The playground of Fairmead School was swirling with kids. They jumped and yelled and screamed and fought, plump in their padded jackets and shrill as a flock of starlings. Even after a second night torn by bad dreams, Gemma was cheered by the sound of them. She got out of her car and walked through the happy racket to the school entrance. And there was Francine, sitting up perkily in her wheelchair, waiting for her and beaming with good news.
She’d spent the previous afternoon in hospital. ‘And guess what, Miss. I walked six steps. All on my own.’
‘That’s brilliant,’ Gemma approved as she pushed her excited pupil to the classroom. ‘I’ll bet they were pleased with you.’
‘An’ guess what,’ Francine went on. ‘I done all my homework too, all on my own.’ Her independence was the best thing that had happened to her since she’d been taken ill.
‘You’re a good girl,’ Gemma told her.
It was a pleasure to them both to be able to start their school day with praise. And the first half of the morning was equally rewarding. They tackled a difficult assignment together, with Gemma doing the fetching and carrying and Francine working happily with her group, thinking everything out for herself and writing up her conclusions in more detail than she’d attempted for a very long time.
‘It just shows what a bit of confidence can do,’ the teacher said as Gemma drank a well-earned cup of coffee in the staffroom at playtime.
‘I wish I could bottle a bit of it and take it through to Matt,’ Gemma said. ‘We could uncork it and sprinkle it all over him before he could stop us. Can’t you see it.’ She mimed the action, uncorking an imaginary bottle and sprinkling the contents over an imaginary boy. ‘He might even smile.’
The real boy was sitting in his usual place beside the window, gazing out at the playground with a withdrawn expression dull on his face. The hyacinths were in sculptured bloom in their neat pots on the windowsill, their summer blue bright among the dull buffs and browns of chairs and tables, but he didn’t seem to be aware of them.
‘It’s a lovely day, Matt,’ Gemma told him. ‘Look at the hyacinths. It’s nearly spring.’
He didn’t look at the hyacinths or her, ‘So?’
‘So it won’t be long before you can get out.’
‘What for?’ he asked, his face sullen. ‘What’s the point?’
‘It’s nice out of doors.’
‘When you can run,’ he scowled.
She decided to talk tough. ‘It’s nice whether you can run or not,’ she told him. ‘It’s nice no matter what you’re doing. Even sitting in a chair it’s nice.’
‘You don’t know anything about it,’ he said. His face was dark with distress.
‘Yes, I do. You’d be surprised.’
‘You don’t,’ he said. And suddenly he wasn’t sulky and monosyllabic but had found a furious tongue. ‘You don’t know anything about it. It’s all very well for you. You can walk about. You’ve got legs. I haven’t. I shall never walk again. Never do anything – run, kick a ball, play cricket. Don’t you understand? I’m stuck here in this chair for the rest of my life. I don’t care if it’s spring. It can stay winter for ever as far as I’m concerned. I might as well be dead.’
His onslaught was so unexpected and so passionate that for a second she didn’t know what to say. Then she decided that having started tough, she would have to continue, even if it made him worse. ‘That’s a stupid thing to say,’ she told him briskly. ‘You’re not dead. You’ve got a lot of life ahead of you. It’s about time you started to enjoy it.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he repeated, ‘so you can just shut up.’ And when she opened her mouth to rebuke him for rudeness – for distressed or not he couldn’t be allowed to get away with that – he suddenly started to yell and twist about in his chair, both fists clenched and very near to violence. ‘I hate you! I hate everybody! I hate this fucking chair! I can’t fucking stand it! Go away! Go on, go away, or I’ll punch you.’
Now she knew instinctively what had to be done. She raised her false leg until the foot was on the nearest chair and the shin within striking distance of his angry fist. ‘Go on then!’ she said, ‘Punch me! Punch my leg. I dare you. I don’t care either.’
‘I will,’ he warned, his face wild.
She looked at him steadily, accepting his rage, daring him. ‘Go on, then.’
She felt the punch in her stump and straight up her thigh, but the pain of it was nothing compared to the look of shock on his face.
‘Yes,’ she answered him, ‘I’ve got a false leg too. I know exactly where you are, and exactly how you feel. You’re not the only one. Nothing is ever quite what it seems. Right?’ And as he seemed to be calming, ‘I’ll show you if you like.’ She realised that she would probably have to reveal her prosthesis to the entire class, but it could be the making of him, and she had no qualms about it. She looked at Colin Rainer for permission, which was given with a rapid smile. Then she rolled up the leg of her jeans until he could see the socket.
Children gathered round them at once, full of the dispassionate interest of the young. ‘What’s it made of, Miss!’ ‘Does it hurt yer?’ ‘Have you got a knee or does it go right up?’ It was an inspired lesson and surprisingly painless.
‘There you are,’ she said to Matt when all the questions had been answered. ‘I lost my leg but it hasn’t stopped me. I can walk about and drive a car and do everything I want. You could too. And don’t tell me they haven’t fitted your prosthesis yet because I know they have. I’ve read your notes.’
‘Yes. Well,’ he said. ‘I suppose …’
‘Never mind suppose. You could.’
He was looking at her leg, thinking hard. ‘Did you fall over a lot?’ he asked.
They were on the same level, two amputees comparing experiences, friends. Now she thought, I can really help him. ‘We all fall over a lot,’ she told him. ‘That’s how you learn not to. Have you fallen in the shower yet? I’ve had some awesome bruises falling in the shower.’
‘I slid out the seat the first time,’ he confessed. ‘Right on the floor. That was awesome.’
‘I’ll bet!’ she said. ‘Now what about this work we’re supposed to be doing? Can we make a start on it, do you think?’
‘Probably,’ he said and gave her a smile of such ineffable sweetness she could have picked him up and hugged him.
By the end of the morning they were both exhausted but they’d made so much progress she could hardly believe it.
‘You look all in,’ Colin sympathised, as they walked back to the staffroom.
‘Very gallant of you to say so, sir,’ she teased him. ‘I expect I do though. I’ve been up since dawn two days running.’
‘Then you’d better stay and have lunch with us.’
Until then, she’d always rushed home when her stint was over. But why not stay? There was nothing to go home for, not now she and Nick had decided to finish with one another. But she wouldn’t think about that, not yet anyway, not when she was on a high. So she joined them at their crowded dinner table and had a school dinner which was more appetising than she’d expected. And afterwards she stayed on in the staffroom and talked to Mrs Muldoony about her two pupils.
‘You must be feeling very pleased with yourself,’ the head-mistress said, when she’d skimmed through the lesson reports. ‘You’ve done a good morning’s work.’
To be praised so fulsomely was very pleasant and Gemma could have taken any amount of it. But the bell was sounding to start the afternoon session and Mrs Muldoony had a parent to see.
The afternoon had a springtime balm about it. Much too nice to spend cooped up in a flat that still reverberated with that awful row. I shall go shopping, she decided as she walked along the corridor to the entrance. I shall treat myself to something luxurious. I’ve earned it.
She was so cheerfully engrossed in her plans that she didn’t see the reporters until she’d turned the corner and almost reached her car. Suddenly they were round her, a great pack of them, eager-faced with microphones or squinting behind the huge owl-eyes of their cameras.
‘Gemma!’ they called. ‘This way, Gemma!’ Cameras flashed in her eyes and for a second she felt so buffeted by the pressure of their bodies that she was afraid she was going to lose her balance. ‘Gemma! One more! This way!’
A young man thrust his microphone under her nose. ‘Were you enticed away from your family?’
She was bewildered. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Other voices joined in. ‘When did you last see your parents?’ ‘Your father?’ Is it true …?’ ‘Can you tell us …?’ The babble of their voices was worse then the pressure of their bodies.
She held up her hand, the way she would have done in the classroom. ‘One at a time, please!’
But it was a waste of breath. ‘Can you tell us …,?’ ‘… this tug-of-love case …?’ ‘He says you’re going to sue for half a million. Is that true?’ ‘Can you give us a statement?’
‘OK, OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you a statement.’ She waited until the noise had subsided and they were ready, microphones thrust forward. Then, speaking slowly and clearly, she said. ‘I am not an exhibit. I have a life to lead and I want to be left alone to get on with it. Now will you please go away.’
They didn’t move. Instead, the uproar began again. ‘Can you tell us …?’ ‘Gemma!’ ‘Gemma!’
‘I’ve nothing else to say,’ she shouted into the din. But they weren’t listening because she hadn’t told them what they wanted to hear. There was nothing for it but to fight her way out. She gathered her strength and struggled through the pack, pushing away microphones, cameras and bodies as she went. This, she thought, as she hauled the car door open, must be what it’s like to be attacked by a swarm of locusts.
They pressed against the windows even as she drove away, cameras clicking and flashing. But at last she was able to inch through the gate and elude them. What was all that about? she thought. Then she remembered the second report. Of course. It’s the crash being back in the news. They’ve dug out my picture and found all that millionaire nonsense again. I might have guessed there’d be trouble. And I stood in the staffroom and said it was all in the past – as if it had happened to someone else. I should have known better.
She was in the High Street by this time, heading south, and still feeling annoyed. No, she thought, I won’t go shopping here. I’ll go to Croydon, right out of the way, where they can’t find me. I’ll go to Croydon and buy myself a hat with a huge brim and a pair of dark glasses and if they come after me again I shall pretend to be someone else.
So she spent a happy afternoon in the Whitgift Centre and bought herself a dress from Monsoon, which was long and straight and beautifully cut and made her feel marvellous because it looked so good on her and because she couldn’t really afford it. Then she treated herself to a cream tea and went to have a look at the furniture in Marks and Spencer’s, as if she were a woman of means.
It was very late by the time she got home, and there was a chill wind blowing. As she walked across the compound towards her flat, she noticed that the kitchen window was still wide open. The sight of it gave her a shock because she was sure she’d closed it yesterday as soon as she got in. Obviously she hadn’t. How careless! The central heating would have come on at one o’clock so she’d been heating the compound for five and a half hours. The thought of all the money she’d wasted made her feel really cross with herself. But as she approached the porch, a new and rather more alarming suspicion entered her mind, for now she could see that the window was open to its widest extent and she was quite sure she hadn’t left it in that state, especially for two whole days. She would have noticed the draught. As the hair rose on the nape of her neck, she realised that somebody must have broken in.
She stood in the porch for a second, listening as she drew her keys from her pocket and wondered what she ought to do. It could be her imagination but she was sure there was something different about the flat. She couldn’t identify what it was, but there was something. She put the key into the lock as gently as she could and turned it very nearly silently. The air that wafted towards her as she eased the door ajar smelt of stale sweat, leather and motor oil. Dear God, whoever it was, he was still inside!
Afterwards it occurred to her that she’d taken a risk just walking into the flat like that. But at the time she didn’t think about it. She was so angry that someone was invading her home that she simply put down her shopping, seized a crutch as a weapon and pounded across the hall and through the bedroom door, switching on lights as she went.
Her neat square room was strewn with clothes. They had been tossed across the bed and the chair and hurled on to the floor, with empty drawers flung down on top of them. And sure enough, the burglar was still in the room, a thickset bulky man in dark jeans and a leather jacket with a black balaclava covering his face, one foot inside the fitted wardrobe, both white-gloved hands rifling through the pockets of the clothes hanging there, hooded head turned towards her. For a fraught second they stared at one another, then he stepped back from the wardrobe and turned to run. But she was too quick for him.
‘You sod!’ she yelled. ‘How dare you!’ And bounded forwards at him, holding her crutch before her like a shield.
It was as if she’d frozen him to the spot. They were standing face to face, so close that she could smell his sweat and see that his eyes were pale blue and fringed by short gingery lashes, but he didn’t step back and although he seemed to be trying to pull away from her, he didn’t run.
‘Geroff!’ he yelled. ‘Geroff! You’re fucking hurting.’
For a second she couldn’t think what was the matter with him. Then she realised that she was standing on his foot with her prosthesis. It was the thing she’d been warned about at the rehab centre, to take care where she was putting her new foot because she wouldn’t know when she was standing on somebody. And now she hadn’t taken care and she’d pinned a burglar to the floor. How perfectly bloody marvellous. ‘Gotcha,’ she said, and reached up to pull off his balaclava.
He fought her off violently, punching at her and twisting his body to get away from her. She had to struggle to keep the crutch under his chin and it took all her strength to hold him, even though she pressed down on her false foot as heavily as she could. She had no idea how long they fought. It could have been seconds or hours. At one point, she lost her grip on the crutch, and grabbed him by his collar, his T-shirt, scrabbling and pushing to beat off his punching hands. But seconds later she made an enormous effort and managed to pull that awful balaclava off his head.
With his face revealed he was far less frightening. Now he was just an uncouth boy, with a shaven head dyed blond, a line of earrings in one ear and a dragon tattooed on his neck, and young – fifteen or sixteen at a guess – and far less bulky than he’d appeared at first glance. But he went on fighting. By now she knew he’d certainly stolen something and that whatever it was it was stashed away in one of the pockets of that leather jacket. She pulled at it furiously as they struggled, throwing out various odd things to right and left, an oily rag, keys, a newspaper folded in half, a collection of credit cards that tumbled on to the duvet cover one after another like falling leaves. And at last she scrabbled her right hand inside his jacket, found an inner pocket and, panting with the effort she was making, pulled out a jeweller’s velvet pouch and emptied the contents on the bed, all her little precious pieces – the signet ring, the diamond cluster Jerry had bought her in a rare moment of drunken affection, her gold chain with its two medallions, even the little gilt bracelet she’d brought back from a school holiday in Spain.
‘You bloody little toe-rag!’ she screamed at him. ‘How dare you steal my things!’
But turning to tip out her belongings had given him the chance he needed and he was out of her grasp and halfway to the door.
He paused. She couldn’t catch him now. Not on crutches. ‘So I nicked ’em,’ he said, sneering at her. ‘So what? You got ’em back. Right? They’re nothing special. Only worth a few quid. You can spare it. What’s a few rings an’ things to you. I know who you are. I been watchin’ you. Right? You got millions. Right? Millions. I seen it in the paper. That’s well out of order. You wiv millions an’ me with nothink. So you can spare me a bit, can’tcher. I got a right to it.’ Then he was out of the room, hurtling though the hall, banging through the front door. Escaped.
She stared after him, open-mouthed and panting. What was he talking about? What paper? Then she got her breath and her senses back and remembered the reporters.
The newspaper she’d thrown out of his pocket was still lying on the carpet. She picked it up, put it on the bed and unfolded it. There on the front page was her own uninjured face staring up at her and below it a picture of Andrew Quennell with his mouth open and his hair bristling like a white mane. And in enormous headlines: TV GURU AND CRASH HEROINE. It was such a shock and made her so angry that the words of the text swam out of focus as she read them. But she saw enough to know what was going on. ‘Dr Quennell, speaking on …’ ‘Gemma Goodeve … suing for half a million …’ ‘Tug-of-love tussle …’ He’s been talking about me on TV, she thought.
There was a sharp sound ringing behind her. A sharp familiar sound. Oh shit! The phone! Well whoever it is can get off the line. I’ve got to phone the police.
‘Yes,’ she said crossly. ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s Nick,’ his voice said. ‘Are you all right?’
She was suddenly weary and sat on the edge of the bed, glad to be off her stump. But she was too caught up in her anger to feel anything beyond a mild surprise. ‘Where are you?’
‘Paris. Look, are you all right?’
‘I’m fantastic!’ she said, cynically. ‘Couldn’t be better. I’ve just been burgled.’
He drew in his breath with alarm. ‘What?’
‘Rotten little toe-rag with a crew cut. Said he’d come for his share of my ill-gotten gains. Didn’t get them though. I saw to that.’
‘You mean he was there? You caught him? Oh Christ, Gemma. Are you all right?’
‘Yes. I caught him.’ There was pride in the answer. ‘I can stick up for myself,’
‘How did he know it was your flat?’
‘Your bloody father’s been opening his mouth on TV, that’s how. Telling everyone I’m a millionaire. We’re both all over the front page.’
‘Oh Christ!’ he said again. ‘I knew it was a mistake, all this media business. Are you sure you’re all right?’
She was short with him. ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine.’
‘What did the police say?’
‘I haven’t called them yet. It’s only just happened.’
The warning pips were sounding. ‘Oh Christ, Gemma,’ he said again. ‘This is awful. Look, wait a minute and I’ll find some more coins.’ The line went dead. ‘I’ll come back,’ he said, as the disengaged tone began to purr. ‘I’ll catch the first train. You’re not to worry about a thing.’
It upset Gemma to be cut off in mid-sentence. There was so much more she wanted to say, so much more she ought to have said, and now that they were disconnected she was aware of all the distances between them that they hadn’t begun to bridge. But there was no time for regret. There wasn’t even time to think about it. She had to phone the police. She looked down at her hand as it replaced the receiver and was shocked to see that the knuckles were torn and bloodstained. It had been more of a fight than she’d realised. I’d better get cleaned up first, she thought, and have a look at my stump. It felt all right but it had taken a lot of pressure.
But the phone rang again before she could stand up.
‘Hello,’ she said, thinking Nick had rung back. ‘You found your coins, then.’
There was a pause, then a small, uncertain voice asked, ‘Is that you, Aunty Gemma?’
One of Susan’s girls, Gemma recognised, and she softened her tone. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Is that Helen?’
‘Yes. Could you come and get us, please.’
It was such an odd request that she was alerted to trouble at once. ‘Where are you?’
‘In a station near Grandpa’s. Putney South.’
‘What are you doing there?’
The explanation was breathless with tears and very muddled. ‘Grandpa Quennell’s gone out and Mummy’s locked in her room and she said to go away and Daddy’s not in the garden centre and there aren’t any lights on and the taxi driver was horrid. He said he had a good mind to take us back to King’s Cross because we couldn’t pay him and we ought to be smacked and it wasn’t our fault because we couldn’t help it if Grandpa was out. I did give him my silver bracelet …’
It was trouble. And pretty serious. The police would have to wait and so would cleaning up. ‘Stay where you are,’ Gemma said. ‘I’m coming to get you.’ Her response was so quick it didn’t enter her head that she would be driving to a railway station.