Beneath the Skin Page 4

  ‘I must make more of an effort, not just with Olivia but with the girls too.’ He looks at Judith and grins. ‘I would ask you for suggestions, but something tells me that would be cheating.’

  ‘And so it would,’ she replies, scooping up an armful of files from his muddled desk. Shame, she thinks as she leaves the room. Mike Turner isn’t and will never be the sort of man who would go in for cheating.

  Sami strides in late to the site meeting, looking sharp in his new navy suit.

  ‘You’ve got a smile on your face,’ the quantity surveyor comments. ‘You are one jammy bastard, Richards. Who’s the lucky woman this time?’

  Sami puts down his briefcase and places the hard hat on his head, careful not to unsettle his hair. ‘Who, me?’ he grins. ‘Well, since you ask. The wife. Really, Jack, the wife!’

  ‘You’re joking. I’m lucky if my wife cracks a smile, let alone …’

  Sami pulls up the leg of his trousers at the knee, crouches down and spreads out the plans on the dusty concrete floor as he recalls an extremely pleasurable start to the day. Sophie was dead to the world when the alarm woke him at seven. But that’s nothing new. She jacked in her job at the estate agents months ago (‘too early, too boring!’) and he suspects she sleeps in all morning during the week when he isn’t there to cajole her into the land of the living. He’d done his press-ups, showered and finished the box of no-added-sugar muesli, and was just about to unlatch the walled garden door of his townhouse when Sophie called his name. He turned his head in surprise and there she was on their doorstep, naked save for fluffy slippers and the chunky glasses she wears first thing in the morning before her ‘battle’ with contact lenses.

  ‘You haven’t given me a kiss, darlink,’ she called in her best Marlene Dietrich accent. He laughed. Her face looked crumpled and sleepy, her hair like a crow’s nest, but her body was beautiful; rounded, plump and still tanned from their Antiguan summer.

  ‘I haven’t cleaned my teeth, so …’ Sophie mumbled as she knelt on the floor of the hallway, the front door still ajar. She slipped one hand in the fly of his suit trousers and unbuckled his belt with the other. ‘So I’ll give you a different kiss goodbye.’

  ‘That was a very nice treat,’ he said afterwards. He stood at the lounge door for a moment and eyed Sophie thoughtfully. She’d put on the dressing gown he tries regularly to throw out and was lying on the sofa, the Daily Mail propped on her knees. ‘Was there a particular reason why you were kind enough to …’

  ‘I just like to keep you on your toes,’ she replied, her face still hidden by the newspaper. ‘Besides, you’ve been—’

  ‘What?’ Sami asked, his heart sinking just a little as he thought of the time. He knew that any heavy conversation about babies would make him very late for work.

  Sophie narrowed her eyes as she lowered the paper. ‘I don’t know,’ she said slowly, turning her head towards him. ‘You seem happy.’

  ‘I am happy. No, I’m absolutely delighted that we’re going through with the IVF again. I know how hard it is for you with all the drugs, the hospital visits and stuff, but you know I’ll be there. I’ll be with you every step of the way, I promise.’ He glanced at his Montblanc watch, which still gave him the rush of pleasure it had given him six months previously when he’d finally given in to temptation and bought it for himself. ‘And I think it’s going to work this time, I don’t know why, but I feel sure.’

  Sophie turned back to the newspaper and the horoscopes. ‘OK, you can bugger off to work now. Your usefulness is at an end.’

  Sami now brushes the dust off his trousers as he straightens back up. Time to focus on work. ‘Shall we start, Jack? Time is money and all that. Is the client coming or not?’

  ‘What have you got that I haven’t, Richards?’ the quantity surveyor replies as he removes a pen from behind his ear and jots down some figures on his clipboard. ‘On second thoughts, don’t answer that,’ he says with a dry laugh, ‘we’re not paid by the hour.’

  Irony one: the morning nap has made Sophie tired. She yawns and looks at the calendar before opening the fridge. ‘Coffee with Christine’ is pencilled in for today, but it doesn’t ring any bells. Irony two: the handwriting is hers, so she can blame no one but herself. The forgetfulness can be worrying, but only if she lets it, and anyway, she never forgets anything important.

  She bends to pull out the carton of milk from the fridge and then changes her mind. It would be a shame to forego a glass of Chablis when it’s so beautifully chilled, and besides, she bought a replacement bottle yesterday, just in case. She makes a mental note of the level of the wine before she pours. She’s sure that Sami has too. Perhaps he’s sketched a diagram and slipped it in his briefcase along with his work plans. She laughs as she closes the fridge. The big question for her is whether she’ll remember.

  Mike barely notices the door of his office close as Judith walks away. ‘Mum got over it quite quickly.’ It’s his daughter’s voice in his head, an echo of his own unspoken, festering words.

  He picks up a letter and tries to focus on work and on today. But last night is still fresh, the memory raw in his mind.

  He ate dinner alone in the high-ceilinged kitchen, knowing he should talk to Olivia, to clear the air somehow after her outburst. He wanted to be honest with her, but was afraid he would be too brutal. He took her a tea, then left her alone in their bedroom, her rigid back turned away from him.

  But with Rachel it was different; he needed to make peace with her straight away. He was stunned at the way she’d behaved. She was bright and funny like her mum, but usually more mature than her twelve years. She was his little companion, always nearby, even when he watched the football on television.

  ‘Grandma, Dad’s buying me a season ticket next year,’ she announced at the weekend.

  ‘Girls don’t go to the football!’ his mother responded in horror.

  ‘Of course they do, Grandma,’ she replied. ‘This is the age of equality. Anything a boy can do, a girl can do better,’ she said boldly, making them all laugh.

  ‘Can I come in?’ Mike asked, tapping gently on her pine bedroom door. She was curled up on the bed, his little girl, with her face puffy and red from so much crying. ‘Come here for a hug,’ he said, the sight of her making him want to cry too. But he held it in; if he started he might never stop.

  The story came out in a rush: ‘Mum was livid. I’ve never seen her so cross. As soon as I put my key in the door she was there, shouting at me. She accused me of bunking off school but I promise you I wasn’t. I felt ill so I came home. I didn’t think she’d mind. I thought she’d understand. I thought she’d stick up for me and clear it with the teacher. I know I shouldn’t have called her a cow, Dad, but she was one, really. Her face looked horrible and she said, “You don’t look ill to me. What’s in the bag? Have you been to the shops?”’

  Mike studied Rachel’s face. Her dark blue eyes looked sincere and hurt. She’d always been a daddy’s girl, but Olivia adored her. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I bet Mum overreacted because we’ve heard so many bad things, not only about your school but all schools. You know, drugs, truanting, bullying and all the other things parents worry about. You’re such a lovely girl that we’d hate you to get into any trouble.’

  ‘Mum doesn’t trust me. That makes it even worse.’

  He nodded. He wasn’t sure what the procedure was with illness and school, but he doubted that kids were allowed to wander off without consulting a parent. ‘Well, of course we trust you …’ he began.

  Rachel hid her face in her hands. ‘I called Mum’s mobile loads of times, but it was off, so I had to go to the chemist all by myself and it was so embarrassing. Mum should have been there or bought them for me, but she didn’t even care enough to ask what was wrong.’

  He frowned; he’d lost the thread of the conversation.

  ‘Dad, what are you like?’ Rachel said, her angry eyes catching his for a moment before turning away. ‘I had to go to the chemist t
o buy pads. I wasn’t about to go to the school office and ask them. It’s just so embarrassing.’

  Mike raked his hands through his hair. He had no idea what to say. Thank God I’m not a single parent. Thank God I have Olivia, he thought. His sister Siobhan had been in and out of hospital when he was a boy. If she had started her periods at some point in his childhood, no one had told him about it. He knew nothing about a girl’s puberty or menstruation, or any of that malarkey. He was rapidly discovering that he knew nothing about women at all.

  ‘It’s all right, Dad, I don’t want to talk about it either,’ Rachel said eventually with a small smile. She slipped her hand into his. ‘By the way, I heard Mum shouting earlier. I’m not her number one fan at the moment, but it’s true what she said. I mean, I don’t want to upset you or anything, but sometimes you don’t seem to hear what we say. You’re not funny any more. You turn on the telly and just stare.’

  She looked up into his face. ‘Is it because of the baby? Is that why you’re sad? Are you thinking about him?’

  He took a breath and a moment to reply. Of course that was when the black dog returned, creeping in on its belly, almost unseen, before following him everywhere. ‘How come you’re so bright?’ he asked, wondering how a twelve-year-old child could be so perceptive.

  Rachel shrugged. ‘You will get over it, you know,’ she replied, blowing her nose with gusto. ‘“Time heals all wounds.” People think it’s Shakespeare, but it isn’t. And look at Mum. She got over it quite quickly, didn’t she?’

  It is those words that burn in Mike’s mind now, as he sips his cold coffee. He frowns and picks up another letter. Too quickly, he thinks, too bloody quickly.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘Toni, who is Christine and why is she on my calendar? I want to go out. Or stay in. Whatever. Should I be worried about standing her up?’

  Antonia holds the iPhone between her ear and her shoulder as she sweeps crumbs from the granite work surface with one hand into the other. She can tell Sophie is being very careful to enunciate her words clearly and slowly.

  ‘Do you want me to come over?’ she replies.

  ‘No, why?’

  ‘Because it’s a Wednesday morning and you don’t usually start this early,’ she says evenly. ‘Has something happened to upset you?’

  She unties her apron and sits down. The heady smell of the baked chocolate embraces her, but she won’t be eating any. Her mother has put on a great deal of weight as she’s got older; it could be genetic and she doesn’t want to be fat.

  ‘It’s Sami’s fault. If he didn’t spy on me, I wouldn’t have to drink a whole bottle. I could just have a civilised glass instead of a bloody great lecture. He’s not there with you, is he?’

  ‘No. Why, should he be?’

  ‘No reason,’ Sophie responds. ‘There’s the doorbell. It’s probably Christine, whoever she is. I’ll let you know later if she’s your type, Toni. Bye.’

  Antonia puts down the mobile carefully. Baking cookies earlier gave her a little high. Like a wide-eyed child she watched the TV chef make them and she copied him, stage by stage, from lining the trays with parchment, to pouring the pre-measured ingredients into a mixing bowl, to spooning the mixture out and to placing them in the oven. Then the waiting. Twenty minutes. Ping!

  Of course she knows how to bake just about everything one can bake, but to do it under instruction, like an obedient school child, was surprisingly satisfying. But now she’s wondering about Sophie, about what’s bothering her so much that she’s not letting on. The IVF treatment, she reasons, but then Sophie has already told her all about it, in every gory detail. Indeed, there isn’t a lot about her life that hasn’t been discussed, dissected and examined by the two of them over the years. The fact that Sophie is drinking is no surprise, it’s her way of dealing with stress. But there’s something else, definitely something else.

  She looks at her watch and wonders whether she should nip round to Sophie’s house to see what’s going on. It’s a twenty-mile round journey, but it’s tempting because she doesn’t like this uncertainty. Then again, she dislikes Sophie when she’s drunk, she loathes anyone drunk, which makes her think again of David and the strange way he behaved last weekend.

  ‘Don’t look so bloody tragic,’ Sophie said on the Monday, putting her arms around Antonia and holding her for a few moments before pulling away and stroking her arm from shoulder to elbow in that way she always does. ‘Don’t overreact. He was only pissed. It’s not the end of the world.’

  ‘I know,’ she replied, thinking that perhaps it was the end of the world and feeling tense, as always, from Sophie’s touch.

  ‘He’s not your dad, you know, Toni.’

  She flinched at Sophie’s comment, but didn’t reply. It was strange, hearing her dad mentioned twice within a week. There had been the telephone call a few days earlier, out of the blue. It was a friendly female voice, but then they’d always appeared friendly, the journalists.

  ‘Hi, is that Jimmy Farrell’s daughter? You’ve been difficult to track down! My name’s Zara Singh. I’m a journalist and I’m looking into—’

  She’d put down the phone as though it burned.

  Antonia now sits silently at the kitchen table and stares through the open patio doors at the glinting fields and the hills beyond. It’s still a bright September. She can see glowing green meadows, horses and cows, huge trees and stone walls. This is her life. There’s nothing to say about her dad. He doesn’t exist. She won’t let him creep into her thoughts. And yet here he is today, looming large in her sunlit kitchen, amid the smell of cookies. ‘She was asking for it, girl. She can go back to where she fucking belongs if she doesn’t like it. And so can you.’ Each memory is filed away, but still clear and in colour, like a series of framed photographs.

  She remains motionless on the leather chair, the peppermint tea lukewarm in its cup, her mind cramped as it tries to regain order. It’s just the alcohol; it changes people from normal decent human beings into something else, she reasons slowly and calmly, like a mother to a child. David isn’t bad. He isn’t a monster and nor is Sophie. There’s nothing to worry about. She isn’t afraid of them.

  As she strides down the science faculty’s main corridor, Helen Proctor thinks about snowmen. The Snowman, in fact, the film she watches every Christmas. She’s never really understood the expression ‘walking on air’ until today. There’s no doubt about it, today she is indeed walking on air, or perhaps in it, like The Snowman. She has to fight back the desire to announce it to her students, to blow her own trumpet (another silly expression) or to sing out loud (which she is known to do). They’ll probably think she’s completely deranged, but Helen is fully aware of her reputation for mild eccentricity and doesn’t care.

  Ted Edwards asked for a quiet word first thing. ‘I have something to say to you, Helen. Perhaps a spot of lunch at the usual?’ he said, lifting his black eyebrows which no longer matched his hair and adjusting his glasses. ‘When all will be revealed!’

  The reveal was unexpected but thrilling. Ted had clearly been pleased as he patted her hand.

  It’s only a secondment, nothing particularly special, she now chides herself. Another professor walking the other way gives her a sidelong look beneath his varifocals and she wonders whether she has spoken the thought out loud. But it’s special to me, she continues with a shrug, an opportunity to teach and to research in America!

  She looks at herself in the lavatory mirror as she washes her hands. She no longer notices the streaks of grey in her hair or the odd sprouting growth on her chin. She tried to pluck them at one time, those hairs, but they only grew back twofold, wasting time in which she could be doing something useful, like marking or reading, or chatting with Charlie.

  ‘Oh, Charlie!’ she says to the mirror. Her reflection looks startled, and a little downcast, as it wonders how on earth to break the news to him.

  David puts his head around Charlie’s office door to wish him goodnight, but
to his surprise the room is dark, cold and empty. He strolls in and swings round in Charlie’s newly upholstered chair before opening the leather-bound diary to see where he is. It’s an office rule that work diaries always stay on the premises on top of the fee earner’s desk. David regularly ‘forgets’ this rule, preferring to risk censure than be pinned down. He studies Charlie’s week: his ‘school tie’ handwriting shows he’s been busy, but the page for this afternoon is blank, which means he’s gone home early, which is unlike him, or that he’s doing something he doesn’t want the rest of the office to know about.

  David gives a low whistle. The doctor. God, Charlie. He hopes he’s all right. Charlie has always looked older than his years, even at school, using his bumbling act to hide the sharp intellect behind. But he isn’t old really; David doesn’t want him to be.

  He sits back and gazes at the signed painting of a Lancaster bomber that Charlie has recently acquired as he tries to steady his breath. ‘Lancaster Under Attack’, the painting’s called, and he knows how it feels. Over the last few days his heart has started to race, suddenly, without warning, like the hammer of a machine gun. Low blood pressure, high blood pressure, lack of fitness, whatever. It doesn’t last long, so it really doesn’t matter. The important thing is for him to focus. Not on the problem (which he’s finally accepted exists), nor the fucking, fucking consequences (which make him want to vomit), but on the plan. And today he has focused. He’s come up with a plan. At least a temporary one, which he now needs to put into action. Velle est posse! he remembers from school. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

  It’s time to go home, but David isn’t ready to do that. He wants to avoid his wife and her watchful eyes a little longer. It’s as though Antonia knows. Her brown eyes are huge when she looks at him: perceptive, worried, knowing. ‘Robbing Peter to pay Paul?’ they say. ‘Don’t do it, David.’