With the open fridge cooling his thighs, James spread his hands on the counter. They were red and swollen, and one knuckle had two short cuts on it right alongside each other – as if Bugs Bunny had nipped him.
He must have hit something very hard or very often to have gotten them into this state. He couldn’t remember whether it was one or the other or both, but he felt a lot better for it.
He knelt slowly in front of the fridge and pushed both his hands into the freezer compartment. The overgrown ice pressed around him coldly.
‘Anna!’ he said again, but she was ignoring him.
He rested his head on the top of the fridge and only woke up when melting ice trickled slowly up his sleeve all the way into his armpit.
He got up and shut the door—
such a simple thing to do
—and went into the bedroom.
It was only then that James realized with a shock that – for the first time in four months – Anna wasn’t home.
7
THE MAN WHO’D been seen on TV was a big disappointment. Richard Latham was stocky and middle-aged, wearing thick glasses and beige slacks, and when he walked on to the small raised plinth that was supposed to be a stage, he bounced along on his tiptoes with the exaggerated gait of a puppet on strings. Anna thought there must be something wrong with his feet or his legs.
It was comical, but it was also a little bit disturbing.
He tapped the microphone and then bent backwards a little to look up at the ceiling.
‘Can you hear me?’ he said.
An amused ripple ran through the small audience. There were maybe fifteen people in total gathered together in the Bickley Spiritualist Church, which was a grubby little hall next to the King’s Arms. There were bars at the high windows, plastic chairs instead of pews, and fake flowers in a vase: lilies and irises, gathering dust. On the wall behind the plinth was a clock that had stopped at a quarter past six, and a small, apologetic crucifix.
None of it calmed Anna’s nerves.
She had taken nearly an hour just to get past the five footprints. She’d chickened out and gone back inside four times, hot and panicky despite the cold and damp, before finally making a run for it – hurtling down the uneven pavement with the baby jiggling and bouncing in his buggy.
Just being outdoors had been enough to make her nervous. Now that she’d seen the dusty flowers, being indoors was making her nervous too. The carpet was threadbare and crumbly, and nobody but her had left their shoes in the porch. She tried not to imagine the germs, but her eyes already felt gritty. She leaned forward and pulled the rabbit fleece almost up to Charlie’s eyes so that the dust couldn’t settle in his nose or mouth. She almost wished she hadn’t brought him, but leaving him at home would have been worse. Better let him be exposed to the dirty air and filthy flowers than left with James.
James couldn’t be trusted with children.
The woman sitting next to Anna leaned over and peered into the buggy.
‘Awwww, isn’t he lovely!’
Anna nodded, and smiled through stiff lips. She wished the woman would get her face away from the buggy. Her hair was too blonde and permed to within an inch of its sticky life, and she was wafting chemicals and germs all over him.
‘What’s his name?’
‘D— Charlie.’ She’d almost said Daniel. It would have felt so good – to use his name in a normal sentence instead of one that shredded her heart.
‘Awwww,’ the woman said again. ‘Look at him blowing his little bubbles!’
A train rumbled under the bridge below them, and Anna thought of the eight twenty from Victoria. She felt that old desperation fluttering upwards in her like a bus ticket in a sudden gust, and had to slam a door on the feeling. She couldn’t think of that. She couldn’t think of the drop to the rails and the oblivion of the train. She had to stay strong if she was ever going to find Daniel.
Although the thought of finding him here made her want to cry.
She bit her lip and tried to focus on the man on the stage.
Knowing would be better than not knowing.
‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘I’m Richard Latham. Some of you may have seen me on TV.’
Two plump women in the front row nodded vigorously and Latham winked and said, ‘The camera adds ten pounds, you know. I used to be a large. Now I’m just a medium.’
There were a couple of minor chuckles and the blonde woman leaned in to Anna and hissed, ‘He said that last week too. And he was only on TV a few times. Then they took him off.’
This wasn’t how Anna had thought it was going to be, and that was good. She’d thought it might be frightening, or stupidly mystical – or like the school-fair fortune-teller she’d been to once as a child: Mrs Smart the Geography teacher wrapped in a tablecloth and foretelling that she’d get an A if she worked very, very hard.
Richard Latham suddenly pointed at her and said, ‘I’ve someone here for you, sir.’
Anna flinched – then she looked to her right, and realized that Latham must be cross-eyed to add to his other shortcomings. He meant the skinny young man sitting beside her in a bulky silver puffa jacket that was several sizes too large for him. His head protruded from its huge padded collar like a nodding dog’s.
To add to the illusion, he nodded.
‘Someone called Beryl. Can you take that for me, sir?’
‘Yes,’ said the young man.
‘Is it definitely Beryl?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Beryl.’
‘And is she your grandmother?’
‘No, she was my grandmother’s neighbour, but I knew her really well.’
‘OK,’ said Latham, and cocked his head at the ceiling. Anna followed his gaze nervously, but there was just a long cobweb there, and a damp patch in the shape of Australia.
‘OK,’ he said again. ‘Beryl says to tell your gran it’s all wine and roses up here. Wine and blooming roses, Mary. What’s your gran’s name?’
‘Marie.’
‘Oh, Marie. Wine and blooming roses. That’s her words, you see. Not mine. Nobody says blooming nowadays, do they?’