He sat at one end of the table, Anna at the other, while Ronnie and Susan faced each other in the middle, all of them eating roast beef washed down with red wine.
‘How is your mother coping?’ he asked Susan.
‘Quite well, thank you, Mr Pembroke.’
‘And you? How are you managing?’
‘I’m fine.’ She sipped her wine and gave him a smile that combined warmth with sadness. A perfect gesture in a flawless performance. He longed to tell her that she didn’t need to act for him. That whatever the rights and wrongs of her behaviour he was on her side and would never betray her.
Or Ronnie.
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ he said, smiling back with just the right mixture of kindness and concern. Playing the benevolent, unsuspecting patriarch. Matching her performance with one of his own.
Anna poured herself another glass of wine. Her third of the evening. ‘I’m glad too,’ she told Susan. Her tone was friendly but her features were drawn. She looked tired and anxious. Could Susan see it? he wondered. Could Ronnie?
Or were they so in love that they could see only each other?
Ronnie swallowed a mouthful of beef and complimented his mother on her cooking. Acting the part of a loving, dutiful son. Except that it wasn’t acting. Ronnie loved his mother. That was real, but what else about him was? With Ronnie he wondered whether anyone could tell where illusion ended and reality began.
Fireworks filled the sky with red and gold. As Susan watched them through the window, Anna studied her with eyes that were deep pools of hostility. Dropping her own mask for just a second. Exposing her real emotions to the air.
The meal drew to its end. Ronnie cleared his throat. ‘Do you mind if Susie and I go to my room? There are some drawings I want to show her.’
Anna fixed the smile back on her face. ‘Of course not.’
‘Thank you for the meal, Mrs Pembroke,’ said Susan.
‘My pleasure.’
They left the room. Anna poured herself yet more wine. When first married she would never drink more than one glass. But things had been very different then.
She saw him watching her. ‘Well?’
‘You think it, too, don’t you?’
‘Think what?’
‘That her stepfather’s accident was no accident at all.’
Her eyes widened. She looked frightened. ‘You don’t have to be afraid,’ he said quickly. ‘I’m on their side. I’d never say anything to hurt them. On my life I wouldn’t.’
Then the fear was gone. ‘You’ve had too much to drink,’ she said coldly. ‘Of course it was an accident. Only a fool would think otherwise, and I didn’t marry a fool.’
He opened his mouth to protest. She shook her head. Rising to her feet, she began to clear the table, her mask securely back in place.
Susan stood in Ronnie’s bedroom, watching him lock the door. ‘Why are you doing that?’ she asked.
‘Because I don’t want us to be disturbed.’ Taking her hand, he led her towards the window.
The fireworks continued to illuminate the sky. ‘They’re beautiful,’ she said.
‘Not as beautiful as you.’
They kissed. ‘Your breath smells of wine,’ she told him.
‘So does yours. Did you enjoy your meal?’
‘Yes, though your mother seemed a bit subdued.’
‘She’s OK.’
‘Do you think she suspects?’
‘How could she? I’m her perfect son and perfect sons never do anything bad.’
‘Was it really bad?’
He shook his head. ‘Just necessary. He was going to hurt Jennifer the same way he’d hurt you. He had to be stopped. That’s all there is to it. I’d never let anyone hurt you, Susie. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Just as I’d never let anyone hurt you.’
Again they kissed. ‘Soulmate,’ she whispered.
‘That’s why you trusted me, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘And that’s why I can trust you too. With a story I know you alone will understand.’
She nibbled on his lower lip. ‘What sort of story?’
‘A story about someone who hurt me once. A long time ago.’
She ran her fingers through his hair. ‘Who? Your aunt? Your cousin?’
He shook his head. ‘Someone else. Someone who should have known better.”
‘Who?’
He moved away from her, towards the desk beneath the window. Reaching into his pocket, he produced a tiny key that he used to unlock a drawer. ‘It’s all in here,’ he said.
She looked inside. The drawer was full of paper. On the top was an old newspaper, the print faded.
‘Have you heard of a place called Waltringham?’ he asked. ‘It’s on the Suffolk coast. I went there once on holiday with a friend from school. A boy called Archie, who was ill, so I was on my own most of the time.’
She turned towards him. His eyes were shining.
Suddenly, for no reason, she felt a vague sense of alarm.
‘One day it rained. As I waited for it to stop I went into a men’s clothes shop and pretended I wanted to buy a tie. There was a mirror in an alcove. The shop assistant told me that I could go and try it on there …’
* * *
… he stood in front of the mirror, staring down at shoes that were still damp from the rain. His hair was damp too. A drop of water slid down his forehead and on towards the floor. He watched it fall.
There were footsteps behind him. Quick and purposeful. A hand came to rest upon his shoulder.
He looked up into the mirror.
A man of about forty stood beside him. Tall, well-built, expensively dressed and holding a sports jacket. ‘You don’t mind, do you? The assistant says it’s my size but I’m sure it’s too small.’
He didn’t answer. Struck dumb by the sight of the man’s face. It was older now but it was still the same face he had looked at every day since he could remember. The one in the tiny snapshot he kept hidden behind the framed photograph of his mother.
His father.
He opened his mouth, trying to speak words that refused to come. His father stared at him with his own grey-green eyes. ‘Are you all right?’ The voice had a slight lisp. On the neck was a tiny birthmark shaped like a map of England. Just as his mother had described.
He managed a nod. His father tried on the jacket, studied his reflection and exhaled. ‘I was right. Too small. Sorry to have disturbed you.’
Then he turned and walked away.
Ronnie’s mind screamed at him to follow but he found himself frozen to the spot. Some wicked fairy had turned his body to stone at the moment he needed it most.
The middle-aged shop assistant appeared. ‘Will you take the tie?’
And the spell was broken and he could move again.
Dropping the tie and ignoring the muttered complaints, he rushed into the main shop. There was no sign of his father. He ran out into the square. The boys from the beach who had been watching him earlier had gone in search of fresh sport. His father was striding away through the puddles while overhead faint patches of blue spread across the sky.
‘Excuse me.’
His father turned. ‘Hello again. Did I drop something?’
Again he searched for words. Trying to deal with the reality of an encounter he had longed for all his life while never dreaming it would come like this.
His father frowned. ‘Well?’
‘I’m Ronnie.’
‘And I’m in a hurry. Can I help you with something?’
‘My mother’s Anna Sidney.’
‘Who?’
‘Anna Sidney.’ A pause. ‘From Hepton.’
He stared into his own eyes, searching for the things he had always yearned for. Recognition. Pleasure. Pride.
Love.
And saw nothing but blank incomprehension.
She was nothing to you. Not then. Not now. Not ever.
And neither was I.
‘Well?’ his father demanded.
‘I’m sorry. I thought I knew you but I was wrong.’
His father nodded. Then once again turned and walked away.
Ronnie remained where he was. The lump returned.
A passer-by stopped momentarily to stare at him. He touched his face and realized that he was crying.
His father reached the corner of the square. A woman appeared from a nearby side street and called out, ‘Ted!’ An abbreviation of Edward. The name his mother had used in the stories she had told him when he was a child.
The woman was weighed down with shopping bags. His father went to help her. Was she his wife? She looked about his age.
Unable to control his curiosity, he began to move closer.
A girl followed behind the woman. Tall and good looking with his father’s features and the woman’s colouring. His father said something to her and she slapped his arm playfully and exclaimed, ‘Dad!’
But that wasn’t possible. She was at least sixteen. Possibly older. Certainly older than himself. How could his father be her father too when before leaving Hepton he had promised his mother that he would come back and marry her?
Unless he had been married with a child at the time.
The sun came out, creeping through the thinning clouds and casting its light across the square. He felt its warmth against his face just as something warm inside himself died.
You cheated my mother. You cheated us both. You damaged our lives and you don’t even care.
Suddenly the pain vanished, replaced by a calm so alien that it seemed to belong to someone else. He swallowed and found the lump gone. A last tear dribbled past his lips. He licked it away. It was salt and water, nothing else.
But in his mouth he tasted blood.
The following morning he sat on the green in front of the beautiful houses of The Terrace, all with their views of the sea. Bathed in sunshine and with his drawing pad on his lap, he stared at the one that belonged to his father.
The door opened. His father appeared, leading a little boy by the hand. A boy of about five or six, no older. A handsome little boy with pale blond hair and a bright smile. A boy who looked much as Ronnie would have done at the same age.
Rising to his feet, careful to keep his distance, he began to follow.
They spent the morning on the beach, building a huge sandcastle, just like the father and son he had drawn two days earlier. His own father took the lead, constructing ramparts and a drawbridge while the merry little boy who was his half-brother collected shells to decorate the walls. When they had finished they sat together eating ice creams, his brother laughing at seagulls that swooped down from the sky and waving to sailors on the boats out at sea while his father cradled him in his arms and covered his blond curls with kisses.
He bought an ice cream himself and ate it slowly, remembering the day when he had been his brother’s age and his mother had taken him to the beach at Southend. It had been such a treat for him. His mother had had to save for weeks to afford it. They had gone by bus and she had bought him a bucket and spade and paid a beach photographer to take his picture because she had no camera of her own. He remembered posing for it, smiling to make his mother happy while watching other boys with their fathers and wondering when his own would come and rescue him and his mother from Auntie Vera’s rules and the dull, grey streets of Hepton. Take them away to somewhere beautiful.
Somewhere like this.
At noon his father and brother ate lunch at a restaurant in the centre of town. He could see them through the window; his little brother eating sausages and chips while other diners beamed at him, waitresses fussed over him and his father watched him with eyes that were full of warmth and pride and love and all the things he had longed to see but hadn’t.
When the two of them left the restaurant his brother sat astride his father’s shoulders, squeaking with delight and waving to passers-by as he was carried back to his beautiful house in this beautiful town. Basking in the sunshine of this beautiful life that he and his sister took for granted.
And of which others could only dream.
Two days later, he stood inside a bookshop, browsing through the books on display while listening to his father’s wife talk to his half-sister on the street outside.
‘Well, I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to. That’s all there is to it.’
Margaret scowled. That was his sister’s name. He had learnt that from his surveillance and he had learned some other things too. In particular that there was a boy called Jack with whom she was very taken and of whom her parents did not approve.
‘Alan’s your brother, Margaret. It’s only right you should look after him sometimes.’
More scowling. ‘I don’t see why.’
‘Because I say so. And your father does too.’ Phyllis’s tone softened. That was the name of the woman his father had married and then cheated on with his mother and perhaps other women besides. Phyllis. A heavy-set woman with none of his mother’s attractiveness but the cut-glass vowels of someone who had never known what it was to scrimp and save to give her son a day at the seaside. ‘I’ll make you up a nice picnic. You could go to the beach.’
‘The beach is boring.’
‘Rushbrook Down, then. He likes it there and so do you. Please, Margaret. It’s not much to ask.’
A sigh. ‘All right.’
They walked away. He remained where he was, thinking. Analysing. Planning.
The owner of the shop approached him. ‘Do you need any help there, young man?’
His brain continued to whirr. Ideas clicking into place like the pieces of a mental jigsaw puzzle. One piece, then another, until at last the whole picture was revealed.
And it made him smile.
‘No thank you,’ he said politely. ‘I don’t need any help at all.’
The next afternoon was the hottest of his holiday so far. He sat on the grass of Rushbrook Down, feeling the sun cook the back of his neck and send drops of sweat to cool his skin, pretending to read a book while watching Margaret and Alan and all the others who were picnicking that afternoon.
Margaret sat on a blanket in the centre of the grass, watching Alan chase a red beach ball. Jack sat beside her, his arm draped around her shoulder. A tall, heavy youth with greased back hair and a cocky smile who reminded Ronnie of his cousin Peter. The two of them were talking, their heads bent so close together that they were almost kissing.
Which they soon would be. He was sure of it.
Counting on it.
Alan, looking increasingly bored, was throwing his beach ball into the air and chasing after it. At one point he threw it at Margaret. Angrily she kicked it away. ‘Go and play over there,’ she told him, gesturing to a spot to the right. Closer to the woodland that surrounded them like a high green wall. As Alan did so she and Jack began to kiss, becoming oblivious, at least briefly, to anything except each other.
And so it was time.
Rising to his feet, he walked towards Alan, past others who were playing games of French cricket or eating picnics or just lying soaking up the sun. As he moved he kept his head lowered and allowed his shoulders to sag, folding his body in upon itself to reduce his physical presence. A trick he had learned years ago in his dealings with Vera, making himself as inconspicuous as possible to better avoid being the target of her rage.
Alan threw the ball in his direction, chasing it with all the focused concentration of a dog chasing a rabbit. Keeping his pace steady he let it roll towards him, then kicked it hard into the trees before continuing on his way.
Alan stopped, looking momentarily bewildered. Then hurried after it.
He kept walking, maintaining his pace and his crumpled posture while checking that no one was watching.
&nbs
p; Then, turning, he made his way into the trees.
Alan Frobisher, nearly six and a big, grown-up boy, according to his parents, hunted for his beach ball.
Eventually he saw it, buried in a clump of bracken. He reached in to fetch it but there were thorns. Quickly he pulled back his arm, not wanting to get hurt. Wishing Margaret were there to help.
‘Hello, Alan.’
He turned. A boy was standing beside him. Not as big a boy as Jack but still big. Bigger than any of the boys at his school, and some of them were eleven.
‘Hello,’ he said back, and then felt naughty. His mother had told him that he must never talk to strangers, and here he was doing just that.
But the big boy had known his name so perhaps he wasn’t a stranger after all.
‘I’m Ronnie,’ the big boy told him with a smile. It was a nice smile. He had eyes just like Alan’s father, and that was nice too. Alan smiled back.
‘Shall I help you get your ball?’
‘Yes please.’ He watched Ronnie reach into the bracken and pull it out. ‘Thank you.’
Ronnie kept holding the ball. ‘Shall I tell you a secret?’
‘What?’
‘There are fairies in this wood.’
Alan gasped.
‘Would you like to see them?’
‘Yes!’
Ronnie put a fingers to his lips. ‘We have to keep very quiet. Fairies are scared of people. If they hear us coming they’ll run away and we won’t see them at all.’
Alan nodded. ‘I’ll be quiet,’ he whispered.
‘Promise?’
‘Promise.’
Again Ronnie smiled. Holding the beach ball under one arm, he held out his free hand. ‘Come with me.’
Excited, trying not to giggle, Alan took it and followed Ronnie deeper into the woods.
Ronnie led Alan through the trees, along the paths he had explored on his second day alone in Waltringham. The one before he had met his father.
They came to the route that was blocked by barbed wire and a sign that read ‘Danger – Keep Out’. The barbed wire was only three foot high. He lifted Alan over it, then jumped over himself. ‘Don’t worry,’ he told Alan. ‘We’re nearly there now.’
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