opening a branch of Foxtons here.’
‘Foxtons?’
He nodded, pulled at his nose and said, ‘With a promotional six-month zero per cent commission. It’s going to kill us,’ he added, starting to chew on his nails before shunting his chair backwards and disappearing, jerkily, towards the loos at the back of the office.
Elaine looked across at her.
Jessica was about to say something when her mobile started to ring.
‘Jess?’
It was Lenny—her stepmother.
She didn’t feel like speaking to Lenny right then and started to scratch nervously with a drawing pin at the edge of her desk.
‘I was just phoning to see if Arthur got into St Anthony’s.’
‘I don’t know—the post hadn’t arrived when I left this morning.’
‘Oh.’ Lenny paused at Jessica’s flat tone.
Jessica let herself fall back in her chair, slouching uncomfortably as she started to swing it from side to side.
‘Well, give us a ring later.’
‘I will. How’s Dad?’ she said, with an effort.
The line started to break up and Jessica, now swinging aggressively from side to side, hoped they’d lose the reception altogether, but Lenny was still there. It was something she’d been trying to come to terms with since she was fifteen—the fact that Lenny would still be there—always.
‘I said—how’s Dad?’
‘He’s fine—engrossed in some new cat-deterrent he got by mail order this morning.’
At the beginning, because of what happened between Joe and Lenny, it had been more necessary for Lenny to get on with Jessica than it was for Jessica to get on with Lenny, and this early imbalance in their relationship had never really been redressed. Lenny had made huge efforts—Jessica could see that now, from the vantage point of being thirty-five—and not only out of necessity. Lenny had genuinely cared, but at the time Jessica felt she was owed too much to bother responding to overtures made by the woman her father had been having an affair with while her mother was still alive, who became the woman he moved in with after she died.
‘You keep cutting out—where are you?’
‘I don’t know—somewhere between Brighton and Birmingham; on a train. How’s work?’
‘Fine—yeah, it’s fine.’
‘Well, you know where we are if you need anything—why not bring the kids down and have a weekend to yourself?’
‘I don’t know—it’s busy at the moment.’
‘We haven’t seen them in ages, and Dad’s started on that tree house for Arthur.’
Jessica tried to think of something to say to this, but couldn’t.
‘And I miss Ellie—I really do.’
‘I’ll call,’ Jessica said, as the line broke up for a third and final time.
As she came off her mobile, the office phones started to ring. ‘Lennox Thompson sales department—how can I help you?’
‘I’d like to speak to someone about the Beulah Hill house you’ve got on the market.’
‘Well, you’re speaking to the right person.’
‘Wait a minute—is this Jessica?’
‘This is Jessica—Jessica Palmer.’
‘Jessica—it’s Ros.’
‘Ros?’
‘Ros Granger from No. 188?’
‘Ros…’ Why was Ros calling? Ros never called her…
had never called her since she took Toby to McDonald’s in Peckham that time for Arthur’s fourth birthday. In fact, nobody from the PRC apart from Kate had phoned since Arthur’s fourth birthday—and that was nearly a year ago.
‘So—how’s it all going?’
‘Fine.’
Ros let out a long, smooth laugh as though Jessica had just said something funny. ‘I was phoning to arrange a viewing -.’
‘You’re not thinking of moving as well, are you?’
‘Who else have you been speaking to?’
‘Nobody,’ Jessica said quickly.
Ros paused. ‘Today would be good.’
Even late as she was after the impromptu Beulah Hill viewing, Kate still found time to stop at St Anthony’s vicarage on the way to Village Montessori. Jolting over a speed bump at the crest of the hill, she was sure she saw someone—the vicar?—in the vicarage garden, and on an impulse decided to stop, parking behind a distinctive black Chrysler just pulling away, which—if she hadn’t been so preoccupied—she would have recognised as Evie McRae’s.
She got out of the car and started to walk through the dull April drizzle, trying not to slip on the overspill of gravel from the vicar’s newly gravelled drive. Ignoring the increasingly invasive smell of wet tarmac, which always made her panic, she emerged from behind a bank of hydrangeas with what she liked to think of as a healthy smile on her face.
‘Hi,’ she said across the uneven trail of hydrangea cuttings littering the immaculate lawn.
The Reverend Tessa Walker—it was the vicar—looked up, a pair of secateurs in her hand. She managed to master her annoyance at the interruption—the second interruption that morning—but it left her face looking glum.
After what felt like a minute’s silence, Kate said, ‘Sorry—this is a bit impromptu; I should have phoned. Actually, I did phone, but no one was in and then I was driving past and I saw you in your garden and…’ She inhaled a lungful of wet tarmac and then panic set in as the memory of long wet suburban days fell over her…She stared blearily at the Reverend Walker, trying to claw her way back into the present moment. ‘I tried to phone, but there was no answer and…’
The Reverend Walker lost the grip on her secateurs so that they hung from the band round her wrist. She didn’t attempt to speak; she just carried on staring at Kate.
‘I’m Kate—Kate Hunter? I come to church here on Sundays. Every Sunday…here to St Anthony’s every Sunday—well, most Sundays…’ She paused, letting out a nervous laugh that made her feel like the only child in a roomful of adults.
The Reverend Walker said nothing. She was too busy thinking…this woman comes to my church every Sunday and I don’t recognise her. It made her feel old.
The drizzle was gaining momentum. There was going to be a downpour, which hadn’t started yet, but there was so much moisture in the air that Kate could feel it collecting on her eyelashes.
The sound of children being let out onto a playing field reached them through the dense, moist air and she started to panic again. Nursery—she needed to collect Findlay and Flo from nursery. ‘I came here to talk about a child,’ she said suddenly. This sounded epic; she hadn’t meant to sound epic.
The Reverend Walker said, ‘A child?’
‘My son—Findlay.’
‘You want to talk to me about your son?’ the Reverend Walker said, helplessly. Was this the first time the woman had mentioned a child? She didn’t know any more. It just seemed as though she’d been standing on her wet lawn among the hydrangea cuttings for weeks, and now wasn’t