Nodding happily, Carla jumped off the bus, waved, scuttled across the playground and made her way into the classroom. After the ball incident the other week, she’d been disappointed to find that the children in her class had still not been very friendly. But now she had Charlie, they would soon come round. She was sure of it.
At break-time, she wrapped Charlie up carefully in her jumper so he wouldn’t get cold, and left him in her locker. Then she went out to play. ‘May I join in?’ she asked the girls who were playing hopscotch. No one answered. It was as if she had not spoken.
She tried a group of girls who were throwing a tennis ball against a wall. ‘Can I play too?’ she asked. But they just looked the other way.
Carla’s stomach felt like it did when it was empty, even though it wasn’t.
Slowly, she returned to her classroom. No one was there. Not even the teaching assistant who had taken her home when Kevin had hurt her eye. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen her since that day, although she had heard one of the other teachers saying she had been ‘let go’, whatever that meant.
Excitedly, Carla went to her locker and began to unwrap her jumper. Charlie would understand about the children who wouldn’t talk to her. Charlie would make her feel better…
No. NO!
Charlie was dead. Slit from top to toe in a jagged line, his lovely green fur ripped. And on top of him, a note. In big red capital letters.
THEEF .
9 Lily
I need to run faster. Or I’ll miss the bus. If I were thinner, it might be easier to run. Lollop, lollop, go my breasts against my chest. The same breasts that Ed had fondled when he’d rolled on top of me unexpectedly last night. Yet afterwards, when his eyes finally opened, they expressed surprise at the person beneath him.
Me.
I too had been surprised. In my half-awake state, I had imagined someone else. His soft hands on my breasts. His mouth on mine. His hardness against my body…
‘Got to wash,’ I mumbled before staggering to the tiny bathroom and drying my eyes. When I returned, Ed was fast asleep.
Where had that come from? Why had I imagined Joe in bed with me? A man whom I disliked…
And who was Ed imagining? I can guess. There might not be anything concrete apart from that overfamiliar gesture the other night. But I can smell it. Just as I smelled Joe. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s to listen to my intuition.
While all these thoughts churned endlessly through my mind, Ed slept. He looked so peaceful. Snoring lightly, a growth of fine fair hair on his chin. Quietly, so as not to wake him, I eased myself out of bed, tiptoed into the kitchen and got out the mop.
I got so distracted that I didn’t sense Ed coming in until I heard his voice. ‘Why are you cleaning the floor at this time?’ He was fastening his tie as he spoke. It bore, though he didn’t seem to have noticed it, a drop of blood from the shaving nick on his neck.
I looked up from my kneeling position. ‘It’s grubby.’
‘Won’t you be late for work?’
So what? I needed to make the lino gleam. If I couldn’t make it all right with my marriage, I had to make it all right with the kitchen floor.
And that’s why I’m running now. If I hadn’t gone mad with the cleaning, I wouldn’t have left the flat fifteen minutes later than normal. Wouldn’t be watching the bus disappear up the street. Wouldn’t be dreading the excuses I’d have to make to my boss.
As I come panting to a halt, I see Carla, nose pressed against the glass, waving madly at me. ‘Come on,’ she mouths. Then she appears to add something else.
Fatty? Surely not. Carla’s a sweet child. Although I’ve seen the way Francesca looks at me pityingly. And I’ve also seen how the daughter copies everything the mother does.
Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time someone had called me fat.
As I sit waiting for the next bus, I can’t help thinking about Carla. Carla and her green caterpillar.
‘You stole him, didn’t you?’ I’d said when we looked after her yesterday. ‘Why?’
There was a shy yet defiant turn of the head. A discomfortingly mature pose which suggested it was practised. ‘Everyone else has one. I didn’t want to be different.’
I don’t want to be different. Just what Daniel used to say.
My instinct’s right. I’ve got to help this child.
My boss is waiting in his office. He’s about thirty years older than me and has a wife who gave up her job when she got married. I get the distinct feeling he disapproves of me.
Soon after I’d joined the firm, I was foolish enough to tell one of my colleagues that I wanted to go into law ‘to do some good’.
My boss overheard. ‘Good?’ he scoffed. ‘You’re in the wrong job for that, I can tell you.’
I flushed (if only there was a cure!) and kept my head down after that. Yet at times, especially when he’s barking at me, I want to tell him what happened with Daniel.
Of course I wouldn’t really. Even Ed wouldn’t understand if I told him the full story. It would be madness to tell my boss. He’s sitting across from me now, a pile of papers between us, and a frosty smile on his lips. ‘So how are you getting on with Joe Thomas?’
I cross my legs under the table and uncross them again. I’m aware of Ed’s imprint from last night, still inside me. Etched on my body like the surprise on his face.
‘The client is still playing games with me.’
My boss laughs. It’s not a friendly laugh. ‘He’s in a prison with a high proportion of psychopaths, Lily. What do you expect?’
‘I expect a better briefing.’ The words are out of my mouth before I can take them back. Fear gives me courage – rightly or wrongly – to stand up for myself. ‘I don’t think I have enough background,’ I carry on, trying to recover the situation. ‘Why has he launched an appeal after being inside for two years? And why won’t he talk to me properly instead of speaking in riddles?’
I pull out the paper Joe gave me with the strange numbers and letters.
‘What do you think these figures mean?’ I ask, in a more conciliatory tone. ‘The client gave them to me.’
My boss barely glances at the creased sheet. ‘No idea. This is your case, Lily. New evidence, perhaps, that he’s only just got hold of? That might explain the delay in the appeal.’ His eyes narrow. ‘I’m throwing you in at the deep end, just as they did to me at your age. It’s your chance to prove yourself. Don’t let either of us down.’
I spend the rest of the week doing what I can. But there are other cases too in my workload. They pile up with intentional regularity, or so it seems. Clearly, my boss is testing me. Just as Ed is doing, with his blow-hot, blow-cold approach to me.
‘I’m struggling with that client still,’ I start to say one evening over dinner: an undercooked steak and kidney pie which doesn’t look quite like the picture in the well-worn Fanny Craddock book that Ed’s mother passed on to me. Ed is chewing slowly, as well he might. My meal is a challenge. Davina, by the way, went to one of those cookery schools in Switzerland.
‘The one who… Ed? Are you all right?’
I jump up from the table. Ed’s gasping for breath and his face has gone all red. Something’s stuck in his throat. Shocked into action, my hand whacks down on Ed’s back. A piece of meat shoots out across the room. He splutters and then reaches for a glass of water.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Perhaps it was a bit underdone.’
‘No.’ He’s still spluttering, but his hand comes up to reach mine. ‘Thank you. You saved me.’
For a minute, there’s a connection between us. But then it goes. Neither of us feels like eating any more. I scrape the offending meat into the bin, realizing, too late, that it should have been braised before I put on the pastry top. But there’s something else too.