Getting Home (34 page)

‘It would make things so much better for you,' was the eager response. ‘You have no idea, no idea. TV is only thing people respect in this world, I promise you. If you've been on TV, they treat you right. It's that simple. I mean, I wish it wasn't, I'm not saying this is right or anything. But can you imagine how Miss Helens would be if she thought I'd be coming down with a video journalist to film her fucking climbing frame?'

Fool. Fool you were to think this bitch could have had anything else on her mind. Fool to think that anything as useless and sentimental as friendship could exist in this world. ‘Go away,' Stephanie said sadly ‘Just go away, Allie. Leave me alone. You know how I feel about this, can't you just stop hassling me?'

‘You're upset. I'm trying to help you, you know that.' That touch on the arm again, slimy with insincerity. ‘Don't worry, I'll go, Steph. Of course I will, I'm sorry it the wrong time.'

‘No it wasn't,' was the weary reply. ‘It was the wrong question and I'm the wrong person. You're a piece of work, Allie. You really are. How can you come over to my house thinking you can take advantage of me because our son's been bullied at school?'

‘I'm just trying to help you,' she protested, as Stephanie advanced and began to shoo her out of the house like a chicken. ‘You're upset, darling, or you'd see that. I just want to do what I can … I mean, the only point of a privileged position like I have is helping your friends, isn't it?'

Allie was still mugging sympathy on the front path when the phone rang, giving Stephanie perfect cause to shut the door in her face.

‘Mrs Sands.' It was the vulpine young man from Greenwoods and there was a wholly different kind of energy in his voice. ‘I wonder if you'd have the time to stop by our office? Something's come up on your property which I'd like to talk to you about.'

‘What? What's come up? What do you mean, come up?'

‘If you could stop by I could show you what I mean.'

‘You mean it's too heavy to talk about on the telephone?' A drench of pure panic chilled her. What in the world could be that serious?

‘Well …'

‘OK.' There was half an hour before she had to leave for school. ‘I'm on my way.'

Fifteen minutes later she wove her way through the yammering negotiators and the icy air-conditioning of Greenwoods'offices and found herself in another windowless, coffin-like interview room with another boy trying to do a man's job, this time with rather more sensitivity.

‘What it is,' he began, holding some papers to his chest to hide them from her, ‘is we have a routine procedure here with all our properties, just checking if there are any planning applications affecting the area at all. Now in this case, when we went through to the planning office, this is what came up.' Such tact, making it seem as if whatever disaster this might be had manifested spontaneously, without being any person's actual fault.

He put down the papers and turned the top page towards her. She recognised a map of Westwick. Each house plot appeared as a rectangle fronting its road. His finger traced the Broadway, then New Farm Rise. From the north, two thick black lines had been drawn through the grid of homes, slicing across the top of New Farm Rise. Every plot which fell between the thick black lines was crossed through.

The houses were numbered. ‘You see,' he said. ‘Here you are.' And there was her home, with a black cross through it.

‘But what is it?' she asked, ready to burst into tears. He put a box of tissues by her elbow, freshly opened, pink. Amazing how considerate people could be when your relationship was only commercial.

‘It's the route of the access road for the Oak Hill Business Park. Work is scheduled to begin early next year, so you would be hearing from the Department of Transport any day now. Basically, what it is, Mrs Sands – your house is scheduled for demolition.'

A high wind barged around Westwick, a bad-tempered blast of heavy air which threatened thunder and ripped the first dead leaves off the trees. As Stephanie drove to Gemma's house, she registered the noise of a police siren with the low-grade curiosity of a Westwick citizen confident that whatever crime might be in progress could not be happening here, but when she turned into Alder Reach she found its calm ruptured. The blue light oscillated over the blank lawns and glared into the windows of the Lieberman house. This household, the beacon proclaimed, could lay no claim to discretion; this household had partaken in illegal activity, it had waived all rights to privacy.

‘It's my sister,' Topaz warned, letting them in. With portentous solemnity she suggested, ‘You might want to send Max up to play with the girls in Molly's room.'

All eyes were focused on Flora, who sat at the end of the sofa, folded over her knees with her hands over her eyes and her hair tumbling over her hands as if she could shut out the world. A police officer – Stephanie recognised WPC Clegg's skewered coiffure – perched in the chair opposite with an open notebook.

At the opposite end of the sofa was Gemma, unnaturally still with her arms folded around her bosom and her hands in fists. ‘Hi, Steph. Don't even-think about excuses not to be here, we need our friends right now,' was her greeting and she pointed towards the kitchen area where Rod was walking about in short, fierce paces, ineffectually tending a saucepan.

‘What exactly did he do?' WPC Clegg was saying.

The curtain of Flora's hair twitched and she whispered, ‘He grabbed me.'

‘Grabbed you?'

‘Uhhhh …' A long strangled breath.

‘When you say he grabbed you, exactly where—'

‘Is this necessary right now?' Gemma gave the officer her full-freeze eye contact. ‘You can see she's upset.'

‘There've been some severe injuries caused, we need to establish the facts.'

‘Surely the most important fact is that this man has been stalking my sister for months,' suggested Topaz, with the air of a poker player putting down a strong hand.

Gemma's face drained white and she leaped two cushions towards Flora, but was stilled by a glare from her eldest daughter.

‘So what you're saying is that you know this young man?' countered WPC Clegg, speaking as if Damon Parsons were every girl's dream bridegroom and peering sideways at Flora, trying to make eye contact through the I protective screen of hair.

‘Oh, please,' sniped Topaz. ‘Millions of people “know” Damon Parsons. He's the son of a national celebrity, his mother's on TV. She gives interviews to the press about her problems with him. He's always causing trouble.'

‘We are concerned with what actually took place, not what people read in the newspapers,' the officer returned, primly smoothing the top page of her notebook.

‘And Damon Parsons is well known in the neighbourhood,' Topaz continued unhesitatingly, ‘where he can be seen most days walking around like a crazy person throwing stones at cars and where we all attended the same school until he was suspended last year for disruptive behaviour, abusing alcohol and violence.'

‘That's as may be,' the officer responded doggedly, ‘I'm only concerned with this incident which as far as we are concerned is about an alleged assault. Severe injuries have been caused to the young man. Obviously if there was provocation we need to establish its nature.'

‘What do you mean, provocation? My sister didn't attack this man.'

‘If you don't mind, may I continue?'

Stephanie had never seen Topaz angry before – annoyed, perhaps, when her mother irritated her, but generally Topaz did not waste effort on emotion. Still by nature, she was now as immobile as marble, her slender hands and feet both folded neatly together, lethally inert. Her blink rate was elevated and there was a neon glow of indignation her eyes.

‘So when he grabbed you, where exactly did his touch you?' WPC Clegg repositioned her pen over her notebook.

Flora suddenly threw back her hair, revealing a wet red face. ‘First he grabbed my hair,' she said with angry sarcasm, picking out a handful and offering it to her inquisitor. ‘This bit about here, I think.'

‘I can understand that you are upset about this,' the officer snapped back, ‘but it would help if we could all keep calm and just recall the events.'

‘Oh, right,' Flora agreed with anger. ‘Right. Well, I think the next thing was I turned around and pulled my hair away from him and started running away. Then he grabbed my shoulder and then my arm.' As she held out her left arm, the torn seams of her T-shirt parted; underneath, there were already red welts on her pale skin. ‘And I pulled away from him and ran away. Then he ran after me and grabbed my arm again, and my clothes, which got torn, and then he grabbed my breast.' Defiantly, she pushed out her chest, letting the torn clothing fall away. Between breast and shoulder were two long scratches. ‘And then,' she pulled up her chin and twisted her neck to the right, pointing at another angry abrasion with her fingertips, ‘he went for my neck. He was holding me too tight for me to get away, so I decided to kick him. I can't kick very well, I'm really worst in the class at kicking. He was still holding my neck and ripping at my clothes. When I kicked the second time I got it right and then he ran off.'

Gemma opened her arms and her daughter fell into them.

‘And I heard him yelling and I saw the whole thing from the house,' Topaz added.

‘So it was you who decided to call us?' The officer made it sound as if this was quite the most foolish course of action anyone could possibly have taken.

‘Yes,' Topaz confirmed, dangerously obedient. ‘I decided to call the police when he went for her neck.'

‘So when you say you're the worst in the class attacking …' Now WPC Clegg put on an earnest air of enquiry, but her eyes were full of guile. ‘What class would that be, exactly?'

‘Martial arts. Judo and stuff,' said Flora. ‘I took it up because he was harassing me and I was afraid.'

‘You know that if you're a brown belt or above you have a legal obligation to register with the police?' Censorious, closing the notebook as if further discussion was going to be futile.

‘Brown belt!' The words came out between a snarl and a sob. ‘In your dreams. I was crap,' Flora pulled away the ripped front pocket of her overalls with a disgusted gesture. ‘I've only done six lessons. I won't even take grade one until next year.'

‘Perhaps you're better than you think you are,' WPC Clegg suggested, tenacious still although visibly disappointed. ‘The injuries are severe. There may be broken bones. We are awaiting medical reports.' She looked around the room as if for inspiration and her eye came to rest on Rod, who was folding and refolding a kitchen towel, the fig leaf covering the deficient masculinity which had allowed a female in his protection to be attacked. ‘And when this was happening, you were … Mr, uh …?'

‘I was coming over,' he said, with regret. ‘I got here just before you did. My names Fuller. Rod Fuller.'

‘So you live here?' The question was delivered with thunderous absence of judgement: an immoral house-hold, an absolute invitation to incident but we, the authorities, having no business with morality, will take no position on
that.

‘No,' Rod's voice was richly level. ‘I live on the houseboat
Dawn Treader
, The Moorings, Riverview Drive. With my daughter Courtenay, who is upstairs. I'm just a friend of Mrs Lieberman. We know each other through our children.'

‘Was anyone with you at home?'

‘No one apart from her. I was on the telephone. I was I talking to my agent.'

‘What kind of agent would that be?' WPC Clegg knew she had paddled up the wrong creek but was intent on finding something to justify the voyage.

‘I'm an actor.' Rod muffled the word, having increasingly less and less experience of his profession and memories which sadness and wine had faded a great deal.

‘An actor.' An artistic so-called profession, notorious for irregular living but we, the authorities, having no business with morality, will take no position on that either. WPC Clegg turned back to Gemma. ‘And you were …'

‘Right there cooking,' was the defiant answer, daring the officer to suggest that a mother should be anywhere other than at hearth and home.

‘You're not writing anything,' Topaz observed.

The officer decided the pursuit had gone on long enough and it was time for the kill. She shut her notebook. ‘The man you say attacked you, Miss Lieberman, has severe injuries. He's lost some teeth and may have a broken nose or a broken jaw. The doctor is with him at this point in time. I understand his family are reluctant to get involved in any case against you because of the publicity—'

‘That figures,' Gemma sniffed. ‘Allie Parsons, the nation's top young mother, invites readers to her lovely a home to talk about why her son's a rapist. I mean, it's not really tasteful, is it?'

‘They are very gravely distressed but they have some sympathy for the young lady and what I would suggest in this situation …'

At this moment the telephone rang, and Topaz, who was nearest to a receiver, answered. ‘This is the worst possible time,' she hissed furiously. ‘
The worst possible
time.'

‘In these circumstances,' WPC Clegg continued, smiling at Gemma with extreme menace, ‘given that there are two possible chargeable offences here, and that your daughter fortunately is not really hurt, or at least is not as severely injured as the young man, the best course might be for us to allow the two families to resolve this matter …'

‘Why yes,' said Topaz to the telephone with toxic sweetness, ‘there is one thing you can do, Ted. You can tell this … woman … from the police that if she gets as far as offering my mother a bribe on your behalf my mother will probably kill her. That would be a real help. I'm going to pass you over to her and you can do it right now.'