Chapter Two
‘Oh-kay,’ he conceded.
Diane watched them leave, the big man and his lame ducks, leaving behind them only silence and space.
She fetched herself another drink and settled down in contemplation of her world gone mad. Two years, Harold said he’d known Gareth. Two years . Had Gareth’s behaviour changed in that period, had he been more than usually secretive? Done anything that should have alerted her to the fact that for two days of each week he was not at work, but . . .
. . . where? Almost any other man who was leading a double life would have a mistress tucked away. But Gareth’s secret, it seemed, was a nice family.
She was word perfect on the story of Gareth’s childhood and how Wendy had brought him up any way she could. In the sixties, the benefit system hadn’t been what it was now. Unmarried mothers had found it hard to scrape by and, like many others, Wendy had drifted into a relationship, trading sex and housekeeping for a man to put his roof over her family’s head. Or surviving on jobs that paid peanuts.
So why hadn’t she made Harold cough up for Gareth’s keep?
* * *
Diane’s eyes grew gritty as the wee hours stilled the antiseptic corridors. James returned with weary tread, a wraith-like Tamzin drifting beside him, just in time to be allowed in to see Valerie.
And Diane’s vigil was rewarded when she was shown in to see her poorly, battered, but stable husband. ‘Just ten minutes tonight, please.’ The nurse consulted Gareth’s chart, pen in hand. ‘He’s just about conscious but we’d like him to rest.’
‘I understand,’ breathed Diane, staring down at the bed.
Gareth’s face was grotesquely swollen. Diane had difficulty recognising this purpling balloon-head as her husband. Every feature was puffed, distorted and discoloured beneath his incongruously normal thatch of iron-grey hair. His jaw was swollen shut, there was an enormous egg at the left side of his forehead and that, and the eye socket beneath, were flooded a dark angry red. He looked as if an elephant had pirouetted on his head.
But he was evidently sensible enough to recognise her and, un-Gareth-like, groggily search out her hand with his chilly fingers. His other hand, the right, was encased in plaster and plastic troughs.
The distortion of his features seemed appropriate, somehow, as everything Diane thought she’d known about this elusive, self-contained man had warped, too. He was inclined to guard what was his and she’d always known he wasn’t good at sharing. But finding his natural father two years ago and keeping it a secret . . .
She glanced at her reflection in the huge window. Her hair hung long in its neat plait, her clothes were, admittedly, self-made, but then that was her job . What was he so ashamed of?
It might’ve relieved her feelings to round on him with ferocious questions but she kept her anger to herself. Habit. Long habit. She never roused Gareth’s temper unnecessarily. She liked to have her challenge all worked out in her mind before she incurred his house-shaking rage or punishing silence. And she had been punished plenty, in recent years.
‘So,’ she observed. ‘You survived.’
‘Uh.’
She took the grunt for assent. ‘The doctors say you’ll recover.’
‘Uh.’
‘I expect you’re woozy.’
‘Uh.’ He closed his eyes. His breathing deepened.
Sliding her hand from his, she turned to the scarred locker beside the bed and opened the drawer. Beside a handful of change lay his wallet, black and soft with use. She’d bought it several years ago at John Lewis’s one drizzly, dank December morning, ￡24.99, as a Christmas gift. He’d said one from the market would’ve done just as well, ￡4.99 or even less, but she’d argued that this would last longer.
She’d never had it in her hands since the day she gave it to him; they respected one another’s private space so far as things like wallets were concerned. Gareth was particular that way. But now, defiantly, she flipped open the snap. Her purse was housing mainly moths and she’d need money to get home.
Cards in the card sleeves, including one Bryony had sent with her contact details in Brazil. Lonely in the note slots, a twenty-pound note and a five.
She fingered the leather thoughtfully. Its substance suggested further paperwork in there somewhere. Her fingertips found the smooth oval tag of the zip to the inner compartment and she ran it gently along the top edge, ZZZzzz .
The inner compartment was full of twenties.
She almost dropped the wallet in shock. Heart picking up, fingers stiff and trembling, she counted. Twenty. Twenty twenties ! She stared at the lightly mauve notes, unable to remember the last time she’d held twenty twenties. A fortune. She’d almost exhausted the housekeeping for the week and there might be all kinds of incidental expenses for her to meet while Gareth was in hospital. And why should Gareth squirrel away dosh, when things were squeaky tight at home?
Slowly, she slipped out two notes and dropped the wallet back in the drawer.
Twenty twenties. Eighteen twenties, now.
After a moment, she picked up the wallet again and extracted another three twenties. Then five more. That was fair. Halvies.
She jumped to see that Gareth’s eyes had opened. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow.’ Her voice emerged matter-of-factly, as if she were the type of wife who routinely rooted through her husband’s personal possessions.
Gareth said, ‘Uh,’ again, moving his head and then sucking in his breath in pain. She could almost hear the protests he was too ill to make.
She licked her lips. ‘You’d better sleep.’ The unfamiliar substance of two hundred pounds clutched in her hand, she crossed the room slowly, waiting for objections and reprimands to bound after her like maddened cats. But Gareth said nothing. Two hundred pounds. The notes felt soft and thick, coated with the prints of all the fingers they’d passed through, fingers perhaps more used to holding a wedge of notes than hers were. Two. Hundred. Pounds. She’d never suspected robbing her husband would be so empowering. Fun, in fact.
The door shushed as she opened it and clunked softly closed behind her. She let out her breath.
In the corridor, James was pacing, glancing at his watch. Lines of fatigued grooved his face. ‘I thought you must still be here. I waited to run you home.’
She rubbed her temples, her mind still on the blast of Gareth’s outrage that had never come. ‘But I live way out in the country.’ Her eyes went to Tamzin, who was propped against the wall, eyes huge with weariness.
‘Purtenon St. Paul. I know it.’ He pressed a flat chrome button and the lift doors opened.
She didn’t want him to take her home, didn’t want to have to be grateful, to satisfy his obviously over-developed protective streak by needing his help. Proudly, she flourished the stack of twenties. ‘Don’t worry, I just raided Gareth’s wallet for taxi fare.’
James stepped back to allow her into the lift, Tamzin drifting in beside her. The doors breezed shut and they stood in the small space for a few silent seconds until the doors opened again in the foyer where a cleaning crew were buffing the floor. Through the main doors, the night they stepped into was cool and fresh. And damn! The taxi rank was empty. Diane tutted. She’d been looking forward to putting some of her ill-gotten gains to frivolous use.
Gareth so disliked frivolity.
She turned back. ‘I’ll ask at reception for the number of a cab company.’
James groaned, rubbing a square hand over his hair. ‘Please, Diane. It’s nearly morning and you’ve had a shock and I can relax if I know you’ve made it home. Let’s not bicker about it. Just get in the fu — in the car.’
Diane glared up at James. His gaze met hers. She hesitated. He looked really tired yet — judging by the obstinate set of his mouth — was apparently unwilling to abandon her, a woman he’d never met until tonight — a fairly awkward and ungrateful woman he’d never met until tonight. She found herself looking at his mouth, as she examined the thought and wondered what she had to prove by refusing his kind offer.
‘Give in,’ Tamzin advised. ‘It’s easier in the long run.’
* * *
Tamzin didn’t like riding in the back of the car but insisting that Diane sit in the front beside her father was the sort of courtesy her parents had drummed into their kids.
The sky was just thinking about turning silver and pearly. She could sit in the middle of the back seat and watch it, occasionally letting her gaze slide over to the still figure of Diane Jenner.
Uncle Gareth’s wife! How strange was that? For two years they’d referred to her as ‘Mrs Rochester’, the unbalanced wife that Uncle Gareth hid away and cared for so heroically.
Diane was well unusual, with a gaze to read your soul and an impressive ability to resist doing anything she didn’t wish to do. She certainly wasn’t suffering from any nervous, emotional or phobic difficulty so far as Tamzin could see. And Tamzin would know, because of Her Condition.
So, either Diane had made a mega recovery . . . or Uncle Gareth had been telling porkies.
Mega recoveries were rare. So. Uncle Gareth hadn’t wanted them to meet his wife. That was totally pants.
Natalia and Alice would be as mad as hell to have missed this skeleton rattling out of its closet tonight, and their father taking ages to catch on that the facts about Diane Jenner weren’t facts at all. But James had asked Tamzin’s sisters to stay at home. Valerie wasn’t in danger, Nat was working shifts and Ally was in the middle of accountancy exams. Tamzin, as usual, hadn’t been given an option; James had just said, ‘Come on, Tamz.’ Because of Her Condition he wouldn’t leave her home alone when anything bad happened — not that she’d wanted to be left at home. She’d wanted to see her mum. And now she had, so broken and bruised. Her dad would be watching her like a hawk for days, if not weeks.
Nat and Ally were lucky; strong and confident and well-adjusted, with healthy lives full of healthy problems like annoying boyfriends, impossible bosses and killer hangovers. She loved Nat and Ally. She wished she was Nat or Ally.
Depression was a bastard.
She yawned. She hadn’t got up till lunchtime but she longed to retreat to her cool sheets. On bad nights she would only lie and stare at the ceiling, but still she loved the cocoon comfort of her bed. Bed. Her heart lurched to remember Valerie strung up like a fly in a web in that hospital bed. It was so crap that Valerie had been hurt. Really hurt. Tamzin felt a familiar hollowness in her chest. It would be ages before Mum was home. Could Tamzin hack undiluted James for so long? Her father got so stressed about her getting better it made her feel guilty that she couldn’t.
Valerie placed less importance than James on things like washing and dressing. Possibly, she didn’t always notice whether Tamzin had. That was cool. Less pressure.
Yet, the baby of the family, Tamzin’s childhood memories included perching proudly on her mother’s lap at parties in her Laura Ashley dresses and white knee socks while Nat and Ally, less malleable and less pretty, careered around with sashes untied and lace ripped. Valerie loved parties, having always been beautiful and vivacious so that men made idiots of themselves over her, which made her dead snappy with Dad, sometimes, because he refused to be made angry by them.
Tamzin had a special connection to her mother — they closed their eyes to each other’s problems. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand as the car purred through the dawn and wondered how her mother would take to Diane Jenner. Uncle Gareth had been a lovely new audience for Valerie’s toys, the big stone house, the Alloy Blue TVR Tuscan 2 Targa, the 4-wheel-drive Lexus, the flying.
But Diane didn’t look the type to be easily impressed.
‘Where’s your place?’ James asked Diane, politely.
Diane stirred and stretched in the dark grey light. ‘A couple of miles. Drop me by the village green, if you like. I can walk down the lane.’
James glanced across at her. ‘At night?’
‘It’s getting light.’
He made a performance of peering out. There was no colour yet in the fields or hedges and the streetlights were still alight as they neared the village. Tamzin could have told Diane that she was wasting her breath. James wouldn’t drop Diane anywhere but safely at her front door. ‘Just tell me where to find your house,’ he said.
Shrugging, Diane sent him down a main road between brick houses topped with tile, turning left just before a huddle of new properties advertised as ‘executive residences’. Nowhere near as big as our house, Tamzin thought. Over a small bridge, they crossed a dyke where the water looked like weak tea without milk in the first of the sun’s rays and ran down a lane between a string of redbrick houses with hedges. The flatness of the surrounding fields was typical of the wide expanses of the Fens where most of the scenery was sky and the pylons marched like robots.
The Mercedes rolled along quietly. James glanced at Diane. ‘Bit bloody lonely down here. Do you often walk it alone?’
One of Diane’s shoulders lifted. ‘I have to get from A to B.’
Tamzin couldn’t decide whether Diane was hostile or amused at James’s concern. Concern was kind of a habit, with him.
They pulled up outside one of the redbrick semi-detached houses and Diane opened the car door. ‘Sorry to have put you to so much trouble at the end of a long night.’
Tamzin climbed out, too, intending to move into the front seat. The first streak of pink had appeared overhead and she hunched her shoulders against a chill morning breeze.
‘I’ll see you in,’ said James.
Diane halted, her long plait settling over one shoulder. ‘See me in?’ She examined the thirty yards between the car and her house. The corners of her mouth twitched. ‘Oh. OK. Um, thanks.’
Tamzin grinned as her father, scowling at being humoured so obviously, trailed Diane up the concrete path to what probably used to be a council house. The front garden was long and the shrubs they brushed past were silvery with dew and spider webs. Something squelched under Tamzin’s shoe. ‘Gross,’ she muttered.
Diane led them to a side door that opened into the kitchen. In the light of a bulb shaded by taut white cotton, they all blinked. ‘As you can see,’ observed Diane, gravely, ‘quite safe. It’s very good of you to worry, of course.’
‘Right.’ James turned for the door.
But Tamzin couldn’t stop gazing at her surroundings. This kitchen was out of a museum! White Formica worktop, chipped and scarred, white tiles, greying grout, a freestanding electric cooker crouched on quarry tiles, more Formica on the units on the wall. It would have been straight out of the 1970s, except for the fresh pink emulsion with a stencilled grapevine arcing above the washing machine.
Well old! And tiny compared to their house, with the gables of six bedrooms studding the red-tiled roof and four cars parked in the garage at the end of the drive.
Her mouth was quicker to react than her sluggish brain. ‘Whoa! Does Uncle Gareth live here ?’
Diane halted, that disconcerting gaze homing in on Tamzin in a way that made Tamzin want to suck the words back out of the air. Seconds passed in silence. Without removing her gaze, Diane reached down thick, yellow mugs from behind a glass sliding door of a wall cupboard. Her voice had taken on a note of steel. ‘I can’t let you go without something to keep you awake on the drive home.’ She filled the kettle, plugged it in, and scraped out two kitchen chairs. ‘Please — sit.’
‘We ought to get going.’ James turned for the door.
‘A cup of tea first,’ Diane contradicted firmly. ‘And a chat. That would be . . . helpful. Please.’
Tamzin watched her father hesitate, pinned by blue eyes. There was something about Diane, something good and valiant. And difficult to resist. Tamzin suspected that if Diane didn’t get what she wanted now, she’d lie in wait for them at the hospital. She sighed aloud and dropped into a chair. Slowly, her father joined her, frowning like a goblin.
Diane made tea in a pot, with tea leaves and a strainer.
Then she folded her arms on the kitchen table, pushing aside a bundle of blue fabric, a tattered blue pincushion and a pot of sequins. ‘Why are you so astonished that we live in this house, Tamzin?’ She glanced around the kitchen. ‘It’s modest but it’s a perfectly respectable house, bought and paid for.’
Picking up the yellow mug, although the tea was hot, Tamzin protested, feebly. ‘I’m not astonished.’
Diane’s voice softened as she poured her own tea, brewed Guinness-dark. ‘Tamzin, I’ve had a bad day.’
‘Tamzin’s very tired,’ James cut in, in his in charge voice.
Diane twinkled at Tamzin. ‘Are you too tired to answer, Tamz?’
Tamzin sighed and dropped her gaze to Diane’s top. It reminded her of a clear sea on a summer day, the glitter of the sun on embroidered waves suggested by a spangling of golden beads and — now she looked more closely — fleets of tiny silver buckles. Cool.
She ventured. ‘I suppose I thought Uncle Gareth would live somewhere different.’
‘Different? Bigger, smaller, prettier, uglier, upmarket, downmarket?’
‘Upmarket,’ Tamzin selected miserably, unwillingly, aware that she was toiling deeper into hideous poo and wishing James had been content to drop Diane at her gate.
‘Upmarket.’ Diane mused. Her hair caught the light as she nodded. Tamzin fixed her gaze on it. Such a strange colour; properly pale blonde. Moonlight. Star shine. Pearl. Unexpectedly beautiful. ‘Why would you expect Gareth to own a house that was “upmarket”?’
James tried again with the authoritative voice. ‘This isn’t our business.’
‘That’s a get out.’ Diane stretched absently, putting her hands behind her head and making her shoulder bones crack, the fabric of the loose satiny top tightening against her body.
Tamzin was horrified to catch James all too obviously blinking his gaze back up to Diane’s face.
Diane dropping her arms. Suddenly.
And James blushing as hot and red as a chilli.
Oh gross! Tamzin felt the sting of mortified tears. Her father had looked with that lips-parted expression men reserve for breasts — and let Diane catch him. And they were looking at each other and then not looking, glances flitting around the room like birds with no perches, before their gazes tangled once more.
‘Because of the money,’ Tamzin blurted, to deflect attention from James’s cringeworthy behaviour.
Diane’s gaze flicked back to Tamzin. ‘Money?’
‘Pops gave him money.’ Tamzin’s voice shook.
Diane’s body flexed and quivered as if silently absorbing a blow. Her eyes grew enormous. ‘Gareth would never accept charity. He wouldn’t claim low-income benefit, even, when our daughter was younger.’
Decisively, James jumped to his feet. ‘Then obviously we’re mistaken.’
Diane continued speaking to Tamzin, as if they were old friends, her eyes intent, yet vulnerable. ‘Do you know how much?’
Tamzin hesitated. ‘I don’t know a figure.’
‘Roughly? Please?’
Anxious tears were building and building. And if she cried, Diane would feel sorry for her, might slide her arms around her and stroke her hair. She might like Diane to stroke her hair. But she wouldn’t like Diane to feel sorry for her. She swallowed hard. ‘Quite a bit, I think. Plus the cottage.’
Diane flinched. Dawn was bursting through the kitchen window now, lighting up Diane’s hair pink-apricot. Her skin was soft and clear, the lines fine at the corners of her eyes. Valerie’s grooves were deeper, but then Valerie wasn’t exactly a health freak and the puckers around her lips told of all the cigarettes she’d smoked, no matter how much stuff she had injected. Diane’s face was young but her hands were old; rough and red and work-worn where Valerie’s were soft and manicured—
‘What cottage?’ Diane’s voice was a whisper.
James answered this time, his voice deep and gentle. ‘On the outskirts of Whittlesey.’ He hesitated. ‘Harold’s owned it for years. Apparently he once bought it for Gareth’s mother.’
Diane’s eyes emptied. There was a long silence. Slowly, she touched Tamzin’s hand. ‘Thanks. I won’t keep you if you want to get off to bed now.’ A tear welled and skittered down her cheek. She batted it away with the back of her hand, lurching to her feet and turning blindly.
Tamzin scraped back her chair, seeing a danger with sudden appalling clarity. ‘Careful!’
But James was already there, snatching at Diane before her hand made contact with the chrome kettle. As if it was one shock too many, Diane piped out a sound between a laugh and a sob. And, without either of them seeming to do more than sway, James’s comforting arms were around Diane and Diane’s head was on his shoulder, and James was pushing her plait out of the way so that he could pat her back, murmuring that he was sorry that she’d had so many bolts from the blue and Diane hiccupping that it was hardly his fault.
Tamzin returned slowly to her chair. Her father was well weird, the way he seemed to be able to care for just about everybody in the world.