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Back What I Did Save as PDF
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

The fog seems to have dropped without me seeing it. Afraid, I stop. Looking up before, I could see the stars, but now I can see nothing above and nothing around me. I can see no edge of the field, it’s only grey.

I wonder if Mungo died in the fog. At the time – there, I’m thinking about him again now – I thought Mungo had killed himself. That’s what the coroner decided. When he was seventeen, he was found hanging from a tree in the nearby woods. On his phone, there were lots of hits on websites related to suicide in the days preceding his death. Despite his family arguing against it, saying that he’d lost his phone the week before his death, the police thought it was suicide and told the inquest that they’d found his phone in his pocket.

Fog has its own smell, damp and heavy. It turns and twists, mesmerising like mystic hands, warning me not to go back into the past.

It’s impenetrable now, and I wonder how it could’ve fallen so swiftly within minutes. Because I’ve been thinking about Mungo, thinking things I’ve kept blocked for years, I realise I’ve just been plunging on towards the cottage, not noticing my vision was fading in the fog. Now I grasp that I have to stop or I could get lost.

I stop running, turning and looking for something I can fix my bearings on. But as I gaze into the night, I remember something I didn’t think about before. Perhaps I was too stoned on codeine, perhaps I was too busy with life and work, perhaps I just didn’t want to face it, but now, in the crazy way the brain works, I realise what I have missed. Devastated at his death, wanting to support my son, I attended the inquest with Jack.

Mungo must’ve had very few friends, because there was only one other teenager present – a sallow-skinned girl, thin, with straight blonde hair, she sat just behind Mungo’s parents. I only noticed her, and then barely, when she turned to look at Jack; she mouthed something at him I didn’t catch. But it wasn’t her who really caught my attention, but instead my son, because in response he did something I rarely saw him do – and standing in this damp, fog-smothered field, I remember it now with goosebumps – he smiled back at her.

And Selena, Mungo’s girlfriend, the following week became Jack’s girlfriend.

Fifty-Four

fifty-four:

– before –

I didn’t move in my mother’s tiny hall: I stood so still I daren’t even breathe. I was listening. I think I stood there for two minutes before I realised what my behaviour meant: I was acting like she was dead.