Free-Falling (4 page)

‘Mum, have you got a minute?'

‘What is it, dear?'

‘Umm, I've got something to tell you.'

‘All right, so spit it out then. What is it? What have you done?'

‘Mum, I haven't done anything. Actually . . . it's, umm, it's something I'd like to do. Can you stop ironing for a second and pay attention? This is sort of important.'

‘Have you bought the ring yet or can I help you choose something tasteful?'

She headed back into Noni-B, painfully aware of Marge's slack jaw and wide-eyed gaze following her as she went.
Oh dear,
did I perhaps take that a bit too far?
But Evelyn was immediately distracted from her guilt by the sight of the same mother with her two daughters from earlier, still in the shop. One daughter was sobbing, in a rather unattractive and uncontrollable way, while the other threw her sister filthy glares. The mother looked livid as she tried to convince the two shop assistants that alerting security had simply been unnecessary and they should really call them again and tell them not to bother coming as this was all a terrible mistake. Her daughter
really
didn't mean to leave that top on under her jacket.

Well! What were the chances? They had been just as much to blame for setting off the security alarm. The distraction allowed Evelyn to duck into the change room, pop her old clothes back on (still in a heap on the floor), retrieve her wallet and then head out to the counter to actually buy the silly suit this time. The shop assistant who took care of Evelyn's purchase managed to ignore her completely throughout the entire transaction, instead keeping one eager eye on the mother–daughter drama while still managing to glance narcissistically at herself in the mirror at regular intervals.

The centre's security staff turned up as the suit was being tucked into a shopping bag. The mother immediately launched
into her explanation while the other, more competent, shop assistant snapped at security for taking so long. The hysterically sobbing daughter starting wailing about how her sister had made her do it and at once the mother dropped her polite demeanour and rounded on the two of them.

‘Angela, how many times do I have to tell you not to lead your sister astray? Monique, stop blubbering – you do not have to do everything Angela tells you to do. She might be your twin sister but, for God's sake, I'm your bloody mother – how about the two of you try doing what I tell you for a change!'

Evelyn had been listening politely, rather enjoying the show, until she heard the word
twin
. She felt a sudden stab of pain deep in her stomach and a ridiculous pang of longing to be that mother, with nothing to deal with but a couple of teenagers who were simply being teenagers.

I've lost my son.

Grief rushed up from inside and seemed to swallow her whole. She fled from the shop, straight into the nearest bathroom, which thankfully was empty. She allowed herself five minutes of tears. Five minutes of longing and anger and desperate begging for this to all be a cruel and terrible trick that someone was playing on her.

This isn't bloody happening. It's not right and it's not fair and it really can't be happening. Not to me. Not now. Not ever.

But it really was. And crying about it in a shopping centre bathroom wasn't going to change things. So she dabbed at her mascara, squared her shoulders, took a deep breath and headed out of the bathroom and out of that damn mall.

‘Hello, this is Evelyn speaking . . . Really not a good time, Belinda. Perhaps you could call back tomorrow? Or possibly next week, yes, next week would be best . . . Of course I will. Goodbye.'

‘Mum, who was that on the phone?'

‘Just what's-her-name. But don't worry, I let her know it wasn't a good time.'

‘What the hell? Was that Belle on the phone just now?'

‘
Belinda?
Yes, it was.'

‘Okay, Mum, I am trying to get along with you here, I am doing my best – but what the hell? Why didn't you get me?'

‘Because, dear, you are supposed to be studying. I certainly did not put you through university for you to waste your time with silly young girls instead of focusing on your work.'

‘First of all, you didn't
put
me through uni. Ever heard of HECS? And secondly, thanks, Mum, thanks so much.'

‘You're quite welcome, dear.'

‘Thanks for making this so much easier on me. I'm moving out. As soon as bloody possible.'

She drove away from the shopping centre and began to form a plan in her head. Someone was to blame for this and she knew who it bloody well was. Let's see: if he had never met that stupid, airy-fairy Belinda with her annoyingly cutesy, petite face and her spindly, tall legs, then he would never have felt the need to move out. Then Michael Coombes wouldn't have offered him a job at that ridiculous GameTech head office in the city and he would never have been put in that position yesterday afternoon and some other nameless, faceless parent could be grieving instead of her.

Who cares who it was, as long as it was someone other than my son.

So it was perfectly clear now that Belinda was to blame. For goodness sake, the girl was from the
country.
She called herself
Belle
. When Andrew had first met her she had been working behind a bar at the local tavern and since then she had only gone so far as to ‘upgrade' her career to swimming instructor. She worked with snotty-nosed little children and she was studying
sports science
at university – what did that even mean? She was too thin, too tall, too pretty, too
giggly
.

Evelyn should never have let him propose, she should have realised Belinda was nothing but trouble for her son. Yes, she was more James's type. James would never have been trapped by her – far too street-smart. But Andrew, well, Andrew needs someone sweet, quiet, polite. Someone who has at least half a brain.

I mean Andrew
needed
someone like that.

As she drove up her driveway, she wondered if she could somehow explain to everyone in the eulogy that ‘the evil fiancée' was to blame and not the loving mother.

I suppose that would be a little crass. Perhaps it is time I phoned Vi and had her round before I go out stealing anything else. And I guess
she
might want to talk about what has happened to her nephew.

She parked her car in the garage, but had a sudden thought and reversed out onto the driveway again. She accelerated across the lawn, crushing the garden gnome that the twit of a girl had bought her for Mother's Day.

I'm not
your
mother. I'm Andrew's mother, and it should have been
you
lying there on that cold linoleum floor looking so surprised and so small and so pathetic . . . not him. Not my son.

Something twinged at the corners of her memory as the image of her son's last moments flashed through her mind. But she pushed it away and ignored it. This wasn't the time to deal with that; she wasn't seeing properly, too overwhelmed with grief. She must have imagined it.

When she was satisfied that the garden gnome was obliterated, she parked her car in the garage, went inside and phoned her sister immediately. She got her answering machine and left her a message that she thought was both calm and succinct.

‘Hi there, Vi. I was thinking it was about time we had a catch-up and was wondering if you could pop round tonight and possibly pick up a bottle of bourbon on the way. To give you the short version: Andrew is dead (as you know), James has no idea yet, I'm a criminal, and his fiancée Belinda is to blame for the whole thing. Oh, and perhaps you could pick up a pack of “Winnie Blues” – I believe that's the correct terminology – on your way too. I seem to have taken up smoking along with the excessive drinking I've got planned for this evening. Thanks, Vi! Bye.'

Don't you worry, Andrew sweetheart. I'm going to make that Belinda pay for what she's done to you.

Part Two

Falling

Chapter 3

Belinda

death “stages of grief”

Belinda read the words that had been typed into the Google search bar and then frowned at her best friend.

They had just arrived back at her apartment after Andy's funeral. She had tried to convince Stacey that she would be okay on her own, that she was coping fine. Truthfully, though, what she really wanted to do was sit in the middle of the living room floor surrounded by Andy's things, listening to his favourite Jimmy Eat World CD, drinking vodka straight from the bottle and crying – like she had done for the past three nights in a row.

But Stacey had insisted. ‘Look, Belinda, you shouldn't be alone. If Barbara was staying I'd leave you be – maybe – but she's not, so you've got me, okay?'

Barbara was Belinda's fiercely protective mother. She cared deeply for her children and had desperately wanted to be there to comfort her eldest daughter, but Belinda knew that she would be ill-equipped to cope with a tragedy of this magnitude. That sort
of emotional support had simply never been her strong point. So Belinda had generously given her mother an escape, suggesting that she ought to get back to the farm as soon as possible. Once upon a time, the Heartfords' farm had employed several staff who could have kept things running without a problem, but with the recent year's damaging weather, which had brutally alternated between drought and floods, her parents had had to lay off one worker after another, until it was just them and a couple of the longer-serving staff they couldn't bring themselves to let go. It was easy to convince Barbara that she should return home immediately after the wake. While Belinda knew that her mum would have stayed in a heartbeat had she been asked, she was also aware that Barbara would have been terrified at the prospect of doing so. Yet Belinda was still given a crushing hug by her mother before she climbed into the four-wheel drive with the rest of the family.

‘Maybe I could stay,' she'd started to say, one foot hovering back out of the car door.

‘No, no, Mum, you need to help Dad. I'll be okay; Stace says she'll look after me.'

Now, as Belinda looked at Stacey intently tapping away at the laptop, she wondered if she had spoken too soon. She ached to be alone, to wrap herself up in one of Andy's old jumpers and just cry herself to sleep.

‘Umm, what exactly are you doing, Stacey?' she asked as she watched the screen fill up with a cascade of search results. She was astonished by how natural her voice could sound, even though she felt as if thousands of tiny, burning needles were puncturing every inch of her skin.

‘I'm figuring out what's wrong with you,' Stacey responded matter-of-factly.

‘What do you mean, what's wrong with me? We've just been to Andy's funeral – isn't that enough?'

‘Yes, but I'm talking about how you reacted the day after he died.
Everything
you did.' Stacey stared back at her defiantly.

Belinda twisted uncomfortably in her seat. She'd forgotten that when she'd got drunk last night she had called her friend. Whilst sobbing somewhat snottily into the phone, she'd given every last, gritty detail of that awful day.

Stacey looked up from the computer long enough to reach a hand out and give Belinda an awkward pat on the arm – her apparent attempt at comforting the bereaved. The two of them were sitting on the huge wrap-around couch in Belinda's living room. ‘Wrap-around' had been Andy's silly (but kind of cute) way of describing their modular lounge suite. It was one of those terms that nestles its way into your vocabulary, making you use it all the time until you thought it was the normal word for something: ‘Should we eat dinner on the wrap-around tonight?' ‘Nah, we always eat in front of the TV. Let's eat at the table and sit on the wrap-around later for dessert.'

Thinking about it now made Belinda irritated with Andy: he had tricked her into using an incorrect word. When she and Stacey had arrived back at her place that evening, Belinda had had to make a conscious effort to suggest they sit on the ‘
couch
'. The feeling of irritation was followed almost immediately by a thud of guilt. She had just been at his
funeral
and here she was feeling annoyed at him over something so childish and silly. God, what was wrong with her?
I'm sorry, Andy, I didn't mean that, I didn't mean it.

Admittedly, the feeling of irritation with her dead fiancé could have had something to do with the said dead fiancé's evil mother and her performance at the funeral. She let an image of Mrs McGavin creep into her mind, saw her standing up the front
of the church in her smart charcoal suit – the woman looked like she was dressed for some high-powered business lunch. There wasn't a hair out of place and it appeared she'd just had the colour redone: fiery auburn, glinting in the sunlight that filtered in through the church's stained-glass windows. By comparison, Belinda had felt dowdy in her knee-length grey skirt and flat sandals, bits of her own hair stuck to her cheeks with tears. And then there was Belinda's family, doing their best to look formal for the occasion but unable to hide their country roots. Her little brothers holding their hats respectfully to their chests, her sister in a dress for perhaps only the second time in her life, and her mum's hair combed back and plaited in an effort to control her unruly curls. The sight of her dad's boots – normally caked with mud, now carefully shined up for the day – had made Belinda cry almost as much as the sight of Andy's casket.

Then Evelyn had made her speech. And Belinda had felt as though someone had whacked her hard in the stomach. She'd wanted to reach for Andy's hand, but it wasn't there to hold.

Wow, look how close I came to having that bitch of a woman as my mother-in-law. Imagine how bad—
Belinda stopped herself mid-thought as another wave of guilt washed over her.
Excuse me, but did I just feel relief that my fiancé is dead because it saved me from being related to an unpleasant family member? I am seriously not a good person. I'm sorry, Andy, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

She was rescued from her self-torment by Stacey's brisk voice. ‘Look, there was a logical reason you went on a self-destructive rampage the day after Andrew's death and I believe Google can help us to understand why.' She paused to study the search results and then triumphantly clicked on the first link. ‘Aha, here's the info I was after. Now we can begin to understand why you've been behaving like such a raving nutcase.'

‘Jesus Christ, Stacey!' Belinda shook her head at her friend's extraordinary lack of tact. ‘I think we're going to need some drinks,' she added, thankful for the excuse. She headed into the kitchen and straight for the hard stuff. The drinks would help to numb the pain again, would fill that empty feeling that was starting to become all too familiar, and maybe drown out her inner, scolding voice.

Several hours later the two of them were sitting somewhat more comfortably on the couch – lounging back, surrounded by a collection of glasses and several different bottles of spirits. Admittedly, though, most of the empty glasses belonged to Belinda. The alcohol had taken the edge off for her and, wanting to hold herself together in front of no-nonsense Stacey, she was managing to refrain from her usual disintegration into a messy heap on the living room floor.

On the coffee table next to the laptop lay a piece of paper with Stacey's neat handwriting scrawled all over it. Five words had been listed and then furiously circled, underlined and surrounded by arrows pointing to theories and explanations about Belinda's behaviour on the night after Andy's death.

Denial

Anger

Bargaining

Depression

Acceptance

Stacey drained her bourbon and Coke and snatched up the paper. ‘Belinda, I believe I am ready to present you with my professional conclusion, explaining your actions on the night in question,' she said in a mock-formal voice. She cleared her throat and held the piece of paper up in front of her friend ceremoniously. Belinda rolled her eyes, which turned out to be a bad idea
because it made the room spin and the couch sway somewhat dangerously.

Stacey was about to continue with her diagnosis when she was interrupted by a whimpering noise coming from the laundry. She jumped. ‘What the hell was that?'

‘Oh, that's just the puppy,' Belinda said as she wandered (in a slightly diagonal fashion) over to the laundry door and poked her head in to check on him.

‘Hang on, you got the dog back?'

‘Didn't I tell you?' Her voice was full of innocence.

‘No, you neglected to mention that little fact. So how did you end up getting it back again?'

Belinda winced as she remembered the mortifying phone call she'd received the morning after
that
night. It was almost enough to sober her up on the spot.

‘Good morning, is this Ms Belinda Heartford?'

‘Yes, it is. Who's this?'

‘This is Rita from Williams Street Medical Centre. You left your dog here with us last night.'

‘Oh, did I? Umm, how do you know that was me?'

‘You gave the receptionist your credit card when you came in and we were able to look up your details. You've been here once before so you were in the system, and that did make you pretty easy to track down, dear.'

‘Ah.'

‘Even though it was most certainly not his job, Doctor Brookes was kind enough to take the puppy to the animal hospital on Cecil Avenue. It's been patched up and you can collect it from there this afternoon.'

‘Right.'

‘Really, why someone would think they could bring an animal into a medical centre for
people
is just beyond me. Now are you quite all right, dear, because if you do need to talk to someone, there are helplines you know?'

Stacey raised her eyebrows expectantly at Belinda as she waited for an explanation. Belinda just shrugged, though, and said to Stacey, as casually as she could, ‘I went back for the puppy the next day, found it all stitched up and feeling sorry for itself. I'll keep it till it's a bit stronger, then I'll take it up to the farm to live. So let's hear your analysis of me, Doctor Phil – or is it Oprah?' She wanted to change the subject, even if it was to one that would probably be just as bad.

Stacey was more than happy to oblige. ‘Right, you experienced the five stages of grief as follows: firstly, denial – you bought a puppy because you were
in
denial
about the fact that you are allergic to dogs. Secondly—'

‘Ahh, Stacey, I don't think that's what it means by denial.'

‘Hup, hup, let me finish. I just spent three hours researching so I think I know a little more about this than you do. Okay, second! You gave the puppy away because you were
angry
with the puppy for making your throat scratchy. Thirdly, you threw a tantrum in the middle of the oval because you were
still
angry
with the puppy for giving you hay fever. Next, upon finding the puppy, you took it to the medical centre where you
bargained
with the staff to get them to treat an animal. After that, you became so
depressed
that you threw yourself out of a tree and, finally, you
accepted
Andrew's death, illustrated by a heavy-petting session with the
neighbour from downstairs. If that's not accepting and moving on, I don't know what is!' Stacey finished her speech with a bow and an extravagant flourish of her hands. She looked extremely pleased with herself.

Belinda couldn't help it: she let a smile spread across her face as she said fondly, ‘Classic Stacey.' Stacey looked a little affronted; clearly, she had been aiming for more of an emotional breakthrough than this. Belinda laughed and pulled her friend into a quick hug. ‘Thank you, Stacey. I didn't know it, but I needed you tonight. I needed your help to feel . . . normal again.'