The Widow

Chapter 6

Wednesday, 9 June 2010

The Widow

MORE FEET ON the gravel. This time Kate’s phone rings twice and stops. Must be some sort of signal because she immediately opens the front door and lets in a man with a big bag over his shoulder.

‘This is Mick,’ she says to me. ‘My photographer.’

Mick grins at me and sticks out his hand. ‘Hello, Mrs Taylor,’ he says. He’s come to pick us up and take us to a hotel – ‘Somewhere nice and quiet,’ he says and I begin to protest. Everything’s moving so fast.

‘Wait a minute,’ I say. But no one is listening.

Kate and Mick are discussing getting past the reporters who’ve gathered at the gate. The man from the telly must’ve told people I had someone in the house and they’re taking turns in knocking on the door and opening the letterbox to shout to me. It’s awful, like a nightmare. Like it was at the beginning.

Then they were shouting at Glen, accusing him of all sorts.

‘What’ve you done, Mr Taylor?’ one shouted.

‘Have you got blood on your hands, you pervert?’ the man from the Sun said as Glen took the bin out. Right in front of people walking by. Glen said one of them spat on the pavement.

He was shaking when he came in.

My poor Glen. But he had me to help him then – I would stroke his hand and tell him to pay no attention. But there’s just me now and I don’t know if I can cope on my own.

A voice is yelling horrible things through the door: ‘I know you’re there, Mrs Taylor. Are you being paid to talk? What do you think people will say if you take this blood money?’

I feel like I’ve been hit. And Kate turns and strokes my hand and tells me to ignore it, that she can make it all go away.

I want to trust her but it’s hard to think straight. What does making it all go away mean? Hiding has been the only way to deal with it, according to Glen.

‘We have to wait it out,’ he would say.

But Kate’s way is to go at it head on. Stand up and say my piece to shut them up. I would like to shut them up but it means being in the spotlight. The thought is so terrifying I can’t move.

‘Come on, Jean,’ Kate says, finally noticing me still sitting in the chair. ‘We can do this together. One step at a time. It’ll all be over in five minutes and then no one will be able to find you.’

Apart from her, of course.

I can’t face more abuse from those animals outside, so I obediently start to get my things together. I pick up my handbag and stuff some knickers into it from the tumble drier in the kitchen. Upstairs to get my toothbrush. Where are my keys?

‘Just the essentials,’ Kate says. She will buy me anything I need when we get there. ‘Get where?’ I want to ask, but Kate has turned away again. She’s busy on her mobile, talking to ‘the office’.

She has a different voice when she talks to the office. Tense. A bit breathless, like she’s just walked upstairs.

‘OK, Terry,’ she says. ‘No, Jean is with us… I’ll give you a call later.’ She doesn’t want to talk in front of me. I wonder what the office wants to know. How much money she’s promised? What will I look like in the pictures?

I bet she wanted to say, ‘She’s a bit of a mess but we can make her look presentable.’ I feel panicky and go to say I’ve changed my mind but everything’s moving too fast.

She says she’s going to distract ‘them’. She’ll go out of the front door and pretend to get her car ready for us while Mick and I slip down the garden and over the fence at the back. I can’t really believe I’m doing this. I start to say ‘Hang on’ again, but Kate is pushing me towards the back door.

We wait while she goes out. The noise is suddenly deafening. Like a flock of birds taking off by my front door.

‘Snappers,’ Mick says. I guess he means photographers. Then he throws his jacket over my head, grabs my hand and pulls me along behind him out of the back door into the garden. I can’t see much because of the jacket and I’ve got stupid shoes on. My feet are sliding out of them but I try to run. This is ridiculous. The jacket keeps slipping off. Oh God, there’s Lisa next door, looking out of her top window, mouth open. I wave my hand limply. God knows why. We haven’t spoken for ages.

At the back fence, Mick helps me over. It’s not high, really. More for show than security. I’ve got trousers on but it’s still a bit of a struggle. He’s parked his car round the corner, he says and we creep slowly to the end of the alley at the back of the houses, in case one of the reporters is there. I suddenly want to cry. I’m about to get into a car with people I don’t know and head off to God knows where. It’s probably the craziest thing I’ve ever done.

Glen would’ve had a fit. Even before all the police stuff, he liked to keep things private. We’ve lived in this house for years – all our married life – but, as the neighbours were only too glad to tell the press, we kept ourselves to ourselves. It’s what neighbours always say, isn’t it, when dead bodies or mistreated children are found next door? But in our case, it was true. One of them – it could’ve been Mrs Grange opposite – described Glen to a reporter as having ‘evil eyes’. He had nice eyes, actually. Blue with longish lashes. Little-boy eyes. His eyes could turn me over inside.

Anyway, he used to say to me, ‘Nobody’s business but ours, Jeanie.’ That was why it was so hard when our business became everyone else’s.

Mick the photographer’s van is filthy. You can’t see the floor for burger boxes, crisp packets and old newspapers. There’s an electric razor plugged into the lighter thing and a big bottle of coke rolling around in the foot well.

‘Sorry about the mess,’ he says. ‘I practically live in this van.’

Anyway, I’m not getting in the front. Mick takes me round the back and opens the doors. ‘In here,’ he says, grasping my arm and guiding me in. He puts his hand on my head and ducks me down so I don’t bang my head. ‘Keep down when we drive off and I’ll give you the all-clear.’

‘But-’ I start to say, but he’s slammed the doors and I’m sitting in semi-darkness among camera gear and dustbin bags.