‘What? Now? But we haven’t talked about our mum at all. What you remember about her. Please, Leah, stay. I’ve come all this way to see you. I need you to tell me about her. You’re the only person who can!’
Leah looked down at her. ‘Not now. Like I said, I gotta go. Places to go, people to see. I’ll text ya.’ And with that, she slid out of her seat and out of the cafe, and it was as if she’d never been there.
Chapter 30
TOM PULLED in as soon as he saw a space. There was no point driving into Flo’s cul-de-sac as he knew, from experience, that it would be blocked by cars, most of them looking like they’d been abandoned rather than parked.
They climbed out in silence. Of the four door slams, Cassie’s was the loudest. Tom and Grace had insisted that she come with them. It had not gone down well. It was as if Cassie was allergic to them at present. Tom carried the beer, Grace a big Tupperware box full of cakes, and Erin the gift. Cassie bore nothing, other than an air of studied martyrdom. Tom took a deep breath and promised himself that he would not rise to her silent provocation. They fell into step, Erin beside him, Cassie up ahead with her mum. Even from behind, it was obvious that they were mother and daughter. The sway of the hips, the lift of their feet, the deceptive speed: little traits that were identical. The irony of Cassie’s physical fit within their family seemed more of a taunt than a reassurance to Tom than ever before. Their daughter, but not. The past month had brought that home to Tom and Grace in no uncertain way.
Within a minute, Grace and Cassie were a good fifty metres ahead. Tom let them go – the more distance, the better. His renewed attempts to communicate with his eldest daughter had been met with stony resistance. He had tried, he really had, but Cassie had blocked him with a wall of monosyllabic answers and minuscule shoulder shrugs. He watched them turn the corner and disappear from sight, with something akin to relief. Feeling the need for kinder contact, he linked his arm through Erin’s. Her silence was companionable, free of sharp splinters. He squeezed her arm. ‘Byron’s going to be there,’ he teased her. Byron, Sharee’s youngest son, was back from university on a visit. Erin had always had a soft spot for her cousin.
‘Don’t you dare, Dad!’ Erin warned.
‘You could show him some of your drawings,’ Tom teased, aware of his own cheesiness. His reward was a thump on the arm.
The party was well under way by the time they arrived. It was Flo and Ray’s twenty-eighth wedding anniversary. Any excuse for a party was a good excuse for Flo. ‘Why wait,’ she’d laughed when she rang to invite them, ‘we’ll only be two years older and two stone fatter, if we leave it.’ There was already a landslide of food and booze on offer, but Tom and Grace added their contributions to the pile. Relieved of his beer barricade, Tom submitted to the obligatory round of welcoming hugs and kisses. Grace’s family were very tactile, their physical boundaries non-existent – and that was before they’d had a drink.
Flo appeared, resplendent in a red-and-purple dress that was just a little bit too tight and quite a lot too loud. ‘Hi. Come on through! Erin, your grandpa’s out in the back garden. Would you be a love and take him this?’ She passed Erin a can of Guinness. ‘Help yourselves to a drink. There are cold ones in the fridge. I’ll be back in a minute. I just need to dig out some more loo rolls.’
Erin took the beer and went off to find Pete. The way that Grace’s family had absorbed Pete into their midst so thoroughly, since the death of Tom’s mum, was one of life’s surprises and blessings. It had been a process of slow osmosis. It had started with the occasional impromptu visit, and developed into Sharee picking Pete up for Sunday lunch once a month. Now he had a standing invitation to every family event and gathering. They never took ‘No’ for an answer. And by such open-hearted, concerted stealth they had loudly and unapologetically saved Pete from himself, and from his stoic but suffocating grief.
Tom looked out through the open conservatory doors and spotted his dad, sitting listening to one of Ray’s friends: Ty, or was it Eddie? Whoever it was, they were obviously telling some tall tale, judging by the flamboyant hand-gestures. Pete looked bemused, but quite content. At the sight of his granddaughter picking her way towards him through the scatter of people and folding chairs, Pete’s face broke into a full-on smile. Pleased to see his dad so thoroughly ensconced in the heart of Grace’s family, Tom turned to consider the vast collection of soft drinks on the counter top, then went and fetched a cold beer from the fridge. One wouldn’t hurt. He hadn’t even closed the fridge door before Grace took it from him and flipped off the cap with a ‘Why, thank you! How thoughtful.’
Grace sipped her beer and let herself be sucked into the currents, and undercurrents, of the party. She half-listened to Sharee sniping, none too subtly, about how much Ray had spent on the party, by which she really meant Flo; and she feigned interest in Jade’s niece’s elaborate wedding plans. Next she found herself stooping down to listen, with genuine sympathy, as Auntie Rita whispered her way through the lowlights of her recent bout of radiotherapy. Byron wandered into their orbit, to kiss them both and say ‘Hi’, but drifted away quickly when he caught the topic of conversation. Rita had bowel cancer. She never named the disease out loud, none of the family did; they all seemed to share a deep-seated superstition that, in naming the malignance that was eating away at Rita, they would somehow increase its power. Grace admired Auntie Rita’s fortitude in the face of her illness and with the obtuseness of the family. She took hold of Rita’s arthritis-gnarled hand and promised to pray for her. After she’d left her aunt in the safe care of Faye, Grace somehow got dragged into a discussion about school discipline or, more accurately, the appalling lack of it, with her ebullient cousin Leon and his silent wife.
Twenty minutes later Grace was still only a halfway across the room. Her target destination – an empty chair, in the sun, in the garden – seemed a very long way off. She was still nodding noncommittally along to Leon’s strong views on grammar schools when she felt a hand brush across her bottom. She looked around, expecting Tom at best, or at worst Dennis, an old neighbour who always invited himself over whenever Flo had an open house, but there was no one there. She’d been mistaken. But a second later she felt it again. This time when she twisted round, she realised it wasn’t a hand that was touching her, it was the pressure of a little head. Lexie, Ty’s granddaughter, was standing behind her, trapped in the sea of legs, her thumb wedged in her mouth.
Grace crouched down so that she was face-to-face with the little girl. ‘Hi, Lexie. Are you all right, honey?’ The little girl nodded, but continued to suck her thumb as if her life depended on it. ‘Do you know where your mummy is?’ Lexie shook her head. ‘Do you want to come with me and we’ll go and find her?’
Lexie took a moment to consider this offer, then she unplugged her thumb and let Grace take her hand. Despite the sticky dampness of her fingers, Grace smiled.
Cassie had parked herself in the doorway between the kitchen and the back room. She stood fiddling with her necklace, wishing herself anywhere other then where she was. Family parties – she felt like she’d been to hundreds of the bloody things. They always went on for ever and, no matter what her mum said, they never only stayed for an hour or so. It was always the same people, having the same tedious conversations, about the same things. It was always the same food, and there was always too much of it. And the parties always started out loud, and got louder and louder as the beer and the wine flowed. She really wasn’t in the mood.
A parade of relatives trooped past her. They all said ‘hello’ and asked her how sixth form was going. She cut off any further conversation by keeping her responses very short, and not very sweet. Cassie could see her mother working her way round the room, spending time with everyone, smiling and chatting and listening patiently – even to the old ones who did nothing but moan on about their ailments. Her mother was so patient, so kind, so bloody nice! Or so everyone thought. She was talking to Leon now. He was awful, always banging on about
something. Even with him Grace was being polite. What a hypocrite!
Suddenly, mid-conversation, her mum disappeared from view. Cassie watched as the kaleidoscope of people in the room shifted, a blur of noise and colour, then a gap opened up, revealing her mother. She was crouched down, talking to a little girl in a painfully pink dress. The little girl had her back to Cassie. She was tiny. The biggest thing about her was her hair, which was caught up in two huge bunches on either side of her head. Amidst the sea of people, Grace and the little girl were having a private moment, suspended in a bubble of light and quiet. When Grace straightened up and took the little girl’s hand, Cassie looked away, too confused by the emotions raging through her to watch any more.
The kitchen was as jam-packed as the rest of the house. Cassie edged around the bodies of her many relatives carefully, making sure she didn’t come into contact with any of them, heading towards the drinks. There was a whole counter top of booze. Name your poison and there was probably a bottle of it open. She searched around until she found a clean glass on the draining board. She poured herself half a glass of Coke, then she picked up the vodka and clumsily splashed some in. She screwed the lid back on the bottle, picked up her drink and took a big gulp. As she did so, her eyes met those of her mother. Cassie took a second swallow of fizzy alcohol, without breaking eye contact.
Ten minutes later her glass was empty. She reached for the Coke again.
‘Go steady, love.’ Grace appeared at her side.
Cassie could already feel the fuzziness in her head and the loosening in her spine. She reached for the vodka bottle again. The cool metal lid felt lovely under her fingertips. She slowly unscrewed the cap and placed it very carefully on the worktop. She didn’t want to lose it – that would be irresponsible. The vodka made a nice, heavy glugging noise. Her mother watched as she filled the glass to the top, her face pleading. Cassie ignored her and took another sweet mouthful.
‘Cassie, please.’
She raised her glass to her mother, a mocking toast, and Grace turned and walked away. But then she was back, in what seemed like a flash, this time with her dad in tow. Cassie was curious to see how this little stand-off was going to play out.
‘That’s enough, Cassie.’ Her dad actually went to snatch the glass out of her hand. How rude was that? Cassie jerked her drink away and a spray of brown liquid leapt out of the glass and splashed across her mother’s top. The sight of it made her laugh. While she was momentarily distracted by their stupidly shocked faces, Tom succeeded in grabbing the glass and pulling it forcefully away from her. Cassie was infuriated. How dare he? She swung her hand into the air and connected with his arm. Then he shocked her by grabbing her forearm, hard. ‘Cass, stop this, right now!’ They were actually wrestling with each other. Cassie, in a haze of indignation, was determined not to give in. Tom was equally adamant. ‘We’re leaving! Grace, go and find Erin. I’ll get her out to the car.’
‘Her.’ They were talking about her as if she was a naughty child.
‘I don’t want to go home!’ Cassie hissed. She was too steamed up to notice the embarrassed shuffle of relatives as they looked anywhere but at Tom and his daughter. Quite a few of them suddenly decided it was time they sought out some relative they’d only just spotted, for a chat.
Tom started tugging at Cassie. She pulled back. It was an ungainly, almost comical tug-of-war that widened the circle of space and bad feeling that surrounded them.
‘Cassie, that’s enough. You’re not going to spoil the party for everyone else. Come on. You need to come home, now.’ Tom yanked at her again.
‘You’re hurting me!’ Even she could hear that she was yelling.
‘Cassie!’ Tom tugged vainly at his daughter, fearful of actually hurting her, but determined to get her out of the kitchen, out of the house and away from the prying eyes of the other party-goers. Cassie’s body jerked and he suddenly lost his grasp. She cannoned backwards and crashed into the sink. There was a clatter of glasses and a weird ringing sound as the bottles of booze rattled against each other.
‘Ow!’ She clutched at her side, possibly in real pain, but possibly not. She looked down and saw her necklace on the sticky floor amongst the crud. Her favourite necklace. Her nicest necklace. The one Ryan had given her. Her dad had broken it deliberately – that’s how spiteful he was. She picked it up, at the second attempt, and glared at him. Neither of them backed down, they were too wrapped up in the intensity of the moment. More relatives fled the scene.
Unnoticed, a stern-faced Grace reappeared, followed by Erin.
When Erin stepped into the kitchen, it seemed to go silent. She looked at her dad and saw his clenched fists. She looked at Cassie and saw that she was staring intently at something in her hand. Her sister’s face was a mish-mash of distress and anger; her dad’s the same. ‘What’s going on?’
At the sight of Erin, both Tom and Cassie came to their senses. Cassie straightened up and Tom relaxed his hands. The clamour of blood rushing through their veins was still fast and loud, but it was diluted by an injection of shame.
It was enough to stop the fight.
They left in single file, Grace leading the way, with Tom and Cassie following and Erin bringing up the rear, a gap between each of them.
Chapter 31
NAZ HAD called round to see Leah after some meet he’d been at, with some big shot that he knew, about some business he was doing. He was buzzing, hyperactive, bouncing around the flat with an excess of adrenaline. And it was just adrenaline. Naz didn’t touch booze or drugs. He wasn’t a sucker! What Naz got off on was reputation, pecking orders, dog-eat-dog, getting one over on someone else, moving up through the ranks, getting respect…that, and the money, of course. Leah tried to follow what he was banging on about, but she was finding it hard to concentrate. She nodded – hopefully in the right places – and kept her responses to a minimum.
He didn’t like her drinking, said he hated the smell of it on her, but fuck him – if he left her home alone, what did he expect? Drinking smudged time, dulled the edges, drowned out the voices. What else was a girl supposed to do on her own, in a shitty flat, on a sunny weekend? This afternoon’s little treat had been vodka and Coke, until the Coke ran out; then it had been just vodka, until the vodka ran out. She really needed to focus on what he was saying, but he kept circling the room. It was making her dizzy. Leah knew she was getting it wrong; she could tell by the way Naz kept looking at her that she was not supplying the required level of enthusiastic adoration. The booze had blunted her brain, and that was dangerous. Thankfully, her self-preservation instincts were still intact. He needed distracting, and fast. It took a heroic effort to get up off the sofa and slide over to him.
Twenty minutes later she lay on her front, waiting for him to finish. She couldn’t breathe properly, but there was comfort to be had in burying her head in the pillow, muffling the sound of him, letting his weight push down on top of her. It helped her to peel her thoughts away from her body. She imagined herself being pressed through the sheet into the dense wadding of the mattress – her body sieving between the sharp springs – dropping through the cheap bed slats onto the thin carpet, and from there on through the floorboards – her bones splitting and splintering against the thick, resistant wood – on into the thin layers of plaster and paint and the spider’s web of wires, on through the ceiling…until she fell, free, into the flat below.
He finished.
There was a long pause. The weight of him was intolerable. It was squeezing the air out of her lungs. Thankfully, he rolled off. She breathed again. They lay still for a few minutes.
Slowly Leah lifted her head off the pillow and turned her face towards him. He was staring into space, absent-mindedly stroking his belly. His eyelids drooped. Three minutes later he was asleep.
She waited another ten before she slid out of bed.
Her skin was a livid pink – at least the parts in the water were. It was a small bath, impossible to submerge yourself comp
letely in it. Leah had tried, more than once, but she’d only succeeded in cascading water all over the floor. She stretched and reached for the tap, adding more hot: boiling away another layer.
Naz walked in without knocking. He was dressed, ready to leave, though his hair was not quite as pristine as usual. ‘You should’ve woken me up. I’m gonna be late.’ For what, he didn’t say. He always had somewhere else that he needed to be. She didn’t respond. He lifted the toilet lid and peed, a long, heavy, pungent stream, which, if he’d shifted his stance even a fraction to the left, would have been straight into her face. When he’d finished, he flushed and zipped himself back up. Then he bent down and plunged his hands into the water, into the space between her legs. Even in her ‘heat and vodka’-dowsed state, it gave her a tiny thrill to see him wince at the temperature. Naz feigned indifference, but pulled his hands out, quickly – not, however, before splashing a handful of scaldingly hot water into her eyes. Leah flinched.
Playtime over, she thought he would leave, but instead he put the toilet lid down and sat on it, drying his hands. ‘So when am I gonna get to meet her?’
Leah was fairly certain she hadn’t mentioned Cassidie’s latest visit to him, but she couldn’t be sure. Booze did that, loosened words and thoughts that should be kept screwed down. It was a rookie error. She knew that Naz was a hoarder of information. It was one of his skills, keeping tabs on people and things that might be of use to him; and Cassidie was, potentially, very useful. Leah had known, the moment she’d mentioned Cassidie, that he was interested – unhealthily interested. She sat up and gestured for a towel, buying time. He ignored the request.
‘Soon,’ she conceded. Something in her wanted to keep Cassidie to herself, at least for a little while longer.
He relented and passed her the towel. ‘I wanna meet her. See what she’s like. Different to you, I’m guessing.’ He meant better. He stood up, glanced down. ‘Text me, when it’s set up.’ It was an instruction, not a request. Leah dried her face, smothering her response. ‘I’m looking forward to it,’ he grinned. ‘It’s about time we had some fun.
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