Flawed (27 page)

‘If we're still here,’ said the boy. ‘I'm not sure how long we're staying.’

‘I don't suppose your mum knows yet, either. There are things she and your dad need to sort out. But you'll be fine here until they do.’

‘Do you know my father?’

Brodie nodded. ‘I've known him a while. He and my ex-husband are in the same business.’

‘Please – does he know where we are?’

Brodie shook her head reassuringly. ‘No. He knows you're safe, he knows we were coming here to see if there's anything you need, but he doesn't know where you are.’

‘Oh,’ said Noah, expressionless.

A light, rapid footstep on the stone path heralded Marianne Selkirk's arrival. Noah met his mother with quick reassurance. ‘It's all right, Mum, she's Daniel's friend. I'm sorry,’ he said then, crestfallen, unable to complete the introduction, T don't know your name.’

‘Brodie Farrell,’ said Brodie, coming forward with a handshake ready. ‘Daniel was concerned about you, he asked me to drive him out here.’

Marianne took her hand as if it might be a trap. ‘I see.’

‘If you're wondering,’ said Brodie, ‘the answer's no: neither of us has told your husband that you're here. Neither of us will.’

The other woman's face cleared a little. ‘Thank you. I see you understand the situation. I'm sorry you've been dragged into our little family drama.’

Brodie glanced down at her bump with a rueful shrug. ‘Makes a nice change from my own.’

Marianne gave her spritish chuckle. ‘Daniel's brewing up. You'll come in for a cup?’

‘Love to,’ said Brodie, and they headed inside.

Round the kitchen table the mood was amiable. Daniel asked if Noah was keeping on top of his maths, and Noah asked if Daniel had found a comet yet. Marianne asked when Brodie's baby was due, and Brodie said, ‘Six weeks.’

Marianne looked expectantly at Daniel. ‘And are you…?’

The flicker of pain that crossed his face told her it had been the wrong question. He answered it anyway. ‘Mrs Farrell is my friend and my employer. I can't claim any closer kinship to her baby than that.’

Brodie smiled at him. ‘Daniel is the world's best honorary uncle. Ask my daughter Paddy.’

Daniel changed the subject. He said to Noah: ‘People have been a bit worried about you. Can I tell them you're all right now?’

‘Oh yes,’ said the boy with conviction. ‘Everything's fine now. Isn't it, Mum?’

Marianne nodded. ‘We're fine. Thank you.’ ‘It must be nice,’ supposed Brodie, ‘getting some time together. I don't need telling how hard it is, having young children
and
a grown-up job.’

‘There aren't enough hours in the day,’ agreed Marianne. ‘I've felt guilty about that. Noah's been terrific, but I know I haven't given him as much of myself as I should have done.’

Brodie shrugged. ‘We're all just doing the best we can. Paddy spends so much time with our neighbour she knows more Polish swear-words than English ones.’

Marianne chuckled. ‘Anyway, we're making a fresh start, aren't we Noah? Less work, more fun.’

Noah nodded enthusiastically.

Brodie asked him: ‘What do you like doing best?’

‘I don't care,’ he said expansively. ‘Anything. Mum's good at lots of things. She can bake cakes. She took me out in a boat once. Or we play table-tennis. Or fly a kite. Or…’

‘You just enjoy one another's company,’ suggested Brodie, and the boy nodded again.

Brodie's smile developed an impish quality. ‘Nobody's good at everything. What's she really
bad
at?’

He shook his head immediately. ‘Nothing.’

Brodie raised an eyebrow. ‘Really? She's a better mother than I am, then. For one thing, I'm
always
late. I never allow enough time to get things done so I'm always in a rush. And then I blame everyone else for holding me up. Ask Daniel: a lot of the time I blame him.’

Daniel opened his mouth to say something but changed his mind and shut it again.

‘Not my mum,’ said Noah loyally. ‘And then, if I'm tired, I don't just
say
I'm tired so people can help. I come over all moody – and then I'm cross because they haven't
guessed
what the problem is!’

‘My mum's never moody,’ insisted the boy stoutly.

Marianne put an arm around him. ‘I am sometimes,’ she reminded him softly. ‘Everyone is sometimes.’

But Noah Selkirk fixed Brodie with his firm bespectacled gaze. ‘She's only saying that. She's a brilliant mum. The best. Honestly.’

The tea finished, the visitors rose to go. Noah saw them to the gate. Daniel helped Brodie into her car, then got in beside her. She said, ‘We'd better tell Jack what we found out.’

‘OK.’

She still had his number on speed-dial. Deacon answered with characteristic charm. ‘Well?’

Brodie sighed. ‘Jack – I think Adam Selkirk may be telling the truth.’

She rang off to find Daniel literally gaping at her. ‘Were we just in different kitchens?’ he asked, his pale eyebrows askance. ‘Did you meet the Marianne Selkirk from a parallel universe?’

Brodie expected this. ‘No. But I went in there with an open mind. You decided weeks ago what kind of a situation this family was embroiled in. Who was the saint and who the sinner.’

‘I suppose I did,’ he acknowledged slowly. ‘I thought it was pretty obvious. I still do.’

‘Of course you do. You saw a big man and a slight woman, and bruises on their child's face, and you jumped to the obvious conclusion. And she's an attractive, intelligent woman, easy to talk to and easy to like. And he, not to put too fine a point on it, is a bit of a thug.’

She'd lost Daniel totally. He spread a helpless hand. ‘Then…?’

‘Obvious isn't the same as accurate. I know – Oswald's Razor: the probability is always that what appeared to happen did in fact happen. But there are exceptions to every rule. I think this is one of them.’

‘Occam's,’ said Daniel absently. ‘Occam's Razor. But –
why
do you think that? That boy thinks the world of his mother! It's as plain as the…’

‘…Bruises on his face,’ Brodie finished dryly. ‘Of course he does, Daniel – she's his mother. It goes with the territory. And because he loves her he wants to protect her. He's old enough and smart enough to know that what she does to him isn't acceptable – that if people find out they'll put a stop to it. At best that'll be deeply embarrassing for her, personally and professionally. At worst it may mean keeping them apart. He'd rather go on getting his teeth rattled.’

Daniel tried again. ‘But it's his father doing that. You heard him: he loves spending time with his mother. That's been the only problem between them – she's been too busy for them to be together. And she's obviously determined to change that.’

‘Obviously,’ said Brodie, expressionless.

He was peering into her face, mystified, his brow corrugated under the yellow hair. They had known one another too well for too long for him to dismiss any conclusion she came to. But mostly they agreed on important issues; or failing that, at least they could see one another's point of view. This time, though, she had entirely left him behind. ‘What did you see, what did you hear, that I didn't?’

‘Nothing. It just meant different things to me.’

‘Explain.’

She thought for a moment. ‘Suppose that had been Paddy we'd been talking to. Suppose you'd given her the opportunity to list all my faults. What do you think she'd have said?’

‘She'd have said that she loves you,’ Daniel answered immediately.

‘Of course she would. And then?’

His eyes slid out of focus as he pictured the scene. ‘And then she'd have done that sneaky little grin – you know the one and spilt the beans. All of them. Every bean she could remember from the last six years.’

‘Even the has-beans,’ nodded Brodie slyly, earning a little grin in return. ‘She'd have kept talking till bedtime, recounting every stupid thing I'd ever done, and everything I'd ever done that displeased her. We'd have had to gaffer-tape her mouth shut to get some sleep. And if you'd asked if I was ever moody…!’

Daniel was nodding too, slowly, beginning to understand. ‘You don't think he was just being loyal?’

‘Secure kids don't feel the need to be loyal in that particular way. The very fact that he thinks he has to defend her suggests there's something to defend her against. Look,’ she said with a self-deprecating shrug, ‘I'm not a child psychologist, if you want chapter and verse you'll have to ask an expert. But there's a recognised pattern in families with one abusive parent. Contrary to what you might expect, the child will often side with the abuser.

‘It's a survival mechanism – keep the violent parent happy or God knows what'll happen. If you see them together you'd think that parent was the child's best friend, that there's nowhere in the world the child would rather be than with him or her. If you put him on the spot he'll criticise the non-abusing parent rather than tell the truth. Kids are unsophisticated but they aren't stupid. They know what comes of angering a violent parent. The non-abusive parent won't beat the crap out of him for lying. The abusive one
will
beat the crap out of him for telling the truth.’

It wasn't that Daniel didn't believe her, or thought she was wrong. He was genuinely struggling to relate this new information to a family he thought he'd got to know. ‘But Marianne? She's not much bigger than Noah is! She works for a charity, for God's sake! And you're telling me she beats up her child, and headbutts her husband when he tries to stop her?’

Brodie knew she could be wrong about this. But she really didn't think so. Daniel might have taught a lot of children but he'd never lived with one so his experience of the normal family dynamic was limited. Perhaps he wasn't aware that the behaviour he expected of children in the classroom situation would be positively sinister if repeated at home. That they don't routinely sit quietly and listen, and put their hands up before speaking, and always address you politely, and there's no earthly reason they should. That it's cause for concern if they do.

‘I think that's what's happening, yes. I don't know why you're
so
surprised. Because she's small? You're the last one to see that as a limiting factor! Or because she's a woman? Don't know how to break this to you, Daniel, but we're a lot tougher than we look. We live longer than you. In a survival situation, we last longer than you. We might not have your speed or muscle mass – well, most men's muscle mass – but we make up for it in endurance. Whatever your grandfather may have told you, we are not the weaker sex.’

‘I never said you were,’ said Daniel quietly. ‘For the record, neither did my grandfather. But violence is linked to testosterone, and even I have more of that than Marianne Selkirk does.’

‘All men do. Not all of them are violent, least of all to their own children. The reason they aren't is self-restraint. They learn to inhibit the urge to violence in circumstances where it isn't appropriate. Violent men lack the ability to inhibit that urge. So do violent women.

‘In a situation like this, everyone assumes it's the man throwing the punches. Statistically, it usually is. But modern women are different to their mothers. We too were born into a man's world, but we took the conscious decision to grab it by the balls and make it our world too.’

She took a brief moment to enjoy the twinge of discomfort in his expression before pressing on. ‘We've succeeded. Some people feel we've succeeded too well, over-compensated for generations cross-tethered between the crib and the stove. But the success came at a price. Most women who've done well in what were traditionally men's roles have done so by adopting male characteristics. Ambition, drive, aggression. It's not that the female virtues of insight and cooperation have finally been recognised, it's that – as the supremely adaptable creatures we are – we've learnt to take other tools out of the shed. Today we can argue, shout, plot, undermine and hold grudges as well as any man.

‘And, like any man, we can get home at the end of a long day – in Marianne's case, at the end of a long fortnight, fighting tooth and nail for vitally important causes – with the dog-ends of all those emotions still washing round in our brains. Tired, and tetchy, and now trained to fight for what we want. Is it so surprising if some tired, over-stretched woman who's been told she can have it all if she just works hard enough now finds herself having the same problems with
violence inhibition as the man who was doing her job thirty years ago?’

Behind his glasses Daniel's mild grey eyes were wide with revelation. ‘No,’ he managed after a moment. ‘No, I don't suppose it is. Brodie…’

She knew what he was going to say, brushed it away impatiently. ‘Concentrate on the Selkirks for a minute. We can't leave them here. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think so and I'm not willing to take the risk. We have to get them back to town. At least, we have to take Noah with us – he isn't safe alone with her. He asked me if his father was coming. When I said no, I wondered why he didn't sound more relieved. Well, the reason is he needs his father to protect him from his mother. I'm not leaving without him.’

She flashed Daniel a brittle grin. ‘You may be less robust than a woman but you've a good brain when you use it. Think of an excuse.’

He was still trying a minute later when they heard the front door of the cottage open and close. They exchanged a puzzled look, then Daniel got out of the car to see what was happening.

Noah Selkirk was coming down the path, carrying an overstuffed rucksack and dragging his feet. He mumbled, ‘Mum wants me to come back to town with you. She says she'll pick me up later from your house. If it's not too much trouble.’

‘Of course it isn't,’ Daniel said quickly. ‘But…’

He looked at Brodie but Brodie looked away. She started the car. ‘If that's what she wants.’ Noah and his luggage climbed onto the back seat and they drove away.

At the corner, where Brodie had to slow, suddenly Daniel
shot her a startled look, and ripped off his seatbelt and threw open the car door.

‘Daniel?’

He was already running back the way they'd come, shouting a kind of an explanation. ‘I…forgot something. I'll…come down with Marianne later. Don't wait for me. Don't come back.’ Then he was gone.