‘Please don’t tell me you’re selling it? You can’t. You’d never manage without it.’
The mere thought of letting Steve’s van go was enough to make Angie’s heart lurch with dread. Selling the piano had been bad enough, beyond terrible in fact, but there had been no practical justification for keeping it. The van was her only means of transport, and God knew how painful it had been having his business insignia removed from the sides and back doors.
‘No I’m not selling it, and I didn’t see anyone,’ Angie said, trying to hide her anxiety. It could have been a bailiff nosing around, carrying out a quick assessment for someone she owed money to. Emma didn’t know how bad things really were so she wouldn’t have guessed at that. ‘Are you sure it was my van he was looking at?’ she asked.
Emma shrugged. ‘Hard to say for certain. Sorry, didn’t mean to worry you.’ She glanced at Angie and said, ‘It’s his birthday today.’
Angie’s heart twisted as she nodded.
‘I know you haven’t heard anything, because you’d have told me. That wasn’t him, by the way, who I saw scoping the van.’
‘No, I guessed not.’
After a while Emma said, ‘Does it make you feel afraid, when you think he might be around?’
Angie swallowed the concern that tightened her throat. Emma had never asked that before, so was it her way of saying that she was afraid? It hurt Angie deeply to think of her sister being fearful of her son, but she couldn’t deny that on some levels she was too. Or she was scared of the people he could still be hanging out with. She pushed a hand through her hair and caught a whiff of the soap she’d used under her arms. It wasn’t good enough because it didn’t manage to cover the faint trace of body odour she’d been trying to wash away. Why was that? She was clean, for heaven’s sake, so it didn’t seem right that she couldn’t make herself smell good, or at least have no smell at all.
She’d never smelled bad in her entire life.
‘Angie?’ Emma said gently, her tone questioning and concerned.
‘There’s something about me that smells,’ Angie stated loudly. ‘I’m obviously using the wrong deodorant.’
Emma looked at her sideways. ‘What sort of an answer is that?’ she demanded.
Angie started to smile. ‘It’s my way of saying I’d rather think about that than Liam, or birthdays or …’ She could have said how fast I seem to be going under, but instead she said, ‘or anything else that might come between us and our lattes.’
Half an hour later they were seated at a corner table in their favourite café, close to the window and next to a rowdy group of teens apparently just back from a ski trip. As the youngsters relived seemingly every minute of their amazing time away they kept exploding with hilarity, and their laughter was so infectious it was making Angie and Emma laugh too. Others were becoming tetchy and disapproving, but the skiers seemed not to notice; they were in a world full of nothing but black runs, snowboards and vin chaud, and why not when it was clearly a great place to be?
‘I don’t suppose they live on the Temple Fields estate,’ Emma remarked drily as the group finally piled out of the door, leaving a very generous twenty-quid tip on the table.
‘They probably don’t even know where it is,’ Angie smiled, hardly able to tear her eyes from the cash or her thoughts from what she could do with it. ‘I’ve seen one of the girls before. She used to be in Grace’s class in primary, but she went on to private school somewhere in Somerset.’
‘You must let me help to send Grace to private school,’ Hari had said a year before he died. ‘After your experiences with Liam, I think it would be wise to find her somewhere safer, even out of the area.’
Angie and Steve had discussed it, and decided they were in favour of it even if it meant she’d have to board during the week. Steve had foreseen a great future for their daughter among the kind of people he and Angie only worked for and occasionally mixed with. He’d made Angie laugh so much putting on a posh accent – the same accent he affected, without quite realizing it, when he took her to openings of hotels or restaurants he’d decorated – that she’d ended up hitting him to make him stop.
He wouldn’t. ‘Oh dahling, can’t you imagine how proud one will be to see our girl doing so well?’
‘Let’s talk some more with Hari first, find out exactly how much help he’s comfortable giving. We can’t expect him to pay for it all.’
Before they’d had a chance to do that Hari’s illness had taken hold, and the subject was quietly forgotten.
‘What’s that look about?’ Emma asked curiously.
Realizing she’d drifted, Angie said, ‘Sorry, where were we?’
Emma grimaced. ‘Actually, I’m just getting to the point where I have a favour to ask. Is there any chance you could lend me twenty quid until the end of the week?’
Angie groaned in dismay. ‘I’m really sorry. You know I would if I could.’
Emma sighed sadly, because of course she knew that. She didn’t wonder aloud how she and Angie had got to this place in their lives where they were almost always broke, because they knew only too well how it had happened. They’d never been high earners, even before they’d turned into single mothers through no fault of their own, nor would they ever be. At least in her case she got something from her ex; for Angie there was no Child Maintenance Service to help squeeze blood out of a slippery stone.
‘Actually,’ Emma said, suddenly brightening, ‘I’ve had a brilliant idea that should get us both sorted out.’
Angie was all ears.
Emma said, ‘We’re two intelligent, attractive women …’
‘In our forties, with more bags under our eyes …’
‘Listen to what I’m saying. We’re good people. We do the right thing, we’ve never been in trouble with the law – don’t let’s include Liam in this – we’re terrific mothers …’
‘Do you want to come to the point?’
‘What I’m saying is …’ She broke off as Fliss, the café’s owner, came to collect their mugs.
‘Two more, ladies?’ she offered.
As Angie’s longing flared up, Emma said, ‘We’ve already used our voucher, Fliss, but thanks anyway.’
Fliss looked surprised. ‘Oh, I think we forgot to put it through,’ she declared, ‘so we’ll treat the next ones as though they’re your first.’
Angie could have kissed her, although realizing that Fliss had guessed at their straitened circumstances made her feel she was paying with a small piece of her pride.
With a wink Fliss scooped up the twenty-pound note the youngsters had left, and instructed a baffled-looking server to clean the table ready for a couple of newcomers to sit down.
‘Bugger, I was going to pocket that,’ Emma muttered.
‘Not if I’d beaten you to it,’ Angie retorted, knowing that neither of them were serious. Or not very, anyway. Stealing from Fliss, a good friend for many years, would never be an option, no matter how desperate they were. ‘So,’ she said wryly, ‘I’m guessing your brilliant idea is to do away with good reputations, such as they are, and rob a bank?’
Emma’s jaw dropped in amazement. ‘Oh my God, you read my mind. So, do you think we could do it?’
‘No. So what’s next?’
Emma broke into one of her more mischievous grins. ‘You are so going to love it,’ she announced. ‘I’ve thought it all through and I reckon we can pull it