The Things We Never Said (18 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

More than twelve hours after leaving Sheffield, they finally drive along the coast road.

‘Where are we?’ Maggie says sleepily.

‘Home. Don’t you recognise it?’ Leonard turns into a side road and they immediately go into a skid. Maggie clutches the carrycot in terror but Leonard quickly manages to right the car. The sky is dark now, but the snow makes everything lighter. They pull up behind a hulking white shape that she assumes is another car. Glancing down the road, she counts five snowmen standing in front gardens, their hats, scarves and carrot noses already half-covered by the most recent fall. The wind coming off the sea has blown snow up against the houses and sculpted great curves and arcs out of the whiteness, making unexpected shadows and giving the place an eerie look, like a Salvador Dali landscape. The drifts are so deep that some of the front doors are completely obscured.

‘You wait here,’ Leonard says. ‘I need to clear a pathway to the door or you’ll go base over apex.’

She smiles. That was one of their dad’s expressions. It takes a few minutes to clear the path, and there’s a foot-long icicle hanging threateningly from the windowsill above. Leonard bashes it several times before it finally snaps, and at last they make their way carefully up the steps.

Home. Perhaps she’s been away long enough to make herself appreciate it. The first thing she’ll do is light the fire and make some cocoa. Cocoa-by-the-fire; it was a ritual their mother had established when she’d first started teaching them to cook. She’d call them in as she prepared the evening meal. ‘Now, you two watch closely,’ she’d say as she rubbed cubes of butter and lard into the flour with her fingertips, lifting the mixture high and letting it trickle back into the bowl. ‘More air makes it lighter. And a pinch of bi-carb will make it nice and short.’

Maggie’s pastry was never as good as her mother’s, but Leonard’s was sublime: pale and biscuity, crisp to the bite but crumbly and light on the tongue. ‘It’s his cold hands,’ their mother explained. ‘Good pastry needs a cool touch.’ Maggie’s own talent was for stews and casseroles. She knew how to trim a neck of lamb and brown it slowly to reduce the fattiness, then season it and stew it gently with sliced onions in a pan of delicate golden stock until it was tender. After an hour or so, she’d add potatoes, pearl barley and sweet baby carrots, then leave the whole thing to cook until all the flavours had infused and a rich savoury aroma filled the house. On winter nights, they’d sit around the kitchen table eating steaming plates of lamb stew and mopping up the fragrant gravy with hunks of home-made bread. Afterwards, the three of them would have cocoa by the fire, hands curled around their mugs as the hot coals scorched their cheeks and shins while the draught from the ill-fitting window chilled the backs of their necks.

The lock is frozen and Leonard struggles with the key. Then the door swings open. Maggie wrinkles her nose; the house smells of mice. She recognises the smell, because the hotel kitchen was frequently overrun and she’d had to set the traps.

Leonard flicks on the light. Maggie puts the carrycot in the hall and walks into the kitchen, her shoes making a sticky-tape noise on the tacky lino. Everything is grimy. There are newspapers stacked on every chair, there’s a build-up of brown grease on the stove, and mouse droppings surround the half-loaf of bread that Leonard has left on the table. Used saucepans are piled on the draining board and next to it, the twin tub is almost hidden by the pile of grubby chef’s whites.

‘Lenny,’ she says. ‘What on earth? This place is a pigsty!’

He looks sheepish. ‘I know. I’ve been doing split shifts. And the daily left in November . . .’ He looks around as though he’s seeing the room for the first time. ‘It is a bit of a state, isn’t it?’ Then his face brightens. ‘I forgot – I’ve got a surprise for you.’

He leads her along the hall to her old room, tells her to close her eyes. When she opens them, she smiles. ‘Oh Lenny, it’s perfect.’

‘I made it,’ he says, running his hand along the sidebar of the wooden cot. ‘Not bad for a beginner, is it?’

‘It’s beautiful, Len. Thank you.’ She smiles as he shows her the blue teddy bear he’s painted at one end and the pink rabbit with the bright yellow bow at the other.

*

The tall, draughty windows in Maggie’s bedroom rattle in the wind, and ivy has started to grow into the room through a gap in the frame. She keeps finding things she left here before she went to Sheffield – hairspray, perfume, eyeliner – but it’s as though they belong to someone else. She picks up a record: ‘All I Have to Do is Dream’. Yes, she thinks, and boil a dozen nappies, and wash a mountain of woolly jackets and cot sheets. She shoves the record back in its sleeve just as the twins start to grizzle. Jonathan’s easier to feed, so she sees to him first. Breastfeeding certainly saves money, she thinks, but she wonders how long she’ll be able to stand it. Both twins clamp onto her nipple as though they’re terrified she’ll get away. As they take in the milk, she fancies she can see them filling up, becoming plumper and more rosy-cheeked while she herself becomes thinner, paler, weaker. She feels as though she may look in the mirror one day and find that she’s no longer there. Is that the sole purpose of mothers, she wonders: a source of nourishment that simply fades away when no longer needed? After all, hadn’t her own mother died as soon as her children became independent?

When she tries to nurse a wailing Elizabeth, the child just pulls and twists at the nipple, stretching it out until Maggie winces in pain. Eventually, Elizabeth settles and drops off to sleep, milk spilling out of her mouth as though she’s overflowing.

Maggie lights a cigarette and sighs as she looks out of the window. March. It’s snowed every day for weeks; how much longer can it last? It was bright and crisp this morning, but now it’s clouding over again and the sky is heavy and bulging. It’s all there, waiting.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Jonathan is only out for a few seconds. He can’t remember Malcolm trying to bring him round, nor can he recall being hauled into the police station. In fact, the next thing he remembers is sitting on a long bench, slumped against the wall next to a lad with a nosebleed and a shrivelled-looking man in a donkey jacket. Every few seconds, the man, who stinks of cider and vomit, mutters and waves an uncertain fist at anyone who’s passing.

A few feet away, Malcolm is leaning against the desk, partially supported by a skinny policeman who looks about sixteen. An older officer with a boozer’s nose is taking details. Jonathan opens his mouth to speak, but nothing happens, so he leans his head back against the wall and lets Malcolm do the talking.

‘Postcode?’

‘Sierra echo three,’ Malcolm slurs, ‘two fosstrot Zulu.’

‘Smartarse,’ the copper says without looking up. ‘Right, follow PC Linton here and get your heads down for a couple of hours. Then we’ll see.’

‘C’mon then, lads,’ the young copper says, pulling Jonathan to his feet.

‘Lads? We’re nearly old enough to be your fathers.’

‘Time you acted like it then, isn’t it? Come on.’

They follow him down some stairs where he unlocks the door to a small cell. ‘Not both of you. This isn’t bloody scout camp.’

Someone is throwing up in the next cell. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ the copper mutters. ‘You,’ he says, nodding at Jonathan and indicating a concrete bench covered with a thin blue mattress. ‘Lie down before you fall down.’ He turns to Malcolm. ‘You, follow me.’ He jangles his keys and calls back into the cell, ‘Sleep tight, and don’t bother ringing for room service.’ The door slams and Jonathan hears the key turn.

He lies down on the mattress and groans. How on earth has he ended up in this state? In the corner there’s a stainless-steel lavatory – just the pan, no seat, and as far as he can tell, no paper. He hopes he won’t be needing it, but he’s desperate for . . . actually, his bladder doesn’t feel so uncomfortable now. He can probably wait. Something tugs at the sleeve of his memory, then everything begins to spin and he surrenders willingly to oblivion.

*

It seems like only minutes later when someone shakes him awake. He sits up too quickly and pain hammers into his skull.

‘Come on, rise and shine.’ It’s the same PC that put him in here earlier, only now he smells of sweat and cheeseburgers. ‘It’s all kicked off in New Cross and we need the space.’

Jonathan looks around. ‘What, you mean I can go?’

‘You can, Sir. No tea in bed though, I’m afraid. It’s the maid’s day off. Your mate’s waiting upstairs. Sobered up quite quick after he puked. Report to the desk, then you can both sling your hooks.’

Jonathan shuffles up the stairs, heart pounding with the effort. He feels sick, dizzy, and desperately thirsty. How could he have been so stupid? According to the clock on the wall, it’s almost half past three. Fiona will be worried sick; he needs to call her. Reception is crowded with loudmouthed youths, shouting and swearing at the officers trying to manhandle them into the processing area. The unmistakable smell of marijuana hangs in the air.

‘Lucky we’ve been so busy,’ the custody sergeant says, as Jonathan signs for his things. ‘If it weren’t for the paperwork I’d have done you for Drunk and Incapable.’ He raises his eyebrows. ‘Not to mention Indecent Exposure.’

‘What do you mean?’ A fragment of memory skitters through his mind.

‘Good job PC Collins came along when he did.’ The policeman’s beard shifts as a grin spreads across his big face. He shakes his head slowly, in an exaggerated way. ‘Dear oh dear oh dear. Much longer with it all hanging out in this weather and you’d have been singing soprano.’

The jigsaw of the final moments before he passed out begins to reassemble itself in Jonathan’s head. He groans.

The sergeant nods in the direction of a room off the reception area. ‘Your mate’s through there,’ he says, whist ling ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’, as Jonathan walks towards the door.

Malcolm’s face is not so much pale as translucent. ‘That was Cass,’ he says, putting his phone away. ‘Her mother’s going over to babysit and then she’s coming to pick us up. She tried to get hold of Fiona, apparently, but she’s not answering.’

‘That’s us both in the shit then.’

‘Yep. I told Cass we’d get a cab but she doesn’t trust us. She said I should thank the lord she didn’t get the kids up out of bed and trail them down here to show me up for the worthless streak of snake-shit that I am. Quote, unquote. Then she hung up on me.’

‘Oh fuck, fuck, fuck.’

‘Yeah, well.’ Malcolm is quiet for a minute. ‘This business with . . . you know, all this bollocks that you might have inherited some killer streak or something—’

‘I know you think it’s bollocks, but for God’s sake, it was bad enough thinking I might take after my—’

‘Just belt up for two bloody minutes, will you?’ Malcolm snaps, lunging towards him so violently that, for a moment, Jonathan thinks he’s going to hit him, but instead he grabs his shoulders. ‘Listen, for fuck’s sake. There’s something I’ve never told you before. Something I don’t like to even think about.’ He leans forward, head bowed, arms resting on his knees; he laces and unlaces his fingers.

The anguish etched on Malcolm’s face shocks Jonathan into silence, but then the door swings open and a spiky-haired teenager in a leather jacket and ripped jeans swaggers over to the vending machine and punches in his selection. Malcolm’s hands drop to his sides and he turns away again. An older man follows the younger, his eyes flicking nervously around the room. He leans and says something to the boy who shrugs him off, grabs a can from the mouth of the machine and stalks towards the door. The man looks around with an apologetic expression as the youth snarls at him from the doorway. ‘Dad! I need to get my head down, innit?’ As the man hurries after his son, Jonathan glimpses an inch of pyjama-bottom poking out beneath his trousers. He is wearing carpet slippers.

The heavy door swings shut behind them, causing a brief draught before the stillness returns. Malcolm turns to Jonathan again; he looks crushed. ‘Listen,’ he sighs. ‘My father . . .’ His voice catches. ‘My father started touching me up when I was ten.’

Jonathan thinks he’s misheard.

‘I had five younger brothers and sisters; my mum locked herself in the spare room most nights – we’d all heard her telling him she couldn’t cope with any more kids. One night, they had this huge row. She screamed at him that he wouldn’t be such a good Catholic if it was him who had the babies. He yelled something back, then he ripped the bathroom cabinet off the wall and chucked it through the window.’

‘Bloody hell.’ Jonathan speaks in a whisper.

‘We were picking slivers of glass off the front path for days after. Anyway, that’s when he started on me. I won’t go into what he did, but shall we say it progressed. He’d come into our room while my mum was on nights. I’d lie there watching the door and waiting for the handle to turn, trying not to cry in case I woke my brothers up.’ He takes a breath. ‘Then, after two years, it stopped.’

Jonathan lays his hand briefly on Malcolm’s arm. A wave of nausea threatens to engulf him but he fights it down.

‘I was so glad I didn’t have to watch for that fucking doorknob that it never occurred to me to wonder
why
it had stopped. I only found out a few years ago; he’d moved on to my sister, Karen. She was ten – that was the magic number.
You’re into double figures now
, he used to say, as though it was some sort of grown-up privilege. According to Karen, he got at our brother Andy as well. Andy’s never told me himself. I just thank God the old bastard dropped dead before he could touch the little ones.’

‘Malc, I don’t know what to say. Here I am, going on about my problems when all the time . . .’ A series of images flashes through his mind: Malcolm as best man at his and Fiona’s wedding, Malcolm’s wedding to Cass, Malcolm with his sons from his first marriage, flying kites on Blackheath. And the everyday stuff, Malcolm bringing beer when they built the shed, Malcolm backing him up at school, Malcolm cajoling him back to am-dram when he was about to drop it. In every mental snapshot, Malcolm is smiling, encouraging, not a trace of self-pity. ‘I had no idea.’ He moves to place a comforting hand on Malcolm’s shoulder, but their arms knock awkwardly together. ‘Sorry, I was . . .’

‘I know.’

‘What about your mum?’

‘We never told her. What he did was down to him; no one else.’ Malcolm turns towards him, a stricken light in his eyes. ‘All this
like father, like son
stuff is nonsense. I’ve got kids, remember?’

‘Oh God, no, I didn’t mean . . .’

Malcolm picks up his cup and drains it. ‘So any more genetic inevitability claptrap, and I might just have to knock your block off.’

‘Point taken.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it again, all right?’

‘Okay, but—’

‘Never. I mean it.’ Malcom stands. ‘Right.’ He jingles the coins in his pocket. ‘Let’s grab another coffee to fortify ourselves before Cass gets here.’

Just then, the door opens and an officer they’ve not seen before informs them that Cassie is waiting in reception. ‘You naughty boys
are
in trouble, aren’t you?’