Sorry, says Angela. She holds Daisy’s hands. Again a flash of Karen, real and possible daughters, the Daisy that might have been if the church didn’t have its claws in her. She should say, I’ll help. I’ll stay out of the way. Just tell me what you want me to do. But why is it any different from her being in love with a violent boyfriend? There are so many ways of crushing a human being. Are you going to talk to someone at church?
Why would I talk to someone at church?
What would they say?
What has this got to do with anything?
Listen to me, says Angela.
Daisy puts her face in her hands.
I love you. Maybe you’re gay, maybe you’re not. It doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference to me. But you have surrounded yourself with people who…
Daisy takes her face out of her hands. No. Stop this. You’re not listening to me. This has got nothing to do with the church. This has got nothing to do with you and your prejudices. Where is this stuff coming from? She’s opened a bottle of something poisonous but it has no label and she can’t find a way of putting the top back on. I made a mistake. I made a stupid mistake. She stands up.
Daisy, wait, I’m sorry.
Just…fuck off, OK? And the door bangs behind her.
Angela sits for a whole minute. The lopsided tick of the grandfather clock. Then she kneels and opens the door of the stove, takes an old edition of the Daily Telegraph from the basket and starts making balls of paper to place in the bed of ash. She is standing on the far side of the room watching herself. She lays a little raft of kindling along the top of the crumpled paper and takes the matches from the mantelpiece. She’s screwed up, hasn’t she, yet again. This has got nothing to do with you. A door had opened and she’d slammed it shut. Christ. Alex and Richard. She checked her watch. What a mess of a day.
♦
Everyone else had left the dining room so Dominic and Louisa were alone. Angela was having the conversation with Daisy that he should have had. What did he feel? Thankful that it was now Angela’s problem? Aggrieved at his exclusion? Shame at his procrastination? Mostly a return of the torpor that had laid him low before Waterstone’s, the sense of life going on elsewhere, too fast, too complex, too demanding to grasp as it swung occasionally through his purview.
But what Louisa felt mostly was anger, anger at Richard who was meant to stop her feeling scared, anger at herself for being so self-centred, anger at the stupid timing, discovering how dependent she was precisely when she discovered how fallible he was. She thought about him not being there and she was terrified by what might happen to her.
The living-room door opened and banged shut. Louisa jumped, thinking it might be Richard, but it was Daisy and things had obviously not gone well. Louisa disappeared into herself again. Dominic got to his feet. I’ll be back. He left the room and suddenly there was no one and the house was silent and she imagined running after him and looking in one room after another and finding them all empty and shouting and no one replying, just the sound of the wind and the rain hammering on the windows.
♦
They were well down the road now, past the junction, only a few hundred metres to go. The rain was easing a little, but Richard was leaning on him heavily, his steps becoming less regular and more unsteady. They fell clumsily onto a verge and Alex had great difficulty getting him to his feet. The ends of his fingers were yellow. Richard? But Richard’s words were slurred and Alex was ashamed of having imagined him being dead and because this was really starting to freak him out. Come on. Bloody walk, OK? I can’t do this on my own.
♦
Angela was kneeling in front of the open stove cupping a lit match. Richard had made the fire every day so far and it was disturbing to find herself stepping into his empty place. The paper caught. She sat back and closed the squeaky metal door. I’ve just been talking to Daisy.
I guessed.
Where did she start? She kissed Melissa.
I know, said Dominic.
What do you mean, you know?
I talked to Melissa.
You discussed this with Melissa?
Talked, not discussed. Daisy wouldn’t say what was wrong, so I asked Melissa.
When?
Today, this morning.
Dominic and Daisy and their charmed circle. When were you going to tell me?
I don’t think she wanted anyone to know.
Of course she didn’t want anyone to know, because those bloody people have convinced her she’ll go to hell. Was this what they thought at the church? She wasn’t entirely sure. And you were just going to leave her feeling shit about herself? Why were they doing this? Their daughter was suffering and they were using it as an excuse to rehash arguments that had been going nowhere for years.
What did you say to her? asked Dominic. Just now?
I said I loved her. I said what any halfway sane parents would say. She paused and rubbed her face and took a long deep breath. Please, let’s not do this. Dominic was staring at his feet, hands in pockets. Shamefaced? Or just biting his tongue? I mentioned the church, OK? Because I always do. She held her hands up in surrender. The clatter of a chair being knocked over in the dining room. She says she’s not gay. She says it was an accident. The fire blazed in its dirty window. Will you talk to her? Because she won’t listen to me and if she thinks she’s a bad person because of that place…
I’ll talk to her. But what if they were wrong? What if loving God was easier than loving other human beings? Was an easy life such a bad thing to want? Later on, maybe. When things have calmed down a little.
She looked into the flames. It was meant to be relaxing, warmth in the darkness, keeping the wolves away, but the heat-proof glass made her think of some infernal substance caged at the reactor’s core, a little fiend on a treadmill. Those photographs, her hunger to see them is so strong. She is reading a magazine or watching a film sometimes, she sees someone and wonders for an instant if it’s him. Big men, strong men, flawed but honourable, men you can rely on when the chips are down, this righteous anger they keep to hand, like a holstered weapon, ready to use as a last resort. The opposite of Dominic. All those presumptions you carry with you your whole life, about what a family should be. What a husband should be. What a father should be.
♦
Louisa wrestled the door open and they spilt clumsily into the hallway dragging several coats to the floor and tearing one of the pegs from the wall. Oh my God. Richard?
I’m OK. He sounded drunk.
She threw her arms around him but Alex gently peeled her away. Downstairs bathroom. Take his other arm. Mum and Dad were sitting in the living room doing absolutely bugger all. Jesus. Richard. You’ve got to help us.
I should call an ambulance.
He’ll be OK. We just need to warm him up. Would he, though? Alex wasn’t sure. But an ambulance wouldn’t get here for, what? an hour on these roads? Whoa. Richard stumbled sideways again, Alex just managing to keep him upright this time. Get the bath running. Louisa ran ahead through the kitchen. Relief and panic, about what might have happened, about what might still happen. Almost there. He manoeuvred Richard through the kitchen. Up ahead he heard the twist and thunder of the hot tap. An image of Callum rocking back and forth on the pavement weeping, the broken end of the shin bone pushing up under the skin. Across the utility room, Richard unstable on the bumpy stone floor, like a child or an old man, the onion smell of his sweat. They negotiated the chicane of the bathroom door, into the steamy air, Louisa’s hands literally flapping. How were they going do this? He lowered Richard onto the toilet seat, put a hand behind his neck and removed the hat and the yellow jacket. Shoes. Louisa yanked them off. No way he was going to be able to remove Richard’s other clothes but it didn’t matter. This would not be elegant. He heaved Richard on to his feet, sat him on the edge of the bath then stepped in behind him, muddy trainers turning the water brown. He pulled Richard backwards and let him slip arse-down into the water, legs flopping in after, spraying brown water up the wall and all over Louisa’s shirt. Result. Alex stepped out and tentatively let go. Richard held himself upright. Go and get a hot drink. I’ll stay here. Louisa stepped out of the bathroom. The hot water continued to rise.