Me and Mr Jones (21 page)

She wished more than ever that she hadn’t smashed her phone like that the other night. Right now she could do with it, to text Lou or even Alicia.

‘It’s too hot indoors,’ Willow moaned, coming into the room. ‘Can’t we go to the beach?’

‘Can we play in the garden?’ Hazel asked, appearing too.

‘Not now,’ Izzy said, trying to keep her voice even and normal-sounding. ‘Let’s . . . do some baking,’ she added desperately. ‘We could make Easter cookies for your teachers as an end-of-term present.’

Hazel wrinkled her nose. ‘Can’t we make them for
us
?’

Grateful for the chance to laugh, even if it felt as if there was a desperate hysteria rising behind the sound, Izzy hugged her tight. ‘That’s an even better idea. Let’s make cookies for us.’

And so, with a whirl of hand-washing and ingredient-finding and flour-sieving, she found a kind of temporary comfort, blocking out as best she could the worries beating about her brain. All the same, the peace was uneasy. A storm was on its way, and she knew it was closing in. Any moment now, it would hit her fragile ship and they’d be in all kinds of trouble.

The cookies – vaguely rabbit- and egg-shaped – had only just gone into the oven when there was a knock at the door. ‘Anyone in there?’

It was him. He was right outside the flat, having got into the building somehow – no doubt that idiot Jonah, of the low-slung jeans, had left the front door hanging open again, even though she’d made a point of securing it earlier. Izzy felt her insides contract and put a finger to her lips. ‘Don’t say anything,’ she warned in a raggedy whisper. If they just kept quiet and brazened it out, he might think there was nobody home and give up.

‘That sounded like Daddy,’ Hazel commented, eyes wide. ‘Was it actually . . . What?’

‘Shhh,’ urged Izzy, panic spiralling inside her.
Go away, Gary. Leave us alone.

The knocking came again, louder this time. ‘Girls, are you there? It’s me, Daddy!’

‘Daddy!’ squealed Hazel joyously. ‘I knew it was you!’ And before Izzy could stop her, she’d leapt away towards the front door.

‘Don’t let him in!’ Izzy screamed, running after her. ‘Hazel – stop!’ She caught hold of the little girl just as she was reaching for the latch. Willow, who’d followed, hung back, more cautious.

Izzy swallowed. ‘Gary – what are you doing here?’ she called through the door. Her vision swam dizzily with the stress, and she could feel a full-blown panic attack just waiting to descend.

‘What am I doing? I’ve come to see my girls – what do you think?’ he replied. ‘Are you going to let me in, or what?’

‘No,’ Izzy replied, clenching her fists. ‘No, I’m not. This is not a good time. You can’t just turn up like this.’

He ignored her. ‘I saw you walking up the road,’ he said, his voice thick. ‘Proper little beach girls, aren’t you? Hazel, you’ve got so many freckles now! And Willow, you must have grown a whole inch since I saw you.’

Willow was still hanging back, wary, but Hazel was like a puppy, bouncing with excitement. ‘Oh, Daddy, have you come to live with us?’ she cried happily. ‘We can show you our school and all our fossils and . . .’

‘No,’ Izzy put in quickly, conscious of everything that was at stake. ‘Girls, go and wait in the kitchen, I’ll be two minutes. I need a word with your dad.’ She refused to refer to him as ‘Daddy’. That sounded too nice, too cosy.

Neither girl moved, both seemingly transfixed by the idea of their father standing on the other side of the door. ‘I was thinking, maybe we could go out for a pizza tonight . . .’ he said coaxingly, and Hazel spun round to Izzy, thrilled.

‘Can we?’ she begged.

‘No,’ Izzy replied. ‘Go on – into the kitchen, both of you and shut the door. Now, please.’

Willow turned and left without another word, but Hazel wasn’t so sure. Bottom lip trembling and eyes suddenly tearful, she stamped her foot. ‘I want pizza with Daddy,’ she said mutinously until, catching sight of Izzy’s face, she eventually dropped her gaze and slunk away.

Izzy waited until she heard the kitchen door click before speaking. She was trembling so hard she had to fold her arms around herself, as if she might break apart otherwise. Oh God, she’d imagined this moment so many times. She had to get it right. ‘Gary . . . what do you want?’

‘I told you – to see the girls. They’re my children too, don’t forget. I have rights!’

She shook her head. ‘This is not the way to go about it,’ she said slowly. ‘Sending me messages, turning up out of the blue . . .’

‘What was I meant to do: wait for an invitation? You left! You walked out! Did you think I’d just let you go?’

She shut her eyes, not able to speak. He was so close she could hear him breathing through the door.

Then his tone softened. ‘Look, I know things went wrong between us. I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t myself, I wasn’t thinking straight. All I know is, when you left . . . I was gutted. Devastated. It hit me, what a mess I’d made of everything.’ She could imagine his eyes soulful and imploring, just like Hazel’s had been moments earlier. Just like every other time he’d apologized.

‘Go on, darlin’,’ he urged. ‘Let us in. Let’s just talk about it. Me and you together again, yeah?’

She hesitated. For a second, she was tempted. Of course he missed the girls – he was their father. Deep down she felt a pull inside too; there was still a part of her that wanted everything to work out between them. She missed the Gary who’d once been her true love, her best friend.

The realist in her held firm, though. That Gary was long gone. And if she let him in now, it could prove really difficult to get him out again. She shook her head. ‘Another time,’ she said.

It was like pulling the pin on a hand grenade. ‘You bitch!’ he shouted, thumping the door. ‘Who the hell do you think you are? Let me in this minute, or I’ll break your fucking door down.’

The last of her courage was shrinking away. She stood there, feeling small and frightened, knowing that he meant every word. ‘Go away,’ she said, trying to swallow her fear, ‘or I’ll call the police. I mean it, Gary.’ A sob caught in her throat. ‘Go away.’

‘Excuse
me
, but what’s all the noise for?’ came a voice just then, and Izzy wanted to die. Mrs Murray had come out of her flat for a nosey. Brilliant. One letter of complaint to their landlord about noisy neighbours coming right up, not to mention future babysitting favours hanging perilously in the balance.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ Gary replied, and Izzy cringed.

‘Leave her alone,’ she called. ‘Mrs Murray, don’t worry, I’ll sort this out.’

Her neighbour was already replying to Gary in the frostiest of tones. ‘Barbara Murray, not that it’s any of your business,’ she countered, before adding, ‘Izzy, dear, are you all right? Is this man bothering you?’

‘What’s happening, Mummy?’ whispered Willow just then, and Izzy jerked in alarm to see her there beside her. ‘Why’s Daddy so angry?’

Izzy shooed Willow back, then put the chain on the door and opened it a crack. ‘I’m really sorry you’ve been disturbed, Mrs M. Gary’s just leaving now.’

Gary made a lunge at the door, but she slammed it shut again before he could get his foot inside. He battered on it instead. ‘Don’t think you can get one over on me, Iz. I’m not done with you yet.’

Izzy stood against the door, not knowing what to do while he hammered at it a while longer, all pretence at niceness and pizzas forgotten as he bellowed a torrent of insults.

‘You should be ashamed of yourself,’ Mrs Murray shouted. ‘I’m calling the police this minute!’ Her own door slammed moments later.

‘Mind your own business,’ Gary yelled in response, kicking at Izzy’s door again. It shuddered in its frame and she felt paralysed with fright. Any moment now he was going to bust in there, in a roaring temper . . . and then what? What should she do?

Hazel had reappeared too, and both girls stood holding hands silently in the hall. Tears rolled down Hazel’s face and Willow put an arm around her, although she looked pale and terrified herself. Izzy felt as if her heart was breaking. This had gone far enough. ‘I’m calling the police, Gary,’ she told him. ‘Don’t worry,’ she mouthed helplessly to the girls as she went to the phone. Her fingers shook as she dialled, but he’d left her with no choice.

‘Police, please,’ she said, and gave her details. ‘My ex is trying to break into my flat and I’ve got two young children here.’

‘We’ve already had reports of a problem at that address, Miss – a car should be with you in less than a minute,’ the operator assured her.

‘Thank you,’ Izzy gulped. She held the girls close. They were both trembling. ‘I’ve got you,’ she whispered. ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’

With one last deafening kick at the door, Gary suddenly stopped. A siren was wailing outside; he had heard the arrival of the police too. His footsteps clattered down the communal stairs and the front door slammed behind him. He was gone.

Hazel and Willow sagged in Izzy’s arms and all three of them wept. ‘It’s all right, it’s all right, I’m sorry he scared you,’ Izzy soothed, choking on her own words. Then the smoke alarm began to screech. The cookies were burning.

She barely slept that night, braced for Gary to come back and smash his way in. The police hadn’t been much help; just listened to the story and told her to phone again if he came back. It didn’t reassure her for a minute.

The next day she was in two minds about them going out to school and work, but couldn’t bear the alternative of cowering in the flat all day. When they finally ventured out of the building, looking nervously in every direction, she noticed that the pots of daffodils and tulips outside the main door – the ones Mrs Murray had taken great pride in planting – had been kicked over and broken. Someone had trampled all over the bright new flowers, completely destroying them.

Izzy gazed miserably up at Mrs Murray’s window. She wanted to run back upstairs and warn the old lady, apologize and promise to buy replacements, but there just wasn’t time before the school run, and then she would have to go straight on to work. The thought of her neighbour’s face when she saw the damage made her feel absolutely terrible. Gary wouldn’t be happy until he’d trashed everything for her here in Lyme, that was obvious.

Thankfully there were no incidents on the way to school, despite Izzy’s fears, and she felt her heart slow a fraction once she’d seen the girls into the building. There at least they would be protected. She went to the reception desk just to be on the safe side, and waited until the knot of mums handing in late dinner-money payments and returning slips about next term’s cycling proficiency course had melted away.

‘Can I help you?’ asked Mrs Hastings, the terrifying, gimlet-eyed woman who ran the school’s administration like a colonel on a battlefield.

‘Yes, it’s um . . .’ Izzy glanced around warily. ‘I just want to let the school know that my daughters, Willow and Hazel Allerton, are only to be picked up by me, and me alone. Their father may try to . . .’ She felt sick; she couldn’t even say the words. ‘He might turn up,’ she managed eventually. She swallowed hard. ‘He’s not . . . very nice.’

‘I see,’ Mrs Hastings replied, jotting down the girls’ names. ‘Thank you for making me aware of this.’

‘Hopefully he won’t come to the school,’ Izzy went on. ‘But just to warn you: he might take a punt and try it on. And if he does . . .’ She swallowed again, remembering the ruined tulips wrenched from the earth, boot-marks branding their colourful petals. ‘If he does, I’m sorry for whatever happens.’ She clutched her hands together miserably, hating that she’d been forced into this conversation. It would be all round the staffroom, no doubt, that the Allerton girls had a violent thug of a father. Soon everyone would know the shame she felt.

Mrs Hastings nodded. ‘It’s happened before, it’ll happen again,’ she said. ‘But while they’re in our care, they’ll be safe. You have my word on it.’

Tired and vulnerable after her long sleepless night, Izzy had to turn abruptly before she did anything awful like cry. ‘Thanks,’ she said on her way out.

No more tears, she vowed. She had the law on her side, she had Mrs Hastings on her side. She hoped it would be enough.

At eleven o’clock that morning the call came. Mrs Hastings. ‘I’m sorry to ring you at work, Mrs Allerton, but I wanted to let you know that the person we were talking about earlier has just left the premises,’ she said crisply.

Izzy felt her legs buckle. She wasn’t supposed to take calls during work time, but with her mobile now broken, she had given the school the tea shop’s number, just in case.

‘Excuse
me
,’ snapped Margaret, her boss, coming through with a tray of cream cakes.

Izzy barely heard the reproach. ‘What happened?’ she asked.

‘Well, it was as you anticipated, to be honest,’ Mrs Hastings said. ‘He was aggressive, wanted to take the girls out of school, became very abusive . . . I threatened to telephone the police, but that didn’t make any difference. In the end, Mr Collingwood and Mr Liddell had to escort him from the building.’

Oh God. The head teacher and the elderly caretaker, no less. Izzy’s face flamed. Why was Gary so hell-bent on wrecking everything?

‘I’m so s—’ she began shakily, but then, slamming through her consciousness, came a shout from the café. ‘Where is she? I know she works here. Where’s Izzy?’

‘Oh God,’ she whispered into the phone. ‘He’s here. I’ve got to go.’

Blindly she stumbled into the seating area. The floor seemed to pitch dizzily before her. There was Gary, towering above a table of scared-looking old ladies, virtually spitting with rage. It was happening.

‘Do you mind, sir, you’re upsetting our customers,’ fumed Margaret, holding an empty tray in front of her like a shield. ‘Kindly lower your voice at once.’

‘I’m sorry, Margaret,’ Izzy said, stricken. It was like being in the most terrible dream; everything had an unreal, filmic quality to it. ‘I’m sorry, everyone,’ she heard herself say, high-pitched and frightened. ‘We’ll go outside and leave you in peace.’

Margaret was muttering indignantly and there was a stream of hushed, nervy voices in her wake, but Izzy couldn’t register the content. All she could see was Gary in front of her, a raging force of nature. The rest of the café seemed to fall away as she walked mechanically towards him and they went outside.