Blindsided

For a split second they shared a look over Milo’s head. A tiny golden moment that reminded Holly of when Milo was first born, and they used to stand next to his crib, watching him sleep, totally in awe of this tiny human being they had created. But then it was over, Tom’s expression changing to one of disdain as he spotted her roster on the coffee table.

‘Are you really going back to work?’

‘Of course.’ She smiled thinly. ‘I need to earn money somehow, remember?’ She turned back to Milo. ‘Go on, sweetie, go outside for a bit while I speak to your dad.’

He frowned, looked from one to the other and then reluctantly hopped towards the kitchen.

Holly looked at Tom. His brown hair was just slightly too long, his navy tweed jacket worn over a crisp blue-striped shirt that emphasised his dark blue eyes. He had picked up a faint tan, despite the fact that he always complained he never saw the outside world when he was on a lecture tour. He smelt of his usual expensive aftershave. Once, the combination had turned her on, but now she wanted to throw up. It was such a cliché to have fallen for her university lecturer. Even more of a cliché to have imagined she could ride off into the sunset with him.

She had a sudden flash of memory – Jayden sitting on her bed, seizing her book, chucking it out the open window, and telling her fairy tales were total bollocks. As an elder brother he had clearly felt it was up to him to lay down the law. He must have been about eight when he said that, but she had already grown taller than him. Little git.

‘Are you really managing with the mortgage repayments? I would have thought you should be thinking about downsizing,’ he said, sitting casually on the sofa. Tom’s upper-class voice was light, almost disinterested, but she was sure there was a bit of sarcasm in there.

Memories stung. She had been in love with him, she was sure of it. Now he had moved on. Another young woman, another home, soon probably another kid on the way. Lydia was one of only two people who had ever expressed doubt over Holly’s choice of husband. He had fooled most of them with his charm and good looks. ‘We’re fine, thank you for asking. I’ve been doing overtime.’

‘Still working in the call centre? You should have finished your degree, Holly.’ His smug, self-satisfied face was highlighted by the crisp winter light as he stood, poised in front of the big bay windows like an actor on stage.

The unfairness of this statement made her catch her breath. ‘Whatever you want to think. I’m sure we don’t need to meet up to go over the childcare arrangements for the next month, so why don’t we just do this by email in future. It’ll save us both the hassle,’ Holly told him. She hated herself for still searching his face some kind of affection, anything but this cold, amused sarcasm. Why did he hate her so much? She should mention the texts, she really should.

‘I’m sure that will be fine. Beth is so good at working out my diary, and now we have the spare room organised Milo can come and stay for the weekends.’ His eyes were challenging her to comment.

‘I’m sure he’d like that. While he isn’t in the room, Tom, I would like to speak to you about something.’

His expression was wary, and he leaned back a little, away from her.

‘I can’t pretend that everything is okay, and that I’m not still unbelievably hurt by what you did, but you made your choice.’

‘You threw me out remember, Holly. It wasn’t my choice at all. You’ve changed since you’ve been working. Why you couldn’t just get a job that fitted around school hours instead of shift work, I don’t know.’

It was an old argument, and she wasn’t going to get sucked in. ‘You tell yourself whatever you want, Tom. We can be civil for Milo’s sake, and we can make sure he is still loved and cared for.’ She took a deep breath, and met his eyes. ‘But you need to stop asking for him to come and live with you. He is getting so confused. You also need to stop sending me shitty text messages. Why are you so mad at me, when it’s you who cheated on us?’

‘I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay civil for long … Thank you, Lydia.’ He smiled at her as she dumped two mugs of tea on the table.

Lydia scowled back at him, deliberately ignoring his words. ‘I’ll go into the garden with Milo for bit,’ she said, addressing her words exclusively to Holly. Her dark eyes, almost hidden by the weight of her false lashes, were flashing with indignation, but she silently swapped her mules for shiny red stilettos and tottered out of the room.

‘Thanks.’ Holly waited until the back door banged, and then she turned back to Tom. ‘It isn’t me who isn’t being civilised about this.’

‘I don’t know what text messages you are referring too, but I don’t think any of mine can be classed as shitty,’ he told her.

Holly reached over to the table and pulled her phone towards her, her injured ribs tweaking as she did so. She scrolled down and pushed the device towards Tom.

He picked her phone up delicately, as though it was something insanitary. His expression was blank, as he read down the list of vitriol, but when he came to the end his brows drew sharply together, slightly thin mouth pursed. ‘I don’t know what game you are playing, Holly, but I didn’t send these.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘They’ve come from your phone.’

‘I can see that, but I didn’t send them. This one … last week – you don’t surely imagine I would say that about you?’ Tom’s eyes were dead, blank, and his mouth was set in a thin line, daring her to contradict him. ‘Are you going completely mad?’

Chapter 6 (#ulink_df2a449b-add0-5331-bc25-6c66ec9c89ff)

Actually, Holly did doubt her sanity at this moment in time, but Tom’s denials seemed genuine for once. Then again, he had always been good at playing the helpless academic fumbling through life, destined for greatness. He was an excellent speaker and an expert manipulator.

‘Who else has access to your phone?’

He shook his head. ‘Nice one, Holly, but Beth would never do anything so petty.’

‘And I would? How could I possibly send texts to myself from your phone? I didn’t even finish my first year at uni, remember, Tom.’ She couldn’t help but let the bitterness seep out and instantly regretted it as he pounced.

He stood up, shaking his head, buttoning his jacket. ‘You’ve lost the plot, Holly. I don’t know what’s going on but I’m having serious doubts about your state of mind at the moment. First the accident, now these odd accusations. Perhaps you need to see someone? I only came to check Milo was okay after the accident, so I’ll go and see him for a bit. You’re right, we can email about childcare arrangements.’ His square chin was set, like Milo’s when he was being stubborn about something. His eyes were contemptuous. ‘I’m sure you’ll see, in time, why Milo would be better off with me. You’ll never keep up with the repayments and pay the bills on your wages. I’ll wait and see how long it takes you to dig yourself into a hole, Holly, and then I’ll take my son to live with me, where he belongs. You can’t offer him anything.’

‘I’m his mum.’ Furious that her voice came out as a hissing whisper, Holly fought back tears.

He was already halfway out the door. ‘So? As I said, you nearly killed him in a car crash, and you work all hours so he hardly sees you. Perhaps it isn’t just work, maybe you go out with other men too, leaving your son alone in the house. That doesn’t sound like a good mother to me.’

‘What the fuck? I would never do that. You’re the one who was unfaithful, and you’re also the reason I have to work overtime.’ Her throat was choked with tears now, and the fire of fury was burning in her chest. Trapped, he had her trapped. Well, it wouldn’t work. No matter how hard she had to work, or what she had to do, he was never going to have Milo full time. Hopefully Beth would get pregnant soon, and a new baby would take his attention. Holly heard voices in the garden, Milo laughing, the sound of a ball bouncing off the wooden fence.

Tom looked hard at her. ‘I don’t know what you do when I’m not around, but your past isn’t exactly copybook is it?’

‘Neither is yours,’ she shot back, and then took a step back as his face changed into a mask of icy fury. The switch between his everyday persona and what she thought of as his ‘other face’ was terrifying. It didn’t happen often, but she’d seen plenty of glimpses of the real Tom in the nine years they had been married.

‘We agreed that would never be mentioned, didn’t we? Trading secrets, I believe it’s called. The deal still stands, but I was actually talking about your brother, and your family history. That’s hardly something you have successfully been able to hide, is it? I really believed you when you said you could change, Holly, and I feel like you’ve cheated on me. You are not the woman you promised you could be.’ He held up his hand, palm facing her, as though to stem any retaliation, and his face relaxed. Tom was on familiar ground now, lecturing delinquent students, shaking his head at bad behaviour. ‘No, don’t say anything, because you’ll regret it. Now, I’m going to spend a little time with my son, and then I’ll see myself out.’

Lydia passed Tom in the doorway, and whilst still ignoring him, took one look at her niece’s tear-stained face and pulled her into a hug. ‘What’s he said now?’

From the back door, Tom made an impatient noise, and slammed his way outside.

Holly blew her nose. ‘Still the same thing. He wants Milo, and he thinks he can get him by proving I’m an unfit mum. He says I’m not the same person he married, but I never lied to him about the family, and I was never ashamed of where I came from. I chose to get out because I wanted to, not because of some stupid snobbery. It’s him who doesn’t understand. He never did …’

‘I know, love, and you did the right thing. Your mum wouldn’t have wanted you to stay on Seaview, or have anything to do with the business. But Tom was always wrong for you. You should have stayed with the Mancini boy, although I know your dad would have liked to have seen you with a Nicholls. He used to say that with Joey having kids all over the place he was sure you’d find one you liked.’ She laughed, harsh and without amusement. ‘We all make mistakes, darling, believe me, I know.’

The thought of her mum gave Holly a little snag of pain deep in her heart. In her mind, the hit-and-run driver who had killed her mum was all tied up with Larissa’s murder and Jayden’s death. Violence was a way of life on the Seaview, and she didn’t want that for her son, but Tom had always been wrong about the majority of normal families who lived there.

There was fierce loyalty in the tight-knit community. That was the part she missed. As kids they had roamed all over the estate, accepting the contents of the pockets of drug dealers as easily as they did the bustling older people who fussed over them. The fact that one group offered coloured pills that sent you high, and the other group sugary snacks that made you hyper, was never a problem.

‘When I first got together with Tom I thought he was amazing, and now I can only remember his snide comments about kids from the estates.’ Holly paused. ‘He was surprised I did well enough at school to get into uni. In fact, he reckoned all of us lot – Jay, Devril, Niko and me – were thick just because of where we grew up.’

He aunt watched her with narrowed eyes. ‘Holly, love, you have to let it go. I know you were trying to change, to be someone else to escape what happened, but you don’t have to change. And you don’t need some bloke to chip away at your self-confidence either. We know who we are and where we came from, and there’s no shame in that. As for intelligence, I hate to say it but it takes a bit of brain to run a business like your dad did, and Jay was a little genius when it came to computers, wasn’t he?’

Holly smiled suddenly, recalling her big brother locked away in one of the derelict flats, hacking into various bank accounts, removing a little here and there and running his own version of his dad’s business. ‘Yeah, it’s just a shame he didn’t stop at the tech and stay off the drugs.’

Lydia picked up the empty mugs. ‘Tell you what though, Tom was right about one thing. Niko is fucking thick as two short ones!’

Holly grinned back, strength returning. ‘Anyway, loads of kids have parents who work shifts. Tom has no idea. He always had this feudal idea of me staying at home and pretending everything was perfect. That’s partly why I went to work with Cath, to piss him off. And to top it all off, he says he didn’t send those texts, and tried to make out I was going mad.’ She followed Lydia into the kitchen. ‘I promise to shut up about him in a minute, but how does he always manage to make everything my fault?’

Lydia dumped the mugs next to the sink and started rearranging the cutlery in Holly’s dishwasher. Straightening, she glanced through the kitchen window. Watching the boy hop round the garden, her own eyes were bright. ‘Think about Milo, love. He’s your kid and you should be proud. Tom doesn’t have a clue what goes on in real life. He never did.’ She turned to face Holly again, hands on hips. ‘He likes the cheer squads, the admiration that goes with his job. Obviously he’s clever, so he gets it at work, but he needs that at home too. That’s why he married you so young, and probably why, now you’ve grown up, he’s gone off with this other girl. How old is Beth?’

‘Nineteen.’

‘And he’s thirty-eight? Well, there you go.’