James comes home earlier than usual. Ashley is halfway through making a tuna pasta bake, her daughter’s favourite. She has never claimed to be above bribery. The steam from the bubbling pasta is making Ashley sweat; the kitchen smells overpoweringly of fish. Benji wanders in, crinkles up his nose and asks for a Jaffa cake, which Ashley obligingly fetches from the cupboard, hoping he will give her a little time alone with James.
‘Back early for once,’ she says to her husband. He looks drained.
‘Tricky day. We got the lawyers into the office, I’ve been in a meeting with Daniel all afternoon. It’s gone to the board; they’ll make a decision within a week.’ He shrugs, spreads his palms out. ‘I’ve done everything I can.’
Ashley stops stirring the pasta, puts down the wooden spoon. Perhaps this is her moment.
‘James,’ she says, ‘I was thinking today, while I was at the café – I was thinking that I might go back to work.’
She hadn’t meant to come out with it quite so quickly but she’s started now, she may as well finish. He stares at her. She picks up the spoon again, stirs the pasta a little bit faster.
‘Ash, no – that’s not what I – you shouldn’t have to— ‘
She interrupts him. ‘Please, listen. I know nothing is certain with your job yet, so this might not need to happen, but isn’t it something to think about? We’ll need an income, James. If you lose this job.’
He starts to protest but she pushes on. ‘I’m perfectly qualified, and Benji is at school until four every day anyway; Lucy can look after him until I’m home in the evening, which would only be at around six. Holly can go to June’s, you know she’s glad of the money and she’s perfectly capable. As long as we get the schedule right!’
She hesitates. What she plans to say next is not quite true, but who is to say that it might not become so? Given time, it might.
‘I’d like to, James. That way we’d have a safety net, we wouldn’t have to worry about giving anything up. It might . . . it might be good for me.’
There is silence in the room. It is broken by Lucy. She clatters into the kitchen in a pair of black high heels, her lips a dark slash of red. Her top is lacy, half see-through. The yellow scarf she had on earlier is tied around her waist like a belt. Ashley stares.
‘What on earth d’you think you’re wearing?’
Her daughter doesn’t look at her, isn’t paying attention. She rummages in her handbag, pulls out a tube of scent, squirts her wrists. The smell is strong, musky. Sexy.
‘Lucy!’ Ashley forgets the pasta, steps towards her daughter. James reaches out, tries to touch her hand, but she jerks away from him. ‘Lucy! Your dinner’s here! Where are you going?’
Her daughter finally turns, looks her in the eye. The expression on her face is one of disdain. Her eyes are dark, heavily kohled.
‘I’m going out, Mum. Don’t wait up for me.’
The door slams.
Ashley splutters.
‘What was that! Don’t wait up for me. She’s fifteen years old and it’s a Monday night for God’s sake! Go and stop her, James, will you!’
James is already on his feet, pulling open the front door. Ashley sinks down at the kitchen table. James has more sway with her daughter, Lucy will listen to him. There is a sudden sizzling noise – the pasta on the hob is boiling over, hot water gushing from underneath the lid.
Ashley gets to her feet, removes the pan lid and turns down the little flame. Frustration brims in her chest; that conversation with James did not go well. She runs her fingers through her hair. She can hear Benji banging his hands on the bottom step, tapping out a drum beat like he always does. The sound is going to wake Holly up, she knows it is. She’ll want feeding. Ashley’s breasts begin to ache. Suddenly she wants to curl up in a ball and hide from it all, open the cupboard and step right into the darkness. She is exhausted with trying.
The front door bangs and she looks up, expecting her daughter. She takes a deep breath, forces herself to stay in control. They need to sort this out, nip Lucy’s sudden swerve into rebellion tightly in the bud.
But her daughter is not there. James stands in the kitchen, has the grace to look ashamed.
‘I couldn’t catch her,’ he says. ‘She got into a car.’
Ashley is instantly awake. ‘What? Whose car?’
James shakes his head. ‘I don’t know.’
35
London
Ashley
‘How could you have let her get in?’
Ashley is pacing up and down outside their house. The street is deserted, the moon illuminates James’s face.
‘I didn’t have a chance to stop her!’ James says. ‘God, Ash, come on! It’s not like I did it on purpose, it’s not like I said, “Oh hey, Luce, get in the stranger’s car, have a double on me!” I mean—’ He stops, exhales. ‘Look, let’s just calm down. Let’s go back inside, Benji needs to go to bed. We’ll work out what to do.’
‘Was it a boy? Just tell me, James, did it look like there was a boy driving? Oh God.’ Ashley can feel her voice rising, becoming a wail. She cannot stop picturing Benji’s little mouth, his eight-year-old lips forming the word ‘slut’. Who is her daughter with?
James puts his hands on her shoulders and she leans her head forward, bangs it against his chest. A moan escapes her.
‘Shh, I’m trying to think.’ He screws up his eyes. ‘No, honestly, Ash, I don’t think it was. I mean, it was hard to see because she got in so quickly but I’m pretty sure it was a girl behind the wheel. OK? All right?’
‘Well.’ Ashley sniffs. ‘I hope you’re right, is all. I don’t want her going off with some older guy.’
‘I’d kill anyone that touched her,’ James says. His face clouds with anger. Ashley feels his body tense up, his muscles contract. ‘Christ, when I think of myself at that age . . . if I find out she’s been with some loser I mean it, I’ll go for him.’
Benji’s figure appears at the open doorway of the house, lit up in the hallway light. He has his little blue pyjamas on, a book in his hand.
‘Dad? Mum?’
‘Coming!’ they shout in unison. James puts a hand on her back and they hurry inside the house.
‘What are you doing?’ Benji looks confused. Ashley strokes his head, goes to the noticeboard, dials a number.
‘Diane? It’s Ashley, Lucy Thomas’s mum. I’m sorry to bother you so late – it’s just, I was wondering if Lucy’s at yours?’ She tries to laugh. ‘She’s gone out, and my husband forgot to ask where, so I was just checking if she and Sophia—’ There’s a pause. James is glaring at her but she ignores him.
‘OK. OK, right. I see. All right, Diane, thanks. Yep, I will. Sorry again. Speak soon.’
She hangs up.
‘She’s no idea. Sophia’s at home, she’s right beside her.’
‘OK,’ James says. ‘OK. Anyone else?’
Ashley rings through her phone book. Nobody has seen her daughter.
‘Who did she say she was with the other night?’ James rubs a hand across his temples.
‘She didn’t. She wouldn’t tell us, remember?’ Ashley sits at the table. James has made tea but it’s cold, a film of milk congealing on its surface.
‘Do you think we should call the—’
James shakes his head. ‘Give it till eleven. She got in voluntarily, Ash, I promise you that. There’s no point calling the police yet. They won’t come out.’
She nods, tries to believe him even though her insides are screaming at her.
The phone rings. They both jump for it; James picks up.
‘Thomas residence.’
Ashley stares at him, her heart thumping. ‘Is it her?’
James is silent, frowning.
‘Hello? Who is this?’
The hairs on Ashley’s arms stand up. She feels a pulse of dread. Even before he speaks, she already knows what her husband is going to say.
‘No one there.’
Then
Afte
r it happens, things are quiet and strange in our flat. The tension that has been building seems to have broken, have snapped like a thread. There is nothing we can do any more. I can’t work out if I am sad or not. I can’t work out how I am meant to feel. Mum lies down on the bed, face down against the pillow. I hover in the doorway, offer to bring her things – tea, water, her pills. She never answers. After a while I give up, go back into my bedroom and stare into the mirror, hating the way the red acne has dotted my forehead, the way my breasts strain against my T-shirt. I skip school for a few days, float around the flat like a ghost. It’s almost graduation but I don’t care about that. It’s too hard to concentrate on school work, on anything else but what’s happening. I want to go to the house, see how they are. My legs hum with the desire to go.
After a week, she gets up. She takes a shower, staying in there for ages until I start to panic that maybe she’s drowned, slipped over accidentally on purpose. But she comes out, her hair dripping down her neck, her eyes bright. She wants to go to the funeral but I don’t know if I do.
Eventually we do go, we sit at the back, dressed in dark clothing. Mum has a hat on, a fancy-looking one she bought years ago. She says it’s from before, from her old life. I wear my black dress, the one that’s too tight around my chest. I keep my arms crossed the whole time, and we both keep our eyes fixed on them. They’re all crying. They’re allowed to cry. I look at Mum and she is biting the inside of her cheek, puckering the flesh. I imagine the inside of her mouth filling with blood, the salty iron taste of it trickling onto her tongue. There are lots of people there, and speech after speech. I stare at the photograph of him, looming large at the front of the room. His eyes stare back at me. This must be the only time he’s ever looked at me properly. Now that it is far too late.
I stare at the other people in the church, the men in their suits and the women weeping into hankies. None of them know. A slow burn starts in my cheeks, spreads its way into my heart. I shouldn’t be here, skulking at the back, trying to be invisible. It isn’t fair. We slope out after it’s over, don’t hang around for the wake. I am shaking a bit, I feel all shivery and weird.
*
Things are changing quickly now. After the funeral, Mum and I went for a walk, we walked across the heath. Her arm was linked through mine, tightly, like a rope. She’s so thin these days, even thinner than usual. She’s been back to the doctor’s, she told me, not that new doctor she hated but her old one, the one that understands her a bit more. She’s got a new prescription, packets and packets of little white pills, then another paper bag full of blue ones too. She’s been different recently, but I don’t know if it’s because of the funeral or because of the tablets. She’s getting up on time, washing her hair. More in control. Like she’s got a purpose. Although things are easier when she’s like this, a part of me can’t help but feel sad – she had a purpose all along. Me. But that didn’t jolt her awake in the same way as this has.
As we walked across the heath, she told me what she wants to do. I nodded along but she stopped walking and looked at me. She put her hands on my shoulders, her fingers digging in. I’m almost taller than her now, as if she’s shrinking.
‘You do understand how important this is, don’t you?’ she said. I stared at her. The wind whistled past us, scattering her hair in its wake. The way she was talking to me made me feel angry. Of course I understand. I’m not a child any more.
It’s better for Mum and I to be apart, I know it is, and she knows it too. Easier. Quicker. We’ll be more efficient that way. When I say goodbye to her a few weeks later, I put my arms around her little body; she is older now, of course, and she feels flimsy beneath my hands, as though she might break. His death has shocked her. She’s lost a lot of weight. I told her so but she looked pleased with herself, said it’s a side effect of the pills. Then she said something else under her breath that I couldn’t hear properly, but it sounded like, ‘he always liked me thinner’.
‘You know what to do, right?’ she asks me on the day I leave, when she hands me the heavy bag, and I ask the same question back at her. She stops, looks at me.
‘You really have grown up, haven’t you?’ she says, and then she starts to close the door and I walk off down the driveway with the bag, my fingers around the new phone in my pocket, stocked with the numbers I need. I turn back when I get to the road, and I see her there, standing in the window, a ghostly silhouette highlighted against the dark glass. As I watch her, she raises a hand up to the window, spreads her fingers out against the glass in a wave. The image of it stays in my head as I go home to my new flat, make my way up the stairs. There are lots of flats in this building; I stare at their closed blank faces, thinking about the people inside. There are neighbours next to me, across from me. I need to be careful. I let myself in using my brand new key and put the bag of things on the side, peek inside one more time, remembering. It’s a shame, really.
I make a phone call before I go to bed, but just one. No answer. I think about ringing again but decide not to. I can’t stay up all night. Tomorrow is a big day. I need a good night’s sleep.
36
London
Corinne
I can’t stop thinking of Dom’s words at the gravestone. ‘We want to make sure you’re feeling . . . up to it.’ What does he mean, up to it? I’m capable of being a good mother. More than capable. Aren’t I?
Dom and I order a takeaway when we get back from the cemetery.
‘OK with Meat Feast?’ Dominic says, brandishing the red and green menu in front of me. We’re sitting together on the sofa and I know he’s trying extra hard to be nice after the graffiti. I know I shouldn’t, but I feel a shimmer of satisfaction that the word shook him too, seeing it emblazoned there like that. LIAR.
‘Can we get a side?’ I say. I’m starving hungry. I need to eat properly for the baby. ‘Maybe pizza isn’t the best idea,’ I say then, feeling a pang of concern. ‘It isn’t very healthy, is it?’
‘Aw come on,’ Dom says, ‘let’s treat ourselves!’
He orders a big bottle of Diet Coke and extra garlic bread, putting on a silly Italian voice to the pizza guy on the phone. As he’s on the phone, I slip into the bedroom, open my drawers and stare at the evidence bag. I open it up, even though I told myself I wouldn’t. I stare at the tiny cradle, the little bootees. I know they’re not from Ashley, or from Mum. I know what their handwriting looks like. I’ll ask Gilly tomorrow morning.
‘Corinne?’ Dominic is calling me. ‘What are you doing in there?’
I shut the drawer hurriedly and return to the living room, sit down with him on the sofa. My fingers feel tacky from the plastic bag. He puts his arms around me, lifts my legs so they’re lying over his lap.
‘So, Alison was weird at work on Friday,’ Dom says. He tells me that he overheard her saying his name, something about a deal. He’s fiddling with a strand of my hair, twisting it round his fingers.
‘Maybe it’s a drug deal,’ I say.
Dom laughs. ‘Yeah, right. Alison strikes me as just the type. Not.’
‘Money-laundering?’ I suggest. ‘Good old-fashioned s-e-x?’
‘That’s more likely, I reckon,’ Dom says, and he stops looking worried and starts kissing me, his lips warming the side of my neck. It feels nice. I feel a flash of pride. See? I’m up to it, I’m coping. I’m fine.
There’s a knock at the door and I jump, my body shuddering slightly against Dom’s.
‘It’s the pizza!’ he says. ‘Nothing to worry about. Here, I’ll go.’
I blush, annoyed with myself. ‘I know,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get it.’
I stand up and go to the door, my heart beating a little too fast. I have to get a grip. I have to calm down. Outside I pay the delivery man, take the hot cardboard box from his gloved hands.
‘Cheers,’ he says, and I’m about to shut the door when I see Gilly behind him, standing in the doorway of her flat, holding Tommy by the hand and saying goodbye to a t
all guy in a dark coat. I hesitate, curious. Is this her new guy? Then I see him reach down, scoop Tommy up in a hug and I realise it must be his dad, her ex. Ben something? The guy she was arguing with on the phone.
The man turns to go and I catch a glimpse of his face, sharp features, balding hair. The sight of him next to Gilly gives me a jolt of familiarity. I know them from somewhere, I know them as a couple. Then all of a sudden in clicks – I’ve seen them before. I’ve seen them in my dad’s office. Three or four years ago, now, it must be – I was hanging around waiting for Dad, we were going out to lunch, and they were in a meeting with him, finishing up. He introduced me as they left – ‘Corinne, this is Gilly and Ben McIntyre, guys, this is my daughter.’ We’d exchanged pleasantries, they’d left and we’d gone out to La Forienta for lunch. The memory is complete, a tiny moment, but that’s it – that’s where I know her from. Her gasping laugh, her movements. I’ve met her once before, I’ve met the both of them. They did business with my dad.
37
London
Ashley
The doorbell rings. Lucy wouldn’t ring the doorbell.
Ashley’s face is ashen. She stares at James. He puts a hand on her shoulder.
‘I’ll go.’
She follows him to the door, hiding behind his body as though it is a shield.
The policeman is tall, with tired eyes. Ashley feels her body begin to give as she sees him, feels her husband’s strong arms grab her shoulders.
The policeman raises a hand.
‘Mr and Mrs Thomas, there’s no need to panic. Your daughter’s with us.’ He looks down at his notepad. ‘I know what people think when they see us at the door. Your daughter’s safe. But —’ he clears his throat, looks serious ‘—that’s not to say that she’s in a very good state.’
He gestures to someone behind him, and a policewoman comes forward, out of the darkness. Ashley, still in her husband’s arms, gives a little gasp.
Lucy is slumped in the woman’s arms. Her eyes are closed, there is mud on her legs and her shoes are missing. Her bare white feet dangle in the darkness.
The Doll House Page 21
