Stolen

by Susan Lewis

  Coming from such a different world herself – the only child of a modest and somewhat nomadic couple, thanks to her father’s job setting up new offices for a multinational insurance company – when Lucy had first met Joe she’d been totally captivated by his fame and family and the whole nine yards of what it meant to belong to the same community for generations, dubious though some of the connections might be. It was everything she’d ever dreamed of: being part of a neighbourhood where everyone knew each other, the children played together, the men all supported West Ham, and the women exchanged recipes and beauty tips. To quote Joe, their part of London was as tight as a boxer’s fist, and don’t let anyone try to mess with them or they’d be sorry.

  They’d met when Lucy was only seventeen and Joe was twenty-eight and starring in the soap as an East End bad boy. The nation had loved him back then, and so had she from the minute she’d started her work experience as a runner on the set of his show. She’d been in her first year of sixth-form college at the time, but once they’d realised how they felt about each other – or, perhaps more accurately, once they’d found out she was pregnant – all thoughts of further education and dazzling careers were banished from her mind. Joe Winters was so madly in love with her that he wanted to marry her and have at least five kids with her. She was going to be the wife of Joe Winters, who half the nation’s women were swooning over! It was no wonder it turned her teenage head, especially after all the years she’d spent on the outside, always the new girl in class, the one who was teased and ostracised and made to feel worthless and ashamed. How she’d longed to see the faces of her tormentors when her photograph appeared in the papers with Joe Winters! And her dear, gentle parents, poked fun at by everyone for being so old, had been as won over by the roguish Billy Crowther, aka Joe Winters, as she was, so had simply shared her joy and barely even mentioned her age, or lost opportunities.

  What a curse a little bit of fame could be, she often thought now. Had Joe simply been the bloke next door, with dodgy prospects and an equally dodgy reputation, would her parents have been so lenient, or welcoming, then? Come to think of it, would she have been as smitten? The answer was probably yes, because he’d been so heart-stoppingly good-looking and full of charm that it was hard to imagine how any starry-eyed girl of her age could have managed to resist him, fame or not.

  It wasn’t so hard now she was in her mid-thirties, and the sense of belonging she’d always craved had dwindled in the first few years. It was odd how having two children of her own, two brothers- and sisters-in-law, four nieces, three nephews, a father-in-law and dozens of extended family still hadn’t managed to make her feel as though she fitted in. She wished she could understand what was wrong with her, why nothing, apart from her children, ever seemed to feel right, but the only answer either she, or her mother, could come up with was that she’d never got over being an only child with no aunts or uncles or cousins to help fill her world, since her parents had been only children too. The sense of isolation, and of feeling so apart from everyone else, particularly when she’d changed schools so often, must be so deeply imbedded in her that maybe it would never go away.

  Perversely, she could only be glad now that she did still feel like an outsider, because leaving would have been so much harder if she were trying to disentangle emotional ties. Not that it was going to be easy saying goodbye to all the tradespeople she’d come to know and respect, and it wasn’t as if she didn’t care for Joe’s family at all, because she did. However, she had to move Hanna away from here before things got any worse than they already were.

  ‘You’re a bloody snob, that’s what you are,’ Hanna had raged when Lucy had first told her they were leaving. ‘Everyone says it about you. You think you’re better, just because you speak with a stupid stuck-up accent and you started up an effing book club. But you only do the same job as Auntie Sandra down the call centre, and at the end of the day your shit smells too.’

  Recalling the coarseness, Lucy winced. Hanna might be extremely pretty, with Joe’s blond hair and blue eyes, and she might have a TDF – to die for – figure, but being lovely on the outside was no guarantee of being the same within. OK, she was a teenager so being headstrong and challenging was only to be expected, but the way Hanna was carrying on went far beyond what Lucy was prepared to tolerate. Just thank God she hadn’t fallen pregnant yet, but two of her friends were already mothers and at least three had had terminations. Thankfully, Hanna had asked to go on the pill when she was fourteen, but even so Lucy detested the idea that she was having sex so young, especially with the kind of boys to whom she seemed attracted. Even Joe, who usually let Hanna get away with just about anything, had started to take a dim view of the crowd she was hanging out with. Not that he’d spoken to her about it, he didn’t see that as his role, but he was prepared to agree with Lucy that Hanna needed a firmer hand. He especially didn’t like to think of her rolling around drunk with her friends, mouthing off at the police and staggering into gutters, where her brother had found her on one memorable occasion. Thank God Ben had brought her home before anything worse could happen, and while Joe had dutifully sat next to her bed to make sure she didn’t choke on her own vomit Ben had talked seriously to his mother.

  ‘You’ve got to do something about it,’ he’d told her. ‘She’s putting herself in real danger getting smashed like that.’

  ‘I know, and I am doing something,’ Lucy had assured him. ‘I haven’t told her yet, but when she breaks up for the summer we’re leaving this house and we won’t be coming back.’

  The way Ben’s sleepy blue eyes widened with interest had made her heart sing with love. Unlike Hanna, nothing ever seemed to faze him.

  ‘You know how Granny and Grandpa have always wanted me to take over the business one day?’ she’d continued. ‘Well, I’ve had a long chat with them and it’s going to happen sooner rather than later.’

  Ben was clearly impressed. ‘Cool,’ he responded. ‘Are you pleased? Sure you are, you’ve been dying to do it.’

  Lucy wanted to hug him. He was the only person in her world who seemed to understand her need to make more of her life, and moreover he never took it personally, or tried to make it about him, the way Joe and Hanna did. ‘I’d always intended to wait till Hanna went to uni,’ she reminded him, ‘but with the way things are I’m not even sure uni’s still on her agenda. If I could see her doing what you did at her age, working to save up for a gap year, studying for your exams, I wouldn’t dream of making her change schools now. I went through that too often myself to want to inflict it on her, but there’s no doubt in my mind that I have to get her out of where she is.’

  ‘You’re doing the right thing,’ Ben assured her. ‘They’re a real waste of space, the kids she’s hooked up with. A couple of them even carry knives.’

  Though Lucy had guessed this, hearing Ben confirm it had made her more anxious than ever to get the move under way.

  ‘So what’s going to happen? Will you live with Granny and Grandpa?’ he asked.

  ‘Only when we first get there. Once we’re settled they’re going to move to the cottage on Exmoor. Grandpa’s not getting any younger, and Granny’s quite keen for him to retire, so the summer holidays seemed like the perfect time for them to hand over to me. That way Hanna will have a few weeks to acclimatise before she starts her new school – and you’ll already be off on your travels so I won’t have to worry about you.’

  Ben’s grin was mischievous.

  ‘All right,’ Lucy conceded, ‘of course I’ll worry, we both know that, but at least I won’t be interrupting your education or taking you away from a home you don’t want to leave.’

  Seeming to approve of the logic, Ben said, ‘So where does Dad fit into all this? Don’t tell me he’s going to give up living round here.’

  ‘No, he isn’t, but he accepts that it would be best for Hanna to continue her education at a private school near Granny and Grandpa’s. We’ll have the money to pay for it once they’ve sig
ned everything over to me, which is happening even as we speak.’

  ‘Wicked,’ Ben murmured. ‘So you’re going to be rich?’

  ‘Not exactly, but we’ll have a house that belongs to us and a thriving business to help keep things going.’

  ‘And Dad’s going to do what?’

  With a guilty sigh Lucy said, ‘He’s decided to move in with Uncle Charlie and Auntie Kell for the time being. Their house is much bigger than ours and we’re not sure he can keep up the rent on this place on his own.’ He wouldn’t have been able to pay a mortgage either, if they had one, but since the dark days, back in the mid-nineties when they’d had their home repossessed, they’d never managed to get on the property ladder again. Of course her parents had offered to help, but having learned the hard way how unreliable, even irresponsible, Joe was when it came to money, Lucy had flatly refused to let them take the risk. ‘But he’ll be coming to see us at weekends,’ she told Ben brightly, while not adding that she actually wished he wouldn’t, because more than anything she’d have liked to make this a trial separation between them. However, Hanna was going to find it hard enough being uprooted as it was: if she thought she was hardly ever going to see her precious daddy, Lucy was afraid of what she might do.

  ‘So when are you going to tell Hanna?’

  Lucy swallowed. ‘Soon, and I know it won’t be pretty.’

  How right she’d been about that, because it really hadn’t been. In fact it was so ugly at first that even Joe had ended up raising his voice to the girl, which had the happy result of making her run away. For two days and two nights they searched the neighbourhood, interrogated her friends, enlisted the help of the school and eventually the police. When she’d finally turned up looking a total wreck and sobbing her heart out, the reek of booze and relief that she was safe had finally convinced Joe that his hallowed turf was no longer the right place for his little angel to be. Until then Lucy had been half afraid that when the time came Hanna would manage to cajole him into letting her stay with him in London, and faced with that she really wouldn’t have known what to do.

  Fortunately that was no longer an issue. There were plenty of others still to be dealt with, however, not least of which was how much she was hurting Joe by leaving.

  ‘Personally, I think you’re off your head letting him go,’ Stephie, one of his cousins, had told her. Stephie had no idea what Joe was really like, because she wasn’t married to him. In fact, she wasn’t married to anyone, but would give almost anything to be a wife. ‘You don’t want to know what it’s like out here,’ she cried passionately. ‘The chances of meeting anyone else, or anyone sane, with hair and teeth and a decent job are next to zero, especially at your age.’ Since Stephie, who was thirty, was a serial dater thanks to Match.com and various other Internet sites, Lucy was willing to accept that she had superior knowledge when it came to the foreign land of Sad and Single.

  However, Lucy didn’t want to meet anyone else. That wasn’t what this was about at all. Now she was standing here watching Joe sorting his belongings into one of the holdalls they’d taken on honeymoon, so many happy memories were drifting in from forgotten lanes that she found herself wondering what he’d say if she told him she’d changed her mind. Not about going to Gloucestershire, it was far too late for that, and besides she could hardly wait to get there, but did she really want to view this as a trial separation? After all the agonised discussions, tears, fighting, persuading and even the occasional threat, would Joe be willing to carry on now as though she’d never even suggested such a thing? Knowing him as well as she did, she guessed he’d open his arms and smile in the way that always used to melt her heart, and tell her that all he ever wanted was to make her happy. He genuinely believed that was the truth, because he’d managed long ago to convince himself that she came first, when in actual fact no one ever mattered more to Joe than Joe himself. Which made him sound selfish and egotistical, inconsiderate and disrespectful, and he was indeed all of those things, but there was a lot more to him besides, such as his generosity and love of fun, willingness to help old people across the street and kindness to animals.

  Why hadn’t her marriage been a success, she wondered. Was it her fault? It couldn’t have been all his, so what was wrong with her?

  Why did nothing ever feel right? Even when things were going her way and she had every reason to be happy, all too often the shadows of unease and doubt would start looming in a way that made her feel out of kilter with her world and even sometimes estranged from those she loved. Well, perhaps not from her parents and children, but certainly from Joe, and the craziest part of it was that the longer they stayed together the more distanced from him she seemed to feel.

  Why was that happening? Should she try to discuss it with him? She knew she should, yet at the same time she knew she wouldn’t. All she did was continue watching him pack and wonder how far she would let him go before she suddenly blurted out something she’d very likely end up regretting.

  ‘You keeping an eye on me in case I steal your jewels?’ he teased, as he stuffed a pile of unpressed boxers into the holdall. She could have ironed them for him, she thought with a pang of guilt. She always used to. She’d forgotten now when she’d stopped. Had it been to punish him for being more like a child than a man, dependent, stubborn, always wanting his own way unless her needs happened to chime with his own, when he could put on such a convincing act of being the most big-hearted husband in town that even she was taken in?

  She didn’t have any jewels.

  Remembering a time when they used to say what’s mine is yours and had never even imagined dividing their assets, she said, ‘We’re doing the right thing.’

  His arresting blue eyes came to hers in a way that made it hard for her to meet them. ‘Yes, we are,’ he agreed, ‘so don’t go upsetting yourself now. It’s a brave decision you’ve taken and hard as it is now, for both of us, I don’t have any doubts that everything will turn out for the best.’

  This could only mean that he was happy for her to go, because if he weren’t he’d be stomping about and throwing a Hanna-style tantrum, making her feel even worse about breaking up their home than she already did. And if he was happy for her to go it had to be because he already had something, or someone else, waiting to take her place. ‘What do you think is the best?’ she asked hoarsely. ‘That we get back together, or end up going our separate ways for good?’

  Coming to stand in front of her, he cupped a hand round her face and gazed into her eyes. ‘What’s best,’ he said, ‘is that you do whatever needs to be done to become the woman you think you might have been, if I hadn’t turned you into a wife and mother when you were still not much more than a baby yourself.’

  Her laugh was mangled by a sob. ‘I was a willing party,’ she reminded him, ‘and I wouldn’t change a thing.’

  The irony that tilted his smile crushed her with yet more guilt, because they both knew that given half a chance she’d probably change everything.

  ‘I know I made you a lot of promises that I haven’t been able to keep,’ he said, going back to his packing, ‘so I’m hoping this will turn out to be a good opportunity for me to try and sort myself out too.’

  Why was she feeling so bad about not asking him to come, when she knew very well that he wouldn’t even if she did? He’d always been adamant about that, and she definitely didn’t want him ruining her plans, which he almost certainly would given his enthusiasm for bending and stretching laws, plus his complete aversion to paying taxes or bills if he could get away with it. They’d have been in trouble by the end of the year and possibly in prison by the end of the next. His reckless generosity with other people’s money, including hers, was why they still didn’t own a house, or a car that could manage more than a dozen journeys without breaking down, or many of the trappings that most average families could boast these days.

  Glancing at his mobile as it started to ring, she left him to answer the call and went off to the bathroom to start
sorting his shaving gear and toothbrush into a spare toiletry bag. When she picked up his cologne the smell seemed to wrap around her like an embrace. She reached for the towel he’d used that morning and held it to her face. It was as though he’d already gone and she was trying to conjure him out of the essences he’d left behind.

  By this time next week they’d all be gone. This shabby terraced house where they’d lived for the past sixteen years, a stone’s throw from the high street, would be a partly furnished shell with no voices or music, or love, or laughter bringing it to life. It would stand silently waiting for the next tenants to come and revive it with a whole new set of characters and a story that Lucy guessed she’d probably never know. Whoever they were, she hoped they’d be as happy here as she had often been, and didn’t suffer anything like the same heartaches and frustrations.

  ‘No one’s life is perfect,’ Joe had reminded her on more occasions than she cared to recall. ‘It’s only you who seems to think it’s possible.’

  But it wasn’t perfection she was after, it was something else that she couldn’t quite define, but it had to do with stability and feeling as though everything was worthwhile, and for some reason she hadn’t been able to find it here. Maybe in Gloucestershire, with a home and business of her own, she would finally feel settled and stop this restless searching for she knew not what.

  In the bedroom Joe was finishing his call. ‘… sure, yeah. No rush, whenever you can get here.’

  Guessing it was Carlos, one of his actor chums, who’d offered to come and help him move over to Charlie’s while Charlie and Kell were in Tenerife, Lucy continued the dispiriting task of removing her husband’s toiletries from the forest of those left behind. It was kind of Carlos to help out, but since he only had a car because Joe had sold him their old one for less than half its worth, as that was all Carlos could afford, in Lucy’s opinion Carlos jolly well should be chauffeuring his mate around.