She gets out of the car, leaning against the open door, relief flooding through her. ‘Oh, Kate, thank God. I was worried about you. You normally wait for me along here.’
‘Hi, Mum,’ she calls out more cheerily than expected, raising her arm. ‘Sorry!’ She picks up her pace into a run, her bag bouncing against her side as she approaches. She opens the car door, breathless. ‘I… I just went to see if you’d parked round the corner,’ she says, pre-empting Mel’s next question.
‘You know I always meet you here.’ She pauses, watching as Kate does up her seat belt and dumps her school bag at her feet. ‘Who was that?’ Mel asks, glancing down the road in the direction the van had sped off.
‘Who was what?’ Kate replies, glancing at her phone, her shoulders drawn up to her ears. ‘Sorry I missed your call, Mum. My… my phone was still on silent from classes.’
‘Who was the person in the van you were waving at just now?’
‘Van? I didn’t see any van,’ Kate says. ‘What’s for tea? I’m starving.’
After having to park the car several streets away – not unusual in their part of town – Mel unlocks the outside door of their flat, noticing that more of the faded blue paint has peeled off and flaked onto the pavement. She glances through the window of the fish and chip bar to the right, above which their tiny place is located. Tony is in there with a couple of his young staff, shaking the fryer baskets as they prepare for the evening shift. He looks up, giving Mel a wave before wiping his hands down his apron. She waves back, smiling, dreading having to ask him for a rent extension.
‘Can we, Mum, please?’ Kate says, noticing Tony has spotted them. Mel knows Kate will be salivating from the smell of fish and chips just as much as she is. It’s an easy option and would make Kate’s evening perfect, especially with what she’s about to give her.
‘We’ll see. Let’s get in first, OK?’ Which really means ‘let me see how much I can wring out of my overdraft’. Mel wants nothing more than for Kate to chill out in front of the TV, watching her favourite show with a hot, steaming parcel of fish and chips on her knees.
She lets Kate inside the narrow entrance hall first, locking the door behind them after they’re inside. She stops still as her eyes grow accustomed to the darkness, with Kate running up the stairs two at a time.
‘Odd,’ she whispers to herself, shaking her head and picking up a couple of letters from the mat. She swears she just got a whiff of cigarette smoke – not fresh, but rather the stale smell of it on someone’s clothes left lingering in the air. Maybe it followed us in from outside, someone in the street with a cigarette, she thinks, shrugging as she heads up, the carrier bag still in her hand and as yet unnoticed by Kate. She flicks the light on after she lets them both inside the inner flat door, putting Kate’s shoes on the rack after she kicks them off, heading straight for her bedroom.
‘Oh, great,’ Mel says, rolling her eyes when she sees the two black bin bags of recycling. She could ask Kate to take them down, she supposes, bribe her with the promise of a fish supper, but she’ll need to look in her purse first. The electricity will need topping up in a few days and she has to get more petrol before the end of the week. Until payday, every penny counts. Mel kicks one of the bin bags in frustration, wishing she could afford more things for Kate.
If it bloody well wasn’t for… she thinks angrily, before stopping herself, determined not to fixate on him. I’m better than that, she tells herself, sighing as she sees that the bin bag now has a split down one side.
‘Fancy a cuppa, Kate?’ she calls out, taking her purse from her bag. ‘Fifteen pounds twenty-seven,’ she whispers, knowing that’s easily enough for a portion of cod and chips – twice over if she were to treat herself too. But equally, she knows that there’s some food in the cupboard that she was planning on using tonight – a tin of tuna, some canned tomatoes and some pasta. She should probably use that up.
Before she can call out to Kate again, Mel’s phone pings an alert.
I’ll be with you in five xx
Mel smiles, feeling a rush of warmth spread through her. Thank God for Michael. Her oldest friend and the person who gave her the strength to finally take a stand against Billy, the courage to leave. And Kate adores him, sees him as an uncle. A father, even. Her Saturdays wouldn’t be the same if she wasn’t able to hang out at For the Record, Michael’s music shop, listening to her favourite bands, helping out with stock and dealing with customers. Mel knows he’s been through hard times himself – right back from when they first met in the children’s home – and together, somehow, they’ve always got through.
She goes to Kate’s bedroom door, stopping outside. She hears her daughter talking in a low voice. Odd, she thinks. She rarely talks on the phone, preferring to message. She shrugs, hoping that she’s finally made a friend at school. ‘I’m just taking the recycling out, love. Then I’ve got a surprise for you.’
She waits, listens. Nothing. So she goes back to the kitchen and grabs the bin bags, struggling to hold them together as she heads down the stairs.
Four
‘Micky!’ Mel squeals in a silly voice as the stairwell is suddenly flooded with light. Michael is standing in the doorway, silhouetted, as though her guardian angel has arrived. ‘You’re certainly a sight for sore eyes,’ she adds, struggling down the stairs with the bulging refuse sacks, treading carefully. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d had an accident on them.
‘I come bearing gifts,’ he says, smiling up at her, his long, wiry arms holding up two plastic bags. Mel sees the flash of his insanely white teeth, the sparkle in his azure eyes. He cocks his head to one side and gives her a wink.
‘Let me just get this lot outside to the bins,’ she says, coming down. ‘Oh… bloody hell…!’ she calls out as her foot misses the step. She stumbles, grabbing the banister rail while, at the same time, dropping one of the bin bags – the one with the split in it. It tumbles down the remaining stairs, its contents spilling out along the way until the whole thing breaks open as it lands at Michael’s feet. Bottles and cartons, cardboard packets and junk mail are strewn across the entrance hall floor.
‘Christ, that was close,’ Mel says, her heart racing from the near fall. Her legs like jelly, she carefully comes down the rest of the stairs and drops to her knees to gather up the mess. But Michael has beaten her to it.
‘Stop,’ he says, holding up his palms to her. ‘You take these back up and leave this to me.’ He puts a hand on her arm, somehow sensing she’s not had the best day. He gives her the two bags he’s brought.
‘Is this what I think it is?’ she says, peering into one of them, breathing in deeply and closing her eyes for a moment. ‘It is, you bloody beautiful mind-reader,’ she adds with a laugh. Then she takes a look in the other bag. ‘Is it actually my birthday and I forgot?’ she says, standing up as she spots the beers and wine.
Michael gives her another wink as he gathers up the mess. ‘Go on, hop to it then. I’ll be up before you know it.’