Those blue eyes of his shone with pure evil, like he was doing terrible things to her in his head.
She knew that look, because she was giving him the same one back.
She took a deep breath, and sighed, and said, ‘Oh God, I’m sorry, Nick. Blame the pregnancy hormones.’ And she made herself smile at him. ‘I’m so sorry. Of course it must have been an accident. Those big feet of yours! It’s okay, it’s fine. I don’t know what I’m making all this fuss for.’ And she made a wee I’m that ashamed of myself face at Duncan.
Duncan grimaced sympathetically. ‘I know how much those spoons meant to you.’
She nodded, real tears coming now.
Duncan pulled her into a hug.
‘I didn’t break the spoons,’ went Nick. Ha! He was raging that she’d turned this round and suggested that he’d broken them and not wanted to own up, but that she forgave him.
‘It’s okay, it doesn’t matter.’ She buried her face in Duncan’s jumper so he couldn’t see her triumphant grin. Nick was going to find he was messing with the wrong woman here. Aye, maybe Maggie McPhee was a stunted wee plebe from Paisley who only had one O Grade, but she was a graduate of the school of hard knocks and she’d come up against mad fuckers a whole lot more scary than Nick Clyde.
On Sunday morning, Maggie slept late and found Yvonne in the kitchen, washing dishes at the sink like it was her own house. She turned to Maggie, drying her hands on a tea towel and lifting her eyes to the clock.
So it’s 11:30. Want to make something of it?
‘I’ve been having a lie-in,’ went Maggie, trudging to the kettle.
‘Evidently. I hear Nick’s been giving you grief?’
Maggie looked at Yvonne. The woman was smart-casual in stiff, unflattering jeans, an orange jumper and one of those posh silk scarves with horseshoes on it. Interesting choice of words, though – ‘Nick’s been giving you grief’, not ‘You’ve been getting your knickers in a twist about poor Nick.’
Maggie leant back against the worktop, stretching her back.
Yvonne shrugged. ‘Kids are vile.’ She looked at Maggie’s belly. ‘Sorry, but let’s face it, they’re not worth bothering with until they’re at least twenty-one. You’re older than that, aren’t you?’
‘I’m twenty-eight!’ puffed Maggie. ‘Still get asked if I’ve got a young person’s railcard, mind,’ she conceded. ‘Even with this.’ She patted her belly.
‘I had the opposite problem. Five foot nine at the age of thirteen. I once got mistaken for the teacher.’
‘Aye, I can see that!’ The words were out before Maggie could stop them. She could just imagine Yvonne at thirteen, a forty-year-old in a wee lassie’s body. She was two years younger than Duncan, but you’d think she was ten years older.
Yvonne raised her eyebrows.
‘Aye, Nick.’ Maggie poured boiling water into a mug and dumped a teabag in after it. ‘He’s being a nightmare.’
‘Duncan spoils him rotten. Even before Kathleen’s death, dear little Nick could do no wrong as far as he was concerned. Kathleen was always complaining that Duncan didn’t discipline him and left it all to her. Wanting to be the cool dad. But of course it meant poor Kathleen had to be the strict one. Make sure you don’t make the same mistake with this one. Make sure Duncan steps up to the plate.’
What did Yvonne know about bringing up a child? Duncan said she’d never wanted her own kids and wasn’t much of an auntie to Nick.
‘Where’s Duncan?’
‘He and Michael are in the garage, I think. There’s something wrong with Nick’s bike and the two of them will be out there staring at it for an hour before they finally give up and admit they need to take it to the bike shop.’
Maggie took the shortcut across the lawn and down a path overhung with wee trees and roses. So she was coming at the garage from the side, rather than along the track off the drive that led to the front of it. She was about to step onto the gravel when she heard Duncan’s voice say, ‘I just hope being pregnant, and vulnerable emotionally, isn’t starting to reactivate old behaviours.’
She stepped off the path and onto the grass at the side of the garage, moving silently right up to the edge of the door.
‘Are you worried about how she’s going to cope with the baby?’ That was Michael’s gruff voice.
Duncan sighed. ‘A little. I mean, how’s she going to deal with a needy newborn, if she can’t handle a relatively well-behaved teenager? Nick has his moments, but as teenagers go, he’s a positive paragon. She says he resents her, but I can see no evidence of that – can you?’
Silence. She imagined Michael shaking his head.
‘She says he’s been saying things to hurt her, but that can’t be true. Nick’s not nasty like that. Maybe he’s been a bit tactless when he’s been joking around, but I can’t see him saying anything to hurt her deliberately.’
A bit tactless.
Joking around.
On Friday morning, when Duncan had been out at work, Maggie had been sitting on the couch in the lounge – no, the sofa in the drawing room – looking through the wedding album, and suddenly Nick’s voice had gone: ‘Lovely.’
He was there, right behind her, looking over her shoulder.
The photo was one of Maggie on her own, in her wedding dress, big belly sticking out, thin mousy hair put up by the hairdresser into a ‘do’ but already straggling out of it. Maggie liked the photo, though. She looked dead happy, grinning away.
‘Sun spotlighting my schnozzle,’ she pointed out. ‘Not my best feature.’ Maggie had, she assumed, inherited her large Roman nose from her father, whoever the bastard had been.
Nick went, ‘A face only a mother could love, hmm?’
Terrible silence.
And then he was all, ‘Oh, God, sorry! I didn’t mean . . .’ He dropped onto the couch next to her and put a hand over hers, leaning too close.
She pulled her hand away.
‘Oh God, Mags, I’m an insensitive idiot! I’m so sorry!’
He knew about Ma? Duncan had told him about the abuse?