I sit down at the kitchen table and, with great ceremony, sample one of Emma’s biscuits, which are proclaimed to be the best ever baked. The cottage should be a mess but it’s not. Apart from the kitchen, the place is spotless. Darcy has cleaned up. She even straightened the office and replaced a light bulb in the utilities room that hasn’t worked since we moved in.
I ask her to sit down.
‘The police are going to investigate your mother’s death.’
Her eyes cloud momentarily.
‘They believe me.’
‘Yes. I need to ask you some more questions about your mother. What sort of person was she? What were her routines? Was she open and trusting, or careful and reserved? If someone threatened her would she react aggressively or be shocked into silence?’
‘Why do you need to know that?’
‘When I know her, I know more about him.’
‘Him?’
‘The last person to speak to her.’
‘The person who killed her.’
Her own statement seems to shrink her. A tiny speck of flour clings to her brow above her right eyebrow.
‘You mentioned an argument with your mother: what was it about?’
Darcy shrugs. ‘I wanted to go to the National Ballet School. I wasn’t supposed to audition but I forged Mum’s signature on the application and caught a train to London by myself. I thought that if I could win a place she’d change her mind.’
‘What happened?’
‘Only twenty-five dancers are chosen every year. Hundreds apply. When the letter came confirming my place, Mum read it and threw it in the bin. She went to her bedroom and locked the door.’
‘Why?’
‘The fees are twelve thousand pounds a year. We couldn’t afford them.’
‘But she was already paying school fees…’
‘I’m on an academic scholarship. If I leave the school, I lose the money.’ Darcy picks at her fingernails, scratching flour from the cuticles. ‘Mum’s business wasn’t doing so well. She borrowed a lot of money and couldn’t pay it back. I wasn’t supposed to know but I heard her arguing with Sylvia. That’s why I wanted to leave school, to get a job and save money. I thought I could go to ballet school next year.’ She drops her voice to a whisper. ‘That’s what we argued about. When Mum sent me the pointe shoes, I thought she must have changed her mind.’
‘The pointe shoes? I don’t understand.’
‘They’re for ballet.’
‘I know what they are.’
‘Someone sent me a pair. A package came. The caretaker found it at the school gates on Saturday morning. It was addressed to me. Inside were pointe shoes- Gaynor Mindens. They’re really expensive.’
‘How expensive?’
‘Eighty quid a pair.’
Her hands are bunched in the pocket of the apron. ‘I thought Mum had sent them. I tried to call her, but couldn’t get through.’
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.
‘I wish she were here.’
‘I know.’
‘I hate her for it.’
‘Don’t do that.’
She turns her face away and brushes past me as she stands. I can hear her on the stairs. Closing the bedroom door. Falling on the bed. The rest is imagined.
17
The supermarket aisles are deserted. She shops at night because her days are too busy and weekends are for long lie-ins and trips to the gym rather than household chores. She is buying a leg of lamb. Brussels sprouts. Potatoes. Sour cream. For a dinner party perhaps, or a romantic dinner.
I glance past the cash registers to the newsstand. Alice is reading a music magazine and sucking on a lollipop. She’s wearing her school uniform: a blue skirt, white blouse and dark blue jumper.
Her mother calls to her. Alice puts the magazine back on the rack and begins helping her pack the groceries in bags. I follow them through a different checkout and out into the car park where she loads the shopping into the boot of a sleek VW Golf convertible.
Alice is told to wait in the car. Her mother skips across the parking lot, head up, hips swinging. She pauses at a crossing and waits for the lights to change. I stay on the opposite side of the street and follow her along the pavement past brightly lit shops and cafes until she reaches a drycleaner’s and pushes open the door.
A young Asian girl smiles from behind the counter. Another customer follows her inside. A man. She knows him. They brush cheeks, left and right. His hand lingers on her waist. She has an admirer. I can’t see his face but he’s tall and smartly dressed.
They’re standing close. She laughs and throws her shoulders back. She’s flirting with him. I should warn him. I should tell him to skip the foreplay. Don’t bother with marriage and the messy divorce. Buy the bitch a house and give her the keys- it’ll be cheaper in the long run.
I am watching her from the far side of the road, standing near a tourist map. The lights from a nearby restaurant illuminate my lower half leaving my face in shadow. A kitchen hand has come outside to have a cigarette. She pulls the packet from her apron pocket and glances over the cupped flame.
‘Are you lost?’ she asks me, turning her head away as she exhales.
‘No.’
‘Waiting for someone?’
‘Might be.’
Her short blonde hair is pinned behind her ears. She has darker eyebrows, her true colour.
She follows my gaze and sees who I’m looking at.
‘You interested in her?’
‘I thought I recognised her.’
‘She looks pretty cosy already. You might be too late.’
She turns her head again and blows smoke away.
‘What’s your name?’
‘Gideon.’
‘I’m Cheryl. You want a coffee?’
‘No.’
‘I can get you one.’
‘It’s all right.’
‘Suit yourself.’ She crushes the cigarette underfoot.
I look back at the drycleaner’s. The woman is still flirting. They’re saying goodbye. She rises on her toes and kisses his cheek, closer to his lips this time. Lingering. Then she walks to the door, swinging her hips a little. A dozen garments in plastic sleeves are draped over her left shoulder.
She crosses the road again, towards me this time. Six steps and she’ll be here. She doesn’t raise her eyes. She walks straight past me as though I don’t exist or I’m invisible. Maybe that’s it- I’m fading away.
Sometimes I wake at night and worry that I might have disappeared in my sleep. That’s what happens when nobody cares about you. Bit by bit you begin to disappear until people can look right through your chest and your head like you’re made of glass.
