by Nicola Slade
Why am I here, he wondered, hunching a fretful shoulder and staring back at the strangers in the room behind him. Where did Jane go? She shouldn’t have left me here all by myself; she knows I don’t get on with strangers nowadays. And what about the boy? Wasn’t I staying at his house? So why am I here?
His face creased in an anxious frown, struggling with half-remembered images and voices, snatches of conversation that made no sense, and the constant, unsettling apprehension that Jane had abandoned him. Facts and figures that had been his life’s work now scrambled themselves into a jumble, people who had been dearly loved and close to him now assumed alien, frightening faces. Words that had flowed smooth and reassuring in his role as a bank manager now lay in meaningless scattered fragments, clues to a crossword puzzle he had no longer any hope of completing.
Gemma Sankey stepped nervously into the drawing-room, breathing deeply and aware of the responsibility, her tongue caught between her teeth as she bore the heavy tray. She was really enjoying her new job. ‘You’re coming on really well, Gemma,’ the housekeeper, Mrs Turner, had said after the first week spent helping in the kitchen and laundry room.
‘Let’s see how you get on taking the guests’ tea and coffee to them,’ she had suggested today. ‘Don’t worry if they want to talk to you. Some of them like to chat so just be polite and always call them Mr or Mrs; we don’t go in for first names here, Matron’s very firm about that, she likes things done properly. Set the tray carefully down on the table and put the cups out, then ask who wants what and pour out for them. You’ll soon get the hang of it. Some of them like to get up and fetch their own cups but some of them need to be waited on, the older ones and the convalescent people.’
It was nice to be greeted with smiles and words of welcome. Gemma felt her courage rise and it was just as Mrs Turner had said. ‘Who would like tea?’ she asked and they laughed and put up their hands like a bunch of little kids, and the same with the coffee.
Mum would be pleased when she heard about it at the end of the week. It was odd at first, being away from home, and that hadn’t pleased her mother at all but it was much nicer than Gemma had expected. Instead of Mum shouting at her, saying she was thick and a wicked little slut, there was Mrs Turner, ever so patient and not getting cross if she got it wrong. Mrs Turner was nicer than Mum.
She clapped a frightened hand to her mouth but nobody had read her mind, picked up on this heresy. I bet, she ventured further, I bet Mrs Turner wouldn’t of said I had to get rid of my baby, I bet Mrs Turner would of said I could keep it. Gemma tidied the empty cups and saucers on to the tray, picturing a dear little baby girl, all chubby cheeks and blonde curls, dressed in pink, with Mrs Turner as a fond granny. At this point a vision of the baby’s father thrust itself into the forefront of her consciousness and she dropped a cup.
‘Here you are,’ a hand reached down beside her as she scrabbled on the floor. ‘No harm done, it landed on the carpet and rolled under the table. What a bit of luck, just pop it back on the tray and nobody will be any the wiser.’
Gemma gave Harriet Quigley a look of gratitude and scuttled away.
The father of Gemma’s baby was lounging around the playground at the Rec. He drained the last dribble from his can of Fosters, tossed it in the air, caught it deftly on his foot and kicked it into the sandpit. ‘You know my girl, Gemma?’ he asked.
‘Yeah?’ Kieran fancied Gemma; she had a nice face, not too clever like most girls, always one step ahead of him. She had lovely big tits too, not that he’d ever dare say anything about that, Ryan might have a go at him; not with his fists, Kieran could handle that and he was bigger and stronger, even though he hated violence. But it might be something worse. Ryan was a bit too handy with that knife of his for Kieran’s liking but he couldn’t stop you thinking about Gemma. Or about those tits. Kieran had never seen a girl with nothing on, only in pictures, though he kept quiet about it in Ryan’s company; no need either, to confess to being a virgin at seventeen. Still, he had spotted Gemma bending down once and he’d been able to look right down her T-shirt; she hadn’t been wearing a bra and the moment was one of Kieran’s best memories, treasured and taken out nightly to dream about.
‘Listen, will you? What’s the matter with you, you big dummy.’
Kieran jerked his head up from a smiling daydream about putting his hand down Gemma’s T-shirt and— He had no idea what he would do if he ever got that far, his life up to now was a tit-free zone. Ryan was staring at him with narrowed dark eyes, a scowl disfiguring his handsome, Elvis features, with the smouldering look that drove the girls wild, along with the careless tumble of shining dark curls that haloed his face. Kieran had no need to look in the mirror to know that his own amiably stupid face was too fat and too freckled, not to mention too spotty, to make any headway with girls.
Ryan stood on the swing and glared at Kieran.
‘My girl. Gemma.’ He was speaking with exaggerated patience now, the way nearly everyone did eventually. Kieran was used to it, and most of the time he didn’t mind. He had heard Ryan only the other day, explaining his friend to somebody else. ‘Old Kieran’s all right, just a bit thick and you have to give him a kick now and then when he has one of his stupid times, but he’s a good mate and built like a brick shit-house; comes in handy if there’s a fight.’
Kieran beamed now and nodded, glad to be of use, smiling as he remembered Ryan snorting with laughter as he went on: ‘He’s good to take with you if you want to nick stuff, get him in the off-licence with that great khaki army coat flapping round and he’ll knock cans flying. He doesn’t mean to do it but the noise it makes and the fuss means they don’t notice me sticking cans and bottles in my pockets.’
‘I was telling you about Gemma, are you listening?’ He took another can from his pocket, flicked the ring-pull over towards the bushes at the edge of the playground, and took a long swig. ‘She’s only gone and got a job at that Firstone Grange place. You know, down the road with the rich old wrinklies. I told you about it the other day when she was going for the interview. She texted me and told me she’s got a live-in job so she’ll be away from her old witch of a mother. Might come in handy.’
Kieran nodded slowly. Gemma’s mum was one of the few who had failed to come under the spell of Ryan’s soulful brown gaze. In fact she had threatened him with a knife if she ever caught him near Gemma again and Kieran could tell that Ryan had been impressed by the threat.
‘Funny how upset Gem was about getting rid of the baby,’ mused Ryan, switching moods. ‘Everybody does it, my mum’s done it loads of times, never bothers her. So why did Gemma get in such a state? Besides,’ the scowl was back. ‘She was supposed to be on the pill. Might have known she’d cock that up somehow. Like I said, she’s about as bright as you are.’
Kieran accepted the clap on the shoulder but avoided Ryan’s eyes. It was only too plain from the lowering frown that Ryan was remembering what Gemma’s mum had said. She had called him a ‘shifty, oily, randy little scumbag who never did a day’s work in his life and ought to have his balls chopped off; and would have, if she had her way.’
The fat boy had been lurking by the garden gate when he overheard that diatribe and now he trembled for Mrs Sankey’s safety. Ryan’s temper had been evil for days after that episode and that meant Mrs Sankey was on his punishment list.
‘Do you handle many period cottages?’ Neil asked as he opened the leaded casement window and gazed out at the view from the master bedroom. The cottage, with its immaculate decor, Farrow & Ball of course, and manicured garden (no expense spared), had stood for more than three hundred years against a gentle slope of farmland, halfway between the winding and pretty redbrick village of Hursley and the nearby village of Otterbourne.
Alice leaned beside him on the window sill, a tight squeeze but a companionable one.
‘Cottages?’ She shook her head. ‘Not an awful lot, Barry hasn’t really concentrated on what you might call country properties. He’s gone more f
or smaller and cheaper, the first-time buyer and the next stage up.’
She cast an approving glance over the garden with its neat vegetable plot, bare now apart from cabbages and brussels sprouts, with a carefully tended herbaceous border already showing the points of a few foolhardy bulbs.
‘This has been awfully well done, hasn’t it?’ She waved a vague hand. ‘I mean, the house is obviously two farm cottages knocked into one and they’ve managed to keep the cottagey spirit without sacrificing comfort. The garden is nice too. I bet they have hollyhocks and night-scented stocks in the summer, proper cottage flowers.’
Neil gave her a sympathetic grin, obviously surprised at this flight of poetic fancy from the prosaic Alice, then he called her attention to the splendid clump of beech trees, tilting precariously in its chalk bed, on the brow of the hill beyond the boundary.
Downstairs in the low-beamed sitting-room of the cottage they compared notes, Alice adding a quick scribble to her clip board, detailing the limed-oak Smallbone kitchen, then they took their leave of the owner, who was reeling in delight at Neil’s valuation, and drove back towards Chambers Forge.
‘From the sublime to the ridiculous,’ laughed Neil as he turned the car into the minute drive of the final house on their list, built on the site of the old brickworks that had once provided the village with its main industry, supplanting its previous claim to fame, the cherry orchards of the seventeenth century.
Alice heard his remark but failed to respond, lost in admiration of the tiny house of her dreams, the Ideal Starter Home. She shook herself and smiled at him, still shy but gaining in confidence after an afternoon spent in Neil’s undemanding, friendly company. ‘It’s such a cosy, compact little house,’ she sighed and saw in his eyes astonishment that such an undistinguished building should seem like the Promised Land to her. ‘It’s just—’ she hesitated. ‘We’ve got a big, rambling old house that’s falling to bits and costs a fortune to heat. There’s an enormous garden as well; it would be wonderful not to have much work to do.’
He nodded and seemed to be thinking hard. Alice was aware that several times during the afternoon he had been struck by something she had said, some shrewd comment that had surprised him. She had noticed him stealing covert glances at her, frowning slightly.
‘Can you drive, Alice?’ he asked now, abruptly.
‘Yes, yes I can. I passed my test years ago, when Daddy was still alive, but I haven’t driven for years. We got rid of the car when Daddy died because it was too expensive to run. Why?’
‘I was just wondering, thinking aloud I suppose. You’re so knowledgeable about the business, but I don’t think.…’ He glanced down at the badly typed house details in his hand and she felt her cheeks burn. ‘How would you feel about being my assistant? Training as a negotiator I mean, and helping on that side of the business? We could get someone else in to do the typing, maybe on a part-time basis.’
The glow spread from her burning cheeks to her dark eyes and for an instant a new, very different Alice sparkled at him. He was about to speak when the colour faded, leaving her dull and sallow, her eyes bleak.
‘She won’t let me,’ she said drearily.
Chapter Three
* * *
Next morning Alice packed under her mother’s supervision, knowing she looked as wan and miserable as she felt. Christiane’s stream of criticism suddenly dried up and Alice looked up, to intercept an unusual expression on her mother’s face. It was almost – no, not affectionate, maternal emotion – that was not something she had met with, not once in her entire life – but instead of the usual contempt, her mother wore an oddly calculating look as if she was weighing up just how near to breaking down Alice actually was. A moment later Christiane was frowning at her nails and the moment, whatever had prompted it, vanished. A clumsy movement destroyed the peace.
‘You stupid creature, can’t you do anything properly? That’s my best silk nightdress, fold it properly, I don’t want it creased to blazes.’
Stifling a weary sigh Alice refolded the ivory silk, shuddering a little at the touch. I’ll never, ever have a silk nightdress, or anything else silk, she vowed silently. Somehow the fluid, supple softness of the fabric had come to epitomize her mother over the years. Christiane must wear silk next to the skin because of her extreme sensitivity, no matter what the state of their finances, no matter that during the bad times Alice had been driven to wearing her father’s old vests in winter to keep warm. Christiane must clothe her delicate frame in silk, and silk of the finest quality at that.
Christiane could be like silk, smooth and slippery and, to strangers, a charming and delightful woman, but Alice was always aware of the worm at the heart of the apple.
If I brought Neil Slater here, Alice thought, and introduced him and told her about his offer of a job, she’d be lovely to him and he’d be utterly charmed. That snowy hair in its elegant French pleat, those sparkling dark eyes and that still-attractive jolie-laide face, he’d fall like a ton of bricks, people always do. And then she’d put the boot in, oh so delicately, oh so reasonably, and stop me taking the job and I’d end up looking a callous, unfeeling bitch for wanting to neglect such a sweet old lady, confined to a wheelchair too. Shocking. As a child Alice had assumed all mothers were like Christiane; when she found she was mistaken she was wistful but resigned. Her mother was as she was and there was nothing to be done about it.
The taxi arrived with all the commotion and hustle and bustle of manoeuvring Christiane and her wheelchair. The driver, the same one as on the initial trip to Firstone Grange, obviously remembered the dear old lady and her anxious spinstery daughter. Alice caught his sidelong glance and winced at the pity in his eyes.
As they disembarked at Firstone Grange Alice broke out in a cold sweat born of a terror that something would intervene. Maybe the matron will say they’re full up after all, she trembled, or Mother will turn round with a peal of laughter and say it was all a joke and she was going home now. Nails digging painfully into the balls of her thumbs she prayed, a fervent, incoherent gabble of supplication. Please, oh please, oh God: don’t do that to me, let me have a respite, please, oh please, please.
No, it was all right, they had negotiated the entrance hall and the matron seemed delighted to welcome them. Up in the lift, out on to the landing, along the carpeted corridor towards Christiane’s room, no problems. A door opened and an old woman came out, spotted them and halted, holding back to let them pass, though there was ample room for all on the broad, Edwardian landing. Alice suspected the woman of being just plain inquisitive, wanting to suss out the new arrival, and why not? Time must hang heavily on the residents’ hands if they weren’t great readers or knitters or embroiderers.
‘Good morning,’ Christiane made a point of slowing down and smiling a bright, cheerful greeting.
To Alice’s astonishment the other woman recoiled, staring, her mouth open in shock. She said nothing but cowered back in the doorway of her room, reaching out a shaking hand to lean on the door jamb for support.
As Alice followed her mother she caught a faint thread of a whisper. ‘No, not her, not that one, not after all these years!’ It meant nothing to her, caught up as she was in her own dread that even now, her mother might call a halt to the experiment, but no. Christiane Marchant’s face radiated complacency and satisfaction, a cat-with-the-cream smirk, an air of delighted malice. Alice trembled even more, she had seen that expression once or twice in her life and it boded no good. What the hell was she so pleased about now? What mischief was she brewing?
Installed in her comfortable bedroom Christiane turned to her daughter with an airy wave of dismissal. ‘Off you go, Alice, I’m sure you have things to do before you go to work. I’ll be quite comfortable here.’
She held up her cheek for a farewell kiss and Alice bent down reluctantly. Was it her mother’s doing, she wondered, that she had such a fear of intimacy, had never been able to bear being touched at school, couldn’t stand games where yo
u had to get too close to other people? It had been a relief when her father had decided his asthmatic daughter should be educated at home, although her asthma had gradually become less severe so that she could probably have gone back to school for the last year or two. Luckily the subject had never been broached. An attempt, years later, to join a keep-fit class had ended when the instructor insisted they do lots of partnered activities involving contact with hands, feet, legs and other parts of the body. For once in her life Alice had welcomed her mother’s ‘heart attack’ that gave her an excuse to abandon the class without losing face.
Now she braced herself not to shudder as she gave the obligatory kiss and managed to get herself out of the room, out of the building, out of the neatly lawned and gravelled garden, though it wasn’t till she was nearly home that she began to relax. She was free. It’s going to take the whole of my pitiful ‘escape fund’ she reflected, to keep Christiane at Firstone Grange for an entire month, but, oh goodness, it’s going to be worth it. Free! She savoured the word, rolling it round her tongue. Freedom!
Christiane Marchant was pleased with herself too, absently answering the care assistant, Gemma, who was nattering away nineteen to the dozen as she unpacked, not noticing the look of intense, inward concentration on the new guest’s face.
This is going to be fun, Christiane exulted. She was aware, only too well, just how close to breakdown she had driven Alice and this month at Firstone Grange had offered her the perfect opportunity to back off without losing face; that, and the knowledge that the fees would clean out Alice’s escape fund completely. Serve her right too, Christiane frowned, tucking away money like that.