Read an Excerpt
PROLOGUE
1995
On Sunday, April 16, 1995, I vowed I would never sleep with my husband, Rodney, again.
It was the day I opened the door to 75 Copper Lane and swung my luggage onto the tiled floor of the hall. Then I remember skidding, and landing hard on my rear. As I sat in cat vomit, Velcro greeted me, waving his string of a tail.
“Bad cat!”
I hoped that was all I would find after my neighbor Pam had accosted me outside with: “Bad news for you, I’m afraid, Kate. We had to call the police.”
What the hell happened?
“Shit, what happened?”
“A bit noisy in the wee hours. High spirits, that’s all. You’re a brave soul, letting Charlie have a party.”
Party. Oh damn, yes, the party. Tossing my jacket in the direction of the washing machine, I headed for the kitchen in search of mop and bucket.
And I froze.
I stood for a while with my eyes closed until I felt ready to look again.
Shards, chunks and splinters of glass formed a neat pile in one corner. Congealed egg yolk streaked down walls. Curtains hung by one hook from rails. The dishwasher yawned open with a load of beer cans and foil cartons. In the sink, cigarette stubs and globs of pizza floated in beige water.
And a stagnant pool puddled by the back door.
Someone had peed in my kitchen.
To hell with the sunflower-yellow cabinets I’d sanded and painted, the shelves I’d sawed and measured for the turquoise canisters. To hell with all the blue-striped salt and pepper pots I’d collected for eighteen years. Eighteen years! To hell with the floor I’d stripped and polished until my knees throbbed. Someone had peed in my kitchen.
I ran upstairs and banged on my son’s door with clenched fists.
“Follow me,” was all I could say.
And he did. He sauntered downstairs with a coffee mug in his hand.
I stood in the middle of the mess and looked at him, and when I read the cool indifference in his face, tears stung my eyes.
“Chill out, Mom,” he said. “It was just a party. You know—gatecrashers and all. No big deal.”
Charlie didn’t care. It was at that point I remember drowning in a spin of fury and confusion. He didn’t bloody care! Smashing plates to the floor, and why the hell not, please let me join in the fun too, I watched them explode into little pieces. Six, seven, eight, nine shattering plates. And when I was done, when I saw Charlie gazing through the window, tapping his foot to a tune in his head, it was then I slumped onto a chair and covered my face with my hands.
What had happened to my little boy? I felt his downy head under my chin, smelled his familiar baby-scent of talcum powder and milk. I heard his first words, his chuckling laugh, saw again the liquid of his brown eyes. I ached with love for him, but reality had punched me hard in the stomach this time. As much as I wanted to hold him, and search his face for the love I couldn’t see anymore, I resisted.
I snapped a paper towel from the roll to blot my face. Now bend down, Kate, open the doors under the sink, and throw the paper towel away. I gave myself orders, needing to function.
Above the bins a limp condom hung over a pipe like a dead slug.
I’d hardly noticed Charlie’s transition from child to . . . to the age when . . .
He peered under the sink. “It’s not mine,” he said.
“Get rid of it.”
I sent him to his room. I didn’t want his help. I needed the time to think. To plan. As I tidied, disinfected, scrubbed, and bleached, I drank three double shots of Rodney’s Scotch, one for each hour, and somehow managed to put a meal together afterward. Charlie ate it, then left.
Sleep, eat, leave. That was the pattern now. Sunday, April 16, 1995, was the day I realized I could no longer cling to the reason I’d stayed so long. My son was no longer a child. I’d filled this home with handmade quilts, chutneys, stripped pine, and wicker baskets. I’d built this nest twig by twig for Charlie, but he no longer needed it. Or cared for it. I wasn’t sure if he cared for me anymore.
When the cotton wool left my mouth and the knot at the back of my neck unraveled after too much single malt, it was time to taste the musty oak in a glass of Shiraz.
Or two.
I set wine, a slice of bread, and a wedge of cheese on the table and sat down to think some more. Then in came Rodney.
“You’re back,” I said. “How was the golf?”
“Good.”
He slammed his house keys onto the pine table I waxed every day and walked over to the microwave. “Is this my dinner?” He peered at the plate inside, then jabbed at the buttons to warm his meal.
Mephistopheles snarled and Marguerite wailed. I’d put on opera, Gounod’s Faust, and I’d turned it up good and loud, really loud, to help me think. Rodney snapped off my music, switched on the TV, and proceeded to watch the history of the Wolves Football Club.
He stared ahead at the screen and twirled strings of pasta around his fork. The starchy ball wouldn’t fit into his mouth, so he gobbled at it.
His hair stuck up in tufts and I tried to find it endearing.
I tried to love the sound of his voice. “Kick the ball into the bloody net, you great fairy,” he growled, waving a fist.
I tried to yearn for the touch of those thin lips that bristled with a moustache the texture of coconut husk.
“Rod, look at me for a second.” I searched for emotion in those milky eyes. “Charlie’s party got out of hand.”
“Oh, dear.”
His eyes floated back to the TV.
“Rod, they drank beer and more besides, and for some reason, they stacked the cans in the dishwasher and dropped an empty bottle of vodka into the fish tank.”
“GOAL! And about sodding time!”
“At least, I think it was empty. Goldie seems none the worse, but Fred is swimming in spirals and Mabel is floating belly-up. A couple of our lamp shades are cracked, the brandy goblets are in pieces, and should we cut Charlie’s allowance to pay for replacements?”
“The referee’s blowing the whistle. Would you bloody believe it?”
“Isn’t the game you’re watching three years old? I’m afraid I smashed nine plates. Someone peed in the kitchen and you won’t believe what else I found. Five broken canisters, four exploded light bulbs—”
“They should sack that wanker.”
“—along with three French hens, two turtle doves, and a condom in a pear tree.” I think I was pretty drunk by then.
“Rod,” I said, “I feel a bit sick. I think I’ll sleep on the sofa tonight.”
I made a bed with a quilt and pillow. When Velcro settled on my tummy, I closed my eyes and drifted onto the deck of a ship that bobbed and dipped, and when it lurched, I slipped into rolling waves. Water gurgled in my ears, but within minutes I shot to the surface and drank in air inside the kitchen of 75 Copper Lane.
I climbed a spiral stairway, because I saw a tiny door at the very top. I stumbled up the steps, fighting for breath because the atmosphere was heavier than lead. There was a table next to the door, with a key lying on it. But when I reached out, it vanished. Searching for somewhere to escape, I saw a hole full of light, but the soil crumbled when I tried to scramble out, and I fell down, down, and dirt filled my mouth and I couldn’t shout out. I heard the hollow drip of water and down, down, I went.
PART ONE
THE SIXTIES
Chapter 1
1965
Saturday, April 17
33 Cherry Blossom Road, Dorton,
United Kingdom, Europe, Planet Earth
I bite my lip. “Can I have a suspender belt instead?”
My mother, Biddy, runs her nail along the top of a packet to split open the cellophane. “You need a girdle for support,” she says, pulling out a corset the color of salmon-paste. “And take that look off your face. It’s a beautiful foundation garment.” She pats her fresh hairdo, a lacquered helmet, before opening a second packet.
Spirals of stitching, three sets of hooks, powernet panels, and longline, too.
It’s one hell of a bra.
“Try it on,” she says.
I fasten it at the front, swivel it around, and pull the wide straps over my shoulders.
My first bra, and I loathe it.
“Mum, I really don’t think I have enough to fill these cones yet.”
“They’re called cups, Kate, and sure, the size is only a small thirty-two A.”
“The other girls have trainer bras.”
“Fine. And in two months they’ll all need a good brassiere like yours.”
Snatching Biddy’s shopping bag from the floor to see what else she bought, all I find are a couple of pastel twinsets, a pair of brown stirrup pants, and what’s this? Drop earrings. All for her, nothing cool for me. A cheap shift dress would have been okay, one of those polka-dot ones with a Peter Pan collar.
Or a trainer bra.
“Kate, stop poking inside my bag.”
I pull out a leaflet before I stop poking. It shows a busty blonde skipping around Piccadilly Circus wearing nothing but my salmon-paste set. “With the firmest control,” she says, eyebrows arched, teeth flashing, “my Cross Your Heart bra shapes and my girdle flattens.”
“Hey, Mum, did you see this? ‘Shapes and flattens with the firmest control.’ ”
“I read it in the shop,” she mutters.
“Don’t I have enough control already? Forget the girdle. You’re doing a great job.”
“What a smart aleck you are, Kate. Pity you’re not as quick at school.” Biddy claps her hands over her ears. “Would you turn down the music? That Mick Jagger eejit gets on my nerves.”
Holding the girdle by its suspenders, I dance toward the radio.
Biddy’s lips are all pinched and tight. “Stop jigging about half-naked,” she says. “And put the girdle in your underwear drawer. Look after it nicely.”
Turning the radio down, just a touch, I hear the soft thud of footsteps.
“Your father’s coming upstairs—quick, cover yourself, Kate. He shouldn’t be seeing you like this.”
“Like what?”
She points at my chest and moves her finger in circles.
“You mean Dad mustn’t know I’ve grown breasts?”
Biddy picks up her shopping bag. “Don’t be disgusting. You know what I mean.”
Well, I suppose I do know what she means. Dad did look a bit upset last week when Aunt Shauna said, “Tom, will you just look at Kate, sure hasn’t she got the loveliest little figure, and won’t she be turning boys’ heads soon?”
