Chosen (6 page)

‘Hi, Martha,' Dodie says, stepping back. ‘Sorry, but I'm bursting for the loo.'

Martha laughs. ‘Easily remedied,' she says. ‘Follow me.' As they go back across the grass she says, ‘We thought you'd be bringing your little boy?'

‘Decided not to,' Dodie says. ‘He's got a cold.'

They stop by the door of a small extension to the main building. Martha punches a number into the keypad and they go inside. ‘Bathroom through there,' Martha says. ‘Take your time. Freshen up. I'll put the kettle on.'

Dodie only just makes it, gets her jeans down, sits and pees, sighing with the sweet relief. Arrangements of plastic
flowers sit on the high windowsill and on the cistern, and an artificial floral smell tickles her nose. She washes her hands and stares at herself in the mirror: a white face, dark shadows under her eyes – that Stella look again. She slaps a bit of colour into her cheeks, licks her teeth, scrabbles her fingers through her messy hair. In the hotel this morning she discovered her third white one and nipped it out. Is it normal to start going grey at thirty, or is it from all the shocks?

The little sitting room's decorated in an exaggeratedly homey style. The walls, carpet, curtains and upholstery add up to a flouncy, floral hell.
Like your mum on acid,
she'll tell Rod. His mother's bungalow in Inverness is almost psychotically flounced, pelmeted and valanced – but much more tastefully than this. Dodie feels a stab of loyalty, even though she doesn't know her very well. Jake's only met his Scottish granny once. Once she gets home they'll put that right.

‘Cup of tea?' Martha says.

Dodie sits on the sofa. The tea is set out on a tray with a milk jug, a sugar bowl, a cake tin. The cups are gold-edged, chintzy.

‘Pretty,' Dodie says, eyeing the tin. ‘This isn't at all what I expected!'

‘White? Sugar?'

‘Just milk, thanks.'

Martha's hands are indoor hands, very smooth and white, almost pampered-looking. She makes a peculiar little humming sound under her breath as she pours the tea.

‘Cake?'

‘Please . . . but where's Seth?'

The smile falters. ‘Ah, I'm afraid there's been a bit of a glitch.'

Dodie stares.

‘He was called to another centre, across the state.'

‘But –'

‘I know,' Martha says. ‘It's very unfortunate. He'll be back tomorrow.'

Dodie forces her voice to stay even. ‘I did
say
I was coming.' She picks up her teacup, lets her hair fall and cloak her face.

‘What a good sister,' Martha says, ‘coming all this way.'

‘I miss him.'

‘And he misses you,' Martha says, ‘and little Jake. I know he misses him.'

‘He shouldn't have left then, should he?'

Grimacing sympathetically, Martha reaches out to stroke her leg. Dodie's muscles shrink from the touch.

‘He'll be here tomorrow.'

‘Where is he, anyway?'

‘We have different centres,' Martha says. ‘Now come on, this calls for cake.' She opens the tin to reveal a carrot cake, thickly covered with cream-cheese icing. Despite everything, Dodie's mouth floods with saliva. She feels like a Pavlovian dog as she watches Martha cut a slice so huge it overlaps the dainty plate. Maybe it's true, they do eat more in America. But she has no objection. Not when it's cake like this, with a nubbly texture, little walnut flecks and the icing deep and sweet and toothsome. Martha nibbles at a smaller slice.

‘OK now?' Martha beams. ‘Not much that a slice of cake won't put right, is there?'

Dodie smiles, reluctantly cheered by the sweetness. They eat in silence and she licks the last of the icing from her fingers.

Martha opens her mouth to speak but stops when the door opens and a woman enters. She's about the same age as Martha, dressed identically but hectically pretty and thin.

‘Welcome,' she says and leans down to hug Dodie.

‘This is Hannah,' Martha says. Her voice has tightened. ‘We're getting on quite well here, thank you very much.'

Dodie catches a minute flicker in Hannah's eyes. Irritation?

‘Cake?' Hannah frowns at Martha, whose face has stiffened and flushed. She's doing that humming thing again, a fixed smile on her face. Hannah switches on a smile for Dodie. ‘Have a good trip?' Her teeth snaggle attractively
at the front, giving her a slightly goofy look. She sounds Australian. ‘Where's the nipper?'

‘Jake? I left him with his dad.'

‘Shame,' Hannah says, raising her eyebrows at Martha.

Why are they so bothered about Jake? ‘Well, if Seth won't see me I'll go,' Dodie says, made uneasy by the staring of the two women and the tension that jangles the air between them. ‘I'll come back tomorrow.' She puts down her plate.

Martha stands up and faces Hannah. She's a head shorter but twice as wide. ‘Our Father needs you,' she says to Hannah, nodding towards the door. ‘
I
can manage here.'

Hannah raises her eyebrows, shrugs. ‘See you soon,' she says to Dodie as she leaves the room.

Once the door has closed, Martha relaxes, smiles at Dodie almost conspiratorially – though why should she be expected to take sides in some unspecified dispute between strangers? The sugary cake has made her terribly sleepy and she blinks.

‘Can you call me a taxi?'

‘Why not stay?' Martha says.

‘But all my stuff's at the hotel.'

‘We can lend you everything you need. And what if Seth gets back tonight, after all? What if he gets back expecting to see you?'

Dodie dabs her fingertip round her plate to pick up the last few crumbs. If she were alone she'd lick the plate. Frosting, in America they call it frosting. She sees Martha noticing her grass-green fingernails. It's an expensive taxi journey and there's nothing in her luggage she can't do without for a night – and she
is
shattered. ‘OK then,' she says. ‘Thanks.' A great gaping yawn escapes her. ‘Sorry.'

‘You're jetlagged,' Martha says, ‘poor baby.'
Baby?
‘What about forty winks?'

‘They say it's best to stay awake till bedtime,' Dodie says, her throat hollowing with the effort of suppressing another yawn. ‘To help the body clock adjust.'

Martha shrugs. ‘If you're tired, you're tired.' She yawns herself, hand patting against her mouth to make a
wa-wawa
sound. ‘Look, you've set me off now!'

‘This is all very
normal
,' Dodie says. ‘I mean – I, I didn't know what to expect –'

‘We are quite normal really!' Martha's eyes twinkle in their nets. Dodie blinks, reminded of something, fishing for stars or something, part of a lullaby? Wink and Blink and a Nod . . . God, she's dropping off. How rude.

She half smothers another yawn, shakes the gathering sand from her head. ‘It's weird though. I mean, Seth never showed any interest in God or anything before, not that he let on.'

‘Not weird,' Martha says. ‘It's people who are lost.'

Dodie bristles. ‘He wasn't
lost
!'

Martha says nothing but Dodie can hear the hum again, just the faintest sound, not a tune, just a continuous note. It could get on your nerves.

‘There's something I have to tell him.'

‘About your mother?' Martha asks.

Dodie startles out of her tiredness. ‘How do you know?'

‘Well, the police –'

‘So he
knows
? I gave them this number, but I said I'd tell him.'

‘He doesn't know how she died,' Martha reassures her. ‘Something like that, best it comes from you.' She has one of those sympathetic faces that always look familiar: pleasant and unthreatening.

‘Yes, I'll tell him,' she says. They sit in silence for a minute. ‘But this is all so weird. His head teacher said he'd gone to a
relative
in America. No one would tell me anything when I rang.'

Martha chuckles. ‘But you see, we are
all
relatives here, relatives in the Lord.'

‘Oh.' Dodie looks down at her fingernails.
Relatives in America
, she thinks, how stupid, how stupid of her to be so literal. ‘But, it's just that Seth never would have done that, left like that, without at least telling
me
. We've always been like this.' She holds up two crossed fingers.

‘People can be surprising,' Martha says. ‘Don't fret. Look, why not put your feet up? I'll bring you an early dinner. Don't look so downhearted,' she adds. ‘You
will
see Seth.'

‘I'm just tired.'

‘Got a photo of your little one?'

‘Yeah.' Dodie picks up and riffles through her bag. ‘Can I use your phone? I need to ring Rod and this' – she pulls her mobile out – ‘won't work over here, some network problem thingy.'

‘I'll bring you one, when I bring the dinner.'

Dodie switches on her mobile and opens her gallery. ‘There.' Jake's grinning face snags at her heart. She tilts the screen so Martha can see. ‘Here he is, with his first ice cream – and that's Rod' – she hesitates – ‘my boyfriend.' Seth is behind them in the picture, caught accidentally, unselfconsciously. Her three favourite humans in one tiny, lit-up square.

‘Sweet.' Martha chuckles. ‘Jake, I mean!' She stands up. ‘Rest now.'

Dodie puts her finger on Jake's face. The tip of it obscures his whole head. What is he doing now?
Wink and Blink and a Nod one night
, it's a lullaby; maybe Aunt Regina sang it to her once, certainly not Stella, and she'll sing it to Jake if she can think of the words,
sailed out on wooden shoe, into a river of crystal light and into a sea of blue,
funny how it floats back, flows, when it's been dammed up for so long,
where are you going la la la la an old man asks the three . . .

Dodie blinks. Her mouth is full of fur, her phone is by her feet, a lamp shines in a flowery corner.

‘Better?' a voice says. ‘Dinner won't be long.'

It's evening; she looks at her watch. A couple of hours have vanished.

‘All OK,' Martha soothes. ‘No rush. You take your time.'

Dodie scrubs at her eyes. ‘I have to talk to Rod.'

‘On the table.' Dodie turns to see the phone there. The tea things have been cleared and there are knives and forks set out; all that and she didn't hear a thing. Martha goes to the little stove; there's the clank of a spoon in a pan, a deliciously spicy savoury smell.

‘I've just got to fetch some bread – if you want bread?'

‘Please.'

She waits for Martha to leave and dials the home number, remembering the UK code. The phone rings. She pictures it on top of the fridge, pictures her kitchen with Stella's rosewood table crammed in so you can barely squeeze round it to get to the fridge – and already marked by a hot-cup ring. Stella would spin in her grave, if she were in a grave. Ashes. They've yet to scatter them. They're in the airing cupboard, safe under all the towels and sheets. Wait till Seth's back. Make a trip of it, a picnic, oh, shut up. The phone rings.

‘It's me!' Dodie says, when she hears Rod's voice.

‘Good timing, we've just got in.'

‘Where've you been?'

‘Out. So, where are you?'

‘At the church, sort of, only it's not like a church, in what they call the parlour.' She lowers her voice. ‘A sort of psychotically twee apartment for visitors.'

Rod grunts.

‘Like your mum on acid,' she tries, hoping to amuse him, but there's a beat of silence.

‘So,' he says. ‘Seth?'

‘Haven't seen him yet. Tomorrow.'

‘Oh?'

‘Jake?'

‘He's right here. Still in his buggy. Jake, want to speak to Mummy? Say hello to Mummy.'

She feels in her belly the swoop of the phone down to Jake's ear. ‘Jakey?'

She hears his breath. Shuts her eyes. Sees his puzzled face.

‘Say hello to Mummy,' Rod says.

‘Hello, Jake,' Dodie says.

But he starts to cry. Rod comes on. ‘That's foxed him,' he says, through the wails.

‘Give him some juice and a fig roll,' Dodie says.

‘It's lunchtime.'

‘Give him banana on toast –'

‘I know what to give him, thank you.'

‘Sorry.' Her voice thins. ‘Wish I was there.'

‘I'd better sort him out.'

‘I shouldn't have come.'

‘Don't be daft; he's fine. Ring when you've seen Seth. OK?'

‘OK.'

‘Bye.'

And he's gone. She drops the phone and bunches over, arms wrapped round herself, round the twingeing of a phantom umbilicus. Thousands of miles away, Jake is crying for her and there's nothing she can do.

‘All right?' Martha comes back in, a long crusty loaf under her arm. She inspects the pan. ‘This is done.'

‘Smells good.'

‘Red pepper goulash,' Martha says. ‘Wine?'

‘Please.'

‘Californian.' She pours two generous glasses of red. ‘Cheers.' She raises her glass. ‘Once again, welcome. And tuck in.'

‘Cheers.' Dodie tucks her hair behind her ears and takes a sip of the wine; a bit sweet but still reviving. Reassured that at least they aren't teetotal, she forks up slivers of red in a sticky sauce: rich, earthy; tomatoes, paprika.

‘Mmm,' she says. ‘Where's everybody else?'

‘We like to welcome guests in here – more of a personal touch.'

‘But I'd like to see where Seth stays.'

‘Tomorrow.'

‘I need some water.' She starts to stand.

‘No, no.' Martha is up and filling a glass from a fizzy bottle before Dodie can open her mouth to object. She hasn't been looked after like this since . . . well, ever. She swigs back half the glass.