The Secret Life of Luke Livingstone (24 page)

‘I don’t think you should let this go,’ she said. ‘Let’s report it to the police.’

‘It’s all right, Kate. What I’m doing upsets people.’

‘Who?’

‘Lots of people. I’d better get used to it.’ Luke raised his hand to show that the subject was closed. Then he turned to John and said something about a cricket tour.

Kate wasn’t interested in cricket. She got up and stood in the doorway, holding her hands out to the downpour. Dad was trying to cover something up, that much was obvious. The injuries looked to be a few days old. Simon had been here last week; she wondered whether he’d noticed anything.

Simon was here.

Simon found Dad wearing a dress.

Simon.

She stepped into the rain, pulling out her phone. She was sheltering under the fig tree when Simon answered.

‘I’m at Dad’s,’ she said, without preliminaries.

‘Christ almighty—I told you, Kate! He’s got a bedroom full of women’s clothes.’ He’d swung straight into holier-than-thou mode. Jerk.

‘He’s black and blue,’ she said. ‘What the hell did you do to him?’

He didn’t try to deny it. ‘He was out on the streets looking like a frigging pervert. He’s going to get himself arrested.’

She could see her father through the open doorway. He was sitting in an armchair, listening intently to John. He didn’t look like a frigging pervert. He looked like a kind, anxious man—or maybe a kind, anxious woman, now that she thought about it. Either way, it was her dad: the same person she’d loved all her life.

‘Have you read that round robin he sent out?’ asked Simon.

‘Yes.’

‘Mum’s going to divorce him. He’s going to lose everything, probably end up on the streets. Nobody will give him the time of day. Maybe then he’ll realise what a fool he’s been.’

‘You make me sick!’ Kate saw her father glance out at her, and dropped her voice. ‘In all the years since you were born, he’s never once so much as laid a finger on you in anger—despite the fact that you’ve been a real little bastard at times. Any other man would have walloped seven bells out of you sooner or later, but not Dad. He’s been the most patient, understanding, loving father in the world. Fuck, how many times has he bailed you out of trouble? And now it’s his hour of need, and you break into his home and smash him up! Oh, aren’t you clever, aren’t you brave, aren’t you a total fuckwit of a meathead?’

‘He hit me too.’ Simon sounded like a five-year-old.

‘Looks to me like you tried to throttle him! That’s attempted murder. I should go to the police.’

‘Look, I’m not proud of myself, but if you’d been there and seen—’

‘Oh, fuck off.’ Kate cut him off, stormed back inside and threw herself into an armchair. Her hair was dripping. ‘Frigging Simon! I know it was him, Dad, don’t bother denying it. He’s just admitted it. Can I phone Mum? She has to hear about this.’

‘No,’ replied Luke.

‘So we let him get away with it?’

‘Yes.’

Kate blew out her cheeks. ‘Carmela’s going to hit the roof.’

‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ said Luke, who was calmly refilling glasses. ‘Anyway, she isn’t going to know, because you aren’t going to tell her. She’s pregnant.’

‘She’s got a right to know what kind of a tosspot she’s married to.’

‘No, Kate. No. I’m asking you not to stir things up. Just let it go. Now, how about that takeaway? There’s an excellent Thai down the road.’

Kate huffed and puffed, but she had to give in. It was her dad’s decision.

They had a great evening in the end. She hadn’t expected that, not with so much misery flying around the family. They ate at the kitchen table while Mathis regaled them with celebrity gossip he’d picked up at work. It was getting on for eleven o’clock when Luke’s phone rang. Kate saw him look at the number, and immediately smile. There was only one person who could make her father smile like that. There had only ever been one person.

‘Eilish,’ he said, as he answered.

John and Mathis tactfully got up and started washing dishes, chatting to one another. Kate wanted to listen to her father’s conversation, but had no choice but to grab a tea towel and help the lads. Her ears pricked up, though, when she heard her dad mutter, ‘Do you want to talk to Kate?’

She moved closer, listening openly now.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘Shall I come out there to be with you?’

She could hear the murmur of her mother’s voice. Luke nodded.

‘All right then. I’ll tell Kate . . . All right. Stay in touch. I’ll be waiting.’ He listened for another few moments, then whispered, ‘Me too. Me too. Bye . . . bye, darling.’

He spoke so tenderly, so intimately. It was as though the divorce wasn’t happening at all. He shut the phone and sat for a moment with his head bowed. Then he looked up.

‘Carmela’s in labour,’ he said. ‘It’s much too early.’

Twenty-six

Eilish

You know you’re getting long in the tooth when your hot-shot no-holds-barred solicitor is no older than your son. She suggested we get the divorce underway immediately, and demand an undertaking from Luke, in order to protect the assets. As thunder rolled outside, she took a history from me.

‘I’ve seen this kind of thing before,’ she said.

‘What, married men who turn into women?’

She dropped her voice, as though the walls had ears. ‘You’d be surprised. One of my colleagues had a client who couldn’t understand why her shoes were always too big for her. Even the ones she’d hardly worn. I think you can guess the rest.’

‘Yes,’ I said faintly. ‘Oh, yes. I recognise that.’

I was her last appointment. I left her office and ran through a downpour to my car. Oxford’s traffic was a nightmare. I doubt whether it was safe for me to be driving, because I can remember nothing about the journey except the slap-slap as my wipers tried to cope with teeming rain. I was thinking about the night I went to see
Giselle
, and lent a handsome man my opera glasses. Seemed like yesterday.

The church clock was striking eight as I splashed my way through East Yalton. The house looked dark and empty. I walked
in, flicking on lights. Casino appeared within two seconds and gave me a fishwife-style telling-off, because it was long past his supper time. I emptied a can of food into his bowl and then sat at the kitchen table, feeling poleaxed.

I was dismayed by what I had begun. I’d been to a solicitor. I had knocked over the first domino, and the trail of fallen hopes would lead to the ending of my marriage. Had I really done that?

Casino jumped up and curled on my lap. I didn’t move. I knew Luke. I didn’t know Luke. He was a lover, he was a stranger; he was honourable, he was a conman. I feared for him. I pitied him. I raged at him. I loved him. He’d been my travelling companion all through my adult life; how could he walk away from me like this?
It’s you who’s been to the solicitor
, said a small voice on the other side of my anger.
It’s you who’s done the walking away.

I don’t know how much time had passed before the phone rang. It jerked me back into wakefulness.
Perhaps it’s Luke
, I thought.
Perhaps he’s asking to come home. There’s still time to stop that divorce petition from being posted
.

‘Mum,’ said Simon. ‘Something’s happening.’

Simon

He found Carmela lying on the sofa with her feet on a cushion. Nico was all ready for bed, watching
One Hundred and One Dalmatians.
He jumped up and hugged his father around the waist.

‘You’re wet!’ he declared.

‘Just a bit. I walked in the rain.’

‘We’re watching the dogs. Cruella wants to make them into coats.’

‘Not more dogs! I’ve been looking at dogs all day,’ spluttered Simon with mock horror. He squatted down beside Carmela. ‘All right?’

‘Just those Braxton Hicks contractions,’ she said, rubbing her bump. ‘They hurt a lot . . . ouch! How was work?’

‘Not bad.’

In fact, it had been a hell of a day. The surgery was packed, one of the nurses was off sick, and the new receptionist didn’t have a clue. And his dad had taken to wearing tights. He went into the kitchen, poured a gin and tonic and knocked it back.
Tights
. He couldn’t get that image out of his mind.

‘Eilish phoned this afternoon,’ called Carmela. ‘She was just going to the solicitor. Ouch.’

He made a hot water bottle for her stomach, and left her resting while he and Nico had supper together. Nico had gone upstairs to look for his favourite story book when Simon’s phone rang. It was Kate—she could be such a pain in the arse, his sister—ranting because she’d found out about his fight with Dad. In the end, she hung up on him.

‘Christ’s sake,’ muttered Simon. ‘Miss Self-Righteous.’

I won’t think about Dad, he decided as he sloshed more gin into a glass. Not now. He was going to fall apart if he didn’t stop thinking about his father. Since his visit to Thurso Lane he’d been waking in the early hours, haunted by the horror of the moment when the woman in the kitchen had turned around. What he wanted to do, right now, was forget the whole nightmare and have a happy half-hour with his son. He climbed the stairs to find Nico sitting on his bed, clutching Piglet and looking through his book.

‘This one first,’ he said, crawling onto Simon’s knee. ‘“The Magic Crayon”.’

At the end of the third story, Simon closed the book. Nico made Piglet dance up and down on his father’s arm.

‘Did you have lots of ill cats today?’ he asked.

‘Oh, a great army of ill cats.
This
many.’ Simon held up the fingers of both hands. ‘And dogs. And a snake. And a very fluffy hamster called Vodka. He had bed hair. It stuck up all over the place.’

‘Did you make all those animals better?’

‘Most of them.’

‘I want to be a wet, when I grow up,’ said Nico.

Simon nuzzled his nose into the pudding-basin haircut. ‘You’ll be a very good wet,’ he said. ‘And now it’s time for bed.’

Nico had an armoury of delaying tactics. ‘Mummy said “ow” today, when my baby bruvver or sister kicked her.’

‘Poor Mummy.’

‘Will you read this story now?’ Nico opened the book again. ‘It’s just a teeny one.’

‘Tomorrow. How about a flying lesson. Ready for take-off?’ Simon stood up and swung the small boy into the air, twirling him around before landing him back on the bed.

‘Granny was on the phone,’ said Nico, scrambling under the duvet. ‘She’s got a present for me. I think it’s probably another car. I couldn’t talk to Grandpa, though, because he doesn’t live there anymore.’

‘Night-night, don’t let the bed bugs bite. Give us a kiss.’

‘Is he gone because you told him off when I gave him flowers?’

‘I didn’t tell him off.’

Nico’s brown eyes were wide. He knew a fib when he heard one. ‘You
did
. I heard you. You shouted like THIS!’ He opened and closed his mouth, silently imitating a lot of shouting. ‘Poor Grandpa.’

Simon felt a sickening mix of shame and fury. ‘I didn’t really shout. There are things you can’t understand, and you just have to let the grown-ups worry about those. Time for sleeping now. Goodnight, Nico; goodnight, Piglet.’

As he turned out the light, he looked back. Nico was lying down, holding Piglet at arm’s length above his face. He was speaking in a deep, angry growl.

‘Getchor hands off my son,’ he said. ‘Getchor hands off my son.’

In the kitchen, Carmela had made a pot of camomile tea.

‘Feeling better?’ asked Simon.

‘Yes, thank you. The hot water bottle worked like magic. I wasn’t a happy banana before.’

He carried her tea and his gin back to the sitting room, turned down the lights and put Elgar on the stereo. She lay on the sofa with her feet across his knees, her toenails painted the colour of opals. He wondered how she could even reach them nowadays.

‘I should phone Mum,’ he said. ‘Find out what happened at the solicitor’s.’

‘Don’t do that now.’

It was peaceful in the mellow light and rippling music.

‘I heard you reading,’ she said. ‘I like “The Magic Crayon”.’

He stroked her ankles.

‘What really happened in Luke’s flat that day?’ she asked.

‘I found him wearing women’s clothes.’

‘I know that. But what happened next?’

‘I left. I went to the pub and had a couple of pints. I came home.’

‘Mm?’ She wiggled her toes. ‘Since that day you have not slept, you have not eaten, you have not smiled. I wish you would tell me why.’

‘Because I’ve lost my father.’

‘And he was your wise friend.’

Simon tipped his head back against the sofa, half closing his eyes. The gin was finally taking effect. The pain was dulled. ‘No, he was a fraud. Shh. I don’t want to talk about him.’

He felt her feet gradually relax, and knew she was dozing off. So was he. They ought to get up, get changed and go to bed. They would. In a minute. The music flooded around him, lifted him up and floated him away.

The lights were flashing. Disco lights. The DJ put on a slow song: ‘Nights in White Satin’. Jessica had the sexiest, longest legs he’d ever seen. She leaned close, melting against him. Her mouth was warm.