Frank swipes back the curtains and is greeted once more by the snarling dog. The very same dog that had lain upon his lap last night like a big sack of love. He smiles at the dog and the dog stops snarling and wags its blunt stick of a tail. He has no idea what the time is but the sun is still fairly low in the sky and the lights in the back of Alice’s house are all turned off. He opens the door and the dog bounds in and leaps straight up on to his bed.
‘Morning, girl,’ he says, scruffing her under her chin. She rolls on to her back and presents him with her stomach. Frank sits next to her and scratches her belly and thinks about the night before. He mustn’t confuse his feelings of helplessness with his feelings about Alice. He is like a newborn baby latching on to the first person to show him any affection. But still. There is something about her, something magnetic. Whenever he’s with her he finds himself pulled towards her as if the very air around her is cambered. And it’s not just that she’s self-assured and physically attractive. It’s her resilience, her artistry, her generosity of spirit that draws him to her. Alice had told him last night about the dog, Hero, how she’d been left behind by another tenant, how Alice had taken her in, unquestioningly. And then when her parents had become too ill to look after Sadie, how she’d taken her in, too. And now here he is, in her cramped house, another body to house, another mouth to feed. And she genuinely doesn’t seem to mind.
‘Hero!’ He hears a small voice calling in the courtyard. ‘Hero!’
The dog jumps from his bed and ambles out of the door. It’s the little girl. Romaine.
She stops when she sees him standing in the doorway.
‘You’re up early,’ he says.
‘I know,’ she says in a broad Yorkshire accent. ‘Mummy told me to go back to bed but I couldn’t.’
‘And you were up late last night, too. You must be tired.’
She shrugs, her arms looped around Hero’s giant neck. ‘I don’t get tired.’
‘Oh, well, that’s lucky.’
She shrugs again and kisses Hero’s head.
‘So, what are you going to do now?’
‘I think I might go and try and wake Mummy up again.’
He starts at this suggestion. He thinks of the shadows under Alice’s blue-green eyes, the way she grabs her hair in her hands and pulls it away from her face as if trying to stretch herself awake. It’s Saturday. It’s early.
‘How about I make you some breakfast and then we can put the telly on. Or something?’
‘OK,’ she says. ‘I have a toasted bagel for breakfast. With peanut butter. Can you make that?’
Frank tries to envisage a bagel. He knows the word but is finding the associated object hard to locate. He sees a dog with silken ears. But that’s not right. It’s something that goes in a toaster. So it must be something bread-like.
‘If you show me where everything is I’m sure I can manage it.’
‘OK then.’
He follows her into the narrow kitchen. The clock on the microwave says 5:58.
‘Here,’ she says, lifting the lid of a wooden bread box and pulling out a tubular bag of – yes, bagels! He remembers now. ‘And the peanut butter is up there,’ she points at a high shelf.
‘Do you like butter too?’
She shakes her head.
‘Good.’ He claps his hands together. ‘Right.’
He pulls a plate from a wooden plate rack and finds a knife. Romaine sits on the chair at the kitchen table and watches him as he tries to force the bagel into the toaster.
‘No!’ She laughs. ‘You have to cut it in half!’
‘Of course you do,’ he says. ‘Silly me!’
‘Silly you!’
He cuts the bagel in half and slides both sides into the toaster.
‘Why can’t you remember anything?’
‘I don’t really know,’ says Frank. ‘Your mum thinks maybe I had a big shock. A shock so big that it forced all the memories out of my head.’
‘Like an electric shock?’
‘No. More like a life shock. You know. Like something bad happening.’
‘You mean like when my dad stole me.’
Frank turned to look at Romaine. ‘Did he?’
‘Yes. But then the police came and everything was OK.’
‘Wow. That must have been quite shocking. How old were you?’
‘I was small. Three years old. But it did a different thing to my memory. Because I can’t remember much about being three but I remember all of that bit.’
‘Do you still see your dad?’
‘Not really. Only when he comes to England. And he lives in Australia now, so he doesn’t come much. But I’m not allowed to go anywhere on my own with him in case he does it again.’ She suddenly leans forward in the chair and stares at the toaster. ‘That’s enough!’ she cries. ‘I don’t like it too toasty!’
‘How do I . . .?’
‘That button! There! Quick!’
He pops the bagel up. It has barely changed colour. ‘OK?’ He shows it to her.
‘Yes.’ She looks relieved.
‘So, why did your daddy steal you? What happened?’
‘It was because Mummy moved up here when I was a baby and he was cross because he lived in London and he wanted to see me more. And Mummy said he couldn’t because of . . . things. And he got really cross and shouted and stuff and then one time I went to stay with him in London he took me somewhere. I think it was, like, a hotel or something. And even though he was really nice to me and bought me loads of presents and sweets I knew it was bad and I was scared. And then the police came and it was so scary. And I remember everything. Everything.’ She turns to face the table as he places the bagel in front of her.
Frank doesn’t know what to say. All the stories, he thinks to himself, the world is full of stories. But the one story he really needs to know is buried somewhere so deep inside him he’s scared he’ll never get to it.
‘Oh!’ Alice is slightly startled to see Romaine nestled on the sofa between Hero and Frank. The TV is on and they’re watching The Octonauts.
‘Good morning,’ says Frank. ‘We thought we’d let you sleep a while.’
It’s nearly nine o’clock and Alice can’t remember the last time she slept this late. ‘How totally brilliant,’ she says, leaning down to greet Griff. ‘That’s worth a night’s rent on its own.’
She glances at Romaine. She’s a gregarious child, nothing like her older sister, who has always treated anyone not directly related to her with appalled disdain. But even so, it’s strange to see her so comfortable with a strange man. And not just as in a man who is a ‘stranger’, but a man who doesn’t know who he is. Alice, feeling suddenly horribly culpable, goes to the sofa and pulls Romaine’s head towards her mouth and kisses her crown. ‘Are you hungry?’ she says.
‘No,’ says Romaine, ‘Frank made me a bagel. Except he tried to put it in the toaster without cutting it. It was so funny!’
‘Silly Frank,’ says Frank.
Kai appears at the gap in the door. His eyes are swollen with sleep and he looks slightly angry. He immediately throws his mum a look when he sees Frank on the sofa, a look that says, What the fuck is he doing here?
Alice chooses to ignore the look and instead says, ‘Morning, gorgeous, what are you doing up so early?’
‘I heard voices,’ he says. ‘A man’s voice.’
‘Yes,’ she says, ‘Frank turned up late last night. He’s started remembering things!’
Kai clearly couldn’t care less about Frank’s lost memory and slouches away and back up the stairs.
‘Sorry,’ says Frank. ‘I suppose when you’re a teenager it’s a bit weird finding some stranger in your house.’
‘Honestly, Frank, they’re used to it. We’ve always got people in the house. And stranger ones than you.’
‘Remember Barry?’ says Romaine.
‘I most certainly do.’
‘He ran away,’ says Romaine. ‘He left all his stuff and his dog and he owed Mummy loads of money and he just disappeared.’
‘He was a nasty man.’
‘Yes,’ Romaine agrees. ‘He was a nasty man. Except he always bought me comics. And chocolate.’
‘He shoplifted it, Romaine.’ She turns to Frank. ‘He gave a tiny girl stolen chocolate. Can you believe it?’
‘God, well, I hope I don’t find out that I’m a nasty man who steals chocolate and gives it to little girls.’
‘No,’ says Romaine, nestling closer into his body. ‘You’re definitely not a nasty man. You’re a nice man.’
Alice looks at her daughter, the way her tiny body is pressed against Frank’s big man body. She’s allowed Romaine to be hurt before. She’s taken risks with the safety of all her children and she’s come terrifyingly close to paying for it. She searches her psyche for some sense of alarm or primal fear. But there’s nothing there but warmth.
She says, ‘I was thinking, after what you remembered yesterday, maybe I should take you for a walk around town. See if you remember anything else.’
‘Can I come too?’ says Romaine.
‘You can come too,’ she replies. ‘And also, Frank, we should probably pick you up a new outfit. Some new underpants, possibly.’
She sees him flush a little at the mention of underpants.
‘I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with your underpants. I’m sure they’re lovely. Just that it’s always good to have a spare pair.’
‘But I don’t have any money.’
‘Look,’ she says, ‘your shirt is from Muji, your trousers are from Gap, your shoes are from Jones, you have lovely teeth, a nice accent and a nice haircut. I am going to assume that at some point, when we’ve put you back together, you’ll be good for it.’
‘But what if I’m not? You’ve got all this’ – he gestures around the room – ‘to pay for. Three kids. I couldn’t live with myself if I left you out of pocket.’
‘Let me worry about that. I’m a big girl, I can make my own mistakes. And if it makes you feel any better we can hit the second-hand shops. Apart from the underpants, obviously.’
‘Ew,’ says Romaine. ‘Second-hand underpants. Ew!’