by Clare Boyd
‘I don’t have sticky fingers, do I, Mummy?’
‘No, darling. Of course not,’ I said, kissing her sugary palms.
‘He’s not very good at sharing, is he, Mumma?’
‘I think you’re right.’ I laughed.
‘When is Grandma Cam-Cam coming?’
‘I wish she would hurry up,’ I mumbled, tapping refresh again.
I was eager to get home, to get Alice away from there, to research everything there was to know about Seroquel.
It took another ten minutes for Camilla to emerge.
‘Well, that was a mistake,’ she huffed accusingly, starting up the engine.
Quickly, I texted John, one word: ‘SEROQUEL’, and put my phone away, halting my search for now.
‘What did he mean by Robert having sticky fingers?’ I asked, pointlessly, waiting for her lie.
She snorted. ‘Oh, heaven’s above, Francesca. He’s as mad as a bag of frogs. Nothing he says means anything.’
Under the light of the streetlamps further into the village, I noticed a bloody scratch down her cheek. There was obviously a cost for keeping such a close eye on Ralph, for making sure he didn’t give their secrets away. It must have felt like trying to press down on a basket full of writhing asps.
But, this afternoon, one had escaped.
And I dreaded telling John what I had pieced together: that his mother had witnessed Robert stealing Seroquel from his uncle. It meant that she had known her son was feeding some sort of an addiction and it meant that she had done nothing about it, over all these years.
It sent a pain through my heart, and I feared it might shatter John’s.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Francesca
John was standing on my doorstep.
‘You got my text?’ I yawned as I let him in.
I was weary after two hours of researching Seroquel online; reading about other dead husbands and wives, about other dead depressives or insomniacs or addicts.
‘Drink?’
‘Sure.’
He was restless, shifty, moving his hands from his ear to his hair to his pockets repeatedly, like a strange ritual.
‘Does Dilys know you’re here?’
‘We had a fight. That’s why I’m late. I said I was going for a drive.’
‘I don’t miss those kinds of marital fights.’ I smiled sadly, remembering the many times I had gone for a walk, in no particular direction, through the London streets, to get away from Robert.
He rubbed his face. ‘The only advantage of having a dead husband.’
It was a strangely crude thing to say. Knowing it was unlike him, I let it pass. I handed him a glass of red wine and he cradled it as though he was freezing cold.
‘Why did you want to know about Seroquel?’ I asked, guessing the answer before he told me.
John cleared his throat, put down his wine and brought Robert’s pill bottle out of his trouser pocket.
‘When did you get your hands on that?’
‘I stole it from Mum’s washbag a few days ago. And look…’ he said. As he opened it up, he pulled my hand out, tapping a couple of pills onto my palm. ‘Seroquel. Not Zopiclone.’
I gulped back my dismay. ‘I found those exact pills in Ralph’s bedroom today.’
I took John through our traumatic afternoon, leaving the information about his mother until last.
‘He actually accused Mum of knowing?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘That is unbelievable.’ John shook his head, angry, pacing, pushing his blond hair back repeatedly. His nerves and vulnerability had vanished.
‘Remember, John, he wasn’t in his right mind. I might have got it muddled.’
‘What did he say exactly?’
‘That your mum saw Robert stealing from him. “With her own eyes” he said.’
‘That’s pretty conclusive,’ he murmured.
I nodded, reluctantly agreeing.
‘Why didn’t she tell me?’ he asked, bewilderment in his eyes.
‘Maybe she was trying to protect you?’
He pulled out the pills again and turned them over in his hand. ‘I read loads online about how devious addicts can be.’
‘Me too. And about their mood swings, and the irritability. And weight gain is really common, too. Robert ticked all the boxes. His weekend drinking binges were pretty typical as well. We already knew he took all sorts of other crap. Coke, weed, and god knows what else.’
John exhaled heavily. ‘Mum might not have known all that. Maybe she thought the Uncle Ralph thing was a one-off?’
My anger bubbled up. ‘Once is enough, isn’t it? Stealing antipsychotics from a sick old man is totally messed-up.’
He jammed his hands in his pockets. ‘And she did fuck all about it, and now he’s dead.’
My stomach turned. I shared his anger. In one way, I was vindicated. The prospect of a confrontation with Camilla should have given me a thrill, given me permission to blame her openly, wholly justified. I waited to feel the burden of guilt about Robert’s death lift off my shoulders. But it wouldn’t budge. If anything, I felt heavier than ever. Suddenly, I wanted John to leave.
‘It’s late,’ I said.
He looked at his phone. ‘I can’t go home yet.’
‘Why not?’
‘Dilys will be awake.’
‘Does she know you’re here?’
‘No.’
‘You should tell her. So she doesn’t worry.’
Abruptly, he put down his wine and turned his back on me. ‘I can’t tell her I’m here, Fran,’ he said.
His head had dropped and his broad shoulders rounded. A tiny edge of tanned flesh appeared between his T-shirt and his shorts.
‘There’s no reason to hide it.’
He turned back round.
‘Isn’t there?’ he retorted angrily.
The air in the room thickened. A viscose slowness plugged up my small kitchen. I imagined the world beyond us speeding along pointlessly. Robert’s spirit was squeezed into what was left of the space with us, standing by me, powerless, grim. John’s chest was heaving, in and out, very much alive with pumping, throbbing flesh, exerted, perhaps fearful. His light eyes underneath his fixed brow were focused, trained on me, locked into my reaction.
I didn’t know how to react. Not because my thoughts were muddied, but because they were as clear as they could have ever been.
‘Not any more,’ I said, almost under my breath, my throat constricting, my knees about to give way.
‘These pills’ – he paused, brandishing the bottle, as though he had pulled a sword from its sheath – ‘release us.’
‘You think we’re blameless now, do you?’
‘It wasn’t our fault. Can’t you see that? He was clearly an addict. If anyone is to blame it’s Mum.’
‘It doesn’t change anything.’ Until that moment, I hadn’t realised that it wouldn’t.
John stepped back. A flicker of horror passed over his beautiful features, as though he were looking upon a corpse he had slain. ‘I shouldn’t have come.’
He picked up his car keys and retreated from me. I let him go. I clung to the wall, to stay upright, and listened to the door close, listened to his car drive away.
I was the one left standing with the bloodied sword.
I reached for his glass on the kitchen table and noticed that he had left his phone next to it. I grabbed it and ran to the door, but his car was long gone.
Over and over, I replayed our conversation, exhausted by my thoughts, but too wired to go to bed, drained by the many connotations of our discovery. While I watched a film, knowing I would not be able to sleep, his phone lay on my coffee table like a dejected remnant of him.
Half an hour into the film, it rang. The screen flashed up ‘HOME’ – it was John, calling from his home landline. I turned the television to mute and answered.
‘You left it here, I’m afraid,’ I sighed.
There was a paus
e.
Dilys spoke. ‘Is that Francesca?’
‘Oh, sorry. Hi, Dilys. I thought it would be John.’
‘Why have you got John’s phone?’ Her Welsh accent was stronger than ever.
I spotted Alice’s cardigan on the arm of the sofa. ‘He dropped round Alice’s cardigan.’
‘At eleven at night.’
I left that unlikelihood hanging between us.
‘When did he leave?’
‘About forty minutes ago—?’
‘He’s not back home yet.’
‘Oh, right,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t worry,’ I added, unable to suggest why she shouldn’t. ‘When he’s back, tell him I’ll bring the phone tomorrow morning when I pick the kids up for tennis.’
‘Sure,’ she replied, and hung up without saying goodbye.
My cheeks flamed. I stared at John’s screensaver photograph of Harry, Olivia and Beatrice leaning against a five-bar gate in a field, all wellies and grins and innocence. Literally, I was holding them in my hands – and the responsibility of the whole Tennant family’s happiness weighed heavily on my soul.
I wanted to see Robert’s suicide in simple terms, as John had: Camilla and Robert were the guilty parties, and we were exonerated. But the opposite seemed true. I couldn’t seem to locate that feeling of triumph, which I presumed I should feel, which I had been chasing all these weeks.
Hate and anger and blame were scrabbling around inside me, trying to find a focal point to fix on and charge at, but it was not Camilla.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
John
John didn’t want Dilys to hear the car, so he parked in a lay-by at the corner of a field, from which he followed the stream along the public bridleway to the bottom of their garden, to his shed. He had been this route many times before when he needed a walk and a think.
The moon lit his way. The rustle of the leaves under his feet was a comforting, steadying sound. He felt as though he were a formless shadow that could merge into the darkness and melt into the ragged earth. His breath curled through the air, dispersing, inconsequential. He imagined disintegrating, his molecules rotting into the ecosystem to feed the cycle of life. Somehow, it took the edge off his fear. Fear for his mother, and what she had kept hidden about Robert all these years. Fear for Francesca, who had shoved John away; who still blamed herself, and him, in spite of everything they had recently learnt.
When he finally reached the shed, he was tired out by his thoughts. He curled up on the armchair, pulled a rug over his chilled limbs and slept.
* * *
He was awakened the next morning by banging. Dilys’ face was scowling at him through the window. John felt stiff and disorientated as he stood up to open the door.
‘I thought you were dead in some ditch.’ She was tearful rather than angry. ‘I’ve been worried sick.’
Her hands were on her hips, her voice trembling. She was in her nightdress and sheepskin boots. Her face was clear of make-up, leaving purple rings under her eyes and a sallow colour to her skin.
‘I didn’t want to wake you,’ he explained.
‘I was too worried to sleep!’
‘What time is it?’
‘It’s eight. Fran will be here in a minute.’
His heart thumped. ‘What? Why?’
‘She’s taking them to tennis, remember?’
‘Shit.’
‘She told me she’d bring your phone.’
‘My phone?’ He patted his pockets.
Her lips thinned. ‘You left it at her place.’
‘I dropped in to say hi.’
‘At eleven at night?’
John did not know what to say.
‘Why did you go over to Fran’s so late?’
John stared at Dilys and then recognised something in her stance. An image of his mother came hurtling to his mind.
John’s mother stabbed a finger at Robert, holding his skinny arm, spittle flying. ‘I didn’t bring you up to be a Peeping Tom.’
The profile of his brother’s young face was perfect, like a silhouetted cameo portrait. He twisted from her grip and he ran.
John turned on his heel to follow his big brother, but it was too late. His mother’s hands were clamped around his shoulders. She turned him around to face her.
‘John? Answer me,’ Dilys insisted.
‘I told you why I went over there.’
‘That’s a lie.’
‘It’s not a lie.’
Her worry switched to fury.
‘Stop fucking lying to me!’ she screamed.
She grabbed one of Robert’s bronze BAFTA awards from the shelf above him and flew at him, beginning to beat him with it.
‘Answer me, you bloody idiot! Answer me! Talk to me! Tell me what you’re thinking for once. You’re like a fucking brick wall!’ she screeched.
It was a beating he knew he deserved. He curled up into a ball and took each blow with a sick sort of pleasure. The hot welts bulged and burned under his clothes.
Then the hitting stopped suddenly.
John looked up to see Francesca and Olivia staring at them from the doorway in stunned silence.
‘I’m so sorry, Olivia said you’d be…’ Francesca’s sentence trailed off.
Dilys dropped the award and pushed past Francesca and Olivia. ‘I’m not the bad guy in all this.’
John stared down at the floor, at the bronze face of Robert’s award at his feet, with its one eye closed, like a wink.
‘Are you okay, Daddy?’ Olivia cried.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ he said, moving over to his computer, turning away from them, unable to look his daughter in the eye. ‘Mummy and Daddy were just having a bit of a silly fight. Give me two minutes and I’ll be up at the house.’
John heard the upbeat, insincere tone to his voice and he hated himself.
The door closed. His flesh pounded. His skin was wounded, blistering and broken; sensitive against his shirt, the material like sand in a broken cut. He listened to Francesca’s reassurances become quieter and quieter as she walked Olivia back up to the house. He could not believe what they had just witnessed. He knew he had to return to the house, to face Olivia, and Francesca, to get on with the normal family routine. His whole body throbbed with shame. He wanted to crawl up the grass, on his hands and knees, and collapse at the doorstep, and wait for someone to scoop him up, put him in bed, and take care of him until he was healed. There was nobody to do this for him. He had to go on, no matter what. The children needed him to be Dad, and Dad he was going to be. So, he stood up, breathed and walked, on two feet, up to the house.
As he re-entered his home, bracing himself, his battered body felt stiff and the skin over his back was tight and hot and stinging, but he would have to hide his pain.
He could hear Beatrice chattering in the kitchen.
John called out, ‘Morning!’
His three children, and Alice, were dressed in their tennis whites and sitting in a row at the breakfast bar. The sun shone through the skylight onto their shiny hair, reflecting sparks of beauty around the room.
Dilys was not in the room. In her place stood Francesca, who was pouring milk into Beatrice’s and Alice’s bowls. Harry was hunched over his cereal reading something on his phone.
He glanced over at Francesca, who was still holding the milk carton, looking at him, poised to speak, but not speaking. Her fringe was pushed back, and a bit stuck straight up in the air. Her skin was paler than the milk she held. Her brown eyes were wide and searching, as though she might see the bruises come up on his flesh before her eyes.
‘We’re going to be late for tennis.’ Olivia scowled, lowering the spoon that was at her lips. Her ponytail was unusually messy.
John gave her a kiss on the top of her head. ‘It’s okay. You’ll only miss the warm-up. Promise,’ he whispered. And then louder to the others, ‘Where’s Mummy?’
‘She’s getting ready for work, Daddy,’ Beatrice replied through her last mouthful of c
ereal. ‘She’s going to be late,’ she added, gleefully, clattering her spoon back into her bowl.
‘Right, you three,’ John said, checking his watch, ‘Auntie Fran needs to get you to tennis. Go and find your shoes and rackets. Alice, you can help Bea.’
They disappeared off to do as he said, leaving him alone with Francesca. The silence was black. His skin stretched and burned as he reached across the table to collect the spoons and bowls. She brushed past him to get the cloth, and the light scent she always wore filled his head. When he bent down to the dishwasher, he flinched with the pain.
She stopped wiping the surfaces. ‘I can stay until she’s gone, if you like,’ she whispered.
He was mortified. She was trying to be his protector. His guardian angel. The role reversal was wrong. He was the man. He was supposed to be her hero.
Angrily, he stood up and slammed a cupboard door shut. ‘I’m quite capable of dealing with her,’ he replied. ‘She doesn’t hurt me. She’s like an irritating fly.’
Francesca bit her lip, as though biting back a smile, which kept growing, and then she spluttered, ‘Sorry,’ and laughed, ‘An irritating fly?’
In spite of everything, he chuckled, ‘You don’t like my simile?’
‘It’s the worst, most rubbish one I’ve ever heard. And you call yourself a writer.’
‘I suppose you’re laughing at me, are you?’ Dilys snapped. John hadn’t heard her come in.
The humour died. Dilys was tall in shiny black heels and a tight, pencil skirt-suit. Her lips were red and her blonde ponytail was high. John detested each and every detail of her. He had to look away.
‘No, Dilys, we were not laughing at you,’ Francesca replied with a forcefulness that John rarely heard in Francesca.
‘I know you think you understand what you saw, but you have no idea what he’s like to live with,’ Dilys spat, pressing the coffee machine button down. The roar of the machine took over for a minute.
‘Francesca doesn’t need to be dragged into this, okay?’ John said.
‘Fine. I’m just saying, there are two sides to every story.’