might be autistic, but even if he was—or ever turned out to be—Ros would somehow manage to turn her son’s autism to her advantage. As Ros always pointed out, whenever she had an audience—even a non-paying audience: everything you do, right down to whether you decide to pick up that piece of litter on the pavement or just walk on past, defines you. So why, with a maxim like that, didn’t Ros look more exhausted—surely there were only so many definitive moments one person could sustain in the course of a lifetime, let alone on a daily basis.
‘Harriet wants us there by eight tonight,’ Ros said, as she tucked in the ends of the Sainsbury’s bag that Kate had undone and forgotten to push back down again. ‘A Labour councillor’s meant to be turning up.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘To talk to us about getting speed bumps on Prendergast Road. It was Evie’s idea.’ She paused, adjusting the Sainsbury’s bag again. ‘You know Evie’s been campaigning for speed bumps? I mean—I’m thrilled about the speed bumps, it’s just the focus of tonight’s meeting has to be the street party: it’s less than two months away now.’
‘My digger,’ Findlay started to yell, ‘I want my digger.’
The digger was in the boot of the car and Kate was about to get it when she remembered that the Pampers extra-value pack she’d picked up in the chemist that morning on the way to work was also in the Audi’s boot. Members of the PRC didn’t do Pampers or Huggies, and they never did supermarket own brand. They bought Tushies, Nature or the German Umweltfreundlich brand, Moltex Öko, which looked as though they’d been made by young offenders as part of some community project. Ros, of course, used non-disposable nappies. Buying Pampers was on a level with buying nonorganic food or Nike baby trainers or getting Flo’s ears pierced or naming your children after luxury goods. Getting Findlay’s digger out of the boot was out of the question because it would give Ros, perched on her ergonomic bike saddle, a bird’s-eye view of the Pampers value pack…and Ros mustn’t see the Pampers value pack.
‘My digger,’ Findlay carried on yelling. ‘I want my digger.’
‘Seems like he wants his digger pretty badly,’ Ros said with an indulgent smile.
Kate was about to answer when she heard a car door open behind her and, turning round, saw Findlay climb out and make his way towards the boot. ‘Findlay…Findlay!’
Findlay stopped short in his tracks, his hand on the catch for the boot.
‘Get back in the car—now!’
Aware that the request for his digger was entirely reasonable, Findlay—taken aback—didn’t move.
Kate tried to say it more calmly, ‘Get-back-in-the-car-now.’
Findlay still didn’t move so she crouched down in front of him, beside the wheel arch, and grabbed hold of his arm, which was difficult to find inside the Spiderman suit’s foam musculature.
Ros was staring at her. Kate saw her glance at the stain on the lapel of her suit jacket as well. ‘Everything okay?’
‘Fine…fine. Just work. Work stress,’ Kate said, folding herself up rapidly and getting into the car they were defaulting on. ‘See you later.’
‘Eight o’clock,’ Ros reminded her.
Kate nodded, started up the engine, put the car into gear and pulled away, trying to ignore Findlay who was yelling at her to do up his straps. Her phone started to ring. It was Ros.
Ros?
Looking in her rear-view mirror, she watched Ros put her mobile away and swerve off the pavement onto the road in pursuit of the car.
Despite all precautions, Ros must have somehow seen the Pampers extra-value pack in the boot after all—and now she wanted to lecture Kate on disposable nappies and the death of the world.
Kate accelerated.
At the crossroads the Audi hit a red light and she seriously thought about jumping it, then panicked and ended up slamming on the brakes at the last moment. Findlay thudded into the back of her seat and screamed something sanctimonious about Kate not strapping him in and how he was going to die one day. ‘So—die,’ she yelled, wrenching up the handbrake and getting out of the car as Ros, shaking, came to a halt beside her.
‘Okay—so they were out of Moltex Öko at the chemist’s, and I was in a rush. I grabbed the first thing to hand and…it wasn’t Moltex Öko because they were out,’ she said.
‘Flo,’ Ros grunted, out of breath and still shaking.
‘Flo?’
‘Flo—she’s back there—on the pavement. You left Flo in her car seat on the pavement.’ Ros fell over her handlebars, sweating and gasping. ‘I tried phoning you.’ Toby stared out, expressionless, through the child-carrier’s PVC window.
Kate peered around the interior of the car. The passenger seat where she usually put Flo’s car seat was empty.
The light changed to green and the cars behind were leaning on their horns as drivers pulled angrily on their steering wheels and tried to circumnavigate the parked Audi and the woman on the bike, inadvertently digesting the slogan on the back of her T-shirt: You deserve to be happy.
Kate stared blankly at Ros for another ten seconds before getting into her car, executing a three-point turn into oncoming traffic and driving back down the road to the patch of pavement outside Village Montessori where she’d left Flo.
By the time they finally got back to Prendergast Road, it was after two and Kate couldn’t get the door open because Margery had put the chain across.
‘Margery!’ she yelled.
Further down the street, the Down’s syndrome boy at No. 8—David—was in his front garden, smiling happily as he hugged the loquat tree growing there. The next minute, he started to sing—a series of loud, prolonged wails that started to make Kate panic.
‘Margery,’ she yelled again.
‘Who is it?’
‘Kate. Margery—come on, it’s starting to rain again.’
The chain was taken off and the front door opened to reveal Margery standing in the hallway with Robert’s old hockey stick raised above her head.
Findlay ran past her without comment.
‘I heard someone at the door—wasn’t sure who it was,’ Margery said, without lowering the stick.
‘It’s us.’ Kate stared at her. ‘I work half-days Thursdays—I told you.’
Tripping over the same recycling bag in the hallway that she’d tripped over earlier, she navigated the unmoving Margery and reached the kitchen, where she was confronted with a row of pies.
‘Once I got started, I couldn’t stop,’ Margery said behind her, the hockey stick still in her hands. ‘He’s got corned beef and onion, cheese and onion and potato to choose from,’ she carried on more to herself than Kate. She’d been keeping up a steady patter of conversation with herself most of the morning since Martina left.
‘Potato pie?’
Margery nodded.
Her eyes bouncing off the mound of carbohydrates, Kate said, ‘Can you keep an eye on Flo for me while I go up and change?’
‘Off out again?’
‘I thought I might go up to the allotments.’ She paused, and with an effort added, ‘Why don’t you come with us?’
‘It’s raining.’
Kate glanced out through the kitchen window but didn’t say