‘Because it won’t turn off, that’s how I know.’
She switches the cordless phone to her other ear, holding it in place with her shoulder while she picks up Emma and checks her knickers. It’s her youngest girl’s first full week out of disposable pants and she has to keep watching for accidents. The flat is cramped, too small for a woman with three small daughters, but where else could they go?
‘I mean it’ll turn a bit but it won’t go all the way. There’s no need, I’ve tried it a dozen times. All right, stay on the line.’ She doesn’t want the plumber to hang up because it took her three days to get hold of him.
Angie sets down the baby and the phone and tries the tap again. It makes a horrible squealing noise like tyres on wet tarmac, but it won’t turn off. Water is churning around the U-bend with a low vibration that suggests something metallic has entered the pipework, a fork perhaps.
Angie picks up the phone again. ‘Well, of course I don’t want to leave it running, it’s emptying my hot tank. No, I don’t know what the other noise is, that’s something separate.’ She scans the kitchen for children, her gaze sweeping like a prison guard’s searchlight. Emma is sitting on the floor, hypnotised by a tangle of tinsel. Victoria is at the table, quietly colouring in a Christmas star, her pale legs kicking the chair. Melanie is helping Mummy with the laundry, an exercise that consists of pulling clean wet towels out of the washing machine and dumping them on top of the cat’s food bowl. Angie hadn’t intended to name her children after the Spice Girls, but nobody pointed out what she’d done until after John died, and then she was so embarrassed that she decided to keep quiet.
The kitchen is a hopeful yellow, but the hope has started to peel and needs repainting. An imbecilic DJ chatters on the radio, something about Santa being an alien, but it’s too far away to switch off from here. Someone upstairs is hammering. Angie pushes a dangling strand of blonde hair from her sightline and peers down the plug-hole. ‘I just told you, the clanking thing is nothing to do with the washer, I think one of the kids put something – no, I want you to fix the leak. I need to run baths and I’m sick of boiling kettles, and – well, I know what the date is but when could you come?’
Melanie is dragging wet towels across the room, but they’re caught on the cat’s bowl, which overturns, sending water and ripe jelly-caked meat across the tiles. Angie snatches the towels from her and nearly drops the receiver as the call-waiting signal sounds in her ear. ‘I’ll have to ring you back. Give me your mobile number.’ She throws the towels into a corner, they’ll have to be washed again, and takes a crayon from Victoria’s box, causing the girl to scream in annoyance. Angie writes the number in crimson on the white counter beside the sink and takes the other call.
‘Lucy? No, of course it wasn’t, I don’t even want to think about dating again, it was the plumber. Well, that’s because I was holding for a long time. I’ve got no hot water and he says his van’s broken down, plus Christmas Eve makes it double time. I wish they’d admit they’ve taken on too much work instead of going for sympathy – are you crying?’
Her older sister is often crying. She only exists in two states, tears or joy, both in the land of hysterics. Lucy is ‘unlucky with men’, that’s how their mother describes it. What this means is that Lucy, who is forty-two, hefty and panicking about her baby clock, loves men so intensely that just being with her can suck all the air from the room, and her partners leave in order to start breathing again. ‘Why, what did he do to you? Uh-huh, I’m listening, go on.’
Angie chucks the crayon back into her middle daughter’s box in order to stop the yelling. She tries to concentrate on Lucy’s problems, but they’re always the same, and their conversations remain stubbornly circular. She watches little Emma as she listens. Emma worries her. She isn’t noticing things the way she should, and she sits far too still. The pediatrician said to give it a few more weeks before running tests but—
‘Yes, I’m still here. Perhaps he needs a break, you know, a little space. No, he won’t leave you for good. He’ll probably just be glad of a—’
Her mobile goes. It’s set to Vibrate And Ring, and the resonance sends it skittering along the counter so that she only just manages to catch it before it falls. ‘Lucy, let me call you back. Five minutes, I promise. Make yourself some tea. Put a spoonful of Manuka honey in it.’ As she switches phones she looks beneath the sink. Water is pouring from the white plastic U-bend all over the detergent boxes.
‘Mummy.’ Melanie points to her nose. It has pine needles sticking out of it.
‘How did you do that?’
‘I looked inside the tree. What can I do now?’
‘You’re supposed to be changed, both of you.’ But the childminder’s not here yet, so she relents. ‘All right, you can help me wipe down,’ she hands Melanie a sponge and returns her attention to the phone.
‘Mrs Reeves?’
‘Who is this?’
‘Mrs Angela Reeves?’
‘Yes, who is this?’
‘I was with your husband, John.’
‘Oh.’ Her voice shrinks. She waits for more while she watches Melanie setting about her task with great seriousness.
‘Dying in the line of duty like that, it’s a noble thing.’
‘He was chasing a car thief. The guy stood his ground. He had an iron bar.’ Fifteen months ago. Can it already have been that long?
‘I bet he left you short of money.’
Suddenly the call bothers her. ‘What did you say your name was?’
‘I’m the man your husband arrested.’
The house phone rings sharply, making her jump. She can’t take the call right now. It’s either Lucy or the plumber, and she can call the plumber back. She looks to the sink, where Melanie has just finished carefully wiping his mobile number away.
‘Oh Mel! Look what you did!’ The number has gone. Lucy called on the house phone since, so she can’t hit Redial. The house phone stops ringing.
‘What did you say?’ she asks her mobile.
‘He arrested me, and I hit him.’
‘How did you get this number?’
‘I hit him and he just went over. But you know that. You were in court the whole time. I watched you.’
Startled, she shuts off the mobile and throws it down onto the counter. Emma is launching herself across the floor in that strange way babies have of running with their arms held high, staring delightedly down as though balancing on the brow of a hill. Angie scoops her up because she’s heading for the wet patch beside the washing machine, and there’s catfood everywhere. The cat is threading its way between them all, trying to lick the floor. Victoria is cutting star shapes from a large sheet of coloured paper, but she’s not allowed scissors, so what is she using?
‘Vicki, show me your other hand.’
The house phone rings, and Angie slips it under her ear as she advances on her oldest daughter. ‘One double eight five. What? You’re speaking to her. Wait.’ The voice goes on in her ear, reading something from a card. She can tell instantly that it’s a cold-call.
‘Wait, this is a cold-call, isn’t it? Look, I realise you’re just doing your job but it’s an invasion of my privacy, so I’m putting the phone down now to save us both time.’ The moment she does, it rings again.
‘Lucy, I said I’d call you back.’ She pulls an adjustable spanner from the toolbox beneath the sink and fixes it around the base of the tap, trying not to drop the phone into the water. Upstairs, the hammering doubles in intensity. ‘Things are difficult right now, that’s all.’ An understatement; she’s supposed to be at work. Christmas Eve will be busy but the child-minder hasn’t turned up. Angie is already an hour late. She is careful not to mention the call she received on her mobile. Like many people on the police force, John had enemies. It was part of the job. ‘No, I’m sure he didn’t mean it. Men can be very cruel in the heat of the moment. I don’t suppose he really wants to break up.’
She wishes she believed her own words. John had always been wonderful. Lucy’s boyfriend has been with her for ten months, and wants to get the hell out. There’s no use telling her. It’s like pointing out a bright red pattern to someone who’s colour-blind. Her sister is crying again, great hacking sobs of self-pity. Angie can see her now, sitting on the edge of a pink bedspread surrounded by the kind of large cuddly toys that give men the creeps.
‘Lucy, I really have to go.’ As she listens, she urges Victoria to give up her cutting instrument. Where the hell did she get scissors from? The sewing basket in the lounge, but that means she must have smuggled them into the kitchen, the little – Angie needs to take them from her. Her right hand is still pushing against the spanner. It slips against the serrated base of the tap and bruises her knuckles. A horrendous screaming noise comes from the radio, following by the guffaws of the DJ, who says; ‘Isn’t that the worst noise you ever heard?’
She gives the spanner a thump with the heel of her hand and the nut shears, freeing the tap from its mooring on the sink-top. A fierce two-foot plume of water rises out of the hole and spatters everything. Behind her, the two older girls scream in delighted horror. Even Emma looks up and grins. The mobile rings and Angie grabs it, praying to hear the plumber’s voice.
‘Don’t hang up on me again.’ It’s her husband’s attacker. She’s supposed to call a direct number at the station if she ever hears from him – what did she do with the piece of paper? The children are dancing under spraying water while the radio DJ tries out other annoying noises.
‘I’ve been away for nearly two years. I only hit him.’
‘I remember. I was in court.’ John’s arm had been broken but the suddenness of the assault had caused him to slip over in the rain-slick alley. According to the coroner, he’d ruptured a vertebral vein at the level of C2 in his cervical cord. It was the fall that killed him. They discovered he’d been drinking. A few beers with his mates, somebody’s birthday. Alcohol renders you more susceptible to rupture. The thief got off lightly. His mother slapped Angie’s face outside the courtroom. The shame was transferred to John’s family. In their eyes, drinking on duty caused his death, not some nutter with an iron bar.
‘You were pregnant. I remember the look on your face when I was sentenced.’
‘I remember you, too.’ With the phone under her chin, she tries to pull Melanie out of the water’s path. ‘You’d better get off the phone before I hang up again.’ Grabbing a frying pan from beneath the sink, she inverts it over the fountain, wedging the handle under the tap. The girls moan with disappointment.
‘I’m near your block of flats. What a crappy area. He didn’t leave you much of a pension, did he? I’m calling by to pay my respects.’
‘You stay away from here!’ she shouts.
‘I’ve paid my debt. I’m a decent citizen, not like this lot in your high street. I’ll be there in a minute.’
Angie throws down the mobile and tries to smack Melanie across the back of the legs, but the girl darts out of the way. Now that the drama at the sink has subsided Victoria is back at the table, scissors in hand. Melanie starts to grab at the back of her sister’s chair.
Angie sees the accident coming before it happens, but she’s still powerless to prevent it; the chair tips back taking Victoria with it, and there’s a scream of pain, matched by Angie’s scream as she reaches out for them. The cat leaps away with a yowl. She pulls the girls apart looking for the scissors. The points have jabbed Victoria’s forearm. The cut isn’t deep but both girls are shocked into silence by crimson droplets on white skin.
‘First aid box, over there, get it.’ For once, Melanie does as she’s told. Victoria starts to whimper. Angie wipes the cut dry and is just putting a plaster on when the house phone rings.
‘No, I didn’t hang up on you, Lucy, I dropped the phone. Listen, do me a favour – the child-minder hasn’t turned up, could you ring her for me? Because I’ve got three hungry kids here and Vicki’s just cut herself and – it’s not “my fault” for having kids, as you put it, all I’m asking is for you to make one lousy phonecall. God, I listen to you all the time without complaining—’ She’s talking to a dead line. Lucy has rung off in anger. She thinks everyone’s actions are deliberately planned to cause her anguish.
The water isn’t draining from the sink. Now it has reached the top and is flowing over the edge of the counter onto the floor, where Emma is sitting.
‘Oh, shit.’
She roughly hikes the child up, but is too late to stop her from getting wet. The radio DJ says ‘Tony from Croydon has just sent us this annoying sound.’ The tip of a knife skids across a china plate, magnified a thousand times. Melanie is unwinding a length of sticking plaster around Victoria’s arm, which is turning blue. The cat is licking the water creeping across the floor tiles.
‘You’ll cut off her blood supply doing that!’ snaps Angie. ‘Unwind it at once, and do it slowly. Victoria, don’t just sit there like a lump, stop your sister.’ She has always been the unflappable one. She does not like public displays of emotion. She didn’t cry at the funeral because she was too busy trying to organise the seating plan for the cars. She still hasn’t cried. This, in her parents’ eyes, makes her hard-hearted. She is not hardhearted, she just copes instead of falling apart.
‘What did I tell you about touching the scissors? You’ve just seen how sharp they are.’ She snatches them from Melanie and throws them across the room.
Behind her, the frying pan slides off the tap stump and the geyser resumes at a higher pressure. Angie grabs the pan as water splashes up on one of the lights under the kitchen cabinets, exploding it with a pop and scattering tiny shards of broken glass everywhere.
‘Nobody move,’ warns Angie grimly, frying pan outstretched.
The house phone starts to ring again. The DJ on the radio plays the number one annoying noise in the country. Emma starts to cry. The doorbell rings. The hammering upstairs gets even louder.
Angie reaches the front door in three strides. She yanks it open.
A well-fed man with a familiar tattoo on his neck stands before her. ‘So how are you coping all alone?’ he says, taking an arrogant step into the lounge.
‘I am dealing with the situation,’ she explains through bared teeth, glancing back at the children. Emma is under the table squeezing the cat. Melanie is winding the plaster around Victoria’s face, pulling up her nose.
‘I think it’s payback time.’ He looks past her to the children, infecting them with his stare. He bounces on the tips of his trainers, withdrawing something from his pocket. Almost without thinking, Angie swings the heavy frying pan with both hands. The pan makes a cartoonish gonging sound as it connects with his face. Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, he falls backwards into the corridor and collapses against the wall.
‘I said I’m dealing with it,’ she shouts as he lies there in the rain. She kicks his feet out of her doorway and slams the door shut.
‘Victoria, get the cat away from Emma,’ she says with determination, ‘put the plaster roll back in the first aid box, and go and get changed.’ A list appears in her head, each item supporting a tick-box. Cancel the child-minder, call the plumber, dress the children, call her sister, phone work and tell them she’s spending Christmas Eve with her girls instead.
Angie looks past the dripping curtains, out of the kitchen window to the man lying on the balcony, and shakily adds one more item to the bottom of the list.
The pale, still body is cleansed by the hard rain. In the back pocket of its jeans is the cheque made out in Angie’s name that no one will ever cash. It is the evidence that can prove the policeman’s wife was not attacked, and the start of another situation she will have to deal with. Angie can do it now. She can do anything.