Someone Else's Shoes(62)

“That’s what my mum says.”

Nisha stares into the dark. She wonders uncomfortably if she actually is one of those people.

“What’s your son like?”

“Ray? He’s great. Kind. Smart. Funny.”

“How old is he?”

“Um . . . he’s sixteen.”

“Where does he live?”

“Well, he’s at a—a boarding school. In America.”

“America?” Grace’s voice is incredulous. “You’re not even in the same country?”

“Not at the moment, no.”

“Don’t you miss him?”

And there it is, that lump again. Nisha feels her eyes prickle with tears and is grateful for the dark, where nobody can see them.

“Very much.”

“Then why do you leave him in a different country from you?”

Nisha hesitates. “Well . . . Ray had some issues a while back. And his dad . . . well, we didn’t think it was a good idea for him to be moving around with us all the time. Ray’s dad’s work meant that we have . . . we had to travel a lot. We thought he would be more stable, and happier, if he was in a boarding school.” She adds: “It’s a very nice boarding school. I mean he’s well looked after. It has a lot of very nice facilities.”

There is a long silence.

“It has a swimming-pool. And the food is really good . . . It has its own dance studio. And he has a very nice room—a big room—with his own television and kitchenette . . .”

Another silence.

“Is he happier, though?”

Nisha stares at the ceiling. In the living room Jasmine starts to hum. In the kitchen the washing-machine moves on to its relentless spin cycle.

“Uh.” She wipes at her eye and swallows. “That’s . . . well . . . you know, I don’t think we ever actually asked him that question.”





twenty


Cat sits in Colleen’s bedroom and picks flakes of dark green glittery nail polish off her thumbnail while Colleen tongs her hair. Downstairs Colleen’s mum is halfway through her fitness video and they can hear intermittent rhythmic thumps, punctuated by swearing.

“But are you sure it was her? It doesn’t sound like your mum.” Colleen winds another long ribbon of hair around the tongs, staring at her reflection in the mirror.

“It was her coat. The one with the furry hood. I saw that and then I looked properly and it was definitely her. Hugging this guy. And why would she be outside a boxing club? Unless it was to meet someone?”

“But are you sure it’s an affair, though?”

“Well, put it this way. She was holding this guy really tightly and he had his face sort of buried in her shoulder.”

She can still feel the lurch in her stomach as she rode past on the top deck of the bus, the way she had done a double-take and stood abruptly in her seat to try to see more, even as the woman beside her looked up at her like she was a crazy person.

“My mum hasn’t had her hair done since July and I could see her roots. And her handbag. And the worst thing was . . . she was wearing like these high-heeled shoes. Like . . . tarty shoes.”

“Tarty shoes,” Colleen repeats. She releases a long strand of hair, which bounces gently as it drops from the heated tongs.

“You know. Like the kind of shoes you wear if you’re trying to look sexy. Red strappy shoes. At least four-inch heels. My mum would never wear those kind of shoes. Not in a million years. Well, not normally.”

Her mum had kind of eased up on her toes when the man hugged her, like she was trying to lean into him as much as possible, so that the heels lifted off the ground. And he had been beaming at her, the kind of smile you do when you have a secret with someone. The shoes had been vivid against the gray of the gym car park. She hadn’t seen what happened next because the bus had speeded up and she had been left, shell-shocked, in her seat, her head buzzing with the awfulness of it.

Her mum. Her arms wrapped around a man who wasn’t her dad. Looking like someone she didn’t even recognize.

Colleen puts the tongs down and turns from the mirror. “So what are you going to do? Are you going to say something to her?”

And that’s the worst bit of it. She doesn’t know. Her mum, kind, constant, maybe a little frazzled, has started turning herself into some kind of sex case and she doesn’t know how to explain it to herself, let alone her dad. She’s always thought of her as a bit of a wimp, a bit downtrodden. She used to feel frustrated that her mum was the kind of woman who just accepted every bit of crap that was dished out to her. Her dad was no better, really. But now she’s spent two nights putting it all together: the late evenings home from work, the way Mum’s started wearing makeup every day, the way she smelled of perfume the last time Cat hugged her. Feelings of fury and hatred keep rising up like bile in her throat. She’s found herself watching her mother all the time. Was she laughing more at the television? Being sweeter to her dad, like she even still cared about him? Why was she using low-fat milk instead of full cream? Was she trying to lose weight? How could you be so deceitful? How could you just shag someone else and act at home like nothing was even happening? She hasn’t spoken to her since she saw her, pretty much walking out of any room she walks into, or responding to questions with a curt yes or no. She could feel her mum’s confused gaze burning into her back as she left but she didn’t care. Why should she even treat her with civility, given what she had done? Everything is wrong, and unbalanced, like the world she knew has somehow tilted on its axis, and Cat is miserable.