Battle Lines. (9 page)

Chapter 9.

It was late afternoon. Amanda and her mother, Jackie, had sat for a couple of hours looking at photographs and talking about her father.

They had reminisced over the good old days, looked at photos of Amanda winning her trophies in her teenage years. Pictures of all of them as a family. Even pictures of her and Jake that she did not even know had existed.

She’d looked at the trophies lining the wall up one end of the parlour. She had forgotten. Amanda sighed wistfully.

She had forgotten many things. The biggest shock had been all the pictures of her with Jake. There had been so many of them. And she had looked happy, he had looked happy. Even the ones of her as a teenager, the pictures that had obviously been taken when neither Jake nor Amanda had been aware told a story all of their own.

The look on his face, the way she looked up at him. She really didn’t need anyone to tell her what had been going through both of their minds, or how each of them felt. It was there to see. How had she not seen that?

She did not want to think about it. She did not want to talk about it. And when her mother tried, Amanda gently steered the conversation on to other things instead.

They talked about her business, they talked about her father’s business. How well Jake was doing with it. Amongst many other topics.

Her mother had wanted to know everything about her life since she had left. What was she doing? Was she truly happy? There were so many questions that just could not be answered in one afternoon.

But her mother had told her that there was going to be many occasions for them to catch up now that Amanda was back.

“You are… back… aren’t you?” Her mother asked.

“I… I.”

“I really would like you to be back.” Jackie told her.

“I would like to be too. I don’t know.” Amanda said. She did not want to commit to that. To commit to having to keep facing Jake

“Jake would…” Amanda shook her head. She did not want her mother to steer the conversation to Jake again. She had been trying all afternoon and Amanda was getting tired of it.

“I really don’t care what Jake wants.” She said quietly but firmly.

Instead of continuing her mother suggested a walk to her father’s grave. They had stopped off at the florist so that Amanda could buy some flowers.

Amanda had told her mother that she was sorry but, her mother had told her that is would not have changed the outcome. That her father had been a heavy smoker before she had been born and that it was inevitable that he would die quite young.

Amanda had argued that at least she could have been there but her mother had shaken her head.

Now they were sat in the parlour. The housekeeper having brought in a tray of tea.

“Jake put it in all the papers.” Her mother told her now and Amanda pulled herself out of her daydream.

“Sorry?” She said.

“Dad.” She stopped.

“Oh… yes… yes.”

“He was hoping you would see it and call home.” Her mother said as she sipped her tea.

Amanda nodded unable to answer. She had seen them, all of them, it wasn’t as though she had lived in a vacuum for the last ten years.

But she had been too scared to call. She had tried picking up the receiver many times but had always put it back without dialling the number. “It was a bad time for him.”

“For him? What about you?”

“Of course it was a bad time for all of us but Jake…”

“Mum.” Amanda warned her mother.

“He would sit up night after night, just in case you called late.”

“I’m sure he did.” She agreed, sipping her own tea.

“He didn’t want to miss your call.”

“I’m sure he didn’t.”

“He even had all the home calls redirected to his mobile phone just in case.” Her mother continued.

Of course he had, he would have wanted to make sure that he had been the one to take her call and not her mother.

He always had to be in control of everything, even when her father had died. That’s why she had never phoned. Deep down she had always known that she would never have got the chance to speak to her mother. Jake would have intercepted it and that would have been as far as she would have got.

No that wasn’t it. She hadn’t called because she would have wanted to ask Jake to come and pick her up and bring her home. He wouldn’t have had to cajole her or even ask her. She had been so desperate to return home. Long before her father’s death.

“I should have come home then.” Amanda told her mother then. “I would have been too late for the funeral but…”

“Amanda I wanted you to come back. But it wouldn’t have achieved anything.”

“I know. I just.”

“Jake wanted you to come back. He has never stopped looking for you. He has chased up every lead, every possible sighting.”

“He has.”

“He tracked you to Cornwall and then Devon.” Her mother said and Amanda gasped. She had been in those places. “Then Wales and up to Scotland.” Also two places she had managed to get herself to. “You were always just a step ahead of him. By the time he had got there you had already gone. He would be very quiet when he got back. But then he’d start over.”

Amanda wriggled in her chair uncomfortably. He had obviously spent a lot of time and energy trying to track her down. “The last time was when you first got to London.”

“Two years ago.” Amanda said absently. He had been still tracking her even then.

“Yeah, he turned up at that hostel you stayed at. But apparently you had cleared out just that afternoon. It was the closest he had got. Just a couple of hours.” Her mother shrugged.

Amanda remembered the hostel. She had managed to get a job with a kindly, but lonely, old man. That same man that had taught her about antiques and the business. He had let her bunk in the back of the shop. So she had dropped off the map, so to speak.

“Oh mum, I am truly sorry for everything I have done.” She sobbed and threw her arms around her mother.

“There, there. It’s okay really. I understand. Your father understood. More than you realised. I wish you could have spoken to me about it. I could have helped you. You know sort through all the confusion with you.”

Amanda frowned then. Sort things out? Sort through her confusion? What was she on about? Amanda sat up straight.

“What confusion?” she asked her mother.

“Well your father and I understood that you were dealing with so much, that all those emotions, feelings, they were confusing, overwhelming, and new.” Her mother said.

“What’s that supposed to mean.” She looked at her mother’s face.

“Well… you know, with the whole Jake thing.” The whole Jake thing?

“The whole Jake thing?” Amanda echoed.

“Yes dear.”

“With Jake?” Amanda frowned at her mother who had begun to busy herself in the tea tray, which did not need the attention that was suddenly being lavished on it. “I’m not sure I understand.”

“Well I knew that you were having a hard time with the whole Jake thing.”

“What whole Jake thing?”

“You know.”

“You mean because I hated him.” Amanda tried to expand.

“Oh darling, you never hated Jake.” Her mother tutted at her.

“I didn’t?” She asked her mother, not even disguising the sarcasm in her voice.

“Of course not dear. More tea dear. I can get it myself, I don’t like to keep asking the housekeeper. Jake hired her to help but I am very uncomfortable with the idea if truth be known.”

“No thanks I have had enough. Mum… I did hate Jake. I still hate Jake.” She told her mother bluntly.

Amanda wanted to make the situation clear to her mother. She did not want her mother under any false illusions. Especially those kind of illusions.

“Oh dear… biscuit?” Amanda shook her head.

“Mum.” Her mother bit down on her bottom lip.

“I thought you would have moved on from that type of thinking by now.”

“Why would I?”

“Well, you’ve come back. I thought that meant that finally you had woken up.” Amanda took in a deep breath and straightened her spine.

“Mum. Please. There is nothing. There was nothing between Jake and I. I hated him.” She told him firmly.

“Deep down you don’t hate Jake.” Her mother smiled wistfully, her eyes clouding over mistily. “Do you remember how you used to follow him around everywhere? You idolised him once. And Jake let you follow him around, he looked out for you. Protected you. Even though he was much older than you.”

“Six years older.” Amanda agreed.

“Mentally the age gap was more back then. You were just entering teenage years when the… when it started… Jake was just coming out of teenage years.”

“Yes well. It was a long time ago mum.” She reminded gently. “I was a child mother. As you have noticed I am all grown up now.”

“Yes but even so, there was always something there.”

“No there wasn’t.” she said.

“Oh, I’m not suggesting anything untoward. At least not when you were very young but…” her mother’s voice trailed off. “Jake would never have done anything that you didn’t want. Anything that you were uncomfortable with. You must know that.”

“Children never know what’s good for them. They don’t know how people can turn around and hurt you.” Her voice held a tinge of bitterness and her mother swooped on it like an eagle.

“Jake never hurt you.” She jumped to Jake’s defence instantly and Amanda bristled at that. See, how come no one ever jumped to her defence so readily? Instead she had to listen to accusations. “He adored you. Does adore you.”

“Mum people change, they grow up and they stop living in the past. I have moved on and perhaps it’s time that Jake did too.”

“There are some things Amanda that you never move on from.” Her mother was right of course she could not deny that.

“And there are things that you do.” Amanda insisted. “I have made a life for myself mum. A life that I am very happy with.” Amanda was reluctant to admit that her business was going under or that her house was a glorified rabbit hutch.

“Everything? What about a husband?” her mother asked her now.

And Amanda rolled her eyes. Why did she need a husband to make her life complete? What was wrong with the older generation? Was that the only standard for true happiness and life success for a woman? a husband, a marriage. Two point four kids and a dog in a nice leafy suburb somewhere.

Amanda opened her mouth to tell her mother that she did not need a husband or a man or even a pet to be truly happy. But instead she was shocked to discover that a lie spilled unchecked from her lips.

Maybe it was the way her mother had inferred that she couldn’t possibly be happy unless she was married or perhaps the talk of Jake. She did not know but she heard her voice and she heard the words and they were out before she could stop them

“I got married four years ago.” She said and then instantly berated herself. Now why had she said that?

But she already knew. Too many people thinking that she did not know her own mind. Far too many people telling her that she didn’t hate Jake. Far too many people thinking that there was something there, which of course there was not. Not then, not now, not ever.

Amanda opened her mouth, ready to confess that that just wasn’t true. The situation was still salvageable but then her mother said.

“O.” As she gasped. “Jake won’t like that.”

Amanda felt that lurch in her chest and her resolve hardened. No, Amanda silently agreed, Jake would most definitely not like that. Amanda bit back the smile that threatened.

“I’m sure he won’t.” She commented. A little sense of satisfaction blossoming inside.

“Have you told him?” her mother asked her.

Of course, as far as she were concerned it was tough if Jake had a problem with it. After all that wasn’t her problem that was his.

“I have no doubts that he will eventually find out.” She told her mother flatly. She knew her mother would tell him the first chance she got.

Amanda opened her mouth, she really should confess now before Jake found out. Before things got out of hand. It had been a stupid lie said in the heat of the moment and already Amanda was regretting it.

“Jake.” Her mother’s voice intruded on her thoughts and she looked up as Jake made his way leisurely over to them. Amanda’s breath caught in her chest as she watched his panther like moves as he drew unhurriedly closer. She swallowed and looked away. “Would you like some tea dear? I was just getting up to make a fresh pot.”

“Great, why don’t I help?” Jake smiled warmly at her mother and Amanda felt a savage kick in her solar plexus as she watched them walk away towards the direction of the kitchen.

Her heart sunk. She felt like an outsider. Now it was her that was the outsider and not Jake. She was the interloper in the family not Jake. Things had certainly changed whilst she had been gone.

Sadly, she acknowledged that it hadn’t needed to be that way. If she had not run away, then things could have been different. She would have had a very different life. One where Jake would still be an outsider and she wouldn’t.