An Autumn Crush (29 page)

‘She wouldn’t have gone, love. If you couldn’t make her, no one could.’

‘Please don’t come to the funeral with me tomorrow,’ whispered Steve. ‘I’ve told Guy I just want to say goodbye to her by myself.’

‘I bloody am coming,’ said Juliet. ‘As if I’d let you go through that on your own.’

‘It’ll be miserable.’

‘It’s a funeral. I’m not expecting clowns.’

An unexpected well of laughter bubbled up inside Steve and he gave up the fight. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘You don’t have to thank me,’ tutted Juliet, kissing his stubbly cheek.

‘You’ve given me hope,’ said Steve tenderly. ‘You’re giving me everything I wanted in life. I just wish Guy could be as lucky.’

Juliet nodded into his shoulder. If only her brother – and lovely Floz – could find what she and Steve had with someone too, she really would be the happiest woman in the world.

After the funeral Steve drove around to his mother’s house. He didn’t want to go in, he just wanted to look at it for one last time. He didn’t know why
– only that it felt right now to show Juliet what he’d come from, what he’d escaped from and where she and their baby would never end up. As he parked his car, he could barely
believe his eyes at the sight of Sarah’s fence smashed in, bike tyre-grooves over her lawn. Her hanging baskets had been ripped off and upturned and Sarah was sweeping up the soil, pausing to
wipe tears away with the heel of her hand.

‘What the bloody hell?’ said Steve, leaping out of the car.

‘Oh hello, Steve. Did it go all right, love? I’m sorry I couldn’t make it. I daren’t leave the house in case
they
came back.’

Steve didn’t answer the question, but rather posed one of his own. ‘In case who came back, Sarah? What happened to you?’

Then young Dennis appeared in the background with a swollen bottom lip and a closed black eye.

‘Is this down to Artie Paget’s lad again?’

Strong, quiet Sarah looked broken as her shoulders dropped.

‘Right,’ Steve said with a grim intake of breath.

Juliet was just getting out of the car.

‘Stay in, love,’ said Steve through gritted teeth, marching back to the driver’s side.

‘Whatever you’re thinking, don’t do owt,’ begged Sarah.

‘I’m sorting it. Don’t you worry. Once and for all, this ends today,’ said Steve. He remembered the address Sarah had given him last time he was here. Anyway, it would
have been easy to spot where Artie Paget lived. His house had a massive satellite dish perched on the wall and a vintage Jag parked outside it. And through the front window Steve could see the
biggest TV in the world in the lounge.

‘Juliet, don’t get out of the car, sweetheart. Promise me you’ll just sit there. Remember you’re carrying a bairn,’ Steve said. And for once, Juliet Miller did as
she was told.

Steve hammered on Artie Paget’s door with his mighty fist. And he hammered again when there was no answer, though he knew someone was in the house.

A cocky little kid with longish hair, and trainers that cost more than the entire contents of Steve’s mum’s house, came to the door. He looked about ten years old in stature, but had
the hard eyes of a street-wise adult.

‘All right, all right,’ he said. ‘Who are you?’

‘You must be Tommy,’ said Steve, keeping a tight rein on his anger – for now.

‘Who wants to know?’

‘I want to talk to your dad.’

‘What for?’

‘Never mind what for, just ask him if he’ll please get out here now.’

A couple of neighbours had appeared on doorsteps and a few curtains were twitching as Steve watched Tommy Paget move slowly back into the house and shut the door calmly behind him. Steve
wasn’t in his most patient mood and when Artie Paget didn’t materialize straight away, his mallet fist and the door met again, even harder this time.

Steve was just about to hammer on the door again when it opened and there, with his tan, banana-blond dyed hair and gold front teeth stood the wide and nasty Artie Paget. Steve knew his
reputation as a big hard man because he lifted a few weights at the gym, smoked a fat cigar and swaggered around wearing a Crombie. Steve also knew that he was a joke to the real gangsters to whom
he aspired. Artie Paget: father of the little scrote who no doubt had a lucrative sideline supplying poison to Christine Feast. Artie Paget: ringleader of the gang at school who had led the cheers
of ‘Scruffy Steve’.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ snarled Artie.

‘I’m here about your lad, Tommy,’ said Steve, dispensing with formal introductions. ‘He’s upsetting some friends of mine with his “boyish
antics”.’

‘Well, if it isn’t Scruffy Steve.’ Artie’s lips stretched into an unpleasant smile before withering back to a puckered moue. ‘Fuck off,’ he sneered and
attempted to close the door, not expecting that the door would be kicked back open.

‘Like I said, it’s about your Tommy.’

Tommy stood behind his dad, arms folded, head at a bolshie angle and an assured smirk playing on his boy-handsome face.

‘Fucking hell – Scruffy Steve trying to tell me what to do. How fucking funny is that? How’s your piss-head mum these days? Has she learned how to turn on a fucking bath tap
yet?’ laughed Artie, as a tasty flood of childhood memories rushed back at him.

‘You’d better tell your lad to lay off bullying kids at school and smashing property which isn’t his,’ said Steve, his jaw tightening at the mention of his mother. But he
kept the lid on his anger, for Sarah’s sake.

‘Or what? You going to kick his ass,
Scruffy
?’ mocked Artie.

‘Nope, I’m going to kick yours,’ said Steve, casually inspecting his fingernails.

Artie Paget, aware that there were a lot of eyes on him, gave a cocksure little chuckle, put his hand in his trouser pocket and made to go back inside. Then, without warning, he twisted round
and aimed his fist at Steve’s nose. His hand was dressed with a vicious line of brass knuckles that would have smashed Steve’s nose flat to his face had it made contact. But Steve had
done a lot of boxing training in his time, as well as wrestling, and he could ‘move like a butterfly’ along with the best of them.

As Artie Paget fell forward, Steve’s own fist came from below in an expertly executed uppercut. That punch had years of hurt and longing, frustration, pain and tears in it. They could hear
Artie’s jawbone crack in Wakefield.

Artie Paget lay on the floor, whimpering like a kid. He couldn’t come back from a punch like that, nor did he want to because he knew there would have been a lot more to come. Steve
hadn’t even skipped a breath.

‘You . . . bastard!’ was all he managed, trying to claw back some dignity and with a series of snarling noises, but also not wanting to give Steve any more reason to hit him again.
Blood oozed through his fingers.

‘And, do you know what, Paget, every time your Tommy even looks at Denny or his mam’s house, I’ll come back and bray you. Have you got that? Has it sunk in to your tiny brain?
Because what I’m telling you is really simple. Sort your lad out, or I’ll sort
you
out. And I’ll keep on doing it until he stops.’

Artie gave a reticent nod.

‘Is that a yes?’ pressed Steve.

‘I said yes, all right,’ growled Artie, spitting blood as he answered.

‘Good,’ said Steve, and smoothed down his black suit. ‘Thank you.’

From the smattering of applause he got from a few neighbouring houses, he reckoned that Artie Paget wasn’t the most popular man on the estate. Steve pulled open the car door, threw himself
in and clunked in the seat belt, all the time aware that Juliet was looking intensely at him.

‘What?’ he demanded.

‘You’re not all mouth at all, are you?’ she said, totally flabbergasted. ‘You really can handle yourself.’

‘Of course I can handle myself, woman. I’m a bloody wrestler.’

‘But I thought it was all fake fighting. I thought you were all softies really.’

‘Well, you thought wrong then, didn’t you?’ huffed Steve.

He was one big ball of testosterone in a very smart black suit and he was going to use it to drive straight to the council Housing Offices right now and not leave them until someone made him a
promise that Sarah and Denny would be shifted out of Ketherwood before autumn was out. Santa would be coming early for them this year.

When Floz got the mail from Chas she was confused. She was sure from past conversations she’d had with Nick that his birthday was ‘in the
fall’. She recalled him sharing memories of a birthday in some beautiful gardens. She still had it tagged on to her bookmarks – Butchart Gardens in Victoria. It was about three hundred
miles and a two-hour ferry trip from where he lived as a child. He said he hadn’t been allowed to chase squirrels, pick flowers or play in the dirt. ‘Not a paradise for a six-year-old
expecting a cake and a party.’ She knew he had said that. And so she was almost certain that his birthday was in early October.

Was it likely that Chas had got it wrong? Not very, if they had been best friends from childhood. She Googled Nick Vermeer, his death date, his birth date and Mount Robson, but could find no
mention of him at all. There was neither an online obituary, which she might have expected, nor an RIP page set up on Facebook for him by friends and family, or his ex-military buddies. She knew,
by profession, he was a prominent engineer on oil rigs which might have brought up an entry – but nothing. There was not one word on the whole worldwide web about a man called Nick
Vermeer.

When the proposal came it was not at the top of the Eiffel Tower as Juliet had long fantasized about, but in the chip shop down the road, the day after Mrs Feast’s
funeral.

Juliet had suggested she and Steve walk into town and go to the pictures. She knew he loved the cinema and thought it might cheer him up. After the film they called in at a nearby pub for a
couple of drinks – lemonade in Juliet’s case, a couple of double vodkas for Steve. They walked back too because it was a lovely crisp evening with a sky full of stars. Dried brown
leaves were scuttling across the road, impatiently not waiting for the green man to signal that it was safe to do so. Opposite to the chip shop was a playing area, and some kids – out too
late – were throwing sticks up at the chestnut trees there, trying to knock the conkers down. Steve’s arm came around Juliet and she savoured the feeling. They decided to call in at Cod
Almighty, which was just around the corner from Blackberry Court.

‘Fish and chips twice, two cartons of peas and two teacakes,’ said Juliet, who was properly hungry for the first time in ages.

Steve inhaled and his stomach groaned appreciatively. He hadn’t eaten properly in days either, and so the vodkas he’d had in the pub had gone to his head, making him feel a bit
spaced. That’s when he knew he’d had enough.

He looked at Juliet and could hardly believe she was his. What a formidable force she was, even at school. His whole insides warmed up when he thought of her. God, she turned him on something
rotten. His stamina with her was better than with others in his twenties. And when the sexual part had been satisfied, the cuddling up and falling asleep bit was just as wonderful. And the waking
up and seeing her smile light up when he brought her a cup of tea. And the splashing about in the bath together, despite it being a bit of a squash – his legs wrapped around her, nuzzling
into her neck. Talking to her, laughing with her, verbally sparring with her, physically sparring with her. He grinned and felt the time was right to say the words.

‘Juliet Miller, will you marry me?’

At the same time, the shop assistant asked, ‘Do you want salt and vinegar on these?’

Juliet froze, in fact everything seemed to freeze. Apart from Steve swaying slightly from the effect of the vodkas, the chip shop looked like a still-life. All that was missing was a bunch of
grapes and a vase in the background. She was in such shock that she gave him the answer meant for the gob-smacked chip lady.

‘Er . . . no thanks,’ she said.

‘All right then,’ said Steve.

‘I meant to the salt and vinegar. What did you say just then, Steve?’ said Juliet. Had she really just heard what she thought she had? She felt a bit woozy.

‘I said, “Will you marry me?”

‘Oh,’ said Juliet. ‘I thought you did.’

‘Well?’ He stumbled against the counter.

‘How about asking me in the morning when you’re sober?’ said Juliet, gasping. It was too big a question to ask when she knew his head wasn’t totally clear.

‘Okay,’ he said.

Steve paid for the take-out and they walked home in silence.

The rest of the evening was a strange blur. Neither of them mentioned the proposal again, though Juliet’s head was playing it on a continuous loop. Neither of them could eat much of their
fish and chips in the flat. Neither of them could talk much sense either. It was as if they were strangers on a first date. Steve even mentioned the weather at one point. When they went to bed,
they kissed each other goodnight and both stared ahead into the dark, wondering what the morning would bring, not realizing the other was doing the same.

When Juliet awoke, Steve had been awake for almost an hour, lying there, his arm around her head on the pillow. She opened her eyes, instantly remembered the proposal and
gulped hard.

‘Morning,’ she yawned, not daring to look at him. Her nerves were already in shreds.

‘Morning,’ he answered.

To say the silence that ensued was a bit awkward was akin to saying the sun was a bit hot. Both of them lying on their backs, staring at the lightbulb, hearts racing like whippets chasing a
hare.