by Lisa Jewell
But as he listened he could hear that the big guy was being friendly. There was laughter. His mother said, ‘Come in, come in. Can I get you a cup of tea?’ And the big guy said, ‘No, thank you, I’m fine.’ He was wearing nice shoes which he spent an inordinate amount of time wiping back and forth across their tatty doormat, like a tradesman. Freddie tiptoed to the next landing and listened to their voices coming from the kitchen. He caught the gist of the conversation. The big guy was going to be decorating their living rooms and the kitchen. ‘Just normal colours,’ he heard his mother say. ‘Off-whites probably.’
‘Any wallpapering?’
‘Oh no. No. I don’t think so. I like plain walls.’
Freddie went back to his room and waited till he heard the front door opening and closing, his mother saying, ‘Thank you so much! We’ll be in touch!’ before coming downstairs and saying, ‘What was he doing here?’
‘I saw him when I was coming back from my run,’ his mother said. ‘He was in paint-spattered overalls and I just thought, well, we seem to have a decorator on our doorstep and I’d been thinking about finding one because this house …’ She looked around it despairingly. ‘Well, you know, it’s not exactly to our taste, is it?’
Freddie quite liked this house. It had dark blue walls and bits of mahogany panelling, strips of dark floral wallpaper here and there. It was scruffy but it had a bit of character, unlike most of the houses they’d lived in over the years.
‘I don’t want my room doing,’ he said. ‘I like my room.’
‘Yes, well, we can’t agree to anything until I’ve had a quote back from him. And obviously I’ll have to speak to your father.’
Freddie sat down on the settle in the hallway. ‘What was he like?’
‘Who? The painter?’
‘Don’t you even know his name?’
‘I didn’t ask! Hold on …’ She pulled a card from the console table. ‘Here. Alfie Butter. Ha! What a funny name!’ She put the card back on the console. ‘He was very nice. But young. You know? Not much upstairs.’
She glanced at him then as if she’d just remembered something important. ‘Are you hungry?’ she said. ‘What would you like?’
‘What is there?’
It was a trick question. She wouldn’t have been shopping. She only shopped when Dad was home. Dad was her first priority from the moment she woke up to the moment she went to bed.
‘Gosh. Not much. There’s pasta? Or some nice bread. I could do you eggs on toast?’
Eggs on toast was his dad’s favourite dinner. He nodded. There was no point holding out for anything better.
After tea, which he ate on his own while his mum had a shower and got changed, he went back to his room. He’d taken the long route home from school today, past St Mildred’s, the private girls’ school three roads down, to check out Romola Brook, the new girl everyone at his school was talking about.
He’d got some shots of her chatting with a guy from their sixth form. He’d gone in really close, got her pulling her hair from her face, touching her lips every now and then with her fingertips, her eyes staring at the pavement. Then he’d followed her home. She lived in a tiny modern house in a new-build mews just outside the city. It had a Buddha out front and a longhaired chihuahua waiting for her in the front window. He’d photographed her letting herself in and bending down to greet the tiny dog.
Now he loaded the photos and the film footage on to his PC and started to edit them. He pressed save to secure the changes he’d made to the photos and then he went to his security log, as he did every evening, to make sure that nothing had been compromised. His heartbeat staccatoed for a second.
There had been five invalid login attempts.
Breathlessly, he clicked on Quick Access to see if files had been opened and then sat back heavily against the back of his chair, all the air leaving his lungs in one bolt.
JT1.jpg. JT2.jpg. JT3.jpg. JT&BR1.jpg. JT&BR2.jpg. JT4.jpg.
These were his early photos of Jenna Tripp and Bess Ridley. He hadn’t looked at them in ages. He had not opened these files. Someone else had. And Freddie had no idea who it was.
20
Bess and Jenna laughed together as they tried to keep their footing on the cobbled streets in the stupid heeled boots they’d both packed for the trip. They’d bought them in Primark, the week before, especially for Seville. The itinerary had specifically stated that footwear should be ‘comfortable and practical’. They had paid no heed.
They were heading for dinner in the old town. The night was moon-bright and balmy and the group were in high spirits, loud, shouting over each other, laughing too hard, just about staying the right side of out of control. In the restaurant they were split up over four huge tables in a private room at the back. Each table was assigned a teacher. Jenna felt Bess’s boot connect with her shin when Mr Fitzwilliam came and sat down with them.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘lucky group B. Looks like you’re stuck with me.’
Huge menus with laminated pages were passed around. Mr Fitzwilliam handed one to Jenna with a smile. ‘Well, I don’t know about you lot,’ he said, ‘but I am starving.’
‘Didn’t you have something nice at lunch, sir?’ said a boy called Ollie.
‘I did, thank you, Ollie. I had some excellent albóndigas. Can anyone tell me what albóndigas are?’
‘Meatballs!’ someone shouted across the table.
‘Yes. Exactly. I had meatballs. And if I recall rightly, Thomas here,’ he patted Thomas’ shoulder, ‘had a delicious-looking bocadillo de tortilla. Anyone know what that is?’
‘A crisp sandwich!’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘Not crisps. That’s a different sort of tortilla. Anyone else?’
‘Omelette sandwich?’ suggested Jenna.
‘Yes. An omelette sandwich. Does anyone know what goes into a Spanish omelette?’
Hands went up.
‘Eggs!’ said someone.
‘Potatoes!’ said someone else.
Jenna saw Bess staring across at Mr Fitzwilliam meaningfully. Then she looked around and saw that nearly everyone was staring at Mr Fitzwilliam meaningfully, hoping to be noticed, to be singled out for praise. They were all frantically trying to impress him, boys and girls, first by getting the answers to his questions right and then, when the conversation shifted, by trying to make him laugh. Which he did, frequently and with genuine pleasure.
She looked at him, trying to see what Bess saw. She could tell that he must once have been quite handsome. And he did have a nice smile. But to her he was still just an old man. There was an area on the top of his head where his scalp glowed white. His hands were gnarly. And he had old man teeth: that nameless shade of putty.
Mr Fitzwilliam turned and caught her gaze and she inhaled sharply as she saw something pass across his face. She couldn’t pinpoint it or give it words. Words weren’t her strong point. She used an online thesaurus a lot at home to find the right words when she was doing her homework. But it was something primal and wrong.
She lowered her gaze and felt her cheeks flush. He’d seen her curiosity and it had meant something to him. He’d reacted to it. She felt trapped somehow, complicit in something strange and unsavoury.
And then the word came to her, the elusive word she’d been chasing through her thoughts. The look that Mr Fitzwilliam had given. It had been predatory.
Bedtime was 11 p.m. Lights out was eleven thirty. It was eleven twenty and the teachers would be coming round any minute to make sure everyone was tucked up in bed. But Bess was still not back from hanging out in Lottie, Ruby and Tiana’s room a floor above. Jenna had come back to their room early to do her skincare routine in peace. She sent Bess a WhatsApp message. WTF are you?? You’re gonna get a warning????
She stared at the sent message for a while, waiting and waiting for the two blue ticks to appear. But they didn’t. The time turned from eleven twenty to eleven twenty-five. She sent another message. But still it went unread. Then she went to
the door of their room and peered up and down the corridor. She could see Miss Mangan with her head round the door of Kat and Mia’s room, telling them to turn off their phones. ‘I’m going to stand here until I see them going off, girls. I’ve got all night. I’m not going anywhere.’
There were two more rooms to check on this corridor before Miss Mangan got to theirs. She sent a message to Lottie. Tell Bess to GTF down here now. Miss Mangan’s like 2 minutes away!
The message immediately showed as read and a reply arrived a second later. She’s not here. She left like 20 minutes ago!
She went back to the door and glanced up and down the corridor again. Miss Mangan was one door down. And then she saw Bess coming in the other direction. She was with Mr Fitzwilliam. Something deep inside Jenna clenched up hard.
As they neared, Mr Fitzwilliam looked at Jenna, a smile buried beneath a faux-stern façade. ‘Jenna. I am returning your roommate. Found hiding underneath a bed in one of the boys’ rooms. I am not going to make a record of it because it is the first night and we’re all a bit over-excited. But seriously, the rules are there for a reason, Bess. They’re not there to stop you having fun. They’re there to protect you. What might have happened if you’d had to find your own way back to your room in the middle of the night? Along these dark corridors? Who knows who you might have bumped into? Huh?’
‘I’m really sorry, Mr Fitzwilliam,’ said Bess, her head bowed.
He looked at Jenna, fresh-faced and scrubbed, her hair tied back, teeth brushed ready for bed. ‘Keep an eye on her,’ he said gently. ‘I can tell you’re a sensible girl.’
Jenna nodded briskly.
‘I don’t want to have to be making any terrible phone calls to anyone’s parents. OK?’
Both girls nodded. And there followed a strange moment, brief but loaded. The two girls, one still in her party clothes, her hair awry and her heeled boots clutched in her hand, the other in pyjamas and ready for bed, and there, stationed between them, a tall, broad-shouldered man who was neither their father nor their friend. In the background of the vignette lurked the double bed spread with the ephemera of teenage girls: a red bra hooked over the bedpost, a crumpled, lipstick-stained tissue on the bedside table. The room held the sugary smell of the Superdrug beauty aisle, the medicinal tang of Clearasil. The scene seemed like a portrait, captured in minute detail with tiny touches of a tiny brush, before suddenly vaporising into nothing as Mr Fitzwilliam straightened and smiled and said, ‘Well, goodnight, ladies. Get straight into bed. And I’ll see you both for breakfast at eight thirty sharp.’
Bess dashed in and they closed the door behind him. But when Jenna put her eye to the spy hole in the door, she saw him there, just outside their room, his hands in his pockets, his gaze on hers.
21
21 February
Rebecca was home when Joey got back from work on Tuesday evening. She was in the living room, a laptop on the table in front of her, her ears plugged with buds. Joey stood for a moment just at the door and took in the scene. She rarely saw Rebecca in the house. When she was home she was almost always locked away in her office on the first floor.
Where had she come from, this woman? Where once there had been the nebulous, thrilling concept of the person her brother might one day end up with, there was now Rebecca. She didn’t quite seem to fit the bill. It felt somehow as though she’d wandered into the wrong room at an audition and been given a part in the wrong play. Not that her brother appeared to have noticed. For him it could have been no other way. But Joey felt cheated out of another outcome, another sister-in-law, a cool girl who liked a drink and a club and the occasional lost weekend. Or someone maternal and cuddly who might have plugged the hole in her life left by her mother. Joey had been invited to her hen night. Rebecca and a couple of friends had spent a day at the Thermae Spa in Bath and then had dinner at a posh hotel. She’d passed. Not worth leaving Ibiza for. But maybe she should have made the effort. Maybe they’d have bonded over some foie gras and things wouldn’t feel so awkward between them now.
‘Hi,’ she said loudly.
Rebecca didn’t hear her.
‘Hi!’ she said again.
This time Rebecca turned. ‘Oh,’ she said, pulling out an earbud. ‘Hi.’
‘You’re home early.’
‘Yes. I had a hospital appointment, so I came straight back.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Everything OK?’
‘Yes. Just a routine check-up. They took some bloods.’ She showed Joey the bloom of a dark bruise beneath a small plaster on her inside arm. ‘But it’s all good.’
‘Good,’ said Joey. ‘That’s good. How many weeks left now?’
‘Twelve. Ish.’
‘Wow,’ she said, in the absence of any more meaningful response.
There followed a short silence. Joey could see Rebecca’s fingers playing with the earbud she’d removed upon Joey’s entrance. She saw her gaze return to the screen of her laptop.
‘Can I get you a cup of tea?’ she said.
‘No.’ Rebecca shook her head apologetically. ‘Thank you.’
‘You sure?’
‘I’m sure,’ she replied, the earbud now held halfway to her ear. ‘Thank you.’
Joey was about to leave the room, but turned suddenly towards Rebecca. ‘I was just wondering,’ she said, ‘how did you decide? That you wanted to have a baby?’
Rebecca let the earbud fall again and blinked at Joey.
‘I’m asking,’ she continued, ‘because Alfie wants us to have a baby.’
‘Oh!’ Rebecca put a hand to her collarbone. ‘That’s …’
‘Well, it’s great. Of course it’s totally great. I love Alfie so much and I want to make him happy and I’m going to be twenty-seven this year so it’s not as if I’m too young or anything. And imagine how cute our babies would be? But I just … I don’t think I’m cut out for it. I’m not mother material, you know. When I see women with kids it’s like looking at people from another tribe, you know? I just think, I’m not like you. And if I feel like that now, then I’m scared that maybe I’ll always feel like that, and then what?’
‘Well, have you told Alfie?’
‘No. I mean, how could I tell the man I just married that I’m not sure I want to have his baby?’
‘For what it’s worth, Joey, I’m not a baby person either.’ She put her hand to her stomach and looked down, then up at Joey. ‘I never wanted kids. I still don’t want kids.’
‘But—’ Joey started.
‘Jack wanted a baby. I want Jack to be happy. So.’ She smiled sadly and rubbed her stomach.
‘You’ll love it when it comes,’ said Joey, slightly desperately.
‘Ha! And if I said to you, have a baby with Alfie, you’ll love it when it comes, what would you say?’
‘I’d say …’ She paused. ‘Fair point,’ she said.
‘Do you think you’ll still be living here’, said Rebecca, ‘when the baby comes?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘Do you want me to still be here?’
There was a brief silence. Joey thought for a moment that Rebecca was trying to find a way to ask her to move out. But then she lowered her eyes to her bump and said, ‘Yes. I think that Jack … and I … I think we’re really going to need you.’
22
Jenna sent her mum a text that morning. When was it that we went to the Lake District?
A moment later a reply came. Summer holidays, about five years ago. You were ten. Why?
Nothing. Just couldn’t remember.
Did you water the cactus by the back path? It’s not rained and they’re damp?
No. And it has rained. The day before yesterday. Remember?
They feel damper than they should. They feel freshly watered.
Why would someone water our cacti?
Exactly! I know! It’s so crazy! These people! What will they think of next!
‘Who are you texting?’ said Bess.
‘Mum.’
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br /> ‘Ah,’ Bess said, nodding with gentle understanding. ‘She OK?’
‘Freaking out about someone watering the cactus.’
Bess shrugged and sighed. ‘Your poor mum,’ she said.
Bess was the only person apart from Dad and Ethan who knew the truth about Jenna’s mum. Being Bess she had no idea what to say or do about it. But that was fine. At least Jenna could be open with her without fear of judgement or consequence.
She opened up Chrome on her phone and typed in Lake District 2011 Tom Fitzwilliam. All that came up was article after article about Mr Fitzwilliam’s illustrious career: the schools he’d been parachuted into, the changes he’d wrought, the miracles he’d delivered. There were numerous photos of him outside numerous school gates looking masterful and imposing. But there was nothing related to him being in the Lake District five and a half years earlier.
‘Aah!’ said Bess, leaning over and peering at the screen of Jenna’s phone. ‘Is the old Mr Fitzwilliam magic starting to rub off on you too by any chance?’
Jenna pulled her phone away from Bess’s gaze. ‘Fuck off,’ she said, appalled. ‘No! I just remembered something about him. He was on a coach trip with me once, when I was small. And something happened. And I was just wondering about it. That’s all.’
‘Yeah, right.’ Bess stroked her chin sceptically. ‘Right.’
‘Christ, Bess. I do not fancy Mr Fitzwilliam, all right? I think Mr Fitzwilliam is fucking gross.’
‘Hmmmm.’
‘And what was going on last night with you, anyway? What were you doing in the lads’ room?’
‘I wasn’t in the lads’ room,’ Bess replied with a superior tilt of her chin.
‘What?’
‘Well, I mean, I was in the lads’ room to start with and Mr Fitzwilliam did find me hiding under the bed but then we just sort of chatted for a while.’
Jenna sat up straight and stared at her friend incredulously. ‘Chatted for a while?’
‘Yeah. Just like on a sofa, on the landing.’
‘I don’t understand. What were you doing chatting on a sofa on the landing?’