She sees a flicker behind the unwavering smile. Some strong reaction, suppressed so she can’t read it. The name has some resonance for him. What it is, she doesn’t know.
‘Yeah, not fast enough, Amber. You took much too long making that up.’
‘No,’ she says. ‘Jade. I just couldn’t remember her surname. She just… lived down the road, you know-I don’t know if I ever even knew it. I swear to you, Vic, I’m telling the truth.’
‘Well,’ says Vic, and picks up the phone. ‘There’s only one way to find out.’
He dials. There’s silence in the kitchen. Vic smiles at her coldly as the ringtone kicks in. He puts the handset on Speakerphone and waits, staring her out like a crouching panther. Christ, she thinks. What am I doing here? Do I even like this man? Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know him.
A man’s voice, on the other end of the line. ‘Hello?’
Vic’s head jerks; a tiny movement of huge significance. ‘Who’s that?’ he asks.
‘Jim,’ says the man.
‘Jim,’ repeats Vic, and raises a cynical eyebrow at her.
‘Who’s that?’ asks Jim.
‘Vic,’ says Vic. ‘Sorry, Jim, I was looking for Jade.’
The man at the other end of the line sounds calm, casual, unfazed. Her bloke doesn’t know either, thinks Amber. Her whole life’s as big a lie as mine is. ‘No, sorry, mate. I think you’ve got the wrong number. No Jade here.’
‘Oh,’ says Vic, ‘OK. Thanks, Jim.’ He emphasises the syllable for Amber’s benefit.
‘’S’OK,’ says Jim, and hangs up.
Vic puts the phone down on the table. ‘Jim,’ he says.
She leaves it for ten minutes, then follows him upstairs. He’s locked himself into the bathroom; she can hear the sound of running water. She taps at the door and listens. No answer. ‘Vic?’ she calls timidly. Hears the water being turned up harder.
In the bedroom, a shirt lies on the bed; one of his going-out shirts. Her heart sinks. He always does this when he’s angry. Goes out after work without a word and, often, doesn’t come back all night. She’s felt this mood building for days now. Jackie’s presence – her discarded towels, her unwashed tea mugs, the brimming ashtray in the garden – has been increasingly irksome to him. She regrets having asked her to stay. It doesn’t help that Jackie, at close quarters, has proved to be one of those self-absorbed individuals who never notice much beyond their own boundaries. She talks incessantly, every thought that enters her head falling instantly from her lips: lists the source and cost of every purchase she makes, counts calories – her own and other people’s – out loud, rehearses the detail of every slight, every snub, every overlooking that fills her life.
He’s using this as an excuse, she thinks. Really, this is about resenting the fact that I imposed a guest on him without consulting him, and about the fact that I’m too weak to ask her to leave. But raising a subject like that would require that we actually talk, and Vic will do anything to avoid having to do that. He would always rather make his point by withdrawing his presence.
She hears the bathroom door open, turns to see him emerge, topless, his muscles rippling above his jeans. He’s shaved, and gelled his hair. Rubs at the back of his neck with a towel. A clean one, she notices. He’s got it out of the airing cupboard specially. He brushes past her and enters the bedroom; throws the towel pointedly into a corner.
‘Vic,’ she says.
He ignores her. Goes to the bed and picks up the shirt.
‘Are you going out?’
He pops open the mother-of-pearl buttons one by one, still refusing to look at her. I ironed that damn shirt, she thinks. ‘Yes.’
‘Vic.’ She doesn’t know what to say. Wants to persuade him to change his mind, knows the desire is pointless.
His back still turned, he slides his arms into the sleeves and begins to button the shirt up. She can see from the set of his shoulders that he is angry and cherishing his anger. Which is worse? she wonders. A man like Vic, who expresses anger with silence and isolation, or one who, like most of the men around here, expresses it loudly, often physically. Sometimes, as she tiptoes around him, sick with misery and wondering where he goes when he takes off, she wonders if a brief, flailing burst of rage wouldn’t be better.
‘Please,’ she says. ‘Can’t we talk?’
He turns his profile to her, his mouth downturned. ‘Nothing to talk about,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to hear any more lies. I’m done listening to you.’
‘I’m not lying!’ she protests for the thousandth time. ‘Vic! Why won’t you believe me?’
He whirls and strikes, like a cobra. She recoils, tries to get away, but he grabs her arm, grips like a vice and pushes his face close to hers. His eyes have narrowed to slits, and glitter like diamonds. She can smell the mint on his breath where he’s brushed his teeth. He’s planning to score tonight, she thinks. To get back at me. Does he think I don’t know? Or is it the other way round? Does he do it to see how far he can push me before I crack?
‘Don’t you dare speak to me!’ he hisses. ‘I know all about you, Amber. You liar. You bloody, filthy little liar! You’ve been lying to me all along, haven’t you? I know what you’re like. I know what you’re all like. I thought you were different, but you’re not, are you? You’re just another fucking – slag -’ he lets go of her arm, walks abruptly away, ‘like all the rest of them. A lying’ – he carries on buttoning his shirt, the words coming out calm and matter-of-fact, now that this brief burst of temper is over – ‘fucking – slag.’
He pushes her on to the landing. She props herself against the banister, shocked. He marches past, stone-faced. Moments later, she hears the front door slam.
11.30 a.m.
‘You got any scars?’ asks Jade. The roundabout is slowing down, and she’s not sure she can be bothered to hop off and push any more. It’s funny how boring roundabouts get; she never gets bored on the swings.
‘Scars? Yes.’
‘Me too,’ says Jade. She rolls up her top and shows a line of livid ragged dots running across her ribcage. ‘Barbed wire,’ she informs Bel. ‘When I was three.’
‘Cool!’ says Bel. ‘How?’
‘Fell over,’ says Jade.
‘Did you have to have stitches?’
Jade shakes her head. ‘My dad said it was my own stupid fault.’
‘Mmm,’ says Bel, following the logic.
‘I’ll never learn if I don’t see the consequences,’ says Jade. ‘Go on then. Show us.’
Bel considers, then rolls up her sleeve. Shows the scar down the inside of her upper arm. ‘Operation,’ she says, ‘where I broke it. I’ve got a metal pin in there. I set off bomb detectors in airports. It was all sticking out through my skin and everything.’
‘Nice!’ says Jade. ‘How’d you do that, then?’
The roundabout reaches a standstill. Bel considers her story. ‘Fell downstairs,’ she says casually, ‘when I was four.’ Doesn’t add any detail. Some things you don’t tell to just anybody; she’s long since learned that.
Jade pulls off her sandal to display a slit between her big toe and the next one along. It intrudes a good half-inch into her foot, a ropy red scar delineating the edges.
‘Crikey!’ Bel is impressed. ‘How did you get that?’
Jade tuts. ‘Me and Shane was playing chicken with Darren’s hunting knife and I didn’t get out of the way. My dad says I don’t have the sense I was born with.’