he really so incapable or just taking advantage now that there were women in the house? Charlotte seized the plates and bore them together with the synthetically buttery knife to the sink, which at least gave her a view of the meagre back yard and its outgrown swings. Once she'd washed up she made for the hall with Hugh at her heels. Ellen was descending the stairs, pausing if not resting on each step. She was wearing the same clothes again or still – unnecessarily capacious trousers and a nightdress, if not a blouse that resembled one too much for anybody else's comfort. 'Aren't you going to get changed?' Charlotte had to ask for fear that Hugh would say worse.
'I don't think Rory's going to mind, do you?'
'I hope he might, if you see what I mean. Maybe you should –'
'I've nothing to change into.'
Charlotte could only wonder what Ellen's case was full of – perfume bottles, to judge by the scents of her, which were close to suffocating in the narrow hall. 'Would you like something of mine?'
'You're kind, but it wouldn't be any good.' As Charlotte parted her lips Ellen said 'I've told you I won't have an argument. If you want me with you at the hospital, let's be on our way.'
She was almost at the front door when Hugh said 'Hang on, I'll phone a taxi.'
As Ellen hesitated the gloomy perfumed hall seemed to shrink. Charlotte pushed past her to drag the front door open. 'Good heavens, we can walk that little distance,' she said. 'It'll do us good.'
Ellen frowned as if she suspected some kind of gibe, then held up her hands. Presumably they signalled resignation before she glanced askance at them and jerked them away from her face. 'I expect it won't make any difference,' she said. 'Lead the way then, Hugh.'
'You two go out. I've got to lock up.'
This simply meant pulling the door shut with one hand through the letterbox. He kept hold of it as though it or something beyond it had seized his fingers, a notion so unwelcome that it drove Ellen to a feeble joke. 'The house won't fall down without you, Hugh.'
As the women left the narrow path he dashed after them. Ellen was staring about as if, all too understandably, she hoped not to be seen. Perhaps someone was observing the cousins from one of the houses; certainly Charlotte felt spied upon. Nobody was skulking behind the trees at the junction, although as she hurried past without sparing them a glance she heard an unseen magpie utter its sniggering call. Of course the bird was the shape, pale as bone where it wasn't black as earth, that she thought she glimpsed among the tree-trunks.
Hugh stayed just behind his cousins as they turned along the road towards the station, although the pavement was broad enough for the three to walk abreast. Perhaps he was leaving room well in advance for an approaching Muslim woman, veiled and so thoroughly robed in black that only her eyes and hands were visible. Ellen watched her pass and turned her head to keep the woman in sight until Hugh muttered 'What's wrong?'
'That should be me.'
'You mustn't say that. You've nothing to be ashamed of. You're the same, same person you've always been.'
Charlotte thought this was increasingly less accurate, but wasn't it also the case with her and Hugh? She might have suggested as much if Ellen hadn't said 'I'm sorry, now I'm starting arguments. Forget I spoke.'
Charlotte doubted he could do this any more than she was able to. Perhaps his attempts kept him silent as far as the bridge over the ring road. As they stepped onto it he raised his voice. 'Watch out for the troll.'
'Why are you saying that?' Ellen presumably wanted to know.
'Our dad used to,' he said so awkwardly that Charlotte didn't need to look back to know his face had turned red.
As the polluted uproar from below closed around them, Charlotte found little to enjoy in the notion of a presence waiting under the bridge to snatch her and her cousins into blackness. Of course it couldn't be so dark above the ring road, and she wasn't going to imagine that descending the hill brought the party closer to any such presence. The interior of the station wasn't dark, even if a huge voice that sounded blurred by dirt seemed to bring the walls and the roof of the booking hall inwards. As Charlotte made for the nearest ticket window Ellen said 'Buy mine and I'll pay you.'
'I will as well,' Hugh said at once.
Charlotte felt like the solitary adult in charge of an outing, at least until she led her cousins past the unstaffed barrier onto the train. Hugh seemed uncertain where to sit in the deserted carriage, and ready to move yet again once the women were seated. Ellen looked uncomfortable wherever she rested her gaze, on her cousins or her lap or the empty aisle, and Charlotte was oppressed by her behaviour and Hugh's, not to mention Ellen's overpowering perfumes. There was worse to come, she remembered as the train cruised forwards: there was the tunnel. Every shadow that flooded the carriage was a reminder, every bridge felt capable of growing longer than its dark should last. She rummaged in her mind for a topic of conversation, the more neutral the better. 'Will you have to take a holiday, Hugh?'
'Where?' His own question seemed to confuse him. 'When?' he tried instead.
'Now, I was thinking.'
'I wouldn't call this much of a holiday.'
The left side of his mouth betrayed that he was straining at a joke. Ellen took it seriously enough to shake her head in agreement, then raised her hands just short of holding it still. 'I meant time off from work,' Charlotte said.
'For Rory,' Ellen appeared to think he needed to be told.
'I know what for.' Hugh stared out at a small station that was dragging the train to a halt. He might have been waiting until the door alarm cued his next line. 'They sent me home,' he said.
'Because of Rory? That was kind of them, wasn't it, Charlotte? It's good to know there are still some employers who –'
'Because of me.'
As fields carried off the small town Charlotte felt trapped between the unwashed windows, and Hugh seemed to see nothing on either side to encourage him. 'You'd have been upset, would you?' Ellen offered him. 'I'm sure they understood. We all were, but he's your brother.'
'He wasn't hurt then. I was no use, that's all.'
'Of course you are. You're all sorts of use. Who said you weren't?'
'Me. Didn't you hear me?'
'If it's only you that thinks it,' Charlotte said, 'we certainly don't, and I'll bet –'
'There are plenty, and one's all it takes.'
Charlotte had a sense of buried glee, but how could it be Hugh's or anybody's there? The blackened underside of a bridge filled the window beyond him, giving way to a dazzle of sunlight that rendered the glass more opaque. 'You shouldn't let people . . .' Ellen said and seemed to regret having spoken.
'It's not just people.'
Charlotte felt as if Ellen were leaving her to put a question neither of them wanted to ask. 'What, then?'
'It's Frugo. I can't find my way round now it's bigger, and it's affected me. You know it has.'
It was certainly blotching his face. 'Don't let it get on top of you,' she said. 'Go back as soon as you can and do . . . what do you think, Ellen?'
'See if you can find your way and if you can't there must be people who can help.'
'They aren't like you. Not many people care like you do.' His gaze dodged back and forth, perhaps in search of a way for him not to admit 'I've been suspended. I had a row with my supervisor and someone else as well.'
'They haven't fired you yet, though,' Charlotte said.
'They will, for misconduct. No point arguing. You know how that goes, Ellen.'
'Even if she does you should at least –'
Charlotte couldn't help starting as her mobile went off. She silenced it, wishing that she hadn't used the We Go Frugo jingle as her new ringtone for a joke, only for the displayed number to aggravate her tension. 'Yes, Glen.'
'Is this a bad time?'
'I've had better.'
'Gee, I'm sorry. Should I leave this till you want to call me back?'
'If we need to talk it may as well be now.'
'We aren't likely to be cut off, are we? You sound shut in.'
