Tightrope

by Marnie Riches

  CHAPTER 26

  Boo

  ‘So, had he been mental for a long time?’ Mitch’s mother asked, offering Boo a ginger biscuit on an old china plate. ‘Your dad, I mean.’ She and Mitch’s father locked eyes. Silent understanding seemed to pass between them, making the air in the dated conservatory feel even more stifling.

  Boo pushed the plate of biscuits away, sickened. ‘My dad wasn’t, “mental” . . . whatever that is.’ She placed a protective hand on her burgeoning little bump. Knowing she should keep her mouth shut for Mitch’s sake. Struggling. She tried to backtrack. ‘He was the greatest dad I could ever have asked for, and I loved him with all my heart.’ Her lower lip was trembling. She felt the full force of a tsunami of grief washing over her. Tears started to roll onto her cheeks. Wiping them away, she contemplated just standing up and getting the hell out of there. Only, her mother had warned her to make nice.

  Your dad left me with nothing but debts, the drunken old bag had said, chugging on a bottle of cheap tequila. Grabbing a fistful of brown envelopes from the kitchen table and fanning them in Boo’s face. Do yourself a favour and try to make that boyfriend of yours’ parents like you enough to help support this brat you’ve got knocked up with. Do you think you can do at least that? Way to go, Mother.

  ‘Dad was severely depressed. He was ill, OK? Same as someone with arthritis or . . . or . . . leukaemia.’ Right at that moment, hormonally-led or not, Boo wanted to throw her cup of piss-weak tea into Mitch’s mother’s wrinkly old po-face. The silly cow was sitting there, smoothing down the pleats in her skirt and picking imaginary bits from a fussy floral cardigan, as though she were preparing to receive Holy Communion from the Pope. Why did Mitch’s folks have to be so uncool? Why were they alive when her beloved dad was dead? It wasn’t fair. ‘It was never anything to be ashamed of. I wasn’t ashamed of him.’ She looked to her boyfriend for support, but Mitch was examining his ginger biscuit, nibbling like a damned squirrel around the edges, as if she hadn’t just been insulted to the core by his parents. She imagined she could feel the baby kicking her in defiance, though at the sixteen-weeks stage, that was hardly even possible. The baby needed her to be strong for both of them. Boo narrowed her eyes. ‘Turds who don’t understand mental health issues shouldn’t be so quick to slap labels onto good people who just happen to be ill.’

  The father snorted with derision. ‘That’s what papers like the Guardian say. All that left-wing, Channel 4 gay nonsense. Luckily, I know all about mental health issues.’ He pointed, as if about to deliver a valuable life-lesson. ‘Real men don’t get depressed. We shoulder our responsibilities with a bit of backbone and a lot of hard graft. Am I right, Mary?’

  ‘Yes, Gerald.’

  Neither of them seemed to register the fact that Boo had called them turds. Mary and Gerald Mitchell. The worst in-laws she could have wished for.

  She could hear her father’s voice speaking to her, then. They’re not worth it, love. These self-righteous twits aren’t our kind. Take no notice, Boo Boo. She imagined his hairy arm around her shoulder. Tried to block out the memory of him swinging from the ceiling. Forced herself to remember him when he’d been alive and relatively well. Strong Dad. Kind Dad. Dad who made a belting curry and who’d willingly painted her childhood bedroom walls black, when she’d nagged him at the age of fifteen.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she told Mitch, standing suddenly. ‘I can’t do this right now. It’s too soon. I’m going.’

  ‘Don’t be daft!’ Mitch said, barring her way with an outstretched leg. ‘You’re just being hormonal.’

  She tried to force her way past him, irritated that he’d used the H-word, immediately undermining the value of her carefully considered words. ‘Pregnant women are allowed to have opinions, Mitch.’ The fact that he hadn’t stood up for her and challenged the offensive bilge his parents had come out with hurt her deeply.

  But he simply stood and locked her in an unyielding hug that felt more like control than comfort. ‘We’re having a baby. Mum and Dad are offering to help. I know you’re grieving. Just hear them out, Boo.’

  Barely able to bite back a sharp retort, Boo sat back down again on the rattan chair. Spied a wasp throwing itself against one of the double glazed panes in the roof of the conservatory. It too wanted to get the hell out of there, away from these 1950s-throwback freaks. Try to make them like you enough to help support this brat . . . She took a deep breath and reconsidered her mother’s cynical suggestion. ‘I’m sorry.’ She took a ginger biscuit from the plate on the small coffee table as a gesture of truce. Nibbled daintily on it, like the sort of woman would who these small-minded fools might wish the mother of their first grandchild to be. Ruined the effect by talking with her mouth full. ‘It’s just that my dad and the morning sickness combined . . . Well, it’s been a rough first trimester.’

  Their hard-bitten faces softened slightly.

  Gerald crossed his legs and spread his arms regally on the armrests of his wicker throne. ‘Obviously, there’s absolutely no question of you having an abortion.’

  ‘No question,’ Mary said, nodding vehemently. ‘We’re Catholics. You know that, don’t you? Colin told you, didn’t he?’

  Boo just nodded. ‘Oh, I’m keeping the baby.’ She laced her fingers together to form a protective coracle over her abdomen, imagining the infant Moses being hidden in a basket among the tall grasses that fringed the banks of the Nile. Just as Moses had been saved from the evil Pharaoh, she vowed to protect the new life inside her from this saggy-bollocked old prick.

  But the two glanced at one another ; then, at their son. The muggy air seemed ripe with an indecent proposal.

  ‘Well, we’ve given some thought to how very young you two are,’ Gerald said. ‘How much living you’ve got ahead of you and how having a baby will interfere with your studies.’

  Mary nodded. ‘I had my eldest at nineteen, and I can tell you now, it was no picnic,’ she said. She turned to Mitch. ‘I knew the ropes by the time you came along, of course.’

  How old was she? Boo wondered. Sixty? She looked sixty. Way too old to be the mother of a Fresher at university. Must have had him on the change, maybe. Boo glanced at the array of family photos that hung on the wall behind the couple. One, two, three, four, five . . . Mitch had six siblings and he’d said he was the youngest. Now, it made sense. Jesus. The woman must have a twat like a horse collar after all those kids, Boo thought. Am I going to end up a dried-up old bone like that at sixty? Is that what motherhood does to you? She choked back a guilty sob for resenting the fledgling life inside her.

  ‘My own mother did a lot of the parenting when I had my first child,’ she said, seeking corroboration from her husband. ‘It was a difficult birth, wasn’t it, Gerald?’

  Mitch’s father nodded. ‘Very. Thomas was a big baby.’

  Mary examined her short, surprisingly grubby fingernails. ‘I was . . . in a bad way for a long time. Lost a lot of blood. Anyway, my own mother coming to the rescue was a godsend. It meant I could get back on my feet and ease into looking after Thomas when I was ready. And that’s what we’ll do for you, when the baby comes.’

  Boo blinked hard, looking from Mary to Gerald and back again. Why was Mitch sitting there, impassively, saying not a single word? Unless, they’d discussed it beforehand, presenting it now as a fait accompli. ‘No,’ Boo simply said. ‘This is my baby. I’ll raise her myself, thanks.’

  This time, when she stood to leave, she managed to topple the table, with its tray holding their best tea set and an opened pack of ginger nuts. The floor became awash with beige liquid, broken floral china and biscuit shards that slowly darkened as they soaked up the tea.

  ‘Oh, I say!’ Mary half shrieked. ‘Get a cloth, Gerald! The tannin will stain the grout between the floor tiles. Quick!’

  ‘What did you do that for?’ Mitch asked above the sound of his fussing parents. He shook his head, screwing up his eyes and curling his lip at her like some bully in the playground. ‘I lov
e you so much. All I wanted was for the woman I love – the mother of my unborn child – to come and be nice to my folks. But you couldn’t, could you? Not even for an hour. Is this what I deserve, Boo Boo?’

  His words bit, but the mess and panic provided just the distraction Boo needed to escape the confrontational confines of the tiny conservatory. Knocking a cactus plant from the low sill with her bag, spilling compost everywhere, cementing her fate as the future daughter-in-law from hell, she barrelled into the gloomy dining room. Had to get out. Had to call a taxi ; somehow get back up to Durham, to the peace of her room in college and the autonomy it offered from someone else’s controlling parents and her own disinterested mother. ‘Forget it. I don’t need you – any of you – to raise this baby,’ she said, scowling at Mitch. She wondered how she could have thought for a moment that the two of them might work out. Dad was gone. She was on her own.

  ‘Wait!’ Mitch called to her down the hall as she donned her coat. ‘Think of what my folks are offering, Boo! We can finish our degrees. Take the baby back once we’ve graduated and found jobs.’ He advanced towards her with purposeful strides. Bore down on her. ‘What the hell do we know about child-rearing? Look at us! We’re kids ourselves.’ He grabbed at her sleeve. Whispered close to her ear. ‘All those drugs you take? Are you willing to run the risk of the authorities finding out about your lifestyle?’

  Gazing at him open-mouthed, Boo absorbed what he was insinuating. ‘All the drugs I take? Are you having a laugh? You wanna blackmail me into giving our child to your parents so they can play house with kid number seven? And then what?’ She wrenched her coat sleeve from his grip. ‘You get to trip and drink your way through your twenties, maybe shouldering a bit of fatherly responsibilities when the novelty wears off? What am I in this equation? A visitor? A surrogate? You’re tapped. No frigging way, Jose. Mary and Gerald Mitchell are not my kind of people and they’re not raising my daughter.’

  Feeling as though an umbilical cord, attached to her own stomach, was tugging her down the driveway and along the cul-de-sac to the busy street, Boo wept openly. Relieved that Mitch had remained behind, declaring his undying love, beseeching her, and when that didn’t work, shouting ultimatums from the doorway of his parents’ Barratt home. Let him plead. Let him threaten and cajole. There was no way she was going to give up this precious life inside her to a ploy that sounded suspiciously similar to informal adoption. True, she had nobody in the world now that Dad had gone, but . . .

  Climbing into a cab, Boo took the folded piece of paper reverentially from the envelope.

  ‘Station, please,’ she told the driver, as she expanded the concertinaed shape so that it made a delicate three dimensional frog.

  Heaving silently with the agony of solitude, Boo then carefully unfolded the shape to reveal a piece of notepaper on which had been written a short letter in a small, shaky hand.

  Dear Boo Boo

  I’m so very very sorry to be writing this farewell letter. Your dad just feels like he’s hit a dead end, I’m afraid. You know I’ve tried for the longest time to find the sunshine. I thought I’d found it the other day when you told me about the baby, but then, I realised a pure little life shouldn’t be tainted with my black moods and troughs of despond. I’ve failed you and your mum over the years. I can’t fail the baby, too. It’s better this way. There’s so much white noise in my head, Boo Boo. I just can’t bear it any more. All I want is a little peace and quiet.

  I won’t be here to help you with the baby, but I know you’ll be a brilliant mum because you have only love and good in you. Whatever happens, though, make sure you finish at university and make a comfortable, happy life for yourself. You’re my baby, after all and I’ll always be the proudest dad in the world. I love you with all my heart and forever, even from the other side.

  Love, Dad.

  xxx

  ‘You all right, duck?’ the cabbie asked, regarding her through his rear-view mirror. ‘You need a hanky?’ He pulled a tissue from the bejewelled box on his dashboard. Passed it back.

  Boo took it, thanking him. Blew her nose hard. Her dad had wanted her to finish her studies. How the hell was she going to do that with a baby in tow? On her own.

  ‘Station’s not far now,’ the cabbie said, trying to sound encouraging but looking unnerved by the distraught girl on his back seat.

  ‘Actually,’ she said, already feeling regret biting in the pit of her stomach. ‘Change of plan . . .’

  CHAPTER 27

  Angie

  ‘It’s me. Are you safe?’ The panic in Bev’s voice was audible. She started to babble barely intelligible nonsense at speed about grey men on trains and Jerry getting shirty and origami facing the wrong way. ‘Please tell me you’re out of there.’

  Damn. If she’d realised it had been Bev calling, she’d have sent the call to voicemail. But Angie had answered without checking who it was. A schoolgirl error, since Gretchen was standing right by her in the kitchen, ironing the children’s freshly washed clothes while Angie made a shopping list. Now was not the time to be discussing her clandestine plans to escape. It was clear the snooping nanny was eavesdropping, and, as if that weren’t oppressive and worrying enough, Jerry was back.

  ‘Esme! How lovely to hear from you!’ Angie said, taking several steps away from Gretchen, towards the sink. Ran the tap, lest Bev’s words somehow reached unintended ears. ‘It’s a lifetime since we got together. I’ve got so much to tell you.’

  ‘Is he there?’ Bev asked, clearly paranoid as hell. ‘If you’re safe, say banana. If you’re in danger, say . . . earrings.’

  As if he instinctively knew she was speaking to her secret ally, Jerry padded in. Thankfully ignoring her and instead making a beeline for the children, who squealed with delight to see Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! Then, Gretchen. Asking about her holiday. How were the folks? How was the schnapps and the lederhosen? Ha ha ha. There was definitely some subterfuge going on between those two.

  Yes, she was in bloody danger, with Spy Nanny from Hell and her potentially vengeful husband, who was definitely onto her. Mustering as much jollity as she could, she considered her breezy response. ‘Do message me with the address of the place where you got those divine earrings.’

  Bev sounded like a violin string that had been tightened to snapping point. ‘I’ve got everything you need. Meet me in an hour. Somewhere where people hardly ever go – off the beaten track and impossible for someone to follow you without you knowing it.’ There was a pause. ‘I’ve got it! Let’s meet at Dunham cemetery. Watch your back!’

  The drive out to meet her took Angie along the leafy green tunnel of Dunham Road, past sprawling period country piles and, to her left, the high brick wall that encircled the National Trust’s Dunham Park. Breathing too quickly and feeling her heart fluttering inside her like a trapped moth, she had eyes everywhere but on the road ahead.

  Is Jerry having me followed? There’s almost certainly a satellite orbiting the earth a hundred miles above Cheshire, with me in its sights. Any minute now, I’ll be surrounded by government agents and arrested on trumped-up charges as an enemy of the state or a double agent in Putin’s employ. Let’s face it, Jerry can do anything he wants. He’ll take the children and have me committed. I won’t even be admitted to the Priory. He’ll make darn sure I end up in some godforsaken NHS facility with no Clarins, riddled with C Difficile and MRSA. Has that BMW been behind me all the way from Hale? It has. It’s on my tail. Oh dear.

  A honking horn punctuated her panic, and Angie was forced to swerve out of the path of an oncoming dumper truck. She held her hand up apologetically. She had veered into his lane, after all. Glancing behind her, she saw that the BMW was still there. Turning right into the country lane that led to the cemetery would flush the driver out, if he was pursuing her.

  She put her indicator on, praying that she wouldn’t be followed ; thankful that she’d dropped the children at short notice on a playdate at Venetia Crooke’s house on Bankhall Lane. Bu
t the BMW’s indicator also started to flash, heralding a right turn. Trying to catch a glimpse of the driver’s face through her rear-view mirror, Angie wondered how she might shake this fiend off, enabling her to meet Bev unmolested. Bev said she had everything, but Angie also had to show Bev what she’d found. It sat in her handbag like nuclear waste, threatening to pollute everything it touched.

  The ivory-rendered Axe & Cleaver pub was coming up on her right. Hastily indicating, she turned into the tiny road that serviced the place.

  ‘Please go past. Please go past.’

  When the BMW turned into the road behind her, lights seemed to pop all around her and her fingertips and toes prickled numb.

  Knowing she could at least yell for help in the pub and stand a chance of some brave stranger coming to her rescue, she determined to park up and sprint inside before the BMW driver had a chance to get to her. If need be, there was a heavy tyre iron in the boot that she could use to defend herself, assuming she could lift the thing. She stalled the Range Rover. It lurched forward, almost knocking the legs from under an elderly man with a giant beer gut, who was clearly off for a spot of lunch.

  Slamming her door shut, Angie was about to retrieve her weapon of choice, when she realised that the BMW contained nothing more sinister than a family of five – two harassed parents, two bawling, brawling toddlers covered in magic marker and sick, with a shrieking baby who was so red in the face, Angie thought he might bust a blood vessel at any moment.

  ‘Oh dear. Oh thank you, thank you, thank you,’ she said beneath her breath.

  Getting back into the Range Rover, leaving the pub behind her, she continued up the winding country lane to the cemetery and crematorium. Bev had insisted they meet in the secluded new Jewish section – no more than a field containing a couple of rows of pristine-looking headstones ; handily out of sight of the established, main areas.

  Angie stowed herself behind the prayer hall, peeping out periodically whenever she heard footsteps on a path or the rustle of vegetation being disturbed. After about ten minutes, it was clear someone was approaching. Could it be Gretchen, sent by Jerry? Or Jerry himself, if he was tracking the car.