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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

I went to try again but the words dried in my mouth.

I didn’t want to think back, my thoughts bridging time between then and before. But I did, because I thought of the times I used to hide outside my parents’ bedroom, when my father was still alive.

Despite the years, my thoughts were blurred, but I still knew that when I opened the bedroom door I wouldn’t see my mother with the knife in her hand, the blood on the sheets, my father struggling to sit up – but only for a moment because the air went out of him like a punctured balloon, leaving him sinking back down onto the bed. I ran from the room and did what my mother had taught me to do when he was attacking her: Ring nine, nine, nine and tell the operator: I need the police. She’d taught me to give my age: eight. And my address: 3 The Greenfields.

It felt like the right thing to do.

When I did it before, they would always come and give him a telling-off and then it was quiet for a while, before it started again.

It always started again.

And that’s how I thought it would be that time. I thought that it was bad but that it would go back to normal for a while and then it would start again.

But it didn’t.

The police came and they didn’t just give a telling-off, this time there was handcuffs and my mother shouting and being led away and this time my father didn’t shout back. This time he just lay on the bed with his eyes open staring at the ceiling and he was finally, finally quiet.

I wanted to ring 999 again, because standing outside my mother’s door, it was too quiet. My fingertips reached out and pressed against the cool wood and I tried to brace myself as it opened, because I knew the world was going to stop again.

And as I peered in, much of my mother’s bedroom looked just as it should.

The beige carpet and brown curtains that came with the flat had never been replaced. But everything else, all the additions, were my mother’s. Purple silk scarves pinned to the ceiling to create a boudoir. Incense dripping ash into painted, clay receptacles. Artwork loud and brash, created by friends I’ve met before and don’t care to meet again.

The light was on but the garishness clashes with the silence.

But I was thinking about the wrong thing. As much as I wanted to think that the room was much the same as it always was, I knew it wasn’t. There was a big difference. Huge. I already knew the room was wrong, so wrong and I was simply delaying the inevitable of accepting that.

Because I had found her.

Fifty-Seven

fifty-seven:

– before –