Дэвид Муди - Strangers

‘They all know each other, fucking inbreds. Anyway, they didn’t know him like they thought they did, did they? Fuck’s sake, he carved up a girl in his back garden…’

‘We just have to make sure they don’t start pointing fingers.’

‘Why would they?’

She paused, choosing her words carefully. ‘Sometimes you can be a bit aggressive, Scott. You can fly off the handle.’

‘Only if I’m pushed.’

‘I just don’t want you doing anything you’ll regret. Anything we’ll regret.’

‘Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?’ he demanded. Michelle swallowed hard. Nervous. Scared.

‘My husband. Look, Scott, you know I love you and I’ll always support you…’

‘Is there a but coming here?’

Another deep breath. She didn’t know how he was going to react, but she had to say this. More to the point, he needed to hear it. ‘We’ve had to make a lot of sacrifices for this family, and we don’t have a lot left to give. Personally, love, I’ve got nothing left. I know what happened today was out of your control, but we have to deal with it in the right way and not alienate ourselves. There’s nowhere left for us to go now.’

‘What’s going on?’ Tammy asked. Scott and Michelle both looked up. They hadn’t noticed her standing in the doorway.

‘How long have you been listening?’ Scott yelled.

‘Few minutes.’

‘And what did you hear?’

‘Not enough by the sounds of things.’ She turned and faced her mother directly. ‘What’s going on, Mom?’

‘It’s nothing. Just give us some space, Tam.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Tammy, watch your language.’

‘Don’t speak to your mother like that,’ Scott said, staring straight at her.

‘Why not? You do,’ she said, staring straight back. She flinched when he pushed his chair back and went to stand up, but she stood her ground. Michelle put her hand on his arm.

‘Tammy, please,’ she said. ‘Just leave it. It’s none of your business.’

‘It is though, isn’t it? How can it not be?’

‘Look, Scott had some trouble at work and—’

‘Already? You’ve only been there two days, Scott.’

‘It wasn’t his fault.’

‘You always say that. You always defend him.’

‘It’s true.’

‘You always say that too. We’ve been down this road before, Mum, remember? You kept telling me then that everything was fine and there was nothing going on, then you put the house on the market.’

‘Tam, leave it…’

‘No, I won’t. It’s him again, isn’t it?’ she said, nodding at Scott but unable to bring herself to even say his name. ‘Everything was fine until he got home. He’s back for five minutes and you’re shouting at me and treating me like a kid again and—’

‘Do what your mother says,’ Scott warned. ‘Leave it. Go back to bed.’

‘I’m sick of this,’ Tammy continued, clearly in no mood to do either. ‘I’m sick of the way you keep messing with our lives. You think you’re the only one who matters.’

‘I’m the only one who keeps this family functioning,’ he told her.

‘You’re the one who ruined everything. You screwed things up for all of us. It’s your fault we’re here, your fault I had to leave everything that mattered to me.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, you silly little bitch.’

‘Scott, don’t…’ Michelle protested.

‘Did you hear what he called me? Mum, did you hear what he just called me?’

Scott leapt up and sprung at her, grabbing one arm and pinning her up against the wall. ‘I’ll call you a lot worse if you don’t shut up. Now take a hint and keep your bloody nose out of things that are none of your business.’

Michelle pulled her husband away from her daughter, squeezing into the gap between them. She turned around and gently pushed Scott back into the kitchen, not wanting to wind him up more than he already was. She looked back over her shoulder at Tammy who remained pressed up against the wall, tears rolling down her face, more through anger than fear.

‘Go, Tammy,’ she mouthed. And Tammy didn’t want to, but she did.

Michelle’s heart sank when she woke up next morning and remembered everything that had happened the night before. All she wanted was to close her eyes and go back to sleep for another few hours, maybe even a day, perhaps a month or more. She’d gone to bed after she and Scott had finished talking – shouting – and he hadn’t said a word when he’d come in hours later. Then he’d got up this morning and it was like nothing had happened. She’d expected that. She’d grown used to his mood-swings and tempers. Strange to think that she’d actually found his volatility attractive when they’d first got together. It had been a stark contrast to Jeremy with his steady caution and dreary predictability. It had been exciting for a time. It had made her feel alive. Not anymore.

She worked like a bloody trooper first thing; washed and dressed before the others were even awake, and she’d had the house cleaned and breakfast on the table before the first of them had made it downstairs. Normally she liked to be up first, to make the most of the quiet before the usual domestic storm, but today there were things she needed to think through. What exactly had happened at that man’s house yesterday? Why was it always Scott?

Once the kids were downstairs she was distracted. She refereed a couple of minor skirmishes between the girls, helped George with his porridge, and kept all three of them out of Scott’s way. It was a delicate balancing act. She thought she deserved a bloody medal but her efforts went unnoticed as usual. All they had to think about was themselves, she was the one who kept it all together. She stared out of the kitchen window, eating a piece of toast she didn’t want but thought she’d better have, watching birds turn impossible angles in the grey sky. She envied their freedom, their manoeuvrability.

She dropped Scott at work then took the girls to school. Then, with the three of them out of the way for the day, she turned around and looked at George strapped in his travel seat behind her. ‘So what do you reckon, sunshine? Shall we go see if there’s anything for a big man like you to do in Thussock?’

Chores first. She had a list of them. This was the last one.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t remember my postcode,’ she said to the woman behind the counter. ‘I’ve not been there a week yet.’

‘Well without your postcode, madam, we can’t register you and your family as patients here. I’m a receptionist, not an address look-up service.’

‘There’s no need to be sarcastic. People call it the grey house, you know it?’

‘Oh, I know it all right, Willy was a patient here.’

‘Can’t you check his old records then? Get the postcode from there?’

‘That’d be a breach of customer confidentiality, I couldn’t possibly do that.’

‘He’s dead, isn’t he? I don’t reckon he’d be too bothered.’

‘Hardly the point now, is it?’ The sour-faced woman just smiled, the knowing smile of someone sitting behind safety glass who couldn’t be throttled or punched. ‘Why not take the forms with you and bring them back when we’re less busy.’

Michelle looked over her shoulder. The spacious waiting room was empty but for two patients, one reading a dog-eared magazine, the other coughing and wheezing constantly. She turned back and eyed-up the ice maiden behind the counter again, knowing this was a battle she wasn’t going to win. More to the point, it was a silly, trivial fight she didn’t need. She picked up the five forms. ‘Thanks for nothing. I’ll be back.’