Tarnished (10 page)

‘How did you find us?’ Raymond said at the same time.

‘Through the club,’ Peg said. ‘Flamingos.’

‘Really? That surprises me. They’re not supposed to give out my address. Who did you speak to?’

Peg thought of the sadness in Carleen’s eyes. ‘I didn’t catch their name.’

Raymond relit his cigar. ‘Well I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. I was thinking of getting in touch myself. You beat me to it.’

That’s easy to say, Peg thought.

‘He was, darling,’ Caroline said, turning to Peg as if she could read her mind. ‘He was always wondering how you were doing.’

‘Whatever, Caroline,’ Raymond said. ‘Hey. Interesting haircut you’ve got there,’ he said, sitting back and letting out a stream of cigar smoke.

‘Oh, you know. It was such a nightmare to look after,’ Peg said, running her hand over the velvet of her scalp, astounded at the bollocks she was spouting. ‘Nice house,’ she said, to change the subject. The pool terrace was a very sheltered spot. In the full beat of the sun and the patio heater, she could feel the sweat beading on her upper lip.

‘We moved in last year,’ Caroline said. ‘We had it built specially. To our own design.’

‘We used an architect, though,’ Raymond said. ‘We done it proper.’

‘Ooh, it cost the earth, it did. But it’s worth it. It’s my dream home,’ Caroline said. ‘And Paulie loves it too, don’t you, lovey?’

Raymond looked at Peg and tapped the side of his nose as a nodding Paulie returned and sat next to him.

‘Well, we done it for him, really,’ Raymond said. ‘It’s a great house for him to grow up in, and I’m just there.’ He pointed to a smoked-glass extension reaching from the back of the house to form an L shape round the pool. ‘That’s my offices.’

‘Lovely,’ Peg said.

‘He likes to be a hands-on dad,’ Caroline said.

A sudden breeze brought with it the sewage smell Peg had detected when she got out of the car.

‘Pooh,’ Paulie said, wrinkling his freckled little nose.

‘You need to call that guy about the cesspit, Kitten.’ Raymond pointed a finger at Caroline.

‘I’ve left him a message.’

‘Well, call him again, Caroline. That stink’s disgusting. Here, come in under the heater a bit, Paulie. You still look a bit chilly.’ Raymond turned to Peg. ‘He’s a proper water baby. I’m training him up for the Olympics. Do you like swimming, Margaret?’

Peg shrugged. She swam, but it was more out of duty than passion.

‘You should give it a go, girl. Good exercise. Keeps the weight down.’

‘Raymond!’ Caroline said, putting her diamond-laden hand up to her plumped-up lips and giggling.

Raymond shrugged and puffed on his cigar. Peg fought to keep the smile on her face. She was not going to allow any of this to get to her.

Manuela reappeared and they all watched as she set out drinks and nibbles from a silver tray.

‘And Manuela, we’ve got one extra for supper tonight,’ Caroline said. ‘You are staying for supper, aren’t you? And please stay the night, too.’

‘She might have other plans, Caroline,’ Raymond said.

‘I’d love to stay, if that’s all right,’ Peg said.

‘So make up the mauve room, Manuela please,’ Caroline said.

‘So what do you do, then?’ Raymond said, after Manuela had gone.

‘I work in a library.’

‘You’re a librarian?’

‘Well, a library assistant. You need a lot of qualifications to be a librarian,’ Peg said.

‘I thought you might’ve got qualifications. I thought you might’ve gone to uni,’ Raymond said. ‘After all that money spent on your posh school. Paulie’s going to uni, aren’t you lad?’

Paulie nodded and smiled, revealing a mouth full of gaps stopped by teeth that his young face had not yet grown into.

‘He’s a bright boy,’ Raymond said. ‘There’s a lovely private English school down in the town and he’s top of all his classes.’

Raymond reached for his Heineken, which he poured into the pewter tankard Manuela had set before him. ‘Got a fella?’ he asked.

‘Um, no, not at the moment,’ Peg said.

‘Never mind. Early days, eh? You’re, what, twenty-odd?’

‘I’m twenty-two.’

‘You knew that, Goosey!’ Caroline said, laughing again and tapping Raymond on the arm with the back of her hand. ‘Of course he knows how old you are, darling,’ she said from behind her sunglasses. Despite obvious surgical attentions – her mouth and eyebrows had an uncanny upward turn to them – Caroline’s face was criss-crossed with lines from spending far longer in the sun than she should have with such fair colouring.

Peg thought how her own skin would have blossomed under this sky, given the chance.

‘Oh well, Margaret. Better get a move on with the blokes then,’ Raymond said. ‘Don’t want to be left on the shelf!’

‘Oh, stop going on, you,’ Caroline said. ‘Crisp, Margaret?’

After the bottle of Cava was finished – mostly by Caroline, who drank all of it except the one glass taken by Peg – Manuela was summoned again to show Peg to her mauve room so that she could, as Caroline put it, ‘Have a wash and brush-up before we meet down in the lounge for pre-dinner drinkies.’

As Manuela led her indoors, Peg wondered if she was a disappointment. Then she checked herself. Despite everything, she seemed to want Raymond’s approval. But, as Loz had pointed out, it was for
him
to make things up to
her
. She had to remember that. And, to be honest, her main reaction to meeting her father was so far just that: disappointment. He was unimpressive. She didn’t think she liked him very much.

She was surprised at how good this made her feel. Loz had been absolutely right, of course: engaging her anger, putting her sense of injustice into gear felt perversely empowering.

Despite Peg’s best efforts to stop her, the tiny, wiry Manuela carried her rucksack up two flights of sweeping marble stairs to a large room. She put the bag on a suitcase rack and mutely showed her the en suite bathroom and the balcony, where the view of the pool and swathes of golf-course-quality lawn was set off by a backdrop of bruise-coloured mountains. Festooned with draped purple fabrics and furry cushions, the frill-encrusted bed was big enough to set up home in. The open windows ushered the cesspit stink into the room, but an air freshener plugged into the wall put up a valiant chemical battle against it.

Peg sat on the bed and ate one of the home-baked granola bars from the beautifully wrapped package Loz had presented her with at the departures gate – she had, of course, insisted on accompanying her to the airport. The recipe was the best, Loz had said, the dog’s bollocks, and each bite soothed her and reminded her of home, of love.

Enjoying the expensive toiletries – no doubt a Caroline touch – she took a shower. Then she wrapped herself in one of the thick towels and rummaged in her rucksack to see if she could find anything suitable to wear for dinner in a house like this.

Again Loz popped up somewhere in her brain, telling her to wear what she wanted:
he
should be working to please
her
, not the other way round.

There wasn’t much evidence of that yet: he seemed to be as unreachable now as he had been when she couldn’t find him, which didn’t bode well for getting him back together with Doll. That, and the fact that so far he had not mentioned or asked after his mother once.

She wondered what it was that had driven him so fully away. She had more or less got over the poisonous suspicion that it might have been something
she
had done – she had only been six, after all. But if not that, then what?

But it wasn’t the time to think about that. She had one evening to accomplish her task, so she needed to prepare. Instead of clothes, she pulled her red notebook and pencil out of her rucksack. Then, still wrapped up in the towel, she sat on the balcony, wrote herself a speech, and did her best to commit it to memory.

Somewhere over the other side of the house she heard a car draw up, which set the dogs off again.

The sun slipped down behind the mountain and, feeling the chill of the evening, she decided to get dressed.

Being a pared-down packer, she hadn’t given herself a lot of choice. In the end, she decided on a stripy smock. It was too short to wear on its own away from the beach she had somewhat deludedly thought she might be spending some time on. So she pulled her jeans back on and accessorised the outfit with Loz’s dangly earrings and a bit of kohl.

‘Almost a normal,’ she said to herself as she checked the result in the mirror. ‘Might just about do.’

Then

‘I can’t remember how to hold the wool, though,’ I say.

I’m trying to crochet a square for the blanket me and Nan are making for Aunty Jean, but the wool keeps tangling and the stitches don’t loop properly. It’s looking like a right old mess and I’m not getting anywhere.

Me and Nan and Gramps are in the lounge. The telly’s on and Gramps is smoking a cig.

He smoked Players. They smelled completely different to Aunty Jean’s Marlboros.

Less spicy.

He’s still alive here, so I’m about nine years old, I suppose.

‘Twice round your little finger, then weave it through the middle and ring and hook it up over the index,’ Nan says, as her own fingers flash away with hook and yarn. She’s already half done her own square and I’ve not even started.

‘I JUST CAN’T DO IT!’ I say, and I fling the stupid hook on the floor.

‘Temper,’ Gramps says. ‘Temper, Meggy.’

‘Shhh,’ Nan says, though I’m not sure if it’s at me or Gramps.

She gets out of her rocking chair and comes over to sit next to me on the settee.

‘Here you are,’ she says, producing a toffee from her pinny pocket as if by magic.

I pop it in my mouth and start chewing. As if by magic, it calms me down.

‘Now then,’ Nan goes. ‘We can get this right. If you can’t remember how to do something, what do you do, Meggy?’

‘Write it down,’ I say, with a bit of dribbling difficulty. The toffee is really chewy.

‘Exactly. Write it down. Or you’ll never get anywhere. It’s all down to you, remember, to make the most of yourself. So where’s your Commonplace Book?’

I go and fetch it from my bedside table, where I left it last night, after writing up my day.

Back in the lounge, Nan dictates her wool-holding instructions and I copy them down.

Then, posing for me so that I can get the drawing right, she makes me do a diagram because, as she says, ‘sometimes you need more than words’.

That’s easy for her to say, but my diagrams are useless. I’m not as good as her at drawing.

Gramps always says she could have been an artist, but she says she would rather have been a doctor and he says, ‘Stop it now, Dolly.’

I’ve looked for the books I made when I was a child. But they seem to have disappeared. They must have got thrown out at some point.

If I still had them, then all of this remembering would be much easier.

And I’d know for sure that what I was recalling was true, because it would all be there – every day of my early life, recorded in my own childish handwriting.

Nan was wrong about one thing, though.

Writing it down didn’t help me remember anything.

Ten

‘Well, you look nice,’ Caroline said rather too brightly as Peg joined them in the vast living room.

Raymond sat by the fire, warming his hands, and Paulie sprawled on one of the sofas, headphones on, engrossed in something on an iPad. He didn’t even look up.

‘G&T?’ Caroline handed a large glass to Peg. ‘I had Manuela bring them up half an hour ago, but the ice is still fine.’

‘Sorry I took so long,’ Peg said.

‘No, no, no. You had to get yourself settled in. Rome wasn’t built in a day.’ Caroline let out a long, tinkling laugh. ‘We’ve told Paulie who you are.’ She reached across and tapped the boy on the knee. He looked up and slipped off his headphones. ‘Say what you said, Paulie, when we said Margaret was your half-sister.’

‘She’s too old to be my sister.’

Both Raymond and Caroline seemed to find this hilarious. Pleased at their response, Paulie put his headphones back on and plugged himself back into his game. Peg was glad to see she had made such an impression on him.

‘How did you like that school I sent you to, then?’ Raymond said as Peg sat down on the sofa opposite him. He was smoking a cigar again, filling the room with blue plumes.

‘It was fine,’ Peg said.

‘
Liar
,’ the Loz-voice hissed in her ear.

‘Cost me enough. I’m surprised they didn’t get you into uni, though,’ Raymond said. ‘They’ve got a very good record. It’s why I chose them.’

‘I was the only one in my year not to go,’ Peg said.

Raymond lowered his chin, bit his lower lip and nodded, as if he were taking some time to digest this.

‘So why not, then?’

‘I didn’t see the point.’

‘I’d have paid whatever it cost.’

‘It wasn’t the money. I just didn’t feel up for it. I didn’t really see what it would give me that I couldn’t find out in the real world.’

‘But you done all right in your exams, though, ain’t you?’

‘Yes.’ She wasn’t going to tell him that she got straight As. She wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction.

‘That’s something, at least. And you speak nice, too, which’ll be a help.’

‘
You got your money’s worth, then
,’ Loz thundered in Peg’s head, daring her to say it out loud.

‘And I suppose,’ Raymond went on, ‘if you want to go when you’re a bit older, well there’s nothing stopping you.’

‘Nothing to stop me at all.’

‘And of course, if you need help of the money kind, I’m here.’

‘I’ll be fine, thanks,’ Peg said.

‘You make it sound as if you’ve got no money worries.’

‘I haven’t.’

Raymond snorted.

After a silence just long enough to feel uncomfortable, a gong sounded from somewhere within the house.

‘Ah!’ Caroline said brightly, jumping up and stumbling slightly. ‘Dinner at last!’

And they all trooped through to the dining room.

Peg had forgotten to mention that she was a vegetarian, so there was little she could eat from the meal of steak and gravy-smothered chips. As she picked at a portion of the accompanying salad, Raymond mused about how vegetarianism was unnatural because man was designed to hunt and eat flesh. A more concerned line of argument came from Caroline on how dietary advice was all about protein these days.