The Waiting Game (14 page)

Greenwich Market on a Sunday. The place was buzzing. Monica wandered around the stalls, pausing every so often to chat to one of the stallholders. She loved this place. Loved that she lived close enough to walk over here on a Sunday morning. Loved that this was something she was part of. Somewhere she belonged.

She’d dressed carefully: black woollen dress – fitted – high boots and a scarlet-red silk and cashmere wrap. The boho-glamour look suited her and she worked it to perfection this morning.

She stopped at a stall selling designer T-shirts. The T-shirts themselves were awful – punk-inspired patterns so unoriginal she could barely bother to pretend. But the guy selling them was divine. White-blonde hair, chiselled cheekbones and eyes the colour of bluebells.

She got his attention pretty quickly and the T-shirt chit-chat quickly turned to other things. He’d asked her out within ten minutes. She gave him her number and left without buying anything. Sometimes it was almost too easy.

Later, she wandered into the park and immediately wished she hadn’t. Sunday had to be the worst day to come here. Full of happy, smiling couples with their adorable brats on scooters and bicycles and bloody rollerblades. Not seeming to notice that the day was grey and cold and totally unsuited for family outings to the park. Ahead of her, a young girl came towards her, wobbling dangerously on her rollerblades. Only a matter of time before she fell. Monica considered not stepping out of the way but the father was cute. At the last minute, she jumped sideways, accidentally on purpose falling into him.

A flurry of apologies and – was it her imagination or did he hold on to her a fraction longer than he needed to? – she was on her way again. She walked up to the top of the park, keeping an eye out, but the one family she wanted to see wasn’t about.

She left the park at the first exit and walked down Vanbrugh Hill, turning right into Annandale Road. There was no car outside Kelly’s house but she stood outside for a while, watching.

When she grew bored with this, she walked down to Woolwich Road, crossed over and onto Fingal Street. She wasn’t sure which house she wanted, but it was fun trying to guess. In truth, it could have been any one of the identical Victorian terraces but, if she was betting on it, she’d have chosen either: the end-of-terrace
house with the red front door and collection of grotesque garden gnomes in the front, or the freshly painted semi-detached house with the yellow front door and a window-box planted with blue crocuses and a yellow flower she didn’t recognise.

As it turned out, she didn’t have to wait long to find out whether she was right or not. She hadn’t even reached the end of the street when a car turned in and stopped outside the house with the window-boxes. She watched a tall, good-looking man get out of the driver’s seat and approach the house. Moments later, a flurry of activity as people spilled out of the house, all heading towards the car.

Forcing herself not to move too quickly, Monica turned and walked towards the group. As she drew closer, she was able to work out who each person was. The elderly couple were the parents, the boy and girl obviously Kelly’s kids. The guy, same dark hair and blue eyes, had to be Kelly’s brother.

A little closer and she dropped her bag, contents scattering onto the pavement. The brother and the old man rushed forward together. She bent down, started picking things up as they did the same.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘So clumsy. I don’t know what happened.’

‘Clumsy happens to all of us,’ the old man said.

He spoke with a strong Irish accent. For a moment, she wondered if she’d got it wrong. Tried to recall if Kelly had mentioned Irish parents. She’d assumed – wrongly, it seemed – that the Kelly
had come from her husband. Now, she thought Kelly was probably one of those right-on feminist types who would refuse to change her name when she got married. Boringly predictable.

‘Now then,’ the man was saying. ‘I think that’s everything. Are you okay, love?’

Monica smiled. ‘I’m fine, Mr Kelly. Thanks ever so.’

To her surprise he laughed.

‘It’s Flanagan,’ he said. ‘I don’t know where you got the Kelly from.’

She forced the smile to stay where it was.

‘I’m so sorry. You’re Ellen’s dad, I know, so I just assumed…’

‘Ah you’re a friend of Ellen’s.’ The woman was here now, face smiling up at Monica.
Any friend of Ellen’s
… Monica half expected to hear her say it. Not that she needed to. The smile said it for her. Her own face was hurting now from the effort of smiling back, but she kept it up.

‘I saw you with Ellen a while back in the park,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think we were ever introduced. I’m Monica.’

They all shook hands with her – the mother, the father, the brother. She tried to recall the brother’s name, but it kept eluding her. She was tempted to guess, but in the end she didn’t have to. He offered it all by himself.

‘Sean,’ he said. ‘We haven’t met, have we?’

She pretended to think for a moment, then shook her head.

‘I think I’d have remembered,’ she said.

He smiled, but didn’t seem to get that she was flirting with
him. She thought maybe he was a bit thick. Or gay. She wondered what the trad Irish parents would think of that. Helped keep the smile in place a little longer as she pictured it.

‘Going anywhere nice?’ she asked.

‘We’re having lunch at Sean’s,’ the mother said. ‘It’s a bit of a family tradition. Sean and his… partner. They do a great Sunday roast.’

The slightest hesitation was a surprise. They obviously knew and accepted it. Or pretended to.

‘Ellen not joining you?’

‘She’s working,’ Sean said. ‘Good to meet you, Monica. Sorry to rush off but my partner,’ he winked when he said this and she liked his cheekiness, ‘won’t be happy with me if we’re late. See you around.’

She said goodbye and watched as they all piled into the silver BMW and drove off. She watched until the car turned left into Woolwich Road and disappeared around the corner. Then she pushed open the gate of Number 12 and walked into the front garden.

A door to the side of the house led into the back. This opened easily and she walked through into a small, courtyard-style garden. A high wall ran along the back of the garden, making it impossible for anyone to see over and notice she was in here. The only way she could be seen was by someone inside the house. And there was no one home. All over at Sean’s playing happy fucking families.

As she’d hoped, there were more flowers back here. Strange to see so many blooms this late in the year. Whoever looked after the garden obviously knew what they were doing. A flowerbed ran along one side of the garden, alive with more blues and yellows. Another flower, too – startlingly pretty with long, thin, cerise pink petals.

Monica walked over to the flowers, crouched down and started pulling them, one by one, from the bed. When she’d removed each one, making sure she got them out at the roots, she tore the petals into tiny pieces and sprinkled these across the garden, watching them float in the air then drift slowly to the ground. Satisfied that was enough to wipe the incessant smiles off their smug Irish faces, she stood up, rubbed her palms together to dislodge the little bits of clay, and left.

All things considered, it had been quite a good morning.

Sunday lunch at Sean and Terry’s was a regular event. Ellen’s family were already sitting around the table, waiting, when she arrived. Closer to two than one thirty, but at least she’d made it. Unlike Jim, who’d sent her a text earlier saying an emergency job had come up and he wouldn’t be here for lunch. She’d tried calling him back, but he didn’t answer. His absence left her with a sense of unease she didn’t like.

‘Father Barry was asking after you,’ her mother announced before Ellen even sat down. ‘Said he hadn’t seen you for a while and wondered if you were okay.’

‘I hope you told him how busy I’ve been,’ Ellen said, wondering why she bothered. In the world according to her mother, being busy was a poor excuse for not attending Sunday Mass.

‘I told him you’d be there next Sunday,’ her mother said. ‘So you’d better not let me down. I’d hate poor Father to be disappointed.’

‘And what about Sean?’ Ellen asked. ‘Was he asking about him as well? Or does his sense of Christianity not extend that far?’

Mrs Flanagan looked across at her son and smiled. ‘It’s different for Sean, Ellen. I can’t be asking him to come along. He still has a lot of issues with the Church. And I can’t say that I blame him, if I’m honest. The Church isn’t very accepting of some things. Sean, you see, he’d feel uncomfortable if I pushed him. It’d only cause problems between himself and Terry.’

Ellen winked at Sean. ‘So what you’re saying is if I was gay, it’d be okay for me to skip Mass, but because I’m straight it’s not?’

‘She has a point, Bridget,’ Ellen’s father said. ‘You shouldn’t keep going on at her. I can’t say I blame her for not wanting to go, anyway. Half the time I have no idea what that priest is on about. Did you understand a word of the sermon today?’

‘Of course,’ Mrs Flanagan said.

‘Go on, so,’ her husband said. ‘Enlighten me.’

Ellen’s mother clamped her lips shut and looked down at her plate, refusing to speak. Ellen’s father rubbed his hands together, grinning widely. Delighted, Ellen knew, that he’d got one over on his wife. It was a rare enough occurrence, after all.

‘Will we have lunch now?’ he asked. ‘I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m starving.’

Sean and Terry lived in a modern, riverside apartment in
Limehouse, across the river from Greenwich. Lunch was the usual feast. As they sat around the table after pudding, Ellen truly believed she’d never be able to eat again.

She sat back in her chair, doing her best to focus on nothing else except enjoying this precious family time. Around her, conversation drifted and she caught snatches of it, content to listen rather than take part. Her father, Terry and Eilish were discussing some obscure TV programme Eilish adored but Ellen, to her shame, had never heard of. Luckily, Terry seemed to know all about it and they were in a heated discussion over whether or not the central character had done the right thing ditching her boyfriend. At the other end of the table, her mother and Sean were gossiping about old friends and acquaintances. Ellen had heard it all before and had no desire to hear it again.

She looked around for Pat and saw him standing outside on the balcony. She pushed her chair back and went out to join him.

‘They have them in Switzerland,’ Pat said, pointing to the cable cars that ran across the river, linking the O2 on the south bank of the Thames with the Excel centre on the north. ‘Jim told me about them. Can we go there sometime, Mum?’

‘Switzerland?’ Ellen said. ‘Maybe. In the meantime, we can go on those. How about next weekend? Sean and Terry are away, so we’ll go on Sunday.’

‘Can Jim come too?’ Pat asked.

‘If you’d like that,’ Ellen said.

Pat shrugged. There was something self-consciously grown-up
about the gesture. Ellen hugged him, squeezing tight and wishing she could hold him this way forever. He endured it for a moment, then pulled away.

‘You’re squashing me,’ he said. But he was smiling and she knew he was secretly glad. They didn’t hug each other enough these days. When had all that stopped?

‘I’d like Jim to come,’ Pat said. ‘Sometimes it’s a bit boring when it’s just me, you and Eilish. No offence, Mum.’

No offence. The latest phrase amongst Pat and his gang of lovely friends.

‘None taken,’ Ellen said. Pat lunged then, wrapping his arms around her middle and burying his head in her shoulder.

‘Thanks, Mum,’ he whispered. ‘You’re the best.’

Everything was moving too quickly. Chloe wasn’t ready for this. She’d tried to explain that to Carl, but he didn’t get it. Or wouldn’t get it. Made her wonder if he was any better than Ricky. Just another bloke who wanted to control her. They were all the same. Stupid to have thought he’d be any different. The only man she knew who wasn’t like that was poor old Nathan. And only because he didn’t think of her like that. Because he was more interested in God than in living, breathing humans.

She’d barely heard from him these past few days and guessed he was sulking because she hadn’t turned up at his church yet. Well that was his problem, not hers. Except if he wasn’t sulking,
maybe she’d call and ask him to come over. She was scared on her own and didn’t know what to do about that.

She was tired. Legs trembling, body shaking. She’d been walking all afternoon. Ever since the argument with Carl. He’d called over, all full of himself. Told her he’d spoken with his mother and it was all arranged. She could move in straight away. Stay as long as she liked. His mum was fine with it.

His mum! She hadn’t even known that about him. Made her wonder what else she didn’t know. She couldn’t move in with someone she hardly knew. But when she’d tried to tell him all this, he got so angry. Told her she was being stupid and she couldn’t stay in the house alone, it was madness. And when he’d started saying that, it reminded her so much of Ricky, she’d told him to go and then she’d pushed him out the door herself, slamming it hard.

After he left, she’d grabbed her coat and gone straight out. Walked up through Blackheath, down through Greenwich Park as far as the river. Then she’d kept on walking, following the river west until she reached Deptford. Now she was somewhere near New Cross, tired and cold, with no idea what to do or who she could turn to.

She didn’t even know where she was. She looked around, trying to get her bearings, but it wasn’t easy. At some point, it had grown dark and she wasn’t yet familiar enough with this part of London. She tried to think back, remember which route she’d walked to get here, but she’d been so preoccupied she hadn’t
taken any notice of where she was going.

She was in a quiet residential street of flat-fronted Victorian cottages. There was no one else about. Lights had come on in several of the houses, offering the promise of comfort and safety. She pictured people – families – inside those houses, gathered together for Sunday dinner or in front of their TVs, cocooned and safe.

Unlike her, out here alone.

A noise behind her made her jump. She swung around, hand over her mouth. Saw a shadow flit under the streetlight then disappear.

‘Hello?’

Nothing.

She turned in the opposite direction and started walking, fast. Her footsteps echoed across the empty street. Or were they someone else’s footsteps? She looked behind, didn’t see anyone, but couldn’t shake off the feeling she wasn’t alone. She walked on, faster, footsteps slap-slapping, heart thud-thudding. Up ahead, another street, busier than this one, orange streetlights, the rumble of traffic moving along the road. People.

She started running. He was there. Behind her. She couldn’t see him or hear him but she knew he was there. She ran until her body couldn’t take it. Heart pounding, lungs aching, legs weak and barely able to hold her up. She was out on the big busy street now. People walked past, cars drove up and down. No one paid her the slightest bit of attention.

Tears turned everything into a blur. Orange and yellow haze of car lights, flashes of colour as people passed in and out under the streetlights. Face wet from sweat and tears. Body shaking. Throat sore from trying to drag air down it. Air that tasted of car fumes and dirt and all the stink of the city.

And somewhere nearby,
he
was there. Watching and waiting. And there wasn’t a single thing she could do to stop him.