Amy’s face flared, red blotches staining on her cheeks. ‘You call me irresponsible? Perhaps if you hadn’t spun so many tales when we were kids, dad would have been allowed to see us.’
Anger rose in every cell of Jennifer’s body. Her sister may as well have slapped her in the face. Her fists curled as the heat spread from her fingertips to the flush in her throat.
‘Told tales? Told tales? I knew you were living in a dreamland, but you really don’t have a clue! Don’t you remember his three-day benders? Or the days I had to get you ready for school, while he was still wearing his vomit from the night before? Or what about the times his scummy friends tried to come into our bedroom while our precious dad was comatose on the sofa downstairs?’
Amy’s eyes darted around the room at the sight of her sister so incensed. ‘I knew you’d blow your top,’ she glowered, her words trailing behind her as she slipped her feet into her shoes in the hall. ‘Why do you think I didn’t want tea? I knew I’d be fucking wearing it.’
The front door slammed in her wake, and Jennifer let her go. She should have been shocked to hear her homely sister swear, but she was lost in the pain of her betrayal. With shaking hands she rummaged in her bag for anti-bacterial gel, her fury overtaking her as she fiddled with the cap. The memory of her father flashed before her, his breath tainted with the sour smell of beer and cigarettes.
She fumbled with the lid, feeling as if she was going to explode. ‘Argh!’ Releasing a scream, she sent the plastic bottle rebounding against the wooden floor, skidding to a halt at her front door. Her legs weakening, Jennifer plopped heavily onto the stairs. The thought of her father being welcomed into the fold while she was kept at arm’s length was more than she could bear. The betrayal in her sister’s words hit hard, and she guessed what happened to make Amy turn on her so savagely. Her sister had always been a daddy’s girl, and would believe anything if it softened her vision of days gone by. Her father was the master of denial, and lies came as easily to him as breathing. It would not have taken long for him to weave a new fabric of the past. One that involved him being the misunderstood father, grieving for his dead wife while his eldest daughter schemed against him. It was a romantic notion that would fit into the well-stacked bookshelf in Amy’s bedroom.
Jennifer threaded her fingers through her hair as she took stock. Her argument with Amy would soon blow over, but the words would not be forgotten. She felt a pang in her chest as she thought of her mother. If she were alive, she would stand up for Jennifer, and tell Amy to see sense. It seemed so unfair, that she would lose her mother at such a young age, especially when she had so much to cope with. Jennifer stared at the front door, wishing she could erase the last twenty minutes from her life. She would have to weather the storm, allow Amy to meet her father, then be waiting in the sidelines when he let her down all over again. But as Jennifer took the stairs to get ready for work, she knew things may never be the same again.
Chapter Fifteen
Bert
As Bert pushed through the fire exit doors of the hospital, he was resolute. Every step he took from the looming grey building helped clear the fog of confusion in his brain. Time did not travel in a straight line. For him it was curved, a free flow of squiggles, returning to the past, and occasionally darting to places he had long since forgotten. Some places were a dead end. Routine served to confuse him further, and slinking away unnoticed from his hospital bed was the safest thing to do. The feeling of incarceration was not unfamiliar, and not something his jumbled mind wanted to explore. But he was clear about one thing. He had to set things right. He had interfered with a prediction, and that was interfering with time itself.
The blue dress woman was named Emily Clarke. It was neatly printed on the bills piling up behind the narrow door of her two-bedroom bungalow. Gaining access through the bedroom window was easy. When the cards directed him, anything was possible. It was a sign he was on the right path, and as he scooted under the unmade double bed, his conviction grew strong. Emily was out thieving again, shoving food into her child’s pushchair as she strode through the aisles of the local One Stop, the only supermarket not to have installed CCTV. High-value items like batteries or meat could be traded for a drink and a packet of cigarettes if she was lucky. The extra few quid would help take the edge off when the bills mounted, bold red letters demanding her attention. All she wanted was a nice man, but she was not going to meet him down the Spread Eagle public house, where sawdust lined the floor and the landlord turned a blind eye. Bert had seen it all in the cards. Even if she had survived the prediction, she was destined to hook up with abusers who would shred her of every last ounce of dignity. And who would suffer? The poor kid with the haunted eyes. He was doing her a favour and saving the child a lifetime of pain. He would deliver a quick death for her sins. It seemed a fair exchange that her expiring life would replenish his.
His musings were cut short as the front door rattled open, rebounding off the front tyre of the pushchair as it squeezed through the narrow hall. Bert’s breathing grew shallow in the confines of her streetlit tumbledown room. His vision was blinkered by his narrow viewpoint, and for a fraction of a second he forgot where he was. His mind had wandered again, but returned as quickly as it left. He turned his head to the sliver of light under the bedroom door, watching the shadow of Emily’s footsteps pace back and forth, unburdening the pushchair her son had long since grown out of. A long-legged spider scuttled across the dusty bedroom carpet. Bert was not afraid of spiders, he had spent long hours with the creatures of the leafy forest floor. Thoughts of the forest enforced his determination further, and any doubts about killing Emily evaporated as he heard her telling the child to go to bed and not to answer the door to anyone. Minutes later, her instruction was followed by the front door slamming, then a rattling of keys on the other side.
The little boy pottered around the flat for a while, and the muffled sound of the television carried through the crack in the door. The bedside clock ticked incessantly as seconds and minutes dragged by. The television abruptly silenced, and Bert felt his heart freeze in his chest as the little boy entered the bedroom. He held his breath as the child’s bare feet padded to the bedroom window. Staring out into the darkness, he made little mewing sobs for his mummy. It felt like a well-practised routine. Anger ignited inside Bert, spreading until it reached every fibre of his body. He clenched his fists until his sharp fingernails pierced his woollen gloves into his palms. Dark wings stretched inside him, rising upwards with every hiccupped sob that left the child’s lips. With narrowed eyes, Bert watched the boy leave the room, sniffling and hiccupping. The thin blue striped pyjamas stretched only to the top of his ankles, doing little to protect him from the chill in the air.
The clock ticked onwards, marching to midnight when the streetlights were extinguished, plunging the bedroom into a murky gloom. The council’s money-saving efforts were of great value to him, as it guaranteed him an escape under the cover of darkness. The clatter of the front door announced Emily was home. Bert flexed his fingers and toes, bringing back life to his stiffened limbs.
Emily tiptoed to her son’s room, then returned to her own, swaying slightly as she opened the door, her shadow cast long in the light flooding from the hall. Kicking off her shoes, she stepped out of her denim skirt and left it in a puddle on the floor. The bed bounced as she climbed in, the sagging mattress almost touching Bert’s long nose, and his heartbeat thundered in his ears. As he inhaled the shifting dust, a tickle formed in his throat, and he clamped his gloved hands over his mouth as he fought the urge to cough. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed it back, and he reined in his accelerating breath. He could not afford to mess this up again. Every second seemed like an eternity as he waited, his body spiked with adrenalin to prepare for what lay ahead. Soon the air was filled with soft drunken snores. Gathering his nerve, he rolled out from under the bed. He stood over the sleeping woman, his long black coat encased in a layer of dust. He should not have interfered in the prophecy. He could see that now. He could never move forward until it was done. He summoned all of the darkness from within to assist with the kill, and clenched his fists as he felt the power surge through his body. Releasing the salivating monster, he reached for her tights on the floor.