The Edge of Sanity (11 page)

No Kayla, though, not a sign. Daniel might have been playing cat and mouse. She wasn’t likely to be standing in one place. But then, she might not be here at all, even if his every instinct told him otherwise. Maybe she wasn’t.

Beaten, he heaved through the crowd towards the exit, back past the main bar—and locked eyes with Mr Big Shot himself, the shit-dealing lowlife from outside.

****

‘What’s that freakin’ weirdo lookin’ at?’ Charlie dragged his contempt away from the bloke who was looking him over, and turned his attention back to pulling the bird with the blonde hair down to her bum. Great. Now she was eyeing up the geezer who was eyeing him up, despite Charlie having doled out a generous amount of quality crack to the silly cow.

That irritated Charlie. He wasn’t too enamoured of people muscling in on his territory. Pulling birds and pushing drugs was what Charlie did, and that big bastard was cramping his style. What was even more irritating, freaky even, was that he wasn’t looking in any particular way. Just sort of looking. No expression whatsoever.

Nah, he was getting paranoid. Coming down probably. And the bloke was obviously wasted. Charlie shrugged and looked away. He’d come over if he needed some gear. Meanwhile, he flashed the bird he had his eye on a tab and reeled her back in.

Chapter Six

‘Jo, I can’t hear you.’ Daniel clamped a hand over his ear, in a useless attempt to shut out the deafening throb of music.

‘I said …’ Jo’s response was lost on the noise.

This was impossible. ‘Jo, hold on,’ he shouted, heading for the exit.

‘What’s happened?’ he asked once outside, panic rising in his chest. ‘Is she all right?’

‘Yes, she … Daniel, where were you?’

‘A nightclub. I went in to—’

‘Oh.’ Jo said over him.

‘Jo …’ Daniel shook his head, frustrated. Was he hearing her right? That short word carried a whole lot of insinuation. Did Jo really think he’d gone in there for kicks? ‘I was looking for Kayla, Jo, not for a good time.’

‘Yes. Yes, of course you were. I’m sorry, Daniel, I … Look, you can stop looking. She’s fine.’

Daniel closed his eyes. ‘Is she home?’

‘No.’ Jo hesitated. ‘She’s not coming home, Daniel.’

What?
Daniel turned full circle on the pavement. ‘What do you mean, not coming home?’

‘Tonight, she meant. I’m sorry. I’m not thinking straight. She said she’d be back tomorrow.’

Daniel massaged his forehead, and tried to quash his uneasiness. Tonight, Jo had said. That was just one night. One night too many though, one which Kayla might think gave her
carte blanche
to do what she liked.

‘Did she ring?’ he asked, taking two strides forwards and two back again.

‘Yes, about fifteen minutes ago.’

‘And?’ If he was going to get this straight in his head, Daniel needed details.

Jo went quiet.

‘Jo?’

‘She said she needed some space,’ Jo said, sounding defeated. ‘That she didn’t want to see or talk to either of us. Then she … ended the call. Oh, Daniel, what have we done?’

Daniel slowed his restless pacing. What had
he
done? This was down to him. He was the cause it. He’d screwed up. And then, in trying to give Jo and Kayla some sort of a shot at a life, he’d screwed up all over again.

‘Where is she, Jo?’ he asked, his voice tight.

‘At a friend’s,’ she said. ‘I don’t have the number.’ Jo sighed wretchedly. ‘I’ve never even heard of her, to be honest.’

Daniel tried to take stock. Kayla was okay, that was the main thing. She was acting out, that was all. Even if she was putting them through the mill, at least she had rung to let them know she was okay. Jo was obviously worried sick, and his banging on about the whys and wherefores wouldn’t help.

‘She’ll be all right, Jo,’ he said softly. ‘Like she said, she just needs some space.’

‘I hope so,’ Jo breathed.

‘Do you want me to come back? Wait with you until she comes home?’

Jo hesitated. ‘No,’ she said, after a moment. ‘I’ll be fine. I’m going to have a hot bath, I think. And then try to get some sleep.’

‘Good idea,’ Daniel said quickly. ‘But you’ll ring me, yes? As soon as—’

‘Of course I will.’

‘I’ll wait to hear from you. And Jo …’ Daniel stopped. I still love you and always will, he wanted to say. ‘I wasn’t looking for a good time in there,’ he said instead, fancying that the former might be the opening to a long conversation, which was best left. Or a short one, which he would certainly rather leave. ‘You know that, don’t you? No one could hold a candle to you, anyway.’

‘Oh.’ Jo sounded surprised. ‘Well, thank you for that, but I think the girls in there might be fair competition. They have about twenty years on me.’

Daniel smiled. ‘No contest.’

Don’t leave it there, idiot, he cursed himself. Talk to her. ‘Who’d look at a sad old sod like me anyway?’ he said, and then cursed himself again, for not having the guts to take the conversation where he really wanted it to go.

‘Well,’ Jo considered, ‘there’s Miss Dawkins at the post office.’

Daniel laughed. ‘She’s a hundred and fifty.’

‘And Jan Green at the newsagents.’

‘She’s a bloody basket case. Every time I go in there, she follows me around the shop.’

‘
Ye-es
,’ Jo replied, her voice laden with insinuation. ‘Oh, and then there’s the postman.’

‘Ho, ho.’

‘He
does.
He always gives you a cute little wave. Haven’t you noticed?
’

‘Wondered why I got first class service.’

Jo laughed.

‘That’s better,’ Daniel said, hating how long it had been since she’d done that. ‘Are you going to be okay?’

‘Yes,’ Jo said. ‘Yes, I think I am, now. Thanks, Daniel, for being there.’

I wish I could be, Daniel thought. ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘I care about you. Both of you. Very much. Call me tomorrow, okay? Meanwhile, get some sleep.’

‘I’ll try. You too. Bye, Dan.’

‘Bye.’ Daniel waited for Jo to hang up, then flagged a taxi, worn out, and more worried than he’d let on to Jo. There was nothing he could do now but wait. He’d rather wait with Jo, but he realised he needed to prove that to her, assuming Jo wanted it too. Christ, he hoped so, prayed that Jo really did hope their relationship wasn’t
beyond all repair
.

****

‘I think I should give it a miss,’ Kayla said, risking another peek as her dad climbed into the taxi. He looked awful. He was pale. She’d bet he’d lost weight. And his body language was all wrong. Her dad walked tall, straight-shouldered, or he did until the last few months. Kayla wished he would go home. That she could go home. To a home that felt like home—like it used to.

Maybe she should tell them that. Then refuse to go back until they called a truce and sat down and talked, like adults. Yeah, right. If she didn’t go back, it’d be her mum slashing her wrists and blaming her dad. Mind you, the way her dad had acted tonight, he looked to be the parent Kayla should be worrying about.

‘Oh, come on, Kayla. Let’s go in,’ Hannah cajoled. ‘He’s gone, hasn’t he? And it’s nearly chucking out time, anyway. If we don’t go in now, we might as well forget it.’

Kayla debated.

‘Pretty please?’ Hannah blinked beguiling eyes. ‘We’re all slutted up now, aren’t we? And I’d
really
like to see Steve.’

‘I dunno.’ Kayla chewed on her bottom lip. ‘He looked pretty annoyed, didn’t he?’

‘Yeah,’ Hannah conceded. ‘But that’s what parents do.’

‘But what if he comes back?’

‘Kayla, he won’t be back. He’s an irate father, not a flippin’ private detective. ‘Now come
on
, or we’ll have wasted all this make-up.’ Hannah hooked her arm through Kayla’s and set forth towards Strobes. ‘And I know you’d want Charlie to see you looking gorgeous.’

‘Yeah, I suppose.’ Kayla doubted she looked gorgeous. And, peculiarly, despite all the anticipation, she wasn’t really sure what she wanted anymore. Except to lose herself on the dance floor, maybe.

‘Head high, breasts forwards,’ Hannah hissed as they sauntered nonchalantly toward Strobes. ‘And
smile.
’

Kayla rearranged her face, thrust her best assets forwards, and arm-in-arm they strolled inside, straight past the still-bewildered bouncers.

Chapter Seven

‘Been there, mate.’ John, who had a room in the same hotel as Daniel, nodded knowledgeably. ‘Wives and kids, nothing but trouble. You’re well out of it. Come on, just have the one,’ he slurred, waving a bottle of whisky. ‘Life goes on, you know.’

Daniel shook his head at the irony of that statement. Yes, right, he thought. Until God, fate, whatever, deigned otherwise. In one split second, Emma’s life had been stolen away, and he’d been allowed to go on. And he didn’t want to. Daniel knew that now more than ever. Not like this, not without Jo and Kayla.

‘I’ll pass, if you don’t mind,’ he said. ‘I’m knackered.’ The guy meant well, but drinking whisky wouldn’t help, unless he drank the whole bottle maybe. And then what? Pass out in his bed, knowing Jo might ring? No, he wasn’t about to do that. He needed to stay focussed until he knew Kayla was home safe. ‘Maybe tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Cheers, anyway.’

‘You’re on,’ John called after him as he headed up the stairs. ‘We’ll have a few beers in the pub and shoot some pool, if you like?’

‘Sounds good,’ Daniel lied. A boozy male bonding evening? Thanks, but no thanks. He’d be some kind of hypocrite anyway, wouldn’t he, drowning his sorrows in booze when Jo was obviously trying hard not to. He fumbled for his key and let himself into his room.

One room, six by four, it was only just big enough to house the few belongings he’d brought with him. He threw himself down on the circa-sixties nylon bedspread, propped his head on his hands, and stared at the coffee-stained walls, which seemed to loom ominously closer tonight. Daniel tried not to notice, until they shuffled in another inch.

Shit!
Panic knotting his stomach, he was up and across the room to yank the resisting window wide. He hated it. This … powerlessness. It reminded him too much of a kid half his size, who’d lain awake in a room much the same, his only escape the window, which refused to budge as stubbornly as this one. Even if he’d plucked up the courage to prise it open and scramble down the drainpipe, damp and cold in his pyjamas, he’d have to come back and face the music come morning, when his father’s hangover-induced wrath might be worse.

Much worse.

The lesser of the two evils was to stay. Get it over and done with. To wait in the dark and listen for the slamming front door, the curses and the creak on the stairs. And count, backwards.

Daniel peeled off his shirt, wiped the sweat from his torso, and tried to control his erratic breathing.

****

Jo had given up smoking about the same time she’d given up on her mother. Left Catholic condemnation if she so much as looked at a boy, and headed for the bright lights of London, which might well have been Mars, so alien was it compared to the slow city pace of Dublin.

People actually avoided eye contact on the tube. Jo recalled how amazed she’d been. And how slightly insane she must have seemed, smiling inanely away at complete strangers. God forbid they should crack their faces and smile back. She hadn’t liked it much, she remembered, but couldn’t admit it. Back to Dublin with her tail between her legs wasn’t an option when she’d kicked up such fuss about working in London in the first place. So she’d applied for another job in England instead.

Selling advertising space for a Worcester based rag was hardly roving reporter, but a more sedate pace of life suited Jo better. More importantly, it kept her from under the beady eye of her mother and two burly brothers who, with her best interests at heart, would have watched her like hawks had she actually done anything worth watching. There’d only been two men before Daniel, and they hadn’t half measured up, she recalled with a smile.

Netting Dan was a big plus as far as her mother was concerned. He had earned Jo a gold star; her mum had adored him from the outset.

‘He’s a twinkle in his eye.’ She had nodded approvingly, having immediately sized up the length and breadth of him. ‘And a lovely smile.’

‘And a nice arse.’ Jo had grinned wickedly, and her mother’s mood had shifted swiftly from good-humoured to po-faced.

‘Hmm, well now you come to mention it,’ she had said after a while, watching Daniel walk by.

Thereafter, her mother broke out the home-baked bread whenever Dan and she went back to Ireland. She’d loved Kayla and Emma, too, fiercely. Losing her grandchild had aged her overnight. Jo remembered how fragile her mum had suddenly seemed, though she’d tried hard not to show it.

She’d made it to the funeral though, somehow, where she’d hugged Jo tight, tears hot on her cheek, and her eyes off somewhere over her shoulder. Jo had twisted in her arms to follow her gaze, to where Daniel had walked dry-eyed and alone from the cemetery. And Jo had known then, that her mother was crying not just for what was lost, but for what was to come, too.

Jo wiped at a tear, sucked on her cigarette, coughed heartily, and stubbed it out. She’d hoped smoking might fill the gap left by the wine, which she might well have reached for tonight. Smoking wasn’t much help though. She’d forgotten how foul the things tasted.

She’d forgotten what it was like to be alone, too. On her own, in a house that suddenly seemed too big. The only person in the world she wanted to talk to, other than Daniel—who seemed unable to—was her mum. But how could she ring at this ungodly hour? Then she’d have to break the news about Daniel and her.

No, she couldn’t. It would destroy her mother.

There was no one else. No one she wanted to confide in anyway. She had never known her own dad. She’d asked Daniel what having a father was like one day, years ago, and in doing so, flicked a switch that turned the look in his eye from warm to sub-zero in an instant.

‘I don’t have a father,’ he had said flatly.

Which was rubbish. Jo knew he had one. She supposed Daniel had his reasons, but whatever they were, Jo couldn’t condone, in her heart-of-hearts, Daniel cutting him dead. She’d never said it, of course, to Daniel. Because Daniel would never discuss it, other than to say his childhood wasn’t great, then make it obvious he’d prefer to leave it at that.