He ducked his head in a way that reminded her of Toby, but smiled. "It's okay," he assured her. "Really. I don't mind."
She let go before he reached complete embarrassment overload, but couldn't resist ruffling his hair.
"Get off," he said, bouncing away from her with a grin. "Toby and I were going to take the dogs for a walk before it got dark. Do you want to come?"
Gemma hesitated, then shook her head. "Um, no, but thanks. I'll think I'll stay here and have a bit of your pizza."
While Kit got the dogs' leads, she fetched Toby from the study, switching off some American cop show on the telly while giving him a hug and as much of a cuddle as he'd allow.
"I was watching that." Her son pulled away from her with a scowl, a sure sign of a five-year-old's temper tantrum brewing.
"You're a bit stroppy today, sport," she said, using Duncan's nickname for him.
"I'm not stroppy," Toby protested. "Whatever it is."
Gemma pretended to think hard. "Obstreperous."
"You're silly, Mummy," said Toby, not mollified. "I'm not that, either." He punched at her with his fist, but she caught him by both wrists.
"Enough of that." And enough of things he shouldn't be watching on the telly, she added to herself. She'd have to speak to Kit about it, as Toby was obviously changing the channel when Kit left the room, but she hated to nag Kit when he made such an effort. It was a case once more of giving Kit more responsibility than he should have to bear, not to mention her falling down on her parenting.
Swinging Toby round, she tickled him until he squealed, then marched him from the room. "You go with Kit to walk the dogs, and when you get back we'll have a special treat. A game."
"Can we play Giant Snakes and Ladders?"
Gemma cursed herself. That was Toby's latest favorite, and required more energy than a marathon, especially when you added barking dogs and a cat interested in anything spread out on the floor. "Of course," she said, hoping that dinner would revive her a bit.
But when the boys and dogs had gone out in a flurry of motion, she decided she wasn't hungry after all, and instead poured herself a glass of white wine from the fridge, popped a CD in the kitchen player, sank into a chair and kicked off her shoes.
Closing her eyes, she tried to shut out the replay of her row with her dad and her worry over her mum. She wiggled her toes and held the wine in her mouth before she swallowed, tasting all the flavors.
After a moment, the music began to do its work. She'd put on Barb Jungr, one of her favorite singers, but it wasn't Jungr's smoky voice that caught her attention now, but the sweet, spare notes of the piano accompaniment.
God, how long had it been since she'd played the piano? She'd canceled lesson after lesson, and without that discipline, had practiced less and less. How had she let something she loved so much slip away from her?
But with the job, and Duncan, and the boys, and the dogs-as if to remind her of his presence, Sid chose that moment to pad into the kitchen and jump up on the table-and the cat, Gemma amended, she seemed to have little time for herself.
And yet, even with more in her life than she could manage well, she still felt the sting of loss, and cataloging the practical difficulties they'd have faced in caring for another child made not a whit of difference.
Pure selfishness, she told herself firmly. And she had been selfish enough lately.
With that reminder, she exchanged her glass for her mobile and rang Erika's number. It was past time she checked on Erika rather than sending Kit as an emissary, and she had questions she needed to ask.
But Erika's number rang on unanswered. Gemma drank a bit more wine, then dialed again, but there was still no reply, not even the answer phone. Although Gemma knew Erika was careless in remembering to switch the machine on, she felt frustrated by her inability to leave a message, and a little uneasy.
She was wondering how she might convince her very independent friend that she should get a mobile phone when her own phone rang. She jumped, sloshing her wine, and answered a little breathlessly.
It was not Erika, however, but Melody Talbot.
"Boss," said Melody, "before you ask, yes, I'm still at the office, but I really am going home.
"But there was something a bit odd. I was looking through those newspapers you asked me to collect for you. Did you know that Erika Rosenthal had a piece in the Guardian the day David Rosenthal was killed?"
Erika moved through the day as if held to the earth by the slenderest of tethers.
She rose at her usual time, even though she'd been given a temporary bereavement leave from her job in the administrative offices at Whiteleys department store. Finding she was ravenous, she'd made tea, with two pieces of toast and two soft-boiled eggs, an unheard-of indulgence with rationing still in effect, but she felt reckless with hunger. If she had nothing to eat the rest of the week she couldn't bring herself to care.
Carrying her plate and cup out into the garden, she sat on the stone wall in the one spot penetrated by the morning sun. In spite of her hunger, she ate slowly, savoring every taste and texture as if it were for the first time-the buttery richness of the egg yolk, the crunchiness of the toast, the earthy astringency of the tea.
And she, who had lived in her own mind for so long, found that she wanted to share every thought, every impression, every instant of experience with Gavin. He would understand. He would know what she meant, what she felt, almost before she knew herself, and the perfection of it made her eyes fill with the tears she had not cried for her husband.
David. She knew that somewhere within her she carried a kernel of grief for the man she had lived with for almost fifteen years, and that most of all she would mourn what might have existed between them, and for the long, barren waste of their marriage.
But now she felt distanced, as if a stranger had lived that life, or as if it were a distant memory, something seen from the wrong end of a telescope. David had been lost to her long ago, and she knew now that grief had been woven into the very fabric of her life.
As she did the washing-up and went about her daily routine, she wondered if a time would come when she would feel guilt for having taken another man so precipitously into her bed. But she couldn't imagine that her union with Gavin Hoxley could ever seem an act of disloyalty, and she didn't want to think of consequences, or of the obstacles that stood between them.
Not now. Not yet. Nothing could take this moment, this hour, this day, from her. She had been waiting for it her whole life.
Gemma had survived Giant Snakes and Ladders, had put Toby to bed, had had a bath herself, had said good night to Kit, who was reading in his room, and Kincaid still had not rung. She tried calling him, but his phone went straight to voice mail, and she didn't leave a message. Something must have happened, and he would let her know when he could.
Nor had she had any success reaching Erika, although she kept trying until she felt it was too late to call. She told herself she was being paranoid, that Erika had every right to go out of an evening, or to leave the phone unanswered if it suited her. But no amount of rationalizing quieted the little tickle of worry.
Had Erika's story in the Guardian had some bearing on David Rosenthal's death? But Melody had told her that it was an opinion piece, something about the shifting role of women in the postwar workplace, which sounded so like Erika that it made Gemma smile. She couldn't imagine it had been more than coincidence. But, she couldn't stop reminding herself, the two other people who'd had a connection with Erika's brooch were dead.