Redemption Song (33 page)

Breathless, Ceri continued. ‘Have you seen Saff?’

‘She’s out – with JJ. Joe,’ said Rain.

Ceri leant against the stone wall which surrounded the pub garden. ‘Oh Jesus, I’m knackered. Been everywhere. She’s not with Joe. That’s part of the problem.’

Confused, Rain could only shake her head.

‘He’s with some posh cow in a red dress. Saw them together, I did, down by the beach earlier. Went to introduce myself, as you do, and she said she was Joe’s girlfriend. Except she didn’t call him Joe. Right snotty bitch, she was. Looking down her nose. I wanted to lamp her.’

‘Wouldn’t have solved anything, love,’ Eifion said.

‘What did Joe say?’ Rain heard the alarm in her voice. She’d always suspected something, hadn’t she?

‘He said it wasn’t how it seemed – which makes it look worse not better, if you ask me – and would I go and find Saff. Tell her he’ll explain everything after he’s spoken to Allegra.’

‘Allegra?’ Both Rain and Eifion chimed in unison.

‘I know. Bloody stupid name.’ Ceri spat, pulling a cigarette from a packet retrieved from the waistband of her skirt.

‘I wish you wouldn’t smoke, Ceri, love.’

‘It’s the name of a Greek goddess,’ Rain said, swatting a fly away.

‘And an old car,’ Eifion added.

‘So what’s happened?’ Rain said.

‘I have no idea. He was trying to shut the snotty mare up, but she was babbling on and on. He shouted again to find Saff and then he dragged her away. She was all over him like a rash. And if you ask me he’s hiding something. I can’t believe it, I can’t. I thought he was decent, like, but it seems like he’s been stringing Saff along.’

‘He is a decent bloke, I’m sure of it,’ Eifion said.

Rain stepped in front of Ceri. ‘But you’ve not found Saff?’

‘No. Been everywhere I have.’

‘The manse?’

Ceri nodded and blew out a smoke ring. Rain was irritated by Ceri’s apparent calm. Saffy would be so upset; beside herself. Smoke rings indeed.

‘Nearly knocked the door in, I did,’ Ceri said.

Rain turned to Eifion. She didn’t need to say anything. He lifted his eyes and tipped his head in the direction of the manse. ‘Another time. Go wait at home for Saffron; she’ll need her mam. We’ll keep looking round town, but I bet you she’s home. Call me.’ He gave her his number and she texted him hers immediately.

Rain hurried to Upper Coed Mawr and the manse.

The moment she pushed open the door, Rain knew Saff was home. The air carried a different scent when she was in; its mass was different too. Months ago the atmosphere in the house was heavy when Saff was about, of late it had been sweet and light. Now, it was oppressive again, as if a storm approached, though Rain had seen no such evidence in the evening sky. She glanced at the barometer. Stupid. It told her nothing.

Without understanding how, Rain knew that Saff had been home when Ceri called. She’d have heard the door – from what Ceri said she couldn’t have missed it – but she’d have retreated into herself, like a tortoise. She’d done this since childhood, after every argument with Matthew or fall-out with her friends: tucked the soft part of herself away beneath a brittle exterior. As a child she’d sleep for hours and hours too – like hibernation.

Rain pushed the front door behind her, careful not to make much noise. She slipped off her sandals and crept across the tiled floor to the foot of the stairs. She lifted an ear. There, the faint sound of crying. Her heart clenched; her breathing became shallow. Saffron was hurting and that meant Rain was hurting. She tiptoed up the stairs, the wood of the banister cool against her sweating palms.

She knocked gently on the door before entering when she heard a muffled, ‘Yeah?’

Saffron was sprawled on her bed, face down in a recovery position. Rain had no idea what to say. Running up the rise to the manse, all manner of thoughts had scooted through her head, good and evil. She’d ranged from ‘he’ll come to his senses’, to ‘you could be mistaken’, to ‘forget all about the bastard’, to ‘we’ll cut his balls off’.

In the end, she sat at the bottom of the bed and stroked Saffy’s nearest foot, running her thumb up her Achilles’ heel, something Saff had found comforting, loved, from babyhood. Rain said nothing. She let her daughter weep, and watched her back, rise, fall, and shudder, until the sobbing finally abated. Saffron rolled onto her side and looked at Rain plaintively. She sat up and threw her arms about Rain, who stroked her beautiful, golden-red hair.

‘My angel,’ Rain said.

‘Oh, Mum,’ said Saff and the crying took hold once more.

Downstairs, Rain crashed and banged round the kitchen, furious. Saffron slept, exhausted. Unable to relax, to sit still even, Rain emptied the cupboards around the cooker. Why, they’d not been cleaned since they’d moved in and that was coming up to a year ago now. Out came the spice jars, bottles of oil, sauces, and gravy granules, leaving sticky rings on the white cupboard shelves. Rain scrubbed away, bleach fumes searing into her nostrils, burning into the flesh on her fingers. She’d not bothered with rubber gloves. Once the cupboards shone, she began to cook. Saff would be hungry when she woke. She must eat. Rain didn’t want a return to the rake-thin Saff of a few months earlier.

She threw vegetables onto the chopping board and hacked away at them. She lobbed them into a pan and added stock from the fridge. She recalled a film she and Stephen had watched years ago, about a woman whose cooking contained her dominant emotion at the time of preparation. This would be hate and bewilderment stew. Could she even serve it up to Saff? She might not wake till morning anyway.

Rain stirred. She took slow, deep breaths, filling her lungs from her diaphragm. How she disliked being right, this time. She had thought him slippery early on. But he was worse than that.

A criminal and a cheat! Horrible.

She checked herself. When he first came into her home, she’d liked him. Joe, Marcus, whatever his name was – who was to say he wasn’t lying to this Allegra woman? She harrumphed. Ceri was right; Allegra was a ridiculous name. But he was good-looking and well-spoken and utterly charming. Delighted to have young male company, she’d invited him in. For heaven’s sake, she’d asked him to coffee mornings, encouraged him to do the work on the chapel roof. It was all her fault. Men, they were all bastards, they really were. But this. This surpassed everything. She looked at the ceiling and said, ‘Sorry. Don’t really mean it. Not all men.’

But this Joe might be. Saff said he’d gone to jail for this woman. What crime had he committed? It must have been serious to warrant a custodial sentence; prisons were jam-packed these days. Didn’t you have to kill someone to get sent down? The man they knew as Joe Jones had lied to Saff, to everyone. He had broken her daughter’s heart. He was a bastard.

‘Sorry,’ she said to the ceiling once more.

Chapter Thirty-one

Joe watched Allegra’s orange VW beetle roaring down the dirt track from his cottage. Dust billowed in the air. He waited for it to settle, until tyre tracks were the only physical evidence that Allegra had dropped back into his life. If only the emotional and psychological fallout could settle as easily. Fat chance. He sighed and walked towards the Land Rover, heart increasingly heavy as the elation at getting rid of Allegra diffused.

He’d played it all wrong. He should have told Allegra to fuck off on the pier, to hell with the scene, he should have fled, gone to find Saffron immediately, explained everything, and then he wouldn’t be in this mess. Why the hell hadn’t he considered that she might come down into town early, as soon as lunch was over? After all, it was a beautiful day. He’d known that Allegra had got to her the minute Saffron looked over the promenade railings, even before Allegra appeared beside her like a spectre.

Joe had lied to Allegra when she’d turned up on the pier. He’d been caught off guard, but he wasn’t entirely surprised. After all, he knew she was looking for him. It was one reason why he’d hidden away and he’d dreaded it, mostly because, until recently, he’d not been sure how he would react to seeing her, if he was truly over her. He’d not felt guilty about lying; it’d felt good. He’d wanted to slap her, not kiss her, when she stood on tiptoes, stroked his cheek and threw him that nauseating, lizard-like grin she thought was seductive. She’d tasted foul and it was hard to disguise his repulsion, but he was well-trained in duplicity. ‘I’ve thought about you so much, Marcus, darling. I nearly died thinking you might never want to see me, that you wouldn’t forgive me. I had no contact address after you were released. I thought you were dead.’ She gasped, the corners of her eyes filled with tears, crocodile tears. She was an expert at crying; she would have made a good actress.

He nodded, and she continued, ‘I can’t believe you’ve holed yourself up here. Must have been hell.’ She’d stroked his nose. ‘You know, I have considered that you might have been hiding from me …’

‘Just biding my time. I knew where you were. You’re out early.’

‘I was sooo good in there. All for you,’ Allegra said, in her baby voice. She had no idea how unsexy she sounded. He recalled the cuddly toys lined up on her bed when they first met. How had he ever fallen for this woman? Been so beguiled by her? He felt sick. Until that moment, he’d not fully appreciated just how over her he was. He didn’t hate her; he pitied her, and she was utterly inconsequential to him, emotionally. Practically, she was a first-class pain in the arse.

Unbeknown to him, she’d been watching. She’d seen Saffron leaving the cottage that morning and put two and two together. It wouldn’t have been hard. She trailed her to the manse. His gut twisted at the thought of Allegra spying on Saffron, dissecting her beauty, the way she moved, where she lived. How he wished Allegra’d presented herself to him at the cottage, as soon as Saffron had gone. It would have been so much easier. But no, she’d slipped away and reappeared at the worst possible time. Typical. He could have kicked himself for taking a walk on the pier before going to meet Saffron. He might have avoided Allegra had he gone straight to the beach.

Allegra had challenged him about the ‘ginger woman’ almost immediately. He’d presented the relationship as a friendship, unaware she’d seen Saffron leaving the cottage at first. Allegra had fired questions at him, machine-gun-style: what does she do for a living, is she clever, what is her name? He’d given as little as possible away, though a name had spilled out. ‘Saffron. Unusual,’ Allegra had sneered, as if only she had the right to a distinctive name. Desperate to get Allegra away from the seafront, he’d made up an excuse, said he had a business associate to meet, and would she meet him back at the cottage? Evidently, she’d not gone straight there.

Trouble. Allegra was a massive bundle of trouble, though trouble didn’t really do the carnage she brought in her wake justice.

After Saffron had fled the beach, Joe had turned to Allegra, expecting her to challenge him for the lie he’d told on the pier. She didn’t. Instead, she linked her arm in his and suggested they retreat to the cottage, ‘to make up for lost time.’ Stunned, he allowed himself to be steered up the steps to the promenade. There, they bumped into Ceri. Garnering his wits, Joe said as little as possible and virtually dragged Allegra to where she’d parked her car. Clearly, she thought him desperate to rip her clothes off. How wrong she was.

With every step, Joe’s rage had built. But having to control what he said, how he behaved, was exhausting. The traffic was awful and by the time they reached the cottage Joe was in control of his emotions and longed only to be rid of Allegra as fast as possible. Out of the car, he steered her round the house, saying only, ‘Garden.’

‘Al fresco. How exciting,’ she tittered, running her fingers along her collarbone. At the sight of the scrubby grass, she added, ‘If a tad uncomfortable. There’s no rug.’

She lunged towards him, lips puckered. He pushed her away, registering her disbelief. Was she really that deluded?

‘Oh, baby, it’s been so long.’

She was.

‘Not long enough.’ There was no emotion in his voice.

‘Sorry?’

He watched her eyes, those mirror images of his own, pool with tears. He was almost surprised at how unmoved he was. His mind was full of Saffron, concern for her; he felt nothing for the woman before him. Not even hate. Now that did surprise him.

‘What did you say to Saffron exactly?’ he asked.

Allegra smiled through her tears. ‘Only the truth, darling.’ She tapped his chest, then her own, with an index finger. ‘You, and me. You’d do anything for me. We’re meant for each other.’

‘Wrong and wrong. I lied to you. In the letters I wrote while I was inside, here, on the pier. I’ve dreamed of revenge, seeing you suffer.’

‘You could never lie to me,’ she whispered.

‘I have.’

‘I’ve suffered.’ She fluttered her eyelashes and he resisted the temptation to laugh.

‘I don’t love you. It’s easy to lie when there’s no love, isn’t it?’

Ignoring his pointed remark, she continued, ‘You don’t mean that. You’ll always love me. You can’t escape me. I see it in your eyes.’ Her voice rose higher and higher. She reached for him again.

This time, he didn’t step back. He leant forward, holding her gaze, hands gripped about her wrists, holding her at bay. ‘I hate you.’

‘You don’t mean that. You’ve not learned how to forgive me yet, that’s all.’

‘Strike that. I feel nothing for you. Not a thing.’

Allegra’s eyes darkened. ‘You’ll tire of her. She won’t keep you for long.’

‘I love her.’

‘You need me.’ A shriek more than a sentence. Her arms began to thrash.

‘No, I don’t. I never did.’ He released his grip and pushed her, without force, away.

‘You can’t do this!’ she screamed.

‘Hard to believe, isn’t it? That someone – a man,
me
– can refuse to bend to your will, resist your charms.’ He drew speech marks in the air on charms, aping one of her many irritating habits. The implication behind the gesture wasn’t lost on her. ‘You’re so spoilt, so self-centred, so blind to the realities of love, to what it actually is, that you honestly thought you could do what you did to me and that I’d
still
love you. Incredible. Almost unbelievable. But I know you, and I believe that you could. You are so blind, and you have a lot to learn, if you even can. I’m not sure that you’re capable of true love.’ There was no cruelty in Joe’s tone, which remained even, rational.