Twenty-five years earlier
The neighborhood fuzzes past as I trace the familiar route to the local shops to meet Mum. My instinct is to rush, but at the same time I want to slow things right down, return home only once the pills have worked. I imagine Nick bent over the toilet bowl, clutching his stomach and groaning that he’s not well enough to go on holiday.
Mum’s waiting for me outside Costcutter, the sea of carrier bags at her feet wrinkling in the slight breeze. I’m too nervous to make conversation as we wander back. Mum seems quiet, too, trudging along, tired from work, she says. The bag handles cut grooves into my palms and the evening feels humid and sticky.
“You’ll be okay this weekend, won’t you, love?”
“Yes,” I mumble. “We’ll be fine.”
Halfway home we bump into Linda, the Irish lady who lives below us, next door to Nick. I’ve sometimes thought about asking her: Do you ever hear anything? Noises that don’t seem right? But surely Nick’s too clever for that.
We chat to Linda for what feels like ages. She and Mum talk about Linda’s son, who’s nineteen—Becca flirts with him whenever she comes to visit. I can’t stop looking toward the tower block, wishing for telescopic vision, until finally the conversation ends.
It takes us a while to climb the stairs because the lift’s still broken. I grab another bag from Mum to lighten her load. The whole of our floor reeks of Nick’s bacon and eggs. Mum sniffs the air and I can barely keep my tone casual as I explain he made himself a snack.
She goes in ahead. My whole body’s braced: Will the plan have worked, or will Nick come whistling from the kitchen, asking Mum if she’s ready to hit the road? How fast might the pills take effect, if at all?
Mum calls out a greeting but nobody responds. A second or two later, Becca comes out of my room. She still looks pale and her smile doesn’t bend right. I try desperately to read her expression, catch her eye. I’m hot again and the label on my school shirt is niggling at my neck.
“Where’s Nick?” Mum asks.
“Bathroom,” Becca says.
My heart speeds up. Does that mean . . . ?
“Have you colored your hair, Becca?” Mum asks as I try to listen for noises from behind the bathroom door.
“Yeah,” Becca says distractedly, twirling a purple strand around her finger.
Mum’s gaze moves to the towel lying rumpled on my bedroom carpet. “Hope the stains come out of that,” she says in the tight voice she’s started using more and more lately. It’s almost like she chooses Becca to take out her stress on, like she’s afraid to provoke Nick, and she’s habitually soft on me, so somebody has to bear the brunt.
Today’s exchange doesn’t get a chance to escalate. There’s the sound of a flush, and a lock being drawn across, the bathroom door opening.
And there is Nick. Looking normal. Fine. Smelling of minty soap.
He smiles at Mum and kisses her. “Was wondering where you’d got to. Ready to go?”
I watch from the kitchen window as they leave. Two miniature figures walking away from the tower block toward a taxi. Nick somehow manages to carry all the luggage while keeping one arm around Mum’s shoulders. If other people are watching from the flats, they’re probably thinking what an attentive boyfriend he is. I press my face against the steamed-up pane as the taxi door closes behind them.
“We tried, Kate,” Becca says. “Maybe it’s for the best that it didn’t work. It’s only three days . . . Your mum will be okay.”
I say nothing, just stare at the frying pan and the bowl that held his scrambled eggs, now dripping slow bubbles onto the draining board.
We channel-hop our way through the evening. I don’t want to use the money Nick left us for a takeaway, so Becca digs a pizza out of the freezer. We leave it in the oven too long; it tastes like ashy cardboard. She drinks one of Nick’s beers and the smell makes me feel like he’s in the room.
Why hasn’t Mum rung to say they’ve got there okay? Did she promise she would? I can’t remember now. Everything’s muddled. I search the kitchen for the address of the B and B they’re staying at. Where did Mum say she would leave it? I wish I’d concentrated. I was just so intent on stopping them going.
“I can’t find the address,” I say, banging drawers open and shut. “I don’t even know where they’ve gone!”
“Kate, you’re exhausted.” Becca pulls me away from the drawer I’m riffling through, closing it gently. “You should go to bed. I’ll find the address.”
She’s right. I’m so tired. I sleepwalk through my bedtime routine, but when I wriggle under the covers my brain refuses to rest. I’m having a feverish conversation with Mum inside my head, telling her to get far away from him, begging her to come home.
Becca comes into the room not long after, smelling of the almond oil she slicks through her hair every night to keep it glossy. The dark room fills with shuffling noises as she adjusts her sleeping bag. Her breathing smooths out almost instantly, and I wonder if she’s really as anxious as me, or if she’s just been enjoying the drama. As the night crawls on, my waking worries and half-asleep nightmares smear together: I see Nick standing over my bed; I hear a violent argument in the next room, can’t move any part of my body to stop it.
And Becca sleeps. I’m just beginning to get really worked up, convinced that her deep, dreamy snores are some kind of betrayal, when I hear her voice: “Kate? Kate?” A sound of covers being thrown back, floorboards creaking, and then I feel her climbing into bed beside me, warm arms squeezing me close. That’s when I realize I’ve woken her with my sobs, and she’s wiping tears from my face, kissing my cheek. I cuddle against her like I used to with Mum in those early mornings, just the two of us, and I realize it’s not Becca I’m mad at, it’s myself and it’s Nick and it’s Mum and it’s everything.
I don’t know what time it is when I next wake. There’s milky light at the windows and Becca is still beside me, our limbs tangled together, her almond-scented hair tickling my nose. It takes me a few moments to realize that the phone is ringing from the hall.
The phone is ringing.
In a heartbeat I’m up, scrambling over Becca, who mumbles and stirs. I glance at the clock as I streak past. Five a.m. It’s not good, it can’t be good. My head roars as I grab the receiver.