The Bad Mother (23 page)

She was in the very last group to be called across, relieved to escape the Visitors’ Centre at last. She’d sat opposite a young mother with a rowdy little boy. When she gave him a hard shake to make him behave, his sister had shot their mother a reproachful look, and in retaliation the mother had hissed in the girl’s ear while the child stared back at her with dull rancour. The family group stood before Tessa now, waiting for the electronic door to the transparent holding pen to swoosh open, and both children leaned in against their mother as if for shelter. Tessa supposed Lauren must feel a similar mixture of love and rancour towards her.

Released into the open space of the visits room, the two kids ran straight to the play area, obviously at home with both the rules and the geography of the place, while their mother, her tongue straight in his mouth and her hand on his crotch, greeted a muscular young black guy who was unlikely to have fathered either child. The red-haired officer, whom Tessa recognised from her last visit, called out to them, telling the inmate to sit down, and for them to keep their hands on the table, in view of the cameras.

Tessa, grimly amused, took her seat opposite Roy at the table. She realised he’d been observing her because he indicated the couple and said: ‘He’s a drug dealer. I bet
she only bothers because she reckons he’s got cash stashed away.’ He nodded towards the play area. ‘Doesn’t say much for her that she drags them along to a place like this. It’s always the kids who suffer, like that little boy.’

He sounded flat and pessimistic, almost bored, and she wondered if it were a mask for despondency. ‘I am so sorry I was late,’ she told him.

‘If you don’t want to come any more, Tessa, then just say so.’

‘I couldn’t help it. Lauren came home unexpectedly. She was upset. And I had to deal with her.’ She heard herself gabbling. ‘In the end I sent her to her father’s. Let him take responsibility for once!’

Roy sat back, unbending slightly. ‘I thought perhaps you weren’t coming at all, was afraid you’d had an accident or something.’

‘Oh, no, I’m sorry. It was just traffic. And thank you so much for this!’ She held out her wrist to show off her bracelet, hoping to distract him. ‘I love it! And my birthday card. I thought of you as I blew out my candles.’ She was relieved when finally he relented and gave her a tiny smile.

‘I wish I’d been there,’ he said gravely.

‘However did you manage to find such a perfect card?’ she enthused. ‘Is there a shop or something here?’

‘No. I found it online, then asked an officer to get it for me.’

‘And he did? That was kind.’

‘That’s her. Janice.’ He nodded towards the raised plat-form
where the only female officer was the red-headed woman. Tessa’s eyes met hers and Tessa gave a friendly smile, but the woman looked away with what Tessa took to be professional disinterest.

‘I handed in a few more photos,’ Tessa said. ‘Of my childhood.’

He nodded. ‘The ones you left last time – I never got them.’

‘What?’

‘That’s what this place is like, I’m afraid. You could put in an official complaint, but it’ll be a waste of time.’ He sounded bored again, making her panicky, though she wasn’t quite sure why. ‘The bureaucracy here constantly fucks up,’ he went on, ‘but it’s useless expecting them to admit to any kind of mistake.’

‘Roy, I really am sorry I was late. I was so looking forward to seeing you!’ He said nothing, so she reached out to touch his hand. ‘Are you Ok?’

‘While I was waiting, I couldn’t stop thinking that there are things a father wants to say to his beautiful daughter.’ He sighed. ‘Things he should be saying as they stroll along a beach together or snatch a coffee at a street cafe in Rome. Not in a place like this.’

The bravery with which he spoke was enough to break her heart, and she felt guilty that she didn’t mind being here the way he did, that she liked being so far away from the rest of her life.

‘You need to put yourself first more,’ he said. ‘Sounds like you’re too soft on your kids.’

‘Sometimes,’ she admitted, pushing from her the certainty of Lauren’s unhappiness.

‘Your family have to respect your needs too. You mustn’t let them hold you back.’

‘They don’t,’ she protested. ‘Not really. Things haven’t been easy. I’ve had a lot to think about recently.’

‘I hope I’m not adding to your problems?’ asked Roy.

‘No, of course not.’

Recalling Hugo’s suggestion that they should all meet, Tessa tried and failed to imagine introducing the two men, or having Mitch and Lauren sit here with her at this table. A single glance around the room conveyed how little prospect there was of harmonising the two divided aspects of herself.

‘So what stops Sam stepping up as a dad?’ asked Roy. ‘What’s his problem?’

Bewildered by the sudden turn, Tessa blurted out her answer without thinking. ‘He’s hopeless. Always has been.’

‘Then you’re better off without him. Aren’t you?’

As Tessa reeled at the novel thought, Roy sat back, regarding her shrewdly.

‘I’m going to make you a promise, Tessa,’ he said. ‘I will always tell you the truth. You may not like it, but I reckon you can take it. You’re strong, like me. Not afraid to accept who you really are.’

Tessa sat very still, rapt by his attention.

‘You’ll never be the fabulous woman you ought to be if you settle for half-truths, for the kind of pap your
adoptive parents have fed you all your life. You mustn’t be afraid.’

‘I’m not!’

‘Honestly?’ Roy ran his gaze around the room. ‘Look,’ he ordered. ‘Fear’s real. These men know that. I know it. Don’t pretend it’s not.’

Tessa nodded. ‘I’m beginning to understand.’

‘If there’s no fear, there’s no true love. The two belong together, don’t you think?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Were you ever in love with Sam?’

She gasped, looked up to meet Roy’s teasing gaze, and found herself unable to answer.

He laughed. ‘I’ll take that as a “no”.’ He stretched across to pat her hand before his expression became serious again. ‘I don’t believe you were,’ he continued. ‘Not if he’s the man you’ve described in your letters. You could never truly love a weak man.’

Tessa tried to remember what she had written, whether she might have unwittingly revealed Sam’s failings. ‘He’s gentle rather than weak,’ she objected. ‘Easy-going. I did love him. We were happy together for a long time.’

‘Maybe you’ve not experienced real love yet.’

Tessa opened her mouth to protest, but then found the idea too intriguing to quash until she had explored it further.

‘Think about it,’ instructed Roy. ‘You may surprise yourself.’

‘Ok, I will,’ she promised. ‘Thank you. But now I feel
terrible, turning up late, then dumping all my troubles on you. And I haven’t even offered to fetch a cup of tea!’

‘Don’t talk like that,’ he said. ‘You’re no trouble to me. Stop putting yourself down.’

Tessa blushed. ‘Ok. But would you like some tea?’

Roy glanced up at the clock. ‘Not enough time,’ he said. ‘Have you ever been to Rome?’

The second swift change of topic was so unexpected that Tessa laughed, suddenly lighter than she had felt for ages. ‘No, never.’

‘The city of architects. I hope to take you there one day.’

‘I’d like that very much.’

‘There’s an architectural prize to study in Rome. I should’ve won it when I was a student. We’ll sit in pavement cafes and drink espresso together. No one need even know we’re father and daughter – they’ll think we’re lovers. It’ll be wonderful! I’ll show you everything. You don’t know what you’ve missed!’

Tessa was pleased, not only at his delight in this harmless escapism but also at the exciting notion that, with him, she would find so much still to unravel, so much more to explore and understand about herself. Although she would hardly have chosen a convicted murderer as her guide, the enticing prospect of discovering what sort of hidden capabilities she might possess, what other possibilities lay in store, was liberating. She wanted to explain herself to him, to make him understand the vital role he already played in her life. ‘Since I found out about you,’ she began, forgetting that she had let him assume she had always
known she was adopted, ‘it’s like I see my whole childhood in a new light, as if, even though I could never know what was missing, I’d always been lonely for my own kin.’

Roy smiled to himself, nodding sagely.

Tessa glanced up at the clock: only ten minutes to go. ‘Please tell me more about your family.’

‘Not much of the past I want to hang on to, I’m afraid.’ He spent a moment lining up the edges of the table. ‘My father died when I was eleven. Left us with my mother, who was an alcoholic. She died of liver failure years ago.’

‘You told me you didn’t go to her funeral.’

He shook his head. ‘I’ve an older sister, Shirley. She turned her back on me when all this happened.’

‘No! That’s dreadful!’

‘I don’t blame her.’

‘Why not? How could she just abandon you?’

‘We both had a hard time as kids. Shirley learnt to be totally merciless.’ He sat back and Tessa tried to imagine the reality behind his words. ‘Even though Mum took it out more on me than her,’ he went on. ‘Mum hated men. I don’t know if you’ve ever had much to do with addicts, but they’re not exactly easy to live with. Ends up with everyone for themselves, just to survive. Shirley managed the best way she could.’

Tessa’s heart was thumping at the temptation to ask him about Pamela’s drinking: surely it wouldn’t be disloyal to benefit from his sympathetic insight? But there was so little time left before the bell rang, and she wanted to hear more about his childhood.

‘Is it possible your sister might regret things now?’ she asked, envisaging a healing role for herself. ‘Might even be glad to hear from you again?’

Roy looked at her, his expression as opaque as a rough winter sea, and gave a twisted smile. ‘You don’t know what she’s like.’

‘But maybe my existence could open the way? I am her niece, after all.’

‘Don’t bother!’ Roy laughed in contempt. ‘I don’t like saying it, but she’s a cold-hearted bitch. Wouldn’t want to know.’

Tessa shook her head in sadness. ‘Why are families always so difficult?’

‘See that guy over there?’ Roy indicated with a nod of his head an angelic-looking young man with a mop of curly blonde hair sitting at a nearby table with an older woman. ‘Last time he was up for parole he was knocked back because his girlfriend, mother of his kids, told him to get lost. So he’s serving another two years. Having a stable home cuts a lot of ice with the parole board.’

‘Is that not his mother?’ asked Tessa, eyeing the comfortable-looking woman toying with a biscuit wrapper on the table.

‘Yes. But his stepfather refuses point-blank to have him in the house. That’s family for you.’

Tessa looked at the young man, earnestly discussing something with his mother, and couldn’t help pitying them both. Then the realisation dawned that maybe Roy
was tactfully approaching the question of how she might eventually feel about welcoming him into her home.

She looked at him as steadily as she could and took a deep breath. ‘I hope you’ll be part of my family one day. It’s too soon yet for me to promise that you can stay with me when you get out, but—’

Roy burst out laughing and leaned across to clasp both her hands and lift them to his lips to bestow a gallant kiss. ‘My darling girl, is that what you thought? No, I have somewhere to go. I told you, I own a house. That’s not what I meant at all! Besides,’ he added with a mischievous smile, ‘if I had, I would have asked straight out. I don’t like insinuation.’

At that moment the bell rang to mark the end of visits. But afterwards, as Tessa waited for the succession of gates and doors to be opened, soothed by the electronic
whooshing
, she retraced the trail of their conversation and couldn’t see why else he would have remarked upon the importance of having a home to go out to. Roy had never before alluded to either parole or his release. It gave her such a pang of sympathy: she and her father were so alike. Whatever he said about straight-talking, they shared the same weakness, that neither could bear to ask for help.

As she stepped out of the transparent holding pen with a group of other visitors she remembered the missing holiday snaps. It was the red-haired officer, Janice, who was accompanying them, and Tessa turned to her. ‘Excuse me, but apparently some photographs I handed in on my
last visit were never received.’ She felt the awkwardness of not knowing how to refer to Roy (inmate? prisoner? her father?) and wondered how much the woman already knew.

‘They may turn up if you wait,’ Janice told her, not unkindly. ‘Sometimes the system can be a bit slow.’ Tessa thought she seemed embarrassed. ‘If not, then you can write to the Number Two Governor.’

‘Ok, thanks.’

The officer nodded and walked away.

Retrieving her handbag from the locker in the Visitors’ Centre, Tessa recognised the woman beside her as the mother of the angelic young man. ‘I hope your son gets his parole,’ Tessa said impulsively. Seeing the woman’s anger, she instantly regretted her words, afraid she’d crossed some hidden line, that maybe visitors weren’t supposed to intrude on one another. ‘My father told me he’s up for parole,’ she explained quickly, trying to placate her.

‘Fuck him!’ said the woman, slamming the metal door of the locker with such force that it bounced open again. ‘Roy Weaver playing his nasty little mind games. He knows fucking well my boy’s got a whole-life tariff.’ The woman slammed the locker door shut. ‘And fuck you, too!’ She walked off.

In the car driving back to Felixham, it occurred to Tessa that she must have got muddled and been mistaken that the woman beside her at the lockers was the young man’s mother.

THIRTY-ONE

Mitch’s journey from the station to the gates of Tamsin’s school was not as straightforward as the directions she’d texted had led him to believe. So far, he’d had to stop and ask three times – once in a pub, once from someone at a bus stop and once from a woman walking a dog. She had looked at him rather suspiciously, and he hoped she wasn’t a teacher. Tamsin had told him to come at five o’clock when it was easier for her to skip games or other activities, but she’d have to be back in time for supper. It had taken him hours to get here, and he was worried about being late because they’d have so little time together as it was. He hadn’t seen her since half-term, and although they had used every available means to communicate, the imminence of her physical presence now seemed unreal, as if their earlier magical few days together had been a dream.