‘So, how’s the revision?’ asked Sam.
‘I’m sticking to my timetable. Can’t say how much is going in though.’
‘It’s important to take breaks,’ said Nula. ‘Get some oxygen to the brain.’
‘Mitch is always sneaking off somewhere,’ said Lauren. ‘Won’t tell me where.’
‘He doesn’t have to,’ Sam pointed out.
‘I wanna know what you’re being so mysterious about,’ complained Lauren.
With all three of them looking at him – Sam and Nula with amusement, Lauren with stubborn resentment – Mitch was tempted to tell them. The holidays would soon be over anyhow. But the fear of how it would be once Tamsin was out of reach at boarding school for weeks on end was too terrible, and he wasn’t sure he could bear to share that misery with anyone.
‘I think he’s got a girlfriend,’ announced Lauren. ‘That’s why he won’t say where he goes.’
‘Good,’ said Nula. ‘Any boys in your life, Lauren?’
Mitch smiled to himself. But Lauren refused to take the hint. ‘It’s Tamsin Crawford, isn’t it?’ she crowed. ‘I saw you together.’
Mitch blushed and glared at Lauren in fury.
‘Really?’ asked Sam in surprise. ‘You don’t have to tell us,’ he added quickly, as Nula laid a hand on his arm. ‘None of our business.’
‘It’s not fair,’ protested Lauren. ‘You get to go inside her house, and you won’t even tell me what it’s like. I won’t tell anyone. Promise!’
Mitch didn’t believe her. ‘It’s just a house.’ He knew as he spoke that it wasn’t wholly true. He felt different around ‘Captain Gorgeous’, as Tamsin teasingly called her father. Being subjected to Charlie Crawford’s full-on charm was an extraordinary experience. He could quite see why Quinn was totally under the spell of it. And it was exciting to listen to Charlie on the phone making decisions – bang bang bang – do this, cancel that, tell so-and-so to change it around and get back to me. It didn’t bother Mitch if Charlie’s attention was permanently elsewhere, if after their first few encounters Charlie just looked through him as though either Mitch were not quite present or Charlie himself was elsewhere, but Mitch despised him for treating his daughter that way.
He looked at his own father. Sam was making the brasserie happen: he was a fantastic chef and was in the process of transforming a ramshackle building into a shiny new restaurant. Mitch respected him for that, but also saw how it took every ounce of ingenuity and energy Sam possessed. And once or twice he had witnessed Sam’s despair when he worried about money or doubted his ability to see it all through on time. Captain Gorgeous never lost his nerve. He was on the phone to LA juggling multi-million dollar budgets, approving special effects and car crashes and night shoots in rain forests with temperamental stars and their huge retinues, while Sam could only just cope with the responsibility of opening one small restaurant in Felixham.
‘Charlie Crawford’s not much of a dad,’ he told Lauren. ‘He’s often only there at weekends, and then he’s usually working.’
‘So who stays in the house with the daughter during the week?’ asked Sam in a deliberately casual tone.
‘Her name’s Tamsin,’ supplied Lauren.
‘The nanny, Quinn, is there. She’s American,’ he added, in case they thought Quinn was a man.
‘How old is Tamsin?’
‘Nearly sixteen.’ Mitch could sense parental alarm beneath his dad’s questions and smiled, glad to have Sam’s qualities as a good parent confirmed: ‘Don’t worry, Dad. We’re not running wild.’
‘So has she met, like, everyone in Hollywood?’ asked Lauren.
‘Sure,’ replied Mitch. ‘Same as you’ve met everyone in Felixham. It’s not something she goes on about.’ Now his casual tone was fake; this was an answer he had anticipated and rehearsed, because it would feel so disloyal to Tamsin to admit how thrilled he’d been the first time she’d mentioned a few starry names. But he’d been aware of her discomfort, of how awkward it was for her to show that while this wasn’t stuff she got excited about, she didn’t judge you for being in awe. Once she began to trust him, she’d explained how sometimes people at school or wherever could be nasty, as if she was being patronising or making out like she was cooler than she really was. With some people, she said, she could never win. The regret in her voice made Mitch recall his first impression of her as lonely, and knew he would do anything – anything – to protect her.
‘You’d be welcome to invite Tamsin over for supper,’ offered Nula, oblivious to the impossibility of squeezing another person around the kitchen table, and Sam signalled his agreement.
‘Wicked!’ said Lauren, her eyes shining.
‘Thanks,’ said Mitch. He felt mean, not committing himself; it wasn’t as if he intended to cut Lauren out, but she was a kid, she didn’t understand.
All the same, since being with Tamsin Mitch had begun to cherish an active sense of what it would take to be a man, and now he asked himself how the kind of man he wanted to be would treat an annoying younger sister. He looked at his dad, trying to see him as Nula did: he was good-looking, easy-going, reasonably generous, but also weak, afraid of confrontation, keen on the line of least resistance. Sam would let Lauren take advantage of his lazy good nature whereas Charlie, so bold and dizzyingly ambitious, was a bit of a shit who would probably crush a kid like Lauren without a second thought. Mitch knew exactly the kind of man he wanted to be: Hugo would find a way to make Lauren feel better about herself without giving in to her. But whenever Mitch tried to get his head around how Hugo wasn’t actually related to him any more, his brain seized up and he had to think about something else.
SIXTEEN
Tessa dropped Lauren and her friend Evie at the station in time for the train to Norwich. The girls had insisted they were old enough to spend the day there shopping on their own, and Evie’s mother would pick them up on their return. They had chatted excitedly together in the back of the car as they planned their trajectory, and Tessa watched indulgently as they now disappeared through the ticket barrier clutching one another tightly by the arm. She had given Lauren money for lunch and emergencies, and hoped their adventure would not disappoint them.
She reversed the car, ready to head home, then, idling the engine, sat for a little longer, acknowledging her own desire for escape. Mitch was fine by himself, and she could always call him later. Tonight’s guests weren’t due to arrive until six, and Carol had already given her a hand making up the rooms. She put the car in gear and turned out of the station car park in the opposite direction, away from Felixham.
As she drove, she thought of Lauren the previous night remonstrating as she’d once again gone over the ‘rules’ that would safeguard a young girl in the city: ‘Mum, I’m not a kid any more!’ It was true. Her children were growing up and no longer wanted or needed her in the old way. True, too, that it was hard to let go, but there was also a measure of relief in being, as she felt now, off the hook. She took the slip road onto a dual carriageway, accelerating to pull out ahead of a lorry in the inside lane. It felt good to speed away from Felixham, to escape the tangle of old loyalties and new emotions. She wished she’d brought some CDs so she could play some of the music she and Sam used to listen to at college – Oasis, maybe or Nirvana. Maybe she should go shopping for some new clothes, get a different haircut? She wanted to remember how it felt to be young and without responsibility, to remember who she used to be.
When had life started to happen so fast that she forgot who she was? To begin with it had felt like contentment, part of being with Sam and of becoming a mother, of growing up and accepting herself. But maybe, without even realising, she had crossed some invisible line and lost sight of ‘Tessa’. One more year and Mitch would be leaving for university; whatever course Lauren followed, she wouldn’t be far behind. Whether or not Sam stayed with Nula, he’d be forever occupied with the brasserie. Tessa would be alone. But it struck her that the countryside through which she was dri
ving was abundant with signs of spring – green rows sprouting in the arable fields, young leaves on trees, white blossom in the hedgerows. Erin’s revelation had been, if nothing else, a wake-up call.
She stopped for petrol and to look at the map. There was no particular reason to drive so far except that the name, and images from some TV news programme, had stuck in her mind, and now she was determined to see it through. As she followed the route she’d outlined, the landscape became flatter and more featureless, the small villages further apart, huddled low under the spreading skies. She passed numerous waterways, the banks piled up with brown earth and rotting vegetation. After miles of nothing but wide fenland, she saw a sign ahead to HMP Whitemoor. Soon afterwards the prison loomed up ahead of her, the two-tone brick walls dominating a car park planted with young trees. A separate low building off to one side looked like a modern health centre or library. Except for the razor wire atop the wire-mesh fences, the whole place could almost have been built as an out-of-town shopping centre.
Tessa parked facing the high walls and switched off the engine. Although the facade of the prison was virtually unbroken, the sense of being under surveillance made her reluctant to get out of the car. Now she was here, she could not avoid questioning why she had driven so far. She had no idea which prison Roy Weaver was in, and had no reason at all to suppose he’d be here. She had already researched how to find him, and had learned that she was only allowed to know his location if he gave his permission. She supposed her reason for being here was to test out if she wanted to take that next step; whether she could imagine herself entering such a place, could tolerate the idea of having a father who belonged here.
There was no one to talk to. No one could help her decide. She could drive away and no one need know she had ever come. Or she could stay and accept the challenge. She stared at the barricades, at the huge, fort-like entrance, at the flat, empty landscape that stretched away to the horizon. She was not being overly dramatic: this isolated stronghold was designed to incarcerate dangerous men. Behind the massive walls lived rapists, terrorists, child-murderers. It was not a place to enter lightly.
Yet she felt a frisson of excitement. She knew she ought to disown it, but could not. There was a malign glamour, an almost sexual charge, attached to the idea of such moral and physical extremity. It gave her a heady sense of power. Tessa thought back to when she had first asked Erin about her father, drinking coffee together and looking out at Pamela’s sheltered garden. How naive she had been to assume her journey would be uncomplicated, its outcome inevitably positive. Suddenly she did not necessarily want it to be so simple. No explorer setting out into unknown terrain truly wished for a tame or uneventful experience. She too wanted to be free to develop in new and unexpected directions, to be tested, and survive, as an individual alone in an unknowable world. She knew for certain that she would not turn her back on whatever experience lay ahead. The murderer who was locked up somewhere in a prison like this was her father. Truth was truth. It had no obligation to be benign. It might be terrible. But she would end up stronger for not turning away.
Her mobile pinged, interrupting her thoughts, and she lifted it out of her bag: a text message from Lauren, reporting that she hadn’t yet been robbed or murdered. Tessa’s stomach turned over. She opened the car window to let in some air, texting back a smiley face. She felt ill. What nonsense was she selling herself? What was she doing here? How could she envisage allowing any possible contamination between a prison inmate and her teenage daughter? She watched as a group of officers came out of the gaol and walked towards her. Some were women, but a couple of the men had shaven heads. All wore sturdy black boots, and as their black anoraks flapped open she could see their thick leather belts. Their solidarity as they moved past the car, their show of strength, betrayed the realities of their working day. Prison life was not romantic, it was tough.
She tried to imagine how she would feel if Hugo were beyond those walls, a Hugo she had never met. Whatever he had done, she would have no choice but to refuse to believe that he ought to be shunned or forgotten. Roy Weaver had come into her life, his existence forcing upon her a realm of experience she had never asked for and did not wish to accept. She could choose to drive away and never look back. She knew that was the best thing, the right thing, to do. But it was impossible to unlearn the fact of his existence. This other father had entered her life, and she had to find a place for him.
Tessa sat in her car as the officers drove away and the area became quiet again. She was here because somewhere behind a similar wall was part of who she was. Part of her children too, and their children. To spend the rest of her life in ignorance was unthinkable. Some of the exhilaration she had felt while driving kicked back in. Her ambitions had never been world-shattering, but she was no coward, and she had to be prepared to take this thing on, wherever it led.
By the time she reached home, Tessa’s decision to start the process of making contact had taken on an inevitability that made it seem natural and right. Mitch was out, and she had an hour or so to herself. Ignoring everything else on her desk, she immediately went online to find the official website through which she could request information about which prison Roy Weaver was in. It was, she had already learnt, up to him to consent to the disclosure of his whereabouts. She hesitated over the question on the form asking her to give the reasons for her enquiry. Unknown relative? Long-lost daughter? Daughter he never knew he had? It felt unreal, mad, the kind of avowal that no one could take at face value. But what else could she say? The form felt intimidating, as if she were entering a quasi-judicial hinterland where any mistake might slide her helplessly closer to this parallel punitive world.
She got up from her desk. This was a bad idea. She circled the small room, trying to decide. Should she go ahead? If she did, what could she put down on the form other than the truth as she knew it? She was struck by sudden doubt: other than Erin’s rosy-tinted account, she had no proof that this man had ever been Erin’s lover, let alone that he was in fact her father. What if it was all complete nonsense, some lie Erin had for some reason concocted to tell her mother and now come to believe?
Yet all the time she knew that she would send the form, would declare that she believed Roy Weaver to be her biological father, and that the reason for her enquiry was to discover the truth.
Although the official website warned her a reply might take weeks, when the phone rang around six o’clock Tessa irrationally hoped it might already be a response, and so it took her a moment or two to realise it was Evie’s mother, asking if Tessa had heard from the girls. They had not come off the prearranged train, and Evie was not answering her phone. Recovering from the first plummeting drop into fear, Tessa called Lauren, her heart hammering in her chest as she waited to hear her daughter’s voice. Lauren answered after a couple of rings and explained sheepishly how Evie had left her phone in the changing room at a clothes shop, and by going back to look for it they had missed their train; the phone could not be found and Evie, by then in a state, could not remember her mother’s mobile number, stored on the lost phone. Lauren had idiotically delayed calling Tessa in the hope of avoiding a telling-off, but they were now safely on a later train.
Her hands shaking with relief, Tessa called Evie’s mother to explain and recognised the same edge of terror in the other woman’s voice. She sank into the nearest chair, unable to believe her own wilful stupidity. The very thing she most feared – that some predatory, violent man would harm her precious daughter – she had herself conjured into their lives.
SEVENTEEN
Pamela found Hugo in what he called his den, originally the inadequate third bedroom. It had a view across the front garden to the river marshes that pleased him, and in it he had recreated a semblance of the office he had vacated at the brewery. She wasn’t quite sure how he passed his time in here – reading crime novels he borrowed from the library, she suspected – but guessed he liked the bit of structure spending an hour or two at his
desk gave his day when they had no other plans.
He moved a box file off the old kitchen chair for her and she sat down, folding her hands in her lap.
‘Time to talk?’ he asked.
She nodded. She never found it as easy as he did to put things into words; there always seemed to be an unwelcome finality in doing so, and once something had been said it could not be taken back. Better to say nothing, or very little, than to risk saying the wrong thing. Even though the secret was now out and there was no reason to hold back, old habits died hard.
‘What are we going to do?’ she asked in reply.
‘Nothing.’ He smiled sadly. ‘What can we do?’
‘Stop her seeing this man!’
‘How?’
Pamela stared at him in mute appeal, and he reached out to pat her hands. ‘There’s nothing we can do, my love. At least, so far as we know, he’s not aware of her existence.’
‘But what if he is? Or she does decide to contact him?’
‘She may not. But whatever she decides, we have no right to stop her.’
‘What if he’s dangerous?’
‘Then we do our best to protect her. As we’ve always done,’ he added.
‘No! We mustn’t let this happen. You must talk to her, Hugo. Stop her.’
Hugo gave a bitter laugh. ‘All those years I did nothing because you and your mother insisted that was the way it had to be. And now you want me to act!’
‘I’m afraid we’re being punished,’ she said.
Hugo withdrew his hand. ‘For what?’
‘Everything.’ Pamela wished she’d had a bit more Dutch courage before she’d come upstairs. ‘She was never ours,’ she said. ‘I’ve dreaded this day ever since we took her.’
The Bad Mother Page 9