Page 18 of The Fall-Out

I waited until I heard the door open and close again, the click of her heels receding then abruptly vanishing. Then I exited the cubicle, washed my hands and inspected my own face before deciding there was no point bothering to try and make myself look any different – besides, when I looked in the mirror, I couldn’t shake the sense that she was there, watching me over my own shoulder.

Bracing myself, I pushed the door open again, immediately hearing the low buzz of voices and clink of glasses again. I’d find Patch, say goodbye to our friends, deposit Zara’s scarf on the pile of coats, and leave. And hopefully that would be the end of it – she’d be out of my life once more, this time never to return.

I saw Patch straight away. He was standing by a window, looking out into the rain-soaked beer garden where a few hardy people were smoking under umbrellas. And he wasn’t alone. Zara was standing next to him, her arm round his waist, her hand held aloft as she snapped a selfie of them together.

SEVEN

Patch and I were at home, sitting at the kitchen table surrounded by the detritus of the children’s tea: scooped-out eggshells, toast crusts and banana peels. I could feel an early hangover beginning to descend, and was making my way through a pot of lemon and ginger tea. Patch was drinking beer. We’d been half-arguing, half-discussing whether to order curry or Chinese for our own dinner, and no compromise looked like being reached any time soon.

So I changed the subject. ‘What do you think about what Meredith said when they were in the bath?’

‘What, about Uncle Andy being in the sky with the angels? Pretty harmless, isn’t it?’ He stacked the plates and started scraping scraps into the food waste caddy.

‘I mean, actually, I don’t think it is. I’ve asked your mother before about not filling the kids’ head with that nonsense.’

‘As opposed to the nonsense we fill them with about Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy?’ He took another beer out of the fridge and gestured to me with it, but I shook my head.

‘That’s different.’

‘How’s it different? Look, I really fancy chicken madras. We should order if we’re going to.’

‘It’s different because whole nations aren’t oppressed on the basis of belief in the Tooth Fairy.’ I half-stood, sat down again, then abandoned the pretence that I wasn’t going to drink any more and poured a glass of wine from the fridge. ‘If we order from Deliveroo you can have that and I can have sweet and sour pork.’

‘But the Bengal Palace does ten per cent off if you order through them directly.’ His face looked just like Toby’s when he opened negotiations for a third bedtime story.

‘So order directly and I’ll get mine from Deliveroo.’

‘They have a minimum spend. Twenty-five quid, and chicken madras is only eleven. Go on, Nome, we can have Chinese next time.’

I was reminded of our son again – Just a short one, Mummy. Please? Just tonight? – and relented. ‘Oh, for God’s sake. Fine. Get me a lamb biriyani and we can share some samosas and that should make up the total.’

‘On it.’ He slid his phone across the table and started tapping at the screen. I waited in silence – when it came to ordering food online, my husband had the concentration span of a washing-up sponge. ‘I got some bhajis as well, and a garlic naan.’

‘Good job. Anyway, I didn’t mean about heaven and stuff. I meant about her calling Toby Patrick.’

‘She’s always done that. Even when we were kids, she’d call me Niamh and my sister Patrick.’ He stretched out his legs, interlacing his fingers behind his head like he was on a deck chair at the beach.

‘Yeah, maybe. But it sounded like this was different. Like she was insistent that Toby was you and Meredith was your sister.’ Propping my elbows on the table, I leaned closer to him.

‘They’re four. They’re probably remembering wrong. Or she was teasing them.’

‘Patch, those kids have got memories like elephants. Look how they spouted chapter and verse about the whole afterlife stuff, right down to the harps and Saint Peter. I’m worried about her.’

He shrugged. ‘She clearly remembers all she got taught in Sunday School about Saint Peter.’

‘Yeah, sure. But the short-term stuff – when I took the kids to see her last week she’d completely forgotten we were coming. And normally she looks forward to it for ages and bakes and everything.’

‘She’s seventy-five. Doesn’t everyone’s memory get a bit shit?’

Frustrated, I set my wine glass back on the table so hard the liquid sloshed inside it. One of Patch’s most appealing traits was his positive outlook on the world, but it was also one of his most annoying. She’s teething. Don’t all kids scream a lot then? he’d asked, when nine-month-old Meredith had kept me up all night with a temperature of 39 degrees.

‘Not to the point where they think their grandchildren are their children. I’m not sure we should be leaving the kids there on their own. I wasn’t crazy about doing it today but there was no alternative. And I think she should see a doctor.’

‘Good luck with persuading her to do that.’ He glanced at his phone, then towards the door, clearly listening for the sound of an approaching moped. ‘She barely leaves the house these days.’

‘Patch, I know. That’s why I showed her how to do her shopping online. I thought it was a great plan at first, and it was, but now she forgets how to do it and I end up spending ages on the phone taking her order down and doing it myself, because last time she ended up with three kilos of baking potatoes instead of three potatoes.’

‘Easy mistake to make – I’ve done it myself.’

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