The Watcher (3 page)

‘Why didn’t you mention it? I’ve asked you every day if you had a test coming up. You said you didn’t. Why?’

Becky shrugged again.

‘Can you please give me an answer?’ asked Gillian sharply.

‘Don’t know,’ mumbled Becky.

‘What
don’t you know?’

‘Why I didn’t say.’

‘I expect you didn’t fancy revising,’ said Gillian wearily.

Becky looked at her angrily.

What am I doing wrong, Gillian asked herself, to make her look at me with so much hate? Why did Darcy’s mother know? Why, probably, did everyone’s mother know except me?

‘Brush your teeth,’ she said, ‘and then we have to go.’

On the way to school, Becky did not say a word. She just looked out of the window. Gillian wanted to ask if she felt confident about the test, if she knew the material, but she didn’t dare. She was afraid of a snotty answer; she had the nasty feeling that it might make her burst into tears. That happened more and more often nowadays, and she found she had no way of defending herself. She was unhappy with her life and afraid of her twelve-year-old daughter’s provocative behaviour. How could a forty-two-year-old woman be so unsure of herself?

Becky said goodbye in front of the school with a few terse words and then loped off across the road on her skinny legs. Her long hair floated behind her. Her rucksack bounced about on her back. She did not turn around to wave goodbye to her mother. In primary school she had always blown kisses and beamed. How was it possible that she had changed so completely within just a couple of years? Of course she felt defensive this morning. She knew that the maths test would be a disaster and that it had been a mistake to avoid revision. She had to vent her annoyance at herself somehow.

Gillian asked herself if they were all like that. So aggressive. So unreasonable and lacking in empathy.

She started the engine, but just drove to the next street, where she parked up again. She opened the window a bit and lit a cigarette. In the gardens all around a frost lay on the grass. In the distance she saw the river flowing along like a lead ribbon. The Thames was already wide here, obeying the rhythms of the tides as it pushed towards the sea. The wind smelt of seaweed and the seagulls screamed. It was cold. An inhospitable, grey winter’s morning.

She had once talked about it with Tom. Almost two years ago now. Or rather, she had tried to talk about it with him. About whether she as a mother was doing something wrong. Or whether all children were like that. He had not known what to say.

In the end he said, ‘If you were more in touch with other mothers, you might know. You would know if you were doing something wrong. You might even know how to do it right. But for some reason you refuse to build up a network.’

‘I’m refusing nothing. I just don’t get on well with the other mothers.’

‘They’re normal women. They won’t hurt you!’

Of course he was right. That was not the point. ‘But they don’t accept me. It’s always as if . . . I was somehow speaking a different language. Everything I say seems to come out wrong. It doesn’t fit in with what they’re saying . . .’ She knew how that must sound to Tom, who saw everything rationally. Like nonsense. Complete and utter nonsense.

‘Nonsense!’ he said promptly. ‘I think you’re imagining it all. You’re an intelligent woman. You’re attractive. You’ve got a successful career. You have a husband who is more or less presentable and not without success in his own job. You have a pretty, clever and healthy child. So why have you got such a complex?’

Did she have a complex?

Lost in thought, she tapped the ash of her cigarette out of the car window.

There was no reason to have a complex. Fifteen years ago, she and Tom had started a company that specialised in tax and business consultancy. They had worked like the devil to get the company going, but it had been worth it. Now they employed sixteen people. Tom had always stressed that he could never have done all that without Gillian. After Becky was born, Gillian stopped working in the office every day, but she still had her own clients. Three or four times a week she took the train to London for work. She had the freedom to work as and when she wished. When Becky needed her, she would not go to the office that day and would catch up with work over the weekend.

Everything was fine. She could have been happy.

She looked in the rear-view mirror and saw her deep blue eyes and the strawberry-blonde curls over her forehead. Her long, wild hair never really let her look tidy. She could remember how as a child she had hated her curls and their reddish colour. As well as the freckles that inevitably accompanied red hair. Then she had gone to university and met Thomas Ward, her first boyfriend, who was to become the man of her life, her great love. He had loved the colour of her hair and counted her freckles one by one. Suddenly she had started to find herself beautiful and appreciate what was special about her appearance.

You should think about all of that, she thought, all the good that’s come into your life through Tom. You are married to a wonderful man.

She had finished her cigarette. She wondered about driving to the office. There was a whole pile of work waiting for her and experience told her that the best way to stop brooding was to get working. She decided to drink one last cup of coffee at home, then get changed and go into London.

She started the engine.

Perhaps she should meet up with Tara again. Her friend worked as a public prosecutor and – according to Tom, who didn’t like her much – was a radical feminist. But Gillian’s chats with Tara always did her good.

The last time they met, Tara had told her, not mincing her words, that Gillian was deep in a depression.

Perhaps she was right.

Samson had stood at the top of the stairs listening for a long time and only hurried down in his socks when he was sure that no one was around. He wanted to put his shoes and anorak on as quickly as possible and disappear outside, but as he bent over to tie his shoelaces, the kitchen door opened and his sister-in-law Millie appeared. The way she moved towards him reminded Samson of a hawk that had spied its prey.

He straightened up.

‘Hi, Millie,’ he said uneasily.

Millie Segal was one of those women who even before reaching forty merited the double-edged epithet
She must have been pretty once
. She was blonde, had a good figure and regular features, but the skin of her face was etched with deep furrows from too much tanning and too many cigarettes. She looked older than she actually was, as well as careworn and strangely embittered. The latter was less a matter of her unhealthy lifestyle than the fact that she was a deeply unhappy woman. Frustrated. Samson had sometimes talked to Gavin, his brother about it. Gavin had explained to him that Millie was convinced that she had been ill-treated by fate. This was not because anything tragic had ever happened to her, but rather because in the daily little disappointments and injustices she saw some larger disadvantaging of her person.

Whenever Gavin asked her what exactly was souring her life, she would always reply, ‘Everything. It’s everything.’

Unfortunately, Samson knew that he played no little part in this
everything
.

‘I thought I heard you,’ said Millie. She was not dressed yet. Because she went to work later on, every morning she would quickly slip into a tracksuit and make her husband breakfast before he left for his early shift. Gavin was a bus driver. Often he had to get up at five in the morning. Millie would put the kettle on, pop slices of bread in the toaster and make him the sandwiches that he took to work. She could display real care, but Samson was convinced that she did not do it out of real warmheartedness. Gavin paid a high price for his breakfast. He had to listen to her griping and moaning the whole time. Sometimes Samson wondered whether his brother would not prefer to be alone at that early hour with jam on toast and a coffee, reading the paper.

‘I’m just going out,’ said Samson, and slipped into his anorak.

‘Any news about work?’ Millie asked.

‘Not yet.’

‘Are you looking?’

‘Of course. But times are hard.’

‘You haven’t chipped in with housekeeping money this week. I have to do the shopping. And you don’t hold back when it comes to eating.’

Samson fished his wallet out of his pocket and pulled out a note. ‘Will that do for now?’

‘It’s not much,’ said Millie, but of course she took it. ‘Better than nothing.’

What did she actually want? Samson wondered. She had not intercepted him just about the money. He looked at her questioningly.

Millie just said, ‘Gavin gets back at midday. We’ll eat at two. I’ve got a late shift.’

‘I won’t be here for lunch,’ said Samson.

She shrugged. ‘Up to you.’

As it was obvious that they had said all they had to say for now, he nodded at her, opened the front door and stepped out into the cold day.

Every meeting with Millie made him nervous, unsure and apprehensive. He could barely breathe around her. Out here he started to feel much better.

He had once overheard a conversation between Millie and his brother. Since then he’d been aware that Millie wished for nothing so much as for him to move out of the house. Of course, he had known that before. Millie had left him in no doubt that she saw him as a fly in the ointment. It felt quite different, however, to hear her talk about it so frankly. Nor had he known until then that she was putting her brother under massive pressure.

‘I wanted to have a normal marriage, a completely normal marriage,’ she had hissed. ‘And what do we have now? Some kind of flat-share?’

‘That’s not what it is,’ Gavin had replied uneasily. He sounded exhausted, like someone who has had to talk about an unpleasant topic far too many times already. ‘He’s my brother. He’s not just any lodger!’

‘If only he were! Then at least we would be paid rent. But as it is . . .’

‘It’s his house too, Millie. We inherited it jointly from our parents. He has the same right to live here as we do.’

‘It’s not a question of rights!’

‘Of what then?’

‘Of decency and manners. I mean, we’re married. One day we might even have children. Be a real family. He’s single. He’s out of place. Anyone else would notice they were in the way and find somewhere else.’

‘We can’t force him. If he went, then I’d either have to pay him his share of the house, which I can’t afford, or we’d have to pay him rent for his part of the house. God, Millie, you know what I earn! It would put us in a tight spot.’

‘As your brother, he shouldn’t accept money from you.’

‘But he would have to pay rent somewhere else and he hasn’t got a job. How’s he supposed to do that?’

‘Then let us move out!’

‘Do you really want to? If so, you can forget about a house with a garden. Nothing against a flat, but are you sure you’d be all right with that?’

Listening and sweating outside the door, Samson pulled a scornful face. Of course she wouldn’t be all right with that. The most important thing to Millie was status, even more important than getting out of the shared living arrangements with the brother-in-law she disliked. Millie was from a simple background. Marriage to a homeowner was a big step up the social ladder, even if the home was a narrow terraced house on a busy road. She loved to invite her friends over and show off the garden, which she had laid out and looked after so it looked very pretty. She would not be able to leave it behind. No, Millie did not want to move out. She wanted Samson to move out.

She had not replied to her husband’s last sentence, but the silence had been eloquent enough.

He shook off the thought of that depressing conversation and set off on his walk through the streets. There was a particular logic and timetable to his walks. Today he was five minutes late, because he had hesitated so long before daring to go downstairs and because Millie had caught him.

He had lost his job in June. He had been a driver for a frozen foods delivery service. But during the economic crisis, everyone was watching their pennies and orders had gone down dramatically. In the end the company had been forced to reduce the number of drivers. Samson had seen it coming. He was the last employee to have been hired and the first one out.

The house that he and Gavin had inherited from their parents was at the end of a street near a busy main road. The houses at this end were narrow and their gardens were thin strips. In the opposite direction, the street led to Thorpe Bay Golf Club and showed itself in a rather different light. The houses were larger and were adorned with little turrets and oriels. Their gardens were generously sized. Trees towered high above well-tended hedges and the cast-iron fences or pretty stone walls that surrounded the properties. Impressive cars were parked in the drives. There was a pleasant peacefulness to the scene.

Southend-on-Sea stretched out forty miles east of London along the north bank of the Thames to the point where the river became the North Sea. The town offered everything the heart could desire: shopping, schools, nurseries, theatre and cinemas, the obligatory funfair down on the promenade, as well as long sandy beaches, sailing clubs, even a kite-surfing club, pubs and restaurants. Many families for whom London had become too expensive, and who, moreover, thought it would be better for their children not to grow up in the giant metropolis, moved out of London to the town. Thorpe Bay was the part of Southend where Samson lived. Much of it was made up of the rolling meadows of the golf course and the many tennis courts opposite the beach. Whoever lived here seemed to have landed in an idyll: tree-lined roads, lovingly tended gardens, well-maintained houses. The wind from the river carried the smell of the salty sea.

Samson had grown up here. He could not imagine living anywhere else.

Shortly before he reached Thorpe Hall Avenue, he would always pass the young woman with the large mongrel. She took her dog for a walk every morning. She was already on her way home by this time. Samson had followed her several times and was reasonably sure about her living arrangements. No husband, no children. Whether she was divorced or had never married, he could not say. She lived in a poky semi, but it had a big garden. She seemed to work from home, because she never left home during the day apart from when she went shopping or walked her dog. However, she often received deliveries from couriers. Samson’s conclusion was that she worked at home for a company. Maybe she typed up dictation. Maybe she wrote reports or edited text for a publisher. He had often noted that she would go away for several days at a time. During those trips, a friend would house-sit for her and walk her dog. Obviously she had to meet her employer now and then.