Chosen (5 page)

He drives with a set jaw.

‘Don't give them a bollocking,' she says. He flicks her a look. ‘I mean, they're only doing their job.'

‘Selling your fucking house from under you?'

‘I wasn't in it,' she points out.

He speeds up as they approach a changing light. She flinches down in her seat, sees the tension in his knee, unfamiliar in suit trousers, the terrible charity shop suit he'd come back with so proudly: ‘Only a tenner!' The trousers are too short, the lapels too big and there's an awful naff sort of shine to the fabric. But it's only for today.

‘Are you really going?' she says, so quiet it could almost be a thought.

He scratches his ear, frowns. ‘Dunno,' he says.

‘Talk about it later?' she says. ‘I'm getting rat-arsed when we get home.'

D
odie's head pounds with every step as she goes downstairs. When she woke earlier, groaning, Rod got up with Jake and, judging by the quiet, took him out – though he didn't forget to set an alarm to screech at her from the landing before he left. He made an appointment for her to phone the solicitor as soon as they got home yesterday.
For nine a.m., the sadist. They should have stopped at one bottle; the evening's a blur, bathing Jake half-cut for the first time ever. Can't even remember eating – though there's a memory of Rod and a frying pan and, later, a hazy picture of the floor, Rod's hands on her hips, carpet burns this morning on her elbows and knees.

Mr Riddle has a gentle Geordie accent that almost lulls her to sleep. She sits on the kitchen floor, propped against the fridge, eyes squeezed shut to try and concentrate. She's never had a hangover quite like this one; not just her head but the entire kitchen is pulsing and the floor seems to be tilting towards her. Mr Riddle tells her that the house never belonged to Stella but was let at a nominal rent by a property holding company, and they have every right, now that their tenant is deceased, to sell it. Legally, Dodie hasn't got a leg to stand on.

She looks down at her legs, pale under the hem of her dressing gown. They need a shave. On her thigh is a scar, a pale and silvery crescent. Stella would never tell her how she got it. Every single lover has put his finger on it and spoken of the moon. Rod used to lick it – but not lately. She realizes she's sitting in something wet and sees Jake's cup leaking a stream of Ribena. The floor must really be tilting since it's flowing towards her. She shifts her bottom and shuts her eyes again.

Mr Riddle tells her that Stella left the contents of the house to herself and Seth.

‘Don't think there's anything I want.' She pictures the dreary furniture – except the table, Rod will want that – the tedious curtains, the mountain of jigsaws.

‘There's particular mention of a letter,' he continues, ‘that upon her death, you should receive a letter. I believe – yes – that's been posted out already – you should get it today. And of course we'll arrange access to the house. You'll need to collect your property.'

Dodie thanks him, hangs up and sits blankly for a minute staring at her toes, then staggers up to look at the post. Among the junk are two actual letters, one in a
solicitor's thick envelope, one airmail, which she rips open immediately.

Dear Dodie,
I'm sorry that I left so suddenly without saying goodbye. Don't worry about me I am fine. I know you won't believe it, but I have been chosen. Don't laugh. It's true. Will you come and visit? Bring Jakey; it's cool here.

Yours in the Lord,
Seth

Dodie reads it standing up, then sits down and reads it again.
Yours in the Lord?
The letter had been printed out, but the signature is in Seth's familiar spidery scrawl. The paper is stamped with a logo, like a mask with tiny letters spelling
SOUL LIFE
, and an address and phone number in New York State. She puts her head in her hands amid a scatter of muesli. The door opens and Jake sings out, ‘Mumma, Mumma,' reaching from his buggy as Rod manoeuvres it into the kitchen. She unstraps him, lifts him up and rubs her face against his hair, but he struggles to get down and play.

‘So?' Rod says, dumping bread and milk onto the table. ‘Did you ring?'

‘My
head
.' Dodie puts her hand against her throbbing brow. The bread smells aggressively wholemeal. She moves away towards the sink where last night's plates are still submerged in greasy water along with a floating teabag and a fag end. Two empty wine bottles and the whisky nearly finished too.

‘Read that.' She indicates Seth's letter, fills a mug from the tap and swigs it down.

Rod reads the letter and snorts.

‘Yours in the Lord?'
Dodie says.
‘I have been chosen?
That's not Seth, is it?
Yours in the Lord
, for God's sake?'

‘At least you know he's safe.' Rod flicks the kettle on. ‘Coffee?'

Dodie winces. ‘
Safe?
'

‘He's telling you he's OK.'

‘But
chosen
? He never even went to Sunday school.'

‘The lawyer?' Rod asks.

‘Haven't you even
got
a hangover?' She swallows a couple of paracetamol that stick like boulders in her throat.

‘A wee touch,' he admits, but he looks fine. Mad deningly fine. He drank just as much. More. ‘What did he say?'

‘It's not mine, the house. She rented it.'

He turns to stare at her. ‘
What?
'

‘I don't care,' she says. ‘I don't even want it.'

‘How did you not know that?'

Dodie shrugs.

‘You
don't want it
? Three hundred grand's worth of house?' He gives the biscuit tin a deafening rattle.

A surge of sick rises suddenly in Dodie's throat; she clamps her hand to her mouth and rushes upstairs, making it to the bathroom just in time. Tears spurt from her eyes as she vomits into the toilet, the paracetamol choking out again, not even dissolved. She sinks to her knees, beside a sodden nappy, a feeder cup on its side in a pool of juice.

Later, headache shrunken to manageable proportions, she goes out to the shed Rod calls his workshop. Jake's sitting on the floor, banging with a little hammer at a piece of splintery wood. He looks up and grins. He's got a cold and his face is shiny with snot; as he breathes a bubble inflates and deflates in one nostril.

‘Bam, bam, bam,' he says.

‘Are you sure that's safe?' Her fingers itch to remove the hammer, the dagger-sharp splinters. Rod sands the curve of the arm of a chair, a lovely sweeping line, pale wood. Ash or lime, she guesses. Those tiny pink fingers so near the banging hammer-head. Even a tiny splinter can poison the blood.

‘He's OK,' Rod says, looking up. ‘Feeling better?' He puts down his sandpaper, runs his finger over the smooth curve.

‘Sorry about that,' she says. ‘I'm going teetotal.'

He gleams at her ironically.

She groans, leans herself back against the workbench, eyeing Jake and the hammer. She reaches down and tries to wipe his nose, but he wriggles away from her and she gives up.

‘So, did you ring the airline?'

He grins. ‘Aye. Result,' he says. ‘They've offered me a flight end of next week, only another fifty quid.'

‘That's good,' she says, ‘because I'm going to see Seth.'

‘
What
?'

‘I just phoned. Didn't speak to him but I told them I was coming. I don't want to take Jake all that way, not with this cold. I'll be back before you go.'

‘I'm staying here to support you and
you
're going away?' His voice rises. ‘
Christ
, Dodie!'

‘I can't not go and see Seth, can I?'

Rod's mouth sets in a stubborn line that means yes, you certainly can.

Dodie picks up a chisel: fine, sharp-edged, easy to hurt yourself on. The glitter of the blade makes her shudder.

‘All Stella's stuff is mine, though, mine and Seth's. You can get your hands on the table,' she says. ‘And anything in the shed.'

‘I've just changed my fucking flight,' he says, ‘to be with you. To be here for you.'

‘You will be,' she says. ‘You'll be here with Jake . . . for me.'

He reaches for his Rizlas. ‘How much?'

‘We can afford a cheap return. You've got the chair commission. What if it's a cult or something?'

‘Christ's sake!' Rod suddenly slams his fist down on the workbench, scattering tobacco amid the sawdust. ‘You make such a fucking mountain out of every fucking molehill!'

She stares at him. Jake is staring too, open-mouthed, a clear trail of dribble running down his chin.

‘
Molehill!
' she repeats, straining to keep her voice calm and pleasant. ‘It's not a molehill! And it's OK for you to go gallivanting off, but not for me? And I'm not even gallivanting,' she adds.

Rod picks up his sanding block and goes violently at the arm of the chair.

‘I've got to at least
see
him,' Dodie pleads to Rod's back. ‘He needs to know. I have to tell him about Stella, don't I? I'll go online for a cheap –'

Jake gives a sudden screech and drops the hammer, holding up his index finger wonderingly, eyes hugely round. Dodie scoops him up, sucks the finger into her mouth, kisses and kisses him.
See
. She shoots Rod a filthy look as she carries Jake away.

‘Will you not mollycoddle him?' Rod snaps after her.

She turns in the doorway.

‘
What?
'

‘He's not even crying, for Christ's sake. Leave him be.'

Dodie holds Jake close, almost crooning into his hair, but he wriggles, he's seen his football. She sets him down and he staggers across, aims a kick, falls on his bottom and laughs. Her sweater is smeared with mucous.
Mollycoddle?

Rod leans against the doorframe of the shed.

‘I've got to go.' She dabs at her front with a tissue. ‘I won't be able to do anything till I know he's OK,' she says. ‘You think I mollycoddle Seth as well?'

‘You said it.'

‘But he's got no one else, has he? If I don't look out for him, who will?'

‘Yeah, yeah,' Rod says. He goes back into the shed and slams the door.

Dodie catches Jake and takes him inside. She wipes his face and tries to show him how to blow his nose, but he can't get the idea at all. She gives him a cup of juice, sticks a DVD on and, once he's happily gawping, creeps away. In the kitchen her eyes snag on the other letter. She has a sudden fit of violent shivers, puts the kettle on and drapes a sweater of Rod's round her shoulders. She warms her hands on the belly of the kettle until it gets too hot, then, as if catching herself unawares, turns and tears open the solicitor's envelope, and the one inside addressed to Dodie in Stella's jerky hand:

Dear Dodie,
If you're reading this, I'm gone but this is something I want you to know. Even to write it is hard, as if my hand is trying to stop me. I'm sorry I was so horrid. I don't know why I was. I did love you but something would always come over me, like a force field or glass or something to stop me being nice. It was easier with Seth, a boy; that is something different. After you left home I did try with him. When you left I was glad. It made it easier for me to look after Seth without you watching in that critical way you have.

I have been horribly cold, I know.

Though I don't deserve it, please forgive me.

Stella.

Dodie reads it through twice then she turns to make herself a cup of Earl Grey. She puts two mugs out, but hangs one back on its hook. Let him make his own. Love is a tiny word with a taste like almonds and she holds it on her tongue.

T
he taxi stops outside a chain-link fence. It's a wide flat street with wide flat buildings separated by acres of lawn. There's no church or anything that looks the least bit like a church.

‘End of the ride, lady,' the driver says. Dodie pays him, fumbling with the unfamiliar dollar bills. ‘Have a good day.' It's mid-afternoon. He screeches his car into a three-point turn and swerves away. The sun is warm with an autumnal edge. Fall, she thinks, a fall edge – but that doesn't sound right. Sounds dangerous. Some things just don't translate. Once the engine noise has evaporated, there's silence. A black squirrel scrambles up the fence and leaps onto the branch of a tree. Blazing maple leaves.

The gate is made of the same toughened wire mesh as the fence. On the gatepost the small mask logo with
SOUL-LIFE
in its mouth. OK. That's something. No handle on the gate, no way of opening it, but there's a button with a speaker. She presses and waits. Nothing. No one comes. No one passes in the street. The other buildings all look flat and closed and far away. She scrunches her legs together. A long taxi ride on top of cups and cups of coffee – the waitress kept filling her up for free – and her bladder is tight and tweaking. No bushes. It's all so open. What if she squatted down on the grass verge? She presses the button again, fidgeting urgently from foot to foot.

‘
Hello?
' A crackly voice emerges from the speaker.

‘It's Dodie,' she says. ‘Seth's sister. I phoned and said I was coming.'

‘
Hold on
.'

She holds on, resisting the urge to cross her legs. A stocky woman in a lilac dress comes scurrying across the expanse of grass, just as the gate glides open.

‘Hello there,' she says, in an English accent. She's fiftyish with cropped grey hair, pink cheeks, a warm smile. She opens her arms in an embrace and Dodie stiffens. Relax, she tells herself, it's how they'll be, touchy-feely, Jesus loves you. The gate slides shut behind her with a judder and a squeak. The woman steps back, looks with odd intensity into Dodie's eyes. Hers are the colour of faded denim, surrounded by a comfortable mesh of lines. ‘I'm Martha,' she says, a little breathlessly.