lives at number fourteen – the end of the Close.’
‘The end of the Close? Our Close? What does he do?’
‘He was in the army.’
‘And why isn’t he in the army any more?’
‘He retired.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Thirty-seven, I think.’
‘He retired at thirty-seven?’
‘Or left, or something. I don’t know. It’s to do with his leg. Sometimes he uses a walking stick.’
‘How did you meet him?’
‘Youth CND – he came to give a talk.’
Joe sat down on the end of the bed, looking at the blue seashells on the duvet cover.
Jessica sat up on her elbow. ‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
He felt for her legs under the duvet and gave her ankle a squeeze.
‘This book’s really important, Dad. It talks about how not to die. How to survive.’
‘And what if this bomb of yours never goes off, Jess, and you have to do more than just survive?’
Jessica fell back onto the pillow. ‘You’re drunk.’
Joe stood up, trying to hide his disappointment. ‘Probably.’ He turned the desk light off and heard her turn over in bed. ‘How’s Ferdinand?’
She didn’t say anything.
‘We can take him to the vet tomorrow, if you like.’ What did he want? He wanted to tell her about meeting a hairdresser called Lenny today. What was wrong with him? Jessica was the one person he wanted to tell and he couldn’t, because she was his daughter. ‘Night, Jess.’ He stood there waiting for her to say something.
Then, at last, ‘Night, Dad.’
He left the room, shutting the door behind him, and crossed the hallway.
In the master bedroom, Linda was going full tilt up a virtual hill thinking about the muddy footprints Paul Nieman had left in the hallway when he came in with the beer, and how much she’d wanted to clean the carpet. Then she pictured the scene again with herself naked, scrubbing at the mud in a pair of black marigolds, and Paul standing over her, angry.
‘Shit, Joe,’ she said, catching sight of him in the vanity-unit mirror. ‘What are you creeping up on me for?’
He shrugged and watched as she flicked the dials on the handlebars until it looked like a cartoonist was running her in slow motion.
‘Jessica’s writing a book.’
‘Seven miles. I just did seven miles,’ she said, breathless and preoccupied.
‘On how not to die – with a Mr Browne – Jessica says he lives at the end of the Close, but I’ve never seen him. Who is he?’
‘I don’t know, Joe, and I didn’t know she was writing a book.’ Linda got off the bike and picked up the dressing gown from the bed. ‘Mr Browne?’
‘She said she met him at Youth CND.’
‘I think I met him once.’
‘He was giving a talk.’
‘He seemed okay.’ Linda paused. ‘And anyway, she needs to be around other people more.’
‘She’s fifteen years old, Linda!’
‘That’s what I’m talking about – she never goes out.’ Linda threw the dressing gown back down on the bed. ‘Did you see her tonight, Joe? She doesn’t speak – she doesn’t eat… the way she talked to me in front of everybody.’
Joe ignored this. ‘She’s got things she needs to work through.’
‘Like what – the end of the world?’
‘Well, that’s one of them.’
‘Jessica never leaves her room – she needs professional help, Joe.’
‘For what?’
‘For just about fucking everything.’
‘What – like the time she had to see that educational psychologist – what was her name?’
‘Penelope – but she told us to call her Penny.’
‘She spent eight sessions with Jessica – alone – filling her mind with fuck knows what, only to tell us Jessica had a fear of dolls.’
‘I don’t want to start talking about Penny again – you refused the further counselling she recommended.’ The nausea she’d experienced earlier while stood over the mandarin cheesecake rose up again.
‘For fuck’s sake, Linda, this is our daughter we’re talking about … where are you going?’ he said, watching her. The T-shirt she was wearing had dark sweat patches on it.
‘The bathroom.’
‘It’s nearly one thirty in the morning.’
The door slammed shut, and a minute later he heard retching sounds. ‘Linda?’
‘It’s okay.’
‘Are you sick?’
‘It’s the solids.’
‘The what?’
‘The solids – dinner tonight. I’m not used to it.’
He listened at the door, but didn’t hear any other sounds, and after a while he went back into the hallway towards the other bathroom, stopping by the window like he used to when they first moved in. That was two years ago, and everything had been so new then that the contractors hadn’t even got round to putting tarmac on the roads and pavements. It was a new world they hadn’t finished building yet, and he would stand at the hall window in the early hours of the morning, half expecting to see virgin forest carpeting the horizon.
Now all he could see was the glow of Gatwick and, in the distance, beyond the Surrey Hills, the monochrome aurora borealis that hung over London. How had he ever felt himself capable of imagining that the world – his world – was still unfinished?
He went into the bathroom, looked into the macramé basket hanging from the ceiling and failed to work out what he was doing there, then went back to the bedroom and undressed in the semi-dark because Linda was already in bed, and the light on her side was off.
He took off everything apart from his vest, then got into bed and lay looking up at the ceiling where it had been pricked by Artex.
‘Your
