Family Portrait (Kingsley Family Trilogy Book 1)

by Rebecca Paulinyi

  “Yeah?” Imogen turned the hair-dryer off and flicked her head around to see who the intruder was.

  “Have you got much homework?” Ella asked, perching on the side of the bed without permission.

  “A couple of pieces, not too much. Why?” she said, suspicion colouring her tone. Ella was never overly inquisitive about Imogen’s schoolwork; her grades weren’t bad, and teachers weren’t ringing home, so she assumed that her ‘daughter’ was working well.

  “I thought we could maybe go shopping for the afternoon. I need some new clothes, and I know that Abby’s growing out of things quickly. I thought maybe you might need some clothes too…”

  Imogen could do her homework pretty quickly, she knew that – and shopping sounded like a nice idea. She hadn’t had new clothes in so long – her pocket money at the care home had been pittance, and she’d focused on buying things for Abby. She’d never got round to finding a Saturday job, because she’d had Abby. And she was right: Abby was growing pretty quickly.

  “All right then – can you give me twenty minutes to get ready?” she asked, and Ella nodded.

  “Sure. I’ll go see if anyone else wants to come, and make sure Abby’s ready.”

  Sara had too much homework to go out, but Daisy wanted to come, so the four of them – Daisy and Abby in the back, Imogen in the front seat beside Ella – set off.

  “Any ideas what you want for your birthday then Imogen?” Ella asked, casually. The question surprised Imogen somewhat; it had been years since anyone had asked her what she wanted for her birthday. To be honest, she hadn’t even thought about the day – it didn’t seem overly important to her.

  “Umm… I haven’t really thought about it,” she said, glancing briefly in the mirror to check on Abby, before looking back at Ella.

  “Well, when you do, let me know. I have a couple of ideas, but I’m not too sure on any of them yet.” She wasn’t sure why, but Imogen was actually quite touched by this question – not that she’d admit it – as it seemed Ella had been putting thought into what to buy her. She didn’t like feeling in debt to Ella, and so changed the subject by turning the radio up.

  “This is my favourite song,” she said, by way of explanation, as Abby began to sing along out of time and incorrectly. They all laughed.

  “The Killers, huh?” Ella commented, as ‘Mr Brightside’ faded out. Imogen nodded, thinking with a grin about the tickets Zach had bought her for Christmas – the concert was the following month, and she couldn’t wait.

  ***

  Amazingly the sunlight was bright, even though it was cold, and the rays bounced off Abby and Daisy’s blonde locks. The two held hands, looking like true sisters, with Imogen and Ella holding the other hand of each. They walked like this along the pavement, trying to avoid knocking into people, although luckily the town was nice and quiet. It seemed February wasn’t too popular for shopping.

  ***

  Back in the living room of Daryl Keele, which was only ten minutes walk away from Monroe Manor, the forbidden romance continued. Under the pretence of staying at Violet’s, Evangeline had spent the night at Daryl’s (she’d had the spare room, mind you) in order to be able to spend some time with him away from the worry of Zach appearing. It was amazing how similar her and Imogen’s lies were, although they hadn’t discussed it beforehand.

  The sunny February morning had finally roused Eve, and she was sat cross-legged in the living room, still in her pyjamas, with Daryl sat beside her. He’d been up much longer, and so was already dressed – but he wasn’t in any rush for Evangeline to go home. It was so nice not to be panicking about being found out – his mother had gone away to visit her sister for the weekend, and his older brother couldn’t care less who he was seeing – that he would be sorry for the morning to end. He knew Zach was expecting her back at around three, and so wanted to make the most of the time they had left in this little bubble, where they weren’t a secret couple, just a couple.

  He had something he wanted to remind her of – something he hadn’t had a chance to remind her of up until that point.

  “Eve, you know New Year’s Eve?” he began, and Eve chuckled.

  “Yes. Certainly an interesting night…I can’t believe we were so lucky that Zach had to go home early. I should have thanked that guy for trying to hit on Imogen.” Daryl laughed too.

  “Yes, well, I was just wondering if you remembered what you said, when you told me-”

  “That I loved you?” She sounded calm, nonchalant, but in truth she was anything but. Of course she remembered, but since she could blame alcohol for forgetting it, she had pretended to do so. What if he thought she was turning clingy? What if, already afraid of what Zach might do to him, her declaration of love scared him right off? No, it had seemed better to forget that she had let those three little words slip out, and since he hadn’t mentioned it, she’d presumed he’d forgotten. Clearly not: she’d decided in a split second it was better to be confident than to deny something she knew had happened.

  “So you do remember.” It was statement, not a question. “I thought I should remind you, since we’re both sober now – I did promise I would.” It was something he’d wanted to tell her himself for a while now, but it seemed like such a…weak emotion. Not one he’d thought would stand that well with Evangeline. But then…assuming she’d meant what she said, surely it meant he was licensed to say it too?

  “Yes. And-” She’d been about to reaffirm it, but changed her mind at the last second – it was an awful lot harder to say sober, even though she really did mean it.

  “And?” Daryl pressed her, not accepting her cut-off sentence. She was silent for a few moments, and it seemed as though she was not going to reply. If there was one thing Daryl could do, it was make Evangeline talk, and tilting her chin up slightly so their eyes met, he gave her the full effect of the puppy-dog look. It didn’t take long before she was continuing her sentence, although in a slightly angry way – as though she’d been forced to speak. Somehow, she made angry look cute.

  “And I meant it, okay?” She turned away before those eyes could do anymore damage, but Daryl just laughed – she really was quite funny when she attempted to be mad at him. She could never hold it for long.

  “Good. Undoubtedly you don’t love me as much as I love you, but meaning it is a good start.” He said the words as though they meant nothing – in fact, they meant everything. Her eyes whipped back round to meet his, and there was a look of disbelief, then one of shock, then one of happiness.

  “You don’t honestly believe that after all this time, after risking Zach’s wrath for this long, that I don’t love you?” He laughed as though the idea was preposterous, and wrapped his arms around his girlfriend in a tight hug.

  “Well, you don’t love me more than I love you. It’s not possible,” she said, not one to be outdone. They both began laughing at the same time, and – not for the first time – both wished their relationship didn’t have to be quite so complicated. Of course, they could just tell everyone – but at what risk? Evangeline did not want be forced to choose between her brother and Daryl – and so she would not do anything that might bring about the necessity of making that choice.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “He’s rung again.”

  As ambiguous as Ella’s statement was, Imogen understood immediately exactly what she was telling her, and stopped abruptly on the stairs. Instead of continuing, she put Abby, who she’d been carrying, down, whispering to her to go to their room, and turned to face Ella.

  “What?”

  “He’s rung again. Jack. Imogen, he’s ringing every single day, has been for months. If you don’t want to talk to him, that’s fine – I’m not going to argue with that. But I need to know what we’re up against, and why.”

  She’d been lying to Jack every time he rang, and instructing everyone else to as well, without question for far too long now. She knew she’d have to broach the subject at some point, but was loath to do so – thi
ngs were going well, and it seemed like it would be the sort of conversation to put a dampener on things. But it had gone too far – she had to know why they were lying, what Jack had done.

  Reluctantly, Imogen walked back down the few stairs she had climbed, and into the living room, prepared for the explanation she had known would be unavoidable. What was it with inevitable explanations? First with Zach, now with Ella. Would the whole world soon know all the skeletons in her closet? This was the problem with letting people get close…sooner or later, the past would catch up with the present.

  The question was, could her new world cope with the secrets from her past? Zach had coped with the biggest of them all, so she had some hope. Ella, on the other hand, seemed a lot less capable of taking on board Imogen’s past. Even with a mother like Elaine, Imogen was pretty sure Ella’d had a pretty privileged upbringing. She couldn’t imagine anything that stressful had happened to her – so how could she begin to understand the complications of Imogen’s life?

  “Look, it’s complicated,” she began, not wanting to get into it right then. It had been a long day at school: Zach had been off ill for the second day running, having come down with the flu that over the weekend, which made Imogen’s days at school very boring. It also made her evenings dull – no sneaking out at night, no spending her afternoons round at Monroe Manor. Instead, she was up-to-date on her homework for once – she spent her afternoons with Abby, but once she’d gone to bed, there really wasn’t much else to do.

  “I don’t want to talk to him, see him, or make up with him, got that? So don’t try and persuade me too.”

  “I won’t. He’s your brother, it’s your decision – I just want to know why you’re so against speaking to him,” Ella said, sitting on a sofa opposite Imogen and waiting. This wasn’t as hard as the revelations she’d made to Zach less than two weeks previously, but it was hard enough. It gave Ella something on her, let her into the protective shield she’d built up and maintained for years. The one she hated to let down.

  “So, Jack…” Ella prompted, and Imogen sighed quietly before speaking again.

  “I’ve got an older brother and an older sister. Jack’s seven years older than me; Fleur’s-” she stumbled for a second over the name, annoyed that it was still so hard to say, even after all this time, “five years older. I don’t know how much you know…” In order to tell Ella the story, she’d have to give her a little more information than she had done previously – possibly information she’d already heard from social workers, but not from Imogen.

  “My father didn’t accidentally kill my mother,” she informed her, trying to avoid all emotion, making sure she avoided the fatal word – ‘mum’. “Well, actually I don’t know what he meant to do. But he used to hit her, and went too far. But, before that, when all three of us still lived at home, we knew he beat up mum.” There, she’d said it – and she could feel the pain of mentioning the name. There was an ache inside her that she could do nothing about, an ache that made her more vulnerable than she cared to be, that was worsened by the memories.

  “This was before Abby was born; she has no memories of our mother,” she couldn’t say it again, it was far too painful, so she reverted to the detached, emotionless Imogen, “she wasn’t alive for more than a week of Abby’s life.”

  The look on Ella’s face was a mix of shock, disgust and pure horror. No, she hadn’t been told the nitty-gritty details – just the basics. Maybe the social worker who’d dealt with it all didn’t even know the details: she wasn’t sure how much had gone on file, and how much had stayed between her and a counsellor. She supposed there had been some sort of patient confidentiality agreement with the counsellor she’d been forced to speak to.

  “Jack and Fleur have never met Abby either. And that links to the reason I don’t want to talk to him, or see him. Well, one of the reasons.” She was silent for a moment, but Ella didn’t push her. She was having a hard time taking in some of this stuff herself.

  “The three of us were home schooled. Jack got on well with my father,” Imogen nearly spat the sentence, so disgusted was she in the fact that he had gotten along with Drake Meyer. “He could ignore the fact that he hit our mother, because he got on with him. Respected him.” She subconsciously shook her head in disbelief at this: it was something she had never been able to understand.

  “Then, when he turned eighteen, he left. Despite getting along with our father, he wanted to get out. He never told me why. I think it was because he knew he had no prospects if he stayed around: we lived in a small village, he’d been home-schooled all his life, and our father drank and ate everything he shouldn’t.” She felt as though she was partially excusing him, something she certainly didn’t want to do – but it was the only way she could try to explain it to Ella.

  “His health was suspect: Jack would have known that if he’d stayed around, when our father died, he’d have had to take care of everything. And I think he wanted to deny what was happening to… her.” What was she doing? Opening up to Zach, that was something she could understand, she loved him. But to Ella? She didn’t know why, couldn’t see a reason for suddenly opening up, but it eased the ache just a little – to be able to tell someone. Also, to be able to tell someone whose opinion of her she wasn’t too worried about. She’d not gone into the details of Fleur and Jack’s departure with Zach…

  “He persuaded Fleur to go with him – she’d always been his favourite. Mum-” again, the aching, but she persevered, “was five months pregnant by this time. He’d stopped hitting her, because she was pregnant. He was hoping for a son. Jack persuaded Fleur that he’d stopped, that they should get out and see the world – that everything was going to be okay. I don’t know why she left…but she did. They both did. They left mum to be killed, and neither of them tried to find us once they were both dead.” She didn’t go into the particulars of her father’s death – there was only a certain level of sharing that she felt was necessary.

  “And now he’s ringing, out of the blue, and I do not want to speak to him. I will never forgive him,” she said, reiterating what she’d vowed back when she was just eleven years old, sitting on the stairs of her childhood home, watching her siblings abandon her.

  For Fleur’s behaviour she could come up with a few excuses; there were none for Jack’s. And yet… Jack leaving hadn’t hurt so much as Fleur. Imogen had loved and trusted Fleur; her departure was a true betrayal.

  “I spoke to him once when he rang,” she informed a slightly surprised, silent Ella, without telling her that it had actually been Imogen doing the ringing.

  “He hasn’t changed. I’ve coped without him for the toughest years of my life, I don’t need him now. Please don’t tell him where I am.” Confiding; pleading; Imogen didn’t know what was happening to her, but she did know that she hated Jack even more for weakening her in this way. He was still destroying her, little by little, and could potentially destroy the life she had now. The life which, although she would never admit it to the Kingsleys, she was happy with. A life she didn’t want ruining. Again.

  Imogen was horrified to find that tears she hadn’t even noticed welling up were falling down her cheek. Pathetic – that was what crying was. Damn Jack for reducing her to this! Furiously she rubbed the tears away, and was glad that only Ella, and none of the other family members, was witnessing this.

  She would not shed tears over her brother again.

  “Of course not,” Ella murmured soothingly, reaching over and patting the girl’s arm in a maternal way. Imogen didn’t like it, but she didn’t shrug it off; she felt she owed the woman more than that. “If he doesn’t stop, we’ll just change the number, okay? No problem.”

  Imogen felt a sudden, unexpected, uninvited wave of gratefulness towards this woman who was, for all intents and purposes, her mother.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Luckily for Imogen’s sanity, by the end of the week Zach was feeling well again, and was back in school. It shocked her just how
much she had missed him, and whilst she tried, some of the time, to hide from the world just how deeply she’d fallen for him – and just how weak she was when it came to Zach Monroe – she was usually unsuccessful. The smile on her face when she opened the door Friday morning to find Zach stood there, also grinning, was a prime example: she was in way too deep. And, to be honest, she couldn’t have cared less!

  As usual when they walked to school together, they were late – and this was especially true on this day, as they made up for not having seen each other all week by kissing every metre or so. The walk was pleasant; the weather was improving, and Imogen and Zach wandered lazily, hand-in-hand, laughing. They had assembly first thing, and they knew their tutors wouldn’t turn up – the assemblies were that boring that even the teachers couldn’t stand them – so no-one would notice if they were late.

  “You free this weekend?” Zach asked as they neared the school.