He tiptoes past his mother’s room and lets himself into the bathroom. White tiles, cautiously chosen to not reflect the vagaries of fashion, dark green lino, sink and bath and toilet plain white and still good a hundred years after they were first installed. The room smells of lavender and talcum; old-lady smells, he would think, except that it’s how his parents’ bathroom always smelled, one of the earliest scent memories he possesses. He is suddenly filled with nostalgia; a strange nostalgia for something that still, after all, is. What if she has to move out? he thinks. If she has to move down to something smaller, has to choose which belongings to take with her? I think it would slay me. I think I’d want to cry myself to death.
He opens the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet and shuffles through its contents, feeling, as he always does when he goes through other people’s stuff, a bit like a burglar, like a snoop. His mother is taking statins, he notices. He must remember to ask her about them tomorrow. And how her arthritis is. The first night is always such a rush of news and greetings and suitcases tucked beneath beds. They rarely get on to the family stuff until all the details of his schoolfriends’ parents’ funerals are out of the way. He finds the ibuprofen, tucked in with the Rennies and the Night Nurse and the Sudafed; tips a couple into his hand and takes them back to the kitchen.
Kirsty has finished the crockery and is on to the casserole dish; scrubs with a level of concentration that he knows from experience is a sign of tension. We’ve not talked yet, he thinks. Another piece of talking that’s been sidelined by the necessity of action. I hate parting on a quarrel. The ‘sorry’s need to be said. He comes over and holds the pills out in his hand. Kirsty takes off the rubber gloves, wipes a strand of hair out of her eyes and takes them.
‘Thanks,’ she says.
‘You didn’t say how you did it.’
There are shadows under her eyes and her expression is faintly haunted. Jesus, she’s tired, he thinks. I must make her stay in bed tomorrow morning, even though she gets embarrassed about doing it here. ‘Oh, stupid,’ she says. ‘That bloody shingle beach. I don’t know how anybody gets up it without breaking a leg.’
‘The beach? You were on the beach?’
A touch of colour crosses her complexion. ‘Oh, don’t worry, Jim,’ she says. ‘There were loads of people. I’m not going anywhere by myself in Whitmouth ever again.’
‘Well, thanks for coming home,’ he says, and touches her shoulder. ‘It means a lot to me.’
For a moment she looks like she’s going to cry. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Jim. I’m a bad wife.’
‘No.’ He gazes into her eyes, wills her to believe him. ‘You’re a wonderful wife. I’m just sorry I shouted.’
‘I’ll be better,’ she promises. ‘I won’t do it again.’
‘Shh,’ says Jim, and puts his arms round her, there at the kitchen sink. ‘Shh, Kirsty, it’s OK. I’ll be better too.’
‘It’s all of you,’ she says. ‘Nothing is more important than all of you. You must know that. I would never hurt you on purpose. You have to know that.’
He strokes her hair, shushes into her scalp. ‘You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,’ he says. ‘You make me whole.’
The grandfather clock in the hall whirrs in preparation for a strike. He glances over her shoulder at the clock on the stove, sees that it is nearly ten o’clock. She always watches the news at ten; it’s part of her emotional make-up, as essential to her routine as the news wires on the internet in the morning. ‘C’mon,’ he says. ‘I’ll make you a cuppa and we’ll watch the news.’
She stiffens slightly in his arms. As he breaks away, he sees a strange look on her face, almost an unwillingness. He laughs, runs his palm down her cheek. ‘It’s OK, sweetheart,’ he assures her. ‘Once a hack, always a hack. I don’t really want you to change. It was a-I was cross. I didn’t mean it. You wouldn’t be the woman I married then, would you? Go on. I’ll be through in a minute.’
She goes off to the living room and he hears the sound of the adverts, blasting loud, at his mother’s volume, for a moment, before she finds the remote and zaps them down. He puts on the kettle and hunts in the cupboard for a biscuit. He knows his mother always keeps digestives in the house. There’s usually a cake, too, but even as an adult he still feels bound by the rules in place in his childhood. Cake is something you eat at teatime. Fruit’s expensive; you have one piece after lunch, and cherries are counted out in batches of ten. Sweets are things you get after lunch on Sunday, if you’ve been good. If you’re hungry, have a piece of toast. But don’t eat too much, mind; you don’t want to spoil your dinner. He smiles at the memories, feels comforted, as he always does, by the everlasting presence of his childhood. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be Kirsty, he thinks; there’s so very much to be made up for.
He finds the biscuits and puts four on a plate, puts the plate and the tea mugs on a tin tray with the Guinness toucan on it. His father must’ve half-inched it from a pub at some time, though he still finds it impossible to imagine that his parents could ever have had moments where scrupulous morals weren’t observed. He makes two mugs of tea, sugars it up, nice and sweet, the way Kirsty likes it but rarely allows herself to have. Really, this is what the big stuff of life is made of. It’s not the holidays and the dinners out and the wish for more, it’s about the cups of tea and the curling up together after a long day. It’s about forgiving and forgetting and making allowances. It’s about honesty and truth and trust, it’s about making a place of safety and keeping the ones you love warm within it.
He takes the tray through. The room is dark: just the standard lamp in the corner, dust and old-fashioned tassels on the shade, and the flickering light from the television to light her serious face. She’s on the sofa, knees pulled up and feet tucked underneath her, her arms wrapped around a cushion in her lap, watching. He puts the tray on the coffee table and hands her her tea; settles down beside her, thigh touching her toes, companionable. Some people in grey suits are shaking hands outside a white concrete building with flags.
‘So what’s the news?’ he asks.
‘United Nations. Pakistan. Security Council not doing its stuff. The usual.’
She wraps her hands round the mug as though they are cold; blows on it like a child. ‘D’you want a biscuit?’ he asks.
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Go on.’
He smiles as he watches her almost dunk, then remember and stop. Though most New Year’s resolutions fall by the wayside, she’s stuck with this one, has a theory that you eat more of the things if you don’t have to chew them. ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he tells her again. ‘This is nice. Just… you know.’
Kirsty unfolds a hand from her mug and puts it in his. Squeezes. They turn their attention back to the television just in time to see stock shots of Whitmouth seafront, some footage of police cars and jostling crowds, and a picture of that woman Amber Gordon, the one from last week whose plight made Kirsty so angry, while the voiceover intones. An arrest, this morning. A murder in the night, the suspect in custody, charges expected tomorrow.
‘Jesus,’ he says. ‘What’s gone on there, then?’
Kirsty is silent, her face a mask as she watches the scenes unfold.
‘Oh my God,’ says Jim. ‘I don’t believe it. I felt really sorry for her last week. Good God, I even felt sorry for her yesterday. Didn’t I say so? God, Kirsty, didn’t I?’
Still she doesn’t speak, but nods robotically in agreement.