Truly Madly Guilty(19)

For example, this morning at breakfast Dakota had sat straight-backed at the table, chewing daintily on her toast, her eyes flat and unreadable. ‘Yes, please.’ ‘No, thank you.’ Why was she being so polite? It was creepy! It was like they had a well-mannered foreign exchange student boarding with them. Eating disorder? But she was still eating; although not with much enthusiasm.

Tiffany couldn’t get to the bottom of it, no matter how hard she tried or what questions she asked.

‘I’m fine,’ Dakota kept saying in her mechanical new way.

‘She’s fine, leave the kid alone!’ Vid said. It made Tiffany want to scream. Dakota was not fine. She was ten years old. A ten-year-old shouldn’t smile politely at her mother.

Tiffany was determined to smash right through this freaking glass bubble thing Dakota had going on. Even if she was imagining it.

She was nearly out on the street when she saw Oliver bringing out his recycling bin too, although it wasn’t rattling as much as hers.

‘Morning, Oliver!’ she called out. ‘How are you? Isn’t this rain terrible!’

Shit. Every time she saw her neighbours now, ever since the barbeque, her stomach muscles tensed, as if she were doing a Pilates crunch.

She’d always liked Oliver. He was so straightforward and polite; a bit of a dork, with his black hair and spectacles, like a grown-up Harry Potter. He had a very small head, she couldn’t help but notice. There was nothing to be done about his pea-head, but Tiffany should tell Erika to buy Oliver some of those vintage, black-rimmed glasses; transform her husband into a cute hipster in just one move. (Vid had a massive head. You couldn’t get a baseball cap to fit him. Not that he’d ever wear a baseball cap.)

‘How are you, Tiffany?’ Oliver called back. He neatly pulled his bin to a noiseless stop, while Tiffany grunted as she hauled hers over the kerb. ‘Need a hand?’

‘No, no, I’ve got it. Aren’t you nice to offer! Don’t hear Vid offering! Oomph. That’s my workout done for the day!’ (It wasn’t. She was going to the gym later.) ‘What are you doing home at this hour? Taking a sickie?’

She walked over to within chatting distance and noted Oliver’s terrified glance at her cleavage. He fixed his eyes desperately on her forehead as if she were a test. Yeah, buddy, I’m a test, but you pass every time.

‘I am actually. Getting over a bit of a flu thing.’ Oliver put his fist over his mouth and coughed.

‘How’s Erika?’ said Tiffany. ‘I haven’t seen her much lately.’

‘She’s fine,’ said Oliver shortly, as if that were personal.

Jeez Louise, ever since the barbeque, every conversation with Erika and Oliver felt as strained and difficult as if she were talking to an ex-boyfriend straight after a break-up. A break-up that was her fault. A break-up where she’d cheated.

‘And um, so we haven’t seen you much since –’ she broke off. ‘How are Clementine and Sam?’

Oliver coughed. ‘They’re okay,’ he said. He frowned off into the distance over Tiffany’s shoulder.

‘And how is –’

‘You know, it seems like a while since Harry has had his bin out,’ interrupted Oliver. Tiffany turned and looked at the empty spot on the road in front of Harry’s house. Or Mr Spitty’s house, as Dakota called him, because of his habit of spitting with disgust at all the things that disgusted him, like Dakota. Sometimes he looked at Tiffany’s beautiful daughter and spat, as if her very existence offended him.

‘He doesn’t put it out every week,’ said Tiffany. ‘I don’t think he creates a lot of rubbish.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Oliver. ‘But it feels like it’s been weeks since I’ve seen him. I wonder if I should go bang on his door?’

Tiffany turned back to look at Oliver. ‘He’ll probably just yell abuse at you.’

‘He probably will,’ agreed Oliver ruefully. He really was a nice guy. ‘It’s just that it feels like it’s been a long time between abusive tirades.’

Tiffany looked at Harry’s dilapidated, two-storey, red-brick Federation house. It was always kind of depressing to look at: the paint peeling off the window frames, the faded red roof tiles in need of repair. Gardeners came once a month to mow the lawns and trim the hedges, so it wasn’t like it was derelict, but ever since they’d moved here, and Harry had come over to welcome them to the neighbourhood with a demand that they do something about their oak tree, it had been a sad, lonely looking old house.

‘When did I see him last?’ said Tiffany. She searched her mind for unpleasant incidents. A few times Harry had stood in his front yard and yelled at Dakota, and made her cry, and that had made Tiffany lose her temper and yell back at Harry in a way that made her feel ashamed afterwards because he was an old man, and probably had dementia, so she should have shown more respect and self-control. What was the last thing one of them had done to upset Harry?

Then she remembered.

‘You’re right,’ she said slowly to Oliver, her eyes on the house. ‘It has been a while since I saw him.’

In fact, she knew exactly when she’d seen Harry last. It was the morning of the barbeque. That goddamned nightmare of a barbeque she’d never wanted to host in the first place.