When Martha came in dragging Ada by the hand, Tilly felt everything contract.
‘I can’t get a word out of Ada,’ Martha said. ‘What was she doing in the rain?’ She stood there, pulling wet clothes off Ada, even with her hand all bandaged up. ‘Tilly, help me please, my hand…Can you run the bath?’ Martha held her bandaged hand up like an exhibit. Her tone of irritated self-sacrifice was so familiar that they all responded not to the wounded hand but to the ordinary pattern of life that she brought with her.
Mike stood up. He looked as if the rain had washed him out. ‘Susie Layton rang. Joe is missing.’
Martha bent down to get Ada’s sandals off. She frowned. ‘Knowing Joe, he probably went out to help someone who got stuck because of this rain.’
Tilly felt an unfamiliar churning of pity for her mother. For the first time Martha was the one who was innocent. Martha was the one who had been wronged. And she didn’t even know it. Martha, who had to know everything, didn’t know the thing that mattered most. Mike said Martha was probably right, but he had answered so dutifully, he appeared to Tilly like a stunned child reciting a lesson that he hadn’t prepared for or one that he would fail at. Tilly suspected he knew more about Joe being missing than he was revealing. Even if Martha saw this she wouldn’t understand why.
Then Ada turned to Martha and said loudly that the fox hadn’t been killed and could she see Martha’s bites. They had all forgotten about the fox attack. Poor Martha. Tilly had seen her mother’s bandaged hand but hadn’t wanted to think about it. She should be more caring. She should offer to make her a cup of tea.
But Ada had already reached out to take Martha’s bandaged hand and was examining it. Ada gauged the importance of an injury by the amount of blood that issued from the wound. When she found none, she returned her attention to the fox.
‘We couldn’t find the dead fox anywhere.’ Ada lied with too much portentousness. ‘Does it hurt, Mama?’ At least this was sincere.
Martha looked bewildered. ‘You think the fox is alive? I was sure it died. I knelt on its throat.’ She turned to Mike in a panic. But Mike said nothing.
‘Mum, do you want me to make you a cup of tea?’ Tilly pulled herself together. She could do the right thing after all.
Martha’s eyes filled with tears. The sight of her mother crying always upset Tilly, and she looked away. Mike finally put his arms around her. Tilly couldn’t tell whether this was consolation for the fox attack or for some other private sadness between them. She couldn’t tell what exactly had moved Martha to tears. But whatever it was Martha accepted Mike’s embrace as if it were the haven she had been seeking all along. She leaned her head into his chest and closed her eyes. Her bandaged hand hung limply by her side and Mike bent his head over her shoulder and stroked her back. They looked like two people who loved each other.
But Tilly rarely saw them hold each other and it unsettled her, and Ada too. Ada stood transfixed. If life had swerved even their parents so far off course that in the middle of the kitchen they sought out the shelter of each other’s bodies, then no wonder Tilly was afraid to ask either of them what had happened to Mr Layton.