‘Be my guest.’ She takes her glass to the sink, tips the residue down the drain and puts it in the dishwasher. ‘Obviously, I’d love it. I … well, you know. I have to be sensitive to his feelings.’
While Vicky is bathing Josh, Tom and Amber search for Sophie’s reading book. At least he sits on Emily’s bed watching Amber while she looks. There is a pensive nature to his scrutiny. Vicky is singing, ‘The wheels on the bus go round and round …’
Tom picks a half-dressed doll up off the floor, does up the Velcro strip at the back of its wedding gown and smooths the waves of bright-yellow hair. Why is he up here? He’s making her nervous. She gets down on to her hands and knees and checks beneath the bed.
‘Found it!’ She brandishes the book.
‘I haven’t had a chance to talk to you about that morning,’ Tom says.
That’s all it is then. She hides her disappointment. ‘I have talked to you, haven’t I?’
‘Not properly.’ He lowers his voice. ‘Not without Vicky there.’
She hesitates. ‘There’s no secret, Tom. Nothing I wouldn’t say in front of her.’
‘I just get this feeling that there’s something she isn’t telling me.’
‘Well, there isn’t.’ It feels odd, protecting Vicky, when she could use what she knows to her advantage. Old alliances die hard, she supposes. Confusion too; not knowing whether she loves or hates her friend, bothered by how much she cares.
Tom contemplates her patiently. She avoids his gaze and sits down beside him on the bed, trapping her hands between her thighs.
‘Honestly, there’s nothing to tell. I expect she’s shocked. After all, Josh had a very lucky escape. When you think what might have happened …’ She lets him think, sees the shadow behind his eyes as he winces.
‘Thank God you were there.’
He touches her lightly on the arm; it’s nothing and yet it’s electric. She turns her head and finds he’s already looking at her. Something passes between them, a flicker, a stifled breath, a missed heartbeat.
‘Tom,’ Vicky calls. ‘Can you give the girls a shout?’
He gets up abruptly and goes to the door. ‘Polly! Emily! Bath time!’ And then goes downstairs at a run.
Amber stays where she is, the palm of her left hand resting on the warm patch of duvet he left behind him. If she was to be bad and weak she would take him.
Enough. She’s better than that. She jumps up. It’s time to go.
In the bathroom, Vicky is struggling to keep Josh’s cast out of the water. By now the gleaming whiteness has gone and it’s covered in dirty marks, felt-tip and stickers. Food stains too. If truth be told, it smells.
‘I’m off,’ she says. ‘Thanks for having Sophie.’
‘De nada.’ Vicky smiles up at her.
Amber picks up a cluster of bubbles with her finger and deposits it on Josh’s nose. ‘See you tomorrow, little man.’
May 1992
‘WHAT HAVE YOU two got planned for the day?’ Sally passed Luke a mug of coffee.
It was the middle of half-term. The longest half-term holiday Katya could remember. She had managed to get herself invited round to Gabriella’s once and had even asked her back. Luke had said she could have a friend round if she wanted and she reasoned that he was hardly likely to do anything if someone else was there. But Gabriella refused the invitation. It was almost as though she sensed something not quite right, something invisible and ugly. Or maybe she just had better things to do.
Sally leant against the counter, looking unlike herself in her blue uniform. She reminded Katya of a bell. If she swung her legs, the stiff dress would rock in the opposite direction, side to side.
‘We’ll go swimming,’ Luke said.
Katya glanced out of the window in panic. ‘I don’t have a swimming costume.’
Sally smiled at her. ‘That’s no problem. I’ll borrow one off the neighbours.’
Four doors down there was a family with two daughters and a son. So far they hadn’t been introduced. Katya couldn’t help feeling that their mum disapproved of her. If they happened to be out front at the same time, she always had an excuse for taking her kids away. Katya doubted she would lend anything belonging to her precious girls.
‘I don’t like swimming, actually,’ she said. ‘I’d rather stay here and watch TV.’
‘You don’t want to be sat here all day glued to the box,’ Luke said. ‘I think swimming is a great idea, and I could do with the exercise.’
A piece of toast went down the wrong way, providing a distraction as she started to cough. Luke slapped her between the shoulder blades, making her eyes prick.
‘I don’t feel well.’
‘You look fine to me.’ Luke covered her forehead with his large cool hand. She went very still, his touch almost taking the breath out of her. ‘Feel fine too.’
Sally glanced at Katya’s face and frowned. ‘Katya, love, can’t you swim?’
Katya hung her head. ‘No.’
‘You don’t have to be ashamed. It’s not your fault you haven’t had the same advantages as other kids your age.’
‘Well, that settles it,’ Luke said. ‘We’re going swimming and I’m going to teach you. If we go right now, the place won’t have filled up. Sally can run round to Annie’s and borrow one of the girls’ suits.’
‘But I don’t want to,’ Katya said, horrified.
She hated the water. When she was four years old her mother’s so-called boyfriend became so irritated with her that he put her in the bath that Linda had vacated, shoved her head down under the water and held it there. She had never forgotten the feeling of his hand pressing down or the pain in her lungs or the terror.
‘Don’t be silly,’ Sally said. ‘You have to learn to swim, it’s a basic skill. It could save your life one day. Go and find a towel and tie your hair back.’
The swimming costume, lent so grudgingly that Sally was visibly ruffled when she came back with it, was pale pink with white piping around the neck and a spangly mermaid on the front. Katya thought it was hideous and, apart from that, it was too big and sagged when it was wet. She sat on the edge of the pool for a full ten minutes, breathing in chlorine fumes and getting cold, before she was finally persuaded to get in with the promise that she wouldn’t have to put her face in the water, as leverage. A promise Luke broke within five minutes.
Her foster father was wearing a pair of navy swimming shorts. In the water his skin was shockingly white and his dark hairs floated out from his ribcage and stomach. He told her to hold on to the side and kick her legs and she did so, relieved that she wasn’t expected to move.
Luke’s hand slid under her stomach, the splay of his fingers reaching across her. The shock of his touch made her tighten every muscle.
‘Kick, Katya. That’s right,’ he said. ‘Keep your tummy up.’
The pressure increased and she kicked harder, making her arms rigid so that she could hold her body higher. Being touched, her body moved and manipulated, her legs pulled into position, was horrible. It was as if the water gave him permission to ignore her personal space and her feelings. There was a clock high above the pool and she kept her eyes fixed on it.