like this. I need to calm myself down before I get to the nursery. I don’t want Elise to see me in a state.
The blonde’s eyes flick towards the pavement as a young bloke in a heavy overcoat strolls past. He’s on his phone and doesn’t give either of us a second glance.
‘My son and daughter are exactly the same. Always got their noses in their phones,’ she says convivially as the man disappears around the corner and we are alone again. Either she’s completely unaware of how awkward and uncomfortable I feel as a result of her request or she just doesn’t care.
‘I … um …’ I put my keys in the lock. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not going straight home. I need to collect my daughter from nursery and—’
‘Elise, isn’t it?’
My breath catches in my throat. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘Lovely name. Quite old-fashioned but that’s all the rage these days, isn’t it? My daughter-in-law wanted to call my granddaughter Ethel. Ethel, for God’s sake.’
‘How do you …’ I study her face again but there’s no spark of recognition in the back of my brain. I don’t remember ever seeing this woman before. ‘I’m sorry, have we met?’
She cackles, a low sound that gurgles in the base of her throat, and holds out a hand. ‘I’m sorry. I should have introduced myself. I’m John’s mum, Paula. He lives just down the street from you. I’ve seen you and your little girl getting into your car in the mornings when I take my granddaughter to the park. I look after her sometimes. I’m from Taunton. I don’t get into Bristol often.’ She glances meaningfully at my car.
‘So am I OK for a lift? Now you know I’m not a serial killer?’
I am frozen with indecision. I don’t know anyone called John but it’s a long street. To say no to a lift would be rude, and I don’t want to make an enemy of any of our neighbours, not when it’s such a lovely street, but this isn’t something I do. This isn’t part of my routine.
‘Please,’ she says, ‘I’m babysitting tonight and John will be wondering where I’ve got to.’
I make a split-second decision. It will be quicker to give her a lift than say no and risk wasting more time with a discussion about it. ‘OK. But I’ll have to drop you at the nursery. It’s not far from Brecknock.’
‘Cheers, love. Really appreciate it.’
She waits for me to unlock the driver’s side door then rounds the car and gets in beside me. I put on my seat belt and put the keys in the ignition. Paula, in the passenger seat, doesn’t reach for her seat belt. Instead she runs a hand over the dashboard then squeezes the latch on the glove compartment so it drops open. She rummages around inside, pulling out CDs, receipts and manuals, then reaches down and runs a hand underneath her seat.
I stare at her in disbelief as she twists round in her seat and looks into the footwells in the back seat. ‘Can I help you with something?’
She ignores me and clambers into the back seat and feels behind and beneath Elise’s car seat, then lifts the parcel shelf and peers into the boot.
‘Paula.’ I unclip my seat belt. ‘Could you stop doing that, please?’
She snaps back round to face me, her lips tight and her eyes narrowed. ‘Don’t tell me what to do, Jo.’
The transformation is shocking, all trace of her cheerful, friendly demeanour gone. She lied to me. She doesn’t have a son called John who lives on our street. She’s never strolled down to Perrett’s Park with her granddaughter. And I never told her my name.
‘I want you to get out of my car,’ I say as steadily as I can.
The smallest of smiles creeps onto her lips as she straightens her jacket and settles herself into the back seat. She reaches out her left arm and drapes it over Elise’s car seat.
‘Pretty girl, your daughter,’ she says under her breath but loud enough so I can hear it. ‘Isn’t she, Jo?’
The malevolence in her eyes makes me catch my breath.
‘Get out,’ I say again. A man has appeared at the end of the street. If I open the door and shout he’ll hear me. Paula sees me looking.
‘Now, now. No need to be rude. I’ve lost something. That’s all. And I think your husband might know where it is.’
I stiffen. ‘Max? What’s this got to do with Max?’
Paula glances over her shoulder again – the man has reached the car behind mine – and pulls on the door catch. ‘He’ll know what it’s about. Just tell him to get in touch. Oh, and, there’s something else.’
She digs into her pocket with her free hand.
‘You should keep an eye on your daughter’s things,’ she says as she places a small, soft, multicoloured glove on Elise’s car seat.
‘And your daughter,’ she adds as she gets out.
Max Blackmore sighs as his mobile phone judders to life, vibrating on the smooth wooden desk that separates him from his editor. He snatches it up and looks at the screen. Jo, again. It’s the third time his wife has called him since he left for work at 8 a.m. and he’s already had to reassure her that yes, he does think it’s OK for Elise to go to nursery with a bit of a cough and yes, he will stop by at the chemist to get more Calpol before he gets home. He’s been ignoring his home mobile for the last half an hour and now she’s ringing his work mobile instead.
His editor Fiona Spelling leans back in her chair and crosses her arms. She’s doing ‘the face’, the one that signifies that her genial mood is on the cusp of switching to irritable. ‘Do you need to get that?’
He tucks the phone into the inside pocket of his jacket. ‘It can keep.’
‘Are you sure? Because you know she’ll ring me if she can’t get through to you.’
Max grimaces. He should never have given Jo Fiona’s direct line. It was meant to calm her – so she could check he was OK if he couldn’t answer his mobile – but she rings the number so often she now has it on speed dial. Literally speed dial, programmed into her chunky, ancient Nokia. One for him, two for her mother, three for nursery, four for her boss and five for Fiona. He’s begged her to delete Fiona’s number but she won’t have it.
‘It’s her agoraphobia,’ he says. ‘It makes her overly anxious.’
‘But she works at the university as a student support officer, doesn’t she? How bad can it be if she can hold down a job?’
Max smiles ruefully. He thought the same as Fiona once: that you’re basically housebound if you suffer from agoraphobia, but it’s not as ‘simple’ as that – something Jo has explained to him countless times. She isn’t afraid of going outside, she’s afraid of situations where she can’t escape or get help.
‘It’s bad,’ he says. ‘Really bad. Jo works part-time but she won’t take Elise to the park or the zoo. She won’t even go food shopping any more, not since she had a panic attack in the corner shop because she thought someone was looking at her strangely.’
‘Wow.’ His boss arches an eyebrow.
Fiona doesn’t know the half of it. He and Jo haven’t had sex for over a year. They had a dry spell before, when she was so afraid of getting pregnant she wouldn’t let him anywhere near her, but then they’d conceived Elise and he’d assumed that everything would go back to normal. It didn’t. It got worse.
‘Anyway, Max,’ Fiona says, gesturing towards her screen. ‘Congratulations. I’ve read your