Next of Kin Page 4

  ‘I deserve to know if the kid’s mine,’ the lone male’s saying, jabbing his finger for emphasis, his performance winning him the approval of the audience who agree with him. So he whips them up more by shouting, ‘And that poor kid deserves to know the truth.’ The camera lens zooms in on his passionate rhetoric, and right on cue he looks into it, hazel eyes wide and imploring but his tone more tempered as he makes his final point. ‘He deserves to know who his real dad is.’

  I punch the power off button, throw the remote to the carpet, and wrap my arm around my boy to cuddle him closer. The comforting scents of bubble bath and shampoo cling to his skin.

  We spoke about his father once. Or rather, he asked why he didn’t have one and I explained sometimes families don’t work that way, that often there’s just one parent, or two mums or two dads, but that the most important thing was to be loved and happy. That answer was enough for him. Simple, clear, satisfying. But it won’t always be. What happens when he asks again? When he says he doesn’t care about happy families, he just wants to know who gave life to him and where the hell they are? When he asks if they have other children, and if there’s a whole extended family he knows nothing about? What answers do I give him then?

  And then what do I say, do I tell him the truth, when he asks me where he can find them?

  Chapter 5

  The house is no different from how I remember it. Fresh lick of paint maybe. Other than that it still stands out for being the biggest property on the street. Or perhaps it’s grandness owes less to it being a double-fronted detached and more to its elevated position, the furthest up the incline, looking down on the row of bungalows below, and the town of Newbridge below that. Only a hop and a skip down the road from Cwmcarn, but it always seemed like a lot further when we were younger, a car ride rather than a stroll to each other’s houses.

  There are no cars in the driveway today, and the house looks still and quiet from where I’m parked a little way down the street. Maybe that’s for the best. Now that I’m here I’m not sure I could go through with it anyway. It’s been too long. Too many years gone by, too many things happened. Above all, too much left unsaid. I start the engine, looking at the house one last time before I pull away from the kerb and return home to unpack the groceries loaded in the boot.

  I’ve been off work with Jake all week, but the doctor was right. Only a day or two after his visit, Jake could keep his food down, and now he has his appetite back, giving me orders for pizza and hot dog sausages as I dropped him at Dad’s for the first time in over a week. Wilson was also right about Jake’s classmates. More specifically, the ones who attended Declan’s party seemed to have taken the biggest hit.

  I was able to take leave this time, but that won’t always be the case, and why should it? The police service requires officers it can count on. The last thing I want is to be the weak link in the chain, the one who’s constantly trying to keep a lid on my home life while getting frowned upon by colleagues for biting off more than I can chew. For not having a proper job instead, as Shaun would call it. I took the time off on this occasion to show that I could manage all this. But what if he’s ill again next week, or the week after, or even next month? And I’ve got Dad now, but what about when I haven’t? Is that what it will really come down to, choosing my son or my job? There’s no choice about that.

  Once I’ve put the shopping away, I go round to the next street to pick him up. I find him in the living room, sitting on the armchair up close to Shirley who’s reading to him from a Roald Dahl book. Dad and Shaun are on the sofa. Dad with his glasses on the end of his nose as he reads a batch of paperwork. Shaun tapping at his phone screen.

  It’s my son who notices me first, his eyes drifting up from where Shirley’s finger trails across the words on the page.

  ‘Mam,’ he shouts, announcing my arrival to everyone so they all look up. ‘Did you get hot dogs?’

  ‘I did.’

  While he pumps his fist in delight, Shirley sets the book down and gets up from the chair. ‘I’ll fetch the tea, it’s already brewed.’

  She scurries from the room with a tense smile directed towards the carpet. She doesn’t expect much from me on a normal day, preferring to duck my animosity rather than provoke it, but running away from me is a whole other level of avoidance, and immediately I’m on my guard.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I ask, sensing a bristle of tension in the air that’s not just my own. More so when Dad lowers the paperwork to his knees and slips off the glasses. I look to Shaun, but he only glances up from his screen and raises his eyebrows.

  Dad coughs to clear his throat. ‘Shirl’s had an email from the solicitor. Paperwork’s all gone through. It’s ours.’

  ‘Right.’ I say, dropping my keys on the side table. They land with a thud as heavy as the one that’s just landed in my gut.

  ‘Great, isn’t it?’ Shaun says, balancing his phone on his thigh. ‘I say we fu—’

  ‘Shaun!’ Dad and I both shout at the same time.

  He glances to Jake. ‘I say we celebrate.’

  Jake cheers a second time, throwing his arms up as if he’s scored a goal. I’m certain he has no clue what exactly it is he’s celebrating, but it’s the most animated he’s been all week. Though, this alone is not enough to distract Dad and Shaun, who are both looking at me for a response.

  ‘Congratulations. So when does it all happen then?’

  ‘There’s no hurry,’ Shirley says, reappearing through the doorway with a tray of tea-filled cups she lowers to the coffee table. Next to the cups is a plate of chocolate digestives. It’s usually custard creams, so I can only assume she’s bringing these out as the sweetener.

  ‘We’ll need to talk about all that,’ Dad says, laying the paperwork on the arm of the chair in a manner that suggests he might actually mean right now.

  ‘Well, you let me know.’ I hold out my hand to hurry Jake along. ‘Come on, buddy, let’s go. Sorry, can’t stop for tea, got the shopping to put away.’

  Gathering up the keys, I ignore Shaun’s pointed glare and go out into the hall. But I’ve barely initiated our escape when Dad’s voice behind me says, ‘Jetpack Jake, go and see Nanna Shirl, she’s got something for you.’

  Jake drops my hand faster than a piece of hot coal. I bite my tongue. It wasn’t my idea to call her by that name, but what rankles more is that I was never consulted. It just happened one day, and Jake didn’t seem to mind, so it stuck. I pull in a silent breath to turn and face what Dad has to say. A dressing down maybe for being so abrupt; he can be quite sharp when he wants to be. But what he does is step up close, and with his voice lowered, he says, ‘We thought we’d have a few weeks up there in July and August first. See how the land lies. You know, get stuff sorted.’

  Another bite of the tongue. How long is a few weeks, I want to ask. ‘Right. Course.’ July and August. School summer holidays. Great.

  ‘And we were thinking, how about we take the little man with us?’

  I flick my head his way to see if he’s serious. Take Jake? To Scotland? Five hundred bloody miles away?

  ‘If he doesn’t like it, we’ll bring him home in a heartbeat, you know that,’ he adds, his hand on my arm. ‘But it could make things easier for him. Let him see where we’re going, see it as an adventure, a place he can come and visit whenever he wants. Plus, it means you won’t have to worry about making any arrangements for him. Summer holidays and all that.’

  He’s put a lot of thought into this. And maybe there’s something in what he says. But five hundred miles?

  ‘What about your birthday?’ I say, shifting my weight from one hip to the other. We’ve always spent birthdays together. Always. But Dad’s waving that concern away too.

  ‘I’ll be back for that. Course I’ll be back for that.’ He dips his head at the same time I do, tries to catch my gaze with his own. And when he does, it’s with so much more patience than I deserve.

  ‘I’ll think about it, Dad. Okay? I’ll thi
nk about it.’

  *

  That night, once Jake’s in bed, his school uniform in a neat pile on the chair in his room, my work one hanging over the door to the kitchen, I sit at the table with a strong coffee and a weak resolve, the laptop open in front of me, and the mouse hovering over the dating app icon with as much trepidation as if I were choosing between the red wire or the blue. Considering what I do for a living, an adverse fear of a digital application seems ridiculous. I tell myself this as I tap the mouse with my index finger and wait with far too much tension for the damn thing to load. When it does, balloons and hearts welcome me back and tell me I’ve had forty-two profile clicks and there are eight messages waiting in my inbox. Forty-two clicks. And eight messages…

  I sit with those figures a while before concluding that at least thirty-four of those who clicked through to view my profile must be perverted rubberneckers. What the hell was I thinking setting this thing up in the first place?

  Curiosity killed the copper, though, and I click open the messages like I’m breaking down doors. Three are from men old enough to qualify as my father and one my grandfather. Two seem reasonably normal, except one has no profile picture at all and the other is quite clearly cut and pasted from the Grattan catalogue. The messages of the remaining two are dangerously close to illegal in nature. Unable to help myself, I reply only to the one, explaining that what he’s suggesting could be construed as a breach of the law under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 relating to obscenity offences, and if convicted he’s looking at a four-figure fine, a nasty reputation and a criminal record at the very least. I hit Send and finish my coffee. By the time I’m thinking I might have overreacted, maybe misinterpreted his meaning, it’s already too late. His message disappears from the screen, as does his profile.

  Having little joy there, I turn to the list of ‘available’ suitors and, once I’ve got over the feeling that I’m ordering a part for the car, I select the required filters – aged twenty-five to thirty, a professional, interests in health and fitness, local to the area, looking for long-term relationship – and hit the Find button. Given my lack of luck in the love department so far, I’m dubious when it brings up one hundred and thirty-four exact match results, but try to stay open-minded. Scanning through the profile photos, I notice there are more good-looking men than I could shake a stick at. If only I’d known it would be this easy.

  ‘Oh!’ I pause in the scrolling. Go back up. Someone’s caught my eye, though not in the way intended. I find the picture that struck a chord in my brain and there’s no doubting it now. I’d know that square jaw anywhere. And those innocent blue eyes that are anything but. He’s not between twenty-five and thirty, either, more like knocking on forty. On his profile he gives his name as Dominic Peters, occupation antiques collector. I know him as Dommo, occupation stolen goods procurer. I’m backing out of his bio and returning to the list of suspects when a message bubble pops up in the centre of the screen.

  Hey babe, saw you looking… How’s your day been?

  ‘Fuck.’ I fumble with the mouse, hitting all the wrong buttons until eventually I click the application closed and slam the laptop lid shut. I lean back in the seat. The message was from Dommo himself, who clearly had no idea who he was talking to. I’m wearing sunglasses in my profile picture, and my occupation is stated as professional, as opposed to police officer, just to give myself something of a chance. Now I feel about as deceitful as Dommo. Though, who the heck calls a stranger ‘babe’ and makes an enquiry about their day? What kind of introduction is that? There’s something to be said for the old-fashioned way of doing things – a dodgy line delivered by a semi-drunk idiot with a bad hairdo and cheese-and-onion-crisp breath in a packed pub in the middle of town on a Saturday night. At least you both know what you’re getting.

  This was a terrible idea. More so when I recall it was meant to be for Jake. Dommo as a father figure for my son was not exactly what I had in mind. A shudder runs through me at the thought. Opening the laptop, I delete my profile and uninstall the app. If that’s all the talent out there, Jake and I are better off on our own. I snatch up my phone from the table and tap out a text to Shaun.

  Hey shit-for-brains, you free bank holiday weekend or working?

  Being that it’s Sunday night, and Shaun’s phone is an extension of his arm, he replies in under a minute. Depends why you’re asking.

  Jake’s birthday. Thinking of having some people round.

  Less than ten seconds after my message has been sent, the phone vibrates with its ringtone.

  ‘Wasn’t sure I understood what you were saying,’ he says when I answer. ‘Sounded dangerously like a party.’

  I tut at his sarcasm. Which in Shaun’s case is the brutal truth. ‘Don’t start,’ I say, thumping at the mouse to power the laptop down. ‘That’s what kids want, isn’t it?’

  ‘So when you say people, how many? Just us two and Jake? Given what you’re like with your privacy and everything.’

  ‘No, idiot. All of us. And maybe…’ I wince, hesitating over whether to commit or not. ‘Maybe a couple of his friends from school.’

  ‘You think that’s a good idea? After the stomach flu thing?’

  ‘That was a one-off. It doesn’t happen all the time.’ I close the laptop and take it into the living room to hide it out of sight in the side cupboard.

  ‘Yeah, but… it’s not really your thing, is it, a party?’

  Isn’t it? Why isn’t it? I drop onto the sofa, prop my feet on the coffee table and reach for the TV remote. ‘That’s why I’m asking if you’re free.’

  ‘Oh.’ He takes a moment to chew that over. ‘You think it’s my thing?’

  ‘No, but I need a clown. Kids love a clown, don’t they?’

  He fake laughs into my ear. ‘So what’s brought all this on? Keeping up with the yummy mummies, are we?’

  ‘Fuck off, Shaun, it’s his birthday. It’s what he wants. It’s not about me, is it?’

  ‘Alright, Chuckles, keep your knickers on,’ he says, using Mam’s old nickname for me. I look up to the photograph above the mantlepiece. The one of her and two-year-old Jake taken four months before we lost her. She’d have loved all this if she’d been here. Organising the party, doing all the running around. She was much better at it than I am. Or maybe I was good at it once, but this job makes inviting strangers into my house a little discomforting. Even if they are only six-year-olds.

  I’m about to tell him to forget it, it doesn’t matter, bad idea, when he replies.

  ‘Yes I’m free, and yes I’ll be there. But only if we’re having Angel Delight.’

  ‘Not exactly thought that far ahead—’

  ‘Strawberry.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Banana only if you can’t get strawberry. But not chocolate. It tastes like plasticine. And also, don’t get the supermarket version, it’s got to be the real thing. The kids will know the difference. So will the yummy mummies.’

  I stifle a sigh. ‘Got it. When I need more party food advice, I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Laters.’

  I throw the phone beside me when he hangs up, sink into the sofa, and drop my head to the cushion. My gaze this time drifts to the framed photograph on the shelf above the TV, a freeze-frame capture of the moments following my passing out parade almost three years ago. Dressed up to the nines, the only thing out of place is my lid tilted on my head where Jake, who I hold in my arms, reaches up to tug at the brim. The smile says how proud I am to be qualified, officially a PC, no longer to be labelled only as the ‘young, single mother’. But my eyes hide the lump of lead that lies in my chest for the person who couldn’t be there to watch me get over the finish line.

  Perhaps Shaun’s right and I really am doing this for the wrong reasons. Perhaps I’m just trying to prove to everyone that Jake and I are fine as we are, that we don’t need a hunky toy boy, or Dads and Lads sessions, to make our lives complete. That I’m enough for him just as I am. Or i
s it myself I’m trying to prove that to?

  Looking back to Mam’s smiling picture, I mutter the words I imagine her saying if she were here now.

  ‘Yummy mummy, my arse!’

  Chapter 6

  The day is grey and overcast, and a thin mist hangs in a low cloud over the valley. Rain flecks the windscreen of the car. It’s the kind of rain that floats on the air rather than falls, but it’s enough to hamper my view out of the window and, for anyone looking in, the view of me.

  For the second time in a week I sit in the car parked at the roadside and look up at the windows of the house in Newbridge. Ty Bryn. The hill house.

  All sets of curtains at the front of the house are pulled back, bar one – the first-floor window on the far right, the one above the living room and down the hall from the bathroom. Craig’s room. The small window next to his, in the centre, is to let natural light onto the landing. And then the larger window on the left-hand side is Lauren’s room. Was Lauren’s. Downstairs, on the other side of the door, mirroring the window of the living room, is what they had called the lounge. Or what we, in our house, would have called the back room, or the side room, or possibly even more room than they need and more money than sense.

  To me, back then, the house had looked like a mansion compared to our poky little terrace. Or a palace. Maybe that’s the real reason I spent so much time here with the twins, growing up. Theirs was a far more intriguing existence than ours; as if the very house itself represented something missing from our own lives, something impossible we could never have. Just the size of it, its position here above everyone else, the number of rooms, and the landscaped gardens at the rear that led onto farmland we could escape to and where our limitless imaginations and plans for the future could run riot.