Outside Chance (33 page)

‘You
are
my mother, aren't you? I guessed a while ago,' the boy said, advancing a step or two into the room. ‘Why did you pretend you weren't?'

Helen seemed to have lost the ability to communicate. She stood, pale and visibly trembling, effectively confirming his statement by her very silence.

‘Helen? What's he talking about?' Fliss was looking bewildered.

Her sister ignored her.

‘This is utterly ridiculous!' Truman had found his voice again. He got to his feet and advanced around the table towards the youngster. ‘I don't know who the bloody hell you are, but if you think you have some connection with this family,
you're clearly deluded! I think it's time you left my house; you're not welcome here. Go back to wherever you came from.'

Colour came and went in Stephen's face as he turned to look at Truman.

‘And who are you?' he asked with a touch of hauteur.

Truman nearly had a fit. He stopped in his tracks, his face turning beetroot red.

‘Who am I?' he repeated. ‘
Who am I?
I'll tell you who I am – I'm the man who's going to call the police and get you arrested! I'm the one who's going to whip your bastard ass out of this house and halfway to the coast if you don't go by yourself! Do I need to be clearer than that?'

‘Eddie don't, please,' Elizabeth pleaded, tears beginning to run down her ashen cheeks.

Her husband didn't spare her so much as a glance.

At the table, Finch watched intently, an unpleasant sneer twisting his heavy features, clearly having no intention of joining the fray. Ben wondered if he had known about the boy's existence, and decided he must have. He had shown little surprise.

‘Well?' Truman demanded.

Galvanised, at last, by the violence of her father's tone, Helen stepped forward.

‘Dad – please . . .'

‘Shut up, girl!' Truman snapped, without taking his eyes off Stephen. ‘Well? What are you waiting for?'

His courage wavering under this sustained attack, the boy took a step backwards, glancing
in desperation at the other occupants of the room as if hoping for support. Ben took pity on him.

‘Where have you come from?'

Wide, unhappy eyes turned his way. ‘Bristol.'

‘And how have you got here?'

‘By train, and then I hitched. I can't go back – I've run out of money,' he added helplessly, suddenly looking very young.

‘So what – you've come here for a hand-out?' Truman enquired.

‘Where's Matilda? Does she know you're here?' This was Elizabeth, and her husband finally turned his attention to her.

‘Oh, so that's the score is it? He's been living with your sister. How dare you cross me? All these years you've played the meek little wife whilst you've been lying to me – laughing at me, no doubt – with your slut of a daughter!'

Elizabeth quailed. ‘No! No, it wasn't like that. But we couldn't just give the boy away. He's Helen's son; our grandson – our flesh and blood!'

‘He's a bastard-born Gypsy brat and no kin of mine!' Truman stated through clenched teeth.

Clutched in her mother's arms, the baby started to bawl and Helen dissolved into tears.

Ben had had enough. Getting to his feet, he moved round the table and approached the lad who looked completely shell-shocked.

‘I expect you're tired,' he said. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?'

Stephen nodded gratefully, and Ben looked hopefully at Bess.

She came up trumps. Holding out a hand, as one would to a small child, she said, ‘Come on.
I think we should give them a moment to clear the air. It's all been a bit of a shock.'

The boy hesitated, looking across at Helen, but, evidently deciding there was no support forthcoming from that department, he turned to go with Bess.

‘Hey! Hold on!' Truman started forward and would have followed them had he not come face to face with Ben. ‘Get out of my way!'

Ben held his ground.

‘Eddie, you're not thinking! You've got reporters camped on your doorstep. If you throw this boy out, they'll have a field day. You can imagine the headlines – “Red Truman Disowns Daughter's Lovechild”. My God, they'd think Christmas had come again!'

Truman paused, frowning at Ben.

‘So what am I supposed to do? Welcome him into the family? Because I won't do it. I'm not having that Gypsy's brat under my roof!'

‘I can't tell you what to do but, whatever you decide, you don't want the papers getting hold of it. They'd crucify you.'

Truman glared at him for a moment longer.

‘And what about you? You're a journalist.'

‘So I am,' Ben said blandly.

With barely stifled fury, the trainer brushed past him and walked to the doorway, but there he paused and seemed to reconsider, slamming his fist against the wall before turning back into the room. Temporarily deprived of his main prey, he vented his spleen on lesser targets.

‘I can't believe you conspired with one another to go against my express wishes,' he said, looking
first at Helen and then his wife. ‘Lying and scheming and cheating me. Your sister, was it? How did you persuade her to go along with it? She's even more of a wet blanket than you are!'

Elizabeth drew herself up.

‘She couldn't bear to see Helen's child given away to a stranger. She wasn't happy about it but at least she had the human decency to give him a home, which is more than you did!'

‘Good for you,' Ben muttered under his breath.

Helen was also clearly impressed by this show of spirit, looking open-mouthed at her mother, and for a moment Truman appeared much as one might if attacked by an earthworm.

‘He was soon back on track. ‘You had no business to even tell the nosy cow! I thought I made it clear no one was to know.'

‘She's my sister. Besides, I had to do something,' Elizabeth protested. ‘He's our grandchild, Eddie. And Helen was desperate. She was making herself ill.'

‘She should have thought of that before she let that Gypsy screw her!' Truman said, his voice loaded with contempt.

Beyond crying harder, Helen didn't react. She'd obviously heard it all before.

‘For God's sake! This is getting us nowhere,' Ben said. ‘There's no point in squabbling about what happened fifteen or sixteen years ago. The boy's here, now. You have to deal with it, and just turning him out of the house won't answer.'

‘Who asked you, anyway?' Finch demanded, finally roused. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and Ben noticed that he'd taken the
time to finish his lunch; such was the level of his concern.

Truman faced Ben.

‘All right, then – what do you suggest I do? You're always the one with the answers; sort this one out.'

Ben was a bit taken aback to find himself being regarded with varying degrees of expectancy by everyone in the room. Even Helen, not hitherto numbered among his greatest fans, had swallowed her sobs, mopped her swollen eyes with a corner of the baby's bib and was now watching him hopefully.

‘Well?' Truman prompted, his chin jutting aggressively.

Ben took a deep breath.

‘As far as I can see, it's not up to you,' he told the trainer. ‘Surely this is Helen's business. Maybe you had the right to order her life when the boy was born – or maybe not, that's debatable – but I'm damned sure you haven't got that right now. She's a grown woman, for God's sake! Her relationship with her own son is nobody's business but hers.'

For a moment he thought Truman would hit him, and judging by the eager look in Finch's eyes, he thought so too, but after clenching his jaw a couple of times Eddie regained control.

‘I'll not have him in my house or around my horses.'

‘He hasn't asked you to,' Ben pointed out. ‘All he seemed to want was to find out the truth about his family. You can't blame him for that.'

Truman's eyes blazed again.

‘If I'd thought for just one moment he'd ever turn up here, I'd have made the little slut have an abortion!'

‘I wouldn't have done it,' Helen stated, beginning to cry again. ‘It's wicked! You couldn't force me – it was
my
baby.'

Sensing tempers rising once more, Ben cut through.

‘Look, that's no longer the issue. The question is, what happens now? All I'm saying is, before you all start ripping up at one another again, wouldn't it be sensible to find out what the poor kid actually wants? If he's got any sense he'll want to get as far away from here as possible!'

His suggestion was greeted with a pause that he dared hope might signify at least some rational thought; then, before anyone formed a response, the front doorbell rang.

‘If that's another bloody journalist, I swear I'll take his microphone and ram it down his bloody neck!' Truman exclaimed.

‘I'll go,' Elizabeth offered, hurrying towards the door. Her husband made no move to stop her, and she escaped with obvious relief.

‘What about you, Ray?' the trainer said suddenly, swinging round to address his assistant. ‘You're keeping very quiet.'

‘Nothing much for me to say. He's none of my blood, and he's sure as hell not getting anything from me!'

‘But she's your wife. Aren't you supposed to stand by her?' Fliss, a spectator until now, entered the dispute, voicing the very thought that was in Ben's mind.

Finch shrugged. ‘Just 'cos I married her, doesn't make me responsible for some bastard she produced when she was a kid,' he said, curling his lip unpleasantly. ‘We've got our own to look after now.'

Fliss regarded him with disgust.

‘You make me sick!'

‘Good job I didn't marry you, then.'

What Fliss's response to this might have been they never found out because Bess reappeared.

‘That was your wife's sister,' she told her employer. ‘She's with Stephen now. He said he didn't want to see her but he hugged her anyway. He's really mixed up, poor kid!'

‘I should go to him.' Helen put the baby back in her high chair and the bottle on the kitchen worktop.

‘And how many times have you gone running off to see him before?' Truman wanted to know. ‘All those shopping trips and the visits to your friend at Bristol University, I suppose. Do you even have a friend there?'

‘Yes, of course I have. She used to come with me at first and we'd take Stephen to the park, then, when he was older, we'd go for days out. It was lovely.'

‘What did you tell him?' Fliss asked. ‘Who did he think you were?'

‘To start with, we didn't tell him anything, but when he started asking questions, we told him I was a cousin. It wasn't till he was much older – just the last year or so – that he began to want details about his family. And what was I supposed to tell him? Aunt Mattie wanted me to tell him
the truth but I couldn't, so I thought it was easier if I stayed away, especially when Lizzie came along. He must have worked it out for himself.' The ready tears began to flow again, and she sniffed. ‘He must hate me.'

‘I don't blame him,' her sister commented.

‘That's enough, Fliss!' Truman said impatiently. ‘This is none of your business.'

‘Speaking of which,' Ben put in. ‘Having added my two cents' worth, I should be going.'

‘Now?' Truman glanced sharply at him.

‘Well, yes,' Ben was surprised, ‘after I've had a quick word with Mikey. I can't imagine you want me here with all this going on.'

‘Mikey. Of course. OK.' Truman seemed, understandably, a little distracted. ‘Look back in before you leave, will you?'

Ben nodded. ‘OK, will do.'

It being mid-afternoon, he found Mikey at the cottage. He was sat at the kitchen table, bent over a sketchpad, and looked up with flattering pleasure as Ben entered.

‘Hi, Mikey. What're you drawing? Can I see?'

Mikey sat back to reveal his work, with no show of false modesty. It was a detailed pencil study of the yard, with several horses' heads looking out over the half-doors. As far as Ben could see, it was correct down to the last brick and door latch. The scale and perspective was spot on and it looked almost finished.

‘Christ, Mikey! That's brilliant. It must have taken you ages. Did you sit out in the yard to do it?'

‘No, I see it in here.' He pointed to his thatch of blond hair.

Ben shook his head in amazement. ‘You must have a photographic memory. I didn't even know you could draw. Have you got anything else in there?'

He gestured at the sketchpad and Mikey pushed it towards him. With growing admiration, Ben turned the pages. There were many pictures of the horses, one or two of the dogs, some of the other lads – including Ricey, Caterpillar and others – and even one of himself.

‘Who's this?' he asked, finding a portrait that was vaguely familiar.

Mikey looked across.

‘Oh, some bloke that Mr Finch knows. Seen him up by the top gate a couple of times, when I've been up to see the badgers. Don't know who he is.'

‘Just recently?' Ben remembered now where he'd seen him.

‘Yeah, and once a few weeks ago.'

‘And did Mr Finch seem pleased to see him?'

Mikey shrugged. ‘I guess so. I think he knew he was coming 'cause the dogs were shut in.'

‘Ah, that's interesting.'

Next door, in the living room, the television was broadcasting a sports programme to the accompaniment of occasional exclamations of enthusiasm or disgust.

‘Who's in there?' Ben asked.

Mikey shrugged. ‘Few of the boys: Les, Caterpillar, Davy, Paolo – I'm not sure who else.'

Davy. For what Ben had in mind, he would
much rather Truman's workplace spy wasn't within earshot, just in case.