Chapter 7
SEVEN
Patch and I were at home, sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by the detritus of the children’s tea: scooped-out eggshells, toast crusts and banana peels. I could feel an early hangover beginning to descend, and was making my way through a pot of lemon and ginger tea. Patch was drinking beer. We’d been half-arguing, half-discussing whether to order curry or Chinese for our own dinner, and no compromise looked like being reached any time soon.
So I changed the subject. ‘What do you think about what Meredith said when they were in the bath?’
‘What, about Uncle Andy being in the sky with the angels? Pretty harmless, isn’t it?’ He stacked the plates and started scraping scraps into the food waste caddy.
‘I mean, actually, I don’t think it is. I’ve asked your mother before about not filling the kids’ head with that nonsense.’
‘As opposed to the nonsense we fill them with about Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy?’ He took another beer out of the fridge and gestured to me with it, but I shook my head.
‘That’s different.’
‘How’s it different? Look, I really fancy chicken madras. We should order if we’re going to.’
‘It’s different because whole nations aren’t oppressed on the basis of belief in the Tooth Fairy.’ I half-stood, sat down again, then abandoned the pretence that I wasn’t going to drink any more and poured a glass of wine from the fridge. ‘If we order from Deliveroo you can have that and I can have sweet and sour pork.’
‘But the Bengal Palace does ten per cent off if you order through them directly.’ His face looked just like Toby’s when he opened negotiations for a third bedtime story.
‘So order directly and I’ll get mine from Deliveroo.’
‘They have a minimum spend. Twenty-five quid, and chicken madras is only eleven. Go on, Nome, we can have Chinese next time.’
I was reminded of our son again – Just a short one, Mummy. Please? Just tonight? – and relented. ‘Oh, for God’s sake. Fine. Get me a lamb biriyani and we can share some samosas and that should make up the total.’
‘On it.’ He slid his phone across the table and started tapping at the screen. I waited in silence – when it came to ordering food online, my husband had the concentration span of a washing-up sponge. ‘I got some bhajis as well, and a garlic naan.’
‘Good job. Anyway, I didn’t mean about heaven and stuff. I meant about her calling Toby Patrick.’
‘She’s always done that. Even when we were kids, she’d call me Niamh and my sister Patrick.’ He stretched out his legs, interlacing his fingers behind his head like he was on a deck chair at the beach.
‘Yeah, maybe. But it sounded like this was different. Like she was insistent that Toby was you and Meredith was your sister.’ Propping my elbows on the table, I leaned closer to him.
‘They’re four. They’re probably remembering wrong. Or she was teasing them.’
‘Patch, those kids have got memories like elephants. Look how they spouted chapter and verse about the whole afterlife stuff, right down to the harps and Saint Peter. I’m worried about her.’
He shrugged. ‘She clearly remembers all she got taught in Sunday School about Saint Peter.’
‘Yeah, sure. But the short-term stuff – when I took the kids to see her last week she’d completely forgotten we were coming. And normally she looks forward to it for ages and bakes and everything.’
‘She’s seventy-five. Doesn’t everyone’s memory get a bit shit?’
Frustrated, I set my wine glass back on the table so hard the liquid sloshed inside it. One of Patch’s most appealing traits was his positive outlook on the world, but it was also one of his most annoying. She’s teething. Don’t all kids scream a lot then? he’d asked, when nine-month-old Meredith had kept me up all night with a temperature of 39 degrees.
‘Not to the point where they think their grandchildren are their children. I’m not sure we should be leaving the kids there on their own. I wasn’t crazy about doing it today but there was no alternative. And I think she should see a doctor.’
‘Good luck with persuading her to do that.’ He glanced at his phone, then towards the door, clearly listening for the sound of an approaching moped. ‘She barely leaves the house these days.’
‘Patch, I know. That’s why I showed her how to do her shopping online. I thought it was a great plan at first, and it was, but now she forgets how to do it and I end up spending ages on the phone taking her order down and doing it myself, because last time she ended up with three kilos of baking potatoes instead of three potatoes.’
‘Easy mistake to make – I’ve done it myself.’
He turned back to his phone and, after a couple of seconds, I did too, avoiding my social media and instead flicking through random news articles. The emotion of the day had left me utterly drained, and I realised I didn’t even feel particularly hungry any more – I wanted to get in the bath with a scented candle and a book and wallow for an hour, then go to bed.
But I also needed to talk to Patch – and not just about his mother. About Zara, and her reappearance in our life. I thought of her black scarf, rolled up in my handbag – a physical reminder of her, still smelling of her, as if she was right here with us in our kitchen.
If I closed my eyes, I could see them together again – Zara and Patch. Not only how they’d been a few hours ago, their faces tilted upwards to get the best angle on Zara’s phone camera, but how they’d been back in the beginning, the unassailable, beautiful couple.
Patch was mine now, I told myself. We had our home, our children. We were a unit. We were the unassailable ones now.
But what if that changed?
The chime of the doorbell made me jump and I realised I’d been staring at my phone, not really seeing the images on the screen, for ages.
‘Food’s here,’ Patch said, springing out of his chair to answer the door.
‘I’ll grab some plates.’
I sorted the table while Patch levered the lids off plastic boxes, releasing their fragrance into the warm air. Even though I knew I’d regret it when the twins woke me at five a.m., I poured myself another glass of wine.
I waited until Patch had started tearing into his chicken madras, then said, ‘Zara looks well.’
‘Probably got a picture in an attic somewhere going all wrinkly,’ he replied.
I forced a laugh. ‘It’ll be Botox, more likely. And fillers, and face cream that costs eighty pounds a pop. Was it weird, seeing her?’
‘Not really. Funerals are like that – you see people you haven’t seen for years and then you don’t see them again until the next person carks it.’
Casually, he spooned more curry on to his plate, tore off a chunk of naan bread, dunked and ate. But I noticed that he wasn’t quite meeting my eyes either – instead, he was looking sideways at his phone, face down on the table next to him. As I watched, I saw a faint glow appear round its edges as the screen lit up. Patch saw it too – the involuntary movement of his hand towards the device told me that.
‘Someone texting you?’ I asked.
‘Dunno.’ He licked his fingers, then flipped the phone right way up. I could see an alert from WhatsApp on the screen. ‘Yup.’
I paused, a samosa halfway to my mouth. Ask him. Don’t ask him. It’s okay to ask. It’s mad and controlling to ask.
I asked. Actually, I didn’t need to ask, because I already knew. ‘It’s her, isn’t it?’
He nodded, chewing. I put the samosa back on my plate.
‘Why did you give her your number?’
‘I didn’t. She already had it – it hasn’t changed since before.’
‘What does she want?’ I tried not to sound needy, jealous and controlling, but failed on all three.
‘Don’t know, do I? I haven’t read it,’ Patch responded casually.
‘Okay. Look, I’m done here. Will you put the dishwasher on before you come up?’
He nodded, still chewing. I picked up my wine glass and climbed the stairs, my legs leaden with exhaustion and my heart just as heavy.