He sat down on the edge of the bed.
‘How much longer do you intend to stay in bed?’
She shrugged.
‘I dunno.’
‘You aren’t ill, Becky.’
She said nothing.
‘We can’t go on looking after you as if you were ill, if you aren’t. Especially if you won’t eat food Josie takes the trouble to prepare for you.’
Becky sighed.
‘Josie’s taking time off work,’ Matthew said. ‘To be with you. I can’t, but she has managed it. She’s staying here especially, to look after you.’
‘I didn’t ask her,’ Becky said. ‘She doesn’t have to.’
‘She feels she does.’
‘That’s her problem.’
‘No. It’s her sense of responsibility. She offered to do it, to help me, for my peace of mind, as well as for you.’
Becky gave the food on the tray a brief, contemptuous glance.
‘I’m not eating it.’
‘Then I’ll tell her to stop bringing it up.’
‘Suit yourself,’ Becky said.
Matthew put his elbows on his knees, and leaned on them.
‘I’ve got something to say to you.’
‘Jesus—’
‘It’s not about what happened. I’ll never ask you about that. If you want to tell me, you can, but I’m not asking. All I care about is that you’re safe.’
Becky waited. She yawned. She scooped her hair up into a thick bunch at the back of her head and let it fall again.
‘I love Josie,’ Matthew said.
Becky froze.
‘I want you to be very certain of that. I love her. I want you to be very certain of something else, too. I love you. Whatever happens, whatever becomes of us, that is a given. You are my daughter and I love you.’
Becky made a face.
‘But?’ she enquired sweetly.
‘Not quite but.’
‘What then?’
‘You seem to think,’ Matthew said, turning to look at her, ‘that I have to choose, that I have to choose between you and her. But I don’t. I want you to be as certain of that as you are certain that I love you. I don’t have to choose. I can have both relationships. You and her.’
She stared at him.
‘You can’t,’ she said rudely.
‘I can,’ he said. He stood up. He seemed, suddenly, enormously tall, standing there so close to her bed. ‘It’s you that can’t.’ There was a beat. Becky couldn’t look at him. She stared down, instead, at her fingernails which she had painted electric-blue and then picked away at. Matthew moved away from her bed towards the door.
‘If that’s what you decide,’ he said.
The house was very quiet. Becky supposed Josie was downstairs, marking books maybe, or making one of her I’m-a-perfect-mummy cakes, or mending. Becky had never seen anyone mend clothes before. Nadine never did, had never, as far as Becky could remember, sewn on so much as a button. But Josie mended. She’d patched Rory’s jeans and sewn up a long ripped seam in Clare’s Disney tracksuit. Becky couldn’t think how they’d let her.
She sat on the edge of her bed. She was dressed, and felt rather fidgety, but, at the same time, directionless. She was also hungry. Despite Matthew’s instructions, Josie had offered her a sandwich at lunchtime, standing at the bottom of the stairs and calling up, and Becky’d shouted above the music she’d started playing again that she wasn’t hungry, that she didn’t want anything. The thought of a sandwich made her mouth water. She’d found half a packet of crisps in the boys’ bedroom and two sticks of gum in the pockets of her jeans jacket and devoured them. She had no cigarettes. The last cigarette had been a week ago, when the man who’d run the café where the police had come had given her one. He’d also given her a fried breakfast that made her drool to remember.
‘Stupid bloody kid,’ he’d said to her. ‘As if running away ever solved anything.’
But he’d given her the fags and the breakfast, and when the police came in, he’d stood by her table to defend her, if necessary. It wasn’t necessary. She’d never tell anyone until her dying day, but Becky had been so thankful to see the police come in, she’d nearly run into their uniformed arms.
Downstairs, the telephone began ringing. It rang twice, three times, and then Josie answered it. Becky could hear the sound of her voice, but not what she was saying. After a moment or two, the sitting-room door opened downstairs and Josie called, ‘Becky?’ Her voice sounded odd.
Becky stood up.
‘Yes?’
‘Becky. Can you come?’
She went slowly out on to the landing. Josie was at the foot of the stairs.
‘Becky, it’s your mother—’
‘Yes?’
‘She – doesn’t sound very well, she sounds a bit fraught—’
Becky clumped down the stairs, pushing past Josie. Nadine always sounded fraught, especially if she had to ring Barratt Road, had to risk speaking to Josie. She picked up the telephone receiver.
‘Mum?’
Nadine was crying.
‘You’ve got to come—’
‘What? What’s the matter?’
‘You’ve got to, I’m not allowed to come to you, your father won’t let me, and now this has happened—’
‘What has?’
‘Becky, I can’t cope, I can’t manage, you’ve got to come, you’ve got to come quickly—’
‘What’s happened? Are you OK? Are you hurt?’
‘I don’t know,’ Nadine said, her voice ragged with tears. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Jesus,’ Becky said. She swallowed. ‘Have you taken anything? Have you taken any pills or anything?’
‘No,’ Nadine said. ‘No. But I need you. I need you here. I need you to come. I haven’t seen you since all that happened, I have to see you, I have to.’
‘OK,’ Becky said. Her voice she noticed, was shaky, as if she was shivering. ‘OK.’
‘Quickly,’ Nadine said. ‘Quickly.’
‘Yes.’
Becky heard the telephone go down. She stood for a moment, looking at the receiver in her hand, and then she put it down, too, and walked slowly into the kitchen. Josie was sitting at the table with an open cheque book in front of her, paying bills. She looked up as Becky came in, and said in a neutral voice, ‘All right?’
Becky hesitated. She put a hand up to her mouth and began to chew at a cuticle.
‘Not really,’ she said.
Josie put her pen down. She said, less neutrally, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘She was crying,’ Becky said. ‘She sounded awful. She kept asking me to go—’
‘To her? To Herefordshire?’
‘She said I must. She said she needed me. She said something had happened.’
Josie stood up.
‘Is she ill?’
Becky looked at her.
‘I don’t know, she just sounded desperate. I – I’ve got to go, I’ve got to—’
‘How will you get there?’
Becky’s shoulders slumped.
‘I don’t know. Train maybe, then a taxi—’
‘I could take you,’ Josie said.
‘You—’
‘I’ve got the car today. It’s outside. I could drive you to your mother’s. Just let me leave a note for the others and ring Matthew—’
‘No,’ Becky said.
‘No?’
‘Don’t tell Dad,’ Becky said. ‘Please. Just do it. Don’t tell Dad.’
‘Won’t he think,’ Josie said, looking straight at Becky, ‘that it’s the second irresponsible thing I’ve done as far as you’re concerned, in a week?’
Becky knew her face and voice were full of pleading. She couldn’t seem to help it.
‘I’ll tell him—’
‘What will you tell him?’
‘That you did it—’ She stopped, gulped and then said, ‘To help me.’ Josie went over to the refrigerator.
‘If we’re going to Herefordshire, you have to eat something.’