“Mind you don’t tarry, Christopher. You can make your grandfather’s tea when he comes in. I’m sure I can’t be expected to look after everyone,” she added, and Kit almost snorted in disgust. His grandfather had been waiting on her hand and foot since Kit had been there, even though nothing seemed to please her, or to distract her for long from the box she kept close to her side. It held things from his mother’s childhood: school reports and photos, crayon drawings, medals from spelling competitions, a bit of lace from a party dress.
“Of course not, Grandmama,” he said, as convincingly as he could manage. “I’ll take care of everything.”
“Fetch my bag from the sitting room, then, and I’ll give you a pound. You’ll not need more than that, and I’ll expect to see the change.”
Leaning back against the cushions, Eugenia closed her eyes, as if her little speech had exhausted her, and Kit did as she asked before she could change her mind. She wasn’t ill enough to loosen control of her purse strings. Did she think he couldn’t be trusted to take a pound without pilfering?
She’d confined herself to bed after the funeral yesterday, much to Kit’s relief, and he suspected to his grandfather’s as well. He and Granddad had played endless games of cards in the kitchen, and for a time his grandfather’s quiet, undemanding company had eased the weight in his chest. But today an urgent phone call had sent Granddad to his insurance office after lunch, and in her husband’s absence Eugenia had become more and more fretful, fussing at Kit over trivial things until he felt he’d scream.
Now his steps slowed as the rows of brown-brick semidetached houses came to an end. He knew if he looked up he’d see the Tesco at the end of the road, but he stared determinedly at the toes of his trainers, shuffling them against the pavement. His right shoelace had come undone, and as he squatted to tie it he thought of his mum’s nagging about his laces.
Suddenly he saw her vividly before him, pushing her hair from her face with an exasperated smile. He froze, one knee up, hands stilled on his wayward laces, afraid the tiniest movement might dissolve the vision.
“You’ll break your neck one of these days, Kit, mark my words,” she said, laughing. It had been a joke with them, a symbol of all the unreasonable things mothers say to their children. As she reached out to ruffle his hair, her image faded, and he felt nothing but the wind.
Pain stabbed through his chest and he sobbed, his careful control shattering. Why her? Why couldn’t it have been him instead? Then he wouldn’t be here now, with this ache inside him that was more than he could bear. Kit pressed his face hard against his knee and wept.
At first the rushing sound seemed a part of the buzzing in his head, but slowly he recognized it as separate from himself. His sobs subsided as he listened. It wasn’t the wind—the wind had been constant, a moan just below consciousness. He looked up, scrubbing at his face, and then the rain was upon him in a cold wave, stinging, pelting, soaking him to the skin within seconds.
Kit pushed himself up from the ground like a sprinter and ran in a blind, instinctive dash for shelter. He heard the change in the timbre of his pounding feet as he reached the tarmac of the supermarket car park, then the Tesco loomed before him. Realizing the back was nearer, he swerved towards the rubbish bins and slid into a stack of cardboard boxes. Here the overhang of the loading bay blocked the worst of the rain, and he collapsed against the boxes, gasping.
After a moment, he pushed his sodden hair from his forehead and looked down at his dripping clothes. Grandmama would kill him. He could hear her already: “Christopher, how much sense does it require to get out of the rain? And now look what you’ve done—I’m sure you’ve ruined my carpet.”
“Bitch,” he said, under his breath. Liking the sound of it, he filled his lungs and shouted into the rain, “Bitch! Stupid cow!” But the wind sucked the sound away, and beneath it he heard something else. Was that a scrabbling beneath the boxes? A whimper? He listened, then knelt and lifted up the nearest overturned box. Two boot-button black eyes stared back at him, then the dog whimpered again and cringed away.
“It’s okay,” Kit said softly. “I’m not going to hurt you. You’re wet and cold, too, aren’t you, doggie?” He went on in the same singsong voice, saying any sort of rubbish that came into his head and holding his hand out, palm up. The dog had a shaggy gray-brown coat—some sort of a terrier mix, Kit guessed—and he suspected that the matted, wiry hair hid prominent ribs.
After a few moments, the dog inched forwards on its belly and licked his outstretched fingers. “Good dog, that’s a good dog,” Kit whispered, turning his hand until he could stroke the dog’s ear, then gently touching its back. It flinched but didn’t move away, and beneath his hand he felt it shivering. “What am I going to do with you?” he said gravely, as if he expected an answer. “You can’t stay here like this, with no shelter and nothing to eat.” He stopped stroking the dog’s back as he thought, and it turned to nuzzle his hand, prompting him to begin again.
At the touch of the dog’s cold nose against his palm resolution filled him. He dug in his jacket pocket for the twine his grandfather had been using that morning to teach him Snakes and Ladders. It was a makeshift excuse for a collar and lead, but it would have to do.
