She stood up and walked to the doors that led into the long bright living room. She paused and listened. There was music playing, Frank Sinatra singing. And from the kitchen next door another voice singing along with him. She called out.
‘Ursula, do you need help? Is there anything I can do?’
Ursula appeared at the door. She pushed a couple of strands of hair back from her face and wiped her hands on her striped apron.
‘No.’ She smiled. ‘You’ve done plenty. Getting the kids into bed is quite enough for any adult to do in one night. Here,’ she held out the bottle of gin, ‘have a refill.’
She had played with the children, hide-and-seek in the garden. They had shown her all their special secret places. The garden shed with the lock that was broken. The plastic polytunnel in which they sheltered on rainy days. The three huge compost bins. One full with a dark crumbly mixture, one stuffed with garden and kitchen waste, and the third empty, big enough to scramble into, with a lid that was easy to open and close down again. There was a platform built into the sturdy branches of an oak tree, and a rope ladder to climb up into it. Just enough room for an adult, a small adult. And a great view in through the bedroom windows of the house. And all the little pathways and tunnels through the dense bracken, the gorse and the pines on the clifftop.
‘We’re not really supposed to play outside the garden fence,’ Jonathan confided. ‘They’re worried that we might fall down on to the railway line or on to the rocks. They think we’re stupid.’
‘Yes.’ Laura nodded her head up and down, stretching out her chin as far as it would go, then touching it to the buttons of her blouse. ‘Stoopid, they think we’re stoopid. But we’re not, are we?’
‘No.’ Rachel kissed her. ‘No, you’re not stupid, either of you. You’re clever. Now. Show me some more. Show me some really amazing hiding places, where no one would ever think of looking for you.’
They had taken her around the side of the house, sneaked, fingers to lips, past the glass door that opened into the kitchen, and slid back the door into the garage.
‘Look.’ The boy pointed with his toe to the boards that lay neatly fitted together in a slight indentation in the floor. ‘That’s a good one.’
‘But we’re not allowed to get into it. Daddy says it’s dangerous.’ Laura looked anxious.
‘What is it?’ Rachel bent down to have a better look.
‘It’s for, you know . . .’ Jonathan put his hands on his hips and assumed a look of manly importance. ‘It’s for fixing things. When there’s something underneath the car that’s broken. Daddy does it sometimes. He likes fixing it himself.’
Rachel reached down and prised one of the boards apart from its neighbour. An inspection pit, of course. Daniel had always been good with mechanical things. Good at taking engines, clocks, sewing machines, transistor radios apart, and carefully putting them back together again.
She put her hands on each of the children’s shoulders and said, ‘I don’t think you should hide there. I think your daddy’s right on this one. It’s probably very oily and smelly down there too.’
‘And very dark.’ Laura’s face was crumpling.
‘But dark is nice,’ Rachel said, bending down and looking into her face. ‘Dark isn’t scary, dark keeps you safe.’
She sat beside her bed and watched her. Watched the way her jaws gripped her thumb, her small cheeks quivering as she sucked and sucked, and then as she drifted deeper and deeper into sleep, relaxed and let go, so her thumb dropped from her mouth, wet and glistening, a smear of saliva leaving a silvery snail’s trail across her chin. Rachel lifted a corner of the sheet and wiped it away. She stroked the child’s soft dark hair and kissed her once more, resting her lips against her cheek. Then she stood up and walked away.
Ursula had decided they would eat outside. Make the most of the fine evening. Enjoy it while they could.
‘Here.’ She handed Rachel a corkscrew. ‘You do the honours.’
It was one of those wooden ones, with a long curling spike, and a top and a bottom section which were supposed to twist against each other and pull the cork effortlessly from the neck of the bottle. Rachel tried to make it work. She could feel Ursula watching her. She was getting anxious, impatient. The food was waiting, the large bowls of chowder beginning to cool.
‘I’m sorry.’ Rachel looked over to her. ‘I can’t get the hang of this. I’ve never come across one like this before. You do it. I’ll get the rest of the food from the kitchen.’
There were rolls, warm from the oven to go with the soup, and homemade hamburgers. She had watched Ursula knead with her hands the mince meat with onion and parsley, and bind it together with the large orange yolk of an egg, and felt sick. But cooked, seared black on the outside they didn’t seem so bad. She had made chips, French fries she called them, thin sticks of potato, crisp and salty. And there was a salad, lettuce, tomato, chives. ‘All from the garden here,’ she said with pride in her voice. And a bowl of mayonnaise and jars of mustard and pickles of every variety.
They ate in silence. It was good. It was delicious. She watched Ursula. She was greedy. Cramming her mouth with food. Opening it wide so Rachel could see its contents, then lifting her glass and swilling wine into it. Rachel felt her stomach heave. She pushed away her plate.
‘That was a truly a feast. Thank you.’
‘You’re not finished? There’s homemade apple pie, and ice cream. And cream too, if you’d like. Come on, Rachel, I don’t often do this. I’d never fit into my clothes if I ate like this too often. But I thought we’d have a treat tonight. You look like you could do with one. Here, give me the corkscrew. I’ll open another bottle.’
Rachel watched her hands, the way she tore the foil from around the cork. It was sharp. She had cut herself. A small line of red appeared on her fingertip. But she didn’t seem to notice. She stood up to pour, and swayed, slopping wine on to the tablecloth, drops spattering her white trousers.
‘Shit.’ She began to laugh. ‘I knew I’d do that. I’ll just go and get a cloth.’ The phone inside began to ring. ‘You get it, Rachel, will you? If it’s Dan tell him I’m busy. Tell him I’m fine. Tell him I love him.’
There were phones everywhere. She had noticed that already. Every room seemed to have at least one. She passed by the red handset in the sitting room. She walked out to the hall. She closed the door. She lifted the receiver. She listened. She spoke. She put the receiver down, then lifted it again, listened and laid it beside the phone. She backed away and out, hearing the sound of water running in the kitchen.
‘Who was it?’ Ursula’s voice was loud, too loud.
‘It was nothing. It was a wrong number.’
It was getting late. It was getting dark.
‘You get the dessert, Rachel. It’s all in the fridge. And there’s a bottle of Baileys on the sideboard. Let’s have some of that too. I love it.’
She poured the liqueur carefully into two glasses. She looked over her shoulder out on to the terrace. Ursula had lit candles and an outside lamp, which hung from a bracket on the wall. The light flickered over her as she leaned back in her chair, her eyes drooping. This would be easy, Rachel thought. She put her hand in her pocket and pulled out a plastic pill bottle. She opened it. She took two of the red capsules from within. She carefully pulled apart their plastic shells and poured the fine white powder into one of the glasses. She looked over her shoulder again. Ursula had got up and had walked to the edge of the terrace. She was swaying gently from side to side. Rachel picked up a teaspoon and stirred until the powder had dissolved. She bent her head to the glass and breathed in deeply. All she could smell was cream and coffee and alcohol. She walked outside and handed Ursula a glass. She watched her bend her head over it.
‘Wow,’ she said, ‘that smells good.’
She was asleep before she had finished it. Her head slumped forward on to the table. Rachel sat and watched her. She didn’t look so perfect now, with her stained trousers, her slack
face, her mouth open, snores pouring loudly from it. She thought of Daniel’s voice, how it had sounded on the phone. She hadn’t heard it since that day in court. When he had denied her and turned away from her. When he had betrayed her.
‘Hi, babe,’ he said, then when there was no response he spoke again. ‘Is that you, Ursula, how are you, love?’ And then when she didn’t reply he spoke again. ‘How’s things, how’re the kids, how are you getting on with your lame duck lady? Having fun?’
‘Who’s that?’ She spoke in a voice that didn’t belong to her. ‘You’ve a wrong number.’ Then she hung up.
He would have tried again, but he would have got an engaged signal. And then he’d have stopped trying. He’d ring again in the morning. But in the morning his wife would remember nothing of this night.
Rachel got to her feet. She walked around the table and hauled Ursula to standing. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘It’s bedtime.’
Ursula’s eyes flopped open, then closed again as her body sagged. Rachel half carried, half dragged her into the sitting room. She laid her down on the long sofa. She undressed her. She went to the cupboard in the hall and found a blanket. She wrapped her in it. She stood and looked down at her. Sleeping like a baby. Sleeping like her children upstairs. And now, thought Rachel, the house is mine. She picked up her glass. She turned to the long mirror that covered one wall. She saluted herself. She drank.
It was morning when she woke. It was the cry of a baby that woke her, insistent, getting louder and more demanding all the time, and a tug on the bedclothes, and the girl’s voice in her ear, calling to her.
‘Wake up, peaches lady, please wake up. The baby’s hungry and he’s soaking wet and I don’t know where Mummy is.’
She lay on her side, the sunshine turning the bright yellow of the curtains to cream. She lifted her head. Laura was standing, balancing her small brother on her knee. His face was scarlet, a mixture of tears and phlegm running down his fat cheeks. He sobbed and gasped, frantic with hunger. He smelt of ammonia. She pushed back the bedclothes and stood up.
‘Here.’ She reached over and took hold of him. ‘Mummy’s asleep downstairs. Don’t disturb her. Show me where his nappies are kept.’
It was all so simple and natural. So familiar. She laid him down on the bathroom floor on a towel, stripping off his soaking Babygro. She washed him, powdered him, fastened on his clean nappy. She found him a terry-cloth suit. She wiped his face and kissed him.
‘And now,’ she said to Laura and Jonathan who had joined them, ‘who’d like breakfast?’
The kitchen downstairs was spotless. She had washed up, cleaned up, left everything ready for the morning. She put the baby in his highchair and heated him a bottle. She poured cereal into bowls and put slices of bread into the toaster. She handed the older children glasses of orange juice and made a pot of coffee. Soon all was peace and harmony. And then they heard a noise coming from the sitting room.
‘What’s that?’ she asked.
‘That’s Mummy,’ the boy replied. ‘She slept on the sofa last night. I think she’s being sick.’
She left the children eating and walked through. Ursula was sitting up. Her face was ashen. The sour smell of vomit filled the room. Rachel stood and looked at her. Ursula covered her face with her hands.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘You don’t remember?’
There was silence.
‘I think,’ said Rachel, slowly, ‘that you had a mite too much to drink. You passed out here, so I thought it best to leave you.’
‘And this, how did I get like this?’ She looked down at herself, clutching the blanket tightly.
‘Ah, you don’t remember that, no?’
A shake of the head.
‘You wanted to dance. And then you wanted to strip. There was no stopping you.’
Tears began to drip down Ursula’s wretched face. For a moment Rachel almost felt sorry for her.
‘And don’t worry,’ Rachel said. ‘What you said to me last night. That’s between us. All right?’
Ursula’s face reddened. She looked away, then back up at Rachel.
‘The children?’ she said.
‘They’re fine. I’ve changed the baby and fed him and the other two are having breakfast. Don’t worry about them. Look.’ She sat down beside her and took her hand. ‘Look, it was just a bit of fun. I didn’t mind. I’ll tell you what. You go upstairs, have a bath, then go to bed. I’ll stay and mind the kids for the day until you’re feeling better. How does that sound?’
She brought her a tray upstairs to her bedroom. A cup of tea and some toast.
‘Ugh.’ Ursula made a face as she drank. ‘I don’t take sugar.’
‘Drink it,’ Rachel said. ‘Sweet tea is just what you need for a hangover. My father used to swear by it.’
Tea with sugar and two more sleeping pills. That would keep her quiet for the day. She watched her sink back against the pillows.
‘I’ll take them for a walk, shall I?’
Ursula smiled sleepily. ‘Take the car if you like. You’re so kind, so thoughtful. I really appreciate this. And I am sorry.’
Rachel stood in the doorway of the bedroom and watched as her eyes closed. It was a beautiful room, this room where she had slept last night, with long windows that looked out across the garden to the clifftop and the sea beyond. It was a room full of secrets. The safe under the carpet in the corner. The jewellery box in the top of the wardrobe. The diary in the top drawer of the little ornamental desk. They always said it, the girls inside. You’d be amazed the way people write things down. The PIN number for their bank cards. The code for their alarms. The combination lock for their safe. She knew them all now. As she knew the house, inside out. She had gone up to the room in the bell tower last night. Daniel’s room. She had switched on the lamp and sat at his desk and looked at the row of photographs on the shelf. She had looked for traces of her own life and found them. The picture of Martin in a silver frame. Taken by Daniel, using her camera, one summer’s day before they got married, in the back garden of his parents’ house. She turned the frame over and pushed away the little clips that held it in place. She laid the glass and cardboard backing down on the desk and pulled out the photograph. Half of it had been folded over, hidden from view. It was the half that showed her. Martin was sitting in a deckchair. He had taken off his shirt. His skin was pale. She was sitting on the grass, looking up at him. She looked so young and pretty. She looked up now and saw her reflection in the dark of the window. She looked down again and pondered, weighing it up, wondering what she should do. And then with a sigh, she folded it back again, and again reassembled the frame and replaced it on the shelf, exactly where it had been before.
She had found the attic room too. The children had shown her the little staircase and the small door at the top.
‘It’s locked,’ Jonathan said. ‘We’re not allowed up there. It’s where Santa keeps our Christmas presents.’
But she had taken the bunch of keys that Ursula had left on the kitchen table and found the right one. Opened the door and stepped inside, bending down her head. Felt for the light switch. Seen that the room was empty, apart from a camp bed in the corner, a sleeping bag, a pile of boxes. Closed the door and locked it.
And now she was driving Ursula’s car. Trying to remember. What should she do with her feet and her hands? How to coordinate them, move them in tandem. Remember to use the rear-view mirror, remember to indicate, snatching at the wheel as she rounded a bend so the car slewed out over the white line. And the boy in the passenger seat beside her lifted his head from his Game Boy, sighed and said, ‘We do have power steering, you know. This is a top-of-the-range Saab. Latest model. It was very expensive.’
She smiled at him as she said, ‘Thanks, Jonathan, I’m not very good with cars.’
They effortlessly climbed the hill to the village, and she thought of the times she had panted up the same stretch, always the only person on foot, everyone who
passed her by driving cars just like this one.
They stopped at the top. She parked carefully, conscious of the boy’s knowing glance as her foot slipped from the clutch as she reversed, so the car shuddered to a stop. But there were ice creams to be bought, then eaten, a distraction for a while as she drove down the other side of the hill to the nearest shopping centre. This time she managed to ease the car into a parking space without mishap. She took the keys from the ignition and said to Jonathan in the front, Laura and the baby in the back, ‘Now you stay here. I won’t be a minute and when I come back where would you like to go? To the beach, to the amusements? You decide.’
She walked quickly along the row of shops until she found what she wanted. The key cutters in the little kiosk at the end. She handed over the whole bunch. House keys, car keys, keys to the garage, keys to the safe. She waited. She took the copies and put them carefully in her pocket. She walked back to the car. Caught sight of herself in the wing mirror. Pushed her hair back from her face. Smiled. Saw the children’s faces light up as she opened the door and took control once again.
It was mid-afternoon when she drove them back. They were tired. They had worn themselves out on the dodgems, the carousel, the pin-ball machines and computer games. She drove slowly and carefully. They didn’t seem to notice where they were going. She turned into the quiet cul-de-sac and drove around the green, looking for the house she wanted. She stopped the car.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘Laura, I want you to come with me, just for a little while. Jonathan, you stay here and mind the baby. OK?’ She had expected complaint but he just nodded his head and reached out to fiddle with the radio. She took Laura’s hand and they walked to the front door. Her heart thumped beneath her ribs. She pressed the bell. She heard footsteps and saw the shape of a woman through the frosted-glass panel.
‘Can I help you?’ She was barefoot, wearing a loose flowered dress. She must have been in the garden, Rachel thought, looking at the woman’s hands in their heavy rubber gloves.
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