by Isla Dewar
It was a good family, he thought, if a little screwed up. They had misconceptions. They worried, but when the worrying got too much they buried their heads in the sand. For example, Martha’s naughty youth – they didn’t want to think of what she’d got up to and who with, so they hid from it. They assumed the worst. And the worst was that they hadn’t a clue who Evie’s father was. It was a sensitive and painful area. So naturally they wouldn’t discuss it.
A couple of hours ago Jamie had complained that Evie wasn’t his. How nonsensical they all were. Too caught up in grief and hurt. Couldn’t they see? Hadn’t they noticed Evie’s eyes, the way her mouth moved when she smiled, the shape of her nose, her high cheekbones. The girl was developing into the spit of Jamie. The man was obviously her father. For heavens’ sake, the girl looked so like him she could have been cloned.
46
Hello, Charlie, Welcome to Your Life
Charlie sat in Martha and Sophie’s kitchen staring glumly at his notes. Across the room Martha chopped onions. Charlie noted she was doing it badly. ‘What are you making?’
‘A quick meaty thing.’
‘What? Roast beef?’
‘That takes ages. You’re feeding a child. She doesn’t just get hungry. She starves. So she’d fill up on biscuits and rubbish, then she wouldn’t want her meal and she might get a sugar rush and not go to bed till late and she wouldn’t sleep so she might not get up at the right time and she’d be late for school. You can’t start a complicated meal after five. Not with children about. Also those are expensive things. We are your basic cheap eaters.’
‘Plainly I have a lot to learn about parenting. I’ll cook. I don’t like figuring out my notes, trying to find motivations, delving into the murk of human emotions. You do it.’ He pulled off his jacket, draped it on the back of his chair and rolled up his shirtsleeves.
Martha took his chair. ‘It’s about money.’
‘You have no idea how to chop an onion. You cut it in half, put the flat side down. Now you can chop it without it sliding about. What makes you say it’s about money?’
‘Everything’s about money if it isn’t about love or jealousy. But mostly it’s money. I have managed with onions all my life so far.’
‘No, you haven’t. You’ll have cut your fingers, sworn at the slippiness of any onion you are dealing with and wept. How would they get money? Can’t be from Brendan. He’s dedicated to getting it from them.’
‘You make him sound sleazy.’
‘He punched me. I have nothing decent to say about him. Except I suspect he can charm women. He knows the right thing to say.’ He spread mince into a thin layer.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Making burgers.’
‘Are you serving them with chips? Evie is keen on chips. She eats them. I’m keen on her eating. I’m just a bit bothered about the money thing.’
‘OK. Chips.’
‘Bernice asked you to find someone who wasn’t missing. A scam, definitely. I think she chose you because you are so far out of town. None of the women involved is likely to come and check you out.’
Charlie put the frying pan on the stove. ‘That’s true. Not these champagne women, anyway. But there’s nothing to check out. I’m a nice enough guy.’ He poured oil into the pan. ‘They’re the money, aren’t they? I definitely think better when I’m cooking. It’s doing something you don’t have to think about, frees the mind.’
Martha read his notes. Saw Bernice. The house smelled of nothing. Weird that. Houses smell of being clean or overly clean. Or coffee or polish or laundry. Ironing smells nice. Last time it smelled of stew. This new emptiness. Is she planning to move away? That woman looks at me strangely. Freaks me out. Heard someone moving upstairs. Left. Saw though window Bernice and Brendan embrace. She was holding the man she hired me to find. Freaked out. Ran away. Had disappointing herb omelette. Crap day. Depressed.
He spread the chopped onions on his layer of mince. Martha looked at Charlie. He was seasoning his mince – salt, pepper, a touch of garlic and mustard. He divided the layer into balls which he flattened and put in the frying pan. A comforting sizzle. He peered into Sophie’s cupboard. ‘Ketchup. Ah, there you are.’
‘You’re not using up all our food, are you?’
‘I’ll replace things.’
‘Maybe that’s why she picked you. Out of town, nice enough guy. Not a world-weary cynic like Sam Spade.’
‘How would she know that? Where’s Evie? This will be ready soon. You won’t be wanting any.’
‘You bet I do. I’m starved. It’s my food. And Evie’s outside in the garden. She’s teaching Murphy to jump through a hoop.’
‘That could be handy in emergencies.’
‘She thinks so. Murphy not so much.’ She leafed back through his notes. ‘Right at the beginning, when Bernice first turned up in the office she said she’d been put off by the man shouting outside. That man shouted at me. He seriously doesn’t like you. You should go and talk to him.’
Charlie dropped sliced potatoes into hot fat. A wild sizzle. ‘You go. I’m not going near him. Mostly I am not going near his wife. A terrifying woman. A zealous man-hater. A woman who peers at you, face in a permanent pre-formed dirty look.’
‘You have to. It’s your job.’
‘Nah, it isn’t. I won’t have anything to do with scary women. I know nothing of women. I know one woman didn’t want me and another gave up her life for me, but removed me from the life I should have had.’
Martha looked across at him. He was turning the burgers, then pressing them flat with his fish slice. Concentrating. Frowning. His hair had fallen over his forehead. A small splatter of escaped onion had landed on his shirt. He’d hate that he hadn’t noticed. She thought him gentle and lonely and, though she wouldn’t mention it to him, a little bit lovely. She shut his notebook and placed a determined palm on the kitchen table.
‘Charlie, this is the life you should have had. This is the life you’ve got. This life you’re living. What happened, happened. You were taken away. You lived with Auntie Ella. You found money in the biscuit tin. That’s your life. The other life doesn’t exist.’ She waved. ‘Hello, Charlie, welcome to your life.’
He stared at her, mouth agape. Of course she was right. He stared at his burgers. They were slightly burned at the edge. Good, he nodded. He knew that it was time to accept this life he led and to stop imagining the life he ought to have had. And really, this life, this time here in this kitchen with Martha, was pretty good. For a life, it would do.
Martha stood. ‘Do you hear that?’
Charlie held his breath and listened. He shook his head. ‘No. I don’t hear anything.’
‘Silence. I don’t like the sound of it.’ She stuck her head out of the window. ‘Evie?’
A small voice from outside. ‘Yes?’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What’s that you’re eating?’
‘Nothing.’
‘It’s an ice cream. Where did you get that?’
‘The lady gave it to me.’
‘Lady? What lady? How often have I told you not to take sweets from strangers?’
The small voice from outside rose in protest. ‘But she wasn’t a stranger. She knew my name. And she knew Murphy’s name. And she knows Charlie. She knows all about him. She said Charlie’s auntie used to be her best friend. She lived across from her in Glasgow.’
47
Is She Watching Me?
Charlie clattered down the stairs, out the front door, up the path, out the gate and stood panting, looking up the road and down the road wondering which way to go. He looked up at Evie standing at the window. ‘Which way?’
Evie shrugged, shouted that she didn’t know. Realising before he started jogging up the street that he hadn’t a clue what the woman he was after looked like, he ran indoors to quiz the child. ‘What did she look like?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t look. Sh
e had a face.’
‘Well, she would.’ He gripped Evie’s shoulders. ‘Tell me about the face.’
‘She had a nose. Lips. All that.’
‘What colour were her eyes?’ He knelt in front of her.
‘Dunno, didn’t look. I was looking at the ice cream.’
‘Hair,’ said Charlie, ‘what was it like?’
‘Sort of faded. Like something old left in the sun. It hung on her head past her ears and it was sort of tied up at the back.’
He turned to Martha. ‘I think it might have been my mother.’
Evie put her hands on either side of his face and turned it to her. ‘You don’t remember what your mummy looks like? Everybody knows what their mummy looks like.’ She pointed to Martha. ‘See, there’s my mummy. She’s got wrinkly bits at her eyes and a scowly bit on her forehead. And some of her hairs are grey. Her eyes are brown. Mostly she’s quite pretty.’
‘Thank you,’ said Martha. ‘I’m glad I’m quite pretty despite everything.’
Evie ignored her. ‘So why don’t you know what your mummy looks like?’
Charlie sighed. He didn’t want this conversation. ‘We lost touch when I was little.’
‘You lost touch?’
‘I kind of got carried off by someone and I never saw her again. I was a baby. I don’t remember any of it.’
Evie swooned. ‘That’s awful. That’s just like a fairy tale. You might be a prince and you don’t know it.’ She hugged him.
Martha was sure she saw his eyes glaze. Of course, she thought, he wouldn’t know about the power of hugs. Charlie’s dilemma was too much for people to take in; they’d stare piercingly at him and ask painful questions, eager to know the intimacies of such a strange and isolating beginning to life, or they might back away as if misfortune was infectious. But probably nobody had ever reached out as Evie had.
Martha was sorry she hadn’t put her arms round him and held him. But she hadn’t. Maybe events in her life had eroded the knack of spontaneous compassion. Maybe you had to be seven and still believing in Santa Claus and fairy tales to take a sorry soul in your arms and say, as Evie had, ‘Never mind, Charlie. Me and Murphy love you.’ It was almost too much for Charlie to bear.
He might love, but being loved back hadn’t really occurred to him.
After Evie released him, he went back to the meal he was about to serve. Stood clutching the fish slice. ‘I’m sure it was my mother. Perhaps she’s looking out for me. Watching over me. Maybe she’s always been doing that.’
Martha put cutlery on the table. She glanced at Charlie. He was wrestling with his emotions. A mother, a secret guardian angel watching over him, obviously filled him with a strange new happiness that he didn’t really trust. ‘If she’s out there, why hasn’t she come and said hello? Is she watching me? D’you think she wants something? What?’ He spread his palms. ‘I haven’t got anything. I’ve only got me and she didn’t want that.’
And Martha thought, no good will come of this.
48
Emotional Exploitation
Charlie desperately wanted to sleep. He ached. He lay on his side, spread himself into his favourite sleeping position, closed his eyes and breathed. But thoughts of his mother plagued him. What if she was out there in the dark watching the house? She might be cold. Maybe she needed somewhere to stay. Twice he got out of bed and went to a window to look out onto the street and the empty night. Pools of streetlamp-yellow light and silence. Not a soul in sight.
Back in bed, sleep still slipped away from him. Imagined scenarios filled his mind. His mother would come to him, lightly tap his arm and say, ‘Hello. I’m your mum.’ And they’d hug. In fact, he doubted this would happen. There would be issues to be dealt with and, besides, he wasn’t much of a hugger. He might be angry and demand to know if she had looked for him when he first went missing. And if she had, why had she given up? And if she hadn’t, why not?
Mostly, though, he found the notion that his mother was watching him scary. She appeared to know all about him and he knew nothing about her. He imagined a small rosy-cheeked woman. When she saw him she raised one hand in a slow, unsure wave. He didn’t know why this unnerved him. But it did.
Leaving the house in the morning he looked up and down the road checking for a small, rosy-cheeked woman before he set off to interview Lucy Moncrieff. Again, when he reached her flat, he stared up and down the road expecting to see the small frail figure watching him and cautiously waving. She didn’t appear. He chained his bike to railings and walked backwards to the entrance of the building, keeping an eye out for the ghostly mother. Then he took the stairs two at a time and knocked on Lucy’s door.
Though she was well into her twenties, Lucy Moncrieff’s living room was teenage messy. There was a wide spill of LPs round the record player, discs long separated from sleeves. Two empty coffee mugs sat on the floor beside the sofa and six more lined the mantelpiece, a pair of shoes lay abandoned centre-carpet, a small pile of coats was heaped on a chair by the door; elsewhere in the room lay books, cards, assorted T-shirts and jerseys and a fat black cat.
‘How long have you known Brendan?’ he asked.
‘Two years or so.’
‘How did you meet?’
‘A party at Bernice’s.’
‘She holds a lot of parties.’
‘Yeah. They’re boring, though. Just people standing around drinking wine and eating small nibbly things and chatting rubbish. It’s all tinkling laughter, no dancing and no music and nobody gets pissed and throws up and goes off their head telling people the unbearable truth.’
‘You have very clear ideas about parties.’
Lucy nodded. ‘I do. A party is a party, fun. You should let yourself go. Shout and scream if you want to. You should leave yourself at the door with your coat. And pick yourself up with the coat when you leave. And when you’re in the party room wearing your party clothes you should forget all about being you and drink and dance.’
This sounded excellent to Charlie. He knew, though, that he could never cope with such abandon. Not only would he fail to actually be abandoned during the party, he’d be sleepless with embarrassment for weeks afterwards. This notion bothered him. He wriggled in his chair, and then, unable to sit still for worrying about his inability to party, he stood up and strode to the window. Out in the street there was no sign of the woman he suspected of following him.
‘Still,’ Lucy went on, ‘I met Brendan there. Then, couple of years later at another party I met the gang.’ She spread her hands and examined her nails. Up close, in this light, she looked pale. Thin enough to be blown away in a strong wind. His Auntie Ella would have insisted she eat a bowl of her broth, a soup so thick a spoon could stand up in it. ‘Meat on her bones is what she needs,’ Ella would have said. ‘Proper food that needs chewing. She needs anchoring.’
Lucy’s clothes were expensive – loose silk trousers and a grey cashmere jersey. She sat on a red velvet sofa, legs tucked under her. She was barefoot. Toenails painted black.
‘Gang?’ asked Charlie.
‘Yeah. The LKB club. We’re mates. Course at first we hated one another. We were near to hissing. So angry. Blaming each other.’
‘LKB?’ said Charlie.
‘Let’s Kick Brendan.’
‘I see. It’s a club dedicated to kicking Brendan. Metaphorically?’
‘Yes. He has used all of us. Cheated on us. Taken our money. Lied. Bastard. Now we’re going to get him back. We’ll all putting a couple of grand into the fund.’
‘What’s the fund for?’ Charlie stared once more down into the street and still didn’t believe that there was nobody there.
‘Getting Brendan’s money. We’re going to sue him,’ said Lucy.
Charlie returned to his seat. ‘What for?’
‘False pretences. Duping us out of cash. He’s engaged to four of us.’
‘Is that a crime?’
‘It’ll be a civil case. Bernice says it’s emotional
exploitation.’
‘This is a thing?’
‘Of course it’s a thing. Using people, making them promises, taking their money, turning up drunk, shagging their friends, flirting with their mother, taking their wine to give to another woman, not turning up, phoning at three in the morning saying he’s in bed and you can hear that other woman laughing. Oh, yes, that’s emotional exploitation and he is going to get punished for it. He deserves all he gets. Us women are not to be tricked and used and fleeced and fucked and why, by the way, were you looking out of the window?’
Charlie said, ‘Um.’
‘Checking on your bike?’
‘How did you know I have a bike?’
‘I know all about you. Bernice checked you out before she hired you.’
‘She did? What did she find out?’
‘Stuff.’ Lucy shrugged. ‘You have a dog. Your house is full of strange people you found and didn’t know what to do with. You’re dreamy. You like to cook.’
‘You know how to make a chap feel uncomfortable.’
‘Do I? I didn’t mean to. In fact the gang adores you.’
This made him even more uncomfortable. ‘Who checked me out?’
Lucy shrugged. ‘I never met him. I don’t think Bernice said his name.’
Now Charlie was even more uncomfortable. This news was hard to believe. He looked round, and to lighten the stiff atmosphere said, ‘Nice place you got here.’
She nodded.
‘What do you do?’ he asked.
‘I design clothes for pop groups.’
‘That pays? People fork out money for these weird multicoloured things?’
‘Yes. In fact they pay quite a lot of money for these weird multi-coloured things.’
She got up and walked to the door. She was telling him it was time to go. It struck him that she was a woman skilled in telling people to leave. He walked past her, out into the hall and headed for the front door. She followed, thanked him for coming and said it had been nice to meet him.