by Karen King
Tuesday
‘How long will you be at your meeting?’ Phil asked, looking over the newspaper he was reading as she walked into the lounge.
‘It should only take me a couple of hours but then there’s travelling there and back. You’ll be okay here, won’t you?’ Aileen had replied on Sunday evening, apologising for the delay in replying, explaining that Charles had taken a turn for the worse and suggesting meeting at a café in the town centre for lunch on Tuesday, so Freya had booked the day off.
Obviously she couldn’t tell Phil yet that she was meeting his mother so had avoided telling an outright lie by simply saying she had a meeting. She hated deceiving him. He’ll understand why I did it and be pleased when I manage to reunite him with his family, she told herself. Although Phil had been adamant he didn’t want to see his parents again, she was convinced that if she could tell him how much his mother regretted the rift, and how ill his dad was, she would be able to persuade him to give them another chance. She had to admit that she was curious about Phil’s childhood. It would be good to chat with his mother although she was a bit nervous about meeting her – it was such an awkward situation. She’d spent ages getting ready, wanting to make the right impression. She indicated the navy linen trousers and white short-sleeved top she’d finally decided to wear, thinking it was smart but not too formal – after all, Phil thought she was going to a business meeting. ‘Do you think this outfit looks okay?’
He nodded his approval. ‘Smart casual, just right I’d say.’ He folded up the newspaper and placed it on the table. ‘I’m off out myself soon. I’m meeting Tom at the Miller’s Arms in a bit – we arranged it yesterday. I want him to update me on what we’ve been doing the last couple of years, and the course details for September so I can start thinking about my lesson plans. It’ll be good to focus my mind on something apart from the accident.’
The Miller’s Arms was only a ten-minute walk away. And a short stroll would do Phil good, as would a chat with Tom, thought Freya, although she wished he’d arranged the meeting for tomorrow so that she could have some peace to work with him out of the house. She was finding it increasingly difficult to work from home. Phil was constantly interrupting her and she was beginning to feel claustrophobic being in the house with him most days, but he insisted that he felt too vulnerable for her to return to working in the office all week. She hoped he wasn’t manipulating her to persuade her to work from home full-time, especially given that was something he’d always wanted.
‘I’d better dash. My train leaves soon. Take it easy, don’t exert yourself,’ she said, kissing him on the forehead.
She parked her car in the station car park. It was easier to take the train into Birmingham rather than to drive. Parking was always a nightmare, and it would mean that she would arrive more relaxed. Normally, Phil would have dropped her off at the station and picked her up again, but he’d been advised not to drive yet. He didn’t seem to mind that, though. He hadn’t asked for a courtesy car from the insurance company, happy to wait for the pay-out to buy another car. She was sure the accident had shaken him up more than he let on, too. It certainly had her. If she were Phil, she’d be in no rush to get behind the wheel again either. At least not until the person who had sabotaged his brakes was under lock and key.
As she sat on the train, Freya reread Aileen’s messages and tried to imagine what Phil’s mother would be like. The profile picture showed a mature woman with short dark hair, almost the same colour as Phil’s, but she knew that profile pictures were often not a true likeness. Phil was forty-one so his mother must be in her sixties at least.
Freya was familiar with the restaurant they were meeting at, having passed it a few times when shopping with friends, but had never actually gone inside. Now, she took a deep breath to calm herself then pushed the doors open and walked inside, glancing around the room for a woman looking in any way similar to Aileen’s profile picture. The restaurant wasn’t very busy yet – there were a few couples here and there, two groups of women, two men, but no woman sitting alone. Aileen must still be on her way. Freya decided to grab a table, order a coffee and wait. She sat down at a table in the corner, thinking that would give them more privacy to talk, and a waiter immediately approached her, notepad and pen in hand.
‘I’m waiting for someone so just a latte for now, please,’ she said.
When it arrived, she sipped her coffee, trying to shake off the apprehension that had seized her now she was finally about to meet Aileen. She wondered not for the first time if she should have come – if Phil found out that she had gone behind his back to meet his mother, he would be furious. I can’t deny a mother the chance to make up with her son, she reminded herself. And I will tell Phil, I just need to choose the right moment.
She glanced over as the door opened and a good-looking woman glided in, immediately recognisable from her profile photo as Aileen. Even from this distance Freya could see that her features, hair and the confident way Aileen held herself were the same as Phil. The woman glanced around, caught Freya’s eye, waved and made her way over.
As Aileen came closer, Freya could see that her eyes were the same inky blue as Phil’s and held the same twinkle in them. Her hair was slightly darker – probably helped by a hair dye now – but there was no mistaking the resemblance. She was smartly dressed in what Freya was sure was a designer blouse, beige fitted cropped trousers and multi-coloured soft leather sandals. A matching bag hung from her shoulder and the waft of an expensive perfume floated around her as she reached the table. Phil’s family obviously had money. Not quite sure what to do, Freya stood up awkwardly.
‘Aileen?’
‘Freya. Hello, my dear.’ Aileen hugged her warmly. ‘Thank you so much for agreeing to meet me.’
‘It’s a pleasure,’ Freya said with a smile. What a lovely woman, was her first reaction as Aileen pulled out the chair opposite Freya, hung her bag on the side and sat down.
Freya sat down again. ‘I ordered a coffee while I was waiting. Would you like one?’ she asked as she saw the waiter walking over towards them.
Aileen ordered a coffee too, black – like Phil.
‘I really am grateful that you came. I’ve been dying to meet my new daughter-in-law,’ Aileen said. ‘You must have been surprised to get a message from me.’
‘I was,’ Freya admitted. ‘Phil isn’t on Facebook. He tends to keep off social media. I guess that’s why you contacted me.’
‘Yes. My brother Richard – Philip’s uncle – saw the newspaper article about the terrible accident and showed it to me. I knew then that I had to get in touch… Philip could have died.’ She paused for a moment to compose herself. ‘To be honest, I’ve been wanting to get in touch with Philip for some time but Graham, our other son, said it was up to Philip to contact us and to apologise. I kept hoping that would happen. None of us had contact details for Philip, you see, and we had no idea where he was living until we read the newspaper article.’ She reached in her bag for a tissue and dabbed her eyes.
Freya took a sip of her coffee and waited patiently for Aileen to continue, not knowing what to say until she had heard the story. Phil had told her that his parents didn’t care about him but his mother was clearly distressed about the fallout.
The waiter returned with Aileen’s black coffee and left them with menus to browse.
‘I did think about contacting Philip via the newspaper or the university that the article said he worked for, but it’s such a personal issue, I thought it best to contact you, that if I explained the situation, you could talk to him. I would never have forgiven myself if Philip had died in that accident and I’d made no attempt to get in touch with him, to heal the family rift. Especially now.’ Her dark blue eyes rested on Freya’s face, serious now and uncannily like Phil’s. ‘Does Philip talk about us much?’
Freya didn’t want to be cruel but she sensed that Aileen wanted the truth so she shook her head. ‘No, he never mentions you. All I know is that you all
had a fallout years ago, so he walked out and hasn’t seen any of you since.’
Aileen was silent for a moment, staring down into her cup as if hoping to find the words she wanted to say there. When she did finally speak, her voice was so soft that Freya could barely hear her. ‘He didn’t just walk out. I told him to get out and never come back.’ She paused, raised her troubled eyes to Freya. ‘I’ve regretted it so many times but that afternoon I was so angry and upset, so worried for Charles. Because I thought Philip had killed him.’
43
Aileen thought that Phil had killed his father? Freya stared at her, horrified. No wonder Phil didn’t want to talk about it!
‘I’m sorry, I can see that this is a shock to you.’
‘He said… he said that you both always favoured Graham over him and one day he’d had enough so he left.’
Aileen’s eyes clouded over. ‘I know that Philip always felt that, but it wasn’t true. Philip and Graham, they wound each other up as brothers do. I certainly didn’t favour Graham when they were growing up. I adored both my boys, and so did Charles. But Philip, he always had such anger inside him – the slightest thing would inflame him and he found it so difficult to control his temper. Graham was… easier to be around.’
Freya was shocked by her words. Phil had a temper right back from when he was young? He had always told her that she was the one who’d made him that way, that she provoked him. Another lie. ‘What happened?’ Her eyes were glued to Phil’s mother’s face. She couldn’t move. She was waiting for her next revelation.
‘Graham and Phil came home for a week to celebrate Charles’s birthday with us. They squabbled, as usual, but then one night Philip came home drunk. It was very late. He and Graham had words. Charles and I were in bed but heard a commotion and got up to see what was happening. We came downstairs to see Graham flat on his back on the hallway floor and Philip on top of him, hammering him with his fists. I was so horrified I was rooted to the spot, I thought he was going to kill him, there was blood all over Graham’s face.’ She closed her eyes briefly as if to shut away the memory. Then she took a breath and continued, ‘Charles yelled at him to stop, then ran over and pulled Philip off.’ She swallowed and Freya saw tears glistening in her eyes. ‘Philip… he turned around and punched Charles, knocked his father to the floor. I thought he’d killed him. I was in such a panic. I ran over to Charles, and Graham crawled over to check on Charles too.’ She paused again and Freya could see that this was difficult for her to talk about. ‘Philip, he just stood there, his fists clenched, like he couldn’t decide who to attack next…’
Yes, she’d seen him like that, the veins pulsing in his forehead as he struggled to control the fury that was engulfing him. It was terrifying.
‘I looked up at him and in that moment I hated him. I yelled at him to get out and never come back. He went upstairs, packed his bag and walked out into the night just as an ambulance arrived for Charles. I haven’t seen my son, my firstborn, since then.’ She dabbed her eyes with the tissue again. ‘Later that night Charles had a stroke.’
Freya stared at her, horrified – she hadn’t expected to hear this, that Phil had set about his brother and then his father. She didn’t blame Aileen for telling him to get out; she would have done the same when faced with such a horrendous scene. She couldn’t believe that Phil hadn’t gone back and apologised when he’d sobered up. That he’d stayed away, refused to contact them, to invite them to his wedding, to even talk about them, as if it was their fault that they were estranged rather than his. She hadn’t expected to hear such a shocking story but deep down she knew that Aileen was telling the truth. The painful look in the woman’s eyes, the way she was twisting the tissue around her finger, the wobble in her voice were all proof that this was really distressing for her.
‘I was angry for quite a while, I admit that,’ Aileen continued. ‘I should have tried to contact Philip earlier, not left it so long. But I expected – wanted – him to come to us, to apologise. He didn’t. We never heard from him after that night. When I finally tried to reach out to him it was too late, he’d changed his phone number, his address, vanished without a trace. I thought that he would get in touch when he was ready. But that was over twenty years ago.’ Aileen’s eyes brimmed with tears. ‘And I can’t wait any longer. Not now Charles has only weeks to live and it’s his dying wish to see Philip again.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Freya said softly.
‘Charles has come to terms with it. He’s very brave and has made his peace. But he wants to make his peace with Philip too. Even though Philip hurt Graham and Charles, he was very young. He’d had a drink and the situation got out of hand. And to marry a lovely girl like you, I know he must have turned over a new leaf.’ She took a sip of her coffee and Freya could see that she was struggling to compose herself. ‘It’s a huge ask. But would you talk to him? Let him know about Charles? Tell him we forgive him and want to see him?’ She opened her purse and took out a white card with fancy black lettering. ‘This is our new address and my phone number.’
Freya took the card. ‘I’ll try,’ she promised.
44
Phil
‘You’re looking well, considering.’ Tom surveyed Phil over the rim of his lager glass. ‘You’re lucky not to be dead. And you say it was deliberate? Someone messed with your brakes?’
‘Yes. The insurance company are positive. The police are investigating.’ Phil couldn’t stop thinking about it. He could have died. Someone wanted him dead, had tried to murder him. It was a chilling thought. The accident still haunted him; the memory of practically standing on the brakes and not being able to stop his car hurtling down the hill towards the lorry, once retrieved, would not now leave him. He didn’t know how he would ever pick up the courage to drive a car again. He would have to at some point, he needed to for work, and also because he wasn’t going to let the bastard who tampered with his brakes win, but thankfully he had time before he had to face that step. First, he wanted his ribs to heal, to feel fit again. And to get his memories back.
‘Any idea who it could be? I guess your memory loss makes that difficult if whoever it is who has such a big grudge against you is someone you met recently?’
‘I know,’ Phil said again. He could do with a stiff drink rather than the orange juice he’d ordered but he needed to keep his head clear – it felt fuzzy enough as it was half the time, as if he was barely present. ‘I was wondering if you knew anyone I’d upset. Someone at the university maybe? One of the students? Freya reminded me of a student’ – he paused, searching for her name – ‘Katrina, who apparently had a thing for me a couple of years ago. She hasn’t done anything since, has she?’
Tom frowned. ‘No, but there have been a couple of other incidents. Actually, I’d been meaning to talk to you about it but then you had the accident. You got a little friendly with a student called Georgie a few months back and then the poor girl took an overdose. Her parents were threatening to sue. I had a hell of a job hushing it up.’
‘What?’ Phil could hardly believe it. ‘Are you saying that I had an affair with one of my students?’
‘Not a full-on affair, no, but she claimed that you got close, too close, and she was besotted with you. She followed you home one day, tried to get you to go to bed with her, and when you rejected her, she went home and took an overdose.’
‘Bloody hell! Does Freya know about this?’
‘I’ve no idea. You were desperately trying to keep it from her.’ Tom’s disapproval was evident. ‘I’ve got to be honest, Phil, you’ve been becoming a bit of a liability. You’re too touchy-feely with the female students. You’ve had two warnings so far. One more strike and you’ll be out. I hope the silver lining of this situation is that you use the opportunity to turn over a new leaf.’
Phil took a long swig of his orange juice. He hadn’t expected this. ‘You said I rejected her, though. So, I didn’t do anything wrong, Tom. Surely that’s unfair?’
�
�Your behaviour hasn’t been professional, Phil. That girl could have died…’
‘Because I rejected her unwanted advances? How’s that my bloody fault? She’s obviously unhinged.’ He took another gulp of his drink, wishing he could add a double whisky to it. ‘And I can’t even remember it so can’t defend myself,’ he added bitterly.
‘I stuck up for you the best I could but there’s only so much I can do. You really need to toe the line from now on.’
Phil felt narked. The things he could say about Tom – and he bet there were more over the last couple of years that he couldn’t remember. Tom was known for playing the field, admittedly not with students, but if his wife got wind of it… bang would go his marriage. Besides, it wasn’t Phil’s fault if the girls fancied him; he hadn’t gone to bed with them like some people would have. And, anyway, they were adults for God’s sake. You weren’t talking schoolkids here! ‘So, would you say her parents might be upset enough to try and kill me?’ he asked. ‘Because now someone is breaking into my house and leaving me threatening notes.’
‘What?’ Tom placed his elbows on the table and leant forward, his expression intent. ‘Tell me.’
Phil explained about finding the back door open, the notes. He took one of the notes out of his pocket and showed it to Tom.
Tom read it, his eyes widening. ‘Blimey, Phil, this is serious stuff. Have you told the police? What does Freya think?’
‘I haven’t told the police, or Freya. Not yet.’
‘Why the hell not?’
Phil hesitated. Should he confide in Tom? They’d been friends for years, ever since Phil started working at the university, and had always had each other’s backs, but Tom hadn’t been exactly friendly today, had he? Phil squashed down the anger at Tom’s abruptness about the student – he was just trying to warn Phil what was going on. Tom was the only friend he had, and he needed someone; it was driving him crazy. So he took a deep breath and told Tom all about Daisy’s visit, and how she had said they’d been having an affair, but then said that it wasn’t true and she was just testing him to see if he had lost his memory. He didn’t mention that Daisy had told him he’d been confiding in her that Freya was abusing him, or that Daisy thought he’d abused Freya. No need to offload everything. ‘And then Freya told me that Daisy’s pregnant,’ he added.
