Free The Cry by Helen Fitzgerald Page B

Chloe doesn’t mention it. Good decision, Chlo,I think.
    They won’t tell me anything other than what I already know. The baby was last seen in the hire car in Point Lonsdale at around 6.50 p.m.
    The male one with the sideburns wants to know about my relationship with Alistair now. I ask Chloe to go and watch television in the sitting room. She rolls her eyes, unhappy to be left out, annoyed that we’re sitting in the kitchen talking when we should be out there searching, but she does as she’s told, skulking off, shutting the door behind her.
    I’m aware I have to be very careful. I’ve been preparing myself to tell this story to strangers for a long time, but I have to be even more careful not to sound like a crazy bitch now. I’m aware that my awareness that I have to be careful may make me sound like a crazy bitch.
    ‘I left Scotland because I didn’t want to lose my daughter,’ I say, not finishing the sentence that’s pounding in my head, which ended with ‘to a narcissistic psychopath’.
    ‘I have only ever wanted to protect my daughter,’ I say, conscious that the aforementioned description wants to attach itself to every sentence and every thought that relates to him. It has wanted to since the first time I wondered whether it defined the man I had married, which was after I discovered the affair. I began to realise that our marriage was all lies, all just smoke and mirrors. In Edinburgh I thought our relationship had flattened because Alistair was working hard and I was homesick. I became paranoid that his lack of attention was due to me being no fun, or unattractive. He didn’t ravish me the way he used to, but I thought the problems were small and normal, nothing we couldn’t work through eventually. We didn’t fight. Things were dull, but comfortable. On reflection, I realise we didn’t care enough to fight, and that things weren’t comfortable at all. According to Phil, Alistair had indulged in other women before Joanna. He’d been deceiving me all along, and I had no clue. What an idiot I was. Is he a narcissistic psychopath? He ticks a lot of the boxes. Or is that just the scorned woman talking?
    ‘What do you want to protect her from?’ the female one with glasses and thin lips asks. And I find another way to explain. ‘From losing me, her mother,’ I say. ‘When I found out he was leaving me for someone else, I asked if we could go home to Australia and share custody. He refused. I know him. He’s stubborn, and his work’s very important to him. He would never have compromised. I couldn’t live there. My visa was based on him, y’see. If the case had gone to court in Scotland, there’s a chance he would have won. I was unemployed and pretty depressed. I drank too much. He was successful and well respected. But I was a good mother to Chloe, I know I was. And he was never around for her anyway. That’s why I took her. Here, look at this.’ I take the scrapbook I started working on the day Alistair filed for custody and show them the first few pages – there’s a photograph of me and Chloe baking cupcakes, smiling at the camera, flour on our aprons and clothes, one of us jogging together, one of me helping her with her maths homework. But they’re not interested in my scrapbook.
    ‘You were charged with drink driving last month?’ the female one asks.
    ‘I had two glasses with lunch . . . I didn’t think . . .’
    ‘No.’ She full-stops for me.
    ‘How do you feel about his new partner?’ the male one with sideburns and chin-dimple asks.
    I swallow a snigger. How do I feel about her? I decide to be honest. ‘I’m still angry at her, but I also feel for her.’
    ‘You feel for her because of the situation?’ the female one with the glasses and thin lips and French-polished nails asks.
    ‘Yes.’ This is true, but it’s not just that. Beneath the thick layer of anger I feel for her lies a thin layer of guilt. I left a young woman with that man. I left her