Heartbreaker (35 page)

‘Get real, Tom,’ Johnny shouted. ‘We can’t go on as if nothing has happened, you must see that.’

The men fought, round and round they went with their argument. Jackie slipped into Tom’s dressing gown and crept closer, trying to work out what had caused the upset. She stopped outside the sitting room door. Johnny sounded weary. It certainly wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation, that much was obvious. Strange that Tom hadn’t mentioned it to her; he told her most things.

Johnny wasn’t going on tour. She could hardly believe it, it didn’t seem possible. How could Tom have kept that from her? She wondered if he’d told anyone else. Judging by the way he was pleading with Johnny, she reckoned not.

Tom was doing his utmost to get Johnny to change his mind. He went on and on and on, pleading, begging and justifying. Jackie knew only too well what it felt like to be on the receiving end; she usually gave in and let him have his own way, it was so much easier.

Finally, she heard Johnny shout: ‘If it means that much to you, you shouldn’t have jeopardised it by fucking my wife.’ Jackie went cold. She held her breath. ‘You shouldn’t have had a kid with her and let me think she was mine. And you shouldn’t be lying to Jackie about all of this. You’ve been cheating on her for years, same as you cheated on me, just so you had a smokescreen for seeing Nicci.’

So that was it: now she knew. Tom was having an affair with Nicci Burns. She thought back to times she’d seen them whispering together, heads close, times when she’d walked into a room and caught them together, just the two of them. Times she knew he’d gone to Johnny’s house when Johnny was working away, to make sure Nicci and the girls were okay. It all added up. Jackie slid down the wall and sat huddled on the floor next to the door, her arms round her legs, her head on her bony knees. She felt sick. The kid must be Rebecca, she realised. And judging by what Johnny had just said, Tom had cheated on her from the start. She heard him shout: ‘It’s over, Tom. Finished.’ There was a pause, followed by an almighty crash and then silence. Minutes later, the door was flung open and Jackie had to quickly put her hands up to stop it whamming into her as she sat huddled behind it. She saw Johnny race down the stairs then heard the front door slam. She put her head in her hands and wept.

Chapter 96

‘What happened after that?’

‘I was in shock. My world had just been blown apart.’

Johnny reached over, took her hand. ‘Why didn’t you get in touch with me afterwards, Jackie? You know I’d have been there for you. We’d both been betrayed. I’d have been on your side.’

Jackie brushed away a tear. ‘I know that now, Johnny, but you’ve got to remember I wasn’t thinking straight. For some reason it was Nicci I wanted to talk to.’

‘Didn’t you hate her?’ Alex asked.

Jackie looked at her, shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t. I don’t know why not, it’s not like she’d ever hidden her dislike of me. But I remember thinking we’d both lost Tom and we should stick together, so I asked her for help.’

And with far-reaching consequences
, thought Alex. She gathered up the mugs, put them on the tray. ‘I’ll make more coffee,’ she said, heading off to the kitchen. When she came back with the drinks, there was a bottle of whisky and three glasses on the table, too.

‘Help yourself,’ said Jackie, nodding to the spirit.

‘I’m driving, I’ll stick with this, thanks,’ said Alex.

Johnny poured a generous measure into a glass and offered it to Jackie.

‘You have that,’ she said. ‘I’m going to put mine in my coffee.’

Johnny and Alex sat expectantly, waiting to hear what happened next. Jackie didn’t seem to be in any hurry to enlighten them. She sipped at her coffee, added whisky when there was room for it. ‘You’ve got to understand, this is difficult for me,’ she said at last. ‘I loved Tom Watson with all my heart and you want me to go back to a time that starts when I was expecting his child and heard that our entire relationship had been a sham, then ends with his death.’

Johnny took her hand again, squeezed it gently and let it go. ‘Take your time. But it’s got to be good for you to let it all out after so long. It doesn’t do any good bottling things up. Christ, I know as well as anyone how true that is.’

She managed a thin smile. Then she carried on with her story.

Chapter 97

1986

Eventually, after what seemed like an age, Jackie got to her feet and dried her eyes. Her limbs ached after sitting hunched up for so long, she rubbed her arms and stretched her neck before going into the sitting room. She hadn’t heard Tom moving about, was wondering what he was doing. When she saw him, she froze. He lay motionless on his side. Blood trickled from a gash in his forehead. Convinced he must be dead, that Johnny had killed him, she crept slowly toward his prone form. She knelt down beside him and put her hand to his face. Tom’s skin was pale, his scar a stark white fissure in the otherwise smooth surface, but his flesh was warm to the touch. She bent her face to his mouth and was relieved to feel his breath on her cheek. Tentatively, she put her fingers to the wound on his head. The blood was tacky, it stuck to her fingers, and had pooled on the floor and congealed. The cut looked deep, flesh sliced open by the sharp corner of the writing bureau. Odds on it would leave a scar.
Another one
, she thought,
to go with the one on his cheek.

But he was alive. Jackie started to cry again, unable to decide whether she was glad he was alive or wanted to kill him for what he’d done. As she rocked gently and cried softly, she heard him groan, felt him stir. She turned to him and he opened his eyes, rubbed his hand across his forehead and cried out in surprise at the pain. He stared at the blood on his hand, then saw Jackie and looked puzzled, wondered what she was doing there.

She slapped him across the face as hard as she could manage. ‘Bastard,’ she shouted, then stood up and walked away.

After a little while, Tom went into the bedroom to find Jackie curled up in bed. She had stopped crying for now, but the lump in her throat was as big as a golf ball. She felt empty, stupid and empty; she had pinned her future on Tom Watson and he had turned out to be a liar and a cheat. Tom sat down beside her and stroked her hair. She let him, grateful for the contact, relieved he didn’t say anything.

Tom kicked off his shoes and climbed onto the bed beside her. She had her back to him. He put his arm around her and she let him hold her close. She didn’t speak; didn’t trust herself to. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Tom’s words were spoken softly, hung in the air like the threat of the storm. Jackie didn’t know what to say, was too busy hurting to think of anything, so she said nothing. Tom’s grip on her gradually loosened and his breathing became deeper, slower, as he fell asleep. She remembered some advice about not letting people who have hit their head sleep, but couldn’t summon the energy to move and to wake him. Instead, she closed her eyes and drifted off herself.

When they awoke, it was dusk. Tom reached for the bedside lamp and switched it on. Jackie wished he hadn’t; he looked ill and haggard, even in the soft warmth of the lamplight. He sat up and groaned. ‘Christ,’ he said, ‘I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.’ Despite her best intentions, she stroked his cheek, her fingers tracing the old scar, the moon and stars, then she pulled him to her and held him close.

‘Come on,’ she said eventually. ‘Let’s get that cut cleaned up. In fact,’ she said, looking at it closely, ‘you should go to hospital.’

‘No,’ said Tom, ‘no hospital.’

‘Okay, but it’s going to hurt.’ Apart from anything else, his hair had fallen across the wound while he slept and was now stuck firmly to the dried blood. She helped him to his feet and they walked through to the bathroom, switching lights on as they went. She sat him on the side of the bath and rummaged in cupboards for the things she needed. She filled a basin with warm water and a splash of Dettol, and cut and dampened a piece of lint. Using the smooth side she started to work on the blood, cleaning from the outside edge inwards. Tom’s flesh turned pink where she rubbed it, a mixture of watery blood and pressure. It contrasted badly with the grey pallor he otherwise wore. He was brave about it, but winced when it stung and sharply sucked in air as she cleaned the cut itself. When she finally dressed the wound and let the blood-tinged water flow from the basin, she wasn’t sure who was most relieved.

Tom padded down to the kitchen and found a bottle of brandy and two glasses, which he brought back upstairs with him. He plonked himself down in his big, comfortable leather chair and held his hand out to Jackie to join him there. She hesitated. The chair held so many memories for them, they spent as much time curled up in it and making love in it as they did Tom’s bed. There was every chance that their child had been conceived there. She looked at Tom. Apart from the pallor and the dressing, stark white against his ashen skin, he looked the same as always; handsome Tom reaching out to her, making her heart somersault in her chest. But everything had changed. Almost imperceptibly, she shook her head and took a seat on the sofa.

The rejection cut Tom, she could see it in his eyes, but what could he expect? He poured for them both and passed a brandy glass to her. She took a sip; not too much, she had to think of the baby.

‘I heard you and Johnny,’ she told him. ‘I heard what he said. About Nicci. And Becky. And me.’

Tom’s eyes were blacker than ever in the low light of the room. He didn’t speak for what seemed like an age. Jackie bit her lip; it was up to him now. Then he said softly, a hint of desperation in his voice, ‘I’ve screwed everything up. I don’t know what to do to make it right again.’ He turned those black, fathomless pools towards her. She felt their power, felt them sucking her in. ‘Help me sort it out, angel. Please? No one else can. Only you.’

She came so close to falling for it. The allure of being the only person who could help Tom sort things out, the power that implied she held over him and his life, was almost too seductive to resist. But Tom was such a conman. He put on his big eyes and played at being helpless when he had never been anything of the sort. Tom Watson had never needed anyone else in his life; apart, perhaps, from Johnny Burns, and from what Jackie heard earlier, he had lost Johnny forever.

She was suddenly angry, hurled the glass at him, but aimed deliberately high. Tom didn’t realise and his eyes widened in fright as it hurtled towards him. ‘You’re a fucking liar.’ The glass flew out of the open window and smashed on the street below. Jackie jumped to her feet and stood over him. ‘You’ve lied to me the whole time I’ve known you. You bastard, how could you?’ She ran her hand through her hair, the words fighting to be out of her throat now, all wanting release together; they brought her to silence in their haste.

‘No.’ Tom was pleading, gesturing with his hands, his face a mask of sincerity. ‘Jackie. I’ve been stupid, I admit that, but I love you. More than anything.’

‘More than Becky? More than Johnny?’ Tom nodded frantically, his eyes wide. ‘More than the band?’ He hesitated a moment too long. ‘Bastard.’ She hadn’t believed what he’d said about Becky and Johnny, but he might at least have had the decency to lie about the fucking band.

Jackie turned her back on him, wiped her eyes with the sleeve of his dressing gown. Tom took the opportunity to get to his feet, put his hands on her shoulders. ‘Please. Give me a chance to make it up to you.’

She shrugged him off. ‘And just how do you intend to do that, Tom? Have you got a time machine so we can go back and start over? Without Nicci fucking Burns lurking in the background?’ She turned on him. ‘I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid. All the years I’ve spent with you, at your beck and call, pandering to your every fucking whim … Jesus.’ She pushed him. ‘You heartless bastard.’

Tom lost his temper. ‘Oh, and you’re Miss Fucking Perfect, are you? Don’t give me that. You like the status being my girlfriend gives you. And you like the money, too, Jackie, let’s not forget that. The flat in town, and the car, and the credit card, and the allowance … Just how devoted would you be if I was some penniless office clerk? You wouldn’t have looked at me twice. So don’t give me all this bullshit. You knew what you were getting into, and what you were getting out of it, as well.’

‘Bastard!’ Jackie was stunned. Sure, Tom scored a few hits, but she had no idea he was so cynical about their relationship.
Jesus Christ
, she thought,
do I know him at all
? She pulled back her hand to slap him, but he caught her wrist.

‘That’s enough. You’ve done that once too often.’ He held her wrist until he felt her stop fighting against him, then let go. She rubbed at the reddening flesh, sore where his fingers had gripped. ‘You seem to think that you can slap me whenever you feel like it and get away with it because you’re a woman. It stops now, do you hear? No more.’

Jackie was silent. She had no idea how to proceed. She sneaked a glance at Tom, saw that he looked as confused and hurt as she felt. So much for her dreams of marriage and country houses. She sank down onto the sofa, put her head in her hands, wondered where the hell they could all go from here. She heard Tom pouring himself another brandy. He must have swallowed that last one, and it had been a generous measure. Shock, she supposed, and misery. That was usually enough to get her into a bottle, anyway.

When she looked up, he was at the middle window, standing on the little balcony looking out over the city and nursing his drink. The lights sparkled and twinkled in the night skies, although it was never really dark here. There were always lights, in the sky, on the streets, in the houses and buildings. Tom leaned forward, peered over the edge to see something better. The phone rang and he straightened up, came in to answer it. She could see in his face he was hoping it was Johnny ringing to say he had changed his mind. Jackie wished, not for the first time, that she could get Tom to love her the way he loved Johnny Burns. He didn’t say much to whoever it was that had called, but he went white, sat down suddenly as if his legs couldn’t hold him anymore. Finally she heard him say, ‘Thanks for ringing, Dan. I’ll keep in touch, mate.’ Then he dropped the phone and turned to her, his face a picture of disbelief. ‘Andy’s dead. Some sicko stabbed him then just ran away.’ He slumped forward with his head in his hands.