Written in Blood(72)

‘He’s purring.’

‘Of course he’s purring - he’s a cat. What do you expect him to do? Break into a chorus from Rigoletto?’ Barnaby watched his wife sourly. ‘It’s only here till they get back - all right?’

‘I know that.’ Joyce poured the coffee. ‘Why are you being so horrid? It’s not my fault you can’t stop eating.’

‘Thanks.’ Barnaby took his cup. ‘Where’s your breakfast?’

‘I’ll have something later.’ She stirred her drink awkwardly, the spoon in her left hand. Kilmowski, wide eyed, was clinging to her right arm like a small alarmed muff. His grey silk belly, engorged with milk, bulged.

‘Look at that. Stuffed to the gills.’

‘Tom?’

‘Mm.’ He munched morosely on his final crust.

‘You are sticking to your diet?’

‘Yes.’

‘At work I mean.’

‘Oh God, Joycey - don’t nag.’

‘It’s important. You know what they said at your medical.’

‘Mmm.’ He drained his coffee and wheezed to his feet. ‘What are we having tonight again?’

‘Lamb’s liver with herbs and mushrooms.’

‘Don’t forget to buy fresh marjoram.’ In the hall Barnaby’s daughter gazed up at him, gravely beautiful in white bonnet and severe dress, from the doormat. He picked up the Radio Times took it in to his wife and kissed her goodbye.

‘Take care driving, love.’

‘Yes. I think I’ll put the chains on.’





‘Make sure you’re well wrapped up. It’s snowing.’

Sue hovered around her daughter like a bird with a single fledgling. Amanda was propped up against the sink, chewing one of her mother’s bran and walnut cookies and wishing it was a Dime bar. Today everything was black - skirts, tights, sneakers, eye liner, nails. Her hair, unwashed for many a long day, was piled into a dry pyramid.

‘It’s not snowing. These things are so shitty.’ She walked over to the waste bin and emptied her mouth. ‘Why can’t we have proper cake like everyone else?’

Two reasons actually. One: they were full of suspicious substances, many listed in Sue’s E for Additives book. Two: cash. There was never enough. Although Brian always seemed to be able to drum up money for his own indulgences, the latest being a director’s chair along the back of which he was now stencilling his name, he was very tight indeed when it came to the housekeeping. Expecting a hot meal every evening and a roast for Sunday lunch, he gave his wife barely enough for a week of cooked breakfasts.

All Sue’s play-group wages, such as they were, disappeared into the fund and still she could barely manage. She had asked for more, of course, but Brian had refused, saying she was as incompetent at handling his hard-earned salary as she was at everything else and that any increase would simply be frittered away. At the last time of asking he had lost his temper and vowed to solve the problem ‘once and for all’.

That weekend she had handed over her thirty pounds and Brian had gone shopping with her, marching up and down the aisle at Causton’s main supermarket and throwing stuff into a trolley to the running accompaniment of a grandiloquent directive.

‘See? This is an excellent buy - three for the price of two. And here’s rump steak on special offer - why don’t we ever have steak if it’s this cheap? Melon down again. And grapes. And look - Bulgarian Merlot only two forty-five . . .’

At the checkout the bill came to fifty-three pounds. Brian, so sure of his ability to balance the books that he had not brought his credit card, had to stand, crimson with rage and humiliation, while a supervisor was called. A second trolley was wheeled alongside to take all the things that Brian could not afford back to the shelves. The very long queue had not been sympathetic. In the car park he had really let rip.

‘Why didn’t you tell me? You know how much things cost.’ He stowed the cardboard boxes in the boot and slammed it. ‘God knows how people on the Social manage to eat and smoke as well.’

‘They live on cardboard pizzas, oven chips and tins past their sell-by date,’ replied Sue, not quite managing to keep the satisfaction from her voice and being made to regret it all the way home.

‘Mandy? Mand?’ He was calling now from the front step. The door was wide open, transforming the cosy kitchen into an ice box. ‘Time for the bus.’

‘Awri.’ Mandy shrouded herself in a funereal horse blanket, flung the dark, dreary folds about a bit and picked up her Snoopy lunch box.

‘Make sure you have a hot drink with that. Not just pop.’