but she bit into it. He presented her with his empty hands, a clown mouth turned down at the corners, a shrug.
Minutes later, when he was leaving, he reached his hands up to hang onto the lintel and she put her face to his chest then stepped away, the gesture too much like the way she was with Andrew. She had the sudden sense that there was a mask over Daniel’s face she’d never be able to pull back.
‘Hey, Dottie,’ he said. ‘What if you’re not here when I come back? When I’m all had it?’
She nudged him out the door. In the pathway he paused, made a show of examining his fingers, wiping them on his trousers. ‘You need to dust that doorway,’ he said. After he’d gone down the path and the coast was clear she took a quick shower and rearranged the living room. For a second she studied her face, which was exactly the same, and opened all the windows and the doors and waited for her youngest to be delivered home.
14. Leash
Her brother was waiting when they came home with the industrial cleaner, brick sealant, gloves and goggles. The dog trotted at her side and stopped by an unfamiliar car to sniff the tyres and Michael ambled over. ‘Hi,’ he said, not looking at Andrew.
Andrew said, ‘Morning, Michael.’
‘Hi, Andrew. How’s the painting?’ Michael sniffed. He said ‘Andrew’ and ‘painting’ the way nine-year-old Hannah said ‘Duh-uh’.
They stood under the branches of the oak in the Boddys’ front yard, and the air was steamy and the pavement still dark in patches from the night’s rain.
‘Where have you been?’ Michael asked.
‘Hardware store. Look.’ Dot pointed at the clinker-brick fence outside their house, where hot pink spray-paint ran across the centre in a broken, wobbly line, ending in a coded symbol. ‘We’ve been tagged again.’
Michael stepped back to study it. ‘Jesus,’ he said.
Andrew said, ‘Let’s do this later. I’ll get the pressure thing. Hose thing.’
‘Amy’s going to the skate park after school. And Grace is coming for dinner.’ She took the hardware-store bags from her husband, feeling judged by Michael’s gaze, that he was noting the way she and Andrew didn’t kiss goodbye.
‘See you.’ Andrew pressed the remote unlocking system on the car – a descending three-note twiddle the birds in their street had learned to reproduce – and she raised an arm and waved as he drove past and tooted, sluicing the windscreen free of rain spots and stuck leaves. She and Michael got covered in a fine spray of liquid disinfectant from the windscreen wipers, and the dog barked.
Michael’s eyes followed the departing car. He was talking about the job Andrew had found him in the transport department at the polytechnic, what a worry it was, the supervision wasn’t good enough, yesterday afternoon he had seen toast crumbs all over the office floor, a crusty wipe cloth on the kitchen bench.
‘That’s OK,’ she said, ‘that’s normal. Too clean is a worry, OCD. Are the people nice? To work with?’
‘You know, I’m calling human resources. I’m going to report them.’
‘But Michael, for what?’
‘And could you keep an eye out for those little bastards across the road, they’ve been in my rubbish.’
‘Mike, Andy’s only just got you this job. There are no jobs, do you know that? Don’t make trouble for no reason.’
A neighbour walked past, holding her umbrella so that the handle looked like a hook emerging from her sleeve in place of a hand. Dorothy smiled at her and nodded and reined in the straining, sniffing dog.
‘Also, while I’m at work can you move my car? It sits there too long and some idiot reports it stolen.’ Andrew described Michael’s car as ‘an eyesore’. Tangy floor mats, the flaming embrace of the petrol smell from the can he kept in the boot. ‘I’ll leave the car key in your letterbox.’
‘No, I’m teaching later. Just leaving the car for a day is OK, come on.’
‘Can you help me or can’t you?’ Getting louder now.
‘Michael, don’t shout at me. I haven’t got time to move your car.’
‘You always do this! How long does it take!’
‘Stop it.’
Michael had jettisoned everyone else in his life: their parents, his ex-girlfriend, Daniel long ago. The slights and disagreements were clutched and nurtured, too complex to understand. You couldn’t point out that he was the common denominator. He was demanding and rude and most of the time Dorothy thought he hated her, but having him live next door was a family duty she was