فصل 07

CHAPTER SEVEN

Jess

She dozed through the small hours on the plastic hospital chair, waking occasionally from discomfort and the sound of distant tragedies in the ward beyond the curtain. She watched the newly stitched Nicky as he finally slept, wondering how she was supposed to protect him. She wondered what was going on in his head. She wondered, with a clench of her stomach that no longer seemed to go away, what was coming next. A nurse popped her head around the curtain at seven and said shed made her some tea and toast. This small act of kindness caused her to fight back embarrassed tears. The consultant stopped by shortly after eight, and said Nicky would probably spend another night while they checked that there was no internal bleeding. There was a shadow they hadnt quite got to the bottom of on the X-ray and they wanted to be sure. The best thing Jess could do would be to go home and get some rest. Nathalie rang to say shed taken Tanzie to school with her kids and that everything was fine.

Everything was fine.

She got off the bus two stops before her house, walked round to Leanne Fishers, knocked on her door and told her, with as much politeness as she could muster, that if Jason came anywhere near Nicky again she would have the police on him. Whereupon Leanne Fisher spat at her and said if Jess didnt fuck right off shed put a brick through her effing window. There was a burst of laughter from within the house as Jess walked away.

It was pretty much the response shed expected.

She let herself into her empty home. She paid the water bill with what would have been the rent money. She paid the electric with her cleaning money. She showered and changed and did her lunchtime shift at the pub, so lost in thought that Stewart Pringle rested his hand on her arse for a full ten seconds before she noticed. She poured his half pint of Best Bitter slowly over his shoes.

“What did you do that for? Des yelled when Stewart complained.

“If youre so okay with it, you stand there and let him rest his hand on your arse, she said, and went back to cleaning the glasses.

“She has a point, Des said.

She vacuumed the entire house before Tanzie came home. She was so tired she should have been comatose, but in fact she was so angry it was possible she did it all at double speed. She couldnt stop herself. She cleaned and folded and sorted because if she didnt she would take Martys old sledgehammer down from the two hooks in the musty garage, walk round to the Fishers house, and do something that would finish them all off completely. She cleaned because if she didnt she would stand in her overgrown little back garden, lift her face to the sky, and scream and scream and scream, and she wasnt sure shed be able to stop.

By the time she heard the footsteps on the path, the house floated in a toxic fug of furniture polish and kitchen cleaner. She took two deep breaths, coughed a bit, then made herself take one more before she opened the door, a reassuring smile already plastered on her face. Nathalie stood on the path, her hands on Tanzies shoulders. Tanzie walked up to her, put her arms around her waist, and held her tightly, her eyes shut.

“Hes okay, sweetheart, Jess told her, stroking her hair. “Its all right. Its just a silly boys fight.

Nathalie touched Jesss arm, gave a tiny shake of her head. “You take care, she said, and left.

Jess made Tanzie a sandwich and watched her wander away into the shady part of the garden to do algorithms and told herself she would let her know about St. Annes tomorrow. She would definitely tell her tomorrow.

And then she disappeared into the bathroom and unrolled the money she had found in Mr. Nichollss taxi. Four hundred and eighty pounds. She laid it out in neat piles on the floor with the door locked.

Jess knew what she should do. Of course she did. It wasnt her money. It was a lesson she had drummed into the kids You dont steal. You dont take what is not yours. Do the right thing, and you will be rewarded for it in the end.

Do the right thing.

But a new, darker voice had begun a low internal hum in her ear. Why should you give it back? He wont miss it. He was passed out in the car park, in the taxi, in his house. It could have fallen out anywhere. It was only luck that you found it, after all. And what if someone else from round here had picked it up? You think they would have handed it back to him?

His security card said the name of his company was Mayfly. His first name was Ed.

She would take the money back to Mr. Nicholls. Her brain whirred round and round in time with the clothes dryer.

And still she didnt do it.

—

Jess never used to think about money. Marty worked five days a week for a local taxi firm, handled all the finances, and they generally had enough for him to go down to the pub a couple of nights a week and for her to have the odd night out with Nathalie. They took the occasional holiday. Some years they did better than others, but they got by.

And then Marty got fed up with making do. There was a camping holiday in Wales where it rained for eight days solid and Marty became more and more dissatisfied, as if the weather were something to be taken personally. “Why cant we go to Spain or somewhere hot? hed mutter, staring out through the flaps of the sodden tent. “This is crap. This isnt a bloody holiday.

He got fed up with his work he found more and more to complain about. The other drivers were against him. The controller was cheating him. The passengers were tight.

And then he started with the schemes. The knockoff T-shirts for a band that fell out of the charts as quickly as it had arrived. The pyramid scheme they joined two weeks too late. Import-export was the thing, he told Jess confidently, arriving home from the pub one night. He had met a bloke who could get cheap electrical goods from India, and they could sell them on to someone he knew. And then—surprise, surprise—the someone who was going to sell them on turned out not to be the sure thing Marty had been promised. And the few people who did buy the appliances complained that they blew their electricity supply, and the rest of them rusted, even in the garage, so their meager savings turned into a pile of useless white goods that had to be loaded, fourteen a week, into Martys car and taken to the dump.

And then came the Rolls-Royce. At least Jess could see the sense in that one Marty would spray it metallic gray, then rent himself out as a chauffeur for weddings and funerals. Hed bought it off eBay from a man in the Midlands, and made it halfway down the M6 before it conked out. Something to do with the starter motor, the mechanic said, peering under the bonnet. But the more he looked at it, the more seemed wrong with it. The first winter it spent on the drive, mice got into the upholstery so they needed money to replace the backseats before he could rent it out. And then it turned out that replacement upholstered Rolls-Royce seats were about the only thing you couldnt get on eBay. So it sat there in the garage, a daily reminder of how they never quite managed to get ahead.

Shed taken over the money when Marty started to spend the better part of each day in bed. Depression was an illness, everyone said so. Although, from what his mates said, he didnt seem to suffer it on the two evenings he still managed to drag himself to the pub.

When Jess peeled all the bank statements from their envelopes and retrieved the savings book from its place in the hall desk, she had finally seen for herself the trouble they were in. Shed tried to talk to him a couple of times, but hed just pulled the duvet over his head and said he couldnt cope. It was around then that hed suggested he might go home to his mums for a bit. If she was honest, Jess was relieved to see him go. It was hard enough coping with Nicky—who was still a silent, skinny wraith—Tanzie, and two jobs.

“Go, shed said, stroking his hair. She remembered thinking how long it had been since shed touched him. “Go for a couple of weeks. Youll feel better for a bit of a break. He had looked at her silently, his eyes red rimmed, and squeezed her hand.

That had been two years ago. Neither of them had ever seriously raised the possibility of his coming back.

—

She tried to keep things normal until Tanzie went to bed, asking what shed had to eat at Nathalies, telling her what Norman had done while she was out. She combed Tanzies hair, then sat on her bed and read her an old Harry Potter, as if she were a much younger child, and for once Tanzie didnt tell her that actually shed rather do some maths.

When Jess was sure that Tanzie was asleep, she rang the hospital. The nurse said that Nicky was comfortable X-rays had shown no evidence that his lung was punctured. The small facial fracture would have to heal by itself.

She rang Marty, who listened in silence, then asked, “Does he still wear all that stuff on his face?

“He wears a bit of mascara, yes.

There was a long silence.

“Dont say it, Marty. Dont you dare say it. She put the phone down before he could.

And then the police rang at a quarter to ten and said that Jason Fisher had denied all knowledge.

“There were fourteen witnesses, she said, her voice tight with the effort of not shouting. “Including the man who runs the fish-and-chip shop. They jumped my son. There were four of them.

“Yes, but witnesses are only any use to us if they can identify the perpetrators, madam. And Mr. Brent says it wasnt clear who was actually doing the fighting. He let out a sigh as if she should know what teenage boys were like. “I have to tell you, madam, the Fishers claim your son started it.

“Hes about as likely to start a fight as the Dalai bloody Lama. Were talking about a boy who cant put a duvet in its cover without worrying it might hurt someone.

“We can only act on the evidence, madam.

The Fishers. With their reputation, shed be lucky if a single person “remembered what theyd seen.

For a moment Jess let her head fall into her hands. They would never let up. And it would be Tanzie next, once she started secondary school. She would be a prime target with her love of maths and her oddness and her total lack of guile. Jess went cold. She thought about Martys sledgehammer in the garage, and how it would feel to walk down to the Fishers house and—

The phone rang. She snatched it up. “What now? Are you going to tell me he beat himself up, too? Is that it?

“Mrs. Thomas?

She blinked.

“Mrs. Thomas? Its Mr. Tsvangarai.

“Oh. Mr. Tsvangarai, Im sorry. It—its not a great time. She held out her hand in front of her. It was shaking.

“Im sorry to call you so late, but its a matter of some urgency. I have discovered something of interest. Its called the Maths Olympiad. He spoke the words carefully.

“The what?

“Its a new thing, in Scotland, for gifted students. A maths competition. And we still have time to enter Tanzie.

“A maths competition? Jess closed her eyes. “You know, thats really nice, Mr. Tsvangarai, but we have quite a lot going on here right now, and I dont think I—

“Mrs. Thomas, the prizes are five hundred pounds, a thousand pounds, and five thousand pounds. Five thousand pounds. If she won, youd have at least the first year of your St. Annes school fees sorted out.

“Say that again.

Jess sat down on the chair as he explained in greater depth.

“This is an actual thing?

“It is an actual thing.

“And you really think she could do it?

“There is a category especially for her age group. I cannot see how she could fail.

Five thousand pounds, a voice sang in her head. Enough to get her through the first two years.

“Whats the catch?

“No catch. Well, you have to do advanced maths, obviously. But I cant see that this would be a problem for Tanzie.

She stood up and sat down again.

“And of course you would have to travel to Scotland.

“Details, Mr. Tsvangarai. Details. Her head was spinning. “This is for real, right? This isnt a joke?

“I am not a funny man, Mrs. Thomas.

“Fuck. Fuck! Mr. Tsvangarai, you are an absolute beauty.

She could hear his embarrassed laugh.

“So . . . what do we do now?

“Well, they waived the qualifying test after I sent over some examples of Tanzies work. I understand they are very keen to have children from less-advantaged schools. And between you and me, it is, of course, an enormous benefit that shes a girl. But we have to decide quickly. You see, this years Olympiad is only five days away.

Five days. The deadline for registration at St. Annes was tomorrow.

She stood in the middle of the room, thinking. Then she ran upstairs, pulled Mr. Nichollss money from its nest among her tights, and before she could think she stuffed it into an envelope, scrawled a note, and wrote ADMISSIONS OFFICE, ST. ANNES in careful letters on the front. She would drop it in on the way to clean tomorrow.

She would pay it back. Every penny.

But right now she didnt have a choice.

—

That night, Jess sat at the kitchen table and worked out a rough plan. She looked up the schedule for trains to Edinburgh, laughed a bit hysterically, then looked up the cost of three coach tickets £187, including the £13 it would cost to get to the station and the cost of putting Norman in a kennel for a week £94. She put the palms of her hands into her eye sockets and let them stay there for a bit. And then, when the children were asleep, she dug out the keys to the Rolls-Royce, went outside, brushed the mouse droppings off the drivers seat and tried the ignition.

It turned over on the third attempt.

Jess sat in the garage that always smelled of damp, surrounded by old garden furniture, bits of car, plastic buckets, and let the engine run. Then she leaned forward and peeled back the faded tax disc. It was almost two years out of date. And she didnt have insurance.

She turned off the ignition and sat in the dark as the smell of oil gradually faded from the air, and she thought, for the hundredth time Do the right thing.