Page 42 of Good Bad Girl

Edith

The sound of bells echoes through the old church and makes Edith jump. She only came back to St. Paul’s to collect what she left here yesterday and wait for the rain to stop. Dickens sits next to the church pew, staring up at her and wagging his tail.

“I was just resting my eyes,” Edith says.

The bell ringing comes to an end and she looks around to check that the place is still empty. She’s pleased to see that it is, but also thinks it is such a waste. So many beautiful old churches are abandoned these days. Vacant castles of faith put out to pasture. Surely they could serve more of a purpose in the local community.

“Come on, Dickens. We’ve got lots to do,” she says, sighing and hauling herself out of the ancient wooden pew. “Ladybug must be wondering where we are.”

Edith gathers herself and her things and leaves the church. She dumps the magnifying glass statue in the first street bin she sees, so it will find its way to the nearest landfill. Then they walk across the cobbles back toward the alleyway. Edith finds the keys that thegirl gave her, but there is no need to use them, the door is slightly ajar. There are so many steps to the attic, too many, so she uses the rail to help heave herself to the top, letting Dickens run up ahead. Falling over these days tends to result in a trip to the hospital, so Edith takes her time, watching her own feet so she doesn’t trip over them.

“Oh dear,” she says, seeing that the attic is empty. “This is an unwelcome conundrum.”

All of the papercuts have been removed from the walls except for one. Ladybug is gone and so are her things. Edith checks under the bed and sees that her old pink leather suitcase is still there. She pulls it out, opens it, and is relieved to see that her belongings are inside. She opens a packet of custard creams and eats one.

“What are we going to do now, Dickens?” she asks, staring at the dog. “We can’t go back to the care home and I don’t want to die in jail. I’m too old for this malarkey. Too old and too tired.” Dickens barks and Edith nods. “You’re quite right, it’s time to go home.”

Clio

Clio double locked the front door as soon as she got home. Then she pulled all the curtains and blinds but still feels as though someone is watching her.

She sometimes hears them in the house.

Her daughter and her husband.

She tells herself that it is just her imagination.

It must be. He left her all alone in the world only six months after they lost their baby girl. She’ll never forgive him.

Sometimes you have to fall down to remember how to pick yourself up. Her mother used to say that all the time and Clio used to agree. But fall too far, too hard, too fast and you forget how to climb out of the darkness. Forget to even want to. She needs to keep busy and take her mind off things, so she heads upstairs. Clio removed almost all of the mirrors in the house because she used to see their faces in them. There is one left at the top of the staircase—so that she can check her appearance before appointments with clients—but she avoids looking at herself at all other times. It’s a journey hereyes don’t want to make, scared of what they might see. She is what a life of regrets looks like.

Different people need different ways to cope with difficult issues, any therapist knows that. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to healing, and there are several brands of coping mechanisms, most of which prove unreliable in the long term. Fixing others has always been easier than fixing herself. Clio doesn’t drink, or smoke, or take drugs—other than St. John’s wort from the health food shop and the occasional aspirin—but she is addicted to something. Her collecting room is where she likes to lock herself away when life gets too loud. A sanctuary of sorts. Some people’s secrets are written on their faces, but Clio keeps hers in boxes on bespoke wooden shelves, in a room that used to be a nursery.

She stands there now, admiring the neatness of it all—the stark contrast to the mess of her life. A room of her own where she can control things, keep them safe. This was supposed to be their forever home and in some ways it still is. She will stay here forever and her memories of them mean that they will too.

Nothing about becoming a mother was easy but it was all she ever wanted. It took them two years to get pregnant. She sometimes feared that it would never happen, then once it did, she sometimes wished it never had. She tries to forget the part before the baby arrived. It’s little more than blurred recollections of exhaustion, sickness, anxiety, and an overwhelming fear that she was going to lose another child. Then her little girl was born. Then she lost her anyway.

She was perfect. They were a family. Until they weren’t.

Clio gave her daughter life and all the love she was able to give. She insisted on giving Eleanor her surname too, a decision her husband pretended to be fine with. Clio kept Kennedy, her maiden name when she got married—giving up her name or any part of herself wasn’t something she could comprehend or contemplate—and the baby was part of her. That’s how it felt. Her daughter was a part of herself she had gained and lost at the same time.

This room was once her daughter’s bedroom, but now it’s where she keeps her collection. Clio has over five hundred pairs of trainers. They are all her size, but most of them have never been worn. Some are very rare: genuine collectors’ items. It is a mix of nostalgia and a love of design that drives her passion for them. For a long time after she lost her daughter, opening a box of brand-new trainers was the only thing that brought her joy. A therapist would have a field day but, being one herself, she knows better than to ever talk to anyone about her bad habits.

Clio sits cross-legged like a child on the floor of her collecting room. She takes one of the shoeboxes from the shelf and slowly lifts the lid. Inside is a brand-new pair of Nike Air trainers from the 1980s, a collector’s item worth several thousand pounds. She admires them, then carefully puts them back. If she were to sell just some of these boxes it would solve her financial issues, for a while at least, but she has already lost too many precious things because of her so-called family.

There wasn’t any spare money for nice things when Clio was growing up. Sometimes her mother would make them choose between supper or having the heating on; they couldn’t afford both. So Clio wore cheap plimsolls for PE at school, while all the other girls had fancy Nikes or Adidas or Reeboks. There have been so many things Clio wanted in life: a daughter, a husband, a loving family, a satisfying career—things that, even if she managed to briefly have, she soon lost again. But these boxes of sneakers are something she does have control over. Something she can keep safe, look after, hold whenever she wants to. Her collection is her dirty secret, one she feels deeply ashamed of. But it’s not her only secret. And it isn’t her biggest.

Clio wishes that there was someone she could call. She was always good at making friends but not so good at keeping them. When it happened, she avoided and ignored all of her friends until they stopped getting in touch. She suspects they were relieved; griefcan be contagious. The initial outpouring of support when they lost their child—in the form of cards, flowers, phone calls, casseroles—all stopped in the end. People soon tire of trying to help when they realize that they can’t.

Clio takes another shoebox from the shelf. This one does not contain trainers.

She carefully lifts out the small white photo album that she hid inside it many years ago. The photo on the first page is of Clio in a hospital bed holding her baby daughter. Clio is so young in this picture, so glowing with joy and health that it is almost like looking at a different person. She is smiling and it is the happiest she has ever seen her own face.

The next few pages are all filled with pictures of a baby. Her daughter was the most beautiful creature Clio had ever seen, they took photos of her everywhere. She smiles now at the tiny freckles on her daughter’s tiny nose. Clio always liked to think of them as freckles even though the doctor said that was not what they were. He said they were tiny birthmarks. She didn’t like the sound of that, or anything else that suggested there was something wrong with her perfect baby. Seeing her family reunited in the pages of a photo album reminds her of how happy they were until they weren’t. Her smile fades when she finds the photo she is looking for: her mother, holding the baby for the first time. Clio’s daughter is wrapped in a blanket covered in ladybugs, a gift from Edith, who is beaming at the camera. Clio’s husband persuaded her to reconcile with her mother when their daughter was born. He thought family was important and insisted it was the right thing to do. He was wrong.

He never said that he blamed Clio for what happened, but he did.

It wasn’t her fault, but it took her a long time to believe that.

---