‘If you’ll have us,’ Alison said.
It was a joint so it would probably stretch. ‘I shall have to put on a few more potatoes,’ Elsie said. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘He was sick on the way over,’ Alison said, turning her mother’s attention to Jon’s pale face. ‘He’s all right now.’
‘Poor old Jon,’ Clare said, coming up behind her mother-in-law. ‘Was it something he ate?’
‘Either that or getting wet,’ Alison said, helping Emma out of the buggy. ‘We went out earlier. Got caught in that shower.’
‘I should just think you did,’ Elsie said. ‘Just look at the state of those coats. They’ll have to go in the airing cupboard straight away or they’ll spoil.’
‘Has he got a temperature?’ Andy asked, putting a professional hand on his nephew’s pale forehead. ‘No. Quite normal.’
The bustling welcome restored Alison’s spirits. Family, she thought, that’s what I need. That’s what I’ve needed all day. To be back in a family where people care for one another. Not bossed about, or told off, just looked after.
So Easter Sunday turned out to be a pleasant day after all. Greg and Susan and the girls arrived in the afternoon and Mark and Jenny and Katy and William turned up in time for tea as they’d planned. In the evening Mark drove his sister and her two sleeping infants back to Barnaby Green.
He asked no questions when she told him she wasn’t staying with Brad any more. He simply carried Jon upstairs to his unmade bed and covered him with a blanket.
‘When’s the move?’ he asked as Alison carried Emma into the room.
‘Thursday fortnight,’ Alison told him. ‘And not a minute too soon.’
After he’d driven away and she was on her own, Alison plugged in the television and went off to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Her mind was full of that awful quarrel and she needed something to occupy her.
It occurred to her that walking out on Brad like that had left everything in a muddle. The kids’ pyjamas were still in the flat and so were their books and toys. The fridge here was empty. There wasn’t even any milk for tea, and no fruit or vegetables either. No matter how bad you’re feeling, she thought, there’s always work to do. I’ll get what shopping I can tomorrow and I’ll do the rest on Tuesday. We can go to the bus station. That always bucks us up.
Chapter Twenty-One
The bus station at Hampton is a local landmark. Built in the twenties, in the Art Nouveau style, with a façade of striking green and cream tiles, it was once the hub of all the bus services from Selsey Bill to Worthing, a place where Southdown buses arrived one after the other to green the High Street. More than eight double deckers could stand waiting in its tall hangar and still leave room for arrivals and departures, while out at the rear was a vast space where the buses were cleaned and serviced and garaged for the night.
Now, in the nineties and after privatisation, it is just a grubby relic; all buses gone, its façade chipped, its yard a car park, its lofty hangar housing yet another flea market. They sell plastic shoes where the Mystery Tour once set off on its daily adventure – and shoddy clothes, and a variety of hideous nicknacks and cheap toys from China and Hong Kong. The one good thing about the place is a stall that sells fruit and vegetables of excellent quality and at a reasonable price. Which was why Alison shopped there.
On that Tuesday afternoon, she bought as much fruit as she could afford. She and the children had been shopping for most of the day. Now they were all tired and it was very nearly closing time. So she wasn’t pleased when, just as they were walking out of the garage, laden with shopping bags, she heard a man’s voice calling her name.
‘Mrs Toan! Mrs Toan! Just a minute. Hold on a minute, Mrs Toan.’
The voice was insistent. Turning her head, she saw that a man in a denim jacket was running across the road towards them. He was red in the face and waving his arms. At first glance she was sure she didn’t know him, but when he reached the kerb a memory began to stir. Wasn’t he Rigg’s partner in the video shop? The awful man who’d run off with all Rigg’s money.
‘I’m so glad I saw you,’ he said puffing up to her. ‘I been tryin’ to find you for weeks.’
‘We’re in a rush,’ Alison said, trying to avoid him.
‘Don’t let me stop you,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you remember me do you? Harry Elton.’
‘Yes I do remember you,’ she said coldly. ‘You were Rigg’s partner in Hampton Videos.’
‘I still am, more’s my bad luck. You don’t happen to know where he is, do you?’
‘No. I don’t! And if I did I wouldn’t tell you.’
Standing in front of her on the pavement, he gave her a long searching look, while the late afternoon shoppers jostled on either side of them and Jon and Emma, sensing trouble, clung to Alison’s hands.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘I know I got no right to ask you, but what’s he been telling you about me?’
‘This isn’t the place to talk about it,’ Alison said, feeling embarrassed. ‘You know what you’ve done.’
‘No,’ he argued, his brown eyes dogged. ‘You think you know what I’ve done. You believe what Rigg told you.’
‘Not always.’ Not since her quarrel with Brad.
Two elderly women gossiped past them into the garage. ‘Look,’ Harry said. ‘Will you come back to my shop with me? Please. I got some papers to show you.’
What now? Alison wondered. ‘Well all right,’ she agreed, ‘but you’ll have to be quick.’
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Let me take your bags for you.’
She handed them over and he carried them round the corner to his shop, which was a small lock-up crammed with wicker furniture, scatter cushions, pine bookshelves and plant stands full of artificial flowers. It was closed for the day but he took out a key and opened the door.
‘I was just popping out for a bite to eat when I seen you,’ he explained. ‘Bit a’ luck eh? If you’ll just wait one minute, I’ll get ’em.’
‘Are we ever goin’ home?’ Emma said plaintively, slumping into one of the wicker chairs. ‘I’s hungry.’
‘There they are,’ Harry Elton said, rattling through the bead curtain that separated his office from the shop. He had a battered blue box file in his hand. ‘Look at that one first,’ he said, and pulled out an official letter.
It was a summons to Mr Henry Elton, co-director of Hampton Videos, to appear in Chichester County Court. The date of the hearing was in four days’ time and the reason for the summons was non-payment of £1,254 to one of the companies which had supplied Rigg with videos.
‘I don’t understand,’ Alison said. ‘You’re not the co-director. I am.’
‘Only wish you were,’ Harry said dolefully.
‘You ran out with all the money,’ Alison said, ‘and he made me the co-director. He gave me one of the shares.’
‘Ah!’ Harry said, his brown eyes alert. ‘So that’s what he told you. I thought it’ud be something like that. I ran off with all the money, did I?’
‘Didn’t you?’
‘We bought the goodwill of that shop between us,’ Harry explained. ‘Six grand it cost. Three grand each. We was going to pay it back to the banks bit by bit out of the takings, only Rigg took all the takings and it never got done.’
‘All the takings?’
‘Most weeks, yes. He used to dip in the till whenever he felt like it. There wasn’t cash for the wages some weeks. It was a shambles. We was always rowing about it. Come the finish I said I’d had enough an’ he was to pay me back my three thousand an’ we’d call it quits.’
Now that Alison knew so much more about Rigg, it sounded all too probable. ‘Did he pay you back?’ she asked.
‘In the end. Yes. Took a solicitor’s letter. But he did cough up in the end.’
‘So why have they sent you this summons?’
‘Because I’m still co-director. Legally liable. He never registered the change.’
The inform
ation crashed into Alison’s brain. ‘You mean I’ve never been a director.’
‘See for yourself,’ Harry Elton said, retrieving another paper from the file. ‘I had a company search done to get to the bottom of it. See. There it is. Hampton Videos. Directors Rigby Toan and Henry James Elton. The lazy bugger never registered the change. Excuse my French! It’s still me. He took me for a proper sucker, I’m telling you. Four summonses. An’ all for bills he’s run up since I left the company. Nothing to do with me, any a’ this, but I’m the one that’s got to pay. They don’t know where he is, so they come down on me. Co-director. Legally liable, so they say. Is that fair?’
Wicker-shredded shadows dodged and flickered in the congealing light, mocking like goblins. I was never a director. I didn’t have to pay that awful bill. It was nothing to do with me. I struggled and worried and it was nothing to do with me. Brad’s voice jabbed into her memory. ‘All that bloody silly cloak an’ dagger stuff.… Do me a favour, Ail … He could’ve told you any time he wanted.… You weren’t supposed to know, mate. Face it!’ He’d known all along that she wasn’t the director of the video shop and he’d deliberately kept her in the dark. She’d turned herself inside out, sold the goods, shut the shop, and she could have walked away from it. She was filled with anger against him. If he loved me, she thought, how could he have treated me so badly? And there’s dear old Morgan phoning all the way from Wales, on the day his granddad dies, just to see how I am. The contrast between them couldn’t have been more marked.
‘Now I ask you,’ Harry Elton was saying, ‘is that fair?’
‘No,’ Alison said. ‘It’s not. I’m sorry, Harry. I’ve misjudged you. I shouldn’t have said all those things about you back there.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Harry said generously. ‘It’s that bugger of a husband of yours. Excuse my French.’
‘Swear all you like,’ Alison told him. ‘He didn’t pay the mortgage either. We’ve been repossessed.’
‘You’re joking!’
‘I wish I were.’
‘How are you managing?’
‘We’re on the social.’
‘That’s wicked,’ Harry said. ‘I thought I was in a bad state but this is much worse. The rotten bugger! Stitching up your business associates – well that’s bad but you got to expect it in this day an’ age – it’s dog eat dog in the business world. But to carve up yer own wife. An’ yer kiddies. Well, words fail me.’
‘Yes, well…’ Alison turned her head away from his anger.
‘So you really don’t know where he is.’
‘No. I’m afraid I don’t’
‘Someone ought to catch him an’ clap him in irons.’
‘Emma’s crashed out,’ Jon said, from his seat on the wicker chair.
‘Oh no!’ Alison said, threading her way through the furniture to her sleeping daughter. ‘She mustn’t do that. She’s got to walk. We’ve got to get home.’ But the child was fast asleep.
‘Where’s your car?’ Harry asked. ‘I’ll carry her round for you if you like.’
‘I haven’t got one.’
‘No car?’ Harry said. He found that hard to believe. Surely everyone had a car these days. ‘What happened to the BMW?’
‘That was repossessed too.’
‘You’re joking!’
‘I’m not. He didn’t own it. It was only leased, you see, and he didn’t pay, so they took it back.’
‘I’ll give you a lift,’ Harry volunteered. ‘I got me van out the back. Where d’you live now?’
I owe Brad an apology, Alison thought. She was right about all this. I ought to tell her.
‘Could you take me to my friend Brad’s?’ she asked. ‘I’ll show you the way.’
So he drove them to Brad’s flat, Jon perched happily among the packing cases in the back of the van, Alison in the passenger seat with Emma sleepily on her lap.
‘We’re all in this together,’ he said, when they arrived. ‘That’s about the size of it. You, me, the suppliers, the banks. All victims, all the lot of us. There’s my card, look. I’ve put my home phone on as well. If you hear anything give me a ring.’
‘I will,’ Alison said. ‘I promise. And thanks for the lift.’
There were lights on in Brad’s living room and Alison could see a figure moving about between the table and the kitchen. She still had the key to the flat on her key ring but she didn’t think it would be fitting just to walk in, so she rang the bell. They all listened as Brad’s shoes clomped down the stairs.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ Brad said as she opened the door. She was still wearing her uniform under her denim jacket and she had a scarf tied round her head like a mop cap. ‘What d’you want?’ Her voice was most unwelcoming.
‘To say sorry,’ Alison told her. ‘Oh Brad. You were right about Rigg. He is a liar. I am sorry I argued with you.’
‘Well, well,’ Brad said. ‘What’s brought this about?’
‘I’ve found something out. Something awful. You were absolutely right. He’s a crook.’
‘You’d better come in,’ Brad said, her tone changing.
They followed her up the stairs. The living room was untidier than Alison had ever seen it. There were dirty paper plates and used cups and glasses all over the table, on the floor, the television, the windowsill, even on the hi-fi.
‘Had a few friends in last night,’ Brad explained. ‘I’ve just this minute got in.’
Alison began to clear up. It was one way to show how sorry she was. ‘Come on, kids,’ she said. ‘Pick up the plates for Mummy.’
Emma carried one of the plates across at once, but Jon seemed to be rooted to the spot. He was gazing up at Brad with his mouth open and his eyes as round as pennies.
Alison turned her head too. And gasped before she could stop herself. For Brad had flung off her denim jacket and whipped the scarf from her head. She was completely bald, her skull rising pale pink and naked above a face made suddenly unfamiliar by lack of hair.
‘Neat, eh?’ she said, as they all stared at her.
‘Did it fall out?’ Jon asked.
‘No,’ Brad told him cheerfully. ‘I shaved it off. On Sunday after you left. An’ if you don’t tell me I look gorgeous, I’ll shave yours off an’ all.’
Jon’s eyes bulged with horror at such a threat. He put up both hands to hold his thatch of thick fair hair firmly on to his head. ‘She won’t, will she Mum?’ he asked.
‘No. Course she won’t,’ Alison assured him. ‘She’s joking.’ But cutting off her hair wasn’t a joke. It was an immolation.
‘Off with the old,’ Brad said brightly.
With a vengeance, Alison thought. But why?
‘Thought I’d go the whole hog this time,’ Brad said, running her hand over her scalp. ‘Whatcher think?’
‘Well…’ Alison said, delaying for as long as she could while trying to think of something complimentary to say. ‘It’s stunning. I’ll say that. But why did you do it? Was it because … I mean have you and…?’
‘Oh he went Sunday, just after you lot,’ Brad said, making a face to indicate how little she cared. ‘He’s really old news now.’
She loves him, Alison thought, understanding intuitively. This is a penance. She’s punishing herself. ‘Oh Brad! I am sorry.’
Brad dismissed her sympathy. ‘Plenty more fish in the sea,’ she said. But the strain in her eyes gave the lie to the jaunty tone of her voice. ‘Tell me about the Great-I-Am. You said you’d found something out.’
It was almost a relief to tell her about Rigg’s wrong-doing.
‘Don’t surprise me,’ Brad said when the tale was told and the plates had all been cleared and thrown in the bin. ‘Have you told your mum all this?’
‘No. Not yet. I’ve only just found out myself.’
‘Well you ought to,’ Brad said, carrying a tray full of glasses into the kitchen. ‘I was talking to her yesterday on my way to the old dears. She still thinks you’re gonna get back together again.
’
‘Oh does she?’ Alison said, grimly. ‘I’d better disabuse her of that idea, PDQ.’
Brad gave her a long, searching look. ‘Divorce?’ she said.
‘I think so,’ Alison said. It was a terrible step to take but it was almost inevitable now. ‘Don’t you?’
Brad flung her arms round her old friend and gave her such a hard squeeze it was quite painful. ‘That’s my girl,’ she approved. ‘That’s the best news I’ve heard in ages.’
After that they spent a cheerful evening together and cooked a huge meal, Brad providing the meat and drink, and Alison the fruit and vegetables. Then they put the kids to bed and allowed the television to entertain them, quite like old times. Except that Martin wasn’t with them. And he’d gone on the Sunday of that awful row.
‘Tomorrer,’ Brad said when they finally went to bed, ‘you can go an’ see your Mum. Tell her the good news.’
‘I’ll wait till Friday,’ Alison said. ‘Greg an’ Susan are coming down so I can tell them all at the same time.’
‘You do that,’ Brad said. ‘Confession’s good for the soul.’
But even with Greg’s steadying presence, Alison found this confession extremely difficult. She waited until tea was over and Jenny had taken all six children down to the beach because she didn’t want to talk about Rigg in front of Jon and Emma. She had hoped it might be easier when they were all busy washing up. But it wasn’t. The minute she mentioned Rigg’s name, they pounced on her with questions, all speaking at once.
‘So you’ve heard from him.’ ‘What’s he going to do about the house?’ ‘Is he back here?’ ‘I hope he’s giving you some housekeeping after all this time.’
‘No, no,’ she said. ‘I don’t know where he is. I met his partner.’ And she told them what had happened, getting it over with quickly before they could interrupt and take away her courage.
Susan was outraged. Mark and Greg said they weren’t surprised. Elsie said how sorry she was.
‘But he’ll pay people back,’ she added, with a slightly strange expression, ‘won’t he?’
‘Well…’ Alison said. ‘I hope he will, but I’m beginning to wonder.’
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