Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
L evi
“I’m sorry, we have no vacancies at the moment,” Darla says, her voice tight. “No, there is nothing else in the village, but you can try the Royal Oak in Blackwood Heath.” She puts down the phone and blows out a breath. “That’s the third one this morning.”
My stomach sinks. I know she’d have a spare room if I wasn’t occupying it. She does charge me, but it’s not nearly as much as it would be if she had proper paying guests. I stop checking the bar fridges and straighten up.
“Do you want me to find somewhere else to stay?” I ask tentatively. I’m not sure I know where I’d go, though. I don’t want to move out of the village, but rented accommodation is difficult to find, and pricey. There are the cottages across the village green that Old Pete rents out as holiday lets or longer term contracts, but I’ve already enquired and there’s no way I can afford them, not on my barman’s wages. I’ve been very lucky that Darla has let me stay as long as she has. Admittedly, I have the smallest of the guest rooms, but it’s still decent and she could be making more money from it than she gets from me.
“That’s not what I meant,” she says, giving me a pained expression. Even if she didn’t say it, I know that’s what’s in her mind. She closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. “I feel terrible profiting from someone else’s tragedy.”
“People will be people. They’ll flock to the site of an exciting event. You’re just providing a service, so don’t feel bad about it. It’s not as if you’re leading tours of the farm or advertising yourself as the closest accommodation to the incident, is it?”
She sighs a laugh. “I suppose not, but it still doesn’t feel right.”
“What about your business comes first?” I feed her back her own words, the ones she used on me last night.
“Alright, alright,” she says, holding up her hands in supplication. “I’ll be mercenary about it.”
“Good,” I say with a grin, and she gives me a brief smile in return. “It’s true, though, I should look for another place.” I hate saying it, even contemplating it, and the way Darla’s shoulders slump I can see she doesn’t want to ask me to move out.
“I don’t want to lose you, Levi,” she says. “And if I have to take a loss on the room to keep you working here, then so be it.”
I can hear the unspoken but , and I don’t resent her for it. She does need to run a business, and if she can’t, then there’ll be no job for me anyway. Since I got out of prison, I’ve drifted. Nowhere felt like home, and I moved around a lot, mostly to stay one step ahead of trouble catching up with me. I was determined never to be in a position where I’d fall into old habits that could land me back inside. I never want to go back there again. My skin crawls at the thought. I never expected Larchdown to be any different, but it is somehow. I can’t say I’ve made many friends—Darla probably being the closest—but neither am I having to look over my shoulder all the time. I’m sure as hell not going to give it up easily. Darla gave me a chance that few people would, and I’ll be forever grateful to her. Not hindering her business would be a good way of thanking her.
“I understand it would be better if you had another free room,” I say, and I catch the gratitude in her eyes that she really didn’t have to come out and say it. I never thought she could be that soft. “But can you help me find somewhere?” I ask, figuring that if you don’t ask, you don’t get. “I can’t afford any of Pete’s places.”
“I think I can help. Leave it with me,” she says, smiling as if I’ve just given her a challenge she’ll enjoy.
“And maybe some more shifts,” I say, returning to what I was doing, showing her I’m a good worker and also aware the pub opens in a few minutes.
“You already work a lot of hours,” she protests.
“Says the lady who works seven days a week,” I retort, and she laughs. I work five long shifts a week, but I could work more. It’s not like I have friends, a social life, or any place else to go. Work keeps me busy and I enjoy it, and I’m gonna need the money if I’m going to be paying more in rent. Plus, I’d like to save up for some sort of future, maybe a bar of my own one day. Then, like Darla, I’ll work every day, so it doesn’t bother me at all.
“I’ll think about it,” is her only answer, as she walks away to unlock the heavy oak door and open up for business.
“I might have a solution for you,” Darla says as she returns from running some errands.
“Already?” I don’t know if I’m pleased that this might happen so quickly or disappointed that she seems in a hurry to get rid of me. We’d only discussed moving out a few hours ago. We’re in the mid-afternoon lull now, after the lunchtime drinkers and before we open the kitchen and people start arriving to eat. Darla had only been out for an hour, so I must have been the errand she’d had to run. We each take an hour’s break in the lull, and I am just about to start mine.
Darla gives me a shrug and I eye roll her. I did ask her for help, so I can’t refuse now.
“Okay, let’s hear it.” Curiosity is getting the better of me.
“One of our village residents is looking for a lodger. The rent would be reasonable and she’s a great cook,” she says enthusiastically, but I can tell there’s something she’s not telling me.
“Who is it?”
She gives me a sly grin.
“Marina West.”
“West!” I exclaim. “As in Mac West?”
“Yep.” She pops the p, thoroughly enjoying this. “Marina’s his mum.”
I snort a laugh—this is fucking priceless. It’s also pretty perverse, the thought of me staying with Mac’s mum. Then reality kicks in, and her son being a cop might make it awkward for me. Not everyone is comfortable with an ex-con in their house, and the son might have something to say on the matter.
“Does she . . . erm . . . know about me?” I grimace and Darla’s face softens.
“She does. I also told her that I’d gladly give you a character reference, but I think just my word is enough.”
Wow, the power of a small town and a close-knit community. In the city I’d probably have to produce several references and three months of bank statements to even be considered. I’m not used to anyone doing anything to help me, and a tightness constricts my chest. It’s a strange sensation and for a moment I’m speechless.
“Th-Thank you,” I eventually stammer, gratefully.
“You’re welcome. Now, you have just enough time to go and see her before the end of your break,” Darla says looking at her watch. Her easy manner brings me back to earth, and I’m glad she breezes past my awkwardness.
“You really are trying to get rid of me,” I say jokingly, but then another more awful thought springs to my mind. “Is this because of yesterday?”
She huffs a little laugh. “No, but I did think that because it’s your day off tomorrow and you wanted an extra shift, you could have the shift cleaning your room.”
I don’t quite believe her when she says it’s not to do with what happened with Mac, but I’m going to go along with it. What choice do I have?
“You’re a tough woman, Darla,” I say, putting down the cloth I was wiping the bar with. “Now, tell me where you’re kicking me out to.”
I pull my hoodie on to cover my tattoos—well, most of them. I don’t want to scare Mrs West, and my ink can be intimidating, as it’s meant to be, but I want to make a good impression. I head out, and a few minutes later I’m walking up the path of a stone cottage that’s very much like the rest of the houses in the village. Maybe not as old and quaint as the ones in the centre, closer to the village green, but it’s larger than those and has a tiled roof rather than thatch. A riot of flowers of all different colours is blooming in the small front garden. It looks a lot wilder than the very neat ones of the other houses, but I like it, it’s beautifully chaotic.
I rap sharply on the green front door, waiting nervously for it to be answered, don’t fuck this up, don’t fuck this up running through my head. I’m so caught up in my mantra that I almost blurt it out loud when the door is answered with a, “Hello, you must be Levi.”
Whatever I was expecting Mac’s mum to be like, it wasn’t the sight in front of me. For a start, she doesn’t seem old enough. Mac must be in his late thirties, so surely his mum must be in her sixties, but this woman looks barely out of her forties. Well, she could be a little older, but she wears it very well. She’s tall, and extremely attractive—which considering Mac is fucking gorgeous is par for the course. She’s dressed in a long skirt and a loose floral blouse, with a knitted headband of a matching colour holding her long straight hair back from her face.
“Mrs West?” I ask tentatively, because if I’m honest, I’m not sure I have the right house. This lady looks like she might have stepped out of a seventies music video for some hippy band.
“Please, call me Marina,” she says, stepping back to allow me to enter. “Also, I’m not a Mrs.” She gives me a small smile. No Mr West, eh. No father? That’s interesting, and I file that bit of information away.
“Now, come on in and tell me all the bits about yourself that Darla hasn’t told me.”
I follow her though to a kitchen that’s as bright and colourful as she is. She flicks the switch on the kettle. “Tea or coffee?”
“Um, coffee please,” I say and take a deep breath. Don’t fuck this up . “Well, I’m not sure what Darla’s told you, but I want you to know that I’m not going to cause any trouble.
She stops taking mugs from a cabinet above the kettle and looks over her shoulder at me. “What a curious thing to say. Why would you cause trouble?”
“Well I won’t, but Darla told you I’d been inside, didn’t she? And I’m not that sort of person any more.”
She doesn’t respond except to ask me how I take my coffee. She places the mug on the table, pushes a tin of biscuits towards me, and asks me to sit. When she’s taken a swig of coffee, she slowly puts her mug down as if she’s ready to speak.
“Can I ask you what you did?” she asks.
“I stole a car.” I shrug.
“Oh, that doesn’t seem too bad. Why?”
“The guy deserved it.” I’m not going to tell her exactly why.
She chuckles. “Well, as long as you’re not a murderer, or an abuser, I think we’ll get along alright.”
Feeling relieved, I take one of the biscuits.
“Wow, these are good,” I say around the buttery goodness, and she looks pleased. She asks a few more questions, nothing I can’t answer honestly, though I gloss very lightly over her questions about my family. All she needs to know is that I don’t have any; it’s close enough to the truth.
After we’ve finished our coffees and I’ve eaten several more biscuits—they’re seriously good; Darla was truthful about her cooking—she shows me the room for rent.
“It’s my boy’s old room. Not that he’s needed it for a long time, of course,” she says. “He grew up and moved away a long time ago.”
“This is Mac’s room?”
“It was. Do you know him?” she asks innocently.
Kissed him, hit him, hate him, want him.
I decide to keep it simple.
“I’ve met him,” I reply, and that seems to satisfy her as she doesn’t ask anything further.
I stand in Mac’s old bedroom and look around. I can’t see anything that would identify it as his, but I guess it must be at least twenty years. It’s comfortable and will suit me well enough. On the bed is a colourful knitted blanket, and each square has a different pattern.
“Did you make this?” I ask, and her face lights up.
“I love to knit, so I’ve made a few of these.”
“I like it.” That seems to meet with her approval.
We agree on the terms of the rent, and she doesn’t seem to mind if I move in the next day—not that I have much to move. I don’t own much, mostly clothes and a few books. My only other possession is my battered old car.
I just have one more question.
“Will it make it awkward, me being here and your Mac being a cop?” I ask.
“It wouldn’t bother him... not that he comes to see me any more,” she says sadly, and I feel a flash of anger on her behalf. What kind of dick doesn’t see his own mum? I’d give anything to see mine again, not that I have any idea where she is. But it’s just another reason to dislike him, and I’m glad I won’t be seeing him here.