She said tartly, “I’m sure you are.”
She’d actually come to his office to talk to him about Tim and Gracie and about her conversation with her father as well. But now, that conversation didn’t feel right to Manette. And as Freddie himself had just pointed out, in a new situation one was wise to go by feel. She got to her feet.
She said, “I won’t expect to see you, then. Just take care, all right? I wouldn’t like to see you… I don’t know… hurt or anything.” Before he could reply, she got herself out of his office and set off in search of her brother. She told herself that Freddie had his own life and she had hers and it was time she did something about that latter fact, just as Freddie was doing. She didn’t know what that something was going to be, though. She couldn’t imagine launching herself into the unknown world of Internet dating. Into bed with total strangers to see if a proper fit existed? She shuddered. To her that seemed to be a recipe for being cooked in a serial killer’s oven, but perhaps she’d been watching too many detective programmes on the telly over the years.
She found Nicholas in the shipping department, a warehouse that served as a modest step up from where he’d laboured the previous six months. Then he’d been working on the tops of cisterns, the bowls of toilets, and kitchen sinks, seeing to the application of porcelain to the moulded clay and sliding them into the enormous kiln. In that part of the factory, the heat was intolerable and the noise was just as bad, but Nicholas had been successful there. In fact, he’d been successful in every job he’d been placed in during the last two years.
Manette knew he was working his way through all possible jobs in the factory. She’d developed a grudging admiration for this although the why of his doing it gave her a bit of concern. Surely he couldn’t think that a few years of puttering round Fairclough Industries superseded the decades she and Freddie had worked there? Surely he didn’t expect to be named managing director once their father stepped aside? The thought was ludicrous.
Today’s employment for Nicholas involved bathroom basins, Manette saw. At the loading dock, with a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other, he was comparing sizes and styles on shipping boxes to sizes and styles on an order. The basins had been delivered on a pallet by a forklift. Once Nicholas had checked them off, he would load them into a waiting lorry, the driver of which had reversed it to the shipping gate and was waiting round, smoking and generally being unhelpful.
Because the huge shipping doors were open to the lorry, it was cold in the warehouse. It was noisy as well because there was music blasting from speakers in the building, as if someone’s proclivity for Carlos Santana oldies might raise the ambient temperature a bit.
Manette approached her brother. He looked up and gave her a nod of hello. Above the music, she shouted, asking him if she could have a word. His response of, “It’s not near my break time,” irritated her.
She said, “For God’s sake, Nick. I think you can take five minutes without being sacked.”
“We have a shipment going out. He’s waiting.” By he Nicholas meant the lorry driver, who didn’t look exactly desperate to be on his way. He’d gone to the driver’s side of the lorry and had opened its door, true. But he emerged with a Thermos from which he poured himself something that steamed in the air. He looked happy enough for the break in his routine.
She said, “I need to speak to you. It’s important. Ask permission if you want to. Or shall I do that for you?”
Her brother’s supervisor was approaching anyway. He tilted his hard hat back on his head, greeted her, and called her Mrs. McGhie, which rather stabbed at her heart although it was indeed her legal surname. She said, “C’n I have a word with Nicholas, Mr. Perkins? It’s rather important. A family matter.” She said this last as a way of reminding the man— as if he needed reminding— who Nicholas was.
Mr. Perkins looked towards the lorry and clocked the lounging driver before saying, “Five, Nick,” and moving off.
Manette led the way to a quieter location, which turned out to be round the side of the warehouse. This was the gathering place for smokers, she saw, for although none were present at the moment, the ground was littered with evidence of their presence. She made a mental note to talk to Freddie about this. Then she crossed out the note and made a second one telling herself to handle it on her own.
She said to her brother, “It’s Tim and Gracie,” and she gave him the story with all its ins and outs: Niamh’s intentions, Kaveh’s responsibilities, their father’s position in the matter, Tim’s distress, Gracie’s future needs. She ended with, “We need to do something about all this, Nick. And we need to do it soon. If we wait, there’s no telling what Tim might get up to. He’s that damaged by what’s gone on.”
Her brother removed the gloves he was wearing. From a pocket, he took out a tube of thick lotion. He began to apply this to his hands. She gave idle thought to the reason for this: keeping them soft for Alatea, no doubt. Alatea was a woman for whom a man would want to have soft hands, indeed. Nicholas said, “Isn’t it Niamh’s job to handle how the children are coping and everything else along those lines?”
“Well of course it is, in the natural course of events. Mothers are the carers and their children receive the care. But Niamh’s not going the natural course, not that she ever has since Ian left her, as you very well know.” Manette watched her brother massage the lotion into his hands. For nearly two years, he’d been doing manual labour not only at the factory but also out on the pele project near Arnside, but one would never know it from looking at his fingers, his nails, and his palms. They were like a woman’s, only larger. “Someone has to step up to the mark. Believe it or not, Niamh has every intention of leaving those children with Kaveh Mehran.”
“He’s a good bloke, Kaveh. I quite like him. Don’t you?”
“It’s not about liking him. For God’s sake, Nick, he’s not even their family. Look, I’m as liberal minded as anyone and while they were living with their father, that was fine by me. Better with Ian in a household where there was love enough to go round than with Niamh breathing fire, brimstone, and revenge all over them. But it’s not working out, and Tim’s— ”
“It has to have time to work out, doesn’t it?” Nick said. “It seems to me that Ian’s not been gone long enough for anyone to decide what’s best for his children.”
“That may be the case, but in the meantime, they should be with family. If not with their mother then with one of us. Nick, I know there was no love lost between you and Ian. He was hard on you. He didn’t trust you. He discouraged Dad from trusting you as well. But one of us must provide those children with a sense of security, of familiarity and— ”
“Why not Mum and Dad, then? God knows they have enough space at Ireleth Hall.”
“I’ve spoken to Dad and got nowhere.” Manette felt a growing need to bend her brother’s will to her own. This should have been a simple matter because talking Nicholas into something had always been child’s play, which was one of the reasons his youth had been such a troubled one. Anyone could have talked him into anything. She said, “Look, I know what you’re trying to do and I admire you for it. So does Dad. So do we all. Well, except Mignon, but you’re not to take that personally since she doesn’t know anyone exists on the planet other than herself.”
He glanced her way. He gave her a smile. He knew Mignon as well as she did.