Torn (14 page)

With no advance warning, no forethought, no inkling this was what she wanted or intended, her arms went around Danny. Simultaneously he pulled her against him. Faces bumped and adjusted. At once they were kissing as though starved; teeth clashed, tongues knotted, breath and saliva mingled and swapped. How much time passed in this feverish exchange? Then the sound of panting breath – theirs or someone else's? Running feet. They broke apart.

‘Mummy! Mummy! Come and see!' Rory shrieked in an extremity of excitement. ‘The chickens have made eggs!' Jess wiped her face with a trembling hand. Her lip felt sore and her breath juddered in and out inefficiently. Rory tugged at her hand.

‘Come on, Mummy! Come and see! They're
warm
!'

‘I'm coming, darling … Show me,' she managed shakily. Without looking back for confirmation she knew Danny would accompany them. Immediately she felt his hand on the small of her back, her shoulder, then her arm, almost as if uncertain whether or not he was allowed to touch her.

She reached for his hand; it was cold. She pushed it into her pocket. Their fingers interlocked.

Chapter Nine

Jess arrived at the nursery just as Sheila was calling order. It was time for the story; the children gathered, cross-legged, around her. Jude, a child at the back of the group with fair cherubic curls, knelt up for a better view. Abstractedly he pulled up his stripy shirt to chew its hem. Then he subsided onto the floor and began to wave his legs in the air. Gravity concertina'd his loose trousers back over his knees. His feet, in lace-ups and dark socks, looked far too big for his pallid, stick-like legs to support. Jordan watched this display with interest, but then turned his attention to his own crotch. For a while he clutched and rummaged, then pulled down his elastic jogger bottoms and pants to fiddle with his small, crumpled penis. Lynn leant forward, pulled up his waistband, and taking his other hand led him towards the toilet.

Over recent weeks Rory and Sasha had almost always been together when Jess arrived. Today Sasha sat with Bianca and Tara. Rory, on the far side of the group, seemed inattentive. Only now and again did he look towards the storyteller, but mostly he hit his own leg with the side of his fist, grimaced, then raked around inside his mouth. The story reached its appropriately satisfying conclusion with roars of delight from those who were still listening; those who weren't, including Rory, joined in a beat later.

Soon the large room grew noisy and confused with the arrival of the mothers who, like Jess, picked up their children at lunch time. There were searches for coats and hats, and gloves mysteriously lost in the few hours since the children had arrived, and strident demands for ‘my picture what I painted'. Sheila called Jess aside.

‘Heard from Danny?' she enquired quietly, while helping Toby with the zip on his red jacket. She had asked before and Jessica was convinced that with each negative Sheila grew happier.

Jessica couldn't suppress a smile. ‘I've seen him! When I collected Rory from Sasha's. Turns out he works for …' she looked around, but the little girl and her grandmother, were nowhere to be seen, ‘her dad.'

‘James Warwick? Hmmm.'

Jessica had said nothing of her earlier altercation with the man, but sensed a reservation in Sheila's response to this news.

‘That was a very non-committal “Hmmm”. What do you think of him?'

‘Don't think I'm approved of by him or his mother.'

Easy to imagine that he could disapprove on very little provocation, but Gilda? ‘Why?'

‘Just a feeling. Incidentally, it's over his land there's all the controversy regarding the by-pass.'

‘Is he for or against?'

Sheila shrugged. ‘I hardly speak to the man. He occasionally drops Sash off or collects her, but he's not into social chitchat. It's Gilda I mainly deal with. Even then we only talk about child-related matters. Enough of the Warwicks. What about Danny? Did you talk? Did he say why he hadn't phoned?'

‘He said he did phone but muddled the number.'

‘Do you believe him?'

‘Why wouldn't I? He seemed very relieved to have a reason why he kept getting a solicitor's office instead of me.' No need for Sheila to know just how sure Jessica was that Danny was pleased to see her. ‘But we didn't have much opportunity to talk,' she improvised, censoring the snatched yet rapacious kiss. ‘Came home with some newly laid eggs. Then I was up and down all night with Rory because he was itchy from playing in the hay. The mixed blessings of living in the country, eh?'

‘Speaking of Sasha, their relationship seems to have broken down. I caught Rory hitting her.'

‘No! Is she still here? Should I speak to Gilda?'

‘Storm in a teacup I expect. Thought I'd let you know. I won't say anything to Gilda unless Sasha does, but she'll probably forget all about it. Don't raise the subject. Hush, here she is. Hello, Gilda, Sasha's just putting on her coat.'

On the walk home Rory was awkward and taciturn.

‘What's the matter with you, my little ray of sunshine?'

For a while he still refused to talk, but then kicked at a piece of lichen-scabbed branch, which had blown down onto the lane.

‘Come on, tell me? Whatever it is I won't be cross.'

After a few more silent steps he eventually offered, ‘Sasha's bitch.'

‘No, she's not. A bitch is a female dog. Did she do something to upset you?'

‘I smacked her,' he said, with guilty relish.

‘I'm sorry to hear that. You know I don't approve of smacking. I don't smack you and I don't want to hear you've smacked anyone else. Tell me what happened?'

‘She's naughty!'

Jessica sighed. ‘In what way was she naughty?'

After a few moments consideration he said, ‘S'not fair! Said I couldn't go in the Wendy house. Said only girls allowed in the Wendy house. I want to play in the Wendy house but they won't let me!'

‘The girls gang up, do they?'

‘They're always in there. Always, always. I want to play in the Wendy house! It's not fair!'

That life wasn't fair was a consistent refrain from Rory, but on this occasion, and if his explanation was true, it did seem there was an inequity here. ‘OK, I'll see what I can do,' Jessica said. ‘But you must promise not to smack anyone! Least of all Sasha. I thought she was your friend.'

‘She
is
my friend. I just don't like her. Did you know, Mummy?'

‘Know what?'

‘She's got baby lambs!'

Tubs ran out from his hidey-hole under the car and slithered around their ankles, twitching his erect tail. Once inside Jessica checked the phone. There had been one call, but no message left. She dialled 1471. The familiar staccato voice intoned the Warwick's landline number, “… at eleven … fifty seven … today. To return the call …” Jess looked at her watch. It was past twelve thirty now. As the phone rang she wondered what Gilda had been calling about. Too soon to be fall-out, surely? The phone was picked up after the fifth ring. Simultaneously Jess realised the call couldn't have anything to do with the hitting incident. It was logged before Gilda's arrival at the nursery.

‘James Warwick. …' The instinct to politeness kept her from ending the call, but she was stuck for anything to say to the man. At first he'd sounded vague, pre-occupied, but his tone sharpened. ‘Hello. James Warwick!'

‘Um … this is Jess Avery. I thought … um, did you call me?' This time the pause was on his side. ‘Jessica. Rory's mum,' she explained.

‘I know who you are. No. I didn't call.' He sounded impatient, the subtext – why on earth would I?

‘Only … I'm sorry. It was your number, but … I must be mistaken. I'm sorry.' Why was she apologising for his bad temper?

‘My mother probably called you before she went out,' he offered, in a more conciliatory tone. But Jessica had already realised it had to be Danny who'd made the call from the Warwick's phone. Why hadn't he used his mobile?

‘She was probably going to ask you and Rory over to see the new-born lambs.'

‘I thought you weren't … um, expecting till later this month?' Jessica said, and heard what sounded like a grudging laugh.

‘That's how much I know,' he answered easily. ‘A couple of them must have come into season early, and the tup …'

‘Tup?'

‘The ram. That's why it's called tupping when we put him in with the ewes to do the business. Dan suspected he must have got at them before we were prepared.'

‘And he was proved right. So … it was a good thing he got on with the hurdles?'

There was a slight pause at the other end of the line. ‘You want me to say he was right I was wrong? OK. I admit it. But I still didn't need hand-woven hurdles! I've plenty of the metal variety. And the bulk of the lambs are still not likely to arrive for another week or so. But that's an argument between me and him. Come over and see the lambs … whenever you like. Better now than when we start lambing in earnest. It'll be panic stations then. You're not pregnant are you?'

‘Pardon?'

‘Seems like an intrusive question. But if any of the ewes are carrying toxoplasmosis, there's a remote chance it can cause miscarriage in a human female. Better safe than sorry. But if you're not …? Dan'll show you if I'm not around.'

The phone was clunked down at the other end.

Jessica had walked the long way – out over the fields and along the bank of the narrow river for several miles. The morning was brilliant, the sky a sharp, dazzling blue, and ahead of her the light lay like butter over the fields and hills. The snow had gone, but looking back the way she'd come her eye was deceived. To the west of Spine Hill, on the steep shadowed slopes overhung by bristling woods, the ground was blue-white with frost. And at the eastern end, where the village of Northwell encrusted the hillside, the roofs sparkled. The earth of the track she walked was bloomed with silver and felt hard as metal beneath her feet. The frosted grass crunched and where liquid mud had sucked claggily at her Wellingtons on previous walks, ice now smoothed out the ruts.

Since Christmas she'd spent less time at the nursery but also less time at home, preferring these solitary rambles which allowed her time and space to think. In the name of decorating she'd splashed a bit of paint around but Rory's curtains had been harder to make than she'd expected, and remained unfinished. There was plenty she could do to the place, but it was growing harder to find the enthusiasm to carry on with the improvements she'd started, knowing she wasn't going to stay here forever.

After less than five months her barnacle-like existence no longer suited her so well. A rented place was a waste of money. She really ought to get back on the property ladder. Ideally she wanted a larger place with a proper garden, a place where the sun flooded in; a place she could put her own furniture and where Rory wouldn't have to come through her bedroom to get to his. In effect, Weavers Cottage amounted to three stacked rooms. The tiny kitchen and bathroom had been later additions. Perhaps she and Rory should swap bedrooms? But it had been hard enough to get the sections of his reduced size bed up into the attic room. Getting her bulky double bed up the narrow, enclosed stairs would be a logistical nightmare. And yet large families had lived in these little houses; how on earth had they managed?

When they'd first moved, the house had been her sanctuary, her bolthole, its smallness a comfort. She'd felt enclosed and safe in the embrace of its thick walls – walls that were a barrier between her and the world. But the world was not so easily held at bay. At first, living here had seemed idyllic – the fresh air, the views, the opportunity to walk for miles without crossing a road or seeing a car – but wasn't it some kind of a cop-out, a running away from real life? Anyway, life here wasn't idyllic, not really.

On leaving Sean she'd run to the first place she'd thought of – the place her godmother had lived. In her mind it offered a place of peace where she and her son could live a simple life. It had hardly been the tactic of a master escapologist. Sean knew she remembered the place with affection from childhood visits. He'd managed to track her down to Warford, even if not to her actual address, with ease. The only disguise she'd so far managed to organise – a new mobile phone number and going ex-directory on the landline – would be no more than an irritant to someone with his contacts. It wouldn't be hard for him to find the final piece of the puzzle if he was determined enough. But was he?

Since his violent reappearance into her life she'd felt less anxious than she might have expected. True, for the first few days she'd been nervous and jumpy, but the shock of the incident faded fast. The memory now had the inconsequentiality of a bad dream, nasty when it was happening, but laughable in the light of day. The fact that he'd been routed so comprehensively by Danny and his friends – without the threat of force – had somehow defused his potency for her. As the sale of the flat was apparently going ahead now, she no longer truly believed he would again try to find her and bring her ‘home'. Soon there would be no home to bring her to.

Discounting Sean's intrusion, Jessica saw now that she'd assumed her life in the country would become at once tranquil and trouble free. But quitting the capital hadn't immediately enveloped her in a life of bucolic serenity. Her early altercation with James Warwick had been the first intimation of the rift between the conservative, middle-class old guard and the arty, crafty new-agers in the area. There was already local protest about plans for a new road, and the daunting prospect ahead of civil disobedience, stand-offs, and confrontations if it was given the go-ahead.

Her belief that she would instantly make friends had proved naive. Many of the local mothers worked. She hardly ever saw them. Those she met regularly, delivering or collecting their children were close, cliquey, and suspicious of this Londoner who'd arrived in their midst. They seemed to scrutinise her behaviour and analyse her words for evidence of condescension or cockiness. And there was another reason to keep her at arm's length. It hadn't taken long for the gossip to circulate that she was one of those bankers who'd brought the country to its knees. As for Rory, he was still cross and spiky for much of the time, with a tendency to swear if thwarted. His upbringing, with Sean as a father figure, made Jess feel increasingly ashamed. To have to excuse him and explain his conduct over and over again to these guarded women only depressed her. Yet following the hitting incident, it looked as if she would have to go through it all again.