Vicky felt slightly scared of him for a moment, though, if asked, she could not have explained quite why. But then Cecil asked her if she was OK in a friendly kind of way and eased his way into the room. To her relief, he was fully dressed, in his three-piece suit, his watch chain glinting where it crossed the straining buttons of his waistcoat.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked again, and Vicky had nodded solemnly.
Cecil still had one hand hidden behind his back, and when he brought it into view she saw that he was holding a shiny, foil-wrapped Father Christmas.
‘I thought you might like some secret chocolate,’ Cecil said, closing the bedroom door behind him.
Vicky watched him warily as he advanced towards her, brandishing the chocolate Father Christmas. She was both excited and scared about the offer of chocolate. Christmas chocolate before Christmas was strictly forbidden. They all knew that.
‘So, do you want some?’ Cecil asked, taking a seat beside her on the small bed.
Vicky bit her lip and nodded. ‘Yes, please,’ she said.
‘Good. I thought you might,’ Cecil said, his voice soft and kind. ‘But you mustn’t let your mum know. It has to be our special secret.’
Still holding the Father Christmas in his right hand, he slipped his left arm around her shoulders and gave them a squeeze. ‘This is nice, isn’t it?’ he said.
Vicky nodded nervously.
‘But your mum would be upset if she found out our little secret,’ Cecil continued. ‘And you don’t want to upset your mum, do you? Especially not on Christmas Eve.’
Vicky, still tracking the chocolate from the corner of her eye, shook her head. ‘I can hide it in my toy box,’ she said, pointing.
Cecil looked confused. ‘Hide what?’ he asked.
‘The secret chocolate.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Cecil said. ‘Of course. Though I thought you might want to hide it inside your tummy, actually.’ He then reached across and tickled Vicky’s tummy, which made her laugh, but also made her feel a bit sick, as if, perhaps, she was imagining how she would feel if she ate all the chocolate.
‘So, if I give you this, can you keep the other secret as well?’ Cecil asked.
‘What other secret?’
‘The secret game I was playing with Ed. You mustn’t tell your mum about it. After all, we don’t want to get Ed into trouble, do we?’
Vicky frowned and shook her head, even though she was unconvinced. With Ed being such a clear favourite in the household, being the eldest, and being a boy, there were many occasions in her day when getting Ed into trouble was strategically important just to even things up a little.
‘And your mum would be so upset,’ Cecil went on, ‘that she might cancel Christmas altogether, and we don’t want that, do we? It would be a terrible shame if I had to take all those presents back to the shop.’
Vicky nodded. ‘OK,’ she said. She knew she was being manipulated, but it seemed to her that, what with the chocolate and the Christmas gifts, it was probably worth it.
Finally, the Father Christmas passed from Cecil’s right hand to his left, and then into her own small hands, where it looked so much bigger. ‘You’re a good girl,’ Cecil said, stroking her head. ‘I used to think Ed was my favourite, but now I think it’s you.’
Vicky forced an uncomfortable smile and dug one fingernail into the head of the Father Christmas.
‘Do you want to do “The Ning Nang Nong”?’ Cecil asked, patting his knee.
Vicky shook her head. She quite liked ‘On the Ning Nang Nong’, but she would prefer it if Cecil left her to play with her dolls and eat chocolate, she reckoned.
‘OK, then,’ Cecil said, ruffling her hair again. ‘I’ll see you later. And remember, not a word.’
Once the chocolate was eaten and the foil balled up and hidden at the bottom of the toy box, she made her way downstairs.
Her mother was busy mopping the hall floor. ‘If you go through now, you can’t come back until it’s dry,’ she warned her, her cigarette bobbing up and down as she spoke.
‘Can I make tea?’ Vicky asked. Her authorisation to use the dangerous kettle was recent, and she was proud of her new tea-making job.
‘All right,’ Marge said, ‘but be careful, don’t burn yourself, and don’t take the teabag out too early. Not like last time, OK? I don’t want a cup of gnat’s pee.’
In the kitchen, Vicky dragged a Formica chair to the sink then climbed up to fill the kettle. She then returned to the sideboard and plugged it in, leaning her elbows on the edge of the counter and staring at the distorted room reflected in the polished sides of the kettle as it boiled.
She had just finished pouring water into the teapot when Marge joined her.
‘You all right there, dumpling?’ she asked, stubbing her cigarette out in the ashtray.
‘Of course,’ Vicky said proudly ‘I’m very good at making tea.’
But as Marge turned to look at her, a shadow crossed her features. ‘What . . . ?’ she said, crossing the kitchen and crouching down before her. She grasped the back of Vicky’s head with one hand and dabbed at the edge of her lips with the forefinger of the other. And only then, only when Marge raised her finger first to her nose, then her lips, did Vicky realise that she had been rumbled.
‘Chocolate!’ Marge exclaimed, looking both puzzled and annoyed. ‘Now where did you get chocolate from, young lady?’
Vicky shook her head. ‘I didn’t,’ she said.
Marge grabbed her wrist then. She dragged her through to the lounge and lifted her up so that she could see herself in the mirror above the mantlepiece. ‘Look!’ she said. ‘Now, tell me what this is if it isn’t chocolate?’
‘I . . .’ Vicky said. But she couldn’t think of a way out, because the chocolatey evidence was there for all to see. It was all around her mouth.
‘You eat like a pig. I don’t know how you thought you was gonna get away with that.’ Marge lowered her brutally to the floor. ‘You’ve been stealing, haven’t you? Where did you take that from?’
‘I didn’t!’
‘A thief. That’s what you are. A chocolate thief! And the day before Christmas, too!’
‘But I didn’t,’ Vicky protested, starting to cry.
‘Then tell me where it came from,’ Marge said, shaking her arm so violently that Vicky feared that, like her doll’s, it would come off.
‘It’s Cecil’s,’ Vicky sobbed.
‘You’ve been stealing from your uncle? But that’s even worse. Do you have any idea how much he does for us? Look at that tree. Look at the presents underneath it. Cecil did all of that. Christmas wouldn’t be nothing without Cecil.’
‘I didn’t steal it,’ Vicky said, her tears now mixing with anger at the injustice of her mother’s accusations. ‘He gave it to me.’
‘Oh, lies as well, now, is it? Well, you know what happens to little girls who lie and steal, don’t you? Father Christmas doesn’t bring them anything. In fact, they don’t get Christmas at all!’
‘But he did give it to me, he did!’
‘Maybe we’ll ask him about that, then, shall we?’
‘He did. He gave it to me and said not to tell you.’
Marge paused to catch her breath. A rare doubt had infiltrated her usual certainty about everything. She crouched down to look Vicky in the eye. If Cecil had been undermining her rule, then she wasn’t going to be happy about it. ‘He said you shouldn’t tell me?’
‘Yes. It’s a secret.’
‘Why would he do that? Why would he tell you to lie to me?’
‘Because of the other thing.’
‘What other thing?’
‘I can’t say!’ Vicky said, bashing her fist against her side dramatically. ‘It’s a secret!’
‘Oh, that’s enough. I’ll let Cecil punish you. And there’ll be no Christmas presents for you, young lady. And no Christmas dinner, neither.’
‘The press-ups,’ Vicky said, through sobs. ‘They’re doing press-ups. Secret
press-ups in Ed’s room.’
Marge grabbed her daughter’s hips and shook her. ‘What press-ups? What are you on about?’
‘With Ed. They took their clothes off and Cecil did press-ups. And he made me promise not to tell you and he gave me chocolate. But it’s a special secret. I’m not allowed to tell you!’
At that moment, Cecil’s voice boomed out from the landing above. ‘Who has been stealing chocolate from my suitcase?’
Vicky thought, obtusely, of her sister’s favourite book, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Who has been sitting in my chair?
‘Huh,’ Marge said, now straightening up and putting her hands on her hips. ‘The truth comes out! I knew you was lying.’
‘Someone’s been stealing chocolate from my suitcase.’ Cecil appeared in the doorway.
‘Yes, it’s this one. And that’s not the half of it. She’s been making up lies, too. She’s been making up stories that would make a whore blush.’
‘But you gave it to me!’ Vicky spluttered. ‘You gave it to me to keep the secret.’
Ed appeared at that point, his face peeping out from behind Cecil. He looked pale and waxy and afraid. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked, his voice unconvincing, like a bad actor in a cheap drama.
‘Tell them!’ Vicky pleaded. ‘Tell Mum about your secret game with Cecil. She doesn’t believe me. He took his clothes off,’ she said, pointing. ‘They both did. Tell her, Ed.’
Ed had swallowed hard before replying. ‘She’s mad,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what she’s on about, Mum.’
‘She slapped my face twice,’ Victoria tells Penny. ‘Once for lying and once for stealing.’
‘God!’ Penny says. ‘That’s dreadful.’
‘And then she sent me to my room.’
‘I remember that. I tried to come in and you wouldn’t let me.’
‘That’s right. And then, a bit later, you came to tell me that he was leaving.’
‘So she did send him away?’
‘No,’ Victoria says. ‘No, I don’t think so. I think he was just too ashamed to stick around.’
‘He would have been scared, I would think. He would have been scared in case Ed told the truth.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘God, if I had gone and got him that day, if I had brought him back from the station, he would have known he was safe, wouldn’t he? He would have known that Ed couldn’t tell the truth any more.’
‘I know,’ Victoria says. ‘That’s why I was so glad when you didn’t bring him back. I was scared of him.’
‘And because he didn’t know that Ed was dead, he never came back.’
‘Yeah, that’s how I read it, anyway.’
They are interrupted by a banging noise carrying through the walls.
‘What’s that?’ Victoria asks, looking concerned.
‘It’s just the washing machine,’ Penny says. ‘Sander got a second-hand one from the Friday-Ad for twenty quid. But it’s dreadful. It’s going to explode one day.’
‘Would you let me buy you one?’ Victoria asks earnestly. ‘I’d like to do that for you.’
‘Ha!’ Penny laughs. ‘Thanks, but I’ve ordered one. A brand-new eleven-kilo one with a built-in dryer. It’s coming on Tuesday. But thanks for the offer. Better late than never.’
At that moment, Sander raps on the door and peeps in. ‘Is the coast clear?’ he asks. ‘Only I wanted to watch last night’s match.’
‘It’s fine,’ Penny says. ‘Can we use your studio, though? We’re having a bit of a heart to heart here.’
‘Of course,’ Sander says, throwing the door wide open. ‘Be my guests.’
‘Or we could go for a walk?’ Victoria suggests. ‘It looks lovely out there.’
‘You’re right,’ Penny says. ‘Let’s do that.’
As the women pull on their shoes and prepare to leave, they cross paths with Will and Ben coming downstairs. ‘Coffee and toast?’ Will offers.
‘No, we’re going out for a walk,’ Penny says. ‘Maybe later.’
‘Fair enough,’ Will says. ‘Have fun.’
‘Fun,’ Victoria repeats, as they step outside. ‘I’m not even sure what that means any more.’
The women head to the beach and turn left, away from the town centre. ‘You know,’ Penny says, ‘it’s amazing to me that you’ve never told me any of this before. It must have been incredibly hard to keep all of that bottled up.’
‘It was,’ Victoria says. ‘But it seemed better that way. I mean, when it happened you were too young to understand it all. So was I really, but anyway . . . And then, later on, I thought that you were lucky not knowing. There didn’t seem to be any point wrecking your childhood retrospectively, if you see what I mean. Plus, I felt so ashamed of it all.’
‘But you have to let this kind of thing out. For your mental health, I mean.’
‘I know. And I’ve started to, now, haven’t I? I’ve told Dr Müller.’
‘And you’ve told me, too.’
‘Yes, I suppose,’ Victoria says. She scrambles up on to a wooden, barnacle-encrusted groyne, and then pulls Penny up after her. She wraps her arms around herself and looks out to sea.
‘Are you cold?’ Penny asks. ‘Do you want to go back for a jumper?’
‘No, I’m fine,’ Victoria says. ‘Gosh, it must be lovely waking up to this every morning. And that smell of seaweed and iodine, or whatever it is. I love it.’
‘To be honest,’ Penny says, ‘I’m too busy most mornings to notice.’
‘I suppose,’ Victoria says. ‘I suppose we all get used to it, wherever we are.’
Penny, who has been running the conversation back through her head, now says, ‘Anyway, ashamed of what? You said you were too ashamed. But what did you have to be ashamed of?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Victoria says, glancing away, somewhat shiftily, it seems to Penny.
‘Unless there’s more?’ Penny says. ‘I keep thinking there’s more. Every time you tell me something, it feels like half the story.’
‘I think it’s best if we leave it at that,’ Victoria says blandly.
‘So there is more. Did he abuse you? He did, didn’t he?’
‘No! No, of course not. Though I imagine that, if he had stayed around, he might have tried.’
‘Did he abuse me?’ Penny asks.
‘No,’ Victoria says, looking shocked. ‘Did he?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Penny says. ‘But you never know with things like that. People blank things out for years. I’ve had clients who have suddenly realised at sixty that they were abused.’
‘OK, no, then. I don’t think he abused you.’
‘So, what then? Did Mum do something really awful to you after he left?’
‘Mum did a million awful things to me after he left.’
‘But that’s not it.’
‘There is no “it”, Penny.’
‘Only there is.’
‘There isn’t.’
‘If you say so,’ Penny says.
Back at the house, Sander’s match replay has been interrupted by the doorbell and a burst of staccato knocks on the front door. He hits the pause button on the remote control and rises from his seat.
‘I was just going to get that,’ Will tells him when he reaches the hallway.
‘It’s fine,’ Sander replies as the doorbell rings again.
Sander opens the door to find a red-faced Martin on the doorstep. ‘Is she here?’ he asks urgently. ‘Is my wife here?’
‘Um, hi, Martin,’ Sander says.
‘Sorry. Hi, Sander.’
‘And yes. I mean, no. It’s like . . . she’s here, but she’s not here.’
‘What?’ Martin asks.
‘Well, she’s here,’ Sander says, wincing at his own inability to explain. ‘But she’s gone for a walk with Penny.’
‘Oh,’ Martin says.
‘Are you all right, mate?’ Sander asks.
‘No,’ Martin says. ‘I’m not all right
. This is the third time in a month she’s buggered off without telling me where she’s going. And it’s the third time I’ve inexplicably found myself car-less. And I’m sick of it. I’m sick to death of all of it.’
‘You, um, you’d better come in,’ Sander says, turning to throw a concerned glance at Will. But Will has discreetly closed the kitchen door to give them some privacy.
Sander attempts to settle Martin in the lounge, but Martin will not be settled. He paces up and down the room, constantly checking the street outside as he does so.
‘I’ll make tea,’ Sander offers. ‘Don’t move.’
‘I don’t want tea,’ Martin says. ‘I want my wife and son back so that we can actually spend some bloody time together.’
‘Yeah,’ Sander says. ‘Yeah, you’ll get your wife. Don’t worry. She’ll be back soon. But in the meantime, I’ll make tea.’
By the time Sander returns with the mugs of tea, Martin has sat down, albeit on the edge of his seat, and in the only armchair with a view of the street.
‘Here,’ Sander says, proffering the mug.
‘Thanks.’
‘So, you’re pissed off,’ Sander says, perching on the edge of another armchair.
‘No. I’m . . . Yes, OK, I’m pissed off,’ Martin admits. ‘It’s just been getting worse and worse.’
‘What has?’ Sander asks. ‘What’s been getting worse?’
‘Everything,’ Martin says, his voice strained and brittle. ‘I took the whole week off so we could do something as a family. And so we could sort out Bertie’s bloody schooling – because Christ alone knows what that boy wants. And I get home to an empty house. Again! And no bloody car. I mean, what am I supposed to do with that, Sander? Sit at home and wait? Sit at home and hope my wife and son will deign to spend a bit of time with me? I mean, what’s that about, eh?’
Sander shrugs and shakes his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘And why here?’ Martin asks, looking around. ‘Can you tell me what’s so fucking brilliant about here?’ He grimaces and adds, ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean anything.’
‘I don’t know,’ Sander says again. ‘The beach, maybe?’ he adds tentatively.
‘The beach?’ Martin repeats.
The Bottle of Tears Page 30
