‘Claire. I can’t do it.’
‘Why the hell not?’
‘It’s personal.’ I have to make an effort not to raise my voice.
‘So is this.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean it has to be you. It can’t be anyone else. It wasn’t my idea. It came from … Your name …’ She breaks off, as if she realises she has said too much.
‘Who asked—?’
‘Anyway, you know as well as I do, there is no one else.’
I rack my brains, trying to think of another journo who could take the job. I have to get out of this.
‘You never know, Jonathan. Maybe they got it wrong and Melissa Slade was innocent all along.’
‘Yeah, right,’ I scoff.
‘That would be a great angle,’ Claire continues, as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘She did time when she didn’t do the crime.’
An image bursts into my mind. Melissa Slade, sitting in the dock at Bristol Crown Court. Impassive and cold. I was in that courtroom nearly every day. I didn’t see her shed a single tear. Not once during the whole three weeks of her trial.
‘She was found guilty,’ I argue. ‘She did it.’
I storm out of the Aquarium, only just refraining from slamming the door behind me.
I’ve been seeing someone since I arrived here. A shrink. There’s no stigma attached to it the way there is when you’re on the outside. All the inmates I know have regular appointments with the prison psychiatrist. Anyway, he suggested it might be therapeutic if I wrote down my version of events. I don’t like that term – it sounds as if my version is just one possible account of what happened instead of the truth.
At first, I was reluctant to go through everything again, to relive something that was – and still is – so traumatic. But I’ve decided to give it a go and see if it helps. And although one day someone else may read my story – my son, Callum, perhaps – I’m really writing it for myself, so I can always skip the parts that are too painful.
So, this will be a sort of diary, I suppose, but I don’t intend to write an entry about what’s going on in here every day. Where should I begin? I should focus on the events leading up to my imprisonment. It all started when my daughters, Amber and Ellie, were newborn babies. If I could turn back time – and every single day I wish I could – that’s the moment I would go back to.
January – February 2012
It wasn’t the same when I brought Callum home. Back then, I was on cloud nine. It really was the happiest time of my life, just as everyone tells you it will be. He was a calm baby and this gave me the impression I was getting everything right. To my delight, the pregnancy weight fell off my body in next to no time with a little exercise and no dieting whatsoever. Simon and I continued to see our friends, many of whom had children themselves. My best friend, Jenny, was expecting her first baby, too. Once she was on maternity leave, she popped round nearly every day to see Callum and me and, as she put it, “learn the ropes”.
I would spend several minutes a day just watching Callum sleep, marvelling at how perfect he was, this tiny human being that I’d created. I’d devoured at least half a dozen maternity books during my pregnancy, but nothing had prepared me for the tsunami of feelings that hit me with motherhood. Unconditional love like nothing I’d ever known before, but also such intense fear. I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to protect him. He was my responsibility, a huge responsibility. From the instant I brought him into this world, he became my world and I became his. My beautiful baby boy, my life.
With Ellie and Amber, however, it was very different and I didn’t know why. Perhaps it was because Michael wasn’t as supportive and helpful as Simon had been. Or maybe it was due to my age. I was thirteen years older, about to fall into my forties. It might have been because there were two of them. I don’t know.
I remember vividly the first time I realised something was wrong with me. It when I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror above the sofa one afternoon. The woman looking back was unrecognisable. My hair was greasy and lank, my face blotchy and my eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep. It struck me that I’d been wearing my pyjamas for at least three days and nights. The top had baby sick down the front. I couldn’t recall when I’d last taken a shower. I looked awful; I felt awful.
Amber – or maybe it was Ellie – started to scream. It was time for a feed. Instead of going to her, I headed for the bathroom.
‘Your mummy is smelly,’ I threw over my shoulder in a voice that didn’t sound like mine. ‘She needs a shower.’
I took my time, spending several minutes under the hot jet. Afterwards, I sprayed on some deodorant, put on a bit of make-up and dried my hair. Then I got dressed – into a maternity outfit – I couldn’t fit into my normal clothes yet, but at least I felt cleansed.
That feeling didn’t last long. It was quickly replaced by a crushing guilt as I came back into the living room and realised both girls were wailing now. Their racket would have been audible in the bathroom – except for when I was in the shower or when my hairdryer was on – and deafening from the bedroom, directly above, but I must have blocked out their cries.
I went through the motions on automatic pilot, laying them on nursing pillows so I could feed them each with a bottle at the same time, and then changing their nappies one after the other. When they’d calmed down and were strapped into their baby bouncers, I went into the kitchen and made myself breakfast. It was three in the afternoon.
Sitting at the wooden table, I remember glancing up at the clock and noticing it was now half past three. My porridge was still in the bowl, in front of me, untouched. I’d been staring at it. I had no appetite. What had been going through my head for the last half an hour? I had no idea.
It didn’t even occur to me to clean up the mess I’d made in the kitchen. I walked back into the living room, my legs heavy and unwilling, as if they’d been chained together. I looked at the twins. My baby girls. They were perfect. Amber had dark hair, like Michael and his daughter, Bella, and Ellie was fair like Callum and me.
I remembered waking up in a pool of sweat the previous night after a particularly vivid nightmare. In my dream, I’d fallen asleep, a baby in each of my arms, and they were about to fall to the floor. It wasn’t the first time I’d dreamt that. Far from it. It had become a recurring nightmare.
When I thought about the dream, two things occurred to me. Firstly, it reflected my fear that I was a bad mother. But I thought it also proved I cared about my girls. I didn’t want them to come to any harm. I found that reassuring because it meant there couldn’t be anything chemically wrong with me. Could there?
Looking at them jiggling on their rocker chairs, I could see how adorable they were. I just didn’t feel any bond. There was no emotion in me at all. I couldn’t connect. No matter how cute they were, or how much they smiled, the bottom line was I didn’t love my baby girls. Apart from a sort of detached numbness, I didn’t really feel anything.
I tried to discuss this with my husband. ‘Do you think I resent them?’