Chapter Five

Sam called me at least twice a day. I usually dropped by his flat three or four times a week, but had left it longer than usual this time due to work shifts, an HCC committee meeting, and a need to summon up enough strength to face the beast of his illness again.

I found him up, which was surprising, and dressed, which was near miraculous. Sprawled on the sofa, yes, but the flat wasn’t quite as messy as it had been, and he held a cup of tea.

“How are you, Sam?”

He lay back, staring at the ceiling. “I’m losing it, Sis. Waving goodbye to all the lovely money your billionaire boyfriend spent on my rehab. Poof, gone.”

“Have you taken your meds?”

“Yes.”

“Well that’s something.” We sat there in silence. I reached out and took hold of my brother’s hand, the spectre of Kane leering over our shoulders.

“April’s still here, then?”

He nodded. “She’s driving me crazy. Nagging all the time. Fussing.”

“Does she drink?”

He shrugged. “Not much. Not any more.” He sighed. “I don’t want to be saved, Faith. I wish she’d leave me alone. I’ve told her to go and find a man who wants looking after.”

“But she stays.”

“She’s a fool.”

“Where is she now?” I glanced around, but could see no sign of her.

“I don’t know. Jobcentre.”

I took the mug from his hand, pushing aside some old food cartons to place it on the stained coffee table. “Is there anything you need me to do?”

He closed his eyes. “No. The nurse is coming later on.”

“Try and help yourself, Sam. Don’t let him do this to you.”

He laughed. An ugly, hollow sound. “He already did.”

The following Thursday, I took Perry to look around Grace Chapel. A couple of nights earlier we had managed a serious – well, serious-ish – conversation over dinner.

“I don’t understand why you need to do that work.”

“What do you want me to do? Live off benefits? I need a job, Perry.”

“I want you to marry me and let me take care of you. If we’re going to be legally joined anyway, why not set up a joint bank account now? You’ve got enough to worry about with the wedding and Sam. Let me take care of the finances.”

“I need to be earning my own money. I know it’s hardly anything, and the work is a slog and embarrasses your family, but I need some independence. That is non-negotiable. Plus, if I don’t work I’m going to end up bored out of my mind. Planning a wedding and being on the HCC committee isn’t a full-time occupation. I’m not about to spend my life having manicures, planning centrepieces, and shopping. It’s not me.”

“Couldn’t you find something better, though? You used to manage the whole events team at the club. Why go back to being just a waitress?”

“Okay. Firstly, there is no such thing as just a waitress. Being a waitress saved my life. Secondly, I can’t manage the responsibility of a full-time job with Sam. This works. I choose this. Please respect my choice.”

I hadn’t told Perry I had no qualifications, or that HCC had told me to resign or be sacked, with the promise of no references. I felt ashamed of both those things, and to begin to explain the reasons why would open a truckload of worms I didn’t want to go near.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. It just seems pathetic for you to have to work a double shift to earn what I can make in less than an hour.”

“Thanks. That makes me feel better.”

“Sorry! I’m sorry.” He reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “You are an amazing, intelligent, talented woman and I hate thinking about how that catering manager treats you like a skivvy. What can I do to make it up to you and demonstrate how much I respect your choices?”

I considered that. Ghost Web. Wedding service. Reception.

“Anything?”

“Well… within reason.”

Right, then scrap the possibility of the Ghost Web and HCC being booted out of our wedding.

“There’s a church I want you to look at. It’s really important to me. My mum used to go there.”

So, here we were, looking almost like a normal, happy couple choosing a church for their wedding.

Dylan met us at the door, his jeans and long-sleeved T-shirt a striking contrast to Perry’s tailored suit. As we wandered through to the main hall where the service would be held, I couldn’t help seeing the building through Upperton eyes. Even with Marilyn’s decorations, it would appear too drab, too simple, too small.

“I’ll give you a few minutes to look around. Come through to my office when you’re ready,” Dylan said, smiling as he left us to it.

Perry was not smiling.

“Faith, what…? I mean, I know your mum used to come here, but, well… It’s horrendous.”

“Excuse me?”

“We can’t possibly get married here, darling. You must see that.” He went to take hold of my hand, but I pretended not to notice, pressing the hand to my flushed neck.

“Why not?”

“It’s tiny, for one thing.” He shook his head in frustration.

“So we invite fewer people to our wedding. What are the other things?”

“The other things don’t matter because we can’t invite fewer people. I don’t want to invite fewer people. I’m not going to cull the list, or offend anybody, or make it look as though we have a reason not to have as many people as possible see you become my wife.”

“What does that mean?”

He sighed. “Nothing. It means nothing. It means this church is too small.”

“I’m not picking a wedding venue on the basis of you having a point to prove about not being ashamed of me,” I said.

“Faith!” He glanced over at the door to the office before lowering his voice. “It is not about that. This is the twenty-first century. Nobody thinks like that any more. But this room can’t seat more than a hundred. I have thirty-eight relatives I want to celebrate my wedding with, and that doesn’t begin to cover friends, or guys from the office. How is that going to work if we only have room for fifty guests each?”

“I don’t need room for fifty guests. You take ninety and I’ll have ten,” I said, wrapping my arms around me.

“That’s ridiculous. You can’t have ten guests. And I’m sorry, but this place just isn’t what we want,” he snapped, like a managing director instructing his underling.

“What who wants? I want this place! And I’ll invite however many guests I like.”

Perry looked around again at the bare walls, the scuffed floor, the sagging banner hanging next to the window. “No. I’m prepared to compromise on the wedding, but not this.”

“Compromise? How have you compromised? I don’t even get to pick my own wedding dress!”

“Well buy your own dress then! Or perhaps you should just get married in your jeans and that ratty T-shirt? My mother has made an incredibly kind gesture. Don’t throw it back in her face. I’m giving you the kind of wedding every woman dreams of – no limits, or budget. Most brides would be thrilled. Or at least grateful. And all you can do is make impossible demands that mean half my family can’t even come. I’m not having it, Faith. The answer’s no.”

I closed my eyes for a long moment. “I’m sorry. I am grateful. And I understand. But this is a really big deal to me. You can pick everything else – do it all how you want. Have the hugest, most ostentatious reception with five hundred guests and a nightmare wedding planner. I don’t care. But I’m getting married without my mother, and I can’t tell you what that feels like. I’m asking you, please, give me this.”

Perry looked at me. He knew how hard I found it to ask him for anything. Sticking one hand in his pocket, he held out the other to me again.

“Come on then, let’s have a proper look round. But we’ll have to think up a way to sell this to Mum without her disowning us.”

Disowning us? A potential unexpected bonus.

We agreed on a simple wedding service, with immediate family and close friends, followed by a massive party during which we would repeat our vows at HCC. I weighed this compromise on one hand, the Ghost Web heavy on the other, and my heart sank a little. Then I remembered again who I was and where I had come from and mentally gave myself a big slap. It was one day, one dress.

Get over yourself, Faith.

I was trying. Boy, was I trying. And, yes – I was so, so grateful. We spent twenty minutes in Dylan’s office, sitting on comfy sofas rather than at his desk. He went through various practical details, most of the answers to which were, “We’re not sure yet.”

Then he moved on to a whole other type of questioning.

“So, why do you want to get married in Grace Chapel?”

I shifted on my seat, guard automatically clanging up.

“My mum used to come here. I grew up in the village.”

“Oh, great.” Dylan smiled at me. “Did you come here with her?”

“No. She left Nottinghamshire before I was born. And died before I came back.”

“I’m sorry. I can understand why you chose here, then. But how about you, Perry?”

Perry had slipped out his phone and was scrolling through messages. “Excuse me? What?”

“Why do you want to get married in a church? What does it mean to you personally?”

Perry briskly put his phone back in his jacket pocket. “It means Faith is happy. And that’s the most important thing.”

“Okay. Well, one of our requirements for getting married in Grace Chapel is that you attend a marriage preparation course. Marriage is a serious thing. I take the responsibility of marrying you in this church seriously. I won’t do that unless I know you’ve done the same. No offence – as I said, it’s standard practice.”

Perry smiled his businessman smile. The one that failed to reach his eyes. “Of course. Pass the dates on to Faith and we’ll sort something out.”

“Excellent.” Dylan stood up. “Well, that’s it for now. Let me know your plans as you make them. We’ll do everything we can to make it your day, but it helps if we have as much notice as possible.” He held out his hand to shake ours, but found Perry busy reaching into his pocket again.

Before I could either stop him, or die of shame, Perry scrawled out a cheque and held it out. “We really appreciate this. I want to give Faith the wedding she deserves. Maybe buy a few tins of paint, couple of new pictures for the walls, or something, yeah?”

Dylan accepted the cheque, and to his credit, there was only the tiniest flicker on his face when he read the obscene amount. “Thanks. That’s very generous of you.” He glanced back up, blue eyes sparking. “We’ve actually just opened up a food bank. This could feed a lot of hungry families.”

Sorry, mate, you can waltz in here and wave your fat chequebook around, but neither I – nor my church – can be bought.

Perry paused, one hand on the door handle. It felt like a wrestling match without any actual wrestling. “Well, it’s your church, vicar. Whatever you think is best.”

Spend it on what you like – there’s plenty more where that came from.

“Thanks, Dylan. I’ll see you Wednesday.” I barrelled Perry outside before his testosterone levels rose any further, pulling the door closed behind me.

I will never forget my sixteenth birthday, for several reasons, none of them sweet. Life settled into a sort of pattern after Grandma died and Sam came home. He found work in a factory near Mansfield, a bus ride away, and with the odd double shift we managed to budget for the occasional take-away pizza. I spent my days at school and my evenings and weekends either doing homework, housework, or washing pots in the local pub kitchen. I relished being the woman of the house, sorting our money and cooking dinner for Sam every night without anybody telling me what to do or how to do it. I had no friends, no social life, and no plans for my future, but in many ways those were the most contented days of my life. I lived for Sam – put all I had into making him happy, believing if I loved him enough, took care of him, was a good enough sister, it would keep his demons at bay. Maybe he was only that way before because of Grandma. It was different now, wasn’t it?

Then my sixteenth birthday arrived. It was November, and a thick layer of frost lined the outside of the window when I woke that morning. Sam had an early shift, so I got ready for school in an empty house, pausing to grab a couple of pounds out of the money pot to treat myself to a hot dinner. The pot was empty. Momentarily startled, my mind flashed back to Sam stumbling in through the front door while Grandma wept about her stolen pension. And the safe she bought to keep her valuables in, until she found the back forced off and her jewellery gone.

Then I remembered about my birthday. Of course! Sam had taken the money to buy a present. I was sixteen. That needed a special present. I hugged myself inside as I put the lid back on the pot, wondering what he could possibly have bought with all that money.

Later that day I found out. He had bought me a foul-mouthed, violent, out-of-control brother.

My sixteenth birthday also happened to be ten years to the day since Kane had killed our mother. Something in Sam snapped. I was no longer a child. He had done his duty and seen me through to adulthood. The bomb of rage and pain and guilt and grief exploded, blasting away the delicate shoots of the life I had been nurturing for us, my dreams, my security, and the last lingering wisp of my innocence.

My old brother disappeared, rapidly consumed by his addiction and anguish. He lost his job a few weeks later. Not long after that he began selling off Grandma’s remaining possessions. I bought a money belt, wearing it under my clothes twenty-four hours a day to protect my paltry earnings. He broke down the bathroom door while I showered and took it. I started working longer shifts – cramming in homework during breaks and before school. I often had to choose between heating or electricity, food or sanitary towels. Sam vanished for days at a time. I could never relax, never switch off, never take a break. But, lowering my head like a mountain goat, I ploughed on, determined to finish the last few months of school and keep some hope of a future that didn’t include all the knives and forks being sold at the local car boot sale.

And then Snake slithered in.

Snake was a parasite. Sam let him stay because he sold drugs from the back door, paid rent in the form of heroin, and Sam was too weak, too lost, too messed up, and too scared to make him leave. He got his name from a tattoo of a python that started on his ankle and coiled itself around his leg, up past his groin, and in a loop around his torso before slinking up his neck to end in an open mouth enveloping his bottom jaw and one side of his skull as if the snake was in the process of swallowing his head. I wished a real python would swallow his head.

I bought two solid bolts for my bedroom door, and for the bathroom. For three weeks I stayed away as much as possible: at school, at the pub where I worked, in the local library, the café, on the streets, anywhere but at the place I had called home. I still feel ill when I think about it. The stench of vomit and sweat and filth, the wizened, grey bodies passed out on the living room floor, the fights and the moaning and the girls, some younger than me, who came round trading their dignity for a fix. The night after night after night when I lay awake with the fear and the misery pounding in my head in time to the banging on the door and the creak of broken bedsprings.

I cried to my brother, wept and cursed and threw empty bottles. Swore I would call the police if he didn’t do something. The men disappeared, and most of the girls. Snake stayed, his eyes glittering hard when we crossed paths in the kitchen, or on the stairs. But then he started talking to me, asking how my schoolwork was going, when my exams started, what I planned to do afterwards. I would answer in shaky monosyllables, darting out of the room to the sound of his rasping laughter. In the new-found quiet, I felt no less afraid.

I felt watched.

I was being watched.

By an evil snake.