Chapter 31 Ash
Ash
NOW
Ash thinks it unlikely Margo will be coming home from hospital this evening, so Olly and Iris decide to stay the night at Ash’s place.
They stop at Crooked Oak Cottage on the way to pick up Cheddar.
Ash has some meals in the freezer they can choose from – he often batch-cooks and freezes half.
They’ll eat in front of the television. He never suggests sitting up to the table for meals when his kids come round, although they don’t tell Carla that.
Ash knows that TV dinners are a rare occasion at Crooked Oak Cottage, even at weekends, and never when Dandruff is home.
Ash does have a table in the kitchen, somewhere, under stacks of clutter and post and laundry that he never seems to get round to tidying away or filing or ironing.
The house in Shallowcott has never seemed as much like home to him as Crooked Oak Cottage once did.
It’s called Mayflower Farm, although Ash has no idea why.
If it was ever a farm, it wasn’t for livestock, dairy or crops – it only has a small garden, no land as such.
And although the Pilgrims set sail from Devon, it was from Plymouth, a good eighty miles away.
Unless the ‘mayflower’ bit refers to plants that blossom in the spring, but Ash has never managed to grow anything other than weeds in the garden, in May or in any other month of the year.
He was going to rechristen the place, call it something ordinary like The Lodge or The Barn or The Vicarage, but none of the names he could come up with suited the place any better than Mayflower Farm.
Roly gave Ash’s house the moniker ‘the Mayflower’, which Ash thinks makes it sound like a pub, but it has stuck.
It feels more like a home when his kids are here, and he hopes they feel at home. Olly and Iris each have their own bedroom, although there’s no en-suite bathroom or view over Exmoor, as there is in the cottage at Holtleigh. There’s only one bathroom, but there are two loos.
The place needs a woman’s touch, really, although Ash wouldn’t dare say that out loud in case it’s sexist. He has had a few relationships since Carla – well, OK, numerous flings since Carla; it’s been a long time, after all, and he’s not a monk – but there has been no one he has been tempted to move in with, at his house in Shallowcott or anywhere else.
Not that he would ever move too far away from his kids.
He’s not a commitment-phobe. He’s just hard to please and rather stuck in his ways.
He likes having his own place; he doesn’t mind his own company.
He glances at the kids now. The girls – Iris and Liv, who came round to join them – insisted on watching Strictly Come Dancing on BBC iPlayer and Olly only put up a cursory protest. They all want Chris and Dianne to win.
Ash is no Strictly fan, but he’s astounded at what Chris has achieved and the example he’s setting for everyone, disabled and able-bodied people alike.
Margo loves this show, too, apparently. She usually watches it with Carla and Iris.
His mind strays to Margo, Carla and Dandruff.
He hopes Margo will be all right. He hopes Dandruff and Carla will be all right, too.
Maybe what has happened to Margo will bring them closer together again.
He wants Carla to be happy, even if it’s with Dandruff.
Ash can tell Iris is thinking about Margo, too.
She’s sitting in the armchair, her legs curled up under her, but her shoulders are tense and she bites her lower lip from time to time.
Olly, who is sandwiched on the sofa between him and Liv, seems to be making an effort, perhaps for Liv’s sake, but his sighs punctuate Ash’s own thoughts.
He has no idea what’s wrong with Margo. Iris says she had a headache, she was so tired she couldn’t stand up by herself and she couldn’t remember what had happened. Ash is no doctor, but it sounds as if Margo was drunk. Or drugged.
And how does Yvonne factor into the equation?
That woman wasn’t telling him everything, Ash would bet on it.
He strokes his chin pensively. Ten to one what she was keeping from him had something to do with her bloody sons.
Jordan and Jasper. He can’t help thinking they’re cut from the same cloth as Josh was.
And Yvonne is protecting them, just as she protected Josh.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ash sees Olly place his hand on Liv’s knee.
Liv flinches and Olly removes his hand. That surprises Ash.
The two of them were very touchy-feely before, practically glued to one another.
Now they’re back together, they seem to be far less tactile.
Then Liv takes Olly’s hand and Ash wonders if he was just imagining an awkwardness.
They’re all a bit tense this evening. But then it occurs to him that he hasn’t heard Liv laugh since she’s been back in his son’s life.
She had such an infectious laugh. He remembers her cracking up whenever she tried to recount an amusing anecdote, so that everyone ended up laughing not at the punchline, but because Olivia herself was laughing.
He vaguely recalls Carla saying Liv had changed.
He hadn’t attached much importance to her remark at the time.
But Carla’s right. Carla’s always right, Ash.
His phone pings with a text. It’s Carla to say they’re keeping Margo in overnight for observation and until they get the results of her blood and urine tests.
Just as he’d thought. Carla’s going to stay with her and sleep on the chair next to her bed.
Ash can’t see Carla getting much sleep. He texts back to say Olly, Iris and Cheddar are staying with him at Mayflower Farm.
When the show’s over, Olivia gets ready to leave. She has come in her own car, so Ash doesn’t have to run her home. Iris helps Ash clear up the dinner things while Olly accompanies Liv outside to see her off.
‘What’s the matter with Liv?’ Ash probes.
Iris, who is loading glasses into the dishwasher, looks at him sharply. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, she’s so serious. And quiet. She was joyful and full of life before. Is she OK?’
Iris doesn’t answer straightaway. ‘No,’ she says at length. ‘She’s not OK.’
‘What’s wrong with her?’ Ash asks. ‘Is she ill?’
‘No.’
Christ, it’s like pulling teeth. ‘Well, what is it, then?’
‘It’s not my story to tell, Dad,’ Iris says.
She closes the dishwasher and heads upstairs to her room.
It’s none of Ash’s business, but his curiosity is piqued.
And he’s a bit worried. So, when he finds himself alone with Olly, both of them side by side on the sofa in the sitting room in front of the TV again, he tries to sound out his son instead.
‘Is everything all right with Liv?’ he asks. ‘She seems a bit … sad? Is everything OK between the two of you?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘She just doesn’t seem … herself,’ Ash says.
‘No, she’s not.’ Olly hesitates, perhaps unsure whether to confide in Ash or not. ‘She was … assaulted,’ he finally says.
‘What do you mean, “assaulted”? Physically? Did someone hit her? Was she mugged?’
‘No, nothing like that. Not physically, no.’
Not physically. So, she was either assaulted verbally or sexually. He remembers Liv flinching when Olly touched her leg earlier. Oh, God. ‘Olly, was Liv sexually assaulted?’
‘I don’t know if she would want me to tell you. Or Mum.’
‘I won’t say anything, Olly,’ Ash promises. He doesn’t need to say he’ll tell Carla. That’s a given. The kids know he and Carla tell each other pretty much everything. ‘Is there something I can do? Do her parents know?’
‘No, there’s nothing you can do. Fuck, there’s nothing even I can do.’ Ash doesn’t scold him for his language, although he has never heard Olly swear like that before. He notices tears well up in Olly’s eyes. ‘And, yes, her parents know.’
‘Will she prosecute? Has she prosecuted?’
‘No. There’s no point.’ Ash doesn’t push this. Iris didn’t want to prosecute Josh and he gets that. It was too much for her to go through the first time. She couldn’t have gone through it again. He imagines it’s similar for Liv. ‘Who was it? Was it someone she knew?’
Olly shrugs. ‘Just some guy at a party.’
Ash gets the feeling he’s only being given part of the story.
Something doesn’t quite add up. What isn’t he seeing?
Olly opens his mouth, presumably to say something, but instead a sob escapes.
Ash pulls Olly towards him and wraps his arms around him.
Olly is an adult, almost as tall as he is and certainly as muscular.
An image appears, a memory sputtering to life.
Olly, tears coursing silently down his cheeks, as he sat on the bathroom floor at Crooked Oak Cottage, leaning against the radiator with his arm around Iris.
Was that the last time he saw his son cry?
It’s a bad memory, a terrifying one, and Ash banishes it from his mind.
Olly pushes Ash away and seems to pull himself together. His face is wet and his nose is running. Ash digs a tissue out of his pocket – he has no idea if it’s clean, but it will have to do – and hands it to Olly, who won’t meet his eye.
‘If there’s anything I can do, Olly, anything at all, please tell me.’
Olly nods into his chest. ‘You’ve done enough,’ he says.
Ash doesn’t know what his son means by that. Does Olly mean Ash’s prying has made him cry? But it didn’t sound sarcastic. Ash lets it go. ‘Do you want something to drink?’ Ash asks. ‘A cup of tea? A beer?’
‘Yeah, a beer would be good, Dad. Thanks.’
Ash fetches two bottles of lager and a bottle opener.
Olly selects an action film on Netflix and they watch it together.
But Ash can’t follow the plot. He can’t concentrate on the film at all.
He thinks of Liv and he thinks of Iris. And he thinks of Olly, who had to deal first with the fallout of what Iris went through and who is now doing his best to help Liv get back on her feet.
When he and Carla moved to North Devon, it was partly for a fresh start, but it was also because they wanted to bring up Olly and Iris somewhere safe.
It seemed idyllic when the kids were small – the countryside, fresh air, not far from the ocean.
They live out in the sticks, away from the big dangers of the city, but trouble has found them here.
Ash can’t help thinking that he hasn’t done a great job of keeping his family safe.