by Juliet Bell
She looked out of the window. Beyond the garden fence, where the apple trees used to be, they were putting up rows and rows of new houses. Kate could see the top of the scaffolding round the nearest house. Soon there would be a whole estate of people living there, just on the other side of the fence. Dad didn’t spend much time in here since the building work had started. He’d get all red in the face when he went on about how they were spoiling the view and changing the character of the whole area. Kate liked it, though. She was excited about the new people she might meet.
The front door squeaked open and banged closed, and a few seconds later her dad came and sat down beside her.
‘Have you finished your maths exercises?’
Kate handed over the exercise book and waited as her father skimmed through the rows of calculations. Normally he would pause here and there, pointing out mistakes, and commenting on her neatness. Today he glanced quickly at each page before handing the book back.
‘There’s something I need to talk to you about, Kate.’
Kate frowned. When her dad sounded that serious, it was usually because she was in trouble.
‘Do you remember your Aunt Isabelle?’
Kate shrugged. She didn’t really, but Dad talked about her sometimes, and she was there in the big wedding photo on the mantelpiece, wearing a long, dark-red dress, with ringlets around her face.
‘You met her when you were a baby.’
‘What about her?’
Dad stared at the floor for a moment, his eyebrows forming the little frown he always had when he talked about the family she had never met. ‘Well, Aunt Isabelle has had to go away for a while and that woman who came to visit is responsible for making sure that her son, your cousin, has somewhere to live.’
A bubble of excitement started in Kate’s stomach. Something might actually be happening. Nothing ever happened to her. ‘And?’
‘And they were hoping he could come and stay here?’
‘So, is he?’
‘Well, that depends on you a bit. Would it be all right with you?’
Kate nodded. Of course it was all right with her. A new cousin, living in their house. ‘Where does he live now?’
‘In London.’
A new cousin from London. Even better. Dad talked a lot about London – and he promised he’d take her one day. He said they’d go to the National Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum. He’d promised a visit to Poet’s Corner and Buckingham Palace and the Serpentine. Of course, that hadn’t happened yet. She had to wait until she was older. In the meantime, when Dad wasn’t looking, she watched EastEnders and pretended she lived in London. And had friends and went to school like everybody else. ‘When’s he coming?’
‘Soon. Tomorrow I think, once I phone and tell them it’s okay.’
‘Well, go on then.’
Her father hesitated. ‘Are you sure? I mean, he might have had quite a difficult life. We don’t know what he’s like.’
Kate nodded again. ‘Go and phone then. Phone them now.’
Her father smiled and patted her knee. ‘All right. I will. I imagine it must get lonely for you sometimes here. Your cousin is only a few months younger than you. You’ll probably enjoy having someone your own age to talk to.’
She nodded vigorously.
With a sigh, her father got up to go and make the call. He spared a brief glance at the window and the estate being built beyond his walls.
‘Dad.’
He looked back at her.
‘My cousin. What’s his name?’
‘Luke. Luke Earnshaw.’
‘Earnshaw?’
For a moment, her father looked confused. ‘Like your mother’s maiden name. That was Earnshaw.’
Kate nodded, but didn’t say anything. Her dad had never mentioned any Earnshaws before.
The woman with the grey hair and the cardigan looked like all the other women. There were two sorts of people who’d talked to Luke in the last forty-eight hours. There were cardigans with sympathetic faces, and there were red-faced coppers who couldn’t give a shit. And they were all doing his head in.
This last woman gave him the sympathetic look before she glanced over the pile of paperwork the copper had brought with them from London. ‘So you’re Luke?’
Luke nodded.
‘And you understand that your mother has asked that you come to stay with your uncle?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And do you have any questions?’
Luke shook his head. He had lots of questions, but the sympathetic woman didn’t answer them. He followed her to the car, climbed in the passenger seat and turned his face away from her. There were sweet papers all over the floor and a layer of dust across the dashboard. Luke fixed his gaze out of the window and tried to disassociate himself from his surroundings. He’d got good at doing that over the last couple of years. He’d stayed in lots of different flats, sometimes just with Mum, sometimes with all sorts of people she excitedly introduced as her new friends. He’d stayed in all those flats but he hadn’t really lived in any of them. The last place Luke had really lived was the flat in Deptford. They’d had a tiny square of yard at the back there and he’d planted carrot seeds in a long, narrow trough. He remembered the instructions on the packet. You planted the seeds close together and then, when the tiny plants popped up, you thinned them out, pulling out the weak ones so the strong ones had room to grow. Kneeling on his hands and knees, plucking out the tiny seedlings – that was where Luke really lived inside his head when he needed to get away from the mess and chaos out here.
The house they pulled up outside was set back from the road, surrounded by garden. The garden looked a bit bare. Like it wasn’t cared for. That made him a little angry. The land around the house was a building site. It looked like they were making an estate. A posh estate. Luke followed the cardigan to the front door and waited while she knocked. A tall, thin man opened the door. He peered down. ‘Luke?’
Luke nodded.
‘I’m your Uncle Edward.’
He followed Edward into the hallway and then the living room. A girl, about his age, was hopping from foot to foot in front of the bay window.
Edward nodded in her direction. ‘And this is your cousin, Kate.’
The girl bowled towards him. ‘Hello. You must be tired. Are you tired? It’s been a long journey. How long is it? Well, they told us you were coming yesterday but you haven’t been driving since then, have you? No, of course you haven’t. You’re going to be in the blue bedroom. It used to be Dad’s room when he was little. I have the yellow room. That was Aunt Isabelle’s room when she lived here.’
‘Kate, give the boy some space.’
Luke stepped backwards and sank down onto the settee. The room was neat and tidy and clean. There was a lot of furniture. Chairs and tables and bookshelves. There was probably more furniture in that one room than in the whole of the flat where he’d lived with his mum. He wondered who cleaned all that furniture. There weren’t even any holes in the carpet. There was a big fireplace and a row of Russian dolls on the mantelpiece, each one a fraction smaller than the next, stepping down in perfectly even increments. Luke breathed in and out again. Maybe he would be all right here. But it wouldn’t last, of course. Nothing that was any good ever lasted.
He looked again at cousin Kate. She looked a little bit like Mum, which was a lot like Uncle Edward, but her face was much rounder and her hair was all wild and wavy. He liked her better when she was quiet, like her dad told her to be. She was sitting on the chair in front of the window, staring at him. Luke didn’t like being stared at, so he stared right back. She grinned.
The cardigan and his new uncle had left them alone to go and have a serious talk and make decisions. Decisions about Luke’s life probably. That was what happened. Other people made decisions about his life. They decided what was happening to Mum. They decided what was happening to him. Luke didn’t get to decide anything.
‘Did you go to school i
n London?’
Luke frowned. Of course he went to school. Not as often as he should these last few months, but that was cos of Mum being out of it. ‘Yeah.’
‘I don’t go to school.’
‘Everyone goes to school.’
Kate shook her head. ‘I’m home-schooled. You will be too. If you’re staying here. What’s school like?’
Luke shrugged. School was just normal. ‘Sort of loud and busy.’
‘Did you have lots of friends?’
Friends? She had to be kidding. ‘Not really.’
She looked disappointed. Then her eyes lit up. ‘Do you want to see your bedroom?’
‘Okay.’
She stopped at the bottom of the stairs and pushed a door open. ‘That’s the downstairs loo.’
Luke peered past her. The towel was wonky on the rail, but the loo was clean. It didn’t smell bad either. There was one of those air freshener things on the windowsill. He was in a house where the loo smelt better than his whole flat had smelt.
As he came out he could hear the voices from the backroom. Uncle Edward and the woman from social services sorting out where he ought to be. The woman was talking, low but definite. ‘He is the boy’s father, Mr Linton. I’m afraid he’ll have to be told.’
Chapter Thirty-Seven
May, 2003
‘Harry Earnshaw.’
The woman frowned. ‘You’re not on the list.’
‘Earnshaw. E-A-R-N-S-H-A-W.’
The woman made no pretence of checking again. ‘You’re not on the list.’
Harry balled his hand into a fist. ‘The Jobcentre said you had work. They said get here by eight on Monday and it’d be a full week’s work.’
‘Well, it’s eight-fifteen.’
‘It were quarter to when I got here. There were no one around.’
She shrugged. ‘And you’re not on the list.’
She turned away, making it very clear that Harry had been well and truly dismissed. It was a cleaning job. Not even proper bloke’s work, but it had been work. A whole week of it that he’d thought was going to be his. Now it was going to be another bus back into town to go to the Jobcentre to sign back on to get his money, and they’d say he’d signed off so he wouldn’t get anything for ages now.
He stuffed his bus fare money back in his pocket and set off to walk. It’d take him the best part of two hours to get back to Gimmerton but it’d mean he still had a quid twenty, and a quid twenty was better than nothing. Not much better, but still.
It was nearly eleven by the time he turned round the last corner on the Heights estate. They still called it an estate but the bottom row of houses had finally been knocked down five years ago. Half the ones up Harry’s road were boarded up. Not the house next door, though. Heathcliff owned that. Not that he lived there. He lived with Harry. Harry didn’t understand why. Heathcliff had been one of the lucky ones. He’d got out of the Heights. He’d moved away and made money, but then he’d come back. When Harry escaped, he’d never come back. He didn’t want to be one of them sad blokes Harry saw drinking Diamond White out of a bottle in a brown paper bag and talking about the old days. One old codger down the other end of the street had yelled out at Harry once that he’d known his grandad. Harry had kept walking. There used to be a picture of Ray Earnshaw on the sideboard in the back room at home when he was little. It wasn’t there now.
He stuck his key in the lock. In the kitchen, he found Heathcliff, sitting at the table, scratching the wood with the tip of a knife. Harry banged the door, just to make sure Heathcliff knew he was there. He knew better than to sneak up on him.
‘What you doing here?’
‘They didn’t have any work. Sent me home.’
‘So did you go and get your dole?’
Harry nodded. ‘They wouldn’t give me a giro, though. It’s got to go through the bank.’
Heathcliff snorted. ‘You’re as useless as your father.’
There was a sharp rap at the door. ‘Well, answer that then.’
Harry did as he was told. They didn’t get very many visitors, but he recognised this one. She’d been to the house before when he was a kid, after Dad died. Time had added thin lines around her lips and grey through her hair, but her stupid superior expression hadn’t changed. ‘What do you want?’
‘I’m here to see Mr Earnshaw.’
‘Wait here.’ He pushed the door to and swung the chain across. Heathcliff wouldn’t have visitors just wandering in.
‘It’s that social worker.’
‘What?’
‘The social worker that used to come.’
Heathcliff dragged himself to his feet. ‘What the bloody hell’s she doing here? You’re a bit sodding old for social services to come and get you now.’
Harry sat on the couch and waited. He could hear the voices by the front door but couldn’t make out the whole conversation. Not until the very end when Heathcliff slammed the door with a shout. ‘I’ll bloody well get him myself then.’
The older man stalked back into the room. ‘Come on.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘To get summat that belongs to me.’
‘I’m bored.’
Kate ignored her cousin. They weren’t supposed to talk during lesson time, and she needed to get this essay finished today, or Dad would be disappointed in her. She hated to disappoint him.
‘I’m bored.’
She pursed her lips. ‘You haven’t even read it.’
The copy of Tess of the D’Urbervilles that Luke was supposed to be reading was unopened on the table in front of them.
‘They tried to make us read that at my last school. It was boring then too.’
Kate abandoned the internal battle to concentrate on the essay. ‘What was London like?’
He shrugged. ‘Just normal.’
‘Did you have girlfriends?’
A flush of pink danced, almost instantly, across his cheeks. ‘No! That’s gross.’
She didn’t reply. It wasn’t gross. It was what people did. People kissed all the time on EastEnders. She had often wondered what it would be like to be kissed by a boy. But Luke was the first boy she’d ever spent much time with.
‘But you had friends.’
‘Not really.’
‘Why not?’
He shrugged. ‘We moved around a lot.’
‘We never go anywhere. We’ve been in this same house since I was born. What’s it like to move around?’
‘It’s crap. I didn’t know anyone apart from my mum and Kev, and Kev was a waster.’
‘What?’
‘He was always out of it, and when he wasn’t out of it he wanted a fight.’ Luke picked up the book and slung it down again. ‘I kept away from them.’
‘What about your dad?’
‘Mum left him.’
There was one more question Kate wanted to ask, that she’d been dying to ask yesterday when he arrived. ‘Where’s your mum gone?’
He stared at her. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Dad said she’d had to go away.’ Kate remembered the picture of Aunt Isabelle on the mantelpiece in her long red dress. She could have gone anywhere.
‘She got sent down, didn’t she?’
Kate felt her mouth drop open. ‘Like to… prison?’ She whispered the word, knowing it couldn’t be true.
‘Yeah. Dealing drugs for Kev, wasn’t she?’
Drugs? She tried to keep the shock off her face. She didn’t want Luke to think she wasn’t cool.
Luke looked at her. His eyes were like hers. They were blue. There was a hint of tears in them. ‘Well, she’s on remand at the moment, cos they found a knife on her when they arrested her and she went for one of the coppers, but she’ll get prison. That’s what the copper and the woman from social services said.’
Kate didn’t know what to say. She had an aunt who was in prison. An actual criminal in the family. That was bad, but it was kind of exciting too.
‘I know you
’re in there!’
The voice was rough and loud and male and was accompanied by a violent thumping on the front door. Kate jumped up from her seat and ran to the window. She couldn’t see the front door properly from here, but she could see that there was a figure in the porch, and a young man, maybe five or six years older than Kate, standing on the front steps, his face fixed in a glowering frown. Kate stared at him around the corner of the net curtain.
‘Edward Linton, I know you’re in there. He’s mine. I want him back,’ the hidden man shouted.
Daddy ran into the room and pulled Kate away from the window. ‘Be quiet.’
He pulled her and Luke to the back wall.
‘You’re hurting me.’
‘I said quiet…’
There was something in his tone she hadn’t heard before. She’d seen him cross, like when she’d knocked a vase over and it had got that photo of her mother all wet. And he was cross now, but it wasn’t just that. Kate stared at her father. He was scared as well.
She glanced across at Luke. He seemed perfectly calm, like hiding from shouting men at the door was completely normal.
‘Who is it?’ she whispered.
‘A very bad man.’
‘What’s he doing here?’
Her dad looked away. ‘I don’t know.’
‘But who is he?’
Her dad paused. ‘He used to know your mother…’ He glanced at her cousin. ‘And Luke’s mother.’
The thumping at the door continued. ‘Open the fucking door. I’ll smash it in if I have to.’
Kate’s tummy flipped over. ‘I think you should answer the door.’
Dad shook his head. He left Kate and Luke standing back against the wall and darted over to the telephone. He hit a couple of keys, and then held the handset aloft. ‘I’m phoning the police,’ he shouted. ‘If you don’t stop, I’ll call them.’
Another loud thump at the door.