by Rebecca Wait
‘Sounds it.’ A pause, then she said, ‘I’d better get on.’
Back at the counter, she made him a replacement cappuccino and took it over to him, with a breezy, ‘On the house,’ and then winced inwardly, because this expression belonged to television, not real life. She brushed off his thanks and walked away, not trusting herself to linger any longer.
The following Thursday was her day off. She started out by cleaning the flat, then gave up and went to bed with a magazine. It was hard to focus, though. She wasn’t used to having time to herself; felt she was wasting it.
On Friday, Liz said, ‘He asked about you yesterday.’
Stephanie could tell who Liz meant from her sidelong look. She felt something in her stomach, a wriggle of excitement.
She affected nonchalance. ‘Oh?’
‘He asked where you were, if you were ill. I said you were working at the weekend instead. That he’d have to make do with me and Helen.’
Stephanie didn’t comment. She told herself it was weird he’d asked.
He was there again the next Thursday. She wasn’t at the counter when he placed his order, but he made a special point of bringing his empty mug up himself later, when she was replenishing the pastries. The coffee shop was quiet that day, so she was able to pause in her work and say, ‘Did you dry your book out OK?’
‘It’s not too bad,’ he said. ‘The pages have gone quite an attractive shade of brown. I think I prefer it. Before long, everyone will be doing it.’
‘I’m not sure about that.’
As she turned to wipe down the coffee machine, he said, ‘So have you always lived round here?’
‘No. Leeds, originally.’
‘What made you come here?’
Stephanie shrugged. She’d followed a boyfriend here a few years back, only he hadn’t stuck around, and now there seemed neither anything to keep her here nor any reason to move on. ‘You know,’ she said. ‘Life.’
‘And are you happy here?’
A strange question. ‘It’s alright,’ she said. But, feeling his directness required a more honest answer, she added, ‘It’s not where I imagined I’d end up.’
‘Things don’t always turn out the way we expect, do they?’
He said it softly, almost to himself. Something made Stephanie ask, ‘Are you from round here?’ It already seemed obvious he wasn’t.
‘No, I grew up with my uncle in London.’
She wanted to ask about his parents, but didn’t know how. Perhaps his father as well as his mother had died when he was a child. Stephanie’s own father had been killed in a road accident when she was six, and though she hardly remembered him, though her mother never spoke of him, Stephanie seemed to carry with her a physical memory of his death, a pain in her chest when she thought of him that was like being winded.
‘Everyone’s always telling you that things turn out for the best,’ she said. ‘But don’t they just turn out, without any scheme behind it? And anyway, we can’t say things have turned out for the best or the worst because we don’t know what the other options would have been.’ She had taken herself by surprise – the words seemed to burst out of her in his presence. She risked a glance at him. ‘What?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ he said. ‘I had a feeling about you, that’s all. And I was right.’
‘What feeling?’
‘I suppose – that you think about things more deeply than other people.’
‘Oh!’ she said, trying to hide her pleasure. ‘Hardly. Look where I’ve ended up. Working in a cafe.’ A single mother, she almost said.
‘It’s not about what we do,’ he said. ‘It’s about who we are.’ When she didn’t answer, he added, ‘Actually, I think there is a scheme to it all. But we can talk about that another day. I’d better leave you in peace now. People will think I’m making the world’s longest and most complicated coffee order.’
She smiled at him. ‘See you next Thursday.’
But the next week he didn’t come. Stephanie told herself she didn’t mind, she would see him again the following Thursday. But he didn’t appear then either.
‘Maybe he’s found another coffee shop,’ Helen said gloomily.
‘Maybe he’s dead,’ Liz said.
Stephanie didn’t comment. Isn’t this typical, she thought. It was almost worse than if he’d never spoken to her. This was what they did, men: made you think it meant something to them as well, when really it was just a passing fancy, throwaway remarks.
That evening, she stood in the kitchen stirring pasta sauce, thinking of nothing. She was dimly aware that Judith was talking to her, relaying with an unnecessary level of detail the plot of the film she’d watched with Megan the night before. Stephanie had given up trying to follow, and stared down at the pan instead, letting her mind go quiet.
Judith’s voice broke in, strident. ‘Did you hear what I just said, Mum? About the man with the hook?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK, what does he do, then? What does he do when he comes up behind Ryan Phillippe on the balcony?’
Stephanie stirred the sauce. ‘He kills him,’ she said.
‘Oh, Mum. That was a lucky guess. I can tell you’re not listening.’
‘I was.’
‘You weren’t. You never listen.’ She paused, then delivered the devastating blow. ‘Megan’s mother always listens to her.’
‘Well, why don’t you bloody well go and live with Megan then?’ Stephanie said.
‘You shouldn’t say “bloody”,’ Judith said. ‘It’s undignified.’
‘I don’t fucking care,’ Stephanie said, feeling even more of the moral high ground slipping away from her. ‘Anyway,’ she went on quickly, ‘it doesn’t sound like a suitable film. I’m surprised Megan’s mum let you watch it.’
‘We watched Sleepy Hollow when Megan came round here a few weeks ago,’ Judith countered. ‘Remember? You screamed your head off and spilled the popcorn. Megan said she was going to have nightmares until the end of her days.’
‘Get the plates out, will you?’
‘What are we having?’
‘Pasta with mushroom sauce.’
‘I hate mushrooms,’ Judith said.
‘Since when?’
‘Since about a year. See? You never listen.’
It was true, really, Stephanie thought later. She was a failure as a mother, even though it was about the only thing she’d ever done with her life. And even that had been an accident. She remembered her own mother saying once, ‘Some people shouldn’t have children.’ It had appeared to be an idle comment, a response to something they’d seen on the news, but Stephanie had taken it personally and couldn’t shake off the suspicion that it had been intended that way.
She and her mum didn’t speak these days. There hadn’t been a falling-out, exactly, but somehow they seemed to have nothing to say to each other. Stephanie could feel the waves of disapproval coming from her mother even down the phone line. Her mother had a point, anyway. Stephanie had got everything wrong.
She sometimes thought about the time she went to the Fens with a boy from college, long before Judith was born. She didn’t know why this trip stood out so vividly in her memory, except that it had felt like a moment in someone else’s life. They’d stayed with the boy’s sister, a romantic getaway of sorts, only instead of a hotel in Paris it had been a dingy back bedroom in the Fens.
The Fens had scared her to death. Flat like an unfurled ribbon, all that sky, fields going on forever and nothing to stop you slipping right off the edge of the world. There’d been no other houses around the cottage, just the farmhouse it backed on to, and beyond that just emptiness, empty fields and empty sky, for miles and miles. When it got dark, you could see a glimmer of light in the distance, a small, lighthouse pinprick floating somewhere across the vast expanse of black.
‘Our neighbours,’ the sister said, with no apparent irony.
Still, you could breathe in the Fens. You could see a glimpse of something
else opening out before you. You felt like nothing, but you were part of all that other nothing, and somehow it helped.
Callum, the boy had been called. Spots.
2
Thomas came out of work to find Nathaniel leaning against the bonnet of his car.
‘Nice badge,’ Nathaniel said.
Thomas hastened to remove it – Thomas Salter, Store Manager – but it was too late.
Nathaniel was grinning. ‘Don’t be embarrassed. It makes you look important.’
‘Ha ha.’
‘Is it in case you forget who you are?’
‘It’s so customers know who to shout at.’ Thomas unlocked the car.
‘Does everyone wear badges these days?’ Nathaniel said, getting into the passenger seat.
‘More or less.’
‘Maybe I should get one.’
Thomas looked at him, decided not to comment. Nathaniel like this was thrilling, his exuberance bleeding into everyone around him. But Thomas was on his guard, waiting for the switch, the tilt.
‘Long day?’ Nathaniel said.
He should have remembered how easily Nathaniel could read him. ‘Very.’
Thomas made to turn on the engine, but Nathaniel put his hand on his arm and said, ‘Not yet. I want to talk to you. Before we pick up the others.’
Thomas tried to relax his shoulders against the seat. Waited. Why were his responses never correct these days? He couldn’t seem to get himself under control.
Nathaniel said, ‘God spoke to me again.’
His hand was still on Thomas’s arm. All of Thomas’s consciousness was centred on that point of contact: Nathaniel’s hot palm, his spread fingers, pressing against Thomas’s body, thrusting their warmth deep below the skin. Thomas was almost trembling beneath that hand. It did something strange to him.
He said, mouth dry, voice failing on the last syllable, ‘What did He say?’
‘It’s been hard,’ Nathaniel said. ‘I haven’t been sure. I’ve been struggling with it. But it’s becoming clearer now.’
‘Yes?’
‘He’s found someone else.’
‘What?’
‘He wants me to bring in someone else.’
‘Into the Ark?’
Nathaniel nodded. He was watching Thomas, registering every flicker of his expression. Thomas took the cue, fought to make his reaction appropriate.
‘I thought—’
‘So did I. We were wrong.’
‘Why now?’
‘I don’t know.’
Silence. At last, Nathaniel said, ‘I don’t need to tell you to keep this to yourself.’
‘Of course.’
‘I need to prepare the others a little. But I wanted you to know first.’ He smiled at Thomas. ‘You know you’re my right-hand man.’
Thomas felt some of the old warmth, the kind that didn’t make him tremble. But it was battling with something else.
He said, ‘Seth and Joshua will be waiting.’
‘Let’s go, then.’
Thomas turned on the engine and they headed towards the town centre. To his relief, Nathaniel didn’t try to talk any more. He knew that before long he would have to ask for guidance, even if it resulted in a session. Somehow it was as though he’d given the devil a way in, however careful he’d tried to be.
Nathaniel had told them the Ark was already filled, sealed off from the outside world. So had God changed His mind? But no, Thomas could see that was a stupid thought. This must have been part of God’s plan all along.
It was a woman. Thomas didn’t know how he knew, but he was certain it was a woman.
Again, he struggled with himself. Something was askew. The revelation of God’s will, where once it had filled him with excitement, now brought nothing but unease.
3
Three Thursdays had passed with no sign of him. But it didn’t matter, Stephanie thought. None of it mattered in the long run.
She had taken to awarding herself little treats in the evening. A glass or two of wine (or, more often than not, three). Chocolate. Crisps. Just something she could look forward to throughout the day. She’d always been slim, but she noticed she’d been putting on weight recently, a small roll of fat forming around her stomach. She hated the idea, but couldn’t bring herself to do anything about it. Men had used to look at her in the street once. It seemed a long time ago. She assuaged her anxiety by drinking more, eating more.
‘Mum,’ Judith said, ‘you watch a lot of television. Do you think you should take up a new hobby?’
‘I don’t watch that much.’
‘You do. More than other mothers.’
‘How do you know? Have you done a survey?’
‘There’s no need to be sarcastic,’ Judith said.
Meanwhile, a mouse in her kitchen was driving her mad with its quiet, unseen scuffling. It upset her more than she might have expected, the horrible moments when she glimpsed it out of the corner of her eye, this small dark thing, obscenely alive and fast, shooting across the floor by her feet.
She ordered traps from the Internet, the kind with a bar that snapped down to break the creature’s neck. The idea seemed brutal, but she didn’t want to risk the mouse returning, and at least this way its death would be quick. When the traps arrived, she laid them behind the fridge.
Finally, one evening she heard the crack of a trap. Judith was at Megan’s, and Stephanie was pleased that she would be able to dispose of the mouse without her daughter ever knowing.
But then, turning her cold, a scrabbling started up, the click of the trap on the floor as it was dragged.
It took her a while to force herself to pull the fridge out to look. She saw that the bar had snapped down on the mouse, snaring it in place, its neck pushed grotesquely flat. But it had come down at a slant, or rather the mouse had approached the trap at an angle, so the bar had caught only one side of it. Its tiny legs were paddling frantically, its back bucking in a useless bid to free itself.
It was going to die, but it was going to die slowly, in terror and in pain. Stephanie knew she would have to put it out of its misery, but the idea appalled her. What would be the best way to dispatch it, the fastest and most painless? She would have to stamp on it, she realized in despair.
It was more difficult than she expected, picking the trap up in a plastic bag to take outside. The dying mouse wriggled inside. She was again glad Judith was out of the house, because she found it impossible to suppress the whine that burst from her as she rushed to the back door with it.
When she had laid it down on the concrete, she took a few moments to compose herself. She looked at her shoes: navy pumps, one of her favourite pairs. Feeling faintly ridiculous, she went back inside and returned in her wellingtons. Then, stiffly, she made herself raise her leg, but couldn’t bring it down on the twitching bag. It took her a few more minutes to work up to it.
Finally, with a strangled cry, she stumbled forward and stamped, too gently at first – why wasn’t it already dead from pain and shock, why was it still moving? – and then with more force, again and again, until the translucent white of the bag was smeared red. She stopped, breathing hard. No movement from the bag. A sob was trapped in her throat and now she let it out: an ugly, embarrassing sound.
Picking up the bag by the edges, she took it to the wheelie bin, arms held out squeamishly in front of her. She left her wellingtons outside the door, and went straight to the bathroom to shower.
When Judith came home later, Stephanie was weighing up whether to tell her about the mouse after all. It might make that red smear inside the bag seem less terrible. Judith was a tough kid; it would hardly stop her in her tracks.
But Judith rushed straight through to the living room to put the TV on because she didn’t want to miss Spooks. Stephanie went and sat beside her.
‘Did you and Megan get all your homework done?’ she ventured at last.
‘Yes.’
A proper mother would have worked out some way of check
ing, Stephanie thought, rather than just taking Judith’s word for it. But even if she did find out Judith hadn’t done her homework, what could she do? Her daughter became more formidable every day.
‘You need to go to bed straight after this, OK?’ Stephanie said.
‘If I’m tired enough,’ Judith said, not taking her eyes off the TV.
Without a word, Stephanie got up and left the room, not entirely sure where she was going. In her bedroom, she climbed under the covers still wearing her clothes and put out the light. Had enough of this day, she thought, feeling childish and angry. She ought to go back and say a proper goodnight to Judith – she hadn’t even checked if she’d had supper, had just assumed Megan’s mum had fed her – but she didn’t have the energy to get up again. She closed her eyes.
A while later, she was woken by the door being pushed open, bringing in light from the landing. Judith came a little way into the room.
‘Mum?’ she said in a small voice.
‘Yes?’ Stephanie didn’t bother to raise her head.
‘I thought you were coming back. I thought you’d just gone to the loo.’
‘I’m tired, Judith. Go to bed.’
‘Mum?’ Judith said again. When she got no reply, she said, ‘Are you OK?’
No, Stephanie thought. ‘Yes, fine. Just tired.’
‘Are you ill?’
‘Perhaps a bit.’
The door was pulled shut again and Stephanie thought she’d been left in peace, but after a few minutes Judith was back, this time making her way carefully over to the bed in the semi-darkness, and depositing a mug on the bedside table (slopping some of its contents over the edge, by the sound of it).
‘I’ve brought you some hot water with honey and lemon,’ she said. Then, after a pause, ‘We didn’t have any lemons, so I used a satsuma instead.’
Stephanie made herself sit up. ‘Thank you, love. I’ll make sure I drink it all.’
‘You should.’
‘Now you’d better go and brush your teeth and get in bed. Will you be alright?’
‘Course.’
