by Jade West
Stupid, this was stupid.
I’d nearly closed the drawer when I spotted the little blue box at the back. The kind you can’t mistake. A little velvet number with a flip lid.
My God.
Surely he wouldn’t have kept it. Surely Stacey would have kept it?
Maybe she gave it back to him.
Maybe he kept it in case she changed her mind.
I took a breath as I opened the box.
It was beautiful. A single diamond on a white gold band, delicate and classy and not too in your face. I tried to imagine Stacey wearing it. She’d been so larger than life, so blonde and bubbly and… not white gold.
I guess I was wrong.
The box listed a jeweller in Carmarthen. My skin prickled, and it wasn’t in a good way. We’d always stopped in Carmarthen on the way to the coast. We went every year, sometimes twice. My parents ended up moving that way, their guesthouse wasn’t far away from there – Saundersfoot.
I imagined Stacey and Darren there, walking those same streets that we walked, holding hands like we did. I pictured them on the same beach we’d sat on, grabbing ice creams like we did. Playing with the girls like we did.
I wondered if she played with my girls on the same beach we went to.
Of course she did.
I told myself to stop being an idiot. Everyone has a past. My relationship with Brian lasted way longer than Darren’s had with Stacey.
But I hadn’t loved Brian. Hadn’t proposed to Brian. Hadn’t bought a ring with Brian.
Hadn’t kept it in my bedside drawer for years after.
So what if he had her engagement ring in his bedroom? Who cares about that anyway?
It’s not like we were together. Not like this was a thing. How could it be?
We had the girls to think about, and I had Nanna and a job and a whole life that was already packed to the rafters without him.
He had the yard, and the pub, and a thousand women to keep serviced for the sake of a boxful of cash under his bed.
And I love him.
This was sex. Just sex. Of course it was.
I put the ring back where I’d found it and walked home in my old sandals.
I was all smiles at breakfast, helping Mum with the pans while Dad played dominoes with the girls. I wanted to say something, wished I could have said something, but there wasn’t really much to say anyway.
I fucked Jodie last night, Mum. It meant everything.
“You alright, Darren?” Mum’s eyes were fixed on mine, her eyebrows raised.
“Alright, Mum, yeah.”
“Anything happened? You seem… bright…”
“Just the usual.”
She nodded, like that even fucking meant anything. The usual what?
Ruby tipped over the domino tower in time for eggs. I watched the girls eat, listened to the way they laughed, soaked up all the stories they told my mum and dad.
Today all I saw in them was Jodie, even in Ruby. Her eyes, her laugh, the way she flicked her hair.
“Dad’s taking us rallying,” Ruby said. “And Mum and Tonya and Daisy are coming too.”
Mum smiled at me. “They are, are they? Is that right, Darren? Is Jodie going?”
I shrugged. “Think she’s getting a tent.”
“She is getting a tent,” Ruby said. “A big one with three rooms, I’ve seen the picture on the internet.”
“How lovely,” Mum said.
“Lovely,” Dad said.
I ate my eggs.
I took the girls to the cinema for the afternoon, some magical crap film that bored the shit out of me. I ate popcorn and stared at my phone, waiting for a text from Jo that never came. I don’t know what I was expecting.
Ruby was in high spirits as we left, but Mia was quiet.
“What’s up?” I asked as we drove back to the village, but she shrugged and claimed it was nothing.
I had a paranoia that she knew Jodie had stayed over, that it would be weird for them. The kind of weird that no kid should have to deal with, at least not until her parents were with the fucking plot. I wondered if I should text Jodie, scope out whether I should push it with Mia and what I should say if she did know, but I held back.
I made them a cruddy sandwich at mine and they didn’t seem to mind. Ruby watched TV while Mia played around on her phone. I smiled at the flashing washing machine, load completed, couldn’t help but notice that there were a lot more clean mugs in the cupboard.
We were getting ready to leave for Jodie’s when Mia headed off into her bedroom. I found her on her bed, scrunched into a little ball with her hands over her face.
“Mia’s sad,” Ruby said, like I couldn’t work that out for myself.
“Why don’t you go watch some Top Gear, Rubes?” I said. “I’ll be right out.”
I closed the door when I heard the theme tune ring out, sat on the edge of Mia’s bed and asked her if she wanted to talk. My heart was pounding, guilty, like I’d been caught out doing something I shouldn’t, but the truth of it was nothing like I imagined.
She twisted around and grabbed my waist, buried her face in my t-shirt. I could hardly make out her words.
“Please don’t make me go to school tomorrow, Dad. I don’t want to go to school tomorrow! Please, Dad, please say I don’t have to go!”
“Hey,” I said. “What’s wrong with school tomorrow?”
I thought about homework, some shitty teacher, some cruddy sports day she didn’t want to get involved in, all the usual.
“It’s Tyler…” she cried. “Tyler Dean. He’s really mean to me on the bus, calls me names… Says I’m ugly and stinky and makes all the other kids laugh at me. Mum told Mrs Webber and Mrs Webber told Tyler’s mum, but now he’s even more mean! He sits by me and pretends to smile, rubs my hair and uses his knuckles…” She let out a sob. “He says we’re friends now. That he’ll be friends with a slimy stinky ugly snitch like me, but I owe him now, and if I tell anyone…” She was crying too hard to make the rest out.
I could feel the twitch in my jaw.
“And what did the little fucker say will happen if you tell anyone, Mia?”
“He said he’ll make life horrible! So horrible I’ll kill myself and he’ll laugh about it! He’s been getting people to block me on Facebook. I’ve seen horrible things about me on other people’s timelines.” She gulped in a breath. “He says he’ll make sure nobody likes me, that every single person on the internet knows what a stinky little snitch I am!”
“Tyler Dean?” I said. “Lanky little shit with glasses?”
She nodded. “He’s so horrible, Dad. He’s really horrible. His knuckles hurt my head so bad, and I can’t cry because he’ll get mad at me.”
“And your mum knew about this, did she?”
She shook her head. “Only about the names, she went to Mrs Webber, said Mrs Webber would sort it out.” It broke my heart to see the tears on her cheeks. “I couldn’t tell her, Dad! Because she’ll only go to Mrs Webber again and Tyler Dean will be even worse! He’ll be even worse, Dad!”
“He won’t be fucking worse, Mia,” I said. “Don’t you worry about that.”
Her eyes were glassy. “You promise?”
“I fucking swear it.” I brushed the tears from her cheeks. “Chin up, now. Get your things together, we’re going out.” I gave her a hug, kissed her head.
“Are you going to say something to Mum? I don’t want her to be mad at me.”
“She won’t be mad at you,” I said. “And I’m not going to be saying anything to your mum. Not yet.”
I turned off the TV, told Ruby to get a move on through her huff at having Clarkson cut short. I smoked a cigarette while the girls got belted up in the truck. Paced up and down the street while the twitch twitched in my jaw.
Roger Dean lived up Elmgrove. The house with the green painted fence. He drives a Rover, I did his tyres the month previous.
I didn’t say a word as I drove up the hill and past Jodie’s turn of
f. Didn’t say a word as I took the road up to Elmgrove. I parked the truck right outside Roger Dean’s house, left the engine running and told the girls to stay put.
Roger was in his yard by the time I reached his gate.
“Trent,” he said, and he was smiling. “What brings you up here?”
I spotted the dipshit in the doorway, his arms folded, face white as a fucking ghost. I jabbed a finger in his direction and the red mist exploded.
“Your cunt of a son,” I barked. “That little fucking wanker of yours has been bullying my Mia.” Dipshit went to dash into the house, but his dad called after him, stopped him in his tracks.
“Tyler! What the fuck is this? Is this fucking true?”
The kid looked like he was going to crap his pants.
“We’re friends now…” he said. “After Mrs Webber said…”
His dad took a step towards him. “What do you mean after Mrs fucking Webber said? Have you been bullying Mia Trent?”
“Mrs Webber called his mother,” I grunted. “He knows just what the fuck I’m talking about.”
“Christ,” Roger said. “That fucking woman. Dawn’s too fucking soft with him, lets him get away with fucking murder. I knew nothing about this shit, Trent, I swear.”
That made fucking two of us.
“Little cunt knuckles her hair, says she should kill herself.” I lit up a cigarette. “She’s been crying her fucking eyes out this afternoon.”
He rubbed his eyes. “Fuck, Trent, I’m so fucking sorry. She ok?”
“She will be now.” I shot him a glare. “You gonna sort this shit out, Roger, or do I have to?”
He gave me a nod. “I’ll sort this shit out, Trent, don’t you worry about that.”
“If I catch wind of any more of it…”
He slapped my arm, tipped his head. “Understood, mate. I’ll sort it. I’m not like his fucking mother.”
I shot Tyler a glare, flicked my cigarette away. “Stay away from my fucking daughter,” I snapped.
The girls were watching through the truck windows, eyes like saucers. I climbed up into the driver’s seat, watched Roger go storming down his garden path after his dickhead son.
“Thanks, Dad,” Mia said.
“Should have punched him in the mouth,” Ruby said. She showed me her fist. “POW!”
“No need,” I grunted. “Not yet anyway. Lad’s got his old man to answer to now.”
The girls were quiet as I drove back to Jodie’s. They piled out of the truck and gave her a hug in the doorway. She smiled at me but I didn’t smile back.
Then she saw Mia’s face, her puffy eyes. She wiped her cheeks, and I could see the fear in her eyes. “What the hell happened?”
Mia started crying all over again. “Sorry, Mum,” she said.
“Go inside,” I said to the girls. “Watch TV with Nanna.”
Jodie stepped out, closed the door after her. “Darren? What..?”
I lit up a cigarette. “Tyler fucking Dean!” I snapped. “That’s what!”
Her face turned pale. “But that’s sorted… Mrs Webber…”
“Mrs Webber didn’t sort shit, Jodie. Mrs Webber told the lad’s fucking mother who lets him lord it around like little lord fucking muck.”
She stared at me. “What did you do?”
“What fucking needed doing! I went to his fucking father, sorted this shit out man to man!”
“Did you hit him?!”
I stared right back at her. “No, I didn’t fucking hit him. I didn’t need to fucking hit him, Jodie, he just needed telling like it fucking is.”
She let out a breath. “Good,” she said. “Is Mia alright?”
“No,” I snapped. “She’s not fucking alright. Hasn’t been fucking alright for weeks from what I can fucking make of it.”
She held up her hands. “I thought it was sorted. I sorted it, Darren. With the school. Mrs Webber said they have a zero tolerance policy on bullying. I told her everything! She said she’d sort it!”
“Yeah, well, what about telling me, Jodie? What about what I’d have to fucking say on it?” I took a drag. “I guess that didn’t mean shit to you, did it? Keep fucking Trent out of it, he’ll only cause fucking trouble.”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t like that. I didn’t mean it like that.”
But that’s exactly how she meant it.
I felt the twitch again.
I stared at her but she wasn’t looking at me. Couldn’t look at me.
“Don’t ever keep anything like this from me again, Jodie, I fucking mean it. I’m their fucking dad. They’re my fucking girls, too. You’ve no fucking right to cut me out like that.”
“I know,” she said. “Darren, I’m sorry. I should have said… I just didn’t think…”
“No,” I said. “You fucking didn’t.”
I turned my back on her and went to the truck. Stubbed my cigarette on the pavement and climbed in. My jaw was gritted, my temper at red, that horrible feeling in my gut that said I wasn’t a part of this family anymore, not when it mattered. Jodie was at the door before I pulled away. She yanked it open and stood with her arms folded.
“What are you doing?” she said.
“Need some space,” I said. “Let me go.”
She sighed. “Pub? A pint or ten down the Drum? Get yourself wasted and pick a fight with Buck? Or Jimmy? Take it out on little Petey?”
I didn’t say a thing.
“That’ll make you feel better, will it, Darren?” Her voice was strained. “I said I’m sorry. I said I should’ve told you.”
My fingers tapped on the wheel.
“What else do you want me to say?” she said. “I didn’t tell you because I thought I could handle it. I thought the school would deal with it. I didn’t want to bother you with it. Yes, because I was worried you’d fly off the handle and go causing a massive fucking scene, Darren, just when everyone’s stopped talking about us and all our shit.”
I stared ahead, my insides fucking knotted up.
“You think I don’t know that you’re their dad? That I don’t see it every day, that I don’t hear it from them every day? You really think I believe you’re too unimportant to care about?”
“Don’t you?” I met her eyes. “Good for nothing but my temper, isn’t that right, Jo? Too fucking bull-headed, too blunt. Better get them a new fucking daddy. A nice daddy who doesn’t swear and plays golf and wears tweed and likes opera and fucking quinoa and lavender. That kind of daddy, eh?”
“He was never their dad, Darren, not even close,” she said.
“Yeah, well, not for the want of trying, eh?”
“Brian was a mistake.”
“A long fucking mistake, Jo. Would you have told him about Tyler fucking Dean? Bet he could have went to Mrs Webber’s office and pulled a stern face along with you. Called the cunt a naughty little hooligan.”
“I would never have taken Brian to Mrs Webber’s office! It was never that serious. It’s not like I was engaged to the guy!”
It knocked me in the gut. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She took a step back, and her expression was full of pain. “Nine months, Darren, maybe slightly less. Nine months to propose to Stacey, to introduce a new mum to our girls. She had them picking out fucking bridesmaid dresses before Ruby even knew what a bridesmaid was!”
“Like I had anything to do with that, Jo.” I shook my head. “Fuck this shit, I need to get out of here, got shit to do.”
“Client waiting?”
“No!” I snapped. “I just need some fucking space!” I was too loud, too harsh. I closed my eyes, took a breath. “I’m not going to a client, Jo. I just need to get out of here.”
“Fine,” she said, and her voice was weak and broken. I turned to her and her eyes were glassy, just like Mia’s had been, her lip shaky.
It’d been a long fucking time since I’d seen her like this.
“I said sorry,” she said, but it was just a breath.
“Don’t be upset,” I said.
“Go,” she said. “Leave, like you always leave when you get pissed off, when things get too fucking hard for you, when I get upset, when I get angry.” Her breath was ragged. “Go!” she snapped. “Leave me, leave us! I’ll just sort it out, like I sort everything. Come back when you feel like it, when you’ve drunk yourself stupid and punched someone, when you feel all-fucking-right again.”
“It’s not like that,” I said.
“It’s always like that!” she said, and the tears came. “I’d wait for you all fucking day, Darren. All day! Running around after a little girl with a baby in my arms, holed up in that flat just waiting for you, looking forward to you coming home. Did you know that?”
“Stop,” I said.
“And then what? You’d come home. Tired and sore and pissed fucking off, sweaty and grubby and worked half to fucking death! You’d come home and you’d hardly even look at me! Just stare at the fucking TV like I wasn’t even there!”
“I was still new to it,” I said. “I had to get the hours in, Jo. What did you expect me to do? I was fucking knackered, Jo! I was exhausted!”
“Love me,” she said. “Love us. That’s all I expected from you.”
I felt a pain in my chest. An actual fucking pain. I did fucking love you. I did it fucking for you, all of it. Every poxy fucking shift. Every fucking hour of overtime. Every fucking thing.
“I was tired,” I said. “I didn’t think you were happy. You didn’t seem happy.”
“We weren’t happy,” she said. “Jesus, Darren, when you were an apprentice we had nothing but each other, nothing and a hundred poxy quid a week. We got a bit of money and I lost you. Don’t you see that? You weren’t there! I only wanted you! Not you when you were tired from working, not when you’d gone drinking with the others after work, not when you wanted a quick fuck after I’d just got Ruby off to sleep.”
“What’s the point in this?” I said. “We already know all this, Jo. We’ve already said it a thousand fucking times.”
Her voice broke as she said the words, and I felt it. I felt it all the way inside. “Because I still only want you! Because I still hope you’ll stay! Because I hope that one time, even now, even when you’re pissed off, you’ll grit your teeth and stand firm and see it out, with me!” She turned away from me. “I never wanted to do this on my own. But I did. I did do it on my own.” She turned back. “I make decisions all day every day about our girls, every single day, Darren. Yes, I should have told you about Tyler Dean. Yes, I should have told you about going to see Mrs Webber. Yes, I should have told you everything, before I even did anything, before I even thought about doing anything. But I didn’t. Maybe it’s because I’ve got so used to doing everything for myself that I don’t even think about it anymore! That’s my bad, Darren! I’m sorry for it!”
