Chapters (87)
- Cover
- Praise
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sixty
- Sixty-One
- Sixty-Two
- Sixty-Three
- Sixty-Four
- Sixty-Five
- Sixty-Six
- Sixty-Seven
- Sixty-Eight
- Sixty-Nine
- Seventy
- Seventy-One
- Seventy-Two
- Seventy-Three
- Seventy-Four
- Seventy-Five
- Seventy-Six
- Seventy-Seven
- Seventy-Eight
- Seventy-Nine
- Eighty
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgements
- Extract from To Keep You Safe
- About the Author
She always defended him. ‘He’s not that bad,’ she would tell me when I raged about him and then ignore what I had to say. ‘He’s just a bit troubled; he’ll grow out of it.’ Even when he got Selena pregnant when he was only eighteen, she was the first to stick up for him: ‘The baby will be a blessing, you wait.’
When I complained that he’d called Jack after himself, my mum laughed and told me that if he was self-indulgent then he only got it from me. And when I refused to listen, she put her hand up and said: ‘I liked the name Jack when you picked it for your son and I like it now he’s picked it for his. Besides, I’m now so senile –’ she said, when she was nothing of the sort – ‘that I wish everyone was called Jack’.
Then, when Selena was found dead of an overdose, I’d started to speculate about things I didn’t want to ever think. She cut it short. ‘Lisa, you’ve always been hysterical. It’s my fault: you had a difficult start to life.’ When I’d dared to pursue it even tentatively, sharing my darkest fears, it was the only time I saw her get angry. Even when she came in, her nose bleeding and her eye swollen, and found me with the blooded knife in my hand, kneeling over my sleeping-but-now-dead father, she wasn’t angry. She was cold and calculated – she took the knife. Wiped it. Firmly gripped it in her hand, fingertips pressed with hope.
‘Don’t you ever . . .’ she hissed: ‘Tell. Anyone. About. This. Ever.’
I don’t think I was the only one who passed on personality traits to my child.
Then another time, after I’d had another row with my son about Jack, she didn’t take my side. This time she didn’t make things better. This time, she gripped me by the shoulders, hissing again: ‘Selena was a drug addict. Has it ever occurred to you why your son might have pursued a relationship with a drug addict?’ She shook me to evidence the point. ‘You need to stop persecuting him. He’s the victim.’
I withdrew my hand. I’m sorry that she had to see the truth for herself. I’m sorry she had to see that I was right. I’m many things, but I’ve never wanted to be right – the opposite – I would’ve so much preferred to be wrong about it all.
Without thinking, I went to the bathroom cabinet, where I knew she kept a medicine box. Inside – I know because an addict is always checking these things out, even if they are clean – were the DF118s my mother had for her sore back. She didn’t take them because she said they made her constipated. I seized them and then went back to her.