IT WAS MONDAY morning and the press had gone into overdrive speculating on what had happened to Joel Baldy in his final minutes. Jodie was fraught. She couldn’t believe she’d somehow been dragged into all of this. She’d had to switch her phone off and Leanne was fielding calls from as far afield as China and New York as the press tried to do what the police seemed to be unable to: find the person who had killed Joel Baldy. The police had issued a few statements saying that they were confident that they were getting close to the killer and that they had a number of leads, but Jodie knew first-hand that this was just flannel. They didn’t have a clue. If they did they wouldn’t keep contacting her and asking her to go over every minute detail of the night.
Jodie jumped out of her car and ran into Leanne’s office. A couple of photographers were waiting and snapped her as she went. She hadn’t washed her hair as she was due at a photo shoot in Liverpool later that day. No doubt one of the papers would use the shot and pretend that this was her the morning after the night before in question.
Jodie fell into Leanne’s office. Tony was sitting on the desk. ‘Morning. What you doing here?’ she asked Tony. He didn’t come to the office very often.
‘Security guard, aren’t I?’
‘Have they been trying to get in?’ Jodie asked, a feeling of dread crawling over her. She didn’t want to be turned into the next national freak show by the press.
‘We’ve had every paper bidding on your story when all of this is over. Can you believe it? You can’t speak to anyone yet as that’s prejudicial, but after this is all sorted everyone wants to interview you,’ Leanne said.
Jodie looked at her sister. Had she had a bang on the head? ‘Well, everyone can fuck off, can’t they? You think I’m going to go blabbing my mouth to the papers?’
‘No, of course I don’t. All I’m saying is that at the end of this the papers will make up what they want to anyway. We just need to manage how you come out of it and maybe doing one exclusive to get your side across is the best thing to do.’
‘I thought you’d know better than anyone that doing an exclusive is madness. Then you just become someone who had a price and you know something, Leanne? I haven’t got a price when it comes to seeing people stabbed through the chest. I’d rather just carry on getting my tits out for my hard-earned cash, thanks very much.’
‘Alright, Jode, I’m just giving you your options.’
‘My options are to put up and shut up, right?’
Jodie caught Leanne giving Tony a quick glance. ‘You know what I mean, don’t you, Tone?’
Tony nodded. ‘She’s right, Leanne, start flogging stories and it’s a slippery slope. They’ll be rummaging in her bins before she knows it.’
‘I know, I’m sorry, I’m just trying to tell you as your manager . . .’ Leanne said, her sentence tailing off, indicating that her heart wasn’t in this hard-arse manager front. Jodie smiled. Leanne was a big softy and did a great job representing her and the other girls, but sometimes she felt that she had to act how other managers acted and it didn’t suit her.
‘The ball-breaker routine doesn’t wash with me, sis,’ Jodie said. Considering there was a good five years between the two girls and Jodie was the younger, she had always been bossier and more confident than Leanne. ‘So, what’s the plan now? Shut up, get on with my work and wait till the phone stops ringing off the hook?’
‘Pretty much. What time you in Liverpool?’
‘Two,’ Jodie said, looking at her watch.
‘Tony’ll take you.’
‘Get lost, I can find my way down the M62.’
‘Yes, and so can the paparazzi. Tony, tell her.’
Jodie pretended to huff sulkily but she quite liked the fact that she had her big sister looking out for her.
*
‘You seen Mac?’ Tracy asked. It was Monday and she hadn’t heard anything since his text saying that he’d be back ‘soon’.
‘He’s away,’ Markie said matter-of-factly as he leafed through his post.
‘That much I’d gathered. He’s meant to be my mentor. Like they get on X Factor.’
Markie gave his mother an incredulous look. ‘What?’
‘You know, he’s meant to be looking after me on the job.’
‘He’s had this planned for months. Didn’t he say?’
‘No, he didn’t,’ Tracy said, trying to sound as if she was enquiring after a colleague rather than ranting as to why she had been seemingly spurned by a lover. She had tried his phone a number of times but it had gone to answer machine. She was sure that she and Mac had a connection and she wasn’t usually wrong about these things. She wasn’t usually made a mug of, either, and she wasn’t about to start now.
‘It’s three years since his wife died. He always goes to Palma – they had an apartment there. It’s where he scattered her ashes.’
Tracy’s eyes narrowed. ‘He never said.’
‘Well, if you’d checked in with Tammy like you’re meant to every week you’d know what our diaries are.’
Tracy looked around at Tammy, who was sitting on reception oblivious to the conversation. ‘That bin-head? I come straight to you when I need to know where you are.’
Markie rolled his eyes. ‘Jesus, Mum. What’s the chip for? She’s alright, Tammy, and she runs this place no bother, so it might be an idea to be nicer to her.’
‘Nice? I’m fucking lovely!’ Tracy said without a hint of irony.
Markie laughed. ‘Course you are, Mum, sorry. Just forgot myself for a moment.’
Tracy eyeballed her son. Sarky twat, she thought, but decided not to air her opinion right now. ‘So Mac, when he pisses off to Palma, does he get in contact?’
‘I’m leaving him to it. I know what needs doing when he’s away. And let’s face it, he sorted me out for two years when I was inside, so it’s not like I don’t owe him one.’
‘Right, so muggins here’ll just soldier on doing her own thing without Mac.’
‘Bloody hell, Mum, he’s only in Majorca. He’s not joined the Foreign Legion. He’ll be back.’
‘Really?’ Tracy said angrily, wondering if he’d been thinking of his wife’s memory the other afternoon in Blackpool. Somehow she got the distinct feeling that he hadn’t been.
‘So what d’you make of us all being back in the papers?’ Tracy said, itching to talk about Joel Baldy.
‘Hardly “us”, is it? I’ve checked in with our Jode and I’ve got Tony round there making sure that she doesn’t get too much shit from the photographers. It’ll die down. These things always do.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Tracy said, not quite believing that Markie didn’t have more of an opinion on this story.
‘Look. The lad’s dead. He was a nob, but I’m not sure he deserved it and I know our Jodie could do without being dragged in and out for questioning. OK?’ Markie said, making it clear that he didn’t want to discuss this further.
‘I think Len did it,’ Tracy said contentiously.
Markie raised an eyebrow. ‘Len?’
‘Metcalfe.’
‘And what makes you think that?’
‘Because he’s a fat little turd.’ Tracy couldn’t help herself. This was exactly what she thought of Len Metcalfe and she wasn’t about to bite her tongue now.
Markie sighed. ‘Eloquent and reasoned as ever, Tracy.’
‘What d’you want me to say? “I think he’s a lovely bloke”? You don’t know the reputation he used to have around here.’
‘I’ve heard a few things.’
‘You have, have you? What like?’
‘The usual shit that people talk round here when they’ve nothing better to do.’
‘Well, anything you’ve heard about him is probably bob-on. Don’t let him fool you with his Mr Pillar of the Community routine. Once an arsehole always an arsehole.’
‘What’ve you got on today then?’ Markie nodded at the stacked file of papers that Tracy had under her arm. He obviously wasn’t interested in his mum’s feelings about Len Metcalfe.
‘Some mouthy cows up our way. I’m quite looking forward to it. Had one the other day trying to offer me some sovereigns that she’d nicked from the warehouse where she works picking and packing.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I told her they weren’t legal tender any more, that I’d be back this week and I didn’t want her trying to pay me in gold coffee beans either.’
Markie smiled.
‘What you smiling at?’ Tracy asked.
‘Nothing,’ Markie said.
‘I’m good at this, aren’t I?’ Tracy said.
‘Don’t fish for compliments, Mum. It’s not becoming.’
*
Markie was walking along the Bradington canal; he needed some air. He had to hand it to his mother; she seemed to have found her vocation in life. She was an asset to the business but some of her views were beginning to rankle. Until now he’d only ever had to see his mum when he chose fit. And a couple of times a year was enough to dilute Tracy’s brand of honesty to something approaching palatable. Now, it was like having some deranged pundit in his face every day with her constant barrage of opinions. He’d had to draw the line when she had started on about Len Metcalfe. He didn’t think for a second that he’d had anything to do with Joel’s murder, but mud like that could stick and Markie felt that his mother needed to rein her opinions in.
Another thing he hadn’t needed was his mother drilling down on him this morning with her sharp-as-a-tack eyes. Markie really did hope that Mac was in Palma but he couldn’t be sure. He had received a voicemail from him the previous day saying that he’d had to go away; he had a lot of thinking to do. It was the anniversary of Mac’s wife’s death, that was for sure, but Markie couldn’t one hundred per cent attest to the fact that this was why Mac was away. Markie had decided that he wasn’t going to ask any questions for the time being. He had returned Mac’s call, but it had gone straight to voicemail, giving no clue as to whether Mac was out of the country or not. He’d left a message saying, ‘Mac, it’s Markie. Hope everything’s OK. If it’s not, call me, won’t you? Anyway, meantime if anyone asks I’m saying you’re at the old place in Palma, yeah? See you, mate.’ He could be an odd sentimental old bugger sometimes, Mac. Markie just hoped that that was all there was to it. And even if it wasn’t he was going to have to deal with it. He couldn’t very well pick the phone up and report him as a missing person.
The business itself was running fine; Markie couldn’t complain. It was just a constant nagging stress but it would be the same whatever Markie was doing and he’d take stress over boredom any day of the week – two years in Strangeways had seen to that. For a time he’d felt that he and Mac were doing everything on their own, but now he felt as if there was a team back around him: Tony, Leanne’s boyfriend, was now firmly back in his employ, and Swing, Markie’s old best mate who had slept with his ex and been ostracised by Markie, had recently returned cap in hand. Markie had told him he didn’t want to have anything to do with him but if Mac wanted to work with him then fine. Swing had kept an extremely low profile since. Markie knew he was doing some door duties for Mac and the occasional knocking of heads when required but other than that he wasn’t interested in what Swing did as long as he stayed out of his way. And then there was Tracy. His mother was so far doing a sterling job and seemed to be in the office bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at half eight every morning. Markie had never thought he’d see the day; Tracy had never been a reliable mother so he was finding it hard to come to terms with the fact that she was turning out to be a reliable employee.
So until recently Markie had had a good feeling about everything, but today he had a sense of foreboding and he knew to trust his instincts; they had always served him well. The trouble was he could place where it was coming from, he just couldn’t place quite what it was. It could be Mac, it could be his mum’s increasing involvement in his affairs, or it could be any one of a number of things playing on his mind and vying for his attention. Markie decided that he needed more than a walk along the canal to clear his head, but time off was a luxury he couldn’t afford at the moment. Especially not with Mac going AWOL.
*
Tracy’s first port of call in Bolingbroke was near Canterbury Avenue, where the Metcalfes lived. It was no coincidence that her rounds had brought her here. She had been following the media furore with interest since Joel’s death the other night and was glad to see that speculation of her family’s involvement was kept to a minimum even though everyone, including her, wanted to know exactly what Jodie had seen. The main focus had been on Len Metcalfe: everyone seemed to think that any father in his right mind would want Baldy dead if the speculation was true and he had been beating Charly.
Tracy was enjoying Len’s fifteen minutes of infamy. If only there was a way for her to prove that he’d had something to do with the murder, but that was never going to happen. Her detective skills didn’t stretch to much and she didn’t think the local constabulary would welcome the intervention on this high-profile case from Tracy Crompton, the first person over forty to hold an ASBO in Bradington. She wouldn’t have minded but she didn’t think she even deserved the ASBO; it had been Kent’s idea to have a party. People had got wind of it from far and wide and when Tracy found some woman rummaging through her jewellery box at three in the morning, she didn’t think she could be totally held responsible for dragging her into the street and taking to her with a bin lid.
Standing at the top of Canterbury Avenue, Tracy could see Len’s house and a couple of cars parked across the road that Tracy assumed – having been papped herself on account of her daughter Leanne’s previous infamy – belonged to photographers. She walked towards the house with her files under her arm. As she passed the parked cars there was no sign of Len but a journalist jumped out of the car when he recognised her. A photographer leapt out of the passenger seat and took her picture. Tracy was delighted to be wearing a suit. Any other pictures that had been printed in the press had always made her look as if someone had just dragged her out of bed and straight through a hedge.
‘What do you think of all this then, Tracy?’ the journalist asked. Must be from a tabloid, she thought, using her name and pretending to be all matey.
‘No comment,’ Tracy said. She’d always wanted to say that. She’d always wanted to say a lot of things but usually her mouth ran away with her and she ended up saying something abusive.
‘All dressed up and nowhere to go?’ the journalist asked. Tracy wasn’t about to rise to it. She knew that these hacks could say far nastier things than that to provoke a response. Leanne had once told her about a time she had been called a slut by a journalist just so that the photographer could get a picture of her looking angry. Tracy wouldn’t have been responsible for where she’d have shoved the camera if she’d been there.
‘I have, actually. I’m working, if you don’t mind.’
‘Heard anything from Len Metcalfe?’
Tracy thought for a paranoid moment that this woman might know that there was a past connection between her and Len. Then she realised that she was just trying to get any quote she could. ‘Why would I?’ Tracy asked simply.
‘Your lad used to go out with Charly.’
‘Doesn’t mean Len’s crying on the blower to me every time he’s arrested for suspected murder.’ Tracy glared at the journalist. ‘Anyway, if you don’t mind, some of us have got a decent day’s work to do.’
The woman laughed and got back in the car. Tracy waltzed on down the road as if she owned the place and, judging by the amount of outstanding debt owed to Markie and Mac, it appeared for the time being she did.
Tracy’s thoughts were still with the journalist when she saw a woman walking towards her. She wouldn’t have recognised her at first if it hadn’t been for the walk. She’d always had a walk that suggested she thought she should be strutting down a catwalk in Paris rather than slumming it in Bolingbroke, but the once shapely figure was now bloated and pear-shaped. Tracy couldn’t believe her eyes: it was Shirley Metcalfe.
Shirley obviously saw Tracy and was about to duck out of her way but then realised she couldn’t get out of the meeting and had to brazen it out. Tracy slowed as they neared one another and the two women finally came face to face.
‘Well, well,’ Shirley said, ‘look what the cat’s dragged in.’
‘Well, well,’ said Tracy in response, ‘look what’s eaten everything the cat’s dragged in.’
‘Don’t get mouthy, Tracy; you know it just gets you into trouble,’ Shirley said, trying to stare Tracy out.
‘I won’t bother taking advice from someone who fucks off and leaves their family to rot, thanks very much,’ Tracy said, enjoying a rare moment occupying the moral high ground.
‘And you’re Mother of the Year?’
‘Never said I was, but I’m here, aren’t I?’ She looked down on Shirley, having the advantage of a good three inches on the woman.
‘Bet your Charly’s worth a penny or two now that husband of hers is dead.’
‘What you suggesting?’
‘I’m suggesting nowt. Just saying, funny time for you to turn back up.’
Shirley didn’t miss a beat. ‘You still selling stories on your Leanne? I read about that. Nice touch.’
Tracy wasn’t in the mood for lectures on how to conduct herself from someone like Shirley Metcalfe. ‘I think you’d better watch your mouth round these parts. There’s a lot of people who won’t like the fact you’re back.’
‘Really? Who?’ Shirley asked.
‘My lot, for a start.’
Shirley laughed. ‘Your lot? The Cromptons?’ She didn’t have to say anything else; Tracy knew what she was thinking. Her scummy lot had been a force to be reckoned with for years; not any more.
‘Ask anyone on this estate and they’ll tell you, things have changed. Our Markie runs the show, so if you’re thinking of sticking around, which I’m sure you’re not – first sign of a better offer and you’ll be off – then you’d be well advised to be a bit nicer to me.’
Shirley made to walk off. Tracy couldn’t help herself; she couldn’t just have the last word, she had to have the last paragraph. ‘You seen Charly yet?’ Shirley slowed but didn’t turn around. ‘You haven’t, have you? Well, she’s had a week of it, hasn’t she?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Shirley stopped.
‘She’s been telling everyone you’re dead for years: husband in the morgue and a mother back from the dead all in the space of a weekend. That’s something to get your head around.’
Shirley walked away, picking up speed as she went. Tracy smiled to herself. One nil to me, she thought, as she watched the larger-than-life girth of Shirley Metcalfe sashay off down the street, a little less confidently than it had approached.
*
Shirley walked along the side of her old house and sat on the rickety garden bench that had been there since she and Len had moved in. She looked down at her hands. They were shaking. Tracy bloody Crompton, she thought. Of all the people to see; she hated that woman. Tracy had been a year above Shirley at school and had made her life a misery. She hadn’t liked Shirley because she was pretty (which had never made sense to Shirley as Tracy had been a knockout when she was younger). But Tracy was just one of those mouthy girls who couldn’t help herself.
It hadn’t helped that when she and Len originally got together he still held a torch for Tracy. And Tracy wasn’t shy about announcing the fact to the entire estate. She never got to the bottom of what had happened there, she hadn’t really wanted to find out if she was honest, but they had had a rocky, intense relationship, she knew that much. And as much as she tried with Len over the years, Shirley had never felt that she could match up to Tracy. In the end she’d got on with cooking the tea and washing the pots and had stopped trying to create any magnetism between her and her husband. She had loved Len but she was never quite sure how much he loved her back.
When Leanne, Tracy’s daughter, had briefly become the centre of tabloid attention over a year ago, Shirley couldn’t believe it. She was living miles away from Bradington but could get a sneaky look at what was going on on the estate. Tracy had made great tabloid fodder with her ‘fuck you’ attitude and her interesting approach to parenting. And then when it transpired that she had been feeding stories to the papers about her own daughter, the moral majority were up in arms. Shirley had pored over every paper at the time; anything for signs that maybe Tracy and Len had somehow got back together. So it had come as a surprise to see Charly’s name mentioned in connection with the Cromptons rather than Len’s. She had been dating Scott Crompton and had traded him in for a better model in the shape of Joel Baldy.
Shirley had been so homesick reading these articles, reminding her of her old life and making her think about what she had now – which wasn’t much – and what she had left behind. She didn’t have an answer for why she hadn’t come home earlier. She had wanted to, but every time she thought about it the reality of having to face up to her abandonment of her own family kept her away.
She looked around the garden. Nothing had changed here. There was still a potting shed, something Len had erected in a bid to be the next Alan Titchmarsh, but that had only ever been used to store junk. There were flowerless flower beds and a little paved area that was neat and tidy; Len had always been almost fetishistic about weeds. She thought about the summers that she had spent in this garden.
There was something about the past, Shirley thought, that always made her remember it on a sunny summer’s day, just as the light is fading and all seems well with the world. What she had to remember was that this garden had felt like a prison for many years. This was where she hung the washing out, where the kids played as they weren’t allowed to go out on the street (there was a halfway house two doors down for young offenders that were being reintroduced into the community but weren’t exactly there with the socialisation as far as she and Len had been concerned). Her life had seemed like one long round of watching This Morning, cleaning and sleepless nights. She had even turned to drink for a spell but that just made her like everyone else around here as far as she could see: pissed, maudlin and wanting to make the kids dance to ‘Under Pressure’ when they’d never even heard of it. The drunken mother routine wasn’t a look she liked in other people and she despised it in herself. She’d had ambition once. It had been aimless, but it had been there – plain ambition. She had wanted to see the world, go on holidays with her family, get out of Bolingbroke once in a while. But that had all faded as she became this invisible woman who occupied 29a Canterbury Avenue.
Len had never listened. No matter how often she told him that she was fed up or lonely he just thought that she was being sensitive and expecting too much from life. Len was a realist. He’d been in prison and had come out with the attitude that anything was better than that. ‘My glass is half full,’ he’d once said to Shirley.
‘What of, piss?’ she’d replied, leading to one of their arguments that in turn led to days of silences.
Sitting on the bench now, she couldn’t quite work out what she had come back for. It certainly wasn’t this house, or a ready-made family life, as her children had grown up and moved on. But for some hard-to-define reason, she was glad to be back. And the one person she wanted to see more than anyone was Charly. She just wasn’t sure that her daughter would feel the same way. She’d soon find out though: she was going to get the address from Len and get a taxi to Charly’s place. And she was going to pay the fare with the little bit of money that she’d brought with her; the only money that Shirley had to her name.
*
Charly was sitting in the wingback swivel chair that Joel had insisted on letting his interior designer buy because the man had informed him it was cool. Charly had pointed out at the time that it might be ‘cool’ but it was about as comfortable as sitting on a spike. Now that Joel wasn’t here, she didn’t want to get out of the pointless designer chair. It was another fading connection to him that she was desperate to cling to.
The family liaison officer who had been assigned to Charly was sitting opposite her. Her name was Carol and Charly couldn’t help feeling sorry for her that this was her job; constantly surrounded by other people’s grief.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ Charly asked.
Carol smiled gently. ‘That’s the tenth cup of tea you’ve offered me today.’
Charly looked at the floor. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t apologise. It’s hard to know what to say to anyone, isn’t it?’
Charly nodded. She felt as if she had been taken out of the world of polite conversation and was now forever to be the person who was defined by the shocking events of the past week. Managing to ask someone repeatedly if they fancied a cup of tea felt like progress.
Carol had been explaining to Charly what she could expect to happen now. Charly hadn’t been able to bring herself to identify the body so Joel’s father had flown back from Spain and had confirmed that it was Joel. Charly had met with him briefly but there was something detached about the man that made Charly feel uncomfortable. She had wanted to fall into his arms and cry about Joel, to ask him for every bit of information he had about his son, as if by talking about him she was somehow keeping Joel’s spirit alive. But he had seemed closed off and quiet. Charly thought for a moment that maybe he thought of her as a gold-digger – someone who’d just wanted his son for his money – but that would have been rich coming from a man who decorated his bar in pictures of Joel to attract British tourists and had only recently tapped Joel up for a fifty thousand pound ‘loan’ which Joel had told Charly he would never see again. Or maybe he just didn’t want to share his loss with someone he hardly knew. Either way Charly felt that he didn’t particularly want to talk to her and that he was more concerned with the practical arrangements.
Carol explained that an inquest would be set up into the cause of death. Once the cause of death and where the police investigation was currently up to was recorded, the inquest would be adjourned whilst the criminal investigation could continue. The words felt syrupy and remote to Charly. All that she could think of was Joel and why someone would want to murder him.
‘When will the funeral be?’ Charly asked. The idea of leaving the house at the moment was a daunting prospect, never mind leaving it to attend the funeral, but she knew it was something she had to do.
‘It may be a long time before the body is released for burial,’ Carol said, reaching out her hand and touching Charly’s.
Charly looked at her. ‘What?’ She couldn’t be serious, could she? ‘How long? We can’t all sit around waiting for weeks, can we? Is this what happens?’
‘I’m sorry, Charly, I really am.’
Charly stood up suddenly. ‘Who did this to him? Why?’
‘We’ll do everything we can to find out.’
‘Who would be so evil?’ She began to sob. She hadn’t cried for the first few days but now she felt like it was all she did.
Carol let her cry. Charly felt foolish showing such emotion in front of this woman but there wasn’t anyone else to cry to. ‘They think it’s my dad, don’t they?’ she asked, wiping her nose.
‘I’m not involved in the police investigation.’
‘I didn’t just mean the police, I meant the entire country.’ Charly had caught a glimpse of a tabloid yesterday and hadn’t realised how much attention Joel’s murder had grabbed. She felt sick when she saw the picture of her dad on the front page.
‘Your father’s been released. I think it would do you some good to see him.’
Charly shook her head. She wasn’t ready to see him at the moment. She felt too confused by everything that was going on.
There was a gentle knock at the door and Terry came in. ‘Someone here to see you, Charly, and she’s not taking no for an answer.’ Charly looked confused. Standing out in the garden she could see someone straining their neck trying to look into the house. Charly felt her stomach lurch. The figure was older and chubbier, but there was no mistaking who it was: her mum Shirley. Charly put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh my God,’ she said, almost to herself.
‘Everything OK?’ Carol asked, looking round.
‘Shall I tell her to go away? She barged through the paps without a care in the world.’
‘No, let her in.’ She felt sick.
Charly had imagined countless scenarios where she and her mother would be reunited over the years. But as angry or relieved as she’d always pictured herself to be at such a meeting, she could never have imagined that the next time she saw her mother would be under such fraught circumstances.
Shirley walked into the room and looked at Charly. Charly stayed in her seat. Carol stood up, sensing that now was definitely a good time to leave. Terry looked at Charly. ‘If you need me, love, I’ll be outside,’ he said. Terry left and Carol followed, leaving Charly in a room with her mother for the first time in over a decade.
‘I didn’t know if I’d find this place, but it was quite straightforward,’ Shirley said, jamming her hands in her coat pockets.
Charly looked her mother up and down; she’d changed. She looked beaten down somehow.
‘That it?’ Charly asked. There was no heat in her voice; she didn’t have the energy. ‘Is that your opening gambit?’
‘There’s so much to say that I don’t know what to say, if I’m honest.’
‘What about the weather? Shall we have a little chat about that?’
Shirley moved towards her daughter, but Charly pulled her legs into her chest to ensure that she was sitting in an impenetrable ball. ‘I’m sorry,’ Shirley said, sitting down and inspecting the palms of her hands.
‘Really? Pick your moments, don’t you, Mum?’ Charly said, using the word to spear Shirley.
‘What does that mean?’
‘Mum? That’s a word I wouldn’t be slinging around in relation to you. What’s the Shirley Metcalfe definition of the word? Someone who fucks off when the going gets tough?’ Charly knew she was being a bitch but she didn’t care. She wanted to lash out at someone and there wasn’t a better person on this planet deserving of her anger as far as she was concerned. If Shirley had turned up prior to this weekend, Charly knew that she would have been far easier on her. That she would have been grateful, even after all this time, for her mum to have come home in order to see her family. But now she just wanted to know what her mum wanted and why she had done precisely what she pleased for the past ten years.
Shirley looked at Charly. ‘Things haven’t been easy for me. I know you’re not interested in hearing it, but they haven’t. And I’ve wanted to come back loads of times but I’ve never had the bottle until now. I didn’t intend for it to be the weekend that the world’s press are camped on yours and your dad’s doorstep – it’s just the way that things have turned out.’
‘And were you with him when you told the police you were?’
Shirley paused for what Charly thought was too long before nodding. ‘Yes.’
‘You weren’t, were you? You’re lying.’
‘I was; we were talking.’
‘At half four in the morning?’ Charly wasn’t stupid. She might not have seen Shirley for ten years but she knew when she was lying.
‘It’s been a long time.’
‘You don’t have to tell me that,’ Charly shot back.
‘We had a lot to talk about. Your dad didn’t kill Joel.’ Shirley looked squarely at her daughter. ‘Although he would have been well within his rights to.’
‘What?’ Charly asked, astonished. ‘Within his rights?’
‘The lad was beating you, according to your dad. What were you doing in hospital?’
Charly couldn’t believe her mother’s audacity. ‘I loved him!’ she screamed. ‘He wasn’t a bad person; we just rubbed each other up the wrong way, that’s all. Not that it’s any of your bloody business.’
‘Looks like he’d done more than rub you up the wrong way. Look at your face. You’re bruised. And, if what your dad says is true, you’re lucky to have come out of it at all.’
‘Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he, Dad? He didn’t like him,’ Charly said, blindly defending Joel. ‘Anyway, why are we sitting here slagging off someone who can’t even defend himself? Let’s get back to you, eh Mum? Tell me what you’ve been doing for the last ten years.’
‘I went to London, lived in Tooting.’ Shirley paused as if she was about to say something but then pulled back. ‘I fell on hard times.’
‘The violin routine,’ Charly said wearily. ‘And at no point did you think to ring, see how I was, see how Jimmy was. See how the twins were, even. Mind you, why you’d give a shit about them when you couldn’t even be arsed with your own kids is a mystery. You just did your own thing down there and waited till now to reappear, is that it?’
‘It’s not like that,’ Shirley persisted. ‘I wanted to see you, I wanted to contact you.’ She opened her mouth to say something else, but quickly fell silent as if she’d thought better of it again. This time Charly noticed.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You were going to say something. Spit it out.’
‘I didn’t think your dad wanted me. I wasn’t thinking straight.’
‘Understatement of the century. So it’s Dad’s fault now, is it?’
‘I never said that.’
‘Do you have any idea what he went through when you left? Do you have any notion in that dyed blonde head of yours what it was like for him?’
‘Of course I do. It had been my life for long enough, hadn’t it?’
‘I mean you leaving, not the day-to-day getting on with life with kids. What was so bad about us, Mum?’ Charly asked. Her voice cracked. She didn’t want it to, she hadn’t wanted to show her mum any emotion, but there was little chance of that today.
‘Nothing was so bad about you. I loved you all. I still love you all.’
‘Why, then?’
Shirley shook her head. ‘I haven’t got a decent answer.’
Charly glared at her mother for a minute. It was hard to find the words to respond to such an admission. ‘When I was fourteen I was leathered at school by some girl called Jenny Williams. Battered me up and down the playground for being “too pretty”, which was nice of her. And I knew I could go to my dad or our Jimmy and get it sorted out, but dads and brothers don’t sort things like that out, mums do. And you weren’t there. I cried myself to sleep about that for days and it wasn’t even because I was bothered about her battering me, it was because you weren’t there to stick up for me.’ Shirley hung her head. ‘Do you know what people used to say about you at school?’ Shirley didn’t look up. ‘They used to say that you were a prostitute and you’d run off with your pimp. Something else for them to laugh at me about.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘So you’ve said, but you don’t know what it was like.’ Charly looked at her mum. She wanted to hate her so much but there was a part of her that was glad she was there, even if she was using her as a battering ram. ‘And now all this has happened and you turn up . . .’ Charly could feel the tears building up again; she tried to fight them, to swallow them back, but she couldn’t. She began to cry. Shirley got up from the sofa and went over to the chair in which Charly was sitting. As she cried she felt her mum’s hand on her knee. Then she felt her pull her forward to hug her, gently stroking her hair. Charly kept on sobbing and stopped talking. She needed this, someone to hold her and listen to her cry. As she was sitting there she realised that, despite everything, her mum was the only person in the world that she wanted with her right now.