Too Close to Home

by Susan Lewis

  —

  A few minutes later, having delivered the leaflets she’d come to drop off for the parish, Kay was once again behind the wheel of her Fiat with Paige’s surfboard jutting out of a rear window and Paige herself wrapped in a fleecy blanket in the front seat.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened?” Kay invited as they started up the hill.

  Paige was staring down at her lifeless phone. No texts or calls from Charlotte. How mean was that? She was going to watch the match with everyone else, and obviously wasn’t sparing a single thought for her best mate! “Not really,” she answered miserably.

  Kay continued to drive.

  That was the weirdest and sometimes loveliest thing about her grandma: she never asked too many questions. She was the only person Paige knew who seemed comfortable with not talking for hours on end. Not that it was going to take them that long to get home, only about twenty minutes—although considering the way her grandma drove, it might be closer to thirty. She did everything so precisely, obeyed all the rules, and always seemed startled when others failed to do so. Road rage seemed to pass straight over her, even when someone behind was flashing their lights and honking their horn to make her speed up or let them pass. She just kept on going, hands on the wheel at ten and two, eyes straight ahead, and expression as neutral as if she were thinking no thoughts at all.

  Paige longed to be able to switch her mind off the way her grandma seemingly could. Then she wouldn’t have to keep thinking about Oliver, or Charlotte, who had totally betrayed her, or Owen, who should have known she’d never deliberately hurt him, or Kelly Durham, who despised her for no good reason. Everything was just totally horrible. She wished they’d never moved here now. She couldn’t bear it that all her friends were getting together to watch rugby, at Oliver’s house, and she wasn’t allowed to join them.

  Fighting back more tears, she glanced at her grandma, and amongst all the angst and self-pity she felt herself flood with affection. Kay was a funny old stick, as her mum would say, a woman who was definitely her own person, but she was always there when one of her family needed her, and she never made a fuss about anything. Paige wondered what she did when she was at home on her own, if she felt sad or happy with her life, how much she missed Grandpa. She never talked about him, but maybe that was because no one ever asked.

  “Grandma?”

  “Yes?” Kay’s eyes were tight to the road.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “How did you and Grandpa meet?”

  With no hesitation, Kay replied, “It was when we were at college. He was studying to become an engineer and I was doing a bookkeeping course.”

  “But how did you actually get together?”

  Clearly having no problem with recall, Kay said, “Your grandpa noticed that some people weren’t very kind to me, so he made me his friend.”

  Paige’s eyes widened. “Why were people unkind to you?”

  “Because I wasn’t really like them.”

  So she knew she was different. “Did it hurt your feelings when they were mean?”

  “Yes, very much, but they never seemed to realize it. Or perhaps they didn’t care.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I tried to ignore them, but it was Grandpa who really sorted them out.”

  “How? What did he do?”

  “He used to give them one of his stares.”

  Paige giggled. “You mean the secret weapon,” she said, having heard about his famous look from her mother.

  “That’s the one. He could make people feel very foolish with that look.”

  Paige laughed and felt so glad for her grandma that she’d had Grandpa to take care of her that she wanted to hug the older woman.

  If only Grandpa were still around to take care of her.

  —

  “Yes, Mum, I can hear you,” Jenna was saying into the phone as she made her way from the football field to the car. “Josh had a good game, if that’s why you’re ringing. We were hoping they might make him man of the match, but it went to someone on the other team in the end.”

  “I’m sure Josh was more deserving,” Kay responded loyally.

  Knowing he wasn’t, Jenna looked down at his happy little face, bobbing proudly along beside her, and wanted to go and thank the coach all over again for including him today. It had meant the world to him. She was just grateful that he hadn’t scored an own goal, because it had been a very near thing.

  “Are you coming home now?” Kay asked.

  “Not yet, I’m taking the twins into town for new shoes. Can I get you anything while I’m there?”

  “No thank you. I did my shopping yesterday. I think you should come home.”

  Frowning, Jenna said, “Why?”

  “Because I’ve just dropped Paige off and she was crying when I found her.”

  “What do you mean, found her? Where was she?”

  “In Llangennith. I know she was supposed to be surfing, but she was a long way from the beach and there was no sign of her friends.”

  “Did she tell you what happened?”

  “No.”

  And her mother wouldn’t have pushed it. “She’s obviously had some sort of falling-out with Charlotte,” Jenna decided, experiencing a flash of annoyance as she spotted Jack in his car talking on the phone. Who the hell is he talking to now? “I’ll give her a ring.”

  After disconnecting, she settled the children in the back of her car and, leaving them to squabble over who had to sit in the middle, took Waffle over to Jack. As he saw her coming he opened the driver’s door and told whoever he was talking to that he’d get right on it and ring them back.

  “What are you doing?” he asked as Jenna ushered Waffle into the passenger seat.

  “You need to take him home.”

  “But I’ve arranged—”

  “I don’t care what you’ve arranged. The dog needs to go home while I take the children.”

  “Jenna, for God’s sake…”

  “Don’t ‘for God’s sake’ me. Whatever your plans are, you can change them.”

  “They’re expecting me.”

  “Who?”

  “Bill and the lads. To watch the match.”

  “Then call back to say you can’t make it. The dog needs to go home and apparently Paige is upset.”

  “What about?”

  “I don’t know, but as her father, you might like to find out and see if there’s anything you can do to comfort her.”

  “Oh, come on. Whatever it is will have blown over by the time I get there. I’ll take the dog back, then carry on.”

  “Why are you so insistent that you have to watch the match with the lads?”

  His face tightened. “Because it’s what we arranged.”

  “Well, now you can unarrange it and watch the game with Paige and Josh. He doesn’t need to come with me—he had new shoes last week.”

  Sighing and holding up his hands in surrender, he said, “OK, if it’ll make you happy…”

  “It will.” Aware they were being watched by other parents, she went to get Josh.

  “Dad’s going to watch the game with me?” Josh gasped in delight. “That is so awesome!” Throwing off his seat belt, he dashed over to his father’s car.

  “I want to watch it too,” Wills cried, trying to follow.

  “You have to come with me,” Jenna told him.

  “But I don’t want to. Please don’t make me.”

  “You need shoes and we won’t know what size you are if your feet aren’t there.”

  Finding that funny, Wills laughed and settled back in his seat.

  “Are you still cross with Daddy?” Flora asked, her dark eyes sweetly magnified by her glasses.

  “You don’t miss a thing, do you?” Jenna commented, getting into the driver’s seat.

  “Are you?” Flora pressed.

  “No, I’m not,” Jenna lied. “I’m only happy that Josh had a good game
and that I’ve got my lovely twins coming into town with me.”

  “You didn’t even stand with Daddy while Josh was playing,” Flora pointed out.

  This was true, she hadn’t, for the very good reason that she might not have been able to stop herself carrying on their argument from last night, and the last thing she’d wanted was to turn them into a public spectacle. What she’d needed, then and now, was to find out the real reason why he hadn’t returned home until after midnight when he’d said he’d be back in ten minutes. His excuse was that he’d got chatting in the pub and time had run away with him, which often happened with him, and ordinarily she simply let it go. This time she hadn’t, and she wasn’t sure why. Maybe because he didn’t appear to have been drinking, and she was sure he’d smelled of perfume.

  Perfume, for God’s sake!

  “The only reason I could possibly smell of perfume,” he’d retorted when she’d leveled it at him, “is because Andy Ritch’s missus was in the pub and you know how she always reeks of the stuff.”

  Actually, she didn’t know that about Judy Ritch. “So is that who you were with?”

  “No! She gave me a hug before she left.”

  “So if I rang her now, she’d confirm that?”

  “Jenna, for Christ’s sake, you can’t go calling people up at this time of night. And where has all this suspicion suddenly come from? What exactly are you trying to accuse me of?”

  Since she wasn’t entirely sure herself, she’d turned away and gone into the bathroom, where she shrugged off her dressing gown and tossed the filmy negligee she’d put on—three hours earlier—into the laundry. She’d then dragged on her pajamas, collected up all the spent candles, and dumped them in the waste bin.

  By the time she’d returned to bed he was already asleep, or at least was pretending to be, but she hadn’t wanted to carry on the scene anyway, so she’d simply turned her back and switched off the light.

  Being Jack, he’d assumed it was all forgotten this morning when he’d ventured downstairs for breakfast, and had appeared genuinely surprised when she’d moved away from his embrace. In truth she hadn’t even known she was going to do so, had actually told herself at some point in the night to let it go, but for some reason she was finding herself unable to.

  Where had he really been last night? And who was so important that he’d missed the last five minutes of his son’s football match to go and take their call just now? She should have asked to see his phone, and probably would have had they not been standing in full view of half their neighbors.

  As she drove across the bleak, glorious landscape of the Bryn, where the randomly wandering wild ponies immediately grabbed Flora’s attention, she felt tempted to call the pub to find out if he really had been there last night. She wouldn’t do it, not only because of the gossip it would stir up, but also because she wasn’t certain she wanted to hear the answer. She was remembering now how Irene Evans had seemed so certain that she hadn’t seen him for a while, and how perplexed his brother had sounded when she’d told him Jack had already seen their mother this week.

  As her heart churned with dread of what this could mean, her hands tightened on the wheel. Damn him! Damn, damn, damn him. How could he put her in this position, making her feel worried, insecure, jealous, when she’d never been any of those things before? They were so close, had always been each other’s best friend, had never had secrets from each other—or so she’d believed.

  Dear God, please don’t let things be about to change. They were happy together, adored their children. They were about to launch their own business, had the house of their dreams, enjoyed the kind of marriage so many of her friends only dreamed about…She couldn’t lose it all now—she couldn’t lose it ever.

  Using the hands-free to connect to him, she half expected to be bumped to voicemail, but he answered on the fourth ring.

  “Are you home?” she asked.

  “Just got here. Paige is in her room.” He didn’t sound angry, but neither did he sound very friendly.

  “Have you spoken to her?”

  “Not yet. I’m not sure how to make her come down. Any suggestions?”

  “She will if she wants to. If she doesn’t, it’ll probably help just to know you’re there.”

  “What’s wrong with Paige?” Flora asked from the back.

  “Nothing, sweetheart. You keep counting the ponies.” To Jack she said, “There are hamburgers in the fridge, buns in the bread bin.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Can we have hamburgers?” Wills wanted to know.

  “Yes, for tea, when we get home.”

  “I’m hungry now.”

  “We’ll get something in town.”

  “Dad!” Flora shouted. “I counted sixteen ponies.”

  “Very good,” he praised. “Can you work out how many legs that is?”

  Amused, and annoyed, by the way he’d so easily distracted her, Jenna said, “I don’t want this to go on.”

  “You think I do?”

  “No. I hope not, anyway.”

  “I don’t.”

  She knew if the children weren’t listening he’d probably say more, but because they were it would have to wait. “I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions,” she told him.

  “I’m sorry too. I should have come home earlier. I wish I had, because unless I’m gravely mistaken I think I missed out on some candles.”

  “You did, but we have more.” Kind of glad she’d made the call, she rang off.

  —

  Putting aside the hot-water bottle her grandma had given her before going off to deliver more leaflets, Paige got up from the bed. She was feeling a bit better now, more able to face up to everything that was going wrong in her life.

  It had helped, a lot, that she’d had a long chat with Charlotte a while ago. Apparently Charlotte had been worried sick about what might have happened to her and hadn’t been sure whether to call her mum.

  “If I hadn’t heard from you in the next ten minutes I was going to,” she’d vowed when they’d finally connected. “Cullum told me what he said to you, the tosser. It’s bloody typical of him to come out with things the wrong way.”

  “So are you at his house now?”

  “Yeah, and Owen’s here, so I’m going to try and have a chat with him. It’s just stupid the way all this crap is getting out of hand. When he sees for himself that none of us have turned against him—well, he’s got to know that already or Cullum wouldn’t have invited him—he’ll definitely come round.”

  Desperate to believe that, Paige said, “How’s it going with Liam? You were totally amazing the way you went over to him, like you knew him already.”

  “I must admit I felt really comfortable with him right off. He’s, like, totally easy to be with, and we can’t stay virgins all our lives, can we?”

  As they giggled Paige said, “Have you spoken to Oliver at all?”

  “Not really. He’s a bit, I don’t know…kind of moody, I guess, and…What’s the word? Deep. That’s it, deep. That’s how he comes across to me, anyway. Don’t get me wrong, he has a laugh and everything, but there just seems to be this other side of him. I’ll keep an eye on him during the match and let you know what I think after.”

  Loving him even more for being moody and deep, Paige said enviously, “Please don’t tell me you’re the only girl there.”

  “No way! Hayley, Courtenay, and Nicole have just turned up and more people are on their way, apparently, so I expect some of them will be girls.”

  Struck completely miserable by being left out, and by the fear that Oliver might fancy one of the other girls, added to the fact that he had a girlfriend anyway (except where was she?), Paige said, “It really sucks that this is happening. It’s making me feel like a total loser.” That was what Kelly Durham had called her.

  Maybe Kelly was right.

  “No way are you a loser,” Charlotte objected. “It’ll all get straightened out with Owen, I promise. I’m going to find him a
s soon as we get off the phone.”

  “Before you go, what’s the house like? Is it as big as Cullum’s always making out?”

  “Oh my God, you should see it. It’s a bloody mansion, it is, and there’s only an actual screening room where we’re going to watch the match. Apparently Oliver’s recording studio is next door to that, and there’s a games room somewhere, Cullum said, with billiards and darts and all that boring bloke shite. His dad’s obviously stinking rich.”

  “Are his parents there?”

  “His mum’s dead,” Charlotte reminded her, “and I haven’t seen his dad, but we only got here a few minutes ago. Listen, I have to ring off now, but I’ll keep texting to let you know how everything’s going, OK?”

  When the first message came it said, Tried speaking to Owen but he’s avoiding me.

  The second, Game’s just kicked off so can’t do it yet.

  The third, Oliver sat on his own in great big chair for two, looking sad. Reckon he’s missing you.

  Though Paige’s heart had jumped at that, she’d known it couldn’t be true. It was nice to think about it for a while, though, imagining him looking up as she walked in, putting his arm around her as she sat down.

  Hello slag, how many dicks have you had today? Like the one I sent you earlier? Big enough for you?

  Totally sickened, Paige was tempted to send a message back telling Kelly to drop dead, but in the end she managed to stop herself. If she responded, she’d only end up getting even more abuse, and she could definitely do without that.

  “Paige! Are you all right in there?” her dad called out for what felt like the hundredth time.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll be down in a minute.”

  “You’re missing the match.”

  “I said, I’ll be down in a minute.”

  So what’s it like being ugly? You know that’s what everyone thinks, don’t you?

  Trying to tell herself it wasn’t true, she deleted the text and clicked on to a new one from Charlotte.

  Are you watching the game? You should, it’s brilliant. Wales def going to win.

  What’s the score? she messaged back.

  When she didn’t receive a reply she wandered over to her laptop and sat down in front of it. There were a few emails in her inbox, all from school, and a private message on Facebook from Julie.