“If you slink away it'll seem as if you didn't mean what you said, and that Janene was right.”
“Hmmmm…”
“And I don't know if you can live with that, but I sure can't. Remember the day you first came to our office? Remember what I said to you?”
“ ‘Don't pick up that phone unless you mean it’?”
“Oh, maybe I didn't say it? What I meant to say was, ‘If anyone allows a little madam to think they're right in my lifetime, I'll have them killed.’ So, you see, you'll have to come back. ‘Cause, much as I love you, Kendra, I won't think twice about having you done away with if you allow an ‘I told you so’ look to pass Janene's face.”
“But I'm scared I'll have a go at her again,” I said seriously.
“Sweetie, don't you worry about a thing.” Gabrielle stood. “Believe me, I've got your back.”
“Feeling better?” Janene asked as I took my place back by the campfire. She sounded concerned but there was a streak of sarcasm in her voice, too.
“I'm good, thanks,” I replied, without looking at her. Instead, I pulled open the bag of marshmallows Jaxon and Summer had bought me, scooped out a white one and pushed it onto the forked end of a wooden- handled barbecue skewer, and held it out to the fire.
“Oh, Janene, I forgot to tell you,” Gabrielle said, as she reached for a barbecue skewer and a marshmallow, “you're on earlies and lates for the next month. And if you're late, even one time, you'll get a verbal warning.”
“But… ?” she began in protest.
“Yes, sweetheart?” Gabrielle asked, her smile as glacial as an Arctic pool.
“Nothing,” Janene said, then sunk back into a sulk.
Later, much later, I caught her glowering at me over the top of her plastic glass, promising to pay me back.
I glared back thinking, Bring it on.
CHAPTER 21
Janene's eyes nearly popped out of her head when the door to our office opened and a striking man in his late thirties, with short dark hair, amazing brown eyes and a nervous face stepped into the office. This was what she'd been hoping for, the “I can do better” part of her relationship with her boyfriend. A male temp who would be so grateful to her for finding him work he'd ask her out. Or marry her. Or something equally unlikely.
She was out from behind her desk like a shot, plucking her clingy chocolate-brown cat suit into place over her curves, and drawing herself up to the full height given to her by the spiked heels on her feet. She wasn't as tall as the mystery man, even in heels. “Hi, I'm Janene, how can I help you?” she said.
This was an unusual welcome for a visitor. Most potential candidates usually received a variation on, “You want to sign up here? And that's my problem how?” when they entered. The prettier the candidate, the ruder the greeting.
The man looked panicked, took half a step back. He hadn't been expecting this kind of reception, and quite frankly, it scared him. The way she stuck her chest out and moistened her lips terrified him. It was visible on his face. He hadn't been expecting this at all. The man looked to his right, to Gabrielle, who recognized him and smiled at him. Then he looked straight ahead, at me. He raised his hand, pointed as he took another step away from the scary office assistant. “I'm here to see Kendra,” he said.
“You are?” Janene replied. “Why?” Then she added, “I mean, oh, right. Can I take your name?”
“Why, haven't you got one of your own?” Kyle asked as he stepped around her and came over to my desk. “I was wondering if you were free for lunch?” he asked.
It was after twelve and I had nothing planned except to wander down the high street and look in a few shops. Nothing that couldn't wait. “Yeah, sure.” I gathered my belongings and led the way out of the office, ignoring the dagger-filled glares from Janene, and Gabrielle's mentally raised, questioning eyebrow.
Outside it was raining. Light rain leeched the color out of Brockingham and made it seem a greyer place than it was. Kyle turned up the collar on his beige raincoat and I rummaged in my bag for my umbrella before we set off.
“Do you want to go somewhere in particular?” I asked.
“No, not really. Would you mind if we just walked around for a bit?”
“Sure.”
We wandered over the slick cobblestones of the pedestrianized high street, heading away from home, out towards the park. Side by side, my umbrella reaching Kyle's head. Peo ple ran or walked quickly around us, determined not to get wet, not to give in to the weather. I knew the bottoms of my trousers were probably soaking up rainwater because they were too long for me. It was warm out, despite the rain, but I still felt like huddling up inside my red mac. It seemed appropriate.
“I guess I owe you an explanation,” Kyle said as we turned the corner onto the road where the train station and the tram stop were. Up the slight hill and then down the other side we would hit the park. “I've been avoiding you for the past couple of weeks.”
“Have you?” I replied. “I hadn't noticed.”
I felt his eyes dart to me to see if I was ribbing him, which I was, so I smiled.
“I don't know how to talk about it. I've never done it before. I've only said that Ashlyn's an alcoholic once and that was to Ashlyn. Some things are easier if you don't give them a name.”
True. Very true.
“I don't know when it started. It probably wouldn't be helpful if I did. That day you found me drunk on the sofa was the first time I'd had a drink in more than three years. That's probably why it hit me so hard. And those bottles were Ashlyn's. She got clean awhile back, but I knew she hadn't cleared out all her bottles.” Kyle started to pick at the nails of his left hand with his right hand. “When I had that row with her on the phone, I was so angry—incensed. I wanted to remind myself why I shouldn't give the kids to her and that I hadn't imagined all that had happened. She's so reasonable now it's hard to remember what she could be like. What a complete hell it was. So I went looking for the bottles she'd hidden around the house. Guess I found the reminder I needed. They were hidden everywhere. Not just full ones, empties as well.”
Kyle stopped in the middle of the street, turned to me. He was getting wet so I raised my umbrella, held it over him. “It broke my heart when you said the kids had hidden the bottles in your flat. They must have watched their mother do it. She used to hide the empties rather than throw them in the bin because I'd get mad at her if I saw them. They probably thought you'd get mad at me if you saw what I'd drunk.”
We started walking again, Kyle taking the umbrella from me so he could hold it high over both of us. A gentle breeze blew raindrops at us, but in the main it was pleasant. “Her drinking cost us a lot. The reason we had to rent out the flat wasn't because she'd left, it was because she'd stopped working. It was awhile before I realized—she was always over at her studio and I thought she had some projects on the go. I thought she was paying the bills with the money she was earning. Then I discovered she hadn't been. She'd lost most of her clients because her work was so shoddy or late. She'd gone through most of her savings and couldn't hide the extent of our debt anymore. I'd been demoted and when I was given the chance to work from home more I took it and so didn't get as much money as I used to, so I told her that we'd have to rent out the flat. Either that or ask her mother for a loan, which she'd never do.
“The reason I don't want the kids going on public transport is because there was a time when they were being verbally attacked on the way home. Ashlyn was really cagey about the details, had told them not to tell me because it'd upset me. But it turns out that after she got onto the stage at a Christmas play—she was drunk and I was at work so I couldn't stop her—the kids were being bullied a bit. Ashlyn told the girl playing Mary she was a troll compared to Summer. The bullying died down quickly because Summer and Jaxon are always together and stick up for each other— and basically, you don't want to mess with them when they're together. But the girl's mother started following them on the bus home, screaming at them.
She didn't take a pop at Ashlyn, just the kids. They had to get the bus because I'd taken Ashlyn's car keys off her awhile back because she was constantly driving drunk. I only found out about the abuse because our neighbor witnessed one of the incidents and dropped it into conversation.”
We reached the edge of the park, and started down the path that wound through the blanket of emerald green. We walked slowly, our footsteps moving in time. I tried not to breathe too loudly; sometimes the level of Kyle's voice dipped so low that I had to strain to hear what he was saying.
“I wanted to explain as much as I could to you so that you'd understand why I do a lot of the things I do. And why the kids are so attached to you—they don't have a lot of friends or people they can trust beyond the three of us so they've latched onto you.”
“You mean it's not my sparkling wit and incredible personality?”
Kyle's smile lit me up inside. We could still do humor. That was important. “No, unfortunately, not,” he said.
“OK, I'll have to work on that.”
“The kids adore you and I really am grateful for all you've done.”
“It's not hard, you know, they're brilliant kids. And you're a great father.”
Kyle said nothing. Instead he looked at me the way he did in Regent's Park, when he'd finally told me about Ashlyn's problem. He scanned my face as though trying to unearth my secrets. I glanced away, scared he might see something.
“Is he good enough for you?” he asked.
“Who's that then?” I asked, a little confused.
“This man in Australia.”
I shrugged. “I think so. But then, I would, wouldn't I?” Kyle's wrist was exposed from where he held the umbrella and I caught a look at his watch. “Ah, damn, Kyle, I need to get back, do you mind?”
“Not at all,” Kyle said and spun on his heels. He seemed so much lighter now that he'd told me this, as though sharing his secret had halved his burden.
“And Kyle, I want you to know that what you've just told me will go no further.”
“I appreciate that,” he replied with a grin. “I really do.”
I heard more stories about Ashlyn, the beautiful woman with caramel- colored hair, sparkling eyes, artistic talent and a drink problem.
Kyle told me about her vomiting on Summer. About her forgetting a doctor's appointment for Jaxon and remembering at the last minute, deciding to drive even though she'd been drinking, losing control of the car, mounting the curb and clipping a tree. She lied and said someone had crashed into her and sped away—it was Jaxon who told Kyle what really happened. I heard about her passing out one evening and leaving a pan on the stove when the kids were in bed and Kyle was working late. Luckily Kyle had come home before it caught fire. I found out about the many promises she made to take the children to places when she was drunk but completely forgot about when she was sober. I heard about the amount of times the children found her passed out and couldn't wake her.
Once he'd opened the floodgates to the past a deluge of the little slights that had gone on in their home came gushing through. One thing was evident from all of this: she wasn't always falling-down drunk, or always loud and mean, but she was constantly and consistently screwing up.
Kyle also told me how and why she decided to stop drinking.
“Do you want to know what the final straw was? What made me stand up to my wife and tell her enough was enough? It wasn't the crash with Jaxon in the car, it wasn't vomiting over Summer, it wasn't the dancing on the table at my work do. It wasn't falling asleep and leaving a pan on the stove. It wasn't getting a call at work because Ashlyn had passed out at home and had forgotten to collect the kids so I had to go. It was the day I walked into the kitchen and heard her tell Summer to shut up.”
Kyle didn't look up from the blade of grass he was shredding between his forefingers and thumbs, his digits making light work of the thick, dark green vegetation. He kept his eyes lowered because he was embarrassed. In his mind it needed to be a dramatic event that made him take a stand. He didn't realize that often it was the smallest gesture, the most subtle look, the simplest words that could change everything. For me and Will it had been him opening a beer before he handed it to me that had made me fall in love with him.
“She was hungover. Had been drinking all the day before, and then when I got back unexpectedly early from a visit to a site she did her usual and switched to cola. Even though she hadn't had a chance to drink her usual amount, Saturday morning she was still very hungover. At eight-thirty she was sobering up and it hurt.”
CHAPTER 22
Ashlyn was sobering up and it hurt.
No one could understand how much it hurt. It was turning her inside out, ripping every nerve from her body, molecule by molecule. Kyle could see her agony. Her face was puffy, her skin an off-key green, her navy-green eyes marbled by encroaching sobriety, her hair, which she hadn't bothered to wash in a few days, hung in greasy clumps around her face. Breakfast had been quiet, Ashlyns pain subduing everyone. The children, although only five, knew that it was important to be quiet in the mornings. Mumma liked the quiet in the mornings and if she didn't get it, she would be miserable.
Kyle had nothing to say to the mess of a woman in front of him. Ashlyn couldn't have talked if she wanted to. They ate their cereal and toast and drank their orange juice and tea in virtual silence, the only sounds the clink of cutlery against crockery, the slurps of drinks being drunk, the settling of items on the table. After everyone had eaten, Kyle had picked up his mug which was half full of coffee, and escaped upstairs to his office.
He didn't have a project to work on—ever since the incident with the big project he hadn't been given anything of significance, but he needed to escape. He sat in his leather chair, flicked through a few trade journals, read the paper, listened to the radio. An hour or so later he ventured downstairs, knowing from how quiet the house was that Ashlyns suffering hadn't ended and the kids were probably keeping out of her way. As he approached the kitchen he heard Summer's bright, lively voice talking, chatting, questioning. Summer was an exhausting child, there was no mistaking it. She liked to talk. She liked to be answered. The ultimate in torture for Summer was to be ignored.
Ashlyn stood at the sink, her back to Summer, her hands submerged in soapy water. She was dipping plates, giving them a cursory once-over with the soft yellow pad of the sponge, then dumping the plates on the metal rack with bad grace. Why she was bothering Kyle didn't know. Probably finding something else to bitch about, he thought. Her life was so rotten, after all. That's why she drank. Everything including him—especially him—was so awful she drank. He didn't know then, of course. He just blamed her, blamed himself and then blamed her again for making him blame himself.
“But Mumma, why is the grass green?” Summer asked.
“Chlorophyll,” Ashlyn croaked, harassed by her daughter's constant questioning. “It makes grass green.”
“But why green, Mumma? Why not blue like the sky? Or yellow like the sun. Or pink like my party dress?”
Ashlyn inhaled deeply, irritated. “I don't know,” she replied, her tone adding, “And I don't care.”
“But Mumma …”
That was it for Ashlyn. Enough was enough. “Shut up, Summer,” she snapped. She threw down the plate she was halfheartedly washing dirty dishwater splashing out of the sink, slopping onto the kitchen floor, onto Ashlyn's suede skirt and cotton gypsy top, into the toes of her sandals. “Look what you made me do!” She indicated her soggy top and ruined skirt. “Shut up about grass. About the sea. About everything. Just shut up.”
She swung her head to her daughter, glared bleary-eyed at the girl sitting at the table, raised a wet hand and moved it in a slight chopping motion to emphasize how serious she was. “Just shut up.”
Summer froze. She knew her mother's voice when it was like this. She knew it could go either way right now. At times like this, Mumma would sometimes shout. Would sometimes take her arm and shake her. Would drag he
r and shut her in her bedroom until she did what she was told. Summer knew when Mumma had that look on her face and that tone in her voice that she had to be very quiet. Very careful. She had to stay away.
Ashlyn glared at her daughter, daring her to disobey.
Summer's bottom lip curled up into her mouth and she bit down on it. She didn't mean to be naughty. She didn't mean to make Mumma mad. She'd only wanted to know about colors. Dad was never there to ask and Mumma knew everything. Jaxon. She decided she needed to talk to Jaxon. To find out what he was doing and to ask him why she always made Mumma cross. He didn't seem to do it as much. She picked up Hoppy, the rabbit that had replaced Winter, her rag doll ruined by red vomit, and slid off her seat. Abandoning her drawing papers, her pens, her books, she wandered out into the garden, the last place she'd seen Jaxon head for. Jaxon would play with her. He'd explain to her why she was so naughty.
Ashlyn watched Summer leave the room and Kyle, who had been lurking unseen in the doorway, watched Ashlyn. A host of emotions was spreading throughout his body. He'd spent his childhood being told to shut up by his father. He'd spent all his youth being afraid to speak up, afraid of incurring wrath with the wrong word. That wasn't going to happen to Summer. No matter how annoying she was, she had the right to speak. Always.
He stepped into the room and the atmosphere became charged the second she saw him. A flicker of anxiety crossed her face, wondering whether he'd heard, and then it was replaced by indignation: so what if he heard? She hadn't done anything wrong.
“This has got to stop,” Kyle said, his voice a low growl. He didn't know where the children were and he didn't want to scare them by shouting at Ashlyn.
“What?” she sneered, immediately on the defensive.
“Don't act dumb,” Kyle said, his voice still low. “All of this has got to stop. You have got to stop doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“You've just scared the living daylights out of Summer.”