on the roads, despite the fact that they didn’t have a vehicle. Bill had been classifying them over a long series of Fridays. There were the tailgaters who stayed on your heel and refused to pass even when you slowed down virtually to a stop; the centre crawlers who seemed to take up the entire pavement and refused to move over; the obsessive overtakers who insisted on accelerating past you only to immediately slow down so that you were forced to overtake in turn only to find them once more accelerating on your right in a repetitive pattern that could cover the entire Hurst Road stretch to the station itself.
He never spoke to his fellow commuters—nothing more than shifting shapes in this morning’s fog—and yet over the past two years their faces had become more familiar to Bill than his own family’s: to the extent of noting absences on the platform, and wondering why. He’d filled in the hundreds of hours spent toeing the line along the front of Platform 2 while waiting for delayed trains spuriously christening his fellow commuters. There were Zombie Extra, Sid Steroid, The Obliterator, Super Slut, Hobo Becoming, War Criminal, and Dartford Tunnel (so-called for obvious reasons involving over-use by members of the opposite sex), who would have got the title of Super Slut if Super Slut hadn’t already been taken. For some reason they rarely showed together for the 6:08 train. Something that had initially led Bill to the conclusion that Dartford Tunnel was Super Slut on a bad day, which she in fact wasn’t.
Super Slut always got a seat on the train, and Sid Steroid always stood as close to her as he could; close enough to share both his inherent and artificial body odours. If Bill ever stopped to think about it—which he didn’t—he’d realise that he spent a disproportionate quota of the day’s emotions on these commuter fictions: from wondering whether the festive season would bring about some sort of consummation for Sid Steroid and Super Slut to wondering how it was that Zombie Extra and The Obliterator always managed to get through the train doors first even when they’d been standing at the back of a platform cluster.
He’d served up a few of his better stories to Sylvia—such as the time Zombie Extra took a seat vacated by a generous gentleman for Super Slut and how it had come to blows between Zombie Extra and Sid Steroid—but Sylvia wasn’t interested. Sylvia was only interested in the names of people at Pinnacle Insurance who held more senior positions than him.
In fact, she hadn’t only been uninterested in his Zombie Extra versus Sid Steroid story, she’d looked worried and initiated one of her off-the-wall discussions on how St John’s Wort was a genuinely effective herbal alternative to Prozac for the treatment of depression, and how it had changed Barbara Phelps’s husband’s life. When he’d asked who the fuck Barbara Phelps was (let alone Mr Phelps who had a Life), she’d looked at him and said, ‘Precisely.’
He continued to stalk through the fog towards the station.
Sylvia had revisited the St John’s Wort conversation again last night and this had somehow run into a criticism of his lack of initiative when it came to Tom and spending time with Tom. Despite speaking to Tom on the phone and seeing him when he came home to visit and get his laundry done, Bill hadn’t yet chartered a yacht for the weekend and learnt to sail it across the Channel like Mr Phelps, who had a Life, had with his son—cross-Channel sailing being, apparently, the Litmus test for those who were, and those who weren’t paternally engaged. So their relationship was completely dysfunctional.
He was still thinking about last night as he reached the traffic lights just outside the station and drew level with Zombie Extra. Poised on the edge of the kerb and ready with the rest of them to make a road-dash across now heavy traffic, he remembered what it was Sylvia asked him to do last night.
‘I forgot to empty the dishwasher.’
It wasn’t until Zombie Extra turned to stare at him that he realised he’d said it out loud.
In the darkness, Sylvia’s ears clearly picked out a tapping, scuffling sound and for a moment she thought it was Bill—maybe he hadn’t left for work yet after all. She lay still and concentrated. There it was again. It wasn’t Bill.
She’d been hearing it for about a week now and told herself they probably had mice. Whatever it was, it sounded like there was more than one of them, which meant they were breeding.
Not wanting to spend any more time alone in the dark, she hit the light switch she’d had installed—one on her side of the bed, one on Bill’s—and the bedroom was instantly illuminated with just the right wattage: low because her eyes had become increasingly light-sensitive recently. Rachel Dent, the Hendersons’ neighbour to the right and Sylvia’s best friend of two years, said it was a side-effect from the Botox, but Dr Forbes said this was unlikely, and Rachel was only saying that because she had a needle phobia and couldn’t do Botox herself. Sylvia had a top-up done earlier in the week ready for tomorrow night’s poker party, and was eager to see if the Botox magic she’d got so addicted to had taken place—it usually took about three days for her face to process the agedefying contents of the injection.
The small, busy sounds stopped and she got quickly out of bed in the camisole and French knickers she still had the body to carry off.
Putting on the kimono Tom brought back for her from China, she went into the en-suite to check on her face. It really was unbelievable. She pushed up her sleep-ridden brown curls (L’Oréal colours 232, 141 and 303) pulled out some grey strays—and could have passed for Debra Winger in An Officer and a Gentleman, on only £300 a shot. Given that Botox Heaven was so accessible, she couldn’t understand why there weren’t queues round the block for it. The number of her friends who hadn’t tried it yet—and who were in her opinion wilfully sabotaging their few remaining prospects—amazed her. Surely electing not to do Botox was as close to self-harm as a woman her age could come without actually drawing blood.
She smiled.
Her face, above her top lip, remained expressionless but she felt that this lack of expression gave her poise and a definitive sort of elegance; the sort the late Princess Diana used to have.
Sighing, she yelled, ‘Vicky!’ through her daughter’s bedroom door before going downstairs and into the kitchen. There was Bill’s milk glass by the sink, which meant he’d forgotten to empty the dishwasher again. She was half tempted to leave it until the evening, but that would only irritate her all day. Like that time he kept forgetting to empty the bin and she’d hauled it out into the middle of the kitchen floor, where it had stood, overflowing, and all he’d done was walk round it day after day—not getting the point.
‘Vicky!’ she yelled again, up through the ceiling this time, as she got the pan out the cupboard and started to make porridge.
Porridge was good for her. It had been good for Kate Winslet. The nutritionist had told her that. Sylvia had gone through a bad patch two years ago, just before they moved, skipping breakfast and living off crackers, bananas and emetics. The morning bowl of porridge had done just what the nutritionist promised: re-instated regular bowel movements and aided weight loss. The resulting weight loss far exceeded her expectations when she realised it wasn’t just her own jeans she could now fit into, but her seventeen year old daughter’s as well. She made a point of trying on Vicky’s jeans—her weight barometer—once a week.
She went to the foot of the stairs. ‘VICKY!’
There was the sound of a toilet flushing and water running.
She went back into the kitchen and laid out two bowls on the black marble surface she still wasn’t convinced went with the granite floors.
Vicky rounded the corner, bleary and grey.
Sylvia, concentrating, filled the two bowls with porridge before looking up. ‘What happened?’ she said, taking in her daughter.
Vicky hauled herself onto the bar stool and stared at the steaming bowl of porridge. ‘When?’
‘I don’t know when, but you look like shit.’
‘Thanks.’