Where The Story Starts

by Imogen Clark

  The woman approached the car and then turned into number 5, lifting the latch of the gate and shuffling down the path. Then she opened the door with a key from her bag and let herself in.

  Charles hadn’t mentioned that Ray had a wife, or a child for that matter, but then it had been several years since the subject had come up at all; plenty of time for Ray to acquire some family for himself. This was good, Grace thought. Charles’s benevolence seemed to have helped Ray get himself back on the straight and narrow. Perhaps there were children’s paintings on the wall instead of bank blueprints?

  So, what was this woman’s relationship to her, then? Grace wondered. If she was Ray’s wife, then they were married to half-brothers, so that made them sisters-in-law, after a fashion at least. Grace didn’t have a sister-in-law. Charles had no other siblings – not that he’d told her about, anyway, she thought wryly; and she had no brother, just her sister Charlotte. It would be nice, would it not, to have a sister-in-law to chat to, especially when they lived so close by? And if the child was Ray’s, then wouldn’t it be a cousin of sorts to Hector and Clio?

  Before she knew what she was doing, Grace had got out of the car and was following the woman down the path.

  34

  GRACE – THEN

  Grace rang the bell. Now that she was up close, she could see that the house wasn’t quite as well kept as it looked from the road. A thick layer of yellowing paint was curling away from the window frames and there were vertical splits in the panels of the door that must have let the chilly north wind penetrate.

  A moment later the door opened and there stood the woman, still wrapped up against the cold. She was pretty, Grace thought, although there were dark half-moons under her eyes. She needed more sleep; having young children could do that to you, Grace knew. The woman’s face was round, with full cheeks and a little pointed nose. Her eyes were a warm grey. Grace couldn’t see much more of her due to the layers of clothing.

  ‘Hello?’ the woman said, as if she perhaps ought to recognise Grace but didn’t. She smiled as she spoke, though, and her whole face lit up. Grace liked her immediately.

  ‘Good morning,’ replied Grace, and then she stopped. What should she say? She should have thought this through before she got out of the car.

  ‘You may think this a little odd,’ she began, making eye contact with the woman in what she hoped was a trustworthy way. ‘But I think we may be sisters-in-law.’

  ‘How do you mean, like?’ asked the woman, her strong Newcastle accent taking Grace by surprise for a moment. No one spoke like that in Grace’s world.

  ‘Well,’ said Grace. ‘I believe that your . . .’ She hesitated. ‘Your boyfriend? Husband?’

  ‘Husband,’ clarified the woman proudly.

  ‘Ah, good. Husband,’ Grace continued, ‘is my husband’s brother. Well, half-brother at least.’

  A crease appeared between the woman’s eyebrows as she processed what Grace had said.

  ‘But my Ray doesn’t have a brother,’ she said.

  ‘Ray! Yes!’ said Grace, leaping on the name. ‘That’s right. Charles, that’s my husband, Charles told me that he had a half-brother whose name is Ray. I don’t think they saw much of each other growing up. They had different mothers, you see. Same fathers, though, or so I understand. Anyway, Charles told me that Ray lived here and so . . .’

  Grace trailed off. And so what? What was she doing here other than spying on Ray? The woman looked at her expectantly. She seemed curious as to how the sentence might finish rather than irritated by the intrusion, and Grace felt her confidence blossom a little.

  ‘So, I thought, as I was passing, that I’d call by and introduce myself. I’m Grace, by the way. Grace Montgomery Smith.’

  Grace held out a gloved hand. The woman looked at it. Now she seemed more unsure, although Grace wasn’t clear whether this uncertainty was to do with the hand-shaking or the revelation of a new sister-in-law.

  ‘My Ray never mentioned a brother, like,’ the woman said, her grey eyes narrowing. ‘How do I know you’re not some chancer on the make?’

  This seemed ironic, Grace thought, given Ray’s criminal background.

  ‘I’m not,’ Grace said, opening her eyes wide in an attempt to make herself look as honest as possible. ‘I can assure you. I really am married to Ray’s brother Charles.’ She beamed at the woman, who would think she was demented if she wasn’t careful.

  ‘What did you say your name was?’ asked Ray’s wife.

  ‘Grace Montgomery Smith?’ replied Grace, although it sounded as if she wasn’t quite sure, which probably didn’t help establish her credibility. Her hand was still extended and she was starting to feel foolish, but then the other woman rolled her eyes and grinned at her.

  ‘Well, no one would make up a name like that!’ she said, taking Grace’s hand and shaking it warmly. ‘I’m Melissa. Ray’s wife. You’d better come in, like. It’s freezing with the door wide. Come and have a cup of tea, pet, and tell me all about this husband of yours.’

  Melissa led Grace through into a small but crowded sitting room. A three-piece suite in a rich floral fabric dominated the floor space; the walls were papered to dado-rail height in a striped paper and finished with a border that matched the sofa. The effect was busy, but cosy. A Barbie doll and various outfits were scattered across the shag-pile carpet. The child, a girl as it turned out, was sitting barely inches from the television watching The Smurfs. They had hardly been in the house two minutes and she was already there, noted Grace, but then who was she to judge how someone else parented their child when she had a nanny at the Hall?

  ‘Make yourself comfortable, pet. I’ll go put the kettle on,’ said Melissa, and disappeared.

  Grace picked her way through the Barbie clothes and sat on the armchair in the bay window. You could actually see the sea from here, although there was the road and the promenade in between. Yes, she thought approvingly, Charles had picked well. Or maybe the house hadn’t been his choice at all? Perhaps Ray had found it and Charles had just stumped up the cash. She would ask Charles for more details of the transaction when she got home. She might even tell him that she had met Ray’s wife. Grace felt a fizz of excitement as she imagined Charles’s face. He would never believe that she could have tracked Ray down like this on her own. Sometimes she wondered if he thought she was completely hopeless, and that all she did all day was sit in the Hall and direct the staff. He was going to be so surprised.

  Grace glanced at Melissa’s child. If anything, she looked slightly older than Clio, although Clio had always been tiny, having never seemed to quite recover from her shaky start in life. The child was a pretty little thing with fine blonde hair caught up into two bunches, and the same round cheeks and small neat nose as Melissa.

  ‘Hello,’ Grace said to the child.

  The girl didn’t turn to look at her, but she said hello back.

  ‘My name’s Grace. What’s yours?’

  ‘Leah Allen,’ replied the girl.

  ‘Hello, Leah. And is this your Barbie?’

  Grace leant forward to pick up the doll, whose dress had become caught around her waist, exposing her unlikely figure to all and sundry. Grace smoothed the dress back down, restoring the doll’s modesty. Leah nodded and then turned her attention back to the television, but Grace noticed that she kept stealing a look at her from the corner of her eye.

  Melissa reappeared with a mug of tea in each hand and a packet of digestive biscuits under her arm.

  ‘I’ve only got plain ones,’ she said as she put the biscuits on the coffee table and passed one of the mugs to Grace. ‘Hope that’s all right.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Grace and took a sip of the tea, which was hot and strong. ‘Leah and I have just been getting acquainted. I have a daughter about her age, a little older maybe. My little girl is five.’

  ‘Leah’s nearly six,’ said Melissa, opening the packet of biscuits and helping herself to a couple without offering one to Grace first.r />
  Grace was surprised. Surely this would mean that Leah should have been at school?

  ‘Day off school today, then?’ she asked. ‘Are you poorly, Leah?’

  The child didn’t look unwell, but Grace supposed she might be at the tail end of some childhood virus or other.

  ‘No. She’s right as rain. I just fancied having her at home with me today,’ replied Melissa. ‘It gets lonely on my own when Ray’s away. Leah’s great company for me, aren’t you, princess?’

  Melissa devoured the first biscuit in three bites, flicking the crumbs away on to the carpet. Leah’s eyes didn’t stray from the television screen, but something about the way she held her head told Grace that she was totally aware of what was going on behind her.

  Grace didn’t know quite what to say. Keeping a child away from school on a whim was not something that she had ever come across before. Wasn’t it illegal? It certainly wasn’t in the best interests of the child. In fact, Melissa had said that it was more about her own welfare than that of her daughter. But she must not judge. Other people did things differently, and that was their prerogative.

  ‘So,’ said Melissa, starting on the second biscuit. ‘Tell me about this husband of yours. What did you say he was called?’

  ‘Charles,’ replied Grace.

  ‘And he’s my Ray’s stepbrother, you say?’

  ‘Half-brother,’ Grace clarified. ‘They have the same father, or had. He passed away a few years ago.’

  Perhaps their father had died when Ray was in prison? From what Charles had told her, Ray had spent most of his adult life so far behind bars. A flash of panic flashed through Grace. Was she safe here? But she looked around at the comfortable little room and its occupants and decided that whatever Ray might have done in the past, he appeared to have turned a corner now.

  ‘Ray never said,’ said Melissa. ‘But then he doesn’t talk about his family much.’

  ‘Charles told me that Ray went to live with his mother and that he didn’t really see much of their father after that.’

  Melissa shrugged. ‘Like I say, he doesn’t tell me stuff from back then.’

  Grace wasn’t surprised at this. Wasn’t Charles exactly the same? What was interesting, however, was that Melissa didn’t seem particularly curious about her husband’s past. If the boot had been on the other foot, Grace would have been nothing but questions.

  She decided to change tack.

  ‘Tell me, how long have you lived in Whitley Bay?’ she asked.

  Now Melissa sat up, more interested in talking about something she knew about.

  ‘All me life, like,’ she said. ‘With me mam to start with, and then I had a caravan.’ She smiled fondly at the memory. ‘It was a cracking little place, bit cold in the winter, mind. That’s where I was living when I met Ray.’

  ‘And when was that?’ Grace knew that her questions were bordering on the nosey, but she pressed on. Melissa would make it clear, no doubt, if she overstepped the mark.

  ‘Seven years back, in 1983, although it seems like yesterday. I was working as a barmaid in Newcastle and he just wandered into the pub off the street. Stood out like a sore thumb in there, he did. He’s classy, my Ray.’

  Grace thought back to where her life had been in 1983. She and Charles had been married a couple of years by then, and Hector would have been one.

  ‘And then I fell pregnant and had our Leah. And then we got married.’ Melissa flushed. ‘Wrong way round that, I know, but it was a bit of a surprise, the baby, like.’ She threw Grace a sheepish grin. ‘So, we got married in the autumn after Leah was born the previous April.’

  ‘My daughter Clio was born in the autumn so she must be the school year behind Leah.’

  Melissa didn’t look as if this meant much to her. Given where her daughter was currently, school seemed to be of limited importance to her. Then Grace had an idea.

  ‘Charles wasn’t at your wedding, was he?’ she asked, pleased that she might have made a connection, but Melissa shook her head.

  ‘No. It was just me and Ray. We didn’t even know the witnesses, like. It was dead romantic.’

  The memory of it made Melissa smile, and her face lit up again. The cockles of Grace’s heart were warmed. Ray seemed to have picked well with Melissa. The pair of them might grow to be firm friends, even though they didn’t at first blush appear to have that much in common. But they were married to brothers and they both had little girls the same age. Maybe that was enough to create an initial bond?

  ‘Have you got a wedding picture?’ chanced Grace, anxious to build on these friendship foundations, but again, Melissa shook her head.

  ‘There was no one there to take one,’ she said. ‘But it doesn’t matter. I’ve got it all locked up in there.’ She tapped the side of her head. ‘I’ll never forget it.’

  ‘Yes. Wedding days are so special,’ replied Grace. ‘I was so nervous before mine, worried that things would go wrong, but nothing did.’

  ‘Did you have a big do, then?’ asked Melissa.

  It probably wasn’t politic to tell her exactly how big the wedding of a baroness of the crown could be, but still Grace nodded. ‘Yes. Too big, really, but there were so many people that we had to invite. It all got a bit out of hand.’

  Melissa grinned at her. ‘My mate from school, her fiancé announced that everyone was invited to their wedding in the pub one night. Word got around and two hundred people turned up. She’d only got vol-au-vents for seventy and even then she’d told the family to hold back. There was nearly a riot when the food ran out.’

  Melissa helped herself to another biscuit and then snapped it in half and put one half back in the packet.

  ‘You must stop me eating these,’ she said conspiratorially. ‘I never got back to my pre-pregnancy weight. I just can’t seem to shift the pounds. Ray says he doesn’t mind, but I should try a bit harder really. Still, what difference is half a digestive going to make?’

  She contemplated the half-biscuit then stuffed it into her mouth in one go. Her mouth wasn’t quite big enough and the edges stuck out at either side. She bit down and biscuit crumbs tumbled into her lap, from where she scooped them up and popped them into her mouth in one smooth movement.

  ‘You’re nice and slim, though, pet,’ Melissa added. ‘What’s your secret?’

  A decade of watching what she ate and punishing herself with Jane Fonda tapes, Grace wanted to say, but she actually replied, ‘Good genes, I suppose.’

  ‘Lucky,’ said Melissa. ‘My mum was like a little barrel on legs. It was only the smoking that kept her thin. I suppose I’ve inherited her shape. She’s not dead, like. She ran off to Cornwall. We don’t really keep in touch.’

  ‘Do you miss her?’ asked Grace.

  ‘Nah. She was a crap mother. I’m going to do a much better job with Leah.’

  Grace thought that Melissa could start by sending her child to school, but she didn’t say anything. ‘It can be difficult, being a parent,’ she said instead. ‘Charles is often away with his work, and on top of that he’s obsessed with motor racing. I don’t understand it, but it seems he’s compelled to go and watch these blessed races. He follows them all over. It’s hard sometimes, though, having to look after everything by myself when he’s not around.’

  Melissa nodded enthusiastically. ‘That’s right. Ray’s away a lot, too.’

  Did she mean at Her Majesty’s pleasure? Grace wondered.

  But Melissa added, ‘He’s a bodyguard for rich blokes, sorts out their security and that. I reckon he’s a bit like James Bond. He has to go where they want him, though, so that’s why he’s away such a lot.’

  An ex-criminal in security, thought Grace. Well, it made a kind of sense – poacher turned gamekeeper and all that. He’d know all the tricks, one assumed, and maybe a few more after his spell in prison. It seemed like a steady job, though, so it must have helped, buying Ray a home. She would enjoy telling Charles that later, although obviously that would mean confessing wher
e she had been.

  ‘But when he’s gone, I do get lonely,’ Melissa continued, and her pretty face clouded over. ‘I never minded being on my own when I lived in the van. I suppose you don’t miss what you haven’t got. It’s tough on my own now, though. But Leah and me have each other, don’t we, pet?’

  Leah didn’t look away from the television screen, but she nodded. Melissa reached for another biscuit, her hand hovering over the packet, but then she seemed to think better of it.

  A church bell struck the hour somewhere nearby and Grace looked at her watch. She still had plenty of time to spare, but perhaps this had been enough for a first meeting. She finished her tea in one swift mouthful and stood up.

  ‘Well, I should be getting back,’ she said. ‘It’s been so lovely meeting you, Melissa. And little Leah here. I’d like it if I could visit again one day. Perhaps I could telephone you?’

  Melissa shook her head. ‘No phone here. Ray says we don’t need one and he’s right. I’d rather spend the money on something else. But call in any time. It’s nice to have someone to chatter to. Wait till I tell Ray that I’ve met his brother’s missus. He won’t believe it.’

  ‘You must come to us sometime. The children can all meet each other and play in our garden,’ Grace suggested, although she really would have to clear that with Charles. ‘We’re not that far away and it would be lovely for the girls to get to know one another, seeing as they’re cousins.’

  ‘I suppose they are, pet,’ said Melissa, and then she smiled as if this idea pleased her. ‘That’d be champion.’

  As Grace drove back to Hartsford she dissected her visit into minute pieces in her mind. When she’d set off that morning, she had only been expecting to see the house, but now how different the world looked. She had a sister-in-law, for one thing. Melissa was lovely. The two women had almost nothing in common in terms of their lifestyles, and yet Grace felt sure that there had been some sort of embryonic connection between them. Melissa was warm and open and seemed happy to chat to Grace, and once they’d got started the conversation had flowed along like the Amazon in the rainy season. And there were Clio and Leah. Children of the same age were perfect for bringing women together as long as you didn’t allow competition to get in the way. Grace had not got any competitive vibes from Melissa, which made a refreshing change from many of the circles that Grace found herself in. Melissa was a simple soul, Grace suspected, without any hidden angles (or possibly depths), but she could see the makings of a friendship if she was prepared to work at it a little.