The Back Road

22

Day Four: Monday

To Leo’s disappointment, Sunday had never settled back into the peaceful and harmonious atmosphere of that brief period before lunch. The more Ellie insisted that somebody had been in the house, the more Max had told her that it was her imagination. Not only had she thought that the bathroom cupboard had been tampered with, but she was sure somebody had been through her drawers. Max had joked about the intruder probably being after her knickers, but Ellie had been furious with him for taking it so lightly.

The trouble was, Leo was fairly certain that somebody had been looking at her computer. But nothing had been stolen, and surely they would have taken her laptop if they were so interested in it? If Max had left the door open by mistake and some kids had come in - the obvious answer as nothing was missing - he wouldn’t be doing it again in a hurry. So it had felt better not to add fuel to the fire.

Now it was a new day, and much as she was dreading it Leo thought it was time she faced up to another of the traumas of her childhood. She was going to walk into the village, and hope and pray that she could replace the old memories that still haunted her with new ones, much as she had done with Willow Farm.

She had driven past the shops on Friday evening for the first time in years. Ellie and Max had always lived on the other side of the village and it had been easy to reach their house by coming down the back road, but to get to Willow Farm she could no longer ignore Little Melham, so it had to be dealt with.

She stopped outside what used to be the sweet shop, and gazed at its old-fashioned facade. It had always looked like a shop out of a fairy story, with its semi-circular bay window made up of over a hundred small panes of glass. She had counted them once. On the outside not much had changed, but Leo could see that now it was a newsagents too. Sweets alone would be unlikely to sustain a shop in a village these days, particularly as she could bet money on this being the sort of place where health conscious parents frowned upon their precious offspring eating sugar in any form.

Right Leo, in you go.

She didn’t allow herself time to think as she purposefully pushed open the door and walked inside. This shop had the worst memories of all, so it was the best place to start. For most of the other shops, she had merely been a customer as part of her three times weekly grocery trip. The shopping was one of her chores, and the hardest. The only good thing was that it kept her out of the house. If there was too much to carry in one journey, she had to make several. She was known for having the biggest muscles ever seen on an eleven year old girl’s arms, but if Ellie ever offered to help - which she often did - she was told it wasn’t necessary. Ellie had to get on with her piano practice, or her homework. Leo, on the other hand, had to do her homework after dark when everybody was in bed, sitting on the floor of her room with a piece of fabric over her lamp in case anybody was walking the corridors.

But the sweet shop was the scene of her most degrading experience. On the day in question, she had already completed her second trip to the village. There had been potatoes to buy, and onions, carrots and other heavy vegetables. And then there had been the meat and the bread. Leo thought she’d finished but was sent back one more time to get some aspirin, which she could easily have managed on either of the previous journeys.

And that’s when she did something stupid.

Most days as she walked through the village, kids from school would be hanging around the church or the bus shelter. Usually she got jeers and catcalls because she wasn’t one of their crowd, but this day was different. When she came out of the chemist, there was a group of about eight of them sitting on the church wall, and for once they spoke to her. Even to be noticed by them was such a rare event that when they called her name, she tentatively went over to join them. She supposed she should have realised that they didn’t actually want to talk to her, but they did want something.

‘Oy - you - Leonora,’ one of the lads called. It always raised a laugh when she was called by her full name, because these were the kids from the rough end of town, and they thought it was a posh name. If only they’d known. She knew this lad - Neil something or other. He was in the year above her, and fancied himself something rotten. She wasn’t sure why, because he had floppy, greasy hair and a huge zit on his chin, but it was the first time anybody had paid her any attention.

As she got closer, she could see that some of the girls were sniggering and whispering to each other, but the lads seemed to want to talk to her.

‘All right?’ Neil asked. She nodded, not quite getting up the confidence to speak.

‘Listen, Le-o-nor-ra,’ he enunciated each syllable and turned to his friends with a smirk. ‘We need you to do something for us. That old bag in the sweet shop has banned us from going in - so get us some chocolate will you?’ He pronounced ‘You’ as ‘ya’ which Leo thought sounded cool, but she would never get away with it. She’d get cracked around the head at home, and she would sound ridiculous probably.

‘Okay,’ she answered. ‘I don’t mind. Give me the money, then.’

They all burst out laughing, as if she’d said something hysterically funny. Or stupid, more likely.

‘Tut, tut, Nora. Is it okay if I call you Nora? You don’t pay for them, you silly tart. You nick ’em. A couple of Curly Wurlies and a Toffee Crisp will do fine.’

Leo hesitated. She wanted to be accepted, but she had never stolen anything in her life, and had no desire to start now. But if she refused, they would jeer at her even more and it would spread round school like wildfire that Leonora Harris was too chicken to nick a couple of bars of chocolate.

If she’d had money of her own, she would have bought the chocolate and lied, but she didn’t. There was enough of her stepmother’s money to buy one thing - and she’d have to say she’d lost the change and take the punishment. Perhaps she could pay for the Toffee Crisp and steal the Curly Wurlies. If it meant that the other kids finally accepted her, maybe she could do it.

Leo knew they were watching her as she walked towards the shop, and she tried to look confident. She swallowed hard as she pushed the door open. Mrs Talbot was standing behind the counter, serving some children and their mother. They were choosing from the penny tray, and taking their time about it. The chocolates were on display shelves down the side of the shop, with the big jars of sweets that had to be weighed out on the toffee scale right behind the counter.

Mrs Talbot was a large woman, which everybody joked was from eating too much of her own stock. She always wore one of those cross-over aprons with a loud pattern, and her face was set with lines of what looked to Leo like constant irritation. For now, though, Mrs Talbot was being all sweetness and light to the mother of the well-behaved children.

Her face flushing with the fear of what she was about to do, Leo glanced quickly over her shoulder and hurriedly placed the two chocolate bars in her shopping bag. She picked up the Toffee Crisp, and advanced towards the counter, her palms sweating with fear. If this is what it felt like to be a burglar, she thought, she couldn’t understand why anybody would want to do it.

Mrs Talbot said nothing and finished serving the family. Leo was relieved. Obviously she hadn’t noticed a thing. Mrs Talbot even walked to the door with the customers, opening it to show them out with a smile, and wishing them a good day. But then Leo’s fear returned in full force, because Mrs Talbot had closed the door. And locked it.

Without saying a word, she had walked over to her telephone and picked it up. She dialled three numbers, and Leo thought that without a doubt it had to be the police. But she was wrong. Mrs Talbot was calling directory enquiries, and asking for Leo’s home number. This was, after all, a village. Everybody knew where she lived, and where she had come from. Now, she wished it had been the police that Mrs Talbot was calling.

It hadn’t taken long at all for her stepmother to arrive, and what came next didn’t bear thinking about. To Mrs Talbot’s credit, even she had looked shocked at the hard slap across the face that Leo had received, but Leo knew that was nothing to what she was going to get when they got home. And then, to her eternal shame and degradation, her stepmother grabbed a handful of Leo’s hair, twisting it to get a better grip, and dragged her from the shop, past all the sneering kids on the church wall, and took her home. Leo had never set foot inside the shop from that day to this.

But now here she was. A comfortable looking lady of about sixty stood behind the counter. Dressed in a pink cotton top with short sleeves and some elaborate beading around the neck, she had a pleasant smile, and to Leo’s surprise her face lit up when she looked at her customer.

‘Leo Harris - well, I’ll be blessed,’ she said, beaming at a stunned Leo. ‘It’s good to see you, lass. I’d have recognised you anywhere. Come to visit Ellie, have you? I bet those twins are running you ragged.’

Leo was momentarily lost for words.

‘Oh, don’t look so worried, love. It’s me - Doreen Talbot. I know I’ve changed a bit. I’ve been ill, but I’m okay now. I feel twenty years younger, and I’ve been waiting a long time to apologise to you.’

Leo finally found her voice.

‘Mrs Talbot, what can I say? I had no idea that you were still here, but I don’t know why you feel you need to apologise to me. I stole from you. I am so ashamed that I did that. I could blame peer pressure, but I should have been strong enough to resist.’

Mrs Talbot leant against the counter on her folded arms.

‘Listen, Leo, we all know you had a dreadful time with the old battle-axe. But nothing prepared me for the way she treated you that day. If it had been nowadays, I’d have called child services or whatever they’re called. I’m sorry, love. If I’d known and if I hadn’t been feeling so ropey myself in those days, I’d have handled things different.’

Leo didn’t know what to say. But Mrs Talbot hadn’t finished.

‘We all knew, you know,’ she repeated. ‘Not only about you and how you came to be here, but everything else that went on. It’s a village. We talk. Your stepmother was evil, there’s no doubt. But then she had a lot to put up with, I suppose.’

Not entirely sure that she understood what Mrs Talbot was getting at, it suddenly didn’t matter to Leo. Feeling as if her last battle had been fought and won, she was about to thank Mrs Talbot and leave when she spotted the local paper with the headline about the hit and run on the back road splashed across the front page. Mrs Talbot followed Leo’s gaze and pointed to the image of a happy looking Abbie.

‘And there’s another poor young girl. A bit of a solitary soul, or so I’m told. Not many friends. Just like you were at that age, if you don’t mind me saying so lass.’

Not knowing how to respond to this, Leo thanked Mrs Talbot for being so forgiving, and shook her hand.

The lightness that she felt at being exonerated from the shoplifting incident was replaced with sadness for Abbie Campbell. It sounded like she was a loner too, and Leo knew better than most how difficult that could be. Conflicting emotions were fighting for supremacy as she closed the shop door.

‘Hello! This is a nice surprise.’ She heard the voice before she noticed him, and blinked to bring the day back into focus.

‘Tom. It’s good to see you. I was miles away.’ Leo suppressed her confused thoughts and attempted a smile. ‘I’m sorry we missed you yesterday, it would have been good to meet Lucy.’

‘I came to say thanks to Max and Ellie, but thought you and I might fix up to have lunch some time, if you’re at a loose end. Because I certainly am,’ Tom said, with a sheepish grin.

He indicated the wine bar right behind them.

‘It’s a bit early for lunch yet, but do you fancy a cup of coffee if you’ve nothing better to do?’

* * *

Tom was genuinely pleased to see Leo. Since Lucy had left the evening before the house had felt empty, so he’d done his usual trick of coming for a walk to the village. Tomorrow he was going to start phoning around because until the right job came up, the least he could do would be to offer his services for training or mentoring, and if that failed he would look up a few charities where he could help out. He wanted to be around people. He was fast realising that solitude didn’t suit him.

He admired Leo’s casual look, which was perfect for an English summer’s day. He had the feeling that she only ever wore black with a splash of white, but with that dark red lipstick and the sunglasses, she instantly stood out from the crowd. Her black cotton skirt finished just above her knees, showing her lightly tanned legs to perfection, and she was wearing a short, loose, black and white sleeveless top.

He felt a bit scruffy in his jeans and T-shirt. He hadn’t even bothered to shave this morning. He needed to get his act together, or he would become a complete slob if he didn’t watch it. Leo didn’t seem too worried though as they took their seats at a table just inside the wide-open sliding doors. Believe it or not, the sun was too hot to sit outside, which made a change from the incessant rain they had been enjoying this summer.

They ordered their coffee, and Tom turned to Leo.

‘You were miles away when I saw you,’ he said. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’ve been laying some demons to rest, that’s all,’ Leo answered, with a satisfied smile.

‘Demons? In Little Melham? You’ve got to be kidding me,’ Tom said.

‘I wish I was,’ Leo said. ‘Anyway, never mind me. How did yesterday go with Lucy? Did she love the cottage now that it’s finished?’

‘She did, although her mother was a bit scathing. But then that’s only what I expected. She chose to live in what I would consider to be a modern, charmless box, so I had no expectation of raptures over my choice.’

Leo didn’t speak, and just looked at him with her head to one side, as if she were waiting for him to say more.

‘We’ve been divorced for quite a while. We’ve gone our separate ways but we get on with each other for Lucy’s sake.’

Tom didn’t want to talk about the breakup of his marriage. Male pride meant he wanted to avoid telling all and sundry that his wife had left him for another man, but on the other hand he didn’t want everybody to think that he was the type of bastard who cheated on women. Best to say nothing, on the whole, and let them draw their own conclusions.

‘It’s a pity you didn’t get to meet her. I gather you and Ellie went off on some shopping spree or other.’

‘We did. I think Ellie needed to get out of the house. A bit of an escape after the night before. It was a weird party, though. Everybody was behaving as if they were totally deranged, I thought. What did you make of it?’ Leo asked.

‘I enjoyed it. Of course, I didn’t know anybody until that evening, so I didn’t know what was normal and what wasn’t.’

Leo raised her eyebrows.

‘You’re being polite Tom. Very diplomatic, I would say. You must have detected some ripples under the smooth surface though. Come on - you can tell me. They’re not my friends particularly, although I’ve known most of them for ages.’

‘There were one or two signs of strain that I noticed, but I’ve been to dinner parties where there have been stand up arguments or people bursting into tears at the table before now, so it was fairly mild by comparison.’

Tom wasn’t exaggerating either. Being a policeman had lots of pluses and he loved the job, but he could quite understand that being a policeman’s wife was not always that easy. And when you get a load of coppers and their partners together, there was nearly always one couple that was temporarily or even permanently coming to the end of their tether.

‘Tell me about you, Leo,’ Tom said. ‘It was good of you to offer all the ladies your life coaching services free of charge. Do you think they’ll take you up on it?’

He rested his forearms on the table and leaned forward, hoping she would realise that his interest was genuine. He found it quite amusing that they both probably spent their lives trying to get people to admit to the truth, but with entirely different objectives.

Leo appeared to be finding the froth on her rapidly cooling cappuccino fascinating as she stirred it gently with her teaspoon.

‘I think that in more than one case there are some problems lying hidden, and I think I can help. Whether any of them will speak to me or not, I don’t know. But on the whole, I suspect not. Penny said she was keen, but Gary had a face like thunder.’

Tom couldn’t forget how upset Penny had been when he’d arrived on Saturday, and how quiet she was for the whole evening. Gary seemed a cheerful kind of guy, but it was that type of cheap bravado that Tom didn’t appreciate in other men.

‘I can see that you understand people really well, and that must be a hell of an asset in your job - a bit like mine in that respect.’ Tom smiled as he signalled the waitress for another two coffees. ‘So tell me more about these demons you’re laying to rest. The local sweet shop seems a strange place to start.’

For a second Leo looked cross and Tom thought that he’d gone too far. He didn’t mean to pry, and he wondered if he should change the subject. There was an uncomfortable silence.

‘Now listen, Tom, you can’t play the “say nothing - she’s a woman so she’s bound to fill the void” ruse on me. I do the same thing with my clients, so I know what you’re up to.’

Tom instantly felt embarrassed. He had actually been searching for a safe topic of conversation, but Leo wasn’t to know that.

‘I’m sorry. It wasn’t intentional. Based on your smile, I’d assumed your demons were something trivial - and anyway it’s none of my business.’

Leo gave him what could only be described as a calculating look.

‘You’re right, Tom. It is absolutely none of your business - but I’m going to tell you anyway.’ Leo sat up straight and looked him firmly in the eye. ‘However, as it is now just after mid-day, the cost of telling you will be lunch and a nice cool bottle of white wine.’

* * *

She waited until the wine was poured, and took a large gulp.

‘Okay - I’m going to give you the short version. My principle motivation for telling you is that half the village knows most of this, and I would rather you heard the truth from me than some distorted version that has had lots of intriguing - but untrue - embellishments.’

Tom leaned across and chinked his glass with hers, and gave her an encouraging smile. She took a deep breath.

‘When I was ten, my mother died. She was epileptic, and she died in the bath. I found her when I got home from school.’

She saw the consternation on Tom’s face, and realised that he probably wished he had never encouraged Leo to bare her soul. She mentally gritted her teeth and forced herself to continue.

‘We lived in Shrewsbury - me, my mum, and my dad. My dad theoretically had a job that required him to be away from home a lot - three or four nights most weeks. He had a senior position in one of the pottery companies in Stoke on Trent. He told my mum that he was on the sales side, which is why he had to be away so much. But that wasn’t true. He was a director, but nothing to do with selling. He was actually the finance director, so in fact he didn’t have to be away at all.’

Leo took another sip of her wine. The waitress walked over with the menus, but Tom shook his head, and she took the hint and backed away.

Leo paused for a moment and willed her voice to be level. ‘When I found my mum, the police had to track Dad down and ask him to come home. I assumed we’d carry on living in our house and it would just be the two of us, but he took one look at me and went upstairs and started packing a case.’ Leo shook her head as a vivid memory hit her. She was sitting silent and speechless downstairs while her dad was banging around upstairs. Neither of them had tried to comfort the other. She had been too distraught to understand what was going on. Her father had bundled her in the car, and that’s when she had started to cry. She felt as if she was leaving her - leaving her mum - and that didn’t seem right.

‘My dad did try to talk to me, but I wasn’t listening.’ Leo looked at Tom with a smile. ‘My mum was great. A real hippy chick, and loads of fun.’

Leo remembered feeling as if she had been broken into tiny pieces. As if bits of her were splintering off. But that was too much to share with Tom. Better to stick to the facts.

‘I refused to listen to anything my father was saying. I think I sensed that I wasn’t going to want to hear it, and I couldn’t understand why he was taking me away. He was bringing me here. To Little Melham, and to Willow Farm.’

Leo swallowed as the memories rose in a huge bubble to the surface, escaping from the black hole where they had been buried for years. She recalled that the journey hadn’t been a long one, but her dad had given up trying to speak to her. They had finally pulled up at the very bottom of the drive, and he had forced her to look at him.

‘Listen, L,’ he’d said. He had always shortened her name from Leonora to L. ‘This is going to come as a bit of a surprise, but I need to explain to you that I have another wife. She lives here. She doesn’t know about you, but I’m sure you’re going to get on fine.’

Leo didn’t understand. What did he mean, another wife? And whose was this house? A tiny part of her mind registered her confusion, but the rest was too full of grief to cope with the intrusion of other emotions. Her dad had walked into the house. She hadn’t really taken in what he had said. All she could see in her mind was her mother’s body.

She had leaned her head against the car window, her sobs having subsided into irregular juddering hiccups, and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her jumper.

‘He asked me to wait in the car while he went to talk to his wife. God knows what he told her, or what excuses he gave. I was still sitting there not knowing what was happening when there was a piercing scream from the house, full of anger and anguish, as if it were coming up through someone’s feet and reverberating through every inch of their body. It didn’t take me long to realise it was my stepmother’s response to having a ten year old child that she knew nothing about foisted on her. That, and finding out that her husband was a bigamist.’

Tom was propping his chin up on the clenched fist of one hand, his eyes a picture of concern.

‘I’m so sorry I asked, Leo. I had no right to push you to talk about all this stuff.’

Don’t give me sympathy, Leo thought. I might not be able to finish and that would somehow be worse than never starting.

‘If I hadn’t told you, somebody else would. You must know by now what they’re like in this village.’ Leo mentally gritted her teeth as she continued her story. ‘When I eventually went into the house there was this girl, standing by her mum and looking as bewildered as I felt, but that was nothing to the look I got from my stepmother. It was a look of pure malice, as if somehow this was all my fault. From then on, she treated me as a drudge, and had no compunction about slapping me around. But not much more than that. My father took no interest. I think he loved my mum, but was stuck with Ellie’s mother - The Old Witch, as Max always called her. But my father was a disgrace. He did nothing to protect me - simply handed me over and lived his own life. I barely spoke to him after that, and he came and went all the time. We never knew where he was or when he’d be back, and nobody ever told us. I left home as soon as I thought I would be able to take care of myself.’

‘What about Ellie?’ Tom asked.

‘Ellie was kind to me. She tried to comfort me, and to look out for me at school. But I withdrew into myself and shut her out most of the time. She tried to please our father and he enjoyed the attention, but as far as I could see she got little reward for her effort.’

Tom shook his head slowly, and reached over to squeeze her hand. Leo fought the urge to whip her hand away quickly. She gave it a moment, and then pulled back to grip the stem of her wine glass.

‘The worst of it was the names. Ellie was christened Eleanor, and when I came along my dad gave Mum some cock and bull story about why I should be christened Leonora, but it was entirely for his convenience. If he called us both Elle he could never get confused. He wouldn’t make a mistake. Anyway, once Ellie and I had realised why we were both called Elle, we told everybody to call us Ellie and Leo. But my dad continued to call us both Elle - out of indifference I think, although Ellie insists it was out of affection - and my stepmother didn’t call me anything at all. Having said that, in seven years under her roof, I never called her anything either. She wasn’t getting it all her own way. My final memories of my father are of a selfish, uninterested man. God knows where he was and what he was up to when he was away, but he provided plenty of money and all my stepmother cared about by then was vengeance.’

Leo looked at Tom’s horrified expression. He didn’t need to feel bad. She had told him the bald truth, without overdoing the emotion. They were both silent for a moment, but Tom’s eyes never left her face. Leo knew that she had rendered him speechless, and wondered if it wasn’t all too much, too soon.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘I do appreciate you sharing all that with me. It must have been very difficult. But now at least I understand why you had some demons to lay to rest. Shall we order some food, and talk about something else?’

He summoned the waitress for the menus, while Leo debated whether to tell him the rest, the undercurrents he’d missed at Saturday’s party, and her fears about everything that was not being said. Particularly by Ellie.