Chapters (40)
- Cover
- About the Author
- PENGUIN BOOKS
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- THE BEGINNING
She stared, swallowed hard, wrenched her face back to what might be normal, who knew any more? ‘Take care of them.’
‘Of course.’
He strode across to the trolley and pushed it away on its skewed wheels. Sasha walked beside him, her little hand laid over his large one on the handle. Clem and Aggie jostled in front of them. They pushed their away into the crowd. Now she could make out Frankie, her dark blonde head halfway along the queue. Adrian and the girls made their way across. She saw Frankie bend down to embrace them. Irene knew she must leave, yet still she stood pressed against a concrete pillar and watched them. Their five figures edged forward in the queue. Occasionally they were hidden by other people, but whenever she saw them they were talking animatedly. Adrian picked up Aggie and put her on his shoulders so she rose above the press of travellers: a chubby little girl with crooked pigtails. Sasha and Frankie were in charge of the trolley. Clemmie dipped in and out of sight. Could it really be that in an hour or so they would be in a plane, flying to Australia without her?
At last they reached the check-in and handed over their passports. They lifted their bags onto the belt and watched them disappear. Adrian lifted Aggie off his shoulders and they all walked together towards Departures. Irene stepped back further, anxious lest they see her skulking there. But though they passed not far from her, none of them looked up. Sasha was holding onto Aggie, tugging her along, and Adrian had his hand on Clem’s spiky head. Frankie walked beside him. She was wearing a dark pink shirt and loose faded jeans. As Irene watched, Adrian put out his other hand and wrapped it around her shoulders. She saw them smile at each other. And then she turned away.
Fifteen
Her skin stuck to the seat of the car; sweat gathered on her upper lip. She put on her dark glasses, opened the windows, slid a tape of Bach’s violin sonatas in and turned the volume up. The music fell in planes of sound into her skull, blocking out thought; the sun slanted through the window.
She stopped at the supermarket, putting off the moment when she’d step into the empty house and close the door behind her. But she didn’t know what to put into the trolley, which was intimidatingly large; family-sized. She wheeled it slowly up and down the aisles: four green apples, one small loaf of wholemeal bread, six free-range eggs, one pint of semi-skimmed milk, some freshly squeezed orange juice which she normally never bought because it was so expensive. She stared at the objects at the bottom of the trolley. Now what? She went across to the drink section and took a bottle of whisky and a bottle of cheap wine off the shelves.