And what if I did tell him? What then? Dad runs pell-mell to the car, to see the thing his wife has made of herself, and he sinks to his knees in the car park; or he hugs me, hugs me like he hugged me when we drove back from hospital, hugs me and trembles and fails and falls apart in my hands the way he did before, and across the road the estate just goes on and on and on, its roofs a burial ground of red pyramids—
Dad was back in the kitchen, cooking bacon and eggs. He had his back to me, shoulders hunched as he nudged food around the pan. The pressure was back on him again. When Mum left for the protest camp, there were always a couple of days of decompression, and Dad brightened. Soon enough, though, he was fretting over her absence just as much as he had been fretting in her presence. How was she? What was she up to? Was she well? Was she safe?
Now I would have to rob him of that and lay upon him something new – a burden unimaginably heavier than the one he was used to. ‘Dad.’
‘I told you I couldn’t give you a lift to school.’
‘I know, Dad.’
‘I told you.’
‘Yes, Dad. I’m sorry.’
He clattered a couple of dishes out of the Welsh dresser. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘I’ll go get my kit.’ I stood up.
‘No!’ He stared at me. ‘I’ll drive you in.’
‘You don’t have time.’
‘I’ll drive you in.’
‘Yes?’
‘What time does your practice end this evening?’
‘Six. Quarter to six,’ I said, ‘I think. Dad.’
‘Okay, I can pick you up on my way home. Now, have you got everything?’
‘Yes.’
‘Here you are.’ He shuffled from the counter to the table, put down my plate, and moved away.
‘Dad.’
‘Uh-huh?’ He was stacking the dishwasher now. He was pottering about the room, still with his back to me.
‘Dad, aren’t you going to eat anything?’
‘I’ll eat when I’ve dropped you off. Come on, Connie, hurry up with that. We have to get going.’
I couldn’t tell him. I didn’t have the courage. After I had gone to school, unprepared and all alone, he would find Mum in the boot of his car.
The boot.
The boot was open.
I had left the boot open, and the key in the lid still, and my kit bag on the ground in front of it. Anyone could walk by. Anyone could see.
The world fogged over. I wrestled out of my chair, took the plate to the bin, emptied it there. Dad didn’t see. He was clearing up. ‘All done?’
‘Sure.’
I staggered out the room, along the hall, through the side door, and round the side of the hotel to the forecourt.
The violence of what Mum had done to herself, the hurt she had meant to inflict, made it impossible for me to picture her properly. It wasn’t Mum in there. I kept telling myself this. No telling what it was, what filthy horror, but it wasn’t Mum. Who had it been who’d taken me for walks through the water meadows? Not her. In its madness and monomania, this thing had stolen Mum from me. I would have to get rid of it. I would have to get rid of the body.
There was the car. The boot was still open. The key was still in the boot lock. My green canvas bag was still on the ground where I had dropped it.
I closed my eyes and shuffled forward. I reached out, paddling my hands blindly in front of my face, because if I could find the lid without having to open my eyes I could shut the boot and I wouldn’t have to look at her again. I was afraid to breathe because worse than seeing her, far worse, was that smell, that bleach and whisky smell that I couldn’t be sure was even her, but which surrounded her, defining her.
My hands made contact with the lid. I grabbed hold for balance. I had to breathe. I had to. And it came – the smell was stronger now, scraping the back of my throat, forcing tears from my eyes.
‘There you are.’ Dad was standing on the porch, shrugging on his jacket. ‘Have you got everything?’
I picked up my sports bag. Pads and bat and gloves. Jumper. I hefted the sports bag in both hands and dropped it between Mum’s legs. I swung the boot down.
It didn’t latch. The lid didn’t close properly. I stared at the lid of the boot, at the angle of it, a mouth slightly parted. I heard Dad’s footsteps approaching.
I couldn’t bear to open the boot again. I got all my weight on top of the lid, and the latch clicked shut.
It was as I was climbing into the passenger seat that it occurred to me what a calamitously stupid thing I had done.
I had to tell Dad what had happened. I had to tell him what he could expect to find when he opened the boot. But when I did – when at last I mustered the courage to tell him, then he was going to ask, Why did you shut the boot? Why did you drop your sports bag on top of her? What on earth did you think you were doing?
And it was all going to be worse, ten times worse than before – even more grotesque than it had been at the beginning.
Still, I had to tell him.
‘Penny for your thoughts?’
‘Oh, Christ, Dad. Nothing.’
‘Well, strap in, don’t just sit there like a lemon.’
When was he most likely to find her? When was he going to need to look in the boot? When we got to school he would park up and I would get out and open the boot and there she would be. Of course Dad wouldn’t see her then, because he’d still be at the wheel, waiting for me to slam the boot shut. He would drive off with no idea of what he was carrying with him, no idea at all that he was driving it around, and when he did find out, the very fact that he’d been driving it around would be enough to destroy us.
‘You knew.’
‘Dad, I—’
‘You saw. You knew.’
I had to get her out of the boot. There was no way I could do it before the end of the day. If Dad opened the boot before I got back home from cricket practice – well, there was nothing I could do about that. But if the boot stayed closed till I came back, then there was still a chance.
I was going to have to take the car. There was no other way. Now and again Dad had taken me to a nearby disused airfield, an old wartime place, just a strip of concrete that was too expensive and too much trouble for the farmer to grub up. He’d put me behind the wheel of the car a few times and taught me the basics. He reckoned that the sooner I started to learn to drive, the safer I’d be. That was what he told me. I think the real reason was that he enjoyed it – just him and me in the car, doing stuff, away from home and all its pain and fret.
I figured that in the middle of the night, with no traffic to get in my way, I should be able to wrestle the car away from the hotel. Once I was out in the country I could just – what? Leave her somewhere.
Leave her anywhere. It wasn’t as though I was trying to hide her. What would be the point of that? I wanted her to be found. I just didn’t want Dad to find her, not like this.
The hotel driveway was steep, but if Dad parked where he usually did, I’d be able to get the car out and onto the road without having to start the engine. The trouble would come on the return journey. Suppose I managed to drive all the way back home – how was I going to manage the drive? How was I going to get the car up the steep drive and back where Dad had parked it?
This couldn’t possibly work. This had the logic of a nightmare. Something was going to go wrong.
‘Conrad?’
We had stopped. The engine was idling. We were outside the school gates already.
I climbed out. ‘Well, have a good one,’ Dad said, putting the car into gear.
‘Wait!’
He looked at me.
‘The boot.’
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t know anything.
‘In the boot—’
Dad put the handbrake on.