The Harder They Fall (54 page)

“You’re making the right decision.” Sophie’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “I can see it in your eyes. But you have to promise to stay in touch.”

George listened to the banter continuing to come from the lounge and raised an eyebrow.

“Somehow I doubt that’s going to be a problem.”

The final scaffolding poles were secured in the back of the van.

“There you go, mate,” he said, smiling expectantly.

Cheeky bastard, Andy thought. They’d been paid before it was erected, as per their terms. He pulled a ten pound note from his jeans pocket and shoved it in the man’s grubby hand, eager to see the back of him so he could get on with the rest of the jobs.

“Nice one. See you again.”

And off he went, the van and its contents rattling loudly as the tyres sank and left grooves in the deep gravel drive. Andy followed at a distance and watched as it trundled out onto the road, then disappeared into the Saturday afternoon traffic. He shut the gates and paused for a moment: it had been a close call, but he’d made the deadline. He started making his way back towards the house, so busy congratulating himself that he didn’t hear another van pull up to the gates. The sounding of the horn made him jump.

“Oy! Knobhead! Wanna open these for me?”

Andy closed his eyes, took a deep breath and turned back.

“Not really, but seeing as you asked so nicely.” Once again, he dragged the heavy gates across the gravel, and stepped out of the way to let Michael pass. They nodded a frosty acknowledgement at each other and his older brother put his foot down, skidding to a halt between the house and the statue outside.

“You can’t leave it parked like that,” Andy stated, once he’d completed the fairly lengthy walk back. “You’re blocking the way for everyone else.”

“So?” Michael had the rear doors open, an untidy pile of paint trays, rollers, brushes and dust sheets accumulating at his feet. One of the trays had tipped and a blue puddle was forming beneath it.

“So shift it, if you wouldn’t mind very much, thank you,” Andy told him curtly. Since when was he a painter and decorator? It was rhetorical and he wasn’t about to ask, because he didn’t care.

Michael grabbed a suit bag from inside the van, shoved it at his brother, threw his equipment back in and slammed the doors.

“You do know I’m staying here?” he half-asked, half-told him.

“Yeah. Mum said.”

“It’ll be just like old times, hey,
bro
,” he grinned falsely. Andy returned the sentiment.

“With you leaving your shit everywhere, you mean?” He glared at the patch of blue gravel and Michael scuffed it with his boot.

“Nothing a good hose down won’t sort,” he said. “So, what’s with you? That posh lawyer bird finally saw some sense, did she?”

“Don’t fucking start.”

“I was only asking.”

“Oh, right, and how’s Anne these days, then?”

That shut him up. This was the third time Michael’s wife had kicked him out, and no doubt she would have him back again, but he didn’t want to discuss it any more than Andy wanted to talk about Jess, or indeed engage in a conversation about anything else with him. Andy handed the suit bag back and went inside, Michael following not so far behind. He stopped in the entrance hall.

“Fuck me!” he said, looking around the expanse of polished black and white marble.

“This is the first time you’ve been to see her? She’s lived here for almost a bloody year, Mike!”

He didn’t respond, overwhelmed by the size of the place and its lavish décor. It was one of those nineteenth century vast country homes, with twin staircases curving up either side of the ‘atrium’ and what was effectively a balcony running around the top perimeter of the upstairs storey, a good twenty feet or so above which was a stained-glass dome, fans of multi-coloured light extending and fading to nothing as they transcended the stark white marble walls, to the black and white chequered floor, currently covered in cables and debris.

“She could’ve cleaned up the place,” Michael joked.

“Yeah,” Andy agreed, adopting the same change in tone, because there was still much to organise and he really could do with a hand. “They’ve only just taken down the scaffolding,” he explained carefully, “so I’ve not been able to get things straight yet. We’re gonna have to get those lights up before we do anything else, though.”

“We?”

Andy ignored his protest, knowing that when it came to the crunch, Michael would do whatever he told him to, so long as it pleased their mother, which, of course, it would, because it was for ‘her baby’.

“The sound system’s coming at five, and they’re setting up the bar in there at six.” Andy indicated to a door to their right and Michael wandered over to take a look.

“You could fit a bloody pub in there, never mind a bar,” he said. “Dad The Fourth’s minted then, yeah?” The title derived from their mother’s insistence that her three sons always refer to their current stepfather as ‘dad’, and the present incumbent was a definite material step up.

“Yeah, like lottery win minted, as opposed to posh,” Andy told him. Len, his name was, and he didn’t like to talk about how he’d ‘earned’ his millions, but it was safe to say it wasn’t by legitimate means.

“I take it she’s buggered off for the afternoon?”

“Nope. She’s in the pool.”

“A pool as well? Bloody hell! She’s well and truly hit the jackpot this time. Just goes to show really, if at first you don’t succeed…Well I best go and say hello, I s’pose.”

He waited for some indication of the general direction in which he might find the aforementioned pool, and Andy pointed to the passageway ahead of them. Michael wandered off with his suit bag still slung over his shoulder, and Andy set to work on clearing the brick dust and marble off-cuts. It wasn’t as bad as it looked, and a few loaded shovels later, all that remained was a pile of cables and lights. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked up, scanning the banisters and mentally plotting out his lighting. It was going to be tricky running the cables back without them being seen, and he was a bit concerned about overloading the circuits. He was in the middle of calculating maximum loads in his head, when the sound of someone behind him sucking air through their teeth made him lose his train of thought. He turned around.

“It’s gonna cost ya,” Dan said, shaking his head, “but I think I can do it.”

Andy grinned, but not at Dan.

“Addy!” Little Shaunna squealed, wriggling to break free of her dad’s arm. Andy grabbed her and tipped her upside down, which made her squeal even more.

“You all right, bro?” Andy asked.

“Pretty much. Other than having to walk half a mile up the drive with Madame here. She’s a lot heavier than she looks.”

“Oh, poor girl. Daddy’s saying you’re a fatty. Are you a fatty?” Andy blew raspberries on her belly. She giggled loudly and grabbed him by the nose with both hands. He pretended to fight her off. “Why didn’t you bring the car up to the house?”

“Couldn’t be arsed opening the gates. Aside from which, some idiot’s blocked the driveway with their van. Ah,” he said, as someone emerged from the passageway in front of them, “that’d explain it. Alright, Mike?”

“Dan,” his brother acknowledged. Little Shaunna turned to see who the voice belonged to and suddenly became quiet, a very serious frown crumpling the dainty bridge of her little nose. Michael clapped his youngest brother on the back, with no more than a passing glance at his niece. He’d only seen her once before, when she was first allowed home from hospital and Dan and Adele were doing the rounds.

“Glad you could make it,” Dan said, suppressing the urge to say something about Michael’s ignorance towards Shaunna. It was much easier that way; both he and Andy had long since stopped fighting or arguing with him, because he really wasn’t worth the effort. “I want to ask you a favour,” Dan continued, and put his arm loosely around Michael’s shoulders, guiding him towards the room opposite the one that would later become a bar. This was where the food would be. Andy watched them go inside and close the door.

“Shall we go see Nana?” he asked little Shaunna.

“Nana!” she repeated enthusiastically and they set off in the direction of the pool, Andy twirling her upside down and around and around until she was shrieking and squealing with excitement again.

The pool was located in an elongated conservatory that extended from the back wall of the house and was where they probably once grew all sorts of herbs and vegetables for the kitchens. Unlike modern conservatories, this was a good, solid structure, with large, arched, leaded windows. Years of condensation gave it an overall green hue, and it smelled like a hothouse that had been flushed with bleach. Andy wondered what Alice would make of it later, and made a mental note to show her around, just to see if it looked as green to her as it did to him.

His mother had seen them coming, and was already out of the pool and wrapped in a thick, fluffy bathrobe.

“Hiya,” she called to little Shaunna. Her granddaughter gave her a toothy grin (she was very proud of her new teeth) and planted a soggy, open-mouthed kiss on the puckered lips presented to her. “Dan and Adele are here then?”

“Dan is. Adele’s probably at the hairdresser’s, or something.”

“Hmm,” his mother said, tending to little Shaunna, but with a thoughtful look in her eye. “Surely she won’t let him down again?”

“She won’t,” Andy asserted. She still didn’t seem convinced. “Not now they’ve got this little lady to contend with.” He gave his niece another flip upside down with the usual result.

“I hope you’re right, for my sake as well as his. I was banking on having at least a couple of grandchildren before I hit seventy.”

“That’s another five years away, Mother. Plenty of time.” It was an automatic defence, because she still didn’t know and now seemed the perfect time to tell her. She had her back turned and was bent over, drying her hair with a towel; relatively defenceless.

“And anyway,” he ventured on, trying to sound as if what he was about to say was as trivial as thanking someone for holding a door open, “you already have two granddaughters.”

His mother carried on rubbing her hair for a few seconds before what he’d said registered. She lifted her head slowly and carefully pushed the curls out of her face, turning towards him; a gradual, drawn-out motion intended to intimidate. It did the trick.

“Care to explain?”

“Shall I make us a drink first? Coffee? Tea?”

“Andrew. Sit down.” She pointed at the loungers and he sat, uncomfortably balanced on the edge, not wanting to lean back and leave himself any more vulnerable than he already was. “Right, lad,” she said, folding her arms. “You’d best get talking.”

“Erm, well…” Little Shaunna turned and looked at him with big wide, enquiring eyes, as if she too was waiting to hear what he had to say. “In all honesty, Mum, I didn’t know until quite recently.”

“When?”

“A couple of years ago.”

“So you’ve got a two year old daughter that you haven’t even bothered to mention?”

“Err, no. She’s a bit older than that.”

She glared at him and he shrank back behind his niece, who bent over so she could keep her eyes fixed on him.

“She’s, erm…” There was no way he could just come straight out and say it. He went for the roundabout route. “You remember Adele’s mate, Shaunna?”

“Not really.”

“You will do. She used to come round and sit in the lounge looking miserable, while Adele went upstairs to see Dan.” Still not a flicker of recognition. “Red hair down to her waist, cropped jeans, high heels?” Finally.

“Oh yes. The Giggler.”

“The who?”

“Me and your dad (by whom she meant ‘Dad the Second’) called her The Giggler, because that’s all she did when you or Dan were anywhere nearby.” Andy nodded his understanding. “They’re still friends, I take it? Adele and Shaunna?” She looked at the wriggling toddler as she said this, by way of confirming the origin of her name. Andy nodded again. “Yes, so what about her?”

“Well it’s her daughter. I mean she’s our daughter.” His mother raised a solitary eyebrow. He took a deep breath and tried again. “Shaunna’s daughter, Krissi, is mine.”

“And how old is this Krissi?”

“She’d be about, err…” He pretended to think, but he knew exactly how old she was. He even knew when her birthday was, as well as the day of the week and time she was born. “She’s just turned twenty-three,” he said quickly and ducked. Little Shaunna gave him a terrible look; the same expression as her grandmother.

“I think I’m going deaf in my old age,” his mother said, shaking her ear for effect, “but I swear I heard you say she’s twenty-three.”

He smiled sheepishly.

“So what you’re telling me is you got a girl pregnant when you were still at school? What in hell’s name were you thinking?”

“There wasn’t a whole lot of thinking went into it, Mum.”

“And is Krissi coming here tonight?”

“Erm…” The answer was yes. His mother shook her head in disdain and picked up the towel again.

“Honest to God. Kids!” she said and walked off, muttering about not being surprised she had so many wrinkles and her hair was so grey. Little Shaunna reached out and grabbed Andy’s nose. It hurt.

“Ouch,” he said and she started to giggle. “I think Nana might be a bit cross, eh?” She grabbed his nose again and he pretended to do the same thing back, then went inside to find Dan and Michael.

On reflection, telling his mother hadn’t been anywhere near as bad as he’d anticipated, but that was only the start of it. She’d expect a full introduction later, and he had no idea how Krissi was going to react. They didn’t have a father-daughter relationship, because she still saw Kris as being her dad, and treated Andy as if he were little more than a sperm donor, which, he supposed, wasn’t that far off the truth.

Now he was out of the conservatory, he put his niece down so she could toddle ahead, catching a whiff of her nappy in the process. Dan and Michael were walking towards him, with Michael narrating some story involving lamp-posts.

“What’s that about lamp-posts?” Andy asked.