Girl A(77)

‘Yep.’ She pressed her lips against my ear. ‘It’s us.’

She touched a finger to her lips, smiling. I rolled my eyes, smiling too.

And then the knock at the door.

My pen jerked across the page.

Delilah stood up.

‘Who is it?’ Evie asked. Beneath the table, I took her hand.

Another knock.

Father came softly into the kitchen. ‘We have a visitor,’ he said. His hands were pressed together, as if he was just about to begin a sermon.

‘Let’s all be very, very quiet,’ Father said. ‘And very calm.’

He placed his hands on my shoulders.

‘Lex,’ he said. ‘Come with me.’

In the hallway, he knelt down in front of me. For a long time, I had avoided looking him in the eye, and now that I did, I saw that he was tired and wild. Clumps of grey hair stuck to his forehead. At the edges, his mouth slumped into his jowls. There was a smell coming from him, not just from his mouth but beneath his skin, as if something had hidden there to die.

‘I need you to answer the door, Lex,’ he said. ‘But it’s more than that. This is your chance, you see – to prove your commitment to this family.’

He took my hair in his hand – as long as Mother’s, now – and tweaked my head to face him.

‘It’s Aunt Peggy,’ he said. ‘You know how she likes to interfere with us. You know how she’d like to see us suffer. All you need to say – all you need to do – is say that your mother and me are out. You say that everybody’s well. You don’t let her inside. Do you think that you can do that, Lex?’

I looked longingly back to the kitchen.

‘Come on, Lex,’ Father said. ‘It’s very important to me. It’s very important to us all.’

That’s what I think of, when I remember the afternoon. Father’s faith in my loyalty. In my obedience.

A tendril of shame, stirring in my gut.

Father stood, and kissed me on the forehead. He watched me walking past the living room and the bottom of the stairs. The warmth of his eyes, nudging me along the hallway. I was already smiling. I opened the door.

Peggy Granger started. She was a few steps from the threshold, looking up to the bedroom windows. She was rounder and older and blonder than I recalled. Beyond her, I could see Tony, parked on Moor Woods Road, watching us from the car.

‘Hello,’ I said.

Peggy examined my face and neck, my dress and ankles and feet. In the daylight, I was dirtier than I had thought, and I crossed one foot over the other, to hide some of the grub.

‘Is that you, Alexandra?’

I laughed. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, Aunt Peggy. Of course.’

‘How are you?’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Good.’

Then, thinking: ‘How are you?’

‘We’re very well, thank you. Listen. Are your mum and dad home? We were in the area.’

‘Not at present,’ I said. ‘They’re out.’

‘And when will they be back?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘That’s a shame. I hear I’ve got another nephew. I’d love to meet him. How’s he doing?’

‘He cries a lot,’ I said, and Peggy nodded, satisfied. Still susceptible to a little schadenfreude.

‘He’s OK, though,’ I said.

‘Good. Well. We’ll be heading home.’

She lifted an arm to wave, but didn’t move. She looked to her shoes, like she couldn’t convince them to retreat.

‘Listen, Alexandra,’ she said. ‘I’m a bit worried about you. You don’t look very well, if I’m honest. Not very well at all.’

I opened my mouth, then closed it again. Codes. Messages. A few vague ideas, which I was too tired to enact.

‘Alexandra?’

Peggy took a step closer to the door. An imploring look on her face, as if she wanted to say it for me.

‘Are you all right, Lex?’

A fierce little figure assembled herself beside me, obscuring the view between the doorframe and my shoulder.

‘Hello, Aunt Peggy,’ Delilah said.

‘And this must be Delilah! Look at you. Like a model.’

Delilah curtsied, and did the thing with her face which made Father forgive her trespasses.

‘Girls!’ Aunt Peggy said. ‘What are you like?’

‘I’m sorry, Aunt Peggy,’ Delilah said. ‘But we were playing a game. And Lex is holding everything up.’

‘Well, that won’t do.’

Peggy laughed. Delilah laughed. And, after a few seconds, I laughed, too.

Delilah pinned her arm around my elbow.

‘You ask your parents to give us a ring,’ Peggy said.

‘We will.’

‘Goodbye then, girls.’

‘Goodbye.’

I closed the door and turned back into the gloom. Father waited there, still and smiling, then advanced, one arm raised, ready to use it when he reached us. I shut my eyes. When I opened them, his hand was on Delilah’s head, cradling her scalp, with his stare settled on me.

‘Well done, Delilah,’ he said. He looked satisfied, the way he looked at the end of a good, long lunch. ‘Well done.’