by cass green
‘What did you say to him?’ she says as she squats down by Lucas and tries to prise his chin up so she can meet his eyes.
I get up awkwardly, holding a now screeching Zach.
‘I’m sorry, I …’ I begin but trail off because Angel isn’t really listening to me any more. I burn with anger and resentment at the smashed picture frame.
Zach thrusts his legs into my belly, making himself stiff with misery, and I’m overwhelmed with weariness. Right now, I’d do anything for someone else – someone competent – to take over.
But there is no one else.
Angel tries to coax Lucas to his feet, murmuring encouraging sounds. He gets up, shakily, blinking as though the light hurts his eyes. Angel turns to glare at me as I manoeuvre a rigid, screaming Zach into a different position, his small, cross face burrowing into my shoulder.
‘Will you just get that kid to shut the fuck up!’ screams Angel, slapping the countertop with an open hand.
My resentment and tiredness bubble over in a hot, frothing fury.
‘No! I can’t!’ I yell back. ‘He’s not a machine! He needs his mother, for Christ’s sake! Can’t you get that through your thick skull? I’m not enough!’
Angel’s face twists and she lurches towards me. I’m so sure of the blow to come that I hold Zach away to protect him. But Angel stops and thrusts out her arms.
‘Give,’ she says. ‘I can’t do a worse job than you. Give him here.’
All instinct, I pull the baby closer.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t trust you with him.’
We glare in wordless standoff and even Zach briefly quietens.
Then I hear a familiar sound chirruping from somewhere about Angel.
It’s a distinctive sci-fi tone Sam downloaded without my permission and which I hadn’t got round to changing.
Someone is calling me.
22
Nina
Angel and Lucas exchange looks. He is slumped against the sink now, even paler than he was before.
Angel reaches into her pocket and removes the buzzing phone. She glances at the caller ID.
‘Someone called Sam,’ she says.
It’s like someone has reached into my chest and yanked my heart sideways.
‘That’s my son,’ I breathe the words out, barely able to speak. ‘Please, he wouldn’t be ringing if wasn’t important. He gets quite anxious, he—’
The sound of the ringing phone is terrible. I can’t bear it. Then it stops, abruptly, and the sudden silence is even worse. Angel begins to stuff the phone back into her pocket.
‘Can’t be that important,’ she says in that same way, as if it’s nothing.
‘Please!’ The word comes out as a half-sob. ‘Please,’ I whisper. I reach out my hand. I want to grab her, shake her, make her understand. I try to smile reassuringly but it is a panicky rictus, I know, because she draws back with a frown.
‘Let me call him back,’ I say. The effort to be controlled makes this come out far too loud. But I press on. ‘I promise I won’t say anything.’
I’d get on my knees and beg if I could. I even contemplate it for a moment. Then I have an idea.
‘Look,’ I say carefully. ‘How about I put it on speaker phone? That way you can cut me off the second you aren’t happy. What do you think?’
Please, please …
Angel makes a doubtful face. ‘Hmm, not sure that will work. You might just blurt something out.’
‘For God’s sake!’ I can’t control myself any longer. ‘You really think I’d frighten my own child by telling him I’m being held hostage! Can’t you understand that he is the only person in the world I wouldn’t tell?’ I let out a groan of pure exasperation. ‘You’re not a mother so you don’t understand this. But I would never want to scare him with … this!’
Angel studies me. ‘What if your ex answers the phone?’ she says doubtfully. ‘Or the new bird?’
Wincing, despite myself, I shake my head. ‘Sam will have his phone next to the bed. I’m sure his father doesn’t even know he’s calling. He wouldn’t like it,’ I finish, lamely.
Angel sighs heavily and turns to her brother.
‘Lu, you need to take the baby out of the room. I have to watch her. We can’t have her kid turning up here.’
Lucas starts to protest but Angel shushes him irritably.
I feel a quickening of hope. ‘No,’ I say. ‘And if something’s wrong and he can’t get through to me, his dad might bring him back here.’
There’s a pause and then she groans.
‘Jesus,’ says Angel. ‘Let’s get on with it then. But I swear Nina, if you even so much as …’
‘I won’t,’ I say firmly. ‘I just want to talk to my son, that’s all.’ Then I add, ‘Thank you, Angel. I mean it.’
I’m aware, as I say it, that this is another strange echo of how this nightmare began.
When Lucas has left the room with the baby, his head and shoulders rigid, Angel demands the PIN for the phone and taps it in, then quickly starts scanning my recent activity with nimble finger strokes. She stands close, close enough for me to smell her musky perfume mixed with sweat and a slight cooking odour. Left over from the restaurant, no doubt. The phone is on speaker, held in her palm, her thumb hovering over the screen in readiness to cut the call. My heart is beating so hard I feel like we can both hear it.
‘Mum?’ Sam’s sweet voice, always so much younger on the telephone, soaks me with love. I squeeze my lips together and breathe shallowly, trying to stop an eruption of tears.
‘What’s up, mate?’ I try to be brisk, to counteract the bruising inside my chest. ‘Can’t sleep?’
‘Not really,’ he says. ‘And I’ve got a stomach ache. I don’t think I’m going to be able to go to France tomorrow.’ The formality of this sentence reveals that it has been rehearsed.
I swallow.
‘Look, we talked about all this, didn’t we?’ I say carefully. ‘About what a brilliant time you’re going to have? Remember the dog? And the horses that Laura said were in the field next to the cottage? And how you were planning to take them carrots?’
‘I’m not that fussed about horses,’ says Sam. The attempt at sounding breezily grown-up tears my heart with clawed talons. ‘And Dad says the dog is really old anyway so might not want to play that much.’
Then there is a muffled sniff and, ‘I want to come home, Mum.’ I realize he is fighting tears as he continues in a breathy whisper, ‘Laura always cooks weird things. She says it’s OK if I don’t eat everything, but I can tell she’s annoyed. I heard Dad saying that she would find out that children don’t just do what you want them to do.’
I breathe deeply and finding myself meeting Angel’s eyes. She makes a face, which is hard to interpret.
‘Mum?’
‘Yes, darling,’ I say. ‘I’m here. But Sam,’ I pause, ‘Dad will be so disappointed if you don’t go to France. He’s been looking forward to it for ages. You really will have a brilliant time, you know. Much better than kicking about at home all summer with nothing to do.’
‘But we can do things!’ Sam’s voice shines with childish hope now. ‘I was thinking that we could …’ he casts about, ‘go swimming a bit, or I would even go into a club or something if you wanted me to.’
I squeeze my eyes tightly closed, trying to pull together the unravelling feeling inside me. Sam has never enjoyed clubs. His pretend eagerness is almost more than I can bear.
‘Samster,’ I say, gently. ‘Honey, you have to go to France tomorrow. It’s going to be brilliant, I promise.’
‘But why?’ Sam is starting to cry now, his voice shrill. ‘It’s not going to be brilliant, it’s going to be rubbish! I’m telling Dad in the morning to bring me home. Nobody can make me go to fucking France!’
‘Sam!’ I’ve never heard him swear like that before. ‘Just calm down!’
Angel hands me the phone and I take it gratefully, switching it off speaker function.
‘I want to come home!’ He’s crying properly now, a heart-breaking sound magnified by the phone’s speaker. It seems to echo throughout my skull. ‘I’m coming home and there’s nothing you can bloody well do about it!’
‘You can’t!’ I cry out in desperation. ‘You just can’t. Please Sam.’
At that moment Angel bangs against the table and knocks a knife onto the floor, where it clangs to a spinning stop.
She freezes and turns to me; a warning look on her face.
‘What was that?’ says Sam suspiciously. ‘What was that noise?’
‘I just … dropped something, that’s all,’ I say, glaring at Angel. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘Is someone there with you?’ says Sam, suspicious now. ‘Is that why you won’t let me come home?’ There is a long, terrible pause and then, ‘Have you got a boyfriend?’ This last word is said in a tone of incredulity mixed with disgust.
I swallow back the tears clogging my throat. The thought of my son entering this kitchen where there is a gun, and these two unstable people, is appalling. No, no, no. It can’t happen. It just can’t. Sam must not come home. Even if it hurts his feelings, I must keep him physically safe. It’s my most important job. The only one that really counts.
‘Yes,’ I say so fast it comes out as a gasp. ‘I’ve got a … guest. It wouldn’t be the right time for you to come here. I’m sorry.’
I can hardly breathe. I want to gasp for air. This is unbearable.
There’s silence on the other end of the phone.
‘Sam?’ I manage to say.
But he has hung up.
Winded, wracked with actual, physical pain, I slump forward, head on my arms outstretched on the kitchen table.
My misery is absolute, worse than the very darkest days since Ian left.
I picture my sensitive little boy, curled in the dark in an unfamiliar house, dreading his holiday and knowing that he isn’t allowed to come home. All the times I’ve said I will always be there for him have come to nothing.
It’s intolerable. I can’t stand it. I have failed him in the very worst way.
Then my sorrow hardens into a bitter fury at Angel and Lucas for coming into my house and bringing this nightmare with them.
The reasonable part of my brain is trying to intervene, to say I’d never have been able to let him home anyway. That it would have caused irreparable damage to the relationship with Ian. But the fact remains that it wasn’t an option. I couldn’t allow my own son to come home, to this place of danger, even if I had wanted to.
I hate these two cuckoos in my nest. I hate them.
‘The other woman sounds like a bitch,’ says Angel.
‘I don’t care what you think,’ I snap. ‘Just make up your mind about what you want from me then get the hell out of my life.’
Angel smiles thinly, as though this pleases her in some way. ‘Well, I’m hoping to do just that,’ she says. ‘But I want to know when you can get your car back.’
I glare at her, then rub my face hard with a shaking hand and look away. I must get through this. Then I can find a way, when Sam comes home, to make it right again. One day it will just be a strange story. It has to be.
‘The garage said they’d bring it back first thing this morning,’ I say flatly. ‘I don’t know exactly what time.’
I’ve been a customer for years and, for the last few, they have returned the car to me after servicing. I’m thankful more than ever for this now.
We both look at the clock on the wall. It’s just after six. Sunlight is blazing into the kitchen now, sharpening my queasy headache and highlighting the shadows on Angel’s face. She is all hollows.
Lucas comes into the kitchen now, yawning, Zach held over one shoulder, a thin, pale hand starfished across the small back. The baby is awakening; fussing. I find myself getting up and taking him from Lucas without asking or considering the move for a moment. Lucas hands him over, throwing a worried look at his sister, who shrugs and then yawns expressively.
‘So what time does the garage open then?’ she says in the strangled throes of the yawn.
‘Early, I think about seven thirty,’ I reply. ‘Look, I’ll ring and ask if they are able to bring it straight away and then it’s yours, OK? Take it wherever you want.’
Even as I am saying it, I’m thinking, But what about me? And Zach? What will you do with us?
‘We’re probably going to have to tie you up or something,’ says Angel, as if reading my thoughts. ‘Just until we’ve got a decent distance away.’
I stare back at her. Panic begins to stir up inside me again. How long would it be before someone came to my rescue? I try to work it out. Ian will be on his way to France. Carmen would probably try and ring, rather than coming around. We have no cleaner, or anyone else who might have a key and who could enter the house.
I might be tied up here for days.
‘Ring the garage,’ says Angel reasonably. ‘Leave a message. Tell them it’s urgent.’ She holds out my phone. It is unlocked. I picture myself hurriedly thumbing 999 before she notices but she stands close.
I find the number in my contacts. One of the mechanics there, a smiley man called Loz, flirts gently with me every time I see him. But whether they will be prepared to return the car straight away is another matter.
A few minutes later, the message has been left. Flailing for a justification, I’d claimed I urgently need the car to see a sick relative.
Angel gives a satisfied nod and takes the phone away again, turning it off and then sliding it into her pocket.
‘What about Zach?’ I say. ‘What are you going to do with him? Is he going with you?’
Angel looks at her brother now and he meets her gaze and then drops his eyes.
‘That’s still to be decided,’ says Angel quietly.
23
Lucas
Lucas had many years in which his stepfather ceased to exist, beyond his nightmares.
It was surprisingly easy, if you had no television and didn’t watch the news.
People would ask Lucas why he was unaware of Game of Thrones, or any of the reality programmes that others seemed obsessed with, and he’d shrug and say he just didn’t have the TV habit. It was because he was a bit of a hippie. All part of the persona he’d cultivated.
The other gardeners on the council team laughed at him. He didn’t like football and he didn’t watch telly?
Then there was the slightly posh voice.
When they talked about their school days, whether it was the UK or Eastern Europe, he’d smiled and kept quiet. He still remembered what it was like to walk home at the end of the day with a bag of chips in his hand, breath misting in the winter air, thinking about doing homework in front of EastEnders. But so much came after that, it felt like another life.
One evening just over a year ago, Lucas was slobbed out on the comfy old sofa in Simon’s sitting room. Alone. Simon was working a late one in the restaurant.
Simon, with his broad back and gentle Geordie voice, was starting to feel like home. When Lucas went into himself he didn’t pass judgement, or complain. He’d rub his back and simply wait.
Lucas had had a curry and a few cans of cider. He was stretched out, his mind free and easy, body pleasantly exhausted after a long day planting in Regent’s Park with the ground crew. He liked this job. Relished the feeling of starting something new, something that was waiting to happen and would bring pleasure to people.
As he had flicked around the channels he’d come across The Graham Norton Show.
An elderly actress he’d never heard of was being asked about a new Harold Pinter play. She was telling an anecdote that involved standing on the sofa and lifting her skirt over her knees, to raucous laughter.
Distracted, Lucas glanced down at his phone, looking at a WhatsApp message from his sister. She was asking him if he wanted to meet for a drink over the weekend. He guiltily noted the number of white bubbles from her on the app, and the lack of green ones.
/>
The truth was that he didn’t like Leon, her boyfriend. He was the kind of musclebound man who made Lucas uncomfortable, even though he was friendly enough to Lucas.
He and Angel seemed to enjoy winding each other up and the physicality of their relationship made Lucas squirm. Angel would pinch him, playful but hard, as she sat next to him on the sofa. Leon would reply with a roar of outrage and pull her over his lap, slapping her on the bum hard enough to be audible. They both laughed uproariously while Lucas pretended he had an urgent message on his phone. Simon had described Leon as ‘pretty but thick as a plank’ and had no interest in going out as a foursome.
Lucas wasn’t really paying attention to the television so when certain words drifted into his consciousness it took a moment for them to stick. Then his head snapped up to look at the screen.
And there he was.
That rich, smooth voice sounded exactly the same.
Electricity seemed to zap painfully from Lucas’s fingertips up his back to his scalp. Breath coming sharp and fast. Sweat breaking out under his arms and in his clenched fists.
The blond hair, silvery now, was still thick and wavy, the creased, handsome face not as tanned as it once was. More lined. But those ice-cold eyes looked just the same. Lucas couldn’t stop staring at the hands, resting comfortably on the legs of his black trousers.
He didn’t make it to the bathroom in time to be sick, the lamb curry and ciders splashing over the carpet in the hallway and up the wall.
When Simon came home, tired from a long shift in the kitchen, and found the sick-covered hallway, and the hole punched in the partition wall, they had fought.
Lucas didn’t say anything about what had made him do it. No one would understand.
But it was the beginning of the end for him and Simon.
The baby makes a sharp noise of distress and Lucas is torn from his thoughts. Nina is trying to settle him but he’s squirmy and unhappy.
Lucas hasn’t been able to bring himself to properly look at Zach. He’s too scared he might see the mother’s eyes looking back at him. And this, he thinks, might unravel what little of him is still holding together.
