Chapter one

The soft, worn leather of my mother’s boots thumped along the damp pavement as my brisk walk flowed into a slow jog. The harsh wool of her old coat surrounded and drenched me down to my calves. The sprinkling of rain made a terrestrial sky on the black, fibrous armour, mimicking the stars that the malevolent clouds above me tried to hide.
My hands ached as they would if I were digging through snow. My fingers barely gripped the rustling plastic bag that, at the time, meant my survival for the next few weeks. I felt no guilt about stealing food from my own home; I would have eaten most of it anyway. I thanked God that Mona had done the shopping only the day before. I did feel a churn of guilt deep in my stomach that I had stolen money from her. If it had been my father’s I would have been at ease. I had planned to take my father’s money but he hadn’t left his wallet downstairs as he usually did. I had to make do with Mona’s.
When Mona first came into my life I wanted to hate her. I felt it was duty. She clearly wanted to replace my mother in both my father’s life and my own. This was not some childish delusion. She was indeed desperate to be loved by us as we had loved my mother. I never stopped believing she envied and resented my mother’s memory but I discovered I couldn’t hate her for it. I pitied her. She was pathetically dedicating her life to a man not worth her attention.
She had introduced herself as my “new mummy.” That definitely got my guard up straight away. My father explained that they had met through a friend of his a while ago. I hadn’t heard of her beforehand but they had apparently been a couple for a whole year. I wasn’t all that surprised having doubted my father had been spending his time alone when he went out at night. I was, however, surprised when she showed me the engagement ring. A pink, square cut diamond that floated on her finger, sparkling with contemptuous glee in my face. I remember raising my eyes slowly from her hand to meet her dazzling sky blues, lined with lashes bleeding with mascara. Refusing to lower myself to physical or verbal abuse I simply looked at her. I studied every inch of her face until she was uncomfortable enough to strike up conversation with my father who was distracted by a decanter of whiskey. I saw the youth, the misguided affection, and the pretty features which were dooming themselves to a life that would age them with sorrow. I was only twelve but I knew so many things she didn’t. I knew my father.
Under the ill-chosen foundation, the thick layer of eye shadow and swipe of lipstick I saw she was no threat. She was more vulnerable than me. I could easily keep her out of my way.
As I ran in a coat and boots my dead mother once wore, ignoring the steady crash of metal and flesh as the large hollow locket my grandmother left me tried to tear itself free after each step. I turned fifteen. My watch gave one sole congratulatory beep in honour of midnight and the beginning of the most memorable birthday of my life.
I was ten when my mother died. Lung cancer caused her to deteriorate in front me. I was too young to fully understand what was going on. What I did know was that my mother suffered more than I can ever know; she had smiled for me every time I saw her despite it all. What I did know was that she died unexpectedly when she had seemed to be recovering. What I did know was that she should have been buried, surrounded by her typical waist-length, mahogany waves that I had known as a small child. Instead she was shaven for the chemotherapy. She looked like a wax figure. Silent, still and life-like but totally inanimate. It was only when I saw her coffin descend into the mouth of the earth, reclaiming its most beautiful creation that I cried and accepted that she wasn’t coming back.
My father had developed a drinking problem when my mother was diagnosed with cancer. I still don’t know when exactly that was. He had earlier become quite emotionally detached from my mother. He never had any affairs but I maintain that was more due to lack of opportunity rather than love or respect. I’ll explain I use the word “mother” out of respect; honouring a dead woman I haven’t known for years and to spare my heart strings from being torn by remembering old love. I use the word “father” because the man who paid for my rearing is nothing more to me than my biological origins and the financial benefactor of my adolescence. My mother paid for my childhood with her money, pain, tears and life.
By the time I had made it to the far side of the park I was drenched. It was a quarter to one. I had been out for just over an hour. I slowed down as I passed the colossal gates, admiring the iron ivy leaves that twisted in a tangled yet definite pattern across the wide chest of the bars. And I remembered the first day I met Simon.