‘But there’s nothing on the other side,’ he says aloud.
‘Sam?’ Mutesi is leaning closer to him. ‘Are you all right?’
Gradually her kind face swims back into focus. She’s looking at the cut on his forehead. He knows he seems wild, bug-eyed, as though he’s just woken up and doesn’t know where the fuck he is. He used to do the same thing when his teachers told him off for staring out of the window. Stop daydreaming, Sam!
‘Sam, Sam.’ Mutesi sounds much gentler than any of his teachers. ‘Isn’t it time to give up?’
‘No.’
‘You’re not really going to shoot Abigail, or Neil, or me. You are not. I know you are not.’
She’s right, of course. He doesn’t know how much longer he can go on.
Eliza
The wind has picked up suddenly, and now it’s rattling the Victorian window frame. A crisp packet blows against the glass, peering in for a moment before whipping away into the darkness and rain. Every passing minute feels like a lost opportunity.
Eliza and Paul have followed up with two more texts to the café. The replies came from Abigail Garcia.
He says not yet. I think u should wait. Abi Garcia
Calm and talking to us. Abi
At seven, Eliza nips into the top-floor kitchen to call Richard.
‘’Fraid this isn’t showing any signs of coming to an end. I won’t be home anytime soon,’ she says. ‘Everyone okay?’
Richard sounds resigned. ‘Jack’s in his PJs, off to bed in a minute. Liam’s had a bad day.’
Eliza feels her chest tighten. When she lies sleepless at three in the morning, it’s generally because she hasn’t had enough time during daylight hours to worry about her elder son.
‘What happened?’
‘The talent quest was a disaster.’
‘Oh no! But he worked so hard, he could play it so well.’
‘He went wrong. His fingers were shaking. He had three false starts until he gave up and walked away. He reckons the whole school was laughing at him. They were slow-clapping.’
She imagines Liam’s shaking fingers on the keys, his rising panic. It makes her heart ache—literally, it aches.
‘What the hell were the teachers doing?’ she demands furiously. ‘They must have been asleep at the wheel! Why was that kind of behaviour allowed?’
Richard doesn’t answer. She knows exactly what he’s thinking: Where were you? Perhaps, if she’d been there as she promised, Liam wouldn’t have lost his nerve. Perhaps if she’d been there nobody would have dared to laugh or jeer or slow-clap.
‘How is he?’ she asks.
‘Pretty upset. He’s spent the evening asking when you’ll be back.’
‘Sorry.’
A sniff. ‘Yeah.’
‘There are hostages.’
‘I know. We’ve been watching on the news.’
‘It’s not a good moment to be handing this on to another negotiator.’
‘I’m sure it’s not.’
She’s trying to think of some way to cheer Liam. ‘Tell him I’ll take him ice-skating on Saturday.’
‘I think it’ll take more than ice-skating.’
She hears his muffled voice, relaying her peace offering with an undertone of sarcasm—says she’ll take you ice-skating at the weekend—and a grunt from Liam.
‘Tell him it will all come out in the wash,’ she says. ‘It won’t have been as bad as he thinks.’
‘Some of the little bastards were filming. They’ve shown him the video. It’s far worse than he thought. He’s saying he can’t go back to school. Ever.’
‘They haven’t posted this video online, have they?’
‘Christ, I hadn’t even considered that!’ Richard sounds appalled. ‘D’you think they might? They’d bloody well better not! Anyway, he’s having ice cream and we’re going to watch Dr Who. We’ll see you later.’
He’s ended the call before she’s had a chance to say goodbye.
She fills a glass of water, feeling weighed down by the image of her awkward son, trying so hard to do something right for once. Giggles, then gales of laughter, a heartless crowd slow-clapping him off the stage. Ooh, she’d like to have ten minutes with some of those kids. Her own cheeks burn with his mortification.
‘Trouble at t’mill?’ asks Paul, as she returns to their room. Her colleague seems as alert as he did first thing this morning, perhaps because he’s on his zillionth cup of coffee.
‘Liam. The usual kind of thing. I wish I could split in half and be in two places at once. Two people at once. Maybe three.’
‘That would be a useful skill.’
‘It would.’
He’s gazing keenly at her. ‘You all right?’
‘Always. Just a godawful mother.’
‘D’you want to think about handing over to me or Ashwin?’
‘Over my dead body.’
‘Okay. Good.’ He looks relieved. ‘But let’s revisit that in a couple of hours. We’ll have to pass this on to another team if it’s going to run all night.’ He hands her his tablet. ‘Take a look at Ballard’s Facebook page. See Julia? She’s a sweetie.’
The first picture is a close-up of a very small baby snuggled in an adult’s arms. Her mouth, nose and one tiny clenched fist are visible above a white blanket. A yellow cap covers the top third of her face. She seems to be fast asleep except that she’s yawning widely. The yawn wrinkles her nose. According to Facebook, one hundred and twenty people have liked or loved the image.
In the next picture she looks about Jack’s age, or maybe a little older—still a baby, really—dressed in dungarees and blue wellies. She’s sitting in the grass with her legs stuck straight out in front of her, cuddling a very young, very woolly lamb. Wispy curls cling to the nape of her neck. Sunlight glows on her face and shines through the lamb’s ears. She’s squinting up at whoever’s taking the photo, grinning from ear to ear. She hasn’t yet got all her teeth.
‘Pretty cute,’ says Eliza.
‘Hang on, there’s a more recent one.’ Paul takes the tablet back and flicks through the photos. ‘Here we go. July this year, around the time Nicola left.’
This time the little girl is definitely that—a little girl, not a baby. She’s squatting down with her feet flat on the ground, in that way very small children can, frowning in concentration as she lays a bright red brick on top of a tower of them. She’s wearing a denim pinafore dress, blue tights and T-bar shoes. Her hair is still wispy but it’s shoulder-length now. Big curls, round cheeks. A sparkly blue slide pins back her fringe on one side. One small hand rests casually on the neck of a black-and-white dog.
Eliza leans closer, gazing through this window into Sam’s world. The image has a yellowish, electric-light-bulb tint. Eliza can make out a colourful rug on the floor, an overflowing laundry basket beside the turned leg of a pine table, a distant shelf piled haphazardly with what might be cookery books. Beyond the child another figure is half obscured by shadow.
‘Think that’s Nicola in the background?’
‘Yep, I’d say so. She fits the descriptions.’
The woman is cross-legged, holding a wineglass. Short blonde hair with a long fringe sweeping over one eye. Jeans, a turquoise blouse, bare feet. Slender fingers touch the side of her own head, as if smoothing her hair. She’s looking directly at the photographer but there’s no hint of a smile.
‘The girl in the cupboard,’ says Eliza.
‘That’s right.’
‘Sam took this photo. We’re looking through his eyes. This is where everything happened.’
THIRTY-TWO
Sam
When he phoned Mum with their baby news, she cried. He wasn’t sure they were happy tears.
He hadn’t seen her in months. He hardly ever went to London, she never ventured anywhere without Robert anymore, and Robert refused to visit Tyndale Farm. The baby changed all that. Even Robert couldn’t keep Mum from being involved in the life of her first grandchild.
‘When can I come down?’ she asked.
Robert’s voice was rumbling in the background. Sam imagined her with the phone jammed into her chest, trying to stand up to him. When she spoke again she sounded triumphant.
‘Robert’s going to come too! He’s dead keen to meet the mother of his step-grandchild.’
No, no, no! ‘Hasn’t he got a café to run?’
‘You’re going to be a father,’ she said. ‘It’s time the pair of you mended your fences. Saturday okay with you?’
‘I don’t want him here.’
‘Oh, Sam. Please. Please.’
She sounded desperate. It occurred to him that if Robert didn’t come, neither would she.
‘Okay,’ he muttered. ‘But it’s my house now.’
Rain set in that evening and continued all the rest of the week, but on Saturday morning he woke to a washed blue sky. He was up and out by dawn, trying to fit a day’s work into three hours. Toby the puppy snuffled and capered around his feet. Someone had left a gate open on the public footpath again, letting the heifers into a field of beans. Why did they do that? Was it so hard to shut a gate? He had to move the reluctant animals, which was a nightmare. By ten in the morning he’d changed and was pacing around the house, trying to hide piles of washing and other mess. Neither Nicola nor he were what you’d call house proud. He only ever seemed to succeed in making things look worse.
She was standing at the mirror in the kitchen, serenely putting on lipstick, wearing an oversized grey cardigan and jeans. She suffered morning sickness for the first few months but that was all over now and she was glowing. He thought she looked magnificent, like something out of a magazine. He was proud of her. They’d ground fresh coffee beans in their new grinder, even laid on a packet of posh biscuits for the occasion. They were twenty-two years old, playing house.
‘Your mum sounds like a real sweetheart,’ said Nicola. ‘This is all going to be fine.’
‘Yeah. She is.’
‘The wicked stepfather?’ She blotted her lipstick on a tissue. ‘You’re not really scared of him, are you?’
Oh, but he was. He’d spent the past ten minutes scrubbing the sink with a wire brush, for no good reason. The devil in human form was coming for coffee at his kitchen table, to meet the love of his life. Sam had witnessed Robert’s charm working its magic. Convolvulus.
‘I can handle him,’ Nicola assured him. ‘I’ve never been scared of bullies. If he gives you any trouble I’ll just tell him to sod right off.’
As she spoke, Sam heard wheels splashing through the puddles in the yard.
‘Talk of the devil,’ he said.
By the time the engine stopped, Nicola and Toby had already trotted outside to meet them. Nicola was good with people. She had her best lipstick smile on, wide and eager, ready to chummy up and make things easier for everyone. Sam trudged along in her scented wake, arriving just as she and Mum were hugging like old friends—two women who’d never met, but now there was this baby.
Robert had bought himself a flashy little car, a racing-green MG, and had the roof down. He was striding around the long bonnet towards Nicola, greeting her affably in his deep voice. ‘Hello! I’m Robert. I’m guessing you’re Nicola?’ When she put out her hand, he held on to it, and at the same time he laid his other paw on her shoulder. ‘I think we can do hugs, can’t we? We’re family now.’
Sam stood on the doorstep with clenched fists, watching that man pull his beautiful girlfriend into his arms and press his mouth onto her left cheek, then her right, then her left again. Fuck, he wanted to kill him. Spring sunshine glowed on her hair, on his craggy face. They looked glamorous together.
He was all chummy with Sam too, greeting him with a manly slap on the back, demonstrating that he was the adult in the yard while Sam was just a sullen kid. He won every time. Every time. Game, set and match.
It turned out that Sam and Nicola didn’t need their posh biscuits because Robert produced almond croissants from the café. He spent the morning rolling out a major charm offensive. Mum was wary, the rabbit in the grass, looking to him for approval every time she spoke. She didn’t want a croissant—patting her stomach, smiling and muttering just watching it a bit—though she was skinny as a twig, pale skin stretched across her cheekbones. Her hair was twisted and pinned back so tightly that it pulled at her face. No curls could escape that torture. She bore no resemblance whatsoever to the bride in Sam’s parents’ wedding photos. That curly-headed, laughing girl had been airbrushed out of the world forever.
If his wife was faded, Robert glowed in glorious technicolour. His presence filled the room. Sam had forgotten how he could do that. Having him in the house brought it all back—those first days when Dad had died and this interloper somehow managed to take over the universe. He gave Nicola the full blast of his charisma, got her talking about her mother—who sounded like a saint, but then don’t all dead people?—and her useless father who was on to his fourth wife, smoked dope like it was going out of fashion, couldn’t hold down a job and had never shown the slightest interest in Nicola. Robert listened without ever taking his eyes from her face. Sam recognised his technique: an understanding smile, a way of looking intently into her eyes after she’d finished speaking.
‘I bet you didn’t expect this,’ he said, gesturing around her. ‘How old are you? Twenty-two? Stuck in the country with a child on the way.’
Nicola chuckled. She was sitting with her hand on Sam’s leg.
‘Hell, no! I didn’t expect it.’ He felt her fingers squeeze his knee and was reassured. ‘But it’s just fine with me, Robert. Just fine.’
Morning sun was blasting in through the kitchen windows, so Nicola suggested a stroll. Sam found everyone boots to wear and they set out across the yard. The farm was a piece of heaven that morning. A fresh wind made rippling-water patterns in the spring barley; hawthorn blossom danced a jig in the hedges.
‘Sam, this place is a picture!’ boomed Robert, shaking his head in wonder when Sam showed them a soya crop he’d drilled. ‘Heck, you’ve achieved miracles in a short time. You’re really thinking outside the box. Poor old Tim Appleton never had Tyndale looking as good as this.’
But Sam wasn’t having it; he wouldn’t play the grateful stepson. Robert soon gave up the act, and minutes later he was bragging about his best-ever turnover at Tuckbox. Sam listened in silence until they were crossing Sundance’s field. He thought Mum might at least acknowledge the significance of the place, but she never opened her mouth. When they reached the trough by the spinney, he couldn’t stand it any longer. He stopped in his tracks.
‘Has he been erased from existence?’ he asked loudly.
Mum dropped back to take his arm. ‘Shh,’ she hissed. ‘Please.’
‘He’s my child’s grandfather. Do we just pretend he was never here?’
‘Sam. Sammy.’
She sounded pathetically anxious, desperate for everyone to get along. She was the only person he was hurting. He whispered, ‘Sorry,’ and stretched his free hand across to cover hers. They walked on together, Mum holding on to his arm.
‘Look,’ she murmured, ‘bluebells in the spinney. He loved this time of year.’
They made slower progress than the other two, who strode ahead, heads bent together, deep in conversation about God knew what. Nicola’s pale blue poncho matched the sky. Sam fretted about what tales Robert might be spinning. He was a magician. He could make anyone fall in love with him.
‘He’d be so proud, you know,’ said Mum. ‘Your dad. I hope he can see what a fine job you’re doing.’
‘I wish he was here. Every single day I need his advice. Every single day there’s some new problem. So much knowledge died with him.’
‘I know.’ She tilted her head so that it rested on his upper arm. ‘I know, Sammy. I feel exactly the same. We used to turn things over and work out what to do. We were a team.’
This was as honest as she’d been in years. Perhaps he should have stopp
ed and looked her in the eye and asked, ‘Are you all right, Mum? How are you, really? Blink twice and I’ll rescue you.’ Perhaps he could have helped. But he didn’t want to spoil this moment.
‘I’ve been worrying about you,’ she said. ‘You’re both so young for such a lot of commitment … I thought Nicola might be trying to trap you. You’re a catch, after all. The farm and everything.’
He was startled into laughter. ‘What, you mean by getting knocked up? The boot’s on the other foot! Of the two of us, she was the more shocked. I think most people will be saying I’m the lucky one.’
‘She’s good for you, I can see that. But having a child, and farming life—it’s a lot to ask. And people change as they grow through their twenties.’
He glanced up the field towards Nicola, who was stooping to pick up a stick to throw for Toby.
‘You know what, Mum? I think I’m actually happy. I wouldn’t change a thing.’
She looked at him and smiled, said that was good enough for her, and that she couldn’t wait to be a granny.
From then on it was lovely, that hour or so when they wandered together across the landscape they both knew so well. He had a glimpse of Mum’s old self. Perhaps she glimpsed it too. He even had her laughing. They made a shortlist of baby names to run by Nicola later: Sophie, Ella, Julia. Or Max, Mark, Jonty. He thought perhaps the baby could be a new beginning for everyone.
‘Well! This has been great,’ gushed Robert, when he and Mum were getting back in the car. ‘Sam, you’ve got yourself a hell of a girl there.’
Nicola had taken up position beside Sam, her elbow resting casually on his shoulder.
‘He knows,’ she said, tweaking his ear.
Mum waved as the car turned into the lane. Robert tooted. It was all very matey.
‘You were right,’ said Nicola. ‘He’s much too smooth, and that car is a mid-life crisis on wheels. But I think everything’s going to be okay.’
Suddenly the day seemed brighter than any day ever had. A thrush chirruped from the poplar tree, its song clear and light and hopeful. Sparrows flirted among the chimneys. Blue sky in the puddles, sunshine on the old stone of the house. Sam grabbed Nicola’s hand, holding it high over their heads while she spun around. They laughed and danced without music, slipping and sliding on the muddy gravel.
The Secrets of Strangers Page 25
