Love and Devotion (20 page)

‘Trust me; you don’t want to touch that.’

Harriet swivelled round. Observing her as she struggled to unscrew the lid of the Baileys was a man who looked like he was straight off the cover of
GQ.
He was dressed in a navy-blue linen suit with an open-necked shirt and looked suspiciously like he was exceeding the weight limit in charm. Definitely not her type. Probably a banker. Or something that rhymed with it.

‘Wouldn’t you prefer a proper drink?’ he asked with a smile that revealed two rows of perfectly even, white teeth. He produced a bottle of wine from somewhere about his person and began filling a pair of glasses that he’d also conjured up. ‘I never trust the booze at these parties,’ he said. ‘Always wise to bring one’s own. Here, try this.’

She was right about the charm. ‘A piece of advice for you,’ she said, refusing to take the proffered glass and annoyed at his arrogance. ‘Never part a girl from her drink of choice. She might turn nasty.’

He smiled again. ‘And what constitutes nasty in your book?’ he drawled. ‘A feisty little put-down learned at the Bridget Jones Finishing School?’

Oh, great! A smart aleck. Just what she needed. ‘You know what, why don’t we
not
do this? Parting, as they say, is such sweet sorrow, but I’m sure I’ll get over it.’

She was about to turn and walk away when he said, ‘Please, don’t go. How about we start afresh?’ He held out the glass for her again. ‘I promise not to be such a git; it’s just that these parties bring out the worst in me. You’re the first girl I’ve spoken to since I arrived who’s shown any intelligence. Please have a drink with me.’

What the hell, she thought. Maybe she had overreacted. He seemed contrite enough. After finding somewhere quieter to talk, he said, ‘So tell me all about yourself. What’s your name and what do you do? My name’s Titus by the way, as in — ’

‘The hero of Mervyn Peake’s
Gormenghast?’
she interrupted him. She was reminded of Dominic - it had been one of his favourite books as a teenager. ‘Or perhaps your parents took their inspiration from the New Testament?’

He bowed. ‘Your first guess was correct.’

‘With a name like that I could almost feel sorry for you.’ Beginning to relax, she pondered whether there was a chance he might turn out to be more than just a
GQ
pretty boy. ‘I’m Harriet, by the way.’

‘Pleased to meet you, Harriet.’

To her amusement, he leaned in closer, rested his shoulder against the wall and crossed his legs at the ankle, displaying a classic move from The Expert Flirter’s Handbook : leave her in no doubt that she’s the most fascinating girl in the room and that you’re settling in for a long-haul conversation during which she will find you irresistible. ‘So how do you fit in here?’ she asked. ‘How do you know Erin?’

‘I met her through a friend. The last time I saw him he was in the kitchen with his tongue halfway down the host’s throat. How about you?’

‘I used to live in the flat downstairs.’

His glass hovered midway to his mouth. ‘So you’re the one whose sister snuffed - I mean died. Erin told me about it. What are you doing now?’

‘I’m living in Cheshire looking after my sister’s children.’

‘Bloody hell. That’s rotten luck. And living in the north, too. How long for?’

‘For ever.’

‘No, seriously, when do you come back?’

She stiffened. ‘I
am
being serious.’ How dare this patronising man denigrate what she was now doing. ‘Children aren’t like dogs,’ she said sharply. ‘You can’t abandon them on the roadside like a bag of unwanted puppies.’

‘Yeah, but they’re not even yours.’ He uncrossed his ankles and stood up straight, shaking his head wearily. ‘God, your life is so over. Because let’s face it, when you’re done with those kids, there’ll be the aging parents to wash and feed.’ He stepped away from her and drank long and deep from his wine. She sensed him flicking onto page ten of The Expert Flirter’s Handbook: unless you are a fully trained baggage handler, there is absolutely no point in wasting vital time and energy on a woman who comes with this much heavy-duty baggage.

‘You know what,’ she said, ‘I think my first impression of you was right on the button. You’re nothing but a shallow, gobby bloke who’s just pushed me into mental meltdown.’

This time she did walk away, and not trusting herself to speak to anyone, not unless they were keen to have their head torn clean off, she kept on walking until she was standing in Erin’s tiny spare bedroom, where she was spending the night. With enormous willpower — resisting the urge to slam it - she quietly closed the door behind her and leaned against it in the dark, giving herself time to calm down and steady her breathing. A stress-induced asthma attack was not what she needed right now. After several seconds of deep, slow breathing she realised she wasn’t alone, and that what she could hear wasn’t her lungs wheezing, but the unmistakable sound of two people mid-shag.

‘Out!’ she screamed. ‘Out of my room!’ She switched on the light, pulled the duvet off the semi-naked couple and pushed them into the hall, throwing their shoes and clothes after them before slamming the door shut. She noticed the remains of a coke-fest on the bedside table and wondered what the hell she was doing here. This was no longer her world. She had nothing in common with these people. They were more or less the same age as her, but she felt like an aged spinster aunt who’d accidentally gatecrashed a students’ party. She’d actually had to stop herself from reprimanding Paula for knocking over a bowl of crisps, just as she would Carrie or Joel.

Harriet groaned and sank down onto the floor. Felicity had once told her that children made you grow up; that they made you act more responsibly and less selfishly. ‘It must be a hormonal thing because it just happens,’ she told Harriet. ‘Once you’ve given birth you want the world to be a better place for your children, which means having to be a better person yourself.’

‘Hormones be damned, Felicity!’ she said out loud. ‘It’s nothing to do with them. It’s something far more insidious.’ She couldn’t bring herself to say what it was, but after all the excitement of getting away, she knew she’d rather be back in Maple Drive than here. She’d much prefer to be sitting on the bedroom floor reading to Carrie and Joel - Carrie absently winding a lock of hair round a finger and Joel pressing against her, his small body fresh from the bath, warm and sweet-smelling.

She raked her hands through her hair and closed her eyes. But when it felt as if the room was spinning she snapped them open. She’d definitely had too much to drink. Coffee was needed. As she got to her feet, a muffled trilling sound came from somewhere in the room. She hunted through the tangle of bedclothes on the floor and clicked open the phone. It was ten past one - who the hell was calling her at this time of night?

At the sound of her father’s voice, she froze. It was all too reminiscent of the night he’d called to say Felicity was dead. She sank onto the edge of the bed. Oh, God, what had happened now?

 

 

 

 

‘Thank goodness you’re there, Harriet. We’re at our wits’ end. We didn’t know what else to do. If he carries on like this we’ll have to call a doctor out. We can’t do anything with him. He’s cried so much he’s made himself sick. Your mother’s exhausted and with all the fuss at school we — ’

‘Dad, slow down!’ Harriet’s head was spinning. ‘Tell me what’s happened. And take it slowly.’ Her heart was hammering painfully and the knot of panic that had started in her stomach had spread to her chest. But at least it didn’t sound as if anyone had died.

‘It’s Joel,’ her father said. ‘Well, it’s Carrie too. She’s the one who started it.’

‘You’re still not making any sense, Dad.’

‘We’ve discovered what’s been causing Joel’s nightmares. We had a phone call from the headmistress this afternoon; apparently Carrie’s been telling everyone at school that her parents’ death was more gruesome than it really was. She’s told them things like ... oh, God, I can hardly think of it myself. No wonder Joel’s been so terrified.’

‘What exactly has she been saying?’

‘That their heads were sliced off in the accident, that the police never found them and ... because of that, Felicity and Jeff, dripping in blood, are forced to wander the streets at night searching for them.’

A chill ran down Harriet’s spine. ‘Carrie said all that? But why?’

‘I’ve no idea, but she’s said a lot worse. Stuff about her being able to make her parents haunt anyone she doesn’t like. She’s scared some of the children so badly that their parents have complained to school.’

‘To hell with them. It’s Joel I’m concerned about. Do you think he’ll talk to me?’

‘That’s why I’ve called. He keeps asking for you. Perhaps if you speak to him, he might calm down and go back to bed. Will you do it, Harriet? You know, just talk him round so we can all get some sleep.’

‘Of course, Dad. Put him on.’

‘You’ll have to hang on while I go upstairs; I’m on the phone in the kitchen.’

Waiting for her father to put Joel on the line, Harriet thought of the nights she’d found her nephew drenched in sweat, his damp hair sticking to his scalp, his eyes squeezed shut, and the duvet wrapped tightly around his body as though it would protect him. Knowing what they knew now, she could understand his terror. Her chest tightened and she coughed, instinctively trying to force oxygen into lungs that were threatening to close down. She fumbled for her inhaler at the bottom of her bag. With the mobile pressed against her ear, she could hear her father’s voice and the racking, hiccupy sobs of Joel in the background.

‘Harriet, are you still there?’

‘Yes, Dad,’ she wheezed. ‘Put him on.’

There was a pause while her father told Joel to say hello. He didn’t. But he had stopped crying.

‘Joel, can you hear me? It’s me, Harriet. Aren’t you going to say hello?’

In the ensuing silence, she put her inhaler to her mouth, pressed down on the canister and breathed in sharply. It was always tempting to give herself two quick hits, one immediately after the other. But she knew better and instead imagined the chemicals rushing through the narrowing airways of her lungs, flushing them out like those pipes you see in a toilet-cleaner advert.

‘Wassat noise?’ a small, husky voice asked.

Progress, thought Harriet. ‘It’s my asthma inhaler, Joel.’ She heard a sob catch in his throat. ‘Are you ... ill?’

‘No, of course not. I’m as fit as a fiddle. How about you? I hear you’ve had another bad dream.’

Silence again.

‘Joel?’

‘Are you coming back?’ His voice was a dried-up raspy whisper. He’d probably cried his throat raw.

‘On Sunday. Don’t you remember we discussed all that?’

‘Can’t you come back now?’

‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Joel, but it’s the middle of the night.’

‘But I want you here. Why can’t you come home?’ He started to cry again.

‘Oh, Joel, it’s not as easy as that.’ How could she explain that even if she wanted to leap into the car and drive all the way home, she couldn’t because she was well over the limit? ‘Listen to me, Joel,’ she said as firmly as her breath would allow her. ‘You have to go back to bed and get some sleep. It’s not fair to Grandma and Granddad.’

‘No!’ he wailed. ‘I don’t want to.’

‘I know you don’t; I also know what’s been causing the nightmares you’ve been having. But none of it’s true. All that stuff Carrie’s been saying - she was making it up.’

‘But why would she say those things if they weren’t true?’

‘I haven’t a clue.’ And thinking it might help him to talk about the nightmares, she said, ‘Do you want to tell me what goes on in your dreams?’

Her question went unanswered.

‘Okay, I’ll take the silence as a no.’ She took another puff of her inhaler. Her heart was racing now, but she could feel her lungs expanding and the air getting through.

‘Is that your inhaler again?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re not going to die, are you?’

His question shook her. ‘Joel, now listen very hard. I’ve always told you the truth, and I’m not about to start lying to you now. I’m not dying, and your parents didn’t die the way Carrie said they did. Ghosts don’t exist and you have nothing to be frightened of. Unlike your sister, who’s going to get a good talking-to from me when I get home.’

After a lengthy pause, he said, ‘Harriet?’

‘Yes?’

‘Please come home. I want you to come back. I don’t like it when you’re not here.’

Not for a long time had Harriet allowed anyone to manipulate her, but this boy could do it every time. Stupid thing was, she realised she didn’t care; her planned day of watching
Sex and the City
DVDs with Erin had lost its appeal anyway. ‘I’ll be home some time after breakfast,’ she said. ‘How does that sound?’

As if by magic, he cheered up instantly. ‘Will you take me to the bookshop? The one where your friend works?’

‘I will.’ Then seizing her opportunity, she added, ‘But you have to promise me you’ll go to bed right now. This very minute.’

‘Can I have a drink first?’

‘A very quick one.’

 

Harriet was on the road by seven. Erin surfaced briefly, and yawning hugely like the Dormouse at the Mad Hatter’s tea party, she said she completely understood that Harriet had to get home. ‘No worries,’ she said, ‘we’ll get together again soon.’ But Harriet knew it wasn’t ever going to happen. Those days had gone. And maybe, if it meant she never again had to meet the likes of that arrogant prat Titus, it was for the best.

It was while she was tearing up the M6 that yet another truth hit her. When it came to the children’s sense of security, it appeared that the buck stopped with her. It had been her, last night, that Joel had wanted. Not her mother. Not her father. For the life of her she didn’t know why this would be - especially given her parents’ view that she scared the children by being too firm with them. Only a number of weeks ago and this realisation would have alarmed her, but today it didn’t. It felt oddly reassuring, as if she was finally getting something right. Being able to comfort and reason with Joel on the phone last night had been of paramount importance to her. It still was. She couldn’t bear to think of him being so upset ever again.