Bad Blood

Things were almost perfect. It was Christmas Day, and Sonia was home with the kids. Dee’s brother and sister were there, too, and her other daughter, Sonia's twin, had brought her lot over in a carful from the next village. The full set of grandchildren (Dee had ten in all) would come together tonight for the photo when her son, the oldest, called in for tea and games. Now it was after dinner and people were in the sitting room, drinking wine and falling asleep and getting ready for the walk. It was nearly perfect. The only thing was the girl.

The girl, Madeleine, was a teenager, and Sonia's oldest. She was lying by herself on the furthest settee, looking at her phone. Instead of the dress that Dee had given her, she was wearing the same hooded jumper and jeans that she had worn since arriving—a time in which she had hardly spoken to anyone. For two days running at lunchtime, just when Dee was putting the food on, she had come downstairs and poured herself some Frosties. If you said anything to her like ‘Afternoon, Maddie. Sleep well?’ or ‘How’s school? Any nice boys?’ she just glanced somewhere near your waist and said ‘S’OK, thanks,’ before walking, shoulders hunched, to the nearest corner to look at a book or just sit there chewing her hair. The hunch was her father’s, that bastard. He’d used to stay in bed till the afternoon writing songs, always about to make it big with some pop band he was in. He’d damn near ruined Sonia's life with his leeching, until she saw sense. He was bad—that was the bottom of it. His blood was in the girl.

‘Maddie? Where are you?’ She was lying curled up on the far settee in the sitting room, looking at her phone. All the other kids were at the sink in the ktichen, helping to wash-up. ‘Never mind your phone,’ said Dee. ‘Get in there and pull your weight like everyone else. Come on; chop, chop.’ She watched as the girl rolled over, sighed, and stood up. ‘And it’s no use sighing, either.’ The girl walked past her and out of the room, closing the door.

Every afternoon, Dee and John did the feeds—Christmas Day was no exception. In middle age they had become part-time racehorse trainer/owners, and although they were now retired, they still kept five old mares on some land up at Moneystone. All her adult life, Dee had risen at quarter-to-six. In the Daihatsu, waving to anyone they passed, Dee reflected on the life she had made. She did this often, especially lately. This Christmas, trying to trace the family tree, Sonia and Michael had got as far back as their maternal grandad and found—nothing. His birth certificate, it turned out, was forged. His name, Glen Cotton, was made up: a steal (and how obvious it was!) from Glencotton House at the top of the village—a house Dee passed twice a day and which, seventy-five years ago, would have been the first thing the young con-man saw as the bus brought him down into Oakamoor, away from Lord-knew where he’d been until then. He might have been anyone, this man who had been her father. She would die not knowing.

Driving back, John said ‘They get like that at that age.’ She had raised the subject of the girl.

‘Well I never did. The girls never did.’

‘They did,’ said John. ‘You must’ve forgotten. By God, they were terrible.’

Dee was silent. It was her habit, when a conversation was not going the way she had wanted, to simply wait for the other person to lose interest before repeating her original point. After several moments, she said ‘It’s that bastard her father coming out in her.’

‘You’re one to talk,’ said John, who usually agreed with Dee on the subject of Madeleine’s father. ‘You don’t know a thing about yours.’

Dee was ready for this. ‘I know he worked all his life, and I know he provided for his family. I know he was a decent man.’

‘Decent!’ said John, and slapped the wheel.

‘He was; he was decent,’ said Dee.

‘He was most likely a deserter. Or perhaps he was one of those bigamists. Three women on the go at once—and kids with all of them. Hey, that would explain his drink problem.’

‘Can you not be serious for one minute of your life?’

‘I am being serious. You don’t know. I’m ashamed to be associated with such riff-raff, I really am. You wouldn’t find a Silvers with a dodgy birth certificate.’ They turned into the village, passing Glencotton House. ‘Hey, might’ve killed someone.’

‘Oh shut up, John.’

‘What?’

‘Just shut up. I’m sick to death of you.’ The rest of the way home, John whistled as Dee stared ahead at a crack in the windscreen. What he had said was true. She had married above herself.

When they got back most of their guests had gone on the walk. The girl was upstairs, reading on her bed. Dee heard the noise from her headphones.

‘Did you not fancy a breath of fresh air, Maddie?’ she said, walking in. The girl looked up, pulled the headphones out of her ears. ‘You’re not on your period, are you?’

‘No.’ Poking out from her jeans were a pair of odd socks, one patterned purple and the other green. On the floor was the dress Dee had given her that morning.

‘Well lie there and do nothing, then,’ said Dee, and left the room.

When the walkers got back dark was falling, and the girl came downstairs again. Listening as they removed their coats and wellies, Dee lined up a row of Hot Toddys, with half-measures for the kids (because that way they wouldn’t go mad as soon as they turned eighteen). They came in all together, and not for the first time, Dee was amazed by how healthy everyone looked.

After the drinks the others moved into the sitting-room, and Sonia helped her prepare the tea. They moved between the kitchen and the dining-room, setting it out onto the table.

‘I say, Sonia,’ said Dee. ‘All that’s blown over now, hasn’t it? With Al?’

‘Oh, yeah,’ said Sonia. ‘I think he’s just stressed about the situation at work, to be honest.’ Rob was Sonia's partner of three years; he was, as Dee and John had agreed from the beginning, a smashing chap. But this time he and Sonia had driven down separately, and once Dee had heard them arguing in the night.

‘Well, good,’ said Dee. ‘Because your father and I do worry about you. But you’re happy, are you? There’s nothing the matter?’ Sonia smiled at her, but the smile was not reassuring. Dee moved closer, holding a trifle. ‘Are you still having sex? The menopause needn’t—’

‘Mum.’

‘I know, I know; I’m only curious.’ In her early teens Sonia had developed an acute stammer that stayed until her early twenties and nearly ruined those years of her life. Then, after university, she had left home and fallen in with that bastard John Hunter, who’d leeched off her for years and bullied her to a point where Dee and John had looked into hiring someone to do violence to him. But Sonia had seen sense. She had raised the girls on her own and made the best of being a social worker; then she had met Rob and put all her troubles behind her. It made Dee proud. ‘But I’m glad you’re happy,’ she said now. ‘I’m glad everything’s OK.’

‘I think you just have to make the best of things, don’t you,’ said Sonia when they had finished, ‘and that’s as much as anyone can ask for.’ She smiled again: the same disquieting smile. ‘Look, it’s snowing.’ Dee turned and saw small flakes twirling in the wind outside, visible by the light of the kitchen. As the youth of her family ran into the yard, she put the outside light on and poured a Gin and Tonic. She watched them from the sink—Sonia had gone now—as they whirled and looked up at the black sky, smoke flowing out of their mouths. Soon there were headlights, the crackle of tyres on gravel. Her son was home, and the family was complete.

In the evening there were twenty of them, and after tea they settled into the sitting room for games. Sat in her chair, G and T in hand, Dee looked at her family around her. These handsome, glowing people. These bright, successful people. How remarkable it was that once they hadn’t existed—and that they existed now, most of them, because of her and the things she had done. Like here, her youngest grandson, giggling and driving his new toy car into Aunty Sonia's feet; or here, her only son whispering something to one of the girls, who frowned and held up three perfect fingers to the room—none would have life if she, Deborah Cotton, had not met John Silvers in 1956, or if one other thing out of millions had been different. These people were the sum-total of her life. They were what she had to show for herself.

‘The photo,’ she said loudly, standing up and clapping her hands. ‘We haven’t taken the photo.’ Every year the family stood in front of the fireplace and posed for the photo. It was a tradition, and the photos of previous years hung one above the other in the hall, the first thing anyone saw when they came in. But in all the recent ones, annoying Dee when she was on the phone or tidying—that girl. Not smiling properly. Not standing nicely. Hiding.

‘Now come along, Maddie. You’ve been the one black mark on all of my photos and I won’t let you spoil this one, too.’ She moved along, organising them. ‘Right, you go there. Men to the back; chop, chop.’

The girl was crying.

‘Now look,’ said Dee. ‘Don’t be so sensitive. I only said—’

‘Right, that’s it.’ Sonia stepped out of the line up and moved towards her. ‘I’m sick of it, mum. Why do you pick on Maddie? What’s wrong with you, for God’s sake?’

‘Sonia,’ said Al.

‘No,’ said Sonia. ‘I’m absolutely sick of it. She’s been picking on her for years.’ Sonia went to the girl, who had already stopped crying, and kissed her head and hugged her.

‘I have not,’ said Dee. The room was silent now.

Sonia turned back. ‘You have. You’ve been niggling away at her, bullying her, for as long as she can remember. And she’s terrified of you. She dreads coming to this house, because you’re always so vile towards her. Now tell me why.’ She gestured at the girl. ‘What is it about her, mum? I’d like to know.’

Dee stood in front of her family, and they all looked back at her. ‘I—’ she began, but words wouldn’t come. She felt a wave of self-pity, and was sure she would cry. ‘I am not a bully.’

‘OK,’ said Al. ‘We’ve all had a drink.’

‘How can you say that, Sonia?’ said Dee. ‘I would never pick on anybody.’ She walked out of the room, and no one followed.

In the kitchen she sat at the table and, hands shaking, poured herself a Gin and Tonic. There was no noise from the sitting room—they must be standing there still, not saying anything.

She rocked back and forth, her hands shaking. She finished her drink and refilled it. And it grew, of course. She knew that it would happen: that if she didn’t go back in, it would grow into something in families that can’t be laughed off or forgotten. But she stayed anyway. She sat there and rocked. She drained her glass.