Meggie and I hadn't said too much to each other after our bust-up the afternoon before. Now we were both tiptoeing around each other like we were walking on crisp packets. But she had no right to tell me how to live my life.
I lay on my bed with you on my chest, Callie, and I was reading to you. I wanted you to love books as much as Callum and I did.
When the doorbell rang, I decided to let Meggie get it.
'Sephy, it's for you,' Meggie called upstairs.
Two visitors in two days. What on earth was going on? I put the book down and, holding you to me, got to my feet. We went downstairs. It was some man I'd never seen before. A Cross, middle-aged, greying at the temples with a neat, pencil-thin moustache adding a distinguished air to his face. He was good-looking for an older man. The sort of man my mother would admire. He watched me as I walked down the stairs. If he was another journalist, he'd soon be bouncing down the road so fast, he wouldn't stop moving until the day after tomorrow.
'Yes?' I said coldly. 'Can I help you?'
'Persephone Hadley?'
'That's right,' I replied.
'My name is Jack. Jack Labinjah.'
I waited for him to continue. Meggie stood hovering in the background, for which I was grateful. She'd had a bellyful of journalists knocking on her door as well.
'I'm a prison guard,' Jack continued. 'I was with Callum on his last day.'
My blood turned to liquid nitrogen in my veins, freezing every bit of me. I couldn't breathe. A single breath would have had my body crumbling.
'You were with Callum..?' My voice, when it finally arrived, was barely above a whisper.
Jack nodded. 'I'm sorry to trouble you, but it's taken me this long to find you. In fact I only managed to track you down because of the birth announcement you put in the paper.'
'Why did you want to find me?' I asked.
'Callum wrote you a letter. He made me promise to deliver it,' said Jack slowly. 'He wrote more than one to you actually, but he didn't want you to have the others. He threw them away. This is the one he wanted you to have.'
And in Jack's hand, an envelope with my name on the front – Sephy – written in Callum's bold, slanting handwriting. My hand automatically reached out for it. And the moment I touched it, it felt like Callum was there, standing next to me or watching over my shoulder. No, it was more than that. Stronger than that. It was like Callum was moving around me and through me and I could feel him and smell him and hear his voice whispering in my ear. My legs were turning to water. Meggie rushed forward just as Jack stepped forward to tuck a helping hand under my elbow. Meggie took Callie away from my unresisting hands. I sat down on the stairs, staring at Jack.
'You were with my son? On his last day? You were with him?' asked Meggie.
'I was with him every day until his last day. We became good friends,' said Jack.
'What did he say? What did he do? What was he like? Did he talk about me at all?' The questions tumbled out with a hundred more right behind them.
'He didn't talk about anything else but you.' Jack smiled at me, his smile fading as he looked down at the envelope in my hand.
I couldn't speak. I wouldn't've been able to say a word then, if my very life had depended on it. This man had shared Callum's last few days. He had something I could only dream of. I'd tried so hard to see Callum when he was in prison but I had never got further than the prison gate.
'Tell me why I could never get in to see Callum. Please tell me,' I pleaded.
Jack began to shake his head, but I wasn't going to take no for an answer.
'You must know. You were with him. You worked in that awful place. Why couldn't I see him?' I begged.
'Orders came from high up that you weren't to be allowed to see Callum under any circumstances,' Jack said at last.
'Orders from who? The prison governor?' asked Meggie sharply.
'Higher than that,' said Jack softly, looking straight at me.
'It was my dad, wasn't it?' It might've sounded like a question, but it wasn't. I knew.
'Let's all go into the living room,' said Meggie. 'Then we can discuss this properly.'
'I can't.' Jack shook his head. 'If it gets found out that I was here, I could lose my job. Like I said, I wouldn't've come but Callum made me promise. I didn't want to deliver that thing.'
'Why not?' asked Meggie sharply.
Jack didn't reply.
'You've read it, haven't you?' said Meggie.
'Yes,' said Jack unapologetically. 'In my job, I can't be too careful. I needed to see just what I was getting myself into.'
'I see,' Meggie said icily.
'And I'm sorry I ever agreed to get involved. I'd rather cut off my hand than deliver something like that but—'
'But you promised.' Meggie finished the sentence for him. It was a well-worn refrain by now. 'What does that letter say?'
Jack shook his head. Callum's letter lay, if not forgotten, then dormant in my hand. Jack had been with my Callum. At this moment, that was more important.
'Did Callum know that I tried to see him?' I asked.
'Yes. I told him,' said Jack.
'Did he... did he know how much..?' I shook my head. I was going to ask, did Callum know how much I loved him? But how could Jack answer that? Jack didn't know me. I didn't know him.
'All I can tell you,' said Jack, 'is that Callum never stopped talking about you. You were the most important person in his life. You need to remember that.'
'Sephy, I think you'd better give me that letter,' said Meggie.
I pulled my hand away from her, hugging Callum's letter to me.
'NO!' I exclaimed. 'It's mine. It's the last thing I have of Callum's. I'm going to hold onto it and treasure it and no one else is going to get it. It's mine.'
'I have to go.' Jack was already heading for the door. He turned back to me once the front door was open.
'Miss Hadley, I... I'm sorry.' And then he was gone.
I wondered why he was apologizing. Didn't he realize he'd given me so much? In my hands I had a gift I'd never dreamed of. A letter from Callum. The last letter he'd ever written – and it was to me.
I was actually trembling as I opened the envelope. It wasn't sealed, the flap was just tucked in. I took it out and started to read, devouring each word, gobbling up every syllable. I read quickly, eagerly at first but I got slower and slower as each word pierced my flesh like a shark's tooth. As I got to the end, the letter fell from my hands. I turned slowly to Meggie, looking at Callie Rose wriggling in her arms.
Our daughter.
My daughter.
I put out my arms to take Callie from Meggie. She handed her over without a word. I sat on the third step and stared down at my daughter. Meggie picked up Callum's letter.
'Don't read it...' I whispered.
Without another word to me, Meggie began to read it out loud. I didn't want her to, but my voice had now gone completely. My thoughts had gone. My skin had gone, to be replaced with the one I was wearing now, made from needles and pins and thorns, all pointing inwards.
Sephy,
I'm writing this to you because I want you to know the way things really are. I don't want you to spend the rest of your life believing a lie.
I don't love you. I never did. You were just an assignment to me. A way for all of us in my cell of the Liberation Militia to get money – a lot of money from your dad. And as for the sex – well, you were available and I had nothing better to do,
Maggie's voice began to falter but she carried on reading.
You should've seen yourself, lapping up every word of that nonsense I spouted about loving you and living for only you and being too scared to say it before. I don't know how I stopped myself from laughing out loud as you bought all that rubbish. As if I could love someone like you – a Cross and, worse than that, the daughter of one of our worst enemies. Having sex with you was just my way of getting back at your dad for being a bastard and your mum for looking down her nose at me all those years. And now you're pregnant.
Well, I'm ecstatic. Now the whole world will know you're having my child, the child of a blanker. That if nothing else is worth dying for. Whether you come to my hanging or not, I'm going to announce to the world that you're having my child. MINE. Even if you do get rid of our child, everyone will still know.
But no one will know how much I despise you. I loathe the very thought of you and now when I think about all the things we did when we were alone in the cabin, I feel physically sick. To think I actually kissed you, licked you, touched you, joined my body with yours. I had to think of my other lovers the entire time to stop myself from pulling away from you in disgust. God knows, I'm disgusted with myself but the object of the exercise was your total humiliation – and at least I can console myself with the knowledge that that's what I've achieved. Did you really in your wildest dreams believe that I could love someone like you? You've got more ego than any fifty people I know. And you've got absolutely nothing to be egotistical about.
I've told Jack to deliver this to you only if and when you have our child. I can imagine your face now as you read this and at least that gives me comfort as I wait to die. Once you've had our child and you've read this, no doubt you'll hate me just as much as I hate you. But just remember, I had you first. Go ahead and try to forget about me. And while you're forgetting, you can do something else. Never tell our child about me. I don't want him or her to know who I am or how I died or anything about me. I don't want you to mention my name ever again. That shouldn't be so hard after all the things I've told you in this letter. All the true things. You're probably so conceited that you're telling yourself what I'm saying in this letter isn't true. That I'm only saying this so you'll move on with your life, but I never for a second doubted you 'd do that anyway.
I won't tell you to take care of yourself. You're a Cross who was born with a jewel-encrusted, platinum spoon in your mouth and even if you don't take care of yourself, others will do it for you.
Forget about me.
I've already forgotten about you.
Callum
ORANGE
Wounds Grief Evening Sunlight Dying Down Setting Sun Pus Weeping, Wailing, Sobbing Curses Aches and Pains Spinning, Dizziness Torrents Burning Shrill Acid Orange just orange just orange just orange just orange just orange
THE DAILY SHOUTER Monday 19th July Page 5
