IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN YOU, WHORE.
Were those vicious words a threat? I turn them over and over in my mind. Part of me wants to call Rose or Martin, tell them what Dan has claimed. But I know they will mistrust his motives. As I do. And yet why would Dan make up such a terrible story?
When the doorbell rings at eight thirty that evening, I half-expect it to be Dan on the doorstep. Instead I find Jed’s brother Gary, all smiles and apologies for dropping by and with a bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape in his hand. I invite him in, explaining that Jed should be back within the next half-hour. Gary settles himself onto our living-room couch and asks if there’s anything to eat. As I fetch a plate of leftover chicken from the fridge he launches into an elaborate story about how he was in the area for an after-works leaving do. Bearing in mind that he works in the City as a trader and normally drinks in the bars near his office, I’m highly sceptical that this is true. I think it’s more likely he went for an after-work shag with some poor, easily flattered girl in his office who happens to live locally. He’s certainly in a good mood, doing that classic Gary thing of flirting just enough to make you aware of it, but never so much that you think he might seriously be about to jump you.
‘So how’s Iveta?’ I ask.
Gary’s gaze gets a little shifty. ‘Over.’ He waves his hand.
‘Oh?’
‘She was a little old for me,’ Gary says archly.
I roll my eyes. ‘She was twenty-five, Gary.’
He grins. ‘Like I say, a little old. I’ve just met someone new, actually, but it’s early days, so no point talking about her yet.’
What is he like? Irritated and amused in equal measures, I let him change the subject and ask me about work. I talk about the end of term production I’m in charge of at school for a few minutes until Gary’s eyes start glazing over, then ask him about the stock market. Gary says that some redundancies are in the offing, but he’s confident he’ll be safe. I find his breezy, cheery manner as annoying as his fixation on women with huge breasts. He’s a classic younger brother, never happier than when he can poke fun at people who are more responsible and serious than he is. There is one moment where his jolly persona slips, for a second. I’ve just checked the cable box clock for the second time. It’s well past nine, so Jed surely won’t be too much longer.
‘So how’s my brother doing?’ Gary asks suddenly, breaking off from an interminable tale about something called pork barrel packages. ‘Is he okay? I’ve been really worried about him.’
I look up, surprised. Gary’s not generally given to displays of concern. Then I remember how brilliantly he organized everything in the days following Dee Dee’s death. Perhaps he’s just not used to expressing his concern in words.
‘I think he’s doing all right,’ I say, ‘considering.’
‘I’m just asking because I know he’s not the easiest person, that he can be a bit intense, well, you know . . . and this . . . what happened to poor little Dee Dee must have put a huge strain on him, especially after everything he went through earlier in the year.’
He means Zoe’s reaction to him leaving her.
‘I think he’s devastated, of course,’ I say, choosing my words carefully. ‘But we talk about it and I think that he’s coping.’
‘Good.’ Gary looks genuinely relieved. ‘And what about the civil suit? How’s that going?’
‘Slowly.’
‘Right.’ He hesitates. ‘So are the manufacturers still refusing to accept responsibility? But it’s definitely them who are at fault?’
I frown. Gary isn’t normally this full of questions. Why the particular interest in the court case? Should I tell him what Dan has told me about Lish? Does Gary know that Lish was cautioned a year and a half ago? Does he suspect Lish himself?
I’m almost on the verge of asking, when Jed’s key sounds in the door. In a flash, Gary reapplies his mask, ready to start with some affectionate needling. I can see as soon as he walks in that Jed is tired and irritated and really not in the mood for his younger brother, but he chats away while I pour him a whisky. Soon after, Gary heads home and Jed launches into a diatribe against the inadequacies of the international response to counterfeit drugs and the lack of the conference speakers’ understanding of international law.
‘That session was a joke. In fact the only bit that was any good was the session with the spectrometer, that was brilliant. This guy from the Campaign against Counterfeit and Substandard Pharmaceuticals – CASP – showed how you can assess the ingredients used in a range of drugs.’ He pauses. ‘And they also demonstrated these new, airtight boxes that you can hide drugs in so that sniffer dogs won’t find them.’
‘Airtight boxes?’ I ask sceptically.
‘Yeah, they’re made from some special metallic compound, I can’t remember what it’s called.’ Jed yawns. ‘Anyway, apart from that it was rubbish. Plus Zoe was a total pain in the ass.’
‘How so?’
‘She kept banging on about me going round on Christmas Day, spending the entire thing with her and Lish,’ he explains as he flops back, exhausted, onto the sofa.
‘Oh,’ I say, trying to gauge what Jed thinks of this idea before I respond. ‘Er, what did you say?’
‘I said that I would be spending Christmas with my fiancée but that I was sure you wouldn’t mind me popping round to see Lish in the morning, if she liked.’
‘Right.’ Relief floods through me. ‘Yes, of course, that would be fine.’
‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you?’ Jed sighs. ‘Unfortunately Zoe went ballistic, said no way was she entertaining me when I deigned to take a break from my “fucking whore” for five minutes.’ Jed groans. ‘I told her that she couldn’t speak about you like that, that I understood she was still grieving for Dee Dee but that it was unacceptable to take it out on you.’
‘You did?’ I sit down beside him on the sofa.
‘Course I did,’ he says. ‘Anyway, there’s still a few weeks to sort it out. It’s all made worse by the fact that Lish has decided to stay in his student flat in Southampton for most of the holidays. He’s going back to Zoe’s next weekend and for a few days over Christmas, but not the whole month that he has off uni. It’s fair enough, really, he shouldn’t feel he has to babysit his mum, but I don’t think Zoe has taken it well.’
‘No, I don’t suppose that would be easy for her.’ I choose my words carefully. Inside I’m itching to lambast Zoe for calling me a whore, but Jed has already defended me to her. I’ve got nothing to gain from lashing out at her myself.
‘By the way, I asked Lish if he wanted to come for a visit on the Friday night of the weekend he’s in London. Is that okay?’
‘Sure.’ Thoughts crowd through my head. Should I tell Jed about Dan’s visit? No, there’s no need to upset him. But what about Dan’s claim that Lish is a dealer in pharmaceutical drugs? I still don’t believe he can possibly be doing anything like that now – but what about the caution Lish supposedly received when he was at school? Jed has never mentioned it, but then I have never asked.
‘We were doing this thing on drugs at school, you know, a discussion on how to approach the subject for year five and six, like a “don’t go with strangers”-type thing and I wondered how they did it back in the day at Lish and Dee Dee’s schools.’
Jed shrugs. ‘No idea.’
I hold my breath. ‘Did you ever worry about them taking drugs?’ I ask. ‘Maybe not Dee Dee yet, but Lish, when he was at school?’
A beat passes. Jed shifts in his seat. ‘I suppose. He . . . I did think about it, but Lish only ever got up to the normal teenage stuff,’ he says, not meeting my eyes. ‘There was an incident before I met you when Lish was in the sixth form. Stupid boy got caught with some pot. Nothing major . . .’
I nod, my heart beating fast. This is exactly what Dan said had happened – well, the watered-down, covered-up version.
‘That’s all?’ I ask.
‘Yes.’ Jed frowns. ‘Why?’
r /> ‘Nothing.’ I lay my head on his chest. ‘Do you still want kids with me?’
‘Yes,’ Jed says. ‘Of course. There was a moment just after Dee Dee when I didn’t, but now it seems like fate that I’ve met you, that I get the chance to be a parent again.’
‘I used to want a big family,’ I go on. ‘Two boys and three girls.’
Jed laughs. ‘And now?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say. Jed falls silent and my thoughts drift to what it must be like to be a parent of an adult child. I see lots of mums and dads at school, of course, but their children are younger. It never occurred to me before I met Jed that the worry of parenting doesn’t stop just because your children grow up and leave home.
I glance at Jed, wondering if he’s thinking about Lish and that drugs scare at school, but he looks so miserable that I’m suddenly sure he’s remembering Dee Dee and my heart hurts for him so much I almost can’t bear it.
I’m busy for the whole of the next week, preoccupied with the end of term production now, dizzyingly, less than a fortnight away. After that first evening I manage to put Dan’s crazy claims out of my head, though I start dreaming of him. Bizarre dreams where I see him racing towards me, trying to save me from some unknown terror and I wake up with a start.
Lish is sullen and withdrawn when Jed picks him up from the tube and brings him home on the Friday night. He looks thinner too. Is that because of Dee Dee’s death or because he’s taking drugs? Or is it just a side effect of student life? He isn’t exactly rude to me, though he doesn’t make eye contact as he declines my offer to wash his bag of dirty laundry.
‘Thanks, Emily, but I don’t need anything right away and Mum likes to do it,’ he says with a shrug.
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Of course. I understand.’
The next morning I pop to the shops. I’m supposed to be going to the hairdresser too, but they’ve had to cancel so I’m back early. Jed has sent a text saying he’s had to go into the office for a short meeting but will be back by 1 p.m., so probably before my son gets up . . . he ends his text tersely.
Lish is famous for long lie-ins, so I am not expecting him to be awake when I let myself in through the front door soon after eleven. Much to my surprise he is sitting in front of his laptop at the kitchen table, talking on his iPhone. I haul my bags of food shopping onto the kitchen counter and, after a brief hello, start bustling about putting everything away. Lish acknowledges my arrival with a wave, then leaves the room to continue his call in private. I hear his heavy tread on the stairs and bend down to put a loaf of bread in the freezer. As I straighten up, Lish’s laptop comes into my eyeline. It’s on the table, still open. I hesitate, then scuttle over. I wouldn’t normally dream of taking a peek at someone’s computer, but Dan’s words echo in my head: maybe he’s just pretending to accept you. Could Lish intend me harm? Perhaps whatever he’s looking at here will put my mind at rest. Anyway, it’s not really snooping to glance at an open screen, is it? I’ll probably just find porn or a YouTube video or an essay for college.
I press a key and the screen saver disappears. I see at once that Lish has about ten tabs going, but it’s his Facebook page that is open. He has evidently been private messaging with someone. I hesitate. I know I shouldn’t look at it, but I’m right here and he’s upstairs and I’m not going to touch anything.
I peer at the screen. Lish is mid-message with someone called Ant.
Yeah so I is doing time @ me dads with him an his bimbo cunt bitch gf an is bare strain of the whole fuckin daze need sum shit put me right . . .
I gasp. Is that me he’s talking about? I close the Facebook page and back away from the laptop, horrified. I move around the cupboards on autopilot, putting the remaining food away. I’m just shoving the milk in the fridge as Lish comes back, his iPhone now in his pocket. He slouches over to the laptop and picks it up.
‘I bought some quiche and salad for lunch,’ I say, trying to sound normal. ‘Your dad will be back at one, so I’m cooking for then. Would you like a jacket potato with yours?’
Lish gives a shrug. ‘Yeah, er, thanks, Emily.’ He doesn’t meet my eyes.
The words on his Facebook message are burned against my retina: bimbo cunt bitch. A lump lodges itself in my throat. Is that really how he sees me?
‘Er, Lish?’
He turns in the doorway, raising his eyebrows.
‘Is everything okay?’
‘Sure.’ This time he does look at me. I stare into his eyes, trying to read his expression. It is blank. He’s smiling, but not with his eyes.
bimbo cunt bitch
Does Jed know what Lish thinks of me?
I gulp.
‘Was there anything else, Emily?’
‘Er, no,’ I say.
Lish turns and walks away, his laptop tucked under his arm. Again, I hear the thud of his footsteps on the stairs, then I cross the kitchen and sit carefully down in a chair. I’m dazed. I sit like that for a couple of minutes, letting what I saw on the Facebook page sink in.
Dan’s words circle my mind: maybe he’s just pretending to accept you.
I fetch my phone from my bag and turn to Jed’s number. I know he will be deep in work mode, but I can’t let this wait.
‘Baby?’ he answers straight away. ‘What’s up?’
I glance at the door. Lish is well out of the way, upstairs. Even so I speak quietly.
‘I just caught sight of something Lish wrote. He basically said he hates being here and that he needs “some shit” – his words – to help him cope with it and . . . and he called me a bimbo and a . . . a bitch and worse.’
Silence on the other end. ‘Lish just called you a bitch?’ Jed sounds incredulous.
‘No, he wrote it in a message on his Facebook.’
‘What were you doing looking at his Facebook?’
This is not where I hoped Jed would go with what I’m telling him. ‘I was just passing the screen,’ I say. ‘Jed, he hates me.’
‘No, he doesn’t.’
‘He does. His exact words were that I was a “bimbo cunt bitch”.’
A pause. ‘Jesus.’ Another pause. ‘Whatever he wrote, I’m sure he doesn’t mean that.’
‘Then why write it?’ I feel close to tears again.
‘I don’t know, baby, maybe he’s just trying to sound important to his friends . . .’
‘What? Why would—?’
‘I’m just saying that nothing Lish has said or done for the past few months makes me think he does anything but adore you.’
I hesitate. Part of me badly wants to tell Jed about Lish’s alleged uni-based dealing activities, the possible link to Dee Dee’s death and Dan’s claim that this was really an attempted murder aimed at me. But what is the point? If I still don’t believe any of that is true, Jed will certainly dismiss it out of hand, especially when he finds out the accusation comes from one of my ex-boyfriends.
‘Look, baby, I’ll have a word with Lish this afternoon. Asks if he minds being with us, get an update on his state of mind. Right now I’ve got to make one more call, then I should be free to leave.’
‘Okay.’
‘Love you, baby.’
Feeling numb, I end the call, then get up and make a cup of tea. I consider calling up to Lish to ask if he’d like one, but the ugly words he wrote about me still fill my head. In the end I drink my tea alone, then set about finishing off some bread I made earlier and preparing a salad for lunch. Lish doesn’t reappear until Jed gets back and calls him down.
Lish avoids my gaze as he sits down. I bustle about, slicing the bread and putting the salad bowl on the table.
‘So how’s the course going?’ Jed asks. He’s referring to Lish’s degree in Media, Communications and Culture, not a subject that Lish has ever been particularly forthcoming about.
Lish shrugs. ‘Okay.’
Jed glances at me and rolls his eyes. ‘Which module are you doing this term?’
‘It’s semesters, Dad,’ Lish says. There?
??s an edge to his voice. I sit down next to Jed, feeling troubled. Lish and his father have never had an easy relationship, at least not since I’ve known them, but it definitely seems to have got worse since Dee Dee’s death. I watch Lish listlessly prodding a tomato. He doesn’t really want to be here, that much is obvious. And he is angry too. I hadn’t seen it before, but it’s there in the clench of his jaw and the press of his lips.
‘Okay, this semester,’ Jed says with a sigh.
‘Is it hard at the moment?’ I ask, leaning forward and watching Lish intently. ‘I mean, hard to deal with your course, after what happened to Dee Dee?’
Lish’s head snaps up. There’s real pain in his expression. Is that just grief? Or does guilt lurk behind it?
‘Of course it’s hard,’ Lish says, his voice shaking slightly. ‘But you just have to get on with things, don’t you?’
There’s an awkward silence. Jed clears his throat. ‘So which module are you working on?’
Lish picks up his fork. ‘Games Cultures,’ he says.
‘What does that involve then?’ Jed asks with a grin. ‘Playing Call of Duty then writing about its significance to our understanding of modern society?’ He chuckles. ‘I’d have thought “Games” and “Culture” was a bit of a contradiction in terms.’
I look down at my plate. Across the table, Lish is sullenly chewing at a mouthful of food, studiously ignoring his father. Can Jed not hear how disparaging he sounds when he makes jokes about Lish’s degree choice? It would almost be better if he came right out and said he’s disappointed his only son hasn’t chosen something more academically challenging. I’m itching to tell Jed to ease off, but I’m wary of any perception that I’m interfering, especially in front of Lish. I recall Rose’s wise words from just before my first meeting with Jed’s children last March: never challenge them on their kids. Anyway, right now I’m more concerned about what Lish thinks of me, and that look on his face when I asked about Dee Dee.
Lish himself leaves the table as soon as possible, carrying his plate to the sink, then disappearing without a backward glance. Jed helps me load the dishwasher. He is adamant that we can’t let on to Lish that I was snooping on his Facebook page, but – even though the past hour has shown me that Jed has no real idea how to talk to his son and despite the fact that he would clearly rather not engage him on such a potentially explosive issue – I insist that he talks to Lish about me.