My Last Confession (6 page)

Chas and I had our first fight that evening.

For two years we’d smiled and kissed and said I love you at least once a day. We’d laughed together over
elaborate
bedtime stories in Robbie’s room, then snuggled after dinner on the sofa while making various forms of physical contact. In the week before my job, I’d also crammed in an inordinate number of battery-induced orgasms and we’d started to consider ways to one day integrate Chas into the procedure.

But when I got home that night, our happy loving
routine
flew out the window.

‘Jesus!’ I said instead of hello. ‘Why is the hall wall covered in cake mix?’

‘It’s not cake mix,’ Chas said. ‘We were making a potion!’

‘The washing basket is overflowing, there’s no food in the fridge. And why haven’t you asked me to marry you?’

‘Do you want to get married?’ Chas asked. ‘If you want to, then we can,’ he said, which put me on the defensive.

Confusing myself as much as Chas, I told him of course I didn’t want to get married. Who needs a bit of paper? Marriage was old fashioned and a sure way to stuff up a good thing and anyway, what sort of girl hangs around waiting for a guy to ask her, like that’s the only way it can
happen? ‘It’s pathetic!’ I said, with a tone that made Chas wish he’d been gay.

I did synchronised huffing, tidying and apologising, and in the end Chas did the sensible thing and went for a walk while I put Robbie to bed and filled my stomach with the (cleverly hidden) dinner he’d made. And even though pizza didn’t warrant meal-status like the leg of lamb I’d been dreaming about all day, the one I’d asked him to take out of the freezer and cook with rosemary, it filled a void. So by the time Chas got home I was ready to give him a huff-free apology.

‘Thanks for dinner,’ I said. ‘I’m crazy, aren’t I?’

‘A bit.’

‘I met this woman today and she started talking about her wedding, and I felt all gooey about it. It doesn’t make sense. It’s not me.’

‘I like it when you’re all gooey,’ he said, kissing my neck.

‘But it’s not me, is it, Chas? I think my job’s upsetting me. God, the stories I hear are unbelievable,’ I said, filling him in on my cases so far. ‘And being full-time sucks. We’ve no time to have fun, have we? I don’t blame you if you go off me.’

He sat me down.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said. ‘The whole idea of a love story being “boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back” is bollocks. It’s not a line that starts then ends. It’s a circle. You meet, you lose, you meet, you lose, you meet and it goes on and on, round and round. We’re meeting each other again just now. Learning new stuff. I’m trying to put an exhibition together. You’ve just started a really difficult job and you miss Robbie, and I’m pleased to
meet you, Krissie! I’m going to learn something new about you, and I’m going to fall in love with you all over again.’

I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about with all his circles and lines. God, sometimes living with an artist was exhausting.

‘I don’t think my bad mood is really about us, Chas. I’m just worried about the pre-trial report case, Jeremy. He’s being beaten, maybe even raped, and I don’t know who to tell.’

‘Don’t get emotionally involved,’ he told me. ‘Ask any doctor or psychiatrist … it’s
the
rule.’ He knew what he was talking about, after his stint in Sandhill.

‘The prison oozes tragedy. The trick is to not let it seep into you. You have to keep a distance. When I was there, I sometimes imagined a protective shield surrounded me … like Get Smart’s cone of silence or Violet Incredible’s spherical force field. Sounds daft, but it worked. Look after number one,’ he said, ‘and two and three. That’s us, this family. Okay?’

‘Okay. I promised I’d go see his wife again tomorrow … But I’ll take my protective cone.’

‘Who’d you promise?’

‘Her.’

‘Why?’

‘She’s upset.’

‘No social worker visited my girlfriend twice when I was due in court.’

‘Did you have a girlfriend?’ Chas had always been very vague about his exes. I knew he used to shag around a lot, but he told me he never got too involved with anyone ’cause he was ‘waiting for Mrs Donald’.

‘That’s not the point. Don’t visit people unless you have to.’

I didn’t push him about the ex-girlfriend thing. I didn’t want to start imagining him kissing someone else on the neck, loving someone else. This kind of probing had
driven
many a woman round the bend. So with my issue of the day seemingly resolved, I moved on to Chas’s. He was having a ball with Robbie, but he told me that day he had bitten the bullet and booked a date for his first ever exhibition.

‘I’m terrified,’ he admitted.

‘You’re a genius. I know you are. It’ll be fantastic.’

But his time was limited. And Chas’s cunning plan to paint and parent was (surprise, surprise) proving a
disaster
. So far, Robbie’s (very cute) handprints had made their way onto three of Chas’s masterpieces.

Robbie was ready for some socialising anyway, so we decided to get him into a nursery three hours each
morning,
for Mum and Dad to look after him three afternoons a week, and for me to cut down on Marks & Spencer’s treats and make room in our budget for a cleaner.

So when Chas went off to paint in his studio at nine that night, I felt very pleased with our plan. We had organised our lives and I had promised to keep a safe, professional distance from dangerous men about to go on trial for murder.

An excellent plan.

Wish I’d stuck to it.

With Jeremy in London, Amanda found herself in a huge house in the middle of nowhere with absolutely nothing to do. Or nothing she wanted to do anyway. She wasn’t a country girl, didn’t understand people who walked up hills just to walk down them again. She found the Scottish countryside so beautiful it was boring. She’d once done a driving tour of the Highlands with a friend and after days exclaiming at the rugged changeability of it she craved a loud smoky nightclub so badly she could have screamed. Without Jeremy, the Crinan Canal had nothing to offer Amanda. No pubs within walking
distance
, no good cafés or bookshops or litter that spoke of nights out. The canal was just that, a canal. Occasionally she saw yachts with families sitting at the lock waiting for the water to rise then fall again, and she really didn’t understand why parents would take their children on such trips, spending most of the day waiting for water to rise then fall again.

She didn’t tell her mum and dad that Jeremy had
headed
south. Or her friends, ’cause this was her honeymoon, this house was for her and Jeremy. So she waited,
watching
the lock outside, trying to understand the point of sailing and weak jacuzzi baths.

On the second morning she woke to the phone ringing. It was her boy, and he was so sorry, but he had to stay
with his mum. She was having tests, and was still refusing to see anyone.

‘Let me come down!’ Amanda said, but he insisted that she stay and wait for him. ‘At least one of us should enjoy the place,’ he insisted.

Alone in Crinan, Amanda thought about Jeremy’s
relationship
with his mother. She first discovered there were serious problems between them when they decided to get married and Jeremy was determined not to invite her and even more determined not to discuss her.

‘She won’t come,’ he said. ‘There’s no point. We just don’t see eye to eye.’

He wouldn’t elaborate. ‘Please, let’s not talk about it,’ he insisted.

Amanda figured they’d just grown apart or something, and took it upon herself to intervene. One afternoon, when Jeremy was working, she visited his mother
without
telling him.

The house was a small terrace in Haringey. Its occupant was a thin, worn woman, dressed in pressed trousers and a tight white T-shirt and firm, fitted pink cardigan. She smelt strongly of alcohol and cigarettes. Her gaunt, heavily lined face had settled in a frown. Unnerved by Jeremy’s mother’s unfriendly appearance, Amanda introduced
herself.
Jeremy’s mum grimaced and then beckoned her in. The interior was jam-packed with antique furniture that suggested wealth a generation or so ago. A barely opened curtain cast a shaft of light on the dust, smoke and grit that shared the air of the crowded room.

Amanda told Mrs Bagshaw that she and Jeremy were getting married.

‘We’d be so happy if you could come,’ she said, handing her an invitation she’d designed and printed out on the computer especially. ‘Will you come?’

Mrs Bagshaw sat down in the corner of the room, lit a cigarette and poured a glass of pure gin. She inhaled
energetically
, sucking the life out of her Marlborough full strength so hard that its end sizzled and curved. She exhaled less smoke than Amanda expected considering the hefty intake, and said, ‘Let me tell you what your fiancé did.’

The cigarette ash clung on as Mrs Bagshaw told Amanda her half of a terrible story.

‘I won’t be coming,’ she said when she’d finished,
tapping
the two inches of grey into her overflowing ashtray. ‘And I’d prefer if you didn’t visit me again.’

Amanda didn’t even try not to cry on the tube on the way home. She was devastated for Mrs Bagshaw, but even more devastated for her beloved Jeremy. She rushed into their Islington flat and immediately confessed her secret mission, hugging Jeremy tight and telling him how sorry she was, so sorry, please hug me, please hug me, please talk to me.

So Jeremy hugged her, and then told her his half of the story.

As she sat alone by the window in Crinan, Amanda pieced the two stories together in her mind, imagining the terrible events of Jeremy’s childhood.

Jeremy’s parents met while they were both travelling in New Zealand. They then settled into a very happy
affluent
life in London. Jeremy’s father, Richard, was an
accountant. His mum, Anne, had been a lawyer. Before having kids they loved travelling, had friends around as often as they could, held hands, cuddled on the sofa, and slept for at least eight soothing hours a night. They had love and laughter, passion and spark.

When Jeremy came into the world, they lived in a flat near Tower Bridge, just like the one Jeremy and Amanda lived in. On coming home from the hospital with their beautiful baby boy, Richard had filmed him as they escorted him around his new house.

‘This is your room, Jer!’ Richard said excitedly. ‘This is your panda, and this is your tiny cute little baby-grow thingy, and this is where Mummy will wipe your bottom.’

‘Where Daddy will wipe your bottom!’ said Anne, and they laughed a lot, as they were prone to do in those days.

The first year was not the hell that Anne had been warned to expect. In fact, it was the happiest year of her life. She took twelve months off and spent a lot of it admiring her son, looking into his eyes and being awed by his cleverness. He was handsome, and very well behaved, and the bond between mother and child was rock solid.

By the time Jeremy was three and a half, they had built the new architect-designed house on the outskirts of Oxford overlooking fields. Jeremy loved running around the huge garden, collecting things like straight sticks and small spiders. He kept them in the clever storage facility under his bed, adding to his collections each day, proudly looking them over and re-organising them so that they made more sense.

One day, when Jeremy was nearly four, he was midway through putting his sticks in order of straightness and
then length when his mother came into the room holding something in her arms. It was a baby, his sister, and she was such a good girl, so gorgeous.

‘Look at her eyes!’ said his mother, unable to take hers away even for one second to look at his new stick system.

Jeremy had vague recollections of his mum before the baby came along. He could picture her making him mashed potato with sausages and tomato ketchup. He could almost hear himself saying ‘You’re my best girl’ and almost see her smiling face as she said ‘Yes, my love, I am, and you’re my best boy’. He could recall playing hide-and-seek in the park with her, and reading stories at night. He could picture how interested she always was in the sticks he had collected, and how – at night – she laughed and danced in the kitchen with a bottle of pinot grigio half full on the breakfast bar.

But everything changed after his sister came home.

Bella, she was called. She had thick dark hair and a squashed nose and she cried. And cried. And the laughing and dancing in the kitchen turned to yelling and screaming. The park strolls were replaced by frantic drives around and around town until Bella got to sleep.

As for his stick collections, Jeremy distinctly recalled his mother using a voice he’d never heard before when she yelled, ‘For God’s sake Jeremy, those stupid sticks have brought mud in all over the place!’

When he started crying his mother spoke softly for the first time in a week. ‘I am so sorry, baby boy. I didn’t mean that. I’m just tired. Your little sister keeps me up all night with her hungry tummy and her nappies.’

‘Well, don’t use nappies, then.’

‘I have to, honey, she pees in them and gets all wet and
uncomfortable and that’s why she cries. I’m sorry, I’m just very tired because there’s no one to help. I do love you, my little boy, you know that, don’t you? I love you more than ever, and little Bella doesn’t change that. I’m just tired, that’s all.’

Jeremy went to bed without a story after that and felt so sorry for his mummy. How could he help? He lay awake for hours thinking about it and when Bella cried her piercing cry in the middle of the night it came to him.

He would dry her nappy and his mummy would not have to wake up at all.

He crept into the nursery and looked into the cot. She was so lovely, this poor little girl, so wet and
uncomfortable
. And he was her big brother and he would look after her. He would pick her up and kiss her on the forehead and look into her special little eyes and hold her head up like he’d been taught to do, and rock her gently back and forth as he walked down the hall, through the kitchen and into the utility room. And he would kiss her once more and smile so lovingly at her, because she was the only little sister he had, and he would touch her on the nose once she was in the barrel and blow her a kiss and then shut the door and her nappy would soon be dry. Then Mummy and Daddy would have a good night’s sleep so that tomorrow they would drink a bottle of pinot grigio and dance and sing in the kitchen.

It was still pitch black outside when Jeremy figured the nappy would be dry. When he opened the door of the dryer his gorgeous little sister fell out with a thud onto the floor at his feet. It had worked. The nappy was dry as a bone and Bella was quiet as anything, snug and warm
without the grimace on her face she always seemed to have. Happy to have helped, he picked her up in his arms and cuddled her gently and kissed her on the forehead and then noticed his mother standing over him in the doorway. His lovely mummy, standing over him, white as a ghost, and then screaming.

And then grabbing his sister from his arms.

And then running to the phone.

And then breathing into Bella’s face with her large mouth and not even looking at Daddy who was also white as a ghost.

And then sobbing, sobbing, holding her, little Bella, Mummy and Daddy both crouched over her, rocking and sobbing and screaming ‘NOOOO!’

‘Her nappy …’ Jeremy ventured, as the siren got
louder
and louder outside, then stopped.

And this is when Jeremy got the look from his mum that he would get from her for the rest his life. Slowly her face withdrew from his lovely little sister and her clenched hands climbed from her thighs to her waist and she stared at him with eyes that were filled with rage and hatred, confused though, because this kind of rage and hatred would usually be followed by action, but this time the eyes just held themselves on him and no action followed.

Ever.