We have our winner. After hundreds of you entered the Grazia and Women’s Prize for Fiction First Chapter competition, we’re delighted to announce that Helen Rogers has scooped the hotly contested first prize. The competition, taking entries from aspiring female writers, was judged by Grazia’s acting assistant editor Emma Rowley and acting features director Hattie Crisell, alongside award- winning Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine author Gail Honeyman, who started the story, called Voice. The judges loved the combination of genuine suspense and stylish writing offered by Helen’s chapter, which marked the first time she had entered the competition, now in its ninth year. ‘As an avid reader of Grazia, I’ve planned to do it for years, often getting halfway through a draft, but something always got in the way,’ says Helen, 48. ‘Recently I’ve rediscovered creative writing.’
Helen was presented with her award by Grazia’s deputy editor Caroline Barrett at last week’s ceremony for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, which was won by Tayari Jones for An American Marriage. Helen will also receive a session with a leading publisher to talk about how to continue her writing journey. You can read her winning entry here, along with chapters from our two runners-up, Nichola McCluskey and Natalie Stone. We’re sure they’ll all be on your bedside table soon...
How Gail Honeyman Got The Story Started...
Helen was awake now. Unlike her real phone, the landline hardly ever rang. The sound reminded her of childhood; for years, her parents had kept theirs on a special teak table in the hall. It had a green velvet-cushioned seat, and there was a drawer for dried-up pens, directories and, most importantly, the family address book. Leather-bound, a souvenir from Fuengirola, it held the contact details of everyone they’d ever interacted with, regularly and ruthlessly updated in five different sets of handwriting. She could still picture her mum sitting there, ankles neatly crossed, still hear her dad answering calls with a recitation of their home number. Helen reached across for the handset, saw that it displayed a number with the same area code as her own. Something – she’d wonder what, later – made her press the green button. ‘Hello?’ she said.
How Helen Rogers Our Winner Continued It...
At the other end of the line was silence. Silence for what seemed like ages, but in reality was only a short few seconds or so. And then – she couldn’t really be sure – the faintest sound of someone breathing quietly, before they put the phone down.
Nothing to identify the caller at all. But it didn’t matter. Helen knew who it was. She’d been expecting this, she realised. Deep down, she’d always known she’d be found. Even after she’d torn herself away, cut all ties from where she’d come from embarked on an entirely new life she had started to be proud of. Even as the years went by, she’d never really thought she was safe; never imagined she would get away with what she’d done. She just hadn’t expected it to happen now.
It was the beginning of May, bright and sunny, but unseasonably cold. For weeks now, the promise of summer had been kept at bay by a raw breeze and uncompromising chill. In spite of this, Helen spent her spare time walking, as she always did, covering miles each day; the monotony keeping her from her cheerless flat, and her thoughts. While she walked, she wrapped her shabby anorak tight around her, woolly hat pulled down over her ears. The hat had been made by her mum, years ago when Helen was still at school. She’d rejected it then, embarrassed to wear something so obviously makeshift, homemade; the teenage Helen had stuffed it in the hedge on her way to the school bus, to retrieve it later on the way home – but somehow it was one of only a few of her possessions that had survived the journey between her old life and this new one.
Walking was what she did with her days off from her part-time job in a café, she had little else to do. Walking calmed her; stopped her thinking, especially about the past. Traipsing across the city, not caring where she went; pavements, subways, playgrounds, parks. As kids, long ago in a different city, they walked everywhere together. A grubby little twosome with insolent grins and hand-me-down clothes. Helen and her best friend. Inseparable since they were six years old, never one without the other; a solid team of two that no one else could penetrate.
Best friends. ‘Never, ever break friends,’ they used to say to each other. Partners in crime, never one without the other – them against the world. Best friends till we die. How long before that bond turned sour? Before she stopped feeling protected, and started to feel swallowed up? Her mum had her own label for them – ‘Helen and her little shadow’. Except that her mum had got it wrong, implying that, somehow, Helen was the one in charge. Why did no one realise it had always been the other way round? She was careful not to make friends, now. She didn’t want any. She went walking on her own.
The day the call came, she hadn’t walked as far as usual; hadn’t wanted to. Even before the landline rang, a sensation of unease had sent her back inside; a feeling of being watched, of being followed, that had stayed with her for days and which she could not shake. She had walked very early that day and when the phone rang she had been dozing on the sofa as she often did mid-morning, catching up on sleep that regularly evaded her at night.
Now, she stood at her sitting room window and shivered. A bleak wind toyed with the blossom outside, shedding it from the trees in the street below and scudding it across the pavement like dirty confetti. When they were little kids, one of the neighbours had a cherry tree and they played with the fallen flowers outside Helen’s house, scooping up the blossom and throwing it at each other, giggling and singing ... a nursery song, a daft, invented game, petals on their clothes and in their hair ... ‘ring a ring a rosie ... all fall down’. Helen pulled away from the window, willing herself to find something to do, to take her mind off that time – to shake the feeling that for days now, she’d been waiting for something.
But when the doorbell rang only minutes later, she realised she’d been expecting it. There was no time to run away, no chance to hide (she knew she was discovered, anyway) and so she answered it at once, as she had always known she would. In the lobby, Helen’s visitor wore a thick coat, buttoned up to the collar to engulf her tiny figure. Smaller than Helen remembered, birdlike even, but then she’d always been slight; older of course, with fine lines around the forehead, a strand or two of grey amid expensive caramel highlights – but unmistakable to Helen nonetheless.
A chill took hold of Helen, the well- remembered sensation from childhood. You promised, she thought frantically; you swore I’d never see you again. I kept the secret, she wanted to say; I kept my side of the bargain. She scanned the once familiar face for indications of unease or distress that might mirror her own. But the visitor was calm. She looked at home right there in the doorway, as if popping by on Helen in her shabby little upstairs flat was something she did every day; as if the gulf of 20 years did not exist between them. As if to underline it, she stepped forward into the hallway and casually began to unbutton her coat. Helen caught the scent of her perfume, a scent that once they both wore, and instinctively took a step back.
Get a grip, Helen told herself. Let the panic subside. For a further moment or so, they took each other in, and didn’t smile. ‘Hello, Rebecca,’ Helen said eventually. Outside in the street, the blossom swirled like snow.
How our runner-up Natalie Stone continued the chapter…
There was a pause. Looking back, it was the intake of breath before a high dive – the summit of the rollercoaster before the drop. ‘Hello?’ she said again, rubbing at one closed eye with the back of her hand, as her brain gradually stumbled into gear. As she began to lower the handset, half her thoughts already working on the next task for the morning (coffee), there was a mechanical click from the end of the line, followed by a low, whirring hum.
‘Is there anybo-’ Helen began, but was brought up short by a burst of tinny, high-pitched laughter. Just a prank call then. How irritating; although at least it had provided her with a reason to get out of bed before noon – as well as depressingly increasing this week’s interactions with any other human being by a full 100%. Coffee required, definitely.
But as she lowered the handset again, a short burst of static was followed by the voice of a child. The whirring hum continued, and she realised at last that she was listening to a recording – that the click and underlying drone brought to mind the cassette tapes on which her mum had recorded The Last Night of the Proms from the radio over the years. The scrupulously timed ceremony of stopping and starting the recording function to avoid any of the commentary between pieces. Helen unconsciously held her breath as the recording played out into the stillness of the room.
‘Rock-a-bye baby on the tree-top, when the wind blows the cradle will rock...’ It was an almost mocking, sing-song tone, words interspersed with giggles. ‘When the bough breaks the cradle will fall...’ The recording played on, towards its inevitable conclusion. Her right hand was rigid, a claw around the dusty handset. She’d been a child when the case made the papers, but despite the best interests of parents and teachers, stories of this kind were impossible to keep away from the gruesome curiosity of schoolchildren. ‘And down will come baby, cradle and all!’ A sharp bang to accompany ‘down’, as if a fist had been slammed onto a table - then peals and peals of delighted girlish laughter. The underlying hum built briefly, followed by another click, and the line was dead.
Helen stood with the handset to her ear, listening now only to the thrum of her own pulse. Although she had tried to avoid all news of the ongoing inquest, the screaming headlines displayed outside the corner shop had provided more than enough information. The detectives who had overseen the case (mostly retired now) were being raked over the coals for errors in evidence retention. The original public fixation had never ebbed away entirely, but a fresh indignation and fury had built over the course of the current inquiry.
A hushed-up arson attack years ago at the police headquarters concerned had seen almost the entirety of documentation and testimony destroyed. The inferno had also left a number of colleagues with life-changing injuries, and – although perhaps Helen was biased – she didn’t blame staff for prioritising the lives of their workmates over filing. The interview tape that had survived had done so purely by chance. It had been chosen at random and signed out the previous afternoon by an enterprising intern tasked with the (post-fire, largely redundant) job of digitising such historical recordings for their safekeeping. The Rock-a-bye Baby Tape, as the papers had so imaginatively dubbed it, was therefore the only surviving evidence - aside from the memories of those who had lived through it all at the time. The sole remaining tangible clue was this grainy recording of a young child’s voice.
Helen hadn’t spoken to her parents for years even before they passed away, and the overwhelming instinct to call for their advice now was a punch to the stomach. She remembered the last time she had seen them, watching them being driven away in an unmarked car. Watching her mum watching her in return, craning to see through the rear window. Watching her dad refusing to turn. Watching the thin line of the back of his neck as it held unwavering. She remembered the preceding argument: Her mum refusing to accept or understand the terms of the release, pleading in vain with the officer on duty for perhaps one visit every six months? And if not then at least for one visit a year...? Finally, for permission just to know where her daughter would be living – to have a contact number and address for emergencies... She had said she would be so careful, that no one would ever know who ‘Helen’ was.
As she sank onto the sofa, the twisting dread that had been fighting to rise within her won out - she remembered the area code that the call had been made from had been the same as her own. The handset clattered to the floor, coming to a stop a couple of feet away. It began to ring again.
How our runner-up Nichola McCluskey continued the chapter…
Silence.
‘Hello?’ she said again, louder this time.
‘Just hang up, for God’s sake,’ Damian groaned beside her, pulling his pillow over his head. ‘Better not have woken Adam.’
‘Sorry,’ she whispered, still holding the phone in one hand as she reached for her mobile with the other. 04.32am. Two hours until Adam woke up, if he hadn’t already.
She was about to hit the red button to end the call when she heard a crackle followed by a muffled voice on the line. She didn’t say anything this time, just put the phone back to her ear.
‘Helen?’ the voice spoke quietly. ‘Don’t speak.’
She felt her stomach drop. Glancing over at the mound of Damian’s duvet-covered form she wondered, in the brief second before the voice spoke again, whether she should let him know what was happening.
‘I’m sorry. You need to know that. I’m sorry and I’m coming back. I miss you.’
Before she could even gather herself to speak, the click on the line told her the call was finished. She moved the phone to stare at the display. The call time, 0.22 seconds, was all that was showing and as she watched, the screen turned back to black.
She tried to keep breathing normally. She lay back on her pillow, listening to the rush of her own blood racing around her body, pumped by her pounding heart. Damian was asleep again. She couldn’t understand how this could have happened. The only calls that ever came through on the landline were from over-confident call centre drones trying to talk her into claiming compensation for an accident she had never had. They only had it because they had to as part of their broadband package. She didn’t even know what the number was, not without checking it on her real phone.
She slid out of bed, anxious not to waken Damian. She couldn’t trust herself not to break down in front of him and she couldn’t answer all the questions that would follow. A watery June sunrise was beginning to leak through the curtains and illuminated her path through the door and out to the hallway. She paused briefly outside Adam’s bedroom, checking for the familiar sounds of him stirring in his new, big boy’s bed. Nothing. She continued downstairs and into the kitchen, shutting the door quietly behind her.
The table was covered in the detritus of their family. She’d been too tired to clear up before she went to bed, and Damian certainly wouldn’t do it. She shoved crumpled finger paintings, bills, takeaway menus and toys to one side. They never ate there together, using it as a dumping ground for things that didn’t have any other home. With a space made, she placed her arms on the table, set her head on them and began to cry; wrenching sobs which she tried to smother in the crook of her elbow.
At first she could barely form a coherent thought - the shock, probably - but then her old, steely core began to return. She looked at the phone she still clutched in her hand but couldn’t find the option on the unfamiliar handset to return the call. 1471, wasn’t that what they used years ago? The line beeped and clicked.
‘The number you have dialled has not been recognised.’
Maybe 1471 wasn’t a thing these days. She tried again and got the same response. Scrabbling amongst the mess on the table for a pen, she found a green felt tip and scrawled the last received call number on the back of a bill from Adam’s nursery. After entering it with a carefully she listened as once more the automated voice told her it didn’t exist.
She set the phone down and took a deep breath. It had been almost five years since she heard his voice. Deep, slow, with the hangover of an Irish accent and even now, even as she sat feeling like her quiet little life was about to implode, she had to admit that in some secret space the sound of it still thrilled her like nothing else.
Her eye was caught by a photo on the fridge, magnetically held in place by a metal ladybird and a stupid pink motto about gin, a drink she hated. It showed Adam in the back garden last autumn, smiling with his arm around next door’s ginger cat. Her stomach flipped over again. If he really was coming back, what would happen to Adam? She felt another sob rise in her throat. Just as the tears began to spill down her cheeks again she heard the floorboards above her creak. Damian was getting out of bed. Shit.
As he moved across the bedroom she leapt to the sink, wiping her cheeks. She lifted an empty glass from the drainer and placed it to her lips, turning when he entered the kitchen as though he had startled her in the act of drinking.
‘What are you doing?’ he said. Thank God that, half asleep, he didn’t turn on the light and couldn’t see her properly.
‘Just getting some water, couldn’t sleep after that stupid phone ringing,’ she replied.
‘Who was it?’ he asked.
Helen hesitated for just a moment before turning back to the drainer and replacing the glass. She prayed he wouldn’t hear the slight shake in her voice. ‘No one,’ she replied. ‘Just a wrong number, I think. We should probably get it disconnected. C’mon, back to bed.’
He tutted and turned away. Helen followed, pausing briefly to hide the phone and the bill on which she’d written the number under a pile of ironing. She wouldn’t sleep now, she knew that, but the hours before Adam woke would give her some time to start planning how they would leave.