by A. M. Castle
I felt for Pete, I really did. He wanted to be there, in the grand smelly house, with his posh loud family. He wanted me to be one of the Hertfordshire Bridges and to love spotted dick and be a pretend socialist with a trust fund. But I couldn’t do it.
Chapter 23
Now
Louise
You could say that my life now is constrained. Here am I, in my black, with my mauve bag, racing around, delivering my children to this activity or that. Then we go home, and we’re alone. Just the three of us.
We have the odd break with Jill, and I admire her more and more. She no longer looks at me askance, she accepts me for what I am. And what I am is her grandchildren’s mother.
She’s faced up to loss. She’s stared death down and decided to live on, even with her child in the grave.
She used to wonder, I know that full well. I dare say she thought Patrick could do much better. I have no doubt that he considered his own options, and I know he regularly scrutinised other people’s. But now … now that I am black and purple like a bruise, and she is grey-haired and soft as one of the squirrels in her garden, we have come to a strange accord.
To you, my days may seem empty. Pointless, even. What do I do for myself, after all? What am I supposed to do with myself? Those business dinners, drinks, supper parties, all the networking, it’s gone now. The network is down. I only ever had value as an adjunct, an accessory – ironic, given my propensity to get accessories wrong. Now that Patrick is not there to be sought out, to be used or to use them in turn, these people don’t want to know.
But that suits me fine. They were a means to an end. It was all for Patrick, for our house, for the children – and now he’s not here, I don’t need them any more than they need me.
I’m happy to watch a box set, cosied up on the sofa with the kids. And when they’re in bed, I head for another world with my books, as I always have. And I’m quite content there.
Being alone is a lot simpler, in many ways, than living a life that’s not quite the right shape, even if you thought you were cutting your cloth to suit yourself.
Chapter 24
Now
Becca
Becca took a sidelong glance at Burke. His hands were on the wheel, ten to two. Like everything he did, it was by the book, sensible, measured. She wondered for a second whether he had the same approach to sex, like that episode in Friends where the girls work out all the numbers, shouting ‘Seven! Seven! Seven!’ She’d loved it on Netflix, binge-watched the lot. She snorted.
Burke glanced over at her for a moment, careful not to take too much time from the road. ‘You all right?’ he asked.
She stifled her smile. ‘’Course. Just thinking …’
‘You don’t want to do that, Becs. You really don’t.’ Burke’s humour was heavy, as heavy as his hands as they crashed down on the gears, changed up. They were out on patrol. A spring day. Gardens flashed by and she caught the fresh green scent of the first mown lawn of the season through the open window. Hard to believe there could ever be trouble here. This was the plush bit of their manor, where nothing much ever happened, except for a moan or two when someone’s kid’s 21st party kept the neighbours up past 10 p.m. or a housewife lost control of an SUV when parking.
But of course, it was also Louise Bridges’ neck of the woods. And, even if Becca hadn’t been doing some digging, the sight of these homes, with their perfectly raked drives and their pruned rose bushes, would have stirred her memories of that night not long ago. Where did these people find the time to keep everything looking just so? Becca’s own flat, the size of a cardboard box and still the biggest she was ever likely to have – unless all her mother’s dreams came true and some kind, blind millionaire whisked her away from all this – was a comfortable muddle. It hadn’t looked like Louise’s place, well, ever, but certainly not since the day she’d officially recovered, got away from her mum, moved in and scattered her possessions around. To her, a too-tidy home suggested an owner with something to hide. She pursed her lips.
‘Seeing this, all so perfect, doesn’t it make you wonder what’s going on behind …’ Becca waved a hand at a stretch of privet hedging, as expertly trimmed as a porn star’s bikini line. Or were they all bald down there now? Their colleagues in Vice, the ones with the haunted eyes, would know for sure, though it wouldn’t be the grown women that stopped them sleeping.
Burke lifted his eyes from the road for about a second, glanced to the left and back again. He shook his head briefly, though whether in denial or just in exasperation, Becca wasn’t sure.
‘Keep your mind on the job, Becs. Always off at a tangent, you are. Does it get you anywhere? No, it doesn’t. Just takes you longer to get where we’re supposed to go, in my book.’ Having delivered his pronouncement, Burke grabbed the wheel a little harder. As far as he was concerned, that was it. Discussion over.
Becca subsided in her seat for a while, mulling. She wasn’t allowing her partner to shut her down, that wasn’t it at all. She was just thinking.
Suddenly, something occurred to her, a way to approach Burke that might get the right response. ‘You know, that night … I always knew something was wrong. Something about the place, the way that woman was. The way she wasn’t shocked, not even a bit surprised really.’
‘Becs …’ Burke let her name out with an exasperated exhalation of air.
‘No, look, hear me out, all right? Just listen for a second. We’ve got time, we’re stuck here in the car, aren’t we? We might as well talk at the same time as driving.’
‘Driving me mad, you are,’ said Burke, signalling left at the junction, checking both ways, catching her eye for just a moment, but resigned rather than angry. He was giving her the green light, surely as the car itself was cleared to move smoothly forward. He could drive, Burke, she’d give him that.
‘The table. There was all the homework and stuff. But she’d been cooking, hadn’t she? Remember?’
Burke seemed to sniff, recalling the sharp oregano of the sauce on the boil. The garlic, onion and meat, hanging heavy in the air. ‘Yep. Smelled good.’
‘Yes. And among the textbooks and all that sh … stuff,’ she corrected herself. Burke wasn’t keen on swearing at the best of times. ‘Well, there were knives, forks, plates. Like she’d been getting ready to set the table.’
‘Like you do,’ said Burke heavily. ‘Not a crime, Becs. Even if you’re Mrs Tidy like she was. You might not bother much, but lots of people like to keep the place neat.’
Becca looked at him. Nothing like being judged as a slob by your colleagues, was there? She vowed to tidy her desk. One day.
‘Yes, fine, whatever. But the plates. How many?’
‘I dunno. A stack. Enough for the kids?’
‘Three. There were three plates. Three. Don’t you see what that means?’ Becca turned to Burke, eyes wide, pleading. He flicked across to her, irritated. The big flyover was coming up. He had to concentrate. And he didn’t need this.
‘Go on. Enlighten me.’
‘She already knew he wasn’t coming home.’
Chapter 25
Then
Pete’s house had seemed a long way from the station even when we’d ambled along together a few hours before. Now, on the return journey, with our relationship falling apart at the seams quicker than his mother’s cardigan, it seemed twice as much of a hike. The big houses with their thick privet hedges were expensively silent, but I could imagine smug residents sniggering at me over their Sunday papers, watching me retreat, beaten. My stupid silk dress with its banana stains rustled angrily as I marched along. Pete’s shoulders were hunched.
I hadn’t fitted in. That was my simple crime, that was why both Pete and I knew it wouldn’t work, couldn’t go any further. But what he didn’t realise was that it was always my crime. I’d never fitted in anywhere. My fear now was that I never would. It had taken so much work to get this close – and then it had turned out that I had never really been close at all. I’
d worked so hard to be this version of me. How could it still not be right?
It was like being five at school all over again. Or seven. Or nine. Or eleven. No one had ever wanted to play with me. I’d understood why, at one level, but that didn’t make it any easier to bear. There was something very different about me. I knew it, and somehow they did too. I wasn’t sure how they were able to tell. Maybe it was the smoke. That always clung to me. In many ways it seemed the least of my mother’s bad habits. Or maybe it was the way I held myself. Maybe it was the twist in my smile, something flitting behind my eyes. It was obvious that I knew too much, but it wasn’t the sort of delicious secret that the girls queued up behind the loos to share. It was the sort that no one wanted any part of. Ever. The sort that I haven’t spoken of, even now. I didn’t fit in. Couldn’t. Wasn’t ever going to, no matter what I did.
Granted, I never had any of the paraphernalia that eased the way into other girls’ hearts either – the must-have toys of the moment, the right Barbie, the school bag everyone else swung from confident shoulders. They boasted about pinching their mums’ Fenjal bath bubbles, their clothes smelt of Comfort fabric conditioner, they skipped home to find their mums had made their favourite flavour of Angel Delight. I reeked of cigarettes and stale beer, the Chanel No. 5 of our house, and put on the first thing to hand – which was the last thing I’d taken off, or had yanked off me, the night before.
But the real problem was that I wasn’t a child in the way the others were. I wasn’t innocent, couldn’t play happy little games. They seemed pointless to me. When you have to think of strategies to save your hide every moment you’re at home – keep your back to the wall, make sure you can see the doorway, line of escape clear, listen for the sound of footsteps approaching, get to know where everyone is in the flat just by the creaks of the floorboards – then playing a game of kiss-chase in the playground seems a lot less compelling. More of the same, but on a strictly amateur level. Why would I bother with that?
Packed lunches and snacks were a problem, too. Sometimes there would be food left over at home, but it wasn’t the stuff the others had – the neat equilateral triangles of Mother’s Pride, carefully packed with grated cheese that drifted onto the tarmac like confetti, or smeared with disturbingly fecal peanut butter. The girls would open up their Tupperware boxes and moan. ‘Ham again! I hate it.’ I’d sit there on the wall, swinging my legs, the purple bruises single spies on my shins, marching up to the battalions under my skirt. I’d pretend my stomach wasn’t rumbling. On the rare occasions when there had been a big takeaway the night before, I’d sneak a foil container into my school bag, eat it in the loo. I couldn’t risk being seen with something so different, so wrong. I worried about the smell of Chinese food clinging, but I needn’t have. They called me the Ashtray. My mother’s nervous Benson & Hedges followed me around and masked everything else.
Depending on how hungry I was, I’d forage in the lockers at breaktime. But it was demeaning. I’d try not to, and not just because there was an occasional witch-hunt orchestrated by the teachers to ‘catch the sneak thief’. I hated these. Yes, I was burning with guilt, but I was good at hiding that emotion, as well as every other. And I sort of felt justified. These kids didn’t need lunch and snacks; it was plain to see there was over-indulgence going on. Even when I was a kid, there was always a fatty in every class. Not like now, when there are three, four or five and it’s become normal. But I’d generally pick the blubbery kid’s food, reckoning they could do without it. The odd Penguin biscuit, bag of crisps. But I, of all people, should have known, just from watching Mum. Like any other addict, they were the ones likely to kick up the biggest fuss when deprived.
I used to dream about having a mum who’d pick up a pack of those Penguins in the shop, slip one in my lunchbox every day. The type of mum in the ads who’d smile indulgently at her daughter as they washed up together with mild green washing-up liquid, or wandered through fields of daisies hand in hand with hair gleaming from the right shampoo. An ad featuring towers of empty cans balanced on top of the telly? Spoons sticky with stuff I instinctively knew I shouldn’t try to eat? They didn’t tend to appear much on primetime shows. And the used condoms splatted on the settee like stranded jellyfish? When I was very small I thought they might be balloons. Not a mistake you make twice.
Sometimes, if I wasn’t starving, I’d wait till I got home, hope Mum still had some money left. Sometimes I’d just stay in the cloakroom anyway, even if I wasn’t pinching other people’s food. Well, I had no one out there in the rough and tumble of the playground. It was miserable, pretending to be busy in those acres of tarmac. Staying in was forbidden, though, so if I was chivvied out by a teacher, I’d take a book, any book, hide away in a corner, my back always to the wall. Hunched over my portal to a better world, turning the pages, trying to concentrate. Sometimes the other girls would saunter past, giving me curious glances. If anyone did speak to me, I immediately knew they were a loser, too, and the only sensible course of action was to shun them in turn. I became good at lurking. I preferred the lessons to break time. They were less lonely.
So I’d escaped all this, become the beautiful, aloof queen of reception, and now Pete was turning me down? His rejection threatened to reverse the fairy godmother spell I’d woven on myself. It was as if the clock was striking twelve and my beautiful clothes – and my new and improved self – were turning back to rags and rubbish. When I reacted to his tactful attempts to extricate himself, it wasn’t him I was fighting, but everyone who’d ever pushed me away. I was angry with him, I was angry with the world. And worst of all, I was angry with myself – for having ever dared to believe I’d be accepted.
Arguments were like life and death for me. Some people can have a nice little row, exchange points of view, come away tidily having considered the opposing side’s position, reach a new accord.
Not me.
Every argument is survival. I’m fighting extinction, and it’s not pretty. I need to win and I don’t really care how I do it. I don’t even remember afterwards. All that matters is that the other person backs down, gives in, goes away. It’s a scorched earth policy, all right. Like a Russian peasant, I’d much rather burn down my own house than give an inch.
There are loads of things I’ve bolted on to the basic model of my personality, over time. But some things you just can’t unlearn. My childhood was all about survival. The playground, the foraging, the ostracism – that was the easy bit. School was like a rest for me. No one liked me, no one played with me, but I was safe.
It wasn’t the same at home. If I didn’t win a fight there, then seriously bad stuff would happen to me. Even if I did win, come to that.
‘What don’t you like about my family?’ Pete had said, hands on hips, his new shirt, thanks to me, making him look quite handsome – in my eyes anyway.
It was my starter for ten.
Opening my mouth and letting rip was exhilarating, intoxicating. I didn’t risk losing my temper often. But it wasn’t just that. I’d felt, when I left my mother’s, that I could finally be free. But making the sort of life I wanted had turned into a trap in itself, a new series of rules that always had to be obeyed, that often seemed as arbitrary as hers had been. I couldn’t really remember the last time I’d been able to give an honest answer to a question. Building my new life, my persona at the firm, being Pete’s perfect girlfriend – none of it had come easy.
Having my say was a rush. I remembered my mother, when the syringe was deep in her arm. The anxiety of buying the stuff, cooking it up, tightening the tourniquet, finding a needle and shoving it in, all washed away as the smack hit her blood and smoothed her struggles into a silky road to oblivion. Was this the same? My rage felt clean, like a purifying fire.
There was no going back, of course. But that was fine. Unlike school, where the people who despised me were round every corner, there was no real danger of me bumping into Pete ever again. We’d ditched the French course once things had got g
oing between us. We’d both achieved our aims – I’d mastered a few bits of conversational chit-chat that might, or might not, come in handy someday if I could ever bear to leave my desk and go on holiday. And Pete had found me. We’d briefly flowered into coupledom. Now that things had collapsed so spectacularly, our worlds would diverge again. He’d go back to politics and pudding and I’d spend my life sighing over Patrick.
I wish I could say I picked myself up, dusted myself down. But it took me quite a time to regroup after the Pete debacle. I always found it difficult when things didn’t go to plan. The original scheme, a lifetime ago, had been to parade Pete past the building casually, so Patrick could see that I was desired. Get Tricia to drop a word. This would kindle some sudden enthusiasm for more than a sporadic flirtation which was going nowhere. Then, maybe – I was a little hazy on this point – there would be some kind of boy duel between them, and Patrick, of course, would win my hand.
But that had gone pear-shaped. I’d got much too fond of Pete, had allowed myself to imagine a future with him instead, and had then come a very public cropper in front of his family. All right, an outsider would say the blunders were mine. I’d asked that poor droopy Oxford girlfriend when she was due, for God’s sake. And my panic and confusion at being cross-questioned about all those other, better-connected Bridges? Pete’s dad had just been doing what his breed did, sussing out connections and allegiances like one of his own dogs sniffing a lamppost, working out where I’d been and where I was going.