She was aware that the Collingwood was silent.
She went into the hall. “Colette?”
No answer. But from above she heard a bleating, a little trail of bleating that grew louder as she followed it upstairs.
She stood outside Colette’s door. She is lying on her bed sobbing, she thought. But why? Can she have regretted what she said to me, about my personal fatness? Has a lifetime of tactlessness flashed before her eyes? This didn’t seem likely. Colette didn’t think she was tactless. She thought she was right.
Whatever, Al thought. Now is my opportunity. While her emotions are detaining her, I will just sneak down the garden and distribute my haul to Mart. Or, as he’s gone out, I will leave it inside his door, for him to find as a happy surprise when he returns.
Yesterday she had taken him three oranges. He had not been impressed when she had explained that she could get away with oranges, by claiming to have juiced them. He had hinted that he preferred a steak, but she couldn’t see her way to setting up cooking facilities. So he was getting tinned tuna, that sort of thing. She hoped he would appreciate that tins were extremely heavy.
She creaked down the stairs, away from Colette and her grief: whatever that was. At the foot of the stairs, she saw herself, unavoidably, in the glass. Her face looked as pink as a ham. She thought, I could have got him sliced cold meat, I bet that would have been lighter, though of course it being warm weather he’d have to eat it all the same day. At least, this way, I’ve built him up a little store that he can put in his rucksack, when he leaves.
She opened the back door, tottered out, reached behind the wheelie bin. The bags had gone. Mart must have darted back, crouching low, and swooped them up on his way in. In which case I hope he’s got strong teeth, she thought, as I didn’t buy him a can opener.
By close of day, Colette had not come down; but all it would take, Al thought, is a casual glance from her bedroom window, as Mart flits across the lawn by moonlight. Why don’t I just give him some money to set him on his way? I can’t afford more than, say, a hundred pounds, or Colette will want to know where I drew it out and what I spent it on. She will be quite pleasant about it, knowing I have the right, but she’ll be curious all the same.
When it was almost dark, she stepped out of the sliding doors.
“Alison? Is that you?” Michelle was waving.
Who else did she think it was? Reluctantly, she moved towards the fence.
“Lean over,” Michelle said. “I want to whisper to you. Have you heard about this plague of rabbit deaths?”
She shook her head.
“It’s very strange, you see. Not that I have any time personally for rabbits; I wouldn’t have any pets near my kids because they spread all sorts of toxicosis. But these little ones at the nursery, they’re crying their eyes out. They go down the garden to feed it and it’s keeled over in its hutch with a horrible trickle of black blood coming out of its mouth.”
I suppose, Al thought, me keeping Mart in the shed, it’s like being a kid again, doing things behind people’s backs, stealing food, all that stuff I used to do; running to the corner with any money I got. It’s a game really, it’s like that dolls’ tea party I wanted. We have a lot in common, she thought, me and Mart, it’s like having a little brother. She had noticed that Mart was always falling over; that was because of his medication. She thought, my mum, too, she was always falling over.
“So what do the vets say?” she asked Michelle.
“They just say, oh, rabbits, what do you expect? They try to put it on what they’ve been eating, a bad diet. They blame you, don’t they, the owner? That’s how they get around it. Evan says personally he has no time for rabbits either, but it’s very worrying, in the light of what’s going down with the playground. And the vets denying it, you see. He wonders if they know something we don’t.”
Oh dear, she said. They ought to hold postmortems, maybe. She couldn’t think what else to say. Got to go, she said; as she limped away from the fence, Michelle called, will the warm weather last till weekend?
By eight o’clock Al was beginning to feel very hungry. Colette didn’t show any sign of coming down and supervising her dinner. She crept upstairs to listen. More and more, this evening reminded her of her youth. The need to tip-toe, listen at doors: sighs and groans from other rooms. “Colette?” she called softly. “I need you to do my calories.”
No reply. She eased the door open. “Colette?”
“Go and eat yourself to death,” Colette said. “What do I care?”
She was lying face down on the bed. She looked very flat. She looked very out-of-it. Alison drew the door closed, in a manner so quiet that she hoped it showed her complete respect for Colette’s state of mind, so quiet that it offered condolences.
She crept down the garden. The moon had not yet turned the corner above the Mountbatten at the curve of the road, and she wasn’t clear where she was putting her feet. She felt she ought to knock, but that’s ridiculous, she thought, knock at your own shed?
She inched open the door. Mart was sitting in the dark. He had a torch, and batteries, but they were the wrong size; something else for my shopping list, she thought. She could have fixed him up with a candle, but she didn’t trust him not to start a fire.
“Get your shopping?”
“What shopping? I’m ravenous in here. Fainting.”
“I’m giving you fifty quid,” Al said. “Sneak off into Knaphill, will you, and get a takeaway Chinese? Get me a set menu for two, and whatever you want for yourself. Keep the change.”
When Mart left, diving low under the light sensors, she tried to make herself comfortable in the canvas garden chair. The earth was cooling, beneath their hardstanding; she lifted her feet and tried to tuck them beneath her, but the chair threatened to overbalance; she had to sit up straight, metal digging into her back, and plant her feet back on the ground. She thought, I wonder what happened to the shopping?
When Mart came back they sat companionably, licking spare ribs and tossing down the bones. “You’ve got to take the cartons away,” she said. “Do you understand that? You mustn’t put them in our wheelie bin. Or Colette will
