Page 96 of The Perfect Son
ES: Yes.
TC: So you know then.
ES: Why don’t you take a look?
TC: Fine.
ES: Tell me what you see.
TC:I see it all. Don’t you? Look, here are the dates and times of the threatening calls, the times I was followed by Richard Welkin, although that’s not part of it. The clues are all here. Ian snooping in the house and all of his lies. And look, here’s Shelley’s pages. She was desperate to replace Dylan. She told me so many times how she wanted to be a mother again. She separatedfrom her husband. She drugged me so she could have Jamie to herself and pretend he was hers. All this time she made out like I was the one who was struggling to cope, and maybe I was, but so was she. She wanted to take Jamie away from me. And both of them trying to make out like I’m crazy, like I need help.
(KNOCK AT DOOR)
ES: Excuse me.
SESSION PAUSED.
SESSION CONTINUED.
TC: Was that Shelley at the door?
ES: Shelley has been helping the police to answer some questions they have about you and this notebook.
TC: She’s working with him. Can’t you see that she wants to take Jamie away from me?
ES: The reason Shelley knocked on the door just now was to tell me your mother has arrived. Are you happy to see your mother now, Tess? I think it would help you to have her here for the next part of our session.
TC: I guess.
TC: What do you mean “session”?
CHAPTER 62
Wednesday, April 11
Iflick through the pages and stare at the scratches of black pen. Every single lined page is scribbled and scrawled on. Front and back. There are holes in the corners and in the middle, with ink blotched around the edges where the pen has torn through the page, but it’s all there and now that I’m staring at everything that has happened to me, to Jamie too, I can’t believe I didn’t act on it. I should’ve gone to the police straightaway. The minute I heard that first answerphone message, I should’ve taken Jamie out of school and gone to stay with my mum like she suggested.
I told myself I stayed for Jamie because he was happy in the house and at school. But he wasn’t happy. He was quiet. He barely said a word when I was in the same room as him. No, I didn’t stay for Jamie, I stayed for me, because being in that house made me feel close to you, and because I had Shelley there, pulling me back from the depths of my grief.
I have so many answers now. I know Shelley wants Jamie. I know it was Richard following me—all those hang-ups scaring me—andI’m quite sure the voice on the phone was a trick by Ian and Shelley to keep me feeling vulnerable and needing them.
But the only question that matters now, and the one I don’t have the answer to, is where is Jamie?
The lines of writing blur before my eyes. I can’t think straight. My head hurts and the inside of my mouth feels fuzzy. The pain in my stomach is a dull throbbing that pulses outward. I shift in my chair and wince at the sharp stab of pain now slicing through me.
There’s movement outside. A shuffling of feet and the thump thump of a walking stick on hard floor. There is a porthole window in the door and I can see Sadler’s large frame blocking the window. Why aren’t they coming in? What is he saying to my mum? My cheeks burn red and I pull at the scratchy fabric of my hospital nightie and the dressing gown wrapped around it.
There’s a window beside the door with blinds shut tight. The blinds are gray venetian and seem to be trapped between two panes of glass. There is no string dangling down, just a switch to press. It seems like an overly complicated system for a hospital room. My eyes travel around the rest of the room as if I’m seeing it for the first time.
There is a low pine coffee table, boxed in by a sofa on one side and two armchairs facing each other. There are no shelves or pictures. The walls are painted an off white and someone has gone to the trouble of stenciling a rich green vine across one wall. There are pastel-colored flowers dotted on the vine. It’s pretty, but again seems an extravagant choice for a public hospital.
I trudge back over the blur of memories from the last few days. Jamie’s birthday was on Sunday. What day is it now—Monday? Tuesday? Time has lost all meaning.
There was the day I woke up after surgery on the ward with theIrish nurse. I try to remember the name of the ward, but all I can remember is the smell of boiled vegetables at mealtimes and the incessant beep of the machines when the drips ran out.
There was a nurses’ station at the end of the ward and only six beds, I think. There was a woman beside me with a white bandage wrapped around her head. The recovery ward from my surgery, I guess.
I remember being dragged in and out of sleep. In and out, in and out, and I remember asking for more morphine and a young doctor with a stethoscope around her neck telling me I was being weaned off the stronger painkillers.
