Hold My Hand

by M. J. Ford

  That was five months back. He’d given her the space she asked for. For the first few days, anyway. It was surreal at work, like a parallel world where nothing had happened. They even laughed and drank tea together in the canteen, but she found ways never to be alone with him for long. And she saw, in his furtive glances, that he was plotting something, and that in her every unguarded moment, he was watching her.

  She still had a key to the old place they were renting, and went by to pick up a few more things a week or so after walking out. It was a tip – it looked like he’d been sleeping on the sofa, and the overflowing bin reeked. There was paperwork for a loan on the small dining table, and a crushed dent in one of the doors that must have been caused by his fist. After a flash of vestigial concern, Jo’s mind turned to anger. What a fucking cliché. And there goes our security deposit.

  She gathered her remaining clothes and left.

  That night, as she sat in her bedsit, trying to work out her finances, he called, pissed out of his skull, and demanded to know why she’d been in his flat. She hung up straight away. He called and called, until she switched off her phone. Listening to his garbled messages the following day was brutal – the slow progression from alcohol-fuelled rage to conciliation and self-pity. She texted him, against her better judgement, at ten a.m., and told him to get some help. He didn’t ring back.

  Work became slightly more difficult after that. His senior ranking had always been something they joked about, but in the wake of the break-up, the joke soured completely. Ben was never one for holding a grudge, and he didn’t try to make her life difficult. It was quite the opposite. He went out of his way to alleviate her workload, even if it meant putting upon others. No one knew they’d split – at least, she hadn’t spread the news – and Jo wondered if her colleagues noticed the shifting dynamic. It embarrassed her, made her feel like a child being looked after. If it was an attempt to ingratiate himself with her again, it could hardly have been less successful. When he put her forward for a commendation based on work on a burglary case, she confronted him outside the cell-loading bays.

  ‘You need to stop this,’ she’d said.

  He’d looked bewildered. ‘Stop what?’

  ‘The commendation. All of it.’

  He glanced over her shoulder.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, sergeant. Your work was excellent.’

  ‘Ben … please. I know we have to work together, but—’

  ‘Sergeant …’

  ‘Stop calling me that!’ She realised she’d raised her voice, and when he next spoke it was very quiet in comparison, but slightly menacing too.

  ‘This is what you wanted, isn’t it? Purely professional. Well, that’s how it’s going to be.’

  He walked away.

  Another few days went by without incident, but then the texts began. We need to talk. Can you call me? Can we talk later? I miss you. I can’t bear this. Where are you staying? She ignored them, and the calls too, usually late at night or first thing in the morning. More texts, sometimes disguised as practicalities: Post for you. Where shall I send it? and sometimes verging on accusatory – Can’t we be adults about this?

  Gradually, they wore her down. Maybe she was being childish. Avoiding the issues. She decided to meet him for a drink, somewhere busy and neutral in the town centre.

  ‘To clear the air,’ he said, like they’d had a minor disagreement.

  ‘To talk about where we go from here,’ she’d replied.

  He was there early, sitting at a corner table – he’d ordered her a cocktail. He’d dressed smartly, and as he arrived he tried to hug her awkwardly. Her heart sank as she smelled his aftershave. He’s still not getting it.

  He wanted to know where she was living, and when she wouldn’t say, he took offence. He wasn’t a stalker, he said. Jo knew that, she replied. She just needed her own space. He told her he was getting help, like she said. Gamblers Anonymous. She nodded, said she was glad for him, but it didn’t change anything. He asked why she was being so combative. It was like she hated him, but she couldn’t hate him. They’d been together for years. They loved each other. They’d almost had a child together.

  And that was when she lost it.

  ‘You’re using that as some sort of bargaining tool?’

  ‘No, I’m not. I—’

  She leant across the table and spoke through gritted teeth. ‘If we did have a baby, we’d struggle to afford nappies at the moment.’

  He looked taken aback. ‘I wouldn’t have … I mean, if it had worked out, I never would have started.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said. ‘And you know what, I’m glad we never had to find out.’

  That knocked him speechless for a minute or so and they sipped their drinks silently, two angry pugilists having a breather between rounds. The pregnancy a year before had been an uncalculated surprise that opened a future neither had planned for, but the subsequent miscarriage, right before the twelve-week scan, had hurt more than she’d expected. They’d agree to wait then until after they’d found a house before trying again. Life was suddenly full of opportunities.

  Until he had thrown it all away.

  She told him then and there, in no uncertain terms, that they were never ever getting back together. And she’d found Bright Futures online the following day.

  * * *

  The knot in her stomach grew tighter as she drove away from the city, following the signs to the pretty neighbouring village of Horton, with its single pub-cum-village-shop-and-post-office. For families with young kids it was ideal. Good schools, safe roads, countryside on the doorstep. For Jo, growing up car-less, it had felt like the back of beyond. She remembered vividly the feeling of relief as she’d left for uni at eighteen, swearing to herself that she’d never come back. Her dad had actually cried on the doorstep – he knew. Her mum had waved her away with a cheery smile. Perhaps she had known too. They’d never had the best of relationships.

  Jo pulled off onto Blenheim Road, where the houses were all discreetly distanced from one another, with names rather than numbers. At the one called ‘The Rookery’, she turned up the gravel drive. The front of the house was already filled with cars. Her brother had painted the door red over the old blue, but otherwise the family home was just the same – externally, at least.

  Paul, his wife Amelia and the kids had moved in after Dad died suddenly. It had happened without much discussion – they’d been thinking of moving to somewhere bigger anyway and it made sense while they found the right place. Jo was grateful at the time, too, because she had just transferred to Bath, and there was no way she could make the commute and be there for her mother as well. Amelia had been thinking about going back to work as a teacher, but she put it on hold.

  Paul’s theory was that having family at hand and her grandkids running around would help their mum, but it hadn’t. Stella was lost without her partner of forty-five years. First it was a series of falls, after which they made some changes to the downstairs to give her a room on the ground floor. Then her mind began to suffer as well. Paul’s youngest, Will, was only three at the time, and thought it was all quite funny, but Emma, then eleven, started to find Gran frightening. She started wandering around at night too. Paul and Amelia took the decision to move her to a residential home. They’d never asked Jo for money, thank goodness, but as far as she knew they didn’t have any mortgage or rent either. It had worked out pretty well for her brother.

  Not for the first time, she wondered guiltily what would happen when her mum died. The house must be worth close to a million quid.

  There were lights on across the ground floor, and as she walked up carrying the hatbox, she felt like a teenager again, sneaking back after a night out. Growing up, she’d hated the remoteness of the place, envying her friends who lived within walking distance of the city centre. At sixteen, her parents had finally given in and let her head into the city on a Friday night, with strict instructions to get the last bus home. She rem
embered once how she’d forgotten her key, and rather than wake up her parents, she’d climbed the drainpipe onto one of the front bays, then opened the sash window from outside to get back into her bedroom.

  She rang the bell. On the other side of the door, she heard the laughter of adults and the shrieking of children. No one came. She thought about ringing again, but decided to go around the back instead. She passed the bins, reached over the side gate and pulled back the bolt.

  ‘Hey!’ a figure jumped back. ‘Oh, it’s you!’

  Jo couldn’t see the cigarette but she could smell it, and it set off a pang, even though she hadn’t touched one for years. Her niece stood in the darkness of the side passage, illuminated only by the faint light from her phone’s screen.

  ‘Hi Em.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go through the front?’

  ‘No one answered.’ She saw the dying embers of a fag butt. ‘Would it help to tell you those things will kill you?’

  ‘Please don’t tell Mum.’

  ‘I’m sure she knows already.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Emma sulkily. She was taller than Jo already, even though she was only fifteen. ‘Ben not with you?’

  ‘He couldn’t make it.’ She wasn’t even close to being able to tell her family. Ben had charmed them all from the start, like he did with everyone.

  Emma pointed further down the passage. ‘Oh, well – the fun’s all round the back.’

  There were people spilling out from a set of bifold doors. Paul and Amelia had redone the kitchen, she saw – extending it out another few metres with a glass-roofed orangery arrangement. It must have cost a fortune. Their guests, all effortlessly cool forty-somethings, were drinking from champagne glasses, lounging around a kitchen island and on outdoor furniture. Jo hated it already, but told herself to give it a chance.

  William, her nephew, was charging past the legs of the adults, holding a very realistic Uzi machine gun. One of the guests was pretending to be shot, collapsing against a wall.

  ‘How many times,’ boomed Paul’s voice. ‘Stop killing people. The police will shut us down …’ He caught sight of Jo and grinned. ‘See, they’re already here! Hi sis!’

  William ran towards her and Jo put down the box and braced herself as the six-year-old leapt in the air. She caught him, but almost lost her footing.

  ‘You weigh a tonne!’ she gasped.

  ‘Hi Auntie Jo,’ he said.

  Amelia wafted through the crowds, a glass in hand ready to give to Jo. ‘Hello darling,’ she said. ‘Thanks for making the trip.’

  ‘Wouldn’t miss it,’ said Jo. Amelia was hard not to like.

  Paul was looking good.

  ‘You’ve lost weight,’ Jo said.

  ‘He’s doing a triathlon in September,’ said Amelia. ‘He’ll be tapping you for sponsorship, so watch out.’

  ‘I’m broke!’ she said, managing a smile.

  ‘I’ve given up cheese,’ said Paul morosely. Then he pointed with his glass to the box. ‘Is that for me?’

  ‘I hope you like it,’ said Jo.

  Whether it was the booze or not, his face lit up when his eyes landed on the homburg, and he paraded the hat in front of his guests.

  ‘You look like something out of le Carré!’ said Amelia, laughing. William tried it on as well, to much amusement.

  ‘Thanks sis!’ said Paul, giving her a peck on the cheek. ‘Actually, we could have done with you here a week ago. Car got broken into – they nicked my iPad. And my bloody squash racket of all things. Police didn’t even come out and take prints!’

  Jo could tell a few people were listening, so just said jovially, ‘Sorry, bro – not my patch!’

  She could have told them that the police force were suffering the deepest cuts since their inception, that manned stations were being phased out in all but the biggest towns, and that the few demoralised officers who did remain really couldn’t give a shit about someone stupid enough to leave their iPad on display in their vehicle.

  But that would probably sour the mood.

  She’d never been great at small talk anyway, and less so when she was lagging several drinks behind the rest of the guests. So she drifted through the party. Several people professed intrigue about her line of work, declaring their own jobs intensely uninteresting, but when she offered few salacious details, she sensed their disappointment.

  She sipped at a glass of champagne, feeling like a schoolgirl out of place at a disco. Amelia had offered her the bed in the spare room for the night, but she’d politely declined. It was weird enough just visiting for a few hours. She found the lounge had been renovated too. Gone was the old worn carpet, replaced by oak flooring and a plush Afghan rug. The furniture was leather and chrome. There were figurative daubs of paint on the walls instead of the conservative rustic watercolours her parents had favoured. She thought briefly of the stained sofa at the flat, with the numerous chips in the wallpaper. How the fuck did I go so wrong?

  Eventually, she extracted herself through the back doors again, glad to be out in the warm evening air. The house’s garden had always been her dad’s pride and joy – dropping down towards a tributary of the River Cherwell at the bottom. Beyond, past a small orchard, the ground rose to abut the land of Cherry Tree Cottage, about two hundred metres away. Mrs Carruthers, Jo’s former piano teacher, had once lived there with her husband. They were both surely dead now, or at least moved on. The evening light was failing as Jo made her way down the steps, away from the glare of the security light, under an overgrown trellis. Paul wasn’t green-fingered at all, and there was something sad about the disarray.

  The river had been fenced off, and Jo remembered Paul saying that Will had once had a bit of a scare down there, or perhaps it was one of his friends. It was a shame.

  Jo climbed over, letting the chatter from the party fade into insignificance. There’d been newts and frogs down here when she was a girl. The ground was squelchy in places, but she reached the old beech tree, and saw to her astonishment that the swing was still there, hanging loose from one side.

  She went further, using her phone as a torch, into ground that had always been a wilderness, where Dad had chucked the grass shavings and prunings to rot down into compost. Where, as a girl, she’d made up silly games about beautiful fairies and goblin kings, borrowing the plots from the Enid Blyton books she’d voraciously consumed.

  Bats swooped over the old barn opposite like flakes of black ash. Jo couldn’t believe it was still standing too. It belonged to Cherry Tree Cottage, a relic from when the place was still a farm. As a girl, it had always scared her a little, sitting out there alone and abandoned, with its tiny shuttered windows. Mrs Carruthers said it was dangerous, close to falling down, and one wall was bowed a little.

  Jo was about to turn round and head back to the party when the barn door opened suddenly, and a figure came out, hunched and walking with a stick. An arc of torchlight flashed across the ground. It couldn’t be, could it?

  ‘Mrs Carruthers?’

  The old woman stopped suddenly, and turned towards Jo with her whole upper body, as if her spine and hips were welded together.

  ‘Hello there? Who’s that?’

  ‘It’s me – Josephine,’ she called.

  ‘Oh my!’ said the old lady. She had something in her other hand that looked like a tin can. ‘Is that really you, Josie?’

  Jo could have cried, so powerful was the wave of nostalgia that washed over her. How long had it been? Twenty years at least. She hadn’t seen Mrs Carruthers since the day she’d moved out to uni.

  The old woman hobbled across to her, over the uneven ground, still clutching the can in one hand and the torch in the other.

  ‘No, stay there!’ said Jo. She hurried over herself, the dewy grass soaking her feet. She shielded her eyes as she got close, until the beam dropped. She saw a fork sticking out of the top of the can and smelt something that might have been cat food. She remembered a little tabby brushing against her ankles
by the pedals during her lessons, but that was long ago.

  ‘Let me look at you,’ the older woman said, peering awkwardly from under a bowed back. She was wearing a blouse and baggy cardigan, and wellington boots. Her wrists were narrow, her fingers knotted. Under her thin white hair, her face was painfully gaunt; her once sparkly blue eyes looked silvery pale like a winter sky.

  ‘Goodness,’ she said. ‘All grown up.’

  ‘My brother’s having a birthday party,’ said Jo, and as she said it she realised it sounded a bit silly, like there’d be jelly and ice cream.

  ‘I see them from time to time,’ she said. ‘He’s got two bonnie children, hasn’t he?’

  ‘That’s right. Emma’s fifteen, William’s six.’ She frowned at the dish. ‘What are you doing out there, Mrs Carruthers?’

  ‘Oh, do call me Sally,’ said the old woman. ‘It’s my cat Timmy. He’s turned quite feral since Mr Carruthers passed away. Lives in the old barn, won’t come in the house.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear about your husband,’ said Jo. In truth, she barely remembered Mr Carruthers. He’d been a large, taciturn presence at the best of times, drifting about, always doing indeterminate jobs. He’d used the barn as a workshop of some sort.

  ‘Don’t be,’ said Sally, with a toss of her head. ‘He was ready to go.’ She reached across and touched Jo’s arm. ‘Now how’s your practice coming along?’

  The question threw Jo. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Your piano!’ said Sally.

  ‘Oh, I’m afraid I don’t play any more,’ said Jo.

  Mrs Carruthers wore a look of mock indignation. ‘But you were such a talent!’

  ‘I bet you say that to all your students.’

  Sally Carruthers chuckled conspiratorially. ‘Quite the opposite actually. But really, you’ve given up completely?’

  Jo felt like she was letting her old teacher down. She’d had lessons weekly from the age of six through to eleven with Mrs Carruthers, rising to grade seven just before her twelfth birthday. It had been her parents’ idea at first, though she’d quickly taken to it, playing for hours on the old hand-me-down her dad had found at a house sale. But after that, with secondary school and other distractions, the practice had started to slip. The piano had been passed on to cousins in Wiltshire. If she could talk to her teenage self now, she’d give her a firm telling-off.