The Girl Who Came Back (13 page)

‘Everyone’s rallying, you know that, and let’s be honest, Kian, she’s well shot of him. It’ll be a relief not to have to put up with his moods any more. She’s said so herself. In fact, she’s admitted she can’t stand him, so all I can say is good luck to the other girl.’

His eyes remained dark and troubled. ‘Our Danny’s been told what’s happening,’ he said distractedly. ‘I’ve been trying to call him, make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid, but he’s not picking up. Bob and Finn are on their way over there, I reckon I should go too, because the last thing we need is a bloody murder on our hands.’ Taking out his mobile as it rang, he groaned. ‘It’s the bloke who’s trying to get me interested in setting up safaris on the moor. I’ll have to rearrange,’ and turning back along the hall he clicked on to take the call.

By the time Aileen had collected Terry, two days later, and brought her over to see the children, Danny had been arrested and charged with grievous bodily harm. Though the injuries Keevan had inflicted on his wife before leaving were far worse than those he’d received from Danny, he ended up being charged with the lesser offence of actual bodily harm, which was later reduced to common assault. Apparently this was to allow the magistrates to impose a quick, custodial sentence that would keep him away from his wife and children for the next six months.

Danny, on the other hand, stood trial at the Crown Court and to everyone’s dismay was sent down for three years.

As far as Terry’s family, friends and the media were concerned, the judiciary had made its position clear: hurting a man was a far more serious offence than hurting a woman.

There was an outcry amongst women’s groups from as far afield as Edinburgh, Manchester and Dublin, who all tried to get in touch with Terry to turn her into some sort of poster girl for their cause. Though Terry was too shy to accept so much exposure, she wasn’t so faint-hearted that she’d back away from trying to help others in her situation. In fact when Reynolds House women’s refuge finally opened its doors just over a year later with Penny Grace, an ex-social worker and committed women’s rights campaigner, at the helm, Terry was her number two. Jules and Misty, along with the mayor’s wife and several well-connected women from the area, took charge of fund-raising, while Marsha and Aileen and most of the women in Aileen’s extensive family helped out in any way they could.

‘I don’t believe it,’ Jules exclaimed when Kian told her that Anton Quentin had been amongst those who’d put money into the project. ‘Someone who bullies his wife the way he does …’

‘You don’t know that for certain.’

‘I know what I saw.’

‘Jules, it was a long time ago. You’ve got no idea what’s going on with them these days …’

‘Because he never brings her here.’

‘She’s in London, it’s where they live, and ask yourself, why would he put money our way for Reynolds House if he was an abuser himself? It doesn’t make any sense.’

‘Of course it does. It’s the perfect cover. Surely you can see that.’

Sighing, he said, ‘I can also see that you have a blind spot where he’s concerned … No, no listen, I don’t like the bloke any more than you do, but slagging him off isn’t getting us anywhere so let’s just drop the subject, shall we?’

They did, and Jules also resisted the urge to write to Olivia Quentin to tell her about Reynolds House. Apart from not being very subtle, she didn’t know the Quentins’ London address, and Olivia apparently never came to Crofton Park now.

It was over that same period of time, as Daisy moved from infants’ school to juniors, and began organising all kinds of events with Stephie and Dean to raise money for the refuge, or the local animal shelter, or Barnardo’s, or basically anyone who asked, as well as devising systems for Granny Marsha to find things about the house, that the Mermaid began moving with the times to morph into a different, more modern sort of establishment. Derelict outbuildings were renovated and drawn into the main structure of the pub to provide more space for eating, while the kitchens were extended to cope with the extra catering. Two more areas were opened up on the ground floor: a cosy retreat with old leather sofas and armchairs in front of the inglenook fireplace, which soon became known as the Maxin Relaxin Room, a line from
The Fresh Prince of Bel Air
, Daisy informed them. (Em later renamed it the library.) The second area was a much larger function room to host private parties, or Daisy, Dean and Stephie’s endless comedy, drama, dance and musical extravaganzas, or open mic nights and local bands; they even used it as a gallery featuring works by anyone who got a gold star for art at Daisy’s school.

Romance blossomed between Misty and the new Italian chef Marco, who bought and renovated two of the old fisherman’s cottages on the far side of the weir, where the new sailing and surfing school was doing good business. Though Daisy’s delight in mermaids remained constant, her passion for Eric was soon transferred to various boy bands and other, real, movie stars. She apparently didn’t notice that her best friend, Dean, was in love with her, so Jules and Kian simply watched the poor lad’s misery in silence as Daisy continued to treat him as the next-best-thing-to-a-real-brother that he’d always been.

It was the summer that Daisy turned thirteen and she, Stephie and Dean were invited to show a film they’d made about the moor at the local cinema, that Jules and Kian decided to start transforming the deserted coach house, stable block and harbourmaster’s office on the near side of the footbridge into five rustic en suites for paying guests and a much larger admin space for the growing number of staff. The timing of the building work was chosen to coincide with their yearly visit to Em and her family in the States, which meant leaving the ever-capable Misty and Marco to run the pub and deal with the disruption.

So, excited to start their holiday, Jules and Daisy flew on ahead to Chicago, with Kian and the grannies due to follow sometime in the next few days …

It was disturbing, Jules was reflecting to herself, as she pushed open the front door of her modest detached house on the Risings, the way memories could suddenly shy at a hurdle. Of course they knew what lay in wait on the other side, they wouldn’t have existed without it, but it was as though they simply couldn’t face going there.

Glad of it, she went through to the kitchen and put on the kettle. The answering machine was blinking wildly on the counter top, and she knew there were messages on her mobile too. She’d get round to them eventually; for the time being she needed to recover after the hour or so she’d just spent with her mother. Not that Marsha had woken up, or even as much as stirred while Jules was there, it was just that seeing someone she loved in such an undignified and desperate state was so distressing that she always needed time to adjust when she’d left the home.

I should kill her.

It wasn’t the first time the thought had entered her head, it was probably always there, if not in the foreground, then lingering close by every time she saw her mother. However, today she wasn’t only thinking about Marsha. In fact she might not have been thinking about Marsha at all.

Sometime soon, possibly only days from now, the Quentin girl would taste freedom again. She would breathe the cleansing air of the coast, shield her eyes against the dazzling sun; fill her mind with all she was going to do with the rest of her life.

Jules wondered if she already had plans. How easy was it going to be for her to find a job, make friends, settle back into the society she’d never really been a part of, even before? Everyone knew what she’d done, so who’d want to befriend her? Who’d have the courage, apart from social outcasts or the deeply religious? No one from Dean’s family’s sect would go near her; surely almost everyone else would give her as wide a berth as she deserved. Maybe some would tell themselves, ‘She’s served her sentence, it’s time to put it behind us and move on.’ Some might even say, ‘Poor thing, I’m sure she bitterly regrets it all now, and we should find it in our hearts to forgive her.’ There would be others, such as the Bright family and their closest friends, who would declare, ‘Someone should make her pay, because the law sure as hell didn’t bother.’

‘Just say the word,’ Bridget, Danny’s mother, had urged when Jules had last spoken to her, ‘and it can all be made to go away.’

Jules had said nothing as she’d tried to make up her mind what she wanted. So many images and voices were crowding her mind that there seemed no room for words to form, much less to be spoken.

Bridget said softly, ‘You don’t have to know anything about it. There are ways we can make it happen …’

Danny-type ways? What good would that do?

‘Remember, we’re all here for you,’ Bridget soothed.

Still Jules had said nothing. There was no point reminding Bridget that those closest to her had all gone. Daisy, Kian, Aileen, her mother …

Starting as the telephone brought her back to the present, she checked who it was and felt relieved by the timely reminder; Em was always there, even if she was four thousand miles away. ‘Hi,’ she said into the receiver, ‘I wasn’t expecting you yet. It’s still early with you.’

‘Don’s out, so I have the place – and the phone – to myself for a while. How are you?’

‘OK. Before you ask, no I haven’t heard from Andee about a release date, but she left a message earlier asking how I was and reminding me to be in touch if I needed to talk.’

‘That was nice of her. Maybe you should take her up on it.’

‘Maybe. To be honest, I’m not sure what I want, apart from to be somebody else.’

With a gentle sigh, Em said, ‘I wish you’d come here, to us. We’ve got plenty of space now the kids have gone …’

Gently changing the subject, Jules said, ‘How are your parents? I had a postcard from them a couple of weeks ago, it sounds as though they’re still enjoying Spain.’

‘And the old-fashioned methods of communication. They still won’t email, and I have to admit in some ways I envy them the freedom of not being tied to a computer or a phone all the time.’

With a smile Jules said, ‘I know what you mean.’ And after a beat, ‘I had an email from Joe. He’s still intending to come here. Do you know if he’s in Chicago at the moment?’

‘I believe so, but I haven’t seen him. I ran into his father the other day.’

Jules stiffened.

After a pause, Em said, ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have mentioned it.’

She shouldn’t have, although it wouldn’t have been a problem if Jules’s memories hadn’t taken the direction they had earlier.

‘It was a long time ago, Jules,’ Em reminded her. ‘You need to forgive yourself.’

‘Seven years,’ Jules murmured. ‘Daisy was almost thirteen. Old enough to fall in love for the first time.’

‘Which she did, with Joe, and who’d have dreamt back then that it would last the way it did? All those long hot summers together at the lake, him coming with us to Kesterly each Christmas …’

Jules’s heart felt as though something harsh and relentless was trying to push through it. She wanted the conversation to end. Em would understand if she said so, but the hurdle was down, there was no halting the memories as they spilled into forbidden territory, treading over it as though there was nothing painful about it all, when just about everything was …

It wouldn’t have happened if Em had been in Chicago when Jules and Daisy arrived that summer; or if Kian and the grannies had come on the same flight. Not that she was blaming anyone else; the guilt lay entirely with her, she would never pretend otherwise. It was simply that if fate hadn’t separated them all at that time, then nothing unusual would have happened during those first sultry, strangely surreal days of the visit.

Since Em and Don had already gone ahead to the lake to open up the house, Jules and Daisy had stayed with Em’s father-in-law, Gray, and his new wife, Esther, along with Em’s children, Mattie and Oscar, until Kian and the grannies flew in to join them. It was during that time, when the air was so still and humid it was an effort to move, and when home felt like it belonged to another world, that Daisy had first met the great love of her life.

‘Mum, this is Joe,’ Daisy told her, holding on to the boy’s hand and looking so sparklingly happy that Jules could hear Kian saying, ‘She really is all things Bright and beautiful.’

‘Hello Joe,’ Jules said, understanding immediately why Daisy was so drawn to him. He might only be thirteen, but he was already almost as tall as Jules, and was so handsome in his all-American physical way that he must surely have been making a lot of young girls’ hearts flip over. ‘It’s good to meet you.’

‘To meet you too,’ he said, politely. ‘Daisy’s been telling me all about the Mermaid. It sounds really cool.’ He had clear, intelligent eyes, an erratically deepening voice and the kind of smile that was both shy and engaging.

‘Joe’s coming to the lake with us,’ Daisy informed her. ‘Mattie rang Auntie Em this morning to check it was OK, and it is.’

Amused by how fast this budding romance was blooming, Jules said to Joe, ‘Have you been out to the lake before?’

‘Not that lake,’ he replied. ‘My grandparents have a place further south in Indiana, we go there sometimes. Usually at Passover and Thanksgiving.’

Passover. So he was Jewish, which, for no fathomable reason, made Jules like him more. ‘Where do you live, Joe?’ she asked.

‘Mum, I told you yesterday,’ Daisy chided. ‘He lives three blocks away, and goes to the same school as Oscar.’

‘Of course, I’m sorry.’ Daisy had indeed told her yesterday, when she’d returned from seeing a movie with Mattie and Oscar and been able to talk about nothing but Joe who’d gone with them.

‘You should see him, Mum, he is like totally drop-dead and you know I don’t ever say that about anyone unless it’s true.’

‘No, you don’t,’ Jules had smiled. ‘So do you think he’s interested in you?’

Daisy blushed. ‘Mattie says he is, and even Oscar reckons there’s something … Oh Mum, I wish we weren’t going to the lake. I mean, I’m glad we are because we always love it there, but I’ve just met him and I might never see him again after the end of this week, or not until we come back next year and by then he’ll have forgotten all about me.’