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  ‘Heard she’d gone abroad,’ he now said, looking at her challengingly.

  Vanessa had been about to storm off but now she stopped. What did this man with his rough accent and nose ring know about her daughter? ‘I believe so,’ she answered evenly, trying to sound cool even though her heart was pounding.

  ‘Don’t know where she went, do you?’ he persisted. ‘I’ve been looking for her, like.’

  ‘I don’t.’ Vanessa felt a wave of disappointment. So he knew as little as she did!

  Sunshine, sensing her unease, was now tugging at her hand. ‘Come on, Van Van.’

  He scowled. ‘And who is this?’

  ‘Sunshine!’ Her granddaughter’s face beamed up at him – so trusting, so open. ‘But Van Van sometimes calls me poppet!’

  The man knelt down so that his weasel face was level with her granddaughter. His skin was like a pimply crater and he stank of stale BO. She tried to pull Sunshine away but the child was standing firm.

  ‘Poppet, eh? And how old are you?’

  Sunshine treated him to one of her big wide smiles. ‘I’m six.’

  ‘Six?’ He looked up at Vanessa, his eyes narrowing again. ‘That’s interesting. Your daughter and I were stepping out together around that time. Did you know that? Granny?’ He said the last bit in a nasty sarcastic way. Then his eyes narrowed. ‘At least, I guess that’s what you are.’

  ‘Go away.’ Vanessa heard her voice come out in a growl. ‘Leave us alone.’

  He scratched his chin thoughtfully. It had, she noticed with disgust, a few straggly hairs on it; the kind that men got when they couldn’t grow a beard. What on earth had her daughter seen in this rude, uncouth lout?

  ‘I wonder,’ he was saying, looking at Sunshine. ‘I wonder …’

  ‘I said: Leave us alone!’

  ‘Everything all right?’

  Vanessa swung round to see Brian. Her heart filled with relief. Never had she been so pleased to see him! ‘No. It’s not.’

  Brian’s eyes narrowed. ‘I recognise you, don’t I? Jason, isn’t it?’

  ‘Keep your hair on, Granddad!’ The youth spat on the ground. ‘You’re not my headmaster now.’ He focused his narrow eyes on Vanessa again. ‘Got to go away now on a job. But I’ll be back. Still live in the same place, do you?’ He glanced down at Sunshine. ‘Cos something tells me that this little lady and I need to be better acquainted.’

  There was a grin. A stained yellow-toothed grin. ‘Dads have legal rights too, you know. And I’ve always fancied being one. Reckon I’d make a good father. Don’t you?’

  SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR FAMILY CONFERENCES

  The recent ‘You have exceeded your allowance’ email from broadband.

  Missing tenner from your purse.

  Unmade beds.

  Foul language.

  School detentions.

  Lost PE kit.

  Unsavoury friends.

  Extracted from www.perfectparentsnevergiveup.com.

  Chapter 12

  ANDY

  ANDY DIDN’T THINK he’d miss the office. Hadn’t he been desperate for a break? On the whole, he was enjoying the rest. He really was, even though it felt odd not to check his emails every five minutes or hold back-to-back meetings. Even so, he invariably found himself downloading The Times on to his iPad after breakfast so he could check the business pages.

  There had been a small piece the other day about him selling the business to Harry Screws and it had given Andy an odd pang to see their names in print. It didn’t seem real to be reminded of his old world. Not when he was sitting in the kitchen, surrounded by the girls’ half-empty coffee mugs and dirty cereal bowls. It felt like playing truant: an experience he hadn’t been unfamiliar with as a kid.

  It also seemed weird to put the bowls in the dishwasher: Pamela hated anyone else helping her. But she wasn’t here. Andy couldn’t remember the last time his wife had been out of the house for so long. It was always him. Not her. As for the girls, they didn’t have as much time for him as he had hoped. Always rushing in and out. Always on their phones or laptops.

  Maybe that’s why he had enjoyed his coffee with Bobbie so much. It had been nice to talk to someone. Good to get to know his sister-in-law on a one to one. Whenever they’d met before, it was at family gatherings; usually in their house rather than anywhere else because they had more room, as Pamela would point out. Privately, he knew it was because his wife loved playing the gracious hostess. And why not? She was a good one.

  Even so, he’d often felt sorry for Bobbie at these do’s. (The ones that he was around for, that was.) He’d noticed her trying to keep her children quiet while Rob would be mingling, glass of wine in his hand, as though he was a single guest, but every now and then shooting a disapproving look at his lively offspring.

  Still, that was the family that both he and Bobbie had married into, as they had agreed the other night in that little bistro round the corner from school. ‘They’re different, don’t you think?’ he’d asked, knowing from snippets he’d picked up over the years that Bobbie came from quite a modest background herself. ‘Imagine having nannies from birth and then being packed off to boarding school before your ninth birthday. It’s given them a sort of edge, if you know what I mean. Very independent.’

  Almost unfeeling, he’d nearly added.

  Bobbie had nodded earnestly over her cappuccino. ‘Rob loves the kids, I know he does, but he assumes that they come out of their packaging ready to behave.’

  He’d laughed. ‘I like that.’

  ‘Then when they don’t, I’m the one to blame. He thinks I’m too weak.’

  Her eyes had grown misty. She was really upset! Andy found himself patting her hand reassuringly. ‘Better than belting them.’

  She looked up and he suddenly noticed how clear her green eyes were. He was wrong to have put her down as the girl-next-door type. She was the kind of woman who seemed quite ordinary at first but, when you looked closer, was stunning in a natural way. ‘Is that what happened to you as a child?’

  ‘No,’ he wanted to say but the lie stuck in his throat. It had been one reason why he’d suggested coffee with Bobbie, to be honest. He needed time to compose himself before going home; he’d spent the whole class on tenterhooks that Kieran, with his bald head and tattoos, was going to turn up again; his nose had been full of that mental smell of urine and cabbage and Brussels sprouts which Kieran had brought back.

  ‘I got caned every now and then,’ he tried to say in a casual manner. Her eyes grew concerned so he forced himself to make a dismissive gesture, suggesting it was no big deal. ‘But that happened to boys in my day. You know. Heads down the toilet – I mean loo. It was standard school stuff.’

  Bobbie looked more reassured. ‘Rob’s told me a bit about that. He said it was just a bit of fun that helped him to grow up.’

  Yeah, right, thought Andy. Bet his brother-in-law’s posh boarding school didn’t have quite the same approach as the home.

  ‘But you were brought up by an aunt, weren’t you?’ Her eyes were locked on his sympathetically. ‘Was she nice to you?’

  Ah yes! The mythical aunt. Andy tried to remember the tales he had woven over the years. It was difficult, sometimes, to recall all the elaborations. ‘Yes. More or less. But I didn’t see much of her.’

  ‘So you went away to school too?’

  ‘For a bit.’ He needed to change the subject. ‘Tell me about you. How did you meet Rob?’

  Her eyes grew dreamy. ‘We were both at Durham.’

  Of course. One of the good universities. Andy couldn’t help feeling a surge of jealousy. He’d have loved to have done a degree himself.

  ‘We met at freshers’ week and it was love at first sight.’

  Andy nodded. ‘I felt that way about Pamela when I saw her.’

  ‘Really!’ She smiled. You should do that more often, he wanted to say. It really lit her up, made her look even more attractive. Then Bobbie’s face changed. ‘Camilla didn’t a
pprove of me. I wasn’t an Hon. like Rob’s previous girlfriend and although my parents were educated, they didn’t have much money. Camilla made it very difficult but Rob said that if he couldn’t marry me, he wasn’t marrying anyone. But then we had kids and it all changed.’

  He leaned forward to catch her quieter voice. ‘In what way?’

  She stirred the froth on top of her second cappuccino and then sucked the teaspoon. Totally natural. Pamela would never do that.

  ‘Motherhood wasn’t what I expected. Daisy had a mind of her own, from the minute she was born. When she was a baby, she wouldn’t stop yelling unless we took her into bed with us. Then Rob said he couldn’t sleep so he moved to the spare room.’ She stirred the froth more vigorously now. ‘Still does every now and then when he gets in late.’ Then she looked nervous. ‘Please don’t tell anyone I said that. I don’t know why I’m telling you, if I’m honest.’

  He touched her hand briefly. ‘It’s because I’m family.’

  She nodded, biting her lip. ‘And Jack, well, Jack! What can I say!’ She began to laugh, but in a troubled way. ‘He’s uncontrollable! Utterly fearless! Jack does what he wants in life and there’s no rhyme or reason to his logic. Rob says that things have got to change. That’s why we’ve moved out here. To a new area with better schools. Jack was almost expelled from the last one and now it looks as though he’s in trouble again.’

  Sighing, she ran her hand through her hair; something she did rather a lot, he noticed. It was nice. ‘As for Daisy, I’m always getting complaints about how bossy she is. That’s why I signed up for the parenting class. To try and make our family work. Otherwise I don’t know what will happen. And, to make it worse, I’ve simply got to make them behave by April!’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘You’ve heard of Dr Know?’

  Of course he had! The man was a genius. There’d been a profile on him in the FT the other day, under the heading CHILD EXPERT MAKES A KILLING AS NEW BOOK TOPS BESTSELLER LIST. Apparently he was raking it in.

  Bobbie was shaking her head ruefully. ‘My mother’s dating him. Or stepping out, as she puts it.’

  ‘You’re kidding!’

  ‘Wish I was. She’s bringing him to lunch on Mothering Sunday and I don’t want to let her down.’

  ‘I can see that!’

  She had tears in her eyes now. ‘I feel as though I’ve told you too much.’

  ‘Of course not.’ He handed her the napkin on the table to dab her eyes, wondering if it would be appropriate to give her an it-will-be-all-right hug. Maybe not. ‘It will be our secret. I promise.’

  Poor Bobbie, Andy had told himself as he drove home. Part of him wanted to shake his brother-in-law and tell him to take more of a hands-on role in his little family. Then again, hadn’t he been an absent father himself until recently? Never back until late. Expecting Pamela to do it all. At the time, he had seen it as a badge of honour to be able to provide for them all. But now he wasn’t so sure.

  Did he miss work? Bobbie had asked. Yes and no, he’d answered truthfully. But he had another job now! The most important one in the world: bringing up children. Well, teenagers.

  Pamela had been right to leave him in charge. What had she said the other night on the phone when he’d rung to see why she was extending her stay? ‘It will do you good to see more of the girls,’ she’d declared in that clipped posh voice that still did it for him after all these years. ‘Besides, Mummy needs me at the moment and as you’re at home I can afford to give her some of my time. You do understand that, don’t you?’

  What he did understand was that what Pamela wanted, Pamela got. It was the way she worked; the kind of woman she was. And he went along with it because – well, because he idolised her, didn’t he? Not just for being so beautiful and choosing him over everyone else, but because she had given him something he had always wanted. A family.

  Andy clenched his fists. He’d be buggered if Kieran destroyed everything he’d built up. He’d have to stop him – whatever it took.

  The following morning, Andy had woken with a start. He’d been having a horrible dream in which Kieran had pushed his head out of the old crumbling window and then pulled down the sash so that his neck snapped in half.

  ‘No. NO,’ he’d shouted before realising that it was a dream. He wasn’t back in the home. He was here, in his lovely house in their huge king-size bed with the heavy yellow brocade curtains at the far side of the room and Pamela’s dressing table, laden with pots and bottles, on the left. On the right was the door leading to their enormous en suite. On the bedside table sat the extremely expensive watch which Pamela had given him on his fortieth: 8.20 a.m!

  Trying to put that horrible nightmare behind him, Andy had stretched out before putting on his Harrods silk dressing gown (another Pamela present) to go downstairs and make a cup of tea. It had been years since he had got up at this time. It felt odd yet really liberating. Then he remembered. School! The girls were going to be late. And wasn’t that Nattie’s alarm going? How could she sleep through that?

  Pausing by his younger daughter’s bedroom door, he debated whether to knock or just go in. There was something rather awkward about invading the girls’ privacy now they were older. Besides, they were usually so good at getting themselves up. Or so it had seemed in the last week that they’d all been together.

  The alarm showed no sign of stopping, so he opened the door and peeked in. Bloody hell! She was still in bed. Eyes closed. A terrible colour, too. Horribly white. ‘Nattie!’ He shook her urgently. ‘Nattie! Are you all right?’

  There was a groan as she turned over. Thank God for that! Then relief turned to fear. Was she ill? He reached out to feel her forehead.

  ‘Piss off and leave me alone.’

  Andy stepped back just in time to avoid her angry arm. She’d never, ever spoken to him like that before. ‘What’s wrong, Nattie?’

  Then he saw it. Lying on the stained duvet. An empty bottle of wine.

  ‘Chill out, Dad. She’s just sleeping it off.’

  Andy whipped round to see Mel standing in the doorway, still in her pyjamas. ‘What do you mean, she’s sleeping it off?’

  His daughter shrugged. ‘She had a few friends round last night, that’s all.’

  Friends? But he’d checked his daughter when he’d come back from his coffee with Bobbie and she’d been fast asleep. A nasty feeling crawled through him. Had she been out cold even then?

  ‘She only had half a bottle.’

  ‘Half a bottle!’

  ‘Well, three-quarters then.’ Mel shrugged again. ‘Mum lets us.’

  ‘She does?’ Andy’s temples began to throb. The girls were always allowed a glass of wine at Sunday lunch when they all sat down as a family but no more than that. At least not to his knowledge.

  ‘Mum says we need to learn our limits.’

  Well, yes. But not this way. Kneeling down, he tried to gently shake his daughter, who had gone back to sleep. ‘Nattie! Wake up! You’ve got to go to school.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bother, Dad. When she’s like this, she’s out for ages. You’ll have to write a note. Mum often does that.’

  This couldn’t be right.

  ‘It’s true, Dad.’

  He had a flash of the young Pamela: the girl he’d met all those years ago at the club. Cool. Calm. Aloof. Never without a glass in her hand. He turned to his eldest daughter. ‘And what about you? Were you drunk too? Is that why you’re not at school?’

  Mel shrugged again. ‘I’ve been suspended. It’s only for two days.’

  ‘ONLY FOR TWO DAYS!’

  ‘Don’t shout, Dad or you’ll wake her up. Nattie needs to sleep it off.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  Yet another shrug, accompanied by a roll of the eyes. ‘I didn’t hand in my coursework.’

  But his girls always did their work on time. Didn’t they? ‘Couldn’t you ask for an extension?’

  ‘I’d already had one. Two actually. That�
�s why I’ve been suspended.’

  Andy was still trying to make sense of this. ‘But shouldn’t there be a letter from school?’

  Mel shrugged. ‘Forgot to give it to you. Sorry.’

  This wasn’t acceptable. It really wasn’t. ‘We’re going to have to talk about this,’ he began but as he spoke, his mobile bleeped with a text.

  In hospital with mum. She’s broken her arm. Will ring wn been seen. Wnt be back until next week earliest. Lv P.

  ‘Did you know Granny had broken her arm?’

  ‘Oh yeah.’ Mel spoke as though her grandmother was someone she didn’t know very well. ‘Mum texted just now. It woke me up. And don’t bother trying to get hold of her. She’s switched off her phone.’

  She had too! Andy wasn’t often at a loss for words, but this was too much. Things had to change around here and he was going to do it. The first thing he’d do, was to … Do what exactly? Let Natasha sleep it off? Then read her the riot act on drinking? Make Mel do her coursework and write a letter of apology to the relevant teacher? That would do for starters. There was no way he’d allow them to mess up school as he had done.

  And then he needed to talk to Pamela. How could she have been so crafty? How could she have built up this perfect family charade during his long absences without telling him what was really going on?

  As for the parenting class: forget it! There was no way he could tell others what to do. Not if his own kids had been behaving so badly. That would be hypocritical. He’d just have to bow out.

  Besides, it was the perfect excuse to avoid Kieran before working out what to do.

  ‘But we’ve had such fantastic feedback!’ Judith Davies had looked genuinely upset when he’d gone into school with a sick note for Natasha, claiming that she had a ‘headache’ and a note of apology which he’d made Mel write. The girls had insisted that he didn’t have to take the letter in by hand (‘It’s so embarrassing, Dad!’), but Andy’s experience at work had taught him it was often better to have a face-to-face. Now he was beginning to wish he’d rung instead. Judith Davies might be young but she was very persistent.