by Keane Jessie
Terry didn’t like Nipper, either, that local thug Harlan hung around with. He’d heard that the pair of them had been up to all sorts down in the village but got off with a warning from the local police. Stupid things. Robbing washing lines. Pushing dog shit through letterboxes. Leaving a dead fox on a hunt protester’s doorstep. Nasty things.
‘I know it’s crap.’ Charlie frowned and let out a huff of breath. ‘Of course it is. Come on. Let’s go and get busy. Bloody women, they’re all crazy when it comes right down to it.’
1980s
63
Time was passing and it was healing the pain, just a little. Nula started to live for when Harlan was out of the house. Charlie was still away most of the time. Milly, who was now a teenager and seemed embarrassed by her own mother, spent all her time at Belle’s. Leaving her all by herself, with only the cleaner, or the gardener for company. And the men on the door – these days there were always men on the door.
Nula had no friends now. None of her old mates from the manor were interested in keeping in touch. They thought she was happy here, living among the country nobs and thinking herself better than the Londoners she’d once happily mixed with. Which wasn’t the truth, not at all. She thought of those old grey grimy streets and longed for them, longed for the old safe, settled life in her parents’ modest two-up two-down. But it was too late to even think of building bridges with them now.
So mostly she was stuck here, and then Harlan would come home and say nothing, but he would smile that secret smile of his and her flesh would literally crawl. Everything she suspected about Harlan haunted her, filled her every waking moment. She went to the local library and read books on reactive attachment disorder, sat there for hours poring over them, and it was as if it was Harlan they were talking about.
Without a primary caretaker, the books said, a baby passes through several phases: from protest to crying to a sad stage and then to a deep, desolate state of resignation. Thinking of Harlan’s dead-eyed stare, Nula wondered about his mother. Everyone had a mother, after all. A birth mother, anyway. So where was Harlan’s? Had she voluntarily put him into care, or – Nula thought of Charlie’s irritation, his rage when she’d questioned him about this – had he never been cared for at all, and was that why he never seemed to respond appropriately to anything or anybody?
On the way home from the library, Nula always went to Jake’s grave to tend it. She went there every week, pulled out weeds, refreshed the flowers. The girls came here too, Milly and Belle – they brought little posies of buttercups, daisies, cow parsley, which was sweet of them. Harlan never bothered. She thought of her baby, her precious child, lying cold and long-dead in the soil. And she cried. Oh, how she cried. Then she had to go home. Although she detested Charlie, she didn’t like him being away, because of the crying.
She’d heard it again, and again. So many times. But maybe it wasn’t real. Maybe it was only in her head. She’d caught Charlie looking at her oddly more than once. And then . . . ah Christ, what a fool she’d been. She’d told him about the crying. She shouldn’t have done that. Well, she’d better just get a grip. That’s what Mum had always told her: get a grip. Pull yourself together. Worse things happen at sea. That was the only useful thing her mum ever did teach her. Dear old Mum. She missed her so much now, missed her like a limb.
Nula didn’t think there could be anything worse than losing her baby. She wondered when it would stop hurting, when all the madness would go away. When the crying would stop. Maybe it never would.
When she got home, there was an unknown car on the drive. Paul, her driver, parked up beside it and she let herself into the house. Young Sammy was on the door today. So many people they had to have around them now. To her surprise, when she walked into the sitting room, there was Charlie. And there was her doctor, a tall bespectacled man with thick black hair, and there was a woman with him, petite, blonde, with harshly indented cheekbones and dark circles under her big cornflower-blue eyes.
‘Here she is,’ said Charlie, jumping to his feet.
Doctor Benson stood up. ‘Nula,’ he said in greeting. ‘This is Sophia Burnett, one of the clinical psychologists attached to the surgery, I believe you’ve met before . . . ?’
They had met. Lots of times. Sophia came forward and shook Nula’s hand. The last time they’d spoken had been well over a year ago, when Nula had told her for the hundredth time about her dead baby crying, and the fact that Harlan had tried to kill her.
‘Hello, Nula,’ said Sophia.
‘We’ve come out to see you because your husband asked us to,’ said Dr Benson.
‘Oh? Why?’ Nula looked a question at Charlie.
‘I’ve been concerned about you, doll,’ said Charlie, looking sheepish. ‘Worried, you know? When you started on about still hearing the crying . . .’
‘I did hear it,’ said Nula. I still do.
‘I know. I know that. And when you started ripping my desk apart trying to get information about Harlan, and saying he’d tried to kill you, nonsense like that . . .’
‘It’s not nonsense.’
‘Babes, it is. It’s . . .’ Charlie hesitated, groping for the right words. ‘It’s not your fault. You’ve had a tough time and it’s all been playing on your mind. The stress of losing the baby, it’s upset you, I understand that, and what I think . . .’ He glanced at Dr Benson, at Sophia Burnett. ‘What we all think is that you need some time away. Someplace where you can rest up and recover. You know?’
‘What, a holiday?’ Nula asked, agog. Charlie hated holidays.
‘No, more like a retreat. You know the sort of thing. Like that place where the film stars go when they need a . . . a rest?’
Charlie stood there looking awkward.
Nula gazed at her husband, at the two others standing there, and the penny dropped at last. They wanted her committed. They thought she was losing her mind.
‘What?’ she said, dry-mouthed. Then she thought, oh God – to get away from this place. From the echoing empty halls, the eerie sighing of the wind around the eaves, the sobbing from the empty nursery. From Harlan.
‘If you would just agree to taking some time out, babes. To getting a rest. We all think you need it. We really do.’
Nula stared at them. You had to agree to be committed. She knew that.
Charlie shuffled his feet. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. He was embarrassed by her. And she was so tired, so sick and so tired of it all. Him. And this place. This awful fucking place.
‘All right,’ she said at last. ‘I agree.’
64
You had to feel sorry for the charmless little bastard, really. Jill often did feel sorry for Harlan, very sorry indeed, because she didn’t think Nula had ever been any great shakes as a mother, not even when she was right in the head, which she most certainly wasn’t, not any more. The stress of losing Jake had unhinged her and she’d been in and out of the funny farm half a dozen times since, getting treatment. And Harlan had Charlie for a dad, the poor kid. She guessed that Charlie would be OK with a loud kid such as himself, but Harlan? No way would they ever get on.
Jill often wondered why Charlie and Nula had adopted a boy like Harlan in the first place. Surely there would have been others more suitable? They’d got him as a boy, but surely a small baby would have been a better choice?
Now she was watching all the teenagers as they played by the pool at the back of Charlie and Nula’s place. Milly was sitting apart from the others, reading a book, her glasses slipping down her big nose. And Harlan . . . well, if Milly would never win a popularity contest, neither would he. Harlan was a misfit. And as for Belle . . . her lovely daughter was growing up fast. Jill thought that Belle was going to break a lot of hearts. Maybe she would be a model, or an actress. She was good-looking enough to do anything she damned well liked. Jill herself was pretty – but she knew that Belle was one step on from that.
Jill didn’t like Harlan at all. He gazed at Belle all the time, like she was an o
rnament, a trophy, something fascinating and priceless that he would like to own. Jill had been aware of Harlan’s fixation with Belle, right from the very first moment they met. But now Belle was blossoming into young adulthood and the problem was more acute. She spoke to Terry about it.
‘Don’t worry,’ Terry told her. ‘I had a word with him. He’ll keep clear now.’
But having had bitter experience with the Stone men, Jill was doubtful. Milly sometimes asked for Belle to come over to the main house for sleepovers, but Jill would never allow that. Truth was, she felt that the house where Nula and Charlie lived was cursed, tainted by the awful memory of baby Jake’s death and then by Nula’s depressive illness. And maybe a curse was all they, all any of them, deserved. Oh, Belle and Milly still knew nothing about the business. Nor would they ever. Everyone was agreed on that. But Harlan was of an age now where Charlie would want to include him, to train him up to one day take over both the legitimate business and the illegal one. It was a sick, evil trade. They dealt in death. They imported it, made it at the crack factories all around the East End, then they supplied it, sold it to deadbeats on the streets who sold it on again, to kids, to drifters, to bored businessmen and aristos, to people who could one day find themselves hooked and with no chance of ever getting free from the hell Charlie and his crew had introduced them to.
Sometimes Jill wept, full of disgust and fear over the path they’d all come down. How had they come so far from the life where they had grown up hopeful, feeling that the future was full of promise? Jill didn’t feel that way any more. She hadn’t felt like that ever since that time Charlie Stone had decided it was his right to rape her. She lived her life in constant fear for all of her family, and these days, whenever Charlie showed up, she made sure she kept out of his way. Because it was him, wasn’t it. That loud repulsive bastard. He had led them all into this life. Like the devil tempting Jesus he had said, Look, all this could be yours . . . just do this.
And Terry had done it; everything and anything Charlie asked, Terry did. Terry was – even now – Charlie’s man, one hundred per cent. That male bond was strong, far stronger even than the one Terry had with his own wife. Jill and Nula had followed on behind their menfolk, not questioning anything. Seduced by living the high life. Living it large. They’d never, ever asked any questions. But bad things had happened. Horrible things. And she just knew there was worse to come.
A yell went up, startling Jill from her thoughts. Harlan was standing by the deep end of the pool and Nipper was thrashing about in the water. Milly looked up from her sunbed, gave a smirk and then returned to her book. Jill hurried over.
‘He fell in,’ said Harlan with a shrug.
‘He bloody didn’t,’ said Belle, running up in her tiny pink bikini.
Jill felt uneasy, looking at her. Belle had budding breasts and hips that were beginning to curve into the shape of a woman. Jill realized she was going to have to have a talk with her daughter about covering up more when it wasn’t just family. Soon. But then – even fully clothed in her plain grey school uniform or in riding jodhpurs, Belle still looked like jailbait.
‘You pushed him,’ said Belle.
‘Snitch,’ said Harlan, his smile widening to a grin as he saw Belle’s temper.
‘You did. I saw you,’ insisted Belle.
‘Oh for God’s—’ started Jill, then she jumped into the pool and caught hold of Nipper, who was panicking and out of his depth. ‘It’s OK, I’ve got you,’ she said, and hauled him to the edge.
‘I’m OK,’ he said, scrambling out, snatching up a towel and starting to rub himself dry.
‘Course he is. Aintcha, mate?’ Harlan slapped his follower on the shoulder.
‘You’re such a dick,’ said Belle.
Harlan just kept smiling.
65
Milly watched the little drama unfold in the pool and then, hiding behind her sunglasses, got back to her book. She wasn’t wearing a swimsuit, although she was uncomfortably hot in her T-shirt and jeans and would have loved nothing better than to plunge into the cool water. And she would have, if she’d been alone. But with Harlan there? No way. He called her fat arse all the time, while ogling Belle as she romped about in her too-revealing bikini.
God, it’s obscene, thought Milly as she lay there casting covert glances at her adopted brother. Harlan was growing up fast, his shoulders widening, a slender muscularity emerging on his torso. In figure-hugging swimming trunks, the bulge of his cock was all too evident. Not that Belle ever seemed to return Harlan’s interest. He was beautiful, she supposed – but cold as alabaster. Milly watched as he went over to where Belle was sitting by the edge of the pool, dangling her feet in the water, and sat down beside her.
She really is pretty as a picture, thought Milly. And Belle was fearless, too; she’d tackle anything, go anywhere, confident of a good outcome whatever she was faced with. Milly envied her that.
‘Can I sit here?’ said a voice from above her.
Startled, Milly realized that Nipper was standing over her, indicating the sunbed beside her own.
‘Sure,’ said Milly, and he sat down and stretched out. ‘Don’t take any notice of Harlan,’ she told him, laying her book aside. ‘He’s just a bastard, he can’t help it. It’s in his nature.’
Nipper turned and looked at her. ‘What’s the book?’ he asked.
Milly showed him the cover. ‘It’s boring.’
‘He’s nothing like you, is he?’ he said, his eyes fixed on Harlan. Milly thought that Nipper was Harlan’s puppy. Harlan could kick his arse, and he’d still roll over and let Harlan tickle his tummy, even after that.
‘Harlan? Christ no.’
Milly turned her attention to Belle. She let out a sigh. ‘She’s so good-looking.’
‘Fancies herself, don’t she?’ sneered Nipper.
‘Must be great, looking like that.’
Milly thought that it would be easy to hate Belle for being so perfect, but somehow you couldn’t: Belle was so kind, always willing to pitch in and help with anything. And she always tried to include Milly, always making sure she was OK. Belle called them the ‘can-do’ girls. Milly thought that Belle had a can-do attitude, for sure. But her? She was never going to set the world on fire and she knew it. Belle was like the sister Milly had never had; she loved her.
‘You’re nice looking too,’ he said.
He was only being polite, she knew that.
‘I mean it,’ he said. ‘You’ve got nice eyes. And great legs.’
‘And a fat arse.’
‘I like your arse,’ said Nipper.
‘Well you’re the only one that does,’ said Milly, colouring up.
‘It’s like a peach,’ said Nipper. ‘A big . . . what’s the word? Yeah a big, sweet peach.’
It occurred to Milly then that something was going on here. For the first time ever, she was being chatted up by a boy. Granted, Nipper wasn’t the brain of Britain, but he had nice thick straw-coloured hair. She glanced at him, reassessing. He was big, bulky and tanned from the summer sun. And he was tall. So what if he was Harlan’s lapdog? He thought her enormous arse was nice.
‘Milly!’ It was her mother, waving from the French doors leading into the big house, the better house, where the Stones resided. Belle might be the golden one, the outgoing and lovely one, but it was Milly’s father, Charlie Stone, who had all the power and the dosh around here. ‘Come give me a hand with the drinks?’ said Nula, who was currently at home and not for once locked up in what Harlan laughingly and unkindly called ‘the bug hutch’.
Milly got off her sunbed, aware of her hot flesh sticking to the chair, aware of her own ungainly movements, hotly aware of Nipper watching her.
‘See you tomorrow?’ he said.
Milly paused and stared at him. ‘OK,’ she said.
66
That summer turned unexpectedly into a haze of gold. Milly spent the long hot days basking under the sun, swimming in the pool, eating al fresco and r
evelling in the attention that Nipper was paying her. She had never been flirted with before, never made to feel in any way special. To her mother – who seemed crazy these days, a woman with wild eyes and jerky movements, trapped in a world of her own – she was an inconvenience; to her father, she was a useless girl, not a boy, not worth something, like Harlan. But to Nipper, she was obviously far from the bore she had always believed herself to be, with her nose always stuck in some romantic blockbuster by Danielle Steel or Sidney Sheldon.
To be kissed by him was wonderful. And slowly over the course of the summer he went further, slipping his hand inside her blouse and touching her breasts. Then further still, making her breathless with desire so that her only focus was him, Nipper. Harlan was still there making up to Belle, and Belle’s mother was always there too, standing guard over her daughter. Everything else – Jill and Belle included – became an unwanted distraction from the games they played together, her and Nipper.
One hot, humid day they were in the pool house. Nipper had beckoned her over, then, laughing, pulled her inside and shut the half-glassed door behind her. He yanked down the blinds at the windows. Laughing too, Milly looked through the door’s top section, back at the pool. Jill and Belle had gone off into the kitchen, and only Harlan was out there right now, sprawled on a sunbed, eyes closed.
Nipper lusting after her had given her confidence; now she wore a one-piece swimsuit, and didn’t care if it showed off the size of her arse. He said she was a beauty and suddenly, as if by a miracle, she was.
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Their hot skins stuck together; he was only wearing bathing trunks. Jesus, she thought, with a sizzle of alarm and arousal, they were almost naked.
‘I can’t,’ she said, drawing back, breathless.
‘You know I want to,’ said Nipper.
It was the same old refrain. All through the summer, they’d wrangled about this. He wanted sex with her. She wasn’t sure. Now Nipper snaked his fingers inside her swimsuit and squeezed her breast. Her nipple hardened under his touch and Milly groaned.