Lost Angel (26 page)

‘I can’t tell him not to play with her,’ Ruth replied defensively, all too aware of why Angel cried whenever Johnny left: because he was the only one who was ever nice to her. But the more the child gravitated towards him, the more Ruth resented her, so it was a vicious circle.

Rita reached for the remote and turned the volume of the TV up to a deafening level. Drumming her fingernails on the arm of her chair, she stared at the screen for several seconds, then snapped, ‘Oh, for God’s sake! I’ve had enough of this. I can’t get any peace in my own flaming house.’

‘I’ll sort it,’ Ruth told her, getting up.

‘Make sure you do,’ Rita warned as Ruth made her way to the door. ‘’Cos if you don’t, I will.’

Ruth’s nostrils were flaring with irritation as she stomped up the stairs. As usual, Angel had started crying as soon as Johnny had tired of playing with her and put her down, and Ruth had tried everything to shut her up. She’d given her a bottle and bathed her, but that hadn’t worked, so she’d dumped her in her cot and shut the door on her. But her high-pitched wailing still filtered out and echoed all over the house.

She walked into Angel’s room now and gripped the cot rail. Angel’s face was scarlet, her toothless mouth wide and quivering, her eyes a watery mess.

‘Shut up,’ Ruth hissed, glaring down at her. But the sound of her voice just seemed to make Angel cry all the more, so she put her hand over her daughter’s mouth – and held it there for several long seconds.

The child stopped squirming. Snapping to her senses, Ruth gaped down at Angel in terror.

‘Oh, God, what have I done?’ she gasped, snatching her out of the cot and shaking her. ‘Wake up, Angel, please wake up!’

Angel gulped in a quivering breath and started crying again. Her whole body shaking with relief, Ruth held the child against her chest and patted her on the back, whispering, ‘Ssshh, baby . . . ssshh, ssshh, ssshh.’

Exhausted, Angel eventually fell asleep. Terrified to think that she had almost killed her, Ruth laid her gently back in the cot. The sheet felt damp, so she took another one out of the drawer and covered her with it. Then she sat down on the chair and cried.

Anyone who came into this nursery would think that Angel was the luckiest baby alive. The drawers were neatly stacked with freshly washed sheets and baby clothes, and the walls were painted in pretty pastel shades, and decorated with jolly murals of nursery-rhyme characters. And Ruth had done it all – like a good mother was supposed to. So why couldn’t she actually
be
a good mother?

I’m going to change
, she vowed for the hundredth time.
This stops now
.

20

Frankie passed away a week before Angel turned six but the funeral was held on her actual birthday, so the child was pretty much overlooked while Johnny and Ruth concentrated on giving her grandfather a lavish send-off.

As befitted the big man Frankie had once been, they had spared no expense. Four black stretch limousines were booked to ferry the relatives from the house to the church to the cemetery and back, and an ornate glass-sided carriage and four black horses were lined up to parade Frankie through the streets in his super-expensive black-ash coffin.

Every living member of the Hynes family had come from all over to pay their respects, and the house was bursting at the seams by the time the wake kicked off on the night before the funeral – with Frankie in his open coffin taking centre stage in the front room.

First thing in the morning, Ruth cleared the whisky and Guinness bottles out of the coffin and wiped the lipstick marks off her dad’s waxy cheeks, before rooting around for the cigar that an uncle had placed between Frankie’s unresponsive lips the night before and which had mysteriously disappeared. Finding it underneath him, as if he’d concealed it to smoke in peace when the dust had settled, she brushed the ash off his suit and then carefully applied some make-up to give him the glow that he’d favoured in life. Then, as a final touch, she arranged his freshly dyed hair back into the quiff he’d always worn and kissed him goodbye before tearfully allowing the undertakers to secure the lid.

All of which should really have fallen to Rita but she was already half-cut, having started drinking even before she donned her widow’s weeds, so Ruth had gladly taken on the task.

The parade kicked off once the rest of the mourners had arrived. After a slow walk through the local streets, followed by a full Catholic service at the church where Ruth and Johnny had been married, the cortege escorted Frankie on his final ride to the cemetery before making their way back to the house to continue the party in his honour.

Angel didn’t understand any of it.

She hadn’t really known her grandpa, because she’d been forbidden from going into his room on her own when he’d been alive. Not that she’d have gone in even if she had been allowed to, because she’d been scared of him on the occasions when she’d been forced to see him – usually on his birthday or at Christmas. He was old and grey, and he smelled bad. But it was the horrible noises he made when he tried to talk that had really frightened her.

Although nobody else seemed to have been frightened of him. Her mum, dad, and the big bear man used to smile and act as if they understood what he was saying, while her nan tended to shout at him – and everyone knew that you didn’t shout at people you were scared of. You kept your mouth shut and stayed out of their way – like Angel had long ago learned to do with her mum and her nan.

Her nan wasn’t crying today, but everybody else was, and it confused Angel to see so many strangers wailing, and going on about how much they were going to miss her grandpa. She couldn’t help but wonder why they had never come to see him when he was alive if they loved him as much as they claimed to. But her mum really
was
upset, so she couldn’t ask her about it. And she couldn’t ask her dad, either, because he was too busy running around making sure that everybody’s glass stayed full – even though Angel thought that they’d all had more than enough already. She’d seen her mum and her nan drunk often enough to know what it looked like, and it was never good, because they always ended up arguing and crying.

Angel was sitting quietly in a corner of the front room when Dave arrived later that afternoon. As a mark of respect, Johnny had closed the yard for the day. But only to the public, so Dave had still had to go in and do all his usual paperwork. He glanced around when he walked in now, and nodded hello to Ruth, Rita and Lisa who were across the room chatting to some female relatives while a clearly distraught Big Pat was being consoled by some elderly ladies in another corner. The men were standing around in groups, drinking and loudly reminiscing, while Johnny flitted between them topping up their glasses.

When he spotted Angel sitting by herself, Dave went over and squatted down in front of her.

‘Hello, birthday girl. How you doing?’

‘Fine, thank you,’ she replied, pulling her skirt demurely down over her knees.

Dave felt the same tug of sadness that he always felt when he looked into her huge, sombre eyes. His sister’s kid, Kayleigh, wasn’t half as pretty, but she was as vain as a little peacock as a result of all the compliments she received. And that was the way it should be if you were one of the lucky ones who’d been blessed with beauty. But Angel was the quietest, most unassuming kid he’d ever met, and that didn’t seem right somehow.

Still, she was Johnny’s kid not his, and he had no right to judge his friend’s parenting skills – not when he knew that Angel would probably be as loud and as rude as his sister’s lot if she had been his.

‘Food looks good,’ Dave said, eyeing the loaded table. ‘Have you had anything to eat yet?’

When Angel shook her head, he said, ‘Wait there,’ and pushed himself back up to his feet. He took a couple of paper plates off the pile and walked from one end of the table to the other, loading one with savouries, the other with stuff that he thought a six-year-old girl would like – mainly cakes and biscuits, with a couple of mini sausage rolls for good measure.

‘Thank you,’ Angel said when Dave came back and passed her plate to her.

‘You’re welcome,’ he said, sitting beside her and tucking in. A couple of sandwiches later, when he glanced at her and noticed that she hadn’t even touched her food, he nudged her. ‘You are supposed to eat it, not just look at it, you know.’

Angel smiled politely and nibbled on a fairy cake. She liked her Uncle Dave. He was funny, and he always made a point of talking to her when everybody else was too busy. But her mum and her nan didn’t really approve of him, so she hoped he would move away before they noticed them sitting together and got mad at her.

Johnny only realised that Dave was here when he was on his way out to the kitchen to get some more alcohol.

‘All right, mate,’ he said. ‘Didn’t see you come in. How long have you been here?’

‘Not long,’ Dave told him, putting his plate down and wiping his palms on his trousers before shaking Johnny’s hand. ‘You were busy, so I thought I’d have a little chat with the birthday girl.’

Johnny looked down at Angel and gave her a regretful smile. ‘Not been much of a birthday so far, has it, darlin’? But you know I’ll make it up to you, don’t you?’

Angel nodded, her eyes lighting up for the first time all day.

‘Don’t worry, I’ve been keeping her company,’ Dave assured him. ‘We’ve been having a little picnic.’

‘Cheers, mate.’ Johnny clapped him gratefully on the back. ‘I should have checked on her but I’ve been run off my feet all day. Anyhow, come and give us a hand getting some more booze for these greedy dickheads,’ he went on quietly. ‘And I’ve got a bit of white, if you’re up for it?’

‘Cool.’ Forgetting all about Angel and their so-called picnic, Dave abandoned his plate and followed Johnny out.

Angel felt sad as she watched them go. Her dad was her sun, her moon, and all the stars in between, and she wished that he wasn’t always so busy. But her mum was always reminding her that his work was more important than she was, so she had to stop being selfish and just be grateful that at least he’d been home today.

Her Aunt Lisa came over.

‘Hey, babe, you okay?’ she asked as she sat down on Dave’s vacated chair.

Angel smiled and nodded. Lisa wasn’t her real aunt – she was actually her second cousin. But it was respectful to call older people aunt or uncle, so that was what Angel had always known her as.

‘God, my feet are killing me after all that walking,’ Lisa complained, slipping off her shoes and rubbing at her soles. ‘But I suppose it’s my own fault for wearing heels. Should have been sensible like your mum and worn flats.’

‘They’re pretty,’ Angel murmured, glancing down at the strappy black sandals.

‘Yeah, but the better they look, the more they hurt you,’ said Lisa, gazing wistfully at the door through which Johnny had left and thinking that that went double for men.

Johnny still hadn’t been to see her since her Uncle Frankie had died, even though he must have known how upset she’d be. And while she understood that it must have been difficult for him to get away, given that he’d had to arrange the funeral and everything, it had cut her up to think that he’d been here, giving comfort to that fat bitch cousin of hers instead.

‘Mine hurt as well,’ Angel said quietly.

‘Sorry?’ Lisa snapped her head around. ‘What hurts, babe?’

‘My shoes.’ Angel lifted her foot.

Wincing when she saw the blister on the back of the child’s heel, Lisa said, ‘Ooh, that looks painful. You need a plaster on that. Does your mummy still keep them in the kitchen cupboard?’ When Angel nodded, Lisa said, ‘Stay there, I’ll go and get one.’

Across the room, Ruth jumped to her feet when she noticed her cousin heading for the door. Johnny had just gone out there, and she didn’t want the sneaky tart cosying up to him. Not that it would get her anywhere, because Johnny had always said that he wouldn’t go near Lisa if she was the last woman on Earth. But that wouldn’t stop her from trying, and Ruth wasn’t having that.

Lisa was already on her way back from the kitchen when Ruth marched out into the hall. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked when she saw the angry look on Ruth’s face.

‘I’m looking for Johnny,’ Ruth told her. ‘Have you seen him?’

‘He wasn’t in the kitchen.’ Lisa gave an innocent shrug. ‘Probably nipped out with Dave to have a fag. I just went to get this.’ She held up the Elastoplast. ‘Angel’s got a massive blister on the back of her foot.’

‘Oh,’ Ruth murmured, a little ashamed that she hadn’t noticed it herself. But it wasn’t easy to think about the small stuff when you’d just buried your father. Anyway, Angel had a mouth. If it was that bad, she should have said something.

‘How are you bearing up?’ Lisa asked now, giving her cousin a concerned look. ‘We haven’t had much of a chance to talk, what with the aunts rabbiting on, but I’m in bits, so it must be ten times worse for you.’

Ruth gritted her teeth. She didn’t want Lisa’s fake sympathy. They might have been close once upon a time, but there was no way they were ever going to be that way again. And she didn’t want Lisa to think that there was a chance that they could be or she’d go back to popping round whenever she felt like it, which would be totally unbearable.

‘I won’t say it’s been the easiest day of my life,’ she replied coolly. Then, ‘Excuse me, I need to go and find my husband.’

Lisa watched as her cousin walked away. When the doorbell rang almost immediately she turned to answer it, but Rita came hurtling out of the front room and shoved her out of the way.

It was Frankie’s solicitor, Trevor Dean.

‘Come in,’ Rita ordered, eyeing his briefcase. ‘Hope that’s the will?’

Ruth heard her mother’s voice and came back into the kitchen doorway. ‘Who is it?’

‘Solicitor,’ said Rita, slamming the door shut behind him. She glared at Lisa as she pushed the man up the hall. ‘What are you standing there catching flies for? This is none of your business, so pull your big nose in and bugger off.’

Before they had reached the parlour, Frankie’s brother strode out of the front room. ‘What was that about a will? Is it here?’