‘I told you to watch her, Kitty,’ Dad said as he helped Mum up the stairs to the bedroom and began towelling her down.
‘You didn’t actually,’ I murmured. I watched him as he helped Mum out of her wet clothes, looking at her nakedness; her pale, white skin, slightly shrivelled from the water, now clean after Dad had washed the paint off. Once she was dry, he helped her into her night clothes and then got her into the double bed.
‘Let’s let her sleep,’ he said. ‘Come on. I need to introduce you properly to Amanda.’
I followed him downstairs. The spider I had been trying to befriend earlier had come out to see what was going on, peering down from the side of the banisters, his legs wrapped around the flaked white-painted wood. I stopped to look at him, stretching out my hand to see if he’d crawl onto it, but Dad snapped at me. ‘Kitty, I told you to come.’
I left the spider for another time and followed him through into the lounge. The woman – Amanda, apparently – was sitting on the sofa, looking comfortable and relaxed, as if she’d always lived here with us and we were all one big happy family.
‘Hello Katherine!’ She smiled a wide smile, her hoopy earrings swaying as she turned her head to look at me.
‘It’s Kitty,’ I said, staring back at her. I didn’t smile.
‘How lovely. It’s such a pleasure to meet you in person. I’ve heard so much about you from your father.’
I looked over at Dad, who had sat down in the armchair near the fireplace. ‘Amanda was kind enough to give me a lift back. My car broke down when I went to the shops earlier. We’ll need to go and get it in the morning.’
I nodded, but remained silent. If all she did was give Dad a lift from the shops, why was she still here sitting on our sofa?
‘Are you two friends?’ I asked, looking from one to the other. There was something odd about all of this and I didn’t like not being told things.
‘We’re … yes, we’re friends,’ Amanda said, nodding. ‘Your father actually helped me a lot with an insurance issue I had with my flat down in Thurrock, near where you both live. That’s how we first met. I mentioned I was originally from up here and he should say hello if he should ever visit. And lo and behold, there he was, on the side of the road, with a broken-down car.’
I frowned at her. I wasn’t quite sure which bit of her explanation to argue with, but something about it sounded false.
‘It’s quite an interesting place you guys have moved into,’ she carried on, looking around her. ‘You’ll need to stand on a chair or two to reach those cobwebs up there. But I’m sure you’ll help your father get it all spick and span.’ She gave me her smile again. I didn’t return it.
Dad glared at me from his seat, as if he thought I was showing him up or something. I didn’t care. He’d left me all alone and he must have known that what had happened was a possibility. It wasn’t my fault Mum escaped. He never said to lock her up or anything. It wasn’t like she was our prisoner, after all. Not like one of those Colditz people Mr Gregory showed us at school on a video he brought in.
After a minute or two of sitting there in silence, Amanda eventually got up. ‘Well, then. I better get going. Lots to do. Got three dogs at home. Yappy little things. They’re not even mine – my sister’s. Just one night left before she gets back from her holiday and I can return them. They’re one big nightmare as a pack, I can tell you. Rather terrify me. They’ve probably ripped up the house in protest by now.’
I turned my gaze on her. ‘I’m never terrified by dogs. I like animals.’
She nodded, raising her eyebrows slightly. ‘Good. That’s good, Kitty. I’m pleased. Well, I might borrow them off my sister one day and bring them round these woods for a walk as a special treat.’
I wasn’t sure if she meant it would be a special treat for me or for the dogs, but I didn’t ask.
‘Right, off I go then,’ she said, walking towards the door. Dad jumped up to follow her. ‘I hope your mother has a calm night and feels better in the morning.’
Dad said a few things to her at the door that I couldn’t properly hear, but I did make out the word ‘tomorrow’. The door closed and Dad came back into the lounge.
‘Time for bed,’ he said, not properly meeting my gaze.
Tomorrow arrived sooner than I expected. It felt like I’d only closed my eyes for a short few minutes before I opened them again, light shining in through the dirty window, some creature tap-tapping outside it. A magpie. It seemed pretty determined to undo the latch on the window and join me in my bed, but I didn’t dare let him in. Little animals, like spiders and beetles, rarely caused a fuss. Usually my parents didn’t know I had one. But something as big as a bird wouldn’t go down well. Plus, there was every chance Dad would still be cross about the previous night.
The memory of last night was liquid. It rippled when I tried to touch it in my mind, just like the folds of water that lapped against the side of the stream down the hill through the woods. I thought about Mum screaming, and Dad and that woman talking in whispers. The water on Mum’s body. The damp leaves clinging to her skin like black bruises; the trails left by the paint running down her arms. I felt bad that she escaped, but at the same time there wasn’t really much I could have done. And Dad had been gone for hours. Hours and hours. I didn’t mention last night how unfair the situation was, because I didn’t think I needed to. I made a plan to drop it into conversation if he started complaining about the next little creature I adopted.
Breakfast downstairs didn’t go well. Mum started off talking quite normally for once – or normal for her – not mentioning her ordeal in the river. Instead, she lectured me and Dad, in a quiet, matter-of-fact sort of voice, on how bread made by a baker who hadn’t washed his hands both ‘prior and after’ kneading the dough could quite likely pass on ‘Satan’s stain’ to those who later consumed it. She said this was particularly likely if ‘the baker had taken part in fornication or similarly wicked deeds’ before the bread’s flour was sifted. I was a bit confused by this, but it clearly annoyed Dad; he seemed to take it as a dig towards the loaf of bread he had brought back from his hours-long trip yesterday.
‘I don’t think Hovis let their sodding factory workers do anything wicked before sifting the flour,’ he remarked sternly, taking up two thick slices and buttering them generously. Mum poked about at her slice, which had been meticulously toasted to the right shade by Dad, as per her instructions. In the past, it would have been me being fussy over how my bread was toasted, and Mum telling me to ‘stop being silly’ when I objected to it being undercooked or burnt. She’d always give in though, toasting me a nice slice just the way I liked it, with extra chunks of orange peel she’d scooped out of the marmalade jar, just for me. Now, I felt like we were going in opposite directions, as if someone had reversed her timeline to make her become younger as I started to get older, her slowly becoming the child again. A child who needed an adult to sort out her fussy little problems. And bigger problems, too.
‘Please eat,’ Dad said, sending one of his cross glances her way.
Mum shook her head and pushed her plate away. ‘I think it would be better if I went back to bed,’ she said, looking not at Dad but instead over towards the ancient-looking refrigerator in the corner by the wall.
I thought back, then, to one time when Dad had tried to encourage Mum out to eat breakfast in the garden, on a warm sunny day in late spring. She wouldn’t go. She’d been terrified someone was outside waiting for her, convinced the unusual invitation for ‘al fresco dining’, as Dad called it, was a sinister trick. She accused Dad of calling for people to come and take her away to somewhere she could never come back from. ‘Promise me,’ she’d pleaded, ‘you never will. Promise me you’ll never call them.’ He’d promised her then. Promised her never to send her away. I had a feeling it was a promise he would one day have to break. That he couldn’t keep indefinitely. But for now, at least, he seemed to be keeping his word.
With Mum now ignoring his attempts to coax her into eating, Dad got properly cross. He threw down his bread and lined up the different types of spread on the table – raspberry jam, Marmite, blackberry jam, peanut butter, on-the-comb honey – saying each one’s name out loud. Mum still refused to properly look his way, and flinched as each jar landed on the wood in front of her.
‘Surely there is one of these you could possibly fucking contemplate eating,’ he said, starting to shout now. ‘One of them must free the bread from Satan’s fucking stain or whatever shit you’re about to come out with next.’
He didn’t normally say words like this to Mum and she seemed upset by it. Tears started to fall down her face and she began muttering something containing the words ‘Jesus’, ‘God’ and ‘forgiveness’. Dad then got a bit sad too, and started to say he was sorry. He tried to hug Mum, but she screamed and he went back to his seat and ate the rest of his toast in silence. I chewed on the little pile of toast squares on my plate and tried to think nice thoughts.
After breakfast, Dad announced that today would have a ‘bit more structure’ compared to yesterday. For a second I thought he was about to apologise properly for leaving us alone for hours, but he didn’t. ‘Today, we’re going to have some visitors. Some very nice, very important visitors who are going to want to talk to us.’ He turned to me now. ‘Or, specifically, Kitty, they’re going to be talking to Mum. So there might be some moments where you’ll have to go and amuse yourself. I’m sure you’ll find things to do up in your room. Or, in fact, it might be better if you went exploring for a bit. Only nearby. Not too far. Our visitors are going to want to have a nice long chat with your mum and me without any disruptions.’
‘I don’t cause disruptions,’ I said. ‘I just sit by and watch them happen.’
Dad looked a little confused by this. ‘Right,’ he said at last. Then he made a big fuss of tidying everything, preparing for the guests, getting everything tidy when it was already quite tidy, while Mum sat there, like a strange statue, not moving a muscle.