Bad Intentions

CHAPTER 36

Ingerid Moreno spotted the taxi from her window.

She pulled on her boots and had just got outside when Yoo Van Chau’s foot appeared below the door of the taxi. Yoo was carrying a big shoulder bag. It was heavy, and it upset her balance. The street had been gritted, but there were still icy patches on the flagstone path leading up to the house.

‘Let me help you,’ Ingerid said.

Yoo hooked her arm through Ingerid’s and together they staggered up the slippery flagstones like two old ladies. They could not help but laugh at themselves, and their laughter reminded them of the old life they had lost.

‘Please sit down,’ Ingerid said, once they got inside.

She had cleaned the house. She had bought flowers and lit candles. She had cooked dinner and set the table, and she had opened a bottle of wine.

Yoo sat on the sofa and Ingerid let herself fall into a chair. There were things that needed saying. They both summoned their courage.

‘I’m not making excuses for Jon,’ Ingerid began. ‘He should have held his ground even though Axel and Reilly were older and stronger than him. But I was young myself once. We went to parties every Saturday and we used to get quite drunk. Some mornings I would wake up unable to recall the night before. It would just be a blur.’

Yoo listened with the shoulder bag on her lap.

‘There’s so much we don’t know about ourselves,’ Ingerid said. ‘Perhaps we ought to thank fate for the trials we never have to face.’

‘Kim shouldn’t have drunk as much as he did,’ Yoo said. ‘He wasn’t used to it. I feel sorry for both of them. And I feel sorry for us.’

She looked at the flowers on the table. She recognised them as caramel roses. Ingerid had food in the oven too. She could hear hot fat spitting.

‘Every day I light a candle on his grave,’ she said. ‘I go there whatever the weather, come rain or come shine. Afterwards, I wait for the bus, in the freezing cold. I’m so tired of it. Then I make up my mind not to go the next day, but I think I can hear him calling out for me, so I have to go anyway even though it’s cold. I have to, otherwise I can’t sleep.’

‘He’s controlling you,’ Ingerid said. ‘Did he control you when he was alive as well?’

‘Of course not.’

‘So why do you allow him to do so now?’ She went to the window and looked outside. ‘The snow will come soon,’ she said. ‘Think about that.’

Yoo thought about the snow. It would cover the graves like a duvet.

Ingerid went to the bookcase, pulled out a photo album with a black cover and placed it on the table. ‘You first,’ she said.

Yoo opened her shoulder bag. Her photo album was pale blue and bore the following title: My little baby.

She opened the first page and pointed to the photo of a newborn baby swaddled in a blanket.

‘Kim,’ she whispered. ‘On the day he was born.’