The Puppet Master Page 10
“What are you reading?” Realising she was awake, he carefully sandwiched his bookmark between the pages of the book and gently placed it down on the coffee table, like he was handling a jewel.
“I’m reading Shakespeare. I’ve had this collection since I was a boy.”
“I can tell,” she smirked. “I hate Shakespeare. I don’t understand any of the words and I don’t understand why my teacher thinks it is still relevant.”
“Of course it’s relevant. Shakespeare’s influence has transcended through the ages. It has shaped our language irrevocably.” He laughed at the bored expression that she made at him.
“I heard you quoting Shakespeare last week.”
“No I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. You said that your mum dragged you on a ‘wild goose chase’. That is from Romeo and Juliet.”
“So what? If we already use the words, then why do you still read it?”
“You don’t understand. I read particular plays in Shakespeare because they have themes and ideas that I can relate to. That is what makes reading such a fantastic way to spend your time. It helps you understand things going on in your life or take you away from them. Look, come with me.” Billie walked over to the wall of books that she’d never really paid attention to. Eric deliberated and then pulled a faded green book from the shelf and gave it to her. In silver script, she read, Jane Eyre.
“Promise me that you will read this,” Eric said.
When she got home, she proudly showed to her parents the book she was going to read. To her dismay they laughed at her. “You’ll give up after a ten minutes,” said her mum before she turned back to plaiting her sister Holly’s hair. Determined to prove them wrong and to keep her promise to Eric, she began to read. After one chapter she got it. Eric’s words clicked. Jane’s struggles became her struggles, and she couldn’t put it down. When she next saw Eric, they had a fascinating discussion about the book and it made her feel so connected to him. In a way, she wished that she could do that with her mother. He gave her another book to read, and she couldn’t thank him enough for giving her this gift of other worlds to escape to.
Chapter Thirteen
2003
Adam
As life went on, duller without his mum, Uncle Eric kept his promise and came to see Adam one weekend every month. Adam lived for those weekends. It was like Uncle Eric was his monthly dose of oxygen, that’s how vital and precious the time he spent with him had become. His dad had turned into an alcoholic. That is what the paramedic said, when they came and removed his dad’s tongue from the back of his throat when he’d swallowed it. They told him he was a brave boy for calling the ambulance so quickly. They asked him lots of questions. Was his dad an alcoholic? Was it just the two of them? At thirteen, Adam knew he was likely to get taken away if anyone found out how useless his dad was, so he told them that his uncle Eric lived with them as well but he had gone away to visit someone. Uncle Eric knew the drill and would confirm if anyone asked. Uncle Eric told Adam that he knew it was hard for him, living with his dad drinking all the time. But he also said that going into care would be even worse. At least this way, Uncle Eric could keep an eye on him and help out, he could be sent anywhere if he went into care. Adam knew his uncle only wanted the best for him so he trusted that this was his only option. Anyway, he saw his uncle whenever he was free so it wasn’t too bad.
His uncle never let Adam go up North to visit. He lived with his new girlfriend, Sylvia, but Adam hadn’t met her. According to his uncle, she was jealous of Adam and the time they spent together and so it was best to keep them apart. It didn’t bother Adam that much, because it meant when he did see his uncle it was uninterrupted quality time with him. Adam had found it very hard at school in the last five years after his mum’s death. People stopped coming over to his house. It was all because his ex-best friend Jamie came over and Adam’s dad had come in from the pub, stinking of beer and was sick all over Jamie’s shoes. They were his brand new shoes that had flashing lights that went off anytime he jumped. He was so angry and told everyone at school about it and so no one wanted to come over in case his dad was sick in their shoes. It was awful.
Adam had called his uncle and confided in him. His uncle had told him to invite all of his class on a trip to the nearby zoo, he would organise transport and pay for everyone. Adam was ecstatic. Everyone in his class was fighting to sit next to him in lessons and he was spoilt for choice in the playground, everyone wanted to play with him and let him know how excited they were – ‘it’s not even your birthday, your uncle is so cool’.
The zoo was awesome. His uncle was the life and soul of the party; he even took some of the shyer girls off to look at the different animals so that everyone else could run around and look at what they wanted. It kept them out of the way so it didn’t slow Adam and his friends down as they raced around the zoo. The other parents were impressed by this charming relative who was so unlike his inebriated brother, especially as he was paying for everything. That day his uncle became Adam’s idol. He never let Adam down and he could always rely on him. Adam wanted to be exactly like him when he grew up. He was so kind and loving. Adam knew that he was lucky to have someone like him in his life.
But after a couple of months, he was a pariah once more when his dad turned up in his classroom and demanded that Adam give him back the money he’d stolen. He was almost taken into care that time but his uncle had managed to calm the waters and had taken the car keys off his dad so he wouldn’t be able to do anything like that again. But the damage to his reputation at school was not so easily fixed. It was fuel for all the bullies to use on Adam and no one wanted to be friends with someone whose dad was a drunk. So the only person in the world who wanted to be Adam’s friend, was his uncle.
Chapter Fourteen
2006
Billie
The Grimshaws were screaming at the top of their voices and Billie was sitting on the kerb trying to shrink as much as possible until she no longer existed. Their daughter Charlotte had just slapped her across the face in front of her sister this time, and Holly had gone straight home and told their mum. Billie had told her mum about Charlotte but her mum just told her to avoid her and then began to talk about a client who had left the country without paying his legal bills. But now Billie’s mum had stalked up to Charlotte’s house, which was only a few houses up from theirs on the same street, to talk to them and try sort it out. When Charlotte’s mother had answered the door and stepped outside, she had begun to yell, and then Charlotte’s dad had come out and also started shouting. Charlotte’s father was proclaiming her innocence while her mother was exclaiming that she had a reason to do it. Billie’s mother called Gran, and sure enough, Eric and Sylvia appeared.
Eric took one look at Billie. She could see the sparks of anger flaring in his eyes, his body went rigid and he walked straight over to Charlotte’s father. He began to roar at him, almost spitting. “How dare you call my granddaughter a liar, look at her, you can see the hand print across her face from here!” He grabbed the man by his shirt collar and continued to shout at him. “You should be ashamed of your daughter; she has been torturing my granddaughter for weeks now, grinding her down until she feels like nothing but a gutter rat. Your daughter is the lowest kind of human, scratch that, she’s a monster, and I wonder where she learnt that from. Now I suggest you advise your daughter to stay away from my granddaughter or you, my friend, will be very, very, sorry.”
With each ‘very’ he shook Mr Grimshaw so that his head rocked back and forth. His tone had gone from angry to menacing. Billie stared open mouthed. He was the only one that had spoken up for her like that. Her mother had merely said, “Look what your daughter has done to mine, what are you going to do?”
Considering she was a solicitor, you would have thought she would have had more fight in her. It felt like her mother was just going through the motions, but the way Eric had reacted was so touching. How could she ever repay him? She had crav
ed for someone to protect her like this and he was doing it.
The bond between Eric and Billie seemed to grow to the point that Billie felt like asking him to adopt her. He was the father she never had and she wanted to spend every day with him. He had not only gone from defending her to the Grimshaws, but he was now standing up to her mother.
Eric had become her world and she told him everything – her deepest fears about herself and the worst things that she thought. She had said how she was fed up with Holly being the favourite child and that she wished that there was something she could do to become her mother’s favourite instead. Eric had shaken his head kindly at her. “You shouldn’t worry about that, you’ve got me. You never have to worry about being second best with me. I think you are amazing and I always will.”
Chapter Fifteen
2006
Billie
The first time that Billie began to doubt if spending time with Eric was a good idea was on the eve of her thirteenth birthday. Almost a year after she first met him. She was at his house sitting on his knee on the recliner armchair as she had done for the past two years. She had the Sky remote in her hand and was tormenting Eric by choosing the channel where the dog and a duck spoke to each other about pressing the red button to learn more about Sky – it repeated every two minutes. Billie laughed hysterically at Eric covering his ears with his hands and moaning at the advert.
“What’s wrong, Eric, don’t you like this channel? You said this was your favourite,” she chuckled mischievously.
He lurched towards her hand which was holding the remote, trying to wrestle it off her. She half screamed in shock and half giggled. “Grandma! Help me!” Billie pleaded, trying to keep the laughter out of her voice. Her gran just shook her head.
“I honestly don’t know who is the bigger child.” She too was trying to hide her grin behind a stern look. She then turned back to her tapestry and continued to sew.
“If you don’t stop I won’t give you your birthday present early like we planned to.” The remote clattered to the floor.
“Really?” squealed Billie. “Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Please, please, please!” She bounced up and down on his knees in front of him. “Tell him, Grandma.”
“It’s not up to me; Eric bought it,” she replied, shrugging her shoulders.
“Okay, you can have it but no more dog and duck adverts!” said Eric laughing as he stood up.
He led the way up the hand carved wooden staircase, then onto one of the three spare rooms. She followed eagerly, poking him in the back to make him go faster. He opened the door and the gestured for her to go inside first. On the bed, on top of the ‘old lady style’ duvet, she always moaned about, was a large keyboard with a pink bow tied around it. She fell to her knees in front of it. Speechless. She knew that her mother tried her best to get her everything that she wanted but she had never had anything that was as expensive as this. She knew the price as she had been begging for one for the past year and a half.
“Do you not like it? Is it the wrong one?” Eric questioned when she didn’t say anything, concern etched on his face. She turned at his voice and stepped towards him and put her arms around him.
“Thank you so much, it’s perfect,” she whispered. She wasn’t sure what else she could say. She couldn’t believe it.
“There’s more,” he grinned. He walked over to the wardrobe in the corner of the room and from inside it, behind a pile of clothes, he withdrew a long black box. He passed it to her, this too had a ribbon around it. She gingerly opened it and inside lay a glistening silver tennis bracelet with diamonds set into it. He showed that on the other side it was engraved ‘to my special girl’.
“Now this present has to stay between you and me. I know that you get picked on by that awful girl, sweetie, so next time she is mean to you, you can think about me and this bracelet and know that whatever she says doesn’t matter because we know that you are special and she is wrong.” He caught her chin with his finger and forced her to look into his eyes. “But it has to stay between me and you, you can’t show anyone.” His blue eyes drilled into her. “Otherwise, I won’t be able to give it to you. What do you say, can I trust you?”
She nodded, but when his finger would not let her she realised he wanted to hear she understood. “Okay.”
She was elated. The bracelet was beautiful. It was just like him, he’d do anything to make her happy. He was always saying so. He knew how hard she had it. The other girls and boys at school had gradually stopped being so obvious in picking on her. But one girl that lived on their street, Charlotte, had taken a particular dislike to Billie, it was most likely because Billie had stopped her from taking dinner money from a girl who had just started at the school. She wished she could go back in time and not throw her shoe at Charlotte. Since then, Charlotte sought her out, insulting and slapping her. The family bust up outside Charlotte’s house had just made everything worse. It was awful now because she had become sly and tactful now. She did everything where no one could see. She could look at this bracelet and know that someone loved her.
But she didn’t understand why she couldn’t show anyone. She very rarely got anything nice let alone a diamond bracelet. She wanted to go school and finally have something that could make her fit in, she could show it off and then maybe they would leave her alone. She supposed it was a long shot. Oh well, she trusted Eric, he was nicer to her than anyone she had ever met. He was the only one that she had confided in, about how bad school really was for her.
Billie had put the bracelet away in her bag and decided that she would only wear it when she knew she would not get caught. She began to get ready for bed, she was staying at her gran’s house that night because her parents were going to her sister’s parents evening and then taking her out for a meal. They said they would see her the following day after school to celebrate her birthday.
She opened her bag and pulled out her black spaghetti strap T-shirt that she always wore for bed and matching black shorts. Black was the only colour that covered up her roll of fat (her mother called it puppy fat, the kids at school called her ten bellies). She went downstairs; she jumped into her usual space on the arm of Eric’s armchair which was starting to look worn now two people were using it, she swung her legs across his legs and he put his arm around her and they watched the television. He let her pick a programme to watch, tickling her in the side when she suggested the dog and the duck as she hadn’t watched that for ages. Her gran brought her some milk then she went back to studiously working on her tapestry. Billie thought that one day her gran would end up sewn to the tapestry stand, she had she spent so much time on it. Eventually, unable to keep her eyes open, she was forcibly sent to bed by Eric. She zombie-walked upstairs to bed and she was asleep before her head hit the pillow, it was exhausting work turning thirteen.
During the night, she wasn’t sure what time, she woke to the feel of lips on hers. Groggy from sleep she thought she was still dreaming. But as her consciousness slowly took hold, she saw Eric retreating back, walking out the door of her bedroom. Had Eric kissed her on the lips? The thought jolted her awake and she wasn’t sure what to think. No one had ever kissed her on the lips. She used to joke with her mother and try and kiss her on the lips. But her mum just pushed her off exclaiming, “Oh no, don’t do that, only a husband should kiss you on the mouth!” Maybe her mum was wrong. She didn’t know what to think. Maybe she was asleep and dreaming and it coincided with Eric coming to check on her? Yes, that seemed much more likely. She smiled over at the keyboard that was next to her bed and turned over to go back to sleep, willing it to be tomorrow so she could play with it.
Chapter Sixteen
Adam
Adam was sitting in the common room on one of the armchairs. He was surrounded by his year group, but he’d never felt more alone. He just didn’t fit in. He had no money to buy the latest craze or the newest brand of clothing. He had just enough to pay the bills, the mortgage and feed himself. Hi
s uncle had once given him hope when he’d offered to take him clothes shopping. But it was short lived when he came out with pretty much all the clothes his uncle would wear. So he was sat there, ignored, a mini-me of his uncle. His clothes may as well have been the same antique orange of the armchair for the amount of attention he was given by his classmates. He had brought this up with his uncle once when he was full to the brim of self-pity and loneliness.
“Adam, my dear boy,” he said without looking over from where he lay on the sofa, “having friends is overrated. You are your own man. When you do have friends, half the time they aren’t even your friends. Just people trying to use you for their own gain or drag you down to make them feel better about themselves.” Adam must have looked unconvinced as his uncle shuffled so he was sat facing Adam and then sighed. “Look, if you really need friends, look to the girls in your year. Easily pliable, great fun to be around, sexy and cute, and if you push the right buttons, they will adore you.” Adam just nodded, he didn’t have the words to explain to his uncle that he didn’t want a superficial relationship like that. He wanted a connection. He wanted ‘inside jokes’ he saw the lads in his year having. He wanted to play sports and be invited places.
The next day, he signed up to join the school football team. He’d been asked before as he was an alright player, but he hadn’t had the guts to do it. But now his need overcame his nerves. After the first practice, he knew he’d made the right decision. He couldn’t believe how easy it was. The guys had been happy to include him. Jamie – who had either forgiven or forgotten the shoe incident – had invited Adam to his house for a party. He’d run all the way home and dug out the best shirt. It was still a bit worn, but it would do.