‘Okay.’ It isn’t my place really. ‘Of course I’ll keep an eye out for her anyway.’
‘Thanks, Jeanie.’ She recovers herself. ‘That’s so kind of you. Let’s be pals, shall we? It’ll be better for all of us, won’t it?’
‘Of course.’
‘Great. I’ll drop the kids round in a bit.’
* * *
5 p.m.
* * *
Breakfast TV has been most helpful today: now I’m making home-made pizza for everyone. Cooking’s always therapeutic I find; I have since I was a kid – something about providing for people. And all kids like Italian food – even the fussy Scarlett. I text Frankie and ask him if he might come home this evening. Please. I tell him how much I miss him.
He doesn’t answer.
Whilst I’m assembling the margherita topping my mobile rings.
‘It’s Lesley Browning here,’ the voice says rather anxiously. ‘I just – it’s a quick call. I thought you deserved a little more explanation.’
‘Right.’ I’m wary, balancing the phone between ear and shoulder as I tip tomatoes into the blender.
‘It’s just – your suspicion was right. Someone did send the head an email. I have to say’—a sharp intake of breath—‘it was very vicious.’
‘Oh.’ Of course. ‘Vicious?’
‘It was a link to a Sunday-paper spread. It said you were…’ Is her pause one of embarrassment? I’m not sure.
‘Yes, I know what it said.’ I keep my voice quiet. ‘Could you tell me who sent it?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t see the actual email. But I believe it was anonymous. From someone who called themselves a well-wisher, that type of thing.’
A well-wisher.
‘Okay. Well thanks for telling me.’
I put the phone down and turn the blender on, watching the soft red flesh spatter against the sides. Almost immediately, the landline rings. It’s the twins’ school this time.
‘Just to make sure Mr King knows about the parents’ evening a fortnight on Monday?’ the woman coos. That’s what you get when you pay for education: cooing. ‘We’ve not had a reply to the letter, you see. It starts at 6 p.m. on the dot.’
Cooing and dots. Efficiency and timetables. Personal phone-calls. Not like my last schools.
‘I’ll make sure he knows.’ I wipe tomatoey hands on my apron to scribble the details down on the phone pad.
Luke comes in just as I’m hanging up for the second time.
‘Oh hello! That was your school on the phone,’ I tell him. ‘You’ve got parents’ evening in a couple of Mondays’ time.’
‘Oh right.’ But he’s not much interested. ‘Is Dad here? I need to order some new football boots online.’
‘Not yet. I’m sure he’ll want to go to your parents’ evening.’ Positivity, I think. ‘He’ll want to hear about all your achievements.’
‘Maybe.’ Luke pulls open the fridge, hanging heavily on the door. I bite my tongue about hurrying to shut the door. He takes a can of Coke, slamming the fridge so that the whole worktop judders.
Now Scarlett waltzes in, all skinny legs and overly made-up eyes and flyaway hair: dramatic as ever.
‘Hello.’ I smile at her. ‘There’s fresh orange if you fancy it?’ She doesn’t like sugar normally.
‘I’d rather have a Coke, like Luke. I’m totally dying from starvation!’ Scarlett eyes my sauce dubiously. ‘Can I have a snack?’
No, I bite back, wait for supper – like I’d tell Frankie. But I know I must be the nice guy. ‘Yeah, sure,’ I say. ‘Crisps in the cupboard? Or a Kit Kat maybe?’
‘Great.’ She shoves her head into the cupboard like someone who hasn’t eaten in days.
‘Can you just move that for me, sweetheart?’ I ask Luke, who’s loitering, swilling Coca-Cola round his mouth noisily. ‘That pad, before it gets all covered in food?’
He reaches out to move it and somehow – I don’t know how exactly, because I’m stirring the sauce and trying to open the dried oregano at the same time – he’s suddenly screaming in pain.
My heart nearly stops.
‘Oh my God, Luke, what’s happened?’ I drop the herb jar, scattering oregano everywhere.
Coca-Cola runs in a sticky brown torrent over the floor, and Luke’s clutching a hand covered in blood I think – or is it tomato sauce? I can’t quite make it out because I’m panicking – and he won’t stop screaming.
‘Luke, it’s okay.’ I try to calm him, trying to look at his hand – but his screams increase, as if he’s being murdered, as if he’s in the most agonising pain ever…
‘You must show me!’ I’m sick with fear. Maybe he’s not okay…
‘Luke.’ Scarlett’s little face is angry now as she drops her prawn-cocktail crisps and faces her brother. ‘Stop screaming!’
He doesn’t, so she slaps him – hard.
Now he does stop. He stares at his twin, and she says quite levelly, like a little grown-up, ‘You’re hysterical. Calm down.’
Luke’s eyes are like an owl’s.