CHARLY WAS LYING in the bath staring at the oak-beamed ceiling. She was numb. A month had passed and she felt that nothing had changed. She woke every morning and realised that her life was now public property, her every movement was pored over and scrutinised in the papers, and she was a widow in her early twenties. She was receiving advice from everyone from Manchester Rovers’ financial specialists to the bin man, but none of it made sense to her and anyway, she didn’t really care about what anyone else thought. She needed someone to grab her and shake her back to life but she didn’t really feel she had anything to live for. She missed Joel terribly, but even that seemed to Charly to be something she wasn’t allowed to do. Everything the papers said about him was true. He had beaten her. He had been cold and distant. He had taken his wealth and fame for granted. But she had loved him and that was hard to explain to anyone. He had chipped away at her confidence but there had been so many things that Joel had said to her that Charly believed he was right about. She could be argumentative, she hadn’t known how to judge his moods and when to leave him alone and she had wound him up. He had an important and stressful job and she really could have taken that into account. Charly didn’t see that her thoughts were those of someone who had been in an abusive relationship, she just thought that Joel had been right and she had been wrong. She only wished she could have him back to tell him how she felt.
Charly pulled herself out of the water and towelled herself dry. She had always been petite but her size six clothes were now falling off her skinny frame and as she pulled the towel over her ribcage she could feel every bone. It wasn’t even that she wasn’t eating. Every time anyone came to the house they force-fed her; she was just burning everything off with the nervous energy that also kept her awake most nights. Shirley was due around later that day. Charly had decided to start calling her mum Shirley, just for her own sanity. She hadn’t acted like a mum in Charly’s opinion so she didn’t deserve the title – not that she’d said as much to her. She just avoided having to address her as anything and waited until she was looking directly at her to speak. Charly couldn’t quite believe that she was still around after a month. She had tried to work out what her mother’s motives were, what she was hanging around for, but it had been as if the last decade hadn’t happened and she had slipped back into mother mode. Charly had asked that her dad not come to the house. She knew instinctively that Shirley was lying when she said that she had been with Len on the night that Joel had been murdered. And she couldn’t push from her mind the thought that her father was responsible for Joel’s murder even though no DNA evidence had come back to place him there. She needed the police to find whoever was responsible and for that person to not be her father. Only then could she be sure.
Charly could hear her mobile phone ringing downstairs. She didn’t rush to answer it. She slowly pulled some oversized jogging bottoms on and scraped her hair back. By the time she was descending the stairs there was a hammering at the back door. Who the hell is that? Anyone who was coming to see her either came in with Terry, who let them in with his key, or had to go through Manchester Rovers’ press department. Charly walked slowly down the stairs, not knowing who to expect. When she saw that it was Kim, the glamour model who had been with Joel on the night he died, Charly felt the old Metcalfe bile rising. How dare she come to her house? She marched to the door and pulled it open.
‘What do you want?’
‘I need to speak to you. I need to say sorry. To tell you how bad it’s been for me, to tell you how bad I’ve been feeling.’
By now Charly’s feelings of numbness had evaporated and she was filled with anger and hatred. She didn’t care; she was grateful to be having any feelings at all. ‘Well, you’d better come in then, hadn’t you?’ Charly said, grabbing the girl by her hair extensions and pulling her into the house. She threw her across the hallway with almost supernatural force. Kim landed awkwardly against the wall. Charly flew at her, thumping her straight in the mouth.
‘Get off me! I can explain.’
‘Really?’ Charly said, thumping her again.
Kim managed to struggle up the wall and, getting to her feet, ran to the other end of the large entrance hall, holding her hands out in appeasement. ‘Charly, please. Stop. I just want to say that I’m really sorry.’
‘Me too, sorry that you ever clapped your slutty little eyes on my husband.’ Charly marched towards her, but was distracted by the noise of the door opening. She turned around to see Terry with Leanne Crompton standing with him. Terry ran over and seeing the state of Kim pulled Charly away from her. Leanne stepped forward.
‘I’ve been calling you, Charly,’ she said before turning to Kim and asking her angrily, ‘What the bloody hell did I tell you?’
‘I needed to see her to make my peace.’
‘You don’t deserve any peace!’ Charly screamed, bolting for Kim again. Terry locked his arms around her and pulled her back.
‘Charly, I’m sorry,’ Leanne said soothingly. She turned to Terry. ‘Will you take Kim outside, I just want to have a word with Charly if that’s OK.’
Charly looked at Leanne. She didn’t really want to have a word with her. She knew what Leanne thought; that she was a gold-digger who had dropped her brother Scott when a far better offer in the shape of Joel had come along. Kim began to sob as Terry guided her out. ‘I don’t know what you’re crying for!’ Charly shouted after her.
Once they were safely outside, Leanne took Charly’s hand. ‘How are you?’
Charly shrugged. ‘Been better, you know how it is.’ As she finished the sentence Charly laughed wryly to herself, knowing that nobody could know how it was.
‘I can’t say I do totally, but I know what it’s like to have the whole country talking about you over their cornflakes.’ Charly looked at Leanne and half smiled. Of course she did. Charly had been so envious of Leanne when she had been going out with Scott. Leanne seemed to have everything: a glamorous life, money, a child. And then it had all come crashing down and she had come home to Bradington with the country’s press hot on her tail. When speculation had become rife that Leanne’s daughter Kia was the lovechild of superstar footballer Jay Leighton – an ex-colleague of Joel’s – every aspect of Leanne’s life had been splashed all over the papers.
Charly looked down at her right hand; her knuckles were red from where she had just hit Kim. ‘That’ll give them something else to talk about, won’t it?’
‘Don’t worry; I’ll get Kim to keep her mouth shut about this.’ Leanne paused. ‘She’s had a hard time . . . I know it’s not what you want to hear but she has. The police have ruled out any involvement. She’s just a stupid star-struck girl but because she was there she keeps being dragged back in and questioned.’
‘My heart bleeds,’ Charly said, hard-faced.
Leanne looked around as if she was unsure of what to say next. Charly couldn’t help her; there wasn’t much small talk to be made in view of the enormity of what had happened to Charly in the past month.
‘Scott’s been asking after you,’ Leanne said finally.
‘Really?’ Charly said. She was genuinely touched. Scott Crompton may not have been the man of Charly’s dreams but he had been kind and thoughtful to her throughout their relationship and she would have given anything to have a moment of Scott’s kindness right now.
‘He wanted to call you but didn’t think it was the right thing to do. I can understand why.’
Charly nodded in agreement. ‘Would you tell him that he can call me any time? Give him the number you’ve got, I’d really love to see him.’ She knew that if Scott came to see her she could put her feelings about everything that was going on at the moment to one side and just be in the company of someone who had genuinely cared for her. She didn’t want anything from him, other than his time. ‘OK.’ Leanne nodded slowly. Charly could tell that there was something else she wanted to say but that she was choosing her words carefully.
‘What?’ Charly asked, prompting her.
Leanne looked Charly in the eye. ‘Tony works for Markie again.’
‘Right,’ Charly said, thinking, And your point is?
‘I know that you and he have been spending quite a bit of time together.’
Charly took a deep breath before answering. She wanted to shout at Leanne that she hadn’t been knocking her other brother off as well, if that was what she was suggesting, but she liked Leanne and she didn’t need to make an enemy of her. ‘I think that’s something that maybe you should talk to Markie about,’ Charly said diplomatically.
‘Right.’ Leanne nodded. ‘Well, I’d better get off.’ She walked towards Charly and gave her a hug. ‘If you need anything, give me a shout.’
‘Thank you,’ Charly said, touched by Leanne’s good intentions. She locked the door behind her and walked through the empty sitting room and drawing room of the enormous house, on her way to curl up on the settee and stare into space. She hadn’t meant to put the ball so firmly in Markie’s court as she had just done, but neither could she be the person to tell Leanne why she and Markie had been spending time together. That was Markie’s job, not hers.
*
Tracy marched into the office, ignoring Tammy on reception, and headed straight for Markie.
‘What’s up with you?’ Markie asked. When Tracy was in a bad mood, everyone knew about it.
‘Mac Jones is what’s up with me.’
‘Don’t bring your personal life in here – it won’t work.’
Tracy eyeballed her son. What did he take her for? Some hysterical filing clerk who’d just split up with her boyfriend? ‘I’ve got some eggs in my bag you can teach me how to suck while you’re at it.’
‘Well, if it’s not personal, what is it?’
‘He’s weak.’
Markie laughed.
‘What you laughing at?’ Tracy demanded.
‘He’s hard as nails, Mac.’
‘I’m not on about flattening people; any mug can do that. I mean he’s weak minded. Why else stay away for a month? You wouldn’t have; you’d have faced any music coming your way. As it is the police want to question him and were so kind as to turn up on my doorstep throwing photos around of me and him together so that Kent’s fucked off and now I’m left on my lonesome, with no sign of a holiday to America and no Mac to explain why he’s such a pussy.’
Markie nodded as if this was all making sense now. ‘So it is personal?’
‘Listen, cloth ears, as I’ve said, it couldn’t be further from personal,’ Tracy lied. ‘He’s not helping us, is he?’
Markie rose from his desk and walked over to his mum. ‘When I was in the nick for two years and you were sat at home eating Hobnobs and only getting off the settee every two hours to pull your knickers out of the crack of your arse, who do you think was in here sorting everything out?’ Markie asked, pressing his face up to his mum’s.
‘Don’t talk to me like that, I’m your mother!’ Tracy spat indignantly.
‘And a shining example you are, Tracy, but that doesn’t deviate from the fact that I owe Mac. Things are alright here; ticking along. They don’t need you sticking your two pence worth in just because you’ve got good at getting money out of a few scrubbers around the place.’
‘I could run this place in my sleep.’ Tracy wasn’t having Markie belittle what she had contributed since she had begun working for him.
‘You wouldn’t know where to start. Anyway –’ Markie shook his head ‘– what are we on about that for? Let’s stick to the point. Mac has stuck by me, so I’ll stick by him.’
Markie turned away from Tracy and walked back to his desk, suggesting this discussion was over. Tracy wasn’t having it, and anyway, a penny was dropping. ‘You’ve heard from him, haven’t you?’
Markie shrugged. ‘What if I have?’
‘We’re in the shit here, and you’re harbouring him.’
Markie laughed. ‘Harbouring him? Who are you, Cagney or Lacey?’ He added almost under his breath, ‘The blonde pissed one, whichever one she was.’
‘You what?’ Tracy said with utter indignation.
‘Nothing. Joke,’ Markie said dismissively.
‘Listen you. You’re going the right way about a slap. And you can tell that Mac that he needs to get his arse back here.’
‘Yeah, you can,’ Tracy said, slamming out of the office.
‘Bye, Tracy,’ Tammy said with sugary sweet sarcasm.
‘Shut it, perky tits,’ Tracy said angrily. She wasn’t in the mood for anyone today, especially some over-made-up phone monkey.
Tracy stormed along the street and, seeing her old favourite haunt Yates’s was just opening, she popped in, pretending momentarily to herself that she was going to order a coffee but instead ordering a large gin and tonic. What was it with men? she thought. Bunch of weak, soppy-minded individuals. And Markie, her own son, was siding with Mac over her. Pathetic pair. He needed hauling into line, Mac. If he’d been her business partner she’d have told him to get his act together, get back out earning and clear this Joel Baldy mess up. As it was they were all waiting around for the inevitable to happen. He was going to be arrested and if he didn’t come up with something good soon as to why he’d disappeared from the radar, he would be charged. There was enough circumstantial evidence accruing to convict him, Tracy thought.
She pulled out her mobile phone. She had stored the number that Mac had given her to call from the payphone. Hiding her number, Tracy called it. To her surprise Mac answered.
‘It’s me, Tracy.’
‘What you doing ringing me?’ Mac sounded anxious.
‘Charmed. I’m ringing to tell you I’m going to have a word with the police and tell them what really happened that night, so you can come back.’
‘What did really happen that night?’ Mac asked curiously, obviously wanting to know what Tracy had to say.
‘You know as well as I do that after Kent went to bed pissed out of his tiny mind me and you met up in Blackpool. Went for a walk on the sea front. We were there for hours. There was another couple on the beach; maybe they could vouch for us. But then again they’d be almost impossible to trace. You didn’t set off until gone five in the morning, did you?’
‘That’s right, Tracy, I didn’t. But why go to the police now?’
‘Because,’ Tracy said, playing along with the line of questioning, ‘now, Mac, I’ve nothing to lose. Kent’s gone. I’m on my own. There’s no one left to protect.’
‘He’s left? I’m sorry.’ Bet you are, Tracy thought.
‘So are you going to come back?’ Tracy asked.
‘Well, there’s not much reason for me to stay away, is there?’ Mac said cautiously.
‘Make your first stop the cop shop, won’t you, then me and you can sort things out after.’
‘Nice one,’ Mac said, sounding genuinely relieved. ‘And Tracy . . . thanks.’
‘Don’t mention it.’ She ended the call. Tracy pocketed her phone, wishing that for once in her life she could meet just one man who wouldn’t turn out to be a complete sap and could see what she was up to and try and at least match her at her own game.
*
Len walked downstairs to the smell of bacon. This had become a regular occurrence since Shirley had returned. He knew that when he entered the kitchen there would be a pot of tea made, bacon, eggs, sausages and toast and a copy of the Mail waiting for him. Like everything else since Shirley’s return, Len didn’t dare question it. But he wanted to desperately; he just couldn’t find the words. Len had seen on one of those daytime shows that he was loath to watch, some American woman talking about people ignoring problems that were glaring them in the face because they didn’t want to talk about them, or couldn’t somehow face them. She had likened it to there being an elephant in the room that everyone knew was there, but no one was mentioning. Len understood the analogy now. But in his case he felt like an entire herd of elephants had set up camp in his house and he and Shirley were just squeezing their way around them.
‘Morning. There’s some orange in the fridge,’ Shirley said chirpily.
Len slid into his seat at the kitchen table. The feelings inside of him were so pent up he felt like a pressure cooker waiting to explode. ‘Shirley . . .’ Len said, wishing for something of substance to attach itself to the word in order to form a sentence. She looked at him.
‘I . . . er . . .’ Len stammered.
‘You seen that on the front of the paper? Castle in Kent being turned into luxury apartments for asylum seekers.’ Shirley shook her head as if the world had gone mad. ‘Might apply for asylum myself.’
‘We know better than most that what the papers print should be taken with a pinch of salt. They always exaggerate these figures, don’t they? I mean, come on; how many asylum seekers do you know?’
‘None,’ Shirley said, plating up the eggs and bacon.
‘There you go.’
‘I wouldn’t though, would I? What, they going to trail all the way to a shit-tip like Bradington when they can live in a castle in Kent?’
Len wasn’t quite sure how he’d managed to get sidetracked into a political discussion first thing in the morning, especially when as far as he was concerned he and Shirley had far more important things to talk about.
‘Ever live in Kent?’ Len said, coming straight out with it. It wasn’t the ideal in to the conversation he’d wanted to have for over ten years, but it was a start.
Shirley turned back to the cooker. ‘No.’
‘Where did you live?’
‘I don’t really want to talk about it,’ Shirley muttered.
Len paused for a moment, wanting to choose his words carefully, afraid of scaring her away again, but he had to say what was on his mind. ‘You’ve been back a month after a decade away and we’re no nearer to discussing where or why you went.’ Shirley didn’t answer so Len filled the gap, ‘Or what you want now that you’re back.’
‘I don’t “want” anything.’
‘I mean want for yourself. For us, if there is an us.’ Len knew he was kidding himself. It had been strictly separate rooms since Shirley had returned.
Shirley placed the two plates of food gently on the table. Sliding into her chair she tried to look at Len, but eventually let her eyes rest on the brown sauce bottle in front of her. ‘I find this really hard to talk about.’
‘You and me both,’ Len said, tentatively sliding his hand across the table to touch Shirley’s. She let it rest on top.
‘When I left I had a breakdown.’ Shirley began to shake with nerves. Len leaned back in his chair. ‘I don’t want you to think that I’m a total nut job.’ She was obviously finding it as hard to put things into words as Len was. ‘I left here and I went to London. I didn’t know anyone there. I know you think that I’d run off with some fella from here, that’s what everyone thinks, but I didn’t. I ended up in Bethnal Green. I was working in a sandwich shop in the City. I wanted you to come and find me. In my head if you’d put your back into it you could have traced me. That’s how I felt at the time. It’s so hard to explain. I wasn’t thinking that I’d just disappeared and hadn’t left you any way of finding me. You don’t think like that when you’re ill . . .’
‘Ill?’ Len interrupted.
‘I know it sounds daft. Let me explain,’ Shirley implored. Len nodded.
‘I was just functioning like a robot. I missed the kids but kept thinking that they didn’t want me and you didn’t want me. Then I kept scouring the “missing” pages in the Big Issue and the police missing register to see if you were looking for me. When I didn’t see my picture there I just thought you didn’t care. It’s hard to explain to someone who’s never felt it what depression is like. But I didn’t do any of this to hurt you.’ Len listened intently; this was the first he’d known about any depression.
‘I was convinced that the kids were far better off with you.’ Tears began to roll down Shirley’s cheek and she pushed her food away; it seemed she was unable to stomach it. ‘Then one day I’d gone in to work and my head was all over the place. You don’t think it at the time, though,’ she said, looking at Len suddenly as if trying to convey exactly what she was saying. ‘You think that everything is ordered and makes perfect sense. Think of the most intense feelings you’ve had. I don’t know, like when you found out that Joel had been hurting Charly.’ Len didn’t have to think about it. That feeling was still there, raw and undealt with. Unfinished business that would have to stay unfinished. ‘Well, that level of anger is there all the time and seems to apply to even the most normal things. Is this making sense?’ Len nodded; it was, oddly. ‘Well, I was standing in the sandwich shop and some bloke had asked for coronation chicken on ciabatta and I was so angry, but so calm at the same time, I’m looking down at this knife and I’m thinking, I don’t care about your poncey ciabatta and you don’t care about me, no one cares about me. All my thoughts suddenly snowballed and instead of picking up a ciabatta and cutting into that, I pulled the knife across my wrist.’
Len winced, his eyes widening in alarm.
‘It was pandemonium after that but I can’t really remember; it just seemed to happen in slow motion. I was sectioned. They said they were going to contact you but I made out that you were the reason I was like I was.’
‘But I’d have come and got you. I wasn’t that bad, was I?’
‘No. No, you weren’t. But I wasn’t thinking straight. I was in there for over a year. I remember thinking that I needed a plan to get out of there. And it seemed that the people who helped with the little tasks like washing up and making beds were the ones who seemed to be seen as getting better. So I started to do everything. This was where I met Mike. One day when I was washing up. He was from Bradington. At the time we thought it was this amazing coincidence, but really it was just something we had in common. Turned out to be the only thing we had in common. I got out and was placed in a halfway house and he was let out soon after. We stayed in touch and then just fell into living together. But in the end it all came to nothing. I told him about the kids and he said he didn’t want to be with someone who could just up and leave like I had. He was right, wasn’t he? Who would?’ Shirley wiped the tears from her face.
Len was floored; this was a lot to take in. In his mind Shirley had left him and the kids and gone off to enjoy the high life somewhere. If he’d known any of this maybe he could have intervened.
‘After that I spent a lot of time on my own. I got the odd job here and there and then I ended up involved in one of those pyramid schemes that collapsed and left me broke, but to be honest that was nothing new.’ Shirley sighed. ‘Such a bloody sob story, eh, Len? Who’d have thought it when we first started knocking around together that you’d end up being the sane one and I’d be the mad one.’
Len smiled sadly. ‘You’re not mad.’
Shirley laughed genuinely. ‘I’ve got the certificate to prove it.’
‘Why didn’t you come back sooner?’
‘Shame. Didn’t know how you’d feel about it. Then when Charly ended up in the papers because she’d landed a famous boyfriend I convinced myself that I couldn’t come back because you’d all think I was after something.’ Shirley looked sadly at Len. ‘I’m not, for the record. I just want the opportunity to make things right.’
Len nodded. He didn’t know anything about Shirley’s illness and he didn’t know where to begin to understand how she had felt but for the first time he felt sympathy for her. She hadn’t just high-tailed it off and spent her days cruising the Med. She’d had a worse time that he’d had, by the sounds of things. ‘I just wish you’d stayed, or that I could have helped you pick up the pieces.’
‘So do I, but it’s done now, isn’t it? I don’t expect you to forgive me, but if you could put the past behind us then I’d like to stay here.’ Shirley said this with such trepidation that Len could feel her fear. ‘I understand if you don’t, though.’
He got to his feet. ‘Come here,’ he said. Shirley stood up and moved towards him awkwardly. Len folded his arms around his wife and she began to sob. He kissed her on the top of her head and let her cry into his chest. He wasn’t sure where they would go from here, but for Len this was the start he had been hoping for since Shirley had walked away from her life.