The Footballer's Wife (25 page)

‘It was pandemonium after that but I can't really remember; it just seemed to happen in slow motion. I was sectioned. They said they were going to contact you but I made out that you were the reason I was like I was.'

‘But I'd have come and got you. I wasn't that bad, was I?'

‘No. No, you weren't. But I wasn't thinking straight. I was in there for over a year. I remember
thinking that I needed a plan to get out of there. And it seemed that the people who helped with the little tasks like washing up and making beds were the ones who seemed to be seen as getting better. So I started to do everything. This was where I met Mike. One day when I was washing up. He was from Bradington. At the time we thought it was this amazing coincidence, but really it was just something we had in common. Turned out to be the only thing we had in common. I got out and was placed in a halfway house and he was let out soon after. We stayed in touch and then just fell into living together. But in the end it all came to nothing. I told him about the kids and he said he didn't want to be with someone who could just up and leave like I had. He was right, wasn't he? Who would?' Shirley wiped the tears from her face.

Len was floored; this was a lot to take in. In his mind Shirley had left him and the kids and gone off to enjoy the high life somewhere. If he'd known any of this maybe he could have intervened.

‘After that I spent a lot of time on my own. I got the odd job here and there and then I ended up involved in one of those pyramid schemes that collapsed and left me broke, but to be honest that was nothing new.' Shirley sighed. ‘Such a bloody
sob story, eh, Len? Who'd have thought it when we first started knocking around together that you'd end up being the sane one and I'd be the mad one.'

Len smiled sadly. ‘You're not mad.'

Shirley laughed genuinely. ‘I've got the certificate to prove it.'

‘Why didn't you come back sooner?'

‘Shame. Didn't know how you'd feel about it. Then when Charly ended up in the papers because she'd landed a famous boyfriend I convinced myself that I couldn't come back because you'd all think I was after something.' Shirley looked sadly at Len. ‘I'm not, for the record. I just want the opportunity to make things right.'

Len nodded. He didn't know anything about Shirley's illness and he didn't know where to begin to understand how she had felt but for the first time he felt sympathy for her. She hadn't just high-tailed it off and spent her days cruising the Med. She'd had a worse time that he'd had, by the sounds of things. ‘I just wish you'd stayed, or that I could have helped you pick up the pieces.'

‘So do I, but it's done now, isn't it? I don't expect you to forgive me, but if you could put the past behind us then I'd like to stay here.' Shirley said this
with such trepidation that Len could feel her fear. ‘I understand if you don't, though.'

He got to his feet. ‘Come here,' he said. Shirley stood up and moved towards him awkwardly. Len folded his arms around his wife and she began to sob. He kissed her on the top of her head and let her cry into his chest. He wasn't sure where they would go from here, but for Len this was the start he had been hoping for since Shirley had walked away from her life.

SHIRLEY LEFT THE
house the following day as if she was walking on air. She knew that this was only the start of the explaining that she had to do, but getting this off her chest after so many years was a relief that she couldn't have imagined. She checked her purse for the present she had for Charly and called Terry to see if he could collect her from Manchester Piccadilly bus station. She had signed on at the Job Centre, something she hated doing – it reminded her of when she hadn't been well and had spent years on benefits. But she had to do it just to have some money to get about and to get by; she didn't want to scrounge off Len. She had asked around for a job and was starting at the fruit market in Bradington the following week. She had worked in Bradington market before, years ago, and was quite looking forward to returning; as she
remembered it was hard work but everyone had a good laugh.

It was ten thirty when the bus pulled up outside Piccadilly Gardens. Shirley looked covetously at the large Primark across from the bus station. When she had some money she was going to come into Manchester and treat herself to a new outfit. She couldn't wait. She felt like she'd been trailing around in the same old rags for years. Terry was waiting in a parking bay at the back of the bus station, ready to whisk her off to what was, as far as Shirley was concerned, another world.

‘I told you, I'd have come and picked you up,' Terry said, leaning over to open the passenger door of the Navigator for Shirley to climb in. She looked at the car. She'd never stepped foot in something so luxurious.

‘I can't have you showing yourself up coming to Bolingbroke, not in this thing,' Shirley joked.

‘I've been to worse, let me tell you.' Terry smiled at Shirley in the rear-view mirror.

‘I bet this car hasn't. It'd be on bricks before you'd put the handbrake on.'

They drove out of Manchester along a triple carriageway and onto a small stretch of motorway before veering off into the smart leafy village of
Hale. The journey took less than half an hour and Shirley found that once the initial pleasantries were out of the way, she and Terry were able to sit in comfortable silence and she could take in her surroundings.

Terry pulled the car along a steep hill that rose to the even smarter area of Hale Barns. Tucked behind trees was mansion after mansion set in their own manicured grounds. Shirley still found it hard to equate the place she had now visited a number of times with being her daughter's home. She somehow got the feeling that Charly was of a similar mind. She never seemed to know where anything was and she rattled around the rooms like a lost soul. Pulling up in front of the house, Shirley could see that Charly was waiting for her. Shirley was nervous. Len had taken the news well but he was different to her Charly and Jimmy. She had left them in their formative years. She could completely understand if they turned their backs on her after their initial positive response. Until now Shirley had felt that Charly was so wrapped up in what had happened to her that having her mother turn up hadn't properly registered with her. She was concerned that when it finally did, Charly wouldn't want anything to do with her. That was why today she had decided she
was going to take Charly somewhere nice – Terry had agreed to drive – and tell her what she had told Len yesterday; the truth about where she had been and what had happened to her.

Charly answered the door. ‘I'm not sure I feel like going anywhere,' were the first words out of her mouth. She was obviously worrying about leaving the house. Shirley looked at her daughter. She was skin and bone and she had the faraway stare that Shirley herself remembered having when she was in the depths of her illness.

‘Come on, love, let's get some proper clothes on you and wash your hair,' Shirley said, guiding her daughter back into the house. Terry followed them inside. ‘We'll be half an hour,' Shirley whispered to Terry, walking Charly towards the stairs. ‘There's only one photographer outside from what I can see. We'll give him the slip and have a nice day together. What do you think?'

Charly shrugged, as if even the smallest opinion was beyond her.

*

An hour later and Charly and Shirley were walking around the grounds of Tatton Park. Neither had
been here before and both were impressed by the country house and its stunning grounds.

Charly had treated them to lunch and they were now walking through a deserted vale leading down to a small lake. ‘I can't believe how quiet it is,' Shirley said. ‘It's not even an hour to Bradington from here; seems like a million miles away.'

‘Thank God it's quiet. No one around taking pictures with their mobile phone.'

‘Who does that?'

‘Everyone! I've seen it so many times with Joel in the past. People pretend to be taking a picture of something near you, but you know really that they're taking a picture of you. And seeing as I'm Public Enemy Number One at the moment I reckon my picture's worth a bob or two.' Charly didn't think she was being paranoid. What press she had seen hadn't been painting her in the most favourable of lights.

Before Charly had had a taste of fame, she thought that to be famous was like being a member of an exclusive club. One where everyone wanted to know you and be you and above all, liked you. But as time had gone on she realised that it was lonely being well known. Everyone thought that they knew you but they only really knew what was
presented to them in the press. And currently the British public thought that Charly was a gold-digger who had bagged herself a rich footballer and who was now somehow – even though there wasn't a scrap of evidence to substantiate it – implicated in his murder. Charly had never had many friends, but now she felt totally alone. She couldn't confide in her dad, not after accusing him of Joel's murder. They hadn't spoken properly since then. Len passed messages to Charly through Shirley and she passed messages back. They were both pretending that everything was alright but things were far from alright. Until the police could tell Charly exactly who had killed Joel, her accusation against her father would always hang in the air.

There was no one else she could turn to. She couldn't confide in Jimmy because he was the worst listener in the world. Anita and Tanita may have been brought up in the same house as her but they had never felt like her sisters; they were twins and seemed to only need one another to get by. They kept themselves to themselves and hadn't been particularly forthcoming with any offer of emotional support since Joel's death. Then again, what could she expect? Both of them were as daft as a brush and went to pieces every week when
someone was voted off
X Factor
: emotional rocks they weren't. The one person that Charly wanted to confide in was standing by her side. But she couldn't, not yet. She couldn't allow herself to think that her mother was going to stay for ever. Shirley could leave again at any moment. She'd done it before. What was to stop her doing it again?

Shirley came to a stop at the lakeside and spread her coat on the floor. Sitting down, she patted it to indicate Charly come and join her. Charly smiled and shuffled alongside her mother. They both looked out over the water in silence. The place was so remote that Charly felt like she had momentarily escaped all of the claustrophobia and intrusion of the last few weeks.

Charly suddenly felt that there was someone behind her. She quickly turned around to discover that it wasn't someone, but some
thing
. A deer had wandered over to drink from the lake and was eyeing Shirley and Charly cautiously. Charly stared at the creature, totally mesmerised. Its huge brown eyes looked at her quizzically. Its gleaming coat and proud antlers made her feel small and insignificant.

‘Hello, sweetheart,' Shirley said, smiling at the beast.

‘He's beautiful.'

‘I think it's a she,' Shirley said.

The deer looked at them for one remaining moment before heading down to the water. Charly felt suddenly overcome. The sight of the deer touched her for some reason that she couldn't place and suddenly she was crying. Something about letting her emotions out at this precise moment, in this precise place, wasn't about Joel, or about the way she was being treated by the press, or the fact that her mother had returned; it was about her. She felt small and lost in the world and needed to find her place again as Charly Metcalfe, whoever she was or might turn out to be.

Charly felt her mother's arm around her and her warm breath in her hair as she curled into a ball in her arms.

‘Come on, love, it'll be alright,' Shirley said reassuringly.

‘Will it? Can you guarantee it?'

‘No one can guarantee anything.'

‘They can't, can they? Everyone leaves in the end, don't they? You did.'

‘I'm back now.'

‘That's big of you,' Charly said, knowing that the comment was hurtful but needing to say it; feeling a hit from being spiteful to someone who had hurt
her so much. Shirley looked as if she was about to say something but Charly stopped her. ‘Sorry, Mum. That was out of order.' She breathed in sharply, realising that she had just said
mum
without it being a title loaded with sarcasm – so that Shirley knew that she thought her to be unworthy of it.

Shirley didn't say anything, but Charly knew being called mum by her daughter meant a lot to her. Charly wasn't sure if she was ready to give Shirley something that meant a lot to her.

‘I told your dad the truth the other day, about what happened when I went away . . .' Shirley said quietly. Charly's stomach knotted. She had no idea what this story entailed. Over the years she'd imagined so many different variations that she didn't know what to think about her mother's vanishing act. ‘I can tell you too if you want to know.' Charly shrugged as if nonplussed. But really she was surprised that her mum couldn't hear her heart trying to thump its way out of her chest.

*

Jodie was sitting in her apartment watching a DVD when the phone rang. Seeing that it was her mum, she answered it with a look of confusion.

‘Hi, it's me. I'm outside,' Tracy barked.

‘What you doing outside?'

‘Can't I come and see my daughter once in a while?'

‘Course you can,' Jodie said, matching her mum's indignation. ‘But you've never been here before so I'm just wondering why you're starting now.'

‘Let me up, you stroppy mare,' Tracy demanded.

‘Push the buzzer,' Jodie said, replacing the handset.

A few moments later Tracy wandered into the flat. ‘How's tricks?' she asked.