Blood Family (25 page)

Take Eddie, for example. He had a hard time with ‘sorry’.

‘Oh, I can
say
it easily enough. And everyone is kind and acts as if the problem’s smoothed over, everything’s fine, we can all start afresh.’ He stared at his gnawed nails. ‘But that’s not how things
are
, is it? I mean, there’s this black patch of what you’ve done that sits behind you in their minds and in your own. And “sorry” can’t fix that.’

‘You feel it wears you down?’

‘I feel I’m stuck with it.’

‘Nobody’s perfect,’ I reminded him. ‘And nor is life. It works more like a book – some pages sad, some far more cheery. And you never know what’s coming next.’

‘Until “The End”,’ he told me gloomily.

I smiled at him. ‘Oh, come on, Eddie. Hopefully not too soon!’

One morning Nicholas showed up earlier than usual. They wouldn’t let me out of Group before the end, so by the time I joined him in the lounge, he had been kicking his heels for half an hour.

He came straight to the point. ‘I want to tell you something. Don’t say a word to Natasha if she rings, but I am whipping her off to Spain this Friday for a surprise holiday.’

Natasha hates surprises. ‘You won’t be popular,’ I said, ‘if she’s got stuff to do.’

He laughed. ‘I’ve fixed all that. I’ve been conspiring with the people in her office. They’ve filled her calendar with one or two spoof dates, and say that they can cover everything else themselves.’

‘Clever.’

‘Anyhow,’ he said, ‘it means we won’t be coming for ten days. I’m sorry about that. But up till now, Natasha’s been refusing to go anywhere.’

I thought I knew why that was – in case the police rang to say I was dead while she was sunning herself on some lush beach.

‘I’ll manage.’ That sounded sour, so I made a joke of it. ‘I’ll borrow someone else’s mum and dad.’

He gave me such a grateful smile. I realized that it had been years since I’d referred to them as ‘Mum and Dad’. Alice kept using their first names after adoption, and probably feeling wary of the very word ‘mum’, I’d picked the habit up.

‘Alice will visit,’ Nicholas said. ‘She’s back from Bristol tomorrow.’

The place they kept us couldn’t have been further in the sticks. ‘She’ll never get here,’ I warned. ‘Tod’s uncle took three hours to get here on buses.’

‘But Alice drives.’

That came as news. I hadn’t thought what might be happening while I was gone.

‘But they won’t let her in without an adult. They don’t trust anybody under twenty-five. It’s in the thing you and Natasha signed.’

‘Alice will think of something.’

Alice did. She brought my mum. She didn’t spring it on me – not entirely. She rushed ahead to poke her head round the door of the room I shared with Jean-Pierre. ‘Surprise coming up,’ she warned. ‘I did phone Linda and Alan, but Alan’s on bed rest after some hernia thing, so I didn’t like to ask.’

‘So who—’

But Alice had already opened the door a little wider so I could see my mother wandering down the passageway, staring about as if she’d never seen a long pink wall before. Alice ushered her in and settled her on the bed till Jean-Pierre took Alice’s blunt hint, prised himself out of the only comfortable chair and left the room.

‘Bit of a sourpuss, that one,’ Alice remarked.

‘He’s French,’ I said.

We had a laugh about that. My mum joined in, though she had not the least idea what we were talking about. Alice went off to make some tea for all of us in the shared galley kitchen. And I was left alone with Lucy.

I thought I ought to say something, but I had no idea whether or not she even knew I’d disappeared for months on end. ‘How’s things with you?’ I asked.

She nodded, smiling. ‘We brought cake. Alice says that it’s lemon.’

I had a sudden memory of Great-Granny Dinah in the home Rob took me to when I was young. She had gone on about cake. In Group, the leader had discussed the sort of damage drugs did to our brains. ‘Excess of alcohol,’ he’d said, ‘has pretty much the same effect as being punched in the head. A boxer’s brains look like the brains of an old man.’

My mother had taken punches and I’d taken drink. She’d reached the stage where she could not walk out. I’d reached the stage where I couldn’t leave an inch of drink in a bottle. Apart from the fact that Lucy already had the brain of an old lady, what was the difference between us?

It was a miserable thought. But I really didn’t want Alice to come back and find us sitting like two stones. So, ‘Lucy,’ I said, ‘did anybody tell you I’d run away?’

She smiled at me. ‘Eddie!’

Lord knows what that meant.

‘Well, I did,’ I said. ‘I ran away, but now I’m back. And I’ll be out of here in a few weeks. And then I’ll come and see you at your place.’

She nodded brightly. ‘We’ve been painted pink.’

I pointed. ‘Pink like the corridor out there?’

She didn’t know what I was talking about. But when Alice came back with the tea tray, Lucy and I were at least exchanging words. It wasn’t talking really. We were just
reeling off our favourite colours. Lucy had several, and I was making all mine up.

At least it was a start.

I got to talk to Alice alone while I was showing the two of them around the gardens just before they left. ‘How did they take it?’ I asked. ‘No messing. The grim truth.’

She made a face. ‘How do you think? Nicholas was destroyed and Natasha was livid. She tried to hide it, but she couldn’t. You could tell that she thought they’d offered you this stable, happy family, better than anything you’d ever had, and you had chucked the whole lot in her face.’

‘Ungrateful little turd, was I?’

Alice didn’t argue. ‘And when Natasha saw the mess that Nicholas was turning into, lying awake every night imagining your body rotting in a ditch, she said that only someone from a family as hellish as yours could be so cruel as not to even bother to ring in, even just every now and again, to tell them you were safe.’

‘Not sure I
was
safe.’

‘Well, you weren’t, were you? When Nicholas brought you home, you looked like shit.’

‘You
saw
me?’

Alice stared. ‘Don’t you
remember
? I drove home that very night. I was there when the doctor came to put that shot in your bum. I was there all the time that you were screaming and yelling in your sleep. I only left the
next day so as not to let some college mates down in a presentation.’

I shivered. ‘Glad I don’t remember.’

‘You’re lucky. It was
horrible
. I never want to hear anyone howling like that again. Nicholas was tearing his hair out, and Natasha was striding up and down around the house all night, burning with fury and muttering to herself.’

‘About my “bad blood”, probably.’

‘No! That’s self-pitying nonsense!’ Her face went tight. ‘But, Eddie, since you’ve brought it up, there’s something I did want to say. I mean, I know it was a
hateful
thing I shouted at you.’ She hesitated. ‘You know. About being a beast. And I’ve felt terrible about it ever since.’ Now she was staring at the ground. ‘But—’

I had to prompt her. ‘But—?’

Alice looked up. ‘It’s not
enough
, is it? I mean, for it to be my fault, you going off like that and getting yourself in such a state you couldn’t even phone home. Spending months reeling round in horrid places, halfway to
paralytic
.’ Her voice was sharp. ‘You’re not so stupid as to think that just because your dad’s a vile and stupid drunk, you have to follow his example and be one too. You even
hate
Bryce Harris! So why on earth did you
copy
him?’

My stomach clenched. And there in front of me, crystal-sharp, came a long-buried memory of Miss Bright back in primary school, leading me out of the classroom and down the corridor until we reached the tiny, safe
school library with all its scarlet cushions. ‘You mustn’t
copy
people, Edward. I know you’re sometimes not sure how to do things. But copying Astrid’s painting won’t make it yours. You have to take a chance and be yourself.’

Had I just nodded? Had I cried?

Now it was Alice peering in my burning face. ‘Eddie?’

I shoved the ancient memory aside. ‘I don’t
know
why I did it. But I don’t blame you and I never have.’

She darted forward to peck my cheek. (My first kiss ever from Alice.) ‘Thanks, Eddie.’

Then she turned, embarrassed. ‘Lucy! It’s time to go!’

We walked on to the car park, my mum still trailing behind. Since it was obviously confession time, I thought I might as well be brave. ‘Alice, can I ask something back? About Natasha.’

Alice looked uneasy.

I asked it anyway. ‘Have I blown things for ever? Does Natasha hate me?’

‘Not
hate
you, no. Of course not—’ Alice broke off, to pick her next words with care. ‘Though I’m not sure she’ll ever truly
forgive
you.’ She gave me an encouraging punch. ‘But honestly, you should have seen her face when she was told you’d sent that postcard. She
must
love you, Eddie. And the two of you will come to terms.’

‘She’s been so nice on the visits.’

‘Visits are short,’ warned Alice.

‘You think it will be awful after I come home?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s up to you. You know Natasha.
All she wants is for everything she does to be a great success. And she adopted us, so we’ve to be successful too.’

We’d reached the car park. Alice looked around to check on Lucy, who was dawdling behind, smiling at bushes, then she turned back to me. ‘Though, to be fair to Natasha, I think that she’d be just as pleased with you if you were simply
happy
.’

I made a face. ‘You reckon that’s my choice? Successful or happy?’

‘You could try both.’ She grinned. ‘That’s what I’m aiming for.’

‘Well, I’m not you. And I admit that, given the way I feel, I don’t think happy’s in the running here.’

‘Well, then,’ said Alice, as if this wrapped the matter up, ‘you’ll have to be successful. And that reminds me . . .’ She tugged at the car’s back door and reached inside. ‘This is for you.’

She thrust a purple backpack in my arms. ‘Natasha bought it. She gave poor Nicholas a helping of tongue pie for even bothering to bring your old one back when he went up to fetch you. She said it stunk the car out horribly and probably had fleas. She wouldn’t even let me look inside before she dumped it in the wheelie bin. I had to sneak out later to get your treasures.’

Treasures?

All I could think of was Olly the Owl, from all those years ago. ‘Treasures?’

‘You know,’ she said. ‘The stuff you had in there when
you were carted off to hospital. I’ve put them in to cheer you up.’ Again she grinned. ‘You’re going to need them too, when you see all the other stuff Natasha’s put in there.’

I stood there silently while Alice herded Lucy into the car and strapped her into her seat.

A moment later, after one false start and a short spit of gravel from beneath the wheels, Alice was gone.

‘The other stuff’ was mostly books and papers. I did think that was odd, until I looked more closely. One of the envelopes was marked in Natasha’s hand:
Edward. Fill in this form at once and post it back
.

Clipped to the papers was another clean, self-sealing envelope, already addressed and stamped.

The papers were an application for Sixth Form College, to start in just a few weeks. My good school record up till everything went wrong was all in there, along with descriptions of the courses I’d started but never finished. (The reason given for that, and for my being out of school so long, had been put down as ‘health problems now resolved’.)

The only choice that had been left to me was for supporting subjects.

And that is what the books were all about. Short introductory texts on some of the options. I suppose Natasha thought that if I liked the look of one or two of them more than the others, I could choose those.

I spread the papers out over my bed and stared at them, feeling as if she’d given me a legal document and ordered me to sign my life away. She’d even used those tiny coloured peel-off strips to flag up where to date and sign.

I bet she would have forged my name for me if she had dared.

If she’d tried that on me before, I’m sure I would have baulked. Now I just didn’t care. I was quite happy to have someone as tough as Natasha make my decisions for me. It stopped me having to think, and half the time I felt too muggy, the rest exhausted and tearful. Dr Ross had assured Natasha and Nicholas that once I’d stopped the tablets she’d prescribed to calm me for the first couple of weeks, I would be able to concentrate again. But I didn’t bother even trying to read the books Natasha sent. I simply squinted at the jacket blurbs, then chose the ones that didn’t sound too hard or dull.

Then I picked up the two things Alice had smuggled in the backpack afterwards. One was the only Mr Perkins tape that had survived. The other was the book. I couldn’t play the tape, and so I read
The Devil Ruled the Roost
for what was probably the fortieth time. I knew the story so well that it didn’t matter when the print began to pitch and roll, or my mind wandered off.

Until I realized where it kept wandering.

Tiffany said she’d found him crying in the gardener’s shed. ‘I told him, there’s no need to get upset. It’s only a
book
.’ But he’d said something through his tears about his mother.

Then he’d clammed up.

We try not to let on when one of them is indiscreet about another. But in our next private session I did tackle Eddie. ‘I know we’ve talked a lot about your mother, Lucy. But I want to go back to that a little.’

They’re none of them stupid.

‘I
told
Tiff not to tell you!’ he said sullenly. ‘She even promised.’

I shrugged, and batted on for quite a while, but we made almost no headway. So when the hour was up, I sent him off with homework.

‘
Homework?
’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You have to write a letter to your mum.’

‘To Lucy?’ The laugh was scornful. ‘She’s not right in the head. Can’t even
listen
properly, let alone read.’