‘I can keep a secret Mal,’ she’d told him.
Jem wiped her wrist rattily at her wet eyes. Yes, because, you’re excellent at lying to your family, aren’t you, Jem? This should be a fucking breeze.
But Mal, he hadn’t been so confident. ‘Millie will know something’s up though. I know she will. I’m sorry, Jem, but I’m a terrible liar.’
CHAPTER 24
Alex used the cuff of her jacket to neaten up the mascara under her eyes. She wasn’t completely convinced the tears had stopped yet. At least she’d managed to get out of the garage first. She’d left him there, doubled over in rage to the backdrop of a trembling soprano. He couldn’t even bring himself to tell her who’d been on the phone tittle-tattling, he’d been so incensed.
Alex gave in to the tiny spasms the crying had brought to her breathing and watched an old chap fumbling with the parking meter by the ambulances. It was a silly misunderstanding. Whoever had felt the need to ring her dad had clearly got the wrong end of the stick about Jem and Mal, of course they had. And who even did that? And how could Ted be so quick to believe something like that of Jem anyway? Didn’t he know her at all? Jem would never do anything to break up another person’s marriage, it wasn’t in her genetic makeup. She’d never be able to face their mum for a start.
Alex stared vacantly through the windscreen. If his opinion is that low of you, Jem, there isn’t much hope for the rest of us. And nothing for Finn.
Well, there was no confusion now at least. The son of a no good bastard hell-bent on destroying their family. Didn’t exactly smack of a second chance.
Another juddering breath made its way out of Alex’s chest. She was an idiot. A few nice run-ins with Finn and she’d been a naïve teenager again. Stupid girl. Did she honestly think that Finn would want this kind of hassle again? Just to be friends? If Jem and Mal Sinclair had the gossips flexing their muscles just think what seeing Finn and Alex around town would kick up again. The first time had been awful enough.
Have you seen them, carrying on as if they haven’t done anything wrong? Youth of today. Brazen as you like.
You know what they were up to, don’t you? While the poor boy was trying to hang on to the tree? Ted found them half-dressed, I heard. I said that girl’s father would end up in a cell at some point.
They left him. A nine-year-old child with a disability. Gerry says it wasn’t a disability, exactly, but Dillon never had full use of that one arm, I used to look after him at nursery. His nerves had gotten all stretched at birth, somehow. The poor child had no chance in those currents, even without that compromised arm of his. Can you believe they just left him? Gerry’s looking for a new babysitter for Darcy. It’s just not worth the risk.
Alex gripped the steering wheel and locked her arms out against it. Finn didn’t need all that again. The finger-wagging. The reminders. She checked her face again in the truck mirror. Her nose looked red and puffy. Great. Just what her mum needed. She looked about the hospital car park for a bin, somewhere to lob her muffins. Secret weapon. It was laughable. She was laughable.
The buzzer onto the ward didn’t appear to be working when Alex got up there. She’d been waiting for the puffiness to even out again before showing her face. Alex pressed on the intercom thingy again, suddenly remembering the conversation with Jem, in the Garden of Reflection. ‘It’s not that straightforward, Alex,’ Jem had said. For a split second, a fleeting sniff of doubt clouded Alex’s brain. Jem and Mal? No way, it wasn’t even worth considering.
The door onto the AAU clicked open and a woman with an evenly greying bob and a pair of glasses hanging from her neck pattered through.
‘Alexandra, my darling girl!’ Helen Fairbanks’ warm welcome hit Alex like a ball against the back of her head. The angst dissipated immediately.
‘Hi, Helen. Back again already?’ Alex smiled warmly.
‘Just checking in on your mum. I thought her hands were looking a little dry yesterday so I’ve brought her some cocoa butter I wasn’t using. She’s looking much healthier I think this morning, darling. Better than you I’m afraid, Alex. Is there something the matter? Ooh, are those muffins?’
‘Er, no. I mean yes. They are muffins.’ She’d found a bin in the car park but the thought of throwing food away wasn’t as easy as it used to be before she’d gone to work at the food bank. ‘For the nurses.’ Alex smiled.
Helen was already taking Alex by the elbow, leading her gently to the seats along the corridor wall so there was zero chance of Alex slipping through her grasp without a nice chat first. Some people invaded your personal space when they spoke to you, got right up close so you worried how your breath might be shaping up or whether they were looking at the imperfections in your complexion while you tried to talk unselfconsciously, without breathing all over them. But Helen Fairbanks was just familiar. Like a friendly aunt, who smelled of cocoa butter and Yorkshire puddings and would never dream of holding against a family that her five year old daughter had been terribly hurt because of the actions of one of their employees.
‘Would you like one, Helen? They won’t be as good as yours, I’m afraid.’ Helen already had an arm through Alex’s.
‘Oh, lovely!’ Helen said, taking a muffin. ‘Now then, let’s just pop those down for a minute. I wanted to check on you all, Alex. Properly. How are things? How’s your father dealing with all this?’
Alex bit at the inside of her cheek. Devastated. Frustrated. On the verge of exploding? ‘He’s doing his best. I don’t think I’m helping much.’
‘Of course you are! Do you know, your mother said the very same thing to me about your dad once, after our little bump with the truck. I did not brake too late, by the way. It was the wretched snow and, well, we won’t say too much about Martin Finn’s workmanship. Anyway, your poor father was under so much pressure at the time, keeping the garage going, trying to make ends meet. If he’s sounding off at you, my love, it’s because he needs to lean on you. Like he did your mum back then.’
‘I don’t think he’s very good at leaning on anyone, Helen.’
‘Well I told your mother that too. The thing is with these men, Alexandra, you have to let them lean on you without them actually feeling that they’re leaning on you. Your mother realised what a good friend I am and that I talk a lot of sense and so instead of worrying about your dad being so tired and grumpy, she went out herself and did a few little jobs to help the situation.’
Helen looked pleased with herself. Alex remembered her mum being thrilled when she’d been able to stop cleaning for the posh families in town and work in the family records department at the Town Hall instead. Alex hadn’t remembered any signs that her parents’ marriage might’ve wobbled though.
‘Thanks, Helen. I know all this is hard for him. Mum’s like, his world.’ Alex felt a stab of pity for him then. She was dead right, her mum was his world. Of course he was emotionally charged.
‘Oh I know that. I don’t believe a man has ever loved a woman more than your father loves your mum, other than my Bob of course.’ Helen gave Alex’s arm a squeeze. ‘Through thick and thin your parents have stuck together. Through things no family should have to endure.’ Alex swallowed. Even from Helen it was hard to be reminded. ‘I only hope Malcolm loves my Amelia that way. She’s besotted with him, you know. Mind you he has got the mayor’s good looks. Just not the mayor’s silver tongue. Malcolm’s been trying to talk his way out of something today, my antennae have been twitching. I think he’s in trouble with Millie.’
‘Oh?’ Alex’s antennae were starting to twitch too.
‘Oh yes. Millie lost him last night. I had her ringing up after midnight asking if I’d seen his police car driving past, which I sometimes do if I’m watching the TV in the bedroom with the curtains open. I said, whatever you do, Amelia, don’t phone his ruddy mother looking for him. Louisa will accuse you of something or other, being a bad wife for not knowing where your husband is at that hour.’
Alex replayed through her head
her father’s insinuations about Jem and Mal. She laughed uncomfortably. ‘Ah yes, Louisa. Always so positive.’
Helen pulled a clump of muffin and popped it into her mouth. ‘She is not and I don’t mind saying it. I love that boy, Alexandra, Malcolm is a super son-in-law, a wonderful husband to my Millie, and you should see how much he loves our little Alfie. He’s a smashing father. But between you and me – ah, lovely muffin – between you and me, Malcolm didn’t get his good points from his mother, I can tell you that. Louisa Sinclair is a bit of a …’ Helen looked about them to be sure they were the only ones in the corridor. She dropped to a whisper and sounded it out. ‘A bit of a b-i-t-c-h.’
‘I kinda got that impression. Jem’s not a fan. I don’t think Louisa was very kind to her when she used to hang out with Mal.’
‘Well she wouldn’t be, would she? Louisa always had it in for your mother, Alex. She was always making little digs about Blythe at church, her hair, her dresses. I think Louisa needed to knock your mother down to make herself feel better, I don’t know, about her own hair and dresses I suppose. Some women are insecure that way, and your mother, well she’s just so meek and well liked in the Falls, I suppose that’s what made her Louisa’s target. As I said, a b-i-you-know-the-rest.’ Helen took another pinch of muffin. ‘Thank the lord my Millie isn’t like that. Insecure, I mean. Malcolm should’ve called last night instead of worrying her, but it’s not like he’s one of those husbands … doing things he shouldn’t. Oh! Hello, Mrs Parsons, how is your poor husband?’
The doors onto the ward opposite were trying to gobble back up the woman trying to manoeuvre her pram through them.
Alex jumped to hold the doors while a wide-eyed little girl with her finger in her mouth stepped through beneath her. ‘Let me get that for you.’
‘Thank you.’ The mother smiled. ‘Hello again,’ she said uncertainly to Helen.
Helen was already patting the little girl on the head. Alex saw her accidentally leave a crumb in the girl’s hair. ‘Have you been to see your daddy? Is he feeling better?’
The woman smiled self-consciously and began unbuckling the baby from the pushchair. ‘Getting there, thank you.’
‘Oh, wonderful! You won’t have to keep doing this dreadfully long walk every day then, will you?’
‘Sorry, I need to feed her. Poppy, stay by Mummy, please.’ Alex found herself straining to hear, the woman’s voice was so quiet. She looked like she hadn’t slept for a week. Alex had noticed yesterday, when Millie had gone to catch her up, that Mrs Parsons was very slight for someone with such a young baby. They had lots of new mothers visit the food bank and the general consensus amongst them was how hard it was in the first year to get the baby weight off. The wonders of breastfeeding, then?
‘Of course, we’ll give you some privacy. Help yourself to a few of these marvellous muffins! Alex won’t mind, will you? She’ll only give them away, look how slender she is!’ Helen said jovially, moving her and Alex towards the water dispenser further down the corridor.
‘Poor woman,’ Helen whispered as they walked. ‘Millie knows her from the preschool. She lives in one of the terraced houses, up by Susannah’s B&B.’ Alex could see the little girl tucking into a muffin in the reflection of the water tank. ‘Parsons, her name is. Emma or Emily, I forget. Malcolm thinks she’s a battered wife. He’s tried to check in on them but if she doesn’t report it, well … They’ve been having a few disturbances at the house, things getting broken, that sort of thing.’ Helen winked knowingly. ‘Of course, she’s never there now, at home. The horrible toad must demand she be here all day every day, as if she hasn’t enough on with the children! If he was my husband, I’d take my frying pan to him.’
‘That’s terrible. Does she have any friends or family she can lean on?’
‘Millie’s been trying to arrange a play date with Alfie and the older girl, keep a bit of a friendly eye on them, but she says the mother’s never home, it’s like she doesn’t want to be at the house while he’s here. No wonder she looks so exhausted. Aren’t some men horrors? Well I hope it was her that kicked the jack over, that’s all I can say. It’s a shame that car didn’t finish the rotter off.’
Alex watched their reflection in the water butt. The little girl was offering her mum a bite of her muffin, but Mrs Parsons wasn’t looking at her daughter, she was too busy tucking muffin after muffin into the back of her pram.
CHAPTER 25
It was an odd experience, watching a person’s headstone being sited. Or in the case of the late Mayor Sinclair, his whopping archangel memorial piece. The air had gone cooler once the sun had dipped behind the church spire. The clock tower said nearly six o’clock, the memorial guys must’ve been at it all afternoon. Alex could see it was an archangel because in all the struggling most of the canvas tarpaulin had come loose and was sagging around the angel’s base like a dropped bathrobe. Alex was trying to pretend it wasn’t happening across St Cuthbert’s churchyard, three men in high-viz jackets toing and froing with a series of ropes and pulleys, trying to look professional before disaster struck.
She was being a coward. Hiding out with Dill, knowing that at the north side of town, there was a chance Finn would be in one of Susannah’s barns behind the Longhouse wondering if Alex was going to turn up.
Alex finished picking up the last of the yellow rose petals that had blown all over Dill’s plot from somewhere. ‘So no burning ship for the mayor, Dill? I heard he was a fan. Maybe he’s playing it safe hanging out at St Cuthbert’s, just in case he wasn’t descended from Vikings.’
Maybe she was playing it safe too, coming here to quietly ask that Blythe have another good day tomorrow. Coming to Dill with her tiny apologies. This seemed the only place she could make them, where she could say the words out loud and no-one would tell her how insubstantial they were.
St Cuthbert’s bells began ringing for six pm. Alex followed the steeple all the way up to where it reached for the endless cerulean sky. She should probably come to church more often, not that she was completely sure what she thought about Heaven. She wasn’t sure if her father had lost his faith when they lost Dill or whether he was just too angry with God to come to church any more, but Mum still came. Blythe had stopped singing in the choir, but she still came.
The memorial guys were battling on. Alex cast a cursory glance across the other, less ostentatious, headstones. Most of them were filled with more text than Dill’s. Beloved son and brother. A dedication as short and sweet as his time had been.
‘You’re still beloved, Dill Pickle,’ Alex said quietly.
Dill hadn’t had a chance to become a beloved father, or uncle or grandfather like most of the others laid to rest here. They’d never know if Dill’s kids would’ve inherited his summer freckles, or that daft dimple, or whether or not they’d have used those traits to deadly effect in the art of charming their mothers.
‘Do you remember Mum’s face, Dill? When you opened the box from Mal and all those shiny sharp bits were inside? Mum’s eyes were like saucers.’ Dill’s eyes had been like saucers too. Alex remembered, Dill had only been obsessed with learning how to shoot an arrow on target once Malcolm Sinclair had turned up at the house with that archery set. An early birthday present, something Mal’s dad had found in the attic, going to waste.
‘Mum was so upset about the mayor sending you a gift like that, Dill.’ Granny Ros had gotten both barrels over the washing up. Blythe didn’t care that it was only going to go in the bin back at the Sinclairs’ house. It looked expensive, and dangerous. Blythe had been set to have Jem politely ask Mal to take it back. ‘But you charmed her on that one too, Dill Pickle.’
Alex smiled but it was bittersweet. She remembered the afternoon so clearly. The last minute change of plan. Their dad nipping out in the pickup on an emergency callout, Jem and Dill driving Mum mad with the arguing.
Alex swallowed. ‘Dad would’ve shown you how to shoot them properly, Dill. So your arm didn’t get so tired.’ She bit dow
n hard on the inside of her lip. Her voice came out strained and wiry. ‘I’m so sorry I left you, Dill.’
CHAPTER 26
Alex rubbed at the little dark splodge on her parents’ bedspread. Didn’t Jem say they’d changed the beds last weekend?
‘Jem?’ she shouted across the landing. ‘Has the dog been in here?’ Could it jump this high yet? Houdini they should call her. She’d slipped her lead enough times this week. No answer from the direction of Jem’s room. Alex followed the phone cable from the socket beside her mum’s bedside table down onto the floor and under her parents’ bedroom door. She picked up the last of the towels from the laundry basket on her mother’s reading chair and arched her back to see out onto the landing.
Jem’s door was still shut, she must have been holed up in there all day. Alex had come home with a tiny inkling of something being off and had checked for signs of Jem leaving the house for some reason. Jem’s shoes and keys were all still where they’d been this morning. Alex felt another stab of guilt. Was she doubting Jem, too? Off the back of one nosey sod’s assumption? Alex thought about her mum asking after Jem today and Alex’s guilt melted into irritation again.
‘Did you even make it into the shower today, Jem? Must’ve been a really good catch up with Mal seeing as you didn’t make it to see Mum today,’ Alex wanted to shout. Or down for dinner, for that matter. Maybe she really did have a migraine.
It was no big deal, Alex had told herself. Her dad hadn’t called to say he wasn’t coming home so he was clearly in about as much of a hurry to eat with his family as Jem was. Alex was used to eating alone anyway so, no big deal.
Alex might’ve thought about letting this upset her, but there was something about the Parsons woman and her two little girls at the hospital that had started occupying a growing spot in the back of Alex’s mind. The Parsons woman, squirrelling. Maybe her awful husband was blowing all her food money on gambling, like Finn’s dad used to.
Letting You Go Page 14