‘If you would just agree to taking some time out, babes. To getting a rest. We all think you need it. We really do.’

Nula stared at them. You had to agree to be committed. She knew that.

Charlie shuffled his feet. He wouldn’t meet her eyes. He was embarrassed by her. And she was so tired, so sick and so tired of it all. Him. And this place. This awful fucking place.

‘All right,’ she said at last. ‘I agree.’

64

You had to feel sorry for the charmless little bastard, really. Jill often did feel sorry for Harlan, very sorry indeed, because she didn’t think Nula had ever been any great shakes as a mother, not even when she was right in the head, which she most certainly wasn’t, not any more. The stress of losing Jake had unhinged her and she’d been in and out of the funny farm half a dozen times since, getting treatment. And Harlan had Charlie for a dad, the poor kid. She guessed that Charlie would be OK with a loud kid such as himself, but Harlan? No way would they ever get on.

Jill often wondered why Charlie and Nula had adopted a boy like Harlan in the first place. Surely there would have been others more suitable? They’d got him as a boy, but surely a small baby would have been a better choice?

Now she was watching all the teenagers as they played by the pool at the back of Charlie and Nula’s place. Milly was sitting apart from the others, reading a book, her glasses slipping down her big nose. And Harlan . . . well, if Milly would never win a popularity contest, neither would he. Harlan was a misfit. And as for Belle . . . her lovely daughter was growing up fast. Jill thought that Belle was going to break a lot of hearts. Maybe she would be a model, or an actress. She was good-looking enough to do anything she damned well liked. Jill herself was pretty – but she knew that Belle was one step on from that.

Jill didn’t like Harlan at all. He gazed at Belle all the time, like she was an ornament, a trophy, something fascinating and priceless that he would like to own. Jill had been aware of Harlan’s fixation with Belle, right from the very first moment they met. But now Belle was blossoming into young adulthood and the problem was more acute. She spoke to Terry about it.

‘Don’t worry,’ Terry told her. ‘I had a word with him. He’ll keep clear now.’