by Hilary Boyd
Daniel turned and came back into the kitchen, his feet bare on the tiles. He glanced between her and Lucy. ‘I swear on my dead mother’s life that I never touched Emma last night, except to push her off. She was very drunk and she came on to me. There was nothing I could’ve done to stop her.’
‘Well, Ed believes her.’ Marsha shook her head, bewildered. One of them was lying.
Daniel looked oddly hopeful. ‘But you don’t?’
She hesitated. Emma was her best friend. Could she take his side over Emma’s? Did she want to?
‘I don’t know what to think,’ Marsha muttered finally, turning away to look for more debris.
‘I think I’d better leave.’
‘Leave?’ Lucy asked, surprised.
‘It’s best if I do. I don’t want to cause any more trouble. If I’m not here, maybe things’ll calm down.’
Marsha immediately thought of her mother. ‘Please don’t go, Daniel. Not without seeing Mum. She’ll freak if you’re not here.’
‘She’ll freak anyway,’ he replied, his expression darkening at the thought.
Lucy looked at her sister. ‘Mash?’
‘I don’t know …’ Marsha stared blankly at Daniel. ‘I don’t have a clue what’s best.’
She remembered Ed and Emma upstairs.
‘Maybe it’d be better if you weren’t here when they come down,’ she told him. ‘I don’t want Ed attacking you again.’
Daniel nodded. ‘I’ll go.’ But he looked bewildered and she felt sorry for him.
‘I’m sure we can work this out,’ she said, without much conviction. And he shrugged an acknowledgement.
‘Thanks.’
‘Where will you go?’ Marsha asked.
‘Oh … a friend, I suppose.’
‘Umm … Daniel’s not here,’ Marsha answered her mother now. ‘I’ll do the tea, Dad, you sit down. You must be knackered after that drive.’ She hurried over to the sink. ‘Go and sit in the sunshine, I’ll bring it out.’
She looked out to see her mother sink gratefully onto the padded lounger and heard her say, ‘Great to be home!’
‘She’s not going to think it’s so great when we tell her the good news,’ Marsha muttered to Lucy as they got the tea ready.
‘You tell them … you’re better at it than me,’ Lucy begged.
‘Better at what? I’ve never done anything like this before in my fucking life. And never want to do it again, for that matter.’
Lucy took the tea and cups out on a tray. Marsha followed with a plate of chocolate digestive biscuits. Her father grinned up at her from his lounger.
‘You don’t appear to have wrecked the place. Can’t have been a very good party!’
She and Lucy sat patiently while their mother and father regaled them with stories about the weekend. They laughed in all the right places, but Marsha wasn’t really listening. Her brain toiled round and round the night of the party, but could find no satisfactory resolution.
Ed and Emma hadn’t stayed on Sunday, just taken off without a word – they must have thought Daniel was still downstairs. So she hadn’t seen them to talk. She’d tried her brother’s number, but he’d been almost curt with her. ‘She’s surviving. She wants to stay with me tonight,’ he’d told her, clearly wanting to get off the phone.
‘Go on,’ Lucy mouthed, catching her eye and smiling sweetly.
Her mother had clocked the look between them and raised her eyebrows at Marsha. ‘Darling? Is something the matter?’
Marsha knew it was down to her, and took a moment to decide what to say.
‘Uh … OK. This is a bit tricky …’ She paused. Her parents looked at her expectantly, but she could see her mother was already frowning. She ploughed on. ‘There was a bit of a set-to after the party on Saturday night. Emma accused Daniel of coming on to her. Well, more than coming on to her, really sexually harassing her and —’
‘No!’ Her mother interrupted her. ‘No. I don’t believe it.’
‘Let her finish,’ Richard said quietly.
‘There isn’t much more. Daniel denied it, of course. Ed – who’d been sick and hadn’t come to the party – tried to hit him when he heard. Ed and Emma won’t talk to us and stayed at Ed’s last night. And, well, Daniel thought it best that he leave.’ She took a deep breath as the dismal litany ended.
Annie gasped. ‘This is complete rubbish! Daniel would never do a thing like that. What are you saying? Has he really left?’
‘Mum, for one thing, we didn’t want Ed going for him again,’ Lucy chipped in. ‘He’s gone to stay with a friend. Until things calm down.’
‘Christ.’ This from her dad.
‘You don’t believe him, do you?’ Her mother was staring at her and Lucy. She was really pale suddenly.
Marsha sighed. ‘I don’t know what to think. I find it hard to believe Daniel capable of doing it, and, bottom line, it would be daft for him to behave like that under our roof, surely. But Emms was in a bad way, Mum. You should have seen her, she was terribly upset. And none of us can work out why she would make up something so horrible.’
‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’ Her mother looked furious. ‘She’s protecting Ed. She knows he’s had his nose put out of joint over Daniel, so she’s made up this ridiculous story so that Daniel will be disgraced and chucked out of the family and Ed won’t have to put up with him any more.’
‘Mum! Are you saying Emms actually planned this? That she’s deliberately smeared Daniel’s name? She’d never, ever do something so vicious.’
‘She wouldn’t, Mum,’ Lucy added, her voice indignant. ‘I know she can be a pain, and a flirt. But no way is she that wicked.’
Her mother seemed to accept this. ‘No, well, maybe not planned it. But how do you explain her behaviour then? Because Daniel did not come on to that girl. To Ed’s girlfriend? You can’t believe that.’
Marsha felt her hackles rise. She’s taking his side without even finding out the facts. Not that there were any to find out, only versions, but still, she might be a bit less obviously on Daniel’s side.
‘You weren’t there, Mum. You have no idea what happened. None of us have. You can’t know for sure that Daniel isn’t somehow to blame.’
‘No, you can’t.’ She was glad her dad agreed.
‘Sorry, but I can. I don’t care what any of you tell me, Daniel … did … not … attack Emma.’
Marsha glanced at Lucy.
‘Lucy?’ Her mother was pinning her sister with a ferocious stare and Marsha could see Lucy wavering.
‘I’m with Mash, Mum. I think it’s really super-unlikely that Daniel would do something like that. But it doesn’t make sense. Maybe he did a bit … maybe they were both drunk … and then Emms got freaked and, like, exaggerated? I don’t know …’
But her mother wasn’t having it. ‘She’s lying. Look at her track record, girls. She’s regularly stolen other people’s boyfriends. Had an affair – aged fifteen – with her maths teacher. Run two men at once, basically acted any way she felt like at the time, with no thought for anyone else’s feelings? Why would you trust her?’
‘Annie,’ Richard said, ‘you’ve known Emma since she was a child, and Daniel for about ten minutes. OK, her reputation’s not great, we all know that. But can you be certain that she’s the one in the wrong here? What you’re accusing her of is very serious.’
‘Yes, and it’s precisely because I’ve known Emma for so long that I can see what she’s doing. You know quite well – you’ve said it yourself often enough in the past, Richard – that girl is capable of anything when it comes to men.’
‘I know she isn’t altogether to be trusted with guys, Mum,’ Marsha said. ‘Even though she’s my best friend – in fact Emma herself would agree with you. But this is a step too far, don’t you think? I just can’t believe she would make us think that about Daniel if there isn’t at least some truth in it.’ She couldn’t forget the admiring glance he’d cast at her friend at the party.
‘Shouldn’t you call Ed too?’ her father called after her mother, but she didn’t answer.
Annie waited until she was in the safety of her bedroom, out of earshot of the others, before making the call to her elder son. Of course she would ring Ed, but he wasn’t the injured party here.
Daniel answered his phone on the second ring.
‘Welcome back,’ he said wryly.
‘Where are you?’ Annie asked.
‘Uh … I’m on the Heath.’
‘Can we meet up? Not here.’
‘Yup, OK.’ He sounded resigned rather than angry.
‘Usual place? By the Parliament Hill Fields entrance?’
She throbbed with indignation as she made the short walk to the Heath. She knew she’d been curt with her daughters and Richard, and that what they said was perfectly reasonable, but she just couldn’t cope with the feeling that somehow Daniel had been set up.
He was sitting on the wall near the entrance, waiting for her. He looked very young suddenly and, unsurprisingly, pale and tired. He got up slowly when he saw her, and offered himself to be embraced. She hugged him fiercely against her, meeting little resistance.
‘Let’s walk,’ she said, and they set off.
‘I didn’t do it,’ was the first thing Daniel said, striding along, his hands buried in his jeans pockets.
‘I know you didn’t.’
Daniel glanced sideways at her. ‘Why are you so sure?’
‘I just am.’ She threw herself down on a patch of grass up the hill from the main path and looked steadily at her son.
‘So tell me. What happened?’
Daniel looked utterly bewildered, pushing his hair off his face in a gesture that had become very familiar to her. ‘It had been a fun party, nobody caused trouble … they were a good bunch. Marsha was tired, but there were a few stragglers – including Emma – out on the deck, so I said I’d stay and make sure everything was shut up after they left. Emma disappeared and I assumed she’d gone up to bed, but after I’d locked the doors to the garden I went to turn the lights off in the TV room, and she was on the sofa. She told Marsha she’d been asleep, but I don’t think she was.’ He paused, tearing small clumps of dried-out grass from the dusty ground in silence. ‘When she saw me, she beckoned me over. I could see she was drunk, and I went to help her up. But she clung to me, and began stroking my face …’ he shot an embarrassed look at her, ‘then she kissed me, pressing herself against me … Annie, she was really trying it on. I don’t want to spell it out, but you can guess.’
‘And you weren’t tempted? Even a little bit?’
Daniel made a short, angry sound. ‘So you don’t entirely believe me.’
‘I have to ask,’ she said. She knew all too well the lethal level of attraction Emma inspired in the majority of red-blooded males. They would happily risk their marriages, their careers, their dignity to bask in a momentary glance from those dark eyes. Why should Daniel be any different?
‘I tried to pull away, but she clung to me, and in the end I had to hold her off – I probably was responsible for the bruises on her arms – and push her back onto the sofa. She was furious.’
‘Not used to rejection.’
‘Whatever … but she called me a bastard, said I was “up myself” and that Ed thought I was a jerk.’
He appeared defeated as he sat there cross-legged on the grass. How upsetting, she thought, to know that people dislike you merely for your existence.
‘He doesn’t think you’re a jerk.’
Daniel raised his eyebrows.
‘I’m not denying he’s jealous of you.’ Her heart went out to her second son. What hell he must be going through, thinking Daniel had tried to make a move on his girlfriend. He’s insecure about Emma on a good day. And none of this is his fault.
‘It doesn’t really matter what Ed thought of me before though, does it? He sure as hell hates me now.’
Annie nodded reluctantly. ‘Right at this moment, that’s probably true. But I’m sure Emma will tell the truth in the end.’
He shook his head doubtfully.
‘I can see why she did what she did now. I suppose she thought you’d tell someone – Lucy, Marsha – and she wanted to get in first and blame you. It makes sense.’
‘I thought of that, but it’s not really much consolation.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘I mean, it’s hardly in her best interests to tell the truth at this stage, is it? It’d be the end of her relationship with Ed, and probably the rest of the family.’
‘But at least I can tell the others what happened …’
‘My version … they know that already, Annie.’
‘And I think Marsha and Lucy trust you – they just thought perhaps there might be blame on both sides.’
Daniel sighed. ‘Well, fair enough. Even you had your doubts.’
She wasn’t going to deny it. She had. But her silence was obviously a beat too long for her son. He gave her a disappointed look.
‘Look, there’s something I haven’t told you. I didn’t want to tell you like this. But if it’s the only way you’ll believe me …’
Annie’s phone rang. She looked at the screen.
‘Sorry, I have to take this … Ed?’
‘Mum, where are you?’ His voice sounded dull and heavy with stress.
‘I’m on the Heath.’ She dreaded him asking if she were alone, but Daniel was getting to his feet. She gestured urgently for to him to wait, but he just shrugged and turned away. She watched helplessly as he gathered pace, almost running towards the path and the exit to the main road, then turned her attention to her other son.
‘Did you hear what he did?’ Ed demanded.
‘Marsha told me.’
‘What are you going to do, Mum?’
She sighed. ‘I don’t know what I can do, darling.’
‘But the bastard assaulted my girlfriend!’ Ed’s voice was full of rage. ‘You’re going to throw him out, aren’t you? You can’t have him in the house after what he’s done.’
‘He’s gone already. He went yesterday.’
There was silence on the other end of the phone.
‘Emms is in a terrible state, Mum. I don’t know what to do about her. She keeps crying and crying. I want to kill him for what he’s done to her. Bloody, bloody bastard.’
It was horrible hearing the anguish in his voice and not knowing what to say, how to help him. Not knowing, either, if Emma’s tears were tears brought about by guilt, or by trauma. Nor if Ed himself really believed her.
‘Just give her time, darling. She’s bound to be upset.’
‘Have you talked to … him?’ He asked, spitting out the last word as if it were poisoning him.
‘Yes …’
‘And? Told you he had bugger all to do with it, no doubt.’
Annie was lost for words. One son pitted against the other.
‘He said he didn’t do it, Ed.’
There was an explosion of anger at the other end of the phone.
‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he?’ She heard a brief silence. ‘But you didn’t believe him, did you, Mum?’
‘I don’t know what to believe, darling. The whole thing’s a nightmare.’
‘Right, well … let me know when you’ve made up your mind.’ Ed’s voice was suddenly dangerously quiet, then the phone went dead.
For a long time after Ed had hung up, she just sat there on the grass. This is my fault, she thought. I was the one who went along with Daniel moving in. I should have listened to Richard – and to my own instincts. Ed wouldn’t have resented him nearly so much if he hadn’t been living in his bedroom. I wanted him near me, to get to know him better. But I’ve handled this all wrong with my
stupid naiveté. And now I may have lost them both.
It was only on her slow walk back to the house that she began to mull over what Daniel had said, just before Ed called. Something he had to tell her. Something that would make her believe his innocence. What did he mean? She tried his mobile, but it went straight to answer. ‘Please, ring me.’ She left the message on his voicemail with little hope that he would.
‘Did you talk to them?’ Richard asked, finding Annie sitting alone in the kitchen later, nursing a glass of white wine.
She nodded.
‘And?’
Annie shrugged. ‘Daniel told me what he told the girls.’
‘And Ed? What did he say?’
‘He’s angry with me.’ She shook her head. ‘It was really upsetting listening to him, Richard. He was in such a state.’
‘Poor Ed …’
Richard picked an opened bottle of red wine off the shelf by the sink and sniffed the contents. ‘Smells alright. Do you think it’s safe to drink?’
‘I wouldn’t risk it if I were you.’
He sat down opposite her, still cradling the wine bottle. ‘What are we to do now, Annie?’
‘I was being ridiculous earlier, saying Emma had plotted Daniel’s downfall. It just seemed so wrong. I’m sorry, I lost it.’
Richard’s look was almost sympathetic.
‘And Daniel?’
‘Oh, he’s gone. So …’ she glared at him, ‘a result.’
But Richard held his hand up in protest. ‘I didn’t say a thing.’
‘You didn’t have to. Please, don’t pretend you aren’t delighted he’s gone.’
‘That’s not fair.’
She shrugged. ‘Maybe not. But what happened on Saturday night was just a symptom,’ she told him. ‘We … I … brought him into the family too soon. This, or something like this, was bound to happen.’
She felt utterly miserable as her thoughts swung between her two compromised sons. I’m prepared to take most of the responsibility, she thought. But what’s Emma’s part in all this? For a mad moment she wanted to take that silly, spoilt girl by the neck and strangle her.
16
Annie retreated to the bakery, where she threw herself into her work: making new designs for cakes, chatting up clients, chasing advertising, telling the others the highlights of her Cornish weekend. She forced herself to put the previous days behind her, and the warmth and sweetness of her floury empire welcomed her like a womb. Here they didn’t even know that Daniel existed.