by Kit Eyre
Clothes were spilling out of her arms by the time she got down to the kitchen. Drew was still in there, poking through the cupboard underneath the window where Valerie kept her serving dishes.
‘Stop doing that,’ Max warned. ‘Pass me a black bag from under the sink.’
Her next stop was the living room, Drew trotting in on her heels. Straight off, he started scoffing at how it looked like a poncy art gallery, but Max tried to shut it out and knelt next to the DVD cabinet. They were all mixed up, so she had to go through them one at a time, pulling out her horrors and fantasies that Valerie had just about tolerated.
‘Well, this is cosy.’
Max’s chin lurched up. Valerie was blocking the doorway, arms crossed and a look on her face that would’ve given Medusa a run for her money. It fooled Drew as he spun around and scattered all the DVDs with his heel, but Max didn’t rush. She rose slowly and stuffed her hands into her pockets.
‘I’m just collecting a few things,’ she said.
‘I can see that.’ Valerie’s glare flicked to Drew as she raised an eyebrow. ‘And you have to be here, do you?’
Drew’s jaw tightened, not that Max could blame him. With that stunt at the hospital, she might’ve expected for Valerie to be a bit contrite, but that seemed to have gone out of the window. If she’d blamed Amy for all this last week, she probably wouldn’t think twice about sticking a threatening behaviour charge on Drew. So, Max slid a loop from her keys then chucked the rest of the rings at him.
‘Take that bag and I’ll meet you outside in five minutes,’ she said.
‘But –’
‘Go on,’ she cut in.
His eyes swivelled between them then he took off towards the door. Valerie moved out of his way and watched him go. The emotionless mask stayed until the front door banged then it crumbled. Max couldn’t hack seeing the pain etched on her forehead all of a sudden, so she knelt down again and stacked the DVDs straight.
‘How’s Amy?’ Valerie questioned. ‘I’m sure you’ve heard more from her than me.’
‘That’s just what you don’t want, isn’t it?’ Max retorted then she checked herself. ‘Forget it, I don’t want a row.’
‘No, you’ll just walk away again,’ said Valerie.
Max stood and glanced around. She’d need another bag.
‘When you speak to Amy,’ Valerie continued after a second, ‘perhaps you could remind her of the guest pass I arranged for election night. All the paperwork has been directed to Clarice’s, but tell her I’m expecting her at the count.’
Imagining Valerie as a blob just blocking the door was working wonders. Max walked straight past on her way to the kitchen, though she was held up when she couldn’t rip the bag free from the roll and Valerie tugged it away from her.
‘Why is it you can never manage these, hmm?’ she asked as she pulled one loose. ‘Will you remind Amy?’
Max grabbed the bag fluttering in the air. ‘If she doesn’t want to come, that’s down to her. What did you expect to happen when you tried blaming her? She might act all grown-up, but she’s still a kid.’
‘Yes – mine. You may think you’ve got some sort of wonderful connection with her, Max, but you haven’t. At the end of the day, you’re nothing more than someone I happened to be sleeping with at the time.’
She swallowed, feeling the blow land in her gut. Then she got her feet moving and went back through to the living room. She’d shovelled the DVDs into the bag and was halfway to the front door when fingers clawed at her arm.
‘I didn’t mean that,’ Valerie said.
Max shook her off. ‘You don’t know what you mean anymore.’
‘Wait. Max – wait a minute.’
Her hand stuck on the door handle. This voice wasn’t the mechanical one or the manipulative one, more like her and Amy’s Valerie who couldn’t stand losing at Scrabble. But Max couldn’t bring herself to turn around and the silence stretched. Valerie’s cough finally broke it – her politician’s cough.
‘The key, Max,’ she said.
It was shoved in her back pocket. She tugged it out and turned it over in her palm then tossed it onto the carpet and pulled the door open. Her feet had hardly hit the bottom step before it slammed behind her.
Chapter 30
‘Amy, hey . . .’
It was the bulk of Max’s body that stopped her walking along the gravel rather than hearing her voice or actually seeing her. Amy raised her eyes then clenched her fists and pushed past on her way towards the gates. Other students were milling around as usual, but she just focused on making it out onto the road.
Max jogged alongside her. ‘You don’t look good.’
‘Go away,’ Amy muttered.
‘What’s up? What’s happened?’
She halted and twisted to face her. ‘Are you serious? You said you’d call. I’ve been stuck with Biddy for a week thinking that you’d –’
‘That I’d what?’ Max cut in, grabbing her arm. ‘Come on – what?’
‘You weren’t interested in being my friend, were you? It was all about her.’
‘Course it wasn’t.’
‘Then where have you been?’
Max scuffed her foot through the gravel. ‘At the bottom of a bottle mostly. I was trying to do you a favour and steer clear.’
‘Stop thinking you know what’s good for me,’ Amy snapped.
‘I know you’ve had enough of that.’
‘So, why do it, hmm?’ she demanded.
‘Because it was protecting me as well,’ Max answered with a shrug. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not handling this like I should.’
Plain justification would’ve ignited her anger again, but that, coupled with the pained expression on Max’s face, dampened it instead. Her shoulders relaxed as she looked at her properly, noticing the circles underneath her eyes and the grease at the tips of her hair. Every one of her muscles seemed as if it was being held up by sheer willpower alone.
‘Okay,’ Amy said.
A smile flickered over Max’s face. ‘Fancy a drive then?’
Now, walking to the cab, she spared a glance for the other students along the driveway. Max’s appearance had garnered a few disparaging looks, not due to the fact she was a taxi driver, but because Amy was talking to her like a human being. Some of them put Biddy’s church friends to shame as far as snobbery was concerned.
‘I hate it here,’ she said as they got into the cab.
Max started the engine. ‘Not my idea of a good time. But thought you liked it.’
‘I used to. When Dad was around, things were different. Now I’m just on edge all the time, feeling like I don’t belong here. As if someone’s going to uncover the truth and throw me out.’
The cab jolted along the driveway past a couple of curious sixth-formers Amy recognised by sight but not name. Her stomach lightened when they hit the solid tarmac of the road and began heading in the opposite direction to Biddy’s. She didn’t ask where they were going, just enjoyed the sensation of relinquishing control for a few minutes.
‘She came to see me yesterday,’ Max said suddenly. ‘Your mum.’
Amy stiffened in her seat. ‘Oh.’
‘Wanted me to remind you of that count pass she ordered you.’
‘Well, I’m not going,’ she replied.
‘I reckon you should think about it,’ Max said.
‘Why? I don’t want to stand there listening to her gloat about winning. And she will win, Max. You know she will. That’ll make it all worthwhile, won’t it?’
‘Amy –’
‘No, it’s not fair. Everything – this whole mess – it’s her fault. I didn’t ask to be born, I wasn’t the one who lied to Biddy in the first place. I’m just the one who has to live with it. I wasn’t the one who brought you into our lives then decided I’d rather have some slimy weasel, was I?’
Max hunched further over the wheel. ‘None of this is down to you. But you’re right – you have to live with it. So, going to t
he count keeps things calm with Clarice. It makes sense. That’s all I was going to say.’
‘Oh,’ Amy murmured.
The next right took them towards the town centre. She curled her toes into her shoes, wondering if this was accidental on Max’s part, but that illusion vanished when she pulled into a short-stay space on the opposite side of the precinct. The café windows were visible in the distance as specks of glass reflecting the weak sunlight tripping across the rooftops.
‘I don’t want to be here,’ she said.
Max didn’t respond straight away. She turned off the engine and unbuckled her seatbelt, twisting to face her with a furrowed brow. Amy shifted away and crossed her arms.
‘I want to leave,’ she said.
‘Not before you hear me out,’ Max insisted in a firm voice. ‘Listen, he might’ve done the wrong thing by coming to me, but it wasn’t out of malice or anything like that. He was genuinely trying to help and he reckoned I was best placed to help him do it. Turns out he was wrong on that score since I only buggered things up more, but his heart was in the right place.’
Amy coiled her arms together. ‘He still went behind my back.’
‘I know –’
‘Everybody lies, Max. I wanted him to be different.’
Max leaned back and tilted her chin towards the roof. ‘Everybody. You mean Tim.’
‘What? No. He told me the truth.’
‘Like it or not, he still lied though. All that time – it has to hurt. Then he tells you the truth, just when you could really live without knowing it.’
‘That’s not how it was,’ Amy warned.
‘Isn’t it?’ Max retorted. ‘You know as well as I do that your mum would’ve told you the truth if something had happened and it was necessary. You might hate her, but she loves you and she’d never put you at risk. So, that blows his reasoning out of the water, doesn’t it?’
Amy shook her head and reached for her seatbelt. ‘You’re out of line.’
‘Wait – stop. Hear me out.’
Her instinct was to tug at the door handle, but her fingers fell back when Max rested a hand on her shoulder. It wasn’t rough; it would’ve been easier to ignore if it was. So, she had no choice but to keep still, although she refused to look over while she listened.
‘I’m not saying he didn’t love you or that he was trying to hurt you,’ Max continued after a moment. ‘Given what you’ve both told me about him, I reckon it was because he loves you so much that he did what he did. Better that he tells you than you finding out later when he couldn’t explain what happened or why he went along with it. You can’t tell me that doesn’t sound like him.’
‘It does,’ Amy admitted.
‘Anyone in your shoes would resent him a bit for telling you.’
‘I – I don’t –’
‘Not a bit?’ Max interrupted.
She wet her lips. ‘Okay. Maybe.’
‘Tim lied first off because he loved you and your mum. Then he told you the truth because he loved you and didn’t want you thinking bad of him later. Life’s more complicated than just hating people because they weren’t completely honest. Ed loves you and he was trying to help. That’s it.’
Amy absorbed that then her eyes strayed across the precinct. There were fewer people around now, and the sun had drained from the windows. She couldn’t see Ed moving around inside, but knowing he was in there made her chest constrict.
‘Don’t take the high road for the sake of it,’ Max said. ‘Go after what you love.’
‘Yeah, because that worked so well for Mum.’
Max snorted and rubbed her shoulder. ‘She’s gone after something else. You do what’s right for you, otherwise you’ll regret it.’
‘I already do,’ she muttered.
‘So, fix it,’ Max answered.
Amy met her gaze then fumbled for the door handle. She heard the car engine start up, but she was too busy walking straight across the uneven paving slabs to pay attention. Every step took her closer to the café until she could see Ed wiping down tables one by one. She almost faltered as she tried to work out whether he looked like he missed her, but when he glanced out of the window and saw her, her doubt disappeared. He had the door open before she reached it.
‘Hey,’ he murmured.
She swallowed and pushed past him into the café. It smelled of apple pie, coffee, and bleach, although even that had a sweet tang to it. The nearest table still glistened with water from his cleaning.
‘Amy?’ Ed asked. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Tim wasn’t my father,’ she said, focusing on the droplets wobbling on the table top. ‘My mum was pregnant when they met and he raised me like his own. I only found out before he died. That’s – that’s why I wanted to be a lawyer so badly. I thought it’d make me more his daughter and make Biddy proud of me. But I screwed it up, didn’t I? I screwed everything up.’
A hand began massaging circles into her back. ‘He loved you, he was proud of you. Sweetie, anyone could see that if they spent five minutes together with you. I’m telling you, you were his daughter in the ways that matter. Is this what you’ve been hiding all this time?’
‘I didn’t know how to tell you.’
‘Why? What did you think I’d say?’
She shrugged. ‘If it was because of him you were –’
‘I told you it wasn’t.’
‘Well, I didn’t believe you.’
His hand stilled. The weight of it was paralysing then he moved it completely and stepped into her line of sight. She raised her chin, almost scared of meeting his eye, but his shoulders had drooped and he looked smaller than he was.
‘You don’t trust me,’ he said with a wispy smile.
She crunched her fingers against the table. ‘I want to. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be, I get it. Proved your point, didn’t I?’
‘No, no. You went to Max for the right reasons. I don’t like that you went behind my back, but I understand why you did. They split up, you know.’
His eyebrows lifted. ‘How come?’
‘Make me a coffee and I’ll tell you about it?’ she suggested.
Although he pretended to think about the idea, she got her answer from the way his whole body seemed to lift again. He drifted his hand through her hair and leaned forward to drop a kiss onto her nose. The bristles of his beard against her lips tasted like apple pie.
With Biddy expecting her, she didn’t dare stay out too late.
Ed insisted on driving her home in his decrepit Honda, promising to leave her at the end of the drive and stay out of sight. They’d talked so much that the journey was quiet, but she kept her fingers looped around his belt for the duration. It took her a few minutes to pry herself away from his warm arms then she wandered down towards the house with her hands tucked inside her pockets.
It was only when she reached the door that she realised she’d forgotten her bag. She turned around to find Ed trotting to her, but she spun back as the front door opened. Biddy was stood on the threshold, arms crossed and cardigan billowing out around her knees.
‘Where have you been?’ she demanded. ‘Who’s this – this man?’
‘This is Ed, Biddy,’ Amy replied.
She just pressed her lips together and Amy twisted to grab her bag from Ed’s outstretched hand. A flush was creeping out from under his beard. She took the bag and tried to smile.
‘Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
He nodded then fled towards the car, every step clattering like a tambourine. Amy watched until Biddy coughed and she turned to face her with what she hoped was an unrepentant expression. She’d copied it from Valerie over the years.
‘Who was that man?’ Biddy queried.
‘I told you, his name’s Ed.’
‘He looks like a drug addict.’
‘Well, he’s not,’ Amy retorted.
Biddy growled through her teeth. ‘I can’t believe your mother allows you to consort with a man like th
at. Does she know?’
‘It’s nothing to do with her.’
‘Of course it is – you’re a child.
‘I’m eighteen.’
‘Oh, you’re a girl, you haven’t begun to understand because you haven’t been taught properly. I was married at nineteen and your mother . . . The least said about that, the better. Pregnant within a few weeks! You think about that, unless you want to end up marrying a man like this Ed because you weren’t sensible enough to use protection.’
‘Biddy, stop,’ Amy warned, but she shook her head.
‘That’s your future – what do you think of it? Your father worked to give you a proper life and you want to throw it all away because your head’s been turned by an – an opportunist who sees you as a soft touch. Don’t make the same mistake Timothy did, don’t do to his memory what he did to your grandfather’s.’
Amy’s eyes widened. She might always have suspected that Biddy harboured resentment towards Valerie, but it was something else to hear it expressed so virulently on the doorstep like this. She took a step backwards as Biddy rubbed her forehead.
‘I didn’t mean to –’
‘I’m tired,’ Amy interrupted. ‘May I get past and go to bed? Please.’
Biddy pulled herself aside and gestured into the house. ‘You may.’
Chapter 31
Switchboard had been quiet all morning. Max was buried in a reread of Misery when the door clanged. She stuck her thumb on the page to save her line then let the cover slip shut when she found Amy and Ed on the opposite side of the glass. Seeing them together brought a smile to her face, but only till she spotted the matching looks on theirs.
‘What’s up?’ she asked.
Ed wrapped his arm around Amy’s shoulders. ‘We need your advice.’
Max motioned them through and turned the volume down on the switchboard. They picked their way through Drew’s rubbish, perching on the edge of the sofa and exchanging a glance. Odds on, if it wasn’t for the fact she’d asked him before, Max would’ve sworn this was the usual.