‘Hard luck!’ Simon said.
Rob turned to face him; his face was alight. ‘This is a cracking game. The graphics are brilliant. Your go.’
Simon selected a red Ford Mustang Shelby GT 500 and took to the streets with a screech of tyres. ‘Your dad would enjoy this. It might get rid of all that pent up anger,’ he commented, swerving to avoid a woman crossing the road.
Rob sneered. ‘He’s crap at anything like this. He tried Fatal Blow on Friday and died on level one. That junction’s blocked off; you’ll have to go right.’
‘Thanks. Ooops. That was close. You know, I don’t think this game warrants an 18, do you? I don’t see why Toby couldn’t play it, later.’
‘No. It isn’t as bad as RTA, is it? No gore and no swearing, so far.’
‘I haven’t played that one. So what do you do with your dad then?’
Rob was silent for a while. ‘Nothing. He isn’t one of those dads.’
Simon’s car bounced across a roundabout and hurtled down the wrong lane of a dual carriageway. A Ferrari followed close behind.
‘That bastard’s going to have you if you don’t do something soon,’ Rob warned.
‘You’re right. I’m running out of options though. My dad wasn’t one of those dads either; the kind you can talk things over with. We didn’t speak for years. Did you know?’
‘I did hear something about it. You went to the States, didn’t you?’
‘Amongst other places. It wasn’t easy, though. It was – just a minute,’ Simon concentrated for a few seconds while he did a handbrake turn in a car park and shunted the Ferrari into a space between a wall and a wheelie bin. ‘That’s got you. Yes, I was saying: it was probably the most difficult thing I’ve ever done but I had no other option. I was sick of being bullied. Anyway, what I wanted to say was, if you ever felt like you were in a similar position you must come and see me. I’m the one person who would understand. Oh crap! He’s coming to get me. What’s that he’s got in his hand?’
‘A baseball bat.’
‘Oh dear. How do I quit?’
‘Press esc.’
‘Anyway,’ Simon said, getting up to make room for Rob, ‘I was thinking we’d give your mum a break and cook the supper.’
Rob took his eyes off the screen. ‘We?’
‘Sure. You and me and the lads. Nothing to it. You don’t cook?’
‘Well,’ Rob laughed, ‘I suppose I’ll try anything once. What’s the worst that could happen?’
‘The worst? Well the whole family could die of food poisoning but hey! Let’s take the risk!’
✽✽✽
The sun had climbed over the trees behind her and was warming her little hiding place. She felt spent and empty. Rachel had stopped crying, the tight coils of misery and apprehension had loosened and she was left with a weary feeling of heavy hopelessness. She eased herself from her hideout and stretched her limbs, then wandered in a desultory way over the beach, picking up pebbles and finding smooth, opaque nuggets of sea glass which she dropped into her pocket. For a time she lost herself in this activity, distracted by the number and variety of the beach’s treasures. But always a hollow, anxious foreboding broke in on her, a physical sensation like an ache in her heart from an old wound.
After a while she looked at her watch. It was almost twelve o’clock. She had better go back to the house for a while. She didn’t want to but then again she thought she had better put in some kind of appearance or people would come looking for her. That would just make things too easy; far easier than she deserved. To be looked for and found, and to be questioned in a way which would make the whole story come out would be no good at all. They would tell her that it wasn’t her fault and that she mustn’t worry and that Ellie must take the consequences for her actions. But that way wouldn’t do. She absolutely didn’t want that. Because it wouldn’t heal the rift between her and Ellie, and it would get Ellie into trouble, the very thing she feared. And it would get Rob into trouble too, no doubt, about the vodka and everything. She would be saved but they would suffer. But they would never forgive her and they would never love her. This way, she would suffer and they would be saved - like they said in church, about Jesus. He suffered and they were saved and so they must love Jesus. So she would go back to the house, make sure she was seen by people, use the toilet perhaps and get something to eat and then come back outside. No one would know except for the people who mattered. They would realise, they would understand the punishment she was giving herself, and they might forgive her. Perhaps it would bring them together, Ellie and Rob. Yes, perhaps in some way, she might be the one who brought the family back together after all.
Tentatively she touched her cheek. It had stopped bleeding but it felt crusty and hard. The white strips were wet and had lost their stickiness. She might have to think up some explanation about that. She scrambled up on to the dune and began to walk back to the place where the path came out through the trees. When she found it she entered the wood. The path wound between the fir trees. In the depths of the wood, after casting a quick glance around herself, Rachel threw herself onto the ground, rolling in needles and rubbing the shoulder of her jumper up against the trunk of the nearest tree. Then, on all fours, she deliberately scraped the tender side of her face against a prickly bare branch. It hurt and she winced, but what did that matter? She deserved to be hurt. The pain was oddly satisfying, as though it spoke the words of her inner soreness. Touching the cut with a finger she could not feel any fresh blood. There. Now she would not be lying if she said she had fallen over in the wood and scraped her face.
✽✽✽
Mitch walked Tiny round the garden, his hands thrust deeply into his jeans pockets, giving himself a good talking to. He mustn’t, he just mustn’t get involved. It wasn’t down to him anyway. It was none of his business.
But his detachment was a delusion. He felt like a pinball machine, his thoughts the silver bullet, careering violently round his head, ricocheting off raw susceptibilities, lighting him up in an intoxicating blaze of neon but setting alarm bells ferociously ringing.
Suddenly he kicked viciously at a pine cone on the grass. It was a pathetic, ineffectual gesture. Tiny watched the cone’s trajectory across the lawn with a baleful stare; he never lowered himself to chase or retrieve. That was a mug’s game.
The girl’s stricken face as he had passed her in the kitchen corridor was etched on Mitch’s memory. Their eyes had caught one another, just for the briefest moment, and she had given him such a tragic, sad little smile. It had inflated him, made him unfurl, like a new bud. He had almost heard the pop of the bursting carapace, felt the gossamer brush of petals expanding in his innards; a deep, timeless, visceral response. He had had an overwhelming urge to take her, right there and then, in his arms. Only his too-recent dealings with the grimy toilet had held him back, that, and the erection – like a totem pole – which had woken him up that morning. Just then both had made him feel in some way unworthy of her. His warring impulses – potent, ravening desire, and a softer, purer, protective impulse - confused him.
The family dynamic confused him, too. He was seeing so much that was appealing. The cohesive response of the siblings to their interfering aunt had been quite magnificent; June had been left high and dry with the old woman again and again. The previous evening Elliot’s choler had been discreetly – but determinedly – staved off; he had been, quite simply, ignored. There remained unpleasantly prickly areas, like stinging nettles amongst the family verdure. June - bristling and sniping at poor, hapless Muriel. Simon - ignoring his father with fixed, steely loathing. Ruth - staggering under chips like barge-boards on both shoulders. All these were being politely skirted around, stepped over, like dog-dirt in the path. Everyone knew it was there but nobody acknowledged it.
But the situation with Rob and Ellie was different. No one seemed aware of it. Mitch gritted his teeth and snarled. In his trouser pockets he found his hands had clenched themselves into fists. It would n
ot be the first time he had beaten the living daylights out of someone. The wet, gristly smack of his knuckles into that smug, scoffing eye would be very satisfactory.
He wrestled with it all as he walked, round and round the deserted garden.
✽✽✽
Belinda had wanted the little trip to town to be just for herself and Ellie. Her daughter looked pale and ill and close to tears but so far Belinda’s gentle questions had all been rebuffed. Ellie refused to go into town without Tansy. June, Heather and Miriam had all declared themselves desperate to explore the little market town. They had piled into Simon’s people carrier and Belinda had ended up being in the front seat, forced to make conversation with Miriam while Ellie and Tansy had climbed into the back row of seats and whispered away the journey.
The road took them through the village.
‘Wasn’t that James going into that shop?’ Heather said suddenly. Belinda craned her neck but Miriam was driving quickly – too quickly, probably – and they were through the village. They proceeded along a number of winding country lanes and then out onto an A road which passed between fields and small gatherings of cottages, farms and the occasional petrol station or car dealership. On the outskirts of town, feeling that if she did not say something the two girls would disappear off on their own, Belinda turned around and said as pointedly as she could, ‘I’ll treat you to lunch, girls, if you like. There might be a McDonalds.’
‘Doesn’t sound like much of a treat to me,’ June commented morosely, to no one in particular.
‘No,’ Heather agreed. ‘I think the food in those places is notoriously unhealthy, isn’t it? You won’t get one of your five a day at a place like that.’
‘Not unless you eat the napkin,’ Miriam quipped, turning into a large pay and display car park. They all disembarked.
‘How about lunch, then?’ Belinda said again, brightly, to the girls, who hovered near the back of the car.
‘No, it’s OK Mum,’ Ellie said, avoiding her eyes. ‘Tansy and I will go off and explore. We’ll see you back here in...’
‘Two hours,’ said Miriam, affixing the pay and display ticket to the windscreen.
‘Oh but Ellie I thought...’ Belinda stammered, but the two girls had already set off across the grey tarmac towards a footbridge which spanned a wide, smoothly flowing river.
‘I need to find a supermarket or something,’ Miriam said. ‘Simon says he’s cooking tonight and he’s given me a list.’
‘Oh?’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Heather said. ‘I’m sure that Tuesday is market day here. That might be interesting.’ The two of them turned to follow the girls.
‘Just you and me for lunch then, Belinda, ha ha ha!’ June beamed.
The girls found a well-trodden but muddy path which snaked through a wide, grassy strip beside the river. The occasional seat offered itself but they were green with moss, some were broken and all were scrawled with obscenities. The sun shone quite brightly but there was a keen wind which made sitting still seem unappealing. They wandered disconsolately along, Ellie lost in a fog of depression, going round and round the hopelessness of the situation in her head, with the odd sentence bubbling to the surface in a vain attempt to escape the relentless merry-go-round of her thoughts.
‘He said that Philip could sue me for libel... I might get expelled... I’ll never trust anyone ever again... Even if he says nothing, the very fact that he knows means I can never relax, ever.’
Tansy squeezed Ellie’s arm. ‘I know, I know,’ she said faintly. ‘It’s terrible for you. Poor Ellie. But something will turn up. I’m sure of it.’
A dog and its owner walked towards them. The dog was old, wheezing and panting. Its owner shuffled behind it, also old and struggling for breath. Ellie waited until they had gone by before replying, ‘I’m afraid, Tansy. Afraid of my brother, and of my dad and what he’ll do when he finds out, and of my mum, who’ll be terrified that she’ll be thrown off the committee of the townswomen’s guild and shunned on the golf course for the rest of her life. I don’t know why we have to have families at all. Why can’t we just be on our own, and then we wouldn’t have these dreadful responsibilities to other people. If it was only me, you know, I wouldn’t care so much, but it’s everyone else.’
‘You don’t think that the best thing to do would just be to tell them?’ In a real emergency like this one, Tansy would have run to her dad, although there were some things that she didn’t feel she could tell him, like the way Miriam changed when he wasn’t around, for example.
The grassy way narrowed suddenly. A small thicket of prickly bushes growing close to the river seemed to signal the end of the river path. A stile over a fence suggested that they might continue across a field and into a new housing estate but there were cows in the field and neither of the girls felt brave enough to go further. Ellie leaned on the stile and stared blankly across the field.
‘Oh God, no,’ she said, after a while. ‘No. I couldn’t just tell them. How would you even begin a conversation like that with your parents? I’d rather die.’
In the little tea shop which they found down a quaint stone passageway, June ordered smoked salmon salad and a large glass of chardonnay. Belinda stared bleakly at the menu for a few moments before ordering a bowl of homemade soup. June chattered about a recent scandal at the bridge club and a forthcoming election for the golf club committee. In the quiet of the café her voice was too loud and the waitress eyed them from behind the refrigerated display where she was busy arranging cream cakes. Belinda belonged to other clubs and the circumstances and the personalities meant nothing to her. She nodded and interjected occasional comments, and felt annoyed that she had been cheated out of her quiet lunch with Ellie. Suddenly June fell silent and Belinda was aware that she had been asked a question.
‘I’m sorry. What?’
‘This cock-up with the quotes. How is Elliot going to handle it?’
Belinda looked at her blankly. ‘I’m sorry. I haven’t a clue, June.’
‘Ah,’ June swelled self-righteously. ‘Ha ha ha! If I might offer a word of advice, Belinda dear, it pays a woman to make close enquiry of her husband’s affairs…’
Their lunch arrived. Belinda’s soup looked grey and unappetizing, like old bath water.
‘If only he was having an affair,’ she thought to herself, stirring the pallid liquid around with a listless spoon, ‘that would solve all my problems at a stroke.’ Aloud, she said, ‘To be honest, June, I’m too worried about Ellie to think about Elliot’s problems. I really wanted the opportunity to chat to her today, with Elliot being out of the way.’ Belinda laid her spoon down and pushed her lunch away. ‘I don’t really want this soup. I’ll pay the girl and meet you in the market shall I?’ She pushed back her chair and walked away from the table, leaving June with her mouth full of salad, unable to say a word.
✽✽✽
Granny and Granddad were in the kitchen with Aunty Muriel, Granny McKay and Uncle Les. The kitchen door was open and as she bent to pull off her wellingtons Rachel could hear their disjointed conversation.
‘If it’s Tuesday then the chiropodist will be coming,’ Granny asserted.
‘How much?’ Robert cupped his ear with his hand. ‘What?’
‘To see to my corns,’ Granny clarified loudly.
‘I think you should eat some lunch Robert,’ Mary interrupted briskly. ‘Muriel’s made these nice sandwiches for us.’
‘And a nice cup of tea. Careful now, it’s hot,’ Muriel distributed the cups.
‘I don’t like that cheese,’ Robert said querulously. ‘It smells funny.’
‘I think it cost a lot of money,’ Muriel said. ‘The package said Fortnum and Masons.’
‘Mrs Mason smelled terrible. We all thought so and no one would sit next to her in the day room,’ Granny piped up.
‘Mary, I don’t like the cheese,’ Robert shouted.
‘Alright, alright. I’ll see what else there is.’ Mary got up and
opened the fridge.
‘I’m sorry, Robert. I had to make something Mother could eat with no teeth,’ Muriel said.
‘My teeth taste funny,’ Granny frowned.
‘The cheese tastes funny,’ Robert corrected her, crossly.
‘There doesn’t seem to be any ham left. Perhaps the girls will get some from the shops,’ Mary said. ‘What about an egg?’
‘I want the telly on,’ Robert said.
‘Tonight, there’s a match on,’ Les said, remembering suddenly. ‘We should watch it on that big screen, Robert. City v Spurs.’
Robert looked mildly interested for a moment, before turning once more to Mary. ‘When is Doctors on?’
‘Goodness, I don’t know, Robert. I think it’s all different for the school holidays you know. Come on, now, I’ll get this egg scrambled for you in a jiffy. Then you can have one of your tablets and a lie down.’
‘I wish you’d stop treating me like a fucking child!’ Robert shouted. ‘I won’t have it, Mary. Do you hear?’ In his temper, Robert had raised himself to his feet. ‘Doctors is always on,’ he insisted.
‘Now, now, Robert. That’ll do,’ Les said, quietly.
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