But when his mouth fastened onto hers, his tongue quivering, probing with all his usual tenderness, she forced herself to stand indifferently immobile. Arms clamped to sides. Lips passive. Tongue flaccid and mouth unaccommodating. The most insulting, contemptuous action, far more hurtful than simply fighting him off.
He jerked away.
And finally, she was free to make for the bathroom to heave over the toilet bowl.
When he knocked, she asked him wearily, calmly, quietly, to go to work as usual. ‘I need a shower, time to think. Space. You mustn’t crowd me. I’ve got a lot to come to terms with.’
And he said, ‘OK.’ She heard him. And then, ‘I love you.’
But when she emerged it was to find him waiting in the bedroom, gaunt and haunted. She recoiled as he rose from the bed. ‘I thought you’d gone to work!’
He brushed her words aside, brows down, eyes intent. ‘We have to talk! I can’t just go to the garage and leave this unresolved between us, you’re treating me like a monster, some bastard who gets his girlfriend pregnant and then scarpers –’
‘But you are,’ she said, quietly.
Black anger clouded his face. ‘I. Didn’t. Know!’
‘You should have. You had unprotected sex. You should have checked out any consequences.’
‘Tess, it isn’t always just the man’s fault –’ He reached out, took her arms.
She slapped at his hands, yanked her arms away. ‘Get away from me! I don’t want you near me – you’ve turned into Olly Gray!’
‘You all right, Ratty?’
‘Don’t ask.’
‘You look like ...’
‘Don’t ask!’
The garage became unnaturally silent. He fumbled through his work somehow, between phone calls on his mobile from the privacy of a forecourt car. To the Child Support Agency, calm and non-committal and all-in-a-day’s work, who sent him to their website to read about DNA testing. ‘But if there’s a possibility that Jason Gavanagh is your child you should be prepared –’
He snapped, ‘There’s every possibility, but I deal in certainties!’ And clicked off.
Madeline had to be tracked down, wasn’t on her old number. He had to ring five people, each either reluctant or avid, before discovering her at her parents’ house. After a guilty pause, she confessed, ‘I wouldn’t have put them on to you, but I’ve had to leave my job, I’m in a jam. Mum can’t look after Jason while I work any more because she’s ill, we’ve had to go on benefit, it’s horrible, managing like this! They stop some of my money if I don’t name the father.’
‘Couldn’t you have approached me first? Privately, perhaps?’
She was flustered, awkward. Hardly the bubbly Madeline he remembered, always in a rush to get to the next party and buy the next dress. ‘You get these immense forms and you have to answer all these questions! The father is obliged in law ...’
‘And you’re sure it’s me?’
‘I think it’s likely, don’t you?’
‘Are you sure it’s me?’
‘We did ...’
‘Have you any idea how this is affecting me? Did you give that any thought at all? Are you sure he’s mine?’
‘Deal with the CSA.’ She hung up.
He hardly had any idea of what he did, after that. Pete dealt with three men who stopped to admire the red Pontiac on the forecourt, kept the work flowing and made sure Ratty was left alone. God bless Pete.
A hundred times he almost rang her.
A thousand times.
To beg forgiveness, understanding? To check she was OK? Just to hear her, overlay the morning’s memory of her scorn? But she’d asked for space. She always needed space, acres, when something ugly happened.
But God, she’d been so angry. He cringed at the memory of the fury and contempt in her eyes. The letter had caught him so unawares, so cruelly destroyed their joy in Tess’s pregnancy that he’d made a complete hash of the argument that followed, feverishly casting about for things to say, anything to drag them away from the abyss he’d suddenly glimpsed at their feet.
In blurting out that he wouldn’t see the child he was alleged to have fathered, he’d had some half-arsed idea of demonstrating his commitment to Tess, to their baby. Instead she’d leapt to the conclusion that he was a heartless bastard, wriggling out of his paternal responsibilities at the first instant.
... You’ve turned into Olly Gray ... You’ve turned into Olly Gray.
He wandered to the open doors to gaze out, longing to see her as ever, strolling with Angel and the kids or striding off on a wild walk to make herself feel better.
He could go home. It was a few hundred yards away. The urge was almost irresistible to run down Little Lane to Pennybun. To drag her into his arms and plead with her to see her unfairness in blaming him, it happened all the time, the drink, the carelessness. He’d just been unlucky, surely she could see that?
But she’d asked for space.
All day he was stupid and clumsy with apprehension. Skinned every knuckle on his right hand, dropped his spanners and gauges, which immediately rolled into the least accessible corners.
Time crawled by without his mobile ringing, without Tess trailing up the road to rest her sad face on his shoulder and wrap her needy arms around him, telling him they’d work it out together. To agree that their love was too great to spoil.
It should’ve occurred to him earlier but it didn’t – until he walked up the path and saw the space where the Freelander had been.
The kitchen door swung as it always did, everything was where it always was, the range, the green tiles and Tess’s paintings. But he only had to stand still and listen for reality to break around him like a freak wave, turning his legs to string as he stumbled up the stairs.
He lost control long enough to yell, pointlessly, ‘You better not have gone!’
Apart from that he was stonily calm, opening the oak wardrobe, the chest of drawers. Inspecting the workroom, the bathroom.
No clothes that smelled of Tess, no dresses, no jeans, no sexy underwear. No lotions, no shampoo, no make-up. No paint, no paper, no pencils, no box files of correspondence, no books containing her work.
No Tess.
Except for the note in her handwriting stuck to the dressing-table mirror: I need to get away.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Through the small landing window he stared out at the drive. Could almost see her stumping up and down with boxes, clothes, suitcases, portfolios, drawing board, stacking the back of the Freelander until her rear vision was obscured and she’d have to drive on her door mirrors. Her computer would have been a problem; the big-screen monitor needed strapping to the front passenger seat with a seat belt. That’s how it had been when he’d first met her, when he’d towed the Freelander into the garage and it was stacked out with her possessions.
But then, Tess was used to packing. Never got completely unpacked, when he thought about it; there were still boxes left in Honeybun for her to get around to.
‘I should’ve expected this,’ he spat aloud, uselessly because she wasn’t there to hear. And suddenly a great rage swelled around, above, inside his head; temple-buzzing, vision-shaking fury. He flung himself into the workroom, crashing the door back against the wall. ‘I might’ve known you’d leave! Why couldn’t you stay and work things out? Why?’ He picked up yesterday’s coffee mug, all she’d left.
Through the window. Yes, through the ... there! That was better! Stoking the violence boiling inside with that sharp splintering of glass. Much better. He needed more.
‘Why?’ Wildly into the bedroom, heaving at her wardrobe until it clattered over. ‘Why?’ Dressing-table stool at the mirror still bearing that hateful note, which splintered, hesitated, then hissed to the floor in a curtain of light. ‘Why?’ The heavier the furniture, the more satisfying the crash to displace the roaring in his head.
Best was everything which smashed and shattered into irredeemable shards, chinking, cracking,
jingling, littering the carpets, scarring the walls. Brittle, dangerous, widespread debris.
‘I smashed up the house.’ He listened to a silence over the phone.
At least Pete, when he finally reacted, reacted positively. ‘Shall I come?’
‘Please, Pete.’
Three minutes, then Pete entered the kitchen, crunching, awed, through the pulverised glassware from the dresser, the mugs from the tree. Dead quiet, dead calm, dead still, Ratty watched Pete crouch into his field of vision, heard him as if he was calling down a lift shaft. ‘Where’s the whisky?’
He squinted from his bottom-step seat. ‘Sideboard.’ Saw Pete crunch his way to the sitting-room door, peer in. The only room to have escaped.
Pete’s voice down that shaft again, sombre, warily coaxing. ‘In here, Rats. You need a drink. C’mon mate, drink.’
He allowed himself to be steered by the elbow like an incompetent to a seat, accepted the whisky bottle by the neck, supposed drearily that there was nothing much left to drink from, swigged twice, gagged, returned the bottle.
‘More.’ Pete pushed it back.
It was completely the wrong thing to do. He drank anyway. ‘She’s left me.’
Pete wiped the bottle with his sleeve, drank, wiped, passed it back, whistled his amazement. ‘No shit? Christ, I’m sorry.’
Ratty’s throat was on fire and it didn’t matter. Good to be senseless, destructive, to choke down the raw spirit without giving himself respite. Let his eyes water, let his voice crack as he forced out, hoarsely, ‘CSA are onto me. Madeline Gavanagh’s had a kid and says its mine.’
Pete sucked in his breath. ‘Is it?’
‘Could be.’ He took back the bottle, swigged, retched, swigged again. ‘Could be. And Tess has put into action The Tess Riddell Coping Mechanism. She’s fucked off somewhere else.’
It was all he could do to breathe between gulps.
Pete’s voice, ‘You’ve had enough, now.’
And his, ‘I haven’t.’
Sometimes Pete spoke and sometimes he was silent and that was good. Good old Pete. Pete was the best.
And in twenty minutes he wasn’t safe to be left, Ratty understood that. His head clamoured at whisky on no food. Not safe to be left in a house full of broken glass, shattered crockery, splintered furniture, only sensible to let Pete help him through the garden, up the village to Rotten Row, clutching the whisky bottle, staggering but willing enough, dragged along by Pete’s fist wound into the fabric of his jacket. Up and down the kerb, zigzag stumble into their sitting room where Angel shifted from foot to foot, hands to her face in horror.
‘She’s left me,’ he explained amiably, swaying, probably intimidating, close. ‘Run away. Didjer know?’
‘No, Rats. I didn’t know. Get him up to the spare room, Pete, I’ll make him coffee.’
‘I don’t need coffee. I’ve got this!’ He shook the whisky bottle in front of her anxious face. ‘Drink with me, Angel. Drink to my runaway, drink to my children. Let’s drink ourselves sober like we used to when we were young and stupid. And Pete and me can share you, you’re safer.’
‘You’re an obnoxious drunk,’ she scolded gently.
The sofa caught him behind the knee and he buckled gracefully down into its embrace. ‘Aw, don’t be like that, Angel. We’ll drink to weak women and unlucky men!’
From the darkness swirling at the peripheries of his vision, from the whisky bottle sliding through his fingers, from Angel’s worried face swimming too colourfully above him, he was passing out. ‘Sorry,’ he said, letting himself go.
But he did hear Angel, gargling through the spinning darkness, ‘What the hell are we going to do with him?’
And Pete, ‘Dunno. But he couldn’t stay there. It looks as if there’s been an explosion.’
Very ill, terribly ill he felt, but sober. Completely. Seeing things so clearly it hurt.
He lurched into the kitchen. ‘Sorry about last night.’
‘Don’t be.’ Angel left her vegetables and sat him on a kitchen chair, anxious but looking pleased that he was at least walking and talking. Pete eased his way in, leaving Toby and Jenna on the floor engrossed in cartoons, pushing the door shut behind him.
Explanations, it was reasonable that they’d expect them. He raked his fingers through his hair, which felt uncombed and clumpy. ‘The CSA say this kid, Jason Gavanagh, is my child. I got this big form, yesterday, asking whether I accept paternity. You remember Madeline Gavanagh?’
Nods.
‘And he could be mine. Probably is. There were a couple of times, y’know after a drink.’
More nods.
Angel had made him a slice of toast and he nibbled minutely at the corner. He really ought to eat. Did he eat at all yesterday? Probably not, probably part of the reason why he felt so bad. He managed half a mouthful, chewing food that he didn’t actually want to touch.
‘So Tess has left?’
‘Run away!’
‘Left,’ corrected Angel, gently. ‘Do you think she’ll come back?’
‘Believing that is the only thing keeping me sane. It just seems that the only way she can deal with a problem is to run and hide.’
Angel frowned, rubbed at the edge of the table with her finger to erase a crayon mark. ‘Madeline was previous to Tess, wasn’t she? Tess presumably realised you’d had sex before.’
Ratty picked up another morsel of toast. ‘You’re missing the point. The point is that I had unprotected sex and I didn’t bother to enquire whether I’d left behind more than I’d bargained for. As far as Tess is concerned ... well, she said I’ve turned into Olly Gray.’
Olly Gray. Olly Gray. Ratty’s strides back to Pennybun Cottage spoke the name. Turned into Olly Gray. You’ve turned into Olly Gray.
Reaching the cottage, he had other things to worry about. ‘Oh Christ.’
Angel squeezed into the kitchen beside him. ‘You’re absolutely barking mad, Ratty, d’you know that? Where do we start with this lot?’
‘Oh Christ,’ he repeated, barely able to bring his eyes to settle on the havoc, from the gaping of the burst windows to the mulch of smashed china and glass. The fallen dresser, the upturned chairs, one broken.
The pictures of McLaren and Lucasta peering back oddly from behind glass spiders’ webs.
They could only start at the top and work down. Knock out the remaining glass from the sashes and sweep up, right the wardrobe, remove the door with the broken hinge until it could be repaired.
A screw had ripped from the frame of the dressing-table stool. Two bathroom tiles were cracked.
‘This is like clearing up after an air raid.’ Angel picked splintered glass from her fingertip. ‘Overwhelmingly depressing.’ But mainly she and Pete worked alongside him in silence, doing what had to be done. And he was grateful for their help. Grateful that Pete rang the joiner and, because Ratty was a fast payer and realised he’d have to pay top rates, got an agreement to re-glaze the following morning. Grateful that Angel had asked Pete’s parents to have the kids so that she could collect empty boxes from Crowther’s to fill with the millions of glass crystals.
And then all he wanted was for them to go away.
So he could be alone, alone in the empty shell of a home with the night wind blowing the curtains in empty windows.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
‘Bit more compromising now, aren’t we? My God! Aren’t you the chap who was confident everything would work out like a dream? No chance of unhappiness, not with you looking after her?’
Asking James if he knew where Tess was because he seemed to have lost her, was bound to cause a furious eruption. It was precisely what he’d expected. Ratty let him have his rant, then lunged in when James took a breath. ‘Did you hear from her, yesterday? Today?’
Fresh heights of outrage emanated from the phone. ‘Don’t you think I might have mentioned it?’
‘Not necessarily.’ He stretched wearily and listened to the joiner and his mate knocking, u
pstairs. Apart from the unavoidable hammering and chopping, they worked in awed – or disgusted – silence. So much damage, no explanation. He’d shut himself in the sitting room with the telephone.
‘... It was you, Mr Five Houses, who said you’d always be fair ...’
‘I also suggested you didn’t comment on my behaviour! Listen ... just a minute ... listen ...’
Hopeless; he closed his eyes, gritted his teeth and waited for James to run down from a fresh tirade of ‘What d’you think you’re’ and ‘How dare you’. Fought to resume in a neutral tone of unnatural courtesy. ‘Please, Mr Riddell. If you know anything, anything at all, just tell me she’s all right. If she doesn’t want me to know her whereabouts, OK. But,’ he swallowed, hearing his voice hoarsen, ‘please let me know she’s safe!’
James blustered. ‘Why shouldn’t she be? She’s surely capable of taking a hotel room or something? She always has been before!’
Through the window the shrubs nodded, dusty green. If only she was still the other side of them, busy in her workroom at Honeybun. Why had he pushed her to join him at Pennybun? At least if she’d stayed in her own place she could’ve locked the doors against him and he’d know she was there. Know she was safe.
‘She’s pregnant. Just.’ The phone was beginning to slip in his hand. And then, in a sudden burst of fear, ‘What if it happens again, the bleeding? What if she’s alone? She could bleed to ...’
‘Oh, you stupid young bastard!’ Bang. Phone down.
He called back. James exploded afresh. ‘Now what do you want?’
‘Telephone numbers. She hasn’t left them here.’
‘You’ve got some nerve!’
Must keep a grip. A hold, even if precarious, on his temper. Focus only on the important. ‘OK, I’m next best thing to an axe murderer, if I had a brain I’d be dangerous. But let’s make sure she’s OK. Shall we?’
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