by Susan Lewis
They had another car now, a twelve-year-old Peugeot Estate which they’d have entered into the scrappage scheme had they been able to afford to change it, but they hadn’t. Lucy was keeping it for the time being to get herself, Hanna and their belongings to Gloucestershire, then she might be in a position to buy something newer and more reliable.
Would that cheer Hanna up, to go shopping for a new car? It would take a lot more than that, but please God the country air and new friends would start to free her gentle and loving daughter from the shell of aggression and hostility that currently imprisoned her.
‘Carlos’ll be here in ten minutes,’ Joe told her as she returned to the bedroom.
Tucking the toiletry bag into a front pocket of the holdall, she said, ‘I’d have given you a lift.’
He flashed her one of his disarmingly ironic smiles that seemed to say ‘I know, but I’ve decided to go my way, thanks.’
Though she was annoyed, she wasn’t going to allow herself to start rowing with him now, or her guilt would no doubt force her into saying plenty she’d end up regretting. Besides, it had all been said before, and though she really did detest herself for calling him a loser, as she had on more than one occasion, the fact that he went on so few auditions these days and was so rarely cast never seemed to suggest to him that it was time to start rethinking his career. He just kept plugging away at it, staying as upbeat as if his phone never stopped ringing, talking up his fifteen minutes a storm to anyone who’d listen, while suffering more let-downs and rejections than even a thick-skinned Jehovah’s Witness could surely have borne.
Joe never seemed to mind about being broke, probably, Lucy realised, because he could always come to her for what he needed, and scrape up the odd few days of work with his brothers. This was how he financed his club and gym memberships, shelled out for more than his fair share of rounds at the pub and took her somewhere for dinner a couple of times a month. Everything else was left to her, such as claiming their tax credits and child allowance – which had promptly halved on Ben’s sixteenth birthday – putting food on the table, clothes on their backs, paying bills, handing out pocket money … It never seemed to bother him that she was the main provider, and maybe it wouldn’t bother her so much if her job had allowed her the time to pick up a few qualifications along the way. As it was, in order to make ends meet, she had to grab as many hours as she could at the call centre where she’d been promoted to shift supervisor about eighteen months ago. Hardly the career dreams were made of, at least not hers, but the money wasn’t bad and someone had to keep a regular income flowing their way or they’d starve.
She’d worked her notice now and had sunk a few glasses with the girls last Friday night to celebrate her ‘great escape’, and the start of a brand-new life running her parents’ small auction house in Gloucestershire. Everyone had promised to stay in touch and even to be her best customers, but she knew it wouldn’t happen. Still, the sentiment and encouragement had been uplifting at the time, and she was definitely going to miss the female camaraderie that had sustained her through many a crisis during the years she’d been with them.
Hearing her mobile ringing in the kitchen, she left Joe to his packing and ran downstairs. By the time she got there the call had already bumped through to voicemail, so allowing a few minutes for Stephie to leave her message, she opened the back door to let in some air. Not quite the heady elixir that would soon be wafting her way from the countryside around Cromstone Edge, but the tantalising aroma of Indian cooking drifting down from the Taj Palace wasn’t entirely displeasing. In fact, she was probably going to miss it.
With a sigh she surveyed the mess in the backyard: old bikes, a broken lawnmower (and they didn’t even have a lawn), terracotta pots too chipped or cracked to bother taking with her, a rotary washing line with sagging wires and various other items of junk that needed to be dumped. Deciding to tackle it tomorrow, she turned back to the cluttered galley of a kitchen where, unsurprisingly, Hanna had failed to wash up as requested before leaving, and a pile of dirty laundry was slumped in front of the washing machine as though it had struggled to make it this far and now needed help over the finishing line. Since most of it was Ben’s she couldn’t blame Hanna, which had been her first inclination, but nor would she pick it up the way she usually did. It was high time both children learned that she wasn’t their skivvy, and Hanna at least was soon going to find out that when they arrived in their new home she intended to run a very different ship.
Good luck with that, she was thinking to herself as she reached for her phone, and not bothering to listen to Stephie’s message, she clicked to return the call and got straight through.
‘Hey,’ Stephie said warmly. ‘Can you talk? How’s it going?’
Glancing down the hall to where piles of shoes and bags were bunched up under the overloaded coat rack, Lucy said, ‘He’s still upstairs packing.’
‘You’re kidding! He’s actually going?’
‘He doesn’t have a choice, we’ve given our notice on this place.’
‘Oh my God. How are you feeling?’
‘Strange. Like I’m not really myself.’
‘I bet he’s feeling pretty weird too. I don’t know how you can do it, but at the same time I suppose I get where you’re coming from. Have you told your parents yet that he’s not coming with you?’
‘I spoke to Mum last night. She sounded a bit distracted, so I’m not sure she really took it in. Anyway, you know what she’s like, she usually finds a way to support my decisions rather than get into a fight, even if it means her darling son-in-law is being cut out of the loop.’
With a smile in her voice Stephie said, ‘She’s such a sweetie, your ma. I always hated having older parents myself, they were so stuck in the mud and out of touch with everything. By comparison yours are a dream.’
‘Believe me, you wouldn’t think so if you’d had to suffer growing up with them. It used to drive me nuts never being able to have a good row. Still, I suppose I’m making up for it now with Hanna.’ And Joe, she didn’t add.
‘Is she there?’
‘No, but hers could be the key I can hear, so brace yourself.’
Stephie chuckled as Lucy watched the front door open. Seeing the sour expression on her daughter’s young face, transforming her in one scowl from beauty to beast, she felt her insides contract with a mix of guilt and annoyance. ‘Are you OK?’ she said. ‘Where have you been?’
Throwing a viciously daggered look her mother’s way, Hanna tossed her hair extensions over one shoulder and flounced off up the stairs, no doubt to go and sympathise with her father – or to try again to persuade him to rescue her from the wicked witch who was threatening to turn her into ‘an ugly little country bumpkin’. Hanna was nothing if not melodramatic.
With a sigh Lucy returned to her call. ‘If only she was still the sweet little thing we used to know and love, she might be looking forward to this as much as I am. It could be a great adventure for us if she’d just enter into the spirit of it.’
‘She’ll be all right once you get there – or at least once she’s made some new friends.’
Trying not to wince at Hanna’s probable opinion of that, Lucy said, ‘I wonder what’s keeping Ben. He said he’d be back by four thirty and it’s almost a quarter to six. Maybe I ought to give him a call.’
‘Teenage boys are notoriously bad timekeepers which you know very well, having one of the worst culprits living under your roof. Where did he go?’
‘To Ali’s to sort out some last-minute travel plans. Ah, this must be him,’ and with a quick unravelling of relief she watched her handsome young son lope in through the door, all mussy dark hair and his father’s deep blue eyes.
‘Hey Mum,’ he called down the hall. ‘Where’s Dad? Is he still here?’
‘He’s upstairs,’ Lucy answered.
After propping his guitar against the wall, he took the stairs two at a time, shouting to let his father know that the rock god was comi
ng his way.
Smiling and feeling terrible, Lucy said to Stephie, ‘I suppose I ought to go and join them. Are you doing anything later?’
‘Would you believe, the security guard called again, so I’m seeing him tonight. I know I should have played harder to get, but hey, life’s short and I’m desperate, so why waste time with games? They never work anyway, or not for me.’
‘I thought you said he was boring and smelled of must.’
‘It’s a Saturday night and the sun’s shining,’ Stephie wailed, ‘anything’s better than staying at home on my own. You know, I’ve been thinking about getting a sperm donor, but we can discuss that another time. Maybe when I come to stay for a weekend. I’ll call later, or tomorrow to find out how everything went. Good luck, and I still say you’re mad, but hey, what do I know?’
Aware how unlikely it was that Stephie would ever visit for a weekend, Lucy tried to stop herself feeling bad for not minding too much, and gathered up a linen basket full of clean sheets. As she started to climb the stairs she was wondering if she should embark on the next family scene by asking Ben to bring the last two suitcases down from the attic. Or should she try to avoid it altogether and go and lock herself in the shed?
Chapter Two
‘AHA, HERE SHE is! The light of our lives.’
Joe was grinning boyishly as he sat astride the old dining chair they used as a dressing-table stool, elbows propped on the spindle back and heels hooked on to the bottom rungs. Ben, like an ad from Calvin Klein, was stretched out on the bed, hands locked behind his head, hairy midriff on show, while Hanna, all teary eyes and pinched rosebud lips, was glaring at her mother through smudged circles of Revlon’s Fantasy Lash.
This was her family, the people who meant more to her than anything else in the world, who gave purpose to her existence – or certainly the children did – and yet she was breaking up their home. Lucy’s heart churned with still more misgivings.
‘I was just explaining,’ Joe told her, ‘that all this is like a temporary thing. Once you’ve got a handle on what’s what down there, and I’ve got my act together here, we’ll all be together again. Right?’
In spite of knowing he’d never get his act together, and even if he did she’d never return here, nor would he decamp to the country, Lucy said, ‘Of course.’
‘And you’ll be going to visit them in Glos, won’t you?’ Ben chipped in.
‘Yeah, but it’s hardly going to be the same as having him with us all the time,’ Hanna protested belligerently, ‘and how many more times do I have to tell you? I don’t want to go to effing Gloucestershire. I hate it there and I don’t see why I can’t stay here with Dad.’
‘Language,’ Lucy warned.
Hanna’s eyes flashed. ‘I said effing, for God’s sake. It’s a letter of the alphabet with ing on the end.’
‘I told you, sweetheart,’ Joe broke in gently, ‘that you’ll be more than welcome to stay with me whenever you come to London, once I’ve found myself somewhere to live, that is.’
Hanna almost exploded. ‘We’ve got somewhere to live,’ she shouted. ‘We’re in it, now, so why do we have to leave just because she’s decided we have to? There are four of us in this family, so how come she gets to make all the decisions? What happened to democracy, that’s what I want to know?’
‘You’re always saying this place is a dump,’ Lucy reminded her. ‘I thought you’d be glad to get out of it.’
‘Yes, to somewhere bigger and smarter and round here where all my friends and family are. Not to the back of sodding beyond with a bunch of cows and stinking fields.’
‘You always enjoy Cromstone when we go to see Granny and Grandpa …’
‘Oh, do me a favour. It’s hardly the same as living there, is it?’
‘Just think of that lovely big farmhouse,’ Joe came in loyally. ‘You’ve already got a bedroom and bathroom there all to yourself, and there’s Sky Plus and a dishwasher …’
‘I couldn’t give a fuck about all that. Everyone I know is here and so are you.’
‘I won’t be,’ Ben reminded her, with one of his more devilish grins.
‘So?’
He appeared mystified. ‘How could you not want to be wherever I am?’
‘Well that’s not exactly an option, is it?’ she snarled.
‘But it’s going to be my home when I come back.’
‘Yeah, till you go off to uni. Oh shut up,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t get you going along with all this when you love it round here as much as I do, and all the girls are fat down there with buck teeth and spots. Which is what you’re going to turn me into,’ she shouted furiously at her mother.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Lucy told her. ‘Living in the country is hardly going to change the way you look, apart from putting a bit of natural colour in your cheeks, which’ll be a nice change from all that cheap blusher.’ She was sounding like her own mother now, which was a bit scary. ‘Anyway, you’ve always got along very well with Juliette who lives at the pub, and she certainly doesn’t fit that description. In fact she’s a very pretty girl and I already happen to know that you’re going to be in the same class when you start the new school, which I’m told she’s really looking forward to.’
Stuck for a suitably biting retort, Hanna slammed her eyes and turned away.
‘I reckon,’ Joe declared, ‘that by the time I come to see you you’ll already have a dozen new friends and at least as many boys chasing after you.’
No boys, Lucy was thinking with a shudder.
‘Yeah, like that’s really going to happen now she’s signed me up for an all-girls school,’ Hanna snorted. ‘And that’s another thing, I don’t want to go to a new bloody school. I was getting on perfectly all right where I am until she decided to absolutely totally and completely ruin my life.’
Lucy looked at Joe.
‘She is,’ Hanna insisted when her father shook his head in dismay. ‘That’s absolutely what she’s doing. In fact I might just as well commit suicide now, at least it’ll be quicker than dying of boredom.’
Before Lucy could respond, a loud knocking reverberated through the house.
‘Can only be Carlos,’ Joe said, starting to get up.
‘Noooo!’ Hanna wailed, running to him. ‘I’m not going to let you go. You can’t. It’s not fair. You belong here with us. It’s only her who wants things to change. We want everything to stay the same so make it, Dad. Please.’
‘Ssh, sweetheart,’ he soothed, holding her close and kissing the top of her head. ‘Don’t get yourself into a state now. Everything’s going to be fine, you just wait and see.’
‘How can it be when she’s chucking you out and forcing us to go and live somewhere we don’t want to? It’s all her fault. Make her go, Dad, and we can stay here.’
Joe’s eyes flicked to Lucy’s. ‘Don’t be daft,’ he said, his expression seeming to remind her that she’d brought this on herself, and actually Hanna might have a plan. ‘We’ve given notice on the house now, you know that,’ he told his daughter, ‘and you don’t want to stay here, really. Think how cold it is in winter, the way the wind whistles in through the windows and Jack Frost creeps in under the doors.’
‘But it’s not winter, it’s summer and I’ve arranged to do loads of stuff with my friends these holidays. I was even going to Spain with Beth and her family, until she said I couldn’t go.’
Feeling every bit as wretched as she was supposed to, though relieved since she had no great liking for Beth or her family, Lucy said, ‘I’ll go and answer the door before Carlos knocks it down.’
‘No, wait,’ Joe interrupted. ‘You go, son, and take your sister with you.’
‘No way! I’m staying here with you,’ Hanna protested.
‘I want to talk to Mum,’ Joe said gently, ‘so go and wait downstairs, there’s a good girl. I’m not going to leave without saying cheerio, so don’t worry about that.’
It was still all too much for Hanna. ‘Please don’t
go, Dad, please,’ she wailed, tightening her arms around him.
‘Ssh, sssh, I told you, it’s all going to be fine,’ he murmured, stroking her hair. His eyes suddenly rounded and came to Lucy’s in confusion as he lifted a hand – he was clutching a fistful of ponytail.
Ben gave a choke of laughter. ‘Oh boy, are you in trouble now,’ he warned.
‘What?’ Hanna snorted, turning round.
Joe was trying not to laugh, so was Lucy.
Seeing what had happened Hanna snatched the hairpiece back, saying, ‘Well, I’m glad you think it’s funny,’ and shrugging her father off she stormed furiously out of the room.
‘Carlos,’ Ben said, performing an acrobatic-style leap off the bed as though Carlos’s second rapping had somehow motored him.
Once he’d gone Joe stood looking at the open door for a moment, the humour fading from his eyes as the strain of what was happening began to crack his cheery mask.
Lucy took a breath. ‘Before you say anything …’
‘Listen,’ he interrupted, putting up a hand. ‘This is a big gamble you’re taking with all our lives, but I understand why you’re doing it, and for Hanna’s sake I’m on your side. I just want you to know that I love you all and what’s happening here is breaking my heart.’
Though she might have buckled under that sort of pressure once, she’d learned over the years how convincingly he could turn it on when he wanted to, and more often than not it would be in an attempt to make her feel even worse than she already did.
Unfortunately he was close to succeeding.
‘If you decide you want to come with us,’ she heard herself saying, ‘well, that’s fine by me.’ No it wasn’t, it was the last thing she wanted. Why did she always have to be so damned weak?
He cocked a sceptical eyebrow. ‘Really?’ he challenged.
Was she going to lie now and risk him accepting? Or was she going to tell him what in his heart he must surely already know, that she wasn’t in love with him any more, and that she owed it to herself to stop the pretending so she could get on with her life? The trouble was, she still cared about him enough to hate hurting him, especially when he was looking at her the way he was now. So in the end she said, ‘You know how hard Mum and Dad have worked to make the auctions what they are, so it’s a measure of how much they trust us to be handing it all over like this.’