The Puppet Master Read online

  Over the next few hours, Uncle Eric showed Adam everything; instead of doing everything for him, he would make sure Adam could do things on his own. “You’re a growing lad now, son, no reason you can’t do chores like a real man.” They got the house almost back to how it used to be before his mum had left. It wasn’t quite the same as the house was missing her as well. Uncle Eric promised he would stay as long as he was needed and so Adam settled into a happy routine, no longer having to walk home alone or struggle with his sums any more. Uncle Eric was right there. He didn’t treat Adam like a child, he didn’t try and replace his mum. He was just whatever Adam needed him to be. He would show him things, teach him to be a grown-up but he made everything so much fun, it didn’t feel like a lesson. Adam was so happy, he wished that Uncle Eric was his real dad.

  Chapter Ten

  2004

  Billie

  When Billie first met Eric, she was eleven years old and her grandma had already moved in with him. Her grandmother Sylvia was one of the cool ones. You would not have thought she was fifty-five, her curly auburn hair and her stylish clothing had everyone deceived. Her grandma’s youthful looks reflected her lifestyle, she had bounced around from one relationship to the next for as long as Billie could remember, she was always moving around from one side of the country to the other. So it wasn’t really a shock to find she had found a new man and within a matter of weeks had ingratiated herself into his life and his home. However, it was a surprise that the house happened to be only a couple of streets away from the Sylvia’s daughter, Megan, and her two granddaughters, Billie and Holly. She desperately hoped that Eric was here to stay and Sylvia would begin to settle down like ordinary grandmothers.

  Eric was amazing. Billie and Holly had met him when their gran had insisted they come and meet ‘Grandad Eric’. Billie’s mum had refused the invitation, unsuccessfully whispering under her breath that she’d met enough ‘new Dads’ to last a lifetime. They had walked into his house, the only detached house in the village, and they were awed by the size and the luxury that he lived in. Eric was standing in his massive oak kitchen that had beams running the length of it. It looked so homely and welcoming, matching the smile on Eric’s face. He walked over and hugged both Billie and Holly tight, insisting that they were going to be the best of friends. He then pulled out two state-of-the-art Walkmans as a present and said, “Call me Uncle Eric.” From that day, he spoilt them rotten. Billie could tell that Holly wasn’t that enamoured by Eric and she couldn’t understand why. Like her gran, he didn’t look anywhere near the fifty-seven years he said he was. He had a full head of dark brown hair, sparkling brown eyes and a slim frame that showed no signs of frailty. He always had a ready smile and was full of energy. Better still he wanted to spend time with them. He would pop over to their house on his walks around the countryside and without fail, he would invite them to go along, or bring them a gift. He was always thinking of fun things that they could do. Billie would always accept his invitations as she really enjoyed spending time with him. He actually listened to her and he had a wicked sense of humour.

  Billie’s mum, Megan, was a solicitor so she was always working. As soon as she realised that Eric was retired from his job as a postman and that he actually wanted to spend time with her children she decided to scrap the expensive childcare and hand them over to Eric whenever she needed to – much to Billie’s delight. She had never had so much attention. Holly was only nine years old so she was still cute and babyish and most importantly the apple of their mother’s eye. Holly didn’t need Eric’s attention because she got more than enough at home. At Eric’s house, Billie ruled the roost and she could basically convince Eric to do anything she wanted. She remembered when he let her wrap him up like a mummy in bandages to the point where only his eyes and mouth were visible. Then there was the makeover and painted nails. She had never had so much fun.

  Billie was a loner, and so instead of following her mother around the house chattering away like Holly, she was alone in her room. As a result, her social skills were not very good. At school, her bright red hair only served as a beacon to the bullies and she just never knew how to stand up for herself. But since Eric had joined their family she began not to care what other people said. She remembered the first time that he heard her singing to the radio on the way back from a school trip to the Sellafield power plant he had picked her up from. She had become so relaxed in his company that she had forgotten he was there.

  “You have a beautiful voice,” he said. She blushed furiously. There wasn’t very much that Billie felt she was good at but she did love to sing, that was when her stepdad Matthew wasn’t yelling at her from downstairs to shut up and keep the noise down. She wanted to join the choir at school but she just couldn’t do it. There was a group of boys and girls at school who made her life hell, and some of them were in the choir. If they weren’t laughing at her bright ‘blood’ coloured hair, it was the weight that she had gained over the summer. It was also the fact that she knew that some of those girls were really good singers. There was always someone better than her at anything she tried and she longed to find something that she could be good at. Day after day, she sat in the school canteen where she was purposely avoided and isolated. She tried to act like she didn’t care that she was alone when actually she was gripped with embarrassment and a terrible sadness. Then she would go home and her mother would be at work, her stepdad was so strict that it was better to avoid him. She felt too much resentment towards her sister for being the favourite, to want to spend time with her. So she just went to her room and read. Each day she felt the pointlessness of her existence grow. So to have a compliment like that, lit her up inside and made her euphoric.

  “Don’t be silly,” she scoffed. “There are so many people that are better at singing than me.” He looked at her for a moment with what seemed like sadness in his eyes. “Billie, there is always going to be someone that you think is better than you at everything, but none of those people are you, they can’t sing like you because everyone is unique.” He kept switching between looking at the road and then at her.

  “They can’t do anything like you because they are not you, so you are the best at being something, you are the best at being you. It is your responsibility to be the best person that you can be and not think about anyone else or let them influence you or change you, because you are you and they are not.” She wasn’t sure how to respond to that. It was like he knew everything that was inside her, all her worries and fears and knew just how to soothe them. She didn’t need to respond as he changed the subject, his tone lighter. “I want you to sing for me and your gran when we get home. I’ve got an old karaoke machine in the spare room. I’m going to dig it out.”

  They got home and sure enough, he found the machine and plugged it in. He even sang the first couple of songs with her, much to her gran’s amusement. Her gran’s wild days seemed to be over as she had come into the room and sat down to start her latest hobby, tapestry. Eventually, Billie found the confidence to sing alone and she loved it. She could see the love in both their eyes and the silent encouragement. She actually felt like she was glowing inside. She tried to imagine her parents ever giving her this level of support or taking the time to do something like this with her, but she couldn’t picture it. She wished she could live there with her grandmother.

  After a couple of hours, it was time for Billie to walk home for her tea. Eric put on his stylish black raincoat that was just a little too big for his wiry frame. He really didn’t look or act like an old man. He hadn’t worked for a long time after a dog took a nasty bite out of his leg on one of his deliveries as a postman. He had cleverly invested the compensation money and he was set for life.

  They walked towards her home in companionable silence until just before the turning for the alley that would lead to her house. He turned to her and lifted his hand to stroke a finger down her face. “I really enjoyed hearing you sing today, you look so beautiful when you let go and
do something that you love.” With that, he walked back towards his house leaving her to travel the short distance to her own. She practically floated home. No one had ever been so nice to her.

  She loved Eric; she was so happy that her grandmother had chosen to be with him. It was also like she could pretend that he was like her dad. Billie’s dad had left when she was a baby, and she grew up without someone to celebrate Father’s Day with, and no one to take to father-daughter events like the rest of the kids. On the rare occasion that she went to a friend’s house, she saw their fathers and watched them interact with such a jealous rage; she struggled to keep from saying something. She would have been such a great daddy’s girl. Billie’s sister, Holly, had a different dad from her, Kevin. Unlike Billie’s dad Kevin still wanted contact with Holly, so every weekend Holly would leave Billie at home alone, only interacting with her parents when one of them wanted a cup of tea or help on the computer.

  Her mum did her best. She didn’t do anything horrible to Billie, she just didn’t see that Billie needed to be supported, especially when school was so bad. Billie walked through the back door of their home, it was an end of terrace house. As she walked in the back door, her mother walked past with a basket of laundry in her hands towards the utility room. She had her head turned back and she was deep in conversation with Holly, who was always only one step behind her. They were so busy bitching about whatever person had irritated her mother that day that they didn’t even notice Billie come in. After such a great afternoon, brimming with confidence and happiness, she felt deflated. Once again she wished she could live permanently with her gran and Eric.

  Billie’s mother wasn’t a bad mother, she was one of the good ones really, but she wasn’t good with showing her affection. She was so caught up in her own life that it was difficult to have a conversation with her mother that would stay being about her and not diverge into something about her mum’s life. Billie tried everything she could to make her mother proud but it was only when she asked her mother if she was proud that she would say it; it’s not the same when you have to ask. Her mum didn’t do compliments or sympathy; she loved drama and gossip. Unless Billie wanted to gossip and listen to the same story over and over again, that was the only conversation her mum liked to have. She didn’t really take the time to talk about things Billie wanted to talk about. But when Billie thought like this she would then become wracked with guilt because she knew she was lucky to have her mother at all. Her mum was all she had and although she might not give her attention and understanding, at least she hadn’t abandoned her.

  It didn’t help that Holly was, unequivocally, her mother’s favourite. They were always together, Matthew joked that Holly was her mother’s shadow. Every time Billie came to say goodnight to her mum, Holly would already be in there and whatever intense conversation they were having, cuddled up in bed together would stop. They would look up at her waiting to see what she wanted. All she wanted was to be invited into bed to cuddle. Instead, she just wished her mother goodnight and picked up her battered copy of Harry Potter, who had no parents, to try and remind herself she was lucky.

  A couple of years ago, Billie’s mum had married Matthew. Billie loved Matthew and he was a great stepdad albeit very strict, but he had two other children from his previous marriage. So she knew that he could never be her dad, he would always have someone else that would be more important to him than her. She was under the impression that being a dad meant that your child came before everything and everyone. When she spent time with Eric, he made her feel like that. Everything that he said, every look, the way he bought her presents for no reason.

  The only thing that upset her about Eric was that every month he would go away for the weekend. The weekends were when she would get to spend the most time with him and she hated that he just disappeared. He said that he had to go to a hospital in Newcastle to get treatment for his back. He said that all those years walking miles and miles delivering mail had ruined it and so each month he had treatment for it. It reminded Billie that Eric was getting older and that soon he would not want to play with her or do all the exciting things they did together as often because he would too old. It terrified her really because she didn’t want to go back to a life where she was ignored and had no one to make her feel as special as Eric did.

  Chapter Eleven

  1998

  Adam

  Adam sat with his eyes closed tight, praying that he would hear a beep from the monitor. The doctors had just turned off his mum’s life support machine and even though they had gently explained that this meant she would go up to heaven, he was begging with every fibre of his being that she would just wake up. He knew that one long beep meant that his mum’s heart was no longer beating but he thought if he just listened hard enough, he would hear the beeps of her heartbeat. Perhaps her heart was just beating so quietly that no one could hear it. He just needed to listen hard enough. A hand on his shoulder made him open his eyes. His uncle Eric was looking down at him, glistening tracks of water were running down his face. “I’m so sorry, son; she’s gone.” Adam wanted to jump on the bed and tell everyone that it was impossible, her body was still there, her eyes were still open, she couldn’t be gone.

  But he was a grown up now. Uncle Eric said so. An eight-year-old adult. So he listened to the other grown-ups around him. The doctors giving their condolences to his dad. His father was holding his mum’s hand and had his head leaning on their clasped hands. He was sobbing uncontrollably. Adam didn’t like it. He was a grown up, and he always said that only girls cry. Anyway, Adam loved his mum more than he did. He was always working. It was Adam who spent the most time with her. It was Adam she would sing to sleep. It was Adam who she said was her ‘favourite man’.

  They went home from the hospital and it felt different this time. There would be no more trips to the hospital. There would be no more hope. This was his life from now on. He didn’t even think that he liked his dad, how was he going to live with just him? Uncle Eric came up to Adam’s room and sat on the end of his bed. “How are you doing, son?”

  “Can you come and live with us?”

  “I can’t, son; I would if I could but I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve got a family back up North, you know that.”

  “Your sons?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They could come and stay here too.”

  “They can’t, son; they’ve got their sons and daughters in school up there and jobs.”

  “Can I come and stay with you, then?”

  “I’m sorry but there’s no room. How about this? I promise I’ll come and see you one weekend a month. More if I can.” Adam knew that he should be grateful that he was getting that at least, but he was too wary of what his life was going to be like now.

  Uncle Eric stayed until a week after the funeral. Before the funeral he pestered and raged at his brother, trying to get him to snap out of being a “pathetic, selfish, lazy zombie”. Nothing worked. He still refused to sleep in his bedroom, he stayed on the sofa and didn’t move unless he needed water or the toilet. He ate only when forced to and never spoke to anyone. The funeral seemed to wake up him up a bit. Out of respect for his wife he got showered and dressed and went to the funeral. He even held Adam’s hand as the coffin was lowered into the ground. The wake took place at the house, which Uncle Eric had cleaned. When Adam’s dad had had a whisky, he seemed to become his old self. He talked with people and laughed at their jokes. Adam wanted some of the whisky too, he wanted to be able to smile and laugh with people. Instead, he was struggling to hold back the tears. Only girls cry. He wanted to scream at the people that were telling him how brave he was and that they were going to miss his mum. They didn’t know anything about her. No one could miss her more than he would. He wanted to get a tumour so that he could go up to heaven and join his mum.

  Whatever heaven was, it was better than being without her. But when he told his uncle this, he said that his mum w
ould be really mad if he went and joined her too soon and he shouldn’t worry. “Your old uncle Eric will take care of you.”

  Chapter Twelve

  2006

  Billie

  It was a balmy Saturday afternoon. Billie had tried playing outside with the kids from the village, but it had not ended well. She’d managed to convince two boys to let her play football with them. They had shoved her into the goal, obviously enjoying belting the ball as hard as they could at a girl. However, she hadn’t minded, it was just nice to feel included. She jumped and dived for the ball each time with childish abandon. She was beginning to get tired when her pink, woolly poncho that she wore tightened around her neck. She grabbed at it, trying to pull in from her throat. From behind her, she heard the cackling laughter of Charlotte. Dread twisted her stomach. What was she thinking? She’d been playing outside like a brazen rabbit, hopping around in the open forgetting about the sly fox that hunted it.

  “What are you doing out here? Are you trying to work off some of that fat? Because you’ve got no chance.” Billie struggled to get free.

  “Let go!”

  “Why should I? I should put you out of your misery, fat girl.” She tugged at Billie hard enough that she fell to the floor.

  One of the boys that she had been playing with shouted out, “What are you doing to her?” Charlotte swivelled her head and then stalked over to him, no doubt to put him back in his place. Everyone knew not to cross her. Billie felt a twinge of guilt as she rolled to her feet and ran to Eric’s house which was closest.

  He had answered the door with a knowing smile and taken her into his arms until she had stopped shaking and crying. When she was calmer but exhausted, he led her through to the living room and she had fallen asleep on the new black leather sofa that had arrived the previous week. As sleep took her, she absently thought about Eric’s money, if it would ever run out. When she woke up, she looked over at Eric to see him bent over a dusty red book that had spidery gold writing creeping up the spine. He looked completely entranced like he wasn’t even aware of his surroundings. She envied him that.