Jonathan, who was seated at the kitchen table poring over some correspondence, didn’t look quite so good though. ‘Problem?’ David asked, heading for a kick of caffeine to get the day started.
Jonathan glanced up. ‘Rebuilding costs,’ he said, kneading his forehead. ‘Pretty steep.’
He’d organised an estimate then. From his hospital bed? ‘But the insurance will cover it, right?’ Biting back his cynicism, which was probably more to do with him not warming to the man, David took a good slug of coffee, then reached into the fridge for milk and bread, cereal and toast being all that was available until he sorted out shopping – and how many he needed to shop for.
Dumping the stuff on the table, he went to fetch cereal from the cupboard. ‘You do have buildings and contents, I take it?’
‘Sorry? What?’ Jonathan looked up as David came back to the table.
‘Insurance. I was just wondering whether you were adequately covered?’
‘That’s my line.’ Jonathan gave him a short smile, shuffled his paperwork together and got to his feet. ‘I run my own financial services company, so obviously I would be adequately covered, wouldn’t I?’ He reached for his cup, knocked back the dregs of his coffee and headed for the hall.
Watching him go, David sighed inwardly. Damn it, what was the matter with him, reading something into the guy’s every gesture? Wasn’t he bound to be worrying about how to provide for his family and get them all back under one roof? It was none of his business. Any of it. And frankly, he didn’t need or want to be embroiled in other people’s problems. Hadn’t he got enough of his own? David cautioned himself to get off Jonathan Eden’s case. He was probably doing a hell of a better job supporting his family than David had done supporting his.
He couldn’t avoid overhearing, though, as Eden shouted to Andrea, rather than going in to her, that he’d see her later. Clearly, he was now keen to be off again, for whatever reason. David debated what that reason might be on a Saturday. Something more important than sorting out practicalities with his family, presumably.
As in sorting out his affairs. Topping up the coffee filter, David shook his head, despairing of himself. The man was self-employed, ergo any paperwork he had pertaining to insurance detail would probably be in his office. No doubt Jonathan and Andrea had discussed it and, in any case, it had absolutely nothing to do with him. Flicking the switch, he headed after Jonathan into the hall. ‘Jake, Ryan, breakfast’s up!’ he called up the stairs on his way to the lounge.
‘There’s toast and cereal in the kitchen,’ he said, going in to find Andrea embroiled in her own problems: how to clothe her family from the contents of the charity bags, which immediately refocused his thinking.
As much as he would quite like his lounge free of Dee, who was currently solo waltzing around the coffee table wearing a circa sixties white taffeta dress, and ecstatic though he might be to reclaim his armchair and iPod station, which Sophie was currently plugged into, David wasn’t about to push them to go anywhere until they were ready.
‘How goes the battle?’ He glanced to where Andrea was sitting cross-legged on the floor, Chloe nestled in front of her, kitted out in a cap ten sizes too big and a scarf that would go twice around the village hall.
Andrea smiled. ‘Wearily. Not much in the designer department, I’m afraid.’
‘Anything worth salvaging?’ David asked, wondering whether he could help in some way, though he wasn’t sure he was really up for sorting through clothing, especially women’s clothing.
‘Wouldn’t bother if I were you. It’s all totally pants,’ Sophie commented, iPod volume not at ear-piercing level then, David deduced.
‘Bloomers, actually,’ Dee imparted, skidding her waltz to an inelegant halt to hitch up her dress, where indeed were bloomers – big enough to fit Nellie the Elephant.
‘Oh, that is sooo gross.’ Sophie curled a lip at the sight of her gran’s pale knees and reached for the TV remote.
‘Mum, stop it!’ Andrea hissed, her cheeks flushing – rather becomingly, David thought.
‘Stop what?’ Dee blinked innocently. ‘I have my own drawers on underneath, all clean and well paid for,’ she said, then, taking hold of her invisible partner, she continued to waltz.
Andrea closed one eye in a wince. ‘Oh, Lord, sorry.’
‘It’s not a problem.’ David smiled and glanced at Chloe, who clapped delightedly, and then almost disappeared under the cap, which plopped over her eyes.
‘Whoops.’ David decided he should consign his own worries to the backburner and do something practical. ‘Here, let me help.’
‘Thanks.’ Andrea took the hand he offered and heaved herself to her feet. ‘To be honest, I’m thinking the only way to sort through this lot is to tip it all over the floor.’
‘Tip away. But you might want to lighten your child’s darkness first.’ David nodded at Chloe, who, thumbs under her cap, was in danger of rearranging her nostrils as she tried to find her face.
‘Dunno why you don’t just bin the lot,’ Sophie muttered as she flicked through the channels on the TV, one leg bobbing lazily over the arm of her chair.
‘Right.’ Andrea plucked an item of clothing from the upturned contents of one of the bags. ‘So I’ll chuck the Firetrap jeans Sally donated then, shall I?’
‘Yerwhat?’ Sophie’s head twizzled on her neck.
Andrea glanced conspiratorially at David, who’d crouched down to reacquaint Chloe with her face. ‘Along with anything else in this bag,’ Andrea went on, holding up a carrier bag which obviously did house one or two coveted labels.
‘Selfridges & Co? Like, wow!’ Sophie was off the armchair and across the room in a flash. ‘OhmyGod.’ Her eyes grew wide, like a child’s eyes falling on Christmas presents under the tree. ‘OhmyGod! Warehouse stuff, look! And Armani cosmetics. This is so totally wicked.’
David glanced at Andrea, bemused.
‘Wicked’s in again, apparently,’ she informed him.
‘Ah.’ David nodded, not sure he knew it had gone out.
‘I am sooo made up.’ Sophie jigged up and down, clutching the cosmetics to her chest – with which David assumed she would soon be ‘made up’, and then twirling on the spot as Dee danced around her.
David laughed, he couldn’t help himself. ‘I thought you said it was me who was mad.’
‘Takes one to know one,’ Andrea assured him, plopping a knitted beanie on her head. Turning to face him, she tugged the beanie close around her face, beamed him a smile – and completely took David’s breath away.
She was beautiful.
Her red and gold hair tumbling carelessly around her shoulders and a smile so radiant, she could light up Blackpool on her own. ‘You could give Julia Roberts a run for her money,’ he said, feeling slightly off kilter.
‘Do you know he’s right, you could.’ Dee gazed at her daughter and then turned to David with a heartfelt sigh. ‘She’d make a wonderful prostitute.’
‘Yes. Thank you, Mum.’ Andrea’s smile slipped a bit.
‘Pretty woman,’ Dee launched into song, oblivious.
Andrea rolled her eyes good-naturedly. ‘Livin’ on the street,’ she picked up, giving her hips a cute little wiggle.
‘Pretty woman, the kind I like to meet,’ Sophie joined in, parking her make-up on the coffee table and then plucking Chloe from her nest of strewn about clothes to dance her around in a circle.
‘Pretty woman, I don’t be-lieve y-o-u,’ Dee crooned on tunelessly, now cheek-to-cheek with Andrea.
‘No one could look as good as you,’ Andrea sang with gusto, all three women then launching into the instrumental bit in unison.
‘Mur-cy,’ Sophie finished in baritone tones.
David laughed out loud. ‘Utterly mad.’
‘Totally,’ Sophie concurred, catching Dee’s hand with her own free hand for an underarm twirl.
‘As hatters.’ Andrea plucked off her beanie, bowed, then beamed; and then straightened her face as she l
ooked past David to the door.
David followed her gaze.
Damn. He cursed silently, noting the thunderous look on his son’s face. There was a time and a place for carefree frivolity, and their lounge – with a whole other family, when Jake had lost such a huge part of his – wasn’t it. Raking a hand through his hair, David walked over to him. ‘Hey, Jake, how’s it going? We were just …’ He stopped, searching for a way to explain. Andrea and her family were only there until their own house was habitable, but still it must seem to Jake as if she was trying to replace his mother.
‘Sorting through the clothes people have kindly donated,’ Andrea supplied, ‘before Ryan’s forced to go out chatting up babes in his less than cool boxers.’
Jake’s expression didn’t alter. He glanced at Andrea and then dragged derisive eyes back to David.
David placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘You are going to get some breakfast, Jake, before you and Ryan go—’
Jake pulled away. ‘Not hungry.’
Right. David blew out a breath. ‘Jake, you either eat something, or you don’t get to go into town today. Your choice.’
‘Whatever.’ Jake turned to walk towards the stairs, shrugging scrawny shoulders under his rugby shirt as he went.
‘Jake!’ David called after him.
‘What?’ Jake didn’t turn back.
‘The kitchen’s that way. Get some breakfast, please,’ David said calmly, though his patience was wearing thin. How the hell was he going to get Jake to talk to him, if they couldn’t even communicate on a rudimentary level?
Jake did turn around then. ‘Why?’ he asked, his eyes holding a defiant challenge.
‘Because I said so, Jake.’
‘And what gives you the right to tell me what to do?’ Jake demanded, his expression now bordering on hatred.
So here it was. Standoff time. Jake’s fury about to be unleashed and David had no clue how to respond. ‘I’m your dad, Jake,’ he tried, sounding feeble, even to his own ears. ‘If I ask you to do something, it’s because I—’
‘Care?’ Jake gauged him through narrowed eyes. ‘Yeah, right,’ he sneered, and turned away.
‘Jake …’ David counted silently to five. ‘You either do as I say and eat something, or you’re grounded.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ Jake walked on up the stairs. ‘Yadda yadda yadda.’
‘I mean it, Jake.’
‘Whatever.’
David tried very hard to remain calm. ‘Jake, come back down, please.’
Jake stopped on the stairs, breathing hard, his shoulders tense. ‘No,’ he said shortly.
‘Now, Jake!’
Jake whirled around. ‘No!’ He swiped a hot, angry tear from his face. ‘I’m not doing anything you say! Why should I?’ he shouted.
How David wished he could close the gap, climb the stairs, hold him. Tell the kid to hit him, kick him, whatever it took to make him feel better. ‘Jake, come on …’ He took a tentative step towards him.
‘Get stuffed!’ Jake stopped him in his tracks. ‘You don’t care about me. You don’t care about anybody. You didn’t even care about Mum!’
David felt the blood drain from his face. He couldn’t do this. He swallowed hard. Not here. Not now. In front of … He glanced back at Andrea, his own breathing heavy. ‘I …’ he started, shook his head and took another step forwards. ‘Jake …’
‘No!’ Jake yelled. ‘You never cared about her. You never did that with her.’ He nodded towards the lounge. ‘Mum never laughed after she was ill when you were around. Never!’ Jake’s expression told David all he needed to know. Jake did hate him, with every bone in his body. He’d every right to. David knew it. And it hurt more than anything had ever done in his life.
‘Let me try,’ Andrea suggested gently as Jake turned on his heel and flew up the stairs.
David looked at her bewildered, incapable of coordinating his thoughts let alone his speech.
‘We have a bereavement plan in place at the school,’ Andrea explained. ‘To help children like Jake cope. He might let me talk to him. You never know.’
‘He’s good in a crisis,’ Andrea went on, talking to herself, as she had been for the last five minutes. Still Jake refused to acknowledge her, his expression stony, his eyes fixed to his PC, but so full of turmoil it wrenched at Andrea’s heart.
‘He has to use a satnav to find the kitchen, but he makes a mean Pepsi Max,’ she went on, expounding her son’s dubious culinary skills.
Still no response.
‘A cup of tea is beyond him, unfortunately, which Ryan’s always at pains to point out,’ Andrea chatted on, ‘he being a man and therefore incapable of multitasking, he says, i.e. putting teabags in the cups whilst boiling the kettle.’
Silence was Jake’s answer.
‘Of course, this is after he’s hilariously balanced the kettle on his head, because I’ve made the fatal mistake of asking him to put the kettle on.’ Andrea waited, wondering what on earth she could say that might at least elicit some response, however small.
Jake shrugged, then … Yes! There it was, a definite upward twitch to his mouth. ‘I’ll go and see if he’s managed to negotiate his way to your kitchen yet, shall I, before we dehydrate up here?’
Jake nodded. Definitely progress, Andrea thought, heading for the door. Pepsi Max and chocolate biscuits were probably not the balanced breakfast David had in mind, but at least Jake might eat something if she and Ryan joined him.
‘He doesn’t talk about her,’ Jake blurted, behind her.
Andrea turned back. ‘Do you want him to, Jake?’
Jake dragged his forearm hurriedly across his eyes. ‘Uh-huh.’ He nodded, obviously trying hard to force back his tears. ‘He never says anything. It’s like he’s scared or something. Like the kids at school, where I went before. No one ever asked me about Mum after she died. No one ever said anything. They just looked, and whispered stuff to each other.’
Andrea parked herself back down next to him, as close as she dared without invading his space. ‘Why was that Jake, do you think?’
Another shrug.
‘Because they thought it might make you sad, possibly?’
‘Maybe,’ Jake acknowledged. ‘The thing is …’ he hesitated ‘… it does make me sad sometimes, really sad. But I want to talk about her. She was my mum.’ He glanced at Andrea as if he couldn’t quite understand why people didn’t get it.
‘I’m sure your mum knew you loved her, Jake. Mums do, you know? It’s instinctive. We feel it in here.’ Andrea placed a hand over her heart.
Jake’s eyes slid towards her again. ‘She said she was scared. Scared for him.’
‘Your dad?’ Andrea probed softly.
Jake nodded. ‘She said she was scared for me, too, but that she knew that I knew she’d always love me and watch out for me. She didn’t think he … knew she loved him, though.’
Andrea took a breath, her heart breaking for this little boy and his lost father. ‘Adults don’t see things so clearly sometimes, Jake.’ She took a chance and took his hand. He didn’t pull away. ‘Sometimes emotions get in the way. Do you understand?’
Jake nodded again. ‘Like anger?’
‘Yes, anger. Hurt, sadness. Sometimes they stop you saying what you really feel.’
‘I did tell her I loved her,’ Jake confided, after a second. ‘When she was ill, she tried really hard, you know?’ He turned at last to look directly at Andrea, his eyes full to brimming. ‘To make sure I was all right. Make me smile and stuff. She tried to make sure things would be okay for me and … Dad, too, making lists of where things were and how stuff worked. I was kind of proud of her, you know?’
Andrea did know, absolutely. The sense of the woman she’d felt whilst looking through her things, even knowing how ill she was, Michelle Adams had been strong for her family, yet as gentle and caring as a mother could be.
‘You know something, Jake,’ she said, feeling humbled. ‘There isn’t a mum anywhere who would
n’t be proud of a son who could say out loud that he loved her.’
Jake pulled in a breath, his skinny chest puffing up. ‘I’d like to tell people more about her, but …’
‘No one gives you the chance?’ Andrea guessed.
‘It’s like everyone’s pretending she never existed,’ Jake said quietly.
‘How about we make a memory box, Jake?’ Andrea suggested, knowing that he needed to dwell, but on the good things, rather than the bad.
Jake squinted at her curiously.
‘We’ll make up a box of special things you can remember her by. Photographs, and such like.’
Jake thought about it and then nodded; a short, resolute nod. ‘They’re in the spare room,’ he said, scrambling off the bed as Ryan came in with a tray laden with biscuits, essential sugar-high fizzy stuff and an actual cup of tea.
‘And anything else you can think of, Jake,’ Andrea said. ‘Things that will help you to remember all the good times.’
‘Her perfume. I’ve got some in my cupboard. It makes me remember her better.’ Jake made a grab for his Pepsi. ‘And Harry Potter,’ he added, taking a slurp and wiping his mouth on his shirtsleeve as he headed on out.
‘I’ll give you a hand, mate,’ Ryan offered, giving Andrea a knowing wink as he plonked the tray down. ‘Not sure Harry Potter will fit in the box though,’ he mused, heading after Jake, ‘but …’
‘Dimwit. I meant the book.’ Jake’s child-bordering-on-adolescent tones drifted back. ‘Mum used to read it to me at bedtime.’
‘Cool. Which one?’
‘Goblet of Fire. Prisoner of Azkaban. Most of them, until she died. Have you read them?’
‘Yep. Got them all,’ Ryan said, cranking up his enthusiasm for Jake’s sake. Bless his mismatching Simpsons socks. ‘Or I did have, before the fire.’
‘Aw, that sucks,’ Jake commiserated. ‘You could share mine.’
‘Cool,’ Ryan said, with rather less enthusiasm.
Chapter Thirteen
She was treading on delicate ground, Andrea knew, venturing to ask David why there were no photographs of his wife around the house; suggesting that Jake might need there to be. That he needed to hold on to his memories of his mother, rather than thinking he should consign her to history, as David seemed to have done; at least in Jake’s mind.
Learning to Love Page 14