Home Truths

‘You’re not begging,’ Angie had told him softly. ‘You’re just accepting a little help to get yourself through this difficult time. There’s nothing wrong with that.’

The old man was in his eighties, well dressed, hair neatly combed, he even smelled of aftershave. He’d clearly gone to some effort to make himself presentable today, probably hoping no one would think the worst of him. He was even wearing his service medals; a reminder to others that he’d mattered once. Those medals had made Angie’s heart ache. Apparently his wife had died a few months ago. She’d always been in charge of the money; she sorted their pensions, did the shopping, paid all the bills and since her passing he’d fallen into a depression. They had no family, just each other and a kind neighbour who popped in now and again to check up on him. He might be lonely and crushed by sadness, but at least he had money, it just needed to be sorted out so he could access it. (Why did banks make these things so difficult?) In the meantime his doctor had referred him here to make sure he had enough food in his cupboard to see him through the coming week.

There were so many stories, tragedies, involving people of all ages and backgrounds, some with mental health issues, and those who were so riddled with shame to be in this position that they couldn’t look anyone in the eye. Then there were the druggies and alcoholics who’d all but stopped caring about themselves so they were missing teeth, had sores on their faces and piercings that were going septic. Each time she came in for a shift Angie could feel the web of hardship tightening around them all. Their needs, their sadness, anger and bewilderment, combined with the unfairness, even hostility of a system that relied on food banks and charities to provide for vulnerable citizens were becoming increasingly hard to take. She wanted to help them, she really did, and she would, it was why she was here, but today she couldn’t help feeling a tiny bit sorrier for herself than she did for them.

After making sure that a middle-aged, disabled woman with speech difficulties and a sad, sallow face was being taken care of by one of the helpers who filled the grocery bags in the back room, Angie quickly checked her phone.

No messages.

Her heart contracted with a painful stab of panic. She was waiting for so many callbacks, mostly from job agencies for some night shifts or anything else she could add to her hours at BtG, but apparently nothing had come up yet for which she was suitable.

‘Angie? Hello? Are you with us?’

Angie looked up into the kindly grey eyes of Brenda Crompton, a fellow volunteer. The ex-Salvation Army major was regarding her curiously, seeming to sense something was amiss and trying to decide whether or not to ask. Apparently concluding she should, she settled herself into the chair that the disabled woman had just vacated.

Angie smiled at her. She saw that there were only a couple of clients left at the other tables, and noticing the time she realized no more were likely to come now.

Brenda signalled to someone in the kitchenette and a moment later Bill, an elderly man with a cheery demeanour, put a fresh cup of tea in front of Angie. At the same time Brenda pushed a half-empty plate of biscuits towards her.

Angie’s mouth watered almost as stingingly as it had earlier in the afternoon when the snacks had first come out. But the jammy dodgers and Hobnobs, donated by Brenda and her husband, were for the clients, not those who were supposed to be helping them.

Brenda winked and taking a biscuit herself she bit into it, cupping a hand beneath her chin to catch the crumbs.

Though Angie understood this was Brenda’s way of telling her it was all right to have a little treat, she still couldn’t allow herself to take one. If she did she might never be able to stop and she couldn’t bear anyone to know just how hungry she was. ‘Watching my waistline,’ she joked, and suddenly, out of nowhere, she felt her spirits lift a little, for she’d been paid cash in hand at the chippie. This meant she should be able to dish up a decent meal tonight.

Brenda watched fondly as Angie’s conscience allowed her to crunch into a Hobnob. It appeared she was about to say something, but there was a sudden crash in the back room so she got up to go and investigate. ‘I’ll be back,’ she promised Angie, and added with a nod at the plate, ‘why not finish them off before they go stale?’

Wondering how Brenda had realized she was so hungry, Angie watched the older woman go, hips swaying like a saucy tambourine, and felt grateful and embarrassed and so ready for another biscuit that she crammed a whole one in her mouth at once just as her mobile started to vibrate.

She should have let the call go to messages instead of blowing crumbs on to the table and down her front as she tried to say hello, but she didn’t.

‘Mrs Watts?’ Luckily the caller didn’t wait for her to confirm it. ‘It’s DC Leo Johnson here from Kesterly CID. I have some news regarding Liam’s DNA.’

Angie stopped chewing, every crumb turning to dust in her mouth as her heart dropped to a dull, heavy beat of dread. Realizing she was unable to swallow, she grabbed a tissue and emptied the half-chewed biscuit into it.

‘Are you there, Mrs Watts?’

‘Yes,’ she replied thinly. ‘I’m here.’ Oh God, please don’t let this be … She couldn’t even put her fear into words, it was too awful.

Leo Johnson was saying, ‘… so I thought you’d like to know that Liam’s DNA wasn’t a match to the DNA taken from the victim …’

Angie didn’t hear what else he was telling her. She could hardly bring her own voice past her throat as she said, ‘Did you say that it wasn’t a match?’

‘That’s right,’ he confirmed. ‘They got the results back this morning. I called as soon as we heard. I thought you’d want to know.’

‘Yes, yes,’ she mumbled, feeling oddly light-headed and something else she couldn’t understand, for it was too far out of reach. ‘Do they still want to talk to him?’ she asked dully.

‘Given that his name’s on a list linked to the main suspect, that’s likely. On the other hand, if there’s nothing to say he’s in the area, or still in touch with his former cronies they’ll probably let it go.’

Did that make him safer? It should if no one was going to try and force him to talk, but it still didn’t mean he was no longer being controlled by the London gangs. He could be anywhere, in any city, working for them in any capacity …

Or maybe he’d managed to break with them.

Whichever way, it still didn’t tell her where or how he was.

What she did know though, was that he was no longer a suspected killer.

An hour later, with her chip-shop earnings in her purse, Angie was in Asda searching out as many two-for-one and half-price deals as she could find up to twenty-five pounds – the most she could allow herself to spend. Pizzas, chicken nuggets, three lasagnes for six quid, a bag of white potatoes, a day-old French loaf, a round lettuce for forty p … Grace preferred fresh food and if it could be kind of vegan that would be good, because she loved animals and fish and she didn’t want plants to die for her either, but she understood that she had to live. (She also understood that more often than not it was easier – cheaper – if she could just go with the flow and if that meant eating eggs, cheese, and a portion of chicken with her Sunday roast, she’d do it.)

In a rush of recklessness Angie added a bottle of Chilean Sauvignon to her trolley – special offer, reduced from seven quid to three ninety-nine – and realized how utterly insane it was to be celebrating the fact that her absent son was no longer a suspected killer.

In her world, today, given what she was going through, that had to be worth celebrating, though.

After making sure she had all the ingredients for Zac’s unicorn cake she wheeled her trolley to the checkout to wait in line. Grace was determined to bake the cake for her brother, and knowing it was her daughter’s way of trying to cut down on costs made Angie’s heart ache. It was true, novelty cakes at the bakery were far too expensive for them to afford, but Grace shouldn’t have to be worrying about things like that. She shouldn’t have to be giving up her smartphone either, when the contract ran out in the next few weeks, but Angie was afraid it was inevitable. Zac’s gym club membership would now have to go the way of his rowing club and archery fees. The SkySports package Steve had signed them up for when Zac was four – a birthday treat for their sports-mad youngest – had already been cancelled. Zac didn’t know that yet, for it didn’t run out until the end of the month, nor was he aware that the Adidas X16.1 football boots he had his heart set on for his birthday would have to be downgraded to a cheaper pair, probably second-hand from Depop. He wasn’t going to like it, Angie was certain of that, in fact he would probably have a serious rant about it, until Grace took him aside to explain why he had to understand that things were different now.

Though their finances had held together for a while after Steve had gone, everything was collapsing so fast now that Angie couldn’t even see what might fall next.

They were going to lose the house at the end of the month.

It wasn’t until after she’d paid the bill that she realized with a pang of shame that she couldn’t possibly justify a bottle of wine for herself and Emma when she was depriving Grace and Zac of so much. So, wheeling her trolley from the checkout, she joined a queue at the information desk in the hope of receiving a cash credit for her crazy idea of a celebration. She eyed her trolley for more items she ought to put back, and realized she’d been rash, unthinking, acting as though the twenty-five quid she’d earned at the chippie was going to magically replace itself like some fairy-tale egg …

Deciding to ask for credit on her entire trolley so she could start again, she fought back a wave of misery and frustration and after inching forward a few feet she found herself tuning into a conversation behind her.

‘Oh, that’s really generous of you, that is. Really generous.’

Angie turned and saw an elderly lady watching an obviously well-off woman of around forty emptying a full bag of groceries into a foodbank box.

Since this was where the donations started Angie decided to take more notice of the generous woman, and came to the conclusion that not only was she a caring citizen, but she was really quite beautiful in a very classy way. Her hair was a mass of thick dark curls styled in a loose bob, her skin was creamy and shone with health, and the effortless elegance of her movements made Angie wonder if she was a dancer.

‘Look at all that,’ the older lady chuntered on admiringly. ‘You’re a very kind person is all I can say. Makes me wonder what this bloody country’s coming to that we have to do things like this. Shame on them is what I say. Bloody shame on them.’

The dark-haired woman’s eyes sparkled with humour but Angie couldn’t hear what she said, could only tell that she wasn’t trying to brush the old lady off.

‘There ain’t many would do what you just did,’ the old lady declared, picking up a large box of Kellogg’s cornflakes and looking as though she’d like to make off with it.

‘Well,’ the dark-haired woman replied, ‘if the day comes when I need this sort of help, perhaps someone will fill up the box for me.’

As Angie watched her walk away, upright and slender, the very epitome of someone who’d never need a food bank, she felt an odd sort of longing stirring inside her. She’d love to be that woman, or like her; or maybe she just wanted to know her. It was people like that who made the world feel like a good place to be, which was a very weird assessment of someone she’d only seen for a few minutes and would probably never see again.

Nevertheless, as though the woman had sprinkled some sort of hope over her, Angie turned her trolley to the door and headed out into the car park. She’d take this lot home, have her little celebration – or drown her sorrows – then she’d work things out.

As she approached her van a Mercedes saloon reversed out of the space next to it, and she didn’t feel surprised to see the dark-haired woman at the wheel. Their eyes didn’t meet, Angie was certain the woman hadn’t clocked her at all, nevertheless she continued to feel affected by her as she watched the car drive away. She wondered what life was like for her, and where she lived. What kind of job did she have, if she even had one? Her husband was probably loaded, judging by the car, and her kids, if she had any, were no doubt at private schools and completely brilliant at everything they did.

With a small, wry smile to herself Angie finished stacking her groceries into the van and got into the driver’s seat. If her work with people who’d hit hard times had taught her anything at all, it was never to assume something about a person based on the way things looked. Even rich people had bad experiences; they bled, they hurt, they lost their money and they even lost their homes. Some of them had sons who went off the rails, and husbands who died when their children were still small and before they’d taken out any life insurance.

No one was immune to the vagaries of fate, any more than they were incapable of making mistakes. Everyone, no matter who they were, or how dire their straits, had to find a way of dealing with the worst-case scenarios life threw at them. She wasn’t alone in that, plenty of people were struggling and many were in even worse situations than her. True, she couldn’t think of anyone right now, but she knew they existed, and she knew too that somehow she’d get herself and her children through these dark times. She was someone who coped, who rose to challenges and overcame them, and one way or another she was going to keep them together as a family with a roof over their heads and hope in their hearts.

CHAPTER TEN

Just when Angie thought she didn’t have a single laugh left in her, that even if she did it’d never make it past all the stress and anxiety corked up in her soul, it erupted in a great choking guffaw. It wasn’t supposed to be funny, it really wasn’t. In fact, it was the biggest disaster to come out of Angie’s oven since the day Steve had set fire to his mother’s boots while trying to dry them.

Grace’s unicorn cake was … Well, it was different, that was for sure, unique even, and so explicitly something it wasn’t supposed to be that even she gave a snort of laughter when she realized why her mother and aunt were beside themselves.

Zac had been boasting to his mates for days that he was going to have the biggest, most amazing unicorn cake ever, and that was certainly true.

‘It’s definitely got the biggest, most amazing …’ Emma gestured to the horn as she gasped and dabbed her eyes with a party napkin. ‘I’ve never seen one like it. Were those cake balls part of the recipe, or did you … was it …?’

Falling against her mother as they all exploded again, Grace managed to say, ‘There were supposed to be three of them – there were three, I swear it, I just don’t know how it’s come out as two.’

‘Well, I’m sorry, my darling,’ Emma said, putting an arm around her niece. ‘It might be the best cake we’ve ever tasted, but no way can we serve it like that. It’s … It’s …’

‘Obscene, I know,’ Grace declared, and transporting it to the table she waited for her mother and aunt to pull themselves together, saying, ‘Stop. He’ll be in any minute.’

Angie glanced down the hall towards the front door. Since it was closed it wasn’t possible to see beyond it, but they could hear the shouts of Zac and his friends playing footie over on the green. They’d already stuffed themselves with jelly and egg sandwiches since coming in from school, and now they were working up an appetite for the cake while Grace iced it.

This wasn’t going well.

‘We’ve got to do something,’ Grace hissed, searching for ideas. ‘I know! Shall I drop it?’

Emma burst into more hilarity, while Angie, still choking with mirth, decided that before they did anything at all they needed a photograph.

In the end, after crushing the two cake balls into one spongy mess that they then coated in lashings of crimson buttermilk icing, and remoulding the horn into a suitably slimmer and less excited version of its former self, Grace added a pair of spidery eyes in a place that seemed to work and carried the unique creation to the bomb site of a dining table.

Angie could only look on as Zac and his cousins came tumbling back through the front door, with four equally muddy friends on their heels, kicking off their boots first and then descending on the ‘most awesome cake ever’.

‘That’s what I love about boys,’ Emma murmured in her ear, ‘so easy to please.’

This was certainly true of Zac. Most other boys his age had birthday parties at Pizza Express or a Game Wagon Video event or even a ride in a hot-air balloon, all so way beyond her means that she hadn’t even bothered Googling for ideas. One day, though, when she was back on her feet, he was going to have the best birthday party money could buy.

‘No, I’m not going to make one for you,’ Grace told Harry, Emma’s youngest, who was soon due to be seven himself. ‘No, not for you either,’ she said to several other boys who were waving grubby hands in the air, because their mouths were too full to shout. ‘This is a one-off, I mean, like real art, so make the most of it.’

‘Mum, did you see what Freddie gave me for my birthday?’ Zac shouted, ‘It’s only a Liverpool training shirt. Liverpool’s my favourite team,’ he informed his friend Freddie, as if Freddie had pulled off a mega mind-reading trick.

‘When Zac comes to our house,’ Jack piped up, ‘we watch football in our room so we don’t get on Mum’s nerves with all our shouting. We get on Mum’s nerves quite a lot, but she doesn’t mind really.’

‘I do, I do,’ Emma assured him, knocking back another mouthful of tepid lemonade.

‘It’s only you who gets on her nerves,’ Harry told his brother, and reached for more cake before the last bit went.

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