Like the puking wretch he'd been seven days before, Holland could do nothing but let it come, and wait for it to finish. He cried for himself, and for Sophie, and for the child that would be theirs in five weeks. He wept, guilty and sorry and stupid and scared. The tears whose sting was sharpest though, that were squeezed out faster and bigger than most, were those he shed in anger at the spineless, selfish tosser he knew he had become.
When it was over, Holland lifted his sticky face up just enough to slide a sleeve across it, like a child. He sat, sniffing and staring up at the flat Before, a general confusion and some pathetic, nameless fear had been twin hands pressing him down into his seat, preventing him from going inside. Now, although there was nothing vague about the shame he was feeling, like a welt across his gut, it was equally effective.
He couldn't go inside, not yet.
Holland looked down at his briefcase in the passenger footwell. He knew that even if he took work upstairs, tried to get straight into it, the first smile from Sophie would be enough to set him off again. Maybe he could just drive around…
He reached down and grabbed the case, rummaged inside until he found the sheet of paper he was looking for. He cleared his throat as he took out his phone and dialed the number. Even so, when it was answered, the first word or two he spoke sounded choked and heavy.
'Mrs. Noble, it's Dave Holland here again. I know it's an odd time, but I was wondering if now might be a good time to pop over and pick up those photos…?'
TWENTY-EIGHT
Holland made it to Romford in a notch under forty minutes, and stepped out of the car to find Irene Noble waiting on her doorstep. She marched down the path towards him. 'You did that pretty quickly. It usually comes down to the traffic fn the Blackwall Tunnel. This is probably the best time, actually…'
She was wearing a cream trouser-suit and full make-up. Holland saw her glance towards the houses on either side. He guessed that she was hoping to see the twitch of a net curtain, a sign that one of the neighbours might be watching the young man walking towards her door.
'It was fairly easy,' Holland said. 'There wasn't much traffic at all…'
He followed her inside, where he was enthusiastically greeted by a small, off-white dog. Its fur was matted and smelly, but Holland tried his best to make a fuss of it, as it yapped and licked and scrabbled at his shins.
Mrs. Noble shooed the dog into the kitchen. 'Candy's knocking on a bit now,' she said. 'Actually, she was Roger's dog, once upon a time. She was still only a puppy when he passed away.'
Holland smiled sympathetically as they stepped through into the living room. A blue three-piece suite sat on a carpet of pink and purple swirls, and a glass-topped coffee table stood square on to the fireplace. A squashed corduroy cushion, covered in tufts of white dog-hair, was the only thing in the room that didn't look spotless. Holland took a step towards a beechwood cabinet that ran along the back wall. Its doors were mirrored, and its top covered in framed photographs of children.
Mrs. Noble walked across and picked up a picture. 'Mark and Sarah aren't here,' she said. 'I couldn't bear looking at them and not knowing. I put them away once I felt sure they weren't coming back. Put them away and bloody well forgot where.' She must have seen concern pass across Holland's face, and reached out a hand to touch his arm. 'Don't worry, you haven't had a wasted journey. I finally found pictures of them tucked away inside our old wedding album…'
Holland nodded his understanding. She turned the photo she was holding, so that he could see the picture. 'David's a stockbroker, doing really well.' She put the frame back and began pointing to others. 'Susan, s a nurse up at the Royal Free, Gary went into the army and now he's training to become a printer, Claire's about to have her third baby…'
'There's a lot of them,' Holland said.
'We fostered long-term mostly, which was the way I wanted it. I couldn't stand to see them go, you know, just when they were starting to belong. Still, we had more than twenty kids, before and after Mark and Sarah. I know what most of them are doing…'
She smiled, sadly, not needing to say any more. Holland smiled back, thinking of those twenty other kids, and the man who was once their foster father, and wondering…
'I didn't know whether you'd have eaten,' she said. 'So after you phoned I took a lasagne out of the freezer. It won't be five minutes…'
'Oh, right…'
'I presume you can have a drink?'
In spite of what he'd previously thought of her, Holland was suddenly filled with something like affection for this woman. He thought about all the children she'd lost in one way or another, and her simple belief in a man whose heart was too full of darkness to go on beating any longer. He' felt comfortable…
'Let's both have a drink,' he said. 'I've got a nice bottle of wine in the car.'
'You have to let me pay you for the mattress,' Thorne said.
'It's fine, really. You can get dinner…'
'How much was it?'
'It's a late birthday present,' Eve said. 'To replace the first one.' She smiled. 'I don't remember seeing the plant anywhere at the flat, so I presume you've managed to kill it.'
'Oh, right. I was going to tell you about that,' Thorne said. A waiter brought over their wine, and at the same time the manager came across to the table and laid down a platter of poppadoms. 'On the house,' he said. He put a hand on Thorne's shoulder and winked at Eve. 'One of my very best 'customers,' he said. 'But tonight is the first time he has been here with a young lady…'
When the manager had moved away, Eve poured herself and Thorne a large glass of wine each. 'I'm not sure how to take that,' she said. 'Does he mean that you normally come here with young men?'
Thorne nodded, guiltily. 'That was another thing I was going to tell you…
She laughed. 'So you come in here on your own a lot then?'
'Not a lot.' He nodded towards the manager. 'He's talking about the number of takeaways…'
'I've got this image of you now, sitting in here on your own like Billy No-Mates, eating chicken tikka massala…'
'Hang on.' Thorne tried to look hurt. 'I do have one or two friends.'
Eve chopped the pile of poppadoms into pieces. She picked up a big bit, ladled onions and chutney on to it. 'Tell me about them. What do they do?'
Thorne shrugged. 'They're all connected to work in one way or another, I suppose.' He reached for a piece of poppadom, took a bite.
'Phil's a pathologist…'
She nodded, like it meant something.
'What?' Thorne said.
'You never really switch off, do you?'
'Actually, me and Phil talk about football most of the time…'
'Seriously.'
Thorne took a gulp of wine, feeling it swill the bits from the surface of his teeth, thinking about what Eve was saying. 'I don't believe that anybody ever leaves what they do behind completely,' he said. 'We all talk shop, don't we? Everyone gets.., reminded of things.' She stared back at him, rubbing the rim of her wineglass across her chin. 'Come on, if you're out somewhere and you see some amazing display of flowers…'
'Flowers aren't bodies, are they?'
Thorne was disturbed to feel himself growing slightly irritated. He fought to keep it out of his voice as he picked up the bottle and topped up both their glasses. 'Well, some people might say that they're dying from the moment they're picked.'
Eve nodded slowly. 'Everything's dying,' she said. 'What's the bloody point of anything at all? We may as well just ask the waiter to put ground glass in the biryani.'
Thorne looked at her, saw her eyes widen and the corners of her mouth begin to twitch. They began to laugh
