Blink(26)

‘Where were you?’ I rushed up. ‘I was worried sick.’

‘Heavens, Toni,’ Mum said in her there you go again with your completely illogical reaction tone of voice that always made me feel incredibly stupid despite the high level of panic Mum had managed to provoke. ‘It’s a warm day and you were at your interview. There’s no sense in Evie being cooped up in the house.’

Mum’s infuriatingly logical reasoning. Why couldn’t I have told myself the same thing before I launched into imagining my whole world ending?

‘But I thought . . . Anything could have happened. I texted you.’

‘My phone’s out of charge.’ Mum shrugged. ‘I left it on the side in the kitchen. Please don’t make a scene about it, love.’

Me make a scene? I spent most of my time walking on eggshells so as not to annoy Mum. Still, I let it go.

I realised Evie hadn’t said a word. I stepped in front of her and sank down on my haunches. My heart was still hammering but I knew it would calm down soon, now I knew she was safe. ‘Do I get a cuddle from my big girl, then?’

She gave me a weak smile and a half-hearted hug and that’s when I saw she’d been crying. I looked up at Mum.

‘Besides, Evie got herself a little bit upset, didn’t you, petal?’ Mum shot me a meaningful look. ‘I thought a little walk to the park and an ice cream might help.’

When we got back inside the house, Evie went straight to the living room door and waited there. I went in first and did my waspie walkabout. This was what we now called our new routine. Before Evie felt comfortable entering this room, I had to check every inch of it for wasps that might have escaped Mr Etheridge, the world’s greatest pest controller.

When Evie was satisfied the room was safe, she turned on the TV and, despite the heat, snuggled under her fleecy comfort blanket with her thumb in her mouth. She wouldn’t entertain the window being open anymore. I was hoping that in time the trauma would fade. Just like the stings seemed to be doing at last.

When I was sure Evie was settled, I went back in the kitchen, flicked on the kettle and looked at Mum.

‘What happened?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Mum sighed. ‘For starters, you told me the wrong time, which didn’t help.’

‘What?’

‘School finishes at three fifteen, Toni, not three thirty. The other children had been collected and when I got there poor Evie was sat all alone.’

I frowned. I could have sworn that when Harriet Watson visited, she’d made a point of telling me that pick-up time was three thirty.

‘Anyway, when I picked her up from class, Miss Akhtar, her teacher, said she’d had a good day.’

‘I thought her teacher’s name was Miss Watson?’

‘No, it was definitely a Miss Akhtar, she introduced herself to me. A nice young woman she was, looked as though she was just out of university.’

That description didn’t match the middle-aged, rather stern Harriet Watson, who had visited us earlier in the week. I seemed to be getting all the details mixed up in my head.

I made two coffees and we sat down at the table.

‘I thought Evie seemed a bit quiet, and when we got out of the school gates, she burst into tears,’ Mum said, tracing a deep scratch on the thin wooden veneer of the tabletop.

‘Why was she so upset?’

‘She wouldn’t tell me, Toni.’ Mum looked up at me and I could see she felt troubled and confused about Evie’s reaction. ‘All she kept saying was that she doesn’t want to go to school tomorrow. Don’t get annoyed with her.’

‘Why do you keep saying that?’ I took a big gulp of steaming hot coffee and swallowed it down, wincing as it burned my throat. ‘When have I ever caused a scene or got annoyed?’

Mum looked at me.

I did feel a twist of blame towards her for not finding more out from the school. If she’d noticed Evie was overly quiet, then Mum should’ve asked the teacher a few more questions.

‘It’s a shame you couldn’t have been there to pick her up on your first day,’ Mum said, on the defensive again and weirdly accurate. ‘Then you could have asked her teacher yourself.’

I wasn’t going to get into a fight with Mum. I couldn’t handle it today.

‘By the way, my interview went well,’ I said pointedly. ‘They’re ringing me later to let me know if I’ve got it.’

‘Oh good,’ Mum said, her tone conveying that, in her opinion, it was actually the exact opposite of good. She stood up and picked up something from the counter that was wrapped in a clean tea towel. ‘Here, I made a quiche for your tea.’





23





Three Years Earlier





The Teacher





After she’d photocopied more worksheets for the next day, Harriet began to collect up the numerous sheets of the children’s dried artwork from the six square tables that were dotted around the classroom.

Without doubt, this was her favourite time of day. Most of the staff and all of the children had gone home and the classroom assumed a tranquil, reassuring ambience that never failed to calm her nerves.

Harriet was in no rush to go home. She was never quite sure, until she got through the door each day, what mood her mother would be in. It wasn’t difficult to hazard a guess, of course. Nine times out of ten, it was a foul mood.