braces herself as Lina braves the car round the bends and through the lights at the London Road junction, squeezing through impossibly small gaps as she races up Snow Hill.
They reach Fairfield Park in record time and Lina drives down Crofters Road, skimming past the narrow, terraced houses trickling down the hill, but there are no spaces. She loops back up again along Claremont Road, and stops the Mazda in the middle of the road outside Lilyvale. A Range Rover pulls up behind.
‘You’ll be OK?’ she asks Fen.
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Call me this evening,’ says Lina. ‘Let me know how you are.’
Fen leans over and kisses Lina’s cheek. In the wing mirror, she sees the Range Rover driver make a frustrated gesture, both palms upturned.
‘I’ll see you soon,’ she calls to Lina, ‘and thank you!’
The fifteen minutes out of the shop, away from the heater, have made Fen feel a little better. Still, she thinks, she’ll do exactly as Vincent suggested. She’ll fill the kettle and put it on to boil while she changes into something less constricting than the demure navy-blue dress which Vincent says makes her look vaguely Jane Austen-y, a look which he believes appeals to the punters. Then she’ll fill a hot-water bottle, make a mug of ginger tea and get into bed; she’ll close her eyes and lie there until Connor is dropped off by the school transport. She’ll have at least three hours to herself, and by then the flashing lights will have gone from her eyes and the worst of the pain will have passed.
The sky is hazy, silvery. There’s a strange light over the city and the buildings are highlighted; they stand out like two-dimensional cut-outs, as if they were a film set. Fen recognizes the light. It usually precedes thunder, and she thinks this is one of the reasons why she has a migraine. As soon as the storm comes, her head will clear.
She goes tentatively down the steep, front garden steps, because she is still a little dizzy and the mirage has begun to zigzag giddily in front of her. She holds up her key to unlock the outer door, but as soon as her hand touches it, it swings open.
Fen swallows. She remembers locking the door before she walked to work. It was only a few hours ago. She remembers rattling the handle to double-check. Or is it yesterday she’s remembering? Were the blood vessels in her brain already constricting this morning? Migraines do weird things to her mind. They make her forget. Maybe she forgot to lock the door. Or maybe Sean has come back early. Maybe he’s come to collect something.
Still her heart begins to race.
She pushes the outer door wide open, sweeps aside a flyer on the doormat with the toe of her shoe and opens the inner door with her Yale key.
‘Hello?’ she calls quietly. ‘Sean?’
There is no answer. The doors to all three downstairs rooms open off the hall. They are all ajar. Fen can see into the kitchen, ahead of her. It is empty but there’s a Starbucks carton on the counter that wasn’t there before. Fen steps into the hall, and checks the living room and dining room. Both are empty. Both are as they were when she last saw them.
Her heart is beating so strongly that Fen can clearly feel the muscle contracting and pulsing in her chest. Breathing is difficult; she has to remember to inhale but the air only seems to reach the top third of her lungs and she exhales shakily. She stands still, listening, and she hears movement upstairs, she hears water.
At first she thinks that this is the sign she’s been waiting for – the sign that Tomas is back. The water is the clue, the running water. But much as she wants this to be the truth, there’s a more plausible explanation; she knows there is.
The cold tap that feeds the bath is broken. Sometimes she twists the handle tight into its thread until she is certain the tap is turned off but minutes, or sometimes hours, later water splashes from the spout. Sean said there’s something wrong with the plumbing;
They reach Fairfield Park in record time and Lina drives down Crofters Road, skimming past the narrow, terraced houses trickling down the hill, but there are no spaces. She loops back up again along Claremont Road, and stops the Mazda in the middle of the road outside Lilyvale. A Range Rover pulls up behind.
‘You’ll be OK?’ she asks Fen.
‘I’ll be fine.’
‘Call me this evening,’ says Lina. ‘Let me know how you are.’
Fen leans over and kisses Lina’s cheek. In the wing mirror, she sees the Range Rover driver make a frustrated gesture, both palms upturned.
‘I’ll see you soon,’ she calls to Lina, ‘and thank you!’
The fifteen minutes out of the shop, away from the heater, have made Fen feel a little better. Still, she thinks, she’ll do exactly as Vincent suggested. She’ll fill the kettle and put it on to boil while she changes into something less constricting than the demure navy-blue dress which Vincent says makes her look vaguely Jane Austen-y, a look which he believes appeals to the punters. Then she’ll fill a hot-water bottle, make a mug of ginger tea and get into bed; she’ll close her eyes and lie there until Connor is dropped off by the school transport. She’ll have at least three hours to herself, and by then the flashing lights will have gone from her eyes and the worst of the pain will have passed.
The sky is hazy, silvery. There’s a strange light over the city and the buildings are highlighted; they stand out like two-dimensional cut-outs, as if they were a film set. Fen recognizes the light. It usually precedes thunder, and she thinks this is one of the reasons why she has a migraine. As soon as the storm comes, her head will clear.
She goes tentatively down the steep, front garden steps, because she is still a little dizzy and the mirage has begun to zigzag giddily in front of her. She holds up her key to unlock the outer door, but as soon as her hand touches it, it swings open.
Fen swallows. She remembers locking the door before she walked to work. It was only a few hours ago. She remembers rattling the handle to double-check. Or is it yesterday she’s remembering? Were the blood vessels in her brain already constricting this morning? Migraines do weird things to her mind. They make her forget. Maybe she forgot to lock the door. Or maybe Sean has come back early. Maybe he’s come to collect something.
Still her heart begins to race.
She pushes the outer door wide open, sweeps aside a flyer on the doormat with the toe of her shoe and opens the inner door with her Yale key.
‘Hello?’ she calls quietly. ‘Sean?’
There is no answer. The doors to all three downstairs rooms open off the hall. They are all ajar. Fen can see into the kitchen, ahead of her. It is empty but there’s a Starbucks carton on the counter that wasn’t there before. Fen steps into the hall, and checks the living room and dining room. Both are empty. Both are as they were when she last saw them.
Her heart is beating so strongly that Fen can clearly feel the muscle contracting and pulsing in her chest. Breathing is difficult; she has to remember to inhale but the air only seems to reach the top third of her lungs and she exhales shakily. She stands still, listening, and she hears movement upstairs, she hears water.
At first she thinks that this is the sign she’s been waiting for – the sign that Tomas is back. The water is the clue, the running water. But much as she wants this to be the truth, there’s a more plausible explanation; she knows there is.
The cold tap that feeds the bath is broken. Sometimes she twists the handle tight into its thread until she is certain the tap is turned off but minutes, or sometimes hours, later water splashes from the spout. Sean said there’s something wrong with the plumbing;
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