however small.

  And then there was Mum… and giving Andrea a break; making up for the past – that was what really mattered. She inhaled and exhaled. Surely they could find common ground again?

  By the time she approached her old home, she was walking with lengthy strides. She slipped through the kissing gate and walked around to the front. Barking loudly, Dash announced her arrival. It had just gone four. Andrea and Bligh appeared carrying full baskets of strawberries. Clouds had gathered above them. Creaking loudly, the barn door blew open and shut.

  Andrea placed her basket clumsily on the ground and folded her arms. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘I’ve decided not to leave Healdbury after all,’ Emma said quietly.

  ‘Are you for real?’ Andrea shook her head. ‘After everything you did to me and Mum?’

  Bligh clenched his basket’s handle tighter.

  ‘No one wants you here. Not me, not Bligh, not Polly and Alan, not the villagers,’ Andrea continued. ‘You’ll get Aunt Thelma’s money. What’s the point of sticking around?’

  ‘I want to help with the farm – with Mum,’ Emma said, in the same calm, steady voice.

  ‘No chance,’ said Andrea, and checked her watch. ‘Just go, please. I’ve asked you more than once now. Don’t make this harder on Mum or us.’ She glanced up at the sky and disappeared inside.

  Emma stood her ground. She couldn’t quit after just twenty-four hours.

  The back door flew open and her sister reappeared, chest heaving, cheeks the colour of goat’s milk.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Bligh, striding over.

  ‘It’s Mum. The house is empty. I don’t know where she is.’

  Chapter 7

  Bligh and Andrea talked in low, urgent voices. Where to start looking? The farm buildings? The village? The neighbours? It reminded Emma of the time Joe had disappeared, when they’d been spending every minute together. Off his head like never before. She’d been worried he’d get beaten up or run over.

  After checking spots where he usually met his dealers, she had eventually found him in the Northern Quarter, outside a coffee shop. He’d got to know the owner, who always gave him a free hot chocolate or sometimes a cupcake. She said his quirky humour reminded her of her son, who’d disappeared three years previously.

  ‘We need to think logically,’ she said now. ‘A good friend of mine called Joe went missing once. I tracked down his favourite places. Where are Mum’s?’

  ‘We don’t need your help.’ Andrea pursed her lips.

  ‘How long was she in the house on her own?’ continued Emma.

  ‘I don’t know… about an hour. She was tired and went for her usual afternoon nap.’

  ‘Was she asleep when you left her?’

  ‘No, but she was tucked up and quiet,’ snapped Andrea. ‘We got behind with the work, coming down to the Badger Inn after your little escapade – I didn’t have time to wait for her to drop off.’

  ‘I… I know how busy you are. Would you have seen her if she came out the back door, or must she have gone out the front?’

  Bligh sighed. ‘She could have walked straight past without us noticing, we were so focused on picking fruit.’

  ‘What about the Badger Inn? It seems like her favourite place to eat. Do you think she could get that far?’

  Andrea paused and then took a mobile phone out of her trouser pocket. ‘I doubt it. She walks so slowly these days and probably couldn’t find it on her own, but I’ll check with Polly.’

  ‘And I’ll double-check around the house, just to be sure,’ said Emma, and ran ins
ide. She realised it was stupid to look under beds and behind curtains, but she was so worried, she couldn’t help investigating every nook and cranny. She opened the big wardrobe in Gail’s room and pulled out the clothes. Several Post-it notes fell to the floor. In passing, she noticed Mum’s private wooden chest on the bottom, behind all the shoes. As children, she and Andrea believed it was full of treasure, as Gail always kept it locked.

  ‘Mum! Gail! Are you there?’

  Lastly she looked in the bathroom, even checking behind the shower curtain though she knew it was futile. Then she went back downstairs and out of the back door. Please let Bligh or Andrea have found her.

  But they were both standing in the yard looking like geo-spotters without a map.

  ‘She’s developed a liking for tomatoes recently,’ said Bligh. ‘I’ll check in the greenhouse.’

  As he left, Andrea put away her phone. Her eyes glistened. ‘Polly’s gone outside to see if she’s walking down Broadgrass Hill.’

  Emma stepped forward to pat her arm, but Andrea pulled away.

  ‘Look,’ Emma said. ‘We need to work together on this for Mum’s sake, whatever you think of me coming back. Let’s go to the end of the drive and check the land either side. If she was walking and tripped over and fell, she could be lying in the patch of wild flowers or behind the apple trees.’

  Andrea paused, and then nodded.

  Breaking into a run, they hurried around the side of the house and through the kissing gate, both calling out. It reminded Emma of when they used to play hide-and-seek. Once she’d stayed hidden for hours amongst the foxgloves. Andrea had given up looking. An anxious Mum had been furious. Was this how she’d felt, her mind imagining the worst outcome? What if she’d got onto the road and been knocked down? Or perhaps she had tripped over and was lying concussed.

  ‘I’ll check the wild flowers – you look amongst the apple trees.’

  Andrea couldn’t reply. Her arms shook.

  ‘We’ll find her, I promise. She’s only been missing a little while.’

  ‘Your promises don’t mean anything,’ said Andrea, and gulped before they parted.

  Nothing. No clues either, like a dropped chocolate wrapper or one of her cotton handkerchiefs embroidered with a G in the corner.

  ‘Where is she?’ said Andrea as they stood at the end of the drive by the birdbath. She rubbed her forehead. ‘I should have made sure she’d fallen asleep before leaving her.’ She looked at her watch. ‘And now we’re getting behind with the strawberries.’ Her fists curled. ‘When is life going to give me a break?’

  Emma could have said: Now, because I’m back, but she didn’t. She just needed to listen. In the past she’d never done enough of that – she’d always been armed with a response she thought important or witty, or one that defended her old insecurities.

  After more than two hours of searching, they were both running out of ideas. Mum wasn’t in front of the pond or in any of the sheds; Polly couldn’t see her along Broadgrass Hill and she wouldn’t have had time to get further than that. Andrea went inside to call the police.

  Eventually the two sisters and Bligh met up outside the barn. Andrea went into the kitchen to fetch glasses of water. Despite the drop in temperature, they needed to rehydrate. The three of them sat in the dust and drank. Andrea popped a mint in her mouth and offered the tube of sweets to Bligh. More clouds congregated in the sky.

  ‘What if it rains?’ she said. ‘Mum feels the cold so easily these days. Or even worse, a storm? She’d be terrified.’

  ‘I just want to give her a hug,’ said Emma, ‘when we find her.’ The sisters looked at each other.

  ‘Are you thinking about Debenhams?’ muttered Andrea.

  Emma nodded.

  One day they’d both got lost shopping in one of Manchester’s biggest department stores. They’d only been six and eleven. Mum was on a rare shopping trip and lost sight of them in the women’s clothes section. Emma had tried so hard not to cry because she knew Andrea was being brave, sliding her arm around her shoulder, telling her that when – not if – they found Mum, everything would be okay. Her grip had tightened as a strange man asked for their names. Turned out he was security, and within minutes he had reunited them with a distraught Gail.

  ‘What did the police say?’ Bligh took a large mouthful of water and wiped his mouth.

  ‘They’ve sent a patrol car out to look for her and are coming right over.’ Andrea slipped her mobile into her back trouser pocket. ‘They were trying to sound reassuring. Insisted it wasn’t uncommon for them to find and return residents to care homes. I explained that Mum had never wandered off before. They wanted to know what she was wearing. My mind went blank and I couldn’t remember.’ Her voice cracked as a spot of rain landed on her arm. ‘I’ll never forgive myself if something happens.’

  ‘Oh, Andrea…’ Emma reached out.

  ‘Don’t! If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t be in this mess.’

  Emma stared into her glass. Where could Mum have gone? ‘I know we’ve looked in front of it, but what about behind the pond? It’s a long shot, but she used to love that view across the fields that border the motorway.’

  ‘I don’t let her down there any more in case she ends up on the road.’

  The sisters looked at each other and put down their glasses. Gail never had liked being told what to do. Like the time the doctor ordered her to rest her twisted ankle – that advice hadn’t stopped her digging up potatoes. And when five-year-old Emma’s teacher had called her into the school one day and suggested she wasn’t being supportive enough of homework, Gail had told her that the whole idea was ridiculous and that children of that age learnt far more by exploring nature.

  ‘Bligh, can you stay here in case she turns up?’ asked Andrea as the two sisters got to their feet. At a fast pace they left the yard, passed the animal enclosures and skirted the pond behind the weeping willow.

  ‘Mum?’ shouted Andrea.

  Had they really heard someone mutter a response? They hurried past tall reeds and around to the back of the weeping willow. Andrea gasped as they saw Gail standing by a row of bushes bearing green berries, some of which had started to turn black. They hurried over.

  ‘You had us worried,’ said Andrea, voice trembling. ‘Don’t ever do that again.’

  Their mum’s expression didn’t alter and Emma went to her other side, a wave of relief almost sweeping her off her feet.

  Gail tried to spit something out. It was small. Black. Emma opened her mum’s curled fingers and stared at five berries.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ said Andrea.

  ‘Blueberries,’ muttered Gail.

  Emma went over to the bush and studied the leaves as a rain shower fell. A shiver rippled across her back. ‘Shit! Did you know these are deadly nightshade?’

  ‘What? No. I mean… I haven’t been down here for ages.’ Andrea’s hand flew to her throat. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘They grew down by the railway bridge where I sometimes slept. One guy ate them on purpose; heard they could make you hallucinate.’ He’d almost died. Stig had dug up the plants so that no one else could give them a shot. That had been later in the summer, but this hot weather must have brought on some of the berries early.

  ‘What do we do?’ asked Andrea. ‘Will she be all right? Should we give her milk to drink, or salty water to make her sick, or—’

  ‘We need to keep calm,’ said Emma quietly. ‘Otherwise she might get upset.’ Pulse racing, she stood in front of Gail. ‘Her pupils aren’t dilated. I don’t think she’s hallucinating.’

  ‘That’s a good sign, right?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Emma, but her voice wavered. As quickly as possible, she took out her phone and rang for an ambulance. It arrived within fifteen minutes, and by that time the sisters had led Gail around to the front of the barn and rung the police to say she’d been found.

  Andrea insisted on going alone to the hospital with Gail. Wringing her hands, Emm
a stood in the yard watching the ambulance drive away. What if Mum took a turn for the worse? Emma wouldn’t be there to comfort her or Andrea.

  She turned and walked past Bligh, who raised his eyebrows. Before she did anything else, she had to dig up those deadly nightshade bushes.

  13 months before going back

  Emma yawned and rubbed her eyes as she sat outside the bank, along from Primark and Piccadilly Gardens. It was almost lunchtime, and specks of rain trickled down her cheeks as if saying sorry for ruining the late May bank holiday weekend. It was a good spot. She’d scoped it out for a couple of days and the regular rough sleeper seemed to have moved on. Just metres from the tram stop, she’d often pick up change from busy commuters, who darted into Costa Coffee before hammering on to the office.

  People-watching, she listened to the diverse Manchester beat. Hurried high heels. The whistle of trams. The talented – and untalented – buskers further down Market Street. Students chatting as they headed to the Northern Quarter for a non-branded latte and cake. Mums pushing creaky buggies laden with brown paper Primark bags defenceless against the rain. Pub drinkers striding with a determination driven by the imminent opening time.

  A young woman tossed a handful of coins into her cup as she walked past. Emma gazed at her glossy salon hair, the perfect foundation, those manicured nails. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d thought about her own appearance.

  A burp rose up her throat followed by a shot of acid. She took a glug of water. The nausea she usually felt had been particularly bad this last week. Last night’s choice of drink had even been non-alcoholic.

  Her throat buckled. She leant to her left and almost vomited the pizza slice she’d found boxed in a bin for breakfast. Her eyes watered and she hid her head under the sleeping bag and thought of her predicament. This was the worst thing about not drinking to oblivion – you had to confront your feelings. Because of that, she couldn’t contemplate life without her crutch – yet recently she couldn’t face the rest of her life with it.

  How did you solve that particular conundrum?