Authors: Louise Voss,Mark Edwards
‘
I’m going to need these tapes,’ he said. His mouth was dry and his chest felt strange. Over the last sixteen years, he had convinced himself that he didn’t know how to feel. Now Kate was back and so were the feelings. Those horrible, painful feelings and the delicious ones, all mixed up together in a potent cocktail.
He loved it.
He hated it.
He wanted her.
He wanted her dead.
CHAPTER 15
Vernon Maddox had been in a terrible mood ever since he woke up. He wasn’t sure whether the knowledge that his ex-wife and son would return from England that day was making him feel better or worse. Worse, on the whole, he decided, reversing his Buick into a very tight space in the Central Parking Garage at Logan Airport. The fact that Kate would be getting a free lift home from the airport in his car galled him no end – he’d only agreed to pick them up because he was having Jack to stay for the weekend. He’d have made her take a cab if he could, but then he’d have had to have picked up Jack from her house, which was even further away. He wasn’t looking forward to seeing Kate’s miserable face sitting in the driver’s seat next to him, refusing to talk, treating him like something she’d picked up on the sole of her shoe. Maybe he should have made a sign to welcome her. ‘The Bitch is Back’, something like that.
He managed a tight smile at his own joke – which turned to another frown as he opened his car door, and it banged against the wing of the car next to him, leaving a small dent. He glanced around to make sure that nobody had noticed, hopped back into the driver’s seat, reversed out of the space and into another one across the other side of the car park.
On the other hand, he thought, smoothing down his hair and looking around for the Exit to Arrivals sign, it would be good to see his boy again. Despite everything, he loved Jack to pieces. Always had, always would. His own child; precious son. He puffed out his narrow chest slightly with pride. It wasn’t Jack’s fault that Kate had turned into a paranoid bitch. No wonder Jack had been acting out a bit lately. He’d have to get Kate back to her shrink, hopefully that would sort her out. All this crud about wanting a divorce; it was ridiculous. She just didn’t know what was good for her. He and Jack were her only family, apart from the gaga aunt; she’d be lost without him, Vernon, to look after her. They’d only been separated six months, and she clearly wasn’t coping. Every time he crossed paths with her she seemed grey and stressed, and the lines on her face were getting deeper. Can’t think what I ever saw in her, he thought. But I’m a decent guy, I’m prepared to do right by her. Besides, it’s a nightmare finding good childminders in this city.
Vernon took up his position next to the barrier by the sliding doors through Customs. He looked at his watch; twenty after one. The flight had landed on time, at 1.05, he’d called on his cellphone to check. So they ought to be through in another ten, fifteen minutes, once they’d collected their bags. He wondered how long it would be before he and Kate had their first argument; they’d probably be quarrelling by the time they reached the turnpike. Maybe sooner, maybe by the time he’d turned onto I-90. It never usually took long for her to blow a gasket over something or other. Plus, she’d probably be depressed from seeing the nutso old aunt of hers.
Vernon couldn’t understand the point of dragging Jack across the Atlantic to celebrate the hundred and fiftieth – or whatever – birthday of some old crust who’d probably scare the living daylights out of him with her toothless sunken face and grabbing claws. OK, so she’d been important to Kate – he understood that – but really, Jack was too young to appreciate it, and Lil was totally past it. She’d been senile for years now, staring out her days in an old folks’ home; incontinent, almost speechless, no marbles left whatsoever. Vernon shuddered. Just shoot me before I ever get like that, he thought to himself. Kate would probably pull the trigger, too. And she wouldn’t wait till I was old, either. Ha.
Forty minutes later Vernon was still waiting. He called Kate’s cellphone, but it went straight to voicemail. He exhaled with irritation. She’d obviously forgotten to switch it on again after the plane landed – typical. Then his own phone rang.
‘
Yeah – hello?’
‘
Hi baby boy,’ cooed the voice on the other end, and Vernon’s face relaxed into a smile.
‘
Hey, Shirl, missing me already?’
‘
You’d better believe it, big boy.’
Vernon blushed slightly, and ran a finger around the inside of his collar, turning away so that the large Jamaican family waiting at the barrier next to him couldn’t hear the conversation.
‘
So when will I see you again?’
‘
I told you, hon, lemme sort things out this end, and clear a window for us, say, at the weekend?’
He could hear the pout in Shirley’s voice.
‘
It’s been so nice, baby, havin’ you all to myself this week, is all.’
This was the reason he hadn’t put up too much of a fight when Kate told him she wanted to separate – unfettered access to the voluptuous Shirley. The excitement of sneaking around had been sexy at first, but he’d quickly grown sick of musty motel rooms and all the tedious lies he’d had to tell. Shirley was a little clingy, certainly, even more so now she could smell his divorce and, God forbid, a possible impending marriage; but it had been like a breath of fresh air, being with a woman who appreciated his talents and accommodated his sexual appetites the way she did. She was so in awe of his intelligence that she would try and keep up by using lots of long words, usually in completely the wrong context. Vernon found it quite endearing, for the short-term anyway.
‘
Yeah, it’s been good. Listen, Shirl, I gotta go. I’m picking up my boy from the airport and he’ll be through any minute. I’ll call you, OK?’
‘
OK sugar. You take care now. Kissy kissy kissy.’
‘
Kissy kissy kissy,’ Vernon muttered back, as quietly as he possibly could. A little Jamaican boy of about seven still managed to overhear, though, and mimicked him with glee.
Vernon glared at him, putting his cellphone back in his jacket pocket, and glancing at his watch again. Where the hell were they?
A young black couple pushing a trolley piled high with suitcases came through the barrier, causing the entire Jamaican clan to leap up and squeal for joy, running out to greet them as if invading a soccer pitch, jumping and clapping and embracing them. Vernon could hear them talking excitedly, and the word ‘London’ came up several times. So they must have come off the same flight as Kate and Jack. They’d be out any minute.
Another thirty-five minutes later, he was still waiting. All the people who had been standing with him were long gone, and a whole new set had taken up their places at the barrier. He tried to call Kate, left a message for her. A stream of passengers in saris and turbans were now coming through, not remotely looking as if they were recently arrived from London.
Vernon tutted. He was busting for a piss, but he didn’t want to leave in case he missed them. Besides, he really needed to get back to his office – he had seventeen student papers on symbolism in classic American literature to grade before the end of term next week. Keeping an eye on the sliding doors, he walked across to the Information kiosk, and waited in line there for five minutes while the man behind the counter explained to an elderly Irish couple the procedure for tracking missing luggage.
‘
It wasn’t there!’ the woman, who had patchy grey hair and an anxious face, kept saying. ‘All the bags were off, the belt was empty, and ours wasn’t there! Has someone taken it by mistake, do you think? We had presents in there, for our grandson! What’ll we do now, if you can’t find it?’
Her husband turned to her and put a placatory hand on her tweedy sleeve. ‘Stop fretting, would you, Deirdre! Sure, it’s not helping things, now is it? This gentleman will phone through to London for us, and check it got on the plane in the first place, isn’t that right, sir?’
Vernon interrupted. He had a very bad feeling growing in the pit of his stomach. ‘Excuse me. Did you just say you came from London, and all the bags are through?’‘Not ours,’ replied the woman. ‘Ours is lost, you see, and it’s full of – ‘
‘
Were you on flight BA0213?’
‘
We were, but – ‘
‘
And there’s nobody back through there still waiting for their luggage?’
‘
I wouldn’t know about that, now,’ said the man, slightly impatiently. ‘But I can tell you that the conveyor belt yoke was empty, so I suppose not.’
He turned back to the man behind the counter, who was dialling numbers on a telephone.
Vernon stepped away from the kiosk, his mind racing. The flight had landed. The bags were through. Kate’s phone was off. He was almost certain that he’d have seen them if they’d come through those sliding doors. Had they missed the flight? Then why hadn’t she called to tell him? Surely she wasn’t so dumb or thoughtless that she’d omit to do that?
He stood very still amid a sea of people weaving their way around him, motionless as they bumped into him with suitcases and trolleys, looking down at bodies of all different shapes, sizes and colours, trying to spot the top of a blond head, a head he’d know anywhere.
A horrible recognition swept over him; a distant memory breaking through the surface with sudden, perfect clarity. Something about Kate going over to England for Lil’s ninetieth birthday had been nagging at him all week, but it wasn’t until now that he realized what it was: The last time Kate had planned to go to England for one of Lil’s birthdays had been five years ago, for Lil’s 84th. Jack had just been a baby, coming up to his own first birthday. Kate was going to take him with her, ‘so they could celebrate both birthdays together.’ But at the last minute Jack had come down with a fever, and she hadn’t wanted to go without him. Vernon had been secretly delighted – he’d been pissed that Kate would deny him the opportunity to be there for his own son’s first birthday.
Jack’s birthday was September 1st. And it was now June.
Vernon let out a noise which was a cross between a roar and a frustrated sort of yelp, causing the Irish couple with the lost luggage, as well as most of the passengers in the vicinity, to whip their heads around and stare at him.
‘
That goddamn bitch!’ he yelled, kicking hard at the end leg of a row of seats, spilling the coffee of the woman sitting at the other end and causing her to jump up in alarm.
She won’t get away with this, he thought, stalking back towards the car park before Security were summoned to escort him off the premises. No way is she taking my son. No way is she having him; he’s mine. I’ll hunt her down like a dog, and she’ll be sorry she ever messed with me. She can have the fucking divorce, I’ll be glad to see the back of her whining miserable back. But there is no way on God’s earth that she’s having my boy.
When he got to the ticket machines, he dug angrily in his pockets for change, waiting in line behind a young bespectacled man who couldn’t seem to fathom how the machine worked. The man had a huge suitcase standing on its end beside him, and Vernon’s rage increased as the man dithered and flapped, trying to put his ticket in the slot for banknotes. Vernon could not contain himself any longer.
‘
It’s simple, jerkoff! Put the goddamn ticket in THERE, and the goddamn money in THERE. What’s your fucking problem?’
Before the young man could reply, Vernon pushed over his suitcase, causing it to thud heavily against the ticket machine. He took out his cellphone and hit the speed-dial to call Kate. It went straight to voicemail. He strode back towards the terminal again.
He’d had an idea.
Taking a deep breath to try and calm himself down, he forced himself to walk slowly up to the British Airways Reservations desk.
‘
I want to buy a ticket to London. Leaving tomorrow, early as possible.’
CHAPTER 16
They drove in silence for a while, creeping through traffic lights and across zebra crossings towards London’s western edge. These outer reaches of the city seemed so sad and run-down, the bright sunshine exposing the cracks and the filth, the boarded-up shops, black bin liners spilling their guts on every kerb. Kate couldn’t help see it as a kind of virus that had spread through the city, so that every borough looked the same: the same shops on every high street, identical gangs of teenagers in identical clothes. Actually, there was something hopeful about the kids, the way they thrived in the most barren places, their adaptability, making their own fun and enjoying life though it appeared the world hated them. Again, like viruses. And soon these parts of London would be stricken by another disease: gentrification would come and prices would soar, and that branch of Tennessee Fried Chicken would become a nice little deli, and the kids would be driven somewhere else, further marginalised but always there.
Leaving London, Kate felt like an animal that had been chased from its hole. Exposed and endangered. She turned her face from the window, looked around to make sure Jack was alright. He was fine, leaning back like a VIP in a limo, gazing imperiously at the strange streets. What was he thinking? Did he miss his dad, his friends? Or was he too excited by all this newness, this adventure? Probably a little of both. When he was older he would probably look back and wonder about this strange holiday his mum took him on as a kid.
They took the M4 for a short distance, driving past signposts that pointed to THE WEST. The words gave Kate goosebumps and she rubbed her forearms. Going west. Into the past. To a place where she was going to have to confront her memories, pry open the lid of Pandora’s box. She felt fluttery panic, bird’s wings in her stomach and chest. Needing distraction, she turned on the radio.