sink and filled the kettle, ready to start the process again.
‘Is this anything to do with last night?’
She stared at him, mouthing silently, not knowing how to respond or where to start.
He continued. ‘You know, the bad dream you had?’
There was something about the flicker of his pupils, the irregular rhythm to his breath that told her he hadn’t bought the bad dream story.
‘Yes, Dom, just a bad dream.’ She smiled at him.
‘It will all be okay, Mum. Don’t worry.’
‘Will it, Dominic?’
‘I hope so, Mum, I really do. I hate to see you like this. Sometimes I wish I could make things better for you. I just don’t know how.’
Her sweet boy. She nodded her thanks and wandered over to the washing machine.
With her wicker basket under her arm, Kathryn stood in the garden in front of the washing line and allowed the start of the working day to wash over her. It went some way to restoring her mind, the feel of the early morning sun against her skin and the slight breeze that lifted her hair and let it settle again. She breathed in deeply and tried to heal herself from the inside out.
Kathryn reached into the basket and caressed the wooden pegs that had spilled from their bag and now sat on top of the linen. A picture of her mother swam in front of her eyes; she looked concerned. Kathryn shook her head and blinked her mother away.
The pegs sat in her palm, they knew what came next. She placed three of them in her mouth and with Peggy in her hand, pulled the large white sheet taut, anchoring it with the precious wooden splints, removing them from their floral holding pen, one by one.
‘Good morning, Mrs Brooker!’
‘Good morning, Mrs Bedmaker!’
For some reason, call it hysteria or despair, today this made her laugh. Not just the subtle chuckle or smirk of an adult in the know, oh no, it was a full chortle that was almost a combination of crying and laughing. She didn’t really know where it came from.
‘Morning, George! Morning, Piers!’
She dissolved once again into laughter, shaking her head to try and regain composure as her tears continued to fall.
‘Are you all right, Mrs Brooker?’
‘Yes, thank you for asking, quite all right.’
She mopped at her eyes with her sleeve.
‘Have you had a good night, Mrs Brooker?’
She looked at the daring George Nicholls, whose bravado would be common-room gossip by break time. She could hear the whisper now: ‘And then she said, “Quite all right,” and then he said, “Did you have a good night?” I swear to God he did, because Piers was there and he heard him and my best friend’s sister is going out with his brother and he told her and she told me! Can you believe that he said that? And what did she say?’
Kathryn thought long and hard. What should she say? Come on, Kathryn, think! You’re becoming folklore. Think smart, say something, for goodness’ sake. Speak, Mrs Bedmaker!
‘Oh, you know, George, the usual – up all night.’
She gathered her basket and winked at him briefly before turning on her heel and treading the path back towards the kitchen and her breakfasting family.
George and Piers stared at each other. This was bloody gold dust!
She opened the door and the three members of her family paused from their cereal munching and conversing to stare at her.
‘Morning, everyone!’
She had found her happy voice, just in time.
Lydia abandoned her spoon in its murky bowl.
‘Blimey, Mum, you look like total—’
‘Yes, I know.’ She cut her daughter short. ‘I really don’t need an unfavourable analysis from you on how awful I look this morning, thank you, Lydia. I would like to propose that if we can’t say kind and nice things in the mornings then we say nothing at all, how about that?’
Kathryn restored the wicker basket to its usual position. The family were unnaturally quiet behind her. She glanced at them all as she returned to the table and reached for the teapot.
‘Well,’ she commented as she filled her cup, ‘that was easy.’
Both children seemed to lose their appetite in the strange, edgy atmosphere. In silence they scraped their chairs on the wooden floor, pushed bowls of half-eaten cereal to the middle of the table for collection by their waitress mother later, and sloped out of the door. Heavy bags were carelessly slung onto backs, weighing down fragile shoulders and banging against bony spines.
‘Did someone get out of bed the wrong side this