the horrid little window frames. This bathroom is like her: wrecked, rotten, bits flaking off. She turns from her reflection and switches off the light.
In her bedroom, she looks out of the window. No one about. Not even a gang of kids. They’ll be on the scrubland behind the Spar or sat in the railway sidings smoking funny stuff, sniffing glue or whatever it is they do. Graham will be drawn to them, she knows that much.
She lies down in the bedding Tommy brought. The floor is hard. The quilt smells of Pauline’s house. She presses it to her nose and breathes it in. On the bedroom ceiling, the naked bulb grows out of the gloom, hanging on its wire like despair. She must get some shades, even paper ones. Her eyes prickle and she presses her fingertips to them.
Home. She misses her home. Her kitchen, her lounge, her bathroom. Her bathroom was her haven: soft apricot, spotless, clean towels, lovely soaps. And with Ted so often out, she was able to take a bath more or less when she wanted. Ted wasn’t bad all the time. It was just the drink and what it did to him. He could still make them all laugh when he was in the right mood, and the kids loved him. The kids loved him and she stole them from him. He would be worse without them, lost. And if they hadn’t left, Graham wouldn’t have retreated into that terrible silence. A stuttering boy is better than one who doesn’t talk at all. She can’t remember when he last made a joke. She should face facts, get back home and fix what she had instead of lying here with her shoulder blades knocking against the floor. If she had anything about her, anything at all, she’d pack up and go. Things would be different now that Ted had had the shock of her actually upping and leaving, had had a chance to see what he had to lose. They could get some help for him, have counselling, be a family again, instead of this, this mess.
‘Ted,’ she whispers, picturing herself walking through the door, Ted all tearful and sorry. Carol, oh Caz, I’m so sorry. I love you, Caz, come here.
She sits up, eyes stinging in the fuzzy half-light. With the cash Pauline left, she could go back. While the kids are at school, she could take the bus. If she goes on her own, they could talk things through. He’s in a bad way, she knows that from what Pauline won’t say. He’ll be so sorry now. She’s never left him like that, and now he knows that she will, that she can, he’ll be different. She’ll go to him. They can be a family, start again. She has to try. She owes it to the kids.
Fifteen
Richard
1992
The three men Richard speaks to that morning are candid; their stories pour from them like polluted streams. Andrew used to chide him about so many things – his silence, his reticence, his passivity – but he always told him he was a good listener. And listen is what Richard has done, for hours. The men fascinate him. They pain him, fill him with melancholy and hope, disgust, love. Some of them, he knows, are capable of terrible violence. Some of them, it seems, are no more than hapless, daft.
He is about to return to the office when the boy from earlier appears at the door.
‘Hello?’ Richard says.
The lad gives a perfunctory nod. ‘G-Graham G-Green.’
‘All right,’ Richard replies carefully. ‘I have a Graham Watson here. Could that be you?’
He nods again. ‘I go by G-Green. I p-p-p-prefer it.’
‘Graham Green. Like the author. Does your surname have an e on the end?’
The lad narrows his eyes and shakes his head, as if he has no idea what Richard is talking about. It was a stupid thing to say. Richard resolves to do better.
‘Come in,’ he says. ‘Don’t be shy.’
The young man steps inside, stops, seems to wonder about turning away, then appears to change his mind again and shambles across the room. He sits down on the plastic chair opposite Richard. Stands up, moves the chair back a little and sits down again. He coughs, glances at Richard, rubs his hands on his knees as if to wipe the sweat from his palms. His upper lip looks conspicuously bare, as if he has recently shaved off a moustache, and close up, he appears to be somewhere in his