Over the next few weeks, Claire began sleeping even later, sometimes until early afternoon, and when she woke, it was fitfully, with rising panic, as if she was clawing her way out of a grave. Checking the time, realising that, once again, the morning was over, she’d heave on the shawl of guilt. If she was going to sleep late, she ought to do more about the place. Lorna and Marianne had nearly always gone out by the time she emerged, and there was always the chaos of the kitchen to be tackled, blobs of jam on the carpet, tea stains on the sofa. The strengthening spring light was refracted through hundreds of greasy fingermarks on the windowpanes. Every day there were more and more things to do; the detritus from Lorna’s room was taking over, spreading down the stairs in an uneasy flood: cherry red lipsticks and dolls with their hair partially cut off; flakes of peeled-off nail polish; books with the covers ripped; stained pants and torn dresses. Marianne’s possessions, too, had multiplied: self-help books foraged from charity shops, synthetic silk scarves, ugly prints in ghastly frames, that she always said had ‘something’ but were still left in forgotten piles at the bottom of the stairs. The encroaching tide stopped at Claire’s door, but she knew with a deadly certainty that it would start to spill over soon; only yesterday, Marianne had talked vaguely about putting Lorna’s chest of drawers in there while she painted up a new one that she’d picked up from a lovely flea market in town . . .
Now that Marianne and Lorna spent most of their time together, Benji was left at home with Claire. They took calm walks every afternoon. He was such a comfort, good, easy company, like Johnny had been. When Marianne and Lorna came back each day, Claire’s timid questions about where they’d been and what they’d been doing were met with stony silence from Lorna and empty twittering from Marianne. They’d been ‘people watching’, they’d looked into taking a ‘movement class’, they’d been doing ‘retail therapy’. And they’d come into the kitchen with their dirty shoes, fling bags on the floor, and mess the whole place up again. Sometimes Marianne would throw her some praise.
‘You have been busy, Claire! Look, Lauren, even Benji’s bowl is sparkling clean!’
‘Where’s my bag of scarves?’ The girl looked panicked. ‘The special scarves?’
‘I put it in your bottom drawer. But, really, Lauren, you need to keep them all together. I found one in the garden today—’
‘All right!’ And she charged up the stairs.
‘She’s a bit of a teenager today,’ Marianne smiled. ‘That’s all. Great job on the fridge, Claire!’
Often though, her work was ignored, or criticised.
‘. . . I mean, it’s so difficult to find anything when it’s always being put somewhere else. Claire? Where’s that notebook? My best notebook?’
‘What does it look like?’
‘The one with the birds on it?’
‘I haven’t touched it.’
‘Oh God, never mind, never mind. Lola? Lo? Have a look in your room, will you? God knows where the thing is, and it has the list of classes in it.’
‘Marianne, if you leave things out all the time . . .’
‘One little notebook, Claire! That’s all. One little notebook. It’s hardly the messiest thing in the house. I mean, look at the stair carpet. You’ve been in all day.’
‘I’m planning on doing the stairs tomorrow. But if you’d take your shoes off in the house, it wouldn’t get so bad.’
Marianne rolled her eyes, shouldered past her. ‘Found it yet, Lauren?’
Lorna threw a volley of books down the stairs in response.
‘Brilliant! Got it! Here it IS! Lola! I’ve got the list!’
Lorna ran down the stairs trailing mud and dripping cola. ‘Let me see!’
Claire looked over their shoulders, making out the first thing on the list: ‘Miss Cumberland’s School of Dance’.
‘What’s this?’
Marianne turned glassy, faintly irritated eyes to her. ‘It’s the only good dance school in the area. The Truro one is a joke.’
‘But—’
‘Oh don’t worry, Claire,’ she flapped a hand in her face and turned away, ‘I’ll pay for it.’
‘That’s not what I meant—’
‘She’s ten now, we’ve left it late, but if we get her just in time, I really think she’ll be able to fulfil her potential!’
Lorna smiled and curtseyed. ‘Please Mum? Please? It’s SUCH a good school, and—’
‘Claire, I absolutely promise you that if it wasn’t an amazing opportunity, I wouldn’t ask. But it looks so good, and Lola’s so excited! Please?’
Lorna leapt clumsily down the last two stairs, landing in first position.
‘Look, see? She’s a natural! Look, we’ll be back, oh, within two hours I’d say. I’ll text. Don’t worry. In the meantime, Claire? Stairs?’ And they were on their way out again, Marianne nudging Benji back in the house with one boot. Claire heard her say to Lorna in a stage whisper, ‘Told you. Told you she’d let you.’
A few hours later, Claire got a text: ‘Taster session went brilliantly!!!! L tres excited. Now at cinema to celebrate. Don’t wait up. And later: Forgot we got you that cocoa you like! In the cupboard.
* * *