Parallel Life

by Ruth Hamilton

  Harrie continued to play the game. ‘Are you Corgi registered?’

  ‘Eh?’ Sal’s face, though a lighter shade, was still very red.

  ‘Plumbers are usually Corgi registered. Then they can do gas fires and boilers as well.’

  ‘Ooh.’ Sal wiped her damp forehead. ‘No, love – I’m not a plumber. I’m your new home help.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Will. ‘She knows.’ He pushed Harrie towards the outer door. ‘Ben will be all right. Go and sell some diamonds. You need to keep me in the manner to which I am aspiring to become accustomed.’

  Sal picked up her cleaning box and left the room hurriedly.

  ‘We should be kinder to people,’ said Harrie from the doorway.

  ‘You’re no fun at all.’ He blew her a kiss and followed Ben upstairs. Today, he was going into Ben’s rooms for the first time. He had been ordered by his girlfriend to make a small mess and see if Ben got flustered. ‘How big is small?’ he asked himself as he walked upstairs. Oh, well. He would make it up as he went along.

  Sal was about as much use as a chocolate fireguard when it came to imagination. She had looked in drawers and cupboards, but had failed to search unusual places. ‘Have you taken the books off the shelves?’ he asked impatiently. There was no go in the woman, no zest. But he had better keep his temper, because he needed her.

  ‘What books? There’s books all over the place, thousands of them – it’s like a blinking library. And his office is all piles of stuff – if I moved one thing, the whole bloody lot would come crashing down. It’d be like knocking rows of dominoes over. It’s all right for you sitting here, Jimmy. I’m the one that could get caught. They found me under the sink – I said the pipe had been blocked. See, they come home at unusual times. That’s why I have to do dinners that can be warmed up on separate plates in that microwave.’

  ‘Oh, I know you’re doing your best.’

  ‘They both have help in them shops. They can turn up whenever they want. Then there’s that Irishwoman.’

  He remembered her, all right. Even now, his face hurt when he yawned or smiled. Not that he had a lot to smile about . . . ‘Sal, just keep looking. Pictures on the walls – see if they’ve got hinges. Could be a safe behind one of them. Same with mirrors.’

  Sal, worn out and overheated, sank on to her new sofa. Leather was all very well and good, but it wasn’t the right thing on a day as hot as this one. ‘I’m too tired to make the tea,’ she said crossly. ‘If you want to eat, you’ll have to help yourself, love.’

  He wasn’t used to this. So far, Sal had been compliant almost to the point of slavery, hadn’t been able to do enough for him. But travelling from one end of Bolton to the other twice a day, then cleaning a large house and cooking for a family, was clearly too much for her.

  ‘I’ll make a pot of tea and some sandwiches,’ he said.

  ‘Even the professor comes home sometimes,’ she moaned now. ‘Then Her Upstairs keeps sending the Irishwoman down for stuff. I get no chance to have a proper look round.’

  ‘You’ll manage.’ He tried to inject confidence into his words, but they sounded hollow. Sal wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. ‘And you’re on better money, aren’t you?’

  She stared mournfully into an empty grate. It was too hot for a fire, but there was nothing quite so miserable as a fireplace without a flame. Her house looked shabby, too, because she hadn’t the strength to carry on cleaning after a day spent at Weaver’s Warp. Daft name for a house. Daft bloody housekeeper, too, that Eileen woman. She talked a load of rubbish, and she kept popping up unexpectedly all over the place like a bad penny.

  ‘There you are, love.’ He placed a cup on the coffee table and pushed a ham sandwich into her hand.

  She looked at him. ‘What do you do all day, Jimmy?’

  He dropped into his chair. ‘Well, I read the paper, go out if I get sent for, fit an alarm – whatever.’

  ‘But you don’t go out every day, do you?’

  For answer, he shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Couldn’t you run the Hoover round and do a bit of dusting?’

  They were all the same, bloody women. They wanted everything on a plate. They demanded love, attention, clothes, conversation and, on top of all that, help in the house. ‘I’m no good at housework,’ he replied.

  Sal stood up and dragged herself to the door. ‘I’m going in the bath,’ she announced. ‘It’d be nice if you washed the pots while I’m up there – even the breakfast things are still on the table.’ She left the room.

  He snapped his mouth into the closed position because he needed not to react. After finding a duster, he dragged it round the room, then set off in search of the vacuum cleaner. It was under the stairs. As he cleaned, he cursed under his breath. She had to find that gun. Meanwhile, he’d better pull his socks up and become a nice, quiet housewife.

  The nightmares were the worst part.

  Sometimes, Ben managed to wake and stop the terror, only to experience it all over again as soon as he went back to sleep. Staying awake didn’t work. Although the exams so far had been easy, he did not want to be falling into brain-dead mode in the middle of his last physics paper. Once he had finished his A-levels, he would get into that camper van and go somewhere – anywhere – in order to learn to live with himself.

  The therapy he had started in Manchester was already helping. Intelligent enough to have insight into his own condition, Ben soon learned that his problems with contacting people on a face-to-face basis could be dealt with by himself, as long as he was open to suggestion. So the best part was that he began to accept Ben.

  Often, when he slept, he was in the room with the man who hanged himself. Ben could see the Aston Villa poster, a shirt hanging from a picture rail, magazines about sadomasochism, even photographs of family on a chest of drawers. Once or twice, he saved the man, but, for the most part, he stood and heard him choking to death. On waking, he would find himself bathed in sweat and with tears on his cheeks. ‘What the hell was I doing on that site?’ he asked himself repeatedly. Teenage hormones were intrusive and caused odd behaviour, but Ben’s behaviour had gone beyond odd. ‘I am out of step,’ he told his reflection as he prepared to go downstairs. ‘And it stops now.’

  Harrie had called a summit conference. Dress was to be casual and everyone would be allowed to share a couple of bottles of good Crozes Hermitage. He had no idea what that was, but he was definitely going to have his share, as it might take the edge off whatever was about to happen.

  Harrie called for him, banging on his door with a rhythm they had chosen in order that she might be identified. He let her in. ‘Long time no see, sis,’ he said with a smile.

  ‘Yes, well it worked, didn’t it?’ She looked round his sitting room. Cushions were disordered, while CDs, usually kept behind bars, were lying on the floor. ‘Deliberate disorder?’ she enquired.

  ‘Probably. I was thinking about that before you arrived. Even my disorder has a kind of orderliness to it, possibly symptomatic of something or other. But I could pick out Patsy Cline from that heap over in the corner within ten seconds.’

  ‘Don’t bother, can’t stand the noise.’

  ‘Shania Twain?’ he asked with the air of a sommelier offering the best vintages.

  ‘No, but I could be persuaded to go for George Clooney.’

  ‘He doesn’t sing.’

  ‘Exactly. Right. Are you ready?’

  He wasn’t, and he said so. ‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked. ‘What are you hoping to achieve? Do we interview our mother and decide whether or not to employ her? Or do I have to plead my case as a son, you as a daughter?’

  Harrie smiled. ‘We’re going cognitive. We come clean – all of us – then draw a line and start again. You know the score – you’ve been practising in Manchester.’

  ‘Can’t we have Meatloaf instead?’

  But Harrie was not in the mood for ‘Bat Out Of Hell’, so she pushed him out on to the landing
and guided him downstairs. He did not go willingly, though Harrie had told him over and over that Father would probably not turn up, while Mother had more to confess than anyone else. She shoved him into the kitchen. ‘Sit,’ she ordered, ‘and stay.’

  Ben woofed politely.

  Lisa was fiddling with a modern corkscrew with which she had never developed a good relationship. It was a wooden article with a skirt that sat over the bottle, arms sticking out of each side of the upper part, but no head. ‘This decapitated doodah is the bane of my life,’ she moaned.

  ‘Drunk already,’ whispered Harrie to her brother.

  ‘Promising,’ he replied from the corner of his mouth.

  They sat. Ben dealt with the headless lady while Harrie placed herself at the top of the table. ‘I can’t read the minutes of the last meeting because we never had a last meeting.’

  ‘Inaugural.’ Ben smiled as cork and bottle separated company. He filled three glasses, drank half of his, declared it to be good, then sat back to await developments.

  ‘Your father has scarcely been seen since that breakfast, Ben,’ said Lisa. ‘You scared the living daylights out of him. Still, at least you got a reaction.’ She sat back in her chair. ‘I’ve had two double vodkas,’ she confessed. ‘And no food. I want to tell you about your dad. I want to do it now, right away, before I lose my thread completely.’

  Brother and sister held their breath.

  ‘I loved him.’ Tears welled, but she carried on. ‘He was kind and gentle, or so I thought. I think he was simply disinterested. The men I had known before him had been . . . livelier, sometimes frightening. So, anyway, I married Gus. He was this clever man who gave me a job in his jewellery shop while he ran a general practice.’ She took a mouthful of wine.

  Harrie touched her mother’s hand. ‘It’s all right to cry. It says so in the constitution of this committee.’

  Lisa smiled wanly. ‘When you get married, you expect joy, especially at the beginning. We were still on honeymoon when I heard him sobbing in a hotel bathroom. I asked him why, and he told me never to ask because the truth would hurt me. I felt as if a knife had gone through my chest.’

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ Ben breathed. ‘Do you know now?’

  Lisa shook her head. ‘No idea.’

  ‘Have you asked?’

  ‘I have abided by his wishes. There is a terrible, terrible sadness in your father.’

  ‘Poor Dad,’ Harrie whispered.

  Lisa nodded. ‘Your father is the biggest pain in my neck, but don’t hate him. He’s your father. I know he’s Thomas the Effing Tank Engine; I know he went from stethoscope to microscope in one easy step. That was because he was no good with people.’ She stared hard at Ben. ‘Don’t be like him, son. Don’t get yourself tied up in misery.’

  Ben blinked to shift water from his eyes and, as if clearing Beecher’s Brook, he rushed through his own confession. ‘I just want to be normal,’ he concluded, ‘but I don’t know what normal is. No one does.’

  Lisa bit her lower lip. ‘Ben, you can’t shock me. I am really sad about what you went through, especially when the lad died, but life is one long learning experience. Look after yourself, be safe, be happy.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ he whispered before addressing his sister. ‘Right, Miss Chairperson, what do you have to say to this belated communion of three-quarters of a family?’

  Harrie grinned. ‘History at uni later this year, wedding next spring. We’re not planning children immediately, because we already have Milly.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Lisa asked.

  ‘Oh yes. Milly is essentially noticeable. Sorry, sorry, yes, I am sure. We’re going to live in my shed. At least the dog will have a nice, big kennel. Will and I could end up with just a kitchen. Big dog.’

  The door flew inward. ‘Oh,’ exclaimed Eileen Eckersley. ‘I didn’t know you were in confluence.’ She pointed to the ceiling. ‘I am sent to fetch cocoa and to count the silver.’

  ‘What?’ Lisa stood, her gait unsteady. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she ran out of cocoa and I am keeping an eye on Podgy Potter.’

  Lisa, at a loss, shook her head and sat down again.

  ‘Woebee?’ asked Ben. ‘What the heck are you talking about?’

  ‘Cocoa,’ she snapped. ‘Brown stuff. In a tin.’

  ‘Podgy Potter?’

  ‘She’s into everything everywhere. I am up and down those stairs like a rat in a drain, though I have to creep. I am not a natural creeper.’

  ‘What happened to that nice Virginia creeper we had on the—?’

  Lisa cut Ben off. ‘Is Sal Potter taking stuff?’

  ‘Not yet, but she even had the kickboards off under the kitchen cupboards. I asked her what she was doing, and she said she was being thorough. Very pleased, I was, when she told me we have no mice. There’s something not right with her.’

  The three of them started to giggle. That Woebee should find someone stranger than herself was a miracle.

  ‘Well, I hope you think it’s funny when all your Apods disappear.’

  ‘Ipods,’ Harrie managed.

  Eileen grabbed the cocoa, stamped out of the kitchen and slammed the door.

  They settled eventually. Then Ben had a sudden thought. ‘You haven’t said anything about yourself,’ he accused Lisa. ‘We have bared our souls, and you have just been drunk and disorderly.’

  Lisa tapped the side of her nose. ‘It’ll keep,’ she smiled. ‘I’ve been a terrible mother and an unfaithful wife, but, as the senior member of this forum, I claim loss of memory, virtue and dignity.’ She stood up again. ‘Vodka and red wine?’ she muttered. ‘Never again.’

  Ben picked up the bottle and poured dregs into his glass. ‘Mother?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You weren’t that bad. You took us on holiday twice a year. I remember you met a lovely man in Crete.’ He grinned impishly. ‘You walked with us in the parks round here and we fed ducks. I remember you bringing down my temperature with ice when I was ill. So you’ve been a bit selfish. Haven’t we all?’

  Harrie agreed. ‘Very true. But I declare this meeting closed, because our mother is inebriated.’

  As Lisa climbed the stairs, she clung to two things. One was the banister rail; the other was the realization that she had just met two wonderful young people. They could be her friends now.

  Seven

  ‘Ooh, look what the wind blows in on a Thursday when you think everything’s all right with the world.’ Freda Nuttall stepped back and allowed her son to enter the bungalow. She couldn’t believe her eyes. Where the hell had he been since . . . since whenever she had last seen him? Yes, it had been when she had returned from holiday. How long ago was that? Another senior moment, she thought ruefully as she led the errant offspring into her best room. ‘Where’ve you been?’ she asked when he showed no sign of opening the conversation.

  ‘Here and there,’ he answered. ‘And it’s Wednesday.’

  She pursed her lips. ‘Oh aye? Well, you look like nobody owns you. Get a bath. And look in my wardrobe – I think I’ve a shirt of your dad’s in there.’

  He didn’t move. ‘I’ve been helping a mate with a job.’

  ‘Right. I hope it wasn’t a bank job, and I hope it wasn’t Barclays – they’ve got my few bob in there.’

  He stared at her steadily. ‘You’ve never had any time for me, have you, Mam?’

  ‘Don’t talk so Fairy Liquid – you’re me son. I love you. But I can’t stand the bloody sight of you at times. Times like this, when you’ve been helping a mate, when your wife’s thrown you out for messing about, when your kids—’

  ‘Shut up, Mam,’ he begged. ‘I’ve got a bad head.’

  Freda closed her eyes. He had more than a bad head. She felt as if the years had been lined with a guard of honour, every member in blue, every one carrying truncheon and handcuffs. Jimmy had brought more trouble to her door than she really wanted to think about, so she changed the subject. ‘Glad to see your An
nie fell on her feet.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Your Annie. Getting a gradely job like that one, apprentice jeweller at Milne’s. See, your bit on the side has a brain, and she spotted a good ’un in your Annie. She’ll not go far wrong, that Lisa woman, if she sees Annie’s got potential.’

  Jimmy closed his gaping mouth with an audible snap. Bloody women. There was this one here, who had given birth to him, who was supposed to nurture and comfort him in all weathers; then Lisa Double-Barrel, who got frightened off by Annie, who made a friend of Annie, who employed Annie . . .

  ‘I mind Daisy, and Annie’s mother has the boys.’

  He tried not to grind his teeth. He’d had a rough day of it, and no mistake. Sal was turning bolshie, and he had driven off in his van so that he would be out when she got home from a job she was absolutely useless at. The van had broken down, and he was now covered in oil, hence his unkempt appearance. Sal? Find the gun? She couldn’t find the end of her own nose without ordinance survey and a couple of guide dogs. She hadn’t even managed to get to know that Annie was employed in one of those damned shops, and she worked in that big, fancy house. Some use she’d turned out to be.

  ‘Where’ve you been today, then?’ Freda asked.

  ‘Looking for work.’

  ‘Last time you had work, Clement Atlee was in charge.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Never mind. Even I wasn’t alive when he was putting the boot in. At least, I think I wasn’t. What sort of work, anyway? I could do with my garden clearing if you’re at a loose end.’

  He ignored her and gazed round the room. No, they wouldn’t have brought the gun here, would they? Not to an old woman’s bungalow. It would be up Weaver’s Weft and hidden in Weaver’s Warp, probably under some floorboards or up in the gods with the granny.

  ‘Jimmy?’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘What is it you want from life?’

  ‘I want that flaming gun back, is what. Them Compton-Milnes have got me over a barrel – aye – a gun barrel. How do I know they won’t give it to the police?’

  Freda shrugged. ‘You don’t know. But you’d best steer clear of Annie, the kids and Lisa, or they might just hand you over to the coppers.’