Faith - Lesley Pearse [140]
Laura was horrified, asking what had happened and where Fiona was. She came forward then, fluttering her hands in anxiety. It was clear she hadn’t told her husband she’d been taking care of Barney for some time and that she got paid for it, and Laura realized she was afraid it was going to come out now and get her into bother.
‘He fell off a wall while out playing,’ she said. ‘He’s fine now, just a couple of wee stitches in his knee. But Roy had to wait a very long time at the hospital with him. I had to stay here with the others.’
‘I am so sorry,’ was all Laura could say. ‘But you aren’t on the phone, and there was no way I could get a message to you. Can I see Barney now?’
‘Ach, yer lucky I dinnae call the poliss to you,’ Roy said angrily. ‘Look at the state of youse. Fee says you’re a model, but you look and smell like a jakey!’
At that point Barney came to the door and rushed into her arms. ‘Why didn’t you come home?’ he cried. ‘I was hurt and I had stitches at the hospital.’
That incident did pull her up sharply. Laura was upset that Roy had said she looked and smelt like a wino, and by the inference that she was neglecting Barney. She promised herself she would never leave him again with anyone overnight.
His cut knee soon mended, but he didn’t forget. Clearly he’d heard things said between Roy and Fiona that had given him the idea that he was unwanted and neglected.
Laura made sure she was on time to collect him from school every day until the end of the term when the holidays started, and because she couldn’t work with him off school she planned to make a real effort to take him out somewhere every day. Then Jackie phoned and asked if Laura would like to stay at her cottage in Cellardyke and said she would join her there when she could get away from London.
The hot weather of 1976 continued. They said it was the hottest summer since records began, and Laura and Barney spent all day, every day, on the beach. But lovely as it was there, Laura felt bored a great deal of the time. A six-year-old boy was more interested in playing with other children than being with his mother. He swam, looked for crabs in rock pools, collected shells and played cricket, and there wasn’t much else for her to do but read.
Jackie arrived from London looking a million dollars in a pale green silk dress, her hair styled like Farrah Fawcett Majors in Charlie’s Angels. The bangles on her wrist were real gold and she was driving a new red convertible car. She laughed when Laura hugged her and said she must be making a fortune. When she took a case of champagne out of the boot, instead of the cheap wine they used to drink, that seemed confirmation.
Jackie had always been great with Barney, she was patient and loving and as interested in his development as if she were a blood aunt. But after a couple of days, Laura found herself becoming irritated that Jackie seemed far more enthusiastic about being with Barney than with her. The moment she got up in the morning she began planning the day around him. Even though he was more than happy to play with his friends, she joined in games of cricket or crab-hunting with them, leaving Laura sitting alone on the beach. She didn’t want to go into the pub and leave him to play with the other kids, and when she took him up to bed in the evenings she would stay reading to him for well over an hour.
That was what started a row, a week after she arrived.
Laura had been drinking steadily since about six in the evening. They’d had a bottle of wine with dinner, and then Jackie disappeared off upstairs with Barney to bathe him and put him to bed, so Laura opened another bottle of wine and had finished it all by the time Jackie came downstairs again.
‘You are so lucky, Laura,’ she said breathlessly as she sat down on the settee. ‘He’s so bright, so handsome and so loving. I wish he was mine.’
‘Then take him,’ Laura retorted. ‘I’ll swap him for your car.’
It was a flippant remark,