Page 5 of Savage

Picking at my breakfast, I watched as Daisy fluttered around the kitchen like a beautiful butterfly. She possessed a permanent sunny disposition. Her grey slouched knitted jumper was oversized and slid off one shoulder and she was wearing blue skinny jeans. She was only thirty-six but she looked younger. My mother was also small and slight, but her colouring was much different to mine. Her skin was always tanned and she had wavy blonde hair which fell to her shoulders. Her eyes were a clear, pale blue, the same as mine, but that was where our similarity ended. I had gotten most of my looks from my father. Thankfully I hadn’t inherited his personality which from what I could remember, wasn’t that nice.

My dad was now an insignificant person who was no longer part of my life and hadn’t been for years. Although this wasn’t necessarily the picture I painted for my friends. I couldn’t deal with pity, and so I fabricated a story about how I had an on-and-off relationship with him.

The truth was that I couldn’t recall much of our life together as a family, but I knew that Jenson Hart had not been an easy man to love. I do remember some of my parents' fights; they used to argue all the time. Argue is probably the wrong word to use as that suggested a two-way street. With my parents, the routine was my father shouting and my mother taking it.

As far as I could remember, he had never been physically violent, but emotionally abusive, most definitely. Especially when he’d started to drink heavily. After which, the cheating started. I only had vague memories of this and that and of course what little my mother had told me. She didn’t like to speak of him and so I never brought it up.

The vague story was that Daisy had finally come to her senses and left Jenson when she found out he’d been cheating on her with another woman. We had gone to live with my gran for a while until eventually renting a cottage in the same village.

Over the years, up until my mother met Marcus Savage a couple of years ago, I hadn’t had any contact with my dad.

I had attempted to reach out to him a couple of times but had failed, so I’d walked away. It wasn’t like I could draw anything positive from our relationship. As I said, he was a hard man to love.

Mum had met Marcus whilst he was visiting one of his businesses, a health and fitness centre on the edge of Norwich. Daisy had been having physio on her bad wrist, an injury she had suffered years earlier that still troubled her. I remember she’d had a metal plate fitted temporarily at one time as it took the bone months to fuse. She used to beep when we went through security at the airport. The scar from the surgery was now silver and you could only see it in certain lights.

For Daisy and Marcus, it had been love at first sight. After a whirlwind relationship, Marcus had proposed. They had been married for a good while now but they were still in their honeymoon phase. Very touchy-feely, which was at times gross to witness, but it was nice to know she was happy.

A sigh escaped me as I thought about how much my life had changed over the last couple of years. When Daisy and I had moved in with Marcus and his family, it had taken me away from the village I had lived in my entire life, putting distance between me and the rest of my family and friends. The only other relatives close enough to visit now, without hours of travelling was my mother’s brother Adrian. He owned Orchard View, a farm in the next village, so I at least had my cousins. My best friend Melody, had a car and visited occasionally, but it was hard considering we used to see each other every day.

I was now part of the Savage clan which comprised of Daisy and Marcus Savage, his sons Jaxon and Christopher and that one awkward addition, Molly. A non-blood relation, but still considered part of the pack.

My blood started to boil as I thought about my stepsister Molly and I use the term stepsister loosely. Even though Molly wasn’t a blood relative of any of the Savages, she was the daughter of Marcus’s third late wife. Marcus had raised Molly as his own whilst he and her mother had been together and he still saw her as a daughter, even though she now resided with her biological father. To put it bluntly, Molly Andrews was a first-class bitch.

I suppose it could have been worse, Marcus was sweet to me and Chris was OK. But Jaxon and Molly were like a virus. In small doses, Jaxon I could cope with, just. If Molly had been a constant at the house, I would have moved back to live with my gran again. When she and Jaxon ganged up on me, it was tough to take. As a double act, they were relentless.

My mother was wife number four, hence my initial concerns when she accepted Marcus’s proposal. I sure hoped that things worked out between them, yes, their courtship had been fast, but Marcus was perfect for Daisy. He was one of the good guys. As big as an ox physically but nice; a gentle giant. With my mother and me anyway, he didn’t take any shit from his sons. He was also extremely generous, much to his eldest son’s disgust. Something which had forced Jaxon into the belief that we were gold diggers, when in reality; we asked for nothing. I had heard that one of the wives had attempted to fleece Marcus, hence Jaxon’s huge chip on his shoulder.

“What are you up to today?” Daisy said as she joined me on one of the stools. The glass she was now holding had dubious-coloured liquid in it, she clutched the glass in her good hand, her bad wrist didn’t do well with too much weight. Mum made energy smoothies out of strange concoctions of fruit and veg. I suppose it was fortunate that she was a fitness freak, otherwise she wouldn’t have met Marcus. Like his eldest son, he too had started his career in the military before becoming a business owner.

Jaxon had followed in his father’s footsteps and Chris was due to start University to train as a doctor. He was like a walking talking brain. Chris would have to study for nine years until he was fully qualified. I couldn’t imagine sticking at anything for that long.

As for my future, I’d finished my A-Levels and was working towards becoming a journalist. I was nineteen and was due to start a media and journalism course at night school. It was all very exciting.

“Marcus is on his way back. He’s bought another gym,” Daisy announced after checking her phone. That news didn’t surprise me. As I said, my stepfather was a huge success.

All the Savages professionally thrived. After he had left the army, Marcus bought his first gym. Over the years he had made it so profitable, that he now owned several more fitness suites throughout the country, hence the fact that he was loaded.

In respect of everyday life though, Marcus hadn’t had it easy. Daisy had told me that his first wife, the boy’s mother, died of cancer when the boys were young. Harsh. She said that Marcus had explained how he then went off the rails and remarried too quickly. Wife number two having lasted only six short weeks. There was no wonder his kids were so screwed up. All those mothers. Well, Jaxon anyway. Chris seemed to be less scathed by it all.

“Wyn? Are you even listening?” my mother questioned, interrupting my thoughts.

“Yes, sorry. Marcus is coming back, I heard you. And as for what I am doing today, err, I’m going to start drafting my article for The Star, that arson piece I’ve been working on.”

I’d recently started a part-time job at a local paper and was hoping to submit an article. I was basically a dogsbody and it didn’t pay well, it was purely for the experience, to get my foot in the door. Jessica Chambers, the lead journalist there promised that she’d put a good word in with the editor if it was any good.

There had been a series of arson attacks over the last several years in the Norwich area and the two brothers who were charged had recently appealed their sentences. They were incarcerated in Norwich Prison. I had a personal interest in their story as one of the houses they had torched had been my Uncle Adrian’s farmhouse at Orchard View.

My Aunt and Uncle had been gutted as had my cousins, Mattie, Jenna, Amy, and Chrissy. One of Jaxon’s friends and their neighbour had also been seriously injured. Mason was one of the McKenna boys and had entered the house to help, sustaining a head injury. In a twist of fate, he was now in a relationship with my cousin Amy and her sister Jenna was married to Nixon McKenna.

It was fresh news and I immediately jumped on it. I wanted to try and prove myself to the team and show them that I could write. And not just take telephone messages and make people tea and coffee. Dominic was a photographer and worked freelance for the paper, which was how our paths kept crossing.

We spoke for a bit longer, but Mum was in a rush as she wanted to get to the gym before it opened. She ran a Pilates class there.

“Don’t be late for dinner,” Daisy warned as she scurried from the kitchen. On a Sunday, we all ate together, unfortunately.

I made a mental note to clear my stuff off the main table in the dining room or Jaxon would shit a brick. My stepbrother could not stand mess of any kind, leaving your shit around the house was up there with signing your death warrant. I had learnt about his OCD the hard way.

Having been in a rush, Mum had left the kitchen in a mess and so pretending to be the best daughter in the world, I cleared it up. Well, sort of.

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