It’s…It’s…She stroked the air in front of her. Angela’s husband. She’d forgotten where she was. She felt naked. Was he going to attack her?
Are you all right?
She mustn’t cry. She held out her mobile. It refused to explain the situation. I couldn’t get any signal.
Have you hurt yourself?
No, I haven’t fucking hurt myself. Deep breath.
You were trying to ring someone.
I’ve got to… She turned and walked away and her knees buckled and she tried very hard to make it look like she was sitting down on purpose.
He came over and sat beside her. They said nothing. It was uncomfortable, then it was comfortable, then it was uncomfortable. So I guess you’re not having a fun time.
She started crying. Shit. She wiped her eyes.
You want to talk about it?
No, I do not want to talk about it. Unsurprisingly.
He picked two daisies and started making a chain. I had a stepfather. I still have a stepfather.
What the hell was he talking about?
He was a really nice guy, which only made me hate him more, of course.
Yeh, well, thanks for the advice. She took a packet of Silk Cut from her jacket pocket.
One going spare?
She’d meant to piss him off but things were going a bit off-piste. His cupped hand touched her hand. The scratch and pop of the lighter. Was he going to try and feel her up? She imagined hanging on to the story like a fat cheque she could spend whenever she wanted.
Ooh. He blew a rubbish smoke ring. Haven’t had one of these in a while.
A sheep trotted past, bleating.
Actually, Richard’s all right. He kind of makes Mum happy, which is good. But it was a lie. She hated him for the same reasons Dominic had hated his stepfather.
They finished their cigarettes. Then Dominic turned and stared at her. She wondered if he was going to put a hand on her breast. Be nicer to Daisy, OK?
Which caught her totally on the hop.
You’ll look back and realise you’re not that different.
She laughed. We are so different. He held her eye and didn’t laugh. She’d lost her bearings now. The fear was coming back. She got to her feet and threw her cigarette stub into the long grass. I need to make a phone call.
Don’t walk over a precipice.
Was he being, like, metaphorical, or was there actually a precipice?
He watched her stumble up the hill. Town shoes. He imagined getting points for the way he’d handled the conversation. Six out of ten? He’d definitely got the better of her. Seven? The sheep bleated again. He felt a little nauseous. The cigarette, probably.
♦
Benjy was doing a kind of boneless gymnastics on the leather armchair at the side of the shop.
Look at this encyclopedia. Daisy heaved him aside and sat down. It’s from 1938.
His eyes were fixed on the Nintendo.
Back before computers, when they thought there might be people on Mars.
He didn’t look up. I want to find the Encyclopedia of Torturing Barbie.
She turned the page. And what is this thing, she read, which the savage coaxes into being by rubbing one stick against another, and the civilised man conjures in a moment by striking a match? His breath wasn’t good. Had anyone made him brush his teeth this morning?
Louisa appeared suddenly. Benjy…Daisy… She had peeled herself away from Richard and set off in search of a sunny book-free location, but there was something cosy about the two of them in the chair. What have you got there?
Pictorial Knowledge, Volume 5. Daisy handed it to her.
Woven brick-red cover, the title indented and beneath it an oil lamp radiating beams of wisdom. She glanced at the contents page. How Steam and Petrol Work for Man. A Children’s Guide to Good Manners. Folding Model. She was suddenly back in her grandparents’ house, chicken-wire window in the larder, Walnut Whips and buttered white bread with fish and chips, the stilts Grandad made her from an old door frame.
Daisy shifted a little to get more comfortable. Louisa had sat herself on the arm of the chair, Daisy sandwiched between her and Benjy. Louisa’s leg was very close. Red cords tight around her thighs. The smell of cocoa butter.
Louisa turned a page. Arch, suspension, cantilever, girder. How strange that she should be reminded of them here, of all places, when they didn’t have a single book in the house. The fear of getting above yourself. She closed the book and ran her hand gently down the spine. You thought it was all gone, the house demolished, the furniture sold, photos eaten away by mildew and damp. Then you opened a tin of sardines with that little metal key.
♦
He sat on the steps of the town clock, the bag from Richard Booth angled against his calf (Stalingrad by Antony Beevor, The Odyssey translated by John Hannah, Fighting Fit: The Complete SAS Fitness Training Handbook). There was a trailer containing two sheep, and three local teenagers standing round a scooter, smoking. The Sharne case was nagging at him again. Breathe in, two, three…Breathe out, two, three…One of the boys revved the scooter and his concentration broke. How restless the mind was. He should run, like Alex, clear it with activity instead of willpower. Breathe in…He noticed an attractive woman going into The Granary and heard that tiny sexual alarm sounding in his head. Oh, but it was Louisa. Then she was gone. How disorienting to see her as other men saw her. He remembered meeting her ex-husband that first time, when Craig came round to fit a new pump in the boiler. Absurdly hairy, as if he was wearing a black mohair vest under his t-shirt. Louisa tells me you’re a doctor. A muscular handshake that went on for just a little too long.
Consultant. Neuroradiology.
Eventually he came to understand that it was a kind of kryptonite, the degrees, the books, the music, though he remembered Louisa shaking her head and laughing and saying, He wanted it all the time, and he was never quite able to shake that picture.
♦
There wasn’t a precipice, just a huge hill from which you could see Russia probably. An old couple walked past dressed like Boy Scouts. Then her phone made contact with civilisation and a string of texts pinged in, one from Dad in France followed by a stack of messages saying ring me and got 2 talk 2 u and need to talk urgent as if an actual war had broken out. She called Cally who didn’t even say hello, just, Michelle tried to kill herself.
How?
Sleeping pills. She told her mum we were bullying her.
Fucking cow.
Thing is, her mum went to see Avison, so now it’s official.
Well, it wasn’t me who sent that picture to everyone.
Don’t fucking dump me in it, said Cally. You took the photo.
Stop blaming me, all right. We’ve got to sort this out. Christ. Two weeks in a sleeping bag in a half-renovated French farmhouse with Dad didn’t seem such a bad idea now. She let it all sink in. Michelle being a slag as per usual. Michelle playing the victim as per usual. She should have seen this coming a long way back. Who else did you send it to?