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Back What I Did
Chapters (87)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Thirty-Two
  36. Thirty-Three
  37. Thirty-Four
  38. Thirty-Five
  39. Thirty-Six
  40. Thirty-Seven
  41. Thirty-Eight
  42. Thirty-Nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-One
  45. Forty-Two
  46. Forty-Three
  47. Forty-Four
  48. Forty-Five
  49. Forty-Six
  50. Forty-Seven
  51. Forty-Eight
  52. Forty-Nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Fifty-One
  55. Fifty-Two
  56. Fifty-Three
  57. Fifty-Four
  58. Fifty-Five
  59. Fifty-Six
  60. Fifty-Seven
  61. Fifty-Eight
  62. Fifty-Nine
  63. Sixty
  64. Sixty-One
  65. Sixty-Two
  66. Sixty-Three
  67. Sixty-Four
  68. Sixty-Five
  69. Sixty-Six
  70. Sixty-Seven
  71. Sixty-Eight
  72. Sixty-Nine
  73. Seventy
  74. Seventy-One
  75. Seventy-Two
  76. Seventy-Three
  77. Seventy-Four
  78. Seventy-Five
  79. Seventy-Six
  80. Seventy-Seven
  81. Seventy-Eight
  82. Seventy-Nine
  83. Eighty
  84. Epilogue
  85. Acknowledgements
  86. Extract from To Keep You Safe
  87. About the Author

She continued to stand in the hall and I wondered what she was doing – why was she just staring down an empty corridor? Why hadn’t she heard my incessant buzzing to the flat if she was in there? Why didn’t she react to my banging now?

I rapped on the door, hurting my knuckles, feeling the rising swell of anxiety forming into something else.

But still April didn’t turn.

There was something in the way she held her body; some stiffening. For someone who usually moved a little too slowly on account of the arthritis that she constantly complained about, she was just too . . . poised. On a woman her age it seemed . . . too alert.

Too . . . waiting for something. What was she waiting for? She turned back to my mother’s flat.

I’m almost ashamed to say that I had already started to shrink away. I wanted to help her, I wanted to see if my mum was OK, but I had Jack. He was only seven years old and he needed me to get him somewhere safe. My anxiety was rising into something bigger – a dangerous, rising swell.

Just as I took a step back, her body started to turn. I saw it as if it was in slow motion. Her shoulders swung round, but her head was the last to turn as if reluctant to stop staring at my mother’s open door.

I couldn’t breathe – I wanted to retreat even further, but as I started to pull away, Jack stood his ground. I tried to pull on his hand so she wouldn’t see us; she wouldn’t open the door to us and tell her what was on her mind.

Because I think I already knew and I did not want to hear it.

And then I noticed something I’d seen and not noticed, but now I saw it, it seemed so frightening: she only had one slipper on. Cold fear washed over me as I understood then that this woman was not herself, and then I finally saw her face. Her mouth was ajar and her mouth was formless, soft, slack.

Finally, finally, she saw me through the glass; her hands pressed against her cheeks and she shook her head, her eyes never leaving mine.

Sandcastles flattened, formless, and mountains became washed under seas, as my panic became a tsunami and finally overwhelmed everything.

Fifty-One

fifty-one:

– before –

April didn’t greet me at the door or acknowledge Jack, she simply opened it and we followed her into the corridor. I held his hand and shuffled my own feet as I stood staring at hers. One was encased in a pale pink slipper mule and the other was bare. Brown and wrinkled, her foot suggested that she’d spent every summer since she’d been released tanning herself. It felt wrong to see it when the other was covered: too intimate.