‘Call your fucking dog off!’ I heard Douglas shout.
I heard screams and stampeding feet, the ferocious snarling of the attack dog and the pathetic yelps of its victim. Gabe took me by the arm and tried to lead me away, but I shouted, ‘No!’ and shrugged him off. I had seen Ethan plunge into the mêlée and I wasn’t leaving as long as he was in harm’s way.
I barged as far forward as the cluster of people and furniture would allow and craned my neck to see. Now everything seemed to slow down, the expressions on the faces of the two camps frozen and exaggerated – the atavistic leers of the gate-crashers; the shock and dismay of the guests. A punch was thrown; a glass deliberately smashed on a table’s edge. There was a scuffle. I saw the landlord jab in panic at his mobile phone; Douglas and Ray circled the dogs, poised to intervene, then, someone, oh God… it was Ethan… pitching straight into the middle of it all.
He grabbed the dog by its hind legs and yanked them apart as if pulling a Christmas cracker, but the dog had its jaws clamped around the Labrador’s flubbery neck and wouldn’t let go. It was then that Ray made his move. I think he must have punched the dog on its muzzle because it uncoiled like a spring and rounded on my son with a snarling, slavering sound I shall never forget.
I couldn’t remember afterwards how much I actually saw of that part, and how much I filled in the blanks, based on the injury Ethan sustained – a deep gash to the fleshy part of his right hand. It was horrible. Even at a glance and in the dark, I could see he’d need stitches, but she wouldn’t let me anywhere near him – his girlfriend. She must have been there all along. I don’t know how I’d missed her – I suppose it was because I was so focused on Van Man, but looking back, I think it was probably just a coincidence that they arrived together. Ethan was with her.
They were halfway down the Gaineses’ drive when I caught up with them. She was wrapping her scarf round his hand to staunch the bleeding, which didn’t look too hygienic. I told her as much, but she didn’t want to know. She shouted at me; said there wasn’t time to argue the toss because she needed to get him to A&E. I’m not saying her speech was slurry, but she’d obviously been drinking. I said I’d call an ambulance, but she said there wasn’t time and we had a bit of a scuffle near her car, which I’m not proud of. It was just the thought of her speeding off three sheets to the wind, with my son in the passenger seat.
There were several versions doing the rounds in the days that followed. For some, Douglas had saved the day; for others, Ray had played the decisive role. One rumour claimed that a flick knife had been pulled; another said one of the Labradors had had a heart attack, a third said that one of the onlookers had. Depending on whom you believed, someone had performed the Heimlich manoeuvre on one of the dogs (half true), someone else had had hit one of the thugs over the head with a bottle and was now going to be prosecuted (almost certainly untrue). Even Nick and I couldn’t agree – or perhaps I should say, of course we couldn’t. For him, Ethan had been the villain; for me, the hero. But leaving aside the facts of the matter, Nick’s predisposition to condemn his own son was the thing I couldn’t forgive. Shouldn’t a parent stand by their child through thick and thin? Wasn’t that what we were there for?
It didn’t matter either way in the end. Ethan knew nothing of my unconditional parental support. I don’t think he said a single word to me throughout the whole hideous episode. He’d have been in shock, of course, and I was in a dreadful state myself, but even so our eyes met only once and that was in the passenger wing mirror as I stood in the middle of the lane watching her drive him away.
24
‘Came to see how you are,’ Cath said.
She was standing on the back doorstep, holding a lit roll-up furtively behind her back.
‘I’m fine,’ I said. ‘Come in. Actually, I could do with one of those. I’ll come out.’
‘Just saw Nick head off in the car.’ Cath nodded towards the lane as though his departure had been part of some rarely witnessed seasonal migration.
‘He’s dropping Gabe at the station. He was supposed to be staying till Tuesday, but I think he’s had enough of the countryside. Too much excitement!’
We both smiled ruefully.
She handed me my roll-up and lit it for me. We smoked in silence for a minute or two. She looked at me and bit her lip.
‘Any news of Ethan?’
I shook my head.
‘Last I saw his girlfriend was taking him to A&E… at least I assume she’s his girlfriend.’
I sounded huffy and aggrieved. I despised myself.
‘He must be OK then,’ Cath said, kindly. ‘You’d have heard if not. It was front-page news in the local rag, “Brawl as yobs invade charity fund-raiser…”’
‘Comes to something when you have to read the newspaper to find out if your son’s alive or dead,’ I muttered.
‘At least you know someone’s looking out for him…’
She must have seen the look on my face.
‘She’s a nice girl by all accounts,’ Cath added gently. ‘Sally, her name is. Works in that estate agent’s in Rivington. Does the odd shift at The Fleece…’
‘I’m sure she’s perfectly lovely,’ I snapped sourly.
We stubbed out our cigarettes in the plant pot by the back door and went inside. I poured us both a coffee and we sat down. I looked into Cath’s big, anxious face, its cheeks so scribbled with broken capillaries that red had become its predominant colour, and I felt a rush of remorse.
‘I’m sorry I was rude,’ I said, ‘I just feel so…’
‘No, lovey,’ she patted the back of my hand, ‘you’ve had a nasty shock. It’s to be expected.’
‘Is Ray all right?’ it occurred to me, belatedly, to ask. ‘Have you seen him?’
‘I have, aye,’ Cath said. ‘Called in on my way up to you as it goes. He’s fine. They gave him a tetanus booster to be on the safe side, but he didn’t get bitten at all apparently. Amazing really. He was telling me the technique. You have to take the dog by surprise and then, the second it loses concentration…’
I continued to watch Cath’s lips move and to nod vacantly from time to time, but I couldn’t hear her voice any more. I was thinking of Ethan shacked up in some local bedsit with Sally; the two of them spotting me from a distance in town and crossing the road to avoid me. I wouldn’t blame them. At least Sally had stuck up for him – taken his part. Not like me. To think I’d stood there in my own kitchen and watched his father physically abuse him… colluded in it, you might almost say.
‘… Anyway,’ Cath went on, ‘on the plus side, your friend and mine’ll be out on his ear. Van Man. I doubt they’ll have the evidence to charge him, but he’ll definitely get his marching orders from the barn. You see, if the council had evicted him when I first made a complaint, none of this would have happened.’
‘Hmm,’ I said. A couple of weeks ago, this news would have had me falling to my knees in relief. The crazy guy; the stalker – dismemberer of crows, toppler of pot plants – was to be evicted, once and for all. But I hardly cared any more. All of my hauntings and stalkings, watchers on hills, the dark forces of long barrow and ley line, now seemed fanciful and overwrought. A spell cast by my own troubled mind.
Nick came back full of bluster and bonhomie and kissed me on the cheek as though nothing had happened.
‘Hiya, Cath,’ he said, ‘how are you?’
‘I’m all right, aye,’ she said a little coolly.
‘I bumped into Imogen in the lane,’ Nick said, avoiding my eye. ‘They just heard from the vet. Looks like Frieda’s going to pull through.’
I caught my breath. The dog was going to pull through. Put out the bunting. Strike up the band. His son might lose full use of his hand, but the neighbour’s Labrador was going to be OK. Cath saw the look on my face.
‘Well, that’s something,’ she said.
‘She and Douglas are very concerned that the auction shouldn’t be eclipsed by all the bad publicity,’ Nick went
on. ‘They’re worried it’ll put people off; that they’ll think for some reason the results of the auction won’t stand.’
‘Who cares about the results of the auction?’ I snapped. ‘Who cares about the fucking church roof?’
‘They want people to know,’ Nick said in a low, even voice, as if he was talking to a child, ‘that despite all the worry they’ve had, they’ll be following up with the admin and the best thing everyone can do to support the family is to make good on their payments, if they haven’t already, and enjoy the things they bought.’
‘Well, I shall be making good on my payment, don’t you fret,’ Cath said with a breezy cheerfulness. ‘I’m looking forward to owning an original Karen Mulvaney.’
I rolled my eyes. Her effort to lighten the mood was transparent, but it seemed unkind not to meet her halfway.
‘You paid far too much for it,’ I scolded her, ‘I’m embarrassed.’
‘I don’t think Luca would agree…’ Cath said.
‘Ah yes, Luca!’ said Nick, as though the mention of his name had jogged a memory. He took his mobile out of his pocket. ‘I have a text here from Luca. He put on a terrible Italian accent and read, “I ’opa you all OK after traumatic events of a the weekend. If nota too soona for you guys, I propose mushroom hunt for theesa Thursday. Condeetion looksa good.”’ Nick made a goofy thumbs-up sign, satirising, we could only imagine, Luca’s chosen method of signing off.
‘Mushrooms! I mean, honestly…’ I said.
‘You don’t need to come if you don’t want to, darling. I don’t think anyone’ll think any the less of you under the circumstances. Although of course Luca will be disappointed.’ This last with a meaningful smirk.
I hated him in that moment. I had had a lifetime of his flirting, had been all but destroyed by his affair; watched him revert to type within a year of supposedly turning over a new leaf yet he had the nerve to tease me over the unwanted attentions of an amorous Italian, whom I’d done precious little to encourage. It would no doubt suit him very well if I dropped out of the mushroom hunt and left him with his female fan club.
‘Oh, don’t you worry, I’m coming,’ I said.
‘Well, that’s great,’ he said, lightly planting a kiss on my cheek. ‘Now if you ladies will excuse me, I think I’ll go get a shower.’
‘Well…’ said Cath awkwardly, ‘probably time I went.’
‘Oh, please don’t!’ I said, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…’
‘No, it’s not that,’ she looked pained, ‘I’ve got to ring someone back about a job.’
‘How about you call in at the studio on your way out?’ I suggested. ‘You could tell me what kind of thing you’ve got in mind for your pot. I could do a few sketches.’
‘You won’t need any sketches,’ she said quietly, ‘I know exactly what I want.’
To a newcomer I suppose the state of my studio must have looked pretty bizarre – pretty obsessive – row upon row of more or less identical, but otherwise undistinguished, unglazed pots proliferating on every surface. Cath, being Cath, got it at once. She stood on a chair, surveyed the room through half-closed eyes and nodded her approval. They would make a stunning installation, she agreed, in the right kind of gallery space, with the right kind of lighting. She could see what I meant about a panorama – a rough-hewn, undulating whole. It would be moving, she said; it would be epic. She was full of practical advice about packaging and transportation and insurance. Hearing her enthuse, I found myself believing for the first time that it might actually happen. She got so carried away, it was as much as I could do to get her onto the subject of her pot, but eventually, and with an almost sheepish reticence, she showed me a photo on her phone of a lidded raku urn, fifteenth-century Japanese. About twelve inches high – a beautiful thing, decorated in whorls of rust and celestial gold-tinged blue. Much admired by Annie, apparently, on the last trip the two of them had made to the British Museum. Cath wanted as faithful a copy as I could make – colour, size, everything. Was that too big an ask? I didn’t think so. I could see how I could attempt such a thing. It would be a pleasure actually; a privilege. Neither of us discussed the use to which it would ultimately be put. We didn’t need to.
It was good, after she had left, to get my hand in again, to get back to that feeling of solitude and peace and purpose. The whirr of the wheel, the sensuous pliability of the clay, the requirement to focus, which prevented my mind from wandering to places it wasn’t healthy for it to go.
I left it as late as I dared to return to the cottage, and if my stomach hadn’t been clenching with hunger, I might not have returned at all. I could see Nick pottering in the kitchen. I slipped in through the open front door and was trying to sneak upstairs without his hearing me when his voice called out, ‘Dinner in ten, love…’
‘Not hungry,’ I lied, my voice flat and resentful. He appeared in the kitchen doorway, a tea-towel draped over one shoulder.
‘You’re kidding,’ he said, sounding not angry, but baffled; hurt.
He had no idea. He thought we would sit down to a romantic meal together, as if nothing had happened.
‘Nick,’ I said, spreading my hands feebly, ‘can you not see that this…’ I waved my hand at the cosy domestic scene – the simply set table, the napkins, the candles, ‘… under the circumstances, it’s just not…’
‘What?’
‘… Appropriate.’
‘Appropriate?’ he laughed perplexedly. ‘Karen, love, I don’t know what you’re talking about. How is it not appropriate to tidy up and cook a meal? I’m sorry but…’
I screwed up my fists then and, growling in frustration, raised my chin towards the ceiling.
‘You just don’t get it, do you? He’s gone. You’ve fucked him over not once but twice. You’re like… I don’t know, some horrible Judas, denying that he’s your son or something. And now he’s gone. We’ve lost him.’
‘Oh God. Not this. Not again.’
I gave a guttural groan of frustration, turned on my heel and stomped upstairs to the bedroom.
I lay there for a while in the gloom, with the curtains open, watching the sky turn from cornflower to navy blue, wishing I had had the foresight to at least grab an apple from the fruit bowl. I must have fallen asleep in the end, awakening when a slice of light from the landing fell across the bed.
‘Sorry,’ Nick’s voice whispered, ‘I didn’t mean to wake you. Shall I sleep in the spare… in Ethan’s room?’
I winced inwardly at his idea of tact, but otherwise played dead. Typical Nick, given an inconclusive response, chose the interpretation most favourable to himself. I heard him getting undressed in the dark, the clink of his belt, the slight grunt as he writhed his shirt over his head, sounds which, until recently would have piqued my desire, but which tonight left me cold; worse than cold – clenched tight with revulsion. I braced my body as he pulled back the duvet on his side of the bed, lest an involuntary shudder of distaste betray my wakefulness, but he got in and arranged himself in his metre or so of allotted space before lying there as stiff and cold as if it were his coffin.
25
The ragged pink streaks of dawn had barely begun to show themselves above the hawthorn hedge as we walked up the lane to the Gaineses’. Frost glittered on the lane and an owl hooted nearby. Once or twice, Nick turned to me, as if about to engage in conversation, then seemed to think better of it.
Walford House still seemed shrouded in night. A carriage lamp cast a feeble glow in the porch, but otherwise there was no sign of life. Nick pushed open one of the wrought-iron gates, wincing at its clamorous squeak.
‘What do you reckon, shall we give them another five minutes?’
He glanced at his phone.
‘They’re late, Nick,’ I objected, ‘and it’s freezing.’
He shrugged, turned up his collar and began the fifty-yard trudge over the gravel. As I watched him approach the house, he seemed to dwindle not just in size but in stature. He was a little man,
I realized with a shock, and always had been – a snob; a vain philanderer. The jolt of recognition winded me. I grabbed at the iron strut of the gate to steady myself. I felt sick, but also exhilarated. By the time I looked up again Imogen had answered the door.
I heard the low murmur of conversation, punctuated by the faint tinkle of female laughter. They were halfway down the drive before I noticed Douglas wasn’t with them.
‘Sorry, Karen, have you been waiting ages?’ Imogen broke into a little jog and laid a placatory hand on my arm. ‘Bit of a hiccup on the domestic front. Douglas’s mother was meant to come over and babysit, but she’s been taken ill.’
‘Oh dear.’
‘Oh, I’m sure she’ll be fine, she’s got the constitution of an ox, but obviously we can’t leave the girls…’
‘Of course not,’ I agreed, looking rather wistfully at her carelessly elegant get-up.
‘I know. I look a fright, don’t I?’ she apologised and I realized I must have been staring. ‘I just grabbed the first coat I could find from the cloakroom.’
With her blonde hair streaming over the cape of her navy blue Barbour jacket, skinny jeans tucked into green wellies and a wicker basket hooked over one arm, Imogen looked far from a fright, as she very well knew. She looked like a fresh-faced Red Riding Hood, all wide-eyed and virginal and ready to be eaten.
‘Is that for the mushrooms?’ I asked. ‘I just brought this.’
I dragged a plastic carrier bag out of the pocket of my jacket
The Move Page 21
