Chosen (2 page)

‘Mum, where is he? See, he's meant to be babysitting tonight but I can't get hold of him.' She took a sip of weak, bleachy tea.

‘Not here to see
me
, then?'

‘That too, of course, Mum. Has he lost his phone or something?'

Stella ripped at her cuticle and a bead of blood appeared beside her thumbnail. She licked it off and Dodie looked away, watching her own hand pick up the piece and fit it in.
There
. Satisfaction at the snugness of the fit. The striped trousers distinctive; she immediately saw another bit.

‘You know that if I thought you wanted to see me, I'd come more often.' She looked up at Stella but the face was closed, the winter-coloured eyes unreadable. There was a creak on the stairs and Dodie looked up at the ceiling.

‘
Is
he here?'

‘No.'

‘What's that then?'

‘The pipes?'

‘Where is he?' Dodie insisted, but Stella only shrugged. No point trying to get round her if she wanted to be like that. Dodie went to the foot of the stairs, looked up, and called Seth's name – but there was no response, just cold gloom and she couldn't bear it. Besides, she had to get back and pick Jake up. She didn't have time for this.

Stella called her, and she went back into the dining room, irritated.

‘What?'

‘Help me.'

‘
What,
Mum?'

Stella's eyes were wide, mouth opening on a half-formed word.

‘
What
?'

‘The puzzle,' she said. ‘Only that. I want to get it finished.' Her fingers were trembling and she wound a strand of hair round one of her bitten finger-ends.

‘I've got to go,' Dodie said. ‘Tell Seth I'm expecting him at eight.' She kissed Stella's cheek, and felt the tension quivering through her.

‘Dodie?' Stella said.

‘I'll have to run for my bus. What?' Dodie opened the back door onto the rain, pulled up her hood and tucked her hair inside. Stella came to stand beside her on the step. ‘
What?
'

‘I . . .' Stella extended her hand as if to touch Dodie, something that she hadn't done voluntarily for years.

‘
What?
' Had the irritation shown in her voice? She looked at the rain glistening on Stella's outstretched palm. ‘Come on, Mum, I'm getting soaked.'

‘Oh, nothing.'

‘Sure?'

Stella wiped her hand on her skirt and – sort of – smiled.

‘I'm off, then,' Dodie said.

‘Goodbye, Dodie.'

‘Bye, Mum.'

That was Friday and this is Monday and she's still heard nothing from Seth. And he's always round at the weekend. Of course, she should have gone upstairs when she heard the noise; she shouldn't have let Stella fob her off like that, like always. She steps back to look at the rain streaming down the dark window-glass. She will have to get the key and go inside and find out what's wrong.

It's horrible going down the dark side of the house again, squeaking though the gate, stepping across the long soggy grass and snagging brambles to the shed, where the spare key should be hanging on a nail. The shed door creaks open on the smell of flower-pots and spiders and there are webs there, in the dark, where she must put her hand. From a neighbouring garden there's the half-hearted detonation of a firework going off, though Guy Fawkes was weeks ago. She presses her fists against her mouth before she can steel herself to feel about in the darkness. Her fingers tangle in a resistant softness before she finds the key, unhooks it from
its nail and hurries round to the front of the house, grateful to be back in the wavery streetlight. She scrubs her fingers fiercely against her jeans to rid them of the sticky sensation of cobwebs before she lifts the key and fits it in the lock.

S
he knows what she will see before she sees it. Once she's twisted the key, the door swings open and the streetlight illuminates in patches the bruisy velvet of the hanging dress. Her eyes flinch in their sockets, her fingers press against her lips. It's too dark inside to see properly. She reaches round to the switch, and in the sudden blare of light her eyes slide every where before she can make them rest on the central thing.

The rope is blue; over the head a brown paper bag; the fingers are curled and purple; the toes beneath the velvet hem are dusky. The bag looks comical with its poking corners, and a laugh like a curd of something sour catches in Dodie's throat. There's a strong smell of patchouli oil and a stain on the carpet. She shuts the door, turns her back to it, her hand going for her phone.

‘Come,' she says to Rod, ‘
now
, and don't bring Jake.' And then rings off. She supposes she should call the police. Too late for an ambulance. There's something ludicrous and melodramatic about dialling 999. ‘A body,' she says, giving the address. ‘A suicide,' and her voice splinters on the word
mother
.

She slides down the door and crouches with her chin on her knees, arms clamped round her legs. Beside her is the old cow milk crate, its tail a pointer:
0 Pintas Today Milkman Please!

Earlier in the day Rod told her he was leaving her. Timing, she thinks, the curd in her throat again, perfect timing. She'd rushed out to see Stella in order get out of there, to get away from him. If he hadn't said he was leaving, she'd have stayed
at home and Stella would still be dangling undiscovered. Or Seth might have found her. Thank God, it hadn't been Seth. But his head teacher couldn't be right. ‘Seth's gone to stay with your relatives in America,' he'd said when she rang him that morning.
America?
What relatives?

Rain patters on her hood and falls like interference against the light. Over the road a porch lamp glows cheery and innocent. It's not late, though it feels like midnight or past midnight or no time; it feels like no recognizable time at all. The police will be gearing up to investigate. Rod will be trying to find a babysitter.

‘Let's have a drink,' Rod had said, once she'd done the dishes and Jake was in his cot – though he knew she was trying not to drink on Mondays or most Tuesdays.

‘
America
.' Dodie had picked up a J-cloth and swatted half-heartedly at some crumbs on the highchair tray. ‘Why would he go to America? The head teacher said we had relatives there, but we
don't
, not that I know of.'

‘Dodie?'

‘And why didn't Mum say?'

Rod thumped his fist down on the table. ‘
Dodie.
'

‘What?'

She knew what he was going to say, such a cliché she was embarrassed for him: ‘We need to, you know, talk.' And then he glugged his beer with the relief of having said it.

She opened Jake's feeder-cup and watched the dregs of milk go down the drain.

He sat at the kitchen table then got up again. He finished the can and squashed it flat. The room was too small for him, too small for pacing about in.

‘Christ, I need a smoke.' He opened the back door. Jake's plastic toys glowed in the rainy yard. The crusty old hydrangea heads glittered like disco balls in the spilled kitchen light. He stood just outside the door so the smoke, mingled with the rainy air, flowed inside.

‘You might as well smoke in here,' she grumbled. Rod stood with his back to her, filling the doorway; a big man with broad shoulders. ‘Go on then,' she said.

He cleared his throat. ‘I think I met someone,' he said.

The tap dripped. The clock ticked. There was a streak of something like tomato ketchup on the door of the fridge. ‘Think?'

‘OK. I
have
met someone.' He turned and she stared. He looked just the same: thick sandy hair and eyebrows, blondish stubble, caramel eyes, shiftily refusing to meet her own. He sucked the last breath out of his fag and ground it out on the step, before coming back inside.

‘What I'm trying to say is . . . Christ, let's have a proper drink.' He uncorked a bottle of Shiraz, splashed it into glasses and sat down at the tiny Formica table. There was just room for three, one each side and the high chair at the end. She sat opposite him and tried not to drink the wine.

‘Why would he go to
America
?' she said. ‘Why didn't he say anything?'

Rod reached across the table and took her hand. ‘Forget Seth for a minute.' His leather sleeve got into something sticky and she was glad. She pulled her hand away.

‘OK. Who is it?' she said.

‘You don't know her,' he said, ‘and nothing's happened and anyway, it's not that really. I mean it's not her. It's just that she, she's made me see . . .' He got out his plastic pouch of Drum and made a roll-up, his fingers trembling so that the tobacco spilled.

‘See what?' She focused on the mole on his cheek that shifted up and down, just minutely, as he spoke.

‘We hardly even knew each other when you got pregnant.'

‘With your help.'

‘And we never, like, made a real commitment, did we?' He licked his Rizla and rolled the paper tight. He finished his glass of wine and poured another.

‘Didn't we?'

‘Come on, Dodie,' he said, ‘you know how it was. I said I'd stick by you and I did and then you were ill, but now . . . It's not that I'm leaving you, I just need –'

‘What about Jake?'

‘– some headspace, you know? I'll always be here for Jake. I'm taking off.'

She bit the knuckle of her thumb. ‘You'll always be here but you're taking off?'

‘Got a flight to New Zealand.'

‘You've
got
it?'

‘It was a good deal. It was a now or never thing.'

She gave in and swigged her wine. ‘When were you going to tell me?'

‘Tonight.
Now
. I'm telling you.' He bared his teeth in an attempted smile. ‘I'll only be gone a few weeks, a month. I promise. Three tops.'

‘Three
months
?'

He shrugged. ‘Round about.'

‘So,' she said, ‘you're leaving me.
Us
.'

‘I just need to get my head together. You know I love Jake – and you.'

‘When?'

‘Coupla weeks.'

‘Well, thanks for telling me.' There was a Le Creuset casserole dish on the shelf. She could easily have brained him. ‘Is
she
going with you?' she asked.

‘No! Shit, I shouldn't have mentioned that, it's just meeting her made me see I need a break, you know, time out.' He waved his long arms about. He was too big for her tiny terraced house; it had never fitted him.

She had to get out of there and she stood, shaking off his attempt to hold her. ‘I'm going to make Stella tell me where Seth's gone,' she said, zipping up her jacket and cutting off his voice with a slam of the door.

There are more fireworks, a feeble celebration in the wet; she hears a laugh, catches a whiff of gunpowder. And Rod's taxi arrives, and behind it a police car. The blue light pulses over the wet privet hedge, making it surge and retreat like a wave.

When he sees the body, Rod begins to heave and goes to the downstairs toilet, which means dodging Stella's feet,
which he misjudges, blundering against the legs and letting out a cry. The body rocks, the banister creaks. Dodie screws shut her eyes, sticks her fingers in her ears to block out the sounds of Rod retching and the faint rhythmic squeak of rope on banister.

A detective with a beige moustache takes an initial statement in the kitchen, and then leaves her with a policewoman, Donna, who makes tea. The carrot is still there on the chopping board, still half-sliced.

‘Did she live alone?' Donna asks. She has bubbly blond curls and a face like a plastic dolly, way too pretty for her uniform.

Dodie hesitates. ‘Yes. My brother used to live here, but he's in the States.' She's amazed how smoothly this comes out, as if it's normal and she's known it all the time. ‘She's always been depressed. Sort of a bit ill. In the head.'

‘Ah,' Donna says, cosily, ‘a history of depression.'

Dodie hears the body being taken down. Rod comes back, face ashen. A guy takes her fingerprints, and Rod's, to rule them out. ‘My brother's prints will be here as well,' she says. She tells Donna about Seth and the relatives in America.

‘Address?' Donna says.

‘I'd just popped round to get it from my mum.'
Popped
, she thinks,
popped
? She'd never say that, not in real life.

Donna gives her a curious look and jots busily. ‘Empty nest syndrome?' she speculates.

‘This her writing?' A policeman wearing maggot-coloured gloves holds the bag from Stella's head under Dodie's nose.
I die at my own hand and of my own free will. Stella M. Woods.
It's written on the bag, definitely in Stella's writing. ‘Deceased two to three days,' he adds.

A police van comes to take the body away. ‘Looks cut and dried to me,' Donna says. ‘History of depression. Empty nest. Another cuppa? Shame there isn't any sugar.' Donna puts her cup down on the wood with no coaster; Stella would go mental. ‘It's not up to me to speculate, of course. There'll have to be an inquest.'

Dodie looks at the table. Stella's last puzzle – the sun glinting off the Grand Canal, the laugh of the handsome gondolier, the stripy stockings – is complete.

‘I was here on Friday,' Dodie says. ‘She was wearing the same dress.'

‘How did she seem?'

‘Weird,' Dodie says weakly.

‘There you are then.'

‘But she was . . .' she begins,
always weird
she nearly says, but it would seem disloyal. She starts to take apart the puzzle, then changes her mind, puts the pieces back one by one, there and there and there.

‘You get home now,' Donna says. ‘Get some sugar inside you. Or a stiff brandy.' She smiles and a dimple flickers in her cheek. ‘Try and get some shut-eye.'