Tish placed her gift onto Harry’s outstretched palm.
It was the seahorse necklace he’d given Jess for her seventeenth birthday. He looked up, confused.
Tish said, ‘I stole it. One day when we were up in her room. I wanted to take something from Jess, something that she cared about. I knew you’d given it to her. You never were great at keeping secrets, not really.’
The buzzer went.
Tish stood up. ‘I’m sorry. I hope you’re going to be all right, Harry, with everything, but I won’t be coming again. See you around – some day.’ She shouldered her bag, turned and walked away, without looking back.
Back in his cell, Harry looked at the necklace. An image of Jess sitting up in bed, her face so open and happy, the wrapping paper caught in the folds of the duvet, filled his head. The seahorse thing had started as a joke. Jess had made a comment about what odd-looking creatures they were, and he’d Googled them and discovered that they ate about fifty times a day…like Jess. She had countered with facts about their exoskeleton: hard on the outside, soft on the inside…just like you. And it had gone on from there. Hippocampus hippocampus. Poor swimmers with excellent eyesight, able to change colour to match their environment. Creatures that paired for life. Jess’s favourite fact was that the female seahorse always went into the male’s territory every morning, where they would greet each other with an elaborate spiralling ‘dance’. He and Jess had taken to circling each other at least once every time they met, a secret gesture of their togetherness.
The necklace chain slid through his fingers. It had lain against Jess’s pale skin and Tish’s. Jesus, what a mess!
Chapter 62
SAL REFUSED to lie to Mo. If that dumped Tish in it, so be it. Sneaking around, arranging the prison visit behind his back, then lying about where she was going: Mo deserved better than that. Sal’s frustration also lay in her confusion over Tish’s motives for suddenly wanting to see Harry. Why go backwards, when life was finally going forward? Sal couldn’t see any earthly benefit that could come from her daughter going on some crazy mission to confront him. She was also concerned that there was more to the trip than the desire for a showdown. They’d been here before, with Harry Westwood. His hold over Tish had been strong. Sal had thought – had hoped – that Mo had cured her of that obsession. What if she was wrong? What if her daughter really was doomed to repeat her own self-destructive behaviour with men, picking the bad boy instead of the decent one?
Mo turned up at the house about two hours after Tish left for Darlington. He made out as if he’d just been passing, but he wasn’t daft. He must have sensed something was off. After a few minutes of awkward small talk, he asked Sal straight out where Tish was, and she told him. He looked at the floor for a second, then back up, composing himself. There was no outburst of justifiable anger, no swearing, no calling Tish out, only a shiver of disappointment. Sal was the one who felt a flash of pure frustration. After all that Mo had done for Tish, after his kindness and all-round loveliness, Sal was ashamed of her daughter.
‘I’m sorry, love. She should’ve told you. I don’t know why she didn’t.’
Mo flipped his phone over in his hands. ‘It’s okay. Thank you for telling me.’ He was so reserved. Maybe that was the problem; maybe Mo was too nice, too much of a pushover for Tish.
‘I’ll tell her – when she eventually gets back – that you came round, and that she needs to call you. It’ll be this evening. She’s gone up on the coach.’
‘Thanks.’ He turned to leave.
Sal felt compelled to say more, to encourage him to stand his ground. ‘I didn’t know she was planning it, Mo. I promise. Not until yesterday. She’s out of order. You’ve every right to tell her that. I’m sorry, love. I really don’t know what she’s playing at.’
He just shrugged. On his way out through the kitchen, Sal saw him stop, crouch down and stroke Harley. She hoped it was a ‘goodbye for now’ rather than a ‘goodbye for ever’.
Chapter 63
WHEN TISH stepped out through the last set of prison gates into the cold, grey November afternoon she felt free – released of her debt to Jess, and of her ties to Harry. Despite the wind knifing through the shelter and the long wait for the shuttle bus, her mood was upbeat. She had been right to come. When she noticed that one of the kids waiting with his mum was staring at her face – blatantly, open-mouthed – she wasn’t bothered. She stuck out her tongue and the kid looked away.
Her positive mood evaporated the moment she looked through her messages. What the hell! Her mum had no right getting involved. Tish had planned to speak to Mo about seeing Harry face-to-face, so that she could explain properly. This was not the way it was supposed to play out.
Settled in her seat, she tried to compose an appropriate message to Mo. She came up with some words – a few okay sentences, even a whole paragraph – then deleted them all. She redrafted the text again and again. None of her attempts sounded right. Mo had always respected her privacy, but she knew he had his suspicions about her and Harry. A sudden prison visit – which Mo would know took time and effort to organise, and therefore must have necessitated weeks of lying – hardly helped to allay those suspicions. Why the hell hadn’t her mum covered for her? A text wouldn’t cut it. But the thought of Mo being mad at her, thinking she’d betrayed him, wasn’t bearable, either. She couldn’t ring him from the bus; it was too public for such a private conversation. Knowing that she was going to be trapped on the coach for at least the next couple of hours, she resorted to sending him one short message. ‘I can explain.’
For the rest of the journey Tish sat with her phone in her hand, waiting for a reply that never came.
He didn’t answer her calls or respond to any of her texts that evening, either. Sal was unsympathetic; in fact she seemed pleased that Mo was holding out on her. That only made things worse: judgement on top of judgement. Tish and her mum had words. Shouted ones – like in the old days.
The following morning Tish got up early. She got ready quickly, but carefully. At the last minute she decided to take Harley with her. A shameless ploy, but she was prepared to use anything. Mo’s dad answered the door, in his dressing gown. She said she’d wait outside for Mo – because of the dog.
Mo took his time. When he did finally appear, she noticed that his sweatshirt was on inside out. She didn’t make a joke of it, like she normally would.
‘Thought you might want to come for walk.’
He shrugged on his jacket. ‘Did you?’ He was sulking.
‘No, not really. I came because you’re obviously mad at me. And I want to explain why I went. You’ve got it all wrong!’
‘I’ve got it wrong!’
‘Yeah.’
‘So tell me, Tish, what part of you lying to me and going to see Harry behind my back have I got wrong?’ Sarcasm didn’t suit him.
‘The part about why I went,’ she replied.
‘Go on then.’ He pulled his jacket around him, keeping his distance.
Harley was whining, straining on his lead, wanting to be off, not hanging around outside Mo’s house. ‘Let’s walk.’