Two Fridays in April (16 page)

Mo isn’t altogether surprised, but she remains resolute. She’d known Daphne wouldn’t jump at the idea – it would mean a big change for all of them, and a lot of work, and not a small degree of risk – but she can’t be allowed, she
won’t
be allowed, to dismiss it out of hand. She must be persuaded that they need to reclaim the premises that Leo had worked so hard to acquire, and that had provided a livelihood for Finn in his time.

So she persists with her arguments, she pushes her case – maybe pushes a little too hard. At any rate, she achieves nothing. By the time they’re finally out of words, the room is crackling with tension. Mo’s head begins to thump – the sherry, or maybe the whole fraught day, taking its toll. And just then Daphne’s phone, sitting by her plate, begins to ring.

She looks at the screen. ‘I have to take this,’ she says flatly, and something tells Mo that it’s Isobel calling. She pictures the orange dress in the café earlier, the blue scarf slung over a chair. The failed mother drinking red wine – and quite possibly awaiting an illicit assignation. She feels a sudden dart of sympathy for Daphne, regrets badgering her today of all days. Blundering in, as ever.

Left alone, she begins to clear the table: might as well do her
bit to make up. She tips open the lid of the bin to scrape the last of Daphne’s dinner into it – but what she sees makes her stop short. She sets the plate on the worktop, retrieves the box and frowns at the intact cake she discovers inside. This has surely come from a supermarket shelf, not a bakery – what happened to the other? And why on earth was this one thrown away before it was even cut?

She checks the fridge and opens presses, but finds nothing else. Daphne must have changed her mind and cancelled the bakery order – but it still doesn’t explain what this one was doing in the bin. She takes it from its box, finds a plate for it and gets a knife to reposition the pink icing that has slid sideways. Daphne, no doubt, will explain when she reappears.

Getting on for nine o’clock, and still no sign of Una. Something will have to be said when she appears, birthday or no birthday.

‘Four euro in Mulligan’s,’ Daphne says. ‘I never got to collect the other.’ And then she goes on to tell Mo why.

The news of the theft knocks her sideways: that lovely little red car stolen, today of all days. Again she feels remorse for her earlier haranguing – but Daphne makes little of the whole business. Most stolen cars turn up was what the guards had told her, she says. Expect some damage, they’d said.

She also seems to have forgotten their argument – or decided to put it behind them. She tells Mo to collect the other cake, bring it to the charity shop for the tea break. A nice gesture, particularly after their harsh words. Nobody in the shop will
care that it’s a day old. Mo will tell them there was a mix-up: Daphne and herself thought the other was collecting it, bakery closed by the time the mistake was discovered. She’ll say Una wasn’t a bit upset, on a diet like all teenage girls, just as well pleased without it.

She’ll get them to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ in the back room – they’d enjoy that.

They finish the washing-up, the atmosphere somewhat easier between them. The subject of what to do with the shop will have to be revisited, but Mo is content to leave it alone for the present. The seed has been sown: it’s enough for now.

As Daphne stows the roasting dish under the sink, the doorbell rings.

‘That’ll be Una now,’ Mo says.

‘No – she has her key. It’s Dad. I told him to call around after work.’

‘I heard there was cake on offer,’ he says, when Mo opens the door to him.

‘You heard right.’ Better not mention it was fished out of the bin. ‘And your timing is perfect; we were just about to cut it. Come in.’

He wears grey trousers that bag at the knees, a jacket the colour of porridge, and shoes that go with neither. His rapidly vanishing hairline and the brown-framed glasses that perch halfway down his long nose lend him a vaguely academic air.

He holds a package wrapped in proper gift paper, gold stars on dark blue. Box of chocolates, Mo guesses. The safe bet: he’s not a taker of risks. Could well be why his wife walked out, wanting someone maybe with a bit more of an edge to him.

But during the scatter of years they’ve known one another Mo has warmed to him. He’s solid, he’s completely dependable – and from what she can gather he raised Daphne practically on his own after Isobel left. No help to speak of from his older sisters, both living in Munich with their pair of German husbands. And his parents, by the sound of it, not much better, miles away on a farm on the other side of the country, occasional visitors at best.

His in-laws did pitch in a bit, apparently – but they were the parents of the woman who’d abandoned him: can’t have been an easy alliance.

‘I’m afraid Una isn’t here,’ she tells him, as he wipes his feet carefully on the mat inside the door.

He looks at her in astonishment. ‘Not here?’

‘No – she’s decided to skip her birthday dinner. She’s eating at a friend’s house instead.’ She gives him a what-can-you-do look.

‘Well,’ he says, and she waits for more as he slips off his jacket and hangs it up, but no more comes. Playing it safe again, not wanting to say the wrong thing.

Daphne meets them at the kitchen door. ‘Where’s your car?’ is the first question he puts to her, and Mo sets out cups and cuts the pink cake into slices as Daphne recounts her story again.

Twenty past nine: surely not long more till Una shows up.

But she doesn’t show up.

By half nine, pitch dark outside, they decide to ring her – but when Daphne tries, the girl’s phone goes unanswered. Mo feels her earlier annoyance returning: in the middle of some antics with the pals, too busy to bother with home.

Turns out Daphne doesn’t have a phone number for the pal Una was having dinner with. Turns out she doesn’t even know her last name. Mo does her best to hide her incredulity – talk about careless. Wouldn’t that be the first thing you’d make sure of with a child in the house, that you had numbers for all the pals? Finn would have had them, that’s for sure.

But she says nothing, keeps busy trying Una’s mobile phone while Daphne rings the principal of the school – the principal! – and manages to get the information she wants. And that’s when the real worry sets in.

Turns out she hasn’t been seen all day, not since Daphne dropped her off at the school before nine o’clock this morning. Turns out she claimed in a text to be at home sick today, but a check of her bedroom finds it empty.

She’s missing. They stand in the kitchen, trying to decide what to do.

‘We should phone the guards,’ Daphne says, making no move to phone anyone, looking as if she might throw up at any minute.

‘You phone,’ Jack tells her, already heading for the hall. ‘I’ll go out and look for her. Mo, you’ll stay here, will you? I can run you home afterwards.’

Something pulls at the edge of Mo’s consciousness, some memory she can’t grasp hold of. Something about Una, she thinks – something that she saw or heard today … She casts her mind back, retracing events as best she can, but whatever it is refuses to come.

Twenty to ten. Black as coal outside. Her fear increases.

S
ixty.

In a few months she will be sixty.

The number has been squatting quietly at the outskirts of her consciousness since the year began, malevolent and terrifying as a Brothers Grimm witch, biding its time until 12 September when it will advance and take up residency. Sixty is the real start of old, the first stage of the slow decline.

She moves the gloomy thought aside and stretches, relishing the cool slide of the silk sheets on her bare skin. She flexes her toes, tenses her calves and squeezes her buttocks in turn.
She breathes slowly and deeply, inhaling the scent of her own body, exhaling the last traces of sleep. She yawns, opening her mouth wide, raising her arms above her head, imagining everything inside her elongating and narrowing. She turns her head to one side and the other, pressing her nose to the pillow, sniffing the traces of coconut and almond that her shampoo has left there.

When she was thirty she ran away from her marriage. She ran from stability and routine and security; she ran from everything that Jack Carroll wanted to give her. She left her husband of eight years, her home and her daughter to be with a man who told her that she was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, and that he would die without her. The drama of it had appealed to her: she was hungry for drama.

There’s a light tap on the bedroom door. She sits up, pulling the sheet with her as Alex enters, carrying a small tray. Her peppermint tea, her natural yogurt, her little dish of goji berries and pumpkin seeds. ‘Morning,’ he says, placing it on the locker, turning to open the curtains.

He smells of the cologne she gave him for Christmas, citrus and vetiver. His white shirt is immaculate, his charcoal suit single-breasted, his maroon tie perfectly knotted. His greying hair is well cut, his teeth realistic enough to fool most people. He looks good.

‘Chilly today,’ he says, looking out.

‘Is it?’ She sips tea. ‘Oh dear, and yesterday was so nice.’

‘Looks like it might rain.’

‘Does it?’

‘Meet for lunch?’ he asks, as he does every Friday – his day
for showing her off to clients – but this time she shakes her head.

‘Not today, I’m afraid. Phyllis wants me to do an extra couple of hours.’

‘Ah.’ He checks his watch. She can anticipate his every move.
I’ll be off so
, he’ll say.

‘I’ll be off so,’ he says, bending to touch his lips briefly to her forehead, and again she inhales the aftershave.

‘See you for dinner,’ she replies as he crosses the room. She tips the berries and seeds into the yogurt, listening to the sounds of his departure. Steps on the stairs, pause while he puts on his coat and takes his keys from their drawer, soft click of the front door shutting. Car door opening, pause while he gets in, car door closing. Engine on, pause while he puts on his seat belt – the
click
sounds in her head – and off he goes.

He’s unfailingly polite. She wants for nothing. In ten years of marriage they’ve never had what you could call a proper row.

He is distant, and emotionally absent. She is dying of loneliness.

Why did she marry him? A thousand times she’s asked herself the question. Was love ever part of the reason, or was she frightened enough of ending her days alone to snatch at the security he was offering without dwelling too much on whether she was in love or not? Maybe in the early days she loved him: so hard to recall now.

She finishes her breakfast, throws the bedclothes aside, pads across the carpet to the en-suite. Just as well they have it – she could hardly parade naked to a communal bathroom with George around. As it is, they don’t meet in the morning:
by the time Isobel is out of the bath and dressed he’s left for school.

George is sweet. In the ten years they’ve lived under the same roof she’s grown quite fond of him.

I have a son
, Alex had told her, fairly soon after they’d met.
He’s sixteen
– and with a sinking heart Isobel pictured a sullen, spotty youth with smelly trainers and a mobile-phone addiction.

He was planning to be a teacher, Alex went on. He was diligent in school, got on well in his exams, had never been in any trouble. Certainly sounded good on paper. Isobel regarded the photo of the serious, dark-haired boy Alex had taken from his wallet as she tried to phrase her goodbye. Hunting for the right words, wanting to let him down gently.

Not another child, however well behaved. Not a second child, when she had failed so profoundly with the first.

But Alex had refused to listen to goodbye, refused to let her walk away from him.
You’ve been on your own too long
, he’d said.
Don’t turn your back on this chance to be happy again. George isn’t looking for a mother
–
he’s practically an adult. You don’t have to meet him until you want to
.