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“They obviously like Ed Sheeran,” I say, my voice husky.
“No,” she says, kissing my cheek. “They like hearing their daddy.”
I rest my lips on the top of her head, and we sit like that for the rest of the journey.
*
At nine the next morning, I leave Catie in bed, having breakfast and watching the TV. I tell her I’m catching up on work with Titus. I don’t like lying to her, but I don’t think she’s ready to talk about this yet, and I want to do this without her.
He’s waiting outside in his rental car, and I slide in the passenger side.
“Still no news from Huxley?” I ask.
“Mack got a text from him ten minutes ago that said it shouldn’t be long now. Are you sure about this?”
“Yep.” I’ve programmed the address into Google Maps, and I set the directions going. Titus joins the traffic, heading south.
It takes us about twenty minutes to get there. While he drives, we talk about work, about NZAI, how the company is doing, and what we have planned for next year, and it doesn’t seem long before he’s taking the slip road off and heading into the suburbs.
We pass a trading estate, faceless and gray, with warehouses and car lots, and surprisingly few green areas for the tree-bedecked city. Titus turns left onto a long road, and we drive past a burned-out car, and a group of youths skulking in the shadows. It’s not a good neighborhood. The houses are small and most of them are run down. Graffiti adorns the buildings and fences. Titus takes a right, then slows as we approach the house.
Quotes fly through my head—Aristotle’s “Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime,” Ghandhi’s “Poverty is the worst form of violence,” and Confucius’s, “In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of.” I guess they would all argue that poverty has caused Greta and her two daughters to be the way they are. But I don’t agree. I’ve met plenty of poor people during my charity work, and while I can’t claim to know how it feels to be penniless, and I have met desperate people who would steal or maybe even hurt others to feed themselves, it’s not the same as the cold and spiteful cruelty that Catie has described.
Titus stops the car and turns off the engine.
“Stay here,” I say, and I get out of the car.
I walk slowly across the pavement, and stop outside the low wall that runs around the garden. The small lawn is overgrown. The house is badly tended, the paint on the door peeling. Bricks and broken pots litter the side of the path. The skeleton of an old umbrella lies on the lawn, grass poking through the spokes. There’s something menacing about the scene, as if a miasma hangs over the top of it like a raincloud.
The front wall hasn’t been well kept, and a piece of one of the bricks is loose. I pry it free, brush off the dirt, then slip it into the pockets of my trousers, looking up at the front bedroom. Catie once told me her room overlooked the front garden. This was where she spent so much of her youth. Where she must have cried herself to sleep. Where she lay and dreamed of her mother and a better life. Where she was so alone.
There’s a click, and the front door opens.
I watch as a woman comes out. She was probably quite attractive when she was young. She’s aged badly. She obviously smokes, numerous fine lines marring her top lip. Her hair is lank, scraped off her face. She’s wearing too much makeup, and clothes that are too young for her—the neckline of her top reveals a neck marked with crocodile-like skin, and her short skirt shows her wrinkly knees. Her nails are false, long, and red. Her eyes bear too much mascara, and they’re oddly flat and lifeless.
She stands on the doorstep and says loudly, “What do you want?”
I don’t reply.
She steps out and walks down the path toward me, chin in the air. Behind her, two young women also come out, both scrawny and unpleasant. I think of Catie with her beautiful red hair and fine features, and for the first time I get an inkling of why they were so cruel to her.
Greta’s gaze skims down me, taking in my sharp haircut, my tailored shirt, the Apple watch on my wrist. As she approaches the wall, she sniffs the air, so I guess she can smell my expensive aftershave.
The two young women also come closer, curious. The older one’s gaze skims down me, interested. Yeah, not in a million years, love.
“Who are you?” Greta asks warily.
“I’m Catriona’s fiancé,” I say.
They all stare at me.
“Trinny,” I add, just in case they don’t make the connection.
The older girl gives a short laugh. “Fuck off. There’s no way she’d be able to pull a guy like you.”
“We’re getting married,” I reply. “And she’s six months pregnant with my twins.”
The girl sneers. “Are you sure they’re yours?”
