Every Day Is Mother's Day

stained, forming a top to it. “I wouldn’t give this houseroom. It’s an education, what people have in their backs. That kitchen makes me heave, all that Italian muck plastered all over the place. I’d have thought he could have afforded decent food. And cleanliness costs nothing. I don’t know who’s going to have these coffees. Do you want one?”

“We’re going,” Colin said.

“I’ve got my coat.” Tears sprang into Sylvia’s eyes, glinting like bayonet points. “Colin, do you know what he’d done with it? He said he didn’t know where to put it. He’d dumped it in his rubbish bin. My good coat. It stinks of tomato sauce and fish.”

“Oh, Sylvia. Oh, love, I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was going to be like this.”

“I can’t wear it. It’ll have to be cleaned.”

“Do you want my jacket?”

“No, it’ll do me good to get out in the cold. What’s that under your arm?”

“Nothing, just some papers. Come on, let’s go.”

Sylvia pulled out a tissue and polished the tip of her nose. “I’d like to give Frank a piece of my mind.”

“He was drunk. I’m sorry.”

“Where is he?”

“I put him to bed.”

Behind him, from the study, he heard movement and a muffled groan; Frank coming to, or as to as he would come, before morning. He took Sylvia’s arm. “Come on.” From upstairs came a yelp of triumph, and Yarker’s voice:

“Well done, that man!”

He bundled Sylvia out of the front door and into the damp air. A pulse hammered in his forehead, his hands had begun to shake again, but free of the smoke-laden fug of the house, he took huge raw gasps as they scurried to the car. All I need now is a flat battery, he thought; expecting the worst, as experience was training him to do. But the engine roared, dreadfully loud, shattering the silence of four A.M. on a dead winter’s day.

“In twenty minutes we’ll be in bed,” he said.

“You know the way, don’t you?”

“Oh yes, I know it now.”

“I wish we had got lost. I wish we’d called it off and never gone. It was the worst night out I’ve ever had.”

“Yes, I know. Try and forget it.”

“We’ll never go there again.”

“I’ll be surprised if we’re ever asked, love.”

“That’s something, then. I wonder how Florence went on with them? Perhaps she’ll come over and mind them next week, and we could go to the pictures.”

“I don’t know. We’ll have to see.”

“I’ll have to take my coat to the cleaner’s first thing. Colin, it was awful, that man Yarker started interfering with her. With Charmian. I was embarrassed. I came out.”

“Yes, you did the right thing. Don’t get involved, that’s the best.”

They were the only car on the road, an icy ribbon unwrapping beneath them, the fields bare and still, the houses shuttered, the moon riding high and white.

“I haven’t been out at this time for years,” Sylvia said, adding, “thank God, and I don’t intend to be again.” She sounded cheerful enough, now that the whole ordeal was over. She stretched, arching her body in the seat, and yawned loudly. “Is that somebody behind us?”

Colin saw the flashing lights in his rear-view mirror. Sylvia saw them too, looking back over her shoulder. Colin pulled into the side of the road. For a moment neither of them spoke. Then, very quietly, very calmly, Sylvia said, “It’s like a nightmare.”

Colin wound down his window. The young constable whose face loomed up to fill their vision had a paste- coloured face in which freckles bloomed like the raisins in a steamed pudding. Shorn copper bristles extruded from under his cap, and for a chilling moment Colin thought Yarker had pursued him, metamorphosed, rendered youthful the better to hound him down the years.

“Are you aware, sir,” the boy said, “that your rear lights are defective?”

Slowly, Colin swung open the door and uncoiled himself from his seat. He set his feet as firmly on the ground as he could manage, but it seemed to give under his tread, as if swamp had bubbled through the tarmac. With one hand on the roof of the car he worked his way around to the boot. Something ghastly hung from the policeman’s hand, some membrane, shiny and swinging. Colin blinked.

“Would you please, sir,” said the constable, “breathe into this bag?”

CHAPTER 7

Colin woke up next morning to the sound of Sylvia talking on the telephone. The house seemed strangely quiet. Of course, he thought, the children are still at Florence’s. He fumbled on the bedside table for his watch, and when he raised his head a glancing pain swooped through it and settled behind his eyes. Just past noon. He allowed himself to flop back against the pillows. There was a foul taste in his mouth, and he felt slightly sick. I must get up, he told himself, and face things. Get the car; and the file, Isabel’s file, is still in the back of it. It came to him in a