The next evening Bernard Howe turned up at the house. It was dark and rainy and if Emma had been on her own she might have been quite scared by the figure that stood in the security light. He wore a black PVC cape and his hair was dripping. But Emma was not on her own. Mark had called in after school. He had helped Claire to bath the boys and put them to bed, had jiggled Helen on his shoulder when she refused to settle. He had started coming to the Coastguard House after school quite often though he knew that Brian often worked late. Mark said he didn’t enjoy being in the Otterbridge house on his own any more. It held too many ghosts. Besides, he loved playing with the children.
When the knock came at the door Emma was feeding Helen in front of the fire in the living room. The fireplace had been one of Brian’s grand ideas. It was big enough to hold whole logs and spit-roast a pig. Mark was there too. Emma was being very discreet, holding Helen under one of the baggy sweaters she’d bought while she was pregnant and still wore, but all the same she felt quite brave. She had never been one of those women who could expose themselves in public.
So it was Mark who went to the door while Emma pulled the sleepy baby away from her breast and buttoned herself up.
‘There’s a magician to see you,’ he said in a deadpan voice, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He was standing in the living-room doorway leaning against the frame, more relaxed than he had been for months. She liked to think she was responsible for that.
The front door must have been open too because she could feel the damp wind against her face.
‘Oh.’ She felt suddenly flustered and again thought she was being rushed into something which had not been properly planned. ‘You’d better show him in.’
And when she looked up again from straightening her clothes there Bernard Howe stood, dripping on the parquet floor. He must have come directly from work because his trousers were bunched around bicycle clips. He was large and clumsy and the baggy trousers made her think more of a clown than a magician. He smiled nervously.
‘Claire said…’ He took off the black cape and looked for somewhere to hang it. Mark took it from him. ‘But perhaps I’d best come back another time.’
‘No, no.’ Emma had regained her composure. ‘Please. Do come in.’
He took a chair opposite her, still close to the fire. His socks were thick, hand-knitted and they began to steam. There was a hole in one toe.
‘I thought you’d want to see…’ He seemed incapable of finishing a sentence.
She sat back with the sleeping child on her knee, waiting for him to continue. Instead he launched into his magic act and all of a sudden silk scarves were being pulled from his sleeves and sweets from his ears and balloons from his nostrils. Although she sat near to him she could not see how it was done, and despite her irritation at his just turning up on the doorstep, she was swept away by the magic. She gasped at each new trick. He beamed. When he finished she turned and saw Mark clapping behind her. It was an amused, self-conscious clap which made her enthusiasm seem foolish, as if he were an adult and she were a little girl.
‘That’s the sort of thing…’ Bernard Howe muttered. His clumsiness had returned when the act was over. ‘And I end with a cake. All the ingredients put into a bowl. Sugar, flour, eggs. And then there’s a finished cake with icing and the candles all lit. The kiddies love that.’
‘Oh yes,’ Emma said. ‘I can see that they would. You must come if you’re available. Would you like a deposit? What do you charge?’
‘I don’t know about charging. You’ve been so good to Claire.’
‘Of course you must charge. And Claire’s been very good to us.’
So it was arranged that Bernard Howe, otherwise known as Uncle Bernie, would perform at David Coulthard’s birthday party. As he prepared to go out again into the rain he turned back to them.
‘Thank you, Mrs Coulthard. Mr Coulthard.’
‘Oh no,’ Emma said awkwardly. ‘ Oh no. This isn’t my husband.’
The magician gave a strange stare before walking out into the night.
Chapter Four
They woke on the morning of the birthday party to an unexpected snow fall. The boys wanted to be out in it immediately. Usually Emma would have shared their excitement but today she was edgy and irritable. She’d had a bad night. The boys came chasing in from the cold and she moaned at them for the footprints on the kitchen floor, the sodden pile of outdoor clothes. Then, when Brian said he might go to work for a couple of hours, she turned on him.
‘But it’s a Saturday,’ she said.
‘It’s a good time to catch up. When no one’s there.’
‘I could really do with your help here, you know.’
‘Na. I’d just get in the way.’
She thought he was like a big spoilt kid standing there, grinning. His nose was still slightly twisted from a crunch during a school rugby match. He’d been a single child and he’d been able to get away with murder in his parents’ house.
‘Oh, go on then!’ she said and he smiled more widely, thinking she’d fallen for his charm again, not realizing that at that moment she couldn’t bear the sight of him.
She stood in the kitchen with her hands flat on the bench, breathing deeply, until she heard the BMW start and the garage door close automatically behind it. She was still standing there when Claire stamped past the window, flat footed in elephantine wellingtons.
During her wakeful night, while the baby snuffled in her cot, Emma had been thinking about Claire. She had reason to wonder how loyal to the family she really was. Now, seeing her march through the yard those suspicions seemed ridiculous and Emma thought if she needed someone to talk to, Claire might be the person she would choose. She was so solid and practical, more sensible surely than her friends from the Childbirth Trust, or old colleagues from work.
‘It’ll not last long.’ Claire nodded through the window to the churned-up snow, the remains of the boys’ snowman. ‘The wind’s gone westerly. Just as well. You’d not want twenty-five kids walking that much snow through your house.’
‘No,’ Emma said, quite calmly, thinking, If I can just get today over I can work out what we’re going to do.
At one o’clock Brian came back, anxious to make amends by shifting tables and blowing up balloons. The snow had gone but there was freezing fog and occasional squalls of sleety rain.
‘Mark phoned,’ Brian said.
‘Oh?’ She kept her voice flat. She did not ask how Mark had known Brian would be in the office. Or why they seemed to need to communicate with each other every day.
‘I told him to come round this afternoon. It might be a laugh for him.’
Christ, she thought. That’s all I need.
‘You don’t mind?’ His voice was slightly anxious. Surely you can’t mind, he was saying. This man lost his wife less than six months ago. You’re not going to make a fuss about this.
‘Of course not.’
‘I told him to come about two and I’d buy him a sandwich and a couple of pints in the club.’
So that’s the strategy, she thought. Make me feel guilty, then I can’t complain about the two of you sneaking off to the club for the afternoon. She said nothing and he added defensively, ‘Well, the party’s not supposed to start until four, is it?’
‘That’s right,’ she said. ‘ Four o’clock.’
‘And there’s nothing more you want me to do?’
‘Not at the moment.’
‘We’ll make sure we’re back for four, then. On the dot.’
‘I should bloody well hope so!’
He shot her an amused glance, thinking she was teasing.
‘I mean it!’ she shouted, suddenly furious.
‘OK.’ He held up his hands as if she had threatened to shoot him. ‘ I told Mark to leave his car at the club so there’d be more room up here for parking.’