The Child (Kate Waters #2)(51)

“Not a fan then, Barbara?” Kate asked.

Miss Walker blinked. “No,” she said, her voice tight. “He was vile. Thought he was God’s gift. He came round regularly. Chatting up the girls in his bedsits. Pretending to be Mr. Charming. But he sent his blokes round to collect the rent every week. God forbid you got behind with payments. They used to break up your furniture. And worse.”

“Sounds appalling,” Kate said. Bet he’ll have lists of tenants and their details, she thought.

“Where is he now?” she asked.

“God knows. Dead, I hope,” Miss Walker said.

“Goodness. What did he do to you?” Kate said.

“Nothing, nothing,” Miss Walker said nervously. “Anyway, he sold the houses before the prices went up. I bet he’s furious he didn’t wait,” she added.

Kate looked at her watch. “We’d better get off, Barbara—got lots to do.”

“Thanks, Barbara,” Joe said. “You’ve been a great help. Must be funny living at the center of the story.”

“Yes. And we’ve had sightseers. A woman who came and stared through the fence was the first, but there’ve been others.”

“I bet,” Joe said, putting on his coat.

“Come anytime,” she said as they left. “I enjoy a bit of company.”





FORTY-TWO


    Jude


THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 2012

She hadn’t gone out for a couple of days. She felt adrift from reality, as if in a dream. She needed to find an anchor. Collect her thoughts. Needed to think. To make sense of this news.

Jude put on CDs of her favorite albums—the vinyl originals long gone—and ignored the frantic thumps on the wall from the flat next door. The music helped her remember. It was the soundtrack of her youth. Of her twenties. Of her love affair with Charlie.

She’d met him when she was twenty-eight, living in London and working for a publishing house. She hadn’t kept any photographs—she’d got rid of them when Emma started asking about her father, thinking, stupidly, that removing the evidence would solve the situation—but she could still conjure up that face.

He was a musician, feckless but beautiful, and she’d fallen for him like a ton of bricks despite warnings from friends that she would get hurt. She was a sucker for a pretty face, she told them. And anyway, she was lonely.

She’d thought London—and publishing—would be full of exciting, clever, creative men, and at first glance, they were, in their King’s Road uniforms. But it turned out being hip was a facade. Beneath the sharp jackets and drainpipe trousers, they were still children of the postwar era, tied to the apron strings of their mumsy-mums at home. Turned out they were looking for a woman to make the bed as well as jump into it, and she wasn’t interested.

She’d kept the sexual wolf from the door with one-night stands and willing men friends before she met Charlie. He was only five years younger than her, but he seemed to come from a completely different era—and he definitely was not looking for a mother figure. He was living in a squat in Brighton and she’d met him at a pop concert in Hyde Park. The Rolling Stones just after Brian Jones died. She’d been queuing for a drink and there he was, long hair, lopsided smile, beautiful hands, and, if she was honest, not that interested in her. Definitely a challenge and, so, irresistible. She had to have him.

She’d become obsessed with him. Spending money on him, paying his fares up to London, dressing him like a mannequin, taking him to the theater, lending him books by Mailer and Updike, and hanging on his every drawled word.

Of course, Charlie was, as predicted, unfaithful. All the time. It went with the territory of musicians, apparently. Didn’t mean anything, he said. So, girls and groupies. But Jude stuck to him like glue.

“He makes me laugh, he makes me feel good,” she’d told friends. “He’s fun and I love him.”

And she did love him. He was the first man since Will at university who’d made her feel alive.

But she didn’t take him home to meet her parents. She didn’t need their disapproval to sour her happiness. She’d tell them when she was ready. When everything was settled.

Because she’d decided to marry Charlie whatever it took. Her biological clock was ticking and she needed to bind him to her—that was all. He needed to appreciate what he’d got in Jude.

She knew Charlie thought marriage was square—“It’s what old people do. We’re free spirits, Jude,” he’d said, but, after a year, she decided to force the issue. Get pregnant. Forget the shame. He’d marry her.

She’d dropped her contraceptive pills down the sink each morning, and when she missed a period, she told him he was going to be a father. He looked as if he was about to cry.

“Pregnant? How can you be? You said you were on the pill,” he’d said.

She’d lied easily, telling him that she must have forgotten to take one or had an upset stomach. And she’d told him she was happy about the pregnancy. She’d hoped he would be, too. But it wasn’t that simple for Charlie.

He’d looked as if he was about to bolt for the door, saying he wasn’t sure if he was ready. He’d even suggested that she could get rid of the baby.

She’d burned with indignation at the thought and shrieked: “Absolutely not. I’m keeping this baby.”