Blood Family Read online

  ‘Ungrateful little turd, was I?’

  Alice didn’t argue. ‘And when Natasha saw the mess that Nicholas was turning into, lying awake every night imagining your body rotting in a ditch, she said that only someone from a family as hellish as yours could be so cruel as not to even bother to ring in, even just every now and again, to tell them you were safe.’

  ‘Not sure I was safe.’

  ‘Well, you weren’t, were you? When Nicholas brought you home, you looked like shit.’

  ‘You saw me?’

  Alice stared. ‘Don’t you remember? I drove home that very night. I was there when the doctor came to put that shot in your bum. I was there all the time that you were screaming and yelling in your sleep. I only left the next day so as not to let some college mates down in a presentation.’

  I shivered. ‘Glad I don’t remember.’

  ‘You’re lucky. It was horrible. I never want to hear anyone howling like that again. Nicholas was tearing his hair out, and Natasha was striding up and down around the house all night, burning with fury and muttering to herself.’

  ‘About my “bad blood”, probably.’

  ‘No! That’s self-pitying nonsense!’ Her face went tight. ‘But, Eddie, since you’ve brought it up, there’s something I did want to say. I mean, I know it was a hateful thing I shouted at you.’ She hesitated. ‘You know. About being a beast. And I’ve felt terrible about it ever since.’ Now she was staring at the ground. ‘But—’

  I had to prompt her. ‘But—?’

  Alice looked up. ‘It’s not enough, is it? I mean, for it to be my fault, you going off like that and getting yourself in such a state you couldn’t even phone home. Spending months reeling round in horrid places, halfway to paralytic.’ Her voice was sharp. ‘You’re not so stupid as to think that just because your dad’s a vile and stupid drunk, you have to follow his example and be one too. You even hate Bryce Harris! So why on earth did you copy him?’

  My stomach clenched. And there in front of me, crystal-sharp, came a long-buried memory of Miss Bright back in primary school, leading me out of the classroom and down the corridor until we reached the tiny, safe school library with all its scarlet cushions. ‘You mustn’t copy people, Edward. I know you’re sometimes not sure how to do things. But copying Astrid’s painting won’t make it yours. You have to take a chance and be yourself.’

  Had I just nodded? Had I cried?

  Now it was Alice peering in my burning face. ‘Eddie?’

  I shoved the ancient memory aside. ‘I don’t know why I did it. But I don’t blame you and I never have.’

  She darted forward to peck my cheek. (My first kiss ever from Alice.) ‘Thanks, Eddie.’

  Then she turned, embarrassed. ‘Lucy! It’s time to go!’

  We walked on to the car park, my mum still trailing behind. Since it was obviously confession time, I thought I might as well be brave. ‘Alice, can I ask something back? About Natasha.’

  Alice looked uneasy.

  I asked it anyway. ‘Have I blown things for ever? Does Natasha hate me?’

  ‘Not hate you, no. Of course not—’ Alice broke off, to pick her next words with care. ‘Though I’m not sure she’ll ever truly forgive you.’ She gave me an encouraging punch. ‘But honestly, you should have seen her face when she was told you’d sent that postcard. She must love you, Eddie. And the two of you will come to terms.’

  ‘She’s been so nice on the visits.’

  ‘Visits are short,’ warned Alice.

  ‘You think it will be awful after I come home?’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s up to you. You know Natasha. All she wants is for everything she does to be a great success. And she adopted us, so we’ve to be successful too.’

  We’d reached the car park. Alice looked around to check on Lucy, who was dawdling behind, smiling at bushes, then she turned back to me. ‘Though, to be fair to Natasha, I think that she’d be just as pleased with you if you were simply happy.’

  I made a face. ‘You reckon that’s my choice? Successful or happy?’

  ‘You could try both.’ She grinned. ‘That’s what I’m aiming for.’

  ‘Well, I’m not you. And I admit that, given the way I feel, I don’t think happy’s in the running here.’

  ‘Well, then,’ said Alice, as if this wrapped the matter up, ‘you’ll have to be successful. And that reminds me . . .’ She tugged at the car’s back door and reached inside. ‘This is for you.’

  She thrust a purple backpack in my arms. ‘Natasha bought it. She gave poor Nicholas a helping of tongue pie for even bothering to bring your old one back when he went up to fetch you. She said it stunk the car out horribly and probably had fleas. She wouldn’t even let me look inside before she dumped it in the wheelie bin. I had to sneak out later to get your treasures.’

  Treasures?

  All I could think of was Olly the Owl, from all those years ago. ‘Treasures?’

  ‘You know,’ she said. ‘The stuff you had in there when you were carted off to hospital. I’ve put them in to cheer you up.’ Again she grinned. ‘You’re going to need them too, when you see all the other stuff Natasha’s put in there.’

  I stood there silently while Alice herded Lucy into the car and strapped her into her seat.

  A moment later, after one false start and a short spit of gravel from beneath the wheels, Alice was gone.

  ‘The other stuff’ was mostly books and papers. I did think that was odd, until I looked more closely. One of the envelopes was marked in Natasha’s hand: Edward. Fill in this form at once and post it back.

  Clipped to the papers was another clean, self-sealing envelope, already addressed and stamped.

  The papers were an application for Sixth Form College, to start in just a few weeks. My good school record up till everything went wrong was all in there, along with descriptions of the courses I’d started but never finished. (The reason given for that, and for my being out of school so long, had been put down as ‘health problems now resolved’.)

  The only choice that had been left to me was for supporting subjects.

  And that is what the books were all about. Short introductory texts on some of the options. I suppose Natasha thought that if I liked the look of one or two of them more than the others, I could choose those.

  I spread the papers out over my bed and stared at them, feeling as if she’d given me a legal document and ordered me to sign my life away. She’d even used those tiny coloured peel-off strips to flag up where to date and sign.

  I bet she would have forged my name for me if she had dared.

  If she’d tried that on me before, I’m sure I would have baulked. Now I just didn’t care. I was quite happy to have someone as tough as Natasha make my decisions for me. It stopped me having to think, and half the time I felt too muggy, the rest exhausted and tearful. Dr Ross had assured Natasha and Nicholas that once I’d stopped the tablets she’d prescribed to calm me for the first couple of weeks, I would be able to concentrate again. But I didn’t bother even trying to read the books Natasha sent. I simply squinted at the jacket blurbs, then chose the ones that didn’t sound too hard or dull.

  Then I picked up the two things Alice had smuggled in the backpack afterwards. One was the only Mr Perkins tape that had survived. The other was the book. I couldn’t play the tape, and so I read The Devil Ruled the Roost for what was probably the fortieth time. I knew the story so well that it didn’t matter when the print began to pitch and roll, or my mind wandered off.

  Until I realized where it kept wandering.

  Harriet Roberts, Psychotherapist

  Tiffany said she’d found him crying in the gardener’s shed. ‘I told him, there’s no need to get upset. It’s only a book.’ But he’d said something through his tears about his mother.

  Then he’d clammed up.

  We try not to let on when one of them is indiscreet about another. But in our next private session I did tackle Eddie. ‘I know we’ve talked a lot a
bout your mother, Lucy. But I want to go back to that a little.’

  They’re none of them stupid.

  ‘I told Tiff not to tell you!’ he said sullenly. ‘She even promised.’

  I shrugged, and batted on for quite a while, but we made almost no headway. So when the hour was up, I sent him off with homework.

  ‘Homework?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You have to write a letter to your mum.’

  ‘To Lucy?’ The laugh was scornful. ‘She’s not right in the head. Can’t even listen properly, let alone read.’

  ‘She’s never going to see it, Eddie.’

  ‘Then what’s the point?’

  ‘It’s therapeutic. You can be honest. You’ll find that, once you start, it will be difficult to stop. It’s harder than you think to write down lies.’

  That caught his interest. ‘Really? Why?’

  ‘Not sure,’ I said. ‘But that is true. Try it. You’ll see.’

  Tiffany Dent

  The three of us – Tod, me and Eddie – were in Eddie’s room. Jean-Pierre had gone back home the week before, and no one else had been put in there yet. I was scrunched up against the skirting board, pretending to smoke, and we were breaking the rules by talking about Glasgow. Well, Tod was breaking the rules by telling us a story I had heard before about a mate of his scraping at sandstone walls with a nail file to get a powder he could fold in wraps and fob off as ‘best golden brown’ to make some money for his own next hit.

  Eddie and I were breaking the rules by listening.

  Then, in the waste bin, I saw this crumpled letter with the words pathetic and faintest idea what love’s supposed to mean.

  I just assumed that he’d been giving some secret girlfriend the flick, and I was interested. You see, I’d rather hoped he fancied me. (I certainly liked him.)

  OK, so I admit, I sneaked the letter out of the bin into my pocket. It was a rotten thing to do, and I wished I hadn’t later when I read it through. It was the nastiest letter I have ever read. So cold. So angry. He blamed this mum of his for everything. He called her weak and stupid. He said that he had spent years living in terror of bumping into Harris and that was her fault. Everything was her fault. He said he’d seen plenty of mothers managing on their own with babies and small children – even addict mothers. And all of them had done a better job than she had. He even said he thought that weakness like hers was a sin.

  He said that. Honestly. He said it was a sin.

  He said he didn’t think that he could forgive her. Ever.

  Harriet Roberts, Psychotherapist

  I asked him how writing the letter went. (He hadn’t brought it with him.)

  He said he found it interesting. ‘I spewed out quite a lot of stuff. Not what I thought I’d write at all.’ He made a rueful face. ‘It wasn’t very nice.’

  ‘No harm done,’ I reminded him. ‘Would you like to tell me about it?’

  ‘No!’ he said sharply. He studied his feet in sullen fashion for a while, then added, ‘It was too awful. It was so awful that I threw it away.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ I said. ‘How do you feel now?’

  ‘Better,’ he admitted. ‘I thought about the things I wrote for quite a time. I think the letter was a little hard on her.’ He studied his torn nails. ‘I mean, if you judged me by what I did in Glasgow . . .’

  He’d mentioned this so often. ‘Stealing that blind woman’s purse?’

  ‘And kicking that kid for his chips.’ His face contorted in the familiar way. ‘Well, if you judged me just by that, you’d think that I was loathsome. Absolutely loathsome.’

  ‘And you are not.’

  ‘No. No, I’m not.’ He leaned towards me. ‘But, you see, Nicholas came to fetch me. In the middle of the night.’ He waved a hand at the walls. ‘And Natasha’s paying for this. And this place costs a fortune.’

  ‘It does indeed.’

  ‘And Alice sends stuff every day – chocolates and postcards and chewing gum. She even sends cartoons cut out of magazines.’

  There was a long, long silence.

  Then he whispered, ‘I try to think that there was no one for my mum. No one at all. Then I could think she never had a chance.’ The tears streamed down his face. ‘But it’s not true, is it? I mean, there’s always someone. And she should have turned to them to keep me safe.’

  I wasn’t going to argue. I sat quietly.

  He wiped both palms across his face. ‘I’m fine with hating Harris. I know now that he was my proper father and I was only kidding myself with all that Mr Perkins stuff—’

  ‘Not kidding yourself, Eddie. Protecting yourself. And very sensibly and very well.’

  He brushed the interruption aside. ‘Anyhow, I hate him and I hope he’s dead. I have no problem with that. I owe him nothing. Nothing at all!’

  The tears kept coming. He kept wiping them away.

  ‘But my mum’s different. She didn’t start like that. Like that first time that we watched Mr Perkins. I can remember she was different.’

  He finished with a strangled sob.

  We sat in silence for a little while. Then he spoke up again.

  ‘You know that place I stayed in when I first went to Manchester—’

  I glanced down at my notes. ‘Barry and Jasmine?’

  ‘Yes. She managed it all right. Jaz worried about her son, so she just kicked me out. No argument. Just out.’

  Young people have to get through life. Sometimes you have to take a punt with a suggestion that might help.

  ‘You’ve never wondered if your mum was horribly unlucky? That maybe she got punched too hard too soon to make a sensible decision?’

  ‘You mean, she might have been already thinking we should leave? Planning it, even?’

  ‘It’s very possible.’

  ‘And then, before she took the chance, he knocked her stupid?’

  ‘The man did clearly pack a boxer’s punch.’

  He thought about it for a while. ‘And after that – well, there was no one there to help – except for me.’

  ‘You were too young to do a thing. A child that age simply assumes that’s how life is.’

  ‘You’re saying maybe if she’d had someone who’d put out for her – like I had family?’

  ‘Think of it this way, Eddie. Suppose you hadn’t had family?’

  I left him to think this one through. And then he said it. ‘Maybe I would have ended up as drunk and vile as Harris.’

  ‘That certainly seems to be where you were headed . . .’

  His voice shook. ‘Kicking kids . . . snatching blind people’s stuff because they’re easy meat.’ Suddenly his eyes met mine. ‘But that’s not me!’

  ‘I know it’s not.’

  ‘And I’m to try and think that wasn’t her?’

  ‘You said yourself, “She didn’t start like that”.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, she didn’t. Or she would never have remembered some of the words from the song.’

  Seeing my puzzled look, he shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  There was no time in any case to set off down another path. So I just said, ‘Well, Eddie, if you can feel a bit of sympathy for your mum, can’t you forgive yourself?’

  He told me bitterly, ‘That’s different. I had a working brain. And choices.’

  ‘Not at the time,’ I reminded him. ‘That’s what addiction means. But you will get on top of yourself again.’

  ‘On top of myself!’ He snorted. ‘Sounds like a bloody mountain climb!’

  I nearly said it. Yes, Eddie. Except it’s harder, and takes far, far longer.

  Eddie

  I still had panic attacks. They’d push my head between my knees and I would use the trick that Linda taught me all those years ago – breathe out as slowly as I could, and count to ten. Her comforting soft strictures would echo through my mind. ‘Steady, my poppet! Steady! You’re safe now. He’ll never get to you again. Now, come on, Eddie. Keep breathing. Slowly, slowly. There
’s my own precious baby. There’s my boy . . .’

  One day when Dr Ross came round, I had a moan. ‘I still can’t concentrate. My brain’s a fug.’

  ‘How long have you been with us?’ She glanced at my notes. ‘Four weeks.’ She tapped her pencil on her teeth and studied me a while. ‘All right. I’m going to lower the dose. But if the staff report you’re getting irritable or agitated, I shall increase it again.’

  I tried to make a joke of it. ‘Can I still bite my fingernails?’

  She snorted. ‘God! Are they no better?’

  I stuck my hands out. She inspected what was left of my nails and shuddered. ‘A disgusting habit. You might as well be shovelling germs into your mouth.’

  Then we both laughed because we realized I was only there because I had been shovelling something fifty times worse into my mouth for months.

  It was a while before I could read again. But when I could, I felt much better. I ploughed my way through Sherlock Holmes, and all the other books lying around the unit. Finally I started on the ones Natasha wanted me to read before I filled in the form. I was relieved to find I’d made as good a stab at choosing from the jacket covers as I would have from reading them all through.

  It made me feel a little braver about what was coming.

  And then, one day, I woke up happy.

  I wasn’t even thinking about anything.

  I was just happy.

  Tiffany

  I told you that I really liked him. I liked him a lot.

  I’d spent time in the unit twice before, so knew that when they think you’re ready to go, they tell your parents but they don’t tell you. You’re chucked out really fast, before you’ve had the time to make arrangements to meet anyone. (It’s in the rules that you give up your mobile even before you come, and never get that number back.)