‘Oh.’
‘Yes, oh.’
‘A disappointing day, then.’
‘Mm.’
Daylight came bleakly over the estates. The gaps between the sandy-bricked buildings were sludged with leaves turning to paste. There was a searing brightness in the air as the milk boys pulled up, sitting on the back of their van, clambering off and dashing about at first light.
Fran was earliest out, doing the five-till-seven stint at Fujitsu. She liked it first thing. It was as if all Phoenix Court was hers. She felt that way about all the streets, walking through town to the factory. By the time she returned each morning to get the kids out of bed, the estates would be coming to life, cars starting up and steaming, crowds coughing and stamping at bus stops. At seven each morning it was as if Fran relinquished her world to everyone else. And at seven her shoulders ached already from wielding round her super-Hoover, her superb industrial cleaner, her futuristic hobbyhorse. The one thing she loved about her morning job was her new-found skill wheeling about the floors and gangways at Fujitsu with this monstrously powerful machine. She rode it on the polished floors and she rode it like the wind.
This morning while Fran was gone, her neighbour paid a call. Frank was woken too early by a hammering at the back door. He was used to being prised from his bed after seven, the same time as the bairns. Then the house would be warmed through and Fran would have breakfast on the go. Today he jolted awake, alarmed by the noise downstairs. He shambled down to find Nesta from next door framed in the glass.
‘Can I have milk?’ she asked when he opened the door.
Frank couldn’t bear the sight of her. Her complexion was like tinned rice pudding, its broken veins and acne strawberry jam stirred into it. She wore a navy anorak and her fawn ski pants were gathered at the knees.
‘We’ve got no milk in for the baby and the milkmen didn’t bring ours.’
Frank looked past her, to see if theirs had been delivered. Two bottles stood on the sludge of old leaves. He fetched them and gave one to Nesta. She nodded her rapid thanks and hurried away, remembering her own dislike of him.
Free milk, Nesta thought excitedly, hurrying across the grass. Free milk like in school when that’s what they gave you at breaktime. And there was bird crap on the tinsel tops. You poked your straw in and it tasted too warm and creamy because it had stood outside too long. She stopped at the house where the new woman had moved in. Fran had told her she was called Liz and she looked as if she had a bit of money put by. She was the glamorous type. Nesta couldn’t stand that type. They didn’t want that type here. Clutching her new bottle of milk, Nesta crept closer to the front window of Liz’s house, the window that looked out on the grass and the kid’s play park. She narrowed her eyes to slits and stared inside.
In the living room Liz was kneeling in front of the biggest mirror she had, watching TV out of the corner of one eye, concentrating on her hair with the other. Her wig sat on its pedestal before her and she teased skilfully, slowly at it. Nesta’s eyes boggled at this, and at the sight of this woman without hair, without make-up, kneeling in her kimono. Absently Nesta stroked her own hair. Then there were footsteps in the play park behind her. She turned to see Jane crossing.
‘Nesta? What are you doing?’
Nesta broke away from the window and hurried back to the path. ‘Milk for the baby!’ she called out, as if that explained everything.
Jane shrugged and left it at that. She couldn’t get on with Nesta. You couldn’t get a sensible word out of her. Jane had more things to worry about. She had to cross town to pick up Peter from his nanna’s, where he had spent the night, and she reckoned that old feller with the one leg had spent the night there again. She wasn’t sure how she felt about Peter coming under his influence. By the time she got to Rose’s, to find Peter having his Weetabix at the breakfast bar and staring in awe at the old man’s leg by the coat rack, Fran had already returned home from work.
By eight the school buses had started to come and go, bright blue and rowdy. Fran’s eldest were dispatched while she waved from the roadside with her youngest two round her ankles. The toddlers were interested in a dead dog lying on the grass verge. Fran went to see what they were dancing round and then recoiled in shock. The poor thing was past helping. She thought it looked like the pit-bull that belonged to Gary. She didn’t fancy telling him his dog was dead in case he accused her of killing it. She hurried her kids away and phoned the police from the box.
Little Lyndsey said, ‘Tell them blood. The blood coming out its mouth.’
When she finished talking to the police, declining out of habit to give her own name, Fran turned to see Gary marching out of his garden. He seemed ready to say something, but changed his mind and walked away. Let him find out about the dog himself, Fran thought.
‘Time to get inside,’ she told the kids. ‘There’s something I want to ask your dad before he goes out to work.’
To their surprise, Frank was dressed and in the kitchen when they got back, checking the beer cans in the fridge. As soon as she was indoors, hearing the kids going on and on about the dead dog, she wished she could have done more about it. She hated seeing animals hurt. And what if Gary walked that way and saw his own dog dead like that? She should have broken it to him gently. Maybe she’d
