by K. L. Slater
‘I’d guess you are both out a lot then?’ Irma asked.
He nodded. ‘Yeah, but not every night. Usually once or twice in the week and definitely all weekend if Jesse’s funds stretch to it.’
‘Had you been to Movers before?’
‘Oh yeah. Loads of times. With it being midweek, I suggested we went to the pub for a quiet drink.’ He hesitated. ‘I’m supposed to be attending an early training session today at the boxing gym. I wish I’d insisted on the quiet drink now, but Jesse, he’s not easy to put off once he gets something in his head.’
Marcus nodded. ‘So on balance, would you say you were in a bit of a bad mood?’
Tom shook his head. ‘Not at all, but I admit I was slightly irritated. Everything always has to be done the way he wants, you know? After a while, it gets …’
‘Annoying?’ Irma offered.
‘Yeah, it can get very annoying,’ he confirmed. ‘Is there any news on how he is? Has he regained consciousness yet?’
‘No news yet, I’m afraid,’ Irma said, referring to her notes. ‘Back to earlier in the evening. Did you go for drinks before the club?’
‘Only one, in the Mayflower bar. We don’t go out until late, ten o’clock usually. We had a few beers at home, played some FIFA. Then we got a cab straight into town.’
‘What kind of mood was Jesse in?’
‘He was OK at first, in the bar, although I sensed he was a bit on edge.’
‘Did you ask him if anything was wrong?’ Irma said.
‘Not at that point, because I assumed that was why he’d wanted to come out, to loosen up a bit, you know?’
‘You said he was OK “at first”,’ Marcus said. ‘What about later on in the night?’
‘He was drinking heavily. I stuck to beers but he started getting a couple of shots with each pint. Called me a wuss when I said I wanted to take it easy for my early-morning training session.’
‘Did that make you angry?’
‘No, I’m used to him. He doesn’t mean anything by it. Usually.’
‘But this time he did mean something by it?’
‘I don’t know what got into him. He started acting really strange. I asked him what was wrong, but he got crazier, dancing like a madman and then sort of mime-attacking me with kung fu style moves. He got that close I had to push him back.’
‘And he did this for no apparent reason?’ Irma frowned.
‘For no reason. The doorman came over and told him to leave, that aggressive behaviour wasn’t permitted. Jesse pushed into him sort of accidentally on purpose, and then started giving it the usual.’ Tom used his hand like an opening and closing mouth. ‘When we got away from the dance floor, another security guy grabbed me and they pushed us both out of the fire exit, the rear doors.’
‘Then what happened?’ Marcus prompted him.
‘I had a go at Jesse, asked him what the hell was wrong with him, and that was when he pulled the knife on me.’
Irma consulted her notes. ‘There was a Swiss Army type penknife found tucked under him, the sort with small tools and gadgets attached. This is the knife you’re referring to, yes?’
‘Yes. Doesn’t sound much when you describe it like that, but all I saw was a blade flashing in the street light. He jabbed it at me and I jumped back, told him not to be so stupid. I actually laughed, because I couldn’t believe what he was doing.’
‘How did that go down with Jesse?’
‘He lost it. Lunged at me again with the knife. I sidestepped him and he came after me. He was like a man possessed.’
‘Had Jesse taken any drugs that you know of during the night?’
‘No. He can drink like a fish, we both can at times. Jesse has the odd joint, but that’s it, nothing harder, and as a boxer, I’m strictly drugs-free.’
‘So Jesse came at you a second time, then what?’ Marcus said.
‘It’s a bit of a blur, but my instincts kicked in and I just threw a punch. Without even thinking about it. I had to stop him because he’d definitely have stabbed me. His eyes, they were wild.’
‘And to clarify, you hit him just the once?’ Irma said.
Tom nodded, looked down at the table. ‘The punch landed on the side of his jaw and he went down. I saw his head smash into the pavement and then … well, he lay very still and I panicked. I’ve seen enough boxing matches to know.’
‘To know what, Tom?’ Marcus pushed him.
‘To know that there was a chance he’d suffered a brain injury when his head hit the concrete. I had this feeling that I was in serious trouble. Listen … can you go and check if there’s any news yet?’
Irma gave Tom a hard look. ‘Not at this precise moment but rest assured, when we hear anything you’ll be the first to know.’
Twenty-Four
Jill
October 2019
It was an hour before we were due to leave for the dinner party.
I’d already showered, scrubbed the soil from my fingernails and washed and dried my hair. After applying a little make-up, I stared into my dressing table mirror and tried to flatten my hairstyle.
Earlier, I’d dug out my heated rollers for the first time in years. My hair was longer than it used to be – through neglect rather than intention – and the effect had been a bigger and bouncier hairdo than I’d anticipated. I’d used extra-hold spray, and my hair felt voluminous but also very stiff, like cardboard.
With a light dusting of bronzer and blusher and a pink lipstick I’d found at the back of the drawer, I’d scrubbed up. I’d made an effort, at least.
Audrey rang. ‘How are you feeling? Remember what we said. Head held high, don’t let her get to you.’
When Tom left the house on Monday, I’d called her and poured out my heart and soul.
‘I don’t want to go for dinner because I can’t stand the thought of her smug face watching me suffer, but if I don’t go, I feel like I’m letting Tom down.’ I paused. ‘When I texted him to say we’d be there, he told me Coral and Ellis are going too. Awkward isn’t the word for it. That poor boy.’
‘You have to go and Robert must go too, whether he likes it or not,’ Audrey said firmly. ‘You have to show you’re being reasonable – on the surface, at least. If they close down communications, you’ll not find out a thing. At least if you play her at her own game, you can keep an eye on what’s happening.’
It had sounded like common sense. The last thing I wanted was for my relationship with my son to end up the same way as his father’s.
‘I don’t want to go any more than when we last spoke,’ I said now, putting the phone on to loudspeaker. I turned my head this way and that, evaluating my big hair in the mirror. ‘But I am going and I’m going to put on an act in the hope of getting up Bridget’s nose.’
‘Good girl,’ Audrey said with approval. ‘And what does Robert think about it all?’
‘He’s trying to squirm out of it again,’ I said.
‘Astonishing!’ Audrey murmured. ‘He finds it the easiest thing in the world to run away from responsibility, doesn’t he? Well, good luck. Let me know how it goes.’
We said our goodbyes and I ended the call. I stood up and straightened my knitted dress. It didn’t look as good on as when I’d bought it ten years ago. I was the same weight as back then, but my body shape had changed. The bits that used to go in stuck out a bit more now, with a thickening around the middle I could do little about.
I’d decided to wear opaque black tights, and on a whim, I slipped on a pair of barely worn red patent loafers I’d found at the bottom of the wardrobe. I hoped they added a touch of quirkiness against the dull grey of the dress. With Bridget flouncing around and looking half her age, I felt a growing determination to give myself a bit of an overhaul.
‘Cab’s here,’ Robert called up as I reached the top of the stairs. He’d decided he’d have a drink after all and leave the car at home. ‘Good Lord, what have you done to your hair? Looks like you’ve had a fright.’
> I didn’t give him the courtesy of a reply. He opened the front door and I followed him out.
It was a fifteen-minute cab ride to Bridget’s house. While Robert paid the driver, I stood outside and looked at the brightly lit front of the three-storey house. So much illuminated glass! It must have cost a fortune to heat.
The front door opened and Tom appeared, waving.
‘Welcome, guys!’ He stood aside as we entered the house. He looked so happy, glowing from within, and was effortlessly smart and handsome in a paisley-print long-sleeved shirt that he wore loose outside his black trousers.
‘Dad.’ He nodded as Robert walked by him and left me standing inside the doorway, still trying to pat down the volume in my hair. I glanced around. Everything was so open and white and shiny and clean. And so modern! It made our house look like a mausoleum.
Tom moved sideways and my breath caught in my throat as a large, framed headshot of Tom and Bridget on their wedding day revealed itself on the wall behind him. It was a different one to the picture she’d put on Facebook, and I stepped forward and studied it. Her hair pinned up, delicate little flowers dotted throughout. Tom looked his usual handsome self, but Bridget’s skin, eyes, teeth were perfect, not a blemish or a wrinkle to be found. Filters. That was what all the celebrities used on their pictures these days. Filters that made them look wonderful, even on close-ups like this one.
‘Hi, Mum,’ Tom said, kissing my cheek. His eyes swept quickly from my hair down to my feet, where they fixed on the loafers for a couple of seconds before he looked back up at me and smiled. ‘You look so … different!
I decided to take his comment as a compliment. ‘Thank you! I love your shirt, Tom.’
‘Paul Smith.’ He winked and stroked the fabric of his sleeve. ‘It’s a gift from Bridget. She spoils me rotten!’
Bridget appeared, a forced smile stretched across her face. ‘Well, we had to do something about those God-awful clothes you were wearing. Jill! How nice to see you.’
With tremendous effort I managed not to react, bristling from her thinly disguised jibe. Tom must have told her I’d bought him new clothes for his release.
She wore a cream chiffon top, nipped in at the waist, and skinny jeans with impossibly high ankle boots that made my knees ache just to look at them. Had I not known her, I’d probably have guessed her to be in her late thirties.
‘You look very nice, Bridget,’ Robert simpered, air-kissing her. ‘So youthful!’
I felt like kicking him in the back of the knees. The creep. He was all Mr Nice Guy to her face, but it was a different story back at home when he was ranting about their age difference.
‘Thank you, Robert. I think it helps working with young people,’ Bridget said.
Helps bagging yourself a ridiculously young husband, too! I’d have loved to have added.
‘I like to keep up with the latest fashion,’ she continued. ‘It’s so easy to slide into dressing like a fuddy-duddy without noticing, isn’t it?’
Suddenly my conspicuous red loafers felt clumsy and dated.
Tom and Robert started talking together in low voices, which put me on edge. It was difficult for those two to pass the time of day without a full-scale row ensuing.
I pushed away my troubled thoughts.
‘Thanks for asking us over for dinner, Bridget,’ I said.
‘You’re very welcome. I thought it might help seeing as we got off on the wrong foot last week.’
Said as though it was all my fault entirely!
‘How are you feeling, Mum?’ Tom looked at me with concern. ‘Dad’s told me you went to see the doctor yesterday.’
I glanced anxiously at Robert, but he’d made himself busy hanging up his coat.
‘I’m fine. It was just a routine visit,’ I said briskly.
The doctor had reviewed my prescription medication and made a couple of tweaks as I’d been so stressed recently but I wouldn’t be sharing that with Bridget. That was Robert all over, talking about something so intensely personal at a dinner party.
‘And who’s this handsome young man?’ Robert said.
I noticed a figure hovering behind Bridget, and then a skinny young woman wearing neon-pink lipstick stepped in front of him and blocked our view. I realised it was Coral. Ten years after I’d last seen her, she looked nervous and tired.
‘Ellis, go into the other room,’ Coral hissed, her face puce. Another person who obviously didn’t want to be here.
Bridget either didn’t hear or she purposely ignored her. ‘This is Ellis, my grandson.’ She turned to look at him. ‘Say hi to Jill and Robert, Ellis.’
A surly boy dressed in a hoodie and clutching a portable games console shuffled forward. So this was the son Jesse had never got to meet. He stopped moving and pressed himself back against the wall as if he were trying to make himself invisible. Jesse’s arrogance shone in him all too clearly.
‘Hi,’ he murmured.
‘And this is Coral, who’ll you know of course, Ellis’s mum.’
Coral chewed the inside of her cheek and avoided eye contact with all of us.
‘Hello, Coral,’ I said. ‘Nice to see you again after all this time.’
‘Hello again, Coral,’ Robert said, full of nervous energy. He was trying far too hard to fit in and say all the right things. ‘I remember you from the dad taxi service I provided more times than I can remember.’
Coral had been to our house a few times when Tom had had friends over for a barbecue or a movie night, and Robert, when he was feeling generous, would sometimes ferry them to the cinema or pick them up from some bar or other.
Coral wasn’t a very memorable sort of person, but she’d been Jesse’s girlfriend and now she was the mother of young Ellis, so I guessed it suited Bridget to keep her around.
She pressed her lips together and glanced at my face for a split second. Her eyes flashed. ‘Hello,’ she said quietly, choosing to speak only to me, and that was when I realised with a jolt that she wasn’t nervous at all, but quietly seething and trying her best to control it.
‘Is that your black Mercedes parked outside, Bridget?’ Robert turned his back on me. ‘Very smart. Very sexy, I think the word is these days for something good, isn’t it?’
I cringed. He thought he was so down with the kids, it was embarrassing. But I heard Bridget giggle and agree with him.
‘And that’s my “sexy” BMW right behind it,’ Tom said, mocking his father. ‘Another present from my generous wife. What do you think, Mum?’
I glanced out of the window at the silver car Tom was proudly pointing out. ‘It’s lovely, Tom. Very nice indeed,’ I said.
Tom gave me a hug, pressed his cheek next to mine.
‘I really appreciate you coming over, Mum,’ he said. ‘I know it can’t be easy for you.’
I closed my eyes and breathed in his subtle cologne. My head filled with an image of him as a child, running excitedly into our house on the day Bridget picked him up from school because I worked late at the library. All the things I’d planned for us to do together when he was released from prison drifted through my thoughts like a thin trail of smoke that led to nothing.
Behind us, Robert’s conversation with Bridget faded out. Tom’s arms fell stiffly down by his sides and I realised I was still holding on to him.
‘Jill,’ Bridget said softly. ‘It’s been far too long. I hope this can be the start of us rebuilding our connection.’
I let go of my son, turned around and saw her slim, lightly tanned arms outstretched towards me. My instinct was to turn my back on her, but Robert and Tom were watching, so I allowed her to place her hands on my shoulders and kiss my cheek. Close up, she was heavily made up with foundation and powder and didn’t look nearly as youthful as I’d initially thought. I guessed she was probably wearing eyelash extensions, and she’d outlined her lips in a nude shade the same colour as her lipstick so they appeared fuller than they actually were. Smoke and mirrors.
‘Love your h
air, Jill … very eighties!’ She laughed a little cruelly, I felt, but nobody else seemed to notice. I pulled away.
‘Come through,’ she said to the others. ‘We’ll have a drink and I’ve got some nibbles. Dinner will be ready in about twenty minutes.’
I walked ahead, but within seconds Bridget was there at my side. ‘How long is it since we spoke, Jill?’
My fingernails scraped at my palm. Was she goading me to refer to the time she came to our house after Jesse’s death? I’d closed the door in her face back then.
‘I can’t remember,’ I said, but of course I knew exactly when it was. ‘Sorry, I need to use the bathroom.’ She gave a little smirk as if she knew I wanted to get away from her and directed me to the small downstairs cloakroom.
Like the rest of the house, it was immaculate. Soft white porcelain and pale coffee walls. Very restful. It was such a relief to get away from Bridget’s intense focus. I had the disturbing sensation that everything she said to me was loaded. That she was laughing at me in plain sight because she’d taken away my son. But she was too clever to overplay it and risk anyone else noticing.
Feeling a little hot and light-headed, I splashed some water on my face and pulled at the neck of the grey wool dress. It had been a mistake to wear it, I should have dressed in layers, easy to slip off if I felt too hot.
I turned from the sink and froze as my eye rested on something on the opposite wall. It was a colourful framed poster, prettily illustrated with flowers and fruits and scripted writing that read: Karma has no menu. You get served what you deserve. The bold black words sprang out and branded themselves in my mind. Their irony was not lost on me. I held on to the sink and waited for the dizziness to pass. Robert would say, ‘It’s just a poster, Jill. Stop seeing such drama in everything.’
But was it just a poster? Tom had said she’d only been living in the house for six months. So I had to ask myself why, given the circumstances of Tom’s very recent release, she’d hung something so leading on the wall where every visitor would see it.