‘We’d make it worth your while, Molly. You’d have a proper salary. And if you wanted to live in, you could.’
‘Thanks, but I don’t think so.’
Bruno frowned.
‘Why don’t you think about it? And if there’s anything I can do to make it possible for you…’
‘Sorry. But thanks for asking.’
She practically ran down the corridor. Bruno sighed. It was bloody frustrating, but if she didn’t want to better herself there was nothing he could do about it. Some people were happy with their station in life, he supposed. The last thing he wanted to do was force her into it.
On the bus on the way home that afternoon, Molly’s mind was whirring. She rested her cheek against the cool of the windowpane, thinking about the conversation she’d had with Bruno. There was absolutely no way she could take the housekeeper’s job on, so she might as well stop torturing herself. She chewed her lip. Life just wasn’t fair. It would be amazing, to have a proper job. Almost a career. Caragh had started off as housekeeper, and look at her now. But it wasn’t possible, so there was no point in thinking about it. Nevertheless, Molly ran through various possibilities in her mind, trying to find a solution. It was so frustrating…
She sat up, feeling slightly sick, as the bus lurched off the roundabout and down the main road into Tawcombe. It was ridiculously narrow, lined with dilapidated Victorian terraces that had once seen better days. Occasionally the bus had to pull up on to the pavement, if it met another large vehicle coming the other way. It swung past the scrap of beach in the centre of town smothered in shingle and empty tin cans and drying seaweed, then rumbled past the small harbour that not even the most euphemistic of tourist guides could describe as picturesque. There was an overriding sense of desolation in Tawcombe. There was no hope of a renaissance like there had been in nearby Ilfracombe, several miles up the coast. Tawcombe kept the dregs, after all, and they had no pride in their surroundings, no incentive to better themselves.
Molly sighed. Once you were amongst the dregs, it seemed there was no way out. Even if someone threw you a lifeline, you couldn’t grab it. The bus bowled into the bus station, the doors opening with a malevolent hiss. Thankful that the journey had come to an end, Molly ran down the steps without bothering to thank the driver – he was a miserable bastard, always picking his nose – and headed out of the station, hurrying along the streets.
Why did people think that living by the seaside was so idyllic? Tawcombe was a dump, rife with drugs and no-hopers, thirteen-year-old girls pushing prams and smoking fags, post-natal bellies hanging out over the top of their hipsters. Foulmouthed, shaven-headed youths lolled on the steps by the harbour, watched by fat old men with greasy trousers who fondled themselves indiscreetly, their only hope the three fifteen at Chepstow. The streets were littered with fish and chip wrappers, untaxed cars, empty beer cans. The evening pavements were peppered with chewing gum and splats of sick, pecked at by undiscriminating seagulls and studded with undigested rice from the myriad takeaways that lined the harbour front. There were boarded-up windows, jacked-up motors. The air smelt stale.
Molly turned the corner into Uffculme Row. Three doors along she could see the steps outside the house she lived in. And sitting on the third step up, a figure. As she approached, the woman looked at her. Her skin was dull, her hair straggling, with three-inch grey roots that transformed into faded, washed-out black. Her fingers were crammed with sovereign rings, the nails bitten ragged, the skin chapped. She wore flared tracksuit bottoms, shiny blue acrylic with a white stripe down the side, and a grey sweatshirt. There was a thick gold necklace round her neck, hung with crosses, horse heads, a St Christopher and a shamrock, showing sentimentality for the country of her origin that she’d never actually visited.
‘Hello, Molly.’ Ten years in this country and the Scouse accent was as strong as ever.
‘Where is he?’
‘Fast asleep, for God’s sake. I just came down for a fag.’ Her eyes looked accusingly. ‘As I’m not allowed to smoke in the flat.’
‘No, you’re not.’
Molly pounded up the steps without a backward glance and opened the door, recoiling in disgust at the smell – cat pee and stale rubbish, courtesy of a full bin bag dumped at the bottom of the stairs. There was a huge pile of unopened post – junk mail and free newspapers. She could feel the thud of drum and bass from the basement. She ran up the stairs, careful not to trip over the worn carpet, and pushed open the door to her flat.
Alfie was in the playpen. His cheeks were flushed and tear-stained; his hair damp with sweat. He’d obviously sobbed himself to sleep, his little fist clutched round his favourite bear. Molly bent down and picked him up, cradling him in her arms, feeling the warmth of her love suffusing her. It was as sweet and comforting as a shot of morphine as it swept through her veins, easing her anxiety if only for a moment. This precious moment was all that mattered. She gazed down at the little boy.
Already, he looked so like him. As she traced her fingers over Alfie’s eyebrows, so pronounced in his little face, and brushed his silky dark hair, the memories came flooding back. Those cheeks, those lips, the eyes that had smiled at her, burned through her…
Molly placed the sleeping baby in his cot and turned away. There was no point in torturing herself. But sometimes she couldn’t help it. Wondering what might have been, if the three of them had been a family. What life would have been like; whether Alfie would have had a brother or a sister. Whether they would have had a wedding. For a second she caught a glimpse of herself at an imaginary altar, lifting her cream lace veil to look at her groom –
Why did she do this to herself? She thought she’d taught herself not to daydream. Joe was dead, for God’s sake, and he wasn’t ever coming back.
Five minutes later, reeking of recently smoked cigarettes with a hint of Diamond White underneath, her mother stomped into the room.
‘I don’t suppose it was pay day?’
‘No.’
‘You’ve no spare cash?’
Molly stared at her mother.
‘Of course I haven’t.’
‘I must have saved you a few quid today.’
‘You’re not seriously expecting me to pay you? For looking after your own grandson?’
Teresa Mahoney looked petulant and sulky. Molly felt her throat constrict with disappointment. Why did her mother always have to let her down? For one wild moment on her way home on the bus, she had wondered whether, if today had gone well, her mother might help her out more so she could take on the housekeeper’s job. But she wasn’t going to mention it now, absolutely no way. She wasn’t going to be beholden to her own mother.
Teresa was glaring at her, hands on hips.
‘Fine. If you just want to use me. That’s typical of you.’
She was on the attack, spoiling for a fight. Molly got up to put the kettle on. Her mother persisted.
‘I could have been working down the old people’s home today, earning proper money, instead of running round after you.’
‘Forget it, Mum. I won’t ask you again.’
‘Some thanks would be nice.’
‘Thank you.’ Molly gritted her teeth.
‘You’re an ungrateful little bitch, aren’t you? I didn’t bring you up to use people the way you do.’
Molly concentrated hard on filling the kettle. She had to bite her tongue when her mother went off on one of her tirades. They were always totally unfounded. Molly didn’t use people. Ever. It was one of her golden rules, having been mercilessly exploited throughout her childhood. She knew what it was like to be taken for granted.
10
They’d started off life in her mother’s native Liverpool, she and her four brothers and sisters. Molly was the second oldest. She’d never been quite sure which of them had the same father, if any, for the men came and went in their mother’s life more frequently than she changed her sheets. It was no real secret what her mum did to supplement her income. Mol
ly sometimes wondered if her own father had been a client or a lover, and clung to the hope it had been the latter, for her mother had been beautiful once. She’d seen the photos of the glamorous girl with the lustrous long black locks and flashing eyes: Catherine Zeta Jones, she’d reminded her of. There was no evidence of that now. Over the years the curves collapsed into mounds of sagging flesh, the cheekbones disappeared under jowls, and Teresa’s clientele changed from the discerning to the desperate, paying for Teresa’s willingness to be degraded rather than her looks.
Life for Molly and her siblings was tough. The only thing they were ever sure of was that there would be no tea, no clean clothes for the next day. It had been down to Molly to scrat round for something for them to eat, then strip off their shirts and blouses and put them in the kitchen sink with a squirt of washing-up liquid, then hang them in front of the gas fire to dry for the morning. She cut her brothers’ hair with the kitchen scissors and dragged the nit comb through all of their curls, including her own. No one was going to accuse the Mahoneys of not being clean while she was in charge.
When Molly was nine, there was a glimmer of hope. Her mother had a boyfriend, a proper boyfriend called Jeff who drove lorries, and although he took no notice of the children he seemed to like Teresa. Well enough for them both to decide to move to Devon, where he came from. Molly remembered the excitement as she and her older sister Siobhan climbed into the cab for the journey down and the rest of the kids scrambled into the back of Jeff’s lorry. As they trundled down the motorway, Molly allowed herself to daydream about what was waiting for them at the other end. Jeff had organized them somewhere to live, apparently. Molly imagined a pretty little house overlooking the shore, and a life filled with seashells and sandcastles and rock pools. It was all going to be so different. Nothing bad happened at the seaside, surely?
She couldn’t have been more wrong. The dreary, grey patch of water they could glimpse from the flat in Tawcombe was more depressing than anything Molly had ever seen. And two weeks later Jeff and Teresa had a terrible, terrible fight. Jeff left her mother with nothing to show for it but two black eyes. And now, instead of struggling in Liverpool, where they’d had a support network and understood the rules, they had to find their feet in a new town. Teresa wouldn’t go back, because she didn’t want to lose face. She’d boasted to everyone that she was going to have a better life, crowing that she was getting out of the slum and away from the scum. No one would show her an ounce of sympathy if she went crawling back with her tail between her legs. So they had to make a go of it.
It was a struggle. Sometimes her mum had money, though Molly never liked to think why. But at least then they could have a feast. They’d be down to the pub on the harbour front for Sunday lunch. But Molly couldn’t eat it. The greasy beef would stick in her throat, and she’d look around the men laughing at the bar, wondering which of them she had to thank for her meal. The others were happy enough to scoff it down, slurping their bottles of Coke through straws, begging for ice cream, and Molly made sure they had their fill, for it might be a week or two before any of them saw a vegetable again.
She was twelve before she discovered that the haven she’d dreamed of was only a bus ride away. There was a school trip to Mariscombe, and as the coach turned the corner and Molly saw the sparkling sea and golden beach, she recognized it as the place she’d dreamed of, the place she’d thought she was coming to when they’d left Liverpool. There and then she vowed she would escape here as soon as she could.
When she was fifteen, she managed to get herself a summer job at the Mariscombe Holiday Park, a magnificent site perched on the cliffs overlooking the sea. It was down to a crack team to clean out the static caravans, scrub the shower blocks and bring all the amenities up to scratch. For Molly it was paradise. Even if cleaning up after people who didn’t seem to care what state they left the place in was hard and unsavoury work, it was fantastic fun being on the site and being part of the team who kept it together. After the changeover was complete and the new incumbents were settled, the staff would all flock to the beach for the evening. Molly was afraid of the water itself – the waves were disconcertingly high – but she was happy to sit on the sand drinking beer. Sometimes there’d be a barbecue, or someone would go and buy a dozen wraps of chips, and they would party until the sun went down, the boys showing off their skills in the surf, the girls showing off their tans. Often she didn’t go home. There was always someone’s place to crash in, or occasionally if it was hot they would crash on the dunes. Molly was happy. She’d found somewhere she fitted in, where the balance between hard work and hard partying was just right. She longed for the day when she could leave school and come and get something more permanent, escaping her mother’s foul tongue and evil temper for ever. Her younger brothers and sisters would have to fend for themselves. She no longer had any control over them anyway – Kieran was a glue-sniffing little oik at eleven and Macy had been caught shoplifting twice already. They didn’t thank her for trying to impose routine and discipline, so Molly didn’t see why she should waste her life any longer.
The first time she came into contact with Joe Thorne she was carrying her mop and bucket and her box full of cleaning agents across the site, dressed in the ugly green uniform all the support staff wore. He was just coming out of the caravan she was heading for. He paused as he came down the steps. For a moment he seemed confused as he gazed at her, seemingly lost for words. He reached out a hand to touch her arm, as if to convince himself she was real. Molly looked at it, transfixed, then looked back at him, unable to think of a word to say. Then suddenly he recovered his composure and took his hand away, smiling.
‘Just doing a bit of maintenance.’
He winked, jumped off the last two steps and strolled off across the grass, whistling. Molly breathed in the scent of him and felt quite giddy. She was surprised. She was usually quite immune to the charms of the opposite sex. She could withstand any overture stony-faced. Her mother’s lifetime of degradation at the hands of men meant Molly was in no hurry to rush into anything. Usually if someone had touched her like that, uninvited, she would have shaken them off, given them a sharp word. But in that fleeting exchange Joe had made her feel quite woozy – his eyes had looked straight into hers for one moment, and she felt as if he’d looked right into the core of her. She wondered what it was he had thought, what he had registered, for something had definitely passed between them. Molly wasn’t fanciful, and she’d discovered a long time ago that daydreaming and romanticizing often led to disappointment, so she was surprised to find her heart thumping as she watched him disappear. Was this, she wondered, love at first sight?
Molly knew she was pretty. She was petite, with a perfect heart-shaped face and indigo-blue eyes, and dark hair that sprang in thick waves back from her forehead. But in her shapeless uniform, with her hair scraped back in a scrunchie, she doubted he’d seen any potential. Telling herself to get real, Molly climbed up the steps and into the caravan, bumping straight into a young girl who was hastily adjusting her clothing.
‘Shit. I’ve got to go. My mum and dad are leaving any minute.’
The girl pushed rudely past Molly, who stood aside in bemusement. The encounter told her to harden her heart. Joe probably pulled that trick on all the girls, to make them think they were in with a chance. Looked at them as if they’d stepped straight out of his dreams, then rushed off leaving them in confusion. No, Molly told herself sternly. She wasn’t going to be fooled. Even if he did look like Johnny Depp.
As she started cleaning out the mess in the caravan, she reminded herself of everything she’d heard about him. Joe’s reputation as a wild boy went before him. His parents owned the site and he was supposed to help out with the running of it, but no one was quite sure what he did – as little as possible, it was generally agreed, but somehow he got away with it and didn’t create resentment. All the other girls who worked on the campsite sighed, but knew they weren’t in with a chance. Although he was a dre
adful flirt and a tease, and had wandering hands, everyone knew there was no point wasting your time in losing your heart because, at the end of the day, Joe was spoken for.
Joe’s girlfriend was Tamara Taylor, a honeyed, athletic goddess with golden hair tumbling over her shoulders, a girl who would never have to clean out a toilet in her life. Her father was loaded. He owned a frozen-food factory on the outskirts of Tawcombe, which supplied nearly every pub, hotel and restaurant in North Devon with chips, peas and chicken nuggets. It was rumoured that Cliff Taylor loathed Joe with a vengeance, and considered him a good-for-nothing, free-loading, time-wasting little shit. But as every father knows, to disapprove of a daughter’s boyfriend is to render him even more attractive, so Cliff was biding his time, confident that Joe would show his true colours eventually and Tamara would come to her senses, seeing him for the bit of rough he was. And in the meantime Joe played fast and loose whenever he pleased, returning to Tamara as if butter wouldn’t melt. Molly decided that she had just been a pawn in one of his games. She was not, she decided as she squirted thick bleach all over the kitchen worktops, going to be one of his victims. No way.
Two days later, Molly was standing at the bus stop when a car pulled up. She could hear Eminem pounding through the speakers. The passenger window wound down and she peered in. It was Joe.
‘Get in, then.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Do you care?’
She tipped her head to one side and smiled at him.
‘I’m on my way home.’
‘I know. Seventeen, Uffculme Row, Tawcombe.’ Molly felt a delicious shiver trickle its way down her spine as he surveyed her seriously. ‘I looked up your details in the office.’
Instinctively, she stepped back from the car, reminding herself that she wasn’t going to be toyed with. Nevertheless, she felt disconcerted that she had made an impression on him. Even if he was playing with her for his own amusement, he’d been in her thoughts. She felt a tingling excitement pool in the pit of her stomach. Desperately she looked down the road, praying that the bus was coming. She couldn’t cope with this, not for a moment longer…
Love on the Rocks Page 21