Tarnished by Julia Crouch Page A

in the room seemed to tighten. Caroline let out one of her stupid, silvery laughs.
    Raymond silently attacked the bloody steak again, sawing off a chunk and tearing it from his fork with his teeth.
    ‘Are you sure you’ve got enough to eat there, Margaret love?’ Caroline asked Peg. ‘Shall I ask them to make you an omelette or something?’
    Perhaps it was due to the plastic surgery, but she didn’t seem to be able to stop smiling. It made her look like she had air for brains.
    ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ Peg said, then, as if she had Loz’s hands at either side of her face, forcing her not to let things lie, she turned once more to face Raymond. ‘I had a very happy childhood, in fact.’
    No thanks to you , Loz thundered in her head.
    Raymond looked at his plate, chewing furiously.
    Peg closed her eyes so that she could go on. The words she had practised on the mauve-room balcony came out, like a telesales script.
    ‘I found you again because Nan isn’t very well and I know that not seeing you makes her very sad. You need to come over and see her and Aunty Jean – who isn’t too great herself – and make whatever it is up between you all.’
    She could hear Raymond breathing, heavily, but she forced herself to go on.
    ‘Before it’s too late. You need to see her. And Paulie needs to see his grandmother. You have to think of him.’
    This last part wasn’t part of her script, but she truly believed it to be the case, and thought perhaps it might carry some weight with Raymond in his role as Paulie’s Doting Father.
    Raymond let out a gasp. This was good, she thought. She was hitting home.
    ‘Raymond love, are you all right?’ Caroline said, quite urgently.
    ‘Take the boy away!’ Raymond said in a strangled voice.
    ‘If you don’t do it now,’ Peg forged on, her eyes still closed, fighting her way to the end of her speech, ‘it’s going to be too late and it will be very sad for them and for you and for Paulie.’
    Her father made a wheezing, retching sound.
    ‘You might regret it for your whole life.’
    ‘RAYMOND!’ Caroline cried.
    Her speech over, Peg opened her eyes, Paulie was being hurried out by Manuela, as her father reached forwards in his seat, choking, his eyes bulging from their sockets, the veins standing out on his forehead.
    For a fleeting second, Peg marvelled at the effect her words had worked on Raymond. But then she realised what was going on. Well taught by Doll, she jumped up, hoisted him from his seat – surprisingly easy, because he was lighter than he looked – and swiftly administered the Heimlich manoeuvre. A stringy chunk of half-chewed steak and gristle shot out of his mouth and onto the white tablecloth in front of him.
    ‘Glass of water, Caroline,’ she said, sitting him back down again. Gasping for breath, Raymond allowed her to feed it to him, the tears still streaming down his face. It reminded her of looking after Jean.
    Peg and Caroline – who had been fluttering round her husband like a startled chick – watched from a respectful distance as he attempted to regain his composure.
    ‘Thank you for that, Margaret,’ he said at last. He breathed slowly, in and out, then closed his eyes. ‘Thank you.’
    Peg picked up a paper napkin and, with Caroline protesting that ‘The girl will do that,’ she scooped up the meat that Raymond had spat on the table and placed the crumpled ball on his dirty plate.
    ‘Sit down girls,’ Raymond rasped, and the two women did as they were told. When they were settled, he turned and, for the first time since she had arrived, looked squarely at Peg.
    ‘All right. I’ll just tell you this, Margaret. Just once and then we’re not going to mention it ever again. You’ve not got one snowball’s chance in hell of getting me back there,’ he said, emphasising each single word. ‘I want nothing to do with that place. That lazy, fat, bad bitch of a sister of mine is history to me.’
    ‘But what about Nan,