The Cows Read online

  I promised Annie I’d pick her up and bring her home tonight, she called me to say she misses me. I feel so guilty but maybe she should stay at Mum’s another few nights. Maybe the press are outside my house, they’ll no doubt want a picture of me looking cranky and evil again. I can’t expose her to that.

  The house phone rings and nearly gives me a heart attack.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Tara, it’s Mum.’

  ‘Why are you calling the house phone?’

  ‘I was worried maybe our mobiles were being tapped.’

  Oh, bloody hell.

  ‘Mum, don’t worry about that. No one is tapping our phones.’

  ‘It’s just that our names are in the paper – and they’re all hacking nowadays dear, did you not see Hugh Grant on BBC Breakfast? He was terribly angry. It feels like we are under surveillance.’

  Even more guilt consumes me as I realise it isn’t just my life that’s being smashed apart by all of this.

  ‘Mum, please don’t worry, it’s not going to get to that. The story was the peak of the hype, it will only get calmer from here,’ I say, lying. I think this is just beginning. I hear a huge crash in the background, then a man shouting, more crashing and a smash. ‘Mum? Mum what is that, are you OK?’

  ‘I’m OK. That’s your father. He’s smashing things in the kitchen. He’s read the article, Tara. And he’s seen the video.’

  ‘He’s seen the video, how?’

  ‘I showed it to him.’

  ‘You did what?’

  Oh God. My dad has seen me wanking? Seriously, every time I think this can’t get more excruciating it gets taken to a whole new level.

  ‘I just thought he should. I’m sorry if you disagree but I thought if he just saw it for himself, then we could all work out a way to move on.’

  ‘Dad should never have seen that video.’

  ‘Yes, I realise that now.’

  There is another massive crash from the kitchen.

  ‘Tara, I have to go. He’s into my special crockery. I’ve had it for forty years … Peter, not those, please …’

  The phone goes dead.

  This is the worst day of my life. Hands down. I don’t know what to do. What are you supposed to do when this happens? In five days, my life has been turned upside down. This time last week I had a great job, my daughter and I were just ticking along, doing our thing, I was secure, happy. Now nearly three million people, including my mother and my father, have seen me masturbate, I’ve lost my job, I’ve been branded like a criminal for keeping a child in the way that I did. Even my work is being criticised as tabloid sensationalism, and the general attitude seems to be that I deserve all of this because of every choice I have ever made. All this from one tiny moment where I gave in to temptation. How is this possible?

  I’ve never felt like a terrible mother until now. Even compared to the other mums, I’ve never felt that Annie would have been better off with anyone else as her parent. But now I’m hiding in my house and she is living streets away with my parents, probably wondering what the hell I am doing – and I have no idea how to explain it to her. She’ll be at school now telling her friends I’m not well, and the teachers will be talking in the staff room about me and what a disgrace I am. And without her even knowing, they will be watching her, waiting for her to do something reactive so they can blame me for messing up my daughter’s head.

  I can’t let this happen. No matter what people are saying and how much I want to crawl into the cupboard under the sink and drink all of the household cleaning products, I have to keep my shit together, for Annie.

  I’ll go food shopping. I’ll fill the fridge and cupboard up with all of our favourite things and I’ll pick her up from school with my head held high and we will continue to live our lives. Cam was right, I don’t have to explain myself to anyone. I can take control. I can write the life I want to live. I’ll find another job, maybe something online. I could do surveys, or be an examiner. One of those jobs where you just get sent a load of stuff that needs checking. I’ll sell things on eBay, antique jewellery. Maybe I’ll even design some, I’ve always wanted to do that. I don’t know, I’ll work it out. What’s the alternative? There isn’t one. I have to pull my shit together. For my daughter.

  I race to the front door and leave the house before I have the chance to second guess myself. I’m met with cameras. ‘Tara Thomas?’ says a loud voice as a bright flash goes off in my face. As my retinas re-focus, I see a camera pointing right at me, a man behind it, his face scrunched up as he peers down the lens.

  ‘Why did you do it, Tara?’ he says, as I see another man run up behind him, also with a camera. More flashes, more clicks. My ears pop like I’m on a plane and my vision goes blurry from the lights.

  ‘I, I …’ I stop speaking. Pram Push Woman comes into my head, her dumb quote, ‘I just wanted to see what happened’ flashing in front of me like a ticker of BREAKING NEWS on the TV. I know I mustn’t say anything.

  I power through, like I’m walking through rolling waves that are coming over my head. I lead with my left shoulder, keep my head down to protect my eyes and I charge and keep charging. The local Tesco is only a few minutes away. They can’t follow me in there, eventually the flashing lights will stop and I’ll walk up and down the aisles and I’ll get all of the things that Annie likes best. KitKats, Monster Munch, Edam cheese. I’ll be ready for when she finishes school, and we will get on with our lives and eventually all of this will be over.

  But these men are so close to me. It feels like they’re going to push me to the floor. I keep going. Tesco is close. I can get there. They’ll disappear, these men, because I’ll make them disappear.

  When I reach Tesco, the silence that surrounds me as the doors close again makes me feel like I’m in a dream. I walk forward like I’m on a conveyor belt and sense multiple other shoppers glancing at me, but I’m scared to look up in case they look me in the eye. Being looked at directly isn’t something I can deal with quite yet.

  Does everybody know?

  I pick up a basket and loop it over my arm.

  Grapes.

  I draw my elbows in towards my body.

  Butter. Milk. Cheese.

  I turn a corner, someone walks past me and knocks my basket. They say sorry and carry on walking, I don’t turn to see if they look back but I presume that they do. I’m hunched over, I must look very weird.

  Cheerios. Nutella. Marmite. Honey. Jam. Dry roasted peanuts.

  The basket is getting heavy.

  Someone else bangs into me, or did I bang into them? This time, they get annoyed. ‘Watch it,’ they say, but I don’t turn to look at them, I just keep going forward. Am I walking, or is the floor moving? I turn another corner. The beep beep beep of the tills gets louder. More people, now standing still in a row. Something about the stillness worries me, they are so close to me, they do not move. The cold air turns fiery hot and I feel sweat start to pour down my face. I’m sure I hear laughter. ‘It’s her, look it’s her.’ More laughter. Is everyone in Tesco laughing at me? I’m so hot and my chest is closing, the lights become so bright I close my eyes just enough to see the basket over my arm. My heartbeat is suddenly so loud that I can hear it over the beep beep beep and there is a pain across my body that makes my head throw itself back and then a bang so hard that the lights shut down and the people disappear and the noises fade away and then everything is gone.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  There is noise before there is light.

  Beeeeep. Beeeeep.

  My eyes blink quickly as they adjust to the very bright lights above my head. Just as they are coming into focus, the silhouette of my mother’s face appears above me. ‘Mum, why are you in Tesco?’ I ask, acknowledging the coincidence, despite my drowsy state.

  ‘You’re not in Tesco, dear,’ Mum says, stroking my hair. ‘You’re in the hospital.’

  I sit up much faster than my body can handle, my head thumps and I lie straight back down.
‘What happened?’

  ‘The doctor thinks maybe you had a panic attack, then you hit your head on the way down. You’ve been asleep for a few hours now. He thinks maybe you are exhausted?’

  I remind myself that I have barely slept since Monday, and nod gently. I go to touch my face and see there is a tube in my arm. I don’t know if it’s real but my face feels so small.

  ‘It’s a drip,’ my mother tells me. ‘He says you’re severely dehydrated. Your blood sugar was so low, like you hadn’t eaten for days.’

  That also seems true.

  ‘Where’s Annie?’ I ask, looking to see if she’s there.

  ‘She’s at home with your father. She’s OK.’

  I’m relieved, then horror kicks in.

  ‘Oh, God. Dad. How’s he doing?’

  My mother pushes another pillow behind my back so that I can sit up more. She takes a while to respond.

  ‘Not great, but it all comes from love. He’s worried about you, of course.’

  I let out a loud and exasperated groan.

  ‘He’ll come around,’ she says. ‘He always does.’

  ‘After seeing videos of his daughter masturbating? When was the last time he came around to that?’

  ‘It’s certainly a new challenge, I won’t deny that.’

  She pours some water into two plastic cups and takes a sip from one as she stares at a painting, clearly building the confidence to say something rather than experiencing the art.

  ‘The school called me today,’ she says, turning to me. I sense the call wasn’t to pass on their regards.

  ‘They’ve seen the video, of course.’

  ‘What did they say?’ I ask, dreading the answer.

  ‘They asked if you were alright.’

  I’m surprised, I wasn’t expecting them to care.

  ‘In the head,’ my mother clarifies.

  ‘Oh. And what did you tell them?’

  ‘I told them that you were fine. But that you were under a lot of pressure.’

  ‘Why did you tell them that, Mum? I’m not under any pressure. At least, I wasn’t.’

  ‘They needed a reason, Tara. I had to say there was something going on that led you to do that, otherwise they’d think it was just who you are. So I said you’d been under a lot of pressure at work, had a few too many drinks one night, which you very rarely do because you usually have Annie, and that you did something that you hugely regret.’

  Despite me wanting it all just to go away, for people to accept it and move on, I still find myself feeling so angry about having to claim madness or apologise for simply responding to a sexual urge when I thought I was alone. I turn away and close my eyes. My head still really hurts.

  ‘They are worried about Annie,’ she continues, ‘So I said that she would be living with me and your father for the foreseeable future, and they agreed that was a sensible idea. She’s a good girl, they don’t want to cause any trouble for you or her.’

  Before I even get to open my eyes, there are tears streaming down my face.

  ‘I’m a good mum,’ I say, my face soaking wet, lips quivering as I try to stop the tears, in a vain attempt to hide my pain.

  ‘Why don’t you come and stay too?’ Mum says, carefully. She knows that offering me too much help and suggesting I need it can often cause tension. But not this time. I need to be a mum, and I need my mum to be one too.

  ‘Yes please,’ I say, weakly.

  I don’t want to be alone.

  6

  Stella

  I’m in bed. Alone. Huddled under the covers, eating tuna pasta bake. The temperature has dropped again; the air is chilly. Putting the heating on seems silly when it’s May and just me. So it’s dinner in bed for one. How tragic.

  I’ve been in bed for three hours, just staring at the walls. Occasionally getting up for more pasta bake. Occasionally going for a pee. Occasionally sitting up and screaming at the door.

  This used to be my mum’s room, then it was Alice’s room. Then it was mine and Phil’s room, and now it’s just my room. Mum bought this flat while Alice and I were at uni. We kicked up such a fuss when she said she wanted to sell our house and downsize. But then we came and stayed in it one weekend and loved it. Mum was in remission after her first bout of breast cancer. We had no idea in that joyful moment that it was about to come back in her other boob and kill her within a year.

  It’s the garden flat of a Victorian townhouse in Stoke Newington, with its own entrance. It’s got big windows, a fireplace in every room, and it’s lovely and bright. I’ve never achieved anything in my life that would mean I deserve a home like this, but I guess that’s inheritance for you. My wages easily cover the small mortgage Mum left us with, and sharing it with Phil meant that my main expenses were just bills and food. I guess I’ll have to pay for everything now, which is intimidating. But it’s not like I have a kicking social life to fund, or anyone to go on wild holidays with, or absolutely anything fun or interesting that would require a big budget. And I suppose now my chances of having a baby have been dashed, I won’t be needing to save for that either.

  I’m not going to have a baby. I keep saying it to myself, but it’s not getting easier to handle. I mean, I know there are other ways, I could freeze my eggs or adopt, but neither of those options are how I want it to happen. I want to do it naturally. I don’t want having a kid to feel like something I had to buy. But the threat of cancer, the fact it already took my mum and sister so quickly and the reality of what I’m like to live with are three big reasons why that dream will probably never happen for me. So maybe that is that, I’ll die alone, and leave nothing behind, not even a child. And what will the people who knew me say on their Facebook pages when I’ve gone? Nothing like what they said about Alice, I know that.

  I can see it now from Phil:

  R.I.P. Stella, you were emotionally unavailable, moody, impossible to reason with and controlling. You were so obsessed with your dead twin sister that your life was stuck in time. You lost all your friends, and then lost me because you turned into such a bitch to be around. If you’d have stopped wearing your sister’s clothes like I told you to, you’d probably have been OK.

  Or what about the girls from school?

  Stella Davies died in her sister’s shadow. We always preferred Alice because she was way more sociable and friendly, but as they came as a duo we just had to accept that Stella would tag along. When Alice died, we all stopped bothering with Stella because without Alice, she was really shit. RIP Alice. Oh, and Stella.

  The only person I get on really well with is Jessica and she isn’t even on Facebook, so I can’t count on a gleaming personality review from her either. I suppose maybe Jason would say something nice, but then he knows so little about me even that would be pretty basic.

  R.I.P. Stella, you were a great PA. Really bossy and organised. Thanks for all the coffee and do you have any other skirts, because you wear that bird one WAY too often? J x

  All in all, I think it’s fair to say that the Internet won’t break the day that I die. Sitting at the kitchen table at my laptop, I look at Facebook but quickly close my page. I hate not seeing Alice’s green dot welcome me and I still feel a little raw after nearly getting sprung by Melissa. She messaged me the next day to let me know what happened.

  Hey Stella, just thought you should know that I think someone has set up a Facebook account in Alice’s name. They added me as a friend but now the page has vanished. What sicko would do that? Don’t they know how hurtful that is for me? Anyway, I thought you should know in case they do the same to you. Hope you’re well, Melly x

  Melly? Gross.

  I haven’t replied. If I ever see her again, I’ll just say I never go on Facebook any more. Instead, I log onto www.HowItIs.com to see what Camilla Stacey has to say tonight. I’ve religiously read her words for as long as I can remember, but recently her smugness has started to grate on me. I read her latest post, ‘A Call to Action’.

  ‘Get what you
want. Just get out there, and take it.’

  Oh yeah, because life really is that easy? Cam Stacey doesn’t live in the real world. She writes this idealistic, self-adoring nonsense about how you should love yourself, be who you want, get what you want. What does she know? Life seems so easy for her, her money, her success, her joy in being alone. Who wants to read about someone else who is nailing life? I’m not sure I do any more.

  I have come to discover that very often the best therapy is seeing other people in pain. It’s why society is so obsessed with celebrity gossip, and why soap operas are so depressing. Hearing about other people’s shit makes you feel better, less alone – and that is the problem with Cam Stacey, it’s all so bloody perky. She loves her body, her life, her childlessness, her job. She tries to disguise her smugness as positivity but it’s not, it’s smugness. How did I not see this before?

  I log off her site, and onto MailOnline. I need to read about celebrities with shit lives, that always makes me feel better.

  Wait … what?

  WALTHAMSTOW W**K WOMAN REVEALED

  The woman, who entered the underground network at Tottenham Court Road and alighted at Walthamstow, has been named as Tara Thomas, a 42-year-old single mother who never even told the child’s father that she was pregnant. A source close to Ms Thomas told the MailOnline; ‘Tara never questioned her decision to keep the baby, it was what she wanted, so she didn’t think twice. As far as she was concerned, the father didn’t need to know.’

  Hang on. Tara? Last Friday? Works in TV? Six-year-old daughter? Oh my God, Jason went on a date with ‘Wank Woman’? I saw this story at the start of the week, it was all over Facebook. I watched the video when Jason was in his office right behind me, I thought it was really uncomfortable to watch. Some woman clearly being filmed without her knowledge. I agreed with Camilla Stacey that it was creepy and exploitative and stopped following the story. Which was hard, as it’s been everywhere. But that was the Tara? The one that Jason was so desperate to track down? It would seem so, I’m sure he said she had long curly brown hair, freckles, and she definitely lived in Walthamstow. That description matches Wank Woman perfectly. How could Jason not have seen this? I guess at least now I know he’s been sticking to his deadline and not looking at the Internet, because no one who has been online in the last few days could have avoided the global sensation of ‘Walthamstow Wank Woman’. Holy shit, I feel like I just got handed a grenade.