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| Donald & Adela Gibble, Picture by GINO |
*
The main door slammed behind the
boy.
‘He’ll be back,’ said Donald and saw
his wife’s look. It spelled trouble.
Adela took a deep breath, feeling
like she was sinking. The boy was a Seymore, a wretched Seymore, like Matt and
David, combined. He wouldn’t be coming back, she knew. And if that wasn’t
enough, he may not be able to come back for completely different reasons than the Seymores’ stubborn character.
‘He may not,’ she said, firmer than
she expected.
‘Where else would he go?’ Donald
shrugged his shoulders, trying to dismiss the whole thing. ‘He’ll have a walk
around, and will be knocking to this door in half an hour…’
‘No, he won’t be!’ Adela screamed,
almost hysterically, and quickly composed herself, as much as she could. ‘Why
didn’t you let me deal with him?’ she asked her husband, less heatedly.
‘He deserves a good –,’ he started,
but she wouldn’t let him finish.
‘It’s not up to you!’
‘It is my house! Of course it’s up
to me…,’ Donald tried to defend himself, but it was too late. It was one of
those things his wife wouldn’t let go. Actually, that little brat was the only
thing she wouldn’t let go off. It was terribly frustrating.
‘Your house?! It’s our damn house,
Donald Gibble, and he lives here!’ Adela put both of her hands on her temples,
like she was trying to prevent her head from splitting into half. Donald
sighed. He was annoyed and was beginning to think that he had bitten off more
than he could chew. No money was worth it. But then… He valued a certain
harmony in this house and he needed to maintain it.
‘Come on, come to the living room,
Adela, and calm down. The little bastard will return after he’s had a good
think about stuff. Insulting teachers! And neighbours! He needs a good spanking,
if you ask me…’
Adela Gibble opened her mouth to
answer, but at that moment the door opened and Sebastian walked inside. He
looked at his parents with a surprise; they were both standing in the hallway,
looking like someone had just thrown a bucket of icy water over their heads.
That sobered Adela up.
‘Go to your room,’ she said to
Sebastian, and, like in a dream, followed her husband to the living room,
thinking fast.
Only when the door closed behind
her, she allowed herself a quiet outburst.
‘You shouldn’t have done it,
Donald!’ she let out, almost whispering, agitated. ‘How could you just… just
throw him out? I told you I would deal with him!’ she said frantically, almost
crying.
‘What’s the big deal…?’ started
Gibble, but stopped, seeing his wife in such state.
‘You don’t get it, do you? You get
nothing! He… he may do something… He’s alone… He could…,’ she didn’t finish, pacing
up and down the room. Donald watched her with his eyebrows raised; this was
new. Adela never lost her nerve like that…
‘What is it, Adela? He’ll be fine…’
‘No, he won’t be!’ she yelled again.
‘And why do you even care?’
She looked at him, now taken aback,
like he presented her with a red crocodile for dinner.
‘What? Why do I care?! Because he’s
family! He’s my brother’s son! And you kicked him out!’
‘Serves him right, and he’ll be –,’
‘Back?!’ Adela raised her voice
again. ‘Back! He won’t! Oh, my God, he won’t…,’ she said, quieter, slumping on
the sofa, now biting her nail. Donald felt things were getting out of control;
his wife’s behaviour was a first. All because of that goddamn, little…
‘I need to go,’ she said, suddenly
getting up. ‘I need to find him!’
‘What?! No way! You’re not going to
be chasing after him!’
‘Yes, I am!’
‘No!’
Adela faced her husband; suddenly
her eyes were piercing through his and she seemed… tough.
‘You’re not going to tell me what I
can and cannot do, Donald Gibble,’ she said quietly; her voice was like a purr
of a furious lioness and Donald had to stop himself from taking a step back.
‘Adela…,’ he started, but she just
waved him off.
‘I’m off,’ she said, storming out of
the room before Donald was able to stop her. Frenziedly, she searched for her
keys, her hands shaking. He followed her back into the hallway.
‘Adela, stop!’ he tried to be
decisive; for the first time ever he did feel like using force. He fancied
locking her up in that living room and, to be perfectly honest, he would prefer
the little bastard to never come back. None of it was going to happen, though…
She must have known what he was
thinking somehow, because she paused in her search for keys and once more confronted him. This time he cringed.
‘Don’t you try and stop me, Donald,
or you will regret it,’ she told him and there was something in her voice that
appealed to his deepest instincts. Like he was facing a docile predator, which
was now waking up from a hypnotic séance…
She stared at him for a moment,
which seemed to drag into eternity, and then – finally – found her keys
somewhere on the bottom of her bag, with a triumphant little cry. Then she
grabbed a jacket and ran out quickly, into the night.
*
John White returned from the
Sandbankses’ house a little more shaken than he cared to admit. He knew the
boy, of course, he watched him. But seeing and talking to Matthew’s nephew for
the first time was difficult. The boy was… He was so normal. Like every other
kid. The fact that Matt had fooled everyone and raised him as an ordinary
person… This was wrong, and yet…
However, John had no time to think
about it in more depth, because a doorbell rang twice, like someone was in a
hurry, pressing it to tell him to move his ass and open the door RIGHT NOW. He
wasn’t expecting anyone, though…
John moved like a cat; he soundlessly tip-toed to the
nearest window and cautiously glanced outside. When he saw the familiar figure,
his big, bushy eyebrows crawled up his forehead, like two old, hairy, wise
caterpillars. A thought zoomed through his brain like a cow with a jet engine
in its backside – could it be a trap? But he knew this person too well; there
was no mistake, alright.
He opened the door and found himself
in front of Adela Gibble, who was standing on his doorstep. That was a sight he
never thought he’d live to encounter, although sometimes, even know, he
imagined it in the middle of cold, sleepless nights. Not that often these days,
true, but still.
‘Adela,’ he said, but had no time
for anything else.
‘May I come in?’ she asked, like it
was just formality. He swung the door wider and stepped to the side, letting
her in.
‘Of course.’
‘Where is he?’ she asked; he
realised she was shivering.
‘Where is who?’
‘John,’ she said, in a tone that was
too level. ‘I know very well you are involved somehow. Otherwise why would you
live here? Tell me where he is. Please.’
John sighed.
‘He’s few houses away, at my
friends’ place. The Sandbanks family. He’s alright.’
‘What’s the house number?’ she
asked, looking even more worried than before.
‘He’s fine where he is. I suggest he
should stay the night.’
‘No, John. You don’t understand.
He’s danger to people. He shouldn’t be friends with that girl. He must be –’
‘He’s no danger to anyone,’ John
interrupted sharply, but then, seeing her expression, he continued in a lighter
tone. ‘Besides… They know how to deal with him, if you get my meaning.’
Adela nodded slowly and then, like
something cracked inside her, she hunched slightly. Blinking fast, she moved
towards the sofa and sat down heavily, her jacket unbuttoned, her hands trembling.
She’d spent last hour and a half driving up and down the estate, trying to find
Qwerty, feeling panic gripping her tightly by the throat. Knowing the boy was
safe, with people who could control him, was a sudden relief. But it weakened
her, and she needed something to get her normal composure back. She needed a
fag, badly.
‘Could I please have a cigarette?’
she managed, in the end.
‘I don’t smoke, Adela,’ reminded her
John, coldly.
She looked up and looked him
straight in the eye.
‘John White, I know very well that you
have a pack of cigarettes stashed somewhere in this house. You will give me one
now. Please.’
John winced a little, but he left
the room for a short moment. Adela could hear a drawer in the kitchen sliding.
He returned with a pack and offered her a white stick. She accepted it, without
giving him another glance. He then produced a lighter and lit it for her.
She took a deep drag; her fingers
shook a little, but it seemed the deep breath, along with tobacco, calmed her
down.
John sighed once more and sat in the
armchair, in front of her.
‘Do you want something to drink?
Water? Coffee?’ he asked, not knowing what else he could say.
She waved him off, similarly as she had
Donald earlier and put the cigarette back in her mouth. John, despite himself,
thought she still looked very sexy doing that, but that was a very
uncomfortable thing to think, and he tried to focus on the current problems.
‘So…,’ he started, but didn’t
finish, because she glared at him in such a way that the words refused to come
out any further.
‘I know what you’re going to say.
How could I, and so on. Save it.’
‘I wasn’t gonna say this. But since
you’ve brought it up… You could be a little nicer to him, you know. And he
definitely shouldn’t be alone on the streets…’
Adela looked around, searching for
an ashtray. One materialised in John’s hand and Adela pulled a face, but in the
end disregarded it, like it didn’t matter, and dropped some ashes into the
dish.
‘Donald… kicked him out. He hates
him. Just like he did Dave…,’ she said, but with the last word her voice broke
slightly, and she cleared her throat, at the same time taking the last, deep,
long drag.
John said nothing, because if he
did, he’d make a snarky comment about Gibble and that was not going to lead
this conversation anywhere good.
‘I know what you’re thinking, John.
And you’re right,’ she sighed, and she reached for another cigarette. John knew
to leave the pack on the table, close to her. It saved her asking. ‘But I
can’t…,’ she had some difficulty with words now, like the right ones were
deliberately hiding in a deep, black forest. He passed the lighter to her again
and the tip of the cigarette shone red. ‘It’s difficult, John,’ she stated in
the end.
All he wanted was to come closer and
wrap his shoulder around her, but then remembered how she’d treated him, and
that she’d married Gibble, and how he was still angry with her.
‘And yet you agreed to take him in,’
he said, perhaps harsher than he wanted. ‘You know where he’d be otherwise.’
‘He’s not going to join you and your
precious Brentwood,’ she replied immediately, now completely composed, her hand
steady, a steel gleam in her eye. That was exactly how Matt had looked like at
times…
‘Keep him in, then,’ he answered,
without thinking much.
‘I intend to. But he’s… he’s like
Matt,’ she said angrily; she couldn’t help herself. She knew John was judging
her, and she knew he condemned her for everything that happened tonight… She
had no right to be here, sitting on his sofa and smoking his cigarettes. But
she needed to talk to him, regardless. She needed someone who knew about stuff,
even if it meant John White.
‘Not sure. And even if that’s true,
is this such a bad thing?’ he asked.
Adela pursed her lips and, ignoring
his remark, said:
‘He needs to be under control. My
family… They’re not safe anymore.’
‘You and your family are safe. I
guarantee it,’ said John, as politely as he could. But she just scoffed in his
general direction; the second cigarette he’d lit for her was now considerably
shorter.
‘It was going fine, until he
arrived. I know what’s going on, John. Tell Collard I expect him to stick to
his part of the deal. And if he doesn’t, there will be consequences. For all of
us.’
This time John looked surprised.
‘How do you know about Collard?’
Adela smiled bitterly and stabbed the
second cigarette in an ashtray, now containing a fair amount of grey ash. She
was going through them like it was ice dropped into a volcano.
‘You didn’t think my father, and
then Matt, left me with no means to protect myself and my kids, did you?’ she
stood up, straightening her jacket. She pulled herself together now, enough to confront
her problems. ‘If you say my nephew’s safe, I believe you. He is fine for
tonight, isn’t he?’ she looked at him expectantly and he nodded. ‘Fine. Donald
or I will pick him up tomorrow after school…,’ she paused and frowned more than
before. ‘It’s so… overwhelming. Even though he doesn’t know of his… curse,’ she
added and John moved uncomfortably, also getting up, trying to mask his uneasiness.
She noticed immediately.
‘John White?’
‘He does now. We told him,’ he
admitted, glancing at her, expecting an explosion.
‘You did what?’ she didn’t exactly
snap; it was worse. She was staring at him like he was the worst person in the
world, which, really, was totally unfair, given that it was Donald Gibble who
had kicked the boy out on the street.
‘He would've found out soon anyway. We told
him. He needs to defend himself and –’
‘Son of a bitch,’ said Adela to the
world in general. She wanted to do worse, but refrained from shouting; it was
all her fault, of course. She should’ve never let Donald deal with the boy. On
reflection, she shouldn’t have even told him about the whole episode… But
Donald would've found out sooner or later, and then he’d freak out anyway…
‘I don’t think I deserve –,’ started
John, but she only gave him another hot look and he closed his mouth. When she
spoke, her voice was cold like an iceberg. He’d never seen Adela like this.
‘I hope, for all our sakes, that he
can control his temper,’ she said slowly. ‘And that you, Collard and the rest
of your band can keep those damn bastards at bay. I swear to you, John White,
if my children, my husband or my nephew as much as lose a hair because of the
old fucker, there will be trouble. Do you believe me, John?’
He nodded. He did.
‘Good,’ she exhaled. ‘Look after
him, your way, and make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid… And I shall never
use my… inheritance. You can pass it on to Collard, if you wish,’ she added. ‘I’ll
walk myself out,’ she said, now rushing towards the exit.
John looked at her, stunned. He’d
never expect… this. And he wasn’t exactly sure what she was talking about.
Inheritance?
‘Adela, wait…,’ he said, wanting to
say something comforting, but this was no use. She only stopped in the door and
added firmly, in a quiet tone, so only he could hear her.
‘Oh, and tell Collard… Tell him
arrangements have been made, for all eventualities. I was once a Seymore, after
all …,’ she added, and, without a good-bye, she slammed the door in front of
his face and rushed to her car. John watched her through the window and waited
until she drove off, unable to react any other way.
‘You still are,’ he said in the end,
turning to look at the ashtray.
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