by J. A. Baker
He nods knowingly and stops the car. She opens her purse and rummages inside for a handful of change, suddenly wishing she had kept one of the posters or had a picture of Sheryl in her bag or purse to give him.
‘Well, I hope she turns up,’ he says, as Rachel sloshes a handful of coins into his palm, ‘it must be a right worry for you.’
....................................................................................................................................................
He considers driving back and looking for her, trying to work out which house she went into after he manoeuvred his way out of the road, but doesn’t have the time to go knocking on every door trying to find her. He only made the connection after driving back through town and spotting the posters she had put up all over the place. And they were all over the place. Windows, walls, doors, lamp-posts, bus stops - a woman’s face grinning out at the sea of faces that pass through the High Street carrying out their daily routine of collecting groceries or going to work; hundreds of them, all on their way to somewhere else. He recognised her straightaway, remembered their chat as he took her on the winding path up there. Said she was visiting a friend and would ring him for a cab back again in a few hours. Had a bit of craic with her, he did. She seemed like a right nice lady.
He swings the car round and tries once more to work out which way the young lassie headed but it’s such a long road and they all look the same after a while, these big old semi-detached houses. He’ll drive back through the High Street en route to his next pick up and get the number written on the poster. He can ring her later, after his shift, tell her what he knows; which is probably not much, but better than nothing, isn’t it? Funny thing is, it stuck in his head that pick up, mainly because of the location. He’s never been up there before, that old cottage on the clifftop - wasn’t even sure anyone lived there. For some reason, because it’s so close to the edge and stands on its own, he presumed it was empty.
The radio crackles into life as the taxi driver three points in the road and turns back towards town hoping they find each other, those sisters. Dropping her off up there was probably nothing of any importance anyway. Right now, he has work to do. A full night of pick-ups ahead of him. He yawns and listens as an order is barked through about doing an airport run to Newcastle and then taking someone into Durham City. It’s going to be a long one. He turns the music on and shakes his head before leaning over and turning on the sat nav. What a bloody shift.
38
Alec
He had to offer. There was no other option was there? But now Peggy is sitting beside him in the car, her body frozen in anger, her face a mask of fury.
‘You can’t honestly tell me you’re prepared to watch her go into a home while we have a spare bedroom for her? After what she’s been through?’
Her voice is a shriek, a howl of a fury that Alec feels sure could shatter glass. He visualises the windscreen being ripped out by the sheer power of Peggy’s vocal chords at full pitch.
‘What she’s been through? What about what we’ve been through - what she has put us through?’
His forehead furrows, a deep line etched between his dark brows, ‘Peggy, that was years ago. You were a teenager, for God’s sake,’ He takes a corner too quickly and swears as he lifts his foot up off the accelerator, ‘and to be honest I never have understood why you’ve remained so angry with her all these years.’
He glances her way briefly, their eyes meeting just for a second, a rapid, knowing look before he shifts his gaze back to the road.
‘Haven’t you,’ she says through gritted teeth, her words more of a statement than a question.
‘No actually, I haven’t,’ he replies, determined not to be dragged into an argument about her scars. He’s not prepared to put up with any of her woes. Not any more.
Rain spatters the windscreen, a stream of thick tears spreading over the glass as Alec drops a gear and heads up the steep incline to Chamber Cottage. The place is deserted. No tourists, no dog walkers, everyone at home or in shops in town sheltering from the rain.
‘I think it’s the least we can do considering she has nowhere to live, don’t you?’ Peggy doesn’t answer but then he didn’t expect her to. It was purely rhetorical. Peggy’s attitude is really starting to grate on him, the way everything is always about her. Audrey is a lonely old woman. No more than that, and if he’s being honest, having somebody else around will alleviate the tension in their house. He hoped that he and Peggy were starting to make a go of things but living with her is like being on an emotional rollercoaster. So many ups and downs he actually gets dizzy with it all. And of course, still no sex. Nothing. Zilch. No wonder he can’t keep his eyes off Ellen at work, who actually follows him around like a lost puppy, giving him the come on with her tight skirts and high heels. Sleeping next to Peggy is like being in bed with a block of ice. In a bizarre sort of way, he’s actually looking forward to having Peggy’s mother here with them. He’s had nothing to do with her since he was a kid. And that part of his life was pretty shitty. Audrey’s memories of him will be of a skinny, lonely kid - the scruffy one from the council estate at the end of her road who used to roam the streets at all hours, uncared for, unloved, unwanted. All he remembers of her is an aloof, middle class lady who wore expensive jewellery, high heels and make-up whereas his own mother wore the same threadbare clothes day in and day out and cut and dyed her own hair.
Alec sniffs and pulls at his collar as he feels the heat rise around his neck. Peggy thinks she’s the only one with problems. Peggy and her issues. He’s lived with them for so long now, they’ve become an integral part of their marriage, like an extra limb that refuses to work properly; a heavy appendage attached to everything they do, uncoordinated and clumsy. Superfluous to requirements. He remembers Sheryl’s advice about his marriage and shakes the words away. All in the past. All over with now. No more visits there. No more Sheryl.
39
Peggy
She hears the low drone of the engine as they make their way up the twisting bank that leads them home and listens intently to Alec’s words. They hang heavily in the air between them, sharp icicles piercing her thoughts, freezing her brain. For a reason she can neither fathom nor articulate, Peggy cannot bring herself to tell him. Twenty years and she has never been able to tell him the full tale of that day - the day her face was ripped to pieces, the day her world changed forever. She doesn’t even know why. To protect him from her mother’s words? Perhaps. But then there’s lots of things she keeps tucked away in her mind, secrets she shouldn’t have that she will never tell him about. She’s becoming quite good at it, this lying business.
‘You didn’t have to live with her, see how devious she can be, watch how she ate away at my dad, nagging him half to death, day after day after day,’ Peggy barks. She feels her skin grow hot and starts to unfasten her coat.
‘That still doesn’t explain not talking to her for all this time, Peggy. Don’t you see?’ he says, a pleading expression in his tone. ‘This is your chance to start again. Wipe the slate clean.’
They pull up outside the cottage and he yanks the handbrake on. ‘This is your chance to do the right thing.’
She is sapped of energy. Exhausted by it all. Twenty long years of hating and loathing has taken it out of her.
‘Where will she stay?’ Her voice is a whisper, a loose stream of words that roll around in the still air, meaningless to her. They’re just sounds escaping, things she knows she has to say to placate him.
‘Jesus, Pegs, what is wrong with you? We’ve got a spare bedroom, you know we have!’
She nods, suddenly too weary to put up a fight. His mind is made up. This is a fait accompli and she is no more than a passive bystander, a watcher of her own existence as once again, her mother steps in and takes over, ripping what little life she has left into tiny pieces. She probably planned it all. Realised her emails were being ignored so decided to do something more drastic to get Peggy’s attention. And onc
e she’s in the cottage with them, living her life, up and recovered, there’s no telling what she will say or the lengths she’ll go to, to make sure she is heard. Such a wicked, calculating, old bitch, lying there in a hospital bed, hooked up to drips, garnering sympathy from anybody who is stupid enough to give it to her. Alec was the worst, sitting there all quiet and awash with compassion. If only he knew how much the pensioner in the bed hated him. If only he knew what she thought of him, how she would gladly see him hang. He has no idea, not a bloody clue. Because Peggy has kept that from him too, destroyed the newspaper clippings and all the photographs Audrey sent her. Funny, isn’t it? How their lives are all intertwined, a negative spiral of hatred and culpability - she blames her mother for all her ails and issues, her mother blames Alec and Alec blames her. All locked together in a ring of accusations and hate.
She wrestles with the door handle, her palms suddenly clammy. This is a done deal so she had best get used to it. Whether she likes it or not, Audrey is coming to stay with them. After twenty odd years of silence, Peggy and her mother are about to be reunited.
‘So, this is it, then? The end of us, so to speak?’
‘Yes. You know it is. You need to leave now.’
‘Hold me. Please. Just one last time.’
A step forward out of the house. An arm stretching out. A shove.
‘Don’t do that. Don’t ever push me away.’
A noise somewhere in the distance. Heads turning to look.
‘What is that? Is somebody out there?’
‘There’s nobody out there. You’re imagining things. It’s time for you to leave now.’
Another distant scraping noise.
‘You need to let me in now. Someone is watching.’
A smile. A slight of hand, an arm being grabbed.
‘What are you doing?’
‘LEAVE.’
It all happens so quickly - the tangling of limbs, the jostling, the slipping. Then the crack of bone on concrete. A rapid burst of blood, dark and thick, gathering around them. A guilty stain - spreading, pooling, growing by the second. And the blood; so much blood …
Everything else is a blur. Panic. Absolute blind panic taking over, muddling logic, rubbing out all reasonable thought. Think, think, THINK!
A sudden idea. A way out of this whole situation; a way out of the accident, the harassment, the threats. An end to it all.
A glance around. Nobody to be seen. All alone.
It’s heavy, the body. Pulling it round the back of the house. Relief that at last it’s all over. Fear at what is just beginning.
Tugging at the weeds covering the hatch. Years of growth concealing it. Wrenching at the handle, fearing it will stick. It doesn’t. Staring in at the darkness within - at the deep well of nothingness. Her final resting place. The place where it all ends.
And then after it’s been done, nothing left to do but clean up, wash it all away - the blood and the memories. Scrub at everything until it’s all gone …
40
Audrey
It’s not how she imagined it. She pictured something older; something very cottage-like with tiny rooms, low ceilings, and dark wood beams, dusty antiques littering every surface and dark corners full of cobwebs, but in actual fact, it’s surprisingly modern.
‘I’ll take these through to your room Audrey,’ Alec says as he wrestles her bags out of her hand leaving her and Peggy in the silence of their diminutive kitchen, the smallest room in the house.
The journey in the car passed relatively quickly, the silence eased by the radio presenter whose chirpy demeanour seemed to rub off on everyone, Alec was even whistling at one point when his favourite song came on. Anybody watching would have thought they were a happy family on an outing, not three people who hadn’t spoken for over twenty years.
‘I suppose I should show you where everything is?’ Peggy murmurs, her eyes looking everywhere but at her mother.
Audrey clears her throat, a hacking cough still present after the fire. Her mind freezes. She knows what it is she wants to say but for some reason the words won’t come. They stick in her gullet, hard and painful, lodged in place. Perhaps it’s for the best as they would probably come out wrong anyway. She would end up spewing forth a load of pent-up bile and ruin everything. All she needs to do is bide her time, take it easy for a few days and do her best to be as pleasant as she can to the people who have given her somewhere to live while her insurance company sort her claim out. This set up isn’t ideal - far from it - but it’s better than being stuck in a hotel and it also gives her the opportunity to get things moving with Peggy; show her she isn’t the harridan Peggy thinks she is. She needs to soften her approach, show some humility and gratitude towards them. Be the biddable, amenable person everybody always wanted her to be. Only then will her daughter start to take Audrey’s claims seriously.
She spends the next half hour following Peggy around, being shown where everything is kept - towels, shampoo, all manner of toiletries Audrey has never heard of.
‘This is where I write,’ Peggy states flatly as she points to her laptop, which is placed in the centre of the oak dining table. ‘It’s my full-time job, which means nine to five every day,’ she adds and stares at Audrey, her eyes dark with resentment.
Audrey nods and tries to look humble, ‘Don’t worry, I won’t disturb you. The only thing I ask is that I can use your phone to ring the insurance company, if that’s okay? The sooner I get things moving the better.’
Peggy nods and shrugs her shoulders. Audrey feels her soul sink a little. This is going to be hard work. There is no way Peggy is going to make it easy for her. Not that she expected her to. Twenty years is a long time. A lot of love lost. So much to make up for.
‘Right, well I think I’ll head off out into town and leave you two ladies to it, if that’s alright?’ Alec is standing behind them, car keys in hand and a jacket slung over his arm, ‘Got to pick up a few things for my course tomorrow.’
Audrey stares at Peggy and then back at Alec.
‘You’re still going?’ Peggy’s voice is almost a screech and Audrey feels her skin burn at the intensity of it.
‘Of course I’m still going,’ Alec replies, his eyes suddenly narrow, ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
Peggy shrugs and glances briefly in Audrey’s direction, before resting her gaze back on Alec, her eyes dark, full of hidden shadows, ‘I just thought that maybe under the circumstances, you would postpone it?’
A small gasp barely audible but it is there, ‘Under what circumstances, Peggy?’ Audrey watches as he tightens his grip on the keys, his fists reddening with the extra exertion. She finds herself wondering how often this happens. How often does her daughter ask a reasonable question and have to put up with this - this show of anger that is so obvious it is palpable?
‘Well, you know,’ Peggy says more quietly this time, ‘with all the changes we have here, I just thought …’
Audrey feels her face heat up. She should say something, ease the moment, make her daughter feel less nervous, but fears that whatever she says will be mistaken as sarcasm or spite and doesn’t want to risk losing Peggy completely, so instead slowly retreats to her room, claiming she is tired.
She listens to the hushed tones of their voices from below as she lies on the bed, a small double that overlooks the swelling sea. This is a short-term move. It’s not for forever. It was quite obvious from the very outset that Peggy wasn’t keen on having her mother move in with them but oddly enough, Alec seemed really positive about the whole thing. Audrey can’t think why. They barely know each other, although she has a damn sight more background information on him than he will ever realise.
The last thing she hears before sleep drags her away into its darkest realms is the rush of the sea far below, the angry roar of the tide as it sprays against the rock, lulling and soothing her with its ferocity and menace.
She quickly becomes immersed in a dream where flames lick at her ageing body and she is trapp
ed in a room with Peggy and Sheryl. Sheryl is mouthing something at her, trying to shout to her across the burning room but she is unable to make out the words. Audrey steps closer, the acrid stench of melting flesh filling her nostrils. She reaches out to Peggy who is crying, her eyes wide with fear. Sheryl continues to shout to her, the words becoming clearer as Audrey advances, the flames no longer a threat to her. Then suddenly everything goes quiet. The fire is gone and she is standing in a room with her daughter and a woman she has never met but knows very well.
‘You need to know something,’ Peggy is saying to Audrey as Audrey reaches out her hand and tries to touch her daughter.
‘Yes, tell her,’ Sheryl says, her voice a desperate squeak, ‘tell her,’ she is saying.
‘Tell me what?’ Audrey cries suddenly, feeling terrified. She doesn’t want to hear what is coming next. She has no idea what they are going to say but is consumed with complete and utter dread.
‘It’s both of us!’ Peggy shouts, tears now pouring down her face.
‘What about both of you?’ Audrey asks, her stomach a tight fist of fear as she stares at their faces.
Suddenly the flames start up again, a huge wall of orange and red; thick, angry flames cutting into their skin, melting their arms and faces like candle wax.
‘It’s the two of us together,’ Sheryl shouts, the skin around her mouth dripping away from her face, exposing the bone underneath.
‘Please tell me what’s going on!’ Audrey shrieks, barely able to stay upright in the intense heat.
‘We’re both together now,’ Peggy says, her voice no longer recognisable as she turns to face her mother, the skin above her eye gone completely, leaving nothing but a wide socket staring at Audrey, white and reproachful.
‘What do you mean you’re both together?’ she screams, her words sticking in her gullet like gravel.
