‘Then remind me to send your friend Liz a big fucking thank-you present,’ he said, lowering his head to kiss between my breasts. I moaned loudly and Jack raised his head, grinning like a fool.
‘I’m glad I raised the privacy panel.’
I looked across to the front of the car, feeling my cheeks flush with embarrassment.
‘Oh, God! I forgot about him,’ I said. ‘What must he be thinking of me?’
‘I don’t pay him to think about you; that’s my job.’ He grinned lasciviously as his mouth returned to its onslaught. He moved his hand between my legs, the seam of my jeans causing just enough friction for it to feel so, so good. His mouth was on mine, his tongue probing deeper and harder. I could feel his arousal; I needed to get closer. I moved out of his lap and turned to face him, sitting astride him. My insides turned to liquid as he pulled me down into a deep kiss that left us both gasping for breath.
‘Oh, baby, you are amazing, so beautiful,’ he murmured into my mouth, between kisses. ‘Tell me what you want, Abigail. I want to hear you say it to me.’
He looked so beautiful, sitting beneath me with his sexily messed-up hair and eyes heavy with lust, and for a minute I almost believed that it might be all right. Then the little self- sabotaging voice in my head piped up. He’s far too good-looking for you, it said. Why would he want you, a middle-aged mum with your stretch marks and M&S undies, when he could have the likes of Sexy Lexie? That thought was like a bucket of freezing water flung over my libido and my confidence; suddenly the wanton woman who’d placed herself in Jack’s lap just a few moments ago was gone and all that was left was me.
‘I can’t do this… I’m sorry… I can’t…’
Scrambling off his lap, I snatched my shirt up from the floor of the car and retreated to the very end of the seat.
‘What happened? What did I do?’ Jack asked, watching me pull my top back on. He made a move to reach for me but I flinched away from his touch. What could I tell him? Everything was fine until I realised that you were way too good-looking for me? That in a few days you’re going to leave me again and I don’t think I can cope with the hurt that would cause? However real they were, all those excuses sounded pathetic, so I gave him the only answer I hoped would make sense to him.
‘I’m sorry, it’s not you… it’s just… this is wrong.’
‘It didn’t feel wrong.’
‘No… I mean… yes. It’s just bad timing. My mum just died and I’m cavorting around in the back of a car with you, like some cheap slut!’
‘Don’t! Don’t say that kind of shit about yourself, Abigail. I won’t let you do that.’ He tried to reach for me but I moved closer to the door and grabbed the handle, ready to open it and leave him behind.
‘You’re running away again, then?’
‘I’m not running anywhere, Jack. I have to get back to my family.’ I opened the car door and stepped out. ‘Goodbye, Jack, have a safe trip home.’
He opened his mouth to speak but I’d already closed the door. As I walked back to the house part of me was hoping that he’d jump out of the car and follow me, take me in his arms and refuse to let me go, but he didn’t. I heard the engine start and I turned to see his car pulling away from the kerb.
Chapter 12
‘So, who’s in the car?’ My brother was waiting for me in the hallway as I came back into the house.
‘No one important, Matt. Let it go.’ He looked at me for a few seconds and then nodded.
‘Okay, no problem. I’m sure you’ll tell me when you’re ready.’
I turned away and began walking down the hallway that led to the kitchen. My brother gave a little cough and I turned, letting out an exasperated, ‘What?’
‘You’ve got your T-shirt on inside out.’ He gave me a wink and then went back into the living room.
‘Oh, shit!’ I headed into the kitchen to try and straighten myself up. As I passed the hallway mirror I looked at my tired reflection. Red eyes from crying, and rosy lips from the kissing, quite a combination. What must I look like? I adjusted my clothes and reminded myself that snogging in the back seats of cars was a young person’s pastime. A woman of my age ought to know better. I touched my fingers to my swollen lips and remembered how good it felt to be kissed like that; by him.
‘Are you okay, Mum?’ Lucy walked sleepily down the hallway towards me. ‘Where were you?’ Rubbing her eyes, still groggy from sleep, she followed me into the kitchen.
‘Hmm? Oh, nowhere, love, just talking to someone outside, that’s all,’ I replied, vaguely.
‘Jack has great taste in cars, Mum. I’ll say that for him at least.’
I toyed briefly with the idea of denying it, but it was pointless.
‘It’s nothing, Lucy. He just wanted to see how everything was with Mum, that’s all. I told him she passed away.’ The words still sounded strange to my ears.
‘Why didn’t he come to the door and knock, or call you?’
‘He didn’t want to intrude.’
She gave me a sideways glance. ‘He obviously wanted to get you on your own but what for, I wonder – hmm?’
‘It was nothing, really. Anyway, he told me he’s going back to America in a few days so that’s that. Whatever that is,’ I replied, trying to sound casual about the whole thing.
‘And you’re going to let him go, are you? Just like that?’
‘I’ve got too much going on to worry about him and what he’s doing. I need to arrange Nan’s funeral. We’ll have to sort out this place. God only knows what she’s got stashed in the loft. There could be tons of stuff up there to sort through.’ I was rambling on, trying to fill the void with a conversation that would take us away from the subject of Jack Chance and his impending departure. She put her arms around me.
‘It’s going to be fine, Mum. We can all help out, you know that. I just think it’s a shame not to even allow for the possibility of there being a place in your life for Jack. He seems nice and he’s obviously very keen on you.’
‘When did you become so grown up? Shouldn’t it be me giving you advice on your love life, not the other way around?’
‘No offence, but what you know about having a love life could be written on the back of a postage stamp!’
‘Hey!’ I feigned disgust but she was right; my love life in recent years added up to a few really bad dates and one drunken fumble in an alleyway – not one of my proudest moments. Lucy’s dad was the only man I’d ever slept with. Perhaps it was good that things hadn’t gone any further with Jack, I thought. I probably wouldn’t have remembered what to do. Or maybe I would? I’d been quite happy sitting astride him in the back of his car; I was pretty sure it would have all come flooding back to me. An image of him, all sexy hair and glasses, appeared in my mind, sending an involuntary shiver down my back. I remembered how his lips had felt as they’d placed hot kisses down my neck and onto my chest. My little flashback was interrupted by Lucy.
‘If you expect me to believe that nothing just happened in the back of that car then you must take me for an idiot. Look at you! The mere mention of him has made you light up like a candle! I don’t understand why you would want to pass that feeling up.’
‘He has a life in America, he’s not going to give that all up for me and I certainly don’t want to be anywhere else but here, so where would that leave us?’
‘I’ll bet you haven’t even given him the chance to stay around for you, have you? Have you even asked him what he wants out of all this?’
‘Lucy, stop, please, just stop.’ I couldn’t talk about this with her anymore; it was too exhausting. ‘I need to focus on all this now anyway,’ I said, waving a hand around the kitchen. She was desperate to say more, I could sense it, but thankfully she was interrupted by the doorbell.
‘I’ll bet that’s him, come to carry you off in his arms!’ she said as she headed down the hallway. For a second my heart leapt at the idea that maybe it was him, come to take me away from all this, to take me back
to his hotel and make love to me for hours and hours. But it wasn’t, and I was surprised by how much that disappointed me. He’d only been back in my life for five minutes; how had he become so important again, so quickly? I walked down the hall to the front door and I was surprised by the sight of a policewoman standing there holding a cardboard box.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
‘It’s about Nan, I think,’ said Lucy. ‘This lady says she came to see her yesterday and she’s here to follow up, or something.’
‘I’m sorry for the confusion. I’m P.C. Joanne Clow, I’m a Family Liaison Officer with the Metropolitan Police. I came here yesterday with Father Michael, to see Mrs Turner. Is she around? I’m sure we can clear all this up.’ The officer looked past me, down the hallway, as if she was expecting to see my mum.
‘She died in the early hours of this morning, Officer. She had a stroke.’
The young woman suddenly looked very pale.
‘I’m sorry, this is all very confusing,’ said Lucy. ‘Why were you here yesterday?’
‘Perhaps I could come in for a few moments. This is a box of personal effects for your mum; I told her I would bring it to her.’
‘Whose personal effects?’ I asked. ‘The hospital already gave us all of my mother’s things.’
‘These are your dad’s things, from his cell. The prison sent them over this morning and I said I’d deliver them to her and see how she was coping with the news,’ said PC Clow.
‘I think you’d better come in,’ I said, leading the confused-looking officer into the living room.
Chapter 13
The officer placed the box on the sofa and took a seat beside it. Lucy and I sat in the armchairs by the window and Matt stood by the fireplace; none of us spoke for a long time.
‘You’ll have to forgive us, Officer,’ I said. ‘It’s just that we haven’t heard from our father in twenty years. This must be some sort of mistake, a mix-up with paperwork or something?’
The officer shook her head. ‘You are Mrs Turner’s children, is that right?’
‘Yes, we are, but she changed our surname to Cowan after our father left.’
‘Right, I see. It’s just that when Father Michael and I were here yesterday Mrs Turner, sorry, Mrs Cowan, told us that she had no one she could contact to come and be with her. We don’t like to leave people, especially older people, alone when they’ve just had a shock.’ PC Clow reached into the box and pulled out a slim brown folder. ‘She said she was fine and we could leave her – she was pretty insistent about it actually. I left her my card and told her I would be back today with this.’ She gestured to the box. I looked across to my brother but he wouldn’t meet my gaze.
‘Yes, I found your card. And you came here to tell my mum what exactly?’
‘That her husband had passed away. He had a heart attack whilst he was working in the prison garden. Wormwood Scrubs – your father had been there for about twenty years. Didn’t any of you know this?’ she asked, amazed by our obvious ignorance. I looked to my brother for some sort of sign that this was all a big mistake; he just shoved his hands into his pockets and turned his back. My next comment was spoken as much to him as it was the harried-looking policewoman.
‘Our dad disappeared, no one knew where he was for sure. But I don’t think we ever thought he was in prison. I heard some gossip about him buggering off to Spain with another woman but not prison.’
‘I’m so sorry, I don’t know what to say. Father Michael offered to stay with her for a while – he’s the prison chaplain; he was with me when I broke the news. But she said she was fine, even made us tea. I would never have left her alone if I thought she was ill.’ The police officer looked as if she was on the verge of tears.
‘She wasn’t ill, she was fine. I’m guessing this must have just been too much of a shock for her, to find out where he’d been all these years. Don’t you think, Matt?’
He just nodded. Lucy had been sitting silently in her chair the whole time we’d been speaking but suddenly she got up and left the room. The officer stared down at the brown folder on her lap, unable to make eye contact; my brother wouldn’t even look at me.
Fragments of stories I’d heard growing up tumbled across my consciousness like pieces of a jigsaw falling out of a box. Yes, Spain, I was sure that was what I’d heard. Something about Spain, about my dad doing something stupid and running away. The memory I’d had earlier – the smashed vase and my mum’s voice screaming recriminations – that must have been to do with that. He’d run off with another woman, not been locked in prison. I was convinced the officer must have got it wrong; some sort of bureaucratic mix-up. There’d been plenty of gossip about my dad after he left, but everyone had told me to ignore it. Ted and Rose, my grandparents, Flo – they’d told me that people just liked to talk – but I wasn’t a baby, I was fifteen when he left. Old enough to know that something wasn’t right but still young enough to want to believe that my family – the people who were supposed to love me – wouldn’t lie to me about something so important. But had I ever really been convinced? Hadn’t there always been a part of me that had suspicions and questions?
Lucy returned to the living room, clutching a picture in her hands.
‘I found this in the bin when we got back and I was making tea in the kitchen. I didn’t say anything; I didn’t want to upset either of you by asking questions.’ She held the picture out for us both to see; it was a photograph of me and Matt, standing with our parents, outside this house. I hadn’t seen any pictures of my dad for years. I’d always assumed that my mum, or my grandparents, had got rid of them all. The photo was faded and had been repaired at some stage; yellowing sticky tape was holding its torn pieces together. I took it from Lucy and walked across to look at the brown box on the sofa.
‘These are things from his cell?’ I asked.
The officer nodded. I slowly lifted the lid. My hands were shaking, and Matt came across to stand beside me. Inside the box there were books and papers and a bundle of photographs. I lifted them out and took off the rubber band that was holding them all together. There must have been at least thirty or maybe forty of them. Some were old school pictures of me and Matt, and then there were other, more informal pictures. One of Matt with his first car, me in my old waitress apron, working in the café, one of me and Lucy on the day she got her A Level results – photos of all the milestones in our lives. I flipped through the stack and it was the final photo in the pile that really shocked me; it was a picture of me in the hospital, just after I’d given birth to Lucy. I looked exhausted and Lucy had hair matted with blood and tiny screwed-up eyes. I remembered Mum taking it; Lucy could only have been minutes old. She must have sent him all these pictures of us. I handed Matt the bundle of photos and then went across to sit back in the armchair by the window. I felt sick and weak; my legs didn’t seem to want to hold my weight.
‘She knew where he was,’ said Lucy, echoing the realisation that had just dawned on me. ‘All these years she said she hadn’t heard from him, but she knew exactly where he was.’
Going to the box, Lucy lifted out another bundle, of what looked like letters. She took them across to the coffee table and began sorting through them; they’d all been opened and read, some of them many times considering the state of the paper, all of them except one.
‘This one was only sent a few days ago, it’s not even been opened yet.’ Lucy lifted it up to show me and I recognised the handwriting on the front immediately.
‘It’s from Nan,’ I said.
PC Clow stood up, looking eager to escape. ‘I’m very sorry about all this,’ she said. ‘If there’s anything I can do to help you sort this all out, please just let me know. Your mum seemed like a lovely lady. You already have my card so please stay in touch.’ As she spoke she made her way over to the door.
‘What’s going to happen with Dad’s body?’ It was the first time Matt had spoken.
‘It’s in the mortuary at the moment
. There’ll have to be a post-mortem since it’s technically classed as a death in custody, but that’s just a formality really. You’ll need to arrange for the funeral home to collect him after that. All the paperwork you need is in the box.’ She continued making her way out into the hallway and I followed her. I had so many questions but she wouldn’t have any answers for me; she’d just been doing her job yesterday, delivering a piece of bad news to family.
‘I am very sorry about your mum; I wouldn’t have left her if I thought the news had affected her so much. She seemed okay, she really did.’ Opening the front door, I gently steered her towards it. I needed her gone so I could begin to make sense of all this; she wasn’t going to be able to help me navigate the unfolding soap opera that was my life.
‘It’s fine, you couldn’t have known what would happen. Please don’t worry about it. Thank you for bringing his… I mean… my dad’s things, we appreciate it. We’ll be in touch if we need anything.’ I closed the door on her just as she was turning to speak to me; I had no more platitudes for her. Standing by the door for a few minutes, I tried to steady my breathing.
When I went back into the living room, Lucy had moved the coffee table and upended the contents of the box onto the floor. She’d already put the books in a small pile next to her and she’d started sorting through the letters. The unopened one sat alone on the mantelpiece, its contents unseen by anyone since Mum sealed up the envelope. I didn’t want to read it, not yet, not until I understood more about this whole situation.
‘Mum, this is proper big family secret type stuff. Did either of you know anything about all this?’ asked Lucy.
‘That’s an excellent question, Lucy.’ I turned my attention to my brother. ‘Matt?’
His head snapped up and he stared at me.
‘Perhaps you can answer that one for her. Did either of us know anything about all this?’
He didn’t reply, he just shook his head sadly and walked across to the window, anything to avoid making eye contact with me, it seemed.
Secrets and Tea at Rosie Lee's Page 13