‘Must I?’ She turned away from her sister-in-law and looked directly at her brother, asking him, ‘When did you realise, Robert?’
He cleared his throat and flushed uncomfortably, but before he could say anything Lydia was answering for him, her voice ice-cold with disdain as she informed Philippa, ‘Well, of course we knew something must be wrong when Andrew came to see us and asked Robert to lend him some money. I mean, one simply doesn’t do that sort of thing. It was all extremely embarrassing. I was very cross with him for putting Robert in such an awkward position. No family member should ever ask to borrow money from another. It always leads to problems.’
‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right,’ Philippa agreed, somehow overcoming her shock to find her voice. Turning her back on Lydia, she looked at her brother and told him frankly, ‘Well, you can rest assured that I shall never ask you to lend me money, Robert—and as for my sons,’ she added, turning back to Lydia and giving her a fierce, betraying bright-eyed look, ‘Sebastian is the one I feel sorry for, not them.’
She barely registered Lydia’s outraged, ‘Well, really!’ as her sister-in-law stood up, her face flushed as she bridled at Philippa’s comment. ‘I think it’s time we left, Robert. Your sister is obviously overwrought,’ she announced.
Philippa went with them to the front door, waiting until Lydia had passed through it before touching Robert lightly on the arm and saying with quiet irony, ‘Thank you for your help and support, Robert.’
She watched him flush without feeling the slightest bit of remorse, still so angry about Lydia’s criticism of her sons that she didn’t care how recklessly she was behaving.
CHAPTER SEVEN
JOEL could feel the tension the moment he wal
ked in through the factory gates; smell it on the air almost like an animal scenting death.
As a child he had often heard his father boast that he was descended from Romany folk; tinkers more like, Joel had heard others sneer behind his back when he made his claim, but there were occasions when he was aware of this inheritance, felt it in the odd prickle of his skin, the unfamiliar intensity of his awareness of the emotions of others, felt it in the certainty of the way he knew odd things, even while he struggled to deny the experience.
He hung back slightly, watching the other men; some of them, the older ones, walked with their shoulders hunched and their heads down, showing their defeat, avoiding looking at anyone else or speaking to them, while the younger ones adopted a much more aggressive and don’t-care swagger, hard, bright eyes challenging anyone who looked their way; but all of them shared the same emotion that was gutting him.
Fear. He could taste it in his mouth, dull, flat and metallic.
As he crossed the visitors’ car park—just one of the many fancy and very expensive changes Andrew had made to the place when he’d taken it over—he paused to study the small group of business-suited men and women huddled together by one of the cars.
They were all that was left of the company’s management team; the ones who had not been able to scramble off the sinking ship in time, he reflected bitterly as he watched them, the ones who had been either too stupid or too scared to recognise what was happening and leave before it was too late.
As he watched them Joel felt all the anger and fear he had been feeling since Andrew’s suicide boiling up inside him.
It was because of them, because of their greed and mismanagement, that he was in the position he was today, but what did they care about what he felt, about his life, his fears, his needs? All they cared about was having a flash office and fancy company car. His face darkened as he recalled the problems his buying a new car had caused.
He clocked on automatically and then went to hang up his jacket. When he came back he saw that instead of working most of the other men were hanging about in small groups talking. The meeting with the management was scheduled for one o’clock.
Only one of the young apprentices was making any attempt to work, and Joel frowned as he heard Jim Gibbons, one of the older men, telling him to stop.
‘What’s the point?’ he challenged Joel when Joel went over to tell him to leave the lad alone. ‘None of us will be in work by the end of the week—not the way things are looking.’
‘We don’t know that,’ Joel told him.
‘Oh, come off it. Why the hell else did Ryecart top himself if it wasn’t because he was going bust? This place is finished and we’ll be lucky if we come out of it with our last week’s wages, never mind our redundancy money. It’s always the same: the bank will get some fancy firm of accountants in to make sure they get their pound of flesh, but when it comes to us getting what’s rightfully ours… who the hell gives a toss about us? Course, it’s all right for you. You’ve got your missus in work. A nurse, isn’t she, down at the hospital? Smart pieces, those nurses, and not behind the door in bed either, if you know what I mean, or so they say… Does she keep her uniform on in bed for you, Joel?’
Joel forced himself to ignore the others’ laughter. It was just their way of letting off steam, of coping with their fear; there was nothing personal or malicious in it.
‘I hate it when Mum isn’t here in the morning,’ Cathy had grumbled earlier as she’d played with her cereal, and Joel had immediately felt both guilty and irritated as he heard the resentment in her voice; guilty because of his inability as a husband, a father and a provider to earn enough to support them all and irritated because of the way his children distanced themselves from him. It was Sally they wanted, not him, Sally they always turned to, her more than him.
Right from being a toddler of no more than two, his son had fiercely rejected any attempt Joel made to touch or hold him.
‘He’s a real mummy’s boy,’ Sally had said then, laughing softly as she’d taken over and held him. And, watching the way his son had clung to her, it hadn’t just been the pain of rejection Joel had felt, but an actual physical jealousy as well.
Sally claimed that he was far harder on Paul than he was on Cathy.
‘He’s a boy,’ he had told her in mitigation of his own behaviour.
Sally had just shaken her head, pursing her mouth in that way she had of showing her disapproval of what he said and did.
Sometimes these days it was hard to remember that that same mouth had once curved with joy and love for him… had softened into helpless passion beneath his, had widened in shared laughter with his.
Yes, things had changed. She hadn’t even cared enough to wake him this morning before she’d left to wish him luck, to tell him that she understood how he felt; to tell him that, in work or out of it, he was still the man she loved; it made no difference to her.