‘Don’t you remember me, then, Abby?’
‘Er, no, I’m sorry, I’m afraid I don’t.’ The way he was looking at me made me feel a bit uneasy but I was curious about him. He certainly looked familiar, but it was his voice that I recognised more than anything else. I’d heard it somewhere before but I couldn’t place it.
‘It’s been a long time. I’m not surprised you can’t remember me. I was a good friend of your dad’s, and your mum. I haven’t been around much these last few years – got myself a nice little place in Spain, you see. Had to get away from the crappy British winters.’
That explained why he looked like a bit of wrinkled shoe leather: too much sun and sangria, obviously. ‘How did you hear about the funeral? If you live abroad, I mean.’
‘A mutual friend read the notice in the local paper and got in touch with me. I flew straight back as soon as I heard.’ The man stood, unbuttoning his coat and taking it off, before laying it neatly over the back of a chair. Underneath the coat he was wearing a white shirt and I could clearly see the tattoos that covered his arms and chest showing through the fabric. Diamond studded cufflinks twinkled at his wrists and a large gold sovereign decorated the middle finger of his left hand.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name?’
‘Don’t be sorry, Abby,’ he said, with a smile that reminded me of a snake about to swallow its prey. ‘The name’s Terry, Terry Egan.’
Egan? I remembered that name from when I was growing up. The Egans had been a bit notorious. They’d always passed themselves off as innocent scrap-metal dealers, but everyone had known they were no such thing. Two of the Egan boys, Joe and Michael, had gone to my school although they were older than me, so I hadn’t really had much to do with them. I’d had no idea that our families were friends. But that voice; I couldn’t explain it but there was something about that voice that made me feel anxious.
I could hear my brother saying goodbye to some people at the front door; everyone else had gone. I was relieved to see him walking down the hallway towards the kitchen. ‘Finally,’ he exclaimed. ‘I thought we’d be at this all night.’ He stopped abruptly as he entered the kitchen and saw we still had company.
‘Matt, this is a friend of Dad’s, Terry—’
‘Terry Egan. I know who you are.’ My brother’s voice was hard and cold.
‘Well, well, Little Matthew Turner. You’ve grown into quite a strapping young man, ain’t ya?’
My brother’s hands balled into fists at his sides, as if he was about to take a swing at the mystery man in our kitchen. What the hell was going on?
‘Mr Egan has come all the way from Spain to pay his respects, Matt. He says he was a good friend of Dad’s but I’m afraid I must seem rude because I don’t remember him.’ Matt hadn’t taken his eyes off Egan.
‘Not at all, darlin’, not rude at all. It’s been a long time. You were a lot younger when I was hanging around with your dad. No reason you should remember all that. Is there, Matthew?’ Egan walked across to my brother; the pair of them were practically toe to toe.
‘You should leave, Mr Egan,’ said Matt. ‘I suspect you’ve got what you came for now, haven’t you?’
A lazy smile spread across Egan’s face as he looked my brother up and down one more time before turning to pick up his coat. He took his time putting it on, adjusting the cuffs of his shirt so the glint of diamonds in his cufflinks was obvious, and then he picked up his hat. Matt was watching him intently, coiled like a cat ready to pounce. The tension in the room was palpable.
‘I certainly did, Matthew, thank you.’
‘What’s he talking about, Matt? What did he come here for?’
‘I came here to make sure your dad was really dead, my dear. And luckily for him, he is.’ Egan put on his hat and turned to walk out of the room. ‘I’ll let myself out for now, but I’ll be in touch.’
‘For what reason?’ asked Matt.
‘Oh, I’ve got a million reasons, actually.’
He looked me up and down and then, with a last oily smile, he walked away.
After I heard the front door slam, I was frozen to the spot. My brother relaxed his fists and leant up against the kitchen counter.
‘What the fuck was all that about?’ I demanded.
‘Nothing, Abby, just leave it. It’s done now.’
‘What’s done? What are you going on about?’
‘For Christ’s sake – just let it go!’ he shouted, stalking out of the room. I followed behind him, clipping at his heels like an annoying puppy. I’d followed him into the living room before I could stop myself and I was confronted by the sight of my parents, laid out in their wicker boxes, looking like two life-size dolls. Their faces had that artificial bloom in the cheeks and lips. Mortician’s make up, and whatever other chemicals had been pumped through their systems, had smoothed out the lines around their mouths and foreheads. It was ironic that my mum should have fewer wrinkles now than when she was alive, I thought to myself.
My brother was sitting in one of the fold-up chairs that the funeral company had left by the side of Mum’s coffin. Between the caskets, at the top end, there was a substantial wooden crucifix and two large fresh flower arrangements on either side of the fireplace. The living-room windows were open, and I could hear sounds from the street outside. Although it was starting to get dark, there were still kids playing on the patch of grass across the road. I walked over to the window and looked out at them enjoying the last bit of daylight. A couple of boys were playing football and a small group of girls were sitting on the grass watching them. One of the boys was skilfully manoeuvring his way to the far end of the field and the makeshift goal they’d set up there. He kicked the ball and it curved high into the air and over the poor goalie’s head. The goalkeeper held his head in his hands and shouted something to his teammates that I couldn’t hear. The lucky scorer jogged over to one of the girls and was rewarded with a kiss. I didn’t know them, didn’t know anything about their lives or their circumstances, but, in that moment at least, they appeared to be carefree and happy. I think I could remember feeling that way once, as if anything was possible if you just wanted it enough. In my head it didn’t feel like that long ago; in reality it might as well have been another lifetime.
‘What else is there you’re not telling me, Matt?’ I stayed facing the window; I didn’t want to look at him if he was about to tell me another lie.
‘It’s nothing, Abby, it’s not important. Nothing for you to worry about.’
‘And yet strangely I find myself worried anyway.’ A black 4X4 drove past the window and for a minute my heart leapt to think that it might be Jack, but the car didn’t even slow down.
‘I asked you not to keep anything else from me, didn’t I? And yet here we are with more shit to deal with.’ I turned to face my brother. He nodded. ‘So, I’m asking you again. What are you not telling me?’
There was a long silence before my brother finally spoke.
‘Terry Egan is my dad, Abby.’
Chapter 17
I grabbed blindly at the window ledge behind me as the room started to spin.
‘That man is your dad. I don’t understand… How is that…? I mean… Oh, God.’ I slapped my hand across my mouth. I was going to throw up. I ran down the hallway to the toilet and made it just in time. I retched again and again until there was nothing left for me to bring up. Matt came and knelt beside me, stroking my hair, and I slid into his lap and sobbed into his chest.
‘Every shirt I’ve had on for the last few days has ended up with your tears wiped on it,’ he said.
‘Think yourself lucky I don’t wear as much make-up as most of the girls in your life – things could be a lot messier.’ I crawled across the floor and pulled the roll of toilet paper off the holder. Unravelling way too much, I blew my nose on it. The horribly acidic taste of vomit lingered in my mouth, sticking to my teeth. I shuffled over to the sink and turned on the tap, cupping handfuls of water into my mouth.
The reflection in the mirror above was one of a tired-looking middle-aged woman; it was a face I was quickly becoming all too familiar with.
‘I need a drink,’ I said. ‘Wanna join me?’
‘Fuck yeah.’
I pulled him up off the floor and we went to the kitchen. I took a bottle of wine from the fridge and grabbed a beer for Matt. Once we were settled at the table, we raised our drinks to each other.
‘Cheers,’ he said, taking a long mouthful of his beer.
‘Up yours,’ I replied. I took a large gulp of my wine and then waited for Matt to start talking. He didn’t; he just picked at the label around the top of his bottle and avoided making eye contact with me.
‘Come on, Matt!’ I exclaimed. ‘How long have you known?’ I wasn’t sure what answer I wanted. I looked across at him – my brother – the only man I thought had never let me down. He took another swig of his beer before he spoke.
‘Since I was eighteen. Almost a year after Dad… erm… went away.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘Mum told me. I’d been out late and drinking a bit too much. We were arguing and I said something about how she couldn’t stop me doing what I wanted ’cos I was a grown-up. Typical arrogant teenage-boy crap.’ He cringed at the memory. ‘That’s when she screamed at me that maybe she should call my real dad and he could come and give me the arse-kicking I deserved.’
‘How come you never said anything to me?’
‘She regretted telling me the instant the words left her mouth. She was so upset, she made me swear never to tell you. She knew how close we were; she didn’t want anything to change that.’
‘And she thought more lies would be better? Jesus, this is unbelievable!’
Matt reached across the table and tried to take my hand. I shrugged him off and he went back to nursing his beer.
‘She only ever wanted to protect you, Abby. She thought she was doing the right thing. It was in the past. Nothing any of us could do about it.’
‘Have you ever met him before? Egan, I mean.’
‘I’d seen him around – his sons were about my age – but I knew what everyone used to say about the Egans and what they got up to. I didn’t want to broadcast the fact that he was my real dad. I remember him coming to the house a few times when Dad was still around.’
That was it! That was why I recognised his voice. It was a few months before Dad left; I remembered hearing shouting coming from the kitchen. Two voices, one was Dad and the other belonged to Terry Egan. I couldn’t remember what was said – from my place at the top of the stairs I couldn’t hear everything – but I could remember the tone of his voice; it was so full of anger and violence.
‘What was all that stuff about making sure Dad was really dead? What did he do to piss him off so badly that he’d want him dead?’
‘Terry Egan was part of the crew that robbed the security truck. Dad worked for him but if anyone had reason to be pissed off it should have been Dad.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Once the police started sniffing around after the robbery, Egan just disappeared. Went to Spain and left everyone else to take the blame.’
‘What happened to all the others? You said there were six of them.’
Matt drained his beer. ‘They’re all gone, Abs. Only Dad went to prison. He turned himself in for some reason. Dunno why. Never got to the bottom of that one. He could have buggered off to the Costa Del Crime like Egan did and lived a long life off the money they nicked. But he didn’t.’
‘How long have you known about what Dad did? About where he was?’
I could tell that my brother was weighing up the pro and cons of what he was about to tell me.
‘Don’t baby me, not now. The truth, please,’ I said.
‘It was about a year or so after he left.’
I was shocked. ‘Mum could barely string a sentence together at that point, she was so depressed. How the hell did you manage to get her to talk to you about all that?’
‘Mum wasn’t the one who told me, Abby. It was Keith.’
‘Keith from the gym?’ Matt’s former employer, now his business partner, had been almost like a substitute father to him over the years. I credited his influence for keeping Matt in line and ensuring that he hadn’t gone the way of some of his former school friends.
‘I was always hanging around the gym, even before I got my job there, and I was young but I wasn’t stupid. I saw how blokes would come and go, some of them would work out but lots of them wouldn’t. They’d come, disappear into the locker room and then leave again. I knew they were obviously dealing drugs out of the gym and so did Keith, but he didn’t seem to be able to stop it.’ Matt got up from the table and started pacing the room as he spoke.
‘One night a fight broke out in the locker room. I think one of the Egan boys was involved – he stabbed another bloke. I wanted to call the police but Keith stopped me, said that it would be taken care of, and then he made a comment about how none of this would have happened if John Turner had still been around to run things.’
‘Dad never had anything to do with the gym.’
‘He didn’t mean running the gym, he meant running “things”.’ Matt gestured to the whole room. It took me a minute to figure out what he was getting at.
‘Wait, you mean Dad was some sort of local gangster or something? Like… I dunno… The Krays?’ It was crazy.
‘No, not as bad as all that, but I think he was involved in plenty of dodgy stuff over the years.’
Matt took another beer from the fridge and came to sit back down at the table with me. My head was spinning and it wasn’t from the wine. It was surreal. My whole world had been turned on its head and my immediate reaction was to giggle like an idiot. I laughed so hard, I couldn’t seem to stop. It was like something out of a film, a very bad film with cops and robbers and shady deals in dark alleyways. This was not my life. I could tell Matt wasn’t quite seeing the funny side, so I took another mouthful of wine and swallowed down my hysterics.
‘Keith panicked, realised he’d said more than he should and he tried to backtrack. But I knew what I’d heard and I made him tell me everything.’
‘Even then I wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not. It was only when I confronted Mum about it that I knew. She didn’t have to say too much; I could tell from her expression that it was the truth. That’s when she begged me to help her protect you from finding out.’
I didn’t need to go over all that again; if I had to hear any more about how my mother thought that lying to me was a good idea I was going to lose my marbles. I changed the subject back to Egan.
‘Mum had an affair with that… that… man.’ This amazed me; I couldn’t believe she would have had anything to do with a man like that.
‘She told me it wasn’t an affair; it was just one drunken night. She’d had a bad fight with Dad and—’
I interrupted him. ‘And so she went and slept with someone else?’
My brother just shrugged. ‘There’s no point getting all judgemental about it now, Abs. It’s done with. Can’t change it.’
He was being so calm about it all, but then he’d had a bit more time to get used to it – about twenty years more.
‘Did Dad know?’
Matt didn’t speak, he just nodded. I needed more wine. I got up from the table and poured myself another glass; I’d drunk more in the last three weeks than I had in the last three years.
‘This doesn’t change who we are to each other, you know that, don’t you?’ I said.
‘I’ve known about all this for years and it’s never made a difference to me.’
I smiled at his answer and went to put my arms around him. ‘I love you, you know that, don’t you?’ I squeezed him tight.
‘Blimey, Abs, give me some room to breathe, you daft cow. You’re strangling me.’
I laughed and released him a little but not totally. I could feel the tears starting to come and my throat was so t
ight I could barely breathe.
‘Hey, what’s all this?’ Matt turned round in his chair and pulled me onto his lap. I buried my face in his neck and carried on crying. After a few minutes of listening to me sob he leant back and I was forced to look at him. He had such an earnest look on his face that I almost started to cry again.
‘It’s just too much. Mum, Dad, all this.’ I gestured towards the living room. ‘I can’t take it all in.’
‘And Jack? Are you upset about him too?’
‘What? No, of course not.’ I shook my head. ‘He’s the last thing on my mind.’
Matt raised an eyebrow at my reply. ‘Really? Are you sure about that?’
‘Of course I am. I’ve got too much other stuff to be dealing with to worry about him and whatever he’s doing. I don’t expect I’ll be hearing from him again.’ A horribly leaden feeling settled in the pit of my stomach as I said those words. Wiping my face, I stood up and busied myself putting away cups and plates. Any hopes I had that Matt would take that as a hint to drop the subject were dashed by his next announcement.
‘He came to see me, you know – Jack, I mean. He came to the gym.’ Matt gave me a sheepish smile and held up his hands. ‘I know, I know. I should have told you.’
I shrugged as if I didn’t care, as if I weren’t desperate to find out what he’d said. I carried on clearing away and when I was done I turned to face him.
‘What did he want to see you for?’ I asked, in my best attempt at nonchalance.
‘I’m not really sure, to be honest. He didn’t say much. He was only there for a few minutes. Long enough to say he was leaving and to say he was worried about you, about how you were dealing with everything that was going on.’
Worried about me? His concern would probably have been more plausible if he’d been in touch at all since he’d left. Not so much as a text message in the last two weeks and yet I was supposed to believe that he was so concerned about my welfare that he had to go and see my brother.
‘Well, how nice,’ I snapped, ‘and what else did the two of you chat about during this visit?’
Secrets and Tea at Rosie Lee's Page 18