The Mysterious Miss Mayhew

by Hazel Osmond

  He had a tear-stained five-year-old lying upstairs in her bed, clutching her gum shield. Or more likely lying with it defiantly in her mouth.

  They had argued—

  ‘But why can’t I go?’

  ‘Because I want to be there and Mummy doesn’t like that.’

  ‘But I could go on my own. Mummy said you could put me on the plane.’

  ‘No. You’re too young.’

  ‘Mummy says I’m not too young.’

  Round and round they went, Hattie getting more and more frustrated. And all the time he had his hands tied because there was no way he could say, ‘I don’t trust your mother with you. She’ll lose it at some point.’

  ‘I want to go skiing,’ she had cried finally and he’d watched the tears stream out, snot too, and tried to put his arms around her. She pushed him away and turned her back on him.

  He’d sat in the chair by her bed and asked if she wanted a story, but her silent antagonism felt like another presence in the room, forcing him out and down the stairs after a fumbled kiss on the top of her head.

  He took a sip of lager. He had already tried to ring Steph back, but only got her message service. Lying low, no doubt.

  He thought of how he’d let her parents off this morning and not rung them. (My God, was that only this morning?) Well, good old Tom wasn’t feeling so kind right now.

  He imagined Geoffrey blinking awake, nose and ear hair akimbo.

  Striped pyjamas, concave chest. Caroline in the other bed. Another concave chest.

  ‘Yes!’ Geoffrey’s bark was hoarse this late.

  ‘Tom here. How are you doing?’ Geoffrey’s eyebrows would be having a field day. He could hear Caroline saying something and pictured the waving-down-a-car movement she employed to get her husband’s attention. ‘Just thought I’d let you know I’ve had a call from Steph.’

  A growly ‘Anything wrong?’

  ‘I won’t bore you with the details. But I’m not having her upsetting Hattie like this. Not after I’ve been so bloody reasonable—’

  ‘Upsetting? What? I …’

  ‘So … I am asking you yet again to help me stop this long, lingering death with Hattie being used as leverage for God knows what.’ Tom took a breath. ‘That envelope I left with you. She said you haven’t passed it on to her?’

  ‘Yes I did. I gave it to her when she was …’

  ‘When she was over here?’ Tom asked. ‘That’s what you were going to say, weren’t you? When was that?’ He wished he could reach down the phone and pull Geoffrey up it by his nose hairs.

  There was what sounded like a skirmish and it was Caroline on the phone. ‘What seems to be the problem?’

  She appeared to be reading from a ‘How to handle a belligerent customer’ handbook.

  ‘Usual one, Caroline. I’d like to divorce your daughter. I’m trying to be civilised, but she’s still blocking me.’

  Silence for a while. He knew where Steph had learned her communication skills.

  There was an arrogant whine to Caroline’s tone when she spoke. ‘I don’t know what you expect us to do? We didn’t know Stephanie was coming over until she rang from the airport. We’ve tried never to interfere in the lives of any of our children.’

  That’s because you’d have to get emotionally involved. Emotions are messy and you’re very tidy people.

  A longer pause, before she asked, ‘And how is Harriet?’

  If they were down to platitudes, he might as well give up.

  He finished the call feeling that he’d achieved nothing. Why should he be surprised? These were the people who had never asked, not once, why Hattie had ended up living with him. Was it because they were too frozen in the ice of good breeding to enquire? Or had they always had their suspicions about how volatile Steph was?

  He looked at the lager bottle. Unfair really to criticise them for not asking. His family had, plenty of times, and he’d always side-stepped telling them everything.

  He just had to cling on to the fact that Geoffrey and Caroline, in their own frigid way, loved Hattie. But Steph, jeez, he couldn’t believe she’d been to see her mother and father but not her daughter. It was nearly four months since their last, fraught meeting in York.

  He got up and checked on Hattie again. Gummy was still in her hand, but she wasn’t asleep, he could tell. There was an echo of his earlier position on the sofa in the way she was lying on her side, shoulders stiff.

  ‘I love you, Hats,’ he said, feeling needy, and got a little squeak back, but when he sat on the bed, she shifted on to her front and pulled the covers up over her head.

  Back downstairs he lay down on the floor and cried out the way he felt trapped and manipulated and how someone, with one phone call, could sweep away all that warmth between him and Hattie. It would come back again, but for now he felt miles away from her. Stupid the way the tears went straight from his eyes into his ears.

  There was the sound of a text arriving and he wasn’t going to check it, but there was that niggling worry about it being something to do with Kath.

  When he looked at the message, he smiled despite the gloom.

  Yes please he texted back. Usual day?

  He waited for the response before signing off with: Grietje. You’re a bloody lifesaver.

  He lay back down and texted Natalie the babysitter. There was always the reserve team of Rob and Kath, but they asked too many questions when he returned home afterwards.

  As he took himself off to bed, he thought that he might just forgive Monday because of this late present. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to forgive Steph.

  CHAPTER 10

  Monday 12 May (Part 3)

  Yes, here I am again. And it turns out there is a number 10.

  10) It would appear that flinging oneself around and grunting is not a display of aggression, but some kind of courtship ritual. Estate agent has just invited me for a drink tomorrow lunchtime to ‘discuss a possible reduction in the rent’.

  10a) (See what I did there?)

  Agreeing to have a drink with a man who is probably only going to give you something if you offer him another thing in return, is not necessarily a good thing.

  For the man.

  CHAPTER 11

  Tom got back into the car after dropping Hattie at school feeling that he’d been snapped so rapidly from one emotion to the next, he probably had whiplash.

  In bed the night before, he’d lain awake, alert to what was going on in that little brain in the bedroom over the other side of the landing. Then, all of a sudden, that little brain and the body that carried it about were climbing into bed with him. He just let her hunker down next to him and felt pathetically grateful for that. The next thing he knew, the birds were waking him up and he was on the edge of the bed, only the bedside table stopping him from falling on to the floor, while Hattie occupied the rest of the mattress in a horizontal arabesque.

  They hadn’t talked much over breakfast. No point in pushing it. But that silence from her was … torturous.

  On the journey to school, he had tried to think of something to chat about. He’d had stand-offs with all kinds of people in his life – irate printers, stroppy writers, a couple of drunk players from an opposing team in a back street in Carlisle, but this was the worst. It made him feel unmanned.

  He could only suppose that was because this incident wasn’t about him managing to placate someone enough to get what he wanted (and in the case of Carlisle, not losing his teeth). This time it was about trying to give Hattie what she wanted. But what she wanted was the one thing he couldn’t deliver.

  He had parked further away from school than he normally did, hoping that during the walk to the playground, he could think of the right words to prevent them parting with this awful thing wedged between them. But he’d only just taken the key out of the ignition when she said, in an un-Hattie-like voice, ‘Will you ever let me see Mummy again?’

  It was as if someone had put their hand flat on his stomach a
nd pushed it as hard as possible towards his backbone. Undoing his seatbelt he had turned quickly and seen that she was really scared of the question she was asking. Not caring that it was a struggle, he had clambered into the back of the car and sat beside her and got hold of her hand.

  ‘Hattie, sweetheart, please don’t ever think I won’t let you see Mummy. It’s just you’re too young to travel to Italy on your own.’

  ‘But Mummy says I could. And that she can look after me without you over Christmas. Why can’t she do that?’

  It was a question she hadn’t asked the night before. Her face told him that he wasn’t going to be able to fob her off with not answering it.

  ‘Because Mummy will have to work some of the time and you’ll be looked after by people who I don’t know and you don’t know. And sitting in this car here, with me, you think that will be OK, but just try and imagine going to bed without someone you know to tuck you in, or if you fell over and hurt yourself and you wanted a bit of a hug …’

  He hated this, not least because he was putting fears in her mind on purpose. It would serve him right if she was still living at home in her forties.

  Her face, as he’d been talking, had been scrunched up, as if she was imagining the scene he’d just outlined.

  ‘I wouldn’t like that,’ she had said, so earnestly that he had wanted to hit his head on the window for being such a horrible manipulator. ‘I would be really sad.’

  He’d felt her hand turn in his and gave it a squeeze.

  Some serious swallowing had been necessary before he’d replied, ‘I wouldn’t like it either, Hats.’ And then he heard himself say, ‘How about if I see whether you and I can go skiing over Christmas? Just the two of us? And then, either on the way there, or the way back, we can pop in and see Mummy.’

  He wished he’d thought about that a bit more before he’d opened his mouth. Hattie’s face was no longer scrunched up. ‘Yes,’ she said on a breath out. ‘Yes. Us skiing. Yessss. I’m going to tell Josh.’ Slipping her hand from his, she had struggled to get out of her seat.

  He was powerless to stop the onrush of enthusiasm that he’d started. Steph was going to go ballistic. And how to tell Rob and Kath they wouldn’t be around for the first Christmas with the new baby? How to tell his mum?

  In the end, he’d decided not to worry about that now. Hattie had stopped dwelling on the pain of missing her mother and they’d swerved round the tricky nature of reality once again.

  He drove away from school, watching it recede in the rear-view mirror.

  Lies and bribery. And possibly a scheme that wasn’t going to work anyway. Fantastic fathering skills. Well done, Tom. Top of the class.

  *

  Liz was standing in exactly the same spot as yesterday.

  ‘Bloody hell, you look like crap,’ she said. ‘And what I’ve got to tell you isn’t going to help.’

  Until she’d spoken, he didn’t realise how much he needed to shout at someone. He clamped his mouth shut, but couldn’t keep the emotion off his face. In his office, he took it out on the door before checking again to see if Natalie had replied to his text from last night about babysitting.

  He sent another.

  The phone on his desk rang.

  ‘I’d leave you alone as you’re obviously premenstrual,’ Liz said when he answered it, ‘but you’re going to get a visitor in about ten minutes and I thought you’d rather know about it than have her just appear.’

  ‘Her?’

  ‘Mrs Mawson.’

  ‘Did she say what she wanted?’

  ‘Nope. Probably going to sack you or something.’ The phone was put down.

  He put his down too and went to the window to see if he could spot Mrs Mawson’s car. No, just a bright-red one trying to go the wrong way out of the square and having to reverse in the face of a bus.

  Bit worrying that Mrs Mawson was visiting the office. Now and again she would ring to congratulate him when circulation figures showed a particularly large hike. Four times a year he was invited to schmoozing suppers that she held for advertisers and directors at Mawson Towers (a name he found easier to remember than the real one). But normally she trusted him to get on with it.

  The phone rang again. ‘And not that I bloody care, but there’s nothing wrong with Hattie, is there?’ The concerned tone of Liz’s voice made him start to feel shabby about his truculence.

  ‘No, nothing wrong with Hattie. Just her mother.’ He paused. ‘Thank you for asking, though. And Liz? Look, you stop waylaying me before I’ve even got into my office and I’ll stop acting like a diva.’

  ‘Point taken.’

  ‘Excellent. And … could you arrange for some coffee when Mrs Mawson arrives? I don’t mean make it yourself,’ he added hastily. ‘Send out for some.’

  There was a laugh that was almost a cackle. ‘Oh no, the woman has never acknowledged I exist. I’ll make the coffee.’

  *

  Mrs Mawson did not look as if she owned approximately one-eighth of the county. She looked as if she owned all of it.

  It wasn’t to do with the way she dressed. That was in the understated, confident manner of old money, where nothing had to be proven or slavishly followed. Even though she was only in her early fifties, she favoured suits teamed with a subtly coloured blouse. At social events she always wore black. When relaxing it was jeans and cashmere. If he bumped into her then, looking so casual, it felt wrong. Like spotting one of his teachers in town on a Saturday night when he was younger.

  Almost as wrong as addressing her as ‘Deborah’.

  No, it was something to do with how her head sat on her neck. Most people Tom knew maintained a rough ninety-degree head-to-neck relationship; Mrs Mawson took a right angle as merely her starting point. Which meant Tom was often looking up her nostrils.

  He watched her contemplating the colour of her coffee, her face too well bred to exhibit distaste. Her trusty handbag, what Liz called ‘a right Thatcher’, was near her feet. She had another accessory with her today too – Jamie, her younger boy.

  ‘Jamie graduated last summer,’ Mrs Mawson was saying, ‘he’s done some travelling, but now it’s time for him to show us what he’s made of.’

  Her smile inferred that Jamie was already a disappointment to her. It wasn’t a smile Tom ever wanted to see on his own mother’s face and, fair play to her, he hadn’t – even when he’d returned like a homing pigeon, one small daughter under his wing.

  Jamie was smiling too, but it was apologetic and aimed towards Tom. The smile was on a very handsome face. Jamie had the compulsory upper-middle-class floppy hair and rugby physique – a touch of Ralph Lauren via Hollister – but something about him also suggested sensitivity. Not a trait that would get him very far in the Mawson world.

  Tom had last seen him at Charlie’s funeral, turning away as if hiding the fact he was crying. He had been the only Mawson displaying any emotion that day.

  And before that? At least ten years ago at Newcastle station, a glimpse of an awkward lad dressed in school uniform. Tom added that to the list of things making him feel ancient. Right up there alongside Geordie Shore.

  The more Tom studied Jamie, the more he suspected he was the softest of the Mawsons. Certainly his brown eyes did not have that unblinking way of looking at you that made you wonder if you’d been entered into some kind of staring contest that you couldn’t win. Jamie was a world away from his brother, Edward, a man born with a sneer who spent vast tracts of time offing wildlife.

  ‘We feel it’s beneficial,’ Mrs Mawson continued, ‘for Jamie to gain some practical experience in each of the family businesses, before he decides on which one he wishes to specialise.’

  Tom struggled to imagine a world where you didn’t need to go outside your family to find career opportunities.

  ‘So, work experience?’ Tom clarified.

  ‘Quite. And I’d like him to actually do something while he’s here. Not just spectate.’

  There was only one pos
sible reply. ‘We’d be delighted to have you, Jamie. Have you got any newspaper or magazine experience?’

  ‘No. Although, I did, you know, go out with a girl at university who reviewed bands … but …’

  Mrs Mawson’s smile reappeared and Jamie trailed off, like a bouncy dog suddenly pulled up sharp on his leash.

  ‘Not a problem,’ Tom assured him. ‘After all, that’s what you’re here for – to learn how we operate—’

  ‘And how to manage.’ Mrs Mawson said the word as if it was interchangeable with how to rule. Tom suspected that, for Jamie, it was more about learning what was expected of the ‘spare’ when the ‘heir’ was running the big, pointy-ended, serious stuff.

  ‘Well, Tom, it’s been good to see you again.’ Mrs Mawson was getting up and he did too. ‘Oh, and thank you, I appreciated the photographer taking some shots of Mabel and her horse at the show.’

  Tom had to resist the urge to bend his knee when she was gracious like this, because however you looked at it, their relationship had distinctly feudal overtones. He wasn’t sure where he ranked in the pecking order of the many people who worked for her. Probably slightly above the manager of her farm shop, but way below her gamekeeper.

  ‘When would you like Jamie to start?’ he asked and she said, ‘Why, now, of course.’

  He got to the door before her and had his usual tussle with it.

  ‘I don’t suppose …’ he began and he sensed that she knew he was going to raise the issue of the state of the building because she said sharply, ‘Any luck with a replacement for Charles?’

  Tom was never quite in tune with Charlie being referred to as Charles. But then, he still couldn’t believe the old goat had been Mrs Mawson’s father. She definitely took after her mother. Another woman who liked to show you her nostrils.

  ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘Charlie is a hard person to replace.’

  ‘Yes.’ Emotionless. The relationship between Charlie and his daughter had been glacial on her part, tepid on his.