Page 41 of Cuckoo

‘What necklace?’ I dared ask.

‘You know what necklace.’ Her lips pursed.

I sucked in my cheeks, unsure what to do next, and my fingers twitched in anticipation of an attack. If I asked again, she’d get angrier. If I stayed quiet, she’d start to prod me. I licked my cracked lips.

‘The necklace that David bought me,’ she continued when I couldn’t decide what to do.

My brain started flitting through her roster of men, trying to recall which one was David and if I even knew about any necklace he’d given her.

‘It was gold, and had little butterflies dangling from it,’ she went on.

I looked to the ground. I’d never seen a butterfly necklace.

‘Why are you still sitting there? Help me search for it,’ she ordered.

‘In my room?’ I asked.

‘Yes. I’ve looked everywhere else and can’t find it, so it must be in your room.’

‘It’s not,’ I assured her. That was the wrong thing to say.

‘You stole it, didn’t you?’ She was seething, taking a step into my room. Instinctively, I shrank back, as though with that step she’d crossed an invisible barrier and now that she was in my personal space, I was more vulnerable than before.

‘I didn’t, Mother,’ I said, knowing it would do no good.

‘You’re a filthy little liar, I know you took it! It was so beautiful you nicked it!’ she yelled. Another step towards me.

‘Mother, I really don’t know which necklace you’re talking about,’ I pleaded.

‘Liar!’she shrieked. ‘It would never look right on your chubby little rugby-player neck. You were jealous of how it looked on me so you took it, didn’t you?’

I raised a hand self-consciously to my neck and mentally added it to my list of physical features to be embarrassed about.Maybe I should get some scarves, I thought to myself.

‘I did not take your necklace,’ I tried again. ‘Why would I when you would see it on me if I wore it?’ I reasoned.

There was no point– Mother couldn’t be reasoned with. Not when she was like this.

‘Well, then, you took it to hide away from me, to upset me. You were jealous that a man could like me enough to give me something so lovely and special, when you’ve never even had a boyfriend, let alone a gift from one! So you took it, and you hid it, didn’t you?’ she ranted on, growing more hysterical. Then she began flinging my things everywhere, rooting rapidly through my own pathetic costume jewellery collection before flinging the stand across the room and rifling through my desk drawers, sending things flying as I begged her to stop.

I ran and grabbed her arm at one point, in a moment of madness, trying to prevent her from turning all my desk drawers out onto the floor. She hissed like cat, spun around, and smacked me on the side of my face, with her fist closed. It was the first time she’d punched rather than slapped me.

I barely even registered the pain before she spun back around again and continued her search for the necklace.

Once my room had been turned upside down, with no sign of her precious necklace, she stalked out, wagging a warning finger at me. ‘When I find that necklace, Claire, darling, you’re in for it. Do you hear me, you thieving little cow?’

‘Yes, Mother.’

A week or so later, she found it. I don’t know where, but it was around her neck one morning at breakfast and she looked at me, smirking over her mug of coffee, as though daring meto make a comment. My bruises were a dirty yellow by then. I said, ‘Good morning, Mother,’ and sat down, keeping my eyes averted from those golden butterflies and wishing the chain would tighten around her long, slim throat.

Grosvenor wanted an answer. I couldn’t avoid it. If I closed my eyes tightly, I could see myself at several different stages of my life. Age six, crying in my bedroom, scribbling in a teddy-bear journal ‘I hate Mummy’, my right cheek hot and pink. Fast forward and I’m fifteen, staring into the mirror to study my swollen upper lip, holding an ice cube to it. ‘I remember her hitting me several times,’ I said eventually, with a frown. ‘I remember the moments that followed more clearly than the violence itself.’

Grosvenor nodded, her face betraying no emotion. She’s good at hiding them. Good at remaining distant from me while peeling apart my soul and forcing me to relive traumas and horrors that go far beyond the death of Lilah.

‘This is going to be a rough ride, Claire,’ she warned me.

I waited fordarlingto follow, but it never came.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

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