Me and Mr Jones (37 page)

‘Well, you must take a piece of cake then,’ she replied, wrapping up a slab of the lemon-drizzle cake she’d baked the day before. ‘No arguments!’

Since then, Lilian had made a shopping list every few days, and Izzy ordered it online for her. Within a matter of weeks she knew the names of all the drivers, whether or not they were married and how many children they had. She always had a treat ready for them, too. ‘If only you’d been doing this when my boys were little,’ she was fond of telling them. ‘The hours it would have saved me! Housewives these days don’t know they’re born, do they?’

In return for Izzy’s work, Lilian’s hard frostiness seemed to be thawing by the day. The Allertons now had an open invitation to every evening meal. Lilian didn’t bat an eyelid when Willow accidentally cracked the bathroom window with a spectacular overhead kick of the football. And Izzy noticed that treats were appearing in the shopping lists, especially for the girls – ice lollies, which Lilian would produce with a flourish on sunny days, and packets of lime and strawberry jelly that she made with them in rare quiet moments.

They liked her too. Willow presented Lilian with a little clay cat she had made at school the previous term, which now stood proudly on the dresser next to the big red teapot. Hazel was prone to giving her impromptu handstand and forward-roll displays in the kitchen, after Lilian once let slip that she’d loved gymnastics as a child. Lilian had even taught them a few tunes on the old piano, and the girls could often be heard bashing out ‘London’s Burning’ or ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ on there now.

It was funny how your first impression of someone could be so wrong. The battleaxe who’d all but shoved Izzy and her children off the premises that awful first afternoon seemed a completely different person now. Maybe Charlie had been right the whole time. Once you got to know her, his mum really was kind of okay.

Somehow or other the Easter holidays were almost over, and Izzy needed to start putting her life in order. She began by organizing someone to cover her ballet classes for the next six weeks, so as to keep them ticking along in her absence. The replacement she found, Ella, was newly qualified and full of enthusiasm. ‘I’m free all summer if you need me,’ she said, glancing down at Izzy’s cast.

Izzy wasn’t sure how to reply. She hoped to have made a full recovery by then, but it was difficult to predict. Charlie had taken her back to the fracture clinic for a follow-up X-ray and appointment, and the consultant had pronounced herself pleased with the healing process so far, but it was still early days. As for her other job, Margaret and the tea shop girls had sent flowers.

‘There’s a job here for you whenever you need it,’ Margaret said when Izzy phoned to thank her. She sounded awkward. ‘I’m just sorry I didn’t do more to help you when – you know – he turned up,’ she added in a rush. ‘It all happened so fast.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Izzy said. ‘Please. I don’t think anyone could have stopped him that day. I’m just grateful to be alive.’

She had to make her goodbyes and ring off quickly then, because her whole body had begun trembling from the flashback of that terrible day.
Don’t cry, don’t cry, it’s okay.
The shock was still catching up with her, reluctant to be shaken off. Every now and then she was slammed with the enormity of what had happened, then traumatized by imagining the terrible outcomes she had been spared. She was lucky not to have suffered brain damage, spinal injuries, a broken neck.
I’m just grateful to be alive.

She gripped the handles of her crutches, trying to breathe normally as the panic attack rushed at her, like an enormous wave.
She was okay. She had survived. They were here, safe at Mulberry House, and they would get through this as a family.

‘Is everything all right?’ Lilian asked, coming down the stairs just then with a bundle of washing. Izzy was sitting at the reception desk in the hallway, still immobile following the phone call.

She took a deep breath and pushed herself slowly to her feet. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Just . . . having a moment.’

Lilian eyed her, with the measuring gaze of a woman who had seen it all before. ‘I think you’re overdoing it a bit,’ she pronounced eventually. ‘Go on, I can manage here today. You take it easy for a while, okay? Go and sit in the garden. I’ll bring you a cup of tea once I’ve got this lot in the machine.’

Izzy said nothing. She wasn’t good at taking it easy – but then she wasn’t much good for anything, in the state she was in right now.

‘No arguments,’ Lilian told her. ‘You look very pale. Go and get some sunshine and fresh air. It’s lovely out.’

Izzy knew when she was beaten. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I will, if you don’t mind. I’ve got some forms and stuff to go through about closing Gary’s bank account anyway, I can get on with those.’

‘The forms can wait; I’ll help you with them later. You just sit in the sun and rest.’

Sometimes it was nice to be told what to do, Izzy thought gratefully, swinging herself through the house on her crutches and outside to the patio. She never would have done this, left to her own devices; she would have busied herself with another chore, pushed herself along. Having someone order you to stop and take it easy was a total novelty – but one she rather liked.

A few minutes later Lilian bustled out with a tray of tea things and a magazine one of the guests had left behind. The girls were busy further down the garden making a den, birds swooped across the blue sky, and the sun felt warm on her skin. Izzy sat quietly for a moment, sipping her tea and letting her tired bones sink into the old wicker garden seat. This must be what it was like to have a mother, she realized after a while, being fussed over, and looked after. It felt good, really good.

The next day a letter arrived that changed everything. If Izzy had been feeling remotely together, she might have foreseen it, but she hadn’t. Hadn’t imagined in a million years that, as Gary’s wife (albeit estranged), she’d be in line for a massive life-insurance payment. He’d worked for an insurance company since leaving school, and one of the perks had been the most comprehensive personal-insurance package available. The money hadn’t actually arrived yet – more forms to fill in and sign first, of course – but oh, my goodness. She was going to be rich. She, Isabel Allerton, wouldn’t have to worry about scraping together pennies for bills for a long while. She wouldn’t have to take back her dance classes if she didn’t feel like it, or work for the next few years, for that matter. For the first time ever she would be financially solvent, and needed never to rely on anyone else again.

And, of course, she realized dazedly, the flat in Manchester had her name on the mortgage too. Once she cleared it out and found someone who wanted to buy it, she’d be richer still. Admittedly, it wasn’t a palace – it was in a fairly rundown area of the city and wasn’t what you’d call pretty – but they’d bought it years ago for a bargain price and she knew the value had risen. Her head spun at the notion of all this money coming her way. In life, Gary might have cowed her and hurt her, but in death he had set her free. He’d given the girls the best kind of security too. She was already looking into investment funds for the pair of them, so that, come eighteen, they’d have a good start as young women. Unlike her, they’d have real choices in their hands. They could go to university if they wanted, they could travel the world. And in the meantime the three of them could have some corking holidays too – ones that needed passports and everything. Bring it on!

Before she could start flicking through holiday websites, though, there were still the practicalities of selling the flat to get through; a job she both dreaded and wanted to get over with. So when Charlie told her that he had the last three days of the week off work, and asked if they should set off on a road trip to Manchester, there was only one possible answer. Needs must, as her granny would have said. ‘Let’s do it,’ she replied.

He borrowed a six-seater van from a mate (Charlie had all sorts of useful mates, it was becoming clear) and off they went at the crack of dawn the following morning. It was a four-and-a-half-hour journey according to the satnav, but it turned out to be more like six hours on the road, after they’d stopped several times for food, coffee and loos. Still, the girls absolutely loved the novelty of being in a van, and Charlie proved to have a knack of tuning the radio to find the best driving songs. Plus, he was good company. Great company. She’d never spent so much time with someone who was just so easy to
be
with, who made her laugh so much. His stream of funny stories took the edge off her nerves all the way up the motorway. It was only as the signs for Manchester finally appeared that she began to feel a strange, anxious ache inside.

The girls picked up on it too. Once they were off the motorway Willow began complaining of a headache, shielding her eyes as if subconsciously she didn’t want to see, whereas Hazel was glued to the window, with a nervous, almost hysterical energy radiating from her as she recognized landmarks. ‘Hey!’ she cried suddenly. ‘That’s our Asda. Mum, look. Asda!’

‘Duh,’ Willow said, somewhat unkindly. ‘It’s only a shop.’

‘I know, but – Mum. Did you see it? We’re nearly home!’

Izzy winced at the word ‘home’. The poor girls had had so many homes in the last year: the flat in Manchester, the one in Lyme, Alicia’s house and now the holiday chalet in Loveday. ‘We’re nearly back,’ she agreed. ‘And remember what I told you. The flat might not be how you remember it. You know how messy Daddy was. He might even have changed things around!’

Her words were lightly spoken, but she felt worried beneath them. Maybe it had been a mistake bringing the girls along. What if they arrived at the flat and he’d completely trashed it? All their memories would forever be tarnished. He’d been in such a dark place by the end of his life that she could imagine this manifesting itself in horrible graffiti on the walls, smashed furniture, the stench of rotting food . . .

‘I can’t
wait
to see our bedroom again,’ Hazel said, bouncing on the seat, not seeming to have taken Izzy’s warning on board. ‘Are we going to start school here again too?’

‘No, love,’ Izzy said, as Willow made another rude noise of derision. ‘No, we’re just here for one last visit, to clean up and choose the nicest things Daddy left behind to take back to Dorset with us. We’ll be here one or two nights tops, then we’ll say goodbye to Manchester again, okay?’ She eyed Willow, who had her arms folded across her chest. ‘And there’s no need to be unkind,’ she added. ‘It was a perfectly good question.’

‘A perfectly
stupid
question,’ Willow muttered, kicking her leg petulantly.

‘Scooby-Dooby-Doo,’ Hazel sang, oblivious to her sister’s mood. ‘Shaggy did a poo. He threw it out the win-dow . . .’

‘Left down here,’ Izzy told Charlie, her heart quickening as they passed the little row of shops where she’d bought milk and bread every day. ‘Then it’s the next right.’

‘Scooby-Dooby-Dee, Scrappy did a wee. He—’

‘Hazel,’ Izzy said, feeling unusually irritable. ‘Hush, love.’ She hugged herself, gazing at the streets as if she’d never seen them before. They were so familiar, yet dream-like too. The houses appeared hunched and packed together, with some windows boarded up and a burnt-out car at one end of the street. The tiny front yards sprouted junk – bits of car, rubble sacks, overflowing bins. There were no trees, barely anything green at all. Even the sky felt small after the wide-open horizon at Lyme. ‘This one,’ she said quietly, pointing. ‘Just here, on the right, Charlie. Number sixty-two.’

They were all silent as he parked and cut the engine. ‘Well, here we are,’ he said.

‘Here we are,’ she echoed.

‘We’re
home
!’ Hazel sang, unclipping her seatbelt with a flourish.

Izzy’s hands trembled as she opened the front door. She’d never imagined them coming back here, least of all under such extraordinary and traumatic circumstances.

She held her breath when the door swung open and she stepped cautiously inside. The flat felt still and deadened, as if it had been left on pause. There was a stale sort of smell in the air, the kind that made her want to push open all the windows and bring a fresh, cold draught rushing through the place.

‘Come in,’ she said apprehensively. It was daft. Even though she knew Gary was dead – she’d signed enough forms and letters confirming this, after all; she’d seen his lifeless body at the undertaker’s, for heaven’s sake! – there was still a part of her braced for conflict as she walked down the hall. Habit, she supposed. Gary had held her up against this wall by her neck one time, she remembered, his thumbs hard against her windpipe as she’d gasped for air. She couldn’t even remember why – towards the end he’d picked a fight for any trivial reason.

‘Are you okay?’ Charlie asked from behind her. He had a tower of empty boxes in his arms; they’d come prepared with suitcases to pack and bin bags to fill too. An estate agent was due round the following day; there was a lot to do.

‘Yeah, sure. Just . . . ghosts of the past, you know,’ she said. She shook herself, then walked down to the kitchen. She could hear Hazel exclaiming over everything in the hall.

‘Look, there’s my old coat still hanging up! It’s
tiny
now. Oh, and look – my Peppa Pig umbrella!’

‘Peppa Pig is for babies,’ Willow muttered witheringly.

Izzy filled the kettle – its handle sticky where it hadn’t been wiped down for months – and stood looking around the room. It was only a tiny galley kitchen, certainly not one where you could sit and linger over a coffee, like in Mulberry House. The window looked out at a wooden fence, which divided them from the next house in the terrace, although she’d tried to improve the view by planting up a windowbox fixed to the ledge outside. Needless to say, the flowers had all died since she’d left. In fact, there was a prominent cat-turd in the box now; just what you wanted to look at when you were washing up.

While the kettle boiled she prowled around the rest of the flat, still on high alert, as if expecting something horrible to jump out from a cupboard, or for Gary himself to emerge.
Thought you’d got shot of me, did you? Gotcha!