Matt didn’t reply straight away; he just sat there staring at the floor for a few moments. I took this to mean that he had something else he needed to get off his chest.
‘What is it?’ The silence was killing me; what the hell was he gearing up to tell me now?
‘Martin,’ he said, eventually.
‘What? Who?’ I snapped.
‘Lucy’s dad, Martin Church.’
‘What about him?’
‘I might have something to do with why he left you and Lucy that night.’
That didn’t make any sense; Lucy’s dad had been a drunk and a bully and, despite the fact that Matt had offered to sort him out for me many times, in the end it had been me that had thrown him out.
‘What did you do?’
‘Don’t panic, I didn’t break his legs or anything, although I would have loved to. I just warned him off. Reminded him that there were certain things that you didn’t know about and I told him I’d like it to stay that way. That’s all.’
‘You were worried he was going to tell me about Dad?’
‘I was in the pub that night you threw him out. I heard him mouthing off to people about how you were a snotty cow who needed to be taken down a peg or two. That maybe you wouldn’t be so full of yourself if you knew you were the daughter of a criminal.’
Suddenly some of the things that Martin used to say to me started to make sense. He would accuse me of acting as if I was better than him and his family, telling me what a joke that was and if only I knew the truth. I’d put it down to the drink talking and the fact that he’d seemed to enjoy insulting me.
‘He was a useless twat, Abs. You were better off without him.’
‘I know that. It still wasn’t your place to warn him off! He’s Lucy’s Dad! She deserved the chance to have some sort of a relationship with him!’ I yelled.
‘Bollocks!’ Matt shouted. ‘If he’d wanted to be in his daughter’s life then no amount of threats from me should have made any difference. If I had a daughter no one would be able to keep me from her.’ I looked at my brother’s earnest expression and knew he was right; Matt had just given Martin an excuse to do what he’d always been going to do anyway.
‘What did you say to him?’
‘Not much. I just gave him a gentle reminder of how important it was to me that you shouldn’t find out too much about Dad and what had happened.’
Thankfully he didn’t elaborate on the form that this ‘gentle reminder’ would have taken. He gave me his best innocent choirboy look and I couldn’t help but smile. I should have felt angrier with him, but to be honest the idea of Martin getting a taste of his own medicine didn’t upset me that much. Did that make me a bad person? Maybe, but I’d get over it. I had one more question for him before I let him off the hook.
‘Tell me how it’s possible that I’ve never heard of any of this before?’
‘Dad had a lot of friends, Abby. I think word got around that it didn’t pay to gossip about the Turner family, and then when Mum lost the plot most people stopped coming round anyway, and that was that.’ He said it so matter-of-factly that I wanted to slap him.
‘But what about people at school, my friends? If Martin knew then so did everyone else in my class.’
Matt rubbed the knuckles on his right hand and my eyes were drawn to the scars there; I had a feeling I knew the answer to that one.
‘How many of my friends did you beat up, then?’
‘It wasn’t like that, Abs. Eventually people moved on, they all had their own shit to deal with, Dad’s story got lost, forgotten about. Occasionally it would rear its ugly head again, but I dealt with it. Life went on.’
I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Matt, feeling as if he’d had no choice but to stick around and be my protector. What kind of life had that been for him?
‘Mum should never have put that kind of burden on you. That wasn’t fair. You could have gone anywhere, travelled the world, except you didn’t because she’d made you into some sort of secret keeper for me.’
‘Don’t be daft, Abby, where the fuck was I gonna go? I like my life. I’ve got my own business. I’m my own boss. Besides, what would all the girls round here do for entertainment if I just upped and left and took all this gorgeousness with me?’ He flexed his pecs and winked at me.
‘That’s disgusting, Matt. I don’t even want to go there.’
‘It made you smile, though, didn’t it?’
‘I’m not smiling; I’m trying to suppress my gag reflex.’
‘Ha ha!’ Matt clapped me on the shoulder and laughed loudly.
‘Well, that all sounds a lot more positive,’ said Lucy, as she came back into the room. ‘What are you laughing about?’
‘Trust me, Lucy, you don’t want to know. I wouldn’t want to scar you for life,’ I said. Matt stuck two fingers up at me in a vulgar salute.
‘Fair enough. Do you need help with anything?’
‘We need to think about making some arrangements, I suppose,’ said Matt. ‘I need to go and see the funeral directors, talk to them about what she wanted and all that. Be nice if I had some company.’
Lucy nodded. I didn’t have a clue what Mum wanted when it came to her funeral; I was kind of surprised that Matt did either.
‘Did she talk to you about it, then?’ I asked.
‘Yeah. It just came out in conversation one day, wasn’t like I asked her about it or anything. She was watching something on the telly about wicker coffins, I think some singer she liked had one when he died. She said that’s what she wanted, said it would burn better than a proper coffin when she was cremated.’
‘She wanted to be cremated? I thought she’d want to be buried next to her parents.’
‘No, she said she wanted to be cremated and then she wanted her ashes scattered over the Thames, off the side of the Woolwich Ferry.’
The Woolwich Ferry! That ugly metal boat that carried traffic from one side of London to the other!
‘You are joking, aren’t you?’ I tried hard to hide my amusement at the image of the two of us, weaving our way between lorries and cars on board the ferry, then scattering Mum’s ashes over the side. Unfortunately, the ridiculousness of it was too much for me; within seconds I was bent double, holding my sides and laughing uncontrollably. Matt was watching me. He looked horrified at my laughter and his serious face just made it worse. I was laughing so hard that I couldn’t catch my breath. Lucy looked at me and then back at him, and for a split second I thought she was going to tell me off, but then her face cracked into an enormous grin.
‘The Woolwich bloody Ferry?’ she exclaimed. ‘That’s hilarious. I never knew Nan had such a sick sense of humour!’
Matt just looked despairingly at both of us. ‘You’re bloody mental, the pair of you. I’m going to see the funeral directors. Hopefully they’ll be a bit more respectful,’ he said, and left us clutching each other for support as our laughter subsided.
‘He’s right, of course,’ I said, wiping away tears. ‘That probably wasn’t very nice, was it?’
‘Probably not, but, after everything that’s happened today, if you can’t laugh about it then what’s the point?’ She leaned in and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. ‘I’ll go after him; we can’t have him organising the funeral on his own, can we? Uncle Matt, wait for me, I’m coming.’ She ran out of the room and I heard her thumping down the stairs. Picking up all the stuff that I’d emptied out of drawers, I began folding it into neat piles on the bed.
Chapter 14
‘You know you should have just shagged his brains out when you had the chance, don’t you?’ said Liz, as she lay on my mum’s sofa. She’d come to see me after Lucy and Matt had left a couple of hours ago. I’d told them that I wanted to stay behind to start sorting some of mum’s stuff but the truth was I just didn’t want to go home. Being in this house made me feel closer to her and after everything I’d learnt about my mum today, I needed to feel that closeness.
Liz had insiste
d she come over to join me, to stop me from ‘getting maudlin’. She’d brought two bottles of wine, which we’d made short work of, and once we’d polished those off I’d dragged out some musty port from the back of one of mum’s cupboards and we’d had a couple of glasses of that. I was drunk and, if I’m being totally honest, a little bit sick. I’m not sure how old the port was; the bottle had been very dusty.
‘He has a girlfriend and he lives on the other side of the world, Liz. Why does everyone keep overlooking those very important facts?’ I was lying on my back on the floor in the living room, with my forearms across my face. Every time I opened my eyes the light in the middle of the ceiling above me seemed to spin very fast. I’d tried to sit up just now but quickly realised that was a bad idea.
‘I thought you said, that he said, that girl was just a friend?’ Liz hiccupped.
‘He did.’
‘Then what’s the problem?’
‘The problem is I don’t believe him. She looks at him so adoringly and she’s in so many photos with him. There has to be something going on.’ I lifted my glass and realised it was empty – probably just as well.
‘Even if there is something between them, he didn’t seem bothered about it so why should you be? His perky little girlfriend was the furthest thing from his mind when he got you topless in the back of his car a few hours ago!’
‘Urrggh! Stop, Liz, please don’t remind me. I’m so embarrassed. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.’ I shook my head, and instantly regretted it; my brain swirled about inside my skull, which didn’t do much to curb the nausea.
‘I don’t know how you managed to drag yourself off his lap – he’s bloody gorgeous, darling. I mean, look at him.’ Liz thrust her smartphone in my face, showing me the pictures of him she’d found online. He was good-looking, no point denying that fact, but that didn’t change anything.
‘That face, those eyes,’ Liz swiped through the pictures, ‘Bloody hell – I’ve found one of him naked!’
‘What?’ I tried to grab the phone but she snatched it out of my reach.
‘Gotcha! There aren’t any naked pictures of him, you wally. But admit it, you were curious, weren’t you?’ She gave me a knowing wink and I stuck two fingers up in reply.
‘Well, that’s charming, that is. Here I am trying to show my support for you and that’s the thanks I get.’ She let out a huge yawn and I looked across to the clock on the mantel; it was almost midnight.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you so late. You should have said something.’ I crawled across to where she was sitting on the sofa. ‘Do you want me to ring for a cab?’
‘I think that would probably be a good idea, my lovely. I’m in no fit state to be driving anywhere.’
I dragged myself up off the floor and staggered to the phone in the hallway. Miraculously I remembered the number of the taxi firm, and after a rather confusing initial exchange, during which I thought I might have ordered six cabs rather than one, I managed to organise Liz’s ride home.
‘He’ll be here in about ten minutes. Liz?’ She’d wriggled down the sofa into a completely prone position and was snoring lightly. How on earth was I going to get her into a cab? I nudged her shoulder gently but got no response. I nudged her again, this time slightly harder, but that made her turn over. All this effort had made the room start spinning unpleasantly – I needed a glass of water. In all honesty, I was way beyond the point where a glass of water would be of any use. I also needed to find some painkillers. I made my way down the hallway, wobbling from side to side as if I were trapped inside a pinball machine. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this drunk; definitely not since I’d had Lucy, probably not since I was about seventeen and I’d taken a sudden liking to White Lightning cider. It had been cheap and had got you shitfaced really quickly; something that I’d found came in very handy when I’d been trying to cope with my crappy existence. God, I’d had a boring life. I flicked the overhead light on in the kitchen and immediately regretted it.
‘For fuck’s sake.’ I winced at the fluorescent glow and banged the switch again. Feeling my way over to the sink, I switched on the little lamp that sat on the window ledge – much better. I rifled through the drawers by the sink, looking for headache pills, only finding cutlery and tea towels in the first two. The next one held scraps of paper, old bills and dried up biros, and an old ice-cream tub full of spare keys, random screws and rubber bands. As I moved the tub, my eye landed on a blue envelope tucked underneath. It had grease stains on the front and what looked like the ring from a coffee mug but the most unusual thing about this envelope, tucked away in the bottom of my mum’s ‘crap’ drawer, was the fact that it had my name on the front. ‘For Abigail’ was written quite clearly in my mother’s distinctive hand. I pulled the envelope out and placed it on the kitchen table, propped up against the salt cellar. I stared at it for a few minutes, as if I were expecting it to self-destruct now it had been pulled from its hiding place. It was probably just an old birthday card, I thought, nothing more than that. I reached out tentatively towards the envelope but snatched my hand back when a car horn sounded loudly outside – the cab! I left the envelope propped against the salt cellar and went to open the front door. I waved at the cab driver and turned to go and fetch Liz. I almost knocked her flying, as she was already standing behind me, looking weary and a bit green.
‘Are you going to be okay? Do you need the loo before you go?’
She shook her head, almost as if she was too afraid to open her mouth.
‘Mmm… K… Just need… home, bed,’ she mumbled.
I walked her to the car and saw the driver eyeing her cautiously.
‘She ain’t gonna chuck up in my cab, is she?’
‘No, no, of course not. She’ll be fine, she’s just a little tired that’s all, long day, you know how it is.’ I gave him my best cheery smile and slammed the door. He was shaking his head as he pulled away and I prayed that Liz was going to be able to hold it together for the twenty-minute cab ride home.
The house was quiet when I went back inside. I collected the empty wine bottles and glasses from the living room and took them out to the kitchen. A sudden whiff of wine from the bottles gave me a brief urge to throw up but I managed to keep it down. After rinsing glasses and emptying the bin under the sink, I sat at the kitchen table, contemplating that bloody envelope. I picked it up and turned it over before putting it back down on the table. There was every chance that the envelope held nothing more than some old receipts or a forgotten birthday card. On any other day, I would have assumed exactly that but after everything that had happened, what I’d learned about my family and its talent for keeping massive secrets, I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t want to deal with any more crap; not by myself anyway. You should call Jack, the treacherous little voice at the back of my mind piped up; no doubt fuelled by all the lady petrol I’d drunk. Call Jack and tell him you need him, that you want him, said the voice.
I went to the living room in search of my phone and found it buried under a pile of photos on the coffee table. On top of the pile was the photograph that Lucy had rescued from the bin earlier; the one of all of us standing outside this house. I held it up close to my face to get a better look at my dad. He didn’t look like some gun-toting master criminal. Stonewash jeans, a Fred Perry polo shirt and white trainers; he was your typical 1980s Dad. I could see him now; standing in the front room in nothing but that polo shirt and his pants, ironing his jeans with a cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth. I could hear Mum’s voice coming from the kitchen. ‘Don’t you drop bloody fag ash on my carpet, John!’ The memory was so vivid, so full of detail, I swear I could almost smell the cigarette smoke. I wished Liz hadn’t gone home, I didn’t want to be on my own.
On impulse I opened my phone and Jack’s last message appeared on the screen.
Am heading back home in a few days, thought I would let you know.
My sense of recklessness stirred a litt
le, blame it on the wine. If he was going home, then why shouldn’t I take advantage of our obvious mutual attraction, just once? Then he’d leave and my life would return to normal. Why couldn’t I allow myself to have some fun? Where was the harm? Lexie’s face suddenly popped into view – there was the harm. Despite his claim that they were just friends, I wasn’t the type to be cast as the other woman. Okay, so I wouldn’t sleep with him then; maybe we could just talk? My subconscious raised a sardonic eyebrow in disbelief but I was undeterred. We were adults after all. I dialled his number before I could change my mind. It was only when it started to ring that I remembered what time it was. Shit – what had I done? My finger hovered over the end call button but I didn’t press it. It was too late; the phone was ringing. After a few seconds, I heard Jack’s sleepy voice on the other end of the line.
‘Hello? Abigail, is that you?’
Bugger it – what should I do? Should I answer? Put on my best fake voice and pretend I’d got the wrong number? I was rubbish at lying under pressure so I owned up. ‘Yes, it’s me. Sorry, I didn’t realise it was so late.’
‘It’s fine, what’s wrong? Did you need me?’ I heard the rustle of sheets in the background, as if he was getting out of bed, and my sex-starved brain immediately began conjuring up images of him in bed wearing nothing but a smile. Stop it!
‘Just hang on a minute,’ he said, whispering into the phone, and it dawned on me that he must be sneaking out of bed to talk to me. No doubt sneaking away from a sleeping Lexie, who was obviously there with him. God, what an idiot, what was I doing? I’d just dragged him out of the bed he shared with her; for all I knew I’d interrupted them in the middle of shagging each other’s brains out. He wouldn’t have stopped halfway through to answer his phone, would he? It had been a while since I was in that position myself, but I was pretty sure that the etiquette on not answering phone calls during sex couldn’t have changed that much.
Secrets and Tea at Rosie Lee's Page 15