The Things We Never Said (17 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Maggie hadn’t planned to go back to Hastings, not so soon anyway. But there’s no alternative. Leonard drives up in early February to collect them. The drive takes twice as long as usual because of the snow. It’s even worse in the south, he says. They’ve had drifts fifteen feet deep, and the sea froze last week. It’s a record, according to the BBC.

The twins, now twelve weeks old, are sleeping at either end of their extra-large carrycot, which is wedged on the back seat of Leonard’s packed-to-bursting Morris Traveller. Vanda leans in and kisses them, slipping a five-pound note under the coverlet when she thinks Maggie isn’t looking. Maggie tries not to cry as she hugs Vanda goodbye. This wasn’t the plan; this wasn’t what was supposed to happen.

Everything had been all right before Christmas – that was when the snow started. It had seemed magical at first, and late on Christmas night, Maggie had stood at the back door, blowing her cigarette smoke out into the freezing night and watching the lacy flakes float down, fast and silent like a moving Christmas card. The world seemed to quieten by the second, a soft white hush settling over the little back yard and on the rooftops beyond. Someday, she would take her children out into their own back garden and show them how to build a snowman.

On Boxing Day, Una, Jimmy and a few of the others had turned up. Maggie hadn’t expected to see any of them again, yet here they were, treating her like an old friend. No one called her ‘Little Mags’ now. With the tree lights twinkling and Christmas records playing on the radiogram, they’d sipped whisky, eaten Maggie’s mince pies and played endless games that no one but Jimmy seemed to have heard of. Una volunteered to give Elizabeth her top-up bottle, but swiftly handed her back when she regurgitated most of it. ‘Darling! I’m
so
sorry,’ Una said, holding Elizabeth at arm’s length. ‘I appear to have spilt your baby.’

Later, after they’d all gone, Maggie and Vanda watched the Dick Van Dyke show on television. Maggie took out her sewing box to finish repairing Vanda’s costume. She and Vanda made a good team, she thought. Money was tight now, but once the twins were older, she’d be able to bring more in.

When the show finished, Vanda stood up, stretched, and turned the set off. Maggie watched the white dot shrink and disappear while Vanda wandered over to the window and lifted the net curtain. ‘It’s getting heavy; I’d better go and get ready – it’s going to be a bugger getting across town in this.’

Maggie folded the sequinned costume and packed it along with the green shoes and the heavy bag of make-up. Then she tidied up a bit, made a turkey sandwich for Vanda to take with her and put more coal on the fire. She’d just begun to wonder why Vanda was taking so long when she heard her footsteps on the stairs, slow, one step at a time, not the way Vanda usually clattered up and down stairs at all.

‘Hurry up,’ Maggie said. ‘You’ll be—’

‘He’s dead. Boris is dead.’

*

Vanda cried for two days.

‘It’s only a bloody snake,’ Leonard said when Maggie rang him on New Year’s Eve. ‘I mean, I could understand her being upset about losing a faithful old dog, but—’

‘Boris was a faithful old snake. It was probably old age, but she thinks he froze to death because she forgot to check the bulbs on Christmas Day. And don’t forget he’s been her livelihood for seventeen years. In fact, without Boris . . .’

‘So what’s she going to do for money now? What are
you
going to do?’

*

As they drive slowly out of the still-frozen city, she is struck by how unfamiliar the town looks. The snow changes the shape of the buildings and trees, makes everything bigger and startling white against the inky sky. On her way into Sheffield just over a year ago, she’d noticed the dark stone buildings, blackened by smoke from the steelworks, and the giant furnaces, casting an orange glow on the skyline. At twenty-one, ambitious and eager to make her mark, that view had symbolised industry, the busy-ness of getting on with life rather than waiting for it to start.

Now it’s as though that Maggie was another person. She turns and looks over into the back seat; the twins look different somehow. There’s something vivid about their faces; something more demanding, more real.

They’ve only travelled about thirty miles when it starts again. At first, there are big, heavy flakes that fall straight to the ground, but then the wind gets up and soon they’re driving through a blizzard, snow flying at them horizontally then swirling in front of the car so they can’t see more than a few feet ahead. After three hours, they’re still only just past Chesterfield. They pull into a roadside café so that Maggie can feed the babies. Leonard goes inside to get their bottles warmed while Maggie attempts to give them their breastfeed. Elizabeth won’t latch on, so Maggie ignores her pathetic little mewling noises while she feeds Jonathan instead. Mercifully, he takes his feed, burps, and goes back to sleep. She tries Elizabeth again, but although she roots frantically for the nipple, as soon as she finds it, she spits it out in disgust. ‘Come on, darling,’ Maggie coos. ‘Have some of Mummy’s milk.’ But Elizabeth’s bottom lip juts forward and she starts to howl.

Maggie is on the verge of tears when Leonard comes back to the car. He averts his eyes as he climbs into the front seat.

‘Thank God for that,’ she takes one of the bottles. ‘Here you are, sweetheart. Is this what you wanted?’ But Elizabeth twists and pulls away, her crying reaching an even higher pitch.

‘Oh, for Pete’s sake,’ Leonard says after a few moments. ‘Give her here and go and warm yourself up a bit.’

Elizabeth stops crying almost as soon as Leonard takes her. ‘See,’ he smiles, as Elizabeth settles immediately to her bottle. ‘You just need the magic touch.’

She hates me, Maggie thinks as she makes her way carefully across the café’s frozen forecourt. She doesn’t want me as her mother.

The warmth of the café is cheering, even though the place is empty. Maggie lights a cigarette and drinks her tea, ignoring the lipstick mark and sugar crystals around the edge of the cup. With each sip, and each puff of her cigarette, she is further revived.

Vanda hadn’t had the heart to train a new snake. She’d worked a few extra shifts at the pub, but it wasn’t enough. Maybe if it hadn’t been for this endless snow . . .

One night soon after Christmas, Vanda had set off for work as usual, dressed in a fur coat and hat, leather gloves, a knitted scarf and gumboots with two pairs of thick socks over her stockings. Less than half an hour later, she was back. Maggie had been huddled in front of the gas stove trying to warm her chapped hands when the back door opened and Vanda leapt in, a flurry of snow blowing in after her. ‘The beer’s frozen,’ she said. ‘First time in living memory, apparently. They’re closing until the weather lets up.’ She stomped her feet to get the snow off her boots. ‘So there’ll be no wages for a while.’

Maggie filled the kettle for tea. ‘I’ve still got a bit in the post office,’ she offered.

‘That’s if we can
get
to the bloody post office.’ Vanda peeled off her gloves and blew into her hands. ‘It’s probably closed. Everything else is.’

Even when the pub reopened, the takings were down and the landlord cut Vanda’s shifts to four a week, then two. So she started at the sweet factory. Maggie smiles at this memory. Poor Vanda. At the end of her first day, she’d stumbled home through the snow, reeling and giggling as though drunk. ‘God, I feel peculiar,’ she said as she fell into the house. Then her skin turned pale and she passed out on the back-room floor.

‘Vanda!’ Maggie knelt next to her and shook her. ‘Vanda, are you all right?’

Vanda stirred, burped, and then scrabbled to her feet, only just making it to the back door to be violently sick. When Maggie asked if it might have been something she ate, she admitted to having consumed a lot of uncooked sweets at work. ‘My supervisor said I could eat as many as I liked – perks of the job. I was preparing them for the oven, see, and they were so soft and gooey, I just kept popping them into my mouth.’ She paused and her skin seemed to fade again. ‘God, I must have eaten about thirty or forty of the things.’ She groaned. ‘I need to go to bed. My head’s going to come off.’

Although she still felt rough the next day, she went to the factory, but was only out of the house for two hours before she was back, looking a delicate shade of green. Maggie fetched her a glass of water and a blanket so she could lie on the settee.

‘You’ll never guess,’ Vanda said in a feeble voice. ‘You know I told you how I ate all those raw sweets? They were Victory Vs; seems they contain ether – and chloroform. All right when they’re cooked, but . . .’

‘No wonder you were ill. Isn’t that what they use to knock people out?’

Vanda nodded, closing her eyes.

‘You didn’t eat more today, surely?’

‘No, it’s the fumes. They make the mixture in these huge vats and even the smell makes me ill.’ She let out a weak groan. ‘Can you bring me a bucket?’

Vanda didn’t return to the factory. Three weeks later, she took a job at the Picture House as an usherette, permanent, but badly paid, and so when she came into Maggie’s room a week or so later and said, ‘I need to talk to you,’ Maggie knew what was coming.

‘I’m behind with the rent already and it could take months to find a better-paid job. I’m . . .’ She sighed. ‘I’m going to have to take a room instead. I’m sorry, Maggie.’ She looked at the floor. ‘You’ll be able to go back to Hastings, won’t you?’

*

They make three more stops along the way, twice so Maggie can feed the twins and once so Leonard can buy another pair of socks because his feet are so cold he can no longer feel them. The twins, huddled together under the patchwork coverlet Vanda knitted, are warm as toast and by some miracle, or perhaps lulled by the movement of the car, they are quiet. Jonathan sleeps peacefully, the odd windy smile pulling up the corners of his mouth, but Elizabeth’s eyes are wide open. ‘Hello, darling,’ Maggie whispers. Elizabeth blinks, but does not return Maggie’s smile. She’s watching me, Maggie thinks; weighing me up.

Maggie tries to doze but she can feel her daughter’s eyes on her as she drowses. She’s becoming increasingly certain that Elizabeth is cleverer, wiser than her, and that her purpose for being here is to replace Maggie, to become properly what Maggie has failed to be.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

‘Fi, can we just talk, please?’

She’s standing at the sink, her back rigid as though the muscles themselves are angry. They’d had a shouting match last night, and she’d gone to the spare room, slamming the door so violently that next door banged on the wall. It was only after she’d gone to bed that he’d spotted the little pile of new cookery books on the kitchen worktop. He hadn’t noticed them before. He’d looked at each colourful, glossy jacket:
The New Baby and Toddler Cookbook, Organic Baby Food from Scratch
, and the one that really made him want to hug her:
Cookery for Beginners
.

Right now, though, she doesn’t look very huggable. She hurls the potato she’s just peeled into the sink, picks up another and begins gouging its eyes out. ‘What is there to talk about? I go away for a few days and as soon as—’

‘Eleven.’

‘What?’

‘Eleven days; you were away for eleven days. That’s more than “a few”.’

‘Whatever. The point is that the minute my back’s turned, you’re off sniffing round your ex-girlfriend.’

‘Don’t be disgusting.’

‘Me?
Me
, disgusting? That’s rich, coming from you.’

‘Christ, can’t you stop that for a minute and come and sit down?’

‘No.’ She scalps another potato and throws it into the bowl.

‘Fiona, listen to me.’ He bangs his fist on the table. ‘I didn’t sleep with her, all right? Ask her. Just fucking ring her up and ask her.’

She spins round to face him. ‘Oh, so you’ve taken her number, then?’

Their eyes lock for a moment. ‘No, actually; no, I haven’t.’

There’s a heavy silence as they each try to think what to say next.

‘Fiona,’ he says more quietly. ‘I swear to God, there’s nothing going on and I didn’t sleep with her. I shouldn’t have gone round there, I know that. It was stupid and thoughtless. I didn’t even intend to end up in Brockley. But after everything that happened yesterday, I couldn’t think straight. I just drove around because I couldn’t face coming home to an empty house.’

‘I was here.’

‘I didn’t know that, did I?’

More silence.

‘I called you.’

The flame has gone from her voice. He takes a step towards her and she doesn’t back away. ‘I’m truly, truly sorry. Please let’s not argue any more; at least for a while.’ He risks a smile; she almost smiles back.

*

Over the next few days, Hutchinson leaves several messages, but Jonathan ignores them. He’s more concerned with not messing up his marriage any more than he has already. Fiona seems quite agitated, though. ‘I’d understand if you made a firm decision not to go any further,’ she says, ‘but I don’t get this . . . dithering. Surely it’s best to just find out whatever there is to know?’

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t want to get into another row, not when she’s only been back a week and they’re just beginning to get close again.

‘Anyway.’ She hands him a slip of paper. ‘He called again when you were out. These are his work, home and mobile numbers – says he’s left four messages.’

He folds the note, shoves it into his back pocket and picks up the local paper.

‘Well? Aren’t you going to call him?’

‘I don’t know. Not yet.’ He starts reading the match reports.

‘Jonno.’ She comes over and sits on the arm of his chair. ‘Perhaps if we just talked about it . . .’

He puts the paper down. ‘Look, I know Hutchinson needs to do all he can to find . . . the man he’s looking for. But I can’t make the decision to trace my mother based on the fact that she’s the only link to whoever it was. I need to think about it a bit more. Can’t you understand that?’

She tilts her chin in that same way he’s seen her mother and sister do. ‘No, Jonathan,’ she says. ‘Quite frankly, I can’t. The uncertainty’s eating you up, and it’s making you a right bastard to live with.’ She walks out of the room, returning minutes later with her coat on. ‘I’m popping over to Lucy’s. See you later.’

*

Jonathan walks to the Rose and Crown, hands in his pockets, breath crystallising as it hits the cold night air. It hasn’t snowed for a week but the front gardens are still streaked with traces of grey ice and there are sludgy mini-drifts under the hedges. It’ll snow again soon; he can taste it, sharp, flinty on the sides of his tongue. He knows Fiona’s right, but he has to try and make her understand that he can’t take decisions at the moment, not until he can think straight again. So much has happened lately that he feels like his brain has been in a food mixer. When he’d phoned the school to see if there was any news on Chloé, Linda Fawcett had treated him with such suspicion and unpleasantness that he’d hung up on her, which wasn’t clever. Malcolm told him later that Chloé was out of hospital – a few cracked ribs and a broken leg that had to be pinned, but already badgering her mum to let her go back to school, which was a surprise; Chloé was bright, but not particularly conscientious. Maybe dicing with death had given her a whole new outlook.

The pub is at the end of a row of trendy white-painted terraced cottages where tasteful lighting spills out through wooden blinds. He can hear someone tuning a guitar as he passes one house, and behind the darkened windows of another, the plaintive ringing of a telephone.

The woodsmoke hits the back of his throat and he is cheered to see a fire crackling in the huge fireplace. Malcolm is already at the bar. ‘Black Sheep?’ he mouths. Jonathan nods. He puts his phone on ‘silent’ in case Hutchinson calls again, and looks around the room. It’s quiet for a Friday; a couple of old boys at the bar as usual, an overweight couple squashed side by side on the bench seat, silently drinking their halves of lager, and two young women with large glasses of white wine and the remains of a meal in front of them. As Jonathan sits down, the women stand, pick up their bags and glasses and go out through the glass doors into the smoking area, a covered patio with several tables and tall gas heaters that double as lamps. The women settle themselves at a table and Jonathan watches the dark one take a luxurious drag on her cigarette and exhale through her nose.

That does it. He heads out into the vestibule and begins feeding pound coins into the cigarette machine.

‘Hiya, Sir.’ The voice makes him jump. Petra Simmons, Year 13; smart kid. He forgot she works here at weekends – she is saving hard for university.

‘Hello, Petra.’ He asks her how she is, tells her not to work too hard then makes his way back to Malcolm, who dutifully follows him out to the smoking area. He tears the cellophane from the vending pack. ‘What a bloody rip-off.’ He counts the cigarettes. ‘I don’t even like Silk Cut.’

‘Me neither,’ Malcolm says, helping himself to one. ‘Still, desperate men and all that. Speaking of which, did you see the game on Tuesday?’

They spend the inevitable ten minutes talking about football before Malcolm says, ‘Anyway, you sounded fed up on the phone.’

Jonathan sighs, takes a long pull at his pint and then tells Malcolm about Hutchinson’s interest in his birth mother. ‘Fiona’s on about it too. But I’m just not sure I want to know.’

‘Why the bloody hell not?’

‘For a start, what sort of woman walks out on a toddler? I was only a few weeks younger than Poppy, for Christ’s sake. And this DNA business means that my biological father was . . .’ He pauses, swills his beer around the glass. ‘Well, God knows what.’

‘Bank robber?’ Malcolm suggests. ‘Diamond smuggler? Or perhaps he was some great forger or something. Hey, you might have inherited some hidden talent that you could exploit and make shitloads of money.’

‘It’s not funny.’ Jonathan grabs his pint clumsily, spilling it. ‘What if . . .’ He watches a tiny fly struggling to free itself from the puddle of spilt beer. ‘What if he was a child killer or something? Supposing I’ve inherited – oh, I don’t know.’ He glances at Malcolm. ‘Whatever he did, it must be pretty bloody serious for the police to still be interested after all this time.’

‘Yes, but they open up these “cold cases” all the time now, don’t they? And if—’

‘And what if my birth mother knew? What if they were like the Moors Murderers or something?’

Malcolm looks at him, then at the table. ‘All right, mate. I see what you mean.’ He drains his pint. ‘Drink up.’ Before Jonathan can find his wallet, Malcolm is heading back inside towards the bar.

‘So, what are you going to do?’ Malcolm sets the second pint down.

‘To be honest, it feels like if I don’t do anything about it, it can’t become real. But if I start looking into it—’

‘You’re stuck with whatever you find out.’

‘Precisely.’

They each lift their glasses and drink, then Jonathan takes out two more cigarettes. Malcolm shakes his head.

‘Oh, come on. One more and then we’ll go in.’

‘You’re a bad influence, Robson.’ Malcolm takes the cigarette, lights up then shakes out the flame. ‘Why’s this cold-case bloke pestering you about it, anyway? Surely he can just go and find out whatever he likes?’

‘Apparently not – well, not easily, anyway. Data Protection Act and all that. He reckons he can probably get round it if he has to, but he’s hoping I’ll save him the trouble. Thing is . . .’ He stops as Petra comes out into the smoking area and begins cleaning the empty tables around them, then moves to their table to change the ashtray. Malcolm asks her how her revision’s going and they chat about her forthcoming exams. After a few minutes, Malcolm rounds off the conversation by repeating Jonathan’s warning to Petra not to work too hard. ‘I won’t, Sir,’ she smiles. ‘Enjoy your evening.’

‘Why’s she so nice?’ Jonathan says as soon as she’s out of earshot.

Malcolm nods. ‘Model student. Just goes to show, though.’

‘What?’

‘You met the parents? Dad’s always at the dog track – a waste of space that grass could grow in and . . .’

‘I know. Pond life.’

‘Well, that’s the point; just because your parents are arseholes it doesn’t mean you’ll automatically follow in their footsteps.’

‘Even so, if it’s in the genes, well, don’t you think it’s something that – oh, I don’t know; maybe you’re right.’ Jonathan stands. ‘Come on, it’s getting cold; let’s go back inside.’ He feels for his wallet. ‘Fancy a short?’ They’ve been friends for over ten years; both know this is code for
I may not say it but I value your opinion and friendship.

‘Why not?’ Malcolm grins, swallows the remains of his pint in two gulps and declares, ‘When you’re out, you’re out.’

At last orders, Jonathan stands up, jolting the table. ‘Another, my friend!’ he says with some theatricality.

‘Go on then.’ Malcolm drains his glass. ‘Bloody hell, I can see two of you.’

Jonathan hasn’t been this pissed for years. He orders the drinks and is pleased with himself for remembering to ask for water as well. ‘Decided to be sensible,’ he says, handing Malcolm a pint of water. It comes out as ‘sessibel’.

‘Which one of you said that?’

Jonathan grins. Malcolm’s eyes are glassy-bright and the lower half of his face has collapsed. Jonathan hopes he doesn’t look as drunk as Malcolm; they’re too old for this. Petra and the barmaid, an older woman, are now putting chairs and stools up on tables. ‘D’you think they’re trying to tell us something?’ he says loudly, the words ridiculously slurred. He’s about to make some quip about the company being so charming that it’s hard to leave, when he catches a glance from Petra. It stings his face and makes him look away. It’s nothing like the
haven’t you got homes to go to
look being fired at them by her colleague, it’s more, what, concern? No. Disappointment.

Soon they’re outside in the frosty darkness. They fall silent as they concentrate on negotiating the icy pavements, each less steady on his feet than he’d like to admit. The fuzzy warmth in Jonathan’s head is seeping out into the cold air. He sighs audibly and steps off the kerb without even glancing along the road. He feels Malcolm grab his arm and yank him backwards at the same time as he registers the big dark shape to his right. There is a screech of brakes and the angry sound of a car horn. His heart thuds as he remembers Chloé Nichols flying through the air. He jumps back onto the pavement as the taxi driver leans out of his window. ‘Fucking idiot!’ the man yells. ‘Look where you’re fucking going!’

Jonathan opens his mouth to shout back but the taxi pulls away, the driver shaking his head in an exaggerated way. He puts his hand out to steady himself before attempting to cross the road again. A police car passes them at high speed, blue lights flashing but no siren.

‘Devious,’ Malcolm says. ‘Trying to catch them in the act.’

‘Yeah, bloody coppers.’ Jonathan thinks of how they mocked him at the police station; how he’d heard that policewoman say the allegation was probably rubbish before she arrested him. And he thinks of Don Hutchinson and his unsolved crimes. ‘Bastards,’ he mutters, quickening his step. The booze sloshes around in his stomach and he’s dying for a wee.

‘Whadya say?’ Malcolm’s words are dissolving.

‘The police. They bloody loved it when I failed to report hitting that Volvo.’

Malcolm slips on a patch of ice, grabs Jonathan’s sleeve. ‘Yeah. Gits,’ he says with overstated loyalty.

If they’d done their job properly all those years ago, Jonathan is thinking, his natural father would be in prison, wouldn’t he? And if they’d caught him in the first place, they wouldn’t be interested now. And if Mr-Cold-Case Hutchinson had simply retired and taken up golf or fishing like any normal bloke . . .

‘There’s one,’ Malcolm says.

‘One what?’

‘A police-git.’ Malcolm points, swaying slightly.

On the other side of the road is the police station. A uniformed policeman is punching in numbers to the door-entry system.

‘Police Constable Git,’ Malcolm says, flinging his arm out as he wobbles again.

Jonathan catches his arm, whether to steady Malcolm or himself he can’t tell. God, he’s pissed. The street is spinning. ‘S’all the bloody police’s fault, you know,’ he says as the pair of them lurch across the road.

And that is the last thing he remembers.