‘You’re sorry? You’re over’ – he consults his watch, despite holding all that technology in his hand – ‘two hours late. Two hours. Did you have car trouble?’
His blue eyes are blasting through me, as if he can see the livid beat of my heart. I don’t say anything, just make myself busy, wiping down the milk carton before placing it in the fridge, handle facing to the left, in the approved way.
‘You’ve been parked up at the beach.’
‘I was upset. I thought I’d go down there and take a few minutes, but I ended up searching. Just in case.’
‘That was your mother’s line: “I’m just going to the beach.” I didn’t believe her, and I don’t believe you. I know who lives at the beach.’
My father pushes back his chair. Still dodging his gaze, I set about cleaning the sink.
‘You were with Rocky.’
It isn’t a question. Life rewinds like a runaway film reel. Liam, Mum, humiliation, horror. I’m a kid again, flushed and frightened, wanting to dissolve through the cracks in the floor. I hear the scrape of his chair on the tiles, the measured tread of his steps behind me. He’s never in a hurry, Dad. He knows he’ll get his own way without trying, a lazy lion contemplating a gazelle. Adrenaline floods my system, but instead of either fight or flight, I choose the path of least resistance. I get stuck into the porridge pot with a wire scouring pad. ‘I met him on the beach. He helped me to search.’
My father’s hand comes into contact with my left buttock. He squeezes it, like he’s measuring up a side of pork. I squirm away from him.
‘Your jeans are wet.’
‘I tripped. I fell in a rockpool.’
‘Your top—’
I toss the scouring pad into the sink and pick up a butter knife from the draining board, using it to chip away at the stubborn goo on the bottom of the pan. ‘No, my top was okay. It was just my jeans and my boots.’ I can scarcely breathe. Mum is no longer here to come between us and I don’t know what he’ll do.
‘Your top.’ His voice is very close to my ear. I can almost feel him breathing on me. I pause in my scraping. How much damage could I do with a butter knife? I imagine pinning his hand to the counter like a dead butterfly. ‘Your top is inside out.’
My breathing stops altogether. He flicks the offending label and then grabs a handful of fabric. With a jerk, the neckline tightens around my throat like cheese wire. My objections turn into a choking cough. He shakes me like a disobedient puppy.
‘You stay away from fuckin’ Rocky, do you hear? He’s on his last warning. I’ve been through all this with your mother.’
His grip loosens, but he slaps me so hard across the back of the head that my teeth rattle. Pain blooms through my sinuses and the water in the sink erupts into dazzling black stars. My grip tightens on the knife.
‘She was teaching him English.’
‘What?’
‘My mother.’ I drop the knife into the sink with a clatter and turn to face him, my hands dripping suds on the floor. ‘She was giving him fucking English lessons – nothing else – so he could get a job anywhere but here!’ I spit that last word in his face. Something shifts behind his eyes.
‘And you believe that?’
‘As it happens, I’ve just had a very interesting conversation with Piotr. He told me lots of things you’d probably rather I didn’t know.’
Dad’s smile is tight-lipped. I can’t work out whether this news has unsettled him or not. He tries a different tack.
‘Do you know what happens when a gypsy dies?’
‘My mother wasn’t a gypsy, if that’s what you’re getting at. The Smiths are show people.’
‘Bullshit. Some of Shelby’s crew still roam the country laying drives and trotting ponies through town centres.’
‘And this from the King of the Scrappies?’
He wants to slap me again, I can tell, but he wants even more to torment me with words.
‘The old ones, they burn the deceased’s wagon and all their possessions with it. Like a funeral pyre. A warrior’s possessions being sent with him to the afterlife.’
‘Or her. Warriors can be female.’
‘Whatever. The point is’ – he strokes his beard like a magistrate about to impart some great judgement – ‘if you step out of line once more, or if I catch you where you shouldn’t be, I will take your mother’s car off you and I will load it with everything that she held most dear.’ His menacing stare makes his meaning clear. ‘And I will send it to the yard and I will fucking crush it.’
My insides turn to water. He goes to the table and sweeps up the Irn-Bru can, and as our eyes lock in a death grip, he squeezes it in his fist. Liquid dribbles down his wrist like blood. I tear my gaze away, turn back to the sink. I’m shaking. The crushed can sails over my shoulder and lands with a plop in the washing-up water. Greasy spray splashes my face.
I daren’t move a muscle to wipe it away, but my father’s mood changes abruptly. Whistling, he checks his watch.
‘Now, my routine has been well and truly disrupted, but you can make my milky coffee and we’ll say no more about it. Good girl.’
26
I hover anxiously by my bedroom window, waiting for Shelby to return. When I hear the familiar growl of his Land Rover, I have to remind myself to appear calm and stay quiet. Downstairs, the door to the sitting room is closed, but I can hear the dull roar of some sports commentary on the TV. The kitchen is empty, yet I find myself tiptoeing.
Opening the back door, I run across the yard to rattle on the caravan door.
‘Shel! Open up!’
There’s a rumbling and a muffled curse from inside. The door creaks open. ‘Where’s the fire?’
He seems a bit irritated, and I wonder again where he’s been. Waving me in, he slams the door behind me and gestures to the table at the front end, between its two parallel bunks. The windows are all steamy, the velvet curtains half drawn. I slide into the nearest seat. As a child, I remember curling up on this bench, breathing in the familiar scent of damp and bacon fat, lulled by the soft rise and fall of grown-up conversation, usually between Shelby and Mum. Even then, I longed to fall asleep to the rattle and sway of a moving van, to wake up somewhere far from here. There’d be trickling water and lots of green, and always Mum would be there.
‘Shel, I have so much to tell you. Oh, I don’t even know where to start.’ I slide along the bench, tucking myself into the familiar corner. A half-empty mug of tea and a packet of crisps sit on a vinyl mat in the centre of the table. ‘Is that your dinner? Crisps?’
‘Steak and onion.’ He points out. ‘Want a brew?’
I turn my nose up at the tan dregs in his cup. ‘Pass. Listen, I’ve just had a run in with Dad.’
‘So what’s new?’
‘He’s threatening to crush Mum’s car with me in it.’
Shelby makes a little noise. I can tell he’s shocked. ‘He said those very words?’
‘No, not those very words. He threatened to put “everything she held dear” in the car and crush it. But that’s his style, isn’t it? He damages whatever happens to be closest to you, to make you cry inside.’
I’ve broken rank, exposed the sullied underbelly of the Rook clan. Shelby shuffles into the seat opposite me and we both stare intently at the crisp packet. Neither of us knows what to say. This is new ground.
Shelby clears his throat. ‘Empty words, my love. He’d not do that.’
‘In some places they throw the relatives on the funeral pyre. It’s kind of the same!’ It’s all starting to bubble up now – the rage, the fear. Emotions long supressed are worming their way to the surface. ‘Did she ever tell you about the car boot? You know he shut her in a fucking car boot overnight?’
Shelby rocks back in his seat, and his voice comes out all quiet and crushed. ‘No. No, I did not know that. When was this? I knew she wasn’t happy, but . . .’
‘When I was sixteen. I’d gone down to the woods with Liam Duthie, and— Oh,
it’s a long story, but he was so pissed off with me, he went for my mother. Don’t you see? That’s what he does. What he’s always done. Don’t tell me it’s empty words.’
There’s silence between us. My unspoken fear is hovering around me. Why can’t I speak up, share my anxieties, get help? I’m angry with myself. Shelby doesn’t know what to say, and I want to lash out, to get a reaction. ‘He called her a gypsy, and he said that’s what they do with a gypsy’s possessions when they die.’
He spits out some curse, whether because of the insult or the threat I can’t tell. I want to ask him why the hell he’s stayed here all these years – an underpaid spanner monkey, forsaking his own country and his wandering genes, subject to my father’s whims and moods like the rest of us. He could have upped sticks and left at any time. Was it money or loyalty that kept him here? And what will he do, now that she’s gone?
Like the inside of the caravan, he looks old and worn and tired, and my heart sags a little. Over the years, we’ve shown our affection for each other in a hundred daft little ways. I knock off his hat, he ruffles my hair – that kind of thing. Now I break another rule. I reach for his hand.
‘I can’t stay here,’ I whisper, gripping his fist. ‘I need to get away.’
He looks down at my fingers, then opens his palm and squeezes them, in a way he’s never done before. I can feel his fear.
‘You’ll have to wait till the rozzers move off. It’ll look strange else, my love.’
‘I know. I know.’ I draw in a shaky breath. I can’t let go of his hand. ‘I – I can’t leave River here, not without Mum to protect him.’
‘He’s near a grown man. He can put his wheels down wherever he chooses, and if he chooses not to stay here . . .’
‘But he’s still at school, supposedly. And what about you? You’ll be here all alone.’
‘Same deal, my love. Maybe I’ll take to the road again. But for now . . .’
‘We hold the line.’ I shoot him a weak smile. ‘Yes, I know, but I’m counting the days until I can get on that plane.’
Shelby seems about to say something else, but he stops mid sentence, lets go of my hand and narrows his eyes at the window. ‘Isn’t that young Rocky? Thought he’d a day off today. What’s he doing here?’
I can’t stop my heart giving a little kick when I see Piotr. I twist in my seat to get a better view. He is hovering outside the front door, his battered bike leaning against the wall. When I knock on the window, he looks alarmed, but Shelby is already opening the caravan door and ushering him inside.
‘There’ll be questions asked if the boss sees you,’ Shelby mutters, and I wonder if he’s seen a flicker of something in my face. There’s a moment of awkward shuffling in the confined space and Piotr comes to sit opposite me as Shelby fills the kettle at the tiny sink.
I’m unprepared for the spark that kindles when I finally look Piotr in the eye. It arrests my breath and I’m pretty sure he feels it too. His hands are between us on the table. I want to touch him, but not in the same way I touched Shelby. I sit on my own hands to stop myself.
‘I thought you might have spoken to your father. I just wanted to make sure you were . . . safe.’
Over at the stove, Shelby moves slowly. He lights the gas with practised movements. I know he’s listening. He’s not stupid. He spends his whole life watching and listening.
‘I went to see Piotr today,’ I explain. ‘We had a conversation that shed light on a few things.’
‘I’m sorry. I should have told you before.’ Piotr looks miserable.
Cold presses in on me. I can’t look at him. ‘Tell him, Piotr. Tell Shelby what you told me.’
Shelby sets a mug of tea in front of Piotr with a heavy clunk. When he speaks, his voice holds a warning note. ‘What exactly is going on?’
‘There are things you don’t know about me,’ Piotr begins. ‘In my country, I have a degree in IT.’
Shelby screws up his eyes. ‘I thought you were a mechanic? Julie said you were.’
Piotr is shaking his head. ‘I know my way around a car. But I also know my way around a motherboard. I was desperate for work when I came here. I’d been picking fruit, but when that came to an end, they told me about the scrappie. Lawler took me on. When he found out about my degree, he thought it would be – what is the word – handy.’
‘My father likes people who are handy for him.’ My voice sounds hollow.
‘The boss, he needed a few things done. He has a lot of . . . deals that are not recorded. He has a deal with me too, which no one knows about.’
‘A deal? What are you talking about?’ asks Shelby.
‘One day, he approached me, asked me what I knew about tracking vehicles. He wanted me to set up a system. Many businesses have it. You attach sensors to the vehicles and track them on your IT system.’
‘And you were happy to oblige, weren’t you?’ I say.
He nods slowly. ‘I put tracking devices on all the vehicles, linked to your father’s computer. He knows where everyone is, all of the time.’
‘So now when my father’s on his laptop, or his iPhone, he can see where my mother’s car is.’ I hold up my hands to Shelby in frustrated disbelief.
‘For fuck’s sake!’ Shelby sweeps a hand through his hair and turns away. Standing there, with his back to us and his hand on his head, it’s like he’s in pain and he can’t move.
‘That’s how he knew I was at the beach this morning.’ My mind slips to that heated exchange in the kitchen, my inside-out T-shirt. ‘And there’s more. Go on, Piotr.’
‘He asked me to clone her mobile.’
‘What? What does that mean?’ Shelby swings back to us. His eyes are glittering.
‘It’s not difficult. You just need a hack code to find out the electronic serial number. I put the cloned SIM into a handset for your father, allowing him to receive everything that came to Imelda’s phone. Messages, images, every text and call your mother received – it all went to his phone too.’
‘For fuck’s sake!’
‘Shelby! Calm down. She knew. Mum knew. She stopped using her phone. That’s why she started calling me from the cafe instead.’
‘So how did she know it was cloned?’ Shelby demands.
‘I told her.’ Piotr holds his gaze steadily. ‘I didn’t want to do this to her. You must believe me.’ He turns his attention to me, and his grey eyes soften.
‘Even for Lawler, this is extreme.’ Shelby looks rattled. ‘But I don’t understand . . . Why now?’
‘He thought Mum was having an affair.’
Shelby digs his fingers into his hair. ‘Why would he think that?’
‘How would I know?’ says Piotr. ‘He does not confide in anyone, and he trusts no one. He tells people what to do – that is all I really know about Lawler Rook.’
‘But he told you he thought she was cheating on him?’ Shelby urges. He’s standing at the end of the table, fingers pressed against the edge. ‘With who?’
‘I do not know.’
‘He suspects Piotr. He knew I was at the beach today,’ I add, when Piotr looks at me questioningly. ‘He was angry. Said my mother spent too much time with you.’
‘No,’ says Piotr. ‘I already told you, she helped me with my English, so I could get a better job here. We were friends, nothing more.’
‘Friends?’ I repeat. ‘How could you do that to her, if you were friends?’
‘I had no choice. He threatened me, said that if I did not do this for him – put trackers on the vehicles and clone the phone – I would . . .’
‘What?’ This time I do reach for him. I want to believe him, to trust him. His dimple appears briefly, but it’s more of a nervous tic.
‘He said Offshore Dave would pay me a visit. He said lots of foreign nationals get washed up on the beach, but nobody cares and their bodies get shipped back to their families with no questions asked.’
‘Shit.’ Shelby and I exchange a look.
Piot
r is one of us – both victim and collaborator.
27
Piotr leaves the caravan not long after that. He has no good reason for being here and he doesn’t want to risk running into my father. I don’t blame him. I’ve spent my whole life wandering around with reasons and excuses on the tip of my tongue, just in case. Shelby has folded in on himself and barely mutters a goodbye, so it’s left to me to show Piotr out. I want to squeeze his shoulder, make contact, but I’m scared of giving myself away. Once outside, he turns and looks at me, and I realise that he already knows how I feel. Truth shimmers between us, and it’s hotter than any physical touch.
Now he’s gone, riding the wobbly bike with a torch strapped to the handle bars, and I stand braced in the doorway, watching the light disappear.
‘Are you in or out?’ Shelby grunts. ‘You’re letting in the cold.’
‘Sorry.’ I close the door gently. ‘Shel, there’s more stuff too. It’s River. He won’t talk to me. He’s hiding something. You know my mother called social services about him?’ This is the trouble with confiding in people. Once you start, it’s hard to stop. I don’t know why I haven’t confided in Shelby before. Everything seemed stuck; knotted up inside me. ‘And the money. Do you know about the money?’
Shelby lowers his brows at me. ‘That’s an awful lot of questions all at once.’
Without his hat, he seems older, less significant, and I realise – for the first time – that maybe he doesn’t have all the answers. I grew up thinking he knew everything, that he had a well of secret knowledge way down deep, but now I see he’s frail, just getting by like the rest of us, and I feel bad for hectoring him.
The Unmaking of Ellie Rook Page 12
