My Husband's Wife(9)

‘Are you sure?’

The first part was the truth. Mamma was going to tell Larry about the phone when he came round next. Then he would pay for it to work again. But the second part – about her mother being in – wasn’t true. Mamma would be at work.

But somehow, she had to get home before Charlie was discovered inside her school blouse.

‘There’s a work number here,’ announced the teacher, opening a file. ‘Let’s try, just in case.’

She’d had it now. Trembling, she listened to the conversation.

‘I see.’ The teacher put down the phone. Then she turned back to Carla, sighing. ‘It appears your mother has taken the day off. Do you know where she is?’

‘I told you. She is at home!’ The lie slid so easily into her mouth that it was as if someone had put it there. ‘I can walk back on my own,’ she added. Her good eye fixed itself on the teacher. ‘It is not far.’

‘We can’t allow that, I’m afraid. Is there anyone else we can ring? A neighbour, perhaps, who can go and fetch your mother?’

Briefly she thought of the golden lady and her husband. But she and Mamma had never even spoken to them. ‘We must keep ourselves to ourselves.’ That’s what Mamma always said. Larry wanted it that way. He wanted them for himself.

‘Yes,’ Carla said desperately. ‘My mother’s friend. Larry.’

‘You have his number?’

She shook her head.

‘Miss. Miss!’ One of the other children in her class was knocking on the door. ‘Kevin’s hit someone else now!’

There was a groan. ‘I’m coming.’ On the way, they passed the woman who helped out in her class. She was new and always wore sandals, even when it was raining. ‘Sandra, take this child home for me, will you? She’s only a couple of stops away. Her mother will be there, apparently. Kevin? Stop that right now!’

By the time she turned into her road with the sandal woman, Carla was really beginning to feel wobbly. Her eye was throbbing so badly that it was difficult to see out. There was a pain above the eyebrow which was pulsing through her head. But none of this was as bad as the certain knowledge that Mamma would not be in and that she’d then have to go back to that horrid school.

Do not worry, whispered Charlie. I will think of something.

He had better hurry up!

‘Do you know the code?’ asked sandal woman as they stopped at the main entrance to the flat. Of course. The doors swung open. But just as she’d expected, there was no answer when they knocked on number 7.

‘Maybe my mother has gone out for some milk,’ she said desperately. ‘We can let ourselves in until she comes back.’

Carla always did this, before Mamma returned from work. She’d get changed, do a bit of tidying up (because it was always a rush for Mamma in the mornings) and start to make risotto or pasta for supper. Once, when she had been really bored, she’d looked under Mamma’s bed, where she kept her ‘special things’. There she had found an envelope containing photographs. Each one showed the same young man with a hat at a funny angle and a confident smile. Something told her to put him back and not say anything. Yet every now and then when Mamma was out, she went back to take another look.

Right now, however, she could see (after fetching the chair that sat at the end of the corridor) that the key wasn’t in its usual place on the ledge above their door. Number 7. It was a lucky number, Mamma had said when they moved in. All they had to do was wait for the luck to arrive.

If only she had a key for the back door, by the rubbish behind the flats. But that spare key was for Larry so he could come in whenever he wanted and have a little rest with Mamma. Her mother joked it was like his private ground-floor entrance!

‘I can’t leave you.’ The sandal woman’s voice was all whiny, as though this was Carla’s fault. ‘We’ll have to go back.’

No. Please no. Kevin scared her. So did the other children. Charlie, do something!

And then she heard the distinct padding of heavy footsteps coming towards them.





5


Lily


APPEAL.

A PEAL.

A PEEL.



Joe Thomas is writing on a piece of paper opposite me.

I push back my hair, normally tucked behind my ears, try to ignore the smell of cabbage drifting in from the corridor outside and take another look at the three lines on the desk between Joe Thomas and me. The charming man I met an hour ago has disappeared. This man has barely uttered a word. Right now, he is putting down his pen, as if waiting for me to speak. Determined that I should play by his rules.

For anyone else it might be unnerving.

But all that practice, when I was growing up, is now standing me in good stead. When Daniel was alive (I still have to force myself to say those words), he would write words and phrases in all kinds of ways. Upside down. The wrong way round. In an odd order.

He can’t help it, my mother used to say. But I knew he could. When it was just the two of us together, my brother wrote normally. It’s a game, his eyes would say, sparkling with mischief. Join me! Us against them!

Right now I suspect that Joe Thomas is playing a game with me. It gives me an unexpected thrill of strength. He’s picked the wrong person. I know all the tricks.

‘Appeal,’ I say crisply and clearly. ‘There are several ways of interpreting it, aren’t there?’