Sticks and Stones

by Jo Jakeman

  He shrugged and looked at the ceiling.

  ‘Let me go and I’ll make an appointment with my solicitor first thing on Monday. Get that will and the divorce sorted at the same time.’

  The candle fluttered and went out. The light from the torch was harsh and cold.

  ‘It’s not just about what I want. It’s what’s best for all of us,’ I said.

  He clicked off his torch. On again. Off again. The only light came from the torch I was holding, which was trained on the floor beneath my feet.

  ‘Are you not sick of trying to save me yet?’ he asked.

  And that was half the problem. I used to think that if I walked away from him, no one else would care enough to help Phillip become a better version of himself. If I gave up on him, who would stand by him? How would he ever change? He would never show love, if he didn’t know love. Funny how we all think we have the power to save.

  It was difficult to be angry with someone who was terminally ill. I felt guilty for hating him when his life was due to be cut short.

  I could hear running water outside; the rain had come and it was hitting the ground hard. I laid my head against the cold wall. Phillip was silent. We both were. We watched the shadows dance across the walls. There wasn’t enough light to reach into the corners and it was getting colder.

  ‘I should go, in case Alistair wakes up. It’s late. Can we talk about this later?’

  ‘I’d like to see him.’

  ‘I know you would. I’ll see what I can do.’

  ‘Sure. Whatever you think is best.’

  He was being so reasonable that I began to doubt my own motives for having him there. I’d made Phillip out to be a monster, and yet all I had to do was sit down and talk to him. A person can’t get the news that they are terminally ill without changing at a fundamental level. His cancer could be the best thing that had ever happened to us.

  I raised my hand in a goodnight and left the cellar. This time, though I shut the door, I didn’t lock it. What danger could he possibly be to us now?

  I went up to the bedroom, opened the window and leaned out into the dark night. The rain had slowed to a steady patter and the air smelled like freshly dug earth. It smelled like the grave.

  FIFTEEN

  10 days before the funeral

  Rachel’s three-storey house clung to the side of a hill so steep that I had to check, and double-check, my handbrake before Alistair and I got out of the car. There were black iron railings out front and a glossy black door. The stern façade was more like a solicitor’s office than a home. It was in a nice neighbourhood and in walking distance of some swanky bars. There was no garden to tend to, just a courtyard; there was no driveway, just a parking permit. In what was largely a child-free suburb such as this one, bedroom curtains were still drawn at nine-thirty in the morning. I both envied and pitied them.

  I’d never left Alistair overnight at Rachel’s before. He’d only rarely slept at The Barn. If he wasn’t under the same roof as me, I couldn’t sleep.

  Rachel answered the door with oven gloves over her shoulder. Her hair was pinned in a messy bun that it would have taken me hours to re-create. Even in shorts and a hoodie, she looked stylish.

  ‘Bloody hell! What time do you call this? When you said mid-morning, I thought you meant eleven-ish.’

  ‘Since when is eleven “mid”-morning?’

  ‘When you don’t get out of bed until ten, eleven is very much “mid”-morning. You’re lucky I’m even bloody dressed.’ When I’d called her the day before, to ask for her help while Naomi and I talked to Phillip, she had been momentarily struck dumb. The instant had been fleeting and was replaced with more expletives than I knew existed. She swore more in an hour than I did in a year. Motherhood had placed a permanent hold on my tongue. Aggressive drivers had become wallies instead of wankers, and I had been known to mutter such rich obscenities as flip off to the judgemental balatard who worked in my office.

  When my son was just two and in the process of expanding his vocabulary, I managed to enrich it further by reversing into a lamp post and saying, ‘Bugger’. Every time he dropped a toy, or the wooden blocks tumbled down, he would use his newfound word. It took weeks for toddlers to recognise the difference between a cat and a dog, but only a split-second to remember the only time Mummy had sworn in front of them. If anything, I was to be congratulated. If there was a role that invited profanity more than motherhood, I was yet to find it.

  Rachel gave me a brief squeeze and high-fived Alistair. With a wave of her hand she signalled that he should go through to the kitchen, and she proffered a parking permit for the dashboard of my car.

  ‘I’m not staying.’

  ‘Bollocks you’re not. I’m not letting you leave until I hear every last drop of gossip. Our film doesn’t start until two. Bags of time.’

  I locked the car, then joined them in the kitchen.

  ‘I’m making fairy cakes,’ she said.

  ‘You bake?’

  ‘I do now.’

  The kitchen looked more like a Jackson Pollock canvas than the high-gloss minimalist gallery it had previously been. Alistair ran straight outside to the courtyard and jumped on Rachel’s mini-trampoline.

  ‘Do you really use that thing?’

  ‘Abso-bloody-lutely. Best exercise you can get, apart from the obvious.’

  She moved closer to me and spoke quietly so that Alistair couldn’t hear.

  ‘So, Naomi’s at the house? Your house? Shit! Forget the cinema. Give me a bag of popcorn and I’m there. So, the two of you are going to … what? I don’t understand why the hell either of you care what happens to Phillip anyway.’

  ‘I don’t. Well, I do for Alistair’s sake.’

  ‘Does Alistair know about the cancer?’ asked Rachel.

  ‘Not yet. We need to decide how to break it to him. But first we have to agree on who gets what, when Phillip dies. If he was left to his own devices, I wouldn’t put it past him to spend the last weeks of his life spending every penny he’s got, or leaving it all to the dogs’ home. It’s best that Alistair’s here in case things get … heated.’

  ‘D’you think that’s why he wanted you out of the house? So he could take the money and scarper?’

  ‘I don’t know. Something still doesn’t feel right about all this. Naomi says it’s so that they can get married. Easier to sort the financial side if we’re dealing with actual cash, rather than assets and policies.’

  ‘And you don’t believe her?’

  ‘It’s not her I doubt, it’s him. I can’t imagine Phillip wanting to get married again, or caring whether Naomi is financially comfortable after he’s dead. He’s not mentioned how this will affect Alistair at all, so why would he provide for Naomi and not his son? I don’t know. Do you think I’m being paranoid?’

  ‘Yes, but for once, it’s justified. If he’s thinking about anyone, it’s himself. If it doesn’t benefit him, he wouldn’t do it. Whatever’s behind it, though, I can’t see why he’d listen to you and Naomi about the will.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ I said carefully, ‘I think we’ve got him in a position where he can’t really walk away.’

  I wanted to tell her what I’d done, but I dreaded how she would look at me. I was scared that her eyes would tell me I had finally lost the plot. Rachel wouldn’t hold back on her judgement – it was one of the reasons I loved her. I was more than aware of the legal ramifications of locking someone up. If Rachel knew the truth about why I needed Alistair out of the house, she could be an accessary to a crime, and I could never do that to her.

  ‘Thanks for this, Rach.’

  ‘No probs. We’re going to eat our body-weight in popcorn while watching animals sing and dance. It’s how I always spend my Saturday afternoons. Actually, it’s a while since I’ve been to the pictures and, for once, I won’t have to worry about my date trying to touch my breasts. Besides, I told you, it’s a pleasure having Alistair around.’

  ‘His PJs, teddy,
change of clothes and toothbrush are in the rucksack.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘He needs to be in bed by seven-thirty at the latest, so I’d start the bedtime routine at six-thirty?’

  ‘You know I’ve done this at your house before, right?’

  ‘Sorry. I’m a bit …’

  ‘You’re being a bit of a “mum”.’

  ‘Yes, I am. I’ll be round at ten tomorrow to pick him up. Alistair? Kisses!’ He held onto me until Rachel told him about the planned trip to the cinema, and then he couldn’t wait to usher me out of the house.

  Once outside Rachel’s, I didn’t drive away immediately. I looked at her house and wondered what I was becoming. Was I a bad mother for leaving my son, or a good one for making sacrifices to ensure we had a safe future?

  As I drove slowly away from Rachel’s house I wondered about going to the police. I toyed with the idea that justice would be done, but there was no getting around the fact that Phillip was a popular and valuable member of CID. There was only one man in that station who saw past Phillip’s façade, and that was Chris Miller, who’d caught his wife in bed with my husband.

  Did I have any choice but to get Phillip to agree to our demands and nurse him until his dying day? I couldn’t compete on a physical level with him, and I was an amateur in comparison, when it came to being deceitful and devious. I knew he couldn’t make a case for full custody of Alistair now, but I wasn’t so convinced that Phillip couldn’t get me arrested for locking him up – and who would look after Alistair then?

  The petrol gauge on my car was showing that I was cutting it fine. The amber light was blinking. I would never usually let the level fall under a quarter of a tank, but today I almost wished for the car to break down, and then I wouldn’t have to go home and face what was in my cellar. I had enough petrol to get home, but I would have to fill up the car before I went to get Alistair.

  I pulled onto my drive to find Naomi waiting at the front door, smoking a cigarette. I turned off the engine and pretended to be looking for something in my handbag. Toy dinosaur, wet-wipes, migraine tablets, lipstick, unposted birthday card, receipts. Whatever I was looking for, it wasn’t here.

  I sank back against the headrest with one hand on the door, not quite ready to face the music.

  Naomi dropped her cigarette butt on the ground and leaned against the doorframe, looking past me into the far distance, where the unknown was loitering and our futures were yet to be set.

  She looked ready for a night out. Her long hair had been curled about her shoulders, and her lipstick was bright pink to match her nails. She was wearing a white vest top, with purple bra straps showing, over jeans that looked like they’d been painted on.

  ‘You took your time,’ she said as I got out of the car.

  ‘Have you heard much from him?’

  ‘He gave me some agro when I took him his breakfast but, apart from that, not a peep.’

  I turned sideways to pass her and she didn’t try to move out of my way. Before I’d kicked off my shoes she called, ‘Ay up, you expecting someone?’

  A rattling, old red Volkswagen Beetle pulled onto the drive next to mine, but seeing as there wasn’t enough room, it bumped over my sparse flowerbed. Music was shaking the rust-dipped car. The sound of Simon and Garfunkel singing over pan-pipes was abruptly cut, and a heavyset woman flung the car door open.

  When she got out of the car, I could see that she was barefoot under a long blue dress that was edged with mud and the skeletons of crushed leaves. A long cream chiffon scarf hung over her shoulders, and the fringe shook as she slammed the door behind her.

  Bangles rang and clanged all the way past her wrists and spun in the light as she adjusted her scarf. Her hair curled past her ears in softly greying waves.

  ‘Shit!’ Naomi said.

  The woman waved. I remembered that smile, all crooked teeth and thin lips. It was Phillip’s first wife, Ruby.

  It had been two years since I’d last seen her but, apart from a few more grey hairs, she hadn’t changed. Since Phillip and I had separated, Ruby had become Naomi’s problem, not mine. I’d been able to drop the pretence that I could stand her.

  ‘How lovely to see you,’ I lied without a smile. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Ruby was the ex-wife who had become the perpetual friend. It had caused arguments between us, but I never understood why Phillip kept seeing her. They shared jokes and ‘remember when’s that I couldn’t be part of. I wondered whether she just hung around so that she could pick up on my faults and show him what a mistake he’d made by leaving her. As for Phillip, he would never say no to someone hanging on his every word and looking at him like he could walk on water, and perhaps it suited him to remind me that nothing was for ever.

  I stepped out to greet Ruby so that she wouldn’t come any closer to the house.

  For so long, she had been the woman who infuriated me more than anyone else – the one I was compared to, the first love. She had been my Rebecca; the outgoing, vivacious, mystery ex who I could never live up to. The perfect hostess and cook; the generous lover and friend. You could learn a thing or two from her, Imogen. The only difference being that this one wasn’t dead. She was a living spectre in my life. And now she was stepping on my geraniums.

  The first year after Alistair was born she had come for Christmas dinner. Phillip didn’t tell me he’d invited her until the morning. Ruby had been generous with gifts for Alistair, and was only trying to be helpful by buying me cream for my stretch marks. She was effusive over my burnt offerings and my mediocre puds, as if she was praising a difficult child. She was all smiles and overflowing compliments, and jam-packed with all the superlatives to describe my awesome, amazing and – quite frankly – astounding parenting skills and my striking, stunning and stylish house; and oh, that dress, where did I get it from? Yet nothing about it was genuine. The more she praised my attempt at making my own Christmas pudding (‘I prefer them on the dry side, as it happens’), the more I wanted to ram it down her throat.

  Ruby’s heavy-lidded bovine eyes were too big for her face and were half-closed as if she was just coming out of a particularly pleasant dream, one where she made coats out of puppies, no doubt. She had dark eyes and skin, and could have had ancestry anywhere from Italy to India.

  Nothing touched Ruby. She was oblivious to the way other people looked at her. No joke could ever be at her expense, because she wouldn’t feel the barb. She floated along on a cloud of incense, looking at the joy and beauty of the world. She would stop her car in the middle of the road to look at a particularly beautiful sunset, and be entirely unaware of the honking of the car behind her as the traffic built up. She was a vet, a vegetarian, her food was organic, and she gave one-third of her income away to charity each month.

  I disliked her intensely.

  Two of her three dogs jumped and wagged at her knees. One was a standard medium-sized rough-haired mongrel with intelligent eyes. The smaller one was a dirty white colour, and had a back-end that was indistinguishable from the front. The larger of the two immediately went to the small circular lawn, crouched and relieved itself.

  ‘There’s no one at The Barn,’ she said. ‘Which is strange, because Pip knew I was coming and his car is in the drive.’

  ‘Really?’ I said, trying not to give anything away.

  I used to hate her calling him Pip. She only did it to remind me they had pet names for each other.

  ‘I was starting to need the bathroom and I knew you never went anywhere at the weekend, so here I am – and what luck to find Naomi here too!’

  Naomi’s face dropped, ‘Was that this weekend?’

  ‘Was what this weekend?’ I asked through a tightened smile.

  Ruby’s third dog, an old black-and-white border collie with seen-it-all-before eyes, and a wag kept for special occasions, unfolded from the car with some stiffness and walked past me into the house.

  ‘Don’t mind the dogs,’ Ruby said. ‘Soft as candyfl
oss and twice as sweet, they are.’

  ‘Naomi? What’s Ruby talking about?’ I asked.

  Ruby answered for her.

  ‘Dinner, darling. Of course I should have been here last night, but the weather! I tried calling but there was no answer, which was odd because you were expecting me.’ She chided Naomi gently with a wagging finger.

  Ruby batted her hair out of her eyes, put her hands on my shoulder and looked me up and down. Seemingly satisfied, she folded me into her arms.

  ‘So good to see you. So good. It has absolutely been too long, darling.’ Turning to face Naomi, she said, ‘Naomi, my sweet. What have you done to your head? Don’t tell me, fallen over when you were drinking again? What did I tell you after last time?’ She put her open palm on Naomi’s cheek and smiled. ‘Come here!’

  Naomi was pulled into an embrace that she didn’t return. She extracted herself and we stood side-by-side, like bouncers at an exclusive nightclub.

  ‘Did you get storms here too? Bertie’s wipers gave up the ghost long ago, so there was no way I could drive last night. Okay if I use your lav? I’m bursting.’

  I wanted to say no, to send her on her way, but I was struck dumb as she walked past me and into the house, leaving Naomi and me to look on in horror.

  SIXTEEN

  18 years, 6 months and 11 days before the funeral

  Ruby kicked off her sandals and hung her scarf over the sofa. The house was in darkness, but she could feel that Pip was home. It was a small cottage. Homely. From the front door you could see straight through the lounge and kitchen and into the downstairs bathroom. The only bathroom. The stairs ran up the space between the table, which they never ate at, and the corner with the sofa and the television. It was cosy, characterful and big enough for her, Pip and the dog. They would need to move to somewhere bigger when they had a family.