Letting You Go (16 page)

J
em had been looking into the bathroom mirror for a while. There wasn’t a single smear on this mirror, a minor miracle given the number of troubled souls that must have been through here in the last week alone. ‘Always squeaky clean, Mum,’ Jem said at her reflection. She stuck a finger against the glass just to be obnoxious.

How many hours had she spent in front of this mirror since her teens, she wondered. Agonising, trying to see a way forwards, to pluck up the courage it would require to tell them her tricky little secret. She’d come so close to going through with it once. It had been there, on her lips.
Just tell them. You’re not a bad person. This doesn’t make you a bad person. If they love you, it won’t matter.

They had been Mal’s words, he’d cajoled them into Jem’s head while she’d tried to work herself up like a beserker so she could march inside the house and just tell them all straight. But then Jem had joined them at the table and Alex had dropped her bombshell about leaving university and not coming back to live here and then Dad had gone mad about Jem sitting outside talking to Mal instead of coming in on
time for dinner. There hadn’t been room left for any more admissions that night.

You idiot, Jem.
It was almost funny now, her wandering around like a complete arse since her teens, thinking she had something major to get off her chest all this time. It wasn’t major. No-one would get
hurt
when she told them the truth about herself, disappointed maybe, resistant. But she hadn’t hurt anyone. Even now, this last week, she’d been so frightened of her mum dying, of losing the chance to explain everything while she still could. Now one night out with an old friend and her mum was off limits. Because now there was a bigger, badder secret to keep, and Jem hadn’t worked out yet how to look at her mother without it all coming tumbling out.

Jem braced her hands back on the bathroom sink and glared at herself.
She’ll know as soon as she looks at you.

Jem felt that unpleasant sicky feeling in her stomach again, it had been there since she’d left The Cavern last night for somewhere more private with Mal. ‘Can we go somewhere we won’t be disturbed?’ he’d asked. And she’d gone willingly.

Jem rubbed at the dark circles starting under her eyes. They didn’t look bloodshot now at least. She’d nearly buckled on the phone to Alex and then, thankfully, the phone had cut out. Jem let out another sigh of relief at that. Alex wouldn’t be able to cope with
this.
Alex was trying so hard to play happy families, how could she possibly handle a home-wrecking scandal? How would their
dad
handle it?

Jem felt the upset lurch inside her again. She was still trying to make sense of what her own feelings were. The shame of it. The humiliation it would cause her sister and parents if anyone else were to find out. No, she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t tell Alex, of course she couldn’t. Sharing a secret that could kill a marriage, drive a wedge between a father and his son … Jem couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t. It had to stay between her and Mal.

‘S
o the car actually fell and
crushed
his chest bone?’ Alex said with something like the awe she reserved for late night episodes of
I was bitten, and survived!
Poor Mr Parsons. Even though Helen Fairbanks had him down as a monstrous wife-beater who wouldn’t let Emma and the little ones have a single day off that horrendous hike to Kerring General and back.

Graham Parsons had a job over at Superfitters Tyres & Exhausts. It had given Alex a small angle from which she was attempting to forge a fleeting friendship with his wife, so that if there was a bruise or some other incriminating evidence Alex might somehow be able to verify and therefore vouch for it. Alex stole another glance at her passenger. People who wanted to hide bruises did not step out with strappy vests and cotton skirts on, did they?

‘Mummy, when we get the pram out again, can I have one of the muff—’

‘So your mum! You must be really looking forward to getting her home, like we are your daddy, aren’t we, Poppy?’ Poppy frowned while her mum changed the subject.
Helping herself to those muffins was about as much proof that they were a family in crisis as a bruise would’ve been. Alex rolled with the subject change all the same. ‘How often do you come back to the Falls to see her?’

Alex felt embarrassed about the truth. ‘Oh, I’m a bit of a bad penny!’ she quipped. Ha-dee-ha.

‘What’s a bad penny?’ Poppy asked.

‘A bad penny? You haven’t heard that before, honey?’

Poppy shook her head in the rear view. ‘Mr Mason likes pennies. He always takes my mummy and daddy’s pennies.’

Emma moved subtly in the back and Poppy shrank back into the seat.

‘A bad penny is like a phrase. It usually means something bad that keeps turning up again, like a person who keeps coming back, even if nobody wants them to.’

‘Doesn’t your mummy and daddy want you to come back? Aren’t you a good penny?’

‘Of course she is, sweetie. Only good pennies give you lifts in the rain.’

Alex tried not to run through the definition of a bad penny again. ‘Do you like the rain, Poppy?’

‘Mummy likes the rain. She says people don’t always come to our house when it’s raining lots. They stay away.’

Alex smiled at her rear view mirror. ‘So do you go to St Cuthbert’s? We used to call it St Bertie’s. I went to St Bertie’s. And my brother and sister did too. It’s highly recommended.’

‘She starts in Mrs Sinclair’s class in September, don’t you, sweetie? You like Mrs Sinclair, she’s kind.’

‘Oh, you mean Millie? She is, she’s lovely. So do you know Alfie, Poppy? From pre-school? Is he a nice boy? Did you know, his daddy’s a police officer?’

‘He’s not nice when he’s putting a snail inside my welly boot,’ Poppy said assertively. ‘But he’s nice when he shares his biscuits.’

‘Snails in your boot? Sounds like something my brother would’ve done.’

‘How old is your brother? Is he going to be in Mrs Sinclair’s class?’

‘Oh, no. He’s …’

‘Alex’s brother will be grown up now, Poppy. Not little like you. The children adore Mrs Sinclair, don’t you?’

‘I always wear my seatbelt because Mrs Sinclair got hurt in a car when she was little like me and now she’s got lines on her legs and a funny shoe that is bigger on one side and not big on the normal side. And now my daddy’s been hurt by a car as well because Mr Mas—’

Emma lurched forwards in her seat. ‘This is us, with the toys.’

Alex slowed in front of a tall town house with a pink scooter just inside the front gate and what looked like a homemade Wendy house at the corner of the lawn.

‘I’ll help you get everything to the house,’ Alex offered.

‘Our house looks dark, Mummy,’ Poppy said quietly.

‘It’s OK, baby,’ Emma whispered.

Alex pulled in and shut the engine off. She hadn’t unclicked her belt and gotten her door open before Emma had already jumped into action, scurrying around the truck in nervous jolty movements, flicking the pram out with one hand while the baby was propped on her hip.

‘Thank you so much, I really appreciate it. Come on, Poppy, let’s get inside. Come on, that’s it. Before the rain starts again. Bye, Alex.’

A
lex had loitered on the pavement until Emma had managed to get the children, pram and all their things to the house. Emma had babbled something about usually inviting Alex in only she hadn’t had chance to tidy up and Alex had seen something like terror wash over Emma’s face while she waited for Alex to say something like,
That’s OK, mess doesn’t bother me!

Alex reached her driver’s side and noticed something pink and plastic-looking in the small gap between the truck and the kerb. She picked the dummy up and turned it over in her hand. ‘You’ll be needing that though, Emma.’

She didn’t want to stress Emma out. She’d just quickly run it in then make herself scarce. Alex nipped over to the Parsons’ garden gate and ambled towards the front door.

Poppy was right, their house did look dark,
gloomy
seemed a better choice. It was only early evening and the rain had stopped but there was something melancholy about the place, as if houses were like faces and the strain of too many heavy thoughts on the inside could impact the general appearance of the outside. The grass was long, too long for
Poppy to ride her scooter around on. But then who would’ve been cutting the lawns while Mr Parsons recovered and Emma was tied up with the children? She probably had a hundred worries far higher up the list. Finn should look into garden maintenance. One more string to his bow. Alex wrinkled her nose to see if it still hurt. It did.

She pressed on the doorbell and heard it chime through the hallway the other side. Alex gave it a few seconds then tried a jovial knock. Oh, sod. Emma was that efficient, she was probably already trying to get the baby off to sleep. Should Alex just post the dummy through? The door opened a fraction.

‘Oh! Ah, me again,’ Alex said apologetically. ‘You dropped Isla’s dummy. I didn’t think you’d want to get caught short at bedtime.’

Emma hadn’t opened the door more than a couple of inches. Poppy was at her legs, trying to press herself as closely to her mother’s legs as possible. Emma seemed even more on edge than she had been when Alex had first pulled over to her in the truck.

‘Thank you.’ Emma didn’t even look at the dummy, and didn’t take it either. She just looked at Alex. Alex saw it in Poppy then too. She was practically burying herself into her mum, so much so it was odd that Emma hadn’t told her off in that warm snappy way most mothers dealt with clingy children.

‘Is everything all right?’ Alex asked, not at all thinking that maybe it actually wasn’t. Emma was taking deep, fervent
breaths, her small chest beating away the only movement in an otherwise deathly still stance. Alex saw Poppy’s fingers pinch and twist at her mother’s cotton skirt. Her little legs were scrambling to put her somewhere between her mum and the half opened door. Alex spotted a small wet patch begin to bloom down Poppy’s sky blue shorts.

‘Oh, Emma, I think Poppy’s just …’ Alex paused. ‘… really, is everything OK?’

Emma’s expression didn’t change. ‘Thank you. For helping us,’ she said quietly.

Alex heard a quiet snapping sound, the same schlump and click of a Zippo lighter she heard her dad out on the porch with each morning, and then the sweetness of tobacco smoke teased its way towards the front door. Alex tried to see over Emma’s shoulder into the house but the door wasn’t open enough. She looked a question at Emma.

‘You’re welcome,’ Alex said calmly. She mouthed the rest.
Do you need help?

Emma’s eyes widened imploringly.

‘What’s happening?’ Alex whispered. ‘Is it your husband?’ It was a stupid question. Her husband was back at Kerring General in a body brace.

Emma shook her head, she was trying not to cry. ‘Bad penny,’ she whispered.

Alex looked at Isla in her mother’s arms and felt her heart thudding. What should she do? Go in? Make a scene? Where was her phone? In the truck, with a flat battery.
Shit.
Alex could feel her heart beating in her neck. She pressed the
dummy into Emma Parsons’ hand and held on to her. ‘Bye then!’ she called cheerily. Then quietly under her breath, ‘I’ll get help.’

Alex walked calmly back down the Parsons’ garden path, past the little pink scooter with the ribbons hanging sodden from its handlebars. She passed a few houses then broke into a run, something she was good at by all accounts.

All the shops on the high street had finally shut. Alex ran towards the big blue doors into her father’s garage. Dan had written a paper on domestic violence as part of his study course for the food bank. He’d told Alex of terrible case studies. Of people like Emma Parsons; shy and private and in desperate need for somebody to just notice and intervene. Whoever was inside that house had scared the life out of Emma and her little girl. Oh God! Should Alex have taken the children? Pretended she was picking them up for something before coming for help?
Why didn’t you think of that while you were still standing there?
thought Alex.

Alex saw the doors to Fosters’ Autos were locked up. The panic bit down harder. She stopped and let her eyes travel along the high street. Where was the nearest phone box? There used to be one up the side street where the haberdasher’s was. Alex burst across the road and spotted an open door into Carrie’s florist, the scene of this morning’s unpleasantness. Carrie would have a phone. Alex burst in. ‘Carrie! I need your phone!’

‘Alex?’

‘Finn! Where’s Carrie’s phone? We need to call the police, now!’

‘Alex, slow down!’

Her chest hurt with effort, there was a metallic taste at the back of her tongue. ‘I think – I
know
– someone’s in trouble. Emma … Mrs Parsons … Emma Parsons in the first terraced house near the footpath, I think someone’s in her house, she’s on her own, with a baby and a little girl … she’s
scared
!’

Finn set his phone in Alex’s hand and led her back out onto the pavement. ‘Show me.’

Finn gave Alex just enough time to relay her doorstep conversation before breaking away. Alex watched him sprint ahead to the house with the overgrown grass. A man was walking out through Emma’s front door, suited and cocky and carrying a television from Emma’s house.

‘All right are we, boss?’ Alex heard the suited man wheeze to Finn. Alex baulked. It was the man who’d intimidated her so easily after stepping out on the road in front of her. The guy who’d resembled a big, ominous gorilla.

‘Yes, mate. That your TV, is it?’ Finn’s voice was still, no hint of exertion of any kind.

Alex caught up. The man had one of Alex’s breakfast muffins pinched between his fat fingers. That, even more than the television in his arms, ignited a fury inside Alex. Emma squirrelling food and him taking it from her.

‘What’s it to do with you?’ he said, squaring up to Finn.

‘I’ve called the police,’ Alex lied. She would’ve called them if Finn’s phone hadn’t been so technological. Finn moved to stand in front of the other man, blocking his way in a kind of non-threatening-but-ready-for-it stance. Alex carried on into the house. Inside Emma was rocking her daughters, doing that silent sobbing thing women seemed to learn once they became mothers.

‘Emma? Are you hurt? Are the girls OK?’

There was hardly anything in the Parsons’ living room, barren except for two sofas, a small area of toys and a doll’s house beside the fireplace. Alex spotted a phone. ‘Don’t worry, Poppy. You’re OK now, sweetie. Emma, who was he? I’m calling the police.’

Emma shook her head then held it against Poppy’s. ‘You can’t, we’ve been cut off.’

Alex heard voices out front. She felt an old sensation then. Finn wasn’t a meathead, he could get hurt. Again. Bloodied and bashed again because of her. Alex heard Finn laugh at something then, a hard laugh with none of the warmth that came so naturally to him. Like when he’d fished the bee from her hair, or tended her bloodied nose. Or when he’d stung himself raw to fish her from a patch of nettles.

Alex could still see out of the front living room window. The thug’s face had turned an even red but Finn was calm, steadfast. Maybe he wasn’t the laidback teenager he had been when Alex’s dad had gone crazy. Finn had filled out since then. Jem’s
buff
description wasn’t far off. He was
also a good few inches taller than the other man, plus Finn’s hands weren’t full of stolen television.

Alex crouched beside Poppy and put her hand on Emma’s knee. ‘Emma, why is he taking your television?’

Alex glanced back outside. Finn was smiling pleasantly, he had his arms folded across his chest as if he was catching up on the game or talking over his day, or stopping himself from punching the other guy’s lights out. Poppy’s crying was easing into a series of erratic breaths. Alex placed a hand at Poppy’s back and rubbed it the way her own mother might. Blythe could make almost any upset better with just a gentle rub of the back.

‘Mr Mason burnt my roof.’ Poppy broke out into tears again. The noise startled the baby and she began to cry too. Alex turned to Poppy’s doll’s house, several cigarettes had been stubbed into the little roof terrace.

‘Emma, is that man a
bailiff
? Was he
in
the house when you came back here?’ said Alex softly. Weren’t there laws about bailiffs and threatening behaviour? Alex knew there were, but she’d also heard enough stories at the food bank to never want to find out first-hand how staunch their work ethics were.

‘Daddy will fix your doll’s house, sweetheart. When he’s better. And we don’t need that silly old television. It’s all adverts anyway, isn’t it?’ Emma’s crying had stopped then, as if she knew she needed to keep it together for her daughter’s sake. ‘We can play in the garden instead. In the sunshine.’

Alex looked back outside. Finn might look reserved but the other man’s lower jaw was jutting out now, tempting someone a lot braver than Alex to stick a good punch on it. Alex watched him place Emma’s TV on the wet grass. He took a bite from Alex’s muffin and set it down on the television. Finn was opening out his wallet. Alex watched as Finn handed over a stack of notes. Finn had always been the peacemaker. The pacifist, the talker-downer. Ted had taken it as a sure sign of his cowardice. That and the fact that Finn hadn’t pulled Dill free in time. A tiny part of Alex wished her dad was here now, to deal with the man who’d thought nothing of sullying a little girl’s doll’s house, just because he could.

The man thumbed through his new collection of pound notes and then grinned, as if whatever this horrendous situation was, it could now be taken with a light-hearted pinch of salt. Alex felt something hot and unpleasant beginning to swell inside her. How dare he leave this woman and her two little girls terrified, and then
smile
because he had a bit of money in his hand?

Alex straightened up and stalked back outside. ‘Don’t pay him anything, Finn! The police can deal with him. And you’re not having another bite of that, you horrible,
horrible
man.’ Alex snatched the remaining muffin and sent it sailing over the Parsons’ garden boundary. Perhaps the nasty piece of work didn’t like that, it was hard to tell with him still smirking that Hollywood smile but suddenly there was an uninvited hand firmly gripping Alex’s wrist. He held
Alex’s arm aloft, like she was a naughty child caught stealing. Alex pulled against him and felt his strength. For an out of shape thug, he had a deceivingly good grip.

‘Take your hands off her.
Now.’
Finn’s voice had changed to a low ominous rumble, like a storm about to break.

Alex suddenly had a thought. Actually she had two, the unpleasant side effects of adrenalin suddenly fleeing her system perhaps. Firstly, she hadn’t actually called the police yet. And secondly, she’d just put Finn in a situation even the most excitable of pacifists wouldn’t really be ready to deal with. Alex was still considering this when Finn moved fluidly, gracefully. Apparently the thug’s interpretation of
now
didn’t meet Finn’s expectations. Finn locked one hand on to the other man’s crisp black shirt collar, and cracked him a solid right hook across the cheek with the other, wiping that Hollywood smile clean off his big jutting-out chin.