I have chopped vegetables, dissolved stock cubes and am pacing barefoot, from sink to cooker and back again, my soles sticking to the tiles, when Nick slinks into the kitchen.
‘Hey.’ He can’t quite meet my eye. ‘I didn’t think you’d be home yet.’ He dips his head to kiss me, and his stubble grazes my cheek.
I pull back as the rank smell of whisky stings my nostrils.
‘I’ve not been back long.’ My voice is jovial, giving him the chance to tell me the truth, but underneath my calm exterior, anger is simmering like the soup on the stove.
‘Something smells good!’ He lifts the lid on the pan and inhales deeply.
‘Where have you been?’ The question slips out before I can think it through.
‘I nipped to the office to pick up some papers. I missed you last night.’ Nick nuzzles my neck, wrapping his arms tightly around my waist, squeezing me so hard my lungs grapple for air. I try to wriggle from his grasp, but he clings on and I can’t break free. Sliding my arms around him, I feel his shoulders shake and think he might be crying but I can’t be sure. I half-expect to smell traces of perfume – there’s nothing but stale alcohol. Nick puts his palm on the small of my back, drawing me closer until there isn’t even a centimetre gap between our bodies, yet I’ve never felt so distant from him before.
‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ I say, pulling back. I find his eyes before saying: ‘I know.’
There is a flash of panic on his face. ‘You know?’ He speaks slowly. Carefully. As if buying himself time to form a proper answer in his head before he says it out loud.
‘I know you weren’t here last night.’
A sharp intake of breath tells me I have caught him by surprise.
‘No. I wasn’t.’ He doesn’t elaborate further.
‘Where were you?’ I cross my arms. I am afraid of his answer but, at the same time, I am desperate to hear it.
‘Kat.’ He whispers my name with such regret. ‘I am so, so sorry but there is something I need to tell you.’
24
Then
Nick was freezing when he woke. His duvet was thin and his too-small pyjamas hadn’t kept him warm. They’d moved into a two-up two-down council house a few years before but it still wasn’t a happy home. There was a time, when his mum had breast cancer, that Nick had seen a different side to his dad, but once Mum had been given the all clear, it was as though all the fear, all the worry his dad had felt, transcended into anger. He was worse now than he had ever been. Nick had begged his mum to leave – Dad was becoming more and more violent – but she’d say to Nick: ‘He’s still in there. The man I fell in love with. Remember when I was ill?’ But Nick thought, if you had to be dying for someone to be nice to you, they probably didn’t love you as much as you hoped. He wouldn’t think about that today though. It was his birthday. Nineteen! Although there would be no party, no decent presents, he didn’t care. He didn’t want anything except for his mum to be away from his dad. Nick worked full-time at Tesco now and rarely spent any money on himself. Everything went into a savings account. One day he’d buy a big house like the one mum cooed over on the property programme last night, with the island in the kitchen and the copper pans hanging above the Aga. He’d paint the kitchen sunflower, his mum’s favourite colour, and while he went to work, she could bake cakes. She would never have to work again.
Nick caught a whiff of something delicious, not the usual mildew smell that filled the house as the patches of mould climbed the walls, clung to the ceiling, but sausages. Nick jumped up and pulled on a pair of socks before padding downstairs towards the kitchen as quietly as he could. His dad liked to lie-in.
‘Happy birthday, Nick!’
Mum crossed the kitchen and wrapped her arms around him; she smelled of oil and cleaning products. Nick hugged her fiercely.
‘You must be shattered?’ He stepped back and studied her face. She looked so much older than Richard’s mum, although they must be around the same age. The wrinkles surrounding her eyes definitely weren’t caused by laughter.
‘I’m fine.’ She smiled but it was only with her mouth.
Nick reached to switch on the kettle to make her a cup of tea, but she slapped his hand lightly.
‘Sit down and open your presents.’
On the table were two gift-wrapped boxes. He picked them up one by one and shook them, trying to guess what was inside. He slid his fingers between the join in the wrapping paper on the one he thought might be a book and eased it open, wanting to savour the moment.
‘Thanks, Mum.’ He flipped open the cover on the encyclopaedia and ignored the ‘Happy Christmas, Emma!’ inscription on the inside.
‘If you’re going to find a better job than shelf stacking, you’ll need to know all that stuff,’ Mum said. She had wanted him to stay on at school, go to uni, but how could he? He needed to be a man. Contribute to the housekeeping. He’d left school as soon as he had turned sixteen, eager to be bringing in money, but without sitting his exams it had been hard to find anything decent and he’d taken the first job he’d been offered.
‘Open the other one before the sausages burn.’
Nick picked up the other box. He had no idea what could be inside. Smoke began to rise from the frying pan so he tore the paper off quickly.
‘Mum!’ Nick stared at the Nokia box, almost too afraid to look inside in case it housed something other than a mobile phone. He’d wanted one for ages and, more than once, he’d been tempted to buy one out of his wages but they had an unspoken agreement almost, him and Mum. Every penny would go towards their future.
‘I hope it’s okay. It’s nothing fancy but you can text and call. I’ve topped it up with ￡5 credit for you.’
Nick slid the packaging out of the box. It was nothing like the one Richard had. There was no Internet, not even a camera, but Nick turned it over in his hands as though it were a gold bar. ‘It’s brill. Thanks.’
‘Tuck in or you’ll be late for work.’ Mum slid sausages from the pan onto a plate.
Nick forked baked beans into his mouth as he switched on his phone, and it wasn’t until he was halfway through his breakfast he realised his mum wasn’t eating.
‘Where’s yours?’
‘I’ll have mine later with Dad.’
Nick hesitated. His mum was getting so thin he often wondered whether she ate at all.
‘Really. Hurry up before yours gets cold.’
Nick finished, and his mum took his plate to rinse, and as he stood he couldn’t help but pull open the fridge door. There were only three sausages inside, and he knew his mum wouldn’t be eating at all.
His phone felt hard and heavy in his bag as he walked to work, a constant reminder his mum had yet again gone without.
‘Happy birthday, mate.’ Richard pressed a box into Nick’s hands when they met for lunch, and he sauntered into the chip shop to buy them both lunch, as though it wasn’t a big deal he’d just given Nick an iPhone. Nick had only ever seen a picture of one – apparently, they were going to be huge but they were almost impossible to get.
‘What the fuck? I can’t accept this, mate.’ Nick tried to give it back to Richard when he returned with bags of hot, salty chips and golden fish. It wasn’t that he wasn’t grateful, but Richard gave him so much and it didn’t seem fair the only thing Nick had ever been able to do in return was teach Richard how to play football. Even if he was bloody good at it.
‘I want you to have it.’ Richard opened a sachet of ketchup with his teeth.
‘I think—’
‘You think too much,’ Richard cut in. ‘I think you want one. I think you should have one. Seriously.’ He leaned closer to Nick and lowered his voice. ‘I’ll always do what I think is right for you. No arguing. We’re mates. We’ve got each other’s backs, right?’