Scar Hill

by Alan Temperley

  He stopped in his tracks.

  ‘What?’

  Peter was staring. It wasn’t just fat, his sister was pregnant.

  ‘Oh, yeah. That’s the news. Top marks for observation.’ She turned to face him and pulled the jumper tight. Her belly was round and hard as a beach ball. ‘Knocked up, that’s me. In the club. Got one in the oven. How d’you feel about being an uncle?’

  Peter was shocked. Out of his depth. Didn’t know how to respond to such momentous news. His cheeks burned with embarrassment.

  Valerie took it more matter-of-factly: ‘To save you the trouble of asking, no, I’m not.’

  He was lost. She wasn’t what?

  ‘Married,’ she said. ‘And I’m not living with Moses no more neither.’

  He got the story in fragments:

  Four years had passed since Valerie ran away from Scar Hill. As Peter understood it, the first of those years she had spent travelling the country with Tinker’s Cuss, the boy band whose single hit had crawled into the top fifty and stayed there for six undistinguished weeks. At the start, especially after life in Tarridale, it had been thrilling: the blast of sound, screaming teenagers, parties every night, sneering at authority. The excitement didn’t last. As Valerie put it, ‘Only thing they cared about were theirselves, third-rate load of tossers.’

  When everything turned sour and the band broke up, she had moved to Bristol with a friend called Zoë, another of the groupies, and rented a tatty basement flat. It was all they could afford, but after they had cleaned it up and put a few posters on the wall, it wasn’t too bad. They were looking for a good time. She showed Peter photos: there was Valerie on her birthday, plump and pretty, glass in hand, surrounded by a laughing crowd. There she was at the zoo, at the seaside, coming out of a nightclub. It was fun at the beginning but sadly, like so much else at that time, things didn’t work out. Zoë got heavily into drugs and Valerie left the flat to move in with the first of a long series of boyfriends.

  They were young and carefree, none had a proper job, most were unemployed. Kashif worked on the fish dock. Chris, when he wasn’t sleeping, played the tin whistle in an under-pass. Harold sold dodgy CDs in the market. And Phil, a drop-out student who got drunk every night, turned out to be gay. The best of them was Moses from Cardiff who was studying with the Open University and sold the Big Issue outside Sainsbury’s, but when it turned out that she was pregnant, and not by him, he threw her out the bedsit.

  For much of this time, to her credit, Valerie had kept her job in a back-street chippie, which was why she was getting fat. But now her baby was due in a few weeks, the owner had replaced her with his niece whom the customers liked better and Valerie, permanently tired and sick of the life she had made for herself, had returned to the only real home she had known.

  It had not been an easy decision. Valerie didn’t lack courage – with Sharon and Jim for parents this was not surprising. But after all that had happened, she did not look forward to asking her dad for help.

  That first evening, as they sat with tea and biscuits and the last of the daylight faded to darkness, she said, ‘How come he never got that bloody letter? What’s he going to say, me coming home like this and the baby and everything? Is he going to go mental, sling me out like Moses did? Mind you, in a way I can’t say I’d blame him.’ Like a beached whale she lay on the settee. ‘Miserable old bastard.’

  Peter said, ‘You’re not to talk like that about my dad.’

  ‘No, you and him were always close. You were his favourite.’

  He couldn’t deny it. ‘But that’s only ‘cause you set out to annoy him. You can’t wonder he got angry.’

  ‘A bit maybe.’ She plucked at her clothes. Whatever she wore these days it was uncomfortable. ‘He was just so bloody authoritarian: don’t do this, don’t do that, do what I tell you.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’ Peter thought about it. ‘Anyway, he had good reason, you were thieving all the time.’

  ‘He didn’t know that.’

  ‘Maybe not, but you were. All them tops an’ bits of jewellery an’ stuff you used to hide under the wardrobe. He didn’t want you staying out all night, that’s all. He got sick of the shouting matches. He didn’t like you going around with that horrible Maureen Bates an’ getting into trouble.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got into trouble all by myself now, haven’t I?’ She was a good mimic and put on Jim’s voice: ‘I knew it would come to this one day, Valerie. Swan off looking for the good life and come crawling back here expecting me to look after you. Is that what it’s going to be like?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Well what? You’re not saying he’ll welcome me back like the Prodigal Son? That’ll be the day.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What are you saying then? Anyway, where is he? You said he was out to the sheep. That can’t be right ’cause Meg’s here. Got one of his precious moods has he? Away down the Kipper, drinking himself blind?’

  ‘I wish he was.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  Peter found it difficult. The words stuck in his throat. He heard a voice say, ‘Dad’s dead.’

  Valerie stared. ‘What do you mean?’

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘Dad’s dead?’ The words hung in the air. ‘What are you talking about? How’s he dead?’

  Peter gave an awkward shrug. ‘He just is.’ His face told her it was the truth.

  ‘Good God! What happened?’ She struggled to the edge of the settee. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yeah, I reckon.’

  ‘But I phoned Maureen just last week and she’d seen him in the shop. He was all right then.’

  ‘Not last week he wasn’t.’

  ‘Was it an accident or something?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Well how long ago?’

  He didn’t need to count: ‘Ten days.’

  ‘Ten days? Bloody hell, Pete.’ She thought for a moment. ‘What are you doing here then?’

  21

  Money and Lies

  ‘GOT ANY MONEY? I’m needing fags.’

  Valerie, who had a driving licence but no insurance, was taking the van to the village to collect the suitcase and assorted cardboard boxes that had accompanied her from Bristol. They contained all her worldly goods.

  Peter went to the sideboard, keeping his back turned, and took a ten-pound note from Jim’s wallet. Valerie saw his secretive manner and pushed past. ‘That dad’s? How much we got?’ She plucked the wallet from his hand. ‘Forty quid? I’ll take twenty.’ She tucked it into her purse. ‘That the lot? Not got any stashed away in that drawer in his bedroom?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘You looked?’

  ‘That’s where he kept the wallet.’

  ‘Well, this’ll not last long will it? I’m going to need stuff for the baby apart from anything else.’ She thought about it. ‘Suppose that means I’ll have to go to the Social.’

  ‘But you can’t, they’ll find out –’

  ‘’Bout dad an’ what you done an’ everything? Could do, I s’pose. But they’ve got to find out some time, haven’t they? I mean, you can’t go on living like this forever.’ She looked him in the eyes, her young brother who’d always been so quiet, burying their dad like that. And she’d thought some of the people she mixed with in Bristol were wild. ‘I still can’t hardly believe it.’

  ‘But you can’t tell them,’ he said. ‘You can’t tell anybody. That’s the whole point. That’s why I did it, I told you, ’cause of the dogs an’ the house an’ everything. To give me time.’

  ‘Well we need money, I need money anyway, and I don’t know how else to get it.’ She looked at her watch, sparkly pink plastic and big as her wrist. Her boyfriend Harold, two before Moses, had nicked it from the market. ‘We’ll talk about it later. If I don’t go now they’ll be shut.’ She headed for the door, leaning backwards to balance her bulge.

  ‘Dad’s prob’ly got some money in the bank,’ Pete
r said desperately. Valerie had a loose tongue, it was all he could think of to stop her talking.

  She turned. ‘Bully for him but what good’s that to us? You got to have a PIN number.’

  He lowered his eyes.

  ‘You know his PIN Number?’

  It was the last thing he wanted to tell her. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘God, you’re some boy. How’d you find that out?’

  ‘I used to pick up money for him.’

  ‘He never bloody asked me to pick up money for him. How much has he got?’

  ‘I’m not sure – a few hundred?’

  ‘What, two hundred? Nine hundred? I bet the old skinflint had a bit tucked away.’

  ‘I don’t know, honestly. A thousand maybe.’

  ‘A thousand!’ She thought about it. ‘And there’ll be his money from the Social coming in every week, that gets paid straight into the bank. And his tax credits. And his child benefit for you.’ Valerie knew her way round the system. ‘What’s that add up to?’

  Peter shrugged.

  ‘Must be five hundred a month,’ Valerie said. ‘Mebbe a bit more. Better than I’d get for Maternity anyway. Bloody hell, Pete, we’re rolling in it.’

  Her enthusiasm made him feel sick. ‘As long as you don’t tell anybody,’ he said.

  ‘You’re right there. Mum’s the word.’

  ‘Not anybody,’ he said. ‘Ever. Specially not that Maureen Bates.’

  ‘Silent as the grave,’ she said and suddenly giggled. ‘Silent as the grave.’

  It didn’t seem funny to Peter. ‘You’d better not get caught driving,’ he said. ‘The police’ll be round here wanting to talk to dad.’

  ‘You seem to have thought of everything,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about nothing else for days.’

  ‘Where’s his cards anyway?’

  He didn’t want to say.

  ‘In his wallet?’ She found them. ‘What’s the PIN Number?’

  Peter pretended not to hear.

  ‘Come on, Pete.’ As she turned she bumped into the back of a chair. The baby protested. Valerie stopped in her tracks, holding her belly with both hands. ‘It’s going to be a boy, I’m sure of it. Got a kick like a bloody mule.’ The baby settled down and her face cleared.

  Peter pointed to the clock. ‘Fifteen minutes and they’ll be shut.’ He put more peats on the fire.

  For the moment, at least, the matter of the PIN number was forgotten.

  When she had gone Peter slumped at the table. He picked up some cake crumbs on the tip of a finger. It had been a stressful hour. Valerie had made coffee while Peter put biscuits and the last of a cherry cake on a plate. Then, tight-chested and eyes pricking, he had told his sister the whole story: how Meg came home by herself, how he had found their dad dead on the hillside, and buried him two days later, and been ill, and gone back to school, and lied to the teachers. ‘And that’s … what happened,’ he said at last and drew a deep breath. ‘If I tell anyone … they’ll make me go away. And now you’re here. And I don’t know what to do.’

  He had needed to tell someone, and although Peter did not realise it, it was the start of healing.

  ‘Good God, Pete. What a terrible thing.’ Valerie reached across the table and caught him by the fingers. ‘But listen, darling, you’re not in any trouble. No one’s going to blame you for anything. You did what you thought was right. Dad would understand. And the dogs’ll be OK. No one’s going to put them down, I’m sure they won’t. They’ll go to different homes, that’s all.’ She brushed his knuckles with a thumb. ‘But you can’t stay on here by yourself, you know you can’t. I’m sure the Social Services or the Children’s Panel or whoever it is, will find somewhere nice for you. With foster parents or in a children’s home or somewhere. Just until they organise something more permanent.’

  ‘Where?’ Peter sniffed and swallowed.

  ‘Well, I don’t know, love.’

  ‘Tarridale?’

  ‘You’d know that better than me. Are there any foster children in Tarridale?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Maybe not Tarridale then, but Clashbay perhaps, or Inverness. Somewhere nice anyway.’

  It was not what Peter needed to hear. He drew his hand away on the pretext of looking for his handkerchief and blew his nose hard. His face was white. Suddenly, even though flames were leaping in the hearth, the room felt cold.

  Valerie returned with her boxes, cigarettes, shampoo, moisturiser, chocolates and one or two other things. While she took a bath Peter fed the dogs, tipped out some frozen peas and put a cottage pie in the oven. For pudding they had ice cream with some expensive out-of-season strawberries she had found in the shop. Afterwards she helped clear the table.

  ‘Leave the washing-up till the morning. Don’t mind if I go out, do you, Pete? Thought I’d look in at the hotel an’ find out what’s been going on.’ She pulled on a squashy hat and lime-green jacket with fur trimming. ‘I’ll not be late, promise.’

  Peter stood in the doorway and watched her drive off. There was a knack to driving the van. The sound of the engine and crashing gears faded. He let Ben from the shed and made a fuss of him to make up for what had happened earlier, then went back to the house and did the washing-up.

  Struck by a thought, he went to the sideboard drawer. A handful of loose change lay at the front. The twenty-pound note had gone from his dad’s wallet. Peter took the bank cards for safe keeping and looked for a hiding place. He had recently seen a film in which a key was hidden under the edge of a stair carpet. It seemed as good a place as any so that’s where he put them, nine treads up on the left. Valerie was not to be trusted with money. Once she got her hands on the cash-card and wormed the PIN number out of him, his dad’s savings would be gone like snow in summer.

  She wasn’t back by ten-thirty. She wasn’t back by eleven-thirty. At a little before midnight Peter went up to bed. As he came out of the bathroom, tasting toothpaste and smelling of soap, he looked in his dad’s bedroom. For as long as he could remember it had been a man’s room, a soldier’s room, tidy and formal. In thirty minutes Valerie, who preferred it to her old room downstairs, had transformed it. The bed was crumpled and strewn with women’s clothes: jeans, tops, pants, bras, tights, slippers. Boxes and other clothes littered the floor. The air was heavy with the scents of perfumes and creams. Framed photos which had stood on the dressing table, precious to Jim, were gone. In their place lay a scatter of bottles, tubes, pots, lipsticks, make-up brushes and eyebrow pencils. Peter hated it. From here, too, his dad was gone.

  It was two o’clock when Valerie returned. Although her baby was due in a matter of weeks, she had been drinking. Alcohol was a no-no, they had told her that at the clinic in Bristol. But what harm could there be in a couple of vodkas, she felt, sitting in the lounge bar with friends and having a reunion? She did not intend to take more, but when people kept putting them down in front of her – well, she could hardly pour them down the loo.

  For Peter’s sake – and maybe out of habit at Scar Hill – she tried not to make a noise. She was too drunk to succeed. In the kitchen she knocked over a chair; on the stairs she stumbled; and in the bathroom her sturdy constitution, more mindful of the baby than Valerie herself, rejected the vodkas and she was sick. On the landing she paused but no sound came from Peter’s room although he was wide awake. She continued to her own bedroom and shut the door. The air was cold. The unremitting wind blew through cracks and stirred the curtain. Heavily Valerie swept her clothes to the carpet and crawled into her father’s bed. Two minutes later she was asleep.

  The next morning, as Peter got ready for school, she did not appear. He let the dogs out, made himself some breakfast and tapped lightly on her door. There was no response. He eased it open. The room might have been hit by a whirlwind. Clothes everywhere. Valerie lay on her back in the middle of the double bed, her mouth open, belly a mound, blonde hair tangled on the pillows.

  ‘I’m just off,�
� he whispered, feeling he should say something.

  For answer she grunted and slept on.

  He left a note in the kitchen:

  I am taking the tractor to the road. The van needs petrol soon. Ben will be alright if you leave him alone.

  Peter

  Valerie did not appear as the tractor clattered into life beneath her window and roared away across the yard. Only the dogs stood watching as Peter grew smaller down the track that led to school.

  There wasn’t a bank in the village. Twice a week a junior manager and a cashier came from head office in Clashbay and conducted business from a room in a sandstone house adjoining the store. There was a cash machine in the wall.

  At lunchtime Peter walked over from school. When the road was clear and he was sure he was not being watched, he slotted Jim’s silver cash card into the machine and typed in the four-figure PIN number. At once a big blue menu appeared. He examined the choices and pressed the button for mini-statement. After a few seconds the card reappeared and the printed details slid out. There was, Peter saw, a balance of £1384.16 in the account. Two recent deposits, dated seven days apart, were for £134.56. He guessed they were the Social Security payments. A note at the foot of the statement informed him: You can withdraw £300.00. This was his dad’s daily maximum.

  He thought for a moment. Valerie needed money, she had to buy things for the baby and there were other expenses too. But she couldn’t have it all, he needed to keep some for himself in case she went away again. He examined the figures; another payment was due in a couple of days. That made over fifteen hundred pounds. How much could he reasonably keep? Six hundred seemed fair. Then he could give her the card and the PIN number. Valerie would get the remaining nine hundred, and the money from the Social would keep coming, a hundred and thirty-four pounds every week. She would get most of that too.

  A woman had emerged from the shop and stood waiting. He moved aside to let her use the cash machine. It was Mrs McKendrick, the lady they had stayed with when they first came to Tarridale.

  ‘Hello, Peter,’ she said. ‘Getting your finances sorted out?’