29. I don’t make threats
I don’t make threats
Vicky
I wasn’t sure what I was waiting for.
Sitting in my car for twenty minutes, staring into the middle distance was not productive behaviour. I needed to get up and make myself go into that house.
Cutting off my mother and Rebecca hadn’t been as easy as just blocking their numbers. Okay, so I hadn’t answered the door to them when they came to my house, but the incessant banging wasn’t ideal as I lived in a quiet neighbourhood.
Then there had been the messages left at the reception of my work for me.
I really, really couldn’t have them interfering in my professional life.
All I had was my professional life.
So here I was, sitting in my car outside their house, an entire twenty-one minutes and thirty-two seconds late for the planned meeting.
I’d been promised no Darrell and a de-escalation in their harassment if I met with them today.
I wasn’t too sure whether to believe them or not, but Darrell’s car wasn’t here, and I’d checked all the streets nearby as well.
“It’s safe,” I whispered to myself as I closed my eyes. “You’re safe. You can do this.”
I startled at the loud banging on my window, and my eyes flew open to see Mum frowning at me.
“Are you coming in or what?” she said, taking a step back from the car and crossing her arms over her chest defensively.
I took a deep breath in and let it out slowly before I forced myself to open my car door.
Eat the frog , Margot would say. Get the bad stuff done early, don’t put it off.
As I followed Mum to the house, I kept doing the breathing exercises Abdul had taught me. Abdul would not be happy that I was here today. He wholeheartedly agreed with Mike and the others that I should not have contact with my family.
“I rarely recommend ongoing estrangement, Vicky,” he’d said last week. “But I’ve also rarely come across people as despicable as your mother and sister.”
So no, Abdul wouldn’t think this was a good idea.
And if I was insisting on going, he definitely would want me to take Ollie or Felix or somebody with me.
Prior to the Margot investment revelation, he would have also suggested Mike, but now, he seemed almost as disappointed in Mike as I was.
He even called him a fucking idiot in one of his rare breaks of professionalism.
But, whilst I believed Ollie, Claire and Margot when they insisted that they thought of me as family, I still knew that whatever they said, I needed to be a low-maintenance member of that family.
I’d already created an unacceptable amount of drama this month; I didn’t need to add to it by dragging them more into my mess.
I felt my heart sink as we walked through all the clutter into the kitchen.
“Hey,” Rebecca said in a low voice from her position sitting at the kitchen table with all the dirty cups and plates stacked in front of her.
“Hey,” I said cautiously.
Rebecca was not in her standard designer outfit. In fact, she wasn’t even wearing make-up, and there were dark circles under her eyes. “Where’s your dad?” I asked her.
Mum narrowed her eyes at me. “Gareth’s none of your bloody business,” she snapped. “You’re not Gareth’s daughter.”
I shrugged. That was factually accurate, after all.
“Okay, well what do you want?” I said, keeping my tone neutral.
“Drop the charges against Darrell,” Mum said, her voice rising in anger.
I really wanted to reach up and cover my ears, but I knew they’d call me a freak for doing it.
“I can’t do that,” I told her the truth. “I’ve already made my statements to the police.”
“He was just joking around, Vicky,” Mum said. “Who the hell goes to the police after a simple prank?”
I tilted my head to the side as I stared at Mum. “He hurt me,” I said quietly.
Mum rolled her eyes as Rebecca seemed to sink down further into her chair. I was surprised that she didn’t want to shout at me as well. “You were always too bloody sensitive. Just drop this. It’s your word against his anyway.”
I shook my head. “There were witnesses.”
“One witness,” spat Mum. “And you’re fucking him, so he should be pretty easy to silence.”
“Mum,” Rebecca cut in, standing up from her seat at the kitchen table. “Can you please stop saying––”
“I’m not fucking him,” I said simply, cutting Rebecca off.
“Bored with you already, is he?” sneered Mum. “I knew he was being paid to be with you.” My face drained of colour, and I took a step back.
How could she possibly know that?
My head started spinning, and my throat closed over.
Mum watched with a smug smile on her face, as if reveling in how much she was upsetting me.
“How utterly ridiculous.”
I startled at Margot’s loud, crisp voice, and turned to see her swan into the kitchen, her boots clipping loudly across the tiles.
“Janet, Rebecca, as always, not a pleasure. I see your housekeeping skills haven’t improved over the years.”
Mum’s back snapped straight as she glared across the kitchen.
Rebecca was eyeing Margot warily as Margot drew up by my side.
“Vicky, darling,” Margot said. “What on earth are you doing here with these people?”
“I-I had to?—”
“No, you did not have to . I’m sorry that I ever implied that you should maintain contact with your biological mother.”
“You’ve no bloody right to be here!” Mum shouted. “Get out of my house!”
Margot turned to Mum, drawing herself up to her full height and readjusting her handbag on her shoulder. The temperature in the room seemed to drop a few degrees.
“ Your house?” Margot asked, and I watched with fascination as Mum’s face paled. “This is your house, is it?”
There was a beat of silence. Margot’s icy glare was focused on Mum, who broke first and looked away.
“This house is part of the Buckingham Estate, as is the land surrounding it. It has been part of the Buckingham Estate for over five hundred years. My son owns this house.”
“You fucking aristocrats own this whole bloody country,” snapped Mum, her face reddening with fury.
Margot smiled and nodded her agreement. “I agree. At least seventy-five per cent of it, so yes, the vast majority.” Her voice lowered then, and her smile fell.
“Do you think a family that’s kept hold of a fortune as huge as ours has done so without a certain degree of ruthlessness?
” Her voice dropped again to a low, lethal whisper.
“Do you think a family like that lets people like you fuck with its members? Lets people put their hands on them?”
Mum looked like she was going to throw up. “Are you threatening me?” she asked in a shaky voice.
Margot flashed a smile that was more like a baring of teeth, and Mum flinched.
“Absolutely not. I don’t make threats: I state facts.
You will be out of this house by the end of the month.
You will never speak to Vicky again or attempt any form of contact.
I’ve already spoken to your soon-to-be ex -husband, who was never at peace with this arrangement anyway, and he is in full agreement about finding alternative living arrangements.
Although I expect that his will be separate from yours, given how disgusted he is at your treatment of Vicky, and how angry he is to find out how badly you’ve been physically, emotionally, and financially abusing your daughter for all these years. ”
“Y-y-you can’t do this,” Mum stuttered.
“My family has been doing whatever the hell it wants for over five hundred years. Rest assured, I can and will do this. Rightly or wrongly, I have the support of the courts, the local police, and the judiciary. I have an army of lawyers at my disposal, and a team of very good private investigators who have already dug up enough dirt on you and your daughter to bury you.”
“This isn’t your fight, Margot,” Mum hissed. “She’s not even your daughter. She’s your husband’s bastard —the result of him shagging me when he got bored with you. Why do you care?”
“My husband was an unfeeling shit. You’re a disgusting excuse for a human being. But Vicky is, and always has been, absolutely wonderful. She’s a sister to my children by blood, and I claim her as my daughter by choice.”
“That doesn’t make any sense!” Mum said, her voice rising. “You should hate Vicky. You should?—”
“If you think I should hate your daughter, why did you drop her off when she was six years old at my house?”
“Vicky was a bloody nightmare,” snapped Mum.
“She didn’t seem like a nightmare to me,” Margot returned. “In fact, I think Vicky may have been the lowest maintenance child that I had ever encountered. Why on earth would you bring her to us without warning? Why didn’t you try to look after your own child? What kind of unfeeling monster would––”
“She wouldn’t stop bloody screaming, okay!” Mum shouted, and I took a step back.
“What are you—?” Margot started, but Mum cut her off.
“Your bloody husband told her that she was a mistake, and as soon as he said that, she started screaming, and she wouldn’t stop. She was just screaming, screaming, screaming .”
“What did you do to her?” Margot whispered.
I glanced at Rebecca.
She was looking at Mum, her face now pale.
“What was I supposed to do? She wouldn’t shut up. Dickhead Duke took off, and I was left with this crazy freak. Nothing worked—I shook her, smacked her, but she just carried on screaming. I had to do something.”
“You shook her and smacked her?” Margot’s voice was rising now. “Did it ever occur to you to hug her?”
“ Hug her ? Are you joking? Reward that mental behaviour? No way.” Colour had risen in Mum’s face now, and her hands were balled into fists at her sides. “The neighbours could hear. It was horrendous. I did the only thing I could think of.”
My chest tightened as my throat closed over. It was like I was back there again. The cold walls, the spiders, the terror of being left alone, of not knowing when Mum would come back.
“What did you do?” Margot repeated, almost in a whisper.
“I locked her in the basement,” Mum said through gritted teeth. “And I let her out when she?—”