Undertow (9 page)

Tonight it is cheese and wine at the Listers’. Jonty’s parents. Het has heard them argue about it. Her mother says she is tired. That she would rather stay at home with the children. But her father dismisses this, brushing it off like a speck of lint on his suit sleeve, says the girl will be here to babysit any minute and she must change into something more suitable, or does she intend to wear trousers to a party? As if it would be a crime so great she might be punished infinitely. So Eleanor drifts up the stairs, Het trailing her like a shadow
.

Eleanor holds the chain up to her throat, drapes it around her pale skin
.

“Het?” she says. “Can you…?”

Het drops her bare feet to the carpet, stands and takes the gossamer metal in her hands. The fastening is tiny, and her fingers struggle with it, her thumb straining to hold the clasp open while she feeds the loop through. Het can feel her mother’s breath quickening, her limbs tensing, but finally it is done, and she releases the clip with a gasp
.

Her eyes meet her mother’s in the mirror, and for a fleeting second there is a connection, an understanding. But then the door rattles in its casing and he is there, stiff in his blazer and grey wool trousers. His face reddened with port and effort. And Het shrinks back to the sanctuary of the bed, draws her knees up tight and holds them, making herself small, so small he won’t see her
.

“Where did you get that?” he says
.

His voice isn’t raised, but Het can hear the anger. Each word measured, calculated to dig in, to hurt just so much
.

“I— I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking…”

“You never do,” he replies
.

“I…” Eleanor trails off. His hand is at her throat now; he grasps the necklace in his surgeon’s fingers, pulls it sharply, precisely. Het sees it dig into whitening skin, threatening to strangle her, to slice into flesh. But the metal is too fragile; the links give way and it snaps, the locket falling soundlessly onto the floor, the chain following as he drops it like a dirty swab, wipes his hand on the blue flap of his jacket
.

“Five minutes,” he says, then he turns and walks out, his tread steady on the stairs, trailing fury in his wake
.

Het lets a sob escape and Eleanor turns in shock. She had forgotten her, forgotten this witness
.

“Oh Het…” She reaches a hand out, wants to pull the child into her lap, to tell her it is all right. But then she hears his words again, cutting through her like a knife into butter. She lets her hand drop and turns back to her reflection, forcing her lips into a wide coral-coloured smile. “That’s enough, darling. It was just an accident. Mummy will wear the pearls instead. Now run along, the babysitter is here. If you’re a good girl she might let you watch telly.”

Het wipes salty snot on the back of her hand, then bolts from the room. But she doesn’t go downstairs. Instead she runs to her bed, slides between the mattress and bedsprings. Lets the heavy foam and flannelled bulk pin her down, the iron coils dig into her back
.

When she comes out it is dark. Het tiptoes along the corridor to her parents’ room. She opens the drawer in the vanity mirror, searches the sage carpet with her fingers, feeling for the hard metal. But the locket is gone
.

BILLIE

IT’S LATE
when I wake up, gone breakfast. Yet my limbs are still heavy with sleep, aching, pinning me to the mattress. For a few seconds I think I’m ill, that the endless rain and cold has leached into my bones, filling me with flu. But then I see my clothes in a heap on the floor, feel the last drops of vodka in my stomach, an acid sting, and I remember. Remember the way his smile plays on the corners of his mouth then broadens into a slow, lazy grin. Remember his eyes, treacle-dark. Remember the way I look reflected in them, standing on the doorstep, wondering, waiting for what might happen next.

But then the picture in my head changes, and I see something else. Someone else. Mum, sitting at the table, entranced, lost. And the warm milk sweetness goes cold and curdles.

When I get downstairs the drawing room is a war zone. The polished mahogany lost under a haphazard pile of china ornaments and dust-heavy leather-bound books. Finn is going through a box of cutlery, silver set against navy velvet, counting forks and spoons, like Fagin in his slum. And in the middle of it all is Mum, eyes wide and wild, surveying the chaos.

“What’s going on?” I ask quietly.

Mum swings around, eyes narrowing to see who has interrupted her, then smiles when it is me. “I’m having a clear-out.” The words are hammered out, fast, like shots. She is speeding, racing. “Isn’t it marvellous? Look at it all.”

I look. At the
Wisden Almanack
s. The watercolours. Will’s trophies, stacked carelessly in a cardboard box. All that achievement tossed aside. Because, what? Because they loved him more? Because he died, leaving her alone with them?

And something else. On the table, chain dangling over the side, is the locket. I pick it up, let the delicate links tumble through my fingers, then click it open to see who is inside.

An oval photograph. A boy’s face. Blond hair and ruddy cheeks. Will. But where is Mum?

“Where did you get it?” I ask.

Mum snatches it out of my hand. “Nowhere. Doesn’t matter.”

She snaps the locket shut, looks at it in her palm. “The chain’s broken, but it’s silver. Still worth something. I’m going to sell it on eBay.”

“We don’t have a computer.” I state the obvious, though I know she’ll have an answer. She always does.

“I’ll call an antique dealer then. They’ll take the good stuff. The rest can go to a charity shop. We need some space. Light. It’s too cluttered in here. Don’t you think, Billie? Too cluttered.”

I want to tell her it’s mine, really. That I should get to decide. But I can see something in her. Not wine this time. Nothing she’s taken. But something that’s missing. She’s going. Slipping under. I can feel it.

So instead, I nod my answer. But she’s not even looking. She’s gone, to find a man who will take away all this junk, this treasure. This ephemera. Take away the lives of others so she can start living again.

The dealer comes later that afternoon. Kenneth Shovel: Call-Me-Ken. He has dandruff on the collar of his brown nylon suit. He says it’s not worth that much any more, silver. Just what he can get for scrap. But he’ll give her two hundred pounds for the trophies and one of the paintings. A watercolour of the beach by no one I’ve ever heard of. Mum drops the worthless locket in a charity bag and takes the crisp notes like she’s been handed two hundred thousand. And Call-Me-Ken drives off in his white Transit with a smile like Simon Cowell and the bargain of the century.

“We should celebrate,” Mum says.

I watch as Finn counts the notes, recounts, assessing our fortune. Two hundred pounds. It’s nothing. Not really. A few weeks’ shopping. Or a few days’.

“We could save some,” I suggest. “In case.”

“In case what?” Mum is fidgeting.

“I don’t know.” Don’t want to say it: because you don’t have a job, because benefits never pay all the bills.

“Well then.” Mum has won. “What shall we do? The world is our oyster.”

“I’m hungry,” says Finn.

“Dinner. Perfect,” says Mum, kissing him on the top of his head. “My boy genius.”

Then she turns to me, waiting for the chorus of disapproval. But I can’t. Can’t tip the fine balance.

“We could get fish and chips,” I say.

But it’s no good. Mum doesn’t want fish and chips. She wants liver-coloured leatherette and napkins in glasses and steak and Knickerbocker Glories. She wants the Excelsior.

“We’re rich,” she laughs. “Millionaires.”

“Are we really?” asks Finn, his chin shiny and bright with chocolate sauce and hundreds and thousands.

“No,” I should say. “We’re not. Not really. We’re broke. With a draughty house that will leak money like it leaks heat.”

But I’m high on ice cream. On hope. Like Mum. So I lie for her.

“Almost,” I say.

And even though dinner costs more than fifty pounds. Even though Mum spends another tenner on the way home buying more wine. Even though Finn is sick in the night, a Knickerbocker stream of indulgence flushed away. For that moment, reflected in Mum’s eyes, we are. We are almost millionaires.

HET

TOM IS
everything Jonty isn’t. Not just his height; his build: tall and lean rather than rugby-solid. But the way he is with her. The way he holds her, the way he talks to her like she matters, like she’s all that matters. Not like Jonty’s braying monologues. Where Het gets the feeling he’s just enjoying the sound of his own voice. Tom listens, too. Listens to her tell him about college. About how she doesn’t fit. Never has
.

Het hears Will’s voice, reasoning with her: “He’s just not one of us, Het.” And he isn’t. But he’s not what Will thinks he is either. One of them. A no-good Gypsy. Not like Jimmy, with a girlfriend and a kid and a string of women. Tom belongs to nobody. Like her
.

He takes her out to dinner. To the Excelsior. He heads for a booth at the back but she pulls him to the window, where they can see, and be seen. The seat is the colour of blood. Leather, or vinyl probably, her bare legs sticking to the surface, sweaty with excitement and the heat of July
.

She can barely finish her steak, chewing each mouthful until it is nothing but gristle, her mouth too dry to swallow. But he orders dessert anyway, if only to show he can. The waiter brings a Knickerbocker Glory. An absurd thing, she thinks. A show-off pudding. He feeds her from a long silver spoon, cream and a cherry, a taste of sugar and boiled sweets. She shakes her head at another and watches him instead, eating this beautiful thing, this work of art, until there is nothing left but a tiny pool of molten vanilla
.

Dinner costs twenty-five pounds. A weekend’s wages from the fair. But it is worth it. She is worth it
.

“Next time it’s my treat,” she tells him
.

He shakes his head but she insists. And on Saturday she takes him for fish and chips, eaten out of the vinegar-soaked newspaper on the seafront. It is perfect. Like him
.

BILLIE

THE NEXT
day Mum goes out and spends a hundred and fifty pounds in two hours. On what, I don’t know. A new camera. DVDs for Finn. Food; bags of two-pound-a-go rocket that will lurk in the fridge until they melt into inedible brown slime. Instead of pasta, we have high tea. Every meal an elaborate display of shop-bought cupcakes, quails’ eggs already peeled, sausages on sticks, jam sandwiches cut into heart shapes like I’m a princess. Or a kid. Like Mum is a kid. It’s like when Cass’s dad first went to live with her step-monster and every day Cass had chips for tea. Chips with everything, like they could make it all better. Only they didn’t. Cass got so sick of them she said she could taste them in her mouth if anyone even said the word.

At the end of the week, Mum puts a plate of cheese straws down on the table for breakfast and I can’t stand it any more. We need money.