Just What Kind of Mother Are You? (14 page)

That’s it. Nothing at all wrong in my world except I was tired.
‘Jesus
,’ I whisper into the pillow.

I hear footsteps coming up the stairs. The clink of crockery. Joe appears, carrying my breakfast.

‘It’s toast,’ he says, ‘on a bed of plate.’

I manage half a smile.

Joe hates all the cookery programmes we’re bombarded with, the hoity-toity food that we’re never going to cook.

He particularly hates it when Nigella pretends to raid her fridge in the middle of the night. You know, as if we’re supposed to think that her food is so yummy, and she’s so happy celebrating her curves, that she just can’t resist? Joe watches that little charade and says, ‘You think she’d be shitting herself there’s a cameraman still in her kitchen, wouldn’t you?’

‘How are you feeling?’ he says to me now.

‘Crap,’ I reply. ‘I drank too much wine. Couldn’t help it. What time did you get back?’

‘After twelve. June made us all hotpot and gave us a free pint.’

June is the landlady of the pub in the village.

‘Nice of her,’ I say.

‘Yeah, well, it felt a bit like we were going through the motions after a while, so we called it a night.’

‘Because of what Sal said?’

He nods. ‘Yeah. No one really believes Lucinda’s gonna be found around here. They’re just turning out for Guy and Kate, to show some support.’

I go to sit up and the pain in my head slams me back down again. ‘Stay there,’ Joe says. ‘It’s only half six, we’ve got ages before we need to get moving. You going into work today?’

‘Got to.’

‘I’ll get the kids up. You have another half an hour.’

‘Joe?’

‘Hmm.’

‘What are people saying? What are they saying about me? Do they say it’s my fault?’

He shrugs. ‘If they are, they’re hardly gonna tell me.’

‘I suppose … Joe?’

He stops. ‘What?’

‘I thought she’d be back by now. I really thought she’d be back at home.’

He smiles at me softly, his eyes sad. ‘Me too, baby.’

Last night I drank till I was absolutely sure I could drink no more. I wanted to be certain to pass out. I didn’t leave any room for thinking. I wanted my brain to stop.

Of course, now I’m paying for it.

I feel my stomach heave and I’m too shaky to move. Frightened that if I stand upright I’ll topple over.

I rest in bed a moment longer. Maybe I’ll be okay. Maybe I’ll get away with it. I almost smile at the lies I’m telling myself. My body needs to purge, I can feel it coming, and
still
I pretend it’s not happening. I go suddenly hot and I know now I need to move. Might as well get it over with, I think, as I run towards the bathroom, stumbling against the wall as I go.

Two hours later, and I’m on my way to work. Joe is dropping Sam at school and is then heading to Lancaster Infirmary to take
one of his regulars for some UV treatment on his vitiligo. I told him I’d nip to Asda at Kendal and pick up some bits and pieces for tea. Like Kate said last night, we’ve still got to eat.

I thought Sally would beg to stay at home today, but she didn’t. She seemed better this morning, though she couldn’t eat any breakfast. I think she needs to be around her friends. She needs to talk to them, not me. I tried digging a little deeper with her, tried to get her to tell me anything at all about Lucinda’s behaviour of late, but she clammed up. I can’t tell if she’s hiding something more, or if she’s feeling so bad that she simply can’t talk about her.

Driving, I’m heading straight into the sun. The day is obscenely bright. Alpine-bright. Everywhere is still covered with snow. It’s so cold that there’s no slush yet, and even the snow banked along the side of the roads is almost as white as when it first fell, only a shadow of muck on it from the passing traffic.

Ordinarily, I would be filled with joy by such a morning, living in such beauty. I’d be listening to the traffic reports for all those poor sods in London stuck in four-hour queues, and I’d be driving along, smiling happily. Today, though, I don’t notice the beauty. Today, the sun feels like sharp, fierce pain.

The windscreen is full of salt, and there’s no antifreeze in my screenwash. Three times I have to pull over and rinse the glass manually with a bottle of Highland Spring – water I brought along for me to drink, to rehydrate. I’m praying I don’t get stopped by the police. Not only am I unsafe driving with no clear vision, but I smell as if I’m fermenting. If they get one whiff of me I’ll be breathalysed, be forever typecast as one of those pissed-up mothers still drunk from the night before.

Even with gloves on, my hands are freezing on the wheel. The air outside is still but dense. Cold is seeping into everything. Creeping through the stone walls of our houses, through the body of my car.

I get to Asda at eight forty-five and the car park is stupidly busy with Christmas shoppers. I see a woman in her early thirties get out of a Vitara she’s parked in a parent-child space. She’s childless and I’m overwhelmed with the urge to ram her. She’s put on an air of aloofness. She knows she’s in the wrong but she’s pretending she doesn’t care.

Eventually I manage to park in the overflow car park that’s only ever busy at Christmas or Easter Saturday.

I haven’t made a list but my plan is this: ready meals, lots of them.

That’s why I’ve come out of my way and driven to Asda. It’s cheaper for that sort of thing. I am in no state to buy ingredients and start constructing something from scratch. So I am going to make this easy. Lots of ready meals and stuff for tomorrow’s sandwiches. That’s it. Joe can do a proper shop on Saturday.

I see happy mothers, loaded up with goodies for Christmas – nuts, dried figs, dates, two-litre bottles of Coke.

There’s a woman standing next to the fridge where I want to be; she has three kids under the age of four in her trolley. Usually, I’d stand and smile at the kids, make faces. Sympathize with the mother, saying, ‘You’ve got your hands full,’ or something along those lines. But today my face barely registers their presence. All I can think of is Lucinda. Where is she? And who is the older man she’s been talking to?

I pick up three chicken kormas and rice, a madras for Joe that he can put his own bird’s-eye chillies on, and a dopiaza for me.

You go out to eat with Joe, and the waiter says, ‘On a scale of one to ten, how hot would you like your dish?’

Joe answers, ‘Twenty.’

And he still takes extra chillies with him.

It used to bother me the way he put them all over every meal I prepared. ‘But how can you even taste it?’ I’d say, cross that he was somehow wasting my efforts. But now I don’t bother. The
only time it irritates me is when we’re in company and the men get into a kind of macho I-Can-Eat-Hotter-Chillies-Than-You competition (but without actually saying it). It’s playground stuff. Akin to I’m-A-Bigger-Manchester-United-Fan-Than-You. Joe has competitions in this as well.

I’m wondering how my mind has stumbled upon this nonsense as I’m running my debit card through the self-serve checkout. And then, as if from nowhere, just as I go to walk out of the store, a security guard approaches and grabs my bag.

‘Come this way, madam,’ he says, guiding me by the elbow.

I stop dead in my tracks.

‘What are you
doing
?’ I say to him, incredulous, but he ignores my question and pulls me along – much in the same way I would handle a reluctant, fearful dog.

I let myself be directed to a door by the toilets, an unmarked, brown, veneered door I’ve never noticed before. People are stopping to watch. Some are pretending not to, looking surreptitiously from behind the newspaper stand, from next to the stacked boxes of Stella Artois by the entrance. Some are just flat-out staring.

‘Please,’ I say to the guard. ‘You’ve made a mistake.’

He’s a big guy and I can smell the damp-mildew odour of several days’ sweat upon him. He doesn’t speak. Just opens the door and instructs me to take a seat at the desk, where there’s a thin man in a suit. Actually, he’s only a boy. His collar is too big around his neck and his shoes are the same ones my twelve-year-old has for school. He’s wearing an expression of oily satisfaction.

‘Can I take your name?’

‘If you tell me why you’ve made me look like a bloody fool by bringing me in here,’ I reply.

‘We suspect you of shoplifting.’

I’m about to fly into a rage, about to send a barrage of insults
his way, but, at the last second, I stop. Because, realistically, I’m in no state for shouting today. My head is killing me, my mouth is parched and, if I hadn’t been drinking in my own home last night, I’d feel certain I’d bummed a few cigarettes off someone. Strong ones as well, Regal or Embassy Number 1s.

My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth as I say to him, ‘Will this take long?’ But I don’t say it outraged. I say it quietly. Sadly, as if I am actually guilty of shoplifting, such is my state of mind.

‘Not if you are willing to cooperate with us fully, Miss—?’

‘Lisa Kallisto. Mrs.’

He presses his lips together, gestures to my two carrier bags. ‘If I could get you to unload these on to the desk here, and we’ll take a look at what you’ve got.’

I look at him wearily. Inside, I’m thinking I might enjoy the apology he’s about to give me. I might if this were a different day.

I stand. I take out a multipack of Walkers crisps, a loaf of Best of Both Hovis – my attempt to get some sneaky fibre into the kids – and a bumper pack of smoked ham which the cats go mad for.

I look up, raise my eyebrows. ‘I’ve paid for all of this,’ I tell him. ‘Would you like to check my receipt?’

‘That’s not necessary. Please empty the other bag, Mrs Kallisto.’

One carton of orange Tropicana (no bits), the five ready-made curries – this is getting tiresome, I’m thinking, and then …

‘Oh, shit.’

I stare at the table. I drop my head and cover my face with my hands. ‘Oh, shit,’ I say again.

When I look through my splayed fingers at him, he’s looking right back at me as if to say,
Well
?

And I start to laugh.

‘I don’t find it very funny,’ he says.

‘You would if you were me.’

I’ve only bloody gone and packed the charity collection box from the side of the till. Put it in my carrier bag along with the rest of my shopping.

‘We’ve had a spate of charity boxes go missing,’ the boy says officiously. ‘Two poppy tins were stolen last month and, as you can imagine, the patrons of this store are outraged. I assure you we’ll be taking this very seriously. The police will be along shortly to question you, as this is the third box we’ve—’

I stop him.

‘It’s my box,’ I say.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘It’s my box,’ I repeat.

I turn the yellow cylinder around so he can see the writing on the front. I point to the lettering. ‘Rescue Me Animal Sanctuary. That’s where I work. I run it. I’m on my way there now.’

He eyes me suspiciously.

‘I’m sure you understand that we have to follow procedure here, and this is a very serious—’

‘No, it’s not. It’s not serious at all. What’s in there? Four, maybe five quid? Do I look like the type of person who would steal this? Do I look so desperate that I need to—’ I don’t bother finishing my sentence. I just look at him.

‘People don’t always steal because they need to, Mrs Kallisto. They do it because they have the
urge
to steal. There’s sometimes no reason for it at all. They don’t necessarily have to be in desperate circumstances. Look at Antony Worrall Thompson.’

‘Fair point,’ I concede. ‘But I’m not Antony Worrall Thompson, or Winona Ryder, or whoever else you decide to reel out as an example of kleptomania. I’m a mother who’s had a shitty couple of days, who’s drunk too much Rioja last night and
is not thinking straight. I packed that thing automatically in my bag without even knowing I did it. My best friend’s daughter has been missing for two nights, and, well, you can imagine what’s going through my head—’

He sighs out a breath. Looks to the security guard, who remains impassive. After a moment, he says, ‘Have you got any identification to prove you work at this animal shelter?’

I peel back the lapel of my coat. I’m wearing a bottle-green polo shirt with an orange paw print over my left breast. Above the paw print, it says ‘Rescue Me!’ in jaunty, childish font.

He’s in two minds what to do. I’m feeling he probably needs to check with someone senior, but he doesn’t want to look like a tosser after doing the jobsworth routine.

‘Listen … please—’ I say. ‘I’m really, really sorry about this. But I am not your thief.’

He clenches his jaw.

‘You can go,’ he mutters.

I gather my bags in my left hand, turn up the collar of my coat to protect my neck from the frigid air outside and, just as I’m about to leave, I lift the collection box to eye level, give it a little shake-a-shake.

‘I’ll pop back in to pick this up next week, shall I?’ I ask him. ‘Give you a few more empties?’

And he doesn’t answer, just looks kind of defeated.

As I go out through the automatic doors I can’t help but do a triumphant little skip.

Then I get to my car and burst into tears.

17

D
ETECTIVE
S
ERGEANT
R
ON
Quigley sits in the passenger seat of Joanne’s Mondeo eating a Greggs Steak Bake.

Bits of puff pastry are falling between the seats, into that hard-to-reach spot down the side of the handbrake. It’s 9.20 a.m. and the smell is making Joanne nauseous. ‘How can you eat beef for breakfast?’

Ron shrugs.

Last night, Joanne and Jackie had been watching a programme about Britain’s alcohol consumption. The trend’s now changed so that we’re not so much a nation of binge drinkers, more like
constant
drinkers.

Joanne and Jackie had looked at each other, two empty bottles of Merlot on the table, and Jackie had said, ‘Two glasses of wine a day is good for you. Two units a day, two times seven, that’s fourteen units a week. We’re only drinking our quota, Joanne. Women are allowed fourteen units,’ and Joanne had agreed wholeheartedly.