Hold My Hand (28 page)

Chapter Forty-four

“Bridget?”

“Yuh?”

“I think I'm done here.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Well, in as far as you're not going to have everything trip every time you plug in the food mixer.”

“Really?”

“No,” says Mark, “I'm just saying it to wind you up.”

She reaches the top of the stairs. “I love you and want to have your babies,” she says. “Can we try it out?”

“Be my guest. What did you have in mind?”

“Um… tell you what, how about I boil the kettle and run the hairdryer at the same time?”

Mark spreads his arms wide. “Bring it on. Is that all you've got to throw at me?”

“Oven as well?”

“Chickenfeed.”

All right. I'll see your oven, kettle and hairdryer and raise you a fan heater.”

“Done,” he says.

He comes up to the flat, stands in the corridor while she bustles about switching things on. I'm going to miss him, she thinks. Not just the company around the house, but him himself. He's a nice guy: it feels right, somehow, having him standing there with his sleeves rolled up and his hands on his hips. As though he belongs here.

She comes back into the hallway and stands there by the light switch, looking at him. He's a nice-looking guy. There's no getting away from it. Not just in the fact that he's well put together, but in the way he is. When he smiles, you want to smile too. You can't help it. He's just one of those people.

She gives him a high five. “You are a genius,” she says. “I will love you forever for this.”

Mark grins. He's twinkling at me. My God, he's definitely twinkling.

“Well, at least your friend can come down and not get the willies put up her.”

Bridget laughs, because his phrasing is far more appropriate to Carol than he knows. “I think she might be a bit disappointed by that.”

He frowns, then that big smile comes bursting from his face again. “Well, you call her and tell her I said so.”

“I will, as soon as I can get hold of her. She's in the States, I think. Or Canada. Or sunning herself on some Caribbean beach between flights. Her phone's not picking up, anyway. She'll be pleased to hear about it, though. She's been bothered about the two of us, here with no lights.”

“Me too,” says Mark. Pauses. Looks slightly embarrassed, then bustles on. “Right, well. I'd better be off, anyway. Tina'll be up with Yasmin later, if that's okay.”

“It's more than okay. I just wish there was something I could do to pay you all back, that's all. I owe you such a lot, between the two of you.”

“Bollocks,” says Mark, walking away. Turns, one hand on the newel post at the top of the stairs, as though caught by an afterthought, and says: “tell you what. If you want, you can let me buy you a drink.”

“I think it's me that owes you several,” she says. “I should think I owe you a gallon of scrumpy, at least. How about tomorrow night? I'll see you in the pub?”

Mark scratches his ear, looks awkward. Can't bring himself to meet her eye.

“Well, actually, I was wondering if maybe we couldn't do it just you and me,” he says. “You know, a bit further afield.”

Heat courses through her. A date. He's asking me on a date.

She feels the rush of panic. I can't. I can't. It's been no time at all. I can't – he's – I swore I wouldn't trust a man again…

Mark doesn't need her to speak to know what her answer's going to be. Churns with discomfort and disappointment, as she struggles and stammers in front of him. This is awful. I've blown it, completely. I shouldn't have. It's not like I'm in practice. I haven't asked anyone out since Linda, and I've blown it on the first try.

“Don't,” he says, “it's okay. The pub'll be fine. We'll all go out. With Tina and the others, sometime.”

She finds her voice. “I'm sorry,” she stutters. “I'm really sorry. It's just – I don't know if I – I'm still not used to, you know…”

Her voice trails away and she stares at her feet.

“It's okay,” says Mark. He's longing to get out of there, now, to flee the awkwardness that has descended between them. “Look, I'll get out of your hair.”

“I – look, Mark, it's not that I…”

“Don't worry,” he lies, “I'm not offended.”

“It – I – you know about… and I'm not ready. I'm just not ready.”

Shut up, shut up, shut
up
, Bridget. You're just making it worse.

Mark lingers for a second, looks as though he can't make up his mind. Takes two steps down the stairs, turns back.

“Bridget,” he says, “we've all been hurt. One way or another. There's not one of us has got this far without something bad having happened. Anybody who hasn't probably isn't worth talking to. That's all. I'm not going to say anything else. But one day we've all got to let the past be the past. 'Cause if we don't, it'll rule our lives forever.”

Chapter Forty-five

Kieran pauses for a moment before he goes up and checks his reflection in the plate-glass window of the bookies below the office. He's waited a whole week for the scratches to die down, and his skin looks almost normal now. Like it could have been a cat, or a bramble or something. It is essential that I remain absolutely chill, he thinks. I'm so close now, and this guy has to be on my side.

Oh, Bridget, you're going to get yours. You're so going to get yours.

He brushes his fringe to one side, floppy-style, turns up the collar of his jacket against the cold. Kieran's gone out and bought some nice-guy gear, specially; an Aran sweater and a canvas coat and a nice fake-cashmere scarf: Daddish clothes. All-I-want-to-do-is-take-my-kid-to-the-zoo clothes. I-do-DIY clothes. He looks the part. So much so that it's almost giving him a hard-on. Satisfied, he throws his cigarette into the gutter and presses on the buzzer. Waits for a moment and announces himself. Goes in.

“How are you?” asks Steve Holden, getting up from his desk.

“I'm okay,” says Kieran, shaking his hand. “Do you have any news for me?”

“As a matter of fact,” says Steve, “I do. Piece of cake, as it goes.”

Kieran sits down, tries to look hopeful, emotional, decent.

“Oh, God,” he says. “Have you found them? Yasmin…”

“Well, I think we're certainly on our way, now. It was a good thing, you managing to get hold of that number like that. Decent of your friend. You can never tell, can you?”

Didn't take much, in the end, thinks Kieran. I wouldn't say decent. She fought quite a lot, as it goes, but of course, she fought like a woman. Still. She won't be interfering again, anyway.

“So…?”

Yes. Well, obviously I can't tell you my sources, but let's just say I have friends in retail. That's the thing, you see. Some computer records are easier to access than others.”

Blah blah blah, thinks Kieran. Get on with it.

He arranges his features into an expression of polite curiosity tinged with admiration. I suppose I have to give him this. The kind of person who goes into this sort of job is bound to be the sort of pub smartarse who likes to show you his workings.

“Your phone records, see, the bills and the where-you're-calling-from, they're part of the highly-confidential list. The phone companies are governed by all sorts of rules, like the banks. Believe it or not, they still vet their employees and keep an eye on what they get up to. Now, you
can
get hold of those… if you're a policeman. If you get the paperwork done and get permission. But your common Joe, he needs passwords and security questions, even if he's working in the company itself. Even if he's in customer relations.”

“Ooo-kay,” says Kieran, trying not to sound impatient, trying to sound like all of this is completely new to him. Rocket science. That's what it is, he thinks. At least, that's what this guy thinks it is, anyway.

“Working in Cellphone Cellar, on the other hand,” says Steve, “is another thing altogether. They're sales in there, you see, and salespeople are your modern-day carnival folk. Easy come, easy go. High staff turnover, no time to get too arsy about references. And they've got a national computer system. Get a job in the Cellphone Cellar in Bradford and you can see who's sold what where and when and who to, anywhere in the country. Sell a phone in Romford and it ups the targets for the Bury St Edmunds branch. You get my drift?”

“I think so,” says Kieran.

“And fortunately, your wife bought her new phone at Cellphone Cellar.”

“Oh yes?” says Kieran. Sits forward in his seat. Clasps his hands together over his knees.

“Now I don't want you to get too excited,” he says. “She could have got someone else to buy it for her. She could have made a special trip. Though I think she's probably not thinking about covering her tracks that carefully. It's a pay-as-you-go, after all. No records once it leaves the shop. Only record is which shop the phone was bought in.”

“Which was?” asks Kieran.

“Bodmin,” says Steve. “In Cornwall.”

Chapter Forty-six

The most striking thing about them is their obvious sexual compatibility. In that you couldn't imagine either of them wishing to sully themselves with something as sticky as sex, ever. It's not that they've unattractive people, on the face of it at least: all their parts are in the right place, they're obviously clean and have taken care of their physical wellbeing. Too much so, possibly. These are the sort of people who have never, ever taken a risk in their lives, have never spontaneously discarded duty for pleasure, have got out of bed at seven, always, regardless of schedule, even at the weekend, in order not to waste the day. They look like a pair of schoolteachers on holiday.

Joyless, she thinks. That's the word for it. They run their lives efficiently, and the trouble with efficiency is that it doesn't have space in it for joy. They have efficient clothes, efficient haircuts, an efficient, characterless Vauxhall parked in the drive, efficient well-cared-for luggage at their feet. And they're looking at Yasmin as though someone's come in and riffled their filing system.

“Mr Gordhavo,” says the woman, “didn't say anything about children.”

“I'm not children,” says Yasmin, “I'm
a
child.”

They blink, together, at exactly the same moment, behind their rimless specs.

“Yasmin, honey, go upstairs and play,” says Bridget, praying that her daughter will have the sense to be obedient, just at this moment.

“Why?” asks Yasmin.

Mrs Benson slips her hand into her husband's and purses her lips.

Bridget turns her back on them, just for a moment, and pulls her fiercest face. Yasmin, of course, isn't looking.

“We're on our honeymoon,” says Mr Benson. “We wouldn't have booked ourselves in here for a honeymoon if we'd known there were going to be children running about the place.”

I can't imagine you're going to be the sort who would be wanting to spend their time swinging from the chandeliers, she thinks, if we had any. “She won't be running about the place,” she says, attempting to sound reassuring. “She's at school in the daytime and we live in a separate flat.”

Mrs Benson peers about, as though looking for where the flat could be hidden.

“You get into it through the utility room at the back of the house,” says Bridget. “I'll lock the door through to the first floor.”

“We were expecting total privacy,” says Mrs Benson.

She feels a surge of irritation. These bloody people. Never satisfied. They’ve always got something to complain about, though the website is completely truthful about the house, if they ever bothered to read it properly. “The brochure,” she says, “does say that there's an onsite housekeeper.”

“It didn't say you had a family, though.”

“Just the one child,” says Bridget. “Who is going upstairs
right now
.”

This time, Yasmin picks up on the tone of her voice and makes herself scarce.

“And what about the other one?” asks Mrs Benson.

“Other what?”

“There was another one. In the garden as we arrived. Over by the pond.”

The other what?

“Presumably that's one of yours as well?”

She doesn't understand what she's on about.

“The girl. In the garden.”

A girl? In the garden?

She noticed that the pond was iced over this morning when she went out to get the sheets, stiff with frost, from the line where she'd thought it was a good idea to hang them yesterday. God, I hope none of the village kids has got up here. It's bad enough keeping Yasmin away from the pond without worrying about some Kirkland grandchild trapped under the ice, bloating and turning green.

“Oh. I have no idea. I guess it must have been one of the local children.”

“And do you,” he asks, “have a lot of local children hanging around?”

“No. No, absolutely not. I've no idea where she will have come from. The children around here know better than to come up here without an invitation.”

“Because the brochure said you were isolated and peaceful.”

“We are. I can assure you we are. I'm sorry you weren't expecting to find my daughter here, but I promise she won't be any trouble. She's familiar with the rules, don't you worry. And I'll make sure whoever it was you saw in the garden knows she's not to just pop up without clearing it with me first.”

Bridget crosses her fingers behind her back. She's going to have her work cut out this week.

“You know how children are,” she jokes, palliatively.

On second thoughts, you probably don't, she thinks. There's nothing jam-stained about you. If you've got godchildren, you probably send then educational books for Christmas.

“I'll see if I can farm her out,” she says. “She's got friends in the village. I'm sure she can go and play with them after school and stuff.”

They don't answer. I'm banging my head against a brick wall, here. I have to remember, the visitors aren't interested in the detail of my life. They're only interested in me as an addendum to the house. You're a servant, Bridget. Get used to it.

“I've lit the fire in the drawing-room,” she says, “and I thought maybe you'd like something warm on a night like this, so I've got scones in the oven and clotted cream and jam. Just as a welcome, you know.”

They seem neither surprised nor particularly pleased. It's a mistake to bother. I'm on a steep learning curve here. They never think you get anything for nothing, these people. Now I've done this, gone out of my way for them, they're going to be expecting tea and treats as a matter of course.

Mrs Benson closes the front door. Ok, so they've decided to stay, then. That's a start.

“I'll be you're tired after your trip,” she tries again. “I'll just show you round, shall I, and leave you to it?”

Yasmin has put
The Lion King
on, sits on the floor a foot from the television, ignoring her. Not even an offer of Horlicks gets a response.

She kneels down beside her, rubs her back.

“What's up, monkey?”

“Nothing,” says Yasmin glumly.

“Well, there obviously is, or you'd be speaking to me.”

“
Nothing
,” says Yasmin, and shrugs her off.

“Okay,” Bridget struggles back to her feet. “Fair enough. If you want to tell me, you know where I am, but I'm not going to waste half the afternoon trying to get you to.”

She picks up a pair of socks and is halfway to the door when Yasmin says: “I don't like you talking to me like that, that's all.”

She stops, flaps the socks in the air to turn the toes out.

“Sometimes,” she says, “I have to talk to you like that. Sometimes it's urgent. Sometimes you just have to do what I say,
right now
, and I don't have time to stop and discuss it with you. Sometimes there are situations where I have to be the boss and you have to deal with it.”

“Yeah,” says Yasmin. “I understand. You want to get rid of me.”

“I – no. I don't want to get rid of you. Don’t be ridiculous. But sometimes, when there's grown-up stuff going on, I need you to leave, yes, or shut up. I'm sorry. I thought you understood.”

“Understood
what
?”

“Downstairs isn't our home, Yasmin. It's where I work. We have to be careful about invading people's space.”

“Well
they
invade
our
space.”

“Yes, well, they pay a lot of money to do it. And it's not
our
space, when there are visitors here. And the money they pay is the money we live on. If they didn't come, we wouldn't have this place to live in. You've got the garden, and the fields, and you can always go down and see Chloe or Carla or, whatsername, Lily.”

“Don't be
schtoopid
.”

“What?”

Yasmin huffs. “
Noth
ing.”

“What's got into you?”

“
Noth
ing. It's freezing outside and I'm bored and now you say I can't even
play
. I'm sorry I'm not
convenient.
”

“Yasmin! I never said anything of the sort!”

“Well, I can't have my
friends
here, can I?”

“No! Not while there are people here! Look! If I worked in an office you wouldn't expect to be able to come and play
there
, would you?”

Yasmin rolls her eyes. Teenagers get younger every year. “I'm sick of being by myself,” she announces. “All shut up, with no-one to talk to.”

What are you on about? “Well, I'll tell you what,” says Bridget, “I'm not mad about being around
you
when you're being this disagreeable.”

Yasmin bursts into tears. “Well, I hate you too!” she wails.

Bridget sighs. Nothing matches the illogicality of the childish mind set on being the injured party. God, it's all very well, these parenting manuals banging on about self-esteem, but they don't half make it hard for you, kids. She folds her arms. “I didn't say I hated you,” she tells her. “I said I didn't like the way you're behaving.”

“Bugger off!” screams Yasmin.

Oh, God. She glances at the house door in the corner of the room, hopes against hope that the Bensons have gone downstairs to be by the fire. They'll hear everything if they're still in their bedroom. Not just a child, but a screaming child who has worked herself up into such a tantrum that she's gone purple. I have to stop this. I have to get her away.

She crosses the room in two strides, wraps her arms round her daughter and heaves. She's getting too heavy for this. Another six months and I won't be able to do this any more. Yasmin screams some more, kicks out, slaps at her face as she hauls her upward, throws her over her shoulder.

“Ow! Stop that!”

“Bugger off! I hate you! I
hate
you!”

They get into the corridor and she gets the door shut and drops her. Stalks away into the kitchen and leaves her there. Who'd be a single parent? All of it, I have to do all of it by myself. The no-sleep, the worrying, the nagging and the comforting. I have to make the choices, take the flak and it doesn't get better, does it? It's going to be like this for ten more years – longer than that, probably –  and I just want some rest, a chance to be
me
again. I've been a Mummy for seven years, but I can still remember what I was like when I was a Bridget, when I didn't have to be blamed for everything.

She buries her face in her hands and listens to the sound of her daughter's sobs from the other side of the door.