The Son-In-Law (12 page)

‘I know he’s a murderer.’

‘Are you scared?’

I thought about just how scared I was. Ever since I’d seen that man outside my school, something had been living in my stomach. It seemed to have tentacles that spread all through me. ‘Nah,’ I said.

‘I’d be
sooo
scared.’

‘Well, I’m not. If I get the chance I’ll tell him to sod off, and good riddance to bad rubbish.’ As soon as those words were out of my mouth I felt even worse. I burst into tears.

Vienna is a good friend, really. She grabbed the remote and turned the TV off. Then she sat there looking awkward and muttering ‘cheer up’ while she patted my back.

‘It won’t be much of a Christmas with
this
hanging over us,’ I wailed. ‘Why can’t he leave us alone?’

‘I know what
you
need!’ cried Vienna. She dashed over to her fridge (yes, she actually has a fridge in her room) and dug out a bar of Caramello. She believes everything can be cured by chocolate. Actually, it wasn’t a bad idea. I had to stop blubbing so that I could eat it.

‘What’s your dad like?’ she asked, once I’d calmed down. ‘Do you remember much about him?’

I did. I did. I didn’t. I had about a million memories, all swirling around in tiny pieces in my head like a cloud of ashes above a bonfire. I had pictures and sounds and feelings. The soapy smell of him; a greeny-blue jersey; his voice with the soft accent; the fun of being high up above the world when I rode on his shoulders, strong hands holding on to my shins to stop me from toppling off. I had feelings of total adoration and also of being so scared I wet myself.

‘Not really,’ I fibbed.

‘You were ten, weren’t you? I can remember loads of things from when I was ten.’

‘I remember him punching my mum,’ I said.

‘You mustn’t ever forget
her.
’

I lay back on the pretend fur cover and looked up at the ceiling. I had this fear that I was already forgetting Mum. It was as though she was standing on a boat, sailing away. I could still see her waving, but her face was blurred.

‘Um . . . my Auntie Carolyn was over last night.’ For some reason, Vienna’s voice had dropped to a whisper. ‘She brought her new boyfriend.’

‘Really?’ I wasn’t remotely interested in Vienna’s aunt.

‘Mm. They all drank a lot of wine, and . . . well, Carolyn started talking about your mum. It turns out she knew her. They worked together in a bar next to the river.’

Now
I was interested. ‘What did she say?’

‘She said Zoe—your mum—was fun to be around. Charismatic, she said. Loads of friends. People just couldn’t get enough of her.’

‘Charismatic.’ I shut my eyes, feeling much happier.

‘She also . . . um . . .’ Vienna stopped. I heard her scratching her leg. ‘Um, no. That’s all, really.’

I opened my eyes again. ‘She also what?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Vienna!’

She stretched herself out next to me, with her head propped on her hand. ‘The truth is, I don’t think Carolyn got on with your mum. She said some things that weren’t so nice.’

‘Like what?’

‘Not very kind things.’

‘Yeah? Like what?’

‘I just don’t think they got on. Don’t worry about it. Forget I said anything.’

I sat up. ‘It’s too late to be tactful. The cat’s out of the bag.’

‘You’ll be angry.’

‘I won’t.’

‘Promise you won’t shout?’

‘I promise.’

‘Okay.’ She was biting her lower lip. ‘Auntie Carolyn said that underneath all the razzle-dazzle your mum was actually a total bitch who always had to be the centre of attention. Erm, she said most people didn’t get that, especially men. She slept with the customers—with “anything in trousers”. Carolyn said she went nuts in the end and started smashing glasses. They had to call the police. The last she heard, your mum was in the bin.’

‘The what?’

‘The bin. And she read in the papers that your mum was totally rat-arsed the night she died, which was probably why a couple of punches killed her. If she’d been sober, she mightn’t have died. It’s something to do with the brain.’

I’d promised, but I was furious. I felt like screaming at the top of my voice, spitting and swearing and tearing up that stupid fur cover.

‘It sounds as though it’s your Auntie Carolyn who’s the complete bitch,’ I snapped, jumping off the bed.

Vienna’s face crumpled. ‘You promised,’ she sobbed. ‘I knew you’d do this.’

I
had
promised; and I knew it wasn’t Vienna’s fault her aunt was a slithery, fork-tongued snake in the grass. All the same, I wanted to hurt somebody. So I dug the fingernails of one hand into the back of my other wrist until I felt one of the nails go through the skin. It really hurt. It made my eyes water, and I felt sick.

‘Didn’t you stick up for my mum?’ I shouted.

Vienna wasn’t really crying. She was hamming it up. ‘They didn’t even realise I was listening. I was playing Minecraft in the living room with my headphones on. I just stared at the screen with my mouth hanging open. Adults think you can’t hear them when you do that.’

I sat down again. ‘What did she mean by “in the bin”?’

‘Prison, maybe? You know, sin bin.’

‘Anything in trousers?’ It sounded so ugly.

Vienna covered up her legs with the fake fur. ‘She did admit that your mum was beautiful . . . no, that wasn’t the word . . .
attractive
. She said, “Zoe was certainly attractive, can’t be denied. Just like a Venus flytrap”.’

‘A Venus flytrap? That’s horrible! They eat the flies alive.’

‘Sorry. It’s just what she said.’

I took a minute to think about all this. ‘Sounds like your aunt’s a small, mean person and she was jealous of Mum.’

‘My stepdad can’t stand her,’ agreed Vienna. ‘Even though she’s his sister. When she rang to say she was coming round, he slammed down the phone and said to my mum, ‘Christ almighty, Val! Hide me! Motormouth’s on her way over.’’

‘So did he hide?’

‘Mum wouldn’t let him. She said he could entertain his own flipping family, they’re all morons and she married him, not the whole flipping tribe.’

We shared another bar of chocolate while Vienna listed all the things that most annoyed her about Carolyn. I probably seemed back to normal by the time I stood up to leave.

‘You okay now?’ Vienna eyed me uncertainly, as we waited for Gramps at the gate.

‘’Course I am! Gotta run—here he is.’ We did hugs, and I dashed off to get into the car.

‘Good day at school?’ asked Gramps, once we were on the road. He was wearing his tweedy cap and leather driving gloves.

‘Fine, thanks.’ I was daydreaming about walking up to Auntie Carolyn and smacking her right on her ugly gossipy mouth.

He wanted to chat. ‘Did you have drama?’

‘No.’

‘Music?’

‘Yes. Gramps, what does it mean if you say someone is in “the bin”?’

He slowed down for a set of traffic lights. ‘Well, that depends on the context.’

‘If someone’s gone nuts and started throwing things, and ended up in the bin.’

‘Ah. In that case, they’re probably talking about a hospital for people with, um, mental health problems.’

‘Oh my God! So they mean the loony bin?’ I couldn’t imagine my mother having anything to do with a place like that.

‘Well, yes, I believe that’s the expression. I don’t like it much.’ Gramps sounded calm, but his hands were shaking on the wheel. In fact they were shaking so badly that I wondered if it was safe for him to drive. ‘You know, Scarlet, a lot of people have mental health problems at one time or another. An awful lot. A person might have an episode, and then never be troubled again their whole lives.’

‘So you mean I could get ill like that?’

‘You?’ He actually took his eyes off the road to glance round at me. ‘Why ever do you ask such a strange thing?’

‘No reason. Just wondered.’

‘In the bad old days,’ said Gramps, ‘society locked people up and threw away the key. Terrible things were done to them—and I suspect that most were as sane as you or I. Saner, probably. Nowadays we know better. Really, with a lot of these problems it’s just like having a broken leg, or maybe measles. People get help and then they’re quite well again.’

‘I see.’ I didn’t see at all.

Another set of traffic lights, this time the slow ones near Bootham Bar.

‘Rush hour,’ grumbled Gramps. ‘The sheer weight of humanity.’

I watched his fingers in the brown driving gloves, tapping the wheel. I had to ask. I just had to. I needed to hear that the answer was no. ‘Mum was never ill like that, was she?’

The fingers stopped tapping.

‘Gramps?’ I felt panicky.

‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘She was. For a time. But she got better.’

My heart began pumping too fast. The other things Carolyn had said flew screaming into my head like rockets. A total bitch . . . slept with anything in trousers . . . Venus flytrap. Perhaps they were true as well.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I asked.

‘Because it isn’t important.’

‘Of course it’s important!’

‘No, Scarlet, it isn’t. It is just a tiny part of your mother’s story. She was so much more than that . . .
so
much more.’

As soon as Gramps had parked outside our house, I ran up to my room and shoved the wedge under the door. It was dark outside, but I didn’t turn on the light. I dragged my duvet with me under the bed, burrowed into it and curled up.

When Hannah arrived home from work she came upstairs and knocked, then tried the door. It wouldn’t open more than half an inch. ‘Scarlet?’ she called through the crack. ‘Are you in there?’ You’d never guess she has an IQ of about a million. Of course I was in there—how else did she think a wedge got under the door?

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Gramps told me about your conversation in the car,’ she said. ‘I know you were upset to hear that Zoe needed hospital care.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Who’s been gossiping?’

‘Hannah, can we please not talk about this?’

‘You just come down when you’re ready, then,’ she said, and I heard her walking away. I don’t know how many hours I hid in the dark. Time seemed to stop. I smelled supper and later I heard the boys shouting as they were on their way to bed, but it was as though all these familiar sounds and smells weren’t anything to do with me. I needed to be in the dark. I needed to hide.

My beautiful memories of Mum were melting, like Ben’s snowlady did when the sun came out. Nothing was what I’d thought. My memories were all wrong. Yet at the same time a nasty, wormy voice somewhere deep in my brain was whispering that I’d known it all along. I remembered her squeezing me too hard. I remembered the time she painted the whole house a really bright orange colour. I remembered her yelling at Dad, and how loud and harsh her voice could suddenly sound.

I remembered the worried, tight feeling I used to get when she seemed too happy to be true, or when she went into her bedroom and the door was locked for days. I remembered listening to her footsteps as she came up to the front door, and knowing what kind of a mood she’d be in just from the way she walked, and if it was the wrong kind of mood I’d wish she hadn’t come home.

I had a thought. I wriggled out from under the bed and switched on the lamp. Then I reached far under the bed and pulled out a big cardboard box. It was my precious memories box, given to me by Nanette, a counsellor who helped us after Mum died. She’d suggested I decorate it, so I’d covered it in wrapping paper and painted
Precious Memories
on the lid. I was ten at the time, which is why I used such girly handwriting. It also explains why I stuck pink silk roses all over it. Ten-year-old girls do not have good taste.

The first thing inside the box was Mum’s green cardigan. It was tiny, and she only ever did up one button. It looked really great on her. I pressed my nose into the wool; I could still catch her scent, though it was fading. The cardigan was made of cashmere and felt kitten-soft.

There was
Maid of Sherwood.
There were crumpled train tickets from our last trip to London, and a leaflet from the Science Museum with the dark pink kiss of Mum’s mouth on it from where she’d blotted her lipstick. It looked like something Marilyn Monroe might have done. There was also a postcard she’d sent from Brighton, where she’d gone to be in a pantomime. The card had a picture of a pier, and her handwriting in gold pen.

I miss you, my gorgeous Scarlet! Is Dad looking after you? Has he made his famous pasta every night? I’m counting
down the days. One more week and I’ll be home.

It’s a blast to be an ugly sister. Every afternoon I have to
stick on a giglinormous fake nose. It looks crazily evil, like a shark’s fin. The other ugly sister has to wear a fat suit under
her dress! She gets very hot.

Here’s a hundred kisses and hugs from me,
Mummy

All over the card she had drawn Xs and Os. I’d counted them. There were exactly one hundred, and they hardly left enough room for the stamp. I kissed the card and put it on top of the other things.

Next, there was a note from the tooth fairy. Mum had tried to disguise her handwriting, but it was obviously hers because she’d used the same gold pen:

Thank you for this beautiful tooth. I can tell you brush and
floss! We use only the very cleanest teeth to make our palace,
and this one will be the cornerstone of a dazzling white
colonnade. In payment, here is a golden pound of your mortal
money. With love, T.F.

There were also three paper napkins from a restaurant. I was bored at Gramps’ birthday meal out, so Mum got a pen from her bag and suggested we play head-body-legs. We came up with three absolutely hilarious creatures. Dad said we should sell them to the Tate Modern and get paid fifty thousand pounds each.

Mum died a few days after that. I found the pictures still in my pocket. So I kept them, because they were the last things that were made by me and her together.

At the bottom of the box was her photo album. My favourite was one taken on holiday at our caravan on the moors. She and I were sitting by the beck with our feet in the water and sunlight on our faces. She had both her arms around me, I had both mine around her and our cheeks were pressed together. She looked very, very happy. I was grinning from ear to ear. It was such a lovely picture.