BooksBarbecue
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

Nick barely flinches. ‘I loved that dog, too, but it was twenty years ago. It has to be water under the bridge.’ He squares up to me in his seat and sighs. ‘Lisa, I’ll tell you again: I’m not here to side with him. But just because someone is an awful, violent, challenging child, does not mean they are not entitled to raise their own son, if they so wish.’

‘But you know how dangerous he is.’

‘Yes, agreed, he was utterly dreadful – but. I’m telling you this and you have to accept it: as an adult he is squeaky clean. This kid is his and therefore if he wants to raise him, he can. You don’t have to like it and maybe there’s even a bit of me that’s . . . a little anxious about it too, but the facts are the facts. The law is on his side.’

‘He killed him.’ I swipe at my glass and it smashes to the floor, a punctuation mark to my anger. I feel unreasonable; melodramatic; off-key, but . . . . I still trust my instincts.

Nick doesn’t move. I sit watching him, only hearing the sound of my rapid breathing. I wait. I want Nick to react. He may have fully forgotten what he was like, but I haven’t. And with Jack upstairs with him, it’s never been more important for him to remember.

When he doesn’t say anything, I decide to prod again. ‘I loved that dog.’

‘Did you?’ He says it so quietly, I’m not sure he has even said it.

But the way he looks at me . . . in my hands now is the cut cable tie – why am I holding this of all things? I turn it between sweating fingers, seeing again the neat edges, not burnt at all – not as I remembered.

Sixty-Eight

sixty-eight:

– now –

I feel the throb of my burns; I turn over my wrists and stare at them. I appraise them in the light; they are not as bad as I thought. Perhaps I didn’t hold them over the flames as long as it felt like. Maybe time constricts and expands. The blue light of my burns starts to thrum in time with my head. I can feel a scratching of wanting to unlock some memory – something perhaps gone, long gone . . .

. . . or perhaps it was never there.

Nick has been gone so long, our quarrels too antique to have life, but it still feels vital that I’m understood. ‘Don’t you remember,’ I say, wanting to steer the conversation towards what I want to talk about – not this, never this – ‘how difficult Jack was when he was young?’

Nick nods, again rubbing his face to show how tired he is. ‘Of course I do. Who could forget?’