Half the World Away

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

I’m staring into the freezer considering fish fingers and chips as an option when the doorbell goes. Mindful of what Isabelle said this morning, about the press, I look out of the front bay window to see who it is. Penny is there – a large pie in her arms.

‘If this gets to be too much,’ she says, when I open the door, ‘too Desperate Housewives or whatever…’

‘You’ve saved the day,’ I tell her. ‘Come in.’

‘I don’t want to be in the way.’

‘They’re all crashed out or hooked up to their consoles,’ I say, ‘and Nick’s gone to his folks. Keep me company.’

‘You sure? Not jet-lagged?’

‘I am seriously jet-lagged but I want to see you.’

I make coffee and Penny doesn’t ask me anything about what happened but I launch into my account. It’s jumbled, all out of order, but she’s a good listener and a better friend and she lets me tell it my own way. Her eyes fill with tears as I describe finding Lori. I don’t tell Penny I slept with Tom. I don’t know if I ever will.

‘With Isaac on top of everything else,’ I say, ‘that was so scary.’

‘He’s doing well,’ she says.

‘Yes.’

‘And Lori?’

I purse my lips, blow out air. ‘I don’t know. It’s so early. I don’t know.’

A pause, then I say, ‘Tell me about you. How are your boys? What else has been happening here?’

But she bats the question away. ‘We’re fine, everything’s fine.’

‘I’m hungry.’ Finn comes in, the dog at his heels. His face lights up as he sees Penny.

‘Well,’ I say, ‘you’re in luck. Penny’s brought our tea.’

I wake Lori to see if she wants to eat but she doesn’t. She agrees to a drink. When I get back up there with hot chocolate she’s asleep again. Her eyelids flicker and I wonder what she’s dreaming about. Are her dreams a respite or a place of horror? Is she back in the lock-up, bound and gagged on the filthy concrete floor? What must it have been like not knowing when Bradley would return, if he would return? Understanding that she would die without the doctored water he let her drink. And that he would rape her when she was completely defenceless. To be so alone.

I force such thoughts away and join Penny and the boys. I distract myself and entertain them with stories of the food we ate, and didn’t eat, in China.

They are both in the bath when Penny gets ready to leave.

‘Tomorrow we’ll be back on track,’ I say. ‘I’ll do a shop. Thanks so much for looking after Finn, for helping out, for everything.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ she says. ‘You’d do the same.’ She starts to speak again, then stops, closes her mouth.

‘What?’ I say.

‘Nothing.’ I know her well enough to smell the lie.

‘Penny?’

She gives a weird smile. ‘It’s probably not the best time… I don’t know whether I should say anything.’

‘What is it?

She’s embarrassed, her face and neck flushing.

‘Penny – what?’

‘It’s Nick,’ she says. ‘I’m worried about him.’

I don’t know what I was expecting but it certainly wasn’t this.

‘He’s been down,’ I say, ‘since the redundancy.’ Is that what she means?

‘Drinking,’ she says.

I’m suddenly defensive. ‘We’ve all been drinking. Christ! With everything that’s going on…’

‘Yes, of course, I know, I’m sorry. But a lot,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry, Jo, it’s not my business. And the house…’

I look around. The house is all right. No worse than when I’m doing most of the chores. ‘It’s fine,’ I say.

‘I cleared up,’ she says simply.

‘Oh.’

‘Like you say, it’s been such an awful time but… I don’t know.’ She puts her hand to her throat. ‘I thought I should mention it. Things will probably settle down now.’

‘Yes,’ I say. I’m stung by the notion of Nick struggling, the house so dirty and messy that Penny had to intervene. But she’s probably blowing it out of all proportion. Her house is always tidier than ours, and she hasn’t got a dog. Nick must have been completely unmoored, stressed already about work, then Lori missing, me thousands of miles away, Isaac collapsing. Who could blame him for a few glasses of something to get through it?

‘Thanks again.’ I can’t quite keep a measure of reserve out of my voice.

Once the boys are in bed I reheat Lori’s chocolate, wake her up and she drinks it.

Then I clear up the kitchen and take the rubbish out. I go to put the empty milk and juice cartons in the recycling bin but the whole thing is full of bottles, not just wine but whisky and brandy too. It looks like the aftermath of a house party.

I think of Nick’s eyes when he met us, bloodshot, how I put it down to tiredness. He always did like a drink and, if I’m honest, he was drinking more after the redundancy… Then I chide myself: cut the guy some slack.

I’m woken by the car coming into the drive at half past midnight. There’s a thump as Nick shuts the front door, then his feet on the stairs. I hear him in the bathroom, the whine of his toothbrush. He stumbles once in the bedroom changing into his pyjamas.

Fair enough, I think, it’s dark, he’s tired, he’s had a long drive. I’m worn out and being paranoid.

When he climbs in beside me, even the smell of the mouthwash can’t mask the reek of alcohol, coming off him in waves.