Chapter Thirteen
1
8:30 a.m.
It was another typical morning in the Stephens' household. Penny sat on one of the kitchen worktops eating dry cornflakes straight from the box as she listened to the latest instalment of; 'THE IDIOTS GUIDE TO BECOMING A SINGLE PARENT FAMILY', live and direct from her own front room. Both combatants knew that their daughter was only in the room at the other end of the passage, but they were both too busy to care. The battle lines had been drawn, the trenches dug and now it was all out war.
"Damn right, I was out all night." Her father's voice was bitter and angry. "I'm home now so what's the big deal?"
"I'll tell you what the big deal is." Her mother hissed. "I want to know where the hell you're coming home from."
"Oh, do you now? And what if I don't want to say?"
"Stop being such a bloody child and tell me who this cow is."
"And what makes you think that there's only one?"
"You bastard!"
Penny heard the loud slap followed by two more. The woman screamed and then there was another sound, the sound of something falling to the floor. Penny hopped up from the worktop and ran out into the passage. Before she could reach the living room door she heard another blow land, only this time it was quieter, something like a kick or a punch. She stopped dead when she saw the man walk out of the living room; dressed like some sort of mafia gangster and flexing the fingers of his right hand.
"Dad, what have you done?" Penny's voice was little more than a whisper.
He quickly turned his gaze in her direction; a look of menace mixed with shock emitted from his eyes. "You and your Mum were both cast out of the same mould, that's for sure." There was another look in his eyes now, but she didn't know how to interpret it. "You're both a couple of sad, stupid bitches. I'm off out."
"But where are you going?"
"Mind your own business." He snapped. "You bitches always stick together, don't you?"
"Yeah, that's right." Penny felt the anger pumping through her entire body. "Why don't you just get lost and leave us alone. We'd both be better off without a stupid waste of space like you hanging around."
His fist connected with her jaw with such force that she was knocked to the ground. The whole of the passageway seemed to spin and her vision blurred as she lay sprawled on the floor. He leaned over her, roughly gripping the front of her nightshirt, and almost pulled it off of her as he dragged Penny back up to her feet like a rag doll. He threw her against the wall and held her there, one hand clutching a fistful of her nightshirt, the other gripping her throat so tight that she could hardly breathe. His face was so close to hers that it almost touched and she could smell the stale alcohol on his breath.
"Now look here you silly little cow, you never talk back to me like that again, understand?"
Penny looked defiantly into the eyes of the animal that towered over a foot above her, not allowing him to see her fear. At that moment she hated him more than she'd ever hated anything in her life. She brought her knee up to connect with his crotch but she missed the target by a whisker. He removed his hand from her throat and she had just enough time to draw a deep before the full-blooded punch to her stomach forced it back out again. He let her fall to her knees and she doubled over at his feet gasping for air.
"Stupid little cow. Do you think that she loves you? He roared down at her. "She doesn't you know. She hates you as much as I do. You were nothing but a lousy accident, do you hear me?"
Penny stared up at him again, the same defiant look burning in her eyes. "Get out!" She screamed at him.
"But I haven't finished yet. The funny thing is, the first moment your mother found out that she was pregnant she wanted to get rid of you, and do you know what, I bloody wish we had."
Penny saw the smug smile play over his face as he savoured his words.
"I said get out!" she screamed at him.
"Oh, I'm off all right, but I'll be back later, and when I get back you two had better not be here, have you got that." He stood over her for a moment longer to emphasise the threat then turned and left the house, slamming the door behind him, before Penny could retort.
She remained on her knees for some time stunned by his accusation. He was lying. He had to be, after all, she knew her mother better than he did.
"Mum?"
Penny tried to stand up but her stomach hurt too much. Her head was still spinning and she could feel the bile swirling up inside her, but she knew that she had to find out what that animal had done to her mother.
Penny heaved herself towards the living room on her hands and knees. "Mum, are you all right?" There was no answer, just a painful moan form behind the sofa. "Mum!" Penny crawled in the direction of the sound forgetting her own pain. "Mum, are you okay?"
"It's all right sweetheart, I'm fine." The woman's battle weary voice sounded far from fine as she slowly raised herself from the ground.
Penny felt the nausea sweep over her again as she saw her mother stand up, holding onto the back of the sofa for support. She did look quite rough, but nowhere near as bad as Penny had expected. Her left eye was bruising over and there was a small nick on the edge of the eyebrow above it, but apart from that, and her dishevelled hair and dressing gown, she looked fine. Penny started to wonder what she herself looked like. Her stomach still felt quite tender, her bottom lip had begun to swell like a balloon and her peripheral vision was still hazy, but she managed to follow her mother's example and hauled herself up onto the nearest armchair. Not wanting to alarm her mother, she tried not to grimace at the pain but she couldn't stop herself. She tasted the blood in her mouth and she ran her tongue over her teeth to check that none were loose or cracked; thankfully they were okay.
"What the hell did that bastard do to you?"
Penny didn't answer, she just watched her mother stumble towards her. There was so much concern on the young woman's face, so much love and anguish. Penny didn't have to ask the question that lingered at the back of her mind; she already knew the answer. He was a liar, and that's all there was to it.
Penny's mother crouched down in front of her and gently held one of her hands. "Did he do anything else to you? Did he... you know?"
"What?"
"You know. Did he, touch you anywhere?"
"No!"
"And you would tell me if he had, wouldn't you?"
"Mum, he didn't do anything like that. He did this," Penny pointed to her face. "He said some horrible things too, but that's all." For one awful moment, she realised that her tone almost made it sound like she was defending him and she felt another bout of nausea move through her.
"What did he say to you darling?"
"Nothing. Just a load of rubbish. Anyway, it doesn't matter." Penny glanced back over at the living room door. For a moment she imagined that she saw him standing there with his cold, dark eyes, filled with hatred and disgust. "Why don't we just leave him, Mum? He doesn't deserve us and we definitely don't need him. We could pack right now and just split."
"But where would we go?"
"Somewhere; anywhere, as long as we are far away from him."
"But this is our home." There was more than a tinge of hurt in her mother's tone. "Why should we be the ones who have to leave?"
"He wants us out of here Mum, today!"
"So that he can move his fancy piece in no doubt. Well we're going nowhere Penny. If anyone's leaving this house it will be him not us."
Penny knew that her mother was right. They had done nothing wrong. They were the innocent parties in all of this. She smiled at her mother hurting her cracked lip, but she didn't care anymore. "Fair enough, if we're not going to pack for us I suppose we may as well pack for him. Do you think we've got enough bin liners in the kitchen?"
"That's my girl." Her mother smiled back.
2
Alan Stephens drove his silver Saab hatchback in the direction of the woods. There was hardly any traffic on the road out of Eastlake. Most of the cars that he had encountered were on the opposite side of the road heading towards the town centre, so he had reached the outskirts of town much quicker than usual. Soon he was on the narrow strip of tarmac that led to Munford House and the woods. He took his left hand off of the steering wheel and reached into his jacket pocket for his mobile phone. Then he flipped the cover and activated the 'phonebook' option from the main menu screen. At the press of the next key the dial tone hummed into life. Keeping his eyes firmly on the hedge-flanked road ahead, he counted each of the hums until the receiver at the other end was finally picked up.
"Hello?"
"Hi, it's me." He said.
"Oh, hi." The voice on the other end sounded tired.
"You sound like you've just woken up. I didn't keep you up too late last night did I?"
"Yeah you did, and what are you doing phoning me here anyway?" This time she sounded nervous.
"Look, I know it's dangerous me phoning you at home, especially at this hour, but I needed to see you."
"And what would you have done if he'd have answered the bloody phone? Do you know what sort of trouble we'd be in if he'd got to it before me?"
"Well, what if he had picked it up, you're the one I fancy not him."
There was a girlish giggle at the other end.
"Look, I'm on my way over to the love shack, can you meet me there?" Stephens continued.
"You're joking aren't you? Do you know what the time is?"
"Look, do you love me or not?"
"Of course I do, but..."
"Then stop being silly and meet me there, all right?"
"But what if he notices that I've gone? What am I going to tell him?"
"Don't worry about that now, just meet me there. You can work on your alibi later, okay?"
There was a long pause, then... "Okay, but I might be a while; I've got to get dressed."
"Well don't you wear too much; I don't want to waste a lot of time stripping you off?"
There was another giggle. "You naughty boy. I'll be there as soon as I can. Just make sure that you keep the Jolly Roger warm 'till I get there."
"Oh, I will, don't you worry on that score." And with that he pressed the 'end' button and slipped the phone back into his pocket.
3
Penny looked at the clock on the living room wall.
9:45am.
It had taken only forty minutes for the two of them to remove every trace of him from the house and into eight large bin liners. The two plastic wheelie bins in the front garden were crammed to bursting point. She smiled to herself when she imagined the stupefied expression on his face when he finally returned to find all of his belongings out with the rubbish where they belonged.
Her mother entered the living room carrying two, pint glasses of lemonade with lots of ice. Penny took her glass gratefully and put it to her mouth as she watched her mother take a seat opposite her on the sofa. The inside of her mouth had stopped bleeding but her lip still throbbed painfully. The cold glass made it feel much better.
Penny looked at the clock again.
9:47am.
"Shouldn't you be heading off to work soon Mum?" She asked as she fished an ice cube out of her glass and ran it across her bottom lip to numb it.
"Does that still hurt darling?" Concern was all over the woman's face.
"It's not too bad now. Anyway, don't worry about that, you'll be late if you don't hurry."
Her mother rose from the sofa, walked over to the chair where Penny sat and took a seat on one of its wide arms. "I'm not going in today." She said, wiping away the water from the ice cube, which had dribbled down Penny's chin, with her thumb. "What do you say to that girlie day out you wanted yesterday?"
"We can't go out looking like this!" Penny exclaimed. "I look like an advert for the NSPCC and you..." she said looking at her mother's black eye, "...well that shiner makes you look as if you've just gone ten rounds with the heavyweight champ or something."
"Nonsense. I'll just throw on a pair of sunglasses, you can walk around with your hand over your mouth and we'll look as good as new. Go on, what do you say?" Her mother smiled.
"But what will we do?"
"I don't know. I suppose we could get tickets for that film you wanted to see, or we could try a little retail therapy in the town centre. Maybe we could even go somewhere nice for lunch. That pig's left his wallet out on the telephone table so we can put it all on his plastic."
Penny thought for a moment and then smiled. "If he's paying we could make a whole day of it couldn't we?"
"If that's what you want, then that's what we'll do. And while we're in the high street I'll have to pop into the locksmith's and get them to come round to change all the locks. We may as well make him pay to lock himself out while we're at it."
"Well?" Penny laughed. "What are we waiting for? Let's go out and spend lots of money."
4
Stephens climbed out of the car and started to make his way along the overgrown pathway that lead up to the old cottage. It was a sinister looking hulk of a building, more like a large shed than a house. It was a single storey affair with a sloped roof. Most of the dull, red tiles were either cracked, broken or missing altogether. The chimney had all but crumbled away to nothing, white paint flaked away from the exterior walls and there were no windows, only the holes where they had once been. At one time it had probably been quite a picturesque little cottage, but now it was nothing more than a grotesque ruin.
He didn't like to enter it alone. In truth, he was scared witless of the place, although he would never let her know that. Even standing where he was, looking at it from halfway along the almost indistinguishable pathway filled him with dread.
Stephens looked at his watch once more and decided that he would give her another ten minutes. If she didn't show by then he would put as much distance between himself and that dreadful place as he possibly could.
Author's Note
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