“It’s fine,” he said, a bit too loudly. The blue envelope was in his hands now, shaking ever so slightly. “It’s fine. I’ll find something. It’s a big world out there. It’s exciting. Exciting.”
Fia sighed, tutting under her breath. “Merry Christmas, Norah. We thought you deserved that. You’re going places now. Setting down roots. Think of yourself. Just imagine where you might be in the years to come. This chair, this office. This could be big.”
* * *
I stopped off on the drive home at a newsagent, one of those shops on a corner that specialises in paraphernalia to get you through the weekend. I went out of my way to find one I didn’t pass every day. I scanned the shelves of sugary delights and creamy desserts, passing by the gossip magazines and beer and wine and gin. People came and went, pushing by me without a glance. People totally preoccupied with their own lives, the short pleasures they could afford for less than ten pounds.
Light-headed and empty-handed, I made my way to the front counter where a tired-looking man stood, framed by tall plastic stands slotted with scratch-cards and lottery tickets. He looked around the fifty-mark, though had probably seen more than fifty years’ worth of trouble.
I handed over a twenty-pound note and pointed behind the counter to a row of old familiar packets. He picked one up and tossed it across the countertop with my change and a green lighter. I slid them towards me like a player in a saloon and let them fall into my handbag.
My bag sat on the passenger seat all the way home. I ignored it until I pulled up outside the house, the street glowing with the eerie half-light of amber lamps on frost. I pulled the box from my bag and removed the cellophane in one graceful twist and tug. The pack clicked open and the twenty foam tips shone pristine like white towers. I removed one, twiddling it between my fingers and letting that old smell take me back to when I was little. Funnily, those deathsticks reminded me of a time when I didn’t worry. When doubts flitted by like leaves, coming and going on the wind.
I flicked the lighter with a thumb, enjoying the sharp gear working my skin. Beside me the house skulked darker than its neighbours, shrinking behind their garlanded walls. It looked overshadowed, a child between custodians. The runt. Or a convict, led to internment by two jailors. It was hard to believe that the house wasn’t slowly being crushed by its neighbours, caving in on itself inch by inch.
When had Art spoken to Easton Grove? He hadn’t said a word about it. What was he telling them? How could I ask him?
I slotted the cigarette and the lighter back into the pack and thrust them inside the glovebox. The smell. I rubbed my palms up and down my trousers to remove the scent, fluffed up my hair between my fingers, and stepped out of the car into the freezing night.
I held my breath as I entered the house, dropping my bag by the door like I always did.
“Art?” I kicked off my shoes, giving my fingers a subtle sniff while I searched for him. No reply. The house was cold, almost as cold as outside. A breeze from the kitchen licked my face with an icy tongue.
Still wrapped in my coat and hat, I ran to the kitchen to find the backdoor completely open, swinging slightly in the breeze. I went to lock it, but something stopped me. I didn’t want to look. Such inexplicable fear of what I might see.
Art was standing in the middle of the garden with his back to the house. By a strange optical illusion, the light from next door’s Christmas decorations flickered beneath his feet as if he stood on water.
“Art?”
He didn’t turn or reply. I couldn’t see what he was looking at in the darkness and was too afraid to step towards him and find out. I felt a brush by my ankles and leapt to the side. It was Nut, curling herself around my legs, seeking comfort in the cold dew. And she was outside, Art had let her outside. This wasn’t right. What had he done? Why would he be so careless after last time?
“Arthur – Nut’s here, help me!” I wrapped my arms around Nut’s waist and tried to hoist her up but she was too heavy, her body too long for me to lift.
“Art, I can’t do it on my own!”
He didn’t move again but I wasn’t about to let Nut go to see what was wrong with him – every second she was there she was buffing the lawn chemicals into her skin, and in a moment could disappear into the dark beneath that bastard bush at the end of the garden.
I managed to get her back to the house by dragging her, walking backwards with my spine bent. Nut didn’t try to get away but didn’t help much either. Her feet skated the lawn, her eyes on the clear sky and the stars above.
I got her into the kitchen and shut the door, brushing the blades of grass and dead leaves from her back. She’d lost the juvenile fur from her face completely now, and her skin was clear, beautiful, and white. But there, below her lip, was a definite dark smear, as if something black had trickled there and been wiped off. A stain. Perhaps she’d been eating insects or berries from the bush. Her eyes were bright; she seemed OK. Time to worry if the berries were toxic in a minute.
As Nut trotted off to the living room, I returned to the garden where Art still stood. I didn’t say anything, and wrapped my arms around him from behind, placing my head on his shoulder. Perhaps Art had always been the more sensitive one after all. I felt his hands on mine, damp
