SIX
Nina spent much of the night watching the boys sleep. If they woke upset or alarmed, she wanted to be awake to comfort them. At 2 a.m. she thought she heard noises downstairs and her imagination ran wild, picturing the ham-fisted removal men, returned and roaming the rooms, looking for more items by torchlight. The idea caused her pulse to race and a fine film of sweat to break out over her body. She slipped from her bedroom and tiptoed down the stairs to the kitchen where she grabbed a left-behind butcher’s knife from the drawer. With her arm raised and teeth bared, she padded quietly from room to room, pulse racing, ready to lunge at whomever she found.
There was no one, no sign of entry. With the knife still in her hand, she made her way back upstairs and opened the linen closet, the largest and most obvious place for someone to hide. Nothing. Lowering her weapon, she placed her hand on a wicker hamper inside. A memory sprang back to her. She remembered Finn giggling after a bottle of wine, telling her he had squirrelled away a thousand pounds, folded into sports socks in the bottom of the hamper. ‘For emergencies,’ he had whispered, showing her where it was hidden. She had thought him foolish, tutting at the cloak and dagger nature of his hidden treasure as they tumbled into bed. It didn’t seem quite so funny now. Lifting the lid, she dug beneath the sheets and found the sports socks, and there, coiled inside, was a roll of cash. Nina snatched it to her chest. Closing her eyes, she offered up silent thanks. ‘For emergencies,’ she whispered into the night.
Nina slipped back into the bedroom. As dawn broke, it brought some clarity with it. It would only be more damaging to them all if they hung around and waited to be evicted from the house. They had to get out immediately, just pack up and go. But where?
A thought came to her as she splashed her face with cold water and cleaned her teeth. Asking someone to put all three of them up for a while might be too much, but surely the boys’ friends wouldn’t mind having one of them to stay. She detested the thought of separation from her kids, especially when they were so bruised. The idea of not being able to keep an eye on them horrified her – but if it meant they got to stay in the area, giving her the breathing space to figure out their next move before school started again after the half-term break, then it might be worth it. Whichever school it was they would now attend. There was a lot to do.
She wandered from room to room; the disarray hit her hard, leaving her winded but also determined. Bastards. She pictured Mr Ludlow sneering. Nina closed the kitchen door and dialled Kathy Topps’s number. She wandered the long, empty room, waiting, swallowing the nerves that filled her up and threatened to make her chicken out and end the call.
‘Nina,’ Kathy answered, as if she had half been expecting her call.
‘Hi, Kathy. I’m not disturbing you, am I?’ She closed her eyes, picturing the Topps family seated around a dining table that was paid for, enjoying an organic breakfast whilst chatting about the fun they would have over the holiday.
‘Not at all.’ Her tone was a little clipped.
‘How are you?’ Her voice filled the empty airwaves. It perturbed her; Kathy was usually such a chatterbox.
‘Good.’
‘This is a bit out of the blue, Kathy, but I was wondering if I could ask you a massive favour?’ She drew breath and rehearsed what she wanted to say in her mind: ‘Could I take you up on the offer of shared tennis lessons with Henry, and could Declan possibly stay with you for a week or two? Just while I put things in place, figure out our next move?’
Nina opened her mouth to speak, but Kathy broke in. ‘I can save us both a lot of trouble, Nina. I can guess at the favour you want to ask, and I’m afraid the answer is no. And frankly it’s made me feel most uncomfortable that you would even consider asking. It’s not the done thing.’
‘I . . .’ She screwed her face up in confusion.
‘Are you going to force me to say it?’ Kathy asked.
‘Force you to say what?’ To Nina it felt like they were having parallel conversations.
‘Money, Nina! You are obviously after money.’ The woman let the accusation hang in the air.
‘No . . . I . . .’ She tried to form a response. Her childhood had taught her that to ask for money was shameful; to ask for help, a job, a hand, was one thing, but money quite another. Nina felt her cheeks flame at the suggestion.
Kathy spoke quickly, condescendingly. ‘The Kings Norton community is a small one and people talk. Jayne Rutherford’s sister-in-law works in the accounts department and, well, let’s just say that people are aware of the situation.’
This was her worst nightmare, to be spoken to like this by Kathy and to know that her peers were discussing her, judging her, as not quite good enough, failing, as if she were once again the girl in the shoes that didn’t quite fit. Nina found her voice. ‘I don’t know what people have been saying—’ she began, before Kathy interrupted.
‘Primarily that you can’t pay school fees and the boys are having to leave.’ Her diction was sharp, each word like a dagger that cut.
Nina felt anger rising. How could she contain the gossip before it got back, unfiltered, raw and accusatory to Connor and Declan via their friends, before they had a chance to fully process their situation and before she had come up with a strategy? ‘I can assure you that is not entirely true and I am absolutely furious that the school thinks it’s okay to give out such private information about its pupils. It’s unbelievable.’
‘You are probably right, but I think the implication is that the boys are now ex-pupils,’ Kathy pointed out.
‘Do you know what, Kathy? I expected better from you. I was calling to see if Declan was still invited to join Henry for his tennis lessons.’
‘Well you can forget that.’ Kathy cut her off. ‘I was thinking it might be good for the boys to form a friendship for the new term, but there’s very little point if Declan isn’t going to be there. You know what Kings Norton boys are like. A very close bunch. Outsiders are not their first choice.’
‘God, Kathy, what a horrible, horrible thing to say to me. My boys have been at that school since they were three years of age, they are not outsiders!’ She felt the blood rushing to her face. ‘You brought my boys home on the day their dad died, you came to his bloody funeral, hugging me, offering condolence while drinking his wine! I can’t believe this. Do you really think that bankruptcy and tragedy are contagious? Is that what you are worried about?’
As Kathy drew breath, Nina interjected. ‘You know what? You can shove your tennis lessons up your arse, Kathy. Declan would rather do anything than play with Henry, the unsporting little shit.’ She hung up and stared out over the pool. Her body shook with adrenaline and something close to triumph.
She thought about Joe Marsh-Evans, a little boy in Connor’s class who had left school suddenly and without explanation when they were about five. What had she done? Called Joe’s mum to see if they were okay? Enquired as to his whereabouts so he and Connor could still be friends? No. She had simply crossed him off the invite list for Connor’s birthday party. She thought about Joe, possibly for the first time since he had left, and felt a wave of sickness. It crystallised a thought in her mind: not only how she needed to raise her kids to show kindness to others, but also that no matter what, and no matter where, she and her boys would stick together as outsiders to face what may come.
The boys had come down from their rooms to the kitchen. Nina banged the counter, making them both jump. ‘Okay.’ She drew their attention and tried to sound assertive. ‘Firstly I think you should stay home today and we should use the time to make a plan.’ She spoke loudly and positively, hoping that might be infectious. She didn’t want the boys at the rumour mill of school. ‘I have been thinking a lot over the last few days and spent most of last night mulling over our options. And I think we need to leave Bath and go somewhere new. Start over.’ She indicated the French doors at the back of the room, as if the future beckoned on the other side of the swimming pool, and in a sense it did.
‘Leave Bath?’ Declan asked in a tone that suggested she might be crazy.
‘Yes, leave Bath. I’m thinking that if you are going to have to go to a new school, then let’s find a new place where you can be whoever you want to be and no one knows where you have come from or what has happened. Starting over, it will be like shedding skin.’
Connor let his head hang forward. ‘What I want to be is the winger for the Kings Norton College first team. That’s what I always wanted and I nearly had it. I nearly had it, Mum.’ His face seemed to crumple as he rushed from the kitchen and back up the wide staircase.
Declan wrinkled his nose at her, ‘I don’t mind where we live, Mum, but I don’t want to go anywhere really cold, like the North Pole.’
She felt the unfamiliar sensation of laughter bubbling on her lips in the midst of this nightmare. ‘Oh, Dec. I love you so much. What would I do without you?’
She watched her youngest run into the garden. With Connor still ensconced in his room, Nina felt suddenly very much alone. The silence of the room taunted her. What wouldn’t she give to have the noise of family life, the sounds of extended family, around her right now? Even to have her gran’s loud scolds echoing off the walls would be something – proof that she were not in this on her own.
‘I am here for you. I want to be the first person you call, always.’ Her sister’s words were loud in her mind. ‘You know where I am if you need anything.’ Well, she did need something – a bit of advice, a sounding board. Nina picked up the landline and dialled Tiggy, wary of the reception she might get after how they left things.
‘Hey.’
‘Hi, Tiggy.’
‘It’s good to hear from you.’ This she knew was an olive branch of sorts for how her visit had ended, a drawing of a line in the sand, keeping communication open. ‘How’s it going? How are the boys doing?’
Her sister’s kind enquiry was enough to summon tears. She sniffed them away; this was no time for crying. It seemed that any turbulence between them had passed.
Nina took a deep breath. ‘We are in a bit of trouble.’
‘What kind of trouble?’ Tiggy spoke quickly, with concern.
Nina braced herself to say the words out loud.
‘I found a note from Finn, he said that he felt like his world was made of glass and that he was cracking under the pressure and now that pressure is mine and I don’t know what to do next.’ She’d let slip more than had been her intention.
‘You’re not making a whole bunch of sense. What pressure? I don’t understand, Nina, but I do know that nothing can be that bad and there is always a solution.’
‘Things are that bad. We have nowhere to live, Tig. We need to move, start over. And I am broke.’ Nina rubbed her face.
‘For real?’ There was a hint of laughter in her question. Nina understood that this was not because her sister found the facts amusing, but simply that the idea that her wealthy sister in her huge house could even come close to being broke was indeed so unbelievable as to be laughable.
‘I need to find somewhere for the kids to sleep and I don’t have any money. I’m thinking we might go to Trowbridge or Chippenham or Swindon, somewhere not too far away, but a fresh start.’
There was a moment of silence.
‘I don’t understand. What’s happened? How come you don’t have any money?’
Nina felt the grit of irritation between her teeth. It was draining to have to recount the facts. ‘Finn lost the business and we are losing the house, losing everything.’ She tried not to picture the previous night when her possessions, the things she held dear, had been carted off to auction.
She heard Tiggy take a sharp intake of breath. ‘Shit!’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘Shit.’
‘Don’t you have savings and stuff? Or things you can sell?’
‘Our savings have long gone trying to save the business, apparently, and anything I would have to sell wouldn’t come close to matching the debt. We owe a little under eight million pounds.’
Nina listened to the stunned silence on the other end of the line. There were no quips, no questions. This figure gave the true scale of her trouble and it was as sobering as it was frightening.
‘And you didn’t know?’ Tiggy asked softy.
She looked out over the gardens. ‘No. I didn’t know.’
Her sister gave a heavy sigh. ‘Shit,’ she offered again.
Nina held the phone close to her mouth and felt comforted by the connection.
‘Are the boys okay?’
She appreciated Tiggy’s concern; she thought of Kathy’s cool, mean response from earlier. Not once had she enquired as to any of their welfare.
‘They are lost, confused, upset – all as you’d expect.’
‘Come here,’ Tiggy stated matter-of-factly.
‘What?’
‘Come here. You know Southampton, and that must make it preferable to Trowbridge or Swindon where you have no support,’ Tiggy said sensibly.
‘We can’t just come there, you don’t have the space. But thanks for the offer.’
Nina didn’t want to share her thought that, actually, anywhere might be better than the city in which she had grown up. She heard her sister’s teeth grinding; Nina had quite forgotten that Tiggy did this when in thought.
‘Oh, I know! Aunty Mary’s flat is empty. The tenants have just moved out and they are having viewings on it right now. I saw the “To Let” board outside. I could have a word with Cousin Fred?’ Tiggy enthused loudly.
Nina pictured the ground-floor flat in a low-rise 1950s block that she had visited countless times in her childhood; it had belonged to her gran’s youngest sister, quiet and kind spinster Mary. When they went over Aunt Mary gave them sweets that stuck to the flimsy plastic wrapper, as if they had got warm and then cooled and the wrapper had become enmeshed with the sugar. Nina tried to remember the last time she had been there; it had to be over twenty years ago – more. She felt no enthusiasm for living in her aunt’s flat, but this wasn’t about enthusiasm, it was about being desperate.
‘How much is it?’
‘About six hundred and fifty a month, I think. Can you manage that?’
Nina thought of the small amount of cash she had in her purse. This, along with the cash that Finn had left in the hamper, was the sum total of her liquidity. She pictured the grubby notes: just a little over a couple of months of rent, eight weeks of security! Her heart jumped with fear.
That was all she had.
And this before she considered food, bills and sundries. She thought of the monthly florist bill that was about half this amount and felt a sickening ball of shame bounce in her gut. ‘I can manage for a short while, a couple of months, and I will get a job as soon as I can.’ She tried to picture living in Aunty Mary’s flat, tried to imagine working; both ideas felt surreal.
‘The area has gone downhill a bit, but it’s friendly enough,’ Tiggy said. Nina felt her throat constrict. Her memory of the place was not favourable, and to think that it might have declined further . . .
How can I take my boys there?
‘It’s very central, as you know, and it’s very cheap.’ Tiggy pointed out the obvious. ‘Fred still lives in Canada, and I’m sure he’d rather you lived in it than a stranger.’
Nina pictured the people Tiggy referred to with a lump of guilt in her throat. She’d had no communication with Cousin Fred in years, other than the exchange of impersonal Christmas cards each year. She had only been a few years old than Connor when she had settled into a routine with Finn as a newlywed in Bath, and then she had a new baby, and her whole miserable teenagehood faded into the grey shade of another life and another time. There had been no explosive row, no cataclysmic event; their rift had occurred subtly, aided by physical separation. The longer they spent apart, the wider the chasm had become. There was only Tiggy left in Portswood, bar Cousin Fred’s occasional visits home with his Canadian wife and two daughters in tow. Right now, however, it was this place, the one she had been so keen to escape from, that was calling her back, providing a potential lifeline.
‘And our school is within walking distance,’ Nina thought aloud.
‘Surely you are not thinking of sending your boys to Cottrell’s?’
‘I am. I need to get them in somewhere. It’s almost halfway through the school year and we need a roof over our heads. It’s as simple as that. And it won’t be forever, just until I figure out what to do next. I need to get a job, Tig, and quickly.’ The thought sent a jolt of nervous energy along her spine.
‘How will you . . . ?’ Tiggy halted mid-sentence.
Nina again sensed that there were so many things that Tiggy wanted to say, but thought better of it.
‘I’ll figure things out. I have to,’ Nina asserted.
There was another beat of silence.
‘Do you want me to have a word with Fred, then? I have his numbers, I can do that today if you like?’
She was overwhelmed by her sister’s instant and genuine offer of help.
‘That’d be great, thank you, Tiggy.’
‘It’ll be okay, you know. Nothing is ever as bad as you imagine.’
No wonder Connor had felt frustrated. The meaningless rhetoric made her realise how pointless it was to offer a cure-all without anything more concrete to back it up.
‘Who were you talking to?’ Connor asked, entering the kitchen, his brother trailing him.
‘Tiggy. I’m trying to sort out some accommodation.’
Connor stared at her. ‘Is this really happening?’
‘Connor . . .’ She sighed, hoping she didn’t have to find the energy for a fight. ‘This has already happened. Look at us!’ She raised her palms towards the ceiling. ‘Today we need to pack up our things.’
‘What’s left of them,’ Connor quipped.
Nina ignored him.
‘What can we take with us?’ Declan asked.
‘Clothes, books, anything precious to you, but that’s all. We won’t have that much space.’ She listed pretty much all that was left after the bailiffs had made their sweep. ‘Anything else we’ll box up and put into storage.’ She swallowed, thinking about Mr Firth’s offer to hold on to their things. Without the fog of grief and shock, he had probably been at least three steps ahead of her thought process; she had only vaguely understood his suggestion for haste. ‘So go up to your rooms and make three piles. One of the things you want to take with you – but not too much. As I said, space is limited. Pack like it’s a long holiday.’
Connor sneered. She could read his mind: Some holiday.
She continued, undeterred. ‘Make another pile of everything to be packed and stored, and a third pile of everything you want to give to charity.’
Declan nodded and left the room, his instructions clear.
‘And you, Connor.’
‘George has invited me to a party next Saturday, but I won’t be here, will I?’
‘What do you want me to say, Connor?’
She knew that this was about so much more than a party – this was about his whole life that felt as if it were in free fall – but there was nothing else she could say. He seemed to look through her as he walked slowly from the room, and her heart sank at her inability to give him a more satisfactory response.
A few hours later, boxes were packed, sealed and labelled. There were a few other items Mackintosh and Vooght missed that she placed in her bag: an antique silver cigarette case, Finn’s Montblanc pen-and-pencil set that had been in her cotton book bag, and three sets of gold cufflinks, each set engraved with the McCarrick family crest. She placed them in the zip pouch inside her bag with Finn’s watch and signet and wedding rings.
‘When will we go, Mum?’ Declan asked as he flicked through an encyclopaedia of insects.
‘As soon as we get the word from Tiggy. Hopefully tomorrow.’
‘But what if we can’t get that flat you told us about?’ he asked, pushing his glasses up onto his nose.
‘Then we activate Plan B. We get a truck, load up our stuff and go to Swindon or Trowbridge and hit the rental agencies until we find a place,’ she asserted, hoping she sounded confident. The enormity of their situation made her want to vomit. But this was not the time for weakness, of any kind. She had to be strong, for all of them.
A text arrived from Tiggy late afternoon:
THE FLAT IS YOURS IF YOU WANT IT. I HAVE THE KEYS!!!
Nina looked at the text and wished she felt similarly enthusiastic. For her, the news came with relief, followed by a wave of dread.
It was almost unthinkable to Nina that this was going to be her last night in their family home; ironically, the prospect was made a little easier by the invasion of Mr Ludlow and his henchmen. She felt their echo in every room she entered, felt the weight of their challenging stares. These new images crowded out memories of her family – birthdays and celebrations and milestones – and she hated them for that. She and the boys ate soup and crackers, before tucking straight into large half-eaten tubs of ice cream. They watched TV on Connor’s laptop for a while, then they all trudged silently upstairs. The boys went to their rooms. She wished them goodnight, and then she made her way to Finn’s study, where she stood for an age, looking out the window over the grounds. Ancient trees edged the lawn, spiky without their leaves and licked by frost, lined up like dark sentinels in the stillness.
‘So beautiful,’ she breathed, staring out into the darkness of the February night.
And it was.
Nina lay in the centre of their bed, with Finn’s sweatshirt on her pillow by her side. She lay back on the mattress and looked up at the ceiling, thinking of the many times she had done so with the skin of the man she loved against hers. Tears trickled down her temples and into her hair. The man she thought she knew inside out and back to front had so many secrets . . .
Nina stirred at the first light that filtered through her bedroom window. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to delay the dawn, to pretend this day wasn’t actually happening, as if she could cheat time and hang on to the night, deferring what she knew would come to pass.
The touch of Finn’s finger against her cheek . . . She nuzzled against his warm skin. Her eyelids fluttered in the first throes of wakefulness, sensing the light and soft chirp of birdsong, providing the most blissful alarm. Smiling, she thought of the unplanned day ahead, with nothing but the hours happily unpunctuated in the calendar – no appointments, nowhere she needed to be. She felt a burst of excitement at what the day might hold. She opened her eyes and saw Finn’s face so close it startled her. She giggled, gripping the edge of the crisp white cotton sheet and pulling it over her face, a little shy at his scrutiny. Finn pulled back the cover.
‘I’ve been watching you.’
‘Was I drooling or sleep talking again?’
He shook his head and she saw the rare but unmistakable glint of tears in his eyes. ‘I used to watch you all the time when we were first married. I couldn’t quite believe that I had landed you.’
‘Landed me?’ She giggled. ‘You make me sound like a fish,’ she whispered. ‘Would I be an ugly old cod or a sweet little goldfish?’
He smiled. ‘I woke up an hour ago and saw you sound asleep on the pillow next to me, and I felt this overwhelming sense of peace. This is enough. It’s always been enough, you and me, waking up side by side. That’s it!’ He leaned forward to kiss her face. ‘This is my happiness, waking up with you, and no matter how far apart we are, it’s the thought of this that gets me through . . .’
Nina inhaled his scent and felt the graze of his lips on hers . . .
A bang on the landing caused her to wake with a start. She sat up in bed, looking at the space Finn had occupied in her dream. She placed her hand on the mattress, longing to return to the sweet oblivion of fantasy.
She lay back, knowing this was the last time she would wake up in the room where she had lain in her husband’s arms, where he had laughed as she crawled over the carpet after too much wine; the last time she would lie on the bed that her toddlers had jumped upon on Christmas morning, bouncing up and down, keen to get on with the business of opening presents. She didn’t have time for this, not today. She leapt up, pulling the sheet from the bed and inhaling it deeply, before rolling it into a bundle and shoving it with her pillow into a suitcase.
She swept from the room without looking back, knowing it was up to her to encourage the boys to only look forward.
‘Have you ever driven a van before, Mum?’ Declan asked a little nervously as he eyed the Ford Transit crew van. She had hired it via telephone the previous day. It was delivered that morning, paid for with cash from her precious reserves.
‘No,’ she answered stiffly, ‘but I am used to driving big cars and off-roaders and this is really no different from that.’ She hoped she sounded convincing.
Connor quietly stood apart. He seemed to be watching proceedings, but not quite part of them. Nina wanted to hold him tight and kiss his face, but his body language screamed of the need for space. Her heart broke for her boy–man, who was trying to put on a brave face, but was clearly broken inside.
I wish I could wave a magic wand, Con. I wish I could take away your pain and make it all better.
Declan sat in one of the back seats crammed next to cardboard boxes, while Connor rode shotgun. Their bags, cases and a couple of small bits of furniture, the two breakfast bar chairs, two side tables, a laundry hamper, a large art canvas, the kettle and toaster, three small lamps and linens were piled into the cargo space. Both boys had items stashed around their feet and on their laps, rucksacks with their laptops inside, Connor’s rugby trophies, boxes of books, photograph albums, some pillows, and the stock of toilet tissue and washing powder from the laundry cupboard.
‘Okay, we’re all set!’ She spoke with an energy that she didn’t feel, hoping it might be infectious.
‘Okay, Mum!’ Declan echoed. ‘Off we go!’ Nina swallowed the lump in her throat as she listened to her youngest’s positive energy on this, the most emotional of mornings.
She was thankful for the obstructed windows at the back of the vehicle, denying her one last look at their home. This didn’t stop her picturing it getting smaller and smaller as they drove away. A quick glance at the sat nav told her it was 63.4 miles and would take one hour, thirty-five minutes, to reach their destination. Nina knew this was a lie; she knew that where they were headed was a million miles from where they had started, and that it might take years for them to arrive.