by Ann Troup
Miriam walked over and turned the sound down then turned to the two men. Tony sat slack jawed on the sofa, clutching a rapidly cooling cup of tea, while Dan remained standing, quietly seething, his fists clenched.
‘I came to say that I’m taking Elaine and Brodie home in a minute,’ he said, barely able to restrain himself from bellowing in temper as he fantasised about what he was going to do to Bob. ‘If the press get hold of her here, there’s no telling what will happen. Tony, she knows you want to meet her, but she’s in a bit of a state. I’ll give you the address and you can come later if you want.’
Tony nodded, ‘I’ve got to go and see Mum first. God knows what this is going to do to her. I spoke to the hospital last night, they’re doing their best to keep her away from the TV, but I doubt they can manage it for long. You sure you’re all right to take Brodie? I mean, she can be a bit of a handful.’
Dan looked around, and out of the window, where yet another news van was passing. A BMW had just pulled up next to his own van. ‘Well, she can’t stay here, and she won’t be parted from Elaine so we’ll have to make the best of it. Miriam, are you going to be all right? I don’t like the thought of you facing this on your own.’
Miriam gave him a weak smile, she looked like she had aged twenty years in as many hours. ‘I’ve got friends in the village, they’ll help. Besides, I have to arrange Esther’s funeral, not that it will mean much in the midst of all this. I can’t believe all this has happened in less than a day.’ Tears began to spring from her eyes, and both men were left floundering uselessly in a sea of misery and confusion, which they couldn’t hope to fathom.
‘Are we all agreed that none of us will talk to the media until we’ve taken some advice?’ Dan asked.
Miriam nodded unhappily.
‘Too bloody right. I’ve asked Jack Pearson if he’ll act as a spokesman for the family, what do you think?’ Tony said.
As a rank outsider Dan didn’t really think he had a right to an opinion, but everyone seemed to be looking to him, ‘Sounds like a reasonable idea, he’s a sensible man and familiar with the facts. Good call I’d say. Look I’m going to get going, get them out of here before the circus is in full swing. We’ll talk later.’
The two men shook hands, and Miriam gave Dan a grateful pat on the arm before he took his leave.
A man, who he vaguely recognised, was standing in the lounge hugging Elaine. When Dan entered, Elaine pulled herself away and blushed. ‘Dan this is Alex Gardiner-Hallow.’
Dan eyed the man from head to foot. Blond, well cut and wearing a handmade suit straight from Savile Row. ‘Nice to meet you.’ he said, with more politeness than he felt.
Alex took his proffered hand and shook it with warm sincerity. ‘Nice to meet you too, though it would have been preferable under other circumstances. I was just saying to Elaine, what a terrible shock this must have been for you all, yet what wonderful news that little Mandy is still here with us, alive and well!’
Dan gave him a weak smile and glanced at Elaine, who seemed to still be shell-shocked by the whole thing.
‘Of course, we’re very sad to see our lovely guest depart, but quite understand the need under the circumstances. I just wanted to call in and see if there was anything I could do to help?’
Dan suddenly realised why the man looked so familiar, he was the local Tory candidate. ‘You could start by getting the press off her back.’
‘Indeed. I will gladly pull any strings that I can to minimise the invasion of privacy but unfortunately there may not be much that I can do.’ Alex said, wringing his hands and giving all three of them a sympathetic smile. ‘Now, I can see you are waiting to leave, and I really must call in on Miriam and pay my respects. Poor Esther, I will miss her terribly. She was like a mother to me you know. But Elaine, do stay in touch and let me know if there is anything at all I can do for you.’ He pressed a business card into her hand then leaned down and pecked her on the cheek, much to Dan’s disgust. ‘My contact details are on there, don’t hesitate to call.’
As soon as he had gone Brodie muttered, ‘sleazebag’ under her breath. Elaine instantly admonished her, but Dan couldn’t have agreed more.
Dan managed to get a morose Elaine and a sullen Brodie into Elaine’s car, his van was full of tools and chaos and there was no room for three of them plus luggage. He’d asked Tony to drive the van down later as he’d arrived by train and taxi having left his girlfriend with his car, and he seemed grateful for the free transport. Dan collected the few things he might need and made himself ready for their escape.
Fortunately Elaine’s car was parked at the back of the cottage, out of sight from the road. More and more people were arriving in Hallow’s End and Dan wanted to avoid any altercation. They managed to persuade Elaine that she needed to lie on the back seat covered with a blanket so that they could avoid detection on their way out of the village. She resisted at first, complaining about the unnecessary drama. When Dan showed her yet another news van, she finally relented and allowed Brodie to cover her up and make sure that she couldn’t be seen. Miriam helpfully pointed out that one of the service roads that wound through the estate could get them to the main road without the necessity to drive past the cottages or enter the village. Consequently they managed to leave undetected by the throng of enthusiastic voyeurs and eager media people who were converging on Hallow’s End like the eighth deadly plague.
The lane they took forced them to make a turn opposite the house where Rosemary and Derry lived. Elaine emerged from underneath her blanket just in time to spy the police car, which was sitting outside. Her heart sank even further at the sight and she didn’t know who to feel more sorry for, poor Derry or the police who would have to confront Rosemary Tyler in all her defensive glory. This was a nightmare, and Elaine sorely wanted to wake up from it.
Chapter Thirteen
The house where Dan lived wasn’t the place Elaine had expected it to be. In her mind’s eye she had imagined a sparse bachelor pad, all hard lines and masculinity in the same vein as she thought of him. Instead she was greeted by warm wood and comfort. He had told her once that he was restoring his house, but the love and diligence that was shown by each item he had chosen to place there surprised her, suggesting that he had hidden depths that she would never have guessed at.
The whole place was tidy and ordered, but softly so. It was a home in the way that Elaine’s house never had been. It felt quiet and solid and safe. Even the ticking of his clock was tempered by the sense of homeliness; it was as Miriam had described the sound, calm and soothing. Elaine felt as though she could stay forever, which was dangerous emotional territory.
Dan brought the bags in and directed Brodie towards the kitchen where she could exercise her excellent coffee making skills. ‘Well, what do you think, will it do?’ he asked.
‘It’s beautiful, I’m impressed,’ Elaine said. ‘Thank you for letting us stay Dan, I can’t tell you how grateful I am. You’ve been amazing,’ she said, wrapping her arms around herself as the chill of what waited for her outside his door touched her bones.
‘You’re welcome, both of you, as long as madam out there is willing to make herself useful. Come on I’ll show you upstairs, you can pick a bed.’ He picked up her bags and led the way.
On the landing he pointed to a small, neat and comfortable room, ‘Brodie can go in that one, she’s even got her own shower so she can mess it up to her heart’s content.’ Elaine glanced inside and nodded her approval.
‘What about you, where do you want to go?’ he said indicating another spare room, equally comfortable, equally appealing. And then pointing to his own room.
‘I don’t know, where do you want me to go?’ she asked, still hugging herself, unable to look at him. She knew what she wanted to say, but didn’t think she had the gumption.
‘Wherever you are most comfortable, but I should tell you that the other half of my bed definitely comes with an agenda.’
Elaine turned to him and
reached up, touching his face with hesitant fingers. ‘I don’t know who I am Dan’ she said, in a bid to warn him about what he might be taking on. She would be stupid to think that it would be a straightforward union. Many people came to things with excess baggage, but few with an entourage of scandal and a lost identity.
He took her hand and kissed it. Then he bent and kissed her. ‘I’ve wanted to do that since I was seventeen and I let that woman chase me off.’ He bent to kiss her again.
Elaine began to relax, all the tension that had racked her for what felt like an age started to ebb away, passing out of her body and seemingly into his as the kiss became more urgent. It would be easy to hide in what the kiss might mean, she could be fifteen again and pretend that the turmoil of emotions were simple teenage angst.
They were forced to break apart by Brodie’s voice from the hallway below, stridently demanding their attention. ‘Coffee’s ready when you two have finished snogging,’ her voice was laden with the tone of a militant chaperone.
Dan laughed, ‘Nearly forty years of age, in my own home, and I’m still being bested by a chopsy teenager.’
Elaine buried her blushing face in his shirt ‘Oh my God, what are we going to do with her?’ she mumbled from the depths of the fabric. She pulled away from him. ‘Duty calls.’
Dan bent to pick up the bags, ‘So where am I putting these?’
Elaine took her bag from him and walked into his bedroom. ‘Well, mine’s going in here, you’d better put Brodie’s in her room,’ she said with a shy smile.
Brodie bellowed up the stairs again, ‘Are you two coming down or what?’
‘My God, it’s like sharing the house with a mini Mary Whitehouse,’ Dan muttered as he started down the stairs.
Elaine took her bag into Dan’s bedroom and put it on the bed, wondering at the wisdom of her decision, and the fairness. Her conscience prodded at her, asking her to consider whether she was taking advantage of Dan as a convenient port in an unusually turbulent storm. Fate had put him in her path for a second time and she would like to believe that meant something, however the ghost of Jean was still looming inordinately large and, as usual, she was clouding everything.
*
Brodie announced that she was starving and it was mutually decided that Dan would go out and get them a takeaway. Tony had phoned a few minutes before to say that he was on his way, so they were hoping to have eaten by the time he arrived with whatever the next batch of news was going to bring.
While Dan was gone, Brodie and Elaine pottered in the kitchen, finding plates and cutlery and washing up their coffee cups.
‘He’s got a really nice house hasn’t he? I reckon he must be pretty minted,’ Brodie said as she carefully dried up one of the china mugs before passing it to Elaine to be put away.
‘Yes, it’s a lovely house, but I don’t think he’s rich, he just works hard.’
Brodie tipped her head to one side and studied the mug she was holding in her soapy hand. ‘You do know that relationships that start under traumatic circumstances rarely last don’t you?’ she said sagely.
Elaine peered at her, a look of bemusement on her face, ‘Where on earth do you come up with these things?’
‘I saw it on a film, Sandra Bullock said it to Keanu Reeves when they had just got off a bus that was going to blow up.’
Elaine laughed, ‘Well, remind me to thank Mr Reeves and Ms. Bullock for their relationship advice.’
Brodie shrugged, ‘Just saying.’
Elaine put the last of the mugs away and leaned on the worktop. ‘Brodie, why does me being with Dan bother you so much? I mean I’ve known him longer than I’ve known you. In fact I was about your age when I met him’
Brodie fiddled with the tea cloth, pulling at the loops of thread, and gave another of her habitual shrugs, ‘It’s just that with everything that’s happened I think you might be a bit vulnerable and all, I don’t want you to get hurt that’s all. He seems nice, but he’s a bloke and blokes are crap aren’t they?’ It was true, she did feel that, but she was also experiencing an unreasonable prod of jealousy. She had only just found her sister and she didn’t want to share her.
‘Not all of them, or did you learn that from films too?’
Brodie shook her head, ‘No, from my mum. It’s what she says.’ That was true too, but she also had her own experience to reinforce the assertion. Blokes were selfish shits and always left you with more than you had bargained for.
Elaine smiled at her, ‘I’m sure I’ll be fine Brodie, I have done this before you know. Anyway, right now, and I hate to admit this, but I think I need him. Can you understand that?’
If it was anything like how much she felt she needed Elaine, then she could, ‘Yeah, I get it.’ But it didn’t mean she had to like it.
They didn’t speak for a moment. Brodie watched Elaine wipe down the sides and make sure the room was how they’d found it.
It was Brodie who broke the silence, ‘I knew. When I met you. I knew.’
‘What do you mean?’ Elaine said as she folded the tea cloth and surveyed their handiwork.
‘That you were her. Mandy. What I mean is – I knew there was something special about you, I didn’t know you were Mandy then, but I knew there was something.’
Elaine walked over to the kitchen table and sat down, pushing a chair out for Brodie with her foot. She waited until the girl was seated before speaking, ‘This is important Brodie so I want to make sure you understand. I’m not Mandy, and I will never be Mandy. I accept that biologically there isn’t much doubt that my DNA would match hers – I don’t want to accept it, but I have to. But I’m Elaine, I was brought up as Elaine, however wrongly, but I am still Elaine. I can’t be that other girl because her life has been imagined by people in a thousand different ways. Like the ghosts we talked about, remember? Well, my life was real, I know the papers will say that I’ve lived a lie and that’s true to an extent. But I was there and it happened and it’s mine. I can’t change it. I can’t be Mandy, not for anyone. Whoever Mandy was going to be, she died on that day and everyone is stuck with me instead. Look, what I’m trying to explain is that this is not going to end up with roses round the door and everyone living happily ever after. I’m glad we found each other Brodie, but your mum is not my mum, Tony is not my brother and Fern is not my sister. You and I are friends, maybe even like sisters, and I love you like one, but I can’t be Mandy and I can’t make this turn out well. Do you get it?’
Brodie nodded unhappily, it was like Jack had said, everyone knew the truth deep down and sometimes you got rocks instead of diamonds, but you still had more than you had before, ‘But what if they don’t see it like that?’
‘Then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,’ Dan said from the doorway, making both of them jump. ‘But for now I have three tons of Chinese food, going cold. Brodie, go and light the fire in the lounge will you? It might be July but I’m bloody freezing. We’ll eat in there. I fetched it, so Elaine can dish it up.’
When Brodie was gone Elaine turned to him, ‘How long were you standing there?’
Dan shrugged out of his coat and began passing her the food containers. ‘Long enough to hear you speak a good deal of sense.’
‘I don’t think she realises how crap this thing is going to be.’ Elaine’s voice was heavy with worry as she turned away from him.
He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her, dropping a kiss on the top of her head, ‘Your hair smells of fruit.’
Elaine smiled, ‘And this food smells of starvation. Get off and let me dish it up will you?’
He turned her round to face him, and cupped her face in his hands. ‘In a minute, it can wait. None of us realise how crap this thing might turn out to be, this is only the beginning, and it might get worse, it might get better, but we’ll do it together, OK? Me, you and that demented midget in there,’ he said nodding towards the lounge.
‘Thank you,’ she said, reaching up to kiss him.
‘Oh my God, will you two get a room please? You’re putting me off my food!’ Brodie groaned from the doorway.
‘More for me then’ Dan shouted, throwing a bag of prawn crackers at her as she ran off down the hall squealing like a small, black clad banshee. As she stretched up to catch them a look of concern flickered across Dan’s face, he had spotted something and it worried him.
***
After they had eaten Brodie asked if she could have a bath, leaving Dan and Elaine alone for a few precious minutes. Dan was pensive as Elaine cleared away their plates, wondering if now was the right time to bring up his concerns about Brodie. He was sure Elaine would be worried about it if she saw it for herself, but he felt odd about having noticed it at all. He was still contemplating broaching the subject when the doorbell rang. Tony had arrived, looking careworn and weary. Whatever concerns he had about Brodie would have to wait. Maybe they should wait anyway, Elaine already had enough to deal with.
The first few minutes of the meeting between the long lost brother and sister were tense and awkward. Elaine just couldn’t make eye contact, and Tony couldn’t take his eyes off Elaine. It was as if he was trying to find something that would identify her as the child he had known. Dan watched them both, fascinated by this strange reunion dance.
While Elaine loaded the dishwasher, Dan offered Tony a beer and led him through to the lounge, ‘So, did you manage to see your mother today?’ he asked, settling onto the sofa while the other man took the chair.
Tony took a long swig of his beer, followed by a groan of satisfaction and relief. ‘Yep. Not good, she doesn’t believe it, thinks that Elaine is an impostor. She was pretty hysterical by the time I left, no doubt they will have jammed her full of sedatives by now,’ he paused and took another long pull of beer. ‘I had a chat with the Charge Nurse, she thinks it will take time for it to sink in. I don’t think it’s a good idea that they meet yet.’