‘What about you, Polly?’ Miriam says.
Polly’s brow furrows and she starts to suck her thumb. Tom draws it gently out of her mouth.
‘Polly,’ he says. ‘Do you get bruises?’
‘At playtime Oliver sometimes is rough. I falled over.’
Tom shrugs, lets go of her hand and the thumb goes back in.
Miriam gathers her papers, closes her briefcase with a click and that appears to be that.
‘Sometimes calls are made with malicious intent. I can see that’s probably the case here.’
I search her face for signs of disappointment or distrust but she’s too professional to let me know what she really thinks.
‘Will we be on file?’ Tom asks.
‘A note will be made. But don’t worry. We can see your children are loved and well looked after.’
At the door Tom moves behind me and encircles me with his arms, pulling me back against him, resting his jaw on my head. They leave the house, turning to look back at us standing there with our fixed smiles, and walk up the road. I close the door quietly behind me.
Tom is slumped, exhausted, at the kitchen table. He puts his arm around my thighs, pulls me against him and presses his head into my abdomen.
‘Are they all right?’ he asks.
‘Polly’s out for the count. Emily wanted to know if Mum was going to die. I told her it was a false alarm. She’s fine. I thought she might be cross with me for breaking up the party, but I have a feeling she was secretly relieved when everyone left. She was overwhelmed.’
‘What about you? Are you OK?’
‘A bit shaky.’ I hold out my hand to prove it. ‘I feel violated. Is that too strong a word?’
‘No.’
I pull up a chair and sit down, my knees against his legs, rest my elbows on the table and yawn.
‘Malicious intent,’ Tom says. ‘Why? What have we done to deserve it? I keep trying to think who I’ve upset. We know most of our neighbours, and the others we’re at least on nodding terms with. Do you think it’s someone from the flats behind us? What about that guy who I asked to turn down his music? Or the old dear who lives next door to the Boxers. She hates my motorbike.’
‘Tom, don’t. You can’t go around suspecting everyone.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re not doing exactly the same, because I won’t believe you.’
‘I’m doing my best not to. Look, I’m as upset and shocked as you are, but the main thing is, we were cleared. They won’t be back.’
‘I wish I felt as confident.’
I don’t feel confident either. I’ve been considering and dismissing people as well but it’s Hellie North with her ice-blonde Scandinavian looks who dominates my thoughts. If she’s discovered her husband’s little affair with their daughter’s teacher, she’ll be out for revenge and I can imagine her going down the subtle route to get it. My mobile is lying on the worktop beside the two unopened bottles of white wine. I try not to keep looking at it, itching to text David, to warn him that she might know, but in the end the urge is too strong and I pick it up.
‘I’ll go and sort out their bedroom, then we can put them to bed.’
He nods and stands up, picks up the broom and starts sweeping. He’s haphazard about it, but I forbear to point out places he misses. I leave the room and text David, then don’t send because if it wasn’t Hellie, I could be doing an extraordinary amount of damage. I decide instead to wait until Monday when he and his phone will be at work.
June 1992
‘KATYA?’
She realized that Luke was trying to grab her attention. She’d been daydreaming. Yesterday, she and Luke took the bus to the Arndale Centre and when she looked out of the window she had seen Maggie with Emily. They were holding hands and Emily was practically dancing to keep up with her mother. Emily was wearing home clothes; a pair of flared jeans, trainers and a purple bomber jacket. As the bus turned the corner Katya craned her neck to see Emily’s face, but they were on the top deck so it was hard to get a good look. She wasn’t as pretty as Maggie had described her. Just ordinary. But in Katya’s opinion that was a good thing. Gabriella was very pretty but she could be so mean. Emily Parrish looked kind. Katya turned away with a sigh of satisfaction.
Before Luke broke into her thoughts she had been imagining that she got off and followed them home, and then perhaps fainted on the doorstep, through hunger, and had to be carried in and laid on their sofa. And Emily had asked who this strange, pale child was and Maggie had said, ‘This is Katya. She has no one.’ And then Luke called her name and the images disappeared.
‘Come and tell me what you think,’ he said.
Katya got up reluctantly and padded in her socked feet to where Luke was standing over a saucepan of stew. He blew on a spoonful and offered it to her. She tried to take it with her hand but he guided the spoon to her mouth, waiting until she parted her lips.
‘It’s nice,’ she conceded, stepping back to make sure he knew not to try again.
‘Just nice? Is that all you can say? I’ve been to a lot of trouble. Hold still. You’ve got some tomato stuck to your lip.’
He picked it off with his fingernail, his other hand cupping her head so that she couldn’t move and she fixed her gaze on the wall, anywhere but on his face. She hated the way his eyes tugged at her, making her feel angry, scared and guilty all at once. He dropped his hand but she could still remember how it felt hours afterwards.
Sally was on nights this week, leaving after Katya got home from school and returning at dawn. The not knowing what mood he was in, whether he’d want a cuddle or whether he’d ignore her, made her so anxious she kept having to go to the toilet. He had suggested another swimming lesson as well, pretending to be concerned about her. So far she’d managed to put him off, but the offending swimming suit hadn’t been returned. It was still rolled up in the towel at the bottom of the wash basket. She hoped it would get mildew.
‘Can I do my homework now?’
He let her go, added a generous pinch of salt to the stew, replaced the lid and slid the casserole dish into the oven.
That night Katya listened to his movements from her bedroom. He switched off the lights and paused outside her door. She held her breath until she heard his tread on the stairs. Above her, in the intense quiet, the stream of his pee hit the water.
21
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
‘JESUS NO. DO you think I’m mad?’ David sees my face and softens his tone. ‘Vicky, I am sorry about what happened, it must have been awful, but you have to believe me. Hellie doesn’t have the slightest idea. And besides that, darling, she wouldn’t do anything so crass.’