Nest of Sorrows (19 page)

Kate crossed the narrow road carefully, shoulders dragged down by her newly acquired burdens. ‘Glad to see you, these bags must weigh about a ton. Have you brought the Mini?’

Maureen nodded, too winded for speech.

‘You’ll have to cut out the fags, flower. You sound like an old puffer steaming its way into Trinity Street. Hey, what’s up with you at all?’ She looked hard into the older woman’s haggard face. Maureen Carter was still pretty, fortyish, very dainty and always extremely well-groomed. But the hair was limp and tangled, the nails chipped and half-covered in flaking fuchsia-coloured polish, while the usual ornaments – bangles, beads and earrings – were remarkable by their absence. ‘Come on now, Mo. This’ll never do, will it? I’m not used to seeing you looking so down in the mouth.’ Kate dropped her shopping into a careless heap and placed an arm about trembling shoulders. ‘Is it the end of the world, or what?’

‘It’s near the end. We can’t talk here.’ Maureen snatched up one of the bags and marched ahead, leaving Kate to tag along behind with the rest of the parcels. At a half-run, they passed the wallpaper shop, the fruit and veg, the newsagent, finally coming to an abrupt halt outside the National Westminster where Maureen’s small red car was slewed at an angle that barred the entrance to the bank’s parking lot.

An angry motorist jumped out of his Jag and approached the two women. ‘What sort of parking do you call that?’ he barked, his lip curled into a sneer.

‘Imaginative,’ snapped Kate with a strength she didn’t feel. Maureen said nothing; she simply began to hurl parcels into the Mini’s back seat.

‘Bloody women drivers!’ shouted the Jag man. ‘Pathetic. No idea, no idea at all.’

Maureen straightened, a hand resting on the roof of her car. ‘I’ve got plenty of ideas,’ she said coldly. ‘For a start, you can take that thing . . .’ she pointed to the rampant cat that decorated his bonnet. ‘You can take it and shove it right up your . . .’

‘Maureen!’ yelled Kate. She knew her own eyes were wide with surprise, while her lower jaw seemed to have dropped by several inches. She had never seen this side of Maureen before. Such a sensible girl, such a sweet-natured person. What was going on? It was as if Mo had changed overnight. ‘Maureen,’ she repeated. ‘We’ve got to move. The bank manager’s trying to get out of the carpark.’

Maureen immediately leapt to the gate. ‘Just the man,’ she muttered almost inaudibly. She rolled up her sleeves, then placed her hands on the bank manager’s car as if to hold back its progress. Though there was no need, because her own car was very much in the way. ‘Listen you!’ she yelled. ‘That was my money. Mine!’ She beat her breast with a closed fist. ‘Fourteen years I’ve taught the unteachable for that money. Fourteen bloody years!’ She turned to the Jag driver. ‘Why don’t you go to the Midland, sonny-boy? It might save you a bob or two. I parked here for a reason, you understand. See him? The bloody bank bloody manager? He’s given all my money away . . .’

Kate began to chew her fingernails, something she had not done for thirty years, ever since her mother had dipped them in bitter aloes. She had to stop Mo making this awful scene, she must. But how?

The bank official wound down his window. ‘Mrs Carter, calm yourself, please. It was a joint account, either signature would do.’

‘You could have warned me!’

‘Warning you was not part of our agreement, Mrs Carter . . .’

Maureen’s hands shaped themselves into talons. ‘Putting a brick through your windscreen isn’t in our contract either, but I’m considering it. You could have warned me. You should have . . .’

Kate took a few deep breaths. This wasn’t Maureen, this wasn’t her dear friend. How could she cope with or talk to someone she didn’t even know? It would be like tackling a wild animal! And the ice-cream would be melting soon, she thought irrelevantly. It would probably drip all over the sausages.

An inquisitive crowd was gathering, and Kate thanked the stars that both she and Maureen worked on the other side of Bolton. The parents would have soaked this up like water in a sponge.

‘The agreement,’ the manager was saying now. ‘Both you and Mr Carter were cognisant of . . .’ He checked himself as the pavement filled with people. ‘This is neither the time nor the place,’ he muttered.

Maureen jumped on to the bonnet of his car, folding her arms as she claimed this very strange piece of seating. ‘I’m waiting here for my housekeeping,’ she pronounced clearly.

‘I’ll give you some,’ whispered Kate in desperation. She could feel those icy fingers creeping round her stomach. If this went on much longer, she would have a full-blown panic attack. ‘Come on, for goodness sake. Look, the bin men are trying to get through and there’s a coal lorry too. The police will be along soon . . .’

‘I don’t care!’ Maureen tossed her head and Kate was suddenly touched deeply, partly because she knew that Maureen did care, but mostly because she glimpsed a good half inch of dark roots near her friend’s scalp. Oh God, this was so sad. Here was Maureen’s vulnerability on show for all the world, well, for all of Edgeford to see. ‘I want my money, I want my money!’ This chant was turning the situation into an even bigger farce.

‘I’ll give you some,’ repeated Kate. ‘Anything you want, just clear the road.’ She glanced at the tailback which stretched now from the church to the bottom of Cross Pit Lane. ‘Move the Jag,’ she hissed imperiously at the increasingly angry motorist.

‘What?’ The man’s face was contorted with passion. ‘I’m trying to get into the bank.’

‘You’re stopping the traffic,’ said Kate with a degree of confidence that belied her terrible nervousness. ‘Move the Jag, I’ll move the Mini. Then you can get in and Mr Shaw . . .’ She jerked a thumb in the direction of the red-faced bank manager, ‘can get out.’

‘You can’t drive,’ announced Maureen to the world in general.

‘I know. I’ve never been allowed. But give me the keys anyway.’

‘Not till I get some money.’

Kate walked to the open window of the large blue Ford. ‘Give me some money,’ she ordered wearily. He pushed a five-pound note at her.

‘Not enough!’ screamed Maureen. After assimilating the steely stare that occupied the face of his bonnet squatter, the manager pushed two further notes into Kate’s hands. ‘I’ll pay you back tomorrow,’ mouthed the shamefaced recipient of this bounty.

‘That will have to do, I suppose.’ Maureen jumped down, leapt into the Mini, screaming off in reverse almost before Kate had time to close the passenger door behind herself. ‘Dear Lord, you’ll hit the Jag!’

‘Good.’

‘Maureen, behave yourself!’ Kate shouted as they sped forward past the newsagent, the fruit and veg, the wallpaper shop. ‘You’ll have us both dead.’

‘Sorry.’ The car screeched to a halt opposite the church, its weeping driver burying her face in her hands. ‘Oh God,’ she sobbed, ‘where did I go wrong? Where?’

‘I don’t know. It’s a mystery to me. Why are you so upset? I’ve never seen you like this before. Come on, calm down. Whatever it is, it’s not worth making yourself ill, is it?’

The tiny woman leaned back in the seat, her face wrinkled as she struggled with tears and thoughts that were obviously unsavoury. ‘When you said the other day – when you were talking about imagining other men – I was shocked, Kate. He’s always been enough for me. I’ve loved him ever since the first time I set eyes on him. But I felt a bit guilty when we were having that chat, because I have fancied other men. Just in passing, nothing serious.’

‘That’s all right. It’s perfectly normal.’

‘Like the young Reverend . . .’ she waved an arm towards the church. ‘And the dentist. Then last New Year at Beryl’s party, there was that young policeman. I dreamt about him for days. This is probably my punishment for being mentally unfaithful.’

‘What are you on about at all?’

‘Men. I’m on about men.’

‘I see. Life’s great confusion, eh?’ Kate grabbed her companion’s arm. ‘Now that you’ve calmed down a bit, you can tell me what this is all about. If you don’t, I shall get out and walk. Because you are driving me nowhere except stark raving bonkers.’

‘Oh, am I? Sorry.’

‘It’s like a flaming detective novel. I don’t know whodunnit, or what they done, or who they dunnit to.’

Maureen shifted in her seat and gazed at Kate, her eyes hollow, empty and enormous in the small pale face. ‘No. You don’t know, do you? Though after what you went through with the abortion and all, you must have some idea of pain. Tell me, is shock bad for diabetes? Can it shove you over into a coma?’

Kate shrugged as lightly as she could. ‘Not sure. But I suppose we’ll soon find out, eh?’

Maureen shivered. ‘I can’t say it. Saying it will make it more real. I can show you, but I can’t talk about it. Perhaps I’ll be able to talk after you’ve seen it.’

‘Seen what? Bloody what?’

‘The kids were in a bit of a state, so I took them to my mother’s.’

‘Oh heck. You . . . you haven’t . . . killed anyone, have you?’

‘Not yet. But in view of my terrible behaviour just now, I wouldn’t put anything past me. Maybe I’m working up to that one. Slowly.’

Kate’s head dropped as she spoke. ‘Actually, it’s not a complete mystery. I gather that Phil has cleaned out the joint bank account and left you penniless?’

The answer arrived in the form of a swift nod.

‘You have nothing at all?’

‘I’ve got . . . I’ve got . . .’ The voice was choked by a hysterical giggle. ‘Just my running-away money. It was my mother, you see. She always told me to have running-away money, it’s in a building society down town.’ Again, a muffled sob. ‘Only I’m not the one who ran . . .’

‘Then . . . then what is there for me to see?’

The car jerked forward. ‘Wait. Don’t say any more.’

They drove in silence to Maureen’s house. She and Phil lived at the top end of Edgeford, while Kate’s house was lower down the moor. They stopped on Higher Lane, giving Maureen time to compose herself slightly before pulling into the drive of number 117.

Like a pair of thieves, they crept in at the back door, Kate afraid because she didn’t know what to expect, Maureen shaking because she had already had a good view of the devastation.

‘Christ!’ Kate paddled her way through two inches of water that covered the kitchen floor. A note, which had been screwed up then flattened out again, lay in the centre of the table:

Dear Mo,

I’m taking half of everything to set myself up in a flat. The house will be sold when the solicitors have come to terms. I’ve emptied the bank account pro tem. I understand you have some money in a BS account. Sorry.

Phil.

‘That’s all you get, Kate. After years of love and care. A roomful of H
₂
O, a missing washing machine and a note you wouldn’t send to the milkman. The living room is great; he’s ripped down the front curtains, rail and all, he took the sofa and left me the chairs, it’s a wonder he didn’t saw the dining table into two equal halves. The kids are demented. I told them we’d had the burglars, but Tommy isn’t fooled, not at his age.’

The icy fingers were back again, creeping around Kate’s middle and holding her like some hungry carnivorous plant. But it wasn’t a panic attack this time. Oh, no. This was anger, a real fury. That a wonderful wife and mother could be treated so shabbily.

‘Well?’ she cried eventually. ‘Well?’

‘Well what?’

‘Are you going to let him get away with this? Are you going to sit here, or swim here, while he makes off with everything you’ve worked for?’

‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘I do.’

‘Oh.’

‘You want your furniture back?’

‘I want him back! I don’t care what he’s done, I’ll forgive him anything, anything at all.’

Kate tutted impatiently. ‘I can’t get him back, but I sure as sixpence will try to get the furniture. So. You can either have no him and no furniture, or no him and some furniture. Which is it to be?’

‘What does it matter?’ yelled Maureen. ‘Nothing matters now, not without Phil.’

‘The kids matter. Normality matters. Now, what’s it to be?’

Maureen dabbed at her eyes with an ineffectual and very damp handkerchief. ‘Something to sit on, I suppose. Amanda was screaming, Kate, screaming past herself. We were on our way to Bury market for shoes and some bits of new uniform for next week. Then I turned back because I’d forgotten my chequebook. That’s a laugh, isn’t it? Some bloody good my cheques are now. The van was just disappearing down Rookery Lane – I’ll swear I even saw our gardener driving it. And everyone can see right in at the front because there are no curtains. I bet they all saw it happening.’ She dissolved into a new flood of tears.

‘Stop this. There’s enough water in here already without you adding to the mess.’ Where was this strength coming from? From anger? Or was it because this wasn’t her own problem? ‘This is a day for you to remember, love. And I’m going to turn it into a day Phil will never forget either.’

‘What . . . what are you going to do?’ Maureen blew her pink nose. ‘I love that man right to his bones, Kate, but I can tell you now that he’s clever. Clever and extremely dangerous. He’s an accountant, a professional cheat and liar of the highest order. Only lawyers get away with more. Be careful. Oh, by the way, he’s taken the fridge and left me the chest freezer in the garage. But he pulled the stuff off the shelves, so your insulin is in the larder.’

‘It’s OK. I’ve told Geoff everything.’

‘No!’ The tears cleared miraculously. ‘Not . . . not everything? The abortion and how you feel about him and . . . oh, my God!’

‘Exactly. He knows enough. Listen, Mo, all our lives are going to change. Now, I’ll have to leave you with this mess, save what you can of my shopping, will you? I’ll pop back for it later. But there are one or two things I have to do. He had no right, you know. No-one less than a judge can empty a house, I know that much. Will you manage for a few hours? Only if I leave the legal situation as it is, time may not be on our side.’

‘Let me come! I don’t want to stay here on my own. You’ve only seen the kitchen, I can’t bear to look at the rest of the house again.’

‘You won’t want to be where I’m going. It will be humiliating for you, and certainly for him. Sorry, pet. This is one time I really do have to go when you need me most. Get on the phone, ruin his reputation with everyone you know . . .’