Karen and Tessie had always been very different, that was part of the reason they got on so well. What would they both be doing in five years’ time? Tessie wanted a baby, Karen wanted a job, but things never seemed to turn out the way you expected. What kind of job? Until she thought of something she really wanted to do she might as well pretend to be as enthusiastic about her studies as her mother and Alex kept telling her she was. I envy you, Nutkin, all the opportunities I never had. Alex, talking as though he was coming up to his pension instead of still in his mid-thirties. And what gave him the right to call her by one of the ridiculous nicknames her mother had forced on her when she was a baby? Next time he did it she would remind him of all the remarks she could make about someone called Alex Hogben.
Her mother was home. So was Alex. The two cars were parked bumper to bumper. If they could they would have been even closer, smooching all over one another, just like Mum and Alex.
Karen wrote a four-letter word in the dust on the red Fiesta’s bonnet, then walked round to the back of the house, pushing open the kitchen door and shouting – that would give them time to compose themselves – ‘It’s me.’
‘Who else would it be?’ Her mother was in the kitchen, doing something with pasta. Tagliatelli, cannelloni, egg noodles. In a week or two Italian dishes would be off the menu, replaced by everything Indian or Mexican or Japanese.
Karen picked up a mushroom and started peeling off its soft, mottled skin. ‘Where’s lover boy?’
‘Love, I wish you wouldn’t . . . He’s in the study, sorting out some publicity material for the drummer who’s appearing at the Arts Centre next month.’
‘The one from New Zealand who only uses one hand?’
‘Yes, that’s right, shall I get you a ticket?’
‘You must be joking.’ Karen ran upstairs and dropped her bag on her unmade bed. Her room smelled of stale biscuits, or it could be the towel she had used at the swimming pool and forgotten to put in the wash. One of these days she was going to give the place a good clear out. One of these days. Picking up her pillow she gave it a token shake, then did the same to the duvet and went downstairs to find Alex.
‘Hi.’ He switched off the vacuum cleaner and pushed it out of the way, spreading his arms wide to give her a good view of his baggy green trousers and hideous brown velvet waistcoat. He was smiling, the silly patronising smile that was supposed to make her warm to him, welcome him as a kind of second father. ‘Had a good day?’
Karen moved some folders on what, until quite recently, had been her father’s favourite mahogany desk. ‘All right. Listen, Alex, I was just wondering . . .’
‘Yes?’ He stood up straight, delighted that she had come to talk to him of her own free will.
‘Natalie Stevens,’ she said. ‘The girl who was done in and dropped in the reservoir.’
‘What about her?’ His expression had become solemn as befitted such a tragic subject.
‘Someone said her sister works at the Arts Centre.’
‘That’s right. Nice quiet girl, nothing like Natalie, if the newspapers were right about the poor kid. Staying out till all hours, living it up with whoever she could—’
‘She was twenty, nearly twenty-one.’
‘So?’
‘It was up to her what she did.’ Karen picked up a poster advertising a play that was being put on by a three-woman theatre group who called themselves The Scourge. ‘What’s the sister’s name?’
He thought about it for a moment. ‘Joanna. No, Joanne. She’s four or five years older I’d say, although you can’t always tell.’
‘What does she do?’
‘Works in the cafe, whatever’s needed. Why d’you ask?’
‘No reason.’ She drifted towards the door. ‘Just something Glen said.’
‘Oh, you’ve been to school then. Look, I know it’s nothing to do with me, Karen, but your mother’s going to be awfully disappointed if you mess up your exams.’
‘Lynne. You don’t have to keep calling her your mother. I do know what her name is. And you’re right, it is none of your business.’
It was going to be ages before they ate. Alex would join her mother in the kitchen. Honestly, sweetheart, I really thought I was getting through to her then, all of a sudden – I’ve no idea what I did wrong – she reverted to her usual hostility.
Give her time. She could hear her mother’s tense, long-suffering voice. Just give her time. As though time had anything to do with it.
If she went for a walk that would give them a chance to discuss her. How she had asked to live with her father so they could enjoy their love nest without having someone playing gooseberry. How they had tried to reassure her how much they wanted her living with them, and totally failed to understand that living in her father’s flat was what she wanted. Dad hasn’t got the space, love. Besides, with a job like his, working such unsocial hours. . .
So her father hadn’t been too keen on the idea of having his only daughter hanging about the place. If he’d stayed in the police instead of taking early retirement things might have been different. Once he reached the rank of Superintendent he had worked in the office quite a lot of the time and come home
