by Vikki Patis
‘You’re Felix’s girlfriend?’ I ask as she fills the kettle with water and switches it on.
She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. ‘Yes.’ Her hand hovers over a grey jar. ‘Sugar?’
I shake my head no. ‘Who are you really? Who were you to Richard?’ Lexi is silent for a moment, the teaspoon clinking against the mugs as she stirs the tea. She sits down opposite me, wrapping her hands around the mug, and I copy her, suddenly needing its warmth. ‘Why did you say that?’ I ask. ‘“It’s not what you think”?’
Lexi sighs again. ‘Because it isn’t. I know who you are. It’s Eleanor, right?’ I nod, surprised. ‘His latest mistress.’ She winces. ‘Sorry. That sounds awful. But you had been seeing one another?’
‘Yes. For a few years.’ Don’t tell me there were others. Please, please don’t tell me there were others.
She takes a deep breath. ‘Richard and I… I don’t know where to begin.’ She falters, staring down into her tea.
I don’t trust myself to speak. I take a sip of tea, needing something to do while she gathers herself. I can feel my body stiffening, shock coursing through my veins, dread pooling in my stomach. I don’t want to hear this, but I must.
‘I met Richard a number of years ago. I was a waitress in Plymouth, living in a bit of a shithole.’ The word sounds alien in her mouth. She lifts a shoulder. ‘You know the story. Or at least, you can guess. I suppose he thought he was taking me under his wing. He got me another job, let me live in one of his flats for free, and, well…’ Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes avoiding mine, and I know what she’s going to say. ‘He wanted me to pay in other ways.’
I close my eyes, shock rendering me speechless. I picture her, this young, beautiful woman being led astray by Richard, a man old enough to be her father. I picture them in bed together, his hands circling her wrists, her head turned to one side, eyes vacant. How could he? Nausea rises and I place a hand over my mouth. This isn’t the Richard I knew. But if that’s true, why do I believe her? Why do I believe every word?
Is it because I saw the man she knew, hidden beneath the one I loved? This man full of secrets, lies tripping off his tongue as easy as breathing. How perfectly he constructed his life, keeping all parts separated and all parties ignorant of the truth. Who was the real Richard Asquith? Did I ever truly know him? Did anyone?
My eyes trail along the walls, taking in the photographs behind her. There he is, a small boy on his shoulders, sunglasses covering his eyes. Richard and Lexi’s son.
‘He’s…’ I trail off, and she follows my gaze. When she turns back to me, her jaw is set. She nods.
‘My son, Leo. He is… He was his father.’
‘Did he know?’
‘Yes. He had a DNA test done.’ Her eyes harden. Without her consent, they tell me. ‘Nobody else knows. And he was happy enough to play the grandad, when it suited him.’
‘I can imagine.’ And I can. Richard could never have been the greatest of fathers. He was too short-tempered, too impatient. In the safety of my house, after a glass or two of wine, he told me of his regrets, how he had failed his children. How he wished he had been different. Was Leo going to be his third chance at fatherhood? Was Lexi the one he was going to leave me and Fiona for? The look on Lexi’s face tells me everything.
‘He wanted it all,’ she says quietly. ‘But none of us were enough. None of us would ever be enough.’
It’s not enough. His text message comes back to me and I blink away tears. How could a man who had everything give so very little in return? Or had he spread himself too thin, between me, Fiona, and Lexi? And how many more were there? How many more women had he been stringing along, while he tried to find whatever was missing?
‘How did you and Richard meet?’ Lexi asks, the question and her light tone surprising me.
‘He gave a large donation one year to the company I worked for,’ I say, letting the memory fill my mind, taking the edge off the pain of her confession. ‘A homeless charity. We used the money to buy and distribute a hundred sleep pods. He was very generous.’ She raises an eyebrow and I incline my head. ‘When it suited, that is. We had spoken before, but we spent some time together at one of his functions, and, well, one thing led to another, I suppose.’
‘Did you know he was married?’
I pause before answering. ‘Yes. Did you?’
‘Yes. Though not at first.’ Lexi makes a face. ‘He took his ring off a lot.’
I smile despite myself. ‘Yes, he did, didn’t he? I think I noticed the mark around his finger before I saw the actual ring. But I think I always knew he had a family. I met Felix a few times actually, through work. He never liked me much.’
‘I don’t think he likes me very much either,’ she says quietly, and I can feel the sadness pouring from her.
I reach out, her hand cold beneath mine. ‘Why do you stay?’ I ask, then curse myself. Isn’t that the question everyone asks? Why didn’t you leave? But it’s never as easy as that. Often, there is no other choice, no path visible to them.
Lexi’s eyes are full of anguish, and my heart breaks for her. ‘He was going to tell Felix. About Leo. He was going to take my son away.’ She wipes away a tear that slides down her cheek. ‘I couldn’t let him. Not my son. Not after everything.’
I nod, still holding her hand. ‘So you left him to die.’ It isn’t a question. I know the answer, and now I know the truth behind it.
Lexi nods, her eyes meeting mine with a kind of ferocity, a strong defiance that sends a shiver through me. ‘I didn’t mean to, but that’s what happened. And I don’t regret it.’
A chirping noise fills the room. Lexi relinquishes my hand and I take my phone from my bag. I frown at the screen, the words slowly sinking in.
‘Everything okay?’ Lexi asks.
‘It’s James,’ I say, turning the screen around so she can read the message.
Come to the wake, it’s Skye.
‘Skye?’ Lexi says, eyes wide. ‘What does it mean? What’s wrong with her?’
I shake my head. ‘I don’t know, but I think we’d better find out.’
42
The Celebrant
James finds himself back inside the warmth of the pub, a cup of tea in front of him. He doesn’t know why he’s still here, why he hasn’t gone home to make dinner and read to his mother. But something is keeping him in his seat, a tension that he cannot put his finger on, and so he stays put, watching, waiting.
He watched Lexi leave, saw her carrying her son across the beach, Skye by her side. He hopes they can find peace, the daughter and the daughter-in-law. Perhaps they will create new titles for themselves, away from their ties to Richard. Friend, aunt, sister.
A business associate of Richard’s is leaning against the bar, his voice booming across the room. James squirms, trying to make himself invisible, but the man sees him and winks. James has known the man since university, like so many others here. They are all tied together, their pasts intertwined. Sometimes he wishes he’d moved away, taken a teaching job up north and left the county of his birth. Would Tom still be alive if he had? This road is too painful to go down, but it is one he’s travelled many times before. In the dead of night, when he lies awake watching the headlights of cars pass across his bedroom window, he thinks of Tom and their life together. He pictures them strolling hand in hand through Dublin or Paris or San Francisco. He thinks of Sunday lunches with his parents, shopping trips in Liverpool or nights out at the theatre with Tom’s mum. He imagines how Tom’s hair would have looked when it turned grey, wonders whether he would have gone bald quicker than himself. Would he have developed a paunch, or would he have kept up his daily walks, his twice-weekly tennis matches? Would they have adopted a child, or opened their home to foster children like Tom always wanted?
The pain shooting through him reminds him that he is still alive. It reminds him that he has a mother to care for, one last person to live for. It reminds him that her time is running out, and he
has no plan for after. He has no job now, no hobbies beside jigsaw puzzles and sudoku and Antiques Roadshow. He has a few distant friends left, and cannot imagine reaching out to them now, not after all this time. Is it too late to start again? Would Fiona or Ellie or even the man over there welcome him into their lives? He suspects not.
Fiona appears beside him, jerking him out of his reverie. He remembers her words on the beach – we don’t have to worry about him anymore, do we? – and the look on her face, as if she’d surprised herself with her words. He wonders if she knows that Richard had been present the night Tom died. It is a question he has never been able to bring himself to ask, has always been too afraid of the answer to dig any further.
She slides in opposite him and begins to drum her fingernails on the table between them.
‘Are you all right, Fiona?’ he asks after a moment. She’s fiddling with a beer mat now, turning it over and over in her hands.
‘Yes. No.’ She breathes out, looks up at him. ‘It’s just a lot harder than I expected, I suppose. Felix is taking it badly.’
‘Felix?’ James looks around, spotting him by the bar with a pint in his hand. ‘He does look a little worse for wear.’
‘He’s been drinking all day,’ she says. ‘And he hasn’t eaten anything. Not that the blue rinse brigade will let anyone have a look-in.’
He smiles at that. ‘Feed them, and they will come.’
Fiona tears a corner from the beer mat; it flutters to the table, getting caught in a drop of liquid. She sighs. ‘I’m worried about him. Toby, too. They are… They’re so young to have lost their father.’
Or not young enough, James thinks uncharitably. He can’t help wondering how Felix might have turned out if he hadn’t had his father’s influence for over twenty-five years. He is, James realises, the heir Richard always wanted. Arrogant, cocky, good-looking. But Toby? Although he tried to limit his contact with Richard over the years, James was still witness to his treatment of his younger son, and his daughter too. He wonders briefly where Skye is, whether she will return without Lexi. He catches sight of her girlfriend, Fleur, chatting to Toby and another young man, and feels himself soften. He likes Fleur, and though he didn’t have much contact with Skye over the years, there’s something about her that he is drawn to.
‘And Skye?’ he says without thinking. Fiona looks up sharply.
‘What about her?’
‘She’s lost her father too.’
Fiona snorts. ‘Hardly. She’s barely said two words to him over the years.’
‘And whose fault was that?’ His words come out harsher than he intended, and he attempts to soften his voice. ‘Richard was the adult, after all.’
‘She’s been an adult for years now. She’s over thirty, for Christ’s sake.’
‘I think,’ James says slowly, his eyes fixed on Felix as he staggers out of the toilets, his eyes unfocused as he clutches the door frame, ‘you’re never too old to feel the influence of your parents.’
Felix catches his eye and begins to move towards them, stopping short when, as if summoned by James’s thoughts, Skye wrenches open the door and strides into the pub, her head whipping round as her eyes search the room. When they find him, he feels as if he has been frozen to the spot, his pulse beating in his ears, and he knows something terrible is about to happen.
43
The Deceased
THEN
He didn’t mean to do it. Just like years later, when his youngest daughter would disappear on his watch, Richard was never able to blame himself entirely. He was barely twenty, still just a kid. The situation had gotten out of control, and he was not to blame.
That is what he told himself as he washed the blood from his knuckles in the sink that stood in the corner of his childhood bedroom. The skin was cracked, and he wasn’t sure whose blood he was trying to scrub away. His own, or Tom’s.
He hadn’t known Tom would be there that night. How was he supposed to know gay men liked football? He assumed they preferred ballet or opera or something. So when he bought the tickets and persuaded Peter to go along, he’d had no intention of starting anything with the boyfriend of Peter’s first love. His only love.
They had been drinking since midday, a group of them downing pints in one of the student bars before making their way to the stadium, Peter sneaking in a bottle of vodka tucked into the waistband of his trousers. Recently, Richard had been watching with dismay as his older brother descended further into alcohol just as their father had, and he was desperate to help him. He knew a few beers and a football match wasn’t going to get his brother on the straight and narrow, and their relationship had become strained in recent months, but Richard was determined to get them back on track.
It wasn’t until the second half that Peter spotted Tom a few rows below them, a Plymouth Argyle scarf wrapped around his neck, jumping up and down with the man next to him when the team scored. Peter’s mood swiftly turned from jovial to sullen, the black cloud that seemed to have attached itself to him a few years before darkening by the second.
‘Come on,’ Richard said after the game, wrapping an arm around his brother’s shoulders. ‘Let’s have a celebratory drink!’
The pub was full of people, celebrating or commiserating the result of the game, and it took a while to get served. Richard lined up shots and passed them to his brother and their friends, losing count as the night wore on. At some point, he staggered outside to smoke a cigarette in the cool night air, the pub too hot and full of people. He leaned against the wall, laughing and talking to a few of his friends. They watched Tom leave the pub, chatting with his companion, and they joked behind his back, making rude gestures and spitting on the floor. It was all good fun, Richard thought, perfectly normal banter.
He didn’t see Peter emerge from the pub, didn’t see him stumble after Tom and aim a punch at the back of his head. Tom went down fast, Peter jumping on top of him and hitting him again and again. Tom’s friend shouted, but nobody came except Richard and his friends, the men joining in while Richard looked on, horrified. What the fuck was Peter doing?
He didn’t see the knife until it was too late, his own fist too slow to connect with the knife-wielder’s jaw. He didn’t know whether the screams were coming from Tom or himself. It all happened so fast, too fast for him to react. And then it was over, just as suddenly as it had begun, and he was pulling Peter up and away, dragging him from the scene and towards home.
A month later, Peter moved out of that horrible flat he shared with Sue and enrolled at college. He lived in a poky but clean bedsit and stopped drinking entirely, even giving up cigarettes a few months later. He saw his son on weekends, taking him to the park and to the farmer’s market in the city centre. He got his life back on track, and when Richard moved back to Cornwall a few years later and set up his business, he gave Peter a job with a high salary and a company car. So, in Richard’s mind, everything worked out for the better. In the end, anyway.
44
The Daughter
Have you found it, sis?
I don’t respond to the message. I drive to the pub in a daze, Saffy’s bracelet clutched between my fingers the whole way like a rosary, the bracelet he kept for all these years. Rage pours from me, so pure and hot it tingles across my skin. I can feel the darkness inside me, the darkness put there by my parents that I have fought so hard to overcome. But it is threatening to spill over now, and I cannot contain it any longer. I don’t want to contain it any longer.
I stride into the pub and push past two middle-aged men, ignoring their tuts as my gaze focuses on her. Fiona. She’s sitting in a booth, fingers busy shredding a beer mat, tiny pieces falling to the table before her. The celebrant sits opposite her, his elbows on the table as he leans towards Felix, who comes up to stand beside his mother, a hand on her shoulder. They do not look up as I approach.
‘Get up,’ I hiss at her, and she looks at me then, startled. She opens her mouth as if to speak, but Felix gets there fir
st.
‘Ahh, sweet sister,’ he slurs, grinning inanely. ‘Haven’t finished paying your respects?’
‘Fuck off,’ I snap without looking at him. My eyes are trained on Fiona. She’s the one I’m here for.
‘What was that?’ He takes a step towards me and I glare at him, turn my red-hot rage onto him.
‘Fuck. Off.’
He takes another step, reaching an arm out towards me, and I move without thinking. I shove him with both hands, putting all of my strength into it. He stumbles backwards, crashing into the table holding the remnants of the buffet, sending sausage rolls flying as he falls to the floor. A glass rolls off and smashes, shards glinting in the low light as Felix stares open-mouthed. In an instant he is on his feet, a bottle picked up from the bar and lifted above his head. Time moves in slow motion as he comes for me, his eyes wide with the suppressed fury of our shared past. As the bottle swings towards me, a shape barrels into Felix, knocking him to the floor. The bottle smashes against the bar, red wine covering the floorboards like blood, and Toby sits astride his brother, his hands gripping his arms.
‘Enough,’ he growls, and Felix goes limp beneath him, whether in fear or shock I don’t know.
I turn back to Fiona and lift the bracelet, letting it dangle before her eyes. Fear crosses her face, her skin paling, her eyes wide, and I can almost hear her thoughts. ‘Come with me,’ I say quietly. She stands, shaking her head at the celebrant when he frowns and reaches out to her. She is caught, her secret finally out, after years of deception, years of pain and anguish. I turn on my heel and cross the pub, pushing open the door and stepping out into the cold air.
The sun has almost set, the short winter day passing quickly into night. I breathe in, tasting salt on my tongue, and close my eyes for a moment. Fiona steps up behind me and I can almost feel the fear pulsing through her.