25. Why is your mum here? #2
“But she was just a child,” Margot finished for me, openly crying now.
“Don’t you think I know that? I realised after a couple of weeks how badly I buggered it up when she first came to the Manor, how much she needed me.
But by that stage, she was so withdrawn.
She didn’t speak. At all. And when I tried to get her assessed, that woman hit the roof. ”
“If you know how bad her family is, why do you let her see them?”
“I didn’t know,” Ollie defended.
“But, did you ever ask her, Ollie?” Lottie asked quietly. “I didn’t know about Vicky’s other family, and that they were… problematic. But I’ve known something was wrong.”
“We’re getting off-topic here,” Ollie said through gritted teeth. “I want to know what the fuck is going to be done about this bloke who assaulted my sister.”
“We’re not off-topic, you prick!” I shouted because quite frankly, I’d had enough.
“She’s been emotionally and physically abused by her family since she was a child, and you lot have done your very best to bloody well ignore it.
This is just the latest in a long line of shit that’s happened to her, which you haven’t bothered yourself with.
I punched that bloke in the face, and the police have hopefully arrested him by now, if that bitch’s phone call to Margot is anything to go by.
There’s not much more we can do about him.
And you’re not all barging in here and upsetting Vicky.
She’s mine today. I want to watch shit about hedgehogs and de-cluttering programmes with her on telly, make her poached eggs on toast exactly the way she likes them, and then show her how to weld. So you can all bugger off.”
“You’ll show me how to weld?” Vicky’s voice sounded from behind me, and I closed my eyes slowly as I moved back from the door. She was standing a few paces back, totally swamped in my flannel shirt with the pyjama bottoms dragging along the ground.
“Hey, Vics,” Ollie said softly.
She gave him a small wave but made no move to go to him.
“Darling, I—” Margot said, but then her face crumpled, and she started openly crying.
Vicky moved then, squeezing past me at the door to go to Margot’s side. After a moment’s hesitation, she patted Margot on the arm awkwardly. “Er… Margot,” she said quietly. “Are you quite alright?”
Margot sobbed even louder. “You’re asking me if I’m alright?”
“Yeah,” I grunted. “She tends to do that. Welcome to my world.”
Lottie moved forward to Vicky, paused for a moment for Vicky to give her a small nod, then pulled her in for a tight hug. “I’m so sorry,” Lottie said into Vicky’s hair, her voice sounding a little choked as well.
“How do you know—?” Vicky started to ask after receiving more hugs from Ollie and Margot.
“Your mum, love,” I told her, and she nodded.
“I expect Mum’s very angry. Actually, I’m surprised she hasn’t rung me or?—”
“I blocked her, Vicky,” I told her.
Vicky blinked at me. “You… blocked her?”
“Yes, love.”
“I-I-I don’t understand. She’s my mother. I can’t just?—”
“You’re never to speak to that woman, ever again,” Margot snapped.
Vicky turned back to her with a confused expression on her face.
“But, Margot, you told me I shouldn’t turn my back on my family. That they were the only family I had, and I should accept that.”
“What?” Margot said in a horrified whisper.
Vicky shrugged. “When I was nine, and I didn’t want to go back to Mum, I hid in the cellar.”
“Oh darling.” Margot’s voice was pained now, seeming to anticipate what Vicky was going to say.
“When the staff found me, you were really angry.”
“I was worried about you and?—”
“You told me I had to go back to my real family. That I belonged with them.”
Margot’s eyes were wide. “Oh my God, Vicky,” she breathed. “I…” She broke off and more tears filled her eyes.
I hadn’t even been aware that Lady Margot Harding was capable of this level of emotion.
“Darling, I was very worried, so I got angry, and I didn’t handle it very well. I didn’t mean any of that.”
“I’m not very good at telling the difference,” Vicky said simply. “So I took you at your word.”
“And at my word too,” another voice came from behind Margot, Ollie, and Lottie. Margot moved to the side to reveal Claire standing with Hayley and Florrie. “Sorry, the girls wanted to come and see Vicky,” Claire explained in a tight voice. “They were worried. They could tell something was up.”
Both girls sprinted up the steps of the deck when they spotted Vicky, screeching to a stop in front of her to pause for her nod before they hugged her.
Vicky had already crouched down anticipating this move.
Florrie told her about a family of voles at Buckingham Manor whilst Claire stood frozen, watching Vicky with a pale face.
“Girls,” Margot said gently. “Why don’t you go and look at Mike’s workshop for a minute?”
“Can I use your axe?” Florrie asked me.
This girl never missed an opportunity to bargain.
“No.”
“Can I use your blow torch?”
“Right,” Lottie cut in with an eye roll. “Come on, you two. Clearly, unsupervised workshop access is a bad idea. Let’s go.”
“I’m sorry, Vicky,” Claire said once the kids were out of earshot.
“Sorry for what?” Vicky asked with genuine confusion.
“Sorry for being a bitch to you when you were just a kid. Sorry for carrying all this resentment around. Sorry for not being a better sister.”
“Half-sister,” Vicky corrected, as if it was a reflex.
Claire closed her eyes as if in actual pain. “I started that too, didn’t I?”
“Started what?”
“The half-sister, half-brother thing. I used to correct you. Christ, I’m so sorry, Vicky.
I was pissed off that Dad had an affair; then I was sad that he died and I never made up with him, and then I was jealous of the attention Ollie paid to you.
Then I was angry that you avoided my shitty husband. ”
Vicky shrugged. “Claire, you don’t like me,” she said simply. “That’s okay. You don’t have to apologise for not liking someone. I’m not all that likeable.”
“I do like you.”
Silence met that statement.
Vicky rolled her lips between her teeth as if to stop herself saying anything.
Margot was still crying.
Vicky did the awkward arm pat thing again.
“Listen, I’m not really sure what you’re all apologising for,” Vicky said.
“It’s very kind that you are concerned, but it’s not your fault that I was assaulted.
And, as a child, I was very grateful that I was allowed to spend some time here every summer.
You were always much, much nicer to me than my family was. ”
“Nicer than your emotionally and physically abusive mother and sister?” Ollie said sharply. “I’m not sure that’s much of an endorsement.”
“I’m still grateful that you tolerate me being involved in your family now.”
“Tolerate you?” Ollie sounded horrified. “Vicky, we don’t just tolerate you.”
There was a pause before Vicky spoke again. “Okay.”
It wasn’t agreement, and it was said in that resigned, slightly defeated tone Vicky used when she was retreating from a confrontation that she didn’t understand.
She stepped back toward me, and I pulled her into my side.
When she sagged slightly in my hold, indicating just how exhausted she was, I decided I’d had enough.
“Right, well, you can all fuck off.”
“Mikey!” Florrie shouted from my workshop. “There are minors present!”
“She’s got bat ears when it comes to swearing,” Ollie muttered.
Florrie and Hayley ran around the house to face us all then.
“Can you teach us to weld too today, Mikey?” Hayley said in a small voice, and despite the tension in the air, all eyes went to her.
Hayley was still finding her feet with speech after being silent for so long, and she hardly ever spoke with this large an audience.
“Vicky’s been through a lot, love,” I started to say gently. “I think–”
But Vicky gave me a squeeze and cut me off.
“Of course he can,” she said. “He promised to teach me as well.”
I looked down at her face, and her hopeful eyes looked back up at me. And there you go. This woman who’d been assaulted yesterday, who’d just had an emotionally draining family confrontation, who by all rights should still be in bed—she wanted to learn to weld.
How I had ever thought her a rich, snobby ice princess was totally beyond me.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll teach the three of you.”
That prompted squeals from both the girls and an excited smile from Vicky.
“But the rest of you can bugger off.”