by Susan Lewis
She could hear Liam, aged five, calling out for his dad to come and read him a story. ‘Daddy! Giraffe, monkey, pelly,’ and minutes later Steve would be rolling up laughing at his favourite Roald Dahl story. Liam always chose it because of how much it made his daddy laugh, and Angie would stand outside the door listening, loving them with all her heart and wishing Liam was able to read it himself.
‘He’ll get there,’ Steve’s mother always assured them, ‘he’s just a late learner, that’s all. You wait, before you know it he’ll be streets ahead of everyone else and you won’t be able to keep up with him.’
Due to her role as a teaching assistant at the local school, Angie was able to monitor his progress, and it definitely wasn’t happening at the same rate as other kids his age. On the other hand he was always so happy and eager to try new things, and even when he was teased or left out of a game he never seemed to get upset. He’d just laugh along with the others, not caring that he was the butt of the joke, and if anyone ever appeared sad he’d quickly invite them home to play trains or do some colouring with him and his dad.
‘He’s a special boy,’ Hari Shalik, Steve’s boss, would often say, ruffling Liam’s hair and smiling down at the small upturned face in a grandfatherly way.
‘Can I come and work for you when I’m grown up?’ Liam would sometimes ask.
Hari’s chuckle rang with notes of surprise and delight. ‘Of course, if it’s what you still want when the time comes, but you might have other ideas by then.’
‘He’s going to fly to the moon, aren’t you, Liam?’ Steve would prompt.
Liam’s nod was earnest and slow until he broke into a grin and wrapped his arms around his daddy’s legs. ‘Only if you come with me,’ he whispered.
‘Well, I wouldn’t let you go on your own.’
‘Can we take Mummy?’
‘I think we should.’
To Hari Liam said, ‘Mummy’s going to have a baby.’
Hari’s golden-brown eyes widened with interest. ‘So you’ll have a brother or a sister? Will you take them to the moon as well?’
Liam thought about it. ‘They might be too small, so they’ll have to stay with Granny Watts until we come back.’
‘Good idea, and don’t forget to let me know when you’re going so I can come and give you a good send-off.’
Recalling that conversation now as she drove away from Hill Lodge, Angie was smiling at how precious and pure those memories were, like long hot summer days before autumn came to shadow the sunlight, and rain began falling like tears from gathering clouds.
CHAPTER TWO
Emma was Angie’s younger sister by a year and several months. She was also plumper and louder, happily divorced and a hard-working mother of two small boys. She had a similar abundance of fiery red hair to Angie’s, and the same arresting blue eyes that changed shade according to her mood.
The two of them had taken over at Bridging the Gap about a year ago after Angie had lost her job as a teaching assistant (cuts to the education budget), and Emma had no longer been required as a receptionist at a local dentist’s after it was absorbed into the Kesterly Health Centre. It was pure luck that the husband-and-wife team who’d been running Bridging the Gap since its inception had decided to retire at that time, and Ivan, the parish manager of St Mary’s, the local church, had decided to give the sisters a chance.
‘Why not?’ he’d agreed, in the slow, doleful tones that had unnerved Angie and Emma at first. ‘You’ve excellent references, the pair of you, and we could do with some younger and livelier input around here. Yes, you’ll suit us very well, and I hope we’ll suit you too. Just make sure there’s no dossing in the church, or anywhere else on the site.’
‘Don’t worry, we promise to go home at night,’ Emma had assured him with mock sincerity.
Ivan blinked, taking a moment to understand, but he didn’t seem to find it funny. ‘I was referring to the men you’ll be taking care of,’ he explained. ‘Or, more accurately, to their associates from the streets. There are shelters for them to go to at night and this church isn’t one of them. Nor are the residences we are fortunate to have use of.’
Both of Bridging the Gap’s properties belonged to an octogenarian recluse, Carlene Masters, who had apparently handed the rundown Victorian villas to St Mary’s to use as the vicar and parish committee saw fit while she went to live in Spain. All she required in return was a small rental income. Angie and Emma had never met her, but they did know that she’d waived the rent for two months during the introduction of universal credit. Since housing allowances were what paid the rent and contributed to BtG’s running costs, the change of system could have proved disastrous for the organization and residents alike when payments had dried up for weeks on end.
Now, as Angie went to update the whiteboard that dominated one wall of the shed-like office she and Emma worked from, she spotted a couple of parish outreach workers crossing the small courtyard outside and gave them a wave. From the large plastic sacks the two women were carrying it was clear they were on their way to the storeroom next door, where charity-shop rejects were kept before being sent to those in need overseas. They were the only people Angie and Emma ever saw at this end of the rambling church complex, apart from Ivan who occasionally dropped by to make sure everything was running as it should.
Their little enclave was tucked in behind the church hall and sheltered by a magnificent copper beech tree, and contained only their bunker of an office with its en suite loo, tiny kitchenette and semi-efficient heating, and the adjacent storeroom. Their window looked out over the courtyard where a sealed-up wishing-well served as a bird table and a high, thorny hedge separated them from the main road beyond. To get to the church they had to follow a stone pathway through a wilderness of old fruit trees and long-forgotten shrubs to connect up with the car park next to St Mary’s offices, where the vicar’s wife and parish manager carried out God’s admin work.
The rectory was the other side of the centuries-old church, looking out over a sprawl of suburban rooftops that ended way off in the distance where the sea could be glimpsed sparkling away like a feast of temptation on crystal clear days. The old graveyard meandered gently down the south-facing hillside for at least a quarter of a mile to the busy residential street below. This was where Hill Lodge and Hope House were situated, in amongst a number of similar formerly grand villas, most of which had now been converted to flats. Angie and Emma never took the route through the tombstones and neglected shrines; no one did, it was too creepy and far too overgrown. Whoever needed burying these days was ferried to the newer, more desirable cemetery in the nearby semi-rural suburb of Morton Leigh.
‘So what’s your new bloke like?’ Emma asked as Angie added Mark Fields’s name to the Hill Lodge section of the whiteboard.
Raising her eyebrows as a fierce gust of wind whistled around their red-tiled roof Angie said, ‘He seems OK. Early days though. If he doesn’t settle in, Hamish will be sure to let us know.’
‘What’s his story?’
Spotting the outreach ladies leaving, heads down as they battled the wind, Angie said, ‘Apparently he broke up with his wife after he was laid off work, and ended up with nowhere to stay when she got the house. Booze played a part in it somewhere, but Shawn, who referred him from the rehab clinic, says he’s been a regular at AA for over six months and is ready to start again.’
‘No history of violence?’
‘Not that I’m aware of.’
Emma looked both dubious and cautious. ‘He knows he’ll be out on his ear if he starts drinking again?’ she pressed.
‘He does, but let’s assume that he won’t. Did Douglas get hold of you?’
‘Douglas from Hope House? Yes, he did. Apparently he’s lost weight so his belt’s too big and his trousers are falling down. He wants to know how to make a new hole.’
Angie’s eyes danced with amusement. ‘So what did you tell him?’ she asked, able to gauge from Emma’s expression tha
t some sort of irreverence was afoot.
‘I said that if he took himself to Timpson’s in town someone there would be able to help him. He, of course, wanted to do it himself with a hammer and nail, but I reminded him that the last time he’d had those objects in his hands someone had ended up attached to the wall.’
Angie had to laugh. It wasn’t funny really, but the way Emma told it made it sound like a comedy sketch rather than a crime that had ended with his victim in hospital and him behind bars. ‘Do you think the belt story was real?’ she probed.
‘No idea, but it might be worth asking Hamish to pop in later to make sure there’s no live art hanging over the fireplace.’
Choking on another laugh, Angie checked her mobile as it rang. Seeing it was Tamsin, a support worker from the main homeless shelter in town, she clicked on. ‘Hi Tams,’ she said, returning to her desk, ‘If you’ve got any referrals I’m afraid we’re all booked up at the moment.’
‘I wish it were so simple,’ Tamsin responded with a sigh. ‘I’m hoping you or Emma could collect my kids from school when you go for your own.’
Angie said, ‘It’s OK, I’ll take them back to mine.’
‘You’re an angel.’
‘So they keep telling me. What I say is, you just haven’t met my demons yet.’ The instant the words were out she wanted to take them back, return them to the dark and awful place they’d come from, but it was too late. They’d already spilled along the connection, doing their damnedest, and as she looked at her sister she could imagine only too well what both Emma and Tamsin were thinking. Oh, but we have, Angie, we know what you did to your own son, but we won’t talk about it, and we won’t mention what happened to his father either.
CHAPTER THREE
‘I hope you’re not peeping,’ Steve warned, glancing at Angie who was next to him in the car, hands over her eyes, as instructed. ‘Or you,’ he added, checking six-year-old Liam in the rear-view mirror.
‘Can’t see anything,’ Liam promised.
Satisfied they weren’t cheating, Steve signalled to turn into a cul-de-sac of twenty mock-Tudor new builds, each with leaded windows and its own small plot of land, front and back. He drew up outside number fourteen, just behind a skip and a few plaster-caked wheelbarrows – though the work was at an end the clearing up was still under way.
Opposite the smart detached residences with their red brick façades and artfully placed wooden beams was a freshly laid green with a stony brook babbling along on the far side sheltered by a couple of magnificent weeping willows and an ironwork footbridge that linked this street to the next.
‘Can we look yet?’ Liam urged from the back. His auburn curls were still damp from a quick swim in the sea and his round cheeks were flushed with excitement. Liam loved surprises, especially when they were a secret from his mother as well.
Steve grinned as Angie parted her fingers, pretending to take a peek. ‘OK, you can look now,’ he announced.
As Angie lowered her hands she gazed around the street of brand spanking new houses, not quite understanding.
‘Oh Dad! There’s a bridge,’ Liam exclaimed in awe, and as though his father had just given him the best thing ever he leapt out of the back to go and investigate.
As they watched him, Angie said, ‘Are we on the Fairweather estate?’
‘We are,’ Steve confirmed.
‘And you,’ she continued to guess, ‘worked on these houses so you’ve brought us to see them before their new owners move in?’
‘Kind of,’ he smiled, and getting out of the compact Peugeot they’d bought for her a couple of years back, he came round to open her door.
‘Dad! Dad! Look at me,’ Liam cried from the bridge, and making certain Steve was watching he raced across it and back again, looking so pleased with himself that Steve wanted to go and swing him up so high he’d scream with delight. He still wasn’t learning as quickly as other children, but it didn’t make him stupid, it was simply that his progress was happening at a different speed. In every other way he was an adorable, playful, and happy young boy who wanted no more than to be everyone’s friend.
Steve and Angie sometimes wondered if Liam’s shortcomings were what made him even more special. Certainly they brought out his father’s protective instincts in a way nothing else ever had. However, they were careful not to smother or overindulge him. They just wanted him to feel like any other child of his age and to know that even when the new baby came, which would be any day now, he would still be their number one.
After almost six years and four heart-breaking miscarriages, Liam was at last going to have a little sister.
‘OK, I give up, what are we supposed to be looking at?’ Angie demanded as Steve tugged her out of the car.
‘It’s the bridge,’ Liam insisted as he ran back to join them.
‘Not quite,’ Steve replied, ‘although it’s a part of it,’ and stooping so Liam could jump on his back, he turned towards the double-fronted house in front of them. ‘This, my darling,’ he said to Angie, feeling so much pride and happiness welling up in him it was hard to keep his voice steady, ‘is our new home.’
Angie blinked, looked at it and then at him. ‘But we can’t afford anything like this,’ she protested.
It was true, they couldn’t, although Steve certainly earned well. His skills as a painter and decorator and all-round Mr Fix-It were always in high demand, but he was so keen for them all to have everything they wanted – her car, Liam’s extra classes, his own sports gear, great holidays – that they’d never managed to save very much. However, now their family was growing they needed somewhere bigger than the small flat they’d been squashed into for the past couple of years. ‘We don’t have to buy it,’ he explained. ‘Hari is going to let us rent it from him at a price we can afford.’
Angie’s mouth fell open as her eyes lit with disbelief and the first hint of excitement.
Apart from being Steve’s boss, Hari Shalik had become like a father figure to them since they’d arrived in Kesterly. In fact, he was the reason they’d moved to this coastal town in the first place. Someone had told him about the high quality of Steve’s work, so Hari had tried him out on a six-month contract and after three months he’d offered to put Steve in charge of all his development projects if he would agree to move his family to the area. So Steve and Angie had come here with Liam and although Steve effectively remained his own boss, meaning he was free to take on other jobs when Hari had no need of him, most of his work came either from, or through his mentor. Hari was a good man, wise and patient, always fair, and he made it plain that if they ever hit any difficulties they must always come to him. Since Steve’s father had died when he was very young, this had meant a lot to him.
‘So let me get this straight,’ Angie said, ‘after building all these beautiful houses …’
‘Hari didn’t build them,’ Steve came in, ‘he invested in the project and gave me the job of painting, decorating and finishing off the ones he’d earmarked for himself. There are two on this street – he’s already sold the other, no doubt at an enormous profit – and half a dozen semis just over the bridge. He’s going to be renting them out too, so I’ve already put Emma and Ben forward as prospective tenants.’
Angie was still staring at him in amazement.
Knowing she was absorbing the idea of having her beloved sister nearby, Steve marked himself up another point and said with a grin, ‘I’ve got the keys.’
‘But …’ Words were still clearly failing her, until she broke into helpless laughter. ‘Why on earth would Hari give us something like this?’ she cried.
‘He told me it’s his way of saying thanks for all the deadlines I’ve helped him keep, and holes I’ve dug him out of.’
‘But an entire house …’
‘We’re renting it,’ he reminded her, ‘and he’s promised it’ll always be at a price we can afford.’
‘Does Roland know about it?’ she asked, referring to Hari’s son who was a f
ew years older than Steve, and openly resentful of Steve’s closeness to his father.
‘I’ve no idea,’ Steve replied. ‘Now, come on, let’s go inside and take a look.’
It was a dream home for them, with more space than they were able to imagine filling, and it exuded such a welcoming air that it seemed to embrace them the minute they walked in. To the right of the hall with its wide wooden staircase and built-in cupboards was a huge family-cum-play-room that went all the way from the front to the back of the house, where floor-to-ceiling French doors – still criss-crossed with manufacturers’ tape – opened on to a newly laid patio.
‘I thought I could put my piano here,’ Steve indicated a dusty space just inside the doors, ‘that way you can hear me playing when you’re outside drinking wine in the garden.’ The piano had been in storage since his mother’s death three years ago because they’d had nowhere to put it, and he missed it more than he’d expected to.
‘You can have the piano wherever you like,’ Angie told him, looking misty-eyed, ‘just as long as you promise to sing Nat King Cole songs whenever I ask.’
‘It’s a deal,’ he laughed, pressing a kiss to her forehead. ‘Now what’s going on with you up there?’ he asked Liam, who was still riding on his father’s back. ‘You’ve gone very quiet.’
In a worried voice Liam said, ‘Will I be moving in too?’
Swinging him round into his arms, Steve said, ‘We’d never go anywhere without you, my boy. This is going to be your home from now on, and because you’re the oldest you get to choose your room first.’
Lighting up at that, Liam said, ‘Can I have this one?’