The Footballer's Wife (18 page)

Standing at the top of Canterbury Avenue, Tracy could see Len's house and a couple of cars parked across the road that Tracy assumed – having been papped herself on account of her daughter Leanne's previous infamy – belonged to photographers. She walked towards the house with her files under her arm. As she passed the parked cars there was no sign of Len but a journalist jumped out of the car when he recognised her. A photographer leapt out of the passenger seat and took her picture. Tracy was delighted to be wearing a suit. Any other pictures that had been printed in the press had always made her look as if someone had just dragged her out of bed and straight through a hedge.

‘What do you think of all this then, Tracy?' the journalist asked. Must be from a tabloid, she thought, using her name and pretending to be all matey.

‘No comment,' Tracy said. She'd always wanted to say that. She'd always wanted to say a lot of things but usually her mouth ran away with her and she ended up saying something abusive.

‘All dressed up and nowhere to go?' the journalist asked. Tracy wasn't about to rise to it. She knew that these hacks could say far nastier things than that to provoke a response. Leanne had once told her about
a time she had been called a slut by a journalist just so that the photographer could get a picture of her looking angry. Tracy wouldn't have been responsible for where she'd have shoved the camera if she'd been there.

‘I have, actually. I'm working, if you don't mind.'

‘Heard anything from Len Metcalfe?'

Tracy thought for a paranoid moment that this woman might know that there was a past connection between her and Len. Then she realised that she was just trying to get any quote she could. ‘Why would I?' Tracy asked simply.

‘Your lad used to go out with Charly.'

‘Doesn't mean Len's crying on the blower to me every time he's arrested for suspected murder.' Tracy glared at the journalist. ‘Anyway, if you don't mind, some of us have got a decent day's work to do.'

The woman laughed and got back in the car. Tracy waltzed on down the road as if she owned the place and, judging by the amount of outstanding debt owed to Markie and Mac, it appeared for the time being she did.

Tracy's thoughts were still with the journalist when she saw a woman walking towards her. She wouldn't have recognised her at first if it hadn't
been for the walk. She'd always had a walk that suggested she thought she should be strutting down a catwalk in Paris rather than slumming it in Bolingbroke, but the once shapely figure was now bloated and pear-shaped. Tracy couldn't believe her eyes: it was Shirley Metcalfe.

Shirley obviously saw Tracy and was about to duck out of her way but then realised she couldn't get out of the meeting and had to brazen it out. Tracy slowed as they neared one another and the two women finally came face to face.

‘Well, well,' Shirley said, ‘look what the cat's dragged in.'

‘Well, well,' said Tracy in response, ‘look what's eaten everything the cat's dragged in.'

‘Don't get mouthy, Tracy; you know it just gets you into trouble,' Shirley said, trying to stare Tracy out.

‘I won't bother taking advice from someone who fucks off and leaves their family to rot, thanks very much,' Tracy said, enjoying a rare moment occupying the moral high ground.

‘And you're Mother of the Year?'

‘Never said I was, but I'm here, aren't I?' She looked down on Shirley, having the advantage of a good three inches on the woman.

‘Bet your Charly's worth a penny or two now that husband of hers is dead.'

‘What you suggesting?'

‘I'm suggesting nowt. Just saying, funny time for you to turn back up.'

Shirley didn't miss a beat. ‘You still selling stories on your Leanne? I read about that. Nice touch.'

Tracy wasn't in the mood for lectures on how to conduct herself from someone like Shirley Metcalfe. ‘I think you'd better watch your mouth round these parts. There's a lot of people who won't like the fact you're back.'

‘Really? Who?' Shirley asked.

‘My lot, for a start.'

Shirley laughed. ‘Your
lot
? The Cromptons?' She didn't have to say anything else; Tracy knew what she was thinking. Her scummy lot had been a force to be reckoned with for years; not any more.

‘Ask anyone on this estate and they'll tell you, things have changed. Our Markie runs the show, so if you're thinking of sticking around, which I'm sure you're not – first sign of a better offer and you'll be off – then you'd be well advised to be a bit nicer to me.'

Shirley made to walk off. Tracy couldn't help herself; she couldn't just have the last word, she had
to have the last paragraph. ‘You seen Charly yet?' Shirley slowed but didn't turn around. ‘You haven't, have you? Well, she's had a week of it, hasn't she?'

‘What's that supposed to mean?' Shirley stopped.

‘She's been telling everyone you're dead for years: husband in the morgue and a mother back from the dead all in the space of a weekend. That's something to get your head around.'

Shirley walked away, picking up speed as she went. Tracy smiled to herself. One nil to me, she thought, as she watched the larger-than-life girth of Shirley Metcalfe sashay off down the street, a little less confidently than it had approached.

*

Shirley walked along the side of her old house and sat on the rickety garden bench that had been there since she and Len had moved in. She looked down at her hands. They were shaking. Tracy bloody Crompton, she thought. Of all the people to see; she hated that woman. Tracy had been a year above Shirley at school and had made her life a misery. She hadn't liked Shirley because she was pretty (which had never made sense to Shirley as Tracy had been a knockout when she was younger). But
Tracy was just one of those mouthy girls who couldn't help herself.

It hadn't helped that when she and Len originally got together he still held a torch for Tracy. And Tracy wasn't shy about announcing the fact to the entire estate. She never got to the bottom of what had happened there, she hadn't really wanted to find out if she was honest, but they had had a rocky, intense relationship, she knew that much. And as much as she tried with Len over the years, Shirley had never felt that she could match up to Tracy. In the end she'd got on with cooking the tea and washing the pots and had stopped trying to create any magnetism between her and her husband. She had loved Len but she was never quite sure how much he loved her back.

When Leanne, Tracy's daughter, had briefly become the centre of tabloid attention over a year ago, Shirley couldn't believe it. She was living miles away from Bradington but could get a sneaky look at what was going on on the estate. Tracy had made great tabloid fodder with her ‘fuck you' attitude and her interesting approach to parenting. And then when it transpired that she had been feeding stories to the papers about her own daughter, the moral majority were up in arms. Shirley had pored over
every paper at the time; anything for signs that maybe Tracy and Len had somehow got back together. So it had come as a surprise to see Charly's name mentioned in connection with the Cromptons rather than Len's. She had been dating Scott Crompton and had traded him in for a better model in the shape of Joel Baldy.

Shirley had been so homesick reading these articles, reminding her of her old life and making her think about what she had now – which wasn't much – and what she had left behind. She didn't have an answer for why she hadn't come home earlier. She had wanted to, but every time she thought about it the reality of having to face up to her abandonment of her own family kept her away.

She looked around the garden. Nothing had changed here. There was still a potting shed, something Len had erected in a bid to be the next Alan Titchmarsh, but that had only ever been used to store junk. There were flowerless flower beds and a little paved area that was neat and tidy; Len had always been almost fetishistic about weeds. She thought about the summers that she had spent in this garden.

There was something about the past, Shirley thought, that always made her remember it on a
sunny summer's day, just as the light is fading and all seems well with the world. What she had to remember was that this garden had felt like a prison for many years. This was where she hung the washing out, where the kids played as they weren't allowed to go out on the street (there was a halfway house two doors down for young offenders that were being reintroduced into the community but weren't exactly there with the socialisation as far as she and Len had been concerned). Her life had seemed like one long round of watching
This Morning
, cleaning and sleepless nights. She had even turned to drink for a spell but that just made her like everyone else around here as far as she could see: pissed, maudlin and wanting to make the kids dance to ‘Under Pressure' when they'd never even heard of it. The drunken mother routine wasn't a look she liked in other people and she despised it in herself. She'd had ambition once. It had been aimless, but it had been there – plain ambition. She had wanted to see the world, go on holidays with her family, get out of Bolingbroke once in a while. But that had all faded as she became this invisible woman who occupied 29a Canterbury Avenue.

Len had never listened. No matter how often she told him that she was fed up or lonely he just
thought that she was being sensitive and expecting too much from life. Len was a realist. He'd been in prison and had come out with the attitude that anything was better than that. ‘My glass is half full,' he'd once said to Shirley.

‘What of, piss?' she'd replied, leading to one of their arguments that in turn led to days of silences.

Sitting on the bench now, she couldn't quite work out what she had come back for. It certainly wasn't this house, or a ready-made family life, as her children had grown up and moved on. But for some hard-to-define reason, she was glad to be back. And the one person she wanted to see more than anyone was Charly. She just wasn't sure that her daughter would feel the same way. She'd soon find out though: she was going to get the address from Len and get a taxi to Charly's place. And she was going to pay the fare with the little bit of money that she'd brought with her; the only money that Shirley had to her name.

*

Charly was sitting in the wingback swivel chair that Joel had insisted on letting his interior designer buy because the man had informed him it was cool.
Charly had pointed out at the time that it might be ‘cool' but it was about as comfortable as sitting on a spike. Now that Joel wasn't here, she didn't want to get out of the pointless designer chair. It was another fading connection to him that she was desperate to cling to.

The family liaison officer who had been assigned to Charly was sitting opposite her. Her name was Carol and Charly couldn't help feeling sorry for her that this was her job; constantly surrounded by other people's grief.

‘Would you like a cup of tea?' Charly asked.

Carol smiled gently. ‘That's the tenth cup of tea you've offered me today.'

Charly looked at the floor. ‘Sorry.'

‘Don't apologise. It's hard to know what to say to anyone, isn't it?'

Charly nodded. She felt as if she had been taken out of the world of polite conversation and was now forever to be the person who was defined by the shocking events of the past week. Managing to ask someone repeatedly if they fancied a cup of tea felt like progress.

Carol had been explaining to Charly what she could expect to happen now. Charly hadn't been able to bring herself to identify the body so Joel's
father had flown back from Spain and had confirmed that it was Joel. Charly had met with him briefly but there was something detached about the man that made Charly feel uncomfortable. She had wanted to fall into his arms and cry about Joel, to ask him for every bit of information he had about his son, as if by talking about him she was somehow keeping Joel's spirit alive. But he had seemed closed off and quiet. Charly thought for a moment that maybe he thought of her as a gold-digger – someone who'd just wanted his son for his money – but that would have been rich coming from a man who decorated his bar in pictures of Joel to attract British tourists and had only recently tapped Joel up for a fifty thousand pound ‘loan' which Joel had told Charly he would never see again. Or maybe he just didn't want to share his loss with someone he hardly knew. Either way Charly felt that he didn't particularly want to talk to her and that he was more concerned with the practical arrangements.

Carol explained that an inquest would be set up into the cause of death. Once the cause of death and where the police investigation was currently up to was recorded, the inquest would be adjourned whilst the criminal investigation could continue. The words felt syrupy and remote to Charly. All
that she could think of was Joel and why someone would want to murder him.

‘When will the funeral be?' Charly asked. The idea of leaving the house at the moment was a daunting prospect, never mind leaving it to attend the funeral, but she knew it was something she had to do.

‘It may be a long time before the body is released for burial,' Carol said, reaching out her hand and touching Charly's.

Charly looked at her. ‘What?' She couldn't be serious, could she? ‘How long? We can't all sit around waiting for weeks, can we? Is this what happens?'

‘I'm sorry, Charly, I really am.'

Charly stood up suddenly. ‘Who did this to him? Why?'

‘We'll do everything we can to find out.'

‘Who would be so evil?' She began to sob. She hadn't cried for the first few days but now she felt like it was all she did.

Carol let her cry. Charly felt foolish showing such emotion in front of this woman but there wasn't anyone else to cry to. ‘They think it's my dad, don't they?' she asked, wiping her nose.