Lotte and Vita are sitting at the kitchen table. Lotte in a long white dress, with gappy sleeves, a thread of fake blood running from her bottom lip to her chin, and Vita a ragged kind of Wolverine, as far as Eddy can tell. There are three wine glasses and a half-empty bottle of red between them and it’s a while before the women notice Eddy. ‘Eddy, hi!’
‘Where’s Anna?’ Eddy doesn’t care if he sounds rude.
‘Well, hello to you too!’ Lotte scolds, playful.
‘She’s upstairs, checking on Albie,’ Vita replies.
Last year Albie got so freaked out by a plastic severed hand on Martin’s front lawn he had nightmares for weeks and swore he’d never go trick-or-treating again.
Eddy nods and takes a fourth wine glass out of the cupboard before he reaches over to rip his stupid, grinning face off the fridge. His carefree past mocking him.
Where is Seb right now? Could Eddy go to him?
‘You all right?’ Vita asks, one side of her mouth lifting. ‘Pat messaged, said he’d just run into you and that you seemed … unwell.’
Eddy shakes his head, wonders what kind of language Patrick used – ‘off’ perhaps, ‘mental’ maybe. Eddy keeps his eyes on his wine glass as he says, ‘I’m fine.’
Lotte slinks up to him with a flirty look as she sloshes wine into his glass. She takes his arm and pulls him gently back towards the table with her. ‘We just popped over to show Anna our little list of suspects …’
She slurs the ‘s’ and Eddy realizes she’s a bit pissed.
‘Suspects?’ Eddy winces as he looks down. On a pad on the table is a handwritten list of five women’s names. The final one, in different writing to the others, is ‘Abi Matthews’.
‘She’s on there, isn’t she?’ Vita asks, keeping her eyes fixed on Eddy.
‘Who is?’
Vita rolls her eyes, exasperated. Eddy exasperates everyone. ‘Seb’s prostitute.’
Lotte’s hand is back on Eddy’s forearm, her acrylic fingernails drumming slightly against his skin. ‘You must have heard that poor woman on I Heart Sussex today?’
Eddy looks at her blankly. Lotte shakes her head at him and says, ‘I’ll send you a link. She came on as a kind of response to that happy hooker type who called in during Anna’s show. Lucy? Anyway, this woman today made me cry, Eddy. Actual tears, because this poor woman was tricked into prostitution by her supposed boyfriend. Said she coped by teaching herself not to feel anything, to totally disconnect from what was happening to her. She’s got severe PTSD now, as you can imagine, can barely leave the house. Listen, we’re not doing this for our own benefit. We want to stop these awful abuses, prevent things like that happening here.’
He agrees but says, ‘Don’t you think things like that are a matter for the police?’
Lotte nods and rolls her eyes, like she knew he was going to say that. ‘They should be, of course, but who is a young, vulnerable woman more likely to trust? Her boyfriend or the police?’
‘But if she wanted help, this woman, surely she’d come forward?’
Lotte shrugs and shakes her head at the great, sad mystery of the world and the people in it. Vita is keen to get the conversation back to the matter at hand. The list.
‘You know Zoey Richards?’
‘Who?’
Lotte rolls her eyes again, talks a little slower so Eddy can keep up. ‘The woman who moved here, like, a year or two ago – you know, the one who always dresses a bit …’ Lotte twists her face to Vita, looking for help in finding the right word, as Vita says, ‘Slutty.’
Eddy has no idea who or what they’re talking about.
‘Then there’s Jenni who, you know, is totally mute, never gets involved in anything, just hovers in the background like a ghoul.’ Lotte shudders before adding, ‘Then, of course, there’s Abi.’
‘Hang on, don’t you employ Abi, Lotte? How can she be …’
‘We don’t know her. Not really, and besides, she’s a bit …’ Lotte scrunches up her nose. ‘A bit out there.’ Her eyes flicker to Vita, excited, before she turns back to Eddy and says, ‘You know, she claimed Margot, her second daughter, is a sperm donor baby? I mean, imagine? She was already a single parent, had Lily when she was a teenager, and then she decides to have another? I mean, I don’t like to judge but that’s pretty extreme – if it’s even true. Makes you think what else she’s capable of …’
‘Lotte, surely the fact this poor woman hasn’t come forward should indicate that she wants privacy and not this … this crazy …’
‘Come on, Ed, don’t give us that,’ Vita says. ‘This is about protecting our community as well as protecting the woman. Anna’s told me what happened in her own childhood, that there was literally a brothel next door to their house, that she had to step over used condoms on the way to school, that no one saw it coming in Ruston either …’
‘But it’s got nothing to do with you!’
‘And that’s precisely why places like Ruston go to shit! Because no one is prepared to protect …’ She stops and they all turn as Anna comes back into the kitchen, a little guilty, like it was wrong of them to talk about Ruston without her approval and participation.
‘Oh hi, Ed, you’re home,’ Anna says, looking tired but reaching for her wine glass.
‘What is this, Anna?’
‘Like Lotte said,’ Vita answers for Anna, reaching back to the table for her list, ‘we’re here because we have a right to know who she is. It’s wrong to keep it from us. As mothers we need to protect our kids …’ Eddy must have heard these words a hundred times in the last week but as Vita talks something crystallizes in him. Yes, their kids need protecting, but not from Seb or even Abi. He looks towards the back door for Blake’s trainers, his football kit, signs that he’s home, but there’s nothing. He could have stopped at one of his mates’ houses or perhaps gone to the park for a bit to clear his head. His boy needs him to do the right thing.
He looks at Lotte and Vita as he says as calmly and politely as possible, ‘I think you should go now.’
‘Eddy!’ Anna scolds, because even now being a great hostess is the most important thing. ‘Sorry, guys, I don’t know …’
‘No, I mean it. Please leave.’ Eddy walks towards the front door and holds out his arms, showing them the way, standing firm as they splutter, mouths downturned, shaking their heads but still moving in the right direction, squeezing past him in the hall. Anna doesn’t protest, just keeps apologizing, promising to message them later, even as she waves them goodbye and out into the dusky night.
‘Well, that was rude,’ Anna says as he follows her back into the kitchen. Eddy notices how dull her eyes are, how she holds on to the table, how weary she is, how scared.
‘Anna, what are you doing?’
Anna shakes her head, rejecting any blame. ‘I didn’t tell them anything, Ed!’
‘They’re not going to stop – you know that, don’t you? If you give them Abi’s name, you’ll be destroying her life here, but you’ll be destroying ours too.’
Anna splutters, shakes her head, but she doesn’t say anything, so Eddy does. ‘It’s ironic, isn’t it? Our home, our private space being invaded like this.’
Anna shrugs and mumbles something indecipherable as Eddy sits down heavily at the table and rubs his hands over his face, tugs again at his beard.
He feels his heart suddenly expand, like an airbag filling his chest, as his body again makes contact with the truth he’s been trying so hard for so long to ignore.
‘I can’t do this any more.’ He says it quietly but clearly.
‘What?’ Anna snaps.
‘This whole thing, this mess we’re in – you’re not doing this to protect the kids or Rosie, and it’s not even about what happened between Seb and Abi, is it?’
He looks up at Anna, takes her hand in his own, feels an overwhelming tenderness towards her as he whispers, ‘It’s about us.’