I grin at her, and the little girl shrinks away, instinctively wary.
‘Right, better get this one home for her tea. It’s nearly dark.’ The woman is no longer looking at me or the kid. She’s staring ahead at the oncoming car lights with a distracted expression, her mind already elsewhere. ‘See you later, yeah?’
And with that, she’s gone.
As I watch her push the buggy down the road, a car drives past in the opposite direction with excruciating slowness, perhaps waiting for the lights ahead to change.
The car is a silver Jaguar.
The driver’s window is partly open, an old familiar Christmas carol blasting out into the evening. ‘Good King Wenceslas’. One of my mum’s favourites, it always reminds me of home and the sweetly nostalgic Christmases of childhood. I listen with a smile, singing along to the refrain under my breath.
The driver looks at me.
I glance at him casually, still smiling, and our gazes lock. Just for a fraction longer than is entirely comfortable. Long enough for me to pause, wondering if I know him. He certainly looks as though he knows me.
My dad used to drive a Jag when I was a kid. This one isn’t quite the same as his; Dad’s was an older model with one of those silver leaping jaguars on the bonnet.
The driver is in his sixties, I’d guess. Grey hat, iron grey moustache, his coat collar turned up. He’s unsmiling, head turned, staring straight at me. Not ahead at the road.
My smile fades.
The lights ahead change to green.
For a few seconds he doesn’t react, still looking at me, then one of the drivers behind sounds a horn, and he drives on, suddenly accelerating.
A moment later, the Jaguar is lost in traffic ahead, rear lights red in the darkness, soon indistinguishable from all the rest.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mum and Dad have been arguing again. I can tell as soon as I walk into the kitchen.
Mum’s face is bright with fury, her cheeks flushed, eyes wide and damp. Dad is standing by the kitchen window, staring out at the dark garden. From the way his silvery hair is ruffled, I guess he’s been running a hand through it in agitation.
When he turns towards me, I recognise the sullen, shuttered look on his face. It’s clear she’s been nagging him about something, as only Mum can, in that shrill, persistent way she has. But what about?
‘Catherine, darling, there you are at last.’ Mum gives me what is meant to be a brave, appealing smile. ‘You’re so late this evening. I was just saying to your father that he should go out in the car to pick you up from . . . that place where you work.’
‘The food bank. I’m a volunteer.’
‘That’s right.’ She sounds apologetic, but I know she isn’t. ‘I hate it when you don’t get back on time. I worry.’
There’s a heaped plate of scones on the kitchen table. Fresh-baked, by the gorgeous smell of them.
‘It’s nearly Christmas, Mum. I had to stay late at work, then I did a spot of present-shopping on the way home.’ I drop my bag on the table and help myself to a scone. It’s cheese, I realise. ‘These smell amazing. Kasia’s?’
‘Well, I certainly didn’t bake them myself,’ Mum says sharply.
Kasia wanders in from the cold pantry at that moment, carrying a whole cooked ham. It looks delicious, breaded on one side and dotted with black cloves.
‘Hello.’ I look at her, surprised. ‘I didn’t know you were still here.’
Kasia shrugs, saying nothing. But her English is not brilliant, so she rarely says much to anyone.
She places the ham carefully on a steel platter in the middle of the table, as though ready for carving. Then turns to wash her hands at the sink, her back very straight, long blonde hair twisted up in a neat chignon for work. Willowy-thin, with angular hips and a perpetually sulky face, Kasia Lecinska is not the friendliest of people. But she’s an excellent cleaner, and not too bad at baking either.
Certainly my mother says she couldn’t cope without her.
I frown though, perplexed to see her still here. Kasia usually keeps such regular hours, having a young family of her own, and it’s nearly seven o’clock.
I glance at my mother. ‘Are you having a dinner party tonight?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Dad glares at me. ‘I asked Kasia to stay on until you got home, that’s all. Just in case she was needed.’
‘Needed for what?’
He hesitates. ‘You were late. We weren’t sure what had happened.’
‘I’m only half an hour late.’
‘Forty-five minutes,’ my mother corrects me, her face strained.
‘Even so, it’s not exactly . . .’ I stop and look from her to my father. They both seem so tense. As though something has happened. A sense of dread creeps over me. My mouth is horribly dry. ‘I don’t understand. What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing,’ my mother says quickly, but I don’t believe her.
‘I didn’t realise I was on a timetable.’ It did take me a while to calm down after Sharon blew up at me. But even so . . . ‘I’m sorry, I suppose I’ve got used to doing my own thing.’
‘We expect you to keep regular hours under this roof.’ Dad’s voice grates at my nerves. ‘Our house, our rules. Remember?’
I stare at him, speechless.
‘Of course, you’re free to come and go as you please—’ Mum begins in a placating tone, but Dad interrupts her.
‘No, she bloody isn’t,’ he insists. I haven’t seen him this angry since the night he took me upstairs to look at Rachel’s toy chest and we found the snow globe was missing. ‘Not when we don’t know how stable she is.’
I turn, hearing the door open, and see that Dominic has come into the kitchen.
‘What . . . what do you mean?’ I feel suddenly rigid, as though something inside me – my heart, perhaps – has turned to stone. ‘How stable I am?’ I look at my husband pleadingly. ‘Dom, what are they talking about?’
Dominic says quietly, ‘Louise gave me a call at work this afternoon. She’s worried about you.’ He pauses. ‘We all are.’
‘Louise?’ I echo, shocked.
‘It’s okay. She told us what happened at the food bank today. About the paperwork you signed as Rachel.’
‘That I signed . . . ?’ I shake my head in instant, furious denial. It’s important to stay calm, I know that. Yet how can I? My chest is tight and I can hardly breathe. ‘She had no right to say anything. I told her in confidence. And why the hell is everyone assuming it was me?’
Dominic looks at me in silence, his eyebrows raised.
My parents say nothing, either.
Kasia, typically expressionless, hangs up her apron beside the range, then slips out of the kitchen without meeting my eyes. God only knows what she makes of all this, our crazy English family.
Meaning to go upstairs to my room, I make for the hall door but blunder into Dominic. He grabs me by the shoulders, his face sympathetic. ‘Darling, please.’
‘Please what? Please don’t have a nervous breakdown? Please don’t crack up?’
‘She’s hysterical.’ My father, of course, ready with his expert male opinion. ‘We should call her doctor.’
‘Oh, why bother with a doctor? Why not just give me a good slap?’ I turn on him, tasting salt in the corner of my mouth. The familiar brine of sorrow. Though this time it’s more like rage. Long-suppressed rage escaping as tears. ‘I’m sure you’re dying to give me a good slapping, aren’t you, Dad?’
My mother says something in quick protest, but I don’t catch it over my father’s roar of anger. ‘How dare you?’ He comes towards me, fists by his side but clenched tight nonetheless. ‘After everything we’ve done for you . . .’
‘So why say it was me who signed that paperwork?’ I almost scream at them, and duck away from Dominic, who’s trying to restrain me. This isn’t his battle, it’s mine. It’s been mine for a long time, and I know all the manoeuvres. ‘Why not admit the truth?’
An awful silence falls again.
Mum looks frightened now, a hand at her mouth.
Dad stops where he is, staring at me. There’s some expression in his eyes that I don’t quite understand.