He drove her to the court. There was no sign of his mother, thank goodness; he’d feared she had got wind of it. People sat in the lobby, waiting for their cases to be called. Criminals through and through, they sat smoking under the THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING sign. They looked both defiant and defeated, the way people do when they expect to be found guilty. He had seen that look on his mates at school. By contrast, Natalie radiated an innocent sort of energy. Colin marvelled at her dewy skin and bright eyes. She would give the law a run for its money!
Oh, but it was painful to surrender her up. She was led away from him; a door clicked behind her. The next time he saw her she was being escorted into the dock. How small she looked! She glanced up at the public gallery, which was nearly empty, and searched along the rows. She didn’t seem to see Colin, however; her eyes stopped at somebody else. Colin turned; he recognized the person – it was the man called Phillip, from her office.
She was sworn in and the clerk read out the charge.
‘You have been brought here today on a charge of fraud, handling and deception . . .’ Colin flinched.
The magistrate was a severe-looking woman. While the clerk spoke, she gazed at Natalie over her glasses. Everyone else, whoever they were, looked casual – even cheerful. Didn’t they realize the momentousness of this moment? They looked like old friends, with his wife an irrelevance. He longed to rush across and take her in his arms.
The clerk addressed Natalie. ‘How do you plead, guilty or not guilty?’
‘Not guilty!’ called out Natalie, loud and clear.
‘You shall be summoned to a Crown Court,’ said the clerk, ‘to appear at a future date, and time, to be set . . .’
The magistrate beckoned to Mr Wigton; they spoke together in lowered voices. He nodded twice.
The magistrate turned again to Natalie. ‘I shall set bail at five thousand pounds.’
Colin’s mouth dropped open. Bail? And then Natalie was whisked away and another person stood in her place.
Colin returned to the lobby. A man approached him, with a notebook.
‘Are you Mr Taylor?’
Colin, distracted, nodded.
‘This must be a big shock for you.’
Colin nodded. ‘It is that.’
‘Are you going to stand by your wife?’
‘Course,’ said Colin. ‘She needs me and I need her.’
Natalie hurried up. ‘Fuck off!’ she said to the man.
‘Natalie—’
‘He’s a reporter, can’t you see? A fucking reptile.’
‘Reptile?’ Colin turned to the man. ‘She didn’t mean it badly – see, I keep reptiles, I’m a herpetologist.’
‘How do you spell that?’ asked the man.
‘H-e-r-p—’
‘I said fuck off.’ Natalie pulled Colin away. ‘Oh Colin, what’ll I do with you?’
Colin’s head spun. Could nobody be trusted?
Mr Wigton was waiting for them in a side room. ‘I must admit, I wasn’t expecting them to set bail at that sort of sum.’
‘She was a woman,’ replied Natalie. ‘She didn’t like me, the old bat.’ She pulled off her hairband and rubbed her forehead. ‘She thinks I can’t be trusted.’
Back home Natalie mixed Colin a gin and tonic. Never in his life had he drunk a gin and tonic in the middle of the day; in fact, he seldom drank at all.
‘How much money have we got?’ he asked.
‘Not as much as that. Not even half.’ She kicked off her shoes, flung herself on the settee and closed her eyes. ‘Not a quarter.’
They wouldn’t need it, of course. She wasn’t going to run away. But they needed money for legal fees – was she going to get Legal Aid? Colin’s head spun, he couldn’t remember. And she had no wages coming in. They needed money simply to carry on.
‘You haven’t got . . .?’ He stopped.
She opened one eye. ‘What?’
‘Any more money anywhere?’
‘Any more? What do you mean?’
‘Nothing.’
‘We’ve spent it all. Amazing how quickly it goes.’ She flung back her head. ‘Oh shit shit shit.’
‘We’ll manage, Nat.’
She didn’t seem to be listening. ‘Christ, what a fucking mess.’
There was a silence.
He heard her taking a breath. She didn’t turn, however; she addressed the ceiling. ‘I’m so sorry, Colin.’
‘Don’t be sorry, love. We’ll see it through, things’ll work out fine—’
But she hadn’t heard him. ‘I’m so terribly sorry,’ she said.
When Colin was out, Natalie phoned the solicitor.
‘This business about changing your name,’ she said. ‘Its being easy. It’s all very well, but say – just say, for example – that a person wanted to start another job. What about National Insurance?’
‘Piece of cake.’ Mr Wigton chuckled. ‘Just what are you planning to do, Natalie?’
‘Nothing. I’m just interested.’
‘You can do what a client of mine did. He visited the Registrar of Births and Deaths, paid a small fee and looked up the files for a male around his age. Found a name, wrote to the DHSS in Newcastle under that name saying that he’d lost his National Insurance card and he couldn’t remember the number.’
‘What did they do?’
‘They sent it. Won’t do it over the phone. So there he was – new name, new National Insurance number.’ He chuckled again. ‘You’re not getting any ideas, are you, my dear? If I may be so bold, you’re deep enough in the brown and smellies as it is.’
Thoughtfully, Natalie put down the phone.
The next day it was in the local paper. PHONE GIRL CHARGED WITH FRAUD. Colin couldn’t bear to read it, though his eye was caught by HERP-HOBBY-HUBBY SAYS: ‘I’LL STAND BY MY WOMAN.’
‘Herp-hobby!’ snorted Dezza. ‘You poor sod. Want to keep it?’
Colin shook his head; he pushed away the newspaper as if it were contaminated. Dezza was a big-time breeder, known throughout the north. His premises was three converted lorry containers within earshot of the M1, Junction 37.
Colin could hardly breathe. His python was clamped around him, in the most loving of embraces. She knew what was happening. She didn’t want to leave him. He could feel her tightening her hold.
‘A thousand quid cash,’ said Dezza. ‘I’ll be making no profit, but a pal in need . . .’
Colin eased the python off himself, unwinding her vice-like grip from around his chest. She had put on weight since April. ‘She’s in perfect condition,’ he said. Her small, shapely head turned away.
Dezza peeled off the notes. Colin lowered the python into a box. Dezza had already found a buyer, a sultan of some sort. Pythons were big in Saudi.
Colin walked away from the box. He didn’t look back. It broke his heart, to sell his retic, but there was no alternative. He remembered Natalie laughing as she unzipped his fly. Got a nice big one in here?
He walked across to his van. Faintly, he heard the hum of the motorway. Cypress trees stood in a stiff black row; they reminded him of the crematorium where he had left his dad.
He drove home through the drizzle. Colour had drained from the world, leaving it monochrome. He told himself: Stop blubbing, Colin. It’s only a snake.
I’ll take Natalie up to the Cross Keys, he thought, up on Ilkley Moor. We’ll have a bite of lunch. She didn’t know about the python; she would feel terrible if she did. Luckily, however, she seldom went into his sheds.
It was only a matter of time before his mother found out. A neighbour would show her the newspaper. Why didn’t you tell me? she would say. She would be upset, of course, but underneath there would be a small sigh of satisfaction. I told you so. She wouldn’t know about Natalie marrying him for his name, the humiliation of it, but this would be bad enough. I always said there was something about that girl . . . Never trusted her . . .
He drove down their street. Natalie’s car – her brand-new Prelude ?
?? had gone. Maybe she had fled the phone calls. Now the news was out, it would spread like wildfire. On the other hand, maybe their friends would melt away, horrified. Would they believe her, when she protested her innocence?
Colin parked the van and let himself into the house.
‘Nat?’ he called, just in case.
No reply. He went into the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. An envelope was propped against the microwave: COLIN.
He had no premonition; nothing. Later he realized that he should have guessed something was up. It was odd, that she had used an envelope. He still presumed, however, that he would find a normal note inside. GONE SHOPPING, BACK LATER, something like that. He even filled the kettle before he opened it.
Finally, however, he did. He slit open the envelope with the kitchen knife and pulled out a note.
Dear Colin, it began. I’m so sorry . . .
It ended: It’s best this way. I want to spare you the aggro.
Chapter Five
SHEILA WAS SPENDING longer and longer in the bath. Befuddled with Valium she lay submerged, yet somehow floating like a hologram above her useless body. She had long ago used up Chloe’s bath gels. It soothed her, to be closed away in this room, silent except for the dripping tap. In the cabinet her pills waited in their little bottle. They were her only allies now; they understood. She lay there, drugged by the water.
Chloe used to drive them mad with her baths, hours with the door locked, six different towels on the go, damp footprints on the carpet back to her bedroom. She existed in her absence, for everywhere she went she left reminders of herself – sticky rings on the kitchen table, globs of yoghurt in the sink. And always the caps loose – jars, bottles. Sheila had once drawn a picture of a toothpaste tube calling out to its cap, ‘Come back, all is forgiven!’
There had been no damp footprints now for months. Three months, two weeks and six days. Chloe’s bedroom door remained closed. During the day Sheila sleepwalked, half-conscious; during the night she lay awake. In either state she sometimes heard, when she passed the door, a sound inside. Later she realized she dreamed it, for it was unhearable – the sound of Chloe concentrating as she gazed at the page of a magazine, of Chloe just existing.
One night, however, she opened the door and saw David sitting on the bed.
Sheila jumped. He sat so still, as if he had been motionless for hours. She hesitated; then she went in and sat down beside him. She wanted to take his hand – they hadn’t touched for weeks – but his body radiated such isolation that it would give her an electric shock.
‘Let’s go away,’ she said. ‘A week somewhere. Let’s have a holiday.’
He didn’t reply. She smelt the cigarettes in his clothes, in his hair. He didn’t shave nowadays for days on end. This alarmed her. Nor did he seem to be washing any more. They seemed to have changed places; she had become the clean person now.
‘Speak to me.’
‘The brewery phoned today. They’ve been looking at the figures. Twenty per cent down on spirits last month, fifteen on beer.’
‘Speak to me, David.’
‘They want to discuss the future of the business.’
‘They don’t care, do they?’ The wardrobe walls were stuck with photos from magazines. Gaps showed now, where some of them had fallen off. ‘We’ll manage. We’ll manage it somehow, if we stick together.’ Suddenly she laughed. ‘I’ve always wanted to be a hairdresser.’
‘What?’
‘Highlights, perms . . . so what are you doing for Christmas?’
‘Sheila—’
She laughed louder. ‘Oh my my, look at all these split ends.’
‘You taking your pills?’
‘You could renovate old MGs. Remember yours, when I broke the gearbox? You said it was a collector’s item.’
‘Listen, I think you should—’
‘And we could move to Devon. That lovely red earth.’
There was a silence. Her laughter stopped. The digital clock flashed 00:00, pulsing on and off. Somebody must have disconnected the plug. Maybe herself, when she had hoovered the room.
Downstairs, they heard a thud. David jumped up, as if released, and hurried out.
Down below, in the function room, a piece of ceiling had fallen to the floor. Water trickled through the light fixture. ‘Oh blast,’ she said, ‘that’s my bath.’ She had forgotten to turn it off.
David thundered upstairs. Sheila, overcome by fatigue, sat down on the floor. The streetlamp glowed through the window. Paper chains were still strung across the wall: HAPPY BIRTHDAY CLIFFORD. When had the room last been used? Months ago. The street outside was quiet; it must be very late.
That evening Sheila moved into Chloe’s room. From that night onwards she lay under the pansy-patterned duvet, gazing at the last things Chloe saw each night before she finally closed her eyes.
Their friends the Willetts dropped by. David stood, glazed and unsteady, behind the bar. There was nobody else there except Paddy, an old alcoholic.
‘How are things?’ asked Marjorie Willett. ‘Where’s Sheila?’
‘Asleep,’ replied David.
Marjorie glanced at her husband. He looked at his shoes. ‘We heard that things . . . well . . . we just wondered if there’s anything we could do.’
‘Yes!’ said David. ‘Have a drink!’ There was a manic gleam in his eyes. ‘Bell’s for you, right, Don? And a gin and lemon for you, isn’t it? Sit down!’ he shouted. ‘There’s plenty of seats to choose from!’
They made their excuses and left.
In the function room, the man was plastering the ceiling. Sheila had asked his name, she was sure, at some point. He had a big bottom.
‘How peaceful it must be, your job,’ she said. ‘No worries, just slap slap and then, hey presto! All smooth, as if nothing has happened.’ She could stand there watching him all day. ‘Making good. Isn’t that a nice expression? Making good.’
She watched, mesmerized, as he flicked his wrist – slap slap with the palette knife and then slicing off the edges like pastry. He stood on a plank, supported by two ladders.
‘Do you remember your dreams?’ she asked.
‘What’s that?’
‘I said, would you like a cup of tea?’
He must have said yes because here she was, upstairs in the flat, opening the fridge to get the milk – one sugar or two, did he say? There, in the fridge, was a mug of tea.
She felt it; still warm. She had already made him one! Wasn’t she silly? And why on earth had she put it in the fridge?
Slowly she filled the kettle, all over again. What an effort it was . . . lifting it and putting it in the sink, turning on the tap. Everything weighed so heavily.
She wanted to go back to bed. She lifted her leaden wrist and looked at her watch. It was only five o’clock.
She went downstairs. The plasterer climbed down his stepladder and took the mug. They stood there for a moment. The chairs around the wall were grey with dust.
‘My daughter died,’ she said. ‘Her twenty-second birthday has come and gone.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He fumbled in his pocket.
‘The bouncer cried. He cried more than my own husband.’
The plasterer put down his mug, to roll a cigarette. Sheila took advantage of this, and put her arms around him. She held herself tightly against his big stomach. Then she hurried out.
Lying, night after night, in Chloe’s bed, Sheila willed the dreams to come. But her daughter refused to return to her, even in sleep.
Sheila dreamed of her own youth, in altered houses. The rooms were too large, and filled with unfamiliar furniture. Water lapped at the front door. Her mother, when she turned round, had the face of old Mrs Skinner, who used to run the post office. ‘Want your letters?’ she asked, baring her gums. ‘There’s a whole lot arrived but I seem to have mislaid them.’
When Sheila woke she was drenched in sweat.
One afternoon in September a car stopped outside and a man cam
e into the bar. He was wizened, with a jockey’s bowed legs.
‘Minicab for Milner,’ he said.
‘You’ve taken your time,’ said David, who had trouble standing upright. He held on to the counter.
‘I beg your pardon?’ said the man.
‘Where is she? What took you so long?’
David squinted across the room, trying to focus on the door. Should he greet his daughter as if nothing had happened? Where’ve you been? That must’ve been quite a party. David’s head swam. Mum’s tidied your room.
David tried to concentrate. A wasp buzzed around his hair and settled on a puddle of beer. He really must wipe down this counter.
‘Minicab for Mrs Milner.’ The man frowned, puzzled.
There was a noise on the stairs: a heavy, dragging sound, then a thump, like a coffin. David tried to collect his wits.
And then the door opened and Sheila appeared, dragging a suitcase. She wore her coat.
‘Mrs Milner?’ said the driver.
‘Take this to the car,’ she said in a flat voice. ‘And wait for me there.’
The driver heaved the suitcase out. Sheila looked across at her husband. The bar was empty.
‘I’m going to live with Fiona,’ she said.
‘In Florida?’
‘With Fiona.’
Who was Fiona? David had to work it out.
‘I’m so sorry.’ Sheila leaned against a table for support. ‘You won’t talk to me. It’s the only way we could get through this, but how can we when you won’t talk?’ She started crying. ‘I’m afraid of what I’m becoming, I’m afraid I’m going mad, and I hate myself for hating people just because they’re alive and she’s dead. And I don’t know if you’re feeling this because I don’t know what you’re thinking.’
She sat down heavily. He sat next to her.
‘I don’t know what you’re feeling,’ she said.
‘Don’t go.’
‘I’m so sorry, Dave—’
‘Stay here.’
‘I’m so sorry for everything. But we just couldn’t manage it, could we?’
She turned and kissed him clumsily, on the side of his forehead. She seemed to have even lost the knack of doing this.