Meanwhile, Vanessa sat looking at the phone. Something was different. What was it? Oh yes, she realized with a little start. They hadn’t argued. And Dick was going to make lasagna.
The lasagna was disgusting. Even Dick couldn’t eat it, and he was starving. So when Zak suggested whole wheat biscuits covered in golden syrup and chocolate buttons and Tallulah started getting so excited she hugged her daddy, Dick decided that food was for fun, and one meal really wasn’t going to harm anyone.
By the time Josh came home, Dick, Zak, and Tallulah were so high on E-numbers they could have invaded a small unsuspecting island. Josh tidied them up, cleaned the kitchen, calmed them down and made them sit down to cheese on toast with Tabasco sauce followed by fruit salad à la Josh. Then he and Dick prepared the pancake mixture while the kids tidied up.
Stalemate reigned in Niblet-upon-Avon. Jo had started ignoring her father back, and every opportunity that could have been taken to make friends had become an opportunity to be the first one to ignore the other. Jo’s new existence was punctuated every so often by emptying her mother’s commode and taking headache pills.
She was in the kitchen taking her teatime pills, ignoring her father as he prepared Hilda’s tea, when her mobile interrupted the silence. Her father ignored the noise. She ignored her father ignoring the noise. When she saw that it was Gerry, she stared at the phone, and it was only her father’s grunt that made her answer it.
“Hello!” she greeted warily.
“Hi there,” said Gerry. “Just wanted to see how you are.”
“I’m absolutely fine, thanks,” she said, surprised to feel warm and friendly at the sound of his voice instead of threatened and claustrophobic. “Thanks for asking.” Her father grunted again.
“Don’t be daft,” said Gerry, “We’ve been missing you.”
“Oh thank you!” She crossed her arms and faced her father, while speaking into the phone. “Tell you what, it’s nice to know someone cares.”
Bill looked at his watch, checked it against the kitchen clock and tapped it in Jo’s face.
“I’d better go, Gerry,” said Jo. “I’m needed.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll call you again another time.”
“Okay,” said Jo. “Thanks.” She put the phone down and told herself that this was not a man who couldn’t take no for an answer. She had been frightening herself over nothing.
The pancakes were disgusting. Even Dick couldn’t eat them and he was starving. But it didn’t matter. The ice cream Vanessa had picked up while taking Cassie home was a grand success, and it only took an hour to clean the kitchen up afterward. No one was surprised that the kids disappeared for this. While the grown-ups tidied, the children had important issues to discuss.
“Right,” said Cassandra, upstairs. “I call this meeting now open.”
Zak and Tallulah looked up at her excitedly.
The meeting didn’t take long at all. Cassandra chaired it with confidence and purpose. Zak and Tallulah loved their roles and admired her terribly. They had no time to lose. Operation Jo had to start immediately.
Downstairs, things weren’t quite as exciting. While Vanessa showered, Josh and Dick spoke quietly in the kitchen.
“Well?” asked Dick eventually. “Are things as bad as I thought?”
“Do you want the bad news or the bad news?” asked Josh gently.
Dick sighed.
“The bad news,” said Josh, “is that to my estimation, you’re about six months from bankruptcy.”
“Jesus.” Dick took a swig of whiskey. “And the bad news?”
“And the bad news is that I’d like to buy it off you.”
Dick stared at his son.
“Come again?”
Josh took a deep breath, “The thought of being an accountant for the rest of my life depresses me more than you can imagine. I spoke to my bank today, and they’d give me a loan. I want to take over the shop, Dad.”
Dick shook his head. “Son, son, son.”
“Listen to me! No one else will buy it. This is your only chance. As well as mine.”
“Please don’t make the same mistakes I did.”
“I haven’t. I’ve got a profession, I could keep the books far more effectively than you ever could.”
“Owch!” grimaced Dick.
“All thanks to you. Thanks to your sound advice when I was a kid, I have a structure with which to support my dreams. I can learn how to run my own business because I’ve seen how businesses succeed and fail. I won’t be doing it blind like you had to. And if it fails, at least I’ll have tried, and I’ll just go back to being an accountant. I’ll never be unemployable, Dad. You made sure of that.”
“I got something right then.” Dick smiled.
“Yes. And now I’m going to do what you told me not to do and follow your example. I want to sell music.”
“Music? Not records?”
Josh shrugged. “Some records, but CDs, too, and DVDs.”
“So you’re going to buy my shop and then sell out?”
“No, I’m going to make it work. And I won’t sell out, because it won’t be a pop music shop. It will be eclectic. Unique. Very Highgate. I also thought I might do a coffee bar, you know at the back there, where you’ve got the old jukebox.”
“You’ve really thought this through.”
“Dad,” said Josh, “I haven’t felt this excited for…I’ve never felt this excited before.”
Dick shrugged. “Well,” he said eventually, “who am I to stop you?”
“But do I have your…blessing?”
“Do you need it?”
“You know I do.”
“You have my blessing whatever you do, Josh.”
Josh smiled.
Just then, Tallulah padded into the kitchen in her pajamas.
“Hello, sweetie,” said Dick. “How’s my sunbeam?”
“Tired,” said Tallulah.
“Do you want me to come up and tuck you in?”
Tallulah shook her head and pointed to Josh.
“I want Josh to.”
Dick and Josh grinned at each other, and Josh tried not to feel smug.
As Josh took the stairs two at a time, feeling smug, Dick poured Vanessa a Baileys and took the stairs one at a time. Both men wavered for a moment before entering the rooms.
Dick wavered slightly more than Josh. As he closed the bedroom door behind him, he could hear Vanessa still in the shower. He undressed and put his clothes in the empty laundry basket. He noticed Vanessa’s blouse on the bed. The shower stopped. He picked up the Baileys and wandered in.
“Thought you might like this,” he said, as Vanessa wrapped a towel round her.
“Oh wow!” she smiled. “Perfect.”
“Do you want that blouse cleaned?”
“Oh, it’s dry-clean, I’ll do it over the weekend.”
“I’ll do it tomorrow.”
She looked at him.
“You sure?”
“Yep. I’m going into the village anyway to get in some shopping.”
“Great.”
“Coming to bed?”
“Yes. I’ll just comb my hair out.”
Vanessa gave her husband a smile, then watched him leave the room, slowly turned, and stared at herself in the mirror.
Josh pushed open Tallulah’s door and was surprised to see the light off and Tallulah curled up in bed, with Cassie beside her.
“Hey,” he whispered. “What’s this? A powwow?”
“Lula’s been having bad dreams,” whispered Cassie. “Haven’t you, Tal?”
Tallulah nodded.
“Come on then, move over,” said Josh, sitting on the bed. “I can’t have my two favorite girls having problems sleeping. What’s up?”
Tallulah sucked her thumb, and Cassandra sighed.
“Come on,” soothed Josh. “You can tell me.”
Tallulah shook her head.
“Sweetheart!” said Josh, dismayed. “What can’t you t
ell me?”
Tallulah sighed.
“Can you tell Mummy or Daddy?” tried Josh.
“No!” said Cassie quickly.
“Why?” he asked, starting to worry. “What’s going on, Cass?”
Cassie turned to Tallulah.
“Can I tell him, Tally?”
Tallulah barely nodded.
“She’s been having nightmares,” whispered Cassie.
“What sort of nightmares?” whispered Josh.
Cassie opened her eyes wide in the dark. “Nasty ones,” she said in hushed tones.
“How nasty?”
“They’re about…they’re about…”
“Go on…”
“They’re all about…”
“Cassie, you have to tell me.”
“They’re about Jo.”
Josh sat up straight. That he had not expected. And then to his horror, Tallulah curled up even tighter and started weeping. He put his arm round her and made soothing noises.
“Jo keeps dying in her dreams,” explained Cass.
“You’re kidding!” said Josh. “That’s terrible.”
“And Lula’s trying to catch her—”
“Catch her? Is she falling?”
“Yes. She’s always falling. Off a cliff.”
Josh gasped.
“We’re scared something terrible’s happening to her.” Tallulah’s elbow jerked out and nudged her sister. “And we miss her,” added Cassie, her head down.
“Yes,” said Josh. “I know. We all do.”
“Mummy and Daddy didn’t row as much when Jo was here,” whispered Tallulah through her thumb. “Now they row all the time.” She started crying into her hands again.
They had a point, thought Josh. There was that hideous row the other night that was so loud it woke him up, then he’d heard Dick crying. And God only knew what it was doing to Dick’s self-esteem shutting up the shop for most of the day and being at home with the children. He was putting a brave face on it, but it couldn’t be good for him. But what to do?
“What can we do?” asked Cassie.
“I don’t know, darling,” said Josh. “Hope and pray to God that she comes home soon.”
“Mummy said God is a man-made construct to stop people being ambitious,” said Cassie.
“Oh.”
“Shall I phone Jo?” she asked.
“I don’t think that will be a good idea.”
“Oh,” said Cassie, and then started whispering again. “We thought we might go and get her.”
Josh looked at his half sibling with wonder. “Did you?” he asked.
“Yes. But then Zak said he’d have to use the girls’ toilets with us, so we couldn’t.”
The three of them sat on the bed for a while.
“G’night, Josh,” came Tallulah’s voice in the dark.
“Oh, good night pumpkin,” said Josh, and gave her a kiss on her soft, dry cheek. He and Cassie left Tallulah’s room, closing it softly behind them. In the hall, Cassie looked up at Josh.
“Thanks for helping,” she said.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“No, well,” said Cassie, disappointment in her voice, “thanks for trying anyway.” With a heavy sigh, she went to her bedroom.
As Josh stood on the landing, he heard a noise from upstairs that sounded like someone snorting a vacuum cleaner. After a while, he realized it was Zak sobbing. He bounded upstairs and knocked on his door. The sobbing stopped.
“Zak?” whispered Josh. “Can I come in?”
After a while, there was a muted “Yes.”
Josh pushed Zak’s door slowly, catching the flying cyberdog as it flew toward him and jumping over the trip wire. He sat on Zak’s bed.
“What’s up, little man?”
Zak wiped his face.
“I had a nasty dream.”
“Was Jo falling off a cliff?”
There was silence in the dark.
“No,” whispered Zak.
“Go on.”
Zak sat up in bed. “Mummy left us”—he sniffed—“because, because she had to go and be a nanny…for Jo…in the north somewhere. And then Daddy left us because he couldn’t live without Mummy.”
Josh hugged his brother. “Mate,” he said, “no one’s ever going to leave you.”
Zak leaned into Josh and sniffed. “Jo left,” he whispered.
“But she’ll be back. I know she will.”
They sat up until Josh was woken by the sound of a lawnmower in his ear. Zak was snoring.
After tucking Zak in, Josh went downstairs and walked slowly through Jo’s empty room to his own. Sitting on his bed, he made up his mind. For the sake of the children, for the sake of the family, there was only one thing he could do. He was going to bring Jo back.
Chapter 23
Josh woke early the next morning and found the kids watching television in their pajamas. Soft sounds of adults abluting upstairs filled in the gaps left by the Teletubbies.
“Right! Kids,” he began—
“Shh!” said Tallulah.
“This is boring,” said Zak. “It’s for babies.”
“So you should enjoy it then,” said Cassandra.
“Right, kids,” repeated Josh. “I’m going to bring Jo back.”
The children tore their eyes away from footage of a little girl finding a slug under a tree for the third time.
“I know,” said Josh. “It was a bit of a surprise to me too, but, well. There it is.”
And when they all leaped on him, he knew he’d made the right decision. He explained that they had to keep it a secret from the adults, and did they think they could manage that, and they said yes, and then they hugged him again, and that morning, he went to work with a spring in his step and a great big dollop of happiness in his heart.
On Saturday morning, the children, including Toby, woke early. Vanessa and Dick were delighted that they all wanted to help Josh wash Jo’s car—even Toby—and when Josh offered to take it for a spin to keep the battery charged, they said he could use it until Jo came back.
After an hour, Toby and Josh were finishing off cleaning the car and Cassie, Zak, and Tallulah were inside finishing off chocolate biscuits and diluted orange juice.
“So how do you know she’s going to come back?” Toby asked Josh while polishing the bonnet.
“I don’t,” said Josh, giving the roof a final rub. “But it’s worth a try. The kids are a mess without her. And the other day I heard Dad and Vanessa having an awful row.”
Toby seemed unmoved.
“Tobe, Dad was crying.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. We need Jo back.”
Toby nodded.
“How’s Anastasia?” Josh winked.
“Wicked.” Toby grinned.
“And how’s the terrifying Todd Carter?”
“Very nice. Offered to do my math homework for me the other day.”
“What did you say?”
“I said ‘Piss off, I want to pass.’”
“Shit,” whispered Josh. “Be careful, Tobe.”
“I was joking. I said thanks, but no thanks.”
“Good.”
Toby opened the car door to clean the inside.
“Oh, lame!” He emited an abrupt laugh.
“What?”
“Look!”
Toby leaned across and took out Jo’s dashboard cuddly toys.
“Put those back, Tobe.”
Toby made a sound like a cow dying.
“Stop laughing,” said Josh. “You really can be a prat sometimes. This is the woman who’s got two CID policemen as mates, and you’re taking the piss out of her cuddly toys.”
Toby studied them in his hands. “Actually,” he said. “They’re quite cute.”
“Put them back and help me finish.”
Toby put them back. “So why aren’t you telling Dad and Vanessa about going to get Jo?” he asked.
“’Cos they might not understand,” said Jos
h.
“What’s not to understand? You miss Jo, so you’re—”
“The kids miss her,” interrupted Josh. “Two nightmares in one night. And Tallulah keeps getting them. And Dad and Vanessa have been rowing really badly. I’m doing it for the family.”
“Why?” asked Toby.
“’Cos I’m nice, that’s why.”
“What’s this family ever done for you?”
Josh and Toby faced each other over the roof of the car.
“Tobe?”
“Mm?”
“Let’s go for a quick ride. Might let you drive if we find an empty parking lot.”
Toby jumped into the passenger seat.
Josh did let Toby drive. And he also told him about the conversation he’d had with their mum. And he explained that whether he liked it or not, Cassie, Tallulah, and Zak had nothing to do with Dad leaving Mum, and just as he’d had to grow up sharing his dad with them, they’d had to grow up knowing they had to share their dad with a boy who hated them. And they were going to be his brother and sisters all his life, and they would never forget how he treated them now.
Toby was quiet on the way home. When they stopped at a petrol station, Josh bought him some chocolates to cheer him up.
When they got home, Toby raced in.
“Oy! Lula!” he shouted at Tallulah, who was drawing at the kitchen table.
“It’s Tallulah!” yelled Tallulah.
“What have I got in my hand, Tallulah?” Toby held up a closed fist. Tallulah flinched, got up from the table, and walked quickly into the garden.
“What did I tell you?” shouted Josh.
Toby opened his fist. Inside was a squashed chocolate.
“I was going to give it to her,” he said in a strangled voice, before rushing upstairs.
Josh would have gone up after him, but he had to get to Niblet-upon-Avon.
Later that afternoon, the children had a meeting in Tallulah’s room. Zak was only too pleased, as Toby had shut him out of their room all afternoon.
“I think we can say the plan went well,” began Cassie. She looked at her watch. “Josh should be arriving at Jo’s within half an hour.”
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