23

NOEL GOT HOME at around seven, to the sound of the phone ringing. He dropped his laptop case in the hallway before answering it.

‘Hello,’ he said.

Nothing.

‘Hello,’ he said again.

He was just about to hang up when he heard the caller’s breath, thick and heavy, down the line. ‘Now, look here—’ Noel began, irritated.

‘Can you put me on to Karen?’

It was a man’s voice. Sounded rather abrupt. Sounded, from his turn of phrase, like he knew Karen.

‘Who should I say is calling?’ Noel said, his interest piqued.

‘Tell her it’s Russell Wallbank. Again.’

Noel carried the phone through to the kitchen, where, unusually, Karen was preparing a meal. Karen liked to say she didn’t cook; she ‘arranged food’. And that’s what she was doing right now: sliding cold, roasted chicken thighs on to plates, along with a sad-looking salad, and some cheese and onion crisps.

‘For you,’ Noel said.

And Karen mouthed, ‘Who is it?’

Noel covered the microphone with his thumb. ‘Russell,’ he said, the guy’s surname having been immediately erased from his memory. ‘Says he’s called before?’

Karen snatched the receiver from Noel and cut the call off without speaking.

This might have surprised Noel under ordinary circumstances, but they’d had a glut of these unsolicited calls of late.

‘Any more trouble today?’ Noel asked, washing his hands at the sink. He’d seen four sets of parents that day with children suspected of having intestinal worms. He scrubbed the skin beneath his nails with a nail brush, as if he were readying himself for surgery (for as long as it takes to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ twice, he remembered from his student days).

‘Just a few nutters,’ Karen replied. ‘All suggesting I hand Brontë over to the authorities. That it’s tantamount to child abuse, what I put her through. Blah blah blah. Nothing new.’

‘Did you respond?’

Karen stopped what she was doing and looked straight at him. ‘Of course I responded. You can’t just let the trolls get away with it. They’ll go on to attack someone else. Someone weaker. Someone vulnerable.’

Noel poured himself a beer. He could only have the one, as they were going out and he’d said he’d drive. A friend of Karen’s was opening a new restaurant-cum-wine bar in Bowness, and they’d been sent an invitation. Noel had tried to get out of it. Twice.

‘Still,’ he said, ‘the police did say that the best response to these people is no response.’

‘That’s right, Noel,’ she said flatly. ‘They did.’

Somehow, after Brontë had returned home, there was an implication in the press that Karen was pretty much responsible for her daughter running away. One headline read: PUSHY TIGER MOTHER DRIVES DAUGHTER TO RUN AWAY and there was an article about the effects of what they called ‘extreme parenting’ and the damage it could do to a child’s wellbeing. Experts were quoted, saying how important it was for a child to have unstructured and unsupervised play. How taking part in too many organized after-school activities could actually be detrimental to a child’s brain development. Then it went on to print a full list of Brontë’s out-of-school activities. ‘I know exactly who it was who sold me down the river,’ Karen said when she read the article. ‘It was that fat woman who sits behind me in church, snivelling into her tissues. She’s never looked me in the eye.’

Noel wasn’t sure how that particular woman could know so much about Brontë’s timetable and suspected it was someone closer to home.

He did notice, however, that they’d listed only around two thirds of Brontë’s extracurricular activities. But he decided, wisely, to keep this observation to himself.

The publication of the article had prompted the construction of a website in honour of Karen entitled ‘Bitch Mother’. It featured Karen’s moment of madness, when she declared in front of the cameras that the Blooms’ was not ‘a council-estate case’, they had not hidden away their own child, as well as a number of pieces relating to crazy mothers throughout the years (both factual and taken from fiction). Visitors to the site were encouraged to comment, which they did in droves. Many shared their own horror stories of being brought up by an unstable parent – though a lot of these cases, it had to be said, were clearly psychiatric ones, and not just a question of overzealous parenting.

Noel counselled Karen to stay away from the internet and ignore the sea of abuse as much as possible, thinking that to interact would only encourage the haters. But she was adamant that she needed to stand up to the bullies. To the extent that she’d already had one poor woman claim she was seeking legal representation after Karen went after her.

The woman – Pauline Something-or-other from Swansea – had sent Karen messages along the lines of her needing locking up for incompetent mothering. And Karen had managed to track Pauline down on Facebook, and then made an elaborate arrangement from the photographs of Pauline’s five kids. The photographs came complete with captions: Terminally Unemployed, Morbidly Obese, Drain on the NHS.

It was a bloody awful thing to do. Terrible, really. But, secretly, in a small part of him, Noel did rather admire Karen’s spirit.

What was proving harder to deal with were the death threats.

They had started off pretty generalized: This woman should be shot. Strung up. A hand-delivered envelope was pushed through their letterbox with a note inside – DIE KAREN BLUME – which the police took away promptly for forensic testing.

But they had since escalated to include snippets of personal information. And this worried Noel. They knew, for instance, that Karen had become pregnant with Brontë while Noel was still married to Jennifer. It didn’t seem to bother Karen particularly. She said it was customary for someone in the public eye to be targeted. And Noel wondered if, for a second, Karen had confused herself with some minor celebrity or other. As if she, too, fully expected the paparazzi, with their telephoto lenses, to start shooting pictures of her in her Ugg boots and dressing gown as she was putting out the rubbish.

Noel was worried about Brontë, too. It crossed his mind – more than once, he had to admit – that some wild fanatic might steal her away for real this time. That they might take her to their home and allow her unstructured play and unlimited TV time.

But Karen said he was being ridiculous about that as well.

‘Should I do some microwave rice, or are you okay with the crisps?’ she asked him.

‘What?’ Noel said, miles away.

‘Rice?’ she said, waving the bag in front of his face. ‘Takes two minutes.’

‘I thought we were eating out,’ he said.

‘Just nibbles, apparently.’

Noel sat down at the table and picked up the day’s paper. Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, now had a fringe. Excellent, he thought. Now he could sleep easy at night. He folded the newspaper in half and placed it on the chair next to him.

‘Shout for Brontë?’ Karen said.

‘Verity, too?’ he asked, but Karen said she thought Verity had already eaten. ‘I’ll go check just in case,’ he said.

Verity had eaten. A mushroom-and-Parmesan omelette, when she had come in from her run. She was on the phone to her friend when Noel entered her room. ‘No, I told you,’ she was saying, ‘I only like Coldplay’s “Fix You” in an ironic way. Like when some tragic teacher uses it to accompany a PowerPoint presentation. Or it’s played over footage of starving people in Sudan.’

Once she’d ended the call, she told Noel she wasn’t hungry, and he said, ‘Come and join us for dinner anyway?’ And Verity frowned, looking at him as if to say, Why would I want to do that?

‘Because I never see you,’ he explained. ‘Because, by the time I come home, you’re already up here for the night.’ He paused. ‘And because I miss you,’ he added.

‘You miss me,’ she said, deadpan, but half smiling all the same.

‘Yeah. I miss you. Go on. Indulge me. I won’t make you do it every night.’

Verity pulled her legs out from under her. She did her homework in the middle of her double bed, music on, folders scattered; the duvet was littered with pens, scraps of paper, a calculator, a hole punch. ‘I’ve got quite a lot of work to do,’ she said, but it was a lax attempt at an excuse. She was already climbing off the bed.

They descended the stairs with Brontë in tow, Noel asking Verity how her session with Jeremy Gleeson had gone.

‘He’d been crying,’ she said.

‘Crying? How d’you know?’

‘It was kind of obvious.’

They went into the kitchen, and Karen must have got wind of their conversation because she said, matter-of-factly, ‘Gleeson? Oh, that’s because his wife left him.’

‘Not exactly very professional of him, all the same,’ said Noel.

‘I didn’t mind,’ said Verity.

‘You don’t want me to look around for another counsellor?’

‘No. We’re building a relationship.’ And Noel wasn’t sure if she was being sarcastic or not.

Karen put a plate down heavily in front of Noel and stopped, surveying Verity sceptically. ‘What do you talk about when you’re with him?’ she asked.

Verity shrugged. ‘This and that.’

‘And by “that”, I suppose you mean me?’

‘Not really. You do come up, but mostly we talk about how I’m feeling.’

Karen went to the fridge to get Brontë some apple juice. Noel kept telling her that it was just liquid sugar, but she was insistent she had to get vitamin C into Brontë somehow.

Karen handed the glass to her daughter, instructing her to ‘Drink!’ before turning her attention back to Verity. ‘But when I do come up in conversation,’ she continued, ‘what advice does Jeremy Gleeson give?’

She said his name with derision, following it with ‘You do know he used to be a blacksmith?’

‘Yeah, he told me,’ said Verity. ‘But Karen?’

‘What?’

‘You know you really can’t ask me this stuff.’

—

‘The Thirsty Lizard,’ Noel said, pulling into a space opposite the wine bar. ‘What sort of a wanker name is that?’

Karen was applying her lipstick. She didn’t reply, just shot him a look before saying, ‘You’re not going to be like this all night, are you?’

Noel sighed. ‘To be honest, I don’t really want to be here, Karen.’

‘You’ve said. But here is where we are. It’s been almost three weeks since…Brontë, and we need to show a united front, that it’s business as usual. People talk, Noel. You know they do.’

This was how Karen referred to what had happened. A pause. A short intake of breath, and then: Brontë. Not Brontë’s disappearance. Or: The night Brontë didn’t come home.

They climbed out of the car and crossed the road. Karen wore a tightly fitted, classically cut jade dress, and she’d straightened her blond hair and let it fall loose around her shoulders. She had heavy, smoky eye make-up and nude lips. She looked a lot like one of those Sky Sports News presenters with the toned upper arms – the ones that you’re supposed to find appealing but don’t for some reason. Or maybe that was just Noel.

Karen said, ‘Try to enjoy it. You never know, you might just surprise yourself.’

‘But you don’t even like this woman…Heather…Helen…whatever her name is.’

‘Fiona. And we’re here because, if we didn’t come out soon, it would look like we’re avoiding everybody. Which we’re not. Now, for Christ’s sake, Noel, get a grip and stop being so fucking…Fiona! Hi! Crikey, it looks sensational. I can’t believe what you’ve done with the place. Stunning. Absolutely stunning. You remember Noel?’

Fiona was one of Karen’s gym ladies. She’d renovated the old Thai restaurant and turned it into this – brasserie? bistro? – because she felt she needed a project. ‘Felt like her brain was turning to mush,’ Karen had told him.

Noel held out his hand. He was about to say, ‘Very pleased to meet you, Fiona,’ and tell her what a wonderful job she’d done on the building.

‘Noel is my GP,’ she said, laughing merrily at Karen’s mistake.

And Noel smiled, weakly. ‘That’s right. Of course I am.’

‘Not that I ever go,’ she went on. ‘I’m never ill. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I even caught a cold. I’m like my mother in that way…strong constitution. She never succumbed to illness the way others seem to…’

Noel’s eyes glazed over, and he let Fiona’s words float by him like passing soap bubbles. He could do this quite readily – zone out, while still giving the general appearance of alertness. Someone had put a champagne flute in his hand, and he downed half the contents, nodding, smiling, saying the odd ‘Quite’ and ‘Oh dear’, as Fiona became animated, telling Karen about the details of the renovation, which (based on Fiona’s frequent use of the phrases ‘over budget’ and ‘bastard tradesman’) Noel grasped had not been so straightforward. Still, she was smiling as she moved her eyes around the room, looking very pleased with herself.

‘Noel!’ Karen snapped, and he flinched.

‘What? No need to shout, Karen. I’m standing right here.’

Karen rolled her eyes at Fiona in exasperation. ‘He does this,’ Karen said. ‘Earth to Noel! Fiona was asking if Verity might like to do a few hours a week waiting tables.’

‘What? Here?’ he said.

‘Yes. Here,’ said Karen, and regarded him levelly.

‘Oh, I’m not sure it’s a good time for her right now.’

Karen frowned. ‘Why isn’t it a good time?’

‘Well, she has school. I mean, it’s an important year for her.’

Noel glanced at Fiona and saw that the smile she’d fixed there earlier was beginning to cave in slightly. ‘It was just an idea,’ Fiona said quickly. ‘Thought she could do with a little extra money. Teenagers can be so expensive, can’t they?’

Karen ignored her. ‘I think it would be good for Verity, Noel. I think her getting out of her own head for a bit would be good for all of us. And it would teach her that money doesn’t just grow on trees, that if you want something you have to work for it. I think that’s a valuable lesson.’

Noel didn’t really have an issue with Karen’s argument; what she was saying did make sense. But he didn’t want Karen deciding what was best for Verity. And besides, Verity’s grades were beginning to recover after the blip she’d had, and wouldn’t it make more sense to concentrate on that for the time being? He aired these thoughts to Karen in what he thought was a reasonable manner but then realized he must have been saying the words through his teeth, as Fiona began murmuring appeasements such as, ‘Just a thought…Not to worry.’

Fiona grabbed a champagne bottle from a passing waitress and topped up their glasses as Noel and Karen stared at each other.

‘And more to the point,’ Fiona babbled on, ‘she’ll want to spend as much time as she can with you, I’m sure, before she heads off after Christmas.’

‘Heads off where?’ asked Noel.

And Fiona gave a loud honk of laughter.

Then she turned to Karen and all the blood seemed to drain from her face.

Noel regarded her steadily. ‘Goes where, Fiona?’ he repeated.

She swallowed. ‘To school?’ she said in a small voice. Then she looked at Karen and mouthed, ‘I’m so, so sorry,’ before dipping her head and slinking away.

Noel waited a moment.

‘What does she mean, Karen?’

‘Nothing,’ Karen said, rattled, glancing around to make sure no one was listening. ‘Fiona’s getting mixed up.’

‘What school?’

‘It’s nothing. It doesn’t matter. It was an idea I had. It’s really not important.’

Noel put down his drink on a nearby table. Folded his arms.

‘Cut the shit, Karen. You tell me what’s going on or I’ll make a scene. Do you want me to embarrass you in front of all these people?’

Karen moved in closer to him, angling herself alongside Noel so she could speak into his ear rather than face him.

‘I found a school,’ she said.

‘Why? Where?’

‘It’s in Inverness, but listen—’

‘No way.’

‘Just listen. Please. It’s got amazing facilities, and they’re doing some really wonderful work with kids who’ve got…issues. Most of the kids there are super-bright, kids like Verity, who need a little extra pastoral help, kids who should be performing but need a different approach.’

‘Inverness is nearly six hours’ drive away. In good weather.’

‘I know. That’s the downside. But honestly, Noel, you really need to take a look at the literature before you go slamming me for this. It’s not only about achieving academic success, they do yoga and meditation and guided imagery, and it’s all integrated into the school day. They get these kids right, Noel. Do you understand what I’m saying? They get proper help, and instead of struggling with their feelings, they explore them. And they’ve found, when they do this, the academic stuff tends to sort itself out. Their results are phenomenal.’

‘Verity’s had enough upheaval.’

‘I agree. And I think this would be a stabilizing force.’

‘I won’t take her away from Jennifer.’

‘I know.’

‘Besides, Jennifer would never agree.’

Karen paused. After a moment, she said, ‘She thinks it might be a good idea.’

Noel pulled back. ‘You talked to her? You talked to her before you talked to me about this?’

‘I knew you wouldn’t want to take Verity away from her mother. That’s a natural reaction. Which I can totally understand. But when I thought about it I realized you’d be doing her a disservice. Letting your emotions get in the way of what could be something fantastic for Verity. She’s a gifted girl, Noel. She has a brilliant mind, we know that. And yet she’s not performing in school, she’s miserable at home, she has very few friends, and she’s just not happy.’

‘And Jennifer said what exactly when you presented her with this?’

‘Well, we didn’t exactly have a full-blown conversation, as you can imagine. But I showed her the prospectus and I explained that I thought Verity needed more than we could give her right now. She was a little saddened, but she seemed to agree. And she did that, Noel, because she’s willing to put her daughter’s happiness above her own.’

Noel sighed out long and hard.

‘Verity knows nothing about this?’ he asked.

‘No. At least, I don’t think so. I wouldn’t dream of speaking to her about it until you’ve made your decision. I was thinking it would probably need to come from you anyway. Perhaps we can all get together, Jennifer, too, and talk it through to see if…’

‘I need a drink,’ Noel said. ‘A proper drink.’ And he moved off towards the bar.