Caught in the Web Emmy Ellis (best ereader for textbooks txt) 📖

that. To live in a house like this with Beautiful Lady as your mother.

The idea of it brought a lump to his throat.

He remembered the face he was supposed to give so stared up at Beautiful Lady with what he hoped was the right expression. She shifted her attention from her and looked down at him, her features showing what he imagined was shock at his ‘fucking ugliness’.

“Oh God…” Beautiful Lady whispered. “No…”

“You see it, don’t you?” she asked. “Yeah, you see it all right. Take him. Go on, take him. Let William have a go at feeding and clothing him, the bastard.”

Beautiful Lady raised her arm, to play with the locket he thought, but she swung it, and her hand connected with her face. The door slammed shut, and she let go of his hand—the relief was instant—and planted her fists on her cheeks.

“That fucking bitch,” she said. “Right, that’s it. He’s going to pay for this.”

She strutted off down the path, and he had to run to catch up. They walked for a long time, the heat of the day tiring him, his tongue dry, then they came to a building gleaming with windows—the whole place was made out of them—the world opposite reflected in the surfaces. Thin white clouds. The almost-white sun. The cars parked nearby, the warehouses painted red.

Where are we?

He didn’t know, but a few men and women streamed out through a glass doorway, heading for the cars.

“William?” she called.

A man looked over at them, his mouth gaping, and he gazed around him as though he wanted to run. She had a habit of making people want to do that. The man walked over, stopping about a metre in front, his lips pursed and his cheeks scarlet.

We have the same colour hair and eyes, and the same shaped nose.

“What the hell are you doing here?” the man called William asked.

“I’ve been to see your wife. Your other son.”

“What?” The red of William’s cheeks disappeared so fast, white replaced it. “What did you say?”

“Oh, don’t give me that crap,” she said. “Like you didn’t know you have another boy. You saw me in town just after I had him. Don’t tell me you forgot that because I won’t believe you. Unlike years ago, when I believed you were going to leave her and we’d set up house together. I’m not that stupid young girl anymore. Take him. Take the fucking kid. I’ve had enough.”

William laughed, but it wasn’t like he found what she’d said funny. “Take him?”

“Are you dim these days or what? Yeah, take him.”

William glanced around again—nervous?—and he jerked his head. “Over here. We need to discuss this in private.”

“Where no one can overhear your dirty secret, you mean.”

She gripped his hand and squeezed it again—ow, ow, please don’t keep hurting me—and they followed William to the warehouses. All the other people who’d come out of the shiny building were gone now, leaving behind a feeling of abandonment, as if the world had ended and only her, William, and himself were left.

William led them behind the warehouse farthest away. Debris littered the ground, like building work had been in progress but had been left for another day. Planks of wood and chunks of concrete sat dismissed, lonely and scattered at random. Some grease-spotted, empty bakery bags shifted along lazily, and a Coke can rattled from a sudden, welcome breeze, pushing it all along the dusty surface.

I don’t like it here.

For the first time ever, he wanted to go home. He didn’t understand that, because he hated home. Home was a bad place, but this place was worse.

“Well?” she asked. “Aren’t you at least going to say hello to your son?”

William peered at him then turned away. “My son is at home with his mother.”

“Um, excuse me? Your son is here with his mother.”

“I don’t believe you, and if this is your way of getting me back after all these years, it won’t work. We’d never have made it, you and me. You were just…just a fling.”

William swiped sweat off his forehead. His hand was shaking. He didn’t look right, standing in this strange, dirty place with a light-grey suit on. A suit! William must do a posh job that paid lots of money. And those black shoes. The toes were coated in sandy grime that had ruined their shine, but it was obvious they’d cost a fair bit. The soles weren’t flapping away for a start. William also had a dark-grey tie on, and he loosened the knot, that knobbly thing at his throat bobbing up and down. Was that a bone? All men had one, but little boys and women didn’t.

Will I get one of those when I’m older? When I’m a man?

He couldn’t envisage being a man like this one, who was meant to be his dad but wasn’t. He didn’t have a dad, she had said so every time he’d asked where his was, but it seemed he did have one now. It was confusing, her change of mind, as was everything in his life. He frowned and gave William that face she’d told him to give to Beautiful Lady, but it was pointless as William wasn’t paying him any attention.

“You need to leave me and my family alone,” William said.

“This is your family, too.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Why didn’t you stick to your promise?” She sounded as though she was pleading, nothing like her usual self. She sidled up to William and rubbed a finger up and down his arm. “Why didn’t you meet me that night? I waited. I sat there until three in the morning, thinking you were running late because your wife had gone mad when you’d told her about us being together.”

“I couldn’t leave my son.