The Rose Petal Beach (3 page)

Mirabelle arrives at the house sooner than I thought she would. She is in her gold jogging suit I dared her to buy when we were out looking for a new running outfit for me.

‘I have no shame, surely you know that by now,’ she’d said and found her size on the rail.

‘What, you going to get a gold tooth to match that?’ I’d said to her.

‘Don’t tempt me,’ she’d replied.

Over her jogging suit she has tied up her bright red mac and she has grey furry Ugg boots on her feet, her masses of curly hair is pulled up and back, secured with a scrunchie so her hair falls like water from a fountain all over her head. I can tell she’s just washed her face. Probably getting ready for bed when I called.

‘What’s happened?’ she asks. Her concern turns to alarm when she sees I’m in my black mac with my red and white trainers on my feet. ‘Where are you going?’

I have called a taxi instead of driving because I don’t think I could stop myself shaking long enough to get the key into the ignition let alone select the right gear, remember to use my mirror or even recall what to do at junctions.

The taxi draws up outside, and I wave to the driver over Mirabelle’s shoulder. She turns to look at the white-haired man who nods in reply to my wave and sits patiently in the driver’s seat waiting for me.

‘What is going on? Where are you going?’

‘Scott’s been arrested,’ I state. See, if I state things, say them matter-of-factly, they won’t break me.

‘What?’ She draws back. ‘What?’

‘Scott’s been arrested.’ Simple statement. No shattering. ‘I don’t know what for, but I’m going to the police station.’ Simple-ish statement. ‘I need you to stay here in case the girls wake up before I get back.’ Slightly complex statement, but still not falling apart.

‘What? No.’ She shakes her head firmly, decidedly. ‘No.’

‘Please, you have to. I won’t be long.’
I hope.
‘If they wake up, call me and I’ll dash back.’

‘Didn’t you hear me? No. You can’t ask me to do this,’ she says, her bewilderment clear. ‘I don’t want to be involved in this.’

‘Please, there’s no one else. I’ll be as quick as I can. They’ll most likely sleep through. Please.’ I am halfway out of the door. She has to do this for me: I would do it for her in a heartbeat. Friendships grow from small acts of kindness as well as from big favours and we are friends – she has to do this, there really is no one else I would trust with the girls.

‘This isn’t right or fair you know, Tami.’

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you. Help yourself to anything in the kitchen. I’ll be back as soon as I can. I promise. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.’

I dash down the path and into the taxi before she has a chance to tell me no again. Because if she does that, this time, I may just believe her.

Eighteen years ago

‘Hello, Tamia Berize, you all right?’ he said to me. I was at one of the more pleasant bus stops in Lewisham – there were only two
spots of chewing gum on the cloudy, cracked plastic ‘glass’ of the shelter, the seats were only a little drawn on and dirtied, two of the posters were still intact.

My face beamed when I saw him. ‘Wow, talk about a blast from the past,’ I said, my grin growing wider. I hadn’t seen him in years. ‘How you doing?’

‘Good, good.’ Scott Challey, all grown up. I hadn’t seen him since we both finished our GCSEs and I went off to sixth-form college and he stayed on at school. From the little boy who could never stay clean and tidy, he’d grown into a young man who dressed well – smart, navy blue jeans, a white T-shirt and long, black coat. His once-wild hair was now tamed with a stylish long-on-top cut. I’d heard he’d gone to university from my mother who’d said in despair that she couldn’t understand how someone from his family went while I didn’t. I’d heard from other people I went to school with that his family hadn’t wanted him to go. When he’d brought his UCAS form home it’d got thrown out with the rubbish. When his teachers tried to explain that it was an opportunity like no other, they’d been thrown out with a fair few swearwords lining their ears. It was only his grandmother who intervened. She wielded the ultimate power in that family, apparently. When she spoke – which hadn’t been frequently – they listened and they did. ‘Young Scott’s going to
university
,’ I heard, she’d said. And that was that.

‘You look all grown up. Am quite impressed.’

‘I look grown up? You’re a full-formed adult. I suppose that’s because you’ve got a job and can afford to buy clothes and things.’

‘You’re not exactly naked, are you?’

‘Ahh, but it’s different when you’re working. How did your parents take you not going to university?’

I shrugged. ‘Still haven’t calmed down. I think they’ve convinced themselves I’m going to see how hard it is working and decide to go to university next year.’

‘And will you?’

‘Erm … no. I’ve got a great job. Lots of chances for advancement. I’m really enjoying it. But if it makes them happy to think that uni is on the cards, who am I to disabuse them of those ideas?’

‘“Disabuse”. Look at you with your fancy words. So what’s this job of yours then? Compiling a dictionary? Are you going to be moving on to the thesaurus department next?’

I laughed. ‘No, I work in the corporate communications department of TelmeCo.’

‘The huge phone company?’

‘Phones, mobile phones and the world wide web thing.’

‘Wow, I am seriously impressed. What do you do, make tea?’

‘Yes, and the rest, you cheeky sod.’

‘Seriously, what do you do?’

‘Lots of little things, mainly helping out, but I’ve been given the newsletter to write. I have to do it on the computer and on their intranet. It’s great fun. Plus I’m learning so much. If I keep my head down, focus, I reckon I could be running the place in, ohhhh, six months.’

His laughter was a thick and throaty sound that lit up his face in a way I hadn’t seen him illuminated before. ‘Shift up,’ he instructed as he plonked himself down beside me.

‘And how’s university treating you?’

‘Yeah, it’s good, it’s good. Great chance to reinvent yourself, university. Not many people know what the Challey name means over there. I like that a lot.’

‘I take it you’re back to visit the folks, though?’

‘Yeah. Something like that. Actually, it’s my grandmother’s funeral.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’

‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘She was the main reason I used to visit. Now, I’ve got no real reason to. Every time I come back I’m reminded why I left in the first place and why I never want to return.’

‘It’s not that bad,’ I said, nudging him with my shoulder. It was
that bad, from everything I’d heard, but I didn’t like the sheer agony talking about it dragged across his face.

He raised his dark eyebrows at me. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘I’d hope not,’ I conceded.

‘Funny, isn’t it?’ Scott said. ‘We’ve both let our families down in pretty significant ways – and we didn’t even need to go to prison to do it.’

I laughed again. ‘You’re not wrong, are you? Sometimes I do have to remind myself that I haven’t actually committed a crime, the way my parents carry on.’

‘Me too. Except that’s the disappointing thing.’

‘Misfits and outcasts, that’s me and you.’

‘Yeah.’

‘The problem, though, as far as my parents are concerned, is that I don’t actually care that I haven’t lived up to their expectations. They think I wasted my brain and all the sacrifices they made for me to go to school. But like I said to you way back when, you don’t have to do something just because someone else wants you to do it. You can be whoever you want to be.’

‘You know, TB, you changed my life when you said that to me. I asked Grandma Cora if you were right and she said yes. I said could I go to university then one day and she said yes. It was her who told my parents I was going and there were to be no arguments. Even though they wanted me out bringing in money, they agreed. All thanks to you.’

‘That’s me all over – life changer, parent disappointer.’

‘All round perfect woman.’

I burst out laughing, it sounded so ridiculous coming from his mouth. ‘Good one! I may have that put on a T-shirt.’ I moved my hand in front of my chest. ‘“All round perfect woman”. I like that. I like that a lot.’

‘See, there was a reason I went to uni.’

‘OK,’ I said to him, ‘here’s my bus. I’m off into Croydon to find a killer outfit that won’t cost the earth for tonight.’

‘Why, what’s tonight?’

‘First date with the most gorgeous man in the world,’ I said, standing.

‘Really? I didn’t know we were going out tonight.’

‘You!’

‘Can I come with you? Give you a man’s eye view on what you choose?’

‘Sure. But you’re going to be so bored. I always go back and forth to a million shops before I buy the first thing I tried on in the first shop I went into.’

‘That’s OK, I’m not busy till later, either.’

‘Ohhhh … Date with a gorgeous woman?’

‘Oh yes,’ he replied, a filthy grin spreading across his face.

‘One of those sort of dates, I see?’

‘Yep,’ he replied.

‘Well good for you.’

‘Good for both of us, it seems, TB. Good for both of us.’

In my life, I haven’t had much cause to be involved with the police. I haven’t been the victim of a crime I would consider reporting – someone once stole some change and a satnav out of my car when I didn’t properly shut the driver-side door – and I haven’t committed a crime that I could be arrested for. Yet, here I am walking through the automatic glass doors into a large reception area at the police station in Brighton. It is a huge beige and white building that from the outside looks like a long, low block of flats.

Steeling myself, forcing the shaking away, I walk up to the large, curved wooden counter that seems designed to put the average person at a disadvantage – you have to look up slightly to talk to the person behind it. And they look down on you to speak.

‘Hello,’ I say to the man behind the desk.

He is older than me, probably not far off retirement. His jowls are starting to show beneath the soft lines of his pale, aged face.
His head is covered with grey-white hair and he is slightly overweight, but not so he’d need to do anything drastic. He leans on the desk and raises his white eyebrows at me rather than speak.

‘My husband was brought in earlier, erm, under arrest. I was wondering if I could see him?’

The policeman puts his head to one side and looks at me with what are kindly eyes; he seems to have the capacity to be gentle and probably calming, too.

‘What’s his name?’ he asks.

‘Scott Challey.’ A lump closes up my throat the second those words are out of my mouth. Scott Challey. Scott Challey. Scott Challey.

‘Ah, yes, Mr Challey. Brought in a couple of hours ago,’ he says without looking at his computer or the book I’d imagined they had for writing down who they’d carted off in front of their family. ‘Yes, he’s here.’

I didn’t ask that, I asked if I could see him,
I think. ‘Can I see him?’

His expression becomes the equivalent of someone taking your hand before they impart bad news as he shakes his head slightly as he says, ‘I’m sorry, Madam, that won’t be possible, he’s still being questioned.’

‘What’s he being questioned for?’ I ask. ‘And how much longer will it take?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you either of those things,’ he replies.

‘Can’t or won’t?’ I reply, in frustration.

‘I’m sorry, Madam.’

I curl my hands into my palms again, to stop myself shaking and to stop myself wailing. I want to throw my head back and let out a huge, primal scream that empties my body and soul of all the emotions racing around them. I don’t understand why this is happening, why my life is unravelling, and I don’t understand why this man won’t help me.

‘Can I at least see the detective who arrested him?’ I ask.

‘I’d imagine she is questioning your husband right now.’

‘Please? I only want to talk to her. If I can’t talk to him then
she’ll have to do. I just want to know from someone who’s seen him that he’s OK. If she tells me he’s all right, I can go and take care of my children and wait for him to come home. Please? Please?’ I don’t like to beg, but sometimes, that’s all you can do. Sometimes, the ends justify the means.

The Kindly Policeman’s kindly eyes study me for a few long moments. He can see the panic, fear and confusion on my face. Part of me still thinks this is not happening, that I am not standing in a police station asking a kindly policeman to let me speak to the detective that arrested my husband. I do not live the sort of life where my husband is arrested, so that’s why I am still struggling to believe this is happening.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ the Kindly Policeman says, ‘please take a seat.’ He nods towards the bank of seats near the door. I need to keep upright – I’ll seem weaker, less effective if I sit down. He nods again towards the seats and I know I have to do as he asks or he won’t try very hard at all to see what he can do. Not so kindly after all, then.

I go to the seats, settle myself between a man so thin and ravaged – probably by drugs and drink – I’m not sure how he walks without snapping, and a white-bearded man who is wide in girth because he is wearing everything he owns. Every item the white-bearded man wears is encrusted with black dirt, as are his hands, fingerless gloves and shabby, holey shoes. He’s giving off a smell combination of stale urine, sweat, dirt and beer that hits the back of my throat and then trickles down, turning my stomach every time I breathe in.

The policeman actually waits for me to sit before raising the handset of the phone beside him. He stares at me as he pushes three buttons, then continues to stare at me until the phone is answered. Then, he twists, while he talks quietly into the phone, presumably so I can’t read his lips and find out what he’s saying.

I feel sick.

Properly sick, not just a bit nauseous, I am seconds away from
throwing up. It’s not only because of the man sitting next to me, it’s the slow, creeping dawn of reality: Scott has been arrested and the children have been traumatised by seeing that. I want to call Mirabelle and find out if the girls are OK, but I daren’t in case they wake up and I’m forced to go home before I can get some idea of what exactly is happening.