Perfect People

64

Naomi watched their faces in the mirror repeatedly as she drove home. Buckled into their child seats, Luke and Phoebe sat in silence. Every time she looked, two pairs of eyes were looking back at her. She was finding it hard to concentrate on the road.

‘Mummy’s not very pleased with you,’ she said, shaking inside with a whole mixture of emotions. ‘They said you weren’t nice to the other children. Is that true, Luke? Phoebe?’

Silence.

She eased past two cyclists in the lane. ‘Luke?’ she said, more sharply. ‘Phoebe? I’m talking to you to. I asked you a question. I expect an answer, yes or no?’

The silence in the back of the car continued. She turned into the drive and drove up to the house, braking sharply, angrily, by the front door. She got out of the car. ‘You want to play games? Right, you sodding well play them.’

She shut the car door, hit the central locking button and marched to the house. In the shelter of the porch she looked at the car. The rain was still lashing just as hard, and through the side window she could just make out the motionless figure of Phoebe.

Then she went into the house and slammed the door. You can bloody wait out there. See how you like it when it doesn’t go all your way for once. Going to have to knock some manners and decent behaviour into you two, before you start growing into a couple of extremely unpleasant little people.

She hung her wet Barbour on the coat stand, picked the parish magazine up off the doormat and walked slowly towards the kitchen, in too much of a mist from her thoughts to read it. She put water in the kettle, switched it on and spooned coffee into a mug, then sat down and cradled her head in her hands, wondering what to do.

Expelled from bloody playschool. Shit.

She rang John, and got his voice mail. ‘Call me,’ she said. ‘We have a problem, I need to talk to you.’

The kettle boiled and clicked off. She remained where she was, thinking, trying to figure out what to do. Take them back to the behavioural psychologist, Dr Talbot, who thought they were so smart? They had to find someone to help them, this was a situation that The phone started ringing. Hoping it was John, she stood up and grabbed the receiver off the wall. ‘Hallo?’ she said curtly, aware of the anger in her voice and not caring.

A pleasant, rather earnest-sounding male American voice said, ‘Is that the Klaesson household?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’d like to speak to Mrs Klaesson.’

‘Yes, that’s me.’

‘Mrs Naomi Klaesson?’

She felt the tiniest prick of unease. After a moment’s hesitation, she said, ‘Who is that, please?’

‘Am I speaking with Mrs Naomi Klaesson?’

‘I’d like to know who you are, please.’

The phone went dead.

Naomi stared at the receiver for some moments, her anger fast curdling into a knot of dread in her stomach. She pressed down on the cradle, then released it, listened for the dial tone and punched out one-four-seven-one. Moments later she heard the automated voice:

‘You were called today at fifteen-eleven hours. We do not have the caller’s number.’

She remembered that John had a caller-ID device in his study and she went through to look at it. A red light was flashing on the top and she pressed a button to bring up the display. On the tiny LCD screen appeared the words: