by Clare Boyd
‘And that crazy maniac next door will be watching us like a hawk,’ I added, glaring out through the kitchen window.
‘What about when I work late? Or have to go on conferences? I mean, I have three scheduled over three weekends between now and Christmas.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, feeling like I didn’t know anything anymore. ‘Harriet can’t do weekends because of college.’
‘And seriously, how often do I get home earlier than nine? Once a week at the most? Can Harriet stay later than eight?’
The reality of the situation seemed to be hitting him like a series of bullets.
‘No. She has a bar job. That’s why she never babysits for us.’
‘What about the mornings? I leave at seven!’
‘Harriet can’t do the mornings either. She has to be in college at nine.’
‘I won’t even be able to nip out for bike rides at the weekend or meet Jim for an afternoon pint.’
‘Welcome to a woman’s world.’
‘Women don’t like bike rides or beer.’
‘Ha bloody ha.’ But I smiled. Peter could always get a smile out of me, even in the worst situations.
‘It’s just the principle of it that pisses me off.’
‘Tell me about it,’ I cried, reminding him of who the victim was.
‘Sorry. I know it’s worse for you.’
I deflated. ‘No. The whole thing is horrendous for all of us.’ A fresh wave of anger rose in me. I pushed it down. There was going to be no more hitting walls.
‘What if they stay with your sister until this is all over?’
‘She’s too far from school.’
‘What about an au pair?’
‘We can’t have someone new here while this is going on.’
‘Well what the hell are we going to do then?’ he yelled, throwing his hands in the air.
‘I honestly don’t know. I can’t ask Mum, she’s always got way too much on.’
Peter stuck his hands in the air again. ‘That’s it! You can ask Helen. That would solve all our problems.’
‘I said I can’t ask Mum. She’d have to give up work.’
‘She’d have to take a break for a month, not even. That’s not even half of one term. I’m sure the students would survive without her.’
‘Would she survive without them?’
‘Aren’t her grandchildren more important?’
I shook my head. ‘It’s too much to ask. We went through all this before we hired Harriet.’
‘Maybe she wants an excuse to slow things down a bit. She never stops complaining about the bloody place.’
‘Don’t be fooled by that old routine. She’s spent thirty years complaining about it, it doesn’t mean anything. There’s no way we can ask her to give it up.’
‘God, Gemma, you are exasperating. We can’t do this on our own. You have to ask her.’
‘I’m too tired to think about this now, way too tired. I can’t even face the thought of telling her, let alone asking such a massive favour.’
‘She’s your mother and she loves you.’
‘We’ll see how much when I speak to her.’
I picked up the second piece of toast and then put it back on the plate. The thought of eating it made my stomach turn.
He reached to the top of the cupboard where he kept the whisky.
‘How’s about a hot toddy to cheer us up?’
‘God, yes, a virgin one for me. I’ll light the fire next door.’
I knelt at the wood-burner in the sitting room, enjoying the humbling simplicity of the process of crumpling the newspaper and fanning the kindling.
Peter joined me with two mugs. ‘Want me to do it?’
‘Why do men always think they can light fire better than women?’
‘I don’t know about other women, but if your track record is anything to go by...’
I didn’t give him the satisfaction of laughing, but I was inside. It was true. I rarely got a fire going the first time.
The flames were tentative, slowly melting the paper with blue heat. Patiently and gently, I blew on the flame until one stick of kindling burst into flames. ‘There you go, see?’ Maybe it was patience I lacked.
I stretched out on the sofa, with my feet at the end near the fire, and my mug resting on my chest, the aroma of hot lemon and honey filling my head, the fire warming my socks. Peter’s position mirrored mine on the opposite sofa.
We both stared into the flames as they leapt about angrily.
‘At the station there was this crazy woman ranting and raving and she called me a stuck-up bitch.’
‘Charming.’
‘She was really pretty,’ I continued, like this was relevant. ‘She had these really trendy boots on. If you saw her on the street, you’d think she was as normal as anything.’
‘What was she in there for?’
‘She’d headbutted a bouncer outside a pub.’
‘Nice.’
‘She probably was nice, without the booze.’
‘Headbutting someone is pretty defining.’
‘Haven’t you ever felt like headbutting someone?’
He snorted, ‘No!’ then added, ‘I probably have, actually.’
‘I have too.’
‘But neither of us have ever done it,’ Peter said.
‘That’s maybe just luck.’
‘Or good sense.’
‘But we’re not always sensible, not always, not every second of the day.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ he said in a manly sensible voice, clearing his throat.
‘Seriously though, one moment of madness and that’d be it, your life would be over. It would undo everything good that you had ever done.’
‘She’s lucky she wasn’t in for manslaughter.’
‘I’m not saying it was okay what she did, I’m just saying that maybe after a lifetime of shit, she just snapped.’
‘It would have to have been a hell of a lot of shit.’
‘What if her dad beat her up, or her mum even? What if she’d grown up with violence?’
‘A lot of people come from the most grim backgrounds and still don’t go headbutting people just because they’ve had a few too many shandies.’
‘It’s not an excuse, I’m just saying it might be her story,’ I said, propping myself up a little on a cushion. ‘It’s so easy to judge. None of us know who we really are until we’re tested or how we would behave under the wrong circumstances.’
‘I feel guilty now. I want to give the girl a hug.’
I inspected my hands. They burned as though they were two balls of fire, and my wrists were beginning to ache.
‘Part of me is not sure any of it was real.’
‘Imagine what Rosie went through.’
‘Now that makes me want to headbutt DC Miles,’ I said.
He snorted through a sip of whisky. ‘There’s that Campbell-woman spirit I know and love,’ he laughed, reaching far over the coffee table to squeeze my shoulder.
‘Superwomen. All of us,’ I said flatly, with a flash of my palms slamming the wall.
‘Wait till your mum hears about this. She’ll be campaigning with her students outside the police station holding placards with “Rough Justice for Gemma” on them.’
I felt the swell of a belly laugh form in my stomach but it didn’t quite make it out. ‘Stop it. I wouldn’t put it past her.’
‘It’s funny with your mum, she looks out with the fairies most of the time, but it’s staggering how scary she can be.’
‘All those ailments though.’
‘Mother of God, her handbag is like a pharmaceutical’s factory.’
We turned our heads to smile at each other and then looked back to the fire. I took a sip of my drink.
‘And there’s you, who won’t even take a paracetamol for a headache.’
‘I’m not like her at all,’ I stated firmly.
‘You’re more like her than your sister is.’
> ‘So you’re saying I am like her?’
‘You and your mum are both quite determined when you want to be.’
‘So is Jacs,’ I said, flipping my argument, suddenly defensive of my mother’s spirit. ‘She’s as stubborn as an ox, just like Mum. Remember woodshedgate?’
I laughed out loud at the memory of Jackie and Richard’s argument over their woodshed. Richard had promised he would build it – it was pretty vital considering they heated their house with a log burner – but he was notoriously lazy and hated asking tradesmen to do the job he knew he could do himself. Months had passed as their log pile on the driveway had become soggier by the day, until Jackie had taken the job on.
‘I’ve never seen Rich so put out,’ I laughed.
There was a lull as we listened to a log slipping in the fire. A moment of insecurity.
‘Who needs men, eh?’ Peter added.
‘We want you more than need you, darlings,’ I grinned, holding up my mug to cheers him.
He sent me a small melancholy smile back, ‘At least I’m wanted.’
‘Mum taught us to stand on our own two feet. That’s a good thing this day and age,’ I said defensively.
‘God forbid you might ever need anyone, Gemma.’ There was an edge in his voice that went beyond the mild joshing.
‘What happened to liking the Campbell-woman spirit?’
‘It has its moments.’
‘Give me an example of a bad moment.’
‘I’m not stupid. You’re tricking me into an argument.’
‘Promise I won’t get annoyed. Cross my heart, hope to die.’
‘I can’t think of anything specific.’
‘Go on. Try.’
‘I’m not sure this is wise.’
‘I’m not going to start headbutting you if that’s what you’re scared of.’
‘Okay. When you had to go for that interview for the promotion a couple of years ago, you didn’t confide in me and tell me you were shitting yourself or even that you wanted the job, you just got grumpier by the day and then the night before you suddenly made Rosie throw out all her plastic toys.’
‘She didn’t play with them anymore!’
‘Except one.’
‘That bloody diary of hers. I’d be reading it now if she hadn’t taken it with her.’
‘How do you know she has?’
‘She never sleeps over anywhere without it.’
‘The only plastic toy you let her keep is now her most treasured possession.’
I sighed, smarting at the criticism in spite of promising not to.
‘I wish I’d never asked now,’ I sulked. ‘I don’t know how to explain it. When I’m stressed I see mess in places I never did before.’
‘Spoken like a true pro.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with keeping things organised if it helps me think stuff through, is there?’
‘But you shut everyone else out, including the kids.’
‘Do I?’
‘A bit.’
‘I never thought of it that way.’
I had never thought of my self-sufficiency as anything but the one good trait that I had inherited from Mum. How discombobulating it was to think otherwise.
‘I suppose when I think back to how amazing Mum was when I was young and when I think of how lucky I am in comparison, I just think I don’t have anything to complain about.’
‘Everyone has something to complain about.’
‘Mum was a proper trooper though,’ I said absently, but as I said it I had a flash of Mum’s dark bedroom after my father had left her, left us, with the curtains drawn and a glass of water in my hand. I had wanted her for something – I couldn’t remember what – and had known it was impossible to ask her for anything when the curtains were drawn on her migraines. I had wanted her but couldn’t have her, and I learnt to find a way to get on by myself.
‘It might be good for her to be here with all of us,’ I said, trying to find justification for the arrangement, ways she could gain from it, to dismiss how unconditional and selfless her move here would be if she accepted.
‘I really believe it would be, you know,’ Peter said.
‘I’ll try her tomorrow,’ I agreed, unable to imagine asking her for such a colossal kindness. It was not supposed to be a test of how much she loved me, or her grandchildren. But now faced with the task of asking her, I knew it would become exactly that.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
TOP SECRET
* * *
Dear Mummy,
* * *
It’s the middle of the night. Spooookkkkeeeeee. I can’t sleep. Dad told us you will get out of prison tomorrow and we can go home. Mega happy-face. A hundred happy faces. We have to go riding tomorrow first. Mega sad face. Horses are a bit scary and big. Why do we have to go riding? Becky’s riding shoes stink.
* * *
I feel a bit mega, mega bad about you going to real prison. I hope you didn’t have to eat sprouts in there. I can’t wait to give you a big sorry hug. Question: Would you eat sprouts if the police gave you one hundred fluffy neon pencil cases? The police could get those for you. They can do anything. They even put children in prison, don’t they?
* * *
INVISIBLE INK ALERT: Mrs E is nice. She doesn’t want me to go to prison to eat sprouts ever, ever, ever. Not even for ONE THOUSAND MILLION FLUFFY NEON PENCIL CASES. I have to keep my secret that’s why I can’t talk even one word about anything to daddy. If I did, I would have to lie to him and I can never lie to daddy. He is cleverer than me and he’d find a super-spy way of getting me to talk.
* * *
When you are out of prison, don’t worry, everything will turn back to normal. I won’t lie anymore and you won’t shout any more. Okay, whoops! Normal is the totally opposite. You’ll shout like a loony and I’ll lie my head off. YEEEEEEAAAAAH. I HEART NORMAL. I am so happy you are not in prison anymore.
* * *
Sorry again, sorry again and again. I’m so sorry, I’m saying sorry from Sorryville,
Rosie
* * *
P.S. At home after we have hugged and made it up together, you can’t be cross with me anymore. That’s the rule, remember. OR ELSE... (Just kidding).
Chapter Thirty-Eight
I had called my mother hundreds of times before, but I had never done it with sticky hands and a fluttery stomach. As I clutched my phone, I watched the trees at the bottom of the garden bend over to the right, as though pointing out to sea, to an escape route maybe.
‘Hi Mum.’
‘Darling, how are you and the bump?’
‘Fine, fine. How are you, first?’ I asked, procrastinating, gauging her mood.
‘Oh you know, only the usual,’ she sighed.
‘How are your wrists?’
‘Sore, and that stupid doctor told me I had to stop using the computer.’
‘Might a rest be a good idea?’ I asked hopefully.
‘My students email me about everything these days, it would be quite impossible.’ She had such a gentle, girly voice, it was easy to forget the ferocity in the subtext. There was no point persuading her further, even if it meant she’d have to have both hands amputated.
‘We’re all so reliant on the bloody things.’
‘Computers or hands?’ she chuckled.
‘They’re fused these days, aren’t they?’
My mother chuckled again. ‘So, how are my grandchildren doing?’
‘Well, actually, that’s what I’m calling about.’
My heart raced. I couldn’t believe what I was about to tell her. I couldn’t believe I was about to ask her to give up her life for us. It wasn’t a fair request, none of it was fair.
‘We’ve had a bit of a nightmare,’ I began.
I clearly and succinctly pushed out the bare facts of my arrest, with minimal emotion and dollops of positivity. My mother was silent all the way through. ‘But it’s going to be fine,’ I finished off, wondering if my moth
er was still on the other end.
There was a long silence.
‘Mum, are you still there?’
‘Plainly, those police officers have misinterpreted something Rosie said.’
‘Yes,’ I agreed, knowing this was the only bearable way of looking at it. ‘But unless she changes her statement, which, to be honest, is still possible, the police will want to investigate her allegations further and so we’re going to have to run with it.’
Run with it? Like it was a strategy meeting.
‘Will it be dropped if she changes her statement?’
‘Yes, immediately apparently.’
‘And there I was complaining about my wrists.’
‘Your wrists are just as important.’
‘Nonsense. What’s this lawyer like?’
‘Very good I think.’
‘What does he suggest you do now?’
‘Well, that’s the thing, she says that we have to be as compliant as possible.’
‘Which means?’
‘It means I might not be allowed to be alone with the kids, and Peter and I were thinking...’
‘That’s preposterous,’ she interrupted before spluttering out a series of swear words under her breath.
‘It’s part of some kind of safeguarding plan, just while they carry out what they call a closing strategy investigation. A social worker will be coming round,’ I said, floored by the reality once again. My hands began sweating. My cheeks flushed.
‘A social worker?’ she cried.
‘Yes, obviously, if there’s a safeguarding plan.’
‘Well, I don’t know anything about this kind of thing,’ she said, smugly, the better parent. I drew in a calming breath and continued.
‘As soon as Monday, apparently, to draw up some agreement or something.’
‘And you say this Philippa woman is good, yes?’
I sighed and rubbed my temple, ‘Yes, Mum. She helps me out all the time at work. I really like her.’
‘She’s not an employment solicitor is she?’ Mum said, as though this might be the lowest form of life.