and tells us what to do.”
Chapter Twenty-six
It should have been a wonderful night, but instead . . .
Kit feels unsafe. Steve is lying in bed, snoring faintly, and Kit has been awake since three in the morning, at first hoping sleep would overcome her, and eventually getting up and going downstairs to read a book, to try to quiet her mind, take her thoughts to somewhere else.
Her life is usually terribly dull, but it occurs to her that every time her mother is around, a drama occurs. Kit hates drama, finds it unnecessary and unsettling, and strives to keep her life as balanced, ordered and calm as possible.
She watches other people she knows, women going through divorce, other mothers in school, get pulled into gossip and arguments, watches urgent, whispered conversations take place in the corridors of the school, and strolls past, grateful that she is not tempted to take part, and nor are her friends.
Already, women she knows, the ones who love the drama, are starting to ask her about Charlie. Is Charlie okay? Is it true? They’re just concerned, of course. And Kit just smiles and says Charlie is great, and refuses to be drawn, refuses to take the bait, to comment any further. They may want the dirt, but they’re not going to get it from her.
Charlie would do the same for her, did, in fact, when Kit was going through her divorce. Everyone wanted to know everything, and Charlie kept quiet, a fact for which Kit will be eternally grateful.
But this is something different. The foundations of her life feel as if they are shifting. First with a sister she never knew she had turning up, then Charlie losing everything, and now her mother arriving and accusing her sister of being about as bad news as you can be. And Kit doesn’t know what to do.
It can’t get any worse, she thinks, but at the same time she feels as if she is on tenterhooks, waiting for the next bad thing. It feels as if she is living in an increasingly fragile house of cards which is being shaken with every new day.
The reading isn’t working. Perhaps some tea. She makes it, appreciating her house at this hour of the day; it is six o’clock and absolutely quiet, no children, no noise, no errands to run or things to do.
Her cell phone rings shrilly, disturbing the silence, and she jumps, her heart instantly beating faster. When the phone rings late at night or early in the morning, and her children are not with her, she always presumes the worst, and picks it up with a shaking hand, trying to prepare herself for terrible news.
“Darling? What are you doing awake? ” It’s her mother.
“I couldn’t sleep. What are you doing awake, and why are you calling? I thought you didn’t get up until noon.” Kit gets a flashback of staying with her mother when she was young, and the staff tiptoeing round the house all morning for fear of waking her up. Ginny would emerge from her bedroom at around noon, in a cashmere robe and slippers, to have tea before stepping in the shower and getting ready for her day.
Ginny laughs. “I’ve become a bit of a reformed character with Peter,” she trills. “We’re up at the crack of dawn every day doing yoga together on the terrace.”
“You are ? ” Kit is stunned.
“Oh yes. I’ve cut out all caffeine and we’ve gone organic with everything. I’m a new woman. Honestly, I feel twenty years younger.”
That might be the new round of Botox, Kit thinks, but doesn’t say.
“I was going to leave a message. I just spoke to Peter and he said you ought to check all your things. Change the passwords on your accounts, that sort of thing.”
“Mother, don’t you think that’s a little excessive? Even if you’re right that I should check, I just don’t believe she would do that.”
“I promise you, Kit, she would. And isn’t it always better to be safe rather than sorry? Just double-check that everything is safe. She’s a clever girl, and it won’t be the first time.”
“What do you mean? ”
“She was caught stealing money before. It was a long time ago, and her father told me it was to fuel the drug addiction, but she was lucky. They didn’t press charges. I always thought they should, because if there are no consequences, what’s to stop her doing it again? ”
“But . . .” Kit splutters. “Even if