One Plus One

  "But she didn't," he said.

  Nobody seemed to hear.

  It could go either way with the prison sentence, they told him, but whatever happened, Ed was undoubtedly looking at a hefty fine. And obviously the end of his time with Mayfly. He would be banned from holding a directorship, possibly for some considerable time. Ed needed to be prepared for all these things. They began to confer among themselves.

  And then he had said it: "I want to plead guilty."

  "What?"

  The room fell silent.

  "I did tell her to do it. I didn't think about it being illegal. I just wanted her to go away, so I told her how she could make some money."

  They stared at each other.

  "Ed--" his sister began.

  "I want to tell the truth."

  One of the solicitors leaned forward. "We actually have quite a strong defense, Mr. Nicholls. I think that given the lack of your handwriting on the check--their only substantive piece of evidence--we can successfully claim that Ms. Lewis used your account for her own ends."

  "But I did give her the check."

  Paul Wilkes leaned forward. "Ed, you need to be clear about this. If you plead guilty, you substantially increase your chance of a custodial sentence."

  "I don't care."

  "You will care for your own safety when you're doing twenty-three hours in solitary in Winchester," Gemma said.

  He barely heard her. "I just want to tell the truth. That's how it was."

  "Ed," his sister grabbed at his arm, "the truth has no place in a courtroom. You're going to make things worse."

  But he shook his head and sat back in his chair. And then he didn't say anything more.

  He knew they thought he was insane, but he didn't care. He couldn't bring himself to look exercised by any of it. He sat there, numb, his sister asking most of the questions. He heard Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 blah blah blah. He heard open prison and punitive fines and Criminal Justice Act 1993 blah blah blah. He honestly couldn't make himself care about any of it. So he was going to prison for a bit? So what? He had lost everything anyway, twice over.

  "Ed? Did you hear what I said?"

  "Sorry."

  Sorry. It's all he seemed to say these days. Sorry, I didn't hear you. Sorry, I wasn't listening. Sorry, I fucked it all up. Sorry, I was stupid enough to fall in love with someone who actually believed I was an idiot.

  And there it was: the now familiar clench at the thought of her. How could she have lied to him? How could they have sat side by side in that car for the best part of a week, and she hadn't even begun to let on what she had done?

  How could she have talked to him of her financial fears? How could she have talked to him of trust, have collapsed into his arms, all the while knowing that she had stolen money right out of his pocket?

  She hadn't even needed to say anything in the end. It was her silence that told him. The fractional delay between her registering the sight of the security card that he held, disbelieving in his hand, and her stuttering attempt to explain it.

  I was going to tell you.

  It's not what you're thinking. The hand to the mouth.

  I wasn't thinking.

  Oh, God. It's not--

  She was worse than Lara. At least Lara had been honest, in her way, about his attractions. She liked the money. She liked how he looked, once she had shaped him according to what she wanted. He thought they had both understood, deep down, that their marriage was a kind of deal. He had told himself that everybody's marriages were, one way or another.

  But Jess? Jess had behaved as if he were the only man she had ever truly wanted. Jess had let him think it was the real him she liked, even when he was puking, even with his bashed-up face, afraid to meet his own parents. She had let him think it was him.

  "Ed?"

  "Sorry?" He lifted his head from his hands.

  "I know it's tough. But you will survive this." His sister reached across and squeezed his hand. Somewhere behind her the child screamed. His head pulsed.

  "Sure," he said.

  The moment she left he went to the pub.

  --

  They had fast-tracked the hearing, following his revised plea, and Ed spent the last few days before it took place with his father. It was partly down to choice, partly because he no longer had a flat in London that contained any furniture, everything having been packed for storage, ready for the completion of the sale.

  It had sold for the asking price without a single viewing. The estate agent didn't seem to find this surprising. "We have a waiting list for this block," he said, as Ed handed him the spare keys. "Investors, wanting a safe place for their money. To be honest, it will probably just sit there empty for a few years until they feel like selling it."

  For three nights Ed stayed at his parents' house, sleeping in his childhood room, waking in the small hours and running his fingers across the surface of the textured wallpaper behind his headboard, recalling the sound of his teenage sister's feet thundering up the stairs, the slam of her bedroom door as she digested whatever insult their father had directed her way this time. In the mornings he sat and had breakfast with his mother and slowly grasped that his father was never coming home. That they would never see him there again, flicking his paper irritably into straight corners, reaching without looking for his mug of strong black coffee (no sugar). Occasionally she would burst into tears, apologizing and waving Ed away as she pressed a napkin to her eyes. I'm fine, I'm fine. Really, love. Just ignore me.

  In the overheated confines of room three, Victoria Ward, Bob Nicholls spoke less, ate less, did less. Ed didn't need to speak to a doctor to see what was happening. The flesh seemed to be disappearing from him, melting away, leaving his skull pulled into a translucent veil, his eyes great bruised sockets.

  They played chess. His father often fell asleep midgame, drifting off during a move, and Ed would sit patiently at his bedside and wait for him to wake. And when his eyes opened, and he took a moment or two to register where he was, his mouth closing, and his eyebrows lowering, Ed would move a piece and act as if it had been a minute, not an hour, that he had been missing from the game.

  They talked. Not about the important stuff. Ed wasn't sure either of them was built that way. They talked about cricket and the weather. Ed's father talked about the nurse with the dimples who always thought up something funny to tell him. He asked Ed to look after his mother. He worried she was doing too much. He worried that the man who cleared the gutters would overcharge her if he wasn't there. He was annoyed that he had spent lots of money in in the autumn having the moss removed from the lawn and he wouldn't get to see the results. Ed didn't try to argue. It would have seemed patronizing.

  "So, where's the firecracker?" he said one evening. He was two moves from checkmate. Ed was trying to work out how to block him.

  "The what?"

  "Your girl."

  "Lara? Dad, you know we got--"

  "Not her. The other one."

  Ed took a breath. "Jess? She's . . . uh . . . she's at home, I think."

  "I liked her. She had a way of looking at you." He pushed his castle forward slowly onto a black square. "I'm glad you have her." He gave a slight nod. "Trouble," he murmured, almost to himself, and smiled.

  Ed's strategy went to pieces. His father beat him in three moves.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Jess

  The bearded man emerged from the swing doors wiping his hands on his white coat. "Norman Thomas?"

  Jess had never considered that their dog might have a surname.

  "Norman Thomas? Large, indeterminate breed?" he said, lowering his chin and looking straight at her.

  She scrambled to standing in front of the plastic chairs. "He has suffered massive internal injuries," he said, with no preamble. "He has a broken hip and several broken ribs and a fractured front leg and we won't know what's going on inside until the swelling's gone down. And I'm afraid he's definitely lost the left
eye." She noticed there were bright smears of blood on his blue plastic shoes.

  She felt Tanzie's hand tighten in hers. "But he's still alive?"

  "I don't want to give you false hope. The next forty-eight hours will be critical."

  Beside her Tanzie gave a low moan of something that might have been joy or anguish; it was hard to tell.

  "Walk with me." He took Jess's elbow, turning his back on the children, and lowered his voice. "I have to say that I'm not sure, given the extent of his injuries, if the kindest thing wouldn't be to let him go."

  "But if he does survive forty-eight hours?"

  "Then he may stand some chance of recovery. But as I said, Mrs. Thomas, I don't want to give you false hope. He really isn't a well lad."

  Around them the waiting clients were watching silently, their cats in pet carriers cradled on their laps, their small dogs panting gently under chairs. Nicky was staring at the vet, his jaw set in a tense line. His mascara was smudged around his eyes.

  "And if we do proceed, it's not going to be cheap. He may need more than one operation. Possibly even several. Is he insured?"

  Jess shook her head.

  Now the vet became awkward. "I need to warn you that going forward, his treatment is likely to cost a significant sum. And there are no guarantees of recovery. It's very important that you understand that before we go any further."

  It was her neighbor Nigel who had saved him, she heard later. He had run from his house carrying two blankets, one to wrap around the shivering Tanzie, the other to cover the body of the dog. Go indoors, he had instructed Jess. Take the kids indoors. But as he drew the tartan rug gently over Norman's head, he had paused, and said to Nathalie, "Did you see that?"

  Jess hadn't heard him at first, over the sound of the crowd and Tanzie's muffled wailing and the children crying nearby because even though they didn't know him, they understood the utter sadness of a dog lying motionless in the road.

  "Nathalie? His tongue. Look. I think he's panting. Here, let's pick him up. Get him in the car. Quick!" It had taken three of Jess's neighbors to lift him. They had laid him carefully on the rear seat, and had driven in a blur to the big veterinary practice on the outskirts of town. Jess loved Nigel for not once mentioning the blood that must have gotten all over his upholstery. They had rung her from the vet's and told her to get down there as fast as she could. Under her jacket, she was still in her pajamas.

  "So what do you want to do?"

  Lisa Ritter had once told Jess about a huge deal her husband had done that had gone wrong. "Borrow five thousand and you can't pay it back, and it's your problem," she said, quoting him. "Borrow five million and it's the bank's problem."

  Jess looked at her daughter's pleading face. She looked at Nicky's raw expression: the grief and love and fear that he finally felt able to express. She was the only person who could make this right. She was the only person who would ever be able to make it right.

  "Do whatever it takes," she said. "I'll find the money. Just do it."

  The short pause told her he thought she was a fool. But of a kind he was well used to dealing with. "Come this way, then," he said. "I need you to sign some paperwork."

  --

  Nigel drove them home. She tried to give him some money, but he waved her away gruffly and said, "What are neighbors for?" Belinda cried as she came out to greet them.

  "We're fine," she muttered dully, her arm around Tanzie, who still shook intermittently. "We're fine. Thank you."

  They would call, the vet said, if there was any news.

  Jess didn't tell the kids to go to bed. She wasn't sure she wanted them to be alone in their rooms. She locked the door, bolted it twice, and put an old film on. Then she made three mugs of cocoa, brought her duvet down, and sat under it, one child on each side of her, watching television that they didn't see, each alone with individual thoughts. Praying, praying that the telephone wouldn't ring.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Nicky

  This is the story of a family who didn't fit in. A little girl who was a bit geeky and liked maths more than makeup. And a boy who liked makeup and didn't fit into any tribes. And this is what happens to families who don't fit in--they end up broken and skint and sad. No happy ending here, folks.

  Mum doesn't stay in bed anymore, but I catch her wiping her eyes as she washes up or gazes down at Norman's basket. She's busy all the time: working, cleaning, sorting out the house. She does it with her head down and her jaw set. She packed up three whole boxes of her paperback books and took them back to the charity shop because she said she'd never have time to read them and, besides, it's pointless believing in fiction.

  I miss Norman. It's weird how you can miss something you only ever complained about. Our house is quiet without him. But since the first forty-eight hours passed, and the vet said he was in with a chance, and we all cheered on the phone, I've started to worry about other stuff. We sat on the sofa last night after Tanzie went to bed and the phone still didn't ring and then I said to Mum, "So what are we going to do?"

  She looked up from the television.

  "I mean, if he lives."

  She let out a long breath, like this was something that had already occurred to her. And then she said, "You know what, Nicky? We didn't have a choice. He's Tanzie's dog, and he saved her. If you don't have a choice, then it's actually quite simple."

  I could see that even though she really did believe this, and it might actually be quite simple, the extra debt is like a new weight settling on her. That with each new problem she just looks a bit older, and flatter, and wearier.

  She doesn't talk about Mr. Nicholls.

  I couldn't believe after how they'd been together that it could just end like that. Like one minute you can seem really happy and then nothing. I thought you got all that stuff sorted out when you get older, but clearly you don't. So that's something else to look forward to.

  I walked up to her then, and I gave her a hug. And that might not be a big deal in your family, but I can tell you in mine it is. It's about the only stupid difference I can make.

  So this is the thing I don't understand. I don't understand how our family can basically do the right thing and yet always end up in the crap. I don't understand how my little sister can be brilliant and kind and some sort of damn genius, and yet now wakes up crying and having nightmares, and I have to lie awake listening to Mum pottering across the landing at four a.m. trying to calm her down. And how my sister stays inside during the day, even though it's finally warm and sunny, because she's too afraid to go outside anymore in case the Fishers come back to get her. And how in six months' time she'll be at a school whose main message is that she should be like everyone else or she'll get her head kicked in, like her freak of a brother did. I think about Tanzie without maths, and it just feels like the whole universe has gone mad. It's like . . . cheeseburgers without the cheese, or a Jennifer Aniston headline without the word "heartbreak." I just can't imagine who Tanze will be if she doesn't do maths anymore.

  I don't understand why I had just got used to sleeping and now I lie awake listening for nonexistent sounds downstairs, and how now when I want to go to the shop to buy a paper or some sweets, I feel sick again and have to fight the urge to look over my shoulder.

  I don't understand how a big, useless, soppy dog, who has basically never done anything worse than dribble on everyone, had to lose an eye and get his insides rearranged just because he tried to protect the person he loves.

  Mostly, I don't understand how the bullies and the thieves and the people who just destroy everything--the arseholes--get away with it. The boys who punch you in your kidneys for your dinner money, and the police who think it's funny to treat you like you're an idiot, and the kids who take the piss out of anyone who isn't just like them. Or the dads who walk right out and just start afresh somewhere new that smells of Febreze with a woman who drives her own Toyota and owns a couch with no marks on it and laughs at all his stupid jokes like he's
God's gift and not actually a slimeball who lied to all the people who loved him for two years. Two whole years.

  I'm sorry if this blog has just got really depressing, but that's how our life is right now. My family, the eternal losers. It's not much of a story, really, is it?

  Mum always told us that good things happen to good people. Guess what? She doesn't say that anymore.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Jess

  The police came on the fourth day after Norman's accident. Jess watched the officer coming up the garden path through the living-room window and for one stupid minute she thought she had come to tell her Norman had died. A young woman, red hair pulled back in a neat ponytail. One Jess hadn't seen before.

  She was coming in response to reports about a road traffic accident, she said, as Jess opened the door.

  "Don't tell me," Jess said, walking back down the hall to the kitchen. "The driver's going to sue us for damaging his car." It was Nigel who had warned her this might happen. She had actually started to laugh when he said it.

  The officer looked at her notebook. "Well, not at the moment, at least. The damage to his car seems to be minimal. And there have been conflicting statements as to whether he was exceeding the speed limit. But we've had various reports about what happened in the lead-up to the accident, and I was wondering if you could clarify a few things?"

  "What's the point?" Jess said, turning back to the washing up. "Your lot never take any notice."

  She knew how she sounded: like half the residents of the neighborhood--antagonistic, braced for confrontation, hard done by. She no longer cared. But the officer was too new, too keen, to play that game.

  "Well, do you think you could tell me what happened, anyway? I'll only take five minutes of your time."

  So Jess told her, in the flat tones of someone who didn't expect to be believed. She told her about the Fishers, and their history with them, and the fact that she now had a daughter who was afraid to play in her own garden. She told her about her daft cow-sized dog who was racking up bills at the vet's roughly equivalent to her buying him a suite in a luxury hotel. She told her how her son's sole aim now was to get as far from this town as possible, and how, thanks to the Fishers having made a misery of his exam year at school, this was unlikely to happen.