The First Time I Saw Your Face (44 page)

‘When I came to see you after … on that terrible Saturday, I asked Auntie Bren if I should tell you that I’d paid Mack a call … and that he seemed upset, genuinely upset. You see, I thought it might give you some comfort that not everything he’d done had been a lie. Auntie Bren almost tore my head off, said the best way for you to get over it was to stop talking about him.’

Genuinely upset?

‘I don’t want to hear it, Cress. Sorry, I can’t … I …’

‘OK, sweetie, OK … let’s leave it, let’s … how can I help you now? What can I say?’ There was a little hiccup from America. ‘Oh God, Jen, I’ve missed you so much.’

The underwater heavy-breathers were back.

‘I’ll have to go in a minute,’ Jennifer said, reaching up and tearing off some toilet paper to wipe her eyes. ‘I’m sitting on the toilet floor, I’ve been missing for a while. If Sheila comes to find me and knows you’re on the phone she’ll prise it from my hands and want to know all the ins and outs of you and Anna Maria.’

‘Not the “Shake it all abouts”? People seem very interested in those.’

‘What?’

‘The hokey cokey: you put your left leg in, your left leg … oh, come on, sweetie, you need to get that brain back firing on all cylinders. You’ve been spending too much time with Anaesthetic Alex.’

‘Cress … he’s been really—’

‘Smothering. But enough of that twat … the toilet floor, Jen? You’re not ill, are you?’

Jennifer thought about that. ‘No, not ill, just … wobbly. I’ve just seen … something horrible in the park.’

‘It’s not that bloody flasher again, is it? For goodness’ sake, he must be about eighty by now, I’m surprised his arthritic arms can still pull open his mac.’

Jennifer started to laugh, and then it slid into more hearty sobbing. She could hear that she’d set Cress off again too.

She helped herself to more toilet roll and blew her nose this time. ‘Oh, Cress, you don’t know how good it is to hear that stupid humour of yours again. But no, it’s not the flasher, it’s … him.’

Please say the right thing, Cress. Please come back to me.

‘And you want to kill him?’ Cress said slowly.

‘Exactly, Cress. I do. I’m so angry with him for all the lies – for him treating me like some little chess piece he could just move where he wanted and outraged he’s got the nerve to think that he can come back, look sad and say the right thing and I’ll forgive him.’

‘Scary, isn’t it, feeling like that?’

‘Yes. I … I don’t know what I might do to him.’

‘But anger’s great, Jen. I mean I know it’s not an easy fix, but I’m so used to hearing that heart-twisting sadness that to know you’re angry is brilliant.’

‘It is and it’s not. I should get Dad, Danny, anyone to have a word with the police, get him kept away, but my anger makes me want to crush him myself. And that means seeing him to do it. Oh look, I can’t talk about this here, on the toilet floor. I’m sorry, Cress. Ring me back tonight. My tonight, not yours?’

‘Of course, of course. Dry your eyes, go back to work. I’ll ring … about eight, promise.’

‘There’s so much I want to tell you, Cress.’

‘Yeah … there are a few things I want to tell you too. But perhaps that’s not for tonight eh? Tonight’s just you and me back in the photo booth.’

‘Giggling and being stupid.’

‘It’s what we do best.’

As Jennifer walked back into the library an image of Mack sitting on the bed, his hair mussed up by her hands, crept into her mind. She felt the painful pull of yearning, but quashed it immediately. She would not let her body betray her like this. She forced herself to remember how he had appeared so dorkish and naive; the sympathy he had got from her over his fictitious girlfriend; the way he’d purposely got Cressida’s name wrong, and soon her anger felt like a piece of strong armour again.

CHAPTER 47

‘It makes nae sense.’ Doug was staring at the three books about fly fishing. ‘I can’t stand fishing. And why would I want a cat blanket; I divvn’t have a cat?’

‘No invoice or anything?’ Mack asked.

Doug went back over to the torn wrappings and just shook his head. ‘Postmarked Newcastle, that’s nae help.’

Mack left him shaking his head and passed Pat’s van coming up the drive as he headed out. He slowed down and watched in the rear-view mirror as Pat emerged with two parcels and Doug came to meet her. That was a start: Doug’s lips were moving and he hadn’t fallen in the pond.

Mack had settled into a daily routine of misery. First stop was the newsagent’s for a bar of chocolate, then the coffee shop for a latte. He’d decided to concentrate on books from now on, safer than papers and magazines, and the woman in the bookshop had started talking to him, recommending what else he might like to read. If it was fine he sat on the seat; if it rained he sheltered in the bandstand. At about 1 p.m. he had his lunch, always a
sandwich also eaten in the park, and was working his way around the different sandwich shops. He was not going back to the one round the back of the hospital. He’d bought something called ‘rustic chicken’ in a wrap and if the aftertaste had been strange, the effect on his bowels was even worse.

After lunch, just as the abbey clock struck 2 p.m., he left the park, drove into the countryside and walked.

Sitting in the sun, he wondered what today would bring. The number of people still to catch up with him had dwindled, and he got the impression Jennifer’s family had decided that if he didn’t hassle her, he was best left alone. They all expected him to get disheartened with his lack of progress. He took a large bite from the chocolate bar. Well, they were out of luck there. He had no idea how this was going to unfold, he might still be here when he was a very old man, but he wasn’t giving up.

Lack of funds was becoming a bit of a problem, though. He’d been telling the truth to Doug when he’d said that apart from paying Phyllida’s rehab bills, the money from O’Dowd was still intact. Tess and Joe had lent him the money to come north and Doug wasn’t charging him rent, but Mack contributed to food, had to pay his own petrol. He wondered if anyone up here was hiring silver pirates, afternoons only.

He finished his coffee and tried to read his book, but today Alex kept intruding into his thoughts. He was suspiciously quiet. Was he too busy working his way back into Jen’s affections to bother paying him any more visits? Mack
had a gut-churning vision of Jen in an apron hanging out washing, little versions of Alex clinging on to her skirt. It disappeared when the real Jennifer walked under the arch into the park.

‘What’s the book?’ she asked. ‘Lying and cheating at advanced level or how to upset the scarred and vulnerable?’

He couldn’t stop himself saying, ‘You look lovely,’ and was rewarded with a brittle laugh as she looked down at her clothes.

‘Still lying,’ she said.

‘I didn’t mean the clothes,’ he replied, and she pursed her lips and sat down on the arm of the seat, her expression telling him she thought he was not only a liar, but a smarmy one.

There was something different about her today, and he didn’t know if it was different in a good or a bad way. When she said, ‘I’ve been chatting to Cressida the last few evenings. Better get out your notebook,’ he knew it was a bad way.

‘Let’s see,’ she said, playing the part of a gabby gossip to perfection, ‘Anna Maria and Cress are hunkered down in a hotel, short break before it’s back to filming the scenes they had to reschedule, the ones with Rory. Then they’re off to Argentina for a holiday. Rory is milking the situation all he can. He’s granting Diane Sawyer an exclusive next week on the heartache of coping with his wife’s changed sexuality.’ She gave him a horrible fake smile. ‘Fascinating, eh? What else? Oh yes, Cress just listened
while I told her how much I disliked and distrusted you. How you’re starting to make me hate this park. Cress says it’s good to get it all out. Take every opportunity to tell you what I think of you. Hey, wait a minute … you’re not writing any of this down.’

He could feel his throat getting lumpy and dry. ‘Jen, please. I know you’re bitter, but today, please give me the chance to tell you about my mother. I know the others have given you some of—’

‘No,’ she said forcefully. ‘Not interested. Tell you what;
you
listen to
me
, about my broken heart. You made me believe you wanted me, Mack.’

‘Sweetheart, I did,’ he said, and she was on her feet.

‘Don’t call me that. It just trips off your tongue so easily.’

‘Jen, I never set out to break your heart—’

‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she said, and he saw the blue of her eyes suddenly bloom as the tears welled up in them, ‘broken heart, broken face. Nice to have matching accessories.’

He watched her run back over the road and knew that being beaten up every day by Alex would be preferable to this – to knowing you had caused someone you loved such pain.

He cried then, discreetly, and turned away from the library, feeling today that there was no way back from what he’d done. How could words, however truthful, heal the wounds he’d caused?

But she’d sat on the seat, did that mean something? It was the closest he’d got to her since he’d been back.

That evening Doug took one look at him and drove
him up the coast. Doug had chatted about Pat for most of the way, ecstatic that she was also into heavy metal and when he plunged into the sea, Mack knew that Doug wasn’t numbing himself; he was revelling in being alive. It was Mack who now welcomed this opportunity not to feel.

He turned in as soon as they got back.

‘Not going to chance the day getting any worse,’ he said, trying to make light of it, but Doug wasn’t paying attention anyway.

He was examining the football and umbrella that had arrived that morning, his lips in a little smile.

Mack had only been in bed a matter of minutes when his mobile rang.

‘Mack, it’s Tess. Mum’s disappeared.’

He sat up, all his hopes for Phyllida crashing down yet again. ‘What? How did that happen? Don’t they keep an eye on her?’

‘They do, up to a point, but it’s not a prison, Mack, she’s there voluntarily. She just slipped away: seems she’d planned it with this new chum of hers. She covered for her.’

‘I’ll drive down,’ he said, getting out of bed.

‘No, not overnight. Leave it till tomorrow, we’ve talked to the police. We’ll let you know if we hear anything.’ The rest of the phone call was Tess crying.

Next morning, Doug chatted animatedly to Pat as she watched him open a parcel containing a pair of tartan wellington boots, but the pleasure Mack should have taken
in watching them was severely diluted by the news that Phyllida was still missing.

He went out into the garden and bellowed with rage and frustration. He had been so sure that Phyllida meant to get better this time. Now she could be lying anywhere that served alcohol.

Bloody perfect timing, Phyllida, as usual.

It was hard to know whether he hated his father or his mother more right then, and he set off for the kitchen again, sorry that Pat’s giggling and Doug’s answering low laugh were about to be silenced by his piece of news. He stopped on the threshold and turned as the sound of a car nosing into the lane reached him.

No, not people with pitchforks now. Not Ray. Not Alex.

A taxi came to a halt by the door and Phyllida got out.

‘Ah, delightful,’ she said, looking at the house as if she was a visiting member of the royal family.

‘Please, Phyllida,’ he said, ‘tell me you didn’t get that taxi all the way from Bath?’

CHAPTER 48

Danny glowered at Mack as if he would be quite prepared, right now, to go off and buy a pig and let it eat him. Mack was careful to do nothing to provoke him, staying exactly where he had been told to sit, on an old tractor tyre right in the corner of the yard with Danny just a few feet away.

He heard his name being called and turned to see Bryony coming down the track with the sheepdog.

‘That Mack’s an idiot too,’ Danny said, looking at the dog.

‘Still in there?’ Bryony shouted and when Danny shouted ‘Yes!’ she turned around and went back up the track, peeling off at the top into one of the fields.

Danny resumed his glowering; Mack went back to thinking about how much gumption his mother had shown in coming north. He had left it to Tess to scold her over the phone; he was too touched by the fact that for the first time in his life she appeared to be wading in on his side. Whether she had been drinking during her stopover in London or on the journey north he could not say and did not ask.

When the farmhouse door opened he looked up, but it was Ray, his face almost comical, eyebrows up, cheeks puffed out. He looked across at Mack and blew out his breath.

‘My, your mother’s a formidable woman.’

Mack had to agree: in a straight fight between her and Brenda he was not sure who would win. He wondered what Jen was making of it all, the fact Phyllida was in rehab and her confirmation of Mack’s story about being blackmailed. In an ideal world Jennifer would emerge from the farmhouse soon, her arms flung wide and shouting, ‘I understand it all now, Mack, you are forgiven.’ In reality he wasn’t counting on anything. He felt as if he was waiting for some life-or-death medical results and he could have done with walking about to distract himself, but he knew Danny would be off after that pig if he did.

When the door opened next it was Phyllida and Brenda who came out. No sign of Jennifer. Mack got to his feet and watched the women advance on him. Despite the flowery walking stick that Phyllida was now using, they brought to mind two politicians who had been locked in talks and were emerging to broadcast the outcome.

Brenda gave a little cough. ‘Your mother –’ she nodded delicately at Phyllida – ‘has explained the whole Montgomery thing – your mistake, her … inability at the time to give you a clear idea of whether O’Dowd’s story was the truth or not.’

Tactfully put.

‘Brenda and her family –’ Phyllida halted and tilted her
head graciously towards Brenda – ‘now have a better idea of why you became involved in this –’ his mother struggled before settling on – ‘fiasco. And I have agreed that you were an absolute idiot not to have double and treblechecked O’Dowd’s flimsy “evidence”, and a conniving, deceitful wretch to have carried this scheme through to the end.’