Happy Families Read online

  The doorbell was even more persistent now. ‘All right, all right, I’m coming.’ She made her way through the kitchen, taking a knife from the box set just in case. She could see a figure through the glass door. A tall figure which looked as though it was holding something.

  Slipping the safety chain in place, Vanessa opened the door a chink. ‘Who is it?’

  Bloody hell! She’d been right to bring the knife. The man on the other side looked like the kind of youth you would definitely cross the road to avoid. Tall with a dark complexion and knotted dreadlocks partly covered by a dirty yellow beanie.

  ‘Are you Vanessa? Vanessa Thomas?’

  ‘I might be. Why?’

  ‘Brigid told me to give you this.’

  Her daughter! For a minute, Vanessa’s heart soared with disbelief and wonder and hope, all mixed in one. ‘You know her? Where is she?’

  ‘Gone away.’ The youth’s voice was impatient. ‘That’s why she’s left you this. Now, are you going to take her or not?’

  Her?

  It was only then that Vanessa saw that the large bundle in the man’s arms wasn’t just a dirty old blanket. My God! It was a child. Fast asleep. Her throat tightened so much that she could hardly speak.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Brian’s deep voice was behind her. ‘Get back, Vanessa. I’ll handle this.’

  ‘No!’ Vanessa heard her voice rising. Brian’s intervention, well meaning as it was, annoyed her. This was a family matter. Nothing to do with the man whom she’d allowed to share her bed. Quickly, she undid the safety chain and snatched the bundle before the youth could take it away. The child opened her eyes (emerald green!) as though she’d been pretending to be asleep.

  Vanessa gasped. This child was the perfect miniature of Brigid at that age. Quite a lot smaller – as though she was four instead of six – but with the same little nose and dark hair just like Harry’s side of the family. There was no mistaking the resemblance.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she whispered.

  ‘Sunshine.’

  The word came out quite clearly and then the eyes closed again.

  ‘Is she ill?’ demanded Vanessa, suddenly scared.

  The youth sniffed. ‘Just tired. We’ve been travelling.’

  ‘And where is Brigid?’ Her voice came out like a squeak.

  ‘I told you. Gone away.’ He handed her a letter. ‘She wants you to look after her now. It’s all in here.’

  Then he was off. Swallowed up into the darkness like some kind of ghostly hoody apparition with a backpack.

  ‘Who was that?’ asked Brian, looking down the path.

  ‘I don’t know. But this’, she said, looking tenderly down at the shock of matted black hair, ‘is my granddaughter.’ She stroked the little soft cheek gently. Yearning, desperately yearning, to kiss the child but at the same time not wanting to wake her. ‘At least I think she is.’

  There was a young mum from Whitehall,

  Whose kids drove her clean up the wall.

  She begged, ‘Do as you’re told

  Before I grow old!’ –

  But the order was far too tall.

  (So she’s still on the ceiling.)

  Chapter 5

  ANDY

  ANDY GOODING KNEW perfectly well that if anyone asked his wife what her husband did for a living, she would wave her beautiful tanned arms in the air dismissively and say something airy about ‘finance’. It wasn’t that Pamela wasn’t interested, as she’d once explained, it was just that she’d had enough of ‘that kind of thing’ in the past.

  ‘That kind of thing’ meant work. When Andy had met Pamela, she’d been famous as the girl in the lingerie adverts. You couldn’t go anywhere without seeing her on giant posters or inside glossy magazines or reading about her lifestyle in broadsheet newspapers as well as the tabloids. The whole nation (and most of Europe) was in love with this beautiful eighteen-year-old who had been discovered in the student canteen at LSE.

  Brains as well as beauty, one caption had said, drooling over this long-limbed, honey-skinned blonde whom every woman in the country wanted to be – and whom every man dreamed of bedding.

  Of course their paths would never have crossed if Pamela’s agents hadn’t used his firm for financial advice. Even then, a meeting wouldn’t have been on the cards if he hadn’t used his senior position to wangle an invitation to the agency Christmas party at Stringfellows (Stringfellows!) in the hope that he might catch a glimpse of the famous Pamela. Never Pam, as she told journalists firmly. Always Pamela.

  But then she’d spilt a drink down him at the bar. At first he hadn’t even realised it was her because there were so many beautiful people around. ‘I’m sorry,’ she had said in an impeccable Home Counties accent which Andy himself had been trying to cultivate for years. He’d assured her that it didn’t matter one bit and, in doing so, managed not to have just one word with her but at least ten.

  Then she’d glided off to talk to someone else but, as she did so, she had looked back and given him another lovely smile as though he was some strapping ex-public-school boy instead of a man with a boyish grin, a too-short hair cut and traces of an Essex accent who was only (just) an inch or so taller than she was. And that’s when Andy knew he had no chance. No chance whatsoever. Because, despite his experience with women gleaned from evenings in sleazy Soho bars – or maybe because of it – this gorgeous creature really was out of his league.

  But miraculously – all these years later, he still couldn’t believe this! – she was outside the club when he left, standing by the pavement and looking for a taxi. A couple of men had come up to her, pestering for autographs. Then one of them made a suggestive comment. Andy might seem like a medium-sized, mild-mannered man on the outside but he’d learned how to fight his corner. ‘That’s enough,’ he’d said firmly. ‘She’s with me. Now clear off, both of you.’

  Andy was embarrassed by the ‘She’s with me’ words that came out of his mouth but as he flagged down a taxi, Pamela stepped into it and then reached across to beckon him in as though she expected him to follow. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  Andy fought back the urge to apologise for having been so forward just now in declaring that they were together and, instead, reached across for her hand in the silence of the back of the black cab. Incredibly, she didn’t take it away.

  Not many people knew exactly why Pamela, at the height of her career, dropped everything to marry a rather quiet, not particularly good-looking but extremely wealthy financial whizz-kid. After all, if it was gold she was after, she could have had her pick of playboys. ‘I know I’m young but I’m ready to settle down and start a family,’ was all she would say to the magazines who hounded her for interviews.

  Andy himself was astounded by his luck, despite the little warning voices in his head. ‘She’s using you,’ they said. ‘You’ll regret it. You’ll see.’ But he’d shoved the voices to the back of his mind and as the years had gone by he’d realised how right he’d been to do so. Pamela was the perfect wife. She was a wonderful home-maker. The house always looked immaculate. Even though they sometimes used caterers, she would cook herself for important business dinner parties.

  Every now and then, one of his clients would have the nerve to ask if his wife really was the Pamela. The model who used to be so famous. And then he’d make one of those faces that indicated it was indeed true but that he couldn’t possibly discuss it. Inside, the recognition made him feel special: something that Andy hadn’t had a great deal of in his life until now.

  Sometimes, when Pamela’s credit-card statement was way over the limit, Andy would feel a little start in his chest. Then he told himself not to be so boring. So what if she enjoyed spending money? They could afford it and, besides, it gave Andy pleasure to know that he was able to provide his beautiful wife with the standard of living that she was entitled to. Even if it did mean working so hard that, ironically, there wasn’t much time to enjoy the family life he had always yearned for.

/>   It went without saying that Pamela was a brilliant mother. Incredible really, given that she and her brother had been brought up by a string of au pairs and nannies. ‘That’s why I want to look after our girls myself,’ she was always saying. Sometimes Andy was worried because Pamela didn’t seem to have any close friends: she had little time for socialising with the other mothers at Corrywood High apart from her PTA and fund-raising activities. ‘I want to concentrate on my family,’ she’d say sweetly. ‘I need to be the lynchpin while you’re away, earning the money.’

  It was all so very different from his own background: a childhood which no one knew about, not even Pamela. A childhood where all he’d ever wanted was a pair of warm, loving arms around him. How he had yearned – still did, to be honest – for a mother’s tender kiss on his face. A home to come back to after school where someone would listen to his day and cook him tea. A brother or a sister maybe, whom he could talk to. Really talk to. Somewhere safe. Somewhere where no one could hurt him.

  It had been his wife’s nephew at the lunch party who had brought back all the memories. Jack! His mouth twitched. Little scamp! Not that Pamela had seen it that way. ‘Such badly behaved children,’ she had shuddered. ‘I blame Bobbie. She lets them get away with murder.’

  Privately, Andy felt sorry for the pretty but exhausted-looking woman; a fresh-faced, natural girl-next-door type, who had clearly been so embarrassed after the broken vase incident. ‘Some children are harder to deal with than others,’ he’d said casually while helping Pamela to load the dishwasher.

  ‘Rubbish,’ his wife had retorted. ‘It’s all a question of being firm at the beginning. And please don’t do it that way, Andy, or the cutlery won’t get washed properly. Just go and sit down, will you! I’d rather do it on my own.’

  So he had. Not exactly sat down, because Andy wasn’t the sitting-down type, but he did have some paperwork to do in his office: a rather nice room at the back of the house, overlooking the lawn, with an expensive mahogany desk and a large studio portrait of Pamela and the girls staring down at him approvingly. Every time he looked at that picture, it gave him inspiration. This was what he was working for. This was what he had achieved, despite everything.

  The first time he’d seen his step-dad hit his mum really badly was on his tenth birthday. (In those days, his name had been Barry.) The argument had been his fault. Barry knew that because his mum said so and she was never wrong. ‘If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have to stick around in this hole,’ she had yelled at him, nursing her black eye with an already bloody dishcloth.

  In the event, she didn’t stick around. When Barry woke up the next morning, shivering under the thin, scratchy blanket on the sofa where he slept because there was only one bedroom in the flat, she had gone. ‘See you tonight,’ his step-father had mumbled, pressing a tenner into his hand. With hindsight, Barry should have realised something was up. Neither his mother nor step-father had ever given him money before and he fingered the dirty note with reverence because it was the very first birthday present he had ever been given.

  When Barry came back from school and found his step-father wasn’t having his usual pre-shift kip, he used some of the money to buy fish and chips. A real treat! Rather oddly, his step-dad didn’t come back the next morning and there was still no sign of his mother. Not sure what else to do, Barry just took himself off to school. This went on for a week until he finally asked his teacher if she could lend him some money for tea as the tenner had run out and he didn’t know where his parents were.

  ‘Weren’t you worried, dear?’ asked the headmistress as he stood waiting in her office for social services to arrive. Barry hadn’t liked to say that no, he hadn’t been. That it was actually a relief not to be belted by his mum if he said something she didn’t like.

  The foster home was all right, really. For the first time in his life, he had a proper bed. Barry was so excited that he couldn’t contain himself. ‘You’ve ruined the mattress!’ yelled his foster mother the next morning. ‘Look, it’s soaking wet. What are you? A baby?’

  After that, it seemed Barry could do no right. When he made the mistake of exploring a top shelf in his room, all hell broke out. ‘I just wanted to know what was inside,’ he’d tried to explain when they found him with bits of a model train scattered all over the floor. How was he to know it had belonged to his foster parents’ son, who had died years ago?

  That was the beginning. It was very easy, Barry soon learned, to earn a label. He might as well have worn it round his neck. Bad boy. The one who gave lip. ‘Don’t answer back,’ snapped his foster mother when he’d pointed out that it wasn’t he who had picked at the cold meat in the fridge which was meant for the next day, but the other foster kid they’d also taken in.

  ‘Why do they have us if they don’t like us?’ Barry asked him during an uneasy truce that night.

  ‘Cos they get paid, stupid,’ the boy had replied.

  It wasn’t long before the foster parents decided he wasn’t worth the money and he was sent to a children’s home. It was colder there with a continual, over-riding stench of urine but he didn’t mind too much. He made some good friends: boys that taught him it was his right to take stuff even if it didn’t belong to him. ‘Why should it all go to people who speak posh?’ demanded one of his new mates. There seemed a certain logic in that.

  After Barry was put up as the kid who smashed the window of the local off-licence while his mates ran in and grabbed as many bottles as they could carry, he was sent to another home that stank of urine and cabbage. He met new friends there. Got into more trouble; some of which was too painful to recall. But then the place got a new manager. At least that’s what they called him, although he seemed more like a friendly headmaster to Barry.

  ‘What do you want to do in your life?’ asked the man when he called Barry into his office after yet another fight in the dorm. By then, Barry was fourteen. He couldn’t read very well but he did like figures. For some reason, they reached out to him during maths lessons; they were clean cut; they said what they meant instead of pretending to be his friend and then turning on him.

  ‘I want to do something with numbers,’ Barry heard himself saying.

  He’d expected the manager to laugh. To tell him that he was far too stupid for a job with numbers. But instead, the man looked at him hard before nodding. ‘Good idea. Let’s see what we can do, shall we?’

  Before the year was out, Barry was one of the few kids in the home to sit a proper maths exam. By the time he was sixteen, and old enough to move into a hostel, the head had helped him find a place at college. Barry never looked back. He changed his name from Barry to Andy, after one of his football heroes. And he worked harder than any of the other students, driven by the excitement that, at last, he was good at something! He refused to drink because that’s what had helped him get into trouble in the first place. But he did start to go out with girls. And he discovered quite a flair in that department.

  At thirty, the new Andy wouldn’t have given the old Barry a second glance, although he always stopped when he saw a homeless person sitting in a London doorway to toss him a few coins. He had his own two-bedroom mews house, thanks to some shrewd investments based on tips that he’d gleaned from the sleazy Soho bars. Then had come the biggy. The tip he’d heard while sitting on the office toilet. A whispered conversation between his boss and another man by the urinals when they thought no one else was listening. A name. One name. That was all. But it was said in such a way that Andy found himself risking all his savings. For a few heart-stopping hours, he was so nervous that he had to go home sick. But the following day, the financial papers proved him right. Right to go against the advice that he could have taken in the Gents. Overnight, Andy became a wealthy man. Far wealthier than his boss, who was on a five-figure salary.

  And that was exactly the stage he’d been at when he’d met Pamela. Beautiful Pamela who had grown up with a brother, two parents, a pony and an au pair in a gracious G
eorgian house in the country. Her lovely face had frowned with concern when he told her that both his parents had been killed in a car crash when he was a baby and that he had been brought up by a maiden aunt, who was also long dead.

  But deep down, he couldn’t quite get rid of that naughty little boy inside. The one who whispered into his ear every now and then. The one who kept asking him how he could live this lie and wasn’t it time, before too long, to rebel? Because somehow, life with its daily grind of meetings and emails, wasn’t much fun any more. And although he still needed to provide for his beautiful wife and daughters, Andy Gooding couldn’t help wondering if this was it. If this was all there was to life.

  A mum* there was, whose kids drove her to drink.

  Each night, a bottle or two she would sink.

  She drank from a beaker

  While smoking a reefer –

  Then threw it all up in the sink.

  * Now working as a relationship counsellor.

  Chapter 6

  AFTER ANDY BECAME a wealthy man overnight, he bought out the senior partner, who had been wanting to retire for some time. At first, it was a novelty to tell others what to do, including some of the sharp know-it-alls who had taken such delight in ordering him around previously.

  Before long, he had widened the client base; brought in business from abroad, which meant quite a lot of foreign travel. Although he didn’t like being away from home it was a novelty. To think that the furthest he’d been away as a kid was Southend!

  He made some other changes too. Fresh fruit was made available at all times in the office. (His craving for oranges came from the care home where anything that wasn’t a tin was ‘too expensive’.) And the recruitment selection process was revised. No longer were successful applicants taken only from the Oxbridge pile. At Andy’s insistence, interviews were also granted to school-leavers who showed potential. Boys like him. The old him.