I check the clock on the wall.
‘I should get to the shops.’
‘Yes. And I,’ she says with purpose, ‘must get back to make two World Book Day costumes for tomorrow morning. Any idea what I can make with some bin bags, a newspaper and about half an hour?’
She takes her bag off the back of the chair and reaches in for her purse and a packet of Marlboro Lights. She tucks a ten-pound note under the salt cellar and puts the cigarettes on the table in front of me. Visiting time is over.
‘See you next week and, in the meantime, enjoy being the proud wife of the award-winning citizen.’
I drop the cigarettes into my bag and we give each other a hug. ‘Thank you,’ I say.’
Outside I notice the young gull has lost his crust of bread and is huddling, rather sorrowfully, in the doorway of the shop next door.
Chapter Three
Hannah
Even after all these years, the effort of keeping the bad stuff at bay can overwhelm me, and when it gets too much I’ll retreat for a short while to the built-in cupboard in our bedroom. It’s a habit, and I should stop it, but the small dark space feels safe, as if I could hide there forever and nobody would find me. Vicky mentioning the old days brought it all crashing down around me. I’m taken by a sudden panic. I leave the shopping bags and run upstairs. My breath is coming in shorts gasps. I wrench open the cupboard door, slide the clothes along the rail and crawl in, careful not to catch myself on the exposed carpet gripper, left when we removed the old carpet to reveal the floorboards. I pull the door closed until only a blade of light slices the darkness. There’s a vague scent of long-since removed mothballs. The washing powder I use. A hint of dampness in the floorboards.
The recollections come at me in toxic flashes like fragments of a hateful photograph torn into pieces.
The burn of vodka on the back of my throat.
Cam’s simmering anger. The incomprehension in Nathan’s eyes. Vicky’s laugh.
A shot of sambuca lit with a green plastic lighter. The heat on my hand as I extinguish the flame. Swill the glass. Breathe in hot fumes. Drink. Drink.
Drink.
Don’t blister your mouth!
Who said that?
Another shot. A new song on the jukebox. Blur. ‘Girls and Boys’. Vicky dancing, eyes closed, hands above her head.
Where are you?
So many people. Faces blurred. Names forgotten. Pushing through their sweating bodies. The sting of freezing drizzle. Empty streets.
Where are you?
Footsteps.
Muffled voices. Distant music from the pub. Disembodied laughter.
Then come his eyes. Staring. Their shocked glassiness burrowing through the softest parts of me. The unspoken words.
Everything is changed now.
I see him in the water. His hair sways in the quiet like seaweed. Skin ashen. Mouth stretched wide in a frozen cry…
Nausea spirals through me and I shake my head to dislodge the image, but it holds firm. I hit my hand against the floor and a sharp pain shoots up my arm. The nails on the gripper have torn into my skin. I stifle a cry and lift my hand to my mouth. The taste of blood creeps over my tongue.
In the bathroom I hold my finger beneath the tap until the blood stops streaking the water. I turn the tap off then dry the cut and take a plaster from the cabinet. I apply it too tightly and my finger throbs angrily beneath. Back in the bedroom, I close the cupboard door, straighten the bedcovers and plump the pillows, and scour the room for anything out of place. The air is hot and stuffy up here. I’d love to throw up the sash windows but they are sealed shut with decades of repainting.
Downstairs I set about making our supper. Our kitchen is straight from the pages of a farmhouse-style feature in an interiors magazine, with worn flagstones, a leather armchair with a tartan wool blanket draped over it. A collection of copper pans in different sizes hang over the oak baker’s table. They get a polish every other week. On a Wednesday. Nathan likes things to look beautiful. He likes me to look beautiful. He tells me I’m beautiful often.
‘You,’ he says, fixing his gaze on me, ‘are a beautiful thing.’
He enjoys it when other men notice me. If he catches sight of a man giving me a second look, his chest puffs out, and he takes hold of my hand. I own her, his body language says. She is mine. He particularly likes it if the man looking is someone he views as beneath him. Like the Spanish beach attendant on holiday who appeared like an obedient dog to the click of my husband’s fingers. When his gaze lingered on my breasts, a scornful smile grazed Nathan’s face.
‘An umbrella for my wife.’
‘Of course. This will be ten euro, señor.’
‘For an umbrella? Ha! You lot are bold as brass.’
The man gave a curt nod and smiled as he slipped Nathan’s money into the pocket of his snow-white shorts. I watched him twisting the stake of the parasol into the sand and imagined – for one moment – he was driving it into my husband’s head, straight through his eye, rotating it one way then the next until Nathan stopped moving and his blood ran in rivulets into the sand.
When the man finished putting up the parasol, I thanked him.
He smiled. ‘De nada, bella señora.’
The kitchen is the type of quiet that hums. I listen hard for footsteps or the sound of the study door creaking open. The unrest which seeps out of Nathan’s study taints everything. Sometimes I wish his father would get on with appearing. I’m sick of him threatening to. Though if he did I’d be screwed. I could scream as loud as my lungs would let me in this house and nobody would hear. I miss neighbours. My mother used to chat to ours over the wall in the back yard. A pot of wooden pegs on the brick wall, a basket of washing waiting to go out on the retractable line which spanned the sunlit concrete space. I fondly remember the peals of laughter and exclamations and snippets of gossip which would drift in through the open doors and windows. I think it’s the deadened silence in this house that gets to me the most.
Cass raises her head as I retrieve a copper pan from the hook. I heat some olive oil and soften chopped onions, carrots, a stick of celery, before turning up the heat and browning some lamb mince. I add tomato puree, a splash of Worcestershire sauce, and some beef stock. While it’s simmering, I make the mashed potatoes. I take my time. It needs to be free from even the tiniest lump. I transfer the mince into the Le Creuset dish Nathan gave me for our first anniversary and spoon on an even layer of mash. I bend down so I’m at eye level with the dish and then methodically run a fork over the surface to etch perfect parallel lines into the fluffy potato. My eyes water with concentration.
I place the pie on the side, ready to go into the oven, then I set the table
Three places.
I imagine they are for me, Alex and you, Cam. I know, it’s a silly, girlish fantasy, but I don’t care. It warms me from the inside. I imagine you will come in through the back door, tall and rugged, and smelling of fish and engine oil and cigarettes. I’ll raise my fingers to the back of your head and weave them into your gypsy black curls that brush your collar. Your lips are rough against mine when we kiss. Your hands chilled from the winter air.
It’s always cold when I remember you.
I put out three glasses and three plates, the bottle of Worcestershire sauce in front of the plate at the head of the table, then I consult the clock. This is a game I play. I like to set the final item – the salt cellar – as the clock strikes five. Today I’m a little early so I hover above the table, hand poised, eyes fixed on the face of the clock. When the minute hand hits the twelve, I set the salt cellar down and step away. I cast a triumphant smile at Cass, but she remains unimpressed and sighs heavily, whilst making herself more comfortable in her basket.