Apart from Blessing, he was the one person I trusted to understand my heart on this.
Why was it that, despite filling my new life with good things – a thriving business, new social life with Blessing, working onthe cottage, a whole new family to consider – none of it seemed to shake that feeling of missing something?
Missing someone.
36
On Thursday, I arrived at the pub a few minutes late, thanks to a delayed delivery from my butcher and roadworks on the A38.
‘Flippin’ heck,’ Penny shrieked as I approached the corner table they’d squeezed around. ‘You were right, Mum.’
She jumped up, flung her arms around me and held on until I was in danger of asphyxiation. Thankfully, at the point I’d have to rudely entangle myself or risk passing out, she let go, holding me at arm’s length, eyes shining, face in a huge grin.
‘I thought Mum was kidding herself, to be honest. What are the chances of spotting someone that looks a bit familiar on the news, and her turning out to be Kennedy’s Emmie? But there’s no mistaking it. Look!’
She pointed to her rainbow-striped trainers, laughing. Mine were identical, apart from being a couple of sizes smaller. They were one of the first things I’d bought since ditching the Parsley’s Pasties uniform. Penny definitely had Nell’s Viking-esque stature. Her hair, worn in a high ponytail, was more auburn than fair, with dark-brown eyes and a broader mouth than mine or her mother’s, but everything else, including theway she tipped her head to one side while she spoke, was all Swan.
She introduced me to her baby, Riley, and his big brother, Milo, currently under the table refereeing a fight between a shark and a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Dawn gave me a nervous hug, and we all squashed in around the table, which was laden with plates.
‘The boys were famished, so we ordered already,’ Penny said. ‘We’re all mad for cheesy chip butties, so thought you’d probably like them, too, seeing as it’s a family tradition. Bags of brown sauce and a squirt of salad cream.’
I’d never tried a chip butty. Mum didn’t allow factory-made sauces in the house, let alone brown sauce or salad cream. But seeing as it was a family tradition, I overlooked the twinge of resistance to another person ordering for me, knowing that this was meant as a welcoming gesture, not a mother dictating her daughter’s taste, and dug in.
Okay, so I didn’t need to share everything in common with the Swans. The Brown in me still held some sway.
‘You hate it, don’t you?’ Penny laughed, handing me a menu after watching me hesitate over a second bite.
The temptation to lie was strong, but the desire to be able to be myself with these people, and not be judged for it, was stronger.
I ordered a noodle bowl.
I’d been so nervous about the lunch, whittling about my rubbish social skills leading to awkward silences, or whether we’d even like each other, despite trying to remind myself that if we didn’t get on, at least we’d tried. In the end, we all had so manyquestions that there was barely time to take a breath, let alone leave a lull in the conversation.
I asked, as tactfully as I could thanks to hours of overthinking it, why I’d not been allowed to have any contact with them.
‘It was the right decision at the time,’ Dawn said, with a dejected sigh. ‘Our mums were branded our estate’s female version of the Kray twins, back in the day. I mean,’ she rushed on, noticing my look of alarm, ‘nothing so bad as them two, but they were women who, shall we say, were flexible with the law when it suited them. You can’t earn a living through low-key drug-dealing, ripping off businesses, or lying, cheating and scamming without backing it up with a bit of violence now and then. We were brought up with no boundaries, in constant fear of what might kick off next. Nell learned to control what small things she could, terrified of ending up like her parents. She was forever making more rules and routines for herself.’
‘She said most of the family had been in prison.’
‘The Swan twins served time together, and on their own. They were never honest about how long or how often, but I eventually figured out that the Great-Aunt Doris they kept going abroad to look after for months at a time was about as real as their insurance claims.’ Dawn shook her head in despair. ‘Kennedy followed in their footsteps, only she helped herself to too many of the drugs she was selling. Your grandad – no, hang on…’ Dawn shook her head ‘…Nellie’s dad – Clive Brown, I don’t know if you want to call him your grandad or great-uncle, but anyway, he served six years in Nottingham Prison. My dad, Tommy, he spent most of his life too drunk to be of any use to the family business.’
‘What about you, then, Mum?’ Penny asked, before I could pluck up the courage.
Dawn sighed. ‘As a youngster, I didn’t have much choice when Mum told me to deliver a package here, lie to thepoliceman who was, of course, always trying to frame them. But I saw what it was doing to my sister, so I found myself a fella and got the heck out of there. The problem was, he turned out to be worse than any of them. Only time he kept his fists to himself was when I was pregnant. So, I had Gareth, Owen and then the twins, before Mum found out and sent him packing.’
‘Is that why you couldn’t take me in?’ I asked.
‘Because I had four kids under four, one of them with a life-limiting disability, another neurodiverse in ways that no one could begin to fathom in those days? Or because my husband was violent and controlling? Both, darling. Not to mention that any child would be better off far, far away from the lot of us. That’s why I told Kennedy not to fight social services. I was that relieved when she agreed to give you up. Although it hurt her so much, she took off straight after.’ She wiped her eyes with a paper napkin. ‘I’d been waiting forever for the call to say she’d died, but losing my baby sister still broke me.’
‘You turned it around in the end, though, didn’t you, Mum?’ Penny said. ‘Once you got rid of Louis, it was all good.’
‘It was,’ Dawn said, nodding firmly. ‘We’d lost Mum a while before, and Auntie Polly was living in a home, retired from all that nonsense. So, after waster number three, I decided I was done with men, and retrained as a Victim Support worker, in the hope I could make some amends on behalf of the Swan family and associates. I’ve got three upstanding kids, five fabulous grandkids. And a niece I’m so proud of, I could burst.’
‘I’m sorry Mum never fought to give you another chance,’ I said.
‘I am, too. And I’m sorry I didn’t try harder to let her know I deserved one. But we had no idea where she was. Last we heard, she’d got married and moved to some island.’
That started a whole new conversation, which lasted until my brain was so full, if I stayed any longer, I’d be too drained to drive home.
