Tarnished (31 page)

Peg glanced up at Sue and Don and gave a little shake of her head. She didn’t want them to start thinking she was about to let that happen.

Eventually, they prised Doll away from Jean and wheeled her through the one-way door into her part of the bungalow. Heading in first, Peg spotted the photograph of Doll with Raymond, Jean and Keith still propped up on the bookcase. Cursing herself for her oversight, she turned it face down to avoid upsetting Doll.

But upset was not entirely avoided. As the partition door swung shut behind her, Doll pulled herself up on to her elbows.

‘I thought we were going home?’ she said, outraged, her voice at full pitch. ‘What place is this? Where have you brought me?’

‘We
are
home, Nan,’ Peg said, taking her hand. ‘This is your lounge. We had to clear it up a bit so that your carers can look after you properly.’

‘Who the fuck are you?’ Doll roared, snatching her hand away.

‘Sorry,’ Peg said to Sue. Despite the fact that she knew Doll would take the clean-up badly, the hostility of her reaction stung her.

‘Oh don’t worry,’ Sue said. ‘Change is so hard for them, isn’t it? We’ll get her tucked in and calm her down.’

Peg led them into the bedroom, where, looking around in horror at her rearranged room, Doll was transferred into her own bed.

‘There we are, Mrs Thwaites,’ Don said, arranging the sheets for her. ‘Back home.’

‘Tell that to the ceiling,’ Doll said, looking away.

‘Perhaps we could have a word?’ Sue said, unhooking a bag from Doll’s stretcher and leading Peg back into the lounge. ‘These are her medicines and instructions on what she needs to take when.’ She handed the bag over. ‘And the district nurse will be in tomorrow as soon as she can to settle Mrs Thwaites in. There’s some leaflets in there to give you some pointers on diet and hygiene.’

‘How much longer till we get the carers set up?’ Peg asked, feeling a little overwhelmed by what was being asked of her.

‘I’m afraid I have no idea. That’s really a matter for Social Services. This is just an emergency measure. And I’ve got another five patients like your grandmother to get to their homes this afternoon.’

‘Oh yes. Sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you.’

‘She’s all settled.’ Don wheeled the empty stretcher back into the lounge.

‘We’d better get a move on,’ Sue said, taking the front of the stretcher. She went to the door in Doll’s lounge wall that led back to Jean’s part of the bungalow, but it had swung shut and she couldn’t open it.

‘It’s one-way only,’ Peg said. ‘I’ll go back through Aunty Jean’s and let you through.’

Peg let herself once more through Jean’s door.

‘Pretty grim, eh?’ she heard Don say from Jean’s bedroom.

‘It was quite touching though, when the old lady kissed the fat one,’ Sue said.

‘Fat one,’ Peg heard Jean mutter. ‘She’s no stick insect herself.’

Despite feeling that she was doing too much creeping around behind her aunt’s back, Peg tiptoed once more to Jean’s bedroom door. Sue and Don weren’t in there, of course. There was no way they could have got through the interconnecting door. But Jean was there, sitting upright in her bed, eating a bar of chocolate and holding the white box of the intercom to her ear as if it were a big telephone, listening in to what was going on in the lounge.

Peg wobbled as her mind raced back over what she and Loz had said and done in Doll’s bungalow, thinking they were alone, unobserved. Had Jean heard it all? Shame stung at her cheeks.

That’s why she hadn’t been believed about the trip to London – Jean had known what they were doing. She might even know of their suspicions about the vanished girls, and that Peg had gone behind her back and accepted Raymond’s money.

Peg quietly went back to the interconnecting door between Jean’s hallway and Doll’s lounge and, as noisily as possible, opened it and greeted the ambulance people.

What the hell was Jean playing at?

Thirty

‘I’m so glad she’s back,’ Jean said.

Having made sure that Doll was tucked up and fast asleep, Peg sat drinking Guinness with Jean and biting her tongue.

‘How long are you going to stay with us, Meggy?’ Jean asked, as she helped herself to another mini sausage roll from the stacked plateful she had made Peg fetch in from the kitchen.

‘I’m going to see if I can get another week off, until we get Nan’s carers sorted. And I could commute for a bit if it came to it.’

‘Oh, you don’t need to do that. We’ll be back to normal in no time. Really Meggy, there’s no need to stay next week as well.’

This independent stance was an interesting new tack for Jean to be taking. Peg decided to hold her cards firmly to her chest. Whatever Jean’s game was, she needed to do what was best for Doll.

‘But Aunty Jean, they said she’ll need almost full-time care, and she shouldn’t really be out of hospital. It was only because of the bug they let her out.’

‘You’re such a caring girl,’ Jean said. ‘You’ve always been like that.’ She smiled, reached forward and patted Peg’s hand.

Peg forced a smile.

‘We’re so alike, you and me. Both rebels,’ Jean went on.

Rebel was so far from how Peg thought of herself that she almost laughed.

‘We go our own way, do our own thing. A touch of the wild we’ve both got. I’m sorry if you think I was judging about you and that girl, Meggy.’

‘I didn’t think that, Aunty—’

‘Yes you did. You’ve got to live your life the way you see fit. Live and let live, that’s what I say. It was just I was all sixes and sevens about Mummy being poorly and what it might do to her if she found out, but of course she doesn’t have to find out or know anything, does she, Meggy?’

Jean’s fingers were now clasping Peg’s wrist tightly; her eyes fixed Taser-like on her.

‘Of course not, Aunty Jean. I’d never dream of it.’

‘Because it would kill her, you know. And you wouldn’t want responsibility for that.’

‘No.’

Peg retrieved her arm and took a swig from her glass, shuddering as the bitter liquid slid down her throat. And, in that moment, her mouth opened, the words just spilled out, and she showed the first of her cards.

‘Does Heyworth Court mean anything to you, Aunty Jean?’

Like a flick knife opening, Jean turned to face her. ‘Heyworth Court? Where did that come from?’

‘It was on a key. On a label on a key we found under some boxes on Nan’s wardrobe.’

Two vertical furrows appeared in the flesh on Jean’s forehead as she appeared to be racking through some sort of mental filing system – Peg wondered if it was memory, or tactics. Eventually, she looked coolly up. ‘Nothing. Heyworth Court means nothing to me.’

‘And Mary Perkins. Have you ever heard of Mary Perkins?’

Jean nodded, her eyes on Peg. ‘Of course. She was that poor girl from down the road. The one whose head that Cairns weirdo found on the beach. I’m sure he done it, you know. He was a right odd one, that one. Beachcombing. I’ll believe that when I see it.’

‘It was her in one of those photos I showed you. The photos you tore up.’

‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ Jean said, pushing a curl back on top of her head. Peg thought she could make out a sheen of sweat on her upper lip. It felt wrong, but she was enjoying watching her aunt squirm.

‘She was standing next to Dad in the photo.’

Jean scowled and shook her head. ‘Means nothing to me.’

‘What about Anna Thurlow? Does that ring any bells?’

‘Who?’

‘She went to my school. Went missing during the summer holidays twelve years ago.’

‘How horrid, dear. Never heard of her, I’m afraid.’

‘But I was at the school at the time. You must’ve heard about it.’

Jean pursed her lips and shook her head. Then, after a pause too brief for Peg to say anything else, she licked her bloated lips and went on. ‘Now listen, Meggy. Like I was saying. You really shouldn’t stay any longer than the end of this week. We’re all right now, me and Mummy. We’ve managed all these years, and there’s nothing to say we can’t keep on managing.’

‘I was thinking,’ Peg said innocently. ‘That intercom thingy Gramps put in. Does it still work well?’ She reached over and picked it up from Jean’s bedside table.

‘You’ve seen how I can still call through if I need you or Mummy, haven’t you?’ Jean said, reaching out and grabbing it away from Peg.

‘I mean, if it needs fixing or replacing, then let’s do it. You see, Dad’s given me some of that money.’

Jean gasped and put her hand to her face, but it was a phoney reaction, carried out a beat too late.

She knew. Of course she knew.

‘And I want to use it to help you and Nan out,’ Peg went on. ‘So that you
can
go on like you did before.’

Jean said nothing, so Peg felt compelled to continue.

‘As much as possible, I mean. With a bit of help and equipment and so on. Like grab bars and alarm cords and lifting aids. And possibly a live-in carer for Nan.’

Peg couldn’t think of anything else to say to fill the silence that radiated from Jean. So she stopped, and watched her closely for some sort of reaction.

‘He’s giving you money to look after us?’ Jean said.

‘Not exactly, but—’

‘He’s paying you off,’ Jean said, a smile slowly creasing across her face, balling her cheeks up so they were the size of grapefruits.

‘You could see it like that,’ Peg said, shrugging. ‘But—’

Jean cut in on Peg, her voice low and urgent. ‘You be careful, girl.’

‘But I’m putting it to good use round here, on you and Nan. I don’t want a penny for myself.’

Jean muttered something indistinct under her breath.

‘Sorry?’ Peg asked.

Jean just looked away. It was as if she hadn’t yet decided how to react.

‘So shall we get a new intercom installed? Perhaps something two-way so that you can listen in on Nan, make sure she’s OK?’ Peg knew she was pushing it, but Jean’s balloon of a face was unreadable.

‘I think this one can do that,’ Jean said, fiddling with a button on the front of the intercom. ‘I’m not sure how, though.’ She eventually put the thing down on the bedcover, apparently having failed to make its surveillance mode operate.

‘In any case,’ she went on, folding her hands one over the other. ‘Even if Mummy did get into trouble, what could I do? I’m stuck here in this bed. I’m useless. Oh Meggy, don’t get old or disabled. Cherish your youth and the fact you can do exactly what you want when and how you want. Don’t end up like me.’ Jean gave her a pleading look that might have been created for a small Disney animal.

As she sat there beside her mendacious aunt, nursing a glass of Guinness, a drink she had never liked, whose bitter taste actually made her feel ill, the idea that she was in a position to do what she wanted seemed almost laughable to Peg. She was in fact trapped: bound to a life defined by duty and secrets.

It had all started to seem never-ending and overwhelming to her.

Then

At some point, I think it was when I was just about nine or ten, Gramps took up fishing. He’d take himself off before anyone else was up, slipping out of the back door with his tackle and a pile of sandwiches he’d made himself.

He wouldn’t come back until my bedtime, or even later, so I saw him less and less. On the very greyest, wettest days, when water bucketed out of the pewter sky, he’d go and sit in his shed, not even coming out for tea because he had this little primus stove and kettle down there.

One day, I don’t remember when exactly, I came downstairs to find Nan standing in the kitchen, her arms crossed, staring across the rain-streaked garden at the light in the shed window.

‘Oh,’ she says, jumping when she hears me. ‘Oh Meggy, you nearly gave me a heart attack.’

‘Why’s Gramps never around any more?’

‘Oh, he’s got hobbies, dearie, never mind about that.’

Later – or perhaps it’s another time altogether – Nan’s round doing Aunty Jean’s hair. This takes a long time, because she likes it set just so.

I remember now. It is a different time altogether, because I’m poorly. I’m upstairs in my bed and my head is all woozy with a fever, despite the medicine Nan gives me. And it’s not raining. It’s the summer and it’s really, really hot, so Nan has left my attic trapdoor open to keep my temperature down.

There’s a burned smell in the air, but it’s something extra to the normal cigarette smell of the bungalow. Somewhere inside my head I know what that smell is about, but I can’t place it now . . .

I hear the back door opening and shutting, and Gramps softly calling Nan’s name.

‘Dolly?’

There’s no reply because, like I said, she’s round in Aunty Jean’s.

I’m just about to call down and tell him this when I hear the whir of the dial on the phone.

It’s the old phone, not the cordless. It lived on the phone table in the hallway, just under my trapdoor, until it finally broke down about the time I moved away when I was eighteen.

‘Er, hello?’ I hear Gramps say. ‘Is that you? It’s me.’

There’s a silence while he listens to what the other person says.

‘Yes, yes. I know. I’m sorry,’ he goes. Then after a moment, he says ‘Archer. I got your number from Archer. No. No, Don’t. It’s not his fault.’

There’s another pause. Then he speaks again.

‘That’s exactly it, though. It’s got dreadful. It’s got out of hand and it’s got to stop.’

His voice has got really low now, and all I can hear is mumble, mumble, mumble. I get bored and I open
Alice in Wonderland
. But then Gramps raises his voice.

‘I don’t know what to do though. Meggy’s ill because of it, and I—’

I prick up my ears at the mention of my own name.

‘I tried to burn them, and I hid the key where no one’ll find it. But I need you to—’

Then he listens again, but it isn’t long before he blusters out, his voice all agitated and a bit whiny, like I’ve never heard him before. ‘I
can’t
, son. She—’

At that moment the back door opens and slams shut and I hear the clip-clop of Nan’s furry slippers with their little heels.