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‘I went in for dog food, that’s all.’
‘Maybe you used it to open the dog food bag or something? Maybe it was already in the kitchen drawer?’ His eyes drifted towards the dresser, rested a moment on my file. It was only a second, but I saw it.
‘It’s got nothing to do with that,’ I said.
‘With what?’
‘You know what I mean. It’s got nothing to do with my clippings.’
He sighed. Shook his head. ‘You’ve got to stop with that, I’ve told you. I told you it’d make you paranoid and it obviously has. Carrying knives around. This is Halton, notGrand Theft Auto. You can get arrested for carrying a knife, you know.’
‘I’m not paranoid. And I’m not carrying knives around. It’s just…’
But he was walking away. Out of the kitchen, shaking his head. His sandwich box was in his hand even though I had no memory of him taking it from the fridge. He walked up the hall, disappeared for a moment into the cupboard under the stairs and appeared a minute later threading one arm into his coat. At the front door he stopped, shrugged the rest of his coat on and leaned on the door frame a second before turning to look at me. I wasn’t enjoying him never looking at me, obviously, but the way he looked at me then… well, I’d rather he hadn’t bothered. His eyes were dark and puckered and tiny as raisins. They were the eyes of someone who thinks that what they’re looking at is too exasperating for words.
Except he wasn’t looking at me, not really, not into my eyes. He was looking at some point near my collarbone. ‘Might you have been having one of your… you know, your hormonal whatsits.’
Hormonal whatsits. I nearly snorted, made a mental note to tell Lisa. She’d love that one.
‘Rachel,’ he said. ‘Are you listening to me? It’s not funny.’
‘I know.’ I hadn’t even realised I’d been giggling.
‘Are you sure you didn’t bring the knife in from the garage?’
‘No.’ I stopped laughing then. ‘I’m not.’
The latch clicked shut. At the sound of a woman’s voice coming from outside, I wandered into the hallway, opened the front door.
Ingrid. Hands clasped girlishly at her waist, in her nightie and a fluffy coral-pink cardie this time, and I was sure her lips couldn’t be the exact same shade of pink naturally. It seemed to me that she’d brushed her hair. And she was smiling at Mark like he used to be in Take That or something.
‘I applied to Pam like you suggested.’ Her words reached me in snatches. ‘And guess what? She rang… come in… interview.’ Jeez, Louise, the squeaky tone of voice on it. You’d have thought she’d won the pools. I wouldn’t mind, but I knew from talking to her that she wasn’t keen on anything resembling hard work, so why she was so excited was anyone’s guess.
Mark had stopped on our drive – well, he had no choice, did he; he’d been ambushed. He was smiling, actually smiling at her, teeth and everything. His ears had gone red.
‘That’s great news,’ he said.
‘It’s next Wednesday,’ Ingrid said. I could hear her better now. ‘So-o-o-o, I need to ask you a few things, maybe later when you’re not busy, like about dress code and parking and…’
My head spun. I steadied myself against the wall and closed my eyes. I saw Jo, little anxious Jo, laid out on a hospital bed. Intensive care. Critical. Her bony little shoulders, her yellow fingers. Bags of blood. Bags of saline. Bags of urine. Needles, tubes, my God.
‘I’m so grateful,’ Ingrid was simpering on. ‘You must let me buy you a drink!’
I should go to the hospital. Say I’m Jo’s aunt or something. Ask her what she remembers. What doIremember? Please God, let her live.
The click of Mark’s car lock, his voice, different from the one he used for me; this one had a smile in it. ‘It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. Glad to help, like.’
‘It’s not nothing at all, don’t be silly! It was really sweet of you. I’m so-o-o-o grateful, you can’t imagine.’
Mark ducked into the driving seat. He was blushing. ‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘Honestly, don’t worry about it.’ The car door slammed; the engine growled into life. He backed out of the driveway and off he went. A fat plop of rain, then another, spotted the driveway. Drops. Drops on drops become puddles. Puddles become streams. Streams become rivers. Rivers become seas.
Things that were separate become whole.
I watched Ingrid watching him, waving like a child. But she wasn’t a child.
‘Congratulations,’ I called out to her from the porch and couldn’t help but smirk when she jumped out of her skin. Didn’t see me standing here, did you, love? Remember me, do you? Mark’s wife? ‘Great news on the interview.’
She turned to me, head to one side, all coy. ‘Thanks,’ she said, beaming. Shamelessly, I thought. ‘It was so nice of Mark to pull a few strings for me.’
