by Kit Eyre
The hall table clattered as he walked into it. Amy heard the wood screech just before he stepped into her line of sight. He yanked the front door open and let in a gust of summer air that rippled up the stairs and curled around her shoulders.
‘John?’ Valerie called after him. ‘Your wallet and keys are on the kitchen table. Remember to move the seat back. I had to drive home if you recall because you were unable to walk in a straight line when we left the meeting.’
He swore and stomped back into the house. It took him thirty seconds to retrieve his things then he made sure to slam the door until the house reverberated. The car squealing away outside probably brought half the neighbours to their windows.
Amy padded down the stairs to find Valerie in the hallway. She was immaculately groomed, dressed for business in one of her pinstriped suits with make-up flawlessly applied. Her eyes were brighter than Amy had seen them in months.
‘So, that went well,’ Amy commented as she rounded the banister.
Valerie broke out into a laugh, a genuine laugh that echoed around the hallway. She stretched a hand out then faltered and allowed it to flutter back to her side. Amy swept forward to gather her into a hug, resting her chin on her shoulder.
‘I’m proud of you,’ she said. ‘Whatever happens next, I’m proud of you.’
Chapter 39
‘What’s up with you lately? I’m the one not sleeping and you’re the one in a strop.’
Max chucked her pen onto the desk. ‘Leave it, Drew.’
‘I’m just saying.’
‘Yeah, every bloody day,’ she snapped. ‘I’m off out in the cab.’
‘Hold up, I thought you were doing the accounts.’
‘Changed my mind,’ she answered on her way to the door.
His arguments followed her out onto the street. At least when the door swung shut, she had a bit of peace. This part of town shut down on Sundays, so even the paper shop was closed. The most noise she could hear was their swing sign clanking in the breeze.
She leaned back against the brick wall and closed her eyes for a minute. Then something blocked her light and she opened them again. She’d expected Drew to have followed her out, not to have Valerie standing there with her arms curled around her stomach.
‘Hi,’ Valerie said.
Max pushed off from the wall, knotting her hands behind her back. ‘What are you doing here? Is Amy okay?’
‘She’s fine, but you see more of her than me so . . .’
‘Not for a few days. We’ve been missing each other.’
‘She’s enjoying it, you know,’ Valerie replied with a smile. ‘It was good of you to give her the job. I’m sure it would’ve been easier not to under the circumstances.’
‘There’s no reason I wouldn’t.’
‘No, I – I know that, I didn’t mean to . . .’ Valerie sighed, scrubbing her forehead with her palm. ‘Here I go, making a mess of this again. I’m sorry. What I’m trying to say is that it’s good you two are friends. You’re good for her. She’s been lucky in that respect. I mean, her father might have been completely useless, but she had Tim before and she’s got you now. I didn’t do too badly on that score.’
Max swallowed. She could count on one hand the number of times Valerie had voluntarily mentioned Amy’s real father. Even though she still didn’t know his name, she knew enough about what had happened to realise it’d left Valerie with a few scars. Here she was, freely opening up those old wounds in the middle of the town. Something wasn’t right.
‘Amy’s always got me,’ Max said finally when the silence stretched a bit.
‘Does it hurt?’ Valerie asked. ‘Having her around. Whenever I’m with her, it feels –’
‘What do you want?’ Max interrupted.
Valerie tugged at her sleeves. ‘Can we go somewhere private? I really need to talk to you.’
Max hesitated, just long enough for the confidence to drain out of Valerie’s eyes. That was aggravated by Drew suddenly bursting out of the office and pulling up short at the sight of the pair of them. Valerie’s sincerity vanished behind the stony stare she usually reserved for people she didn’t want to waste a smile on.
‘What are you doing here?’ Drew questioned.
‘This is really nothing to do with you,’ Valerie answered. ‘I’m here to see Max.’
‘Yeah, go find another street corner to hang out on.’
‘That’s a little rude, isn’t it?’
Drew growled. ‘Oh, piss off back to your fiancé.’
The engagement’s off, actually.’
It was said so casually that Max reckoned she’d misheard at first. She lowered her eyes towards the pavement ridges, trying to get rid of that buoyant flicker in her chest. It faded into an ache, but she still didn’t trust herself to say anything.
‘Dump you, did he?’ Drew asked.
Valerie coughed. ‘As I said, this is none of your business, so, if you don’t mind . . .’
‘Bugger off and leave us alone. Or maybe I’ll go to the papers, tell them exactly why you’re sniffing round here and why that Foster’s dumped you.’
Max looked up, seeing Valerie’s hackles rise. ‘Oi, give it a rest, the pair of you.’
‘Get inside,’ Drew muttered as he reached for her arm.
‘I can walk,’ Max insisted.
He still kicked the door open and guided her through it. One glance over her shoulder was all she managed before he slammed the door. The switchboard was blaring, but he slapped her arm away when she went to answer it.
‘Was that planned? You and her – out there. Had you planned to meet her?’
Max kicked her heel back into the sofa. ‘Not that it’s anything to do with you, but no. What about you? What were you doing following me?’
‘You never got into the cab,’ he said with a shrug. ‘I was worried. Seems I had right.’
‘I don’t need a bloody bodyguard, Drew. And I can’t stay cooped up in here all day either.’
She pushed past, dodging well out of the way of his hands this time.
‘Don’t follow her,’ he shouted as she left. ‘Don’t be an idiot, Max.’
Chapter 40
Amy had been watching the door for twenty minutes. The moment the bell jingled and she caught sight of the expression on Valerie’s face, her stomach dropped. She signalled to Ed and he had a filter coffee in front of Valerie before she’d even taken her jacket off.
‘Thank you, Ed,’ she said, attempting a smile.
He nodded then made his escape back to the counter. Amy turned her attention to Valerie, noticing how her thumbs were knocking against her cup unconsciously. She suddenly pulled her shoulders back and took a sip of coffee.
‘A resounding victory by the Opposition,’ she said.
Amy sighed. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I can’t say I blame her, sweetheart. I know how much trust it took for her to let me in at all. I’d be a fool to think I can talk my way out of this one.’
‘She does love you,’ Amy said.
‘It’d be nice if that was the panacea it professes to be.’ Valerie paused and inched her fingers across the clefts in the wood. ‘If it were, perhaps I could make up for all I’ve done to hurt you over the years. I’d hoped that if I could get Max back, I may get you as well.’
A lump had formed in Amy’s throat that she couldn’t get rid of.
‘Stupid, I know,’ Valerie added abruptly.
‘No, it’s not,’ Amy said, grabbing her hand before it disappeared from the table. ‘But, Mum, there’s something I need to . . .’
Valerie squeezed her fingers. ‘What do you need, darling? I’ll do anything, I promise.’
‘It’s me, it’s about – I’ve got to tell you the truth. I’ve screwed up really badly and I’ve been hoping it’ll go away, but it won’t.’
‘Are you pregnant?’ Valerie asked, casting a glance towards the counter.
‘No,’ she replied.
‘Well, then, everyt
hing else is completely manageable. I may like Ed, but I’m not sure either of you are ready for parenthood. I know I wasn’t, as do you.’
‘I’m not sure that’s fair.’
Valerie picked up her coffee with her free hand. ‘I would’ve thought you’d be the first to agree. I was hardly a model mother.’
‘You know, I wanted to believe that,’ Amy said with a grimace. ‘I think I fooled myself into just remembering all the times you’d told me off or we’d argued. I mean, you were always the one to tell me off for everything.’
‘Well, your father was a peacemaker, that’s all. He worked a lot, there was no need for the pair of you to be upset with each other on an evening.’
‘So, you deliberately took on the role of the bad guy?’
‘I’ve always been rather good at it,’ Valerie said.
‘Don’t be blasé,’ Amy warned.
‘I apologise. I only meant that your father deserved a strong relationship with you.’
‘And you thought you didn’t?’
‘Amy . . .’ Valerie extracted her fingers and wound them around the hem of her jacket. ‘In the spirit of honesty, can I tell you something that I’ve never told anyone? Not your father, not Max.’
‘Okay,’ she murmured.
Valerie’s chin trembled. She took another sip of coffee then let out a long breath.
‘I booked in for an abortion, darling. The only thing your biological father did for you was pay for it and, as far as he knows, I went through with the procedure. My mother had completely disowned me by that point and I was on my own in that waiting room, just thinking and wondering. The best thing to do would’ve been to close my mind to it, but I was young. I couldn’t help picturing you – a girl, I wanted a girl – and I couldn’t go through with it. So, I walked straight out of there with a goal to find you a father, and I did. Sure, I saved myself from ritual humiliation and a life on benefits, but it was never just about that. I grew up in a squalid flat with a pair of alcoholics who cared more about themselves than their kids. I watched how they lived. I always wanted more for me, and I would’ve been damned before I let you anywhere near that environment. You deserved everything I could give you.’
Tears were glistening in her eyes by the time she concluded. Amy stretched across the table to rub her arm, unable to speak again. It took a few moments for her to find her voice and then she turned the subject back full-circle.
‘I didn’t apply to Durham, Mum. The college wouldn’t let me go for Law and I failed the LNAT too.’
Valerie’s lips parted, but she was out of her chair in an instant. Amy recoiled as she swept around the table then she found herself cocooned in her warm arms. She let out a shuddering sob and burrowed in further.
‘Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry,’ Valerie whispered. ‘I won’t let you down again, I promise.’
Chapter 41
The bar wasn’t heaving, but it was busy enough for the middle of the day.
Max got herself a beer first off, numbing her brain against the thumping of some dance track she’d never heard before. It’d been a few years since she’d been in here, not that the place had changed much. The grimy back corner where the pool table was had fresh stains across the walls and the ruts in the floor had deepened. She took up root over there, sticking a 50p piece next to the chalk. It wasn’t long before a woman wandered over and took her up on the offer. She wasn’t a blonde, thank God.
‘What’s your name?’ Max asked as she racked up.
‘Louise. How about you?’
She handed her a cue. ‘Doesn’t matter. You break.’
It was foreplay, the way Louise played pool. Every angle, every moan when she missed a pot had been dragged out of some cheap manual on how to pull someone. She strutted around the table as if she was thinking of hopping up onto the felt and opening her legs. Max didn’t rise to the bait, not at first. She saw the game through then excused herself to go to the loo.
Louise followed her in, unfastening her belt before they’d even got into the cubicle. She tried to lose herself in the sensation of a hand slipping into her underwear, but the frigid finger was too unfamiliar. Max yanked the hand out and shoved her away.
‘Thought you might want to be in control,’ Louise said with a smirk. She raised her skirt above her hips, showing off the black lace underneath. ‘Come on, then. Make it hurt.’
The instruction stuck in the air until Louise flushed. She let her skirt fall and barged past her on her way out of the door.
‘You’re a freak,’ she snapped. ‘It’s your loss.’
There wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to keep Max’s brain from turning over what Valerie had said about the engagement being off. She left the cab outside the bar and walked back through the town, trying to get her head straight.
Her feet took her in the direction of the café, while she wondered if Amy would be there on her day off and whether she knew about the engagement being cancelled. It wasn’t guaranteed that Valerie would tell her about that, considering she hadn’t told her she was engaged to Foster in the first place.
No one wanted to stay in the town centre once the shops were shut, especially with all the scuzzy bars opening up down the bottom of the town. Good for business, bad for everything else, so Max had commented to the lads last week. She dodged around the clumps of smokers on the pavements, earning a few elbows in the ribs for not looking where she was going.
The café lights were on. It was only when Max got closer that she realised something was bothering her. A swish of a head enlightened her as to what it was then she stopped, stubbing her toe on a paving slab. Ed was passing Valerie a cup and the pair of them talked for a second before going over to join Amy by the window.
Max squinted until her eyes smarted. Then she turned around and walked back up the way she’d come. The only way she could think to get rid of the foul taste in her mouth was to veer straight into the first bar she passed.
Chapter 42
Staying with a repentant Valerie was better than staying with a grouchy Biddy. It gave Amy time to clear her head and work out how she was going to approach the future. It also allowed her to keep an eye on Valerie, who’d been increasingly erratic since Monday. She’d gone completely AWOL on Thursday and Amy had vaguely heard her tumble in after midnight.
The house was quiet again on Friday morning.
On her way downstairs, Amy glanced through Valerie’s open door and grimaced. The bed sheets had been dragged onto the floor and there was a distinctive leg cavity where she’d obviously extracted a trapped limb. Both wardrobe doors were flung open, with several blouses pooling on to the shoes below. Items had been pulled loose and thrown haphazardly onto hangers, including her favourite suit jacket that hung limply against the door.
Amy frowned and took the stairs two at a time. She hoped to find Valerie in the kitchen nursing a hangover, but no such luck. Now her stomach was beginning to churn. She started to go back upstairs to get her phone, then she caught sight of the newspaper poking through the letterbox. Even though it was curled over, a flash of blonde hair was unmistakable. She ripped it out of the bristles and stared at the headline: Local MP in Lesbian Sex Shocker.
Black spots swam in front of her eyes, blurring the words together. She stuffed the paper underneath her arm and bolted back up to her bedroom. Her phone was on the bedside table, night mode still activated. It was brimming with messages and missed calls from nearly everyone in her phonebook, including Drew and Elena. When she skimmed through the list, though, she couldn’t find anything from Valerie, Biddy, or Max.
Even as she stood there staring, another call buzzed through.
‘Elena?’ she murmured as she answered it.
‘You’ve seen it already. I’m sorry, I thought I could get to you first.’
‘I – I don’t understand. I didn’t – I couldn’t read it. And I don’t know where Mum is. Her room looks like – Was it Max?’
Silence stretched over the lin
e until it snagged in Amy’s throat.
‘You think it was,’ she said.
‘Amy, honestly, I don’t know. She’s hardly been at work since that episode on Monday. And, when she’s there, she’s in a foul mood and she’s got a hangover. Maybe she could’ve called the papers when she was out of it or told someone else who did.’
‘I can’t imagine her even doing that,’ Amy admitted.
‘Then what about Foster?’ Elena asked after a moment. ‘With the engagement off, he’s got motive. It makes him look like the injured party.’
‘No, she didn’t tell him about Max. She just sent him off with a flea in his ear.’
‘A man like that could get information.’
‘Not in a week, not that much.’
Elena paused. ‘Has your gran seen it, do you think?’
‘I’ve had no missed calls or messages from her.’ Amy squeezed her eyes shut, picturing the house on a typical morning. ‘But it could’ve given her a heart attack, couldn’t it? I should check, I should –’
‘I’ll take care of that,’ Elena interrupted. ‘I’ll go around there and keep things calm while you try to find your mum. I know she pretends she’s tough, but everything’s just blown apart for her. She must be feeling that, and I know you care.’
Amy took a long breath and opened her eyes. ‘She might have gone to Max. She might be there. I’ll – I’ll get a taxi.’
‘Don’t worry about that. Drew’s already on his way.’
It wasn’t often that Drew was quiet, at least not in Amy’s experience. He was usually complaining about something, often through a mouthful of biscuits or Yorkshire Tea. To sit beside him mute in the driver’s seat was the surest sign that something had gone badly wrong.
‘I don’t like your mum, you know that,’ he said suddenly when they were a mile from Max’s.
‘I know,’ Amy muttered.
‘She’s messed Max around something chronic and she’s not been the mum to you she should’ve been.’
Amy tapped her thumb on the side window. ‘You know, she’s not as bad as I’ve made her out to be.’