The Peas and Carrots Series Boxset 1, page 70
part #1 of Peas and Carrots Series
‘Tom knows the truth,’ she said.
The air had fallen stagnant between them, and the aching in Eric’s chest grew with every heartbeat. He looked at his sister-in-law, a woman so full of strength, of tenacity, of downright stubborn bullishness and he had never had a clue, not in all the years he had known her.
‘You will let this be, won’t you?’ Lydia said. ‘For Mum’s sake as much as mine.’
Eric nodded. ‘I’m sorry I made you relive that.’
‘I’m sorry I had to, too.’ She stopped and gave one final glance at the photo before handing it to Eric. He took hold, but she didn’t let go.
‘I’ll support you, Eric. You want this baby. I can tell that. You want this baby for your family and for the right reasons, and I will support you. We will support you.’
Eric studied Lydia’s face, waiting for some kind of condition, some but to her statement. When none came, he reached over and wrapped his arms around her.
‘Thank you. You won’t regret this.’
Lydia pushed herself up from the sofa and brushed down invisible creases in her trousers. She handed Eric both the photograph and the tag.
‘Do you not want to keep them?’ he said.
She shook her head rapidly.
‘I’d rather leave them here if that’s all right. Somewhere safe.’
‘Of course.’
A moment of silence was exchanged between the pair.
‘Do you want to stay for dinner?’ Eric asked. ‘It would give you a chance to meet your sister.’
Lydia shook her head. ‘I need to get back. I hadn’t told Tom I was going, so I’ll need to pick the boys up from Scouts or they’ll all be wondering what’s happened to me.’
‘Maybe next week then?’ Eric said. ‘When I’ve sorted everything out with the lawyer, maybe we can have a little pre-fostering party and the boys can come down and meet their new cousin?’
‘That’s sounds ideal,’ Lydia said, and she pecked him on the cheek before sweeping down to pick up her bag and gliding out of the front door.
Eric glanced down at the photograph in his hand. ‘You could have trusted me, Suzy,’ he said to the air. ‘Why didn’t you trust me?’
Chapter 19
THE HOUSE WENT from peace to pandemonium in a matter of fifteen seconds. Yvette returned home with Abi, which immediately set Lulu off into an excited barking frenzy, and that in turn woke Mabel, and all only moments before Katrina strutted through the door, arms laden with bags. After finding the photograph, Eric had postponed Hank’s visit in order to speak to Lydia, meaning that the upstairs landing was littered with boxes which both Abi and Yvette began to riffle through without a second’s thought to how much sorting they had taken.
‘Can you leave those alone?’ Eric said, hobbling his way up the stairs and flinching with every other step. The previous hour sitting had allowed the muscles around his ribs to seize up yet again and he was having difficulty even walking, let alone climbing the stairs. ‘Hank’s going to be around in an hour to help me put them in the loft.’
‘But I want to keep this,’ Abi said, plucking some random item from the top of one of the boxes. ‘This was Mum’s favourite.’
‘I’m not getting rid of it. It’s just going into the loft.’
‘But I want to have it in my room.’
‘You can, but not yet. You’re too young.’
‘I’m—’
‘Abi?’
Whether luck or judgement, Katrina’s voice came through at exactly the right moment, managing to stop the meltdown midway. Eric closed his eyes, relieved.
‘I got you something in town. Do you want to see it?’
She was standing at the bottom of the stairs, staring up at them; more colour to her cheeks than Eric had seen since her arrival.
‘A present for me?’ Abi said. Immediately, she dropped the item in her hand onto the floor by the box and dashed down the stairs. Yvette – who had been silently rummaging herself – adopted a decidedly uninterested expression, then also replaced the item she was holding.
‘Buying Abi gifts?’ she muttered to Eric as she crossed him on the landing. ‘Where’s she got the money for that?’ Still sporting a falsely blasé appearance, she sauntered down the stairs after Abi, leaving Eric to sort out the mess they had made. Two minutes later, with all the boxes once again packed, he joined the women of the family in the kitchen.
Had Eric not known better, he would have thought the early days of Yvette had returned. Numerous clothing store bags were scattered out on the kitchen table, with glittering items of costume jewellery and various soaps and smellies spilling out from their insides.
‘You’ve bought a lot,’ Yvette commented.
‘I needed to,’ Katrina replied. ‘It feels so good to have some clothes that fit.’ She lifted a handful of the bags off the table and placed them down on the ground. ‘Honestly, since Mabel’s been born I’ve hated it, trying to squeeze into all my old things. This will make the world of difference. It’s impossible trying to audition for something when you feel that you look bad. Now … where did I put them?’ She continued to pull out several items and packages before finding what she was looking for; a small, cardboard bag, tied at the top with a pink ribbon.
‘For you,’ she said, handing the bag to Abi.
‘For me? What is it?’
‘Open it, so you can find out.’
Abi looked to Eric. He nodded. Tentatively her fingers tugged at the ribbon before pulling the folds of the bag open and lifting out a small box. Inside, she found a bracelet.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘Can I wear it? Can you put it on me now, please, Dad?’ She handed the piece of silver to Eric.
‘It might be a bit big,’ Katrina commented. ‘It’s for when you’re older, really. But look, I got the same one for Mabel,’ she lifted up another bag. ‘And have a look at the charm. Can you see what it says?’
Abi took the bracelet back from Eric and twisted the charm around to face her.
‘Sisters,’ she said.
‘Exactly. And Mabel’s says the same. Sisters.’
Abi beamed.
‘You didn’t have to do this,’ Eric said, his eyes half on Katrina, half on the bracelet.
‘I know. But you have given up a lot for me. And I know, once I leave here, I probably won’t see you anymore. I just wanted some way to say thank you, that’s all.’
‘Can you put it on now, Dad? Please. Can you put it on?’
Eric hesitated, before offering Katrina a single nod of gratitude before attempting to fix the tiny little clasp. After thirty seconds of fumbling, he gave up.
‘Yvette, can you do this?’ he said.
Despite asking for her directly, Yvette appeared not to hear. Even when Eric repeated her name for a second time, she remained motionless. Finally, after Eric’s third attempt, she lifted her head.
‘Yvette?’
‘I thought you said you had no money,’ she said, pointing her question at Katrina.
Katrina nodded thoughtfully.
‘I did. Thank you, that reminds me.’ She reached into her handbag and extracted her wallet, from which she pulled out four twenty-pound notes which she handed to Eric. ‘That’s for all those things the other day. And for food and things. Let me know if it’s not enough?’
Eric stared at the money in his hands.
‘That’s … uhmm… thank you,’ he stuttered. His uncertainty was not coming from the money – which was undoubtedly a useful extra – but from his mother-in-law, whose face was growing more and more thunderous by the second.
‘Yvette?’ Eric said. ‘Is everything okay?’
‘I thought she was broke,’ she muttered, before raising her voice and speaking once more to Katrina. ‘So now you do have money?’ Katrina bristled.
‘It would appear that way.’
‘And would you like to tell me where it came from?’
‘Not particularly.’
Eric had to give Katrina her dues. A lesser person would have crumbled under Yvette’s glare, yet this whippet of a girl was holding her own much better than Eric had managed under similar situations.
‘I need to know where the money has come from,’ Yvette said.
Katrina laughed. ‘It’s none of your business.’
‘Actually, it is. You are living in this house, with my family.’
‘For which I am grateful. That doesn’t mean I have to tell you every last thing about my life.’
‘I need to know where it came from.’
‘No, you don’t.’
Katrina reached down to the table and began to clear away the various clothes and items that had spilled out of her bags.
‘The last thing they need is to be caught up in your family’s dodgy dealings.’
A look of hurt flashed across Katrina’s face. ‘You think I’d do that? You think I’d involve you with them? Involve Mabel with them?’
‘I wouldn’t put anything past you.’
Katrina’s expression hardened. ‘I told you. I have nothing to do with my family.’
‘Then where did the money come from? You’re telling me it just appeared in your bank account?’
‘I’m telling you that where my money comes from has nothing to do with you.’
‘It does if you’re living in my house.’
‘It’s not your house; it’s Eric’s.’
‘This is my family.’
‘And this is none of your business!’
‘Ladies!’ Eric stepped between the pair. There was still four feet separating them, yet he felt the need to stretch out arms to keep them apart. As Yvette moved towards him, he jerked an open hand towards her only to have a spasm of pain shoot straight down his spine.
‘Daddy!’
‘Eric!’ The women dashed to his side. Panting through the pain he rested one hand on his knee and waved them away with his second.
‘I’m fine. I’m fine,’ he huffed. ‘Just give me some space.’
Yvette and Katrina stepped back. Abi stepped closer by his side. Eric reached out his hand and took hers.
‘I’m fine,’ he said, holding her hand and looking directly into her eyes. She nodded mutely.
After a minute bent double, surrounded by a tangible silence, Eric pushed himself back up to standing. The women, Eric discovered, were still locked in a stalemate of stares.
‘I’m sorry,’ Yvette said, her tone sounding anything but. ‘I just don’t feel comfortable. You come into this house saying you don’t have a penny to your name, and two weeks later you’re buying Abi and Mabel expensive jewellery and refusing to tell us where the money comes from. Surely you can see that looks suspicious?’
‘You could just trust me.’ Katrina said.
Yvette laughed bitterly. ‘Surely, you have to be kidding?’
‘Fine,’ Katrina placed her hands on her hips with a huff. ‘If you must know, I sold something. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to, but I decided in the end that it was better if I did.’
‘What did you sell?’
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘It must have been worth a lot of money?’
‘It was,’ Katrina replied. She threw back her shoulders in a huff. ‘If you’re that bothered, it was a ring. A ring that Philip gave me. One he wanted me to pass on to Mabel.’
Yvette stiffened. Something in the air changed.
‘A ring?’
‘Yes, a ring.’
‘What type of ring?’
‘It was just a ring.’ Katrina replied.
Yvette’s hands had begun to shake as the colour drained from her cheeks.
‘Show me?’ she said, her voice low and threatening.
‘I can’t. I’ve sold it.’
‘Then show me a picture. Describe it to me.’
‘I … I …’ Uncertainty quivered on Katrina’s lips. ‘There were emeralds,’ she said.
‘And a diamond in the middle,’ Yvette finished. ‘About so big?’ She indicated the size with her fingers. It was Katrina’s turn to tremble.
‘How do you—’
‘My mother’s ring. You stole my mother’s ring!’
Katrina edged back.
‘No,’ she said, but Eric could see the doubt in her eyes. Her complexion was fading, like she was treading water and about to be engulfed by the mother of all waves.
‘A square diamond?’ Yvette said again. ‘And rectangular emeralds either side?’
‘He said it was his mother’s. He said she left it to him.’
‘You are a liar.’
‘I swear … I swear …’
A moment later, Yvette lunged.
Chapter 20
THE TWO WOMEN were standing in the garden, water dripping from their hair and clothes. In the end it was Abi’s quick thinking that cut the scrap short. Eric had been useless, with his flustered pleas of ‘Stop, Stop’. Abi had picked up Lulu’s water bowl and had thrown its contents over the pair.
‘They do that with dogs,’ Abi told him. ‘It stops them fighting.’
‘The irony is not lost on me,’ Eric replied. Abi frowned, confused.
Two seconds later, Eric had pushed them out of the back door to the position in which they were currently standing, dripping and shivering. Arms crossed, scowls the perfect mirror image of one another.
‘That ring was an heirloom.’ Yvette was still white with disbelief. ‘It was my grandmother’s ring. Then my mother’s, it was supposed to be passed down to Abigail.’
‘Philip said the same thing, but he said it was his grandmother’s.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘It’s true, I swear.’
‘He stole it from me. He stole it right out from under my nose.’
From inside the house came Mabel’s cry.
‘I’ll go,’ Abi said, disappearing before Eric could ask her, although she did appear in the conservatory a minute later, Mabel in her arms and just within earshot of the conversation.
Katrina pursed her lips together.
‘I can give you the rest of the money.’
‘I don’t want the money.’
‘Then we can buy the ring back. I can get a credit card. I can take the rest of the stuff back. We’ll go first thing tomorrow,’
Yvette laughed, the low pitch snort embroiled with disdain. ‘Do you have any idea how much it was worth? Do you? Because if you got anything less than the cost of a new car for it, you’ve been ripped off and we don’t have a chance in hell of buying it back. Do you understand that?’
Katrina’s slight frame was trembling and only partly from the cold of being soaked in the dog’s water.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I really am.’
Yvette’s eyes showed no indication of softening. She flicked her hair‚ spraying a mist of water much the same way Lulu did when she finished in the bath – and looked solely at Eric.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I can’t do it. I thought I could rise above it. I thought I could cope with it, but I can’t. She’s there, in my kitchen, in my bathroom, flaunting herself around my family the whole time. I want this baby in my life, Eric, really I do. But I can’t live under the same roof as that silly tart even one more day. I just can’t.’
Eric lowered his gaze to his feet, then turned his neck slightly to the doorway. Abi was blowing raspberries on Mabel’s belly. Every time she did, Mabel lifted her arms into the air and emitted a high-pitched squeal of glee. They were perfectly happy. Abi was perfectly happy. Slowly, he turned back to his mother-in-law.
‘I am sorry to hear that, Yvette. Really I am.’
They had got fish and chips for dinner. It wasn’t a very sensible idea. There was food in the freezer as well as the things Hank had brought around earlier in the week, but that involved cooking and Eric couldn’t think about cooking right now. Katrina offered to pay, but given the situation, Eric didn’t feel it wise. He would make up for it with a few extra frugal days later in the week, he told himself. Abi was happy to spoon down pasta and cheese for days on end. And there was always the credit card if it came down to it.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Katrina said, nudging her chips with a small wooden fork. ‘If I’d have thought for one moment that—’
‘This is not on you,’ Eric said, reinforcing the words the best he could. ‘Really it’s not.’
‘I had no idea. Honestly. Philip said …’ She shuddered as she said his name. ‘If I’d have known. It’s no wonder she hates me.’
Eric’s response was non-committal. The morning felt like a million years ago. How was it possible that only hours beforehand he had been cleaning out Suzy’s office, then talking to Lydia? Mabel was with Abi, who Eric had let eat in the living room, watching television, under the strict proviso that she did not give Lulu any chips. Truth was he didn’t care what she did right now, she could feed Lulu the whole damn plateful as long as she wasn’t making a fuss when she did it.
‘Do you think it’s true? About how much the ring cost?’ Katrina said, apparently having replaced her silent sullenness of the previous weeks with a more vocal alternative. ‘I should have known. The man at the shop was way too happy to take it off my hands. Do you think there’s any way we can get it back? Claim that he tricked me? Go to the police even.’
‘If everyone went to the police when a pawnbroker ripped them off, we’d need to triple the number of policemen,’ Eric commented.
Katrina bowed her head. ‘You know what the worst of it is?’ she said, moving the chips around her plate. ‘It’s that I actually thought I was doing something right today. I really did. It was the first time since Mabel was born – other than coming here, to find you – selling that ring, getting myself clothes for auditions, even those presents. I thought I was starting to repair things in my life. Turns out I only ever make things worse.’
‘It was an honest mistake,’ Eric said, seeing more than ever the naivety of her youth.
Katrina nodded, thoughtfully, then speared a chip with her fork.
