by Janey Fraser
She tracks any household smell.
If your loo isn’t clean,
She’ll be oh so keen
To whip out her bleach and Jeyes gel.
Chapter 39
ANDY
‘PAMELA? CAMILLA?’
Andy looked from his wife to his mother-in-law and then back to his wife again. The others were crowding into the hall, wondering who had turned up when the weekend had virtually finished. Kieran, damn him, was breathing over his shoulder.
‘What a lovely surprise,’ Andy managed to say. ‘You’re just in time for lunch. This is my mother-in-law, everyone. And of course you know Pamela, my wife.’
‘Who’, snorted Camilla, glaring around, ‘are these people?’
‘Mummy, I told you!’ Pamela had her hand on Camilla’s plaster cast protectively. ‘They’re part of Andy’s little parenting group.’
Andy stared at his wife. Why wasn’t she going nuts? Demanding that everyone should leave? There was something different about her physical appearance too. For a start, she’d put on weight since his visit, even though it wasn’t that long ago. It suited her; made her look less severe. As for Camilla, she looked exactly the same with those high cheekbones and sour expression, suggesting grave disappointment that the rest of the world didn’t meet her exacting standards.
‘We need to talk,’ his mother-in-law muttered as a small child tore past, almost crashing into her legs. ‘If we can hear ourselves over this noise. It’s like a zoo!’
‘No.’ Andy heard his voice coming out firmly. ‘My wife and I need to talk. We’ll see you later. Come on, Pamela.’ Cupping his hand under her elbow, he steered her up the stairs, which were littered with sleeping bags. To his astonishment, she didn’t even comment.
‘It’s a bit of a mess, I’m afraid,’ he couldn’t help saying. Pamela shrugged as he closed their bedroom door behind them.
‘It doesn’t matter.’
Was this really his wife speaking? He looked around at the clothes strewn on the floor and the open suitcases. ‘I put two of the mums in here. One’s a grandmother actually. She’s looking after her six-year-old at the moment – doing a fantastic job.’
Pamela sat on the edge of the bed and looked at him as though for the first time. ‘You’ve really got into this parenting stuff, haven’t you?’ She laughed. A strangely natural laugh. Then he realised what else was different about her. It wasn’t just the extra pounds. She wasn’t wearing lipstick! Never, ever, had he seen Pamela without lipstick. Not even in bed. ‘I knew you’d be better at it than me.’ She looked away. ‘I was always a hopeless mother.’
‘No.’ His heart softened slightly. ‘You did your best. But you had issues.’
She made an odd sound. ‘You could say that.’
‘I’ve got them too. Issues, that is.’ He wondered where to begin. ‘Have you run away,’ he heard himself asking, ‘or have they let you out?’
It was meant to be a joke but it came out too seriously. There was a brief silence. Then, to his relief, she visibly relaxed. ‘My doctor felt I was ready to face the world again. For a few days. Then she wants to see me again to assess where to go from here. Besides, I needed to see the girls. Where are they?’
‘Cooking.’
Her eyebrows raised. ‘Really?’
‘You know,’ said Andy, searching her face, ‘I didn’t realise they were such hard work until you left.’
Pamela gave him a sad smile. ‘There were a lot of things you didn’t know about us. It was my fault; I know that now. We hid too much from you.’ Her fingers slotted into his. Pamela rarely made the first move. ‘It was because I wanted to keep the peace, whatever it took.’ She shuddered. ‘The alternative was too awful. I was terrified you might find out I was using drugs again.’
She stood up and walked away to the window. Outside, it was beginning to rain. The children were scattering in different directions: from the hot tub; from the beach; from the croquet lawn. ‘You’ve turned this place into a real family home with all this lot!’ She turned back to him with a slow smile. ‘And what about Bobbie? Is she here too?’
Andy nodded, not daring to say more in case his expression gave him away.
‘And my brother?’
‘He wasn’t going to come but then he turned up unexpectedly.’
‘Things still tricky between those two?’ She sat down at her dressing table, pulled out a drawer and began to brush her hair. ‘Poor kid. Rob could never cope when things didn’t go his way. Just like our father.’
Andy watched her slow rhythmic actions, recalling at the same time what Camilla had said to him back in her cottage. ‘I don’t really understand.’
‘Nor did I, until they explained it to me at the centre.’ Her cool blue eyes met his in the mirror. ‘Our parents were always arguing. You never knew my father, thank God, or you wouldn’t be sitting there. You’d have either killed him or been crushed by him.’
Andy thought of Kieran. ‘He was a bully?’
She gave a short laugh. ‘That’s one way of putting it. My mother has been a different woman since he died. But when he was alive, we had to do exactly what he said and, if we didn’t, well, we got punished. When I was growing up, it was my job to protect my brother. It’s why we’re so close.’
It was all beginning to make sense now, along with their previous conversations in Sussex. Gently taking the brush out of her hand, he led her back to the bed. ‘Sit down. Please. In fact, let’s get under the covers.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t mean that. I just want to talk. That’s right.’
She began to giggle as he tucked the duvet around them. What had got into her? Pamela never giggled in case it gave her lines around her mouth. Nor did she get into sheets that someone else had been sleeping in.
Tentatively, he put his arm around her, expecting her to turn away as usual but, to his surprise, she snuggled in. ‘I want to tell you something,’ he began. ‘Something about me.’ He took a deep breath. ‘You’re not the only one with secrets. When I’ve finished telling you this, you might decide you don’t want to stay with me any more. And I’ll understand if you do.’ His chest lurched with apprehension. Pamela’s eyes were on him.
‘Go on.’
Andy clenched his hands under the covers. ‘I wasn’t brought up by an aunt at all. My parents didn’t die in a crash. My mother left when I was ten and then my stepfather. I was fostered.’
There was a small gasp beside him, which he ignored. If he didn’t keep going, he would stop. ‘But it didn’t work out so they put me in a children’s home.’ He stopped briefly. ‘It stank of cabbage and urine and Brussels sprouts.’
‘My poor Andy!’ She stroked his forehead. He was used to an emotionless Pamela. This new one made him feel uneasy.
‘No. I don’t want sympathy. I just need you to listen. I fell into the wrong crowd.’ He laughed hoarsely. ‘Most of them were wrong ’uns anyway, as the staff used to call us. In fact, so bad that they then sent me to another home that specialised in troubled kids.’
He waited for the reaction. ‘Go on,’ she whispered.
‘But when I was twelve, something happened.’
There was a silence punctuated by a knocking on the door. ‘Mum? Dad?’ It was Nattie. In unspoken agreement, they lay there, silently, until she went away. This was too important to stop.
‘We used to nick things from shops. Sweets. Pencils. Tennis balls. Anything we thought we could get away with. We thought we were entitled to it, you see. To make up for not having proper families.’
‘What happened?’ prompted Pamela.
OK. Here goes. ‘One night, we sneaked out of the home and went into a part of town we didn’t normally go to. We’d had a few beers. More than a few, to be honest. The others started to take stuff off the shelves of this supermarket but for some reason, I didn’t join them. I got scared. Just stood and watched.’
This was the difficult bit.
‘Then the shopkeeper saw us. He ran
after us, but tripped over one of his stands that was sticking out.’
‘Oh God,’ breathed Pamela.
‘The others ran on.’ Andy could see it now. The bright shop lights. The scattered tins on the floor. The pool of blood. ‘But I couldn’t move. My legs had turned to jelly. The shopkeeper was lying on the floor and I knew the police wouldn’t believe us. They’d think it was us. Then the others yelled at me to beat it and I found my legs. We scarpered and climbed back into the home through one of the windows.’
Pamela’s face was rigid. ‘And did you get caught?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
‘And the shopkeeper?’
It would be so easy to lie. So easy to say he was all right. To brush all this back under the lino where it had lain for years.
‘He died.’ Andy’s words came out as though they belonged to someone else. Suddenly there was a massive crack in that steel wall he’d erected in his mind to separate the bloodied mess on the floor and the present.
Pamela gasped. ‘That’s awful! But didn’t you get caught? Or call for help?’
Andy thought back to the big boys: the older ones who had grabbed him and Kieran by the scruff of their necks, swearing that if they so much as breathed a word to the staff, they’d be dead. ‘Just be grateful we didn’t leave you behind to face the music,’ sneered one, ‘or you’d be in for life.’
There was a pay-off, naturally. There always was in these places. Kieran and Andy had to give various favours to the older boys. ‘Not those kind of favours?’ shuddered Pamela.
‘Not sexual, if that’s what you mean. But we had to give them our food and run around for them.’
‘Just like Rob’s school.’ Pamela was massaging his shoulders tenderly. ‘It sounds to me as though it wasn’t your fault. Not really.’
‘Yes it was! If he hadn’t chased us, he wouldn’t have fallen.’
‘But you didn’t hit him.’
‘How can I prove that?’
‘You don’t need to, darling.’
Darling? It had been years since she’d called him that!
‘Actually, I might.’ Andy took another breath. ‘There’s a man here. Kieran. Another parent. One of the gang from the home. And now he’s blackmailing me.’
‘That’s outrageous.’ Pamela leaped out of bed.
‘I know but I have to pay him off.’
‘No you don’t! You have to stand up for what you know is right. I’ve learned that now.’
‘The thing is’, he continued, sitting up against the pillows now, feeling like a small boy, ‘that even if I wanted to pay him off, I couldn’t. We’ve lost our money, Pamela. Not all of it but a good chunk. It’s my fault. I thought something was a good investment and … why are you laughing?’
Oh God. Maybe this was some kind of hysterical attack.
‘Because I’m glad! Don’t you see, Andy? We always had too much money. It was one of our problems. Now we can be normal again. Like any other family.’
‘It’s not that simple,’ he tried to say but there was another hammering at the door. Louder this time.
‘Mum? Dad! I’ve been calling you. Lunch is ready.’
Nattie again. ‘Just coming,’ called out Pamela coolly. ‘Give me one minute.’ Then, to Andy’s utter amazement, she turned and gave him a kiss. Not just a brush on the cheek but a proper kiss. ‘I think this could be the beginning for both of us,’ she murmured. ‘It wasn’t until I had time away that I realised how much I missed you. How much I needed you. And now, after what you’ve told me, I want to be here for you. Just like you were for me.’
She cupped her hand behind his head, pulling him towards her. ‘You do still love me. Don’t you?’
If Pamela didn’t look the same (apart from the weight), he might have thought that someone had planted a different kind of wife on him. ‘Did she talk to you?’ whispered Camilla, pulling up a chair next to him at the dining table.
‘Yes.’ He was loath to say more with all these people around them. It was so noisy with the ‘Don’t start eating yet’ and ‘Turn off your mobiles’ and ‘Eat that up!’ that it was almost impossible to hear anyway.
‘She’s changed, hasn’t she?’ hissed Camilla in his ear.
‘Too much,’ he retorted drily. ‘I hardly recognise her.’
‘Give her a chance, Andy!’ Camilla was bellowing down his ear now with the authority of those who believed they had the right to tell others what to do. ‘She’s scared of losing you. Her time in that place showed her what she really needs.’
Andy looked across the table to Bobbie, who was trying to persuade Daisy to eat what was on her plate and instructing Jack not to eat what was on everyone else’s. Rob, he noticed, was deep in conversation with a rather kind-looking man from the other class; someone said he was a widower with a little girl.
Pamela was actually stroking Brian’s dog even though she’d claimed to be allergic to animals. Probably an excuse for not having hair all over the carpets. Heaven knew what that treatment had done to her. But she couldn’t expect him to accept these changes overnight. He’d changed too.
Just then, Bobbie looked up and caught his eye. ‘Are you all right?’ he mouthed. She gave a small shrug. Sometimes he thought that she was the only one who understood him. But Bobbie was his brother-in-law’s wife; he couldn’t possibly think along those lines. Could he?
After lunch Andy tried to seek out Bobbie to talk to her. Now that his wife knew his secret, it seemed even more important than ever to come clean with Bobbie too.
‘Wotcha, mate! Been looking for you!’ Kieran’s black beady eyes bore into his. ‘Reckon you’ve been trying to avoid me in this mansion of yours.’
The man made him feel sick. ‘Actually, I’ve had more important things on my mind.’
Kieran sniffed, wiping his nose with his shirt sleeve. Ugh! And he still had his hacking cough. ‘So I see. I recognise your missus, you know. She used to be a regular at one of my watering holes.’
‘Pamela!’ Andy laughed out loud. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
Kieran grinned again, nastily. ‘That’s what alkies do! They drink and snort in places where they don’t think their own kind will find them.’
A vision of the receipt came into his head: the club receipt that Bobbie had told him about. ‘How dare you call my wife an alkie!’
‘It’s true,’ muttered Audrey, sidling past. ‘She used to turn up at PTA meetings drunk as a skunk. And she does drugs. Reckon Miss Davies didn’t know that when she asked her to run the parenting class.’
‘Not any more,’ he called out desperately.
Audrey laughed. ‘If you believe that, Andy, you’ll believe anything. People never change. They just pretend to.’
Was she right? Part of him wanted to run after her and yell at her for supplying his wife. Wasn’t that what Pamela had implied, back in the centre? But he had no proof and Audrey would just deny it.
‘MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!’ yelled some children as they shot past, followed by Miss Davies, clutching a bundle of raincoats.
‘We’re doing an Easter-egg hunt,’ called out Jack excitedly. ‘Want to join us, Uncle Andy?’
‘Want to join us?’ Just what the boys in the home had asked all those years ago before raiding the shop.
‘Tell you what!’ Kieran had his face close up now. Andy could smell his fishy breath. See every open pore. Watch the spit in his mouth as he coughed. ‘I’ll let you off that money you owe me if you give me this place instead.’ Those piggy eyes looked around. ‘Taken quite a fancy to it, I have. It’s either that or telling everyone the truth.’
‘Then do it!’ Andy grabbed the man’s shirt collar. ‘My wife knows everything. I don’t care if you go to the police because …’
My God! Kieran was going a really strange colour! He was gasping for breath and clutching his throat. ‘C-c-cough sweet,’ he spluttered. ‘Stuck.’
Was he pulling a fast one? They used to do this in the home when they didn�
��t want to eat something. It had really scared the staff.
‘That man’s choking!’ screamed Bohemian Mum. ‘Thump him someone. Quick!’
‘MUM, MUM. UNCLE ANDY’S HITTING SOMEONE!’
He was too. Belting him on the back; taking out all his anger on this bastard who was trying to wreck his life. It would be so easy to kill Kieran. A life for a life! Maybe throttle him into the bargain. Or beat the bloke into a pulp. Put an end to him. Hadn’t he, Andy, done just that to someone else by doing nothing all those years ago?
NO! What was he thinking of? He couldn’t hurt someone. There was no way his conscience would allow him to make the same mistake again.
Kieran was making a terrified noise like the chickens that his foster father had kept. A peculiar squawking noise. His eyes were bulging in terror. Linking both his arms around Kieran’s back from behind, Andy brought his hands in sharply under his ribs.
Bloody hell! A small black object shot out of his mouth in an arc and landed smack on Camilla’s chest as she came into the room. ‘What on earth is this?’ Wrinkling her nose, she picked up the offending sticky sweet and dropped it on to a passing drinks tray. ‘How absolutely disgusting!’
Kieran was slumped on the ground, gasping for air. His face was returning to his normal colour. He’d done it, Andy thought. Bloody hell, he’d done it.
‘DID UNCLE ANDY WIN, MUM? IS THERE ANOTHER ROUND?’
‘You saved me, mate!’ Kieran looked up at him with a mixture of shock and gratitude. ‘You saved my fucking life!’
‘Dad!’ A small boy with an urchin haircut flew up and landed in Kieran’s lap. ‘Are you OK?’ He glared up at Andy and put up his little fists. ‘Don’t you dare hurt my dad or I’ll kill yer.’
‘It’s OK, son!’ Kieran tenderly pressed his lips to his son’s cheek. ‘This bloke here was looking after your old dad.’ He lumbered to his feet. ‘Shit, I was scared. You hear of bleeders dying that way, don’t yer? Thought I was a gonner then.’
Pity you hadn’t been, Andy felt like saying. But Kieran was thrusting out his hand. ‘Never thought I’d say this, mate, but we’ll forget about all that other stuff. I owe you one now. Yes I do. Remember what we used to say in the home? A life for a life.’ He was pumping his hand harder now. ‘I don’t have much but I can be on your side. Trust me, Andy, if you ever need anything, all you have to do is ask.’