by Anna Cheska
And Liam was right, what could she have done? Too late to pull her back. Her mother’s skull smashed on impact on the rocks that lay just below the surface of the fast moving river, rocks that were just visible when the water was low – smooth and slimy with lichen.
‘There’s always something that could have been different,’ Estelle told him, as she had told herself many times. She tried to look into the depths of the river that had taken her mother’s blood, but the water remained untouched and innocent – dark and chocolate-smooth.
‘Like what if?’ he almost jeered.
Estelle turned. She could just make out the twist of his mouth in the darkness.
He went on. ‘What if you’d said you wanted to go home five minutes earlier, what if you’d insisted on holding her hand?’
‘Yes.’ Estelle moved a step away. Why should he understand? He had not had that close contact with death, had no idea of how it felt to watch your own mother die, how it was to stand there, helpless, screaming, how you could torment yourself in the years that followed.
Liam grabbed her by the shoulders, twisted her round to face him. Taken aback, Estelle stared into the shadows of his face, but it was too dark to make out the expression in his eyes. ‘What if I’d been the one with her?’ he demanded.
‘Huh?’ Had Liam finally lost his sanity, she wondered.
‘What if I had gone out with your mother for a walk. What if I was five years old and I’d been with her and the same thing had happened?’
Estelle tried to pull away. ‘Don’t be stupid. You didn’t even know her.’
But he held fast. ‘It’s not me that’s stupid, it’s your bloody what if game that’s stupid. So come on, what if I’d been the one?’
Estelle gave up, slumped against him. It was simpler not to fight him, too easy to rest against the warm body that still, damn it, felt like home. ‘You’d have done the same as me,’ she muttered into his jacket.
‘Yeah.’ He forced her away from him again, denying her need. ‘Because there was no other choice for a five-year-old. Got it?’
‘Maybe.’ She didn’t want him to make her face it, even think about it. She didn’t want to be here. She wanted to lay her head on his shoulder and pretend nothing had changed.
‘And what would you think of me?’ he persevered. ‘If I’d been the one? If I’d been with her when she died?’
Why wouldn’t he be quiet, just be quiet and let her rest? It had been such a strange evening, seeing him there at the Arts Centre, realising that this was a ploy of Suzi’s. Why? To get them together? Estelle had always imagined Suzi half-jealous of what they had. Herself she had seen as an interloper, pushed out of a brother and sister bond that had often seemed too close to admit another. She had even imagined Suzi to be one of the problems that held herself and Liam apart. If only Suzi could have found a special someone … she had often thought.
And yet now it appeared that Suzi wanted them to be back together, Suzi had gone to great lengths to try and sort it, Suzi – as Liam had said earlier – simply loved them both and wanted them to be happy.
And now this. Enough surely to cope with the close proximity of Liam, without Liam suggesting a late-night stroll after the concert, without Liam bringing her to the blue bridge, laying all the mother guilt trip on her again. She rubbed her eyes. Damn Liam for bringing it all back.
‘Estelle?’ He spoke quietly, his voice soft and low in the night air. Around them were the usual night-time noises, the occasional hoot of an owl, the ripple of some life form in the river below, the rush and drag of the tide, just audible in the distance. Noises that Suzi, in her riverbank cottage just down the tow path, would be all too familiar with.
‘I wouldn’t think anything bad of you,’ Estelle admitted.
‘You wouldn’t think it was my fault?’
‘No.’
‘That I should have stopped your mother from falling?’
‘No.’
‘You wouldn’t think that I could have pulled her back at the last moment?’
‘No.’
‘Shoved myself in her way as she fell?’
‘No.’
‘Thrown myself into the water so that I got there before her?’
‘No.’ This was getting silly now. How on earth could anyone possibly have –
‘Somehow got my body between her and the rocks?’
‘No!’
‘Stopped her from killing herself?’
‘No!’
She began to shake then, not a trembling but a jerking movement that racked her whole body. And she cried. Huge tears that seemed unlike any she had shed for her mother before. And Liam held her. Not like he had held her in the past, but as if he were holding her very soul, every part of her touching him, every inch of him moulded to her, to her needs, to the fear that had never been expressed before. The tears seemed to rip their way out of her, clung to her cheeks, finally were absorbed by him in some sort of absolution.
‘Let it go, love,’ Liam said. ‘Let it go.’
* * *
It was half an hour later before they made their way back down the pathway, through the gate and past the church, the graves pale and eerie in the moonlight. Half an hour, in which time Estelle knew she had moved on. Just a step, but an important one. She’d still grieve for her mother, grieve for what might have been; she’d still hold her memories, for they were hers alone. But the guilt had been somehow swept away in the current that led down to the sea. The guilt had gone – perhaps for good.
‘Are you going to invite me up to see your new flat?’ Liam teased, as they approached Secrets In The Attic.
‘Maybe.’ There was a kind of shyness between them now, as if they’d reached a point of no return. Estelle knew they’d have to sit and thrash it all out – why they had split up, what it would take for them to get back together. But she also knew it would be done, that she and Liam would not – not yet at least – be prised apart.
They got to the shop and at last, at last, he pulled her towards him into a kiss. She tasted the warmth of his lips, the sweetness of his tongue, began to close her eyes. And snapped them open again.
‘Christ Almighty!’ She pulled away.
‘What?’ He half-turned to follow her gaze.
There was broken glass on the pavement. The shop window had been smashed – a half-brick sat amongst the debris of Clarice Cliff and Estelle’s semi-precious jewellery. It didn’t look as if anything had been taken. But nevertheless, it was destruction. Destruction, vandalism, invasion of the worst kind.
‘Kids,’ Liam said, guiding her towards the door. ‘We’ll phone the police.’
‘Not kids,’ Estelle shouted. Suddenly it was all too much. Tonight, the tears, the purging, and now this. She felt stripped naked. She no longer had a sense of direction, a way to go.
She took a deep, shuddering breath. And then she screamed.
Chapter 21
‘Where is he?’ Liam growled, pulling the heavy brocade curtain aside and scanning the rows of wooden chairs that had been laid out on the dark wooden flooring of the hall. People were already arriving for the performance, being handed day-glo yellow programmes from selected prefects in school uniform, who had been practising saying, ‘Good evening, Sir, Good evening, Madam,’ all week.
And Marcus was nowhere to be seen. Liam tore a hand through his hair, paced up and down the small area of stage unoccupied by either kids or props. Tybalt was the most important player next to Romeo and Juliet. What would they do without Tybalt? Who would fight Romeo? (Though Liam wouldn’t mind, after what Bradley had put him through at that dress rehearsal the other night, having a go himself.)
He frowned as he caught sight of his two star performers on the other side of the stage. What were Jade and Bradley doing whispering in the wings? Thankfully they no longer seemed to be at loggerheads with one another. But shouldn’t they be in make-up? And there was such a thing as being too friendly. ‘Psst!’ He made angry gestures towards them,
mouthed, ‘Make-up.’
‘Marcus and Bradley had a fight last night.’ This was from Crystal, who had materialised beside him. She was wearing black leggings and a baggy grey T-shirt that did her matchstick figure no favours whatever and her hair was tied up in a pony tail that jumped to attention when she moved. She smirked. ‘About Jade.’
Liam groaned. Just what he needed. ‘Was he all right? Did he say anything?’ Was he still on for tonight, he meant.
Crystal shrugged. ‘Only that he wouldn’t be seen dead in the play.’
‘Oh, great.’ For a moment Liam forgot his role of nurturer of young minds. ‘Bloody great.’
‘But he probably didn’t mean it, Sir.’ Crystal skipped off happily.
When did little girls stop being little girls and become so bitchy, Liam found himself wondering for the millionth time since he’d begun teaching. What happened to them between the ages of eleven and fourteen that made the most innocent, the most manipulative and the sweetest, the most spiteful?
But more important at this moment, who the hell could he get to play the part of Tybalt – and at such short notice? Liam realised dismally that there was no one. The only person who might know the lines was Crystal since as prompter she probably knew everyone’s lines by now, but that would be stretching it. Still, what choice did he have? Girls played principal boys in pantomime, men had played women back in Shakespeare’s day.
‘Crystal!’ He strode past the dinner table and chairs already positioned on stage, towards Bradley and Jade. Now, where did she go?
Bradley took a step backwards and put a hand defensively up to his face, as if he thought Liam was about to clock him one. And was he tempted …
‘So you and Marcus have buggered things up for everyone, is that it?’ Liam demanded.
‘Sorry, Sir.’ To give him his due, Bradley did look more than a bit ashamed of himself, unable to look Liam in the eye. He scuffed his dirty trainers across the floor of the platform, building up an impressive pile of dust.
‘What are we going to do?’ Jade’s voice was high and shrill. Liam glanced at her. She was wearing the silver-grey evening dress earmarked for her first scene and she looked terrified.
‘Get along to make-up, Jade,’ he told her, recognising the signs of stage fright. ‘Everything’ll be fine.’
‘I don’t think I can.’
‘Of course you can.’ Liam didn’t mean to snap, but he really didn’t need this.
‘I’m scared.’
Bradley put a comforting arm around his Juliet and looked up for the first time.
Her hero, eh, Liam found himself thinking, as he registered Bradley’s face, and more particularly the picturesque black eye he was sporting. ‘Jesus!’ he said. Not so much ashamed – scared of being seen, more like. He looked like a street-fighter. He looked terrible.
‘I’ll just wear extra make-up, Sir.’ Bradley executed his hair-flick, but the element of cool was totally destroyed by the plum-coloured bruise. ‘No one’ll notice.’
‘I can’t go on,’ Jade wailed.
Liam lost it. ‘It’s only a fucking school production.’ At the expression on both their faces, he forced himself to breathe slowly and deeply. He was an adult. He was in charge here. He was a sane and rational man. What did it matter if Tybalt hadn’t turned up, Romeo had a black eye even before the fight scene and Juliet had completely lost her bottle? He’d faced worse problems in school productions – though he couldn’t recall any right now.
‘Make-up,’ he said to Bradley. ‘Jade – tell Crystal she can play your part, God knows she’s asked me to let her have a go often enough.’ And then he remembered he’d been about to ask Crystal to play Tybalt … He scanned the stage desperately, as if a stray Tybalt might emerge from the wings and save the day.
Jade hesitated. He could see her struggling. Not only would Crystal be wearing her costume and saying her lines, but as Juliet, she would also – for an hour and a half – have possession of Jade’s Romeo.
‘You’ve got three minutes in which to decide,’ he informed her, crossing his fingers behind his back. ‘I don’t have the time to sort out weeping and wailing prima donnas.’ And if she felt hard done by, tough luck, Liam decided. He was damned if he was going to let her wallow in her own self-pity and he’d had enough of women’s tears and histrionics over the past few days to last him a lifetime. They might be from Venus and cook and iron like angels, but by God, where the heck did all these emotions come from?
He peered out into the hall again – the rows were filling up. He could already see Suzi, Michael and … Estelle. He held on more tightly to the tatty red curtain, tried to reach her by will power alone, but she was not looking his way, her head was turned towards Suzi, she was listening to whatever Suzi was saying. ‘Shut up, Suzi,’ Liam whispered.
At last he retreated with a muffled sneeze from the stuffiness of the curtain, forced himself to check the set, the music, the tiny cubby-holes being used as make-up areas by the two student teachers who had volunteered their services. They were lucky, of course, to have so much space, to have a platform that made such an excellent stage, to be in a school where drama was not allowed to be pushed off the curriculum by literacy and numeracy gone mad.
But no Crystal. Liam went to the back of the stage to look for her.
But despite the occasion, despite his mood, the thought of Estelle would not go away. It had seemed important, he reflected, to get through to Estelle, after the Blues Sisters concert. Suzi had given him the opportunity, and he was determined not to waste it, not to allow Estelle to drift back into his past, which was where she seemed to want to be.
At the end of the concert, he’d been looking for an excuse not to go home, a chance to spend more time with her, to talk, to walk. Then they’d got to the blue bridge and her mood had changed. Liam sighed. He had always felt that he’d failed her in some way – at least as far as her mother’s death was concerned. And so he’d thought, this time … I want to make her see.
Liam eventually found Crystal back on stage practising high kicks that were threatening to send the dinner service crashing to the floor, and mouthing Juliet’s lines to the back of the closed curtain, instead of organising the prompt chair and music tape. ‘Crystal…’ He frowned. ‘I might need you to perform.’
‘As Juliet?’ Her eyes grew wide.
‘Or Tybalt.’
And before she could make a run for it, he placed one hand firmly on her bony shoulder. ‘Come with me,’ he said.
But in the first make-up cubby-hole, Jade was sitting calmly on a wooden chair, a towel around her shoulders protecting the silver-grey dress. Julie Nelson, the student teacher, was applying scarlet lip-liner. Jade looked at least sixteen.
‘Through there.’ Liam ushered Crystal out of earshot. ‘Well?’ he asked Jade.
‘I’ve taken one of Mum’s pills,’ she said, holding up her chin in defiance. ‘Wasn’t going to let that little muppet get her paws on Brad.’
‘I’m relieved to hear it.’ For a moment Liam pondered on the possible nature of the pills in question, but Lorraine Johnson wouldn’t have let her daughter have them if they were dangerous, surely?
He hurried off. In the other cubby-hole, Bradley was beginning to look almost dashing, and there was no sign of his bruise.
‘Concealer,’ said the other student teacher, Carrie Jones. ‘It’s green and flesh. Evens out the imperfections.’
‘Excellent.’ Liam rubbed his hands together, although Crystal, standing behind Bradley, was looking somewhat subdued. Tybalt clearly didn’t have quite the pull of Juliet.
‘Sorry I’m late, Sir.’ With admirable timing, an out of breath Marcus appeared, looking slightly flushed. ‘We had to take the cat to the vet.’
Better and better. ‘No problem.’ By now Liam was feeling positively expansive. ‘Get changed, get made up, quick as you can. Back to your music and prompt chair, Crystal. Do your best, everybody.’ At last, everything seemed to be falling into p
lace.
He strode back to the wings. Mind, he had thought everything was falling into place with Estelle that night by the blue bridge. Marvellously well. And it was, surely it was, until they’d got back to Secrets In The Attic, and she’d seen the smashed window of the shop.
From his position, Liam could see that Crystal was now sitting demurely in her chair, open copy of the adapted play on her lap, tape recorder beside her. He could hear the audience quite clearly now, the rustle of programmes and coats being removed, the scraping of chairs on the parquet floor, whispered conversations about whose son was what and whose daughter was doing the other.
Liam tried to relax. Estelle had seemed to go to pieces – he’d never seen her so upset, almost as if she’d gone into shock. He had taken her inside, a helpful neighbour opposite had provided brandy, he had phoned the police, contacted her twenty-four-hour insurance company, and in between he’d held her, looked after her, been there for her. What more could he have done? What more could anyone have done? Liam looked down. His knuckles were white and clenched, but whether this was pre-performance nerves or the memory he was re-enacting, he had no idea. Both, maybe.
It was the early hours before Estelle had at last fallen into an exhausted, white-faced sleep. And in the morning … he didn’t want to think about what had happened the following morning. All that mattered was that Estelle had told him to go.
‘Thank you,’ she had said, as if he were some stranger. ‘But I can manage now. I can manage perfectly well on my own.’ God, she might as well have cut him up and had him lightly poached for breakfast.
It was enough to drive a man to drink, Liam thought, wishing he had a hip flask concealed about his person. Who could blame a man for choosing celibacy as a simpler way of life?
With a sigh, he went to check the progress of Marcus and his make-up, began to usher his actors on to the stage. ‘Remember,’ he said to Bradley and Jade, ‘that you’re in love.’
‘No probs, Sir,’ Bradley whispered back, squeezing Jade’s bum.