Chapter 18
Alert LH.
Of course, it could be a coincidence. Lockhart could be visiting Jerry for all sorts of reasons. Kids playing truant, security issues at the school.
But something irks. Something irritates like a hair caught at the back of my throat.
I continue to sit in the café, fiddling with my empty coffee cup and wishing I’d bought some cigarettes at the store yesterday, until I see Lockhart re-emerge.
He isn’t wearing his happy face. He looks annoyed, angry even.
He climbs back into his car, slams the door and pulls off with a petulant tyre squeal.
I watch curiously. And then I rise, remembering to tuck a couple of dollars under my cup for the pleasant young man who served me, and hurry back to my car.
I don’t really intend to follow him, and I have no idea where he lives.
But I find myself turning the car in the same direction.
Downtown peters out behind me. I can’t see Lockhart’s car, but I continue along more streets with more beautiful houses.
As I progress, I notice that the town is beginning to change.
The streets are narrower, with fewer trees, the houses crammed in more tightly.
They’re still nice houses. Just not as nice, or as well kept.
Front yards are sun-scorched. Paintwork peels a little around windows.
If there is such a thing in Serenity, this is the wrong side of town.
There’s no other traffic around, and I pull up at a street corner.
I look around. I’m at the corner of Pleasant Lane and Gladness Row.
Something itches at the back of my mind.
Gladness Row. The street name is familiar.
And then I remember. The young mum in the park yesterday.
Hailey. She said they lived on the corner of Gladness Row.
Curiosity gets the better of me, and I turn down the street. Obviously, Lockhart had warned me off, but that’s exactly why I want to know more. Maybe he isn’t as trustworthy as he likes to make out. Or maybe I just hate snobbery.
The street is quiet, no one about in the heat. I reach the end, park and climb out of the car. If you’d asked me to point out where Hailey and her son lived, I think I would have guessed at this house. Sometimes, you can just tell.
It isn’t exactly in a bad state of repair.
It just looks ‘lived in’. It’s a narrow, detached house with a small, screened porch.
In one window upstairs I can see stickers on the glass – snowflakes and snowmen mingling with witches and bats.
Early for this year or left over from last. The front yard is more mud than grass and decorated with two deflated footballs, a busted tennis racquet and an old trike, so rusty and embedded in the earth that it appears more organic than metal.
A beaten-up jeep is parked on the driveway.
A sticker in the back reads, Keep your distance. Sleep-deprived mom on board.
I smile. I guess something about the place strikes a chord with me, far more than all the perfect houses with their gleaming paintwork and manicured lawns.
I’ve never really felt comfortable with perfection.
I prefer things with battered edges, dents and chips.
I like a little disorder, a little character.
Perfection is intimidating. It’s cold, unforgiving.
Perfection eyes you up and down and sneers – You think you’re good enough?
Whereas flaws, they welcome you in – Come and join us, we’re not so bad, right?
I’m still standing there, staring, which is stupid, I realize.
I have no intention of walking up to the front door.
Despite what Hailey said about ‘stopping by’, calling on someone unannounced just isn’t very British.
So, I’m about to be on my merry way when a voice says: ‘If you stand there much longer, you’re gonna take root. ’
I turn. Hailey stands behind me. Her hair is pulled back into a loose ponytail, and she’s dressed in another long, hippy-style dress and dirty flip-flops.
She’s pushing a pushchair with her son, Brandon, sprawled inside, fast asleep, dressed in the same yellow T-shirt and blue shorts, feet bare.
The pushchair is too small, or maybe he’s too big for it, and his feet brush the floor. Hailey notices me looking.
‘He’s way too old for pushchairs but my jeep’s bust and he gets cranky if we walk too far, so—’ She shrugs. ‘Stops him mithering.’
I smile. ‘My daughter used to do the opposite. She hated the pushchair. Screamed blue murder every time I tried to strap her into it. Used to take us hours to get anywhere because she insisted on walking.’
Hailey laughs. ‘That’s girls. Independent, wanting to stand on their own two feet, while boys, they’re always happy if a woman will do the work for them, right?’
‘Well, maybe not all boys,’ I say.
She regards me with a half-smile, as if assessing me. ‘Maybe.’
Brandon stirs slightly in the pushchair and yawns.
‘I should get him settled down for a proper nap.’ She starts to walk up the driveway. For a moment I think it’s a little rude, and then she stops and looks back. ‘Well, are you coming or are you gonna stand there all day crisping in the sun?’
Inside, the house is warm and dark. Most of the blinds are pulled. To keep out the sun, I guess, but it creates a slightly claustrophobic feel. Not helped by the fact that the aircon doesn’t seem to be working very well.
A set of stairs rises in front of me. To my right, through a half-open door, I can hear the low chatter of the TV and see what looks like a den with shabby stuffed sofas.
So, Hailey and Brandon don’t live here alone.
Maybe they live with her parents? Hailey leads me past the den, down the hall, into a brighter kitchen-diner.
Battered work units are semi-fitted along one side and a large pine table takes up a lot of the space.
Sliding glass doors lead out to the yard.
Pretty much every work surface is cluttered with pots and pans, magazines, stacks of Tupperware and boxes and tins.
The table is covered in the familiar detritus of a young child.
Lego, crayons, toy cars, half-scribbled pictures and unidentifiable malformed Play-Doh creations.
Time passes so quickly. It feels like yesterday that our table was just like this.
Hailey unbuckles Brandon from the pushchair and scoops him up into her arms. ‘I’m just gonna put him down for a bit. He’s a nightmare if he doesn’t get his afternoon nap.’
‘I know the feeling,’ I say.
‘Open the doors if you like,’ she says. ‘It draws a bit of breeze through. We can sit outside, under the shade.’
‘Won’t it stop the aircon working?’
She laughs. ‘Oh, our aircon isn’t on. We don’t waste the cash unless the mercury busts a hundred.’
‘Right.’
That explains why the house feels so stuffy. I wander over to the glass doors. They’re smeared with dirty fingerprints and traces of food. I twist the key and yank them open.
The yard is big, even at this end of town. I step outside. A sagging canopy overhead provides a little shade. A couple of chairs, a plastic table and a rusty barbecue have been arranged underneath.
Like the front, the lawn here is more dirt than grass and strewn with children’s toys.
A mini trampoline, skittles, a few balls of varying sizes.
A basketball net hangs on one wall. In the middle of the garden there’s a large rectangular space covered in wire mesh.
I take a few steps forward, curious. It takes me a moment to work out that it’s a swimming pool, drained of water.
‘So, you want some lemonade?’ Hailey calls from inside.
‘Yeah, that would be great,’ I say.
Moments later she steps outside carrying a tray with two glasses of cloudy lemonade and a plate piled with cookies.
‘Lemonade is home-made. Cookies are out of a packet.’
She sets the drinks and cookies down and we take a plastic chair each. I take a sip of the lemonade. It’s ice-cold, zingy and delicious.
‘Wow. This is fantastic.’
‘Well, least I can do for the man who tried to save my son’s life.’ She winks, and I flush.
‘Well, trying to rescue a hat isn’t quite so heroic.’
‘But I appreciate it just the same.’
I nod in acquiescence. ‘Then you’re welcome.’
We both sip our lemonade for a moment.
‘I guess you think I’m a terrible mother,’ Hailey says.
I stare at her. ‘What? No!’
‘Letting my son wander off near a lake.’
‘I know how quickly they can get away from you.’
‘Yeah.’ Her face clouds, and then she smiles again. ‘I guess in Serenity we get a little complacent. I mean, he has the bracelet—’
‘Kids wear the bracelets?’
‘Yeah, they get them when they start pre-school. Just so you can track them and they don’t get lost.’
‘Right.’
I guess it makes sense, but it also seems a little over-reaching.
‘How old did you say your daughter was?’ Hailey asks.
‘Sadie? She’s fifteen now, almost sixteen.’
‘Man, I’m sorry.’
I chuckle. ‘Yeah, teenage years. But mostly she’s a good kid.’
I can’t help thinking that Hailey can’t be that much older herself.
‘How’s she finding Serenity?’ she asks.
I make a so-so movement with my hand. ‘Jury’s out.’
‘I guess you guys didn’t have the best start.’
‘You heard?’
‘Oh, the whole town heard.’
‘Right.’ Again, I feel that inkling of discomfort. ‘Well, it was a shock – and tragic, obviously.’
‘I’m surprised you didn’t think about catching the first flight back to the UK.’
‘Oh, I thought about it.’
‘But?’
‘We can’t.’ I hesitate, and then decide I might as well be honest. ‘I lost my job. We were struggling financially. So, when we heard about the inheritance—’
‘You thought you’d won the lottery?’
‘Something like that.’
‘But then they hit you with the no-sell clause, right?’
‘Yeah. So’ – I spread my arms – ‘here we are.’
She nods. ‘Trapped by circumstance. I get that.’
‘You do?’