Flawed (21 page)

Daniel had seen her in the power suits that went with the Porsche, and in the designer jeans that are the off-duty uniform of powerful women. He had not seen her in a sweaty T-shirt and leggings before, he had not seen her barefoot, and he'd never seen her with blood on her face from a split lip and bubbling nostril, and the redness that precedes bruising on her forehead, her feet and both wrists. The sight took his voice, and momentarily his breath, away. She didn't look old enough to be the mother of a twelve-year-old son. She
did
look old enough to be the mother of a country.

When he found his voice he said, ‘Where's Noah?’

Marianne smiled ruefully. ‘In the bathroom. He won't let me in.’

Daniel gave a little chuckle, half sympathetic, half apology. ‘Is he all right?’

‘I think so. Come in and ask him yourself.’

Daniel did as he was bid. ‘Where's your husband?’

She didn't look at him as she led the way upstairs. ‘He went for a drive.’

Daniel didn't like to quiz her but it was important to know. ‘Will he be long?’

‘An hour or so. It's what he does when he needs to calm down - he goes for a drive in the country.’

Daniel reached for her wrist. The bruises stopped him just in time, but the thought went all the way. Marianne paused on the landing and looked round at him.

‘You shouldn't be here when he gets back,’ Daniel said simply.

She didn't answer. She tapped on the bathroom door. ‘Daniel's here now, darling. You can open the door.’

After a moment they heard the catch and the door opened, and Noah Selkirk stood there in abject despair and his Chelsea pyjamas.

Daniel crouched in front of him, studying the tear-streaked little face and then, lifting the blue shirt, the child's abdomen. There were new bruises, but nothing that seemed to require medical attention. This time his mother appeared to have fielded the worst of the violence.

‘Are you all right?’ Daniel asked quietly.

Noah nodded.

‘Honestly? You're not dizzy? Your tummy doesn't hurt?’

The boy shook his head.

‘OK.’ Daniel stood up. ‘You did absolutely the right thing calling me. Now go and get dressed, and put some things in a bag. Clothes for a couple of days and anything else you're going to want. You're coming to stay with me till things calm down a bit.’ He looked round. ‘Both of you. I've only one spare bed, but we can make Noah comfortable on the sofa.’

Marianne Selkirk dabbed the blood away from her nose. ‘That's kind of you, Daniel. But there's no need. We'll be all right. Won't we, Noah?’

The boy said nothing.

‘All right?’ Daniel's voice soared incredulously. ‘Have you looked in a mirror? Marianne, you've had the crap beaten out of you! I'm not leaving you here. If you won't come with me I'll stay, and then he'll beat the crap out of me. Is that what you want?’

The woman shook her head, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

‘Me neither,’ said Daniel. ‘So get some things together and come down to my house. At least for tonight. We can talk about what you do next in the morning.’

‘What's Adam going to think? When he gets home?’

‘Leave him a note. Don't tell him where you are. Just say you're both safe and you'll call him tomorrow.’

‘What if he calls the police?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Daniel,
‘that's
going to happen! Marianne, don't let him make you feel this is your fault. You and Noah have the right to feel safe. If you aren't safe with him here, we'll find you somewhere else. Rent you a cottage somewhere. Once you're safe there'll be time to talk about how you work this out. But putting distance between you is the first priority.’

‘I suppose…’

Daniel thought she'd never actually considered it before. That the violence had become part of their way of life so insidiously she thought of it rather as she thought of cleaning the cooker: not the most pleasant of chores but what are you going to do? If you want the meals you've got to clean the
cooker. She couldn't see that these were not inseparable elements - that she could be safe, that her son could be safe, that they could go on living here, but they didn't have to pay for that with weekly eruptions of violence. That if Selkirk couldn't control himself he could be controlled. If they weren't safe living with him he could live somewhere else.

‘Then pack some things.’

Still she didn't move. ‘Maybe you should just take Noah. I'll talk to Adam when he gets back. We'll both be calmer then, and at least Noah will be getting some sleep.’

The boy was hovering on the brink of tears. T don't want to…’

‘Come on, darling,’ she said briskly. ‘Daniel will look after you. And Daddy and I can talk without worrying that we're upsetting you.’

‘You don't talk,’ he whined. ‘You shout.’

‘Well - sometimes,’ she conceded.

‘Actually,’ interjected Daniel, ‘I don't think it's a great idea either. When he comes back and he finds I've taken Noah, he'll be incandescent. If you're still here, you're going to take the brunt of that. Please, Marianne. Please come with us. Just for tonight. Give the dust a chance to settle. Then we'll come back here and talk to him together tomorrow. Please?’

It was in her eyes that, even knowing he was right, she was about to decline. He couldn't believe what she was prepared to take from this man. ‘What are you waiting for?’ he demanded impatiently. ‘For him to put one of you in hospital? For the neighbours to call the police? For me to?’

The glance she flicked at him was surprised and - for the first time - afraid. ‘We don't need the police.’

Daniel shook his head, bemused. The approval of her neighbours mattered more to her than the violence of her husband. Whatever, he thought: if that's what works, that's what we'll go with. ‘But it won't be your call,’ he pressed. ‘If they get a complaint they will act on it. They've been told to move domestic violence right up the agenda. These days they don't even ask the injured party if she wants to bring charges. They see the evidence and they take it from there.’

She glanced uncertainly at the stairs, at the front door. The way he left; the way he'd come back. ‘I suppose, if it's just for tonight…’

‘Get some things together.’

He went out to explain to Brodie. ‘They're coming home with me for a couple of days.’

Brodie looked surprised. ‘All three of them?’

Daniel smiled. ‘Selkirk's not here. Apparently, after beating his wife bloody he feels the need of a little drive to clear his head.’

Brodie pursed her lips. ‘When he comes back and finds them gone, he'll have a good idea where to look for them.’

‘Fine,’ said Daniel. ‘He tries beating my door in, I have no problem calling the police. But he won't. Men who hit their wives and children mostly do it because they're not brave enough to take on anybody bigger.’

Brodie was remembering the scene in the little lobby in Shack Lane. She sounded doubtful. ‘I don't know, Daniel. Last time I saw him he
looked
brave enough to take a swing at you.’

‘That's fine too,’ said Daniel shortly. ‘He'll only make it easier for everyone.’

‘Except you.’

‘He's a lot bigger than me.’

‘Exactly.’

‘No. I mean, he's a
lot
bigger than me. If he hits me I'm going down; if I go down I'm staying down. Unless he wants to continue the assault on his hands and knees, that'll be the end of it. Don't worry about me, Brodie. I'm not tough enough to get hurt in a stand-up fight.’

The town hall clock struck twice as Marianne Selkirk's Porsche purred through the centre of Dimmock towards the Promenade. ‘Quarter past two,’ murmured Daniel.

Marianne glanced at him, ready to correct him, but then didn't. She considered for a moment instead. ‘You're very much at home here, aren't you?’ she said quietly.

He didn't understand. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Here - in this town. You know how it works. You know the town hall clock is always fifteen minutes slow. It makes sense to you.’

Daniel was still puzzled. ‘The clock?’

She shook her head. ‘The town. Small town living. You aren't from here. You haven't lived here as long as I have. But you fit in here in a way I never have and never will. Things like the damn clock drive me mad. You just make the necessary adjustment in your head. I envy you that.’

Daniel wasn't sure it was a compliment. ‘Being provincial?’

Marianne laughed softly. Noah was asleep on the back seat, exhausted by fear and emotion, wrapped in his mother's coat. As they left the house, Daniel carrying Marianne's bag, the boy faltered; and Marianne threw her coat around her
unhappy son and swept him up into her arms. Noah wasn't a big twelve-year-old, but plainly Marianne wasn't as fragile as she looked either.

‘Being adaptable,’ she said. ‘If something doesn't suit me I go to a lot of time, trouble and usually expense to change it. I think, if something doesn't suit you, you amend your expectations.’

It was partly true and partly not. The bit that was accurate was perceptive for someone he knew very little. The bit that was wide of the mark indicated how little she knew him. Daniel said, ‘Which is why you're a high-powered executive with a Porsche and an office in London, and I'm not.’

‘And perhaps also why you're happy and I'm not.’

They'd reached the netting-shed. Marianne stopped the car and they looked at one another in the backwash of the street-lights. The night, and the fact that most of the town was sleeping around them, encouraged both honesty and intimacy.

They weren't friends in the way that Daniel and Brodie were friends; and they hadn't known one another long enough for that other sort of friendship to develop - less intense but still worth having - that comes of simply moving in the same orbit till familiarity breeds a kind of mutual amiability way-marked by the sharing of newspapers and holiday snaps and updates on the dog's boil. In other circumstances it might have been a sexual attraction, but neither of them was looking for an affair, Daniel because all his hopes were vested in Brodie, Marianne because she already had more than enough on her plate.

What was left was two intelligent people recognising in each other a kind of kinship. They were both natural
outsiders. Daniel's odd little netting-shed and Marianne's gracious home with its own grounds and top-notch address were both ivory towers, different to the way most people lived. Even the fact that Marianne drove a Porsche and Daniel didn't have a car at all underlined their apartness. Both were in the community but not really of it. Outside the window looking in.

Daniel had said something like that to Paddy once. She'd thought for a moment then nodded. ‘Like Father Christmas,’ she'd said, filling his heart.

‘Come inside,’ he said. ‘Put Noah to bed and get yourself cleaned up, and I'll make some cocoa.’

‘Cocoa?’
If he'd offered her a lightly grilled earthworm she could hardly have sounded more appalled.

Daniel gave an apologetic shrug. ‘After the night you've had, coffee'll keep you awake. Cocoa will help you sleep.’

‘You think I'm going to sleep? I'll take the coffee and the consequences.’

With Noah settled - not in fact on the sofa but in Daniel's bed next door, Daniel wryly resigned to sleeping on the couch himself, reminding himself that this was one of the few up-sides to being short - Marianne headed for the bathroom to make repairs. She hadn't brought make-up, made do with soap and the contents of the first aid box, and emerged looking fresher and less battered than he expected. She'd changed her T-shirt for one of his, without the sweat-stains and spots of blood.

‘Feeling better?’

‘Much.’ She came and sat on the sofa. ‘Daniel, this is good of you.’

He put the tray on the low table in front of her. ‘I had to do something. It was at least partly my fault.’

That surprised her as much as the cocoa. ‘How is it
your
fault?’

He didn't think he was breaking a confidence. ‘Noah asked for my advice. I thought I was helping. I didn't expect… Well. I didn't expect things to turn violent.’

‘Noah came to you?’

‘He was unhappy, he needed to talk to someone. But he didn't tell me how bad things had got. He said he was worried about you, but I thought he meant the long hours and the fact that you're away from home so much. I didn't realise he was worried
for
you.’

‘We've shocked you, haven't we?’ she said in a low voice.

He saw no point denying it. ‘A little. It's one of those stereotypes, isn't it? You think of the drunken navvy staggering home at closing time, belting the kids and giving his wife a shiner. You don't think it happens at the better end of town. However much the experts insist it has little to do with either class or income, that domestic violence is just easier to hide in genteel leafy suburbs, it's not what you expect.’

‘And what
do
you expect of us, Daniel?’ There was something faintly amused, faintly provocative, in her tone and in her eyes. He wasn't fooled. She didn't think it was funny. She just wasn't prepared to be embarrassed.

‘I don't know. Not this. I mean, from where I'm sitting -from where I was sitting a week ago, anyway - you seem to have the perfect life. Two intelligent, high-achieving people, both in demand for their skills, with the kind of home most of
us can't even afford to look at. On top of that you have a charming son who obviously thinks the world of both of you. He's proud of you and he loves you and he wants to make you happy. He thinks it's his fault he isn't succeeding.’

That made her eyes fill. ‘He said that?’ she whispered.

‘Pretty much. Didn't you read his letter?’

Marianne shook her head, bemused. ‘What letter?’

So it never reached her. His father read it first and hit the roof. ‘It was my idea,’ Daniel confessed. ‘I didn't realise then how volatile things were. I thought if he could tell you exactly how he felt - that it isn't easy being the son of two important people - you'd find a way to make more time, more space, for him. I'm sorry, that sounds impertinent. But he asked for my help, I couldn't turn him away. I thought you just needed a wake-up call, the pair of you…’