Every Good Girl (25 page)

‘I'm sure she will take you, if you ask her. It's her day off, the gallery's closed on Mondays. Perhaps she'll take you out for lunch as well. You'd like an outing, wouldn't you?' Graham didn't like the sound of what he'd just said. It felt as if he was talking to one of the patients in that soft soothing way that all hospital people did. Sometimes there were sharp ones who glared when he did this, and said something about not being in their dotage yet, but even they didn't seem to mind when their pain got worse.

Monica didn't reply. She was now absorbed in reading her horoscope as content and passive as if the conversation had never begun. Graham opened his mouth to speak and then thought better of it. If he spoke, this might be the dreadful moment when her mind really did blank off all they'd been saying and he was forced to face an awful truth.

He was ready to leave for work and didn't want to face anything but the pre-rush peace of the A & E department before Outpatients opened. It was still only 7.30. His mother didn't need to be up yet and at first, when she'd come out of hospital, he'd expected her to be exactly as she was before, full of ‘Don't Fuss' and ‘I'm Perfectly All Right', quite content to carry on being argued with about her insistence on getting up in time to cook his breakfast, then going back up to bed with the paper and a cup of coffee for an hour. Now she was fully dressed, bathed and ready for the long day downstairs.

She sat at the table like a good child, letting Graham make toast for them both. He refilled the coffee machine and set it up ready for her mid-morning drink.

‘What time is she coming?' Monica asked. Graham couldn't remember if that was exactly what she'd asked before. It sounded like it; he should listen more carefully. Perhaps the not listening was something in the blood. At work he'd got into the habit of only half listening. Really it was all he needed, that and enough calming phrases to reassure the patients on their journeys round the hospital. The ones lying on trolleys were usually only half there anyway, absent in their pain or shock or anaesthesia. The ones in the wheelchairs were talking to the space in front of them. He had time for his own thoughts, time to dream about what might turn into a future with Jennifer if he only had the nerve. There seemed to be a sequence of steps in a relationship that he hadn't quite got the hang of in the same way other people had. When he observed other couples, just sitting together in the hospital café, or strolling on the Common or shopping, it was like watching a ballroom full of people dancing something complicated and Latin American and making it look as if it was the easiest possible thing.

‘Time for me to go, Ma,' he said, bending to kiss the white-whiskery face. For the first time he noticed how lined her skin was, neatly and evenly crazed like a drought-stricken African riverbed.

‘Well I don't suppose she'll be long,' Monica said, looking at the clock. It said 7.45. Perhaps she thinks it's the evening, Graham thought, feeling horribly alarmed.

‘No I don't suppose she'll be long,' he agreed.

‘I'm going back to school today,' Emily announced, appearing in the kitchen with her bag of books and wearing clothes without holes in them. Nina glanced up at the clock and back to Emily. ‘You must have got
up incredibly early,' she said. ‘It's not even eight yet and you've washed your hair.'

‘Oh thanks,' Emily replied, dropping her bags onto the sofa. ‘I actually thought you'd be pleased, glad that I'm all out of victim mode and
back to normal
as they say.'

Risking the usual early morning rebuff, Nina got up and went to hug her. Emily was unusually relaxed about it, allowing her mother to touch her for a full five seconds before shrugging her off and reaching across to the cupboard over the sink for a mug. ‘Sorry Em. Of course I'm pleased. I certainly don't want you to fail your A-levels just because some man—'

‘Some
bastard
,' corrected Emily immediately.

‘All right, some bastard . . .'

‘Yeah, yeah. Don't go on about it. I don't need reminding. I've had enough of all that from the police. That sergeant woman, she keeps asking me if I want Victim Support and counselling and all that. I just think the longer I drag it out, the more he'll have possession of my head.' She took her coffee and sat at the table, opposite Nina. Her eyes looked less confident than she'd sounded.

‘I am right, aren't I? Mum?'

‘I expect so. Only you can know that. You are if that's what you think. Have you talked it over with Joe?'

Emily grinned. ‘I didn't see that much of him over the weekend. Not by himself anyway. He was working Friday night, and then on Saturday he took Lucy to see Fulham get creamed by Sheffield Wednesday. And then there was Sunday. He cooked a mega lunch by the way. Catherine's always there and I'm not talking to
her
about
anything
.'

‘Oh yes, Catherine,' Nina murmured, thinking of the thermometer again. Perhaps this weekend there'd been
a peak on the temperature chart and that was why Joe had worked late on Friday night. She imagined him skulking in a bar till he could make a reasonable guess that Catherine would have lost interest or gone to sleep, and then sliding into the flat with his shoes in his hand like a teenager terrified of being grounded. Why, she wondered, had he not simply tried telling her he didn't want any more babies and laying in a supply of top-quality condoms? She would ask him next time they met.

‘Do you know she doesn't like proper roast potatoes, not the way Dad does them in goose fat?' Emily was saying. ‘When I say doesn't like, I mean she doesn't
approve
. She says they should only be done in olive oil with rosemary otherwise we'll all die of clogged arteries. Then Dad told her, he said, “We sometimes did them like that
at home
.” You should have seen her face!' Emily got up, rinsed her cup and picked up her schoolbag. ‘Got to go, meeting Chloe at the bus stop,' she said, heading for the door. ‘Are you taking Lucy and Sophie today?'

‘Yes I am, why?'

‘Just wondered.' Emily was fiddling with her hair, looking shifty, Nina suddenly thought. ‘What's Lucy likely to tell me when you're not around?'

‘Nothing. Nothing at all. Did I even suggest it? And if she does, she's making it up, OK? It was just a strange dream she had. See you later.' And she was gone.

Nina shoved cereal bowls into the dishwasher, quickly wiped over the worktops and went out into the garden to see what was growing. The ceanothus, which was reaching out so far from the fence that it almost blocked the side gate, was about to flower. Pots of pink tulips had reached their last stage of appeal, with their petals thrown open to the sun and their elongated pale
stems stretched like pleading. From an open window far upstairs she could hear Lucy singing along with the radio, putting on a voice that was supposed to sound sassy and American. Lucy was probably singing to the mirror, with her toothbrush as a pretend microphone, posing sexily like something out of
Baywatch
. It reminded her of Megan and Sophie's forthcoming trip to Barbados, which everyone had seemed to decide not to mention. It was probably soon – much later and Megan would be too pregnant to be allowed on a plane.

‘Morning! Any coffee going?' Henry appeared through the side gate, shoving aside the ceanothus and wandering casually into the garden. ‘Your delphiniums are coming along. They're going to need staking, though.' He marched across the terrace and started poking at the stems, weaving them together. As soon as he let go they collapsed again.

‘Sorry Henry, no coffee right now. I've got to do the school run. I'm just about to go and collect Sophie from across the road.'

Henry looked disappointed for a moment and then immediately cheered up. ‘I'll come over with you. See what the lovely Megan looks like first thing in the morning!'

‘Oh she'll be really thrilled to see you, I'm sure. All women just love a surprise visit from a man before 8.30,' Nina told him with knowing sarcasm. ‘Come on, I don't want to make these girls late.' She walked through the kitchen, picked up her bag and called up the stairs: ‘Lucy! Time to go!'

‘You'd better lock this gate out here,' Henry said, pointing back to the garden. ‘I came to tell you, there's been another girl attacked on the Common. Late on Saturday night apparently. This time he had a knife
and made her hand over her underwear. Didn't do anything else though. Strange.'

Lucy thundered down the stairs and met them at the front door. ‘What's happened, why are you looking so serious?' she demanded.

‘Another girl's had some trouble with a man on the Common. Like Emily did,' Nina explained calmly. It was pointless to keep it from her: it would be all round the school by the end of the morning. At the gate, parents would be muttering to each other and hiding the facts under half-sentences and meaningful looks and their puzzled children would make up their own lurid versions. Lucy's eyes glowed huge and round. ‘Wow that's really horrible!' she said, already halfway out of the door longing to spread the news. ‘I'll just go across and knock on Sophie's door!' she yelled back to them.

Nina shuddered. ‘God, I hope they catch him soon. There's nothing worse than not feeling safe. Ridiculously, it hadn't occurred to me that the thing with Emily was anything more than a one-off. I take it they do think it's the same person?'

Henry shrugged. ‘Not sure. I was just in Mr Patel's picking up a
Mirror
and heard someone talking.'

Lucy was bouncing with the excitement of being the bearer of news and Nina could hear her imparting the gossip from across the road. The words ‘exposing' (which Lucy thought was a rather grand and grown-up technical word) and ‘knife' could be heard quite clearly, given loud and dramatic emphasis. Megan, stunning in loose black trousers and a flowing pink linen shirt, was looking pale and tight-lipped. Her arms were folded firmly across the baby-bulge as if protecting it from hearing. Nina waited at the gate for the two girls to come out but Megan beckoned her in
and she and Henry strolled up the path.

Megan gave Nina a cool look. ‘Girls, go and wait by the car, will you. I just want a word with Lucy's mummy.' Her smile, Nina thought, would freeze rivers.

‘What's the matter? Is Sophie all right?'

Megan's head tipped prettily to one side and she beamed at Henry before turning to Nina. ‘Look, I don't want to be difficult, but we do try to shield Sophie from the nastier side of life. Without being unrealistic about things, you understand. It's just that she'll come across all the horrors of the grown-up world quite soon enough, thank you.' Nina felt as if she'd been told off for talking in class. If she'd had hackles, they'd be rising. Megan was standing, still with her arms folded, a picture of self-righteousness.

‘Well I'm sorry if Lucy was a bit over-eager to pass on the news, but don't you think Sophie needs to be just slightly aware that it's not all Disneyland out there?' Nina said. ‘I mean she's nearly ten. It's not impossible that she could take it into her head to trot off on her own to make a camp in the bushes on the Common.'

‘No she wouldn't do that. I've told her not to.'

‘Told her there's witches and bogeymen out there, have you?' Henry cut in. ‘That'll really do the trick.'

‘Henry, please. That doesn't help,' Nina said. ‘Look Megan I'm sorry but a real girl was attacked, there is a real problem.'

Megan sniffed. ‘What on earth was a girl doing strutting about on the Common late on a Saturday night anyway? Quite honestly she's only got herself to blame, if you ask me. It was simply asking for trouble.'

Nina sighed and gave up.

‘We'd better get going,' she said, looking at her watch. ‘Lucy's got an early recorder lesson. I'll see you
later, but I can't do this afternoon, I have to go and see my mother.'

‘Oh all right, sorry.' Megan looked flustered. 'Look I'm really sorry, you're probably right. Don't take any notice of me.' She smiled and patted her swollen stomach. ‘It's probably just hormones or something. I'll pick the girls up.'

‘Hormones, buggery,' Henry sniffed as they reached the car. ‘She's scared, that's the truth.'

‘I don't know why, she never goes on the Common, not as far as I know. They don't even have a dog.'

Nina opened her car door and threw her handbag across to the passenger seat. As she climbed in, Henry's face came close enough for her to smell soap, sweet powdery baby soap. ‘Dog or no dog, believe me, she's scared enough. By the way, did either of us actually mention to her that it was late Saturday? I don't recall. I guess she must already have heard.' He shrugged, ‘Bye now, have a nice day.'

‘Tell me about your weekend then.'

Emily sat in the cloakroom with Chloe, hidden behind coats, feet up on the shoe racks. They were skiving assembly and knew that if any staff came checking for stragglers they'd stop at the door, glance lazily over the floor for feet and if they saw none, stroll away again.

‘My weekend?' Chloe looked at the ceiling and pretended to ponder. ‘My weekend by Chloe Ellis,' she announced, then giggled, ‘Well it was so boring, I might as well have had a straight run from Friday through to today with no gap. I slept and watched TV and worked. To prove I did nothing more exciting than French revision I could recite you the subjunctive of the verb
être
, or I could just give in and say, “OK Emily,
go ahead and tell me about your weekend.” I can see you're almost exploding to.'

‘I got him,' Emily said simply, watching Chloe's face for a satisfying reaction.

‘Got him? Who? Nick? I thought you could have him any old time you wanted. So did he.'

‘Sod off.
Simon
, the one I told you about.' Why did even your best friend do that? she wondered: pretend they've forgotten everything you've had most on your mind, everything important and special that you've dumped on them, just so they can spoil the moment.