Ninepins (8 page)

‘Cheers,' he said, belatedly, as he lowered his bottle.

‘Where have they gone? The park?' It was where they went at all hours and in all weathers, whenever sanity required them to vacate the house. Tessa would disappear for a moment, then burst back in with armfuls of small anoraks and scarves and mittens and bundle them all up and usher them out and along the road, swinging Roly on to her shoulders and uttering exhortations about football and fresh air.

‘God knows. Probably. They took the dog.'

‘They took the – ?' Laura sat down rather heavily on a kitchen chair.

‘I know, I know. It was Tessa's idea – or rather it was Alfie's idea to start with, and he and Jack and Roly have been on about it every waking moment, until Tessa gave way.'

‘But …' Laura looked round at the collected debris of the kitchen: the table strewn with colouring books and lidless felt-tip pens and half of someone's sandwich; the floor tiles sticky with nameless unwiped spillages – and, yes, she now saw, in the corner by the back door, the patch of spread newspapers and the bowl marked WOOF. Three sons under the age seven, a job which required Simon to attempt to work from home: were these not already enough?

‘Dougie's very sweet.' He took another draught of beer and then eyed her entreatingly, looking so much like a puppy himself that she couldn't help but grin.

‘Dougie? Was that Alfie's idea?'

‘No – he brought the name with him, poor sod. He's a rescued dog, from the Blue Cross. Five years old, they said. Tessa thought it would be easier than having a puppy. With the house-training and so on.'

Her glance strayed back to the newspapers. ‘And is it?'

Simon's bottle sketched a ragged arc. ‘It's difficult for him. New place, new people. Doors in different places.'

‘I can imagine.' The poor creature was probably deep in trauma, trying to find its feet in this chaotic household. ‘What kind of dog is Dougie?'

‘Hard to say, really. Small, greyish, alarmingly hairy. Some sort of terrier, I suppose.'

Well, at least he wasn't an Irish wolfhound. She wouldn't have put it past them.

‘How about you?' He swept some Lego off the chair beside her and sat down. ‘What have you been up to?'

‘This weekend? I've been painting. Re-doing Beth's room.'

‘A light green colour?'

‘That's right. Apple something-or-other. Beth chose it. Did she tell you about it?'

‘Actually, no. But there's a paint sample in your hair.'

When he grinned at her like that, she remembered why she'd loved him. But it was funny Beth hadn't mentioned their decorating plans.

‘It's all been about this lodger of yours. Willow this and Willow that. She's talked about little else. In between Dougie, of course.'

‘Oh?' Laura's stomach muscles fluttered.

‘She seems really taken with her.'

He phrased it almost as a question, watching her face, so that she found herself dropping her eyes. ‘Y-yes. I suppose she's younger than the grad students we've had before. Nearer Beth's age.'

‘Seventeen, and twelve on Thursday?'

‘They just seem to get on.' Laura tried to sound confident, casual. ‘It's nice for Beth to have someone to talk to.'

‘She's been in care. Is that right?'

‘Yes. And?' Defiance seemed easiest: certainly easier than honesty. But he'd been married to her, after all.

‘
Laura
. Are you really going to give me the big liberal lecture about prejudice and second chances? This isn't some story I'm writing for the Sunday colour supplements. We're talking about Beth.'

‘Willow seems – ' she began, and then stopped. Why be defensive? Why not find out? ‘What has Beth said?'

‘That Willow was in a children's home. And that she set fire to a building.'

‘An empty one. It was an empty garage.'

This time he didn't say anything, merely surveyed her steadily, until she sighed and relented.

‘OK. What else has she said about her?'

Now it was Simon's turn to be evasive. The beer bottle rolled slowly back and forth between his palms. ‘Oh, it's nothing, really. Just a silly thing.'

She leaned forwards. ‘Go on.'

‘They've been playing this game.'

‘Who has? Beth and the boys?'

‘Well, yes, she was showing them. But it's a thing she says she does with Willow. They've been holding their breath.'

Laura almost laughed. ‘What do you mean? Just breathing in and counting?'

‘More or less. Except that Beth can hold hers for a really long time. She can simply stop breathing, or so it seems. You should see her. It's a little bit alarming.'

‘Right.' She frowned. ‘And then she had the boys copying her, I suppose?'

‘Naturally. Anything Beth does, Alfie has to do, as you know.'

‘Oh, dear. I'm sorry.' Though quite why she was apologising, she wasn't sure. Beth was Simon's daughter, too.

‘Tessa heard him coughing, up in his room last night after he was meant to be asleep. She went in and he'd made himself purple, trying not to breathe.'

‘Oh, God.' She'd heard things about children who did this: children who held their breath in distress or stubborn resistance, until they went blue and passed out. But wasn't it usually toddlers? Alfie was six. ‘And the little ones, Jack and Roly?'

‘Oh, they were joining in, too, but they seemed less taken with it, thankfully.'

‘Well, it sounds like …' What? Harmless experimentation? A normal thing for kids to try? Beth was only eleven.

‘Beth says Willow has been coaching her. They've practised and practised, she says.'

Just a phase. Beth was only eleven.
But Willow was seventeen
.

‘And it's what she says about why, as well – about why Willow likes to hold her breath. She told Beth that she taught herself when she was young. And she keeps insisting it's not a game, Beth says; she keeps insisting that it's important.'

Laura felt strangely conscious of her own breathing, of keeping it shallow and regular.

‘She says Willow used to have to do it all the time when she was a kid. Apparently, she used to hold her breath when bad things were happening, to make them go away.' Simon pushed his beer aside and leaned towards her. ‘What's she like, Laura? That's what I'm wondering. I mean, of course, I trust your judgment. I know you wouldn't let Beth hang out with someone you weren't certain was all right. But, well, she does sound rather odd.'

She groped for an answer that she could give him. ‘Willow is … She's – '

With a crash, the front door slammed open against the hall wall, and the sound of feet and paws and high, chattering voices seized the house. First into the kitchen was Alfie, dragged on a red nylon lead by a small but determined-looking dog, which pulled him straight to its water bowl and began to slurp noisily. Then came Tessa with two-year-old Roly on her hip and finally Beth, hand in hand with an extremely muddy four-year-old.

‘Jack fell over, Dad,' she said. ‘In that bit by the pond where the ducks all stand and there's no grass left. He had Dougie's lead, and Dougie tried to chase the ducks, and Jack got pulled over. Tessa told him not to let go, and he didn't. He was really good not to let go, wasn't he? But now he's got mud and duck poo all over him.'

‘Duck poo,' repeated Roly gleefully, as Tessa desposited him on a chair and began to prise off his wellingtons.

‘Laundry room,' said Simon, with a cock of the thumb. ‘Straight in there, please. Clothes off and in the machine.'

Beth obediently led away her charge while Simon rose to rescue Alfie's glove, which he had taken off and dropped and which was now in Dougie's mouth, being shaken like a rat.

‘Dog towel,' said Tessa, pointing to a ragged cloth on the radiator. ‘Would you mind?'

Not entirely sure whether she minded or not, Laura took it and grabbed for the terrier, rubbing rather ineffectually at his pads while he engaged in a fight to the death with the towel, growling furiously and twisting like an eel. It was a bit late, anyway: the grime of the kitchen floor was already criss-crossed with an overlay of dirty footmarks, human and canine. How could anyone live this way?

‘Dougie ate my football,' announced Alfie. ‘He was chasing it and he caught it and bit it and it went hiss and then it was all flat and soggy. Can I finish this sandwich, Mum?'

‘No, you can't, sweetie,' said his mother, removing it from his reach and tipping it in the bin. ‘I'll make you a fresh one in a minute.'

‘I'll do it.' Beth had re-emerged from the laundry room, followed by a stripped but still grubby-looking Jack.

‘Can I have one?' Jack climbed, still stark naked, on to the chair next to Alfie.

‘Me, me,' added Roly.

‘Go on, then, Beth. Thanks,' said Tessa. ‘But I think the bread's still frozen.'

The boys, now flocked around the table like hungry gulls, appeared to Laura enormous. They had all inherited their father's large frame and broad jaw and brow; they all shared, already at this tender age, his tendency to jowliness. Tessa, by contrast, was five feet two and had always been slightly built; now, despite three pregnancies in quick succession, she seemed thinner than ever, as if somehow her sons were fattening parasitically at her expense.

‘Can we have cheese?' asked Jack.

‘Nutella,' said Alfie. ‘We always have cheese. I want Nutella.'

‘Why not both?' Simon swung a sliced loaf from freezer to microwave, still in its plastic bag. ‘Cheese and chocolate. Might be really good.'

‘Yes!' shouted all three boys at once. ‘Cheese and chocolate!'

Beth laughed and went to the fridge, but not before casting an anxious eye at Laura. It would never be allowed at home. She didn't even ask if she could have one herself – though Laura would have let her, if she had.

‘Don't give any to Dougie, though,' said Tessa, on her way to the hall with the coats and boots. ‘They mustn't have chocolate. Something to do with their livers.'

‘Speaking of which,' said Simon, when she'd gone, ‘how about another beer?'

‘No, thanks. Really. I think when Beth has made the boys their sandwiches, we'd better be heading off.'

He nodded, and grinned at Beth, who pulled a face of cartoon misery. ‘Oh, all
right
,' she said. ‘But can Willow come for supper? Please, Mum. I need to tell her about Dougie.'

Twelve was too old for strawberry milkshake mix. That's what Laura had decided when she crept into her kitchen late on Friday night, after Beth had gone to bed, to make her daughter's birthday cake. Beth had insisted on the same cake every year since she was seven or eight. A famous family recipe, hit upon at first more or less by accident but established thereafter as a fixture in the calendar for high days and holidays, it had strawberry Nesquik in the mixture and strawberry jam between the layers, topped off with butter icing made with more of the milkshake powder. But this year she knew it wouldn't do; the extravagant pink confection would have struck entirely the wrong note. For Beth's new friends, it had to be some- thing different.

A rich chocolate torte is what she'd fixed upon, made with whole bars of real, dark chocolate, the kind with 72 per cent cocoa solids. It had whipped egg whites in it, too, and hardly any flour, and came out flat-topped and weighty-looking, the same deep colour as when it went in. She'd hidden it overnight in the back of the corner cupboard which, when she opened it just now, released the mingled, smoky scents of cardamon and roasted cacao. The cake was firm and dense and cool to the touch.

There was plenty of time to decorate it before they came back. Beth had left at eleven o'clock this morning, to call for Willow and walk to the bus-stop. Beneath her old, black duffle jacket she had put on the new birthday jumper: her extra, surprise present in addition to the new bike. Laura was pleased, because she hadn't been sure about it when Beth opened it, at breakfast on Thursday. They were in all the shops like that, with the Fair Isle pattern round the neck, but were the snowflakes too childish? And should she have gone for the one with a hood?

‘It's great, Mum,' is all she'd said, and she hadn't tried it on, not straight away.

Laura had given her cash for Simon's birthday cheque, and she'd emptied her piggy bank, too – the old Eeyore one she still used to keep her pocket money in.

‘I'm loaded! P'raps we'll get the train to London, and go clubbing. Back on Monday, all right?'

She was excited: sky-high and gliding. It was lovely to see her like that, even if it meant ignoring a pang. Swinging it over her shoulder as she headed for the door, Beth remembered to stop and say, ‘I've borrowed your suede bag. Hope that's OK?'

Rianna and Caitlin were catching the same bus further along the route, at the corner of the road to Longfenton. The plan was for lunch out – a burger, or a jacket potato from the barrow on the corner of the market square – followed by shopping; then they were all coming back here when they were done. Four or four thirty, Beth had said, most likely. This meant there was plenty of time to whip cream and mascarpone together to pile on top of the cake, and stud it with the fresh raspberries she had bought – against all her usual principles, although it was mid-November. She had fetched the old party banner down from the loft, too: the one they'd made together for Beth's ninth and was now on its fourth outing, the cut-out cardboard letters of HAPPY BIRTHDAY beginning to curl a little, and the felt-pen colouring to fade. For once, they could use the dining room. She didn't know if the girls would stay and eat or if they'd want to be run home when they'd had a slice of cake. There were pizzas in the freezer she could rustle up quickly enough, plenty for all of them, or for just herself and Beth and Willow. She wouldn't get the knives and forks out yet. Keep things casual, she told herself; play it by ear.