Maggie tries to doze but she can feel her daughter’s eyes on her as she drowses. She’s becoming increasingly certain that Elizabeth is cleverer, wiser than her, and that her purpose for being here is to replace Maggie, to become properly what Maggie has failed to be.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
‘Fi, can we just talk, please?’
She’s standing at the sink, her back rigid as though the muscles themselves are angry. They’d had a shouting match last night, and she’d gone to the spare room, slamming the door so violently that next door banged on the wall. It was only after she’d gone to bed that he’d spotted the little pile of new cookery books on the kitchen worktop. He hadn’t noticed them before. He’d looked at each colourful, glossy jacket: The New Baby and Toddler Cookbook, Organic Baby Food from Scratch, and the one that really made him want to hug her: Cookery for Beginners.
Right now, though, she doesn’t look very huggable. She hurls the potato she’s just peeled into the sink, picks up another and begins gouging its eyes out. ‘What is there to talk about? I go away for a few days and as soon as—’
‘Eleven.’
‘What?’
‘Eleven days; you were away for eleven days. That’s more than “a few”.’
‘Whatever. The point is that the minute my back’s turned, you’re off sniffing round your ex-girlfriend.’
‘Don’t be disgusting.’
‘Me? Me, disgusting? That’s rich, coming from you.’
‘Christ, can’t you stop that for a minute and come and sit down?’
‘No.’ She scalps another potato and throws it into the bowl.
‘Fiona, listen to me.’ He bangs his fist on the table. ‘I didn’t sleep with her, all right? Ask her. Just fucking ring her up and ask her.’
She spins round to face him. ‘Oh, so you’ve taken her number, then?’
Their eyes lock for a moment. ‘No, actually; no, I haven’t.’
There’s a heavy silence as they each try to think what to say next.
‘Fiona,’ he says more quietly. ‘I swear to God, there’s nothing going on and I didn’t sleep with her. I shouldn’t have gone round there, I know that. It was stupid and thoughtless. I didn’t even intend to end up in Brockley. But after everything that happened yesterday, I couldn’t think straight. I just drove around because I couldn’t face coming home to an empty house.’
‘I was here.’
‘I didn’t know that, did I?’
More silence.
‘I called you.’
The flame has gone from her voice. He takes a step towards her and she doesn’t back away. ‘I’m truly, truly sorry. Please let’s not argue any more; at least for a while.’ He risks a smile; she almost smiles back.
*
Over the next few days, Hutchinson leaves several messages, but Jonathan ignores them. He’s more concerned with not messing up his marriage any more than he has already. Fiona seems quite agitated, though. ‘I’d understand if you made a firm decision not to go any further,’ she says, ‘but I don’t get this . . . dithering. Surely it’s best to just find out whatever there is to know?’
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t want to get into another row, not when she’s only been back a week and they’re just beginning to get close again.
‘Anyway.’ She hands him a slip of paper. ‘He called again when you were out. These are his work, home and mobile numbers – says he’s left four messages.’
He folds the note, shoves it into his back pocket and picks up the local paper.
‘Well? Aren’t you going to call him?’
‘I don’t know. Not yet.’ He starts reading the match reports.
‘Jonno.’ She comes over and sits on the arm of his chair. ‘Perhaps if we just talked about it . . .’
He puts the paper down. ‘Look, I know Hutchinson needs to do all he can to find . . . the man he’s looking for. But I can’t make the decision to trace my mother based on the fact that she’s the only link to whoever it was. I need to think about it a bit more. Can’t you understand that?’
She tilts her chin in that same way he’s seen her mother and sister do. ‘No, Jonathan,’ she says. ‘Quite frankly, I can’t. The uncertainty’s eating you up, and it’s making you a right bastard to live with.’ She walks out of the room, returning minutes later with her coat on. ‘I’m popping over to Lucy’s. See you later.’
*
Jonathan walks to the Rose and Crown, hands in his pockets, breath crystallising as it hits the cold night air. It hasn’t snowed for a week but the front gardens are still streaked with traces of grey ice and there are sludgy mini-drifts under the hedges. It’ll snow again soon; he can taste it, sharp, flinty on the sides of his tongue. He knows Fiona’s right, but he has to try and make her understand that he can’t take decisions at the moment, not until he can think straight again. So much has happened lately that he feels like his brain has been in a food mixer. When he’d phoned the school to see if there was any news on Chloé, Linda Fawcett had treated him with such suspicion and unpleasantness that he’d hung up on her, which wasn’t clever. Malcolm told him later that Chloé was out of hospital – a few cracked ribs and a broken leg that had to be pinned, but already badgering her mum to let her go back to school, which was a surprise; Chloé was bright, but not particularly conscientious. Maybe dicing with death had given her a whole new outlook.
The pub is at the end of a row of trendy white-painted terraced cottages where tasteful lighting spills out through wooden blinds. He can hear someone tuning a guitar as he passes one house, and behind the darkened windows of another, the plaintive ringing of a telephone.
The woodsmoke hits the back of his throat and he is cheered to see a fire crackling in the huge fireplace. Malcolm is already at the bar. ‘Black Sheep?’ he mouths. Jonathan nods. He puts his phone on ‘silent’ in case Hutchinson calls again, and looks around the room. It’s quiet for a Friday; a couple of old boys at the bar as usual, an overweight couple squashed side by side on the bench seat, silently drinking their halves of lager, and two young women with large glasses of white wine and the remains of a meal in front of them. As Jonathan sits down, the women stand, pick up their bags and glasses and go out through the glass doors into the smoking area, a covered patio with several tables and tall gas heaters that double as lamps. The women settle themselves at a table and Jonathan watches the dark one take a luxurious drag on her cigarette and exhale through her nose.
That does it. He heads out into the vestibule and begins feeding pound coins into the cigarette machine.
‘Hiya, Sir.’ The voice makes him jump. Petra Simmons, Year 13; smart kid. He forgot she works here at weekends – she is saving hard for university.
‘Hello, Petra.’ He asks her how she is, tells her not to work too hard then makes his way back to Malcolm, who dutifully follows him out to the smoking area. He tears the cellophane from the vending pack. ‘What a bloody rip-off.’ He counts the cigarettes. ‘I don’t even like Silk Cut.’
‘Me neither,’ Malcolm says, helping himself to one. ‘Still, desperate men and all that. Speaking of which, did you see the game on Tuesday?’
They spend the inevitable ten minutes talking about football before Malcolm says, ‘Anyway, you sounded fed up on the phone.’
Jonathan sighs, takes a long pull at his pint and then tells Malcolm about Hutchinson’s interest in his birth mother. ‘Fiona’s on about it too. But I’m just not sure I want to know.’
‘Why the bloody hell not?’
‘For a start, what sort of woman walks out on a toddler? I was only a few weeks younger than Poppy, for Christ’s sake. And this DNA business means that my biological father was . . .’ He pauses, swills his beer around the glass. ‘Well, God knows what.’
‘Bank robber?’ Malcolm suggests. ‘Diamond smuggler? Or perhaps he was some great forger or something. Hey, you might have inherited some hidden talent that you could exploit and make shitloads of money.’
&nbs
p; ‘It’s not funny.’ Jonathan grabs his pint clumsily, spilling it. ‘What if . . .’ He watches a tiny fly struggling to free itself from the puddle of spilt beer. ‘What if he was a child killer or something? Supposing I’ve inherited – oh, I don’t know.’ He glances at Malcolm. ‘Whatever he did, it must be pretty bloody serious for the police to still be interested after all this time.’
‘Yes, but they open up these “cold cases” all the time now, don’t they? And if—’
‘And what if my birth mother knew? What if they were like the Moors Murderers or something?’
Malcolm looks at him, then at the table. ‘All right, mate. I see what you mean.’ He drains his pint. ‘Drink up.’ Before Jonathan can find his wallet, Malcolm is heading back inside towards the bar.
‘So, what are you going to do?’ Malcolm sets the second pint down.
‘To be honest, it feels like if I don’t do anything about it, it can’t become real. But if I start looking into it—’
‘You’re stuck with whatever you find out.’
‘Precisely.’
They each lift their glasses and drink, then Jonathan takes out two more cigarettes. Malcolm shakes his head.
‘Oh, come on. One more and then we’ll go in.’
‘You’re a bad influence, Robson.’ Malcolm takes the cigarette, lights up then shakes out the flame. ‘Why’s this cold-case bloke pestering you about it, anyway? Surely he can just go and find out whatever he likes?’
‘Apparently not – well, not easily, anyway. Data Protection Act and all that. He reckons he can probably get round it if he has to, but he’s hoping I’ll save him the trouble. Thing is . . .’ He stops as Petra comes out into the smoking area and begins cleaning the empty tables around them, then moves to their table to change the ashtray. Malcolm asks her how her revision’s going and they chat about her forthcoming exams. After a few minutes, Malcolm rounds off the conversation by repeating Jonathan’s warning to Petra not to work too hard. ‘I won’t, Sir,’ she smiles. ‘Enjoy your evening.’
‘Why’s she so nice?’ Jonathan says as soon as she’s out of earshot.
Malcolm nods. ‘Model student. Just goes to show, though.’
‘What?’
‘You met the parents? Dad’s always at the dog track – a waste of space that grass could grow in and . . .’
‘I know. Pond life.’
‘Well, that’s the point; just because your parents are arseholes it doesn’t mean you’ll automatically follow in their footsteps.’
‘Even so, if it’s in the genes, well, don’t you think it’s something that – oh, I don’t know; maybe you’re right.’ Jonathan stands. ‘Come on, it’s getting cold; let’s go back inside.’ He feels for his wallet. ‘Fancy a short?’ They’ve been friends for over ten years; both know this is code for I may not say it but I value your opinion and friendship.
‘Why not?’ Malcolm grins, swallows the remains of his pint in two gulps and declares, ‘When you’re out, you’re out.’
At last orders, Jonathan stands up, jolting the table. ‘Another, my friend!’ he says with some theatricality.
‘Go on then.’ Malcolm drains his glass. ‘Bloody hell, I can see two of you.’
Jonathan hasn’t been this pissed for years. He orders the drinks and is pleased with himself for remembering to ask for water as well. ‘Decided to be sensible,’ he says, handing Malcolm a pint of water. It comes out as ‘sessibel’.
‘Which one of you said that?’
Jonathan grins. Malcolm’s eyes are glassy-bright and the lower half of his face has collapsed. Jonathan hopes he doesn’t look as drunk as Malcolm; they’re too old for this. Petra and the barmaid, an older woman, are now putting chairs and stools up on tables. ‘D’you think they’re trying to tell us something?’ he says loudly, the words ridiculously slurred. He’s about to make some quip about the company being so charming that it’s hard to leave, when he catches a glance from Petra. It stings his face and makes him look away. It’s nothing like the haven’t you got homes to go to look being fired at them by her colleague, it’s more, what, concern? No. Disappointment.
Soon they’re outside in the frosty darkness. They fall silent as they concentrate on negotiating the icy pavements, each less steady on his feet than he’d like to admit. The fuzzy warmth in Jonathan’s head is seeping out into the cold air. He sighs audibly and steps off the kerb without even glancing along the road. He feels Malcolm grab his arm and yank him backwards at the same time as he registers the big dark shape to his right. There is a screech of brakes and the angry sound of a car horn. His heart thuds as he remembers Chloé Nichols flying through the air. He jumps back onto the pavement as the taxi driver leans out of his window. ‘Fucking idiot!’ the man yells. ‘Look where you’re fucking going!’
Jonathan opens his mouth to shout back but the taxi pulls away, the driver shaking his head in an exaggerated way. He puts his hand out to steady himself before attempting to cross the road again. A police car passes them at high speed, blue lights flashing but no siren.
‘Devious,’ Malcolm says. ‘Trying to catch them in the act.’
‘Yeah, bloody coppers.’ Jonathan thinks of how they mocked him at the police station; how he’d heard that policewoman say the allegation was probably rubbish before she arrested him. And he thinks of Don Hutchinson and his unsolved crimes. ‘Bastards,’ he mutters, quickening his step. The booze sloshes around in his stomach and he’s dying for a wee.
‘Whadya say?’ Malcolm’s words are dissolving.
‘The police. They bloody loved it when I failed to report hitting that Volvo.’
Malcolm slips on a patch of ice, grabs Jonathan’s sleeve. ‘Yeah. Gits,’ he says with overstated loyalty.
If they’d done their job properly all those years ago, Jonathan is thinking, his natural father would be in prison, wouldn’t he? And if they’d caught him in the first place, they wouldn’t be interested now. And if Mr-Cold-Case Hutchinson had simply retired and taken up golf or fishing like any normal bloke . . .
‘There’s one,’ Malcolm says.
‘One what?’
‘A police-git.’ Malcolm points, swaying slightly.
On the other side of the road is the police station. A uniformed policeman is punching in numbers to the door-entry system.
‘Police Constable Git,’ Malcolm says, flinging his arm out as he wobbles again.
Jonathan catches his arm, whether to steady Malcolm or himself he can’t tell. God, he’s pissed. The street is spinning. ‘S’all the bloody police’s fault, you know,’ he says as the pair of them lurch across the road.
And that is the last thing he remembers.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
More than twelve hours after leaving Sheffield, they finally drive along the coast road.
‘Where are we?’ Maggie says sleepily.
‘Home. Don’t you recognise it?’ Leonard turns into a side road and they immediately go into a skid. Maggie clutches the carrycot in terror but Leonard quickly manages to right the car. The sky is dark now, but the snow makes everything lighter. They pull up behind a hulking white shape that she assumes is another car. Glancing down the road, she counts five snowmen standing in front gardens, their hats, scarves and carrot noses already half-covered by the most recent fall. The wind coming off the sea has blown snow up against the houses and sculpted great curves and arcs out of the whiteness, making unexpected shadows and giving the place an eerie look, like a Salvador Dali landscape. The drifts are so deep that some of the front doors are completely obscured.
‘You wait here,’ Leonard says. ‘I need to clear a pathway to the door or you’ll go base over apex.’
She smiles. That was one of their dad’s expressions. It takes a few minutes to clear the path, and there’s a foot-long icicle hanging threateningly from the windowsill above. Leonard bashes it several times before it finally snaps, and at last they make their way carefully up the steps.
Home. Perhaps she’s
been away long enough to make herself appreciate it. The first thing she’ll do is light the fire and make some cocoa. Cocoa-by-the-fire; it was a ritual their mother had established when she’d first started teaching them to cook. She’d call them in as she prepared the evening meal. ‘Now, you two watch closely,’ she’d say as she rubbed cubes of butter and lard into the flour with her fingertips, lifting the mixture high and letting it trickle back into the bowl. ‘More air makes it lighter. And a pinch of bi-carb will make it nice and short.’
Maggie’s pastry was never as good as her mother’s, but Leonard’s was sublime: pale and biscuity, crisp to the bite but crumbly and light on the tongue. ‘It’s his cold hands,’ their mother explained. ‘Good pastry needs a cool touch.’ Maggie’s own talent was for stews and casseroles. She knew how to trim a neck of lamb and brown it slowly to reduce the fattiness, then season it and stew it gently with sliced onions in a pan of delicate golden stock until it was tender. After an hour or so, she’d add potatoes, pearl barley and sweet baby carrots, then leave the whole thing to cook until all the flavours had infused and a rich savoury aroma filled the house. On winter nights, they’d sit around the kitchen table eating steaming plates of lamb stew and mopping up the fragrant gravy with hunks of home-made bread. Afterwards, the three of them would have cocoa by the fire, hands curled around their mugs as the hot coals scorched their cheeks and shins while the draught from the ill-fitting window chilled the backs of their necks.
The lock is frozen and Leonard struggles with the key. Then the door swings open. Maggie wrinkles her nose; the house smells of mice. She recognises the smell, because the hotel kitchen was frequently overrun and she’d had to set the traps.
Leonard flicks on the light. Maggie puts the carrycot in the hall and walks into the kitchen, her shoes making a sticky-tape noise on the tacky lino. Everything is grimy. There are newspapers stacked on every chair, there’s a build-up of brown grease on the stove, and mouse droppings surround the half-loaf of bread that Leonard has left on the table. Used saucepans are piled on the draining board and next to it, the twin tub is almost hidden by the pile of grubby chef’s whites.
The Things We Never Said Page 20