‘That’s silly,’ Mark responded. He had no desire to scare his mother: quite the contrary. Terry was peculiar, sometimes.
Richard was nearly three hours late reaching his office that morning.
Verity had wanted to keep Terry back from school.
‘What? And pamper him?’ Richard had said. ‘Reward him for his behaviour? Terry, get your coat. I’ll drop you off.’
Justin had sloped away at his usual time, anxious to escape from the heavily charged atmosphere in the house. He’d overheard some of the discussion between the police and Terry, and had formed a more or less accurate impression of what his brother had been doing. He’d get the details later. Stupid prat! He needed a few hints on not getting caught.
Justin’s friend Bruce had lifted a car from the station yard on Saturday afternoon, in broad daylight. They’d not taken it far, as it was their first effort. Bruce hadn’t a lot of experience at driving, and he’d rammed a lamp-post when they were trying to turn in Norfolk Road. They’d left the car there, hurrying away, laughing and laughing, on a real high. They’d go further, next time.
They hadn’t hurt themselves; they’d been in reverse gear at the time. They didn’t look to see how much damage had been done to the car. It was insured, after all.
Justin hadn’t been there to hear his mother tell Richard that he’d no right to give orders to Terry.
‘He’s my child,’ she’d said.
Richard had not bothered to answer this remark.
‘Come along, Terry. You’re lucky you’re not down at the police station facing charges,’ he said, ignoring her.
Terry knew this was true. He thought about defying Richard, since his mother was clearly in a mood to spoil him, but if he stayed at home, she’d cry all over him and he’d miss football. He went to fetch his coat.
Richard had telephoned the school to say that Terry would be late; he’d been delayed because his mother wasn’t well. The explanation was accepted. He marched the boy out to the car and dumped him at the door of the school, waiting until he had disappeared inside. Then he drove on to the station.
Sitting in the train – less crowded than usual because he was so much later than his normal time – Richard read the paper and mused on the working day ahead. Much would be routine and he had already missed an important meeting scheduled for ten o’clock. He had telephoned earlier, using the same, virtually true excuse he had given the school: his wife was unwell. He had used it before, when she had lightly slashed her wrists and bled all over the bed. He had bound her wounds, changed the bed linen and left her in her studio. If she chose to hurt herself while he was absent, that was her affair.
‘Think of the boys,’ he had admonished, when leaving. ‘Don’t punish them.’
She had told him that hers was the temperament of an artist: how could a philistine like him be expected to understand its nuances? But he might at least consider her needs, she would declare. Richard, however, was tired of trying to anticipate her behaviour; after some of her wilder extravagances, a mere hangover was trivial and could sometimes be ignored. If Verity intended to swamp her system with alcohol, he could not prevent her, nor could he keep searching every cupboard to find her supply.
He’d failed her, and he’d failed her sons, he thought, settled in the train, staring at the crossword. If he had been able to meet her emotional demands, to tune in to her moods, she would not need to drink and make scenes. She was a troubled soul, as her paintings demonstrated. Were they any good? He did not care for her dark, dramatic daubs, where occasionally a tiny, shrinking figure lurked in the foreground. Did they represent her own fears and forebodings? Some had been hung at local exhibitions. If she could produce enough to have her own show, maybe a critic would commend her work, make it fashionable, and thus give her a sense of achievement.
After a while, sitting in the peace of the warm train, he dozed.
At work, he was busy, catching up on what had happened at the meeting and making decisions as to future policy. The day passed without a telephone call from Verity, which was a relief. He almost managed not to think about her: time enough to discover her state of mind when he reached home.
He went into Caroline’s office at four o’clock.
‘You look awful,’ she told him bluntly. ‘Had a rough weekend?’
‘You could say so,’ he admitted.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘One of the kids has been in a spot of bother,’ he said. ‘How about you? Did you enjoy wherever it was you went to?’
‘The weather was foul,’ said Caroline. ‘But it was pleasant, yes.’ She did not tell him any more.
‘What about this evening?’ he dared to suggest. ‘I needn’t hurry home.’
‘Sorry, Richard. I’ve got a date,’ said Caroline.
‘Oh!’ For a moment he felt as if she had kicked him in the ribs. A date! But why not? She was a free agent.
‘Lucky guy,’ he said lightly.
‘Isn’t he?’ she replied, smiling.
Disappointed and depressed, Richard whiled away half an hour in the station bar, letting one train leave without him, postponing the inevitable moment when he must return.
It was raining when he reached Haverscot station. He’d missed the thin young woman; she always travelled earlier. Would he ever pluck the courage up to offer her a lift? She might turn round and accuse him of assault. He mused on all the dangers threatening a modern man as he walked back to his car. There, he found one tyre was flat, and, in pouring rain, he had to change it, discovering that it had been slashed with a knife.
The car park, on the outskirts of the town, was not supervised, and the station was not manned after one o’clock.
Vehicles had been stolen from it; regular travellers kept pressing for more staff or, at least, patrols, so far unsuccessfully. Richard sometimes thought of walking, but it was too far for convenience, and if he took that step, it implied one car would do for the family, and what would happen then? Verity would appropriate it, and, on one of her bad days, might smash it up. Perhaps he’d get a bike, he thought, wiping his hands on some tissues which, luckily, were in the boot.
By the time he reached home, he was soaking wet and in a far from good mood. He found Verity clean and tidy, in black velvet trousers and scarlet tunic, sober – or so it seemed. She and the boys had eaten, as he was so late, but his meal was waiting. It was mixed grill – chops and sausages, mushrooms, tomatoes and peas, with chips. She turned on the microwave to heat it through and mistimed it, but Richard rescued it before it turned into concrete. It was very nearly palatable, an accomplishment for Verity, and this indicated that she had made some effort. He ate it, chewing the hard meat, the peas like bits of shot.
He told her about the car. Justin heard him and smiled. While Verity was busy in the kitchen, he’d taken his bike out of the garage and cycled to the station. His rear lamp was feeble and his front light did not work at all, so that he was a danger to himself and others, but he made the journey safely. A train was just arriving, so he stood apart, beside the fence, waiting till the passengers had gone walking off with umbrellas up or driving away in their cars. Richard was never as early as this.
He did the deed when it was quiet, wanting to slash all the tyres, but the sound of another train approaching on the up line made him scurry off.
Never mind. He’d done it once and he would do it again if Cat went on upsetting his mother. He was to blame for everything that kept going wrong.
Verity had planned gratitude; she realised that Terry was lucky not to be in deep trouble and she meant to make amends, although the bullying boys were really responsible for what had happened. Now and then, she had rushes of emotion when she recognised Richard’s patience and the security he had provided for them all, but more often she longed to spark a reaction from him. The boys’ father, in the end, had hit her when she lashed out at him, and then had left her, but Richard never struck her, even when she hurt him. She wanted to provoke h
im to violence; then she would have reason to complain. Occasionally, she grew frightened, for what if he decided he had had enough and left her? She’d get money from him – a lot, probably – but she couldn’t manage on her own. She’d discovered this, before they met. Other brief relationships had been just that, but Richard was a good man, and in her calmer moments, Verity acknowledged it to herself. So, tonight, to be on the safe side, she meant to win him round again. She’d always been able to do it, with soft words and gestures, and reconciliation was an erotic stimulus.
But not tonight. Richard turned away from her in bed.
‘I’m very tired, Verity,’ he said. ‘It’s been a bad day. Good night.’
He heard her crying softly. She didn’t scream or yell, just wept. Feeling guilty, Richard drew the duvet around his ears and, exhausted, fell into merciful, healing sleep.
Early in the morning, drawing close, she woke him, thin arms twining round him. This time, sighing, Richard responded, thus securing temporary peace.
8
It was Steve who found the old man dead.
A few days after the strange man who was Tom’s son called, Ivy asked him to go and check on Tom who had, she said, looked poorly that morning. She had cleaned round and prepared some lunch for him, but he had been very quiet, not even asking about Sharon and the baby, nor joking with her about Bingo which she played on Wednesday nights, her evening out while Sharon stayed at home. But Tom hadn’t looked near death.
Steve and Mark arrived at The Willows at around seven o’clock. Steve had had a lot of homework that could not be avoided, and Mark had wanted to finish one of the books about The Secret Seven which he’d borrowed on his last visit; then he could exchange it for another. He’d gone all through the Famous Fives and was well into the other series now. He liked them. The children’s lives were comfortable and secure; they had mothers and fathers and a dog and lived in nice houses where money did not seem to be a problem. It was the same with the William books; he enjoyed those, too, and wished he had a friend like William who thought of exciting schemes. William got into trouble, but it was by accident; he wasn’t really bad.
Mark was having doubts about Terry. His stepfather had come to see Mum about him disappearing. He’d wanted to explain and to apologise, because she must have found the visit from the police upsetting.
‘Mark was no help to the police. He went back to the child-minder after leaving the park,’ Susan had told him, which wasn’t true, and Mark felt very guilty about this part of the story.
‘What about the boys who took Terry’s football?’ Richard had asked Mark. ‘Who were they?’
‘Greg Black was one,’ said Mark. ‘They were all older.’
‘What’s this about the football?’ Susan had heard only that they’d been playing football, not about losing one.
Richard related what had happened, as far as he understood it, and asked for Mark’s confirmation.
‘There was the old lady,’ he said.
‘What old lady?’ asked Susan.
‘I don’t know her name,’ said Mark.
‘Evidently she got the boys off the hook as far as the motorists were concerned,’ said Richard. He filled in the gaps for Susan.
‘You didn’t mention her when the police were here,’ Susan said to Mark.
‘No one asked me,’ Mark pointed out. ‘They just wondered if I knew where Terry’d gone, and I didn’t.’
‘No – it’s all right, Mark,’ Richard reassured him. ‘That was why they came to see you. We didn’t know anything about the other boys and the football till Terry told us the next day. It wouldn’t have made any difference to finding him sooner if we’d known. It was why he ran off,’ he added, to Susan. ‘He broke a window at the Blacks’ house.’
‘I see,’ said Susan. ‘Oh dear!’
‘Yes – well, it’s regrettable, but there we are,’ said Richard. ‘Terry’s got off lightly this time.’
Susan was thinking of Mark.
‘It was lucky the old lady was there,’ she said. ‘The motorists might have caused a lot of trouble, otherwise.’
‘It was,’ Mark agreed. ‘She had a dog,’ he added. ‘Sinbad, that’s his name. I heard her call him.’
‘That’s a good name for a dog,’ said Richard.
‘Wasn’t he a sailor?’ Susan said.
‘Well, Rover’s a common name for a dog,’ said Richard. ‘It’s the same sort of thing.’
For some reason, mystifying to Mark, his mother and Mr Gardner – he knew, now, that this was his name – began to laugh. In the end Mr Gardner stayed for a glass of wine and some cheese biscuits, and Mark was allowed a Coca-Cola.
‘Come and play with Terry any time,’ Richard told Mark, as he left, and added to Susan, ‘Terry and his brother Justin are my stepsons.’
Now why did he tell me that, she wondered, after he had gone. Perhaps he didn’t want to own to having a vandal son. She wouldn’t have liked it, either.
It was the next evening that was so terrible.
Ivy had been baking and she gave the boys some homemade biscuits to take to Tom. On the way, they ate one each. Steve unlocked the front door of The Willows and went into the sitting-room while Mark hurried upstairs to return the book and choose another, which he would put in the hall to take when he left. The books were kept in the room that must have been where Tom’s son slept when he was young. It was strange that his boy’s things were still there, now that Alan was so old and didn’t live with Tom. Mark wasn’t curious enough to wonder where Alan lived now.
He’d been diverted from The Secret Seven books by some others he’d noticed earlier, about four children who went sailing, when he heard Steve shout.
‘Mark! Come down,’ he called. ‘Something’s wrong with Tom.’
Clutching Swallows and Amazons, Mark came leaping down the shallow staircase. It turned back on itself, with a little landing, and he always jumped the last four steps to the bottom. It was his aim to miss five, then six, then seven steps until he could leap the whole flight.
Steve, ashen-faced, was in the hall.
‘He’s asleep,’ he said. ‘He won’t wake up. I think he’s dead.’
Steve had had a shock. He had entered the room, seen Tom apparently asleep in his big armchair, and had taken the opportunity to look in the old man’s wallet, which was in the dresser drawer. He’d taken out five pounds and put it in his pocket, replacing the wallet and sliding the drawer shut very quietly, then turned.
‘Evening, Tom. Mum’s sent you these biscuits,’ he’d said, in a bright voice.
Tom didn’t answer. It was not unusual for him to drop off to sleep, but as a rule he could soon be roused.
Steve switched on the television and turned up the volume. There was a football match later; it might be a bit too late for Mark to stay and watch it, but he could be sent off home on his own.
After a while, something about Tom’s stillness impinged on Steve’s consciousness and he felt uneasy. He went over to inspect the old man, watching his chest, which was covered by a Fair Isle sweater. He wore a checked shirt beneath it, the collar points protruding. Ivy saw to his washing and was paid well for doing it.
There seemed to be no movement in Tom’s chest. Steve touched his hand, which lay on his lap above the light rug tucked round his wasted, feeble legs. The hand was icy cold. Steve snatched his away.
His first instinct was to flee the house, leaving this for someone else to deal with, but he wasn’t alone with the corpse: Mark was here. A faint sense of responsibility for the younger boy stirred in Steve; he mustn’t panic. Mark must be impressed.
He adopted a slight swagger as Mark arrived beside him.
‘I expect he is just asleep, really,’ he explained to Mark. ‘Only he won’t wake up.’
‘Maybe he’s had another stroke,’ Mark said, sensibly. He’d heard Ivy and Sharon talking about the possibility. Old Tom would be all right if he didn’t have another, Ivy had told her daughter, and he migh
t improve a lot, as his speech was normal and he had regained so much movement. Mark didn’t know what a stroke was. Was it like a fit? Did you froth and foam? He felt a pang of sorrow because Tom wasn’t well, but he was interested, too, and marched confidently past Steve into the sitting-room.
When he saw Tom, he knew. You couldn’t look more dead than that if you had bullet wounds all over you, he thought, seeing the waxy pallor, the total stillness. Unlike Steve, he wasn’t frightened, but he was shocked and felt very sad. Tears prickled in his eyes.
‘He is dead,’ he said, and he, too, touched the old man’s hand, but he left his own small, warm paw upon it. In that moment, not fully acknowledged until years later, Mark’s desire to be a doctor was conceived.
‘We’d better get someone,’ he said. ‘You go. Or ring up. I’ll stay with him.’
He had no urge to leave. Death was normal, but it was so sad and he thought he might cry properly quite soon. He didn’t want Steve to see him.
‘Perhaps we should ring the police? Dial 999?’ said Steve.
‘They can’t help him,’ Mark answered. ‘Ring your mum. She’ll know what to do.’
Steve, in crisis, didn’t resent being given orders by the younger boy. He meekly obeyed, picking up the cordless telephone which Tom had found so useful.
His mother did not panic. Sharon was at home and could look after Kylie and Adam.
‘I’ll come straight down,’ she said. ‘You boys go into another room and shut the door.’
She rang the doctor, who arrived at Tom’s house only a few minutes after she did. Tom had, he thought, suffered another, lesser stroke, followed by a heart attack. His death was not wholly unexpected and, in the end, had come in a merciful manner.
Before he and Steve’s mother dealt with what must be done, he praised the boys for using common sense and suggested that they both go home.
Ivy picked up the bag of biscuits.
‘He won’t need these now,’ she said, handing them to Steve. ‘You two might like to eat some on your way home.’
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