Lauren’s height and divorcing parents and the fact that she too had stopped swimming meant that it took a long time for anyone to notice her anorexia. Daisy didn’t believe it had anything to do with her, for that would have been self-centred. But neither did she get in touch to offer help or support. Lauren was in hospital briefly, but Daisy didn’t visit, and when Lauren’s mother moved to Gloucester, taking Lauren with her, Daisy felt a relief that was no relief at all.
♦
Benjy poured three centimetres of vinegar into the big plastic tub.
Now, said Richard, fill the egg cup with bicarbonate of soda.
This is going to be brilliant. Benjy filled it clumsily. Did you do this when you were little, Uncle Richard?
I was far too well behaved. He tried not to think about the children he might have had. I’ll do this next bit myself.
Do you think it will go over the roof?
Let’s see. Gingerly, he lowered the egg cup into the vinegar. The rim of the egg cup sat just proud of the liquid. Perfect. He pressed the top back on to the tub.
Can I do it? asked Benjy.
One shake and then step back quickly.
Ten, nine, eight… Benjy crouched down …two, one…Blast off. He shook the tub and sat his teddy bear on top and forgot to stand back so Richard grabbed his shoulder and pulled him away. And nothing happened. Perhaps we should do it again, said Benjy, but Richard could see the plastic lid bulging under the bear. Wait. There was a creak like a ship trapped in ice and the POP was considerably louder than Richard had expected, there was foam all over his trousers and a flatulent smell in the air (sodium acetate?) and while the bear didn’t quite go over the roof it did get stuck in the climbing rose just under the first-floor window. Benjy was whooping and Richard could see it all from his point of view and it really was the funniest thing he’d seen in a long time and Benjy was saying, Again, again, again, which was when Angela appeared from the front door. I thought a bomb had gone off.
♦
I can add you in later, said Alex. Like the reserve goalkeeper. She had no idea what he was talking about, but she ran a quick mental check of her outfit. Ugg boots, patterned tights under denim shorts, lumberjack shirt…She didn’t know whether to be flattered or disgusted but it seemed like the wrong time to piss off yet another person. Smile. Click. Turn towards the house. Click. She knew she looked good. Her only worry sometimes was that she didn’t look different enough, that people mistook her for part of a crowd. She’d see a girl in patterned Docs or with a dyed red pixie cut and wish she had the balls. Click. Now sit on the wall. Like some sleazy old guy. Click. You should be a model, love. Give us some arse. I think we’re finished now.
Cheers, said Alex. That’s great.
Except he probably wouldn’t wank over the photo because he was becoming aware of a nastiness in Melissa that clung to her even in his sexual fantasies, though it didn’t matter now because he fancied Louisa instead, and he was proud of the fact that his taste was maturing.
♦
It’s not far. Richard leans over the Ordnance Survey as if he is planning an aerial assault on northern France. A couple of miles at most.
Louisa brushes toast crumbs from her sweater. Those little brown lines are very close together.
Daisy is sitting in the window seat reading Dracula (We need have no secrets amongst us. Working together and with absolute trust, we can surely be stronger than if some of us were in the dark).
Angela appears in the kitchen doorway. Any more sandwich orders? I’ve got mozzarella and tomato, cheddar and pickle, jam, ham…
Can you bring those pears and bananas?
Benjy enters, absent-mindedly singing ‘Whip-Crack-Away!’.
Did you flush the toilet?
He turns sullenly and retraces his steps.
Angela hasn’t walked more than a mile in the last ten years but she doesn’t want to abandon ship for a second day running and she is determined to prove Dominic wrong, to be a real part of the family.
Alex is reading the Observer sports section (Bowyer received a gift of a cross inside the six-yard box but headed it wide).
Distantly, the toilet flushes.
Where’s Melissa? Richard finds himself worrying about her in a way that he hasn’t done before. These vague thoughts of fatherhood, perhaps. She hasn’t made a second bid for freedom, has she?
She’s upstairs, says Alex. Beautifying herself. It’s something his father might say.
Louisa thinks about going into the kitchen to help out but she is still uneasy around Angela. She still can’t picture her as a teacher. She had expected more warmth, more openness.
Daisy turns the page (When the terrible story of Lucy’s death, and all that followed, was done, I lay back in my chair powerless).
Dominic looks at Benjy’s feet. You are not walking up that hill in sandals.
♦
Click. Everyone briefly gathered and posed and smiling at their future selves. Beaches and cathedrals, bumper cars and birthday parties, glasses raised around a dining table. Each picture a little pause between events. No tantrums, no illness, no bad news, all the big stuff happening before and after and in between. The true magic happening only when the lesser magic fails, the ghost daughter who moved during the exposure, her face unreadable but more alive than all her frozen family. Double exposures, as if a little strip of time had been folded back on itself. Scratches and sun flares. Photos torn post-divorce, faces scratched out or biroed over. The camera telling the truth only when something slips through its silver fingers.
♦
If we could rest for a bit longer. Angela’s lack of fitness scared her. Luminous protozoa swam in her eyes.
Richard clicked his phone off and shook his head wearily. You’d think at twenty-five you could arrange for someone to cover for you when you were on holiday. Actual human lives in their hands. I despair sometimes.
Can we have a snack? asked Benjy.
You can have a banana.
But that’s only fruit.
Monkeys like them.
Monkeys eat fleas.
Cool grey air. Angela looked back down the hill towards the shrunken house. So much effort to get, what? a hundred feet up? two hundred? It made you realise that we lived on the surface of a planet, moving backwards and forwards and round in circles, but forever trapped between earth and sky. She pictured the view as a papier mâché model in the school hall. Gold Book for Seacole Class. She thought of the kids who’d never actually seen the countryside. Kaylee, Milo. Mikela’s dad found the whole countryside thing utterly perplexing. ‘ Let’s go for a nice walk’, it should be written on the Union Jack. Though the only time she and Dominic had stayed in a National Trust cottage it had slave trade prints on the walls. Black men in chains being canoed out to a waiting ship.
Daisy sat herself down beside Melissa and offered her the second half of her coffee. Sorry about yesterday. She wanted to tell Melissa about Lauren, but it was too long a story and she didn’t want to give her any leverage. Melissa was saying nothing. Daisy got to her feet. Forgiven or not, she felt lighter for having apologised.