But some nights – more and more nights – we were what Bluebeard wanted. Instead of Mum. Some nights, the bells rang too many and too quickly. Some nights, he’d turn out all the lights – with a loud metallic thud of the fuse-box master switch – so that his deadlight was all we could see, jagged as it searched for us, roared for us, caught us. Some nights, it was the stovepipe; some nights, his big-buckled belt; more nights, his fists. And those nights were the nights that Mum didn’t only have to warn us but save us. Those were the nights we had to pretend never happened. Bluebeard demanded it. Mum demanded it. Mirrorland demanded it.
I’m shaking. I’m freezing cold. I remember crouching inside the dress-up cupboard in the Clown Café. Terrified. Because the Clown Café was only for hiding. It couldn’t protect us like Mirrorland could. I remember the thunder of boots on the stairs, the landing. Screaming at the ripped-open door, at the deadlight and Grandpa’s grinning teeth inside it. The smell of pipe tobacco and rum. The fist that grabbed me by the hair. The fist that squeezed El’s arm enough that I heard – felt – her bones groan. I’m goin’ tae kill ye this time, the both ae ye. Nasty wee ungrateful bitches. A sly look, cold and flat. Or maybe it’s time ye start earnin’ yer keep.
And I remember Mum’s voice, shrill and high, No! You can’t. They’re just children! Take me instead. Please. El and I holding on to each other and crying; hoping, praying that he would, the back of the cupboard rough against our clothes, our skin, as we pushed against it, feet scrabbling for purchase, for any way to keep hiding, to disappear.
In the thick, awful quiet, I hear the front door open. I get up fast, furious, desperate to do anything to escape all this truth at once like an avalanche, a terrible landslide, a towering wave – high and wide and freezing bright. I run through the hallway, wrench open the hallway door, see the card on the hessian mat with my name capitalised across it, and then I’m barging through the front door, throwing myself down the steps.
Marie freezes, her hand on the metal gate, her horror so great it manages to make her look ugly, childlike. She recovers more quickly than I do, slamming the gate shut and running across the road towards the Gingerbread Coop.
I don’t give myself time to reason, to stop, because that’s what I always do. Another truth. Marie’s already closing her door, but I ram into it, gritting my teeth and pushing. She cries out, the door gives way, and I stumble in.
She backs down a short hall and into the kitchen. Leans against a counter, breathing heavily. But when she looks up at me, her eyes are defiant. She glances at the big steel-handled knife in the block next to her. And then she looks back at me.
I should probably be afraid of her, but I’m not. ‘Why have you been leaving those cards?’
She presses her lips together. I make myself walk towards her.
‘Why have you been leaving those cards?’
Marie folds her arms. ‘Because I didn’t want Ross to hurt you. Either of you.’
She sighs, sits heavily down on a chair. The sadness that comes into her eyes infuriates me. ‘Sit down, Catriona,’ she says. ‘Sit down, and I’ll tell you.’
But I don’t. I’m done doing what people tell me to do.
‘D’accord.’ She sighs again. Squares her shoulders. ‘My name isn’t Marie Bernard. I’m not from Paris. In the nineties, I paid a lot of money to come here from the Democratic Republic of Congo.’ She looks at me. ‘I loved my country. Very much. Its motto is “Justice, Paix, Travail”. I worked very hard for my life here, and once I had it, I finally found peace. So all that was left was justice.’
‘Justice?’
‘I help people. Women.’ She stares down at her scarred hands. ‘Anna saw El’s bruises. We saw the changes in her character, her habits. The fear in her eyes. How much her husband always needed to be in control.’
‘And that – that – was enough to tell you Ross was abusing her? Do you realise how—’
‘Non.’ She pushes up the sleeves of her shirt, exposing crisscrossing scars that carry on past both elbows. Pulls wide its neck where the skin beneath her collarbone is mottled and raised like the burn on her face. ‘What I left behind in the Congo told me.’ Her gaze sharpens. ‘Tells me.’
‘He isn’t abusing me.’ But those sickening scars have doused my outrage.
She smiles. ‘That’s what she said at first too.’
I shake my head. ‘How many times have you done this?’
Her chin goes up. ‘Many.’
‘You terrorise the terrorised. That’s how you help?’
Marie’s smile turns pitying. I want to smack it off her face. ‘After a while, it’s all they understand. As much as I wish it wasn’t so.’
‘El never knew, did she? That it was you?’
Marie shifts in her chair, for the first time looks uncomfortable. ‘She was frightened of him.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘She was going to run, and I was going to help her. But then she changed her mind. Said she couldn’t. Wouldn’t tell me why.’
‘Marie. I don’t fucking believe you.’
Her mouth flattens and she folds her arms. ‘You saw his text. I just wanted her to be safe.’
‘It didn’t work, though, did it? Your genius plan. So why the hell did you think the same threats would work on me?’
She smiles again. It’s a bad smile, maybe even a mad smile. It pulls taut her scarred skin. Turns her eyes sly. ‘The cards weren’t for you.’
‘What?’
‘They were for him. I wanted Ross to know that someone knew. That he’d killed her. That he’d probably kill you.’
I remember Rafiq’s the cards never explicitly threatened El’s life – or yours. If anything, Ross was the target.
‘Do you know how insane that—’
‘Abuse fears only exposure.’ She shrugs. When she gets up and starts coming towards me, I back up the hall towards the open door.
‘Have you done anything else?’
‘Que veux-tu—’
‘Have you been following me? Watching me? Have you done anything, do you know anything – anything – else?’
The look she gives me is confused. ‘Non. What—’
‘I don’t believe you.’
Her expression clears. ‘I lied only about my name and where I came from. Never once have I lied to you about anything else.’
I recoil as she reaches towards me, and only barely resist slapping her hand away. ‘He is not abusing me.’
She drops her hands to her sides. ‘Yet.’
‘I’m sorry for whatever happened to you.’ My voice wavers, and I turn around, step back down onto the path. If I don’t get away from her, I know I’m going to say something I’ll regret. ‘But you’re the one who needs help, Marie. Leave me alone. Leave us alone. Or I’ll tell the police what you’ve done. And that’s not a threat. That’s a promise.’