‘It was his.’ Mitch pointed at Charlie. ‘Tamsin says he does it all the time.’ He turned on Charlie. ‘You didn’t even notice it was missing.’
Charlie gave a sneering laugh. ‘This is fantasy!’
‘Ask her friends,’ insisted Mitch. ‘Why aren’t you talking to their parents?’
‘What’s the matter with you?’ cried Tessa. ‘Do you want to end up in prison? Locked away like Roy?’
Too late, Tessa registered Mitch’s anguish. He barged out of the room, and moments later the front door banged.
Left looking at one another, Tessa finally saw Charlie betray a flicker of unease. She seized her advantage and held open the sitting-room door with a trembling hand. ‘You’d better go.’
‘I won’t contact the police this time,’ he told her, shamefaced. ‘But make sure he stays away from my daughter.’
Tessa left him to walk down the hall and let himself out. Close to collapse, she went into her office and dialled Sam’s number.
FORTY-FOUR
Mitch sat on the beach, chucking pebbles into the water. Around him, families were packing up for the day, hunting for missing shoes and shaking sand out of clothes and towels. Tired children whined with the effects of too much sun while their parents, contented after a good day out, chivvied them back to the car. The tide had begun to turn, and he watched as the low creamy waves crept further up the beach.
In the distant haze he followed the dot of an aeroplane as it made its way across the sky, and was stabbed by an actual physical pain at the thought of Tamsin sitting in her seat, headphones on, watching a film as the packed jumbo flew onwards, further and further, thousands of miles away from him. He took his phone out of his pocket and stared at it: even if she wasn’t on a plane he couldn’t call her, because Charlie had her phone. The thought of Charlie looking at the images of him and Tamsin was intolerable. Almost reflexively, Mitch bent his arm and flung his own phone into the sea. It was a good throw, following the same arc as all the pebbles, and only as the device hit the water did the thought strike him that, without it, Tamsin wouldn’t be able to call him. He leapt up and ran to the water’s edge. He already knew, from all the times as a kid that he’d searched in vain for lost treasures, that it was gone, but kicked off his trainers and waded out. He parted the moving waters with his hands, trying to see down to the shifting sands beneath, but it was futile.
Cursing himself, his jeans soaked up to his thighs, he threw himself back down on the sand. If he’d been alone he would have wept unrestrainedly, sobbed his heart out like the exhausted toddler being dragged past him by a mother whose arms were too laden with beach gear to pick the child up. He couldn’t bear it. Tamsin was gone. Charlie had ordered him never to see her again. His one hope was to be believed, yet even his mother had looked at him as if he were the Devil. And maybe he was.
The very worst pain, the one that ate into him, corroding every good thing that had ever happened to him, was the thought of Charlie making cheap assumptions about photographs taken so light-heartedly when he and Tamsin had believed themselves to be so happy and free. The idea of Charlie casting his jaded, grubby eyes over the best and purest moments of Mitch’s life made him mad with despair. He recalled the sight of Quinn kneeling on the laundry-room floor, her face buried in Charlie’s crotch, Charlie’s animal mouth snarling in the darkness. It was horrible that such a man should interfere with anything to do with Mitch’s love for Tamsin.
But then he thought of the savage, self-centred emotions he’d experienced when he’d snorted Charlie’s cocaine. He’d understood why people became addicted not to the physical effects but to the escape from self-imposed restriction, had recognised it in many of the people around them at the party. The sense of wild power it bestowed was dangerously seductive; whatever he did or thought, he was absolved by it being not him but the drug, and he’d reckoned that he might as well make the most of it while the effects lasted. If, under the influence, Tamsin had found a bigger stash in her father’s bureau, he knew he would have snorted the lot. But he did not like the kind of person be became. He would hate for Hugo, for instance, to have witnessed how callously he and Tamsin had pushed through the throng to grab the best view of the fireworks, how they had acted and spoken to other people as if no one else mattered, or what they’d done with one another later that night. In the morning, sharing the breakfast table with her two friends, he felt he’d tarnished something irreplaceable and despised himself for his weakness. Deep down he feared that this was why Tamsin had agreed to fly away without saying goodbye.
Everything was wrong and confused. He didn’t know what to think about anyone or anything. How own mother had just looked at him as if he were a stalker and a pervert; she’d not believed him when Charlie accused him of harassing Tamsin. And maybe she was right. He’d been a coward not to have told her straight away about his visit to Shirley. She’d never believe him now, and it would be his fault if that murderer hurt her in any way.
Mitch lay on his back, staring up at the sky. His wet jeans were clammy against his skin, but the sand had not yet lost its warmth and the faint breeze felt summery. The beach was almost empty now, and although it wouldn’t be dark for another hour or so yet, a pale moon was already rising. He would have to make a move soon, before the incoming tide reached him, but it no longer mattered to him what he did. He might never see Tamsin again. Life was pointless. He supposed he should go home. Tessa would yell at him, but he didn’t care. He deserved it. Everything was ruined, and he felt like a criminal.
FORTY-FIVE
Sam arrived along with the last two guests and went to sit in the kitchen while Tessa showed the couple to their room. Sam’s assurance that he was in no hurry – the brasserie was now running smoothly enough for Jozef to be left in charge for an hour – reminded her how distant and unreachable such mundane concerns had suddenly become.
Ten minutes later she found Sam at the kitchen table. He’d made spritzers from an open bottle of wine in the fridge and pushed hers towards her as she sat down. She told him first about Charlie Crawford, trying to justify how she’d handled things with Mitch. But Sam wasn’t inclined to regard Charlie’s threats as serious, though he hoped Mitch wouldn’t be hit too hard by Tamsin’s abrupt departure. ‘It’ll be a shame though,’ he said, ‘if Mitch spends his summer holiday nursing a broken heart.’ Tessa wasn’t sure whether to be irritated or consoled by how lightly he judged the matter.
Then, haltingly, she tried to explain some of what Janice had said in the dingy pub. She realised how difficult it was going to be to make anyone understand the intensity of the visits room, the impetus of the hope and expectation that had carried her there, and the horror of having that hope betrayed. She had decided she could never tell anyone about the photographs. Possessing that knowledge herself was bad enough, and she feared its contaminating power. If she told no one, then maybe eventually she could even erase it from her own memory.
Hearing herself tell Sam the truth about Roy’s criminal past, and believing in her very gut that these were not mere words but actual vicious deeds, Tessa hung her head in shame: Sam, Hugo, Mitch, Pamela, Erin – they had all tried to protect her from herself, and in return she had scorned them.
And so she was unspeakably grateful when Sam nodded and spoke kindly. ‘So where do you go from here?’ he asked. ‘Do you still think he deserves any kind of place in your life?’
‘No!’
‘Good.’
‘But I’ve let him in, haven’t I? We’re his family. I am his child, Mitch and Lauren are his grandchildren. We have to deal somehow with what he’s done, with what that makes us. Oh, I can’t forgive myself for what I said to Mitch!’
‘That was pretty unfortunate,’ Sam agreed. He reached over and took hold of one of her hands. ‘But there’s nothing wrong with you, Tessa.’
Tessa had wanted for so long to hear him say such words that she hardly dared look up and meet his eyes. She felt as though Sam was offering the only known antidote
to a patient who had been lethally poisoned.
When she did not trust herself to reply, Sam spoke again. ‘Don’t worry too much about Mitch. He’s young enough to bounce back. It’ll blow over.’
‘But can you understand why I panicked?’ she appealed to him. ‘Especially about the drugs. It was only a moment. A split second. And there is addiction in the family; Pamela drinks on the sly, did you know that?’
Sam shrugged. ‘Sure.’
‘Is it only me who fails to see these things?’ she asked.
‘It’s easier when you’re not so close to people.’
‘Mitch looks so like Roy sometimes. Then it’s hard not to think of the terrible things Roy has done.’
‘Even if Mitch is like him being a criminal isn’t genetic,’ said Sam. ‘Roy didn’t bring you up, and he’s never so much as laid eyes on Mitch. He hasn’t influenced your identities in any way.’
‘You don’t think there’s some awful inheritance?’
‘No.’ Sam gave her hand a bracing squeeze. ‘Mitch is being a typical teenager, and, by the sound of it, Charlie Crawford is an arrogant prick who likes throwing his weight about.’
Tessa allowed herself to laugh, though she was very close to tears. ‘Are you sure?’ she begged him. ‘Are you sure Mitch is really Ok?’
‘He’s a great kid,’ declared Sam. ‘A credit to us both.’
Tessa nodded. She wanted to blow her nose and drink her wine, but most of all she wanted Sam to keep holding her hand. ‘I know a lot of it’s been entirely my own fault, but it’s all been a bit much recently,’ she said.
‘I know. And we need to talk about that.’ Sam let go of her hand as he picked up his glass. He got up and wandered over to the window. Tessa remembered how he always used to do this when he had something he wished to avoid saying.
‘It’s partly my fault too,’ he confessed to the panes of glass. ‘I’d already guessed Mitch and Tamsin were sleeping together, but ignored it because it made me so angry.’
‘Angry?’ asked Tessa, surprised: not that Sam should appear prudish, but that she couldn’t remember when he had ever admitted to being angry. ‘Why?’
‘I was so terrified he’d repeat our mistakes,’ he said at last.
Tessa shivered. ‘Were we a mistake?’ she asked in a small voice. ‘Did you ever love me, Sam?’
‘I didn’t say you were a mistake,’ he exclaimed in exasperation. ‘Why do you always do that? Turn it against yourself, so I can never explain what I mean. You getting pregnant was the mistake. Never having a chance to find out what we really wanted was the mistake.’ He came and sat beside her, cupping her cheek. ‘I was never allowed to think things through. Of course I love you, and the kids, but so long as Averil was alive, I was never allowed to decide anything for myself. I couldn’t breathe!’
She looked into his eyes. ‘And now you can?’
‘Yes. I never meant to break us all up, to make the kids have to shuttle between us. But I had no choice.’
As Sam sat back, Tessa felt a great calm descend upon her. He had finally explained himself, had finally spoken and told her why he’d left. ‘So it wasn’t me?’ she asked. ‘You don’t hate me?’
‘No! No, Tessa. But I felt so awful about leaving that for a long time afterwards I couldn’t even bear to look at you. I’m sorry.’
‘It’s all right. I didn’t know who I was either. And I’ve made an even worse mess of working it out!’
‘We’ll manage better now, won’t we?’
‘We can try!’ They clinked glasses and drank to it. As more of her tension melted away with the wine, Tessa voiced her other shame. ‘What about Lauren?’ she asked. ‘Does she hate me?’
Sam smiled. ‘Of course not. Don’t worry about her. She’s doing fine. We’ve been paying her the minimum wage to help out in the brasserie kitchen, and she loves it. Amazing what a bit of responsibility can do.’
‘Really?’ Swallowing her resentment that Nula had been able to help her child when she had failed, Tessa ordered herself to be glad for Lauren’s sake.
‘I’ll bring her over tomorrow,’ promised Sam. ‘You both just needed a bit of space, that’s all. She’s a kid. Forget it.’
‘How did we manage to get ourselves in such a state?’ asked Tessa, going to fetch more ice. ‘I can’t tell you how miserable I’ve been, Sam.’
He joined her as she refilled the ice tray at the sink. ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated. ‘There’s a lot I should’ve handled better.’
Tessa turned to face him. ‘I’m sorry too.’ She took a deep breath, letting go of years of hurt. ‘It’s so horrible being jealous!’
Sam laughed and, out of long habit, put his hands around her waist to pull her to him in a comfortable hug. ‘What a pair, eh?’ he said into her ear.
Tessa returned his hug, laughing too with the wonderful relief of it all. ‘Oh, Sam! Let’s be friends again.’
FORTY-SIX
On the beach, Mitch got to his feet, brushing off the sticky sand. He looked out to sea, sighing over his utter stupidity in jettisoning his phone: one more thing for his parents to shout at him about. The horizon seemed to expand forever, and he felt very small, a mere dot, just like the aeroplane in which Tamsin was now travelling. He rubbed away the tears that prickled at his eyes at the thought of her, relaxed and oblivious to him, in her flying metal tube. It couldn’t be! The idea of having to survive the remainder of the summer without her was impossible.
He climbed up to the promenade and crossed the road to the Seafront B&B. Aware of his mucky jeans, he let himself in quietly and slipped upstairs, hoping to avoid any guests. As he went up the last flight to the flat he heard his mother gasping. Gripped with guilt that she was weeping over his sins, he knocked once on her bedroom door and went in. She lay on the covered bed, her skirt around her waist, her blouse pushed up, one breast exposed. A man lay on top of her, naked from the waist down, thrusting between her legs. Tessa’s face turned, her eyes focused on Mitch, and she grabbed a fistful of duvet to try and cover them both. ‘Sam!’ she cried, attempting to wriggle herself free and draw down her skirt. ‘Sam, stop!’
Mitch fled.
By the time he reached the marshes, his chest hurt from the effort of dragging in enough air to keep running. It didn’t help that he was crying, and, with a blocked nose, could only breathe through his mouth. At last he had to stop to bend over, panting, waiting to take in enough air so that he could stand upright without feeling dizzy. He must have run almost two miles, and could look back towards the twinkling lights of South Felixham and, beyond, the distant glow of North Felixham where he’d left his parents in bed together. It wasn’t yet dark, but the moon stood out more brightly than the setting sun. Knowing he’d never return, he’d had the sense to stop on his way out of the house to grab his waterproof jacket from the hall and, with fumbling fingers, steal two twenty-pound notes from Tessa’s handbag in her office. So she’d call him a thief on top of everything else, but it didn’t matter what she thought of him now. The instant she’d recognised him standing in her doorway he’d known she would hate him for seeing her nakedness and Sam would hate him for witnessing his betrayal of Nula. He could never go home again.
He carried on, slowing now to a walk, not caring which path he took, where he went, just so long as Felixham lay behind him. He wished for a moment that he had Blanco to whistle to, but the pain caused by the thought of never seeing Tamsin again felt dangerously sharp, and he banished the notion. He was on his own, and might as well get used to it.
His head felt full of whistling static, as if he’d been slapped and smacked until his ears rang. He could not believe the layers and layers of lies that adults told just so they could get what they wanted yet still go on pretending they merited respect. He was used to it from teachers, but he’d trusted his parents. They were supposed to set an example of special goodness, to do everything within their power to keep the family safe. But the fortress he’d stupidly thought was his family
had collapsed. There were no ramparts. The walls were flimsy, unreal, a lie. He longed for the sense of abandonment and escape the cocaine had given him, wished for some drug to take away his pain.
Mitch stumbled, and realised it was getting too dark to see his way. The moon was not quite full and there were hazy clouds from the day’s summer heat; he knew they would gradually clear, and hoped the brightness would be enough to light his way. But he had not considered the extreme contrast of the shadows that sliced across his path, obliterating hazardous detail and slowing his pace. He stopped to take his bearings, and became aware of all the night noises. The faint rush of the sea, invisible except for its slight phosphorescence, came to him like the sound of a shell held to his ear. He couldn’t remember being able to hear it at this distance during the day. Nearer at hand, marsh water lapped irregularly against mud, driven by the breeze that rustled between the reeds. Far off – he couldn’t make out the precise direction – he picked up the rasping cough of a bullock in a field. He realised he had expected to hear traffic, some sound of human activity, but there was nothing, and the nearest lights seemed very far away.
But he had made his decision, and he had nowhere else to go – he couldn’t turn up at a friend’s house at this hour. Hugo was the only person he could turn to, but what if he, too, believed what Charlie had said and despised him? That was too calamitous even to consider. Besides, how could Mitch explain why he’d run away? Would he even be believed? He didn’t want to think about the consequences of what he’d seen. If his parents had got back together – though he didn’t reckon that was what had happened – then it was too late for him to be glad about it. Although it had been terrible when they first split up, it was far better now for Sam to stay with Nula, better for Lauren too. So if he kept away, then maybe no one need ever find out what they’d done, and no harm would follow.
As for his mother, he couldn’t think straight about her, he felt so betrayed. Tessa no longer seemed to care what she said or did to anyone. She’d excluded him from this whole Roy Weaver thing, crept about at night so that she could sleep with Declan, and had chosen to believe Charlie rather than him. It was bad enough that Tessa thought he was a liar and a pervert, but now she’d turned Sam into a liar and a cheat as well.
The Bad Mother Page 26