bite of the sandwich.
‘You’ll want another butty,’ she says. ‘That one won’t touch the sides.’
He nods, coughs into his hand.
‘Cup of tea an’ all?’
She makes the sandwich, wonders who on earth has pierced his ear in the dead of night, which one of these wolf-kids. Who has he been with? Where? And what’s with all the mystery? She takes the second sandwich to him, on a plate, with the tea, and sits down, leaving a chair between them.
‘So,’ she says.
He doesn’t look at her. ‘So, he’s dead then, yeah?’
She swallows down the overwhelming need to cry, an ache lodged in her throat, sharp as tonsillitis. She reaches into her bag and pulls out the small plastic bag that the copper gave her. Out of it she takes Ted’s signet ring – the letters EW engraved on the oval top – and slides it across the table. He never wore a wedding ring, only this.
‘This is yours now.’
Silently Graham picks up the ring and puts it on his middle finger. He spreads his fingers, makes a fist, then stretches them out again. The ring fits him. She reaches for his hand, but he takes hold of his mug. The tea, she knows, is still too hot to drink.
‘J-Jim c-coming back now, is he?’ He spits the words, his eyes small and mean.
‘Jim didn’t kill your dad.’
He shrugs. ‘Never said he did.’
Something knots in her belly. Jim left two days ago. Said he was going to see Tommy. And now Ted is dead.
Graham stands, stuffs the rest of the sandwich into his mouth and picks up the tea.
She makes her voice as loving as she can. ‘Get your head down for a bit, eh? See you in the morning.’
His feet thud, taking the stairs two at a time. He’s probably spilling tea. She doesn’t care. It’s a shitty, horrible stairwell in a shitty, horrible house. But now they can get out of here. Ted had life insurance, she’s pretty sure. He was always terrified of the machines at work, always scared of hurting himself, made a fuss of any little scratch. She can move back, be next door to Pauline and Tommy again, like old times. Except now she won’t have to face Pauline over the fence wearing sunglasses at seven in the morning, pretending she can feel a migraine coming on. They can start again, her and the kids, properly this time. There’ll be no one to stop her chatting to other people, no one to stand over her while she plants vegetables in the garden, saying she’s an idiot, that it’s not worth it, that they’ll get eaten by pests. There’ll be no one to stop her dancing.
She gets up, switches off the light and returns to the table. Shame burns her face. Ted is barely cold and she’s planning her future. She is a bloody monster.
But surely Graham can settle now. And wanting that isn’t a bad thing, is it? Graham isn’t lost. He’s in shock, that’s all. Didn’t the detective chap say that, before? But there’s a gnawing mouth murmuring at her that there’s something else here, something darker. Where was he just now, leaving his little sister all on her own in the middle of the night? And why does she feel more than ever that her own son, who has been at her shoulder through all of it, is a stranger to her? Now, when they can all finally step forward, it’s as if a shutter has been pulled down, one she’ll never be able to pull back up.
The weight of her head rests on her hands and she wonders how much longer she can bear it, this weight, too heavy for her spindly wrists.
‘Carol,’ Jim whispers to her. ‘You’ve had a terrible shock.’
She looks up. There is no one there; of course there’s not. Only the dirty amber light from the street lamp. No feral kids, no smashing of milk bottles on front steps, no sirens. She can’t separate anything out in her mind, only exhaustion: warm, almost hot. The sight of him, Ted. Like a smashed plum.
She rests her forehead against the cool, hard table. What now? What now? Jim strokes her hair. Grainy stubble on the back of her neck. Don’t forget how beautiful you are either, OK? Her eyes close. Ted’s hair had been going grey at the sides. Salt and pepper, they said, though she always thought it looked more like oatmeal. She thinks of porridge oats and the man on