Читать книгу The Family - Louise Jensen - Страница 17

LAURA

I hugged the pillow tighter, the feathers moulding against the curves of my body. The curves Gavan would kiss on a Saturday morning while I wriggled further under the covers, protesting that it was too bright with the sun glaring through the thin curtains, shining its fiery spotlight on every lump and bump.

‘Laura, I’ve eaten marshmallows off your belly, licked chocolate body paint off your thighs, sucked whipped cream from everywhere.’ He’d pin my wrists above my head. ‘You’re beautiful. Don’t hide.’

If he were still with me I’d stand in all my naked glory, cellulite and stretch marks on display, and let him love me the way he wanted to. The way I needed him to. I pressed my face against the pillowcase and inhaled, long and slow. Each night I sprayed Boss aftershave on Gavan’s side of the bed. The sheets smelled of him, and yet somehow, they didn’t. The cologne came from his bottle, the bottle I bought him last Christmas, but it wasn’t quite the same. The underlying muskiness of him. His own unique Gavan smell had gone and I just couldn’t recreate it.

Music blasted. A thumping bass shaking the wall between Tilly’s bedroom and mine, but I didn’t shout at her to turn it down. It reminded me that despite the hollow in my chest, I was not alone. She was up early for a Saturday. Her door crashed open, and seconds later the bathroom door slammed. Seventeen and destined for uni and she still couldn’t operate a door handle. Tearing myself away from my too-big-for-one bed I slipped my feet into slippers and shrugged on my dressing gown. It was chilly.

‘Morning,’ I called from the landing. ‘I’m making toast. Do you want some?’

‘Not going to cut it into a heart, are you?’ she fired through the plasterboard separating us. I hesitated. There was so much I wanted to say but I didn’t know where to start, so I jammed my words and my hands into my pockets and traipsed downstairs to put the heating on.

By the time my breakfast was ready the ancient boiler was chugging into life. I ate at the table, the syrupy thick coffee and the sticky tang of marmalade chasing away the last traces of sleep. Once again I read the letter from the insurance company:

Dear Mrs Evans, After careful consideration we regret to inform you that in the absence of…

The words skipped and hopped behind the blur of tears covering my eyes until they rearranged themselves into something different. Something better. A future. I peered into the envelope in case I could find some hope. A second sheet of cheap white paper telling me it was a mistake. Of course they would be paying out. Fulfilling the promises of their slick advertising campaign, featuring impossibly beautiful actors with just the right amount of tension etched into their too-perfect skin. Their smiles chasing away their frowns as Ironstone Insurance reassured, ‘We worry, so you don’t have to.’

Fucking, fucking liars.

I couldn’t wait weeks or even months until the inquest, and what if the coroner didn’t think it was an accident?

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

I had almost been shattered before. I couldn’t be again. I had Tilly to look after.

‘Mum?’

I dragged my sleeve across my cheeks, mopping my tears, and attempted a smile. Tilly looked young and uncertain without the thick, black lines she normally drew under her eyes, clad in her polar bear pyjamas and penguin slippers.

‘I’m fine. I’m popping over to Aunt Anwyn and Uncle Iwan’s this morning. Do you want to come?’

Emotions flickered across her face – she had always been so easy to read. Surprise, trepidation, a longing that perhaps everything would be okay. It would go back to the way it was before – sleepovers with Rhianon and family lunches. It worried me that the girls had drifted apart. I could understand Rhianon’s loyalty to Anwyn and Iwan, while they unfairly blamed Gavan for the whole sorry mess, but I’d hoped after Gavan died that she’d be there for Tilly. Kieron had dumped her before we’d even had the funeral. I was glad they’d only been together for a few weeks, and I don’t think she cared with everything else that was going on, but I was angry with him for letting her down. I knew from experience how uncomfortable death can make adults – avoiding eye contact, avoiding speaking Gavan’s name – perhaps it was unfair to expect a seventeen-year-old to be able to offer support. But now that Tilly was back at school I was sure Rhianon would do the right thing. She was a good girl really.

‘It would be nice if you came.’ I swept the crumbs that littered the table onto my empty plate. If Tilly was by my side, surely there couldn’t be a repeat of last time me and Anwyn were in a room together. The lightning-sharp insults, thundering rage, accusations flung like hail against a windowpane. To my surprise and relief, Tilly said yes.

I had showered, dressed, squeaked the worktops clean with lemon cleaner and clattered too-many-for-one empty wine bottles into the recycling bin, and Tilly still wasn’t ready. Upstairs, I tapped on her door and urged her to hurry up before I lost my nerve. It took another half an hour before she stomped down the stairs in a fug of overpowering perfume, wearing a top and trousers that didn’t match. She looked like she’d slung on the first things she found on the floor – what had she been doing up there?

My Volvo always smelled of flowers, even when the backseat was empty. I pulled out of our road, opposite the park with the baby swings I used to push Tilly on – higher, higher, higher – as her pudgy hands gripped the metal bar, her head thrown back in laughter. The route to Anwyn’s was familiar. I drove on autopilot, oblivious to it all; the traffic lights we must have passed, the rain pattering against the car roof, the swish of the windscreen wipers. I wasn’t even conscious of Tilly in the passenger seat as I rehearsed what I’d say over and over, choosing my words carefully, rearranging them into some semblance of order. The last thing I wanted to do was offend them, cause another scene. It wasn’t until I parked and yanked the handbrake on that I became aware of the awful heavy metal music Tilly was playing. Some band wanting someone to pour some sugar on them, whatever that meant. Still, as long as she was happy.

It felt odd to be walking up the driveway without holding a bottle of wine for dinner, a homemade trifle for dessert. Without wearing a smile. Rather than heading around the back and walking straight in with an ‘it’s only us!’ I rapped on the front door.

From inside, the muffled sound of shouting. I exchanged a glance with Tilly. We’d arrived at a bad time but I couldn’t afford to give up. I knocked again.

It seemed an age before the door opened. Usually well-groomed, I was shocked by Anwyn’s appearance. Her hair greasy and unbrushed, the whites of her eyes tinged pink. Around her hung the pungent tang of stale alcohol.

‘Laura.’ Confused, her gaze flickered between Tilly and I. Before she could react I stepped forward.

‘Can we come in? Please.’

‘It’s not a good time.’ The door began to swing towards me and I wedged my foot inside before it fully closed.

I wasn’t leaving without a fight.

‘Please,’ I said, glancing at Tilly. It looked like she was trying not to cry, and Anwyn must have thought the same because she silently turned. I took that as an invitation to step inside, following her down the narrow passageway into the kitchen.

‘Tilly, do you want to go and find Rhianon?’ It wasn’t a question.

In the kitchen Iwan leaned against the worktops, his arms crossed defensively. Two against one. The air was prickly. I closed the door so the girls wouldn’t be able to hear. Anwyn wordlessly filled the kettle, lifted milk from the fridge. I used the time it took her to make our drinks to decide where to start, but by the time she slopped the mugs onto the table and we all sat down I still didn’t know what to say.

Silently, I slid the letter over to Iwan, studying his face as he read it. He looked terrible. His skin hanging looser around his jowls. His eyes sunken in their blackened sockets. Grief had aged him too.

‘Sorry, Laura,’ he said after he’d digested it. Anwyn snatched it from his fingers.

She scanned it. ‘I can’t see what this has to do with us.’

‘Anwyn,’ Iwan’s voice rumbled

‘What? I’m not allowed an opinion on anything now?’ She let out a sigh and a cloud of cheap wine fumes.

I addressed Iwan. ‘Is there anything you can do?’

‘I don’t see what I can do. I can’t make the inquest happen any quicker.’ He ran his fingers through thinning hair.

‘Have you been interviewed by the coroner yet? They want to go through the events leading up to that night, as well as find out exactly where everyone was when Gavan fell.’

Anwyn and Iwan exchanged an uncomfortable glance. It was always going to be emotional talking about Gavan’s death. I pushed on.

‘Iwan, I’m going to lose my home.’ I wanted to lay down the facts, clear and concise, but my voice splintered under the strain of my uncertain future. ‘Isn’t there anything else? Business insurance?’

‘There isn’t a business anymore.’ Anwyn chipped in. ‘You’ll have to get a job like the rest of us, Laura.’

‘I’ve been applying for—’ I began but she cut me off.

‘Iwan swallowed his pride and began working for someone else after all that hoo-ha with the land. Oh, take that look off your face,’ she snapped at me. ‘Who cares if it was with a rival firm? He had a family to support. Gavan should have admitted defeat and got a proper job too.’

‘Gavan knew he’d done nothing wrong. It didn’t matter that the estate was being built on a former landfill site. If it wasn’t safe the council wouldn’t have sold it to us, or granted planning permission. He didn’t give up because he believed in the business. He believed in you, Iwan.’ I stretched out my fingers towards him but Anwyn placed her hand on his before I could reach him. He snatched it away. ‘He never stopped trying.’ Tears filled my eyes as I remembered his determination. His optimism that he could turn things around. ‘He’d lined up a deal he said would get everything back on track the night he died. He loved what he did. He loved you, Iwan. You were his brother…’

‘I think Iwan knows that. Family is important to him.’

‘But we’re your family. Tilly and I…’

Anwyn snorted. Iwan glared at her. The tension that sat heavy between them when I arrived thickened.

‘Laura, I can’t help you.’ His words were soft but they struck a blow.

‘Can’t or won’t? Please, Iwan. Just be honest with me.’

‘Honest!’ Anwyn stood so fast her chair toppled backwards and crashed to the ground. ‘Don’t come here cap in hand and bloody talk to us about being honest, Laura. Don’t forget we know the lengths you’ve gone to in the past to get what you want. The lies you’ve told. I know you.’

I couldn’t believe she’d dragged that up and thrown it in my face. I stood too. My hands flat on the table supporting my weight as I leaned forwards.

‘That’s a nice way to talk to your family.’ My voice was low.

‘You’re not family.’ Her face was inches from mine. Her rancid breath made my stomach roil. ‘And neither is that daughter of yours.’

‘Let’s all calm down,’ Iwan said. ‘Tilly’s family, and Laura is—’

‘Laura, you’ve made your own bed.’ Anwyn cut in. ‘You’re not family to us anymore.’

Those were the same words my dad used all those years ago and hearing them felt like ripping off a plaster, raw and painful, the wound gaping wide open once more. Instinctively I slapped her.

‘Oh God, Anwyn. I didn’t… I…’ Shocked, my hand dropped to my side as hers rose to press against her cheek.

‘Get out!’ she screamed.

But I was already leaving the room, pulling on my coat. Feeling sick, I called for Tilly.

The front door opened. ‘Aunt Laura?’ Rhianon hesitated halfway across the threshold, sensing the atmosphere. ‘Is everything okay?’

Tilly pushed past me, then pushed past Rhianon, and I squeezed my niece on the shoulder as I followed my daughter to the car, knowing I would never set foot in that house again.

Knowing there was only one option left for me, even if the thought of doing it made me feel ill.

But we do what we have to for our children, don’t we?