‘Oh, Isabelle,’ she murmured sadly. ‘They’re growing up. It’s happened right under our noses.’
Chapter 27
Sally had put the dinner in the oven and was making chocolate fudge for Isabelle to take home, cutting it into squares and putting it on greaseproof paper. Isabelle was outside but now she came in through the back door, huffing and puffing and kicking at the grass clippings that clung to her bare feet. Sally smiled at her, but Isabelle put a finger to her mouth and shook her head seriously.
‘What?’
She turned to reveal Nial and Millie standing behind her in the doorway, sheepish expressions on their faces. Sally set down the knife, wiped her apron and made herself smile at them. She was thinking of the conversation earlier – Isabelle insisting the teenagers were keeping a secret. ‘Millie?’ she said warily. ‘What is it?’
‘Look, Sally.’ Isabelle closed the door behind the teenagers and crossed to the table, holding Sally’s eyes seriously. ‘There’s a problem.’
‘Is it Lorne?’
‘No. Thank God, no.’ She raised her eyebrows at her son in the doorway. ‘Nial? Come on – explain.’
Nial came forward and sat down, casting a tentative glance at Sally. Millie followed hurriedly, pulling up a chair next to him – sitting with her shoulder touching his, her hands between her knees, her eyes lowered. She might be in love with Peter, but Isabelle was right: when it came to knights in shining armour Nial was always there, hoping all the girls would want to hide behind him. Of course, he’d puff himself up to make himself look as big as he could and they’d walk straight past him, their arms open to drape around Peter’s neck.
‘What happened,’ Isabelle said, ‘is they got their Glastonbury tickets a couple of months ago. You knew that, didn’t you? With Peter’s big brother?’
‘Of course. That’s what you’re painting the vans up for, isn’t it? Why? What’s the problem?’
Isabelle dug her finger into the wood grain of the table. Gave Millie an embarrassed sideways glance. ‘Millie hasn’t paid for her ticket.’
‘Her ticket?’ Sally turned her eyes to Millie. ‘What ticket? Millie, we talked about this. You were never going to have a ticket – you weren’t going with them.’
‘Mum, please. Don’t go off on one.’ She looked as if she might cry. ‘Peter paid for them online. Now I’ve got to give him my share of the money.’
‘But …’ Sally sat down, shaking her head. ‘Sweetheart, I’ve told you over and over again, I just can’t afford for you to go to Glastonbury. We talked about this.’
‘Everyone else’s parents are paying.’
‘Yes, but everyone else’s parents …’ She stopped herself. She’d almost said: ‘Everyone else’s parents know what they’re doing.’
Isabelle put her hand on Sally’s arm. ‘Nial and I want to pay for it. That’s why we’re here. Seriously – I’m happy. If you’re happy for her to go, then I’m happy to pay.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘I just can’t. You’ve already helped me out more than I deserve.’
‘But think of everything you’ve done for me over the years. You’ve helped me – given me so much. I’ve lost count of the number of presents you’ve given me, all the paintings you’ve done for us. You must let me help you out.’
Sally gave a long sigh. She bit her lip and looked out of the window. The second time in less than twenty-four hours that she’d sat here and insisted she could do this alone. She turned back to where Isabelle and Nial were watching her with expectant faces. ‘I can’t take your money,’ she said. ‘Thank you for offering, but I really can’t. Millie will have to find a way of earning it. Or she’ll have to send the ticket back.’
‘Mum! I can’t believe you sometimes.’
Millie pushed her chair back and ran out of the cottage, slamming the door. Isabelle and Nial sat in silence, eyes lowered.
‘Sally,’ Isabelle said eventually. ‘Are you sure we can’t help?’
‘Absolutely. I’ve got to find my own way through it.’
She got up and carried the glasses to the sink, turning her back to them. Her shoulders were sagging with tiredness. God, she thought bitterly, I’m even starting to bore myself saying it.
Chapter 28
One of the cats that crowded around Zoë’s back door had injured its foot. She noticed it as she stood there late that night after work, sipping a long-overdue Jerry’s rum mixed with ginger, watching them all swarming around her, eager for the food she put out every night. The little one hung back from the group, peering nervously at her. It looked skinny, as if it hadn’t been eating.
She drained the Jerry’s, went back inside for more cat biscuits and coaxed it out of the shadows. She managed to catch it and take it inside to examine under the light. It had a rubber band looped around its back legs. No wonder it couldn’t walk. The band had rubbed, but it hadn’t yet broken the skin. She cut it carefully, and peeled it away. Then she put her hands under the cat’s front legs and held it up in front of her to check it everywhere else. It gazed back at her, its legs dangling idiotically.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she said, and put it on the floor. She found a litter tray and some cat litter in the back of the shed and put it with a bowl of food and some water on the floor in the downstairs loo. Then she carried the cat over and placed it next to the food. ‘One night only, just until you’re better. Don’t even think about getting used to it – this is not a hotel.’
The cat ate hungrily. Zoë straightened to leave and, as she did, caught sight of her reflection in the mirror above the washbasin. She stopped and stared at herself. Red shaggy hair. High cheekbones and sun-damaged skin. She looked half wild. Eighteen years ago in the clubs she had worn her hair cut short and white-blonde. Only one person had known her real name – the manager of the club, who was long gone, overseas somewhere. No one would recognize DI Benedict as the girl on that stage all those years ago. She was the master of disguise. She could hide anything she chose to.
She pushed up her sleeve, and stared at all the welts and scars. Unevenly shaped wounds made by her own nails. Something else she’d been clever at hiding. Ben had never noticed these all the time they’d been together. She’d covered them with makeup, made sure he never got a good look at the worst ones. The marks were the evidence of a trick she’d learned at boarding-school in her first term: whenever she thought of Mum and Dad and Sally, the way they could sit contentedly next to a fire, arms around each other, the feelings that came up in her used to make her cry softly into the pillow. Slowly she found that the only way to make the awful raw spot in her chest go away was to hurt another part of her body. She’d do it anywhere Matron wouldn’t notice – the tops of her thighs, her stomach. Sometimes there would be blood on her pyjamas in the morning, and then she’d make an excuse to creep off to the showers, where she’d stand, shivering, soaping away the evidence. The habit had never left her.
Stop it, she thought, yanking the sleeve down. Stupid stupid stupid. Stop it. This wasn’t her. She was the person who’d survived boarding-school, who’d fought her way across continents, who’d worked her way up the ranks in a male-dominated world. It didn’t matter that tonight was the second in a row Ben had suddenly become ‘too busy’ to come back to hers. She didn’t own him. It really didn’t matter. And none of her past was going to come back to get her just because of those photos of Lorne.
She switched off the light, closed the door on the cat, washed her dinner plate and the pots, then went to bed. She lay for a long time in the darkness, resisting the urge to touch her arms. When she did at last sleep, it was uneasy, ruptured, infected with dreams and discomfort.