God, she wanted something to eat. Toffee, sweets, biscuits. She opened the glove compartment and a strip of passport photos fell out. She picked them up and turned them over. Melissa smouldering, Melissa blowing a kiss, Melissa flicking her hair. They were oddly touching. She thought of all those pictures of Karen. Two years old, playing with wooden blocks on a sheepskin rug. Nine years old, in front of a rainbow-coloured windbreak. Fourteen years old, in a green duffel coat at some steam fair, the word OGDENS in Victorian funhouse lettering on a green boiler behind her head. And for a few giddy seconds they were real, in a leather album on the shelf above the telly. Then the wind shook the car and she was in the world again.
♦
Alex looked back and saw Daisy and Benjy throwing lumps of sheep shit at one another. Only the dry ones, shouted Daisy. At school he got the piss ripped for being her brother, Eddie Chan singing ‘Like a Virgin’ forty thousand times. Nastier stuff, too, especially after the anti-drug assembly, like she wanted people to hate her. He could shut most things out but not this. Was she fucked up or just being a smug twat? Should he protect her or leave her to get what she deserved? It was a puzzle and it bugged the hell out of him that he couldn’t solve it.
That went in my hair, you little…
He wondered if she might flip back sometime. Not that they’d be friends or anything. But still.
Louisa moved out of range. A teenage girl playing a little boy’s game. It didn’t quite compute. Maybe if she’d had boys, if she’d had the brood she’d once dreamt of. Though sometimes, when Melissa was really tired and Richard was out, she curled up on the sofa and laid her head on Louisa’s leg and sucked her thumb, which was what one wanted ultimately, wasn’t it, that connection.
Goal. Benjy pulled his shirt over his head and ran around in circles.
Daisy shook a wet lump off her jeans. You are so going to die.
Richard felt a hand tighten round his heart. He had never done this. He would never do this.
Daisy wrestled Benjy onto the grass. He yelled, That’s cheating, but it wasn’t a serious protest because he loved this. No one gave him piggy-back rides or picked him up any more. You could ask for hugs if you were feeling sad or you’d hurt yourself, but when it happened spontaneously it made you feel so warm inside.
Is Angela all right? Louisa was looking down the hill to the higgledy-piggledly cars.
He loved her for thinking about these things. The funeral hit her harder than I expected.
You bought some running shoes.
I saw Alex coming back this morning.
Don’t break an ankle.
Trust me, I’m a doctor.
She laughed and he remembered when he’d first said those words to her and how she’d laughed that time too. He wanted suddenly to be on holiday alone, just the two of them, making love in the middle of the day, seeing her body in sunlight through the curtains.
And Daisy and Benjy were lying on their backs. Look. You can see the sky moving. And Alex was further up the hill, shouting, Come on.
♦
Two crows abandoned something dead in the road as they drove past. A postbox in a wall. Ruinsford Farm. Three Oaks Farm. Upper House Farm. A crazy dog chased them for half a mile. Being in the back of the car made Alex twitchy, too far from the steering wheel, being taken somewhere by someone else. Next year he’d arrange his own holiday. Dolomites, maybe. Next year he’d start to arrange everything. Economics, History, Business Studies. Brighton, Leeds, Glasgow. Travel for a couple of years. Start his own business. Not ambitions, just facts about the world. You knew where you wanted to go, you worked out the route and set off. He didn’t understand why so many people made such a bloody hash of it. Then they were pulling in through the gate and Melissa was sitting reading on the low wall at the back of the house and he felt that little surge of panic, like at the beginning of a race, or when you were about to do some stupid vertical drop on the bike. But you couldn’t turn back.
He got out of the car and walked over. She was wearing tight jeans and boots and a little black jacket over a lacy Victorian dress. She didn’t acknowledge his presence until he was really close and when she turned to him her face was blank. She hooked her hair behind her ear like her mum did.
Here it comes, she thought. Because this was what she liked, this tension in the air, the way you could play someone.
What’s the book?
She flipped it over.
Good? He sat and swung his legs like a little boy.
Uh-huh. You had to say as little as possible and let the other person fill the gaps.
So. He looked down at his swinging feet. Did he look casual and relaxed? It was hard to see yourself from the outside. How do you like it here?
About one out of ten.
So what’s the one?
He wanted her to say it was him. Peace and quiet, time to think. She lifted the fizzy little glass of gin and tonic. No lemon. But needs must, right?
I bet you don’t really like peace and quiet.
He wasn’t bad at this.
I love it here. You know, the space, the view from up there.
Or from down here. She raised an eyebrow.
They were silent for a while. Then he reached out and put a hand on her thigh. The warmth of her skin under her jeans. They looked at the hand, like a bird they didn’t want to scare away. He turned and kissed her. She tasted so good. She put her hand on his chest but he couldn’t stop because sometimes girls pretended they didn’t want to and it was so hard to turn back. His hand was on one of her breasts. But he smelt faintly of sweat and he was pushing his tongue into her mouth and she was surprised by how strong he was. She grabbed one of his fingers and bent it back. Just fucking stop, OK?
He sat back. Sorry.
Christ.
I got carried away.
I noticed.
They sat beside one another, saying nothing. A helicopter buzzed over Black Hill like a housefly. The taste of her mouth. He still had an erection. Melissa got down off the wall. Anyway. Things to do. People to see. She walked off towards the door carrying her book and Alex had absolutely no idea what to think.
♦
There was a random collection of Victorian engravings in the house, purchased as a job lot from the dump-bin of a gallery-cum-junkshop in Gloucester. The North Gable of Whitby Abbey, a dog baiting a bear, Walter Devereux, Earl of Essex, the Brampton hunt at full pelt, a baroque faux-temple of indeterminate location, Mount Serbál from Wády Feirán…
♦
Louisa slotted her iPhone into the dock and pressed play. She squeezed the handles of the tin opener and the sharp little wheel popped through the metal lid. U2. ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’. She poured the beans into the colander and rinsed off the gluey purple juice. There was no food processor so she used the potato masher, banging it on the rim when the holes became clogged. It made her think of her mother in the kitchen, beef dripping and hand-mixers. What are you doing?
I’m selecting a snack, said Benjy. He loved standing in the golden light and the cold air that poured out of the fridge with its treasure hoard of food.
Well, if you could select quickly I would be really grateful.