Tell Tale (2 page)

‘Things finally went well for me the minute I met you.’ Mick wove his fingers through the mass of his wife’s hair. He tugged on her neck and brought her face towards his. They kissed. Nina sighed from deep inside, a special reserve, as if she had a secret stash of love reserved especially for him. Mick withdrew but kept their lips near. ‘There’s something I want to show you.’

‘Oh?’ Nina leaned back and stood up when she felt Mick shifting beneath her. ‘What is it?’ Pinwheels of excitement spun through her. That was the thing with Mick – he made her feel so alive. Some of her friends had complained that their marriages needed a kickstart after only a couple of years. Infidelity, boredom, incompatibility, work pressures had all added to the downfall of wedded bliss. Not so in the Kennedy household.

It made Nina feel almost guilty confessing that her husband was passionate, spontaneous, and that he still adored her. She remembered telling all this to Laura when they’d opened a second bottle of wine one night. Nina hadn’t meant to brag or send Laura into a flat spin about her own marriage. But Mick had a knack of injecting freshness and excitement into their lives. She just couldn’t keep to herself how she felt.

‘I wasn’t going to show you until it was finished, but I can’t wait any longer,’ Mick said solemnly.

‘I’m intrigued, Mr Kennedy.’ Nina felt herself being
pulled by the hand and led down the garden towards the studio. Mick had had the wooden cabin built when they moved into the house five years ago. It was practically a second home for him now.

They stopped halfway across the lawn. Suddenly, everything went dark. ‘Hey, what’s going on?’ Nina could smell nicotine on her husband’s fingers as they blanketed her eyes. She felt a moment’s apprehension, but then laughed.

‘Come into my dark abode,’ he growled playfully. ‘I want to do despicable things to you.’

Nina giggled and allowed herself to be led blindfolded across the grass. She felt a twig crunch underfoot and noticed the sickly-sweet scent of the tea rose she had recently planted as they brushed past the border. ‘Mick Kennedy, you are a wicked, evil man, but I love you.’ This was the perfect ending to a significant day. She heard his breathing as he unfastened the door. He always kept the key on him, protective of the studio’s precious contents.

Inside, Nina breathed in Mick’s cologne and the scent of his work. Her eyes were still clamped shut as he closed the door. She heard him flick on the light. ‘What is it, Mick?’ It was a thrill to have his warm fingers blinding her. ‘I’m dying here.
Please
tell me.’

Light suddenly flooded Nina’s pupils as he released her. She squinted.

‘Well?’ Mick stepped over to a huge canvas and spread out his hands. ‘What do you think?’

Nina’s breath caught in her chest, trapped between ribs that had frozen in place. Finally, she said, ‘It’s amazing.
Beautiful
.’ Tears welled in her eyes as she focused on a nude, life-size painting of herself. ‘I absolutely love it. But why did you paint
me?’

‘So I can see you while I’m working. Every bit of you.’ He half smiled, half pouted. Nina’s heart raced in her chest. ‘Now that I have the deal with the Marley Gallery in London, I’m going to be flat out supplying them.’ He sighed. Perhaps, Nina thought, from the extra workload. He’d been so stressed recently. ‘You can keep me company in the wee hours.’ He was pleased she approved.

‘It’s so . . . so real.’ Nina blushed as she walked up to the painting. She followed every contour and line. One limb led to another; swirls of her long hair drew the eye to remote parts of her body. Vaguely abstract like most of Mick’s works, yet real with exquisite clarity, Mick had captured a side of her she had long forgotten existed – a woman, a youngster, the child within.

‘Couldn’t you spare any paint to give me clothes?’ She stepped up to her husband and wrapped her arms around his neck. Their previous kiss still lingered in the pit of her belly.

‘This is how I see you. Free, lovely, naked. As vulnerable as when you were born.’

‘At least you’ve given me a scarf.’ Nina pointed at the long stretch of fabric that Mick had painted tied round her wrist. It was loosely bound to the other one. ‘It’s pretty. I’d like a scarf like that.’ Deep purple and red chiffon brushed her skin. ‘But don’t you think I look too thin?’ She was becoming self-conscious.

‘It’s how you are,’ Mick said, unscrewing the lids of several tubes of paint. He didn’t take criticism well.

‘No, really. I’m a little heavier than you’ve made me.’ Nina studied the layers of paint that made up her body. Sometimes Mick used a palette knife. Sometimes he used a sable brush with only a couple of fine hairs.

‘Prove it.’ Mick’s eyes simmered blue-black.

For a second, Nina thought he was angry at her comments. Then she raised her eyebrows and unfastened the top buttons of her blouse. ‘You realise that you’re going to have to inspect every inch of me to make sure the likeness is good.’

Mick grinned before he made his move. With one hand he locked his wife’s wrists together and with the other he stripped her naked. No one heard their noise or knew of the passion that flared between them as they lay down beneath the painting; no one else felt their happiness.

When Nina stumbled back across the garden, it was dark. She blew out the candle left burning on the rear deck. Mick, who often worked at night, stayed in the floodlit studio to paint.

In the bathroom, Nina studied herself in the mirror. She nodded slowly. The likeness of the painting was a good one. In bed, she stared at the ceiling, smiling her way into a peaceful sleep.

I’m staring up at the huge gates with the car engine ticking over. The wrought iron is painted black, with twitch grass fringing the trunk-like wooden posts. There’s a security keypad to one side. The pass code was included in my new employee’s pack. I punch in four seven one six.

The iron gates creak and part in the middle. I edge the car forward, keen to get in. I check the rear-view mirror. The gates close, sealing me inside the grounds. I drive on, swallowing away the nerves that have been brewing in my throat the last few days.

The drive is tree-lined, with branches spreading like outstretched arthritic arms, forming a mottled canopy. Beech and oak stand sentry as I pass beneath. I keep my eyes fixed firmly ahead.

The drive yawns into a wide courtyard with a Victorian mansion sitting squarely between the stables and a modern building beside it. As I approach, I read ‘Science Block’ on the ugly modern bricks.

I park my car and crunch across the gravel, carrying my suitcase to the main front entrance. It was raining earlier and the air smells sickly-sweet from the hanging
baskets and tubs of dazzling flowers clustered around the entrance.

I take a deep breath and step inside.

‘Hello. I’m Frankie Gerrard,’ I announce as cheerfully as I can manage. ‘Francesca,’ I add when the school receptionist appears puzzled.

‘Ah, yes, of course.’ She smiles at me. ‘We’ve been expecting you.’ She comes out from behind the desk and hooks a hand under my elbow. ‘Welcome to Roecliffe. Come on, I’ll show you to your room and then you can meet everyone.’

‘Thank you,’ I say. She tells me her name but I immediately forget it.

‘That’s the dining hall,’ she says as we pass by. I glance inside. My heels click on the tiled floor. I never usually wear heels. ‘And that’s the library in there. See all the trophies that our girls have won? We’re a very sporty school,’ she says proudly. I follow her gaze.

‘Impressive,’ I say, hurrying to keep up.

We pass along a long corridor, up several flights of stairs that take us to the summit of the hundred-and-fifty-year-old building, down a few more creaky steps, along another passageway, and we finally arrive.

The receptionist unlocks a low door. ‘You’ll be comfortable in here.’ We step inside and she gives me an old key. It has a red ribbon attached with my name on a paper tag. ‘In case you lose it,’ she says. ‘The bathroom is at the end of the hall. Let me know if there’s anything you need.’

‘It’s all lovely,’ I say, smiling. I let my small suitcase drop
to the floor. It topples over as if it’s already settled in.

‘I’ll leave you to unpack then. There’s a pre-term staff meeting at three. A cup of tea and a chance to get to know everyone.’ She’s still a little wary of me, the way her eyes dance over my face. ‘You’re not the only one that’s starting this term. There’s a new games teacher, and a French teacher over from Paris for a year.’

She’s trying to make me feel better. ‘Thank you.’ I hold open the door. ‘See you later then.’ I force a smile.

I lock the door after she’s gone.

I sit on the single bed. Iron frame, sagging mattress, faded quilt. ‘Well,’ I say to test the sound of my new room. I close my eyes and listen to the silence of my new life.

The most important thing my daddy ever told me was that my name meant
bird.
It was from the Latin, he said, and my mother had chosen it before she died. For the next ten years, he had me believing that I might one day wake up with wings and be able to fly away.

‘Ava,’ he’d said. ‘My skinny little bird.’

The smell of exhaust mixed with the tang of his smoky skin as I hung on to his neck stayed with me all those years. The hum of his big car when I saw it cruise out of sight rattled in my head, making me think he was somehow close when really he couldn’t have been further away.

‘Next week then, Ava. I’ll come back to see you next week.’

But he didn’t.

Until that day, he’d been true to his word and visited me every Sunday for nearly two months. Since the day he announced he couldn’t cope.

‘But
I
can cope,’ I’d tried to convince him, aged eight. ‘I’m good at coping.’ But it wasn’t enough to prevent my dad calling someone – I never knew who exactly – and that someone coming to our shabby terraced house and taking me away.

‘Now, Ava, don’t make a fuss,’ my dad had said. I hooked my fingers on to the door frame and scowled. ‘I’ll visit you on Sunday.’

‘This Sunday?’ I asked. He nodded. He tweaked his moustache. ‘And will you come the Sunday after that?’ He nodded again. ‘And the one after that?’ I asked a thousand times more until my father peeled my fingers off the wood and shoved me out of the door. I dragged my suitcase behind me, climbed silently into the waiting car, and was driven off to the children’s home.

So on Sundays, I sat on the stone window seat near the entrance of the home. It was my special place to wait for my dad. To pass the time, I imagined life as it used to be – just him and me, perhaps curled up on the grubby sofa, the chant of a football match on the television, the stink of the beer as it dried on Dad’s shirt. I’d watch the rise and fall of his chest as he slept, and count the wheeze of his breaths. If it ever slowed or fell out of its drunken rhythm, I pummelled him until he stirred.

Other times – times that didn’t happen very often – I would help him work in the garden. The sun sliced into my eyes, making me screw up my face as I watched my dad wield the spade at the end of our small patch. I stood picking dirt out of my nails, wondering what the point was. The potatoes were always left to rot in the ground.

Every year, Dad said he was going to grow his own vegetables. ‘We’ll have a right feast, me and you. Our own sprouts at Christmas.’ But every year, William Fergus Atwood only got as far as hacking down a few waist-height
weeds, or perhaps digging a couple of square feet of the heavy clay soil before he succumbed to the bottle.

Some days, I went to school. I liked it there but couldn’t always go. Often I didn’t have any clean clothes to put on. Not even a T-shirt. I picked through garments that had gathered under my bed and piled in the corners of my tiny bedroom as if they’d been blown there on a desert wind. Stripes and patchworks that I once remembered colourful had turned to a sombre version of their original hues from weeks’ worth of stains, forcing me to stay in my knickers and vest.

I slouched about the house, driving my dad nuts by playing games with stuff that wasn’t mine. I fiddled with his precious demijohns, watching the bubbles blip at their necks as the wine fought for life. I tangled his fishing line and spilled his tobacco while I crunched breakfast cereal from the box. I emptied out the eggs from their tray and made nests for imaginary chicks that would never hatch.

Occasionally, a lady from the council came to tidy, to cook meals, and clean up the mess down my dad’s front while he snored. She stalked slowly around our little house as if she hardly dared enter the poky rooms. She muttered as she worked, using the tips of her fingers to move our things about. Afterwards, things were better for a time. It made me happy. I could put on clean clothes again and go back to lessons. I was learning to read and I loved painting pictures.

But other times, even when there were clothes to put on, I didn’t make it down the road to join the other children on
their way to school. Often Dad was slumped on the floor blocking the front door. The walk back from the pub the night before finished him off and it was as much as he could do to unlock the door. His body was a dead weight filled with several days’ worth of drink.

‘Dad, get up,’ I would call out. ‘Go to bed.’ I yanked at his hair. I tried to roll him, to pull him, and I prodded him with my foot until he growled and heaved himself a couple of feet so that I could prise the door open six inches. That’s all it took for me to slip out into the fresh morning air and join the procession of other kids on their way to school.

When Dad didn’t budge and I couldn’t squeeze through the door, I would rest my chin in my hands with my elbows pressed on to the window sill. I’d watch my friends trotting past the house with their lunch packs and smiles. I’d tried in vain to open the windows to climb out. The downstairs ones were all glued up with paint and the back door was so warped from age and damp that only Dad could open it with two fists and his boot. On those passing-out days, as I called them, I was a prisoner.

‘Like now,’ I thought, drumming my fingers on the grand stone mullion – a far cry from Wesley Terrace – waiting for the sight of my dad’s car to appear at the turn of the drive. Not many cars ever came down the long drive to Roecliffe Children’s Home. It was as if we’d been forgotten by the rest of the world. Delivery trucks sometimes dropped off sacks of potatoes and carrots, and occasionally the repair man came to bang around in the boiler room. The older kids said that this wasn’t all he came for, but I didn’t
know what they meant. And sometimes, although I’d never seen one, a bus came to take the children on a trip out. I didn’t want to be in the home long enough to find out if this was true or not.