The kitchen table is set for three. Chloe hesitates before pulling out a chair. Instead she hovers, waiting for Patrick to take his place. He chooses the seat nearest the doorway into the hall. Maureen transfers a steaming casserole dish from the oven to the worktop.
‘Sit yourself down, Chloe,’ Maureen says, indicating which chair to pull out.
She does as Maureen suggests, wincing as it scrapes on the lino floor, wanting to make herself smaller, less noticeable. As a child, Chloe was convinced that if she made herself quiet enough, people wouldn’t notice her still there, hanging around after tea, or after the credits on a film had rolled round.
It’s her first night at the Kyles’ Low Drove home and they’ve invited her to eat with them. The kitchen windows are steamed up, although they disguise nothing but blackness beyond. The room is filled with the thick meaty smell of beef and carrots, which makes her think of Nan, and it’s only intensified when Maureen pulls the lid off and starts serving up on blue and white willow plates. Patrick sniffs at the plate she serves him.
‘Smells good, Mo,’ he says.
‘Thought I’d do something special for Chloe’s first night,’ she says, smiling to herself as she ladles carrots and dumplings onto each plate.
She sets them down in turn at the table. Chloe feels the heat from her plate rise to meet her cheeks. She waits for Maureen to sit down before she picks up her knife and fork, but Patrick wastes no time and digs in.
‘Don’t wait for me, Chloe, you start eating,’ Maureen says. ‘I’m just going to butter some bread for Pat.’
He sticks up his thumb without looking up.
Chloe picks up their cutlery. It feels alien in her hands, heavier, not like Nan’s old bone-handled set which had fit so well.
‘Sorry, Chloe, can I just get to the . . .’ Maureen asks.
Her chair is in the way of the fridge. ‘Sorry,’ she says, shuffling forward and bumping into the small table.
Patrick’s forkful of food spills down his cardigan.
‘Oh, sorry,’ Chloe says, standing up to get him a tea towel and bumping the table again. Gravy splashes off his plate.
He looks up at her from under his curly fringe.
‘Patrick, I—’
But Maureen is there with a cloth. ‘It’s no matter,’ she says, wiping his front down like she would a child.
Chloe is conscious then of the empty chair at the table. The one with a short pile of magazines in front of it rather than a plate. Patrick looks up at her but doesn’t say anything, then starts eating again while Maureen puts the butter back in the fridge.
‘Chloe, while I’m here, I’ve cleared a shelf in here for you to put your things on,’ she says, opening the door a little wider so Chloe can peer in.
‘OK, thanks,’ she says.
‘I still feel uncomfortable about you making your own meals,’ she says, flipping the tea towel over her shoulder. ‘Are you sure you won’t eat with us?’
Patrick looks up, a piece of beef and dumpling suspended on his fork.
‘No, no, of course not,’ Chloe says. ‘I can make myself something every evening.’
‘Well, we’ve got cereal and toast for breakfast – all the essentials – so you don’t need to bother getting any of that,’ she adds, sitting down at the table. ‘You can at least have your breakfast—’
‘It’s OK, honestly,’ Chloe says.
Patrick sighs. ‘Maureen, leave the girl alone. She’s told you she’ll sort herself out. Jesus Christ.’
‘OK, Patrick, there’s no need for language at the table . . . right.’ Maureen picks up her fork. Her hands are smooth and her cutlery fits neatly into them.
The knife still sits heavy in Chloe’s hand.
They eat in silence for a while, the tines of forks scratching against the willow on their plates. Patrick picks up the bread Maureen buttered for him and starts wiping at the blue and white pattern.
‘You’ll wipe that off,’ Maureen says with a smile, and they all laugh politely.
Every so often Chloe looks up from her own plate, catching a glimpse of Maureen and Patrick eating beside her. Under the table, their knees are nearly touching. She hopes they can’t tell that hers are shaking.
There are moments for Chloe when it feels completely natural. That if someone were passing this lonely lane, if they glimpsed into the kitchen and saw them all here, eating around this table, they’d look perfectly fine together. Just a regular family eating a regular dinner. Then there are other moments when Chloe’s more aware of their cutlery scratching their plates, and then this tiny kitchen feels like a stage. The three of them actors who have forgotten their lines. It feels wrong in some ways, that she knows why she’s here, that she has to keep her investigation at the forefront of her mind. She watches them as she eats, knowing all this will go in her pale blue notepad before she sleeps. She’d feel bad if she wasn’t sure that one day they will thank her for it.
She points at the food with her fork. ‘This is really nice,’ she says. ‘Thanks again, Maureen.’
She smiles and carries on eating. Chloe swallows, daring herself to go a little further, to throw some metaphorical bomb at the table. For something to happen. She doesn’t just want to watch things happen, she needs to feel it.
‘It reminds me of the food my nan used to make,’ Chloe says.
Maureen stops chewing and looks at her across the table, tipping her head to one side, a smile more sympathetic this time.
‘Was she a good age?’ Maureen asks, as Chloe slips a forkful of food into her mouth. ‘When she passed, I mean?’
Chloe nods as she chews, willing the food down so she can answer while she conjures up an age in her head.
‘Ninety-six,’ she says.
‘Ninety-six! Goodness, she must have been quite old when she had your mum then? Or were your parents a lot older when they had you?’
There’s a pause as Chloe stares back, trying frantically to do the maths in her head, wondering what she’d got so wrong. She feels Patrick stop eating and put down his fork. Under the table, she crosses her ankles, putting her left heel down hard on top of her right toes until they burn. The pain helps her to focus.
‘Hmm-mmm,’ she nods, looking back down at her plate. ‘Yeah, quite old. I never knew my dad.’
That much is true.
Patrick looks up at her from the other side of the table. ‘Where did you grow up, Chloe?’ His tone isn’t as friendly as Maureen’s. Chloe feels the need to think before she speaks.
‘In town,’ she says, swallowing too quickly; the food hurts as it goes down. ‘Peterborough. Various places. Nan lived in Dogsthorpe.’
‘Oh, so did we,’ Maureen says, nudging Patrick.
‘Oh really?’ Chloe says, thinking she manages to make it sound realistic.
‘Yes, Chestnut Avenue. Do you know it?’
Chloe makes a point of looking up to the artex ceiling, furrowing her brow, and all the time inside she’s congratulating herself at how she’s making this appear, how she’s pulled it back round. ‘Er . . . I’m not sure . . .’
‘Oh, you must do,’ Maureen says. ‘It’s the big one, the one that crosses Central Avenue, with the shops.’
‘Oh yes,’ Chloe says, as if suddenly remembering. From the corner of her eye, she sees Patrick look back down at his plate. ‘Of course I know it, Nan used to take me to church there when I was little.’ She had been there, that wasn’t a lie.
‘Did she? Well I never . . . Patrick, did you hear that? Chloe only went to the same church.’
Patrick makes a sound from his chair.
‘Did you know Father Cunningham? No, he’s perhaps before your time, although . . . how old did you say you were, Chloe?’
‘Twenty-nine.’
‘That’s it, of course,’ Maureen says. She drifts back to her plate then, wiping a carrot round the willow pattern more times than is necessary. Chloe wonders if this is it. The moment they bring up Angie. Or is Chloe meant to ask? What is the etiquette? She thinks of the woman who had opened their front door to her in Chestnut Avenue just two weeks ago, her big gold hoop earrings. She pictures Maureen and Patrick handing over the keys to her and her snotty-nosed kids. How had she referred to Maureen? That was it, ‘the old lady who used to live here.’ Chloe looks across the table at her; she has a few frown lines on her face, no doubt carved from the worry of Angie’s disappearance, but there aren’t many crinkles around her eyes for a woman of her age. But then, what has she had to laugh about over these last twenty-five years?
Maureen continues eating, letting the opportunity to mention Angie slip by again. Chloe feels a desire then to pick at the scab. A detective would. Or at least they should.
‘Nan was the only one there for me after Mum died,’ she says.
There is silence at the table for a second. But then Maureen looks up, her brown eyes full of concern.
‘You lost your mum as well?’ She puts her fork down and covers her mouth. Patrick yawns from the other side of the table; he rubs his hands over his belly and pushes his chair back.
‘I’m going to sit in front of the telly,’ he says. He leaves his plate on the table. Maureen doesn’t answer him; instead she puts a hand on Chloe’s forearm. Her skin tingles in response.
‘I was fifteen,’ Chloe says, taking the last mouthful of her dinner.
Maureen’s eyes are shining now, trained on nothing but Chloe. She’s glad that Patrick has left the room, that she has Maureen all to herself. She feels as if she can relax a little.
Chloe points at her plate again, more confident now. ‘That dinner really was lovely.’
‘No mum, no dad, no other grandparents?’ Maureen says slowly.
Chloe shakes her head.
‘So you’re all alone in the world, you poor love.’
Chloe feels her tap her arm and her blood pumps harder in response. She’s reminded of visiting Nan when she had her fall – she blushes at the thought that that was only a week ago. She feels necessary.
‘Oh, it’s OK.’ Chloe shrugs. The feeling is still there, right under her skin, but the problem is, it’s addictive. ‘I guess you get used to it. Loss, I mean.’
She holds her gaze this time and it’s Maureen who looks away first. Chloe glances at Patrick’s empty chair, feeling bolder somehow now he’s left the room.
‘Nan took me in after Mum died. I was fifteen then, perhaps I was used to change. I was adopted, see. I’ve often thought about finding them but . . .’
She doesn’t know why she says it. Perhaps to distance herself from the lie about Nan.
‘You were adopted too?’
Chloe nods.
‘How old were you then?’
‘About four, something like that.’
‘Do you remember anything of your birth parents?’
She shakes her head. ‘I wish I did.’
She surprises herself then, how convincing she sounds. ‘Sometimes there are moments – split seconds – when I think I remember something, when a memory comes back to me, but,’ she sighs, ‘it’s all so foggy . . .’
Maureen has stopped eating. She sits at the table, her knife and fork suspended in the air.
‘But can social services not tell you? Do they not have a record of your parents?’
It would make sense, and that makes Chloe panic. She feels rattled inside, though she stays calm. ‘My social worker offered many times to get my file out of the archives, to show me all the paperwork but . . . well, there’s no point in living in the past, is there? I’d rather focus on the present.’
She almost thinks she’s gone too far now. She’s strayed too much from the script, she knows that, but the temptation that fizzes inside makes her feel more alive than she has done in years. It always does.
Chloe dips her eyes back towards her plate. Maureen must understand from this tiny gesture that she doesn’t want to talk anymore.
Maureen finishes off her food then puts down her cutlery and stands up. ‘I’d better get this kitchen cleared up,’ she says.
‘I’ll help—’
‘No, don’t you even think of it, Chloe. You go on into the living room with Patrick, make yourself comfy in front of the television. Knowing him, he’ll have one of those CSI things on the telly, but we’ll watch it together, the three of us. I only need a moment to clear up in here.’