A Place to Call Home

by Carole Matthews

  They could move to the country. Stay out of London. Whenever he was on tour he could take them with him. Other bands managed to take their families on the road with them. But he had to admit that it wasn’t the best deal for the kids. It was disruptive, and what child didn’t function better in a settled environment? He couldn’t see Sabina thriving if she was dragged around the world on a series of buses and planes.

  The more he considered it, the more ridiculous an idea it seemed. He’d hated everything about the music business, except for the performing. Why was he even thinking about going back to it when it had already robbed him of so much? He must be totally mad. There was no way he could put the two most important people in his life at risk. He’d seen the anxiety on Ayesha’s face this morning as he left the house, but stupidly he’d chosen to ignore it, caught up in his own excitement. How ridiculous it seemed now. How shallow. Now he couldn’t wait to get back to her and put her mind at rest. While she was with him, he never wanted her to worry about another thing.

  With all these thoughts flitting through his brain, Hayden jumped out of the car and let himself into the house.

  It all seemed unusually still and he called out, ‘Ayesha!’

  There was no reply, but it was a fine day and she might well be out in the garden. He remembered that Crystal was at work and Edgar had taken Joy to the day centre. They had the place to themselves for an hour or two, which would be nice.

  Hayden went through to the kitchen but there was still no sign of Ayesha. He shrugged off his laptop bag and put it on the table, then helped himself to some chilled orange juice from the fridge. Smiling to himself, he realised it was the first time the house had been so quiet in months. Strangely, he’d grown to like their new busy, bustling life much better.

  Out in the garden, he enjoyed the sun on his face. The offices at his management team had been chilled to Arctic levels and it was good to feel the heat on his skin. If Ayesha hadn’t planned anything for tonight, perhaps they’d have a barbecue again. He was getting to be a dab hand at not incinerating sausages. They could get Edgar round too. It was a change not to be the only male in the place, and Edgar was a decent bloke. He and Crystal seemed really happy together. Perhaps it was time both he and Crystal found happiness again.

  ‘Ayesha,’ he called out. ‘Ayesha! Where are you?’

  He wandered down to Joy’s vegetable patch, but there was no one there either. Maybe he could get more interested in what went on down here. He’d never taken much note of what Joy got up to in her potting shed or greenhouse, but he might find it relaxing and, in a weird way, he felt that he’d like to spend more time with Joy. Seeing her washed out and frail yesterday had made him realise that she wasn’t always going to be around and that he should appreciate her more.

  Hayden felt himself frown. Ayesha must have popped out for a while. Which was unlike her. Even after all this time, she didn’t generally go out on her own, and after yesterday he thought she’d have stayed very closely to the house. He called her phone, but it went straight to voicemail.

  They should get away for a while. Have a holiday in the sunshine. He wondered if he should suggest that they all go back to Sri Lanka. Ayesha, he knew, would love to see her parents again and it would be great for Beanie to meet her grandparents for the first time. They’d have to organise passports as he was pretty sure they didn’t have them.

  Back in the house, he wandered aimlessly through the kitchen again and into the living room. It was amazing how quickly he’d got used to having people around. He couldn’t imagine going back to the days when he stayed in his room all the time, barely came out, barely spoke.

  He could spend an hour on the piano, try out some new ideas. That would pass the time until everyone came home.

  Then he noticed the scrap of paper on top of the copy of Great Expectations that they’d been reading. He picked up the note and, scanning it, felt his stomach churn. The very last thing he’d expected was a goodbye note.

  Chapter Eighty-three

  ‘She can’t have gone,’ Crystal said.

  Hayden handed her the brief farewell note that Ayesha had left. ‘I think that’s pretty clear.’

  I am so very sorry. Please let me go. Ayesha. The words were burned on to the back of his eyes.

  ‘Is this it?’ she asked.

  Hayden nodded. ‘Looks like it.’

  Crystal passed the note to Joy, who frowned at it and shook her head in disbelief.

  ‘Where could she have gone?’

  ‘That, I don’t know.’

  The three of them were sitting at the kitchen table. No one had thought to make tea.

  Crystal punched Ayesha’s number into her mobile. ‘She must have had a rush of blood to the head. I thought she was acting a bit funny when I left her this morning.’

  ‘Then why did you leave her?’ It came out more crisply than Hayden meant it to.

  ‘I had to go to work, Hayd,’ Crystal snapped back. ‘I offered to ring you and get you home early, but she wouldn’t hear of it.’ She clicked off her phone with a tut. ‘No answer.’

  ‘I’ve tried already.’ He’d tried a million times, if truth be told. It was clear she didn’t want to speak to him.

  He raked his hands through his hair and let out a weary sigh. Perhaps she blamed him for not protecting her enough. Goodness only knew, he blamed himself.

  ‘You don’t think someone’s forced her to do this?’

  ‘No,’ Hayden said. ‘I checked her room. She’s packed all her clothes. If it had been her husband, he’d have simply grabbed them. I phoned the school and they said she’d seemed quite calm when she picked up Sabina. We just have to accept that she’s chosen to leave.’

  ‘Well, I can’t just accept it! You have to go after her, Hayd,’ Crystal said. ‘You have to.’

  ‘She doesn’t want me to,’ he replied flatly. ‘You can read that yourself.’

  ‘She doesn’t mean it though,’ Crystal countered. ‘Not really. Women always say what they don’t mean. You have to find her. How will she manage?’

  ‘I can’t hound her like her husband has,’ Hayden said. ‘I won’t have her looking over her shoulder for two people. If I follow her then she’s always at risk. I could expose her at any time. She’s better off without me.’

  ‘You’re such a twat,’ Crystal muttered. ‘Of course she isn’t better off without you.’

  ‘Then why has she gone?’

  ‘She’s terrified. She’s panicked. Now more than ever, she needs us.’

  ‘She’s gone,’ Hayden said. ‘We should let her go.’

  ‘No,’ Crystal said vehemently. ‘You might be prepared to give up without a fight, but I’m not. She’s my friend. The best friend I’ve ever had. She got me out of that shit-hole club and I owe her. She’s given you your life back, Hayden. You were rattling round here like a pathetic shadow until she came. You owe her too.’

  He hung his head. Some of what Crystal said rang true, but he didn’t want to chase after her. If Ayesha felt she needed to disappear for Sabina’s sake, then he should respect that. ‘Don’t I owe her enough to respect her wishes too?’

  ‘Not when she doesn’t know what’s good for her,’ Crystal cried in frustration. ‘Men! You’re bloody hopeless. You could pay for a top detective to find her and bring her back.’

  ‘Then I’d be no better than her husband,’ he pointed out. ‘She wants her freedom, Crystal. I don’t want to tie her here.’

  ‘Tell him, Joy. What do you think?’

  ‘Hayden,’ Joy sighed, ‘I think you’re a twat too.’

  That night Crystal made dinner, and it was terrible. It was supposed to be macaroni cheese. Even though it had come out of a foil supermarket carton, it was like a solid lump of beige stodge, and the table shuddered when she shook it off the spoon on to the plate.

  Joy took one look at it and burst into tears.

  ‘Oh bollocks,’ Crystal said, tearful too. ‘I take it you’re not crying about the
state of my mac and cheese, Joy.’

  Joy dabbed at her eyes with her napkin and shrugged off Crystal’s attempt to comfort her.

  Hayden could feel her pain. It radiated from all of them like toxic waves. They sat forlornly at the table, all of them feeling the absence of Ayesha and Sabina keenly.

  ‘This just isn’t right, is it?’ Crystal said.

  He hadn’t wanted to come downstairs at all, but Crystal had insisted. His appetite had deserted him and there was no way he could eat this heavy lump of congealed pasta. It would sit like a stone in his stomach.

  ‘You’re going to have to get her back, Hayd.’ Crystal stared disconsolately at her culinary efforts. ‘Or we’re all going to starve to death.’ She pushed her fork through it in dismay. ‘What did we do before Ayesha came?’

  He’d lived on sandwiches or fresh air. He’d locked his emotions up tight where he couldn’t access them. He’d given up his music and retreated into silence. He’d let no one and nothing touch him. He didn’t know about the others, but already he could feel his old life calling him. The hollowness that had been at the centre of him had returned with a vengeance. When he thought he’d banished it, he was wrong. It had simply been waiting, just around the corner. If possible, he felt even more empty, more bereft than before.

  Ayesha and Sabina were gone, and the sooner he got used to that the better.

  Chapter Eighty-four

  A month had gone by and there’d still been no word from Ayesha. Yet the space she had left in their world was no less gaping.

  Joy spent most of her time in the garden and, when she did come into the house, she moved about like a ghost. Crystal’s cooking hadn’t improved and now she didn’t even apologise for the incinerated ready-meals that she plonked in front of them. They all ate without enthusiasm anyway.

  Hayden had returned to his old habits and now spent most of his time in his room – except for night-time. When it turned midnight, one, two, three, and still sleep eluded him, he was back down in the basement, working out to try to exhaust his body into oblivion.

  It was no use. There was no way of obliterating Ayesha from his mind. If he was awake he thought of her. If he was asleep he dreamed of her. Everything that happened was referenced back to her and he could see no end to it.

  His management team, so buoyed by his unexpected reappearance, had accepted his equally speedy disappearance, and after a week or two had stopped calling. The contract to become a judge on The Fame Game remained unsigned on the desk in his office.

  The security around the house was now so strong that even to him it felt like a prison. A gilded cage from which he had no particular desire to escape. They would have been safe here, but they would have been suffocated too. Just as he was.

  He sat at the piano, fingers poised, but he couldn’t make them move. The music that had briefly bubbled up inside him had gone again. Love, it seemed, was the only inspiration he needed, and that, it appeared, was the one thing that eluded him.

  Joy came in through the French doors and peeled off her gardening gloves. ‘Cup of tea?’

  ‘I’ll make it,’ Hayden said. ‘You sit down.’

  She looked tired, and had done since the day Ayesha left.

  They went through to the kitchen together and, on auto-pilot, Hayden flicked on the kettle and made them both tea.

  ‘Still no word?’ she asked as she sat at the table.

  He shook his head as he put mugs down in front of them both.

  ‘I miss her,’ Joy said. ‘I miss her and Sabina.’

  The words ‘Me too’ wouldn’t even grace his throat. Missing them felt like having ice round his heart, like a sword stabbed into his ribs, like a vice on his brain. The pain was physical and real. A permanent torture.

  ‘It makes me realise that I miss my own grandchildren too,’ she continued. ‘You get used to them not being around, but that doesn’t mean it’s for the best. I should go to see them. If it means getting on a plane, then I should just get over my fear and do it. I don’t want them growing up not knowing me.’

  ‘You could go on an extended holiday,’ Hayden suggested. ‘See if you like it out there.’

  ‘I’m frightened,’ Joy admitted. ‘But I’ve been thinking of it more since the day the men came here for Sabina. If they’d been more determined, I could have been a goner. None of us like to stare our mortality in the face. If I’m going to do this, I must do it now, before I run out of chances.’

  Hayden gave her a sideways glance. ‘Do you want me to book you a ticket on the internet?’

  ‘I’ll phone my sons. See when they’re available.’

  ‘We can Skype them.’

  ‘We could,’ she said, much to his surprise. ‘Let’s do that. I’ll comb my hair and put a clean blouse on.’ She smiled at him. ‘There’s one advantage with the telephone: they can’t see how very scruffy I’ve become.’

  Hayden put his hand over hers. ‘I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you at all.’

  Crystal breezed in and threw her bag down on the table. ‘What am I missing? You two look like you lost a fiver and found a pound.’

  ‘Joy’s considering going to Singapore to see her sons on a long holiday.’

  ‘Great idea,’ Crystal said. ‘But that means you’re going to leave me here alone with Misery Guts?’

  ‘Not for too long,’ Joy replied. ‘I’m thinking a month at the most.’

  ‘Thank goodness for that.’ Crystal emptied the dregs of the tea from the pot.

  It would be stewed and cold. Ayesha would never have stood for it. She’d have jumped up and made a fresh one instantly. Now none of them could be bothered. Crystal grimaced as she downed it.

  Hayden closed his eyes. He had to stop thinking of every little thing in terms of how Ayesha would have done it. That wasn’t going to bring her home.

  ‘I’ll be back in five minutes,’ Joy said and she tripped out of the kitchen, leaving them together.

  Crystal stared hard at him.

  ‘Say nothing,’ Hayden warned. Every time they were alone, Crystal pushed him to look for Ayesha. She had done for the last month, and it was clear she wasn’t about to stop now.

  ‘I’m worried about you,’ she said. ‘You’re back to how you used to be. You never come out of your room.’

  ‘I’m out now,’ he said.

  ‘You know what I mean, clever dick. You stay holed up there for most of the day and come out at night when you think Joy and I have gone to bed.’

  ‘I need some time to myself.’

  ‘You don’t,’ Crystal insisted. ‘You need to find Ayesha. She’s out there waiting. I know she is. She hardly had a penny to her name, Hayden. I’m worried about her. I’ve called and called, but she’s not answering. She’s my friend. Why doesn’t she talk to me? What if something’s happened to her?’

  If he ever thought about that, he made himself physically sick.

  ‘What about Sabina?’ she pressed on. ‘Even if they’re OK, she’ll be missing you terribly. You must have some idea where she’s gone?’

  But he didn’t.

  ‘Don’t you want to see that child grow up?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Then find them.’

  ‘It’s not that easy.’

  ‘You’re making me want to bang my head on the table, Hayd. You’re making me feel bad about myself. I’m all loved up with Edgar, we should all be going out together, drinking cocktails, dancing the night away and having fun. Doing what young – ish – people do.’

  Hayden didn’t point out that it was the last thing on earth he’d want to do. He’d never been happier than when he’d been curled up on the sofa with Ayesha, reading together, or showing Sabina a new tune on the piano. That was what he wanted in his life.

  ‘I don’t want to be here babysitting you.’

  ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘But I do.’ Crystal tucked her hair behind her ear and stared fixedly at her mug. She cleared her throat befo
re she spoke. ‘You know I’ve always loved you, don’t you?’

  He swallowed hard before he answered. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then set me free, Hayden. Set me free to love Edgar. Go and find Ayesha.’

  Chapter Eighty-five

  The need to do this had been burning in Suresh’s veins for weeks, and now the moment was finally here. Most of the haul from the last raid had been sold on – the watches had been particularly easy to move. Who didn’t want a flashy designer watch at a knock-down price, no questions asked? He would target more specifically this time to fill what was a big demand. It had been too long since the last job. The tension had been building up inside him and he wanted to get this done. He wondered if this was what junkies felt like when they needed their next fix.

  Flynn and Smith had already arrived and they were waiting for Arunja before heading to the lock-up to get the bikes. It was pushing eight o’clock in the morning and his brother should have been here by now to go over last-minute details, but he wasn’t. This was so typical of Arunja’s couldn’t-care-less attitude. Well, if he didn’t buck up, Suresh wouldn’t use him on the next job. That might make him think more clearly.

  Arunja might be family, but that didn’t give him a reason to treat Suresh like dirt. He was the brains of this operation. When he said, ‘Jump,’ he wanted them to say, ‘How high?’ He’d had enough of people thinking they could walk all over him. Well, that was all about to end and he certainly wasn’t going to let his little brother get away with disrespecting him.

  ‘We need to be making a move, Suresh.’ Flynn glanced at his watch, irritated. ‘Call Arunja. If we wait much longer we’re going to miss our window of opportunity. There’s no way I want to be heading into the shopping centre when it’s starting to get busy.’

  ‘We need to be there as soon as they open,’ Smith agreed.