Twenty-five years earlier
Friday arrives. The day that Mum and Nick are due to go away for the weekend. At school I can’t concentrate, can’t eat, can’t remember anything about algebra or the Second World War or even Romeo and Juliet. When the bell goes I hurtle home, not even bothering to pick up my untouched lunchbox when it tumbles out of my bag. I’m not sure why I think I might be able to stop them leaving at the very last minute. Maybe if I pretend to be ill again. Or maybe if I don’t come home at all, they’ll have to postpone their trip to look for me. I halt in front of the tower block, imagining Mum frantic and fraught, searching the neighborhood. Phone calls to my teachers and the mums of my classmates. Could I really set all of that in motion?
A wild plan forms in my head. But then I lift my eyes and see Nick, framed in our window, staring down at me. Waving. There’s a giant lump in my throat as I wave mechanically back. And nothing to do but walk inside.
Their luggage waits in our hallway. A smell of bacon leaks out of the kitchen as I drop my rucksack beside Mum’s overnight bag. Last-chance thoughts of destroying their suitcases parade through my mind. I could throw them out of the window, watch them plummet four floors.
“Hi, Kate,” Nick shouts from the kitchen.
Why is he greeting me, not Mum? Is she not here? And where’s Becca? My nerves dance as I push the kitchen door. Nick’s frying bacon on the stove. The air is full of the sizzling noise, the meaty smell. He’s whistling, cheerful today, glugging a beer.
“Where is everyone?” I ask.
“Your mum got held up at work. She’ll be home soon and then we’re heading for our train. I’m starving, though.” He grins and flips the bacon, beads of fat spitting from the pan, then cracks two eggs against the rim of a bowl.
“Becca’s having a shower.” He beats the eggs, fork rattling. “You two looking forward to having the place to yourselves?”
“I guess.”
He turns and looks at me. The fork’s in his fist with slug-trails of yellow dripping from its prongs. “Your mum really needs this break.” There’s a warning there, his smile shrinking: Don’t stand in our way.
I feel tears building, and hurry out of the room before he sees them. Sitting on my bed, I run my finger up and down a ladder in my tights until Becca appears, wearing my dressing gown, a towel wrapped around her hair. As soon as I see her, the tears burst.
“Kay-Kay.” She sits beside me. The towel slips from her hair and water spatters my arm. I see she’s been dyeing her hair dark purple—the white towel is stained with indigo streaks.
“I’ve got to do something,” I say.
“The police?”
“No, no, you were right about that.”
“I could come back with you, help you explain . . .”
I shake my head, shuddering at the memory of my failure yesterday. Nick’s got us trapped in a corner and I’m too pathetic to haul us out. I hear him whistling again from the kitchen, and the carefree tune makes me want to explode.
Then my gaze snags on something. A small plastic tub on the bedside table. “Your pills.”
Becca glances at the clock. “Oh, you’re right, I’m due some.”
“No . . .” I pause, forming the sentence in my head before I let it leave my mouth. “Couldn’t we give him a couple?”
“What?”
I remember Becca vomiting into the toilet the first night she stayed with us, blaming it on the combination of alcohol and tablets. “We could put some in his food or beer. If he’s sick, they won’t be able to go tonight.”
“Kate—”
“It would buy us some time.”
“But—”
“One dose won’t do any harm, just upset his stomach, right?”
“Probably.” She tilts her head like she’s reassessing me. For better or worse, I’m not sure. “I don’t know. I’m no expert. I just take them.”
“Did you get sick the first time?”
“I think so, a bit.”
“It might shake him up,” I persist. “What with the pills and the beer . . . They might stay at home, at least for tonight. Then we could work out another plan, a proper one.”
Becca’s eyes travel toward the bottle of tablets. “Kate . . . it’s poisoning.” Her lips smack around the word as though she doesn’t know whether she likes the taste of it or not.
“He’ll just think he’s got a bug.” I grab her hand. “If we let him take her away, I’ve got this horrible, horrible feeling she won’t make it back.”
“Jesus, Kate, I’d do anything for you and your mum, you know that. But this feels . . . extreme.”
I’m almost proud. Bet she never thought I’d be willing to go this far. It’s rarely been me convincing Becca before. All our life she’s been the one with the bold ideas, while I’m usually the hesitator.
I grab for the pills but she gets there first, holding them to her chest. “Kate, come on.”
“You said you were here to help.”
“For fuck’s sake, I am. But spiking a guy’s drink?”
“He’s not just a guy. He’s . . . he’s . . .” My tears surge back and Becca reaches out to me: She never could stand to see me cry. But I blink my eyes clear and take my chance to snatch the pills. “He’s the guy who gave my mum a hundred bruises.” I close my fingers around the tub and for the first time in weeks, perhaps the first time ever, I feel powerful.