The Ice Cream Girls by Dorothy Koomson
‘We both felt responsible. He was beating you up and neither of us noticed.’
‘I was very good at hiding it,’ I stated. Because that’s what you do in those situations: you hide it.
‘That’s exactly it, Serena – you weren’t. You became so secretive, hiding things, when you’d never been like that. We should have noticed that you’d changed, that you weren’t being as open and relaxed as you usually were.’
‘But we didn’t.’
‘We just accepted all those excuses you had for how you got hurt.’
‘When I found out, I wanted to hurt him for what he’d done to you.’
‘Really hurt him. I mean, really hurt him.’
‘But I couldn’t. We couldn’t. And I suppose I started to believe that you’d have been justified if you did do it.’
‘It would make it all seem better somehow. That you didn’t just take all those beatings and let him get away with it.’
‘And it became part of my way of handling the situation. Believing you did it to defend yourself, to make it all stop, made me feel as if I had done something.’
‘And that I’d protected you when you needed me to.’
‘But we were angry with you as well – for making us feel like that. For making us genuinely think at any point that murder is the answer. When it isn’t.’
‘And we were angry with you for lying to us. For keeping things from us.’
‘One way to deal with that anger, and the guilt of feeling that anger towards you when you’d obviously been the victim, was to believe you’d done it.’
‘So, over the years, it became a reality. That you’d killed him. When, really, the crime we were punishing you for was lying to us. Because when Evan asked me that, my instinctive answer was “I don’t think she is”.’
‘Me too. We both know you could never kill someone on purpose. You could never murder someone.’
They pause, the one-person conversation staged by two people takes a hiatus, and they both stare at me. I stare at them.
‘You thought I was guilty all this time,’ I eventually say. ‘You and Mum and Dad. All this time.’
‘Not Mum,’ Medina says. ‘She’s always believed you were innocent. Always. She’s never had a moment’s doubt. She said she would understand why you’d be pushed to it but you never could.’
That eases the pain a little. Knowing that means I have not lost all my family because of him.
‘The hardest bit is knowing that all this time you’ve thought I was a liar,’ I tell them. ‘I thought you believed me and even if you hadn’t, if you’d said so, I could handle it. But you’ve resented me for all these years and I had no idea.’ The emotion rushes to my face, to my eyes, to every nerve ending in my body. I want to be strong and firm and indignant. I want to show them that I am capable of existing without their approval. ‘All these years, all the things you’ve both said, the arguments you’ve had with me and each other, it’s all because you thought I was . . . That’s what hurts. You hated me for lying but you did the exact same thing to me all these years. For longer.’
‘I never hated you,’ Medina says, almost knocking over her chair to come to me. Even though I stiffen in her hold, she throws her arms around me and squeezes, resting her head on my chest. ‘I never hated you.’
Faye is slower off the mark because, in general, she is more reserved. But she throws her arms around me and Medina, then rests her head on my shoulder. ‘I never hated you, either.’
‘Even if you had done it, we could never hate you.’
‘You’re our sister, we could never hate you.’
‘It was about us, how the situation made us feel. We weren’t really thinking about you.’
I wipe angrily at my tears. Some indignant, hurt woman I turned out to be. At my big moment, when I am called upon to make a damning speech about family loyalty and standing by each other and being honest at all costs, I turn to mush. I cry. ‘Tell me something,’ I ask. ‘Did you believe the stuff that was written about me? In the papers. Did you believe it? Even for a minute?’
‘No,’ they both say at the same time. They’re lying, of course. It was so persuasive, so pervasive, I started to believe it. I started to believe I was a vixen who seduced an innocent teacher and, together with my lover, tormented and toyed with him for weeks, months and years before we finally got together and tortured then killed him.
‘You’re lying to me again.’
‘No, we’re not,’ Faye says.
‘Sez, if we believed the stuff that was written, how could we then be so angry that you didn’t tell us you’d been abused by that man?’
‘Either we believed you were a cold-blooded killer or we believed you were his victim.’
‘It would be oxymoronious to believe both things.’
‘It would be what?!’ Faye and I ask together.
Mez throws her hands up in the air. ‘Don’t start on me. We’re meant to be sorting out our relationship, we’re not going on about my use of words.’
‘Or non-words,’ Faye says.
‘I said don’t start on me.’
She moves back towards me, bringing the warmth and soft, cushiony comfort of her body. ‘I’m sorry,’ Mez says.
‘I’m sorry as well,’ Fez says.
‘So am I,’ I said. ‘I wanted to tell you. I just couldn’t. First of all I couldn’t because I thought it would be OK, and then because I was scared. I knew if I talked about it, he’d come and get me. There were so many times I thought it would be OK. Those were the times when he was sweet to me, told me he loved me. And I thought I could make it OK if I did everything he wanted, exactly how he wanted it. And it never was. I’m sorry I kept it from you. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t say sorry,’ Medina says.
‘Never say sorry. Not for that. Not for being too scared to leave,’ Faye says.
‘None of us know what we’d do in that situation. Especially when you’re fifteen.’
‘None of us,’ Faye echoes.
I move my arms to encompass them, to hold them closer to me.
‘We’re going to be OK,’ one of us says. ‘We’re going to be OK.’
‘What’s all this?’ Evan asks of the items spread out on the table in front of me. Medina has left all her wedding-related paraphernalia and will return very soon to get on with it. She is planning on working through the night to get it done, especially now that Adrian is helping out more.
‘Wedding stuff.’
Evan comes over from the fridge, where he’s grabbed the milk and is downing the last of the carton. I decide to pretend I didn’t see him do that. He picks up a bottle of the wine that Faye left in her hamper. ‘Wine?’ He examines the label and his eyebrows shoot up and he gives a long, low whistle. ‘You know how much this stuff costs a bottle?’
‘No idea,’ I reply.
‘About too-much-pound-fifty.’
‘Faye wants to give it to us as a present. Medina’s going to virtually kill herself to get the dress done. She’s paying for the material as well. And to get my shoes made to match.’
‘Ahh, the Witches of Ipswich are back together. I’m glad.’
‘Thanks to you,’ I say to him.
‘Now, what would my life be like without the witches?’ he says, dropping a kiss on my nose. ‘I’m glad it’s all sorted with you three. I didn’t like to see you so unhappy.’
‘It’s not completely sorted. It’ll take more than a chat and a bottle of wine to undo twenty years of pain and resentment, but we’ll get there. That’s what families do, isn’t it?’ I run my hands over Medina’s books and magazines, as well as the big file that I’d started and compiled. It is bursting with pages and coloured section dividers and magazine tears and vital info. ‘You know, I’ve been thinking,’ I say.
‘Ah, but have you been reading the streets?’
I roll my eyes but don’t comment. ‘I was thinking, this –’ I indicate to the wedding in front of me, ‘this isn’t real
‘Private and low-key.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I’ve been thinking that, too. But I thought you wanted this.’
‘What I really wanted was the proposal, I got that.’
‘So you don’t want to get married again?’
‘Yes and no. Not like this, I suppose is the real answer. And we could do so much with that money.’
‘Yeah, we could.’
‘I knew saying that would speak to the real you,’ I say.
‘I’ve got an idea.’
‘What’s that then?’
‘I can’t tell you, but I want you to trust me. We cancel all this and I put my idea into motion, what do you say?’
‘I say, if you decide we’re going to use the money to buy you a flash car, you’ll find yourself a very unhappy man. Very unhappy.’
‘Trust me, sweetheart. Trust me.’
‘Can I just emphasise the very of the “very unhappy”.’
‘Trust me.’ He flashes me his crooked grin. I love this man. I’m amazed that I can forget that sometimes. That in the everydayness of everything, I can forget to remember that I love him. And I love the family we’ve made. I almost let all of that go – I almost allowed my guilt to let him walk out. A shudder runs through me. Never again.
‘Here we go,’ I say, hefting up the file into his arms.
‘What’s all this?’
‘The wedding you need to cancel. I totally trust you to do that. Have fun, I’m off to pick up Con.’
His face is crumpled in dismay as he stares at the file in his arms. ‘This isn’t fair, you know,’ he calls at me as I go to find my car keys.
‘Oh, yeah, speaking of fair,’ I call over my shoulder, ‘don’t forget to call Mez and tell her I won’t be needing the wedding dress.’
‘Ahhhh, man! She’s your sister.’
‘And you, apparently, are the wedding canceller. It’s in the job description. Right up there with, “gets to decide what we do with the money”.’
‘This still isn’t fair,’ he shouts, as I open the front door. ‘It’s not fair at all.’
I love you, I tell him in my head.
serena
Ange is leaving her house as I drive past and I see that she is moving stiffly, awkwardly, as though she is in pain. As though every tiny bump that is walking is causing her agony.
I hit the indicator and pull over. I get out of my car and barely remember to lock it behind me as I run to cross the road. If I think too much, I won’t be able to do this. I won’t be able to give her the chance to change her life. Maybe if someone had done this for me, he would still be alive. And I would not have been living with all this guilt for all these years. Maybe I would have been able to escape.
‘Ange,’ I call to her as she heads for her big posh car.
She stops and looks up at me, confusion in her eyes and fear on her face as she glances around. Scared that someone will see us together. Scared of what will happen if he finds out she was talking to someone.
‘Ange,’ I say, standing in front of her. She looks thinner, paler, too much make-up piled on to hide the bruises, her hair too straight and pulled too far forward to hide the marks on her neck. ‘I know you’re scared,’ I tell her.
‘Scared? Of what?’ She almost convinces me that I am delusional, that she isn’t constantly on edge, she isn’t constantly chasing that perfect, impossible equilibrium that will keep him happy and stop him from erupting.
‘I know you’re scared and I understand. I’ve been where you are. Except I didn’t have kids who had to watch me get beaten up. But I want to tell you my story so that, hopefully, you can get out before things end for you the way they did for me.’
‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Ange says.
‘He ended up dead, you see,’ I say. ‘He tried to kill me and because I fought back, he ended up dead. I wish I had found the strength to walk – run, actually – away from him before it came to that. But I didn’t. And because I didn’t, he ended up dead. And if it hadn’t been him, it would have been me. He told me often enough he was going to do it and, that night, I believe he would have.’
Ange is stilled now. She is no longer searching for spying eyes that are going to tell on her, she is staring at me. Something has hit a chord. Something has resonated so closely with her, she knows that I do understand. I really was where she is.
‘Do you want me to tell you?’ I ask.
She gives a brief, stiff nod of her head.
I inhale, drawing strength from the fact I’ve told this story once now. The second should be easier. The second time should remind me I have finally escaped him. I am not protecting him any more and because of that, because I can tell the story again to a complete stranger, I have begun to bury him for good. ‘I thought I loved him. And I thought it was my fault he was so angry. His name . . . his name was Marcus . . .’
poppy
‘Of all the cemeteries in all the world, we had to meet in this one,’ I say to her.
I’d know her shape, her outline, anywhere. And after I walked around and around looking for the right place, the right plot, I’d been only a little surprised to find her here. It is, after all, where this story ends. Where our story ends.
Her whole body became uptight and rigid when she heard my voice and, when I come to stand next to her, her profile is tense from her clenched jaw and her eyes are staring hard at the earth in front of her.
‘Are you still following me?’ she asks.
‘No, Serena, I am not still following you.’
And I’m not going to follow her any longer. I’ve come to realise that even if I was cleared, vindicated, there would always be people who would still think I was guilty. And if not guilty of murder, culpable in its execution. And the two people who I would be doing it for, the two people who I would want more than anything to think me innocent – Mum and Dad – would still think I was guilty. They will always think I’m guilty – because I was there. Because I wasn’t the perfect little girl they thought I was. That was a hard pill of reality to swallow but, now that I’ve swallowed it, I realise that I can stop. I can stop this, and start again.
‘So how come you’re here at the exact same time as me?’ she asks.
‘Because I had the exact same need to come here and lay his ghost to rest at the exact same time as you?’ I reply.
Her body relaxes a little as she says, ‘That wouldn’t surprise me.’
‘It’s weird, isn’t it? How we keep doing the same thing at the same time? We finished with him at the same time, we went to the police at the same time. We’re clearly so basically similar, it’s strange that we were never friends.’
She turns her head to face me, incredulity on her face. ‘We were never friends because you were sleeping with my boyfriend,’ she reminds me.
‘Oh, yeah,’ I say. ‘I suppose that would put the mockers on most friendships, wouldn’t it?’
‘Just a bit.’
We stand in silence for a while, staring at the patch of green in a stone plot in front of us. The grass is slightly overgrown, but is not unkempt; I suspect it is cared for by the cemetery, not by anyone else. There are no flowers. The inscription is simple:
Marcus Halnsley
Devoted father
I wonder if his son ever visits, or if he tries to hang on to memories of his father in other ways. I wonder if anyone visits? Over the years, I got about six letters from other girls – just like me, just like Serena – who said they knew what he was like, they had also fallen for him at a young age, and he had brutalised them, too. They got out, they said, but if they hadn’t, they might have had to do what I did.
I threw those letters away because I did not do it but, thinking about them now, I wonder if any of those girls came to visit? Came to lay his ghost to rest.
‘Do you miss him?’ Serena asks.
‘I’m just interested to see if you do,’ she adds to my silence.
‘I do sometimes. And it freaks me out. Even now, I’ll see something or hear something and I’ll think, I have to tell him, and then I’ll catch myself and what I’m doing.’
Marcus has been haunting me for years or, rather, I’ve been revisiting all my mistakes, all the dark, scary places of my personality through him for years. So I don’t miss nasty Marcus, he has been with me all the time, but do I miss the other Marcus? The one I fell in love with?
‘I used to miss him a lot at first, after it happened. That freaked me out. Because sometimes, in my mind, it was like he wasn’t how he was. All I could remember were the good things about him. How sweet he could be, the special little presents he’d buy, those paper boats he’d make, and the way he’d be so excited when he was helping me to study. I’d miss that. I’d crave that again.’
‘That’s the worst part of missing him, I think,’ she says. ‘I kind of remember those things, but then I don’t. I remember the presents and the help with studying, but in a haze, really. I’m still trying to work out why it took me so long to walk away.’
‘Because you didn’t know any better,’ I say to her. ‘Neither of us did.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘And that’s why I can sort of understand why you did it – you thought you had no choice. When you’re in that situation, it’s hard to see a way out. I do understand. I have been there, literally.’
She turns fully to me, faces me square-on. ‘Poppy, I’m only going to say this one more time. I didn’t do it. There, I’ve said it. Never to be repeated. If you don’t believe me, there’s nothing I can do.’
Memory loss. That’s the only explanation. She told me herself that she has it sometimes, she’s had it since she was with him and needed a way to cope, so I believe her when she says she didn’t do it – because she genuinely doesn’t remember doing it. Doing something like that is so hideous, so gruesome, your mind wouldn’t have any choice but to erase it from both long-and short-term memory. That’s why she sounds so convincing, why she believes she is innocent: she doesn’t remember doing it. It had to have been her.