‘I suppose all this means I’ve got to go home,’ Melanie said bravely.
Vanessa leaned over, moved Alec’s prying hand from the box of food, handed him a sandwich and said, ‘Eat this up first, then you can see what else we’ve got.’
‘My sandwich, Vanessa,’ Joanne said loudly and rudely. ‘You deaf, or what?’
‘Jaffa cakes,’ Alec said.
‘Don’t be rude, Joanne,’ Vanessa responded mechanically. To Annie she went on, ‘Look – Melanie’s mum says she can stay, that’s got a lot to do with it. Right, Melanie? Otherwise, David Pickering’s just trying it on. He can’t do anything.’
‘Mum’ll have to go along with what Dad says,’ observed Melanie, ‘for the money. If he’s sending any,’ she added.
‘You’d better ring her again,’ advised Vanessa. ‘She must be worried, with your dad gone, two boys to look after. I’d go mad, in her shoes. Especially with your sister – do you mean nobody knows where she is?’
Melanie changed the subject. ‘This picnic’s great!’ she said, helping herself to a sausage roll.
The tall buildings of the Savernake Estate were slightly cracked due to the use of shoddy materials and poor workmanship by the contractors in the sixties. The tenants, in and out of work, self-employed in legal or illegal ways, or sometimes a bit of both, old, young, married, pregnant, happy, sad, were all tucked away behind balconies and curtains – tidy nets looped up to let the people see the pot plant and the plant see the light, flat dwellers’ orange and brown curtains, Venetian blinds, neat or collapsing. Their cars were at the back in the big courtyard. Now on this sunny spring afternoon, the tall towers gleamed magically on the other side of the park, like a vision, perhaps the same vision seen by the original planners in the fifties, as they stood in their suits in a municipal building dreaming municipal dreams.
Annie gave Vanessa some coffee from a Thermos. ‘Don’t look so bad from here, does it?’ Vanessa said staring across at the flats. Two young men, in T-shirts and jeans, each with a straining pit bull terrier half suffocating itself at the end of its lead, walked past, eyeing the group on the grass unamiably.
‘When we’ve finished our picnic we ought to go back and ring your mother,’ Annie said to Melanie.
‘Sooner the better,’ Vanessa said.
Later, in Annie’s house, a dispute arose about who should ring Mrs Pickering to check that Melanie could stay in London. Vanessa maintained Annie should do it as she had a posh accent, Annie that Vanessa should do it because a posh accent implying authority might put Mrs Pickering off. Melanie claimed she herself should do it because Jenny Pickering was her mother. Finally Vanessa picked up the phone and dialled. Mrs Pickering’s phone had been disconnected. ‘So he isn’t sending her any money,’ Melanie said. ‘That’s the last thing she saves money on – the phone. I’ll try Mo Patel.’ She dialled the corner shop of the street where she lived and left a message for her mother to ring London. Then they sat down to wait for her call and watch television. Two hours later they were still waiting.
‘I’ll have to take Alec back soon, to go to bed,’ said Vanessa after they had all consumed a Chinese take-away. Then the phone rang.
‘I’m all right, still at Annie’s,’ Melanie’s response was a mixture of pleasure at hearing her mother’s voice and anxiety lest she could not placate her. ‘I’m working in the café. Yes. I’m going to school. No. It’s not very nice. Why’s the phone off, Mum? Haven’t you got any money? Well, he’s here. Aye, Dad’s here.’
Melanie’s mother spoke at length.
Melanie said, ‘I don’t know, Mum.’
There was more from the other end of the line.
‘Well, I’m sorry, Mum. I haven’t seen him. Annie and Vanessa saw him. He’s been round to the café asking them for money—’
Mrs Pickering’s demands for explanations were now so audible that Vanessa took the phone, saying loudly, ‘Now, Mrs Pickering, don’t upset yourself. As long as you don’t mind Melanie being here, we can cope with your husband. I expect he was desperate at the time. Well, you can be, can’t you? Do you want to come down here and see what’s going on? Or shall Melanie come and see you in the school holidays? You what? Oh—’ she laughed. ‘No – I don’t know where he’s to be found – I know. I know – I know. You don’t have to tell me. I’ll try, if I see him, but I don’t suppose he’ll say. If you want my opinion you’d better try FIS, the DSS, try for a rebate off the council – see if you can get a single-parent increase on the family allowances. I know – I know – I know. So if Mr Pickering comes round again, I’m just to tell him you’d like to hear from him. Yes, I know, believe me, I know … And I’m to tell him you’re perfectly satisfied with Melanie stopping here. Good. Well, talk to you soon. All right,’ she said, putting down the phone. ‘That’s it. She says I didn’t have to shout, they’ve got ears north of Watford Gap! She can’t afford the fares down for her and the boys at the moment, the place she works is cutting the hours back, but she’s sending you your bus fare one way, Mels, you’re to keep it and use it if you want – don’t spend it, it’s hard to come by. And if anybody spots your father she’d like to know where he is, what, he’s doing, and some money for the boys. You’ve got to keep on going to school religiously. Nice woman, she sounds, but she’s had enough to put up with, so she doesn’t need any more problems, so you behave yourself, Melanie Pickering.’
‘What a relief,’ said Melanie. ‘Fancy Dad not telling her he’d found me.’
Annie felt bewildered. Practical Vanessa had no trouble in comprehending the Pickering family relationships or the other issues involved. She recalled, vaguely, Jessie Knipe of 20 Threpp Street, first floor back, who ran off with an itinerant accordionist and came back ten months later with a baby girl. There had been an argument with the workhouse authorities about a Scottish wedding certificate, she remembered. She shook her head to clear it. These thoughts had nothing to do with the present day.
Vanessa turned off the television and said to her children, ‘Up, you two. Alec, do you want to go to the toilet?’ She departed, tired but strong, saying, ‘See you tomorrow, Annie.’
Annie made Melanie get on with her homework while she settled down to do the VAT.
The contract sandwich business had taken off fast, almost too fast for the weary proprietors of George’s. Local firms had been keen to take up the offer of sandwich and fruit lunches for their employees, who complained of the lack, locally, of acceptable cafés and restaurants. And the recent acquisition of a contract with the sports centre was a triumph financially, but an even greater strain on an already taxed organisation. Melanie acted as a delivery person, claiming she was pleased to have a lunchless lunch break cycling round Foxwell. It would help her lose weight. The small sum they paid her she saved for clothes and presents for her brothers. She was growing, getting thinner and, at school anyway, had abandoned her northern accent. She’d taken on both the dreaded Godwin twins who intimidated and extorted from both boys and girls in their class, and although she’d come home hardly able to walk for bruises, she’d achieved much credit not by winning, but by going berserk enough to terrify the watchers, as well as slightly alarming the twins. ‘They’re soft down here,’ she’d muttered, through gritted teeth, leaning on the bathroom door while Annie ran a hot bath for her. Annie had been in favour of seeing the headmaster. Vanessa rejected the idea, but got her brother Malcolm who played for Leigh Rangers to go to collect Melanie from school next day in case the Godwin twins had roped in their big brothers to avenge the fight. Melanie’s reputation sky-rocketed.
Meanwhile, Annie and Vanessa were strained, anxious, short of cash. They were always running: to George’s, to the cash and carry, to do a last-minute sandwich delivery, back and forth to the primary school and the child-minder’s. They couldn’t have managed without Melanie. And the rumour that Geoff Doyle was up for a big contract, and almost bound to get it, and a friend’s phone call to Annie telling her Julian planned to set up in
a smart West End office, did nothing to soothe their feelings.
Annie, juggling figures on the table while Melanie lay on the floor, sucking her teeth and chewing her pen over an essay she was supposed to be writing, ‘A Local Scene and what it means’, for Miss Godber, NUT, SWP, English teacher at Rayburn Comprehensive, was surprised to hear the front door bang and jerked her head round to see Julian in the doorway. He looked thinner, tanned and was well dressed in a dark suit and a black Mafia-style overcoat and hat, so much like a parody of the originals that Annie’s first thought was that he looked as if in his hand he should have carried a violin case. She was astonished to find that the distress which had turned her first into a sobbing insomniac, then into a numb and frozen shadow, appeared to have transmuted into another emotion – anger.
Julian looked round the room, observing its neglect and, of course, Melanie, in her T-shirt and jeans, watching Esther Rantzen and scribbling on an A4 pad in her big, unformed handwriting.
‘Hallo, Annie,’ he said pleasantly. ‘How’s things? I wanted to take you out to dinner.’
‘I’ve eaten, thanks,’ she said. She wanted to hit him, but then had a little shifting thought, that perhaps, against the odds, he was coming back.
‘Shall we go out for a drink, then?’ he asked.
In the pub she was forced to realise that he was not only not in love with her, not even friendly, but that he did not really want to be with her. At a small table in a corner of the crowded Duke of Westminster he said, ‘The house doesn’t seem to be on the market, yet. I’m rather worried …’ Behind him the juke box played: ‘I could be so happy, happy, happy …’
‘I haven’t had time,’ responded Annie, still bewildered by his stiff, wary attitude. ‘I don’t want to do it, anyway …’
‘You agreed,’ he told her.
She thought, Did I? Surely I didn’t.
‘Well, it has to happen.’ Julian could barely conceal his impatience. ‘Neither of us can afford to keep it. I need the capital. You can’t, presumably, pay the mortgage. I imagine you’ve obtained six months’ grace from the building society but why wait till the last moment …’ He paused, then said quickly, ‘Perhaps Howard and Juliet are paying?’
‘Julian,’ Annie said resignedly, ‘I’m too busy to do all this. Sell up, find somewhere to live—’
‘I don’t want you letting, either,’ he said quickly. ‘The building society takes a dim view—’
‘I’m not planning to.’ Annie was surprised. She spotted that Julian had given away an idea about how to continue to pay the mortgage and keep the house and he was annoyed with himself.
‘And how’s your own life?’ Annie asked more cheerfully. She still hoped that somehow they could be friendly.
‘Well, it’s busy, obviously.’ Julian gave the impression he was fatigued, but then, rallying, added, ‘That’s why I’m here. Frankly, I need the house to be sold fairly soon. I want to expand. There’s a lot of business in design on a bigger scale. There’s just enormous scope. With a team – architects, interior designers and so forth – there’s the chance to see a whole project through, start to finish. This is why I want to realise as much capital as possible. There’s a guy – he’ll match me pound for pound, and a bit more, I suspect, but I have to – well, you can see why I want the house sold. Fast. You see that, don’t you?’
His enthusiasm for this new opportunity, and the way, suddenly, he was addressing her as the wife, friend, workmate and well-wisher she had once been, startled Annie again. For a moment she almost responded as she might have done, by agreeing to his proposal, making suggestions, discussing possibilities. Then she realised Julian’s plan had nothing to do with her. In fact, she now needed the house so as to live near the café, which was possibly going to start producing a modest living wage for herself and Vanessa. She tried to explain the situation to him.
‘A snack bar?’ he exclaimed.
She couldn’t help boasting. ‘We’d be quite pleased to lay on a reasonable lunch for your staff …’
‘My new offices,’ he pointed out, ‘will be in Sackville Street.’
Annie stared at this handsome man, with his cold eyes, who wanted her out of the house they’d shared, cared nothing for how she felt, or how she was to keep herself in future. No longer a husband, he was not a friend, not even a friendly stranger. He only saw that she was standing in his way, and must be made to do what he wanted. ‘I could be so happy, happy, happy …’ went the music. Panic swept her as she noticed he was looking at her speculatively, wondering what he could do to get his way. She stood up, picked up her bag. ‘I’ve got a lot to do,’ she muttered.
Julian grasped her arm. ‘We’ve got things to talk about.’
‘Julian.’ She looked down at him, ‘You can divorce me. I won’t oppose you.’
Pushing her way out of the pub she half ran to Vanessa’s house and rang the doorbell. There was no response and she rang it again. Annie was sure Vanessa must be in – unless there’d been an emergency and she’d gone out leaving a nervous babysitter behind with instructions not to open the door. She could hear angry voices and then the sound of something breaking inside the house. On the other side of the street she caught sight of a blue van with Doyle, Builders, painted on the side. She turned back and leant her head against the front door. Alec was crying. Annie’s first instinct was to leave, since if Vanessa and Geoff Doyle were having a row an intrusive third party would not be welcome. But then she remembered how, on many occasions, Vanessa had expressed fear of Geoff’s size and his readiness to use violence. She hesitated, then pressed the bell again, wondering what she could do if no one answered. To her relief, Mrs Hodges from next door came out on to her step, accompanied by an elderly dog. ‘You her friend?’ asked the old lady, nodding towards the house.
‘Yes,’ Annie said. ‘I can’t get anyone to answer the door.’
‘Kid’s screaming in there,’ Mrs Hodges reported. ‘And no wonder. There’s a hell of a row going on. It’s her husband. You can hear it right over the telly.’
‘I don’t know whether I ought to …’
‘Up to you,’ said Mrs Hodges unhelpfully, taking in the dog and closing her front door.
Annie felt at a loss. But how could she leave Vanessa alone with Geoff Doyle? She’d have to risk the consequences, from embarrassment to a punch on the nose. She put her thumb on the doorbell and left it there.
The door crashed open and Geoff Doyle filled the doorframe, saying aggressively, ‘What?’
‘What’s happening?’ Annie said weakly. Vanessa staggered into the hall, half doubled up. She’d been crying. Her hair was all over the place. ‘Vanessa?’
Doyle jutted his head forward. ‘Fuck off!’ he said, and closed the door with a bang.
Annie stood there, listening, hearing nothing. For all she knew, this scene might be a prelude to a reconciliation. Violence, followed by sex, that wasn’t uncommon, she speculated. She and Vanessa had never really talked much about sex and if there was that element in her relationship with Geoff, she might not confide it readily, Annie thought. She hoped Mrs Hodges’ door would open again, but it stayed tight shut. She pressed the bell again. Feet ran to the door. It was wrenched open. Vanessa faced her. Geoff Doyle, behind, caught up with her, and grasped his wife’s shoulder.
‘I told you to fuck off, so fuck off!’ Doyle said angrily in one breath. He tried to pull Vanessa back.
‘Get the police,’ sobbed Vanessa as Doyle pulled her in backwards and shut the door with his foot, but not before Annie had glimpsed Alec at the foot of the stairs in his pyjama suit, white and silent, staring. Annie ran straight home and called the police.
‘They’ll never come out for that,’ predicted Melanie. But they did, perhaps persuaded by Annie’s diction, although by the time they arrived Geoff had gone.
Anita Davis shook her head at her daughter, lying on the sofa with ice cubes wrapped in a tea-towel pressed to her cheek. ‘You shouldn’t have let him in, Vanessa
,’ she said.
‘I know that now, Mum,’ Vanessa replied patiently. ‘He said he’d come to see the kids.’
‘Well, you know better now.’
Annie stared at Melanie, who raised her eyebrows.
‘What started it, anyway?’ asked Anita.
‘He wants me to agree to a divorce and ask the council for a transfer so I’m not around – says Cindy’s upset because I’m so close, with the kids. She’s been trying for a baby and the specialist says it might be because she’s upset I’m near by, and Alec and Joanne.’
‘What did you say?’ asked her mother.
‘I told him to get stuffed,’ Vanessa said.
‘In so many words?’ Vanessa nodded. Anita shook her head. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘Well – what did he expect me to do? Go down and live at Dungeness? What chance do I stand if I leave here? I was bom here. The snack bar’s here.’
‘Forget the snack bar – if you got a divorce he’d have to support you,’ her mother told her.
‘How could I make him? Out of sight’d be out of mind.’
‘The law could force him …’
‘He’s self-employed, Mum. You know what that means—’
Annie could bear no more. ‘Whose side are you on, Mrs Davis?’ she demanded angrily.
‘What exactly do you mean?’ Anita Davis asked hotly. ‘I don’t know what makes you think you can speak like that to me—’
‘I don’t suppose I should,’ Annie said, ‘but I must say so far you’ve made me believe you think it’s Vanessa’s fault that her husband came round to beat her up.’
‘I think I’ve heard enough,’ Anita said tartly. ‘I raced round here at your request, to help Vanessa, now I’m forced to sit here listening to insults – well, if you really want to know what I think, I think Vanessa’s played her cards wrong. If she’d made it plain to Geoff she wanted him back he’d come running soon enough. She’s got the kids. All this nonsense about the snack bar is ridiculous. What she needs to do is go round, get upset and make a bit of a fuss of him. At the moment she’s made it look as if she didn’t care whether he came or went. Now, a man doesn’t like that – why should he? A woman’s got to compromise a bit in this world. I’ll be honest. I think you’re at the back of it, egging her on—’
In Search of Love, Money & Revenge Page 13
