And now, here she was, knackered, hungry and with a three-year-old whining and grizzling and dragging on her free hand. Again.
‘Kai!’ she snapped. ‘Let go, or Mummy can’t get her keys out.’
The little boy stopped crying just long enough to cast a shocked look up into his mother’s eyes before resuming, at double the volume.
Fearing what she might do if she didn’t get inside, Angie half-turned so he couldn’t cling back on to her hand, and dug out her keys. She fumbled one of the bags of groceries, but in a dexterous act of juggling righted it before it spilled the tins, packets and jars all over the steps.
She slotted the brass Yale key home and twisted it in the lock. Elbowing the door open, she nudged Kai with her right knee, encouraging him to precede her into the hallway. Their flat occupied the top floor of the converted Victorian townhouse. Ahead, the stairs, with their patched and stained carpet, beckoned.
‘Come on, Kai, in we go,’ she said, striving to inject into her voice the tone her own mother called ‘jollying along’.
‘No!’ the little boy said, stamping his booted foot and sticking his pudgy hands on his hips. ‘I hate Donna. I hate the foobang. And I. Hate. YOU!’
Feeling tears pricking at the back of her eyes, Angie put the bags down and picked her son up under his arms. She squeezed him, burying her nose in the sweet-smelling angle between his neck and shoulder. How was it possible to love somebody so much and also to wish for them just to shut the hell up? Just for one little minute.
She knew she wasn’t the only one with problems. Talking to the other nurses, or chatting late at night online, confirmed it. Everyone reckoned the happily married ones with enough money to last from one month to the next were the exception, not the rule.
‘Mummy, you’re hurting me!’
‘Oh, Jesus! Sorry, darling. Look, come on. Let’s just get the shopping upstairs and you can watch a Thomas video.’
‘I hate Thomas.’
‘Thunderbirds, then.’
‘I hate them even more.’
Angie closed her eyes, sighing out a breath like the online mindfulness gurus suggested. ‘Then you’ll just have to stare out of the bloody window, like I used to. Now, come on!’
He sucked in a huge breath. Angie flinched, but the scream never came. Instead, Kai’s scrunched-up eyes opened wide and swivelled sideways. She followed his gaze and found herself facing a good-looking man wearing a smart jacket and trousers. He had a kind smile.
‘I’m sorry,’ the man said in a quiet voice. ‘I couldn’t help seeing your little boy’s . . . he’s tired, I suppose. You left the door open and as I was coming to this address anyway . . .’ He tailed off, looking embarrassed, eyes downcast.
‘You were coming here?’ she asked.
He looked up at her again. ‘Yes,’ he said, smiling. ‘I was looking for Angela Halpern.’
‘That’s me.’ She paused, frowning, as she tried to place him. ‘Do I know you?’
‘Mummee!’ Kai hissed from her waist, where he was clutching her.
‘Quiet, darling, please.’
The man smiled. ‘Would you like a hand with your bags? I see you have your hands full with the little fellow there.’ Then he squatted down, so that his face was at the same level as Kai’s. ‘Hello. My name’s Harvey. What’s yours?’
‘Kai. Are you a policeman?’
Harvey laughed, a warm, soft-edged sound. ‘No. I’m not a policeman.’
‘Mummy’s a nurse. At the hospital. Do you work there?’
‘Me? Funnily enough, I do.’
‘Are you a nurse?’
‘No. But I do help people. Which I think is a bit of a coincidence. Do you know that word?’
The little boy shook his head.
‘It’s just a word grown-ups use when two things happen that are the same. Kai,’ he said, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, ‘do you want to know a secret?’
Kai nodded, smiling and wiping his nose on his sleeve.
‘There’s a big hospital in London called Bart’s. And I think it rhymes with’ – he paused and looked left and right – ‘farts.’
Kai squawked with laughter.
Harvey stood, knees popping. ‘I hope that was OK. The naughty word. It usually seems to make them laugh.’
Angie smiled. She felt relief that this helpful stranger hadn’t seen fit to judge her. To tut, roll his eyes or give any of the dozens of subtle signals the free-and-easy brigade found to diminish her. ‘It’s fine, really. You said you’d come to see me?’
‘Oh, yes, of course, sorry. I’m from the food bank. The Purcell Foundation?’ he said. ‘They’ve asked me to visit a few of our customers, to find out what they think about the quality of the service. I was hoping you’d have ten minutes for a chat. If it’s not a good time, I can come back.’
Angie sighed. Then she shook her head. ‘No, it’s fine . . . Harvey, did you say your name was?’
He nodded.
‘Give me a hand with the bags and I’ll put the kettle on. I picked up some teabags this afternoon, so we can christen the packet.’
‘Let me take those,’ he said, bending down and snaking his fingers through the loops in the carrier-bag handles. ‘Where to, madam?’ he added in a jokey tone.
‘We’re on the third floor, I’m afraid.’
Harvey smiled. ‘Not to worry, I’m in good shape.’
Reaching the top of the stairs, Angie elbowed the light switch and then unlocked the door, while Harvey kept up a string of tall tales for Kai.
‘And then the chief doctor said’ – he adopted a deep voice – ‘“No, no, that’s never going to work. You need to use a hosepipe!”’
Kai’s laughter echoed off the bare, painted walls of the stairwell.
‘Here we are,’ Angie said, pushing the door open. ‘The kitchen’s at the end of the hall.’
She stood aside, watching Harvey negotiate the cluttered hallway and deposit the shopping bags on her pine kitchen table. She followed him, noticing the scuff marks on the walls, the sticky fat spatters behind the hob, and feeling a lump in her throat.
‘Kai, why don’t you go and watch telly?’ she asked her son, steering him out of the kitchen and towards the sitting room.
‘A film?’ he asked.
She glanced up at the clock. Five to six. ‘It’s almost teatime.’
‘Pleeease?’
She smiled. ‘OK. But you come when I call you for tea. Pasta and red sauce, your favourite.’
‘Yummy.’
She turned back to Harvey, who was unloading the groceries on to the table. A sob swelled in her throat. She choked it back.
He frowned. ‘Is everything all right, Angela?’
The noise from the TV was loud, even from the other room. She turned away so this stranger wouldn’t see her crying. It didn’t matter that he was a colleague, of sorts. He could see what she’d been reduced to, and that was enough.
‘Yes, yes, sorry. It’s just, you know, the food bank. I never thought my life would turn out like this. Then I lost my husband and things just got on top of me.’
‘Mmm,’ he said. ‘That was careless of you.’