all of a sudden, dumping his towel on the floor just like his dad used to.
‘Well, something happened,’ I say.
‘What’s for tea?’
‘Supper. Pasta bake.’ This is in honour of Em’s new status as a vegan. I’m hoping she won’t notice the cheese; that the whole phase will, in fact, be over as quickly as possible. Giles’s wince at the prospect doesn’t help my temper. ‘Do you know what happened? Going to tell me?’
He cracks under pressure. ‘School project. Family tree. Someone teased her.’
‘What about?’ I immediately square up to fight. How dare they? And our tree, thanks to my marrying into Patrick’s lot, is perfectly respectable.
‘Oh, some cow. Said there were so few people on Em’s, it was more like a stick.’
I close my mouth. Whoever it was, she had a point. With my parents MIA, her dad now dead, little contact with his half-siblings, and me an only child, our family tree is indeed a slender branch rather than a mighty oak. But Em doesn’t need it rubbing in.
I march up to her room. I don’t wait to be asked in. Don’t want to be standing there until the Day of Judgement, do I? She is bunched up on her bed, sad as dirty laundry. I ignore her token resistance, give her the biggest hug I have and tell her straight. She has a family to be proud of, a mum who will always love her, a doting gran and a big brother who really isn’t that bad.
And a dad whose memory she should always treasure. And never once let go of.
Now
Becca
Becca sat in her car, slowly and carefully peeling the wrapper off a Twix. Not really her favourite, but her dad had loved them. She wasn’t quite sure why she still bought them. No, that was a lie. It was something that brought him closer. She remembered him opening the packet, handing one stick to her, eating the other himself. They’d chomp together in harmony, while her mum was out.
That stuff will kill you. Her mum had a point. Maybe her father wouldn’t have died so young if he’d reined in on the chops and chips and chocs. But it wasn’t as though Mum was into health food herself, was it? She battled the scales, same as Becca did. She just denied it, got ratty on her chickenfeed diet, and had a go at her daughter instead.
Becca sighed, looked out of the window. Her breath was steaming it up, giving a dreamy edge to the view. Suburbia stretched on mistily, trees bare and black now on the edges of still-perfect lawns. It was like the place she’d grown up in, just that bit bigger and better, as though everything had been inflated by some sort of celestial bicycle pump. Even the streetlights seemed taller. They’d flick on soon, twilight was falling. An SUV purred up the road, swung in to park outside a nearby garage, crunching over the gravel drive. Not the Bridges lot. Children and a dog burst out. Before anyone could pop a head up over the privet to complain about the sudden din, they were engulfed by their huge house. The silence settled over Becca again.
Leaving the car heater on meant her Twix had melted into a lump. She held it up to the light, strangely deformed, the bars fused together. She thought again of Louise Bridges’ legs in that get-up. Bloody woman. She snapped the biscuit crossly, munched for a while. Then, when she was feeling soothed, she started licking the residue off her fingers. You could say one thing for chocolate, it always tasted delicious, no matter what shape it was.
The daylight was leaching away now, greens fading to browns, browns to velvet black, and still she sat on. She knew none of Louise Bridges’ neighbours would complain about the car. There’d been so much to-ing and fro-ing lately. The police, then the papers. Attracted like flies by death, the fire, the inquest. People were inured to it now. And she’d sat here often enough. Just watching. Waiting. Plain clothes, they’d assume. If anyone knocked on her window, she was always ready with a story. Just keeping an eye on the place. They’d wander off nodding, happy as Larry. But no one would knock. That was the joy of the suburbs. All that rabid curiosity, but contained by its own net curtains, as though they were made of steel. Nobody would confront you. Write an anonymous note, yes. Ring the station to complain, possibly. But that hadn’t happened yet.
She could stay on here for hours, waiting, watching, and all these little householders would actually feel safer for having her around. She smiled and dealt with the last blob of chocolate. She was willing to bet the neighbours were in her camp. Suspicious, but unable to voice the dark thoughts in their heads. Yet. They didn’t know as much as she did, but they were all waiting, just the same. Just like her.
Then Louise’s door cracked open. Yellow light shone behind her, highlighting that hair. She wasn’t in the yoga gear this time, she was in flowing black trousers. Becca couldn’t see the detail, except for the way the fabric fell, caressing as nothing ever had on her own body. Pricey. Of course. A sweater, equally black. Soft, understated. Was it a bit fluffy? A boat neck, they called that. Ordinary clothes, on anyone else. On Louise, they developed a special sort of grace and elegance, her collar bones rising up, carved like a dancer’s. Becca wished she hadn’t finished that Twix. Then wished she had another to crunch to oblivion. Then she thought about the calories and felt sick. The usual backwash of guilt.
Louise strode out, oblivious. Though Becca was sitting there large as life – well, larger, as her mother would have said with a sigh – Louise never seemed to see her. Was she invisible to the woman? Or just so insignificant that Louise didn’t give a toss? It would make things harder if Louise did know she was here, and Becca wouldn’t be able to watch her like this. But sometimes, like tonight, she was tempted to lean on the horn, make the bitch look up, acknowledge her existence, at least.
But Becca stopped herself and Louise moved fluidly on, eyes never once flicking to the parked car. She went round to the side, unlatched the little hutch that cocooned her wheelie bins. Not for her the vulgarity of an exposed rubbish bin, oh no. That sort of thing had to be tidied away, hidden, so she could pretend that she and her brood didn’t generate used teabags, carrot tops, coffee grounds, tissues, rotten fruit, sanitary pads … the usual detritus of human life. Now she was pushing the bins out onto the street, one at a time, putting her back into it. Becca watched with a smirk. That’s a proper work-out for you, isn’t it, love? None of this pointless stretching and bending that you pay through the nose for.
When all three bins were finally out there, beyond the garden wall, Louise smoothed her hair back from her forehead and went back inside. Ha. Don’t like the donkey work, do you? Not such a clever idea to get rid of the hubby after all, was it? Once the door clicked shut and the outside light went off, Becca decided reluctantly that it was time to move on. The show was over. For tonight. She turned the key in the ignition and flipped on the headlights at last.
She drove back through the dark streets to her empty flat, a silent promise running through her head. I’ll be back, Louise, don’t you worry.
I’ve got my eye on you.
Then
Jen and I kept in touch. The idea of losing her made me feel dizzy. What would I do? How would I know if I was getting it right? So we got into a habit of having drinks after work and bitching about our bosses, though my heart wasn’t in the whingeing. I loved the company almost as much as I loved my desk – and Patrick.
We became even better friends once she’d left the company. From the outside, I liked to think we were now peas in a pod, but keeping tabs on her felt like touching wood, keeping myself grounded, checking I was really where I needed to be. So much of what I now was, I owed to her template. And having a friend like her was proof of how far I’d come. The girls at school would have collapsed in amazement if they could have seen me, swanking about