Chapter 25
In the end, we waited until the children were in bed before discussing anything.
I instructed Lacey to sort herself out, then took the kids to a carvery for an early tea.
At least then they’d get some proper meat and vegetables.
All I’d found at home was chocolate cereal, tinned spaghetti and frozen pizzas.
If it wasn’t for free school meals, they’d have scurvy.
Bronte pulled me to one side once we’d eaten. ‘I’m going to Zendon’s, if you want my bed.’
‘Okay.’ I hadn’t even considered where I’d sleep tonight.
‘I’m staying there until you leave. Not because I don’t love you,’ she added quickly.
‘I just need some space, you know? I need to be in a place that isn’t constant chaos and drama.
Noise and stuff getting broken or lost or running out.
Somewhere… boring. Where worrying about what’s for tea means what can I be bothered to cook, not is there anything to cook and does the cooker even work today. ’
I gave her a hug. ‘Trust me, you know I get it. I am so, so sorry that your home is not the safe, secure place it should be. But we’re fixing that, I promise.’
‘I know you are.’ She sniffed. ‘You’re the fixer, right?’
After Zendon had picked Bronte up, I found a soft-play centre that opened until seven and gave everyone an hour to let loose. Literally, in Harley’s case when he pulled down his trousers and weed in the ball pit.
Once I’d cleaned him up and apologised profusely, even as we were politely ordered to leave, I managed to pull Lennon to one side while the younger two were distracted pressing random buttons on an arcade game machine and asked him about getting to and from school.
‘I walk by myself. Mum or Grandad take Harley. Kaylynn only goes in the afternoons, so I don’t know who takes her. I don’t mind picking them up sometimes, unless Harley keeps running away or Kaylynn is crying. It’s mostly all right though. Other mums usually help me.’
I called the others back over, ignoring the glare from the manager as I bundled them out of the door, a breezy smile masking how Lennon’s words had lodged like splinters into my heart.
Over our roast chicken, the conversation had been all about school and Christmas, what songs they were singing for the nativity and how Lennon had needed to go to the ‘chill-zone’ at lunchtime because he was ‘getting fizzy’.
On the short drive home and while the younger two enjoyed a long bath, Lennon seemed relieved to chat to me about how his mum spent some days cleaning and sorting and, from what I could decipher from his eleven-year-old description, beyond frantic.
He explained how that made her really tired so she had to sleep a lot, too.
I read Lennon and Harley a story while Lacey tucked in an exhausted Kaylynn, and then I cornered my sister at the top of the stairs.
‘Where are we doing this?’
Her eyes darted towards the living room.
‘Costa at the retail park is open until late, but I don’t want to leave them.’ Her gaze shifted upwards. ‘We could use the lair, put it to good use for once.’
‘The lair’ turned out to be the two single bedrooms in the loft conversion. One of them was still rammed with cardboard boxes I had no desire to learn the contents of. The other was filled with four e-scooters that were clearly from some local council rental scheme.
We opted for the first room, where at least potentially stolen goods weren’t in plain sight. Moving a few boxes to the side, we sat on the sheet Lacey had brought up to avoid the filthy lino. She’d also fetched two glasses and a bottle of wine.
‘Seriously?’ I asked.
‘Chill out. It’s another win from the Christmas fair. This is better than necking it on my own.’
‘Has Mum finally stopped drinking?’
She nodded, unscrewing the cap and pouring out two glasses. ‘Only because it kept making her puke.’
‘It’ll be interesting to see how she copes with Christmas, then.’
‘Interesting? That’s one word for it.’
‘She looks worse.’
‘That’s because she is worse. I did tell you.’
‘Is she cooperating with the doctors?’
‘I can’t remember the last time she even saw a doctor.’ Lacey took a sip. ‘She’ll end up in hospital soon enough and then we’ll find out what the score is.’
I didn’t press her about why Lacey hadn’t tried harder to get Mum help. I knew full well how pointless that would be.
‘So, what about you?’
Lacey downed her glass, sighed, stared at the ceiling for a few seconds, then did something I couldn’t remember seeing her do since the day we moved into the caravan. My sister cried.
For the first few tears, she wrestled with it, gritting her teeth and shaking her head, but then the dam broke in a cascade of sobs and snot as she fell against my shoulder.
My goodness. What was happening to the steely Nixon girls?
‘Was it to do with Dad?’ I asked eventually, handing Lacey the last of my tissues.
She shook her head. ‘I got myself into debt. You know how it is. Well, you used to. I don’t know where Mum and Dad’s benefits go and what I get doesn’t begin to cover everything the kids need, on top of bills and everything else.
I was already at my limit and then Lennon threw Zendon’s brand-new iPhone in Crandon Lake.
I didn’t have a spare eight quid, let alone eight hundred. ’
‘What did you do?’
I already knew where this was heading. If it wasn’t Dad, it had to be back to the person who’d offered a way out before.
‘I went to Tad.’
‘I’d have guessed that if he’s not dead or in prison, he’s running the show by now.
’ Bronte’s father would be in his early fifties.
Once upon a time, he’d taken Bronte to the park every few months, but the relationship had never developed into anything more than obligation.
As soon as Bronte found out more about him, and why her mum kept him at a distance, she made the decision herself to break off contact, reasoning that if he chose dealing drugs over his daughter, he wasn’t worth knowing.
‘I didn’t ask for details, but a lot of people call him “boss”.’ She blew her nose and dropped the tissue on the rest of the pile. ‘He lives out near Kirby Muxloe in this huge mansion with grounds that go on forever. My ex-boyfriend owns a herd of deer.’
‘Don’t you dare think for one second you made the wrong choice in walking away.’
‘I don’t, but I did think I had every right to ask for the child support he refused to pay after Bronte stopped seeing him.’
‘I never knew he stopped giving you anything.’
‘He said disowning him included his money. Really, he was mad at me for letting her choose. Not because he cared about her. It was pride, that’s all.
Now two females had rejected Tad Butcher.
Of course it was my fault for poisoning her against him.
’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘I told him at the time he was spot on. What kind of mother wouldn’t say whatever it took to convince their daughter not to be involved with her drug-dealing, violent, psychopathic dad?
In this case, what it took was merely the truth.
But I’d have lied through my teeth if I had to. ’
‘Why didn’t you challenge it?’
‘It was around the time I moved in with Scott. Breaking off all contact seemed like the safest decision, and I could manage without his help. Then.’
‘How did he take you coming to ask now?’
Lacey didn’t describe what it was like, going to a mansion to visit the man who’d groomed her as a teenager and ask him for money.
She didn’t have to. I could see it in the shadows behind her eyes, the way she huddled her shoulders and pulled her knees into her chest as if trying to protect herself from him even now.
‘He didn’t make me beg or grovel, like I was expecting.
He listened to my speech, pretended not to notice my entire body quaking like a dog on bonfire night and casually offered me twenty thousand pounds, to be paid in instalments.
’ She paused, steeling herself to reveal the catch.
‘If I did a couple of small jobs for him.’
‘Oh, Lacey.’
My big, tough sister wept silent tears this time.
‘I did a few deliveries. But you can imagine how it worked. He’d give me a bit more money, then say I had to do one more.
“This is virtually next door to you, it’s no problem, is it, sweetheart?
You can drop it off on the way home.” Until it was a problem, when I got arrested, and then charged with possession with intent to supply. ’
‘When did this all happen?’
‘Back in the spring.’
‘Where were you arrested?’
She shook her head. ‘Please don’t ask me the details. The whole thing… I think I might have PTSD.’
I offered my hand, but she ignored it, pouring us both more wine instead.
‘Did you tell the police everything?’
‘Well, given that my children haven’t had any limbs hacked off or their eyes gouged out, clearly not.’
I opened my mouth to protest, but she held up a finger.
‘Don’t. You don’t know him. You don’t know this world. You don’t have children. I am protecting them the best way I can, and nothing you or anyone else can say will change that.’
‘Even if it means prison?’
She closed her eyes, rocking slightly as her face turned grey. ‘I can’t even think about being found guilty.’
‘Lacey, you have to face this. I’ll be hoping and praying you get off, too. But given you are guilty, we need to talk about what to do if the worst happens.’
She sat for a moment, chin wobbling.
‘Do you know what the worst part is?’
My heart cracked in two at the desolation in her voice.
‘That my incredible, rich and famous sister, the one who got away, who got the career, the house, the freedom, the brains, success – everything – now gets my kids, too. I’d rather lose them because I’m in prison than face them being taken into care simply because social services have decided you’re a better mum than me, alongside everything else. ’
Neither of us could speak for a long time.