‘Bloody hell,’ Gaby says. ‘You make me want to fight you for him.’
‘He’s a very special man.’
‘He’s a ruthless business entrepreneur,’ she counters. ‘Someone who goes all out for what he wants. He’s also in the throws of a messy divorce. Do you want to be stuck in the middle of that?’ My sister sighs. ‘Just make sure that he doesn’t railroad your feelings. Take time to decide what you want. You’d better get some sleep. You look completely exhausted.’
I feel emotionally drained.
‘Go up and use the bathroom. Both of the kids are already in bed. They should be asleep, but I expect at least one of them isn’t. I’m sure they’d like a goodnight kiss from their favourite auntie.’
Taking the hastily packed overnight bag that I’ve brought, I head upstairs. In the bathroom, I wash and change into my pyjamas. Then I go through to George’s room. He’s already asleep, arm thrown above his head, tangled in his duvet. His Moshi Monster’s pyjamas have ridden up. I pull the top down to cover his tummy and rearrange the duvet around him. He’ll wake up cold in the night otherwise. I smooth his hair from his face and tenderly kiss his forehead. I love these kids more than life itself and wonder for the hundredth, millionth time what it would feel like to have children of my own. How powerful must that love be? How can people like my own mother, like Tamara, take their own children so much for granted? I would bleed for Molly and George and I’m just their auntie. They are both so like Max and Eve, that I wonder if that’s why I’ve become attached to them so quickly.
In Molly’s room, I find her still awake and playing with her favourite doll. They’re having an animated conversation about biscuits.
‘Hey,’ I say. ‘It’s probably time that you were asleep now. School in the morning.’
She hands over her doll and I put it on her shelf for safe keeping. ‘Teddy?’ When I hand him over, she snuggles down into her bed.
‘Love you,’ I say. My thoughts go to Carter’s children and I wonder if I will ever be able to tuck them into their beds again.
‘Love you, Auntie Cassie,’ Molly says. She takes in my pyjamas. ‘Are you living here now?’
She must’ve somehow overheard snippets of our conversation. ‘Just for a few days.’
‘What about Uncle Jim? Where’s he living?’
‘He’s still at the flat,’ I tell her.
‘Oh.’ Clearly this is beyond her comprehension and, to be honest, I’m glad about that.
‘I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘Night night,’ she says and her eyes grow heavy instantly.
I tiptoe out and go back downstairs. Gaby and Ryan are watching telly.
‘There’s nothing on,’ Gaby says. ‘But we’re watching it anyway. We’ll have an early night so that you can get some sleep.’
‘I don’t want to kick you out of your own living room,’ I tell her. ‘Besides, I don’t think that I’m going to be doing much sleeping tonight.’
‘Don’t dissuade my missus from an early night,’ Ryan says to me. ‘I was hoping I might have my wicked way with her.’
‘No chance,’ Gaby says. ‘We’ve got visitors.’
‘It’s your sister. She’ll put her fingers in her ears.’
‘I will,’ I confirm.
‘Who asked you?’ Gaby teases.
‘By the way,’ Ryan says, ‘you’re totally mad, woman. That’s all I’ll say on the subject.’
‘Thanks.’ I know that Ryan is one of Jim’s biggest fans. They’re as much like brothers as Gaby and I are actual sisters.
Gaby and I snuggle up on the sofa under the duvet. I have no idea what programme we’re watching, as the pictures pass in a blur in front of me but don’t reach my brain. It takes a huge amount of effort to keep still and not rock backwards and forwards in anguish, or to answer when Gaby or Ryan ask me a question. All the time my mind is whirring and my inner voice chants to me, what I am going to do? What am I going to do? What am I going to do?
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Jim was drunk. He could tell. The bar in front of him was swaying about and his glass appeared to be tap-dancing. Even in this state, he knew that wasn’t right. The lads, also, were eyeing him with grave concern.
‘I’m fine,’ he slurred. ‘Aslutely fine.’
Rozzer looked around him, worried. ‘I think we should take you home, Jim.’
‘Jush one more for the road.’
‘I think the road has also had enough. Come on, mate. Time to climb the wooden hill to Bedfordshire. We’ll treat you to a kebab on the way home.’
A kebab on the way home from the pub with two ex-cons? How had his life come to this? Ah, yes. Now he remembered. Cassie had left him. For a fucking millionaire. That’s how. Jim downed the dregs of his pint, just as his legs decided to give way beneath him.
‘Right, that’s it,’ Rozzer said. ‘We’re going home. Smudge, you take one shoulder, I’ll take the other.’
Though Jim could hear himself complaining loudly, they heaved him out of the pub. The cold, fresh air hit him like a slap. He would have liked to say that it sobered him up instantly. But, with hindsight, it didn’t.
‘Easy does it,’ Rozzer said. ‘You weigh a ton, matey.’
They made their way down Marlowes, the main street in the town, passing similarly inebriated groups of drinkers. The Christmas party season was full on now and there were clearly gangs of office workers out on the lash for the night. Scantily clad women with tinsel and the remnants of party-poppers round their necks threw up in the gutters or were snogged against the windows of W. H. Smith’s. It was such a depressing tableau that suddenly Jim wished he’d drunk even more to be able to cope with it.
If Cassie was gone for good, he’d be back on the dating scene and he could just about remember how very hideous that was. Now he felt miserable. Were these people unaware of what was going on in his life? How could they just carry on partying, loving, living as if nothing had happened when his world had been turned upside down? Could they not feel the pain that he was in? He felt as if it pulsed out of him like a radar. Surely it was so strong that they could touch it, sense it pressing against them? Yet they all seemed oblivious to his suffering.
The Christmas lights, all beautifully strung out along the main shopping street, twinkled in the cold darkness. He didn’t want it to be Christmas. It was a season he had come to hate with a vengeance. If it hadn’t been for bloody Christmas, then Cassie would still be here with him now.
The lights looked offensive in their garishness. Their overt cheerfulness made him want to lie on the pavement and weep. If it hadn’t been covered in so much blood and vomit he might have done just that.
‘Come on, Jim,’ a voice said to him. ‘Give us a hand. Move your legs. We’re not far from the taxi rank. Soon be home.’
‘What?’ Jim said.
‘We’ll soon be home.’
‘You promised me kebab.’
People were always promising him things and not delivering. Cassie had promised him for ever when, in reality, it had meant a few short years until she found someone better.
‘I think we’re past the point of a kebab,’ the voice said. ‘Maybe home and straight to bed. You’re going to have one hell of a head in the morning.’
‘Jim,’ someone else said. ‘We’re worried about you. Help us out here.’
But he didn’t want to. A smiley angel grinned down at him from the top of a lamp-post. Her wings fluttered red, yellow, red, yellow. He hated them. An overwhelming rage raced through his body and, out of nowhere, he wanted to smash the angel’s silly face in but someone was holding him back. Jim struggled, pushing away from his captors. He lurched across the pavement and started to run towards the angel. Seconds later he was scaling the lamp-post while voices shouted out behind him.
‘Oh fuck,’ one said. ‘Let’s get him down before he does any harm or kills himself.’
Either prospect, Jim thought vaguely, held no fear for him. He shinned f
urther up the lamp-post. Seconds later, his hand was on the light-bulb skirt of the angel. He knew that it should be hot, but Jim couldn’t feel it burning his hand. He couldn’t feel much at all.
‘Oh no.’ He heard the voice way below him. ‘Jim, get down.’ Now two of them were pleading with him. He didn’t know who they were and it was none of their business anyway. ‘Jim. Come down. Now.’
But Jim didn’t want to come down. He wanted to stop this stupid, rotten angel from smiling at him. He gripped it firmly and pulled. The angel came away from its mountings surprisingly easily, leaving him holding it in his hand. It was heavier than it looked and, suddenly, he felt unbalanced.
‘Oh Christ,’ one of the voices said. ‘He’s going to fall.’
Bugger, Jim thought. He’s probably right. And, with that, his grip slipped and, without meaning to, he let go of the lamp-post and toppled through the air. The ground rushed up towards him. It was then that he heard the sound of the siren and saw the blue flashing light.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
When the world stopped spinning, Jim was sitting in the back of a police riot van and, if the cold air had failed to sober him up, then this had certainly done the trick.
He was handcuffed, looking sheepish, with Rozzer and Smudge sitting next to him. ‘Why are you two in here?’
‘We asked if we could sit with you,’ Rozzer said.
‘Oh.’
‘Fuck, Jim,’ Rozzer continued, in a low voice. ‘We’re in a right mess.’
‘What did I do?’ he asked.
‘Shinned up a lamp-post and pulled a frigging angel down. They’re talking about doing you for criminal damage.’
‘Oh.’
‘Oh? Is that all you’ve got to say?’
Jim couldn’t really think of much more. His head hurt and his mouth felt as if he’d swallowed a small hearthrug. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘You could lose your job,’ Rozzer reminded him, somewhat unnecessarily. ‘You can’t be a screw with a criminal record.’
Jim was only too well aware of that. Ten years of impeccable service in the prison and it could all end in one moment of madness. Well, it served him right. He shouldn’t have been so stupid.
‘It doesn’t have to be like that,’ Smudge whispered to Rozzer. ‘We could take the rap for Jim. Tell them it was us what did it and not him.’
‘You’re on licence,’ Jim reminded the lad. Clarity was returning to him rapidly now. ‘You’d be straight back in Bovingdale before your feet could touch the ground. That’s not going to happen.’
‘I wouldn’t mind,’ Smudge continued. ‘You’ve done so much for me, Jim. I don’t want you to lose your job. That would be pointless and you can really help people inside. I’d never have got through my time in there but for you and Rozzer.’
Jim noted the fine lines of scabs down the inside of Smudge’s wrists, evidence that he hadn’t quite made it through his sentence at Bovingdale unscathed. Even when the external healing was complete, the scars underneath would stay with him for the rest of his life.
‘He’s right, Jim,’ Rozzer murmured. ‘We should carry the can for this. You’ve got so much more to lose.’
‘No,’ Jim said. ‘I’m not even listening. This is my bad. I’ll deal with it.’
God, what would Cassie think? If this stupid prank didn’t push her into the arms of Carter Randall, then nothing would. Could you see Carter Randall doing something so mindless? No. Neither could he.
‘Talk some sense into him, Rozzer,’ Smudge said.
‘Smudge is right. This could end your career. Let us carry it for you, Jim.’
That almost had him undone. ‘You’d do that? For me?’
‘You’re the best,’ Smudge said. ‘Those lads at Bovingdale need you.’
And he hadn’t given anyone a second thought while he was acting like a prat. He’d been blind drunk and crazy with grief. The price he might have to pay would be high.
The van doors were open and he could see the clean-up operation going on down the street. Drunks were being ushered away. Pissed women too far gone to stand unaided were being escorted to taxis. It was like the Wild West out there and, for a brief moment, he’d been Billy the Kid. Jim hung his head in his hands.
‘You tried to fight the copper,’ Rozzer said. ‘You were well out of your tree.’
‘I don’t know what came over me.’
‘Strong lager rage,’ Rozzer said. ‘I can’t touch the stuff.’
‘Right.’ A voice boomed out and a policeman stuck his head round the van door. ‘Where’s my next customer?’
As Jim looked up, the burly policeman did a double take.
‘What are you doing in here, Jim?’
It was Graham Banber, another lad he’d gone through school with. The benefits and the pitfalls of being born and bred in the same town were that you knew everyone.
‘Had a head-off job,’ Jim admitted. ‘Drank too much, shinned up a lamp-post and pulled an angel down.’
‘We did it,’ Smudge piped up. ‘It wasn’t him.’
Graham looked at the lads sceptically.
‘It was me,’ Jim assured him.
‘I suppose this is the offending angel?’ The policeman held up a large object made of plastic, tinsel and light bulbs.
‘Yes,’ Jim admitted. ‘That’s the one.’ It looked quite pretty after all and he could find no reason now why he’d meant it such harm.
The policeman straightened her tinsel. ‘She doesn’t look too much the worse for her ordeal.’
‘It fell on top of him,’ Smudge offered. ‘So it didn’t hit the ground.’
‘I thought it was you up the lamp-post?’ Graham said to Smudge.
Even in the darkness, you could tell that Smudge was blushing. Not much of a liar really.
‘It was definitely me,’ Jim said. ‘Moment of madness.’
‘These two look a likely pair,’ Graham said.
‘Lads from Bovingdale,’ Jim said. ‘I’ve taken them under my wing.’
‘Showing them bad habits?’
‘That wasn’t my intention.’ He gave Rozzer and Smudge an apologetic smile. ‘They’re good lads.’
‘Must be if they were going to take the hit for you.’ The policeman raised an eyebrow at Rozzer and Smudge, leaned in and undid Jim’s handcuffs. ‘Are you fit to stand?’
‘Yeah,’ Jim said. ‘You’d be surprised how sober I am now.’
‘On your way then. Don’t do it again. Take this as a verbal caution. You just got a get out of jail card, Jim. Literally. Do something like this again and there won’t be another one.’
‘No.’ The cuffs were taken off and Jim rubbed his wrists. ‘There won’t be any need. I’ve learned my lesson.’
‘Good to hear,’ Graham said, helping Jim out of the van. Great, fat flakes of snow had started to drift down from the sky. He and Graham watched them fall to the pavement and remain there for a second before melting away. ‘White Christmas,’ said Graham.
‘Yeah.’ Jim thought that he might never want to celebrate Christmas again.
Graham held up the angel. ‘I’ll deliver your friend back to the council so that they can put her back up.’
‘Thanks, Graham. I really appreciate this.’
‘No worries, mate. Just don’t be a prat again or I might not be able to look the other way.’ He clapped Jim on the back. ‘Better get yourself home or Cassie will be worried about you.’
‘Yeah.’
‘How is that lovely lady of yours?’
‘She left me,’ Jim said.
Chapter Seventy
I don’t sleep. Of course I don’t. I lie awake and stare at Gaby’s living room ceiling, trying to get some sense into my addled brain. When that doesn’t work, I put their television on again and watch countless episodes of Come Dine with Me with the sound turned down as low as it will go until daylight starts to creep round the edges of the curtains.
When Gaby comes into the room in her dressing gown and wi
th bed hair at seven o’clock, I’m wide awake. ‘Coffee?’ she asks.
‘Please.’
‘Sleep?’