‘Oh, Bognor,’ he says, as though he need say no more.
The conversation hits a lull. Kirsty looks down at her plate, struggles to find a new topic. Struggles not to vomit. She can feel Jim burning to start in on vacancies, but it’s too early. They need to wait till the crème brûlée is on the table. Business can never be discussed directly until you’re eating crème brûlée. She can feel herself getting hot, just from the contact of the wine with her lips. Thinks she might be about to break into a sweat.
The pinger goes off in the kitchen: time to take the meat out and put on the mange-tout. She excuses herself and goes through.
Taking the pork loin from the oven, she puts it on the dish to rest, then goes to the freezer and finds a packet of peas to press against her forehead. She’s closer to forty than thirty, but she still finds formal entertaining a strain. And that’s without a professional lady of the house like Sue Baker at her table. Kirsty has seen her eyes drift over their sitting room, their dining room, seeking out signs of non-conformity or dirt.
Come on, Kirsty. There’s something you’re meant to do. What is it?
She presses the peas against the back of her neck and checks the kitchen for signs of disarray. Sue’s the sort of person who will insist on helping clear, the better to snoop. Notes, lists, photos, clamped to the fridge door with Sistine Chapel magnets. A cork pinboard sporting the kids’ schedules: Sophie piano, Tues 5; Luke football, Weds 6; swimming, Sat 9. Sophie has arranged the leftover push-pins in the shape of a heart – her favourite image at the moment, apart from Justin Bieber. They’ve cleared the usual packets of breakfast cereal and thrown-down schoolbags from the work surfaces; now, just a bottle of excellent claret (two school uniforms’ worth at Tesco), open and breathing, stands below the newly scrubbed spice rack, the dishwasher humming beneath. A normal middle-class kitchen, she thinks, tarted up to impress the Lucas-Joneses. My mum would say I was a snob because there aren’t any chickens under the table.
She remembers what else she needs to do. Fills a pan from the kettle, puts it on the stove. God knows what she’d say about me serving mange-tout, she thinks.
Back in the dining room, the conversation has moved on. ‘I just don’t see,’ Lionel is saying, ‘why they should get anonymity. That’s this society all over, isn’t it? Everything skewed in favour of the perpetrator, not a thought for the victim. Have you been covering this?’ He turns to Kirsty as she takes her seat again.
‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘Lost track.’
‘Child F and Child M.’
‘Oh. No. Sleaford’s off my patch, I’m afraid. I’ve got a friend who has. He’s been finding it very depressing.’
‘Well, I was just saying. It’s disgusting.’
‘Yes…’ she says, vaguely. ‘Awful. That poor child.’
‘No, not just that. The way the establishment’s swung into gear to protect the little’ – he pauses; he’s obviously been about to say ‘shits’ ‘- sods that did it.’
‘Well, the whole thing’s sub judice,’ says Jim. ‘You’d want them to get a fair trial, wouldn’t you?’
Lionel snorts. ‘Fair trial? It’s on film, for heaven’s sake.’
Kirsty feels the blush creep up her cheeks. She always finds conversation of this sort difficult; feels exposed, endangered. A small, paranoid part of her wonders if the subject’s been raised because someone knows more about her than they’re letting on. ‘And they’ve got siblings,’ she protests. ‘Surely you don’t think the other kids deserve to get mob justice for what their brothers did?’
Lionel snorts again. ‘It’s that sort of woolly liberal sentimentality that leads to situations like this in the first place.’
She can see Jim’s woolly liberal hackles rising. Don’t, she thinks. Please don’t. You can’t get into an argument. Can’t piss him off, let him think you don’t admire every pearl that drops from his mouth. Not when we’ve gone to all this effort.
‘More wine, anyone?’ she says hurriedly. The two women assent volubly, praise the choice of grape, fuss over their husbands’ glasses: they too have read that there’s about to be dissent and join forces to keep things nice. Lionel’s having none of it. Kirsty wonders if he’s enjoying himself; if he knows why he’s been asked here and is taking full advantage of the company’s powerlessness to contradict.
‘The fact is,’ he says, ‘for the good of society as a whole we should identify the murderous little monsters and lock them up, and do it before they kill someone else’s child. We don’t seem to care about the victims any more. It’s all about the criminal. Poor little crim, let’s make excuses. And yes, actually – the public ought to be protected from them. And their vicious little siblings.’
The words burst out before she can stop them. She feels as though her heart’s about to burst from her chest. ‘But they’re twelve years old!’
‘Exactly!’ he replies. ‘Just goes to show. It starts young. You can’t just go, “Yeah, poor little kiddies”, because someone else’s poor little kiddie has ended up dead.’
‘But their brothers and sisters haven’t done anything!’
‘Yet,’ he says. Stares her in the eye. ‘Yet,’ he repeats.
There’s a moment’s silence. I must stop, she thinks. I’m close to going off on one here.
Sue is obviously having similar thoughts. She hurriedly polishes off her last sliver of salmon. ‘Well, I must say, that was a real treat!’ she says brightly. ‘I must remember gravadlax.’
‘Here,’ says Jim grimly, standing up, ‘let me take that for you.’
She follows him into the kitchen with the other plates. He’s tipping the mange-tout into the boiling water. There’s a high-pitched whine in the centre of her head, boring through her brain like an awl. She grabs another glass of water, downs it, prays hopelessly for relief. I will never drink again, she promises silently once more.
‘What can I do?’ she asks.
‘Not get so pissed you can’t function the next day,’ he mutters.
‘Oh God, Jim, I’ve apologised. I’m sorry. I’m doing my best.’
‘Yeah, well,’ he says, ‘it’s not just about today though, is it?’
‘That’s not fair. That’s so unfair, Jim!’
‘Not from where I’m standing,’ he says.
‘Please let’s not do this now.’ The water has stirred something up in her stomach. She feels it lurch, feels her gullet spasm. Oh shit, she thinks. I swear I’ll never drink again. Never. I swear.
‘We’ve got to talk about your drinking,’ he says.
‘Oh, look! As if you’ve never had a hangover!’
Jim slams the mange-tout into the colander. ‘You knew how much it mattered that we did well tonight,’ he says. ‘Are you trying to sabotage me?’
Kirsty gags. Slaps a hand over her mouth and flees the room. Hears his muttered ‘Oh God’ as she goes.
She makes it to the downstairs loo with a second to spare. Retches over the bowl and drops to her knees as an explosion of old drink, water, this morning’s sausage sandwich and tonight’s starter pumps out of her body. She must have stopped digesting at some point in the small hours. She starts feeling better the moment it’s all expelled. Fortunately, she learned the knack of silent vomiting soon after she joined the Mercury. It’s one that’s stood her in good stead.
She stays leaning on the seat for a minute, waiting for the sweating fit to die down. She feels weak and tired now, but the giddiness is receding. God, I’m a lousy wife, she thinks again. And he’s right. I need to stop with the drink. It’s a really childish way of dealing with stress.